you gotta do whatcha gotta do

Two bucks is two beeping bucks.

I've tried sleeping ... several times already, and have been to the grocery store and back already. Don't really want to take my knock-me-on-my-ass meds because they -well, because that's exactly what they do and I don't much like it. So here I am. blah dee blah.

So I'll play the stream of consciousness game and maybe that'll either bore me enough or wear me out such that I will go to sleep. Yes? Yes.

I had all my shit piled on the little conveyor belt at Mega-Store, waited waited waited for the checkout person to appear (he didn't). After enough time had passed that I had a good hunch s/he wasn't paying attention or wasn't nearby I started an aisle-by-aisle check to find a human. Lemme tellya, at this time of day (or night, I suppose, would be the more accurate term) there are only 4 people working the entire store. I found the guy, asked if he could check me out or if tonight was my lucky night and I was getting the goods for free. He laughed, apologized, followed me up front.

Scanned everything through and I was nearly all done. Then, the last 3 items were chicken (one not on sale, 2 ON sale w/$1 off in-store discount stickers on 'em). He scanned them, bagged them, tried to scan the coupons. BEEP. The register didn't like the coupon. He tried the other coupon sticker. BEEP. No go. Scan the first again. BEEP. Gosh, if it didn't work the first time, what makes him think that the computer is going to have a change of heart part-way through this process and suddenly love that bar code? Scan the second again, apparently following same train of thought as #1 ... BEEP. No. Scan. BEEP. NO. Poor guy, it isn't his fault.

Meanwhile, a line of alcohol-perfumed folk have lined up behind me, each with a couple of items each. I apologize to them for whatever the hang-up might be but the hell if I'm leaving that store without the $2 discount - these days it matters and where do we all have to be rushing off to so quickly anyway? They're all good-humored about the holdup, chattering between themselves about how there are eight different versions of Spanish so you can't just assume that when a person says they speak Spanish that it'll be some kind of 'universal' Spanish. Yes, the drunks in the middle of the night DO have important matters to resolve, and this is clearly one of them. BEEP.

Checkout guy is still waving coupons to and fro, hoping for something to change, some magic to happen. BEEP BEEP BEEP. He laughs nervously, explaining that he'll have to call the manager (one of the other three nighttime employees manning that behemoth of a warehouse neighborhood market). 'Not a problem, I've got until dawn', I purred back.

Up comes the manager, to wave coupons and press buttons. BEEP. whap. BEEP BEEP. whap. Seems the computer doesn't like my coupons because the chicken was already on sale and the computer doesn't think I should also be getting $1 off for two of the packages. I refuse to beg but I also refuse to leave without that goddamned $2 off my receipt because now... this is register war -just me and it- with only a pierced-nosed geek-looking student-aged manager standing between us.
And I intend to win. BEEP.

whap. clicketyclackclick. BEEP. thump. BEEP. click click.
.... silence. Silence? SILENCE!

He's done it! We are victorious over the computerized cash register and we have triumphed! I get a twitch, and the sudden urge to high-five the manager, the clerk and the other customers. Nobody else seems quite so excited as I am, but fuck em if they can't smile over a true $2 savings.



ok, sleepy and bored with myself (see? I said it'd work and voila!) so I'm really going to give this sleep thaang another shot. Thanks for being such a nice audience. Tip your wait staff generously ... I'll be here all week.

If wishes were snoglobe confetti

McBeth.

I prefer to take very broad, very liberal strokes at my wish list list-making.

It's not a simple thing to say the thing I want. I may be laughed at. I may be completely ignored. I may receive the size small instead of the large, I may get the thing that clearly indicates that someone was not listening to me (BIG personal peeve)... so I don't make the lists and try to talk about personally significant matters as infrequently as I can get away with, which really isn't all that difficult if you can manage to get a person to talk about their stuff because lord knows we all got lots of personal crap to sort through - anyone given an opening, an audience and silence will generally take it and run.

Try it. See if I'm wrong.

It's all relative

How rich are you? >> I'm loaded. It's official. I'm the 692,212,161 richest person on earth!

Come, rest a while.

McBeth.

I've been thinking about being in relationship with others: how and why we make the choices we do, how we deal (or don'€™t) with the consequences, what the next steps can be (which may or may not have any bearing on what actually happens).

I was on the floor of the lower-level room where my son tucks himself away for TV watching, computering, and other miscellaneous things mothers should not be required to keep close track of (this one doesn'€™t, at any rate). We were hanging out, watching a George Carlin video, laughing (possibly slightly more than gives positive indication of an overtly healthy mind). As we giggled and guffawed and high-fived Curious George, I poked around at the contents of items on the bottom of the bookshelf my father made for me in 1986, created after I was forcibly ejected from my parent'€™s home for the ultimate offense of loving a person deemed evil ~ sinful ~ un-loveworthy. I didn'€™t simply date him and love him, no. I continued to date and love him after my mother made her opinions and, in due time, her forbiddance frighteningly, screamingly clear. The cost of that decision - not to mention a few choices later on -€“ was energizing but ultimately fiercely destructive (for me, for him, for my sense of family) on a number of levels.

While gently using my hand as a dust bulldozer to shove layers of months-long inattentive housekeeping to the side, I uncovered an envelope mailed to me by that fellow I'™d dated back in the day. The envelope was postmarked 10 July 2000 and had affixed to it the ho-hum flag-and-a-building 33-cent postage stamp. Enclosed along with his letter was a page ripped from a J.C. Penney catalog. A lovely plus-sized blonde woman model in a periwinkle blue two-pieced outfit was slung comfortably upright in a white hammock, a pair of white slings to her left side. Her expression says "hey, I'€™m cute. Would you like to swing in my hammock with me?"€™; she'™s very appealing to me and a downright cutie. She's the gal who I'd imagine visits nursing homes on weekends, just because; who buys the extra groceries to place a few in the food pantry donation bin. On the picture he'€™d written '€˜Beth --->'™, assigning me to her characteristics. Funny ... we do sorta look the tiniest bit alike if you squint. Anyway.

The letter, written in loopy scrolling blue ballpoint pen read:
"€œDear Beth,
Hi. Ever think about going total blonde. You're much more beautiful than the JCP Modle, but you get the idea.
I understand you tried to contact me, and I'€™m puzzled as to why since you don'€™t want to be friends. Or is it from the bracelet you gave me? (I still have it), 'œThat'€™s what friends are for.'. I guess I just don'€™t understand.

You should see my new Apt. WOW! Its basicly sound proof; which I was not aware of till I went out in the hall; but it'™s a one bedroom loft Apt. with a sky light and cathedral ceiling; it has two floors since it'€™s a loft. And I love it.

Right now I'€™m still psychologicly ill and taking no calls, just writing, and I'€™m staying at my parents till I feel safe enough to go back to the Apt. without delusions. I'€™ve done some Art and a lot of Poetry since I last saw you. Its really a shame I'€™m not able to share it.

If I talk with you, will you once again burn the bridges of friendship? You hurt me, I don'™t know why -€“ If it was about the kiss, I just wanted to.

One time long ago, I asked you if I could kiss you and you said 'no, because I shouldn'™t have to be asked.' This time you kissed me, and I kissed the way I do. That'€™s it. Lisa is pregnut again. Her due date is Dec 25. And Laura will be 3, Jan 2.

Anyway I'€™d better close, take care and write me if you need to, but think about what I said.

Love Almost Always
M---"€œ



I can'€™t recall now if I responded to this letter when I ha€™d first received it. I know we talked, but I cannot recall the details of which conversation happened when. I also feel consecratedly, intensely grief-laden that I am not required to follow the basic rules of proper netiquette and common decency by asking him if I could have his permission to reprint his words here. And that is because he's dead. He was young, in his late 30s, and he'€™s fucking dead now.

I think of M--- a great deal, especially when I am struggling and want someone to just hug me, or when I'€™m insecure and want to be reached out to by another person. When I see super-excellent cloud shapes I think of him. His heart was so big, so hurtable, occasionally hittable, filled with anger and an unsteady mix of '€˜don'€™t push me'€™ and '˜please push me. Harder'€™.

I cut him off. Completely. I extricated myself from relationship with him long after we broke off our relationship, including the engagement I never had the opportunity to announce, save for meetings with the ring designer in Des Moines to create an unique wedding band from a bracelet of gold and diamonds I found several years prior. But that'€™s another story for another time, that bracelet. After our breakup turned to friendship and then friendship turned to an indefinable something else we danced back and forth around; I made clumsy attempts to reconnect with him at a level I could bear but it never seemed to be what he wanted from me: it never seemed to be enough. He wanted me back; he wanted our relationship back. He wanted me to accept his apologies. He wanted to make up. He wanted to not be crazy anymore. He wanted me, a loved person who understood the scariness of occasional mind-losing, to hold hands when he was frightened.

I cannot take staring into the puckered superficial face of decisions I made toward the end of his life. I believe it is an unwise move to live the next section(s) of my life in an unexamined happy lala-world state, but the guilt I continue to bear feels so soggy, so heavy. It's like tasting a mouth-watering dessert ... a little is so good ~ too much is sickening. Yeah, the examination process of my personal accountability and my continuing grief is a little like that.

Today I'€™m so sorry. I hope there is a spiritual part of him hovering close by because I'€™d like to think that by my whispering these admissions now he can find a way to forgive me. I'€™m not sure what I would say if he was still alive, but I'm certain it would be a hell of a lot more than I did back when I knew everything; before he offed himself, centuries before George Carlin help me forget for an afternoon.

a twisted idea

McBeth.

...if you don't like the way your growth is turning out, consider changing your direction.

Flexibility

McBeth.

"But this is uncomfortable!" her student complained.

"Ahh, my dear you're trying too hard."
"The trick", the instructor continued, "is to become flexible enough with your daily practice here such that you will learn to bend without breaking".

Bare it and share it

McBeth.

After time had passed, she eventually decided to leave her heart on the outside.

She thought it might help others to have a visual representation of how much of the tender green she had lost but more importantly, how much she still had to offer.

It also was reported to have had a positive effect on her ability to withstand the wind and weather.

Medieval warriors in the data entry age

McBeth.

There was a time when knights slew the dragons, when damsels and lords fervently practiced each stroke in the 'courtly love' primer, when time plod slowly.

Now the dragon has risen up, taking the pointed sword into his wild webbed wing, jousting in a contest against no one for the prize of nothing.

Touche~

Dona Nobis Pacem

McBeth.

I have returned from a very spoiling, overindulgently delightful visit with a dear friend. She is so good to me and ranks high among the things I have worked, without hard work, to preserve as necessary and good in my life.

We spent part of an afternoon in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. but I don't consider that particular visit a tourist gig. The emotional component of bigness, vastness, tinyness, frail and humbleness ... I don't tend to get centered from tourist stops: I do here.

AFK for a few days

McBeth.

Shiver me timbers, don't you chickadees worry - speaking of birds and berries and little animals that make themselves terribly difficult to photograph... of the three (meaning wrens, chickadees and sparrows, okay add yellow finches and one other sweet fat little bird for which I have no official name yet) the chickadee is by far the most nervous of the bunch. Flit flit flit. Nervous little critters, they are. Maybe they feel a keen connection to the mourning dove, who are now officially shootable for that ginormous shrimp-sized portion of meat they provide. Mourning doves are some of my mother's favorite birds and by proxy, mine. They don't provide much of a hunting challenge. Quit shooting them, let's just stop shall we?

Anyway, I'm heading to D.C. for a mini-vacation-that-isn't-truly-a-vacation from this very strange and interesting life of mine for a few days of indulgent attention paid by a close friend. I am insisting on National Cathedral time. Other than that? I could give a shit where we go or what we do. I like her, I like spending time together and we invariably get into mischief together. That's what spending time should be about.

I'm turning 38 on Friday.
Who'd have thought I'd live to see it?

There's something worth pondering over a few quiet moments at a memorial exhibit.

Be kind to one another and miss me just a little.

Sorry Everybody

McBeth.

I've been laughing and weeping (mostly weeping) while finding the most elementally important connection between myself, my fellow Americans, and the fellowship of humans really trying - HARD - to make purposefully peaceful loving caring decisions. Like not voting for Bush last week.

We didn't do enough.

Some of our ballots were either ranked less important or were not counted.

The implications of what seemed like teeny choices I did or didn't make? I am beginning to better understand the implications of my choices... they were huge. They were global.

I don't think anyone can lead a balanced life if she is only giving of herself or if he steals his energy from one important 'emotional' bank to feed another (i.e. never see the family in order to rabblerouse). But I can try to do differently in the coming months, and years until the next election.

Allow yourself to be open to forgiveness. And never hesitate to cop to your own fuckups, especially to the people who could most (along with you) benefit from your confession.

Absolution comes with a price, but it needn't be an act you disavow in favor of your fear.

Sorry Everybody

Hard Times Come Again No More

McBeth.

Let us pause in life's pleasures to count its many tears
While we all sop sorrow with the poor:
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears
Oh! Hard times, come again no more

'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard times, hard times, come again no more:
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay
There are frail forms fainting at the door:
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh!! Hard times, come again no more.

'Tis a sigh that is wafted across teh troubled wave,
'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore,
'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave.
Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

-Stephen C. Foster

A Relationship, in one act

Blight
uptight
polite
Height?
BITE!
~fight~
Smite
_fright_

flight

-->tight<--
contrite
might
night
light
bright

Quite.

'So Bob, do you like your job?'

McBeth.

"Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about - or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions."

-Parker Palmer, excerpted from 'Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

McBeth.

Antisthenes says that in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer. ~Plutarch, Moralia

Visions

McBeth.

I cannot find graciousness in my heart today. I can't breathe either.

My president, the man who appears to be the person who will continue to be in charge of my country for another four years, was willing to throw me - ME - on top of the fire as a sacrifice to appease the fears of immovable right wingers everywhere. That is unforgiveable.

I've been burned and have sustained severe nerve damage. I'm worried. I'm sick. I want my own self-contolled morphine IV drip because it appears that Nurse Bush certainly isn't going to be offering me pain relief.

new points of light

The sparkle of possibility

I woke this morning with a highly unusual thought. Even for me. Especially for me.
The first idea that came into my mind after my eyes sleepily opened was this:

This is a great day for a revolution.

How often do I consider my days as such opportunities? Not often. But I wonder how I might be different in my own life if I did try to think of revolutionary changes I might help to make happen, even something so small as taking the initiative to say something kind to the people I can least tolerate. Revolutions come in mysterious packages, after all.

Another "wheelie" memorable point to my activities today will be that today - election day - is the day I had to figure out what to do about the thumb-sized hole in the rear passenger side of my car. I just paid for a new spiffy set of good tires earlier this year and wouldn't you know it, last night I managed to poke an impressive hole through the wall of one of them. Piss. Oh well, it's just a wheel.

For all that is good and just in the universe, I hope my revolutionary vote, and the votes of all disenfranchised, unhappy, unimpressed, lied-to, bitter, ready for something new U.S. citizens will be properly counted, that our collective revolution will speak to the rest of the world (who has every right to doubt and dismiss us as a collective collateral mess), that we can begin to have hope of new possibilities.

-isms abounding

I’ve been participating in a nine-week workshop on anti-racism, the main goals of which are:

• Work with other white European Americans to take responsibility for challenging racism and white privilege
• Respect the leadership of people of color in the community
• Work to end all oppression
• Practice and model respectful and accountable behavior in all our anti-racist work, especially in our families and circles of influence

The workshop sessions have included weekly readings, critical questions, individual, small and large group participatory exercises; videos, guest speakers and volunteer experiences as a part of the learning process.
Hard stuff, and worthwhile.

For my volunteer experience I chose the MEP (Money – Education – Prisons) Taskforce. Project Reentry, a MEP project, assists returned prisoners who are reentering the community who find themselves blocked from meaningful employment by lack of training, lack of experience or prejudice. There is a disproportionate number of persons of color in the penal system (Madison, embarrassingly, has the highest percentage in the entire UNITED STATES) and, according to MEP board member and professor Pamela Oliver’s website, within the first 21 months of release 50% of blacks and 37% of whites return to prison in Wisconsin. Yikes.

Project Reentry assists returning prisoners in developing their resumes and connects the returning prisoner with a developed list of available jobs. Project Reentry also calls each employer to ensure that they will hire felons, which doesn’t eliminate the personal accountability of the returning prisoner but it does help to reduce the number of added/unnecessary hassles for the person (who is likely already filled to capacity with dread, fear, anger, and mistrust). The anticipated outcomes of Project Reentry, according to an informational pamphlet, include “reduction of recidivism, lower numbers of people in both the Dane County Jail and the Wisconsin Prison System, and a healthier community where people are employed, sheltered and fed”.

My MEP work this week was to take the Job Services bulletin (20 pages with approx. seven job postings per page), call each telephone number listed and ask if each employer was willing to work with ex-offenders. Given that I was calling on the final afternoon of an unseasonably warm week as well as the Friday before Halloween when everyone seems to have an itch in their undies to bust outta work early, it was not exactly surprising that I had little success reaching many live people actually doing work at work.

One of the places at which I was able to reach a real live person – a company I hesitate to specifically name – was a transportation company (*two-syllable word that begins with the past tense of ‘lay’ and ends with the work that lawyers practice). The gentleman I spoke with had a brusque, purposefully harried tone to his voice once I identified myself and my purpose for calling. When I asked the gentleman if his organization was willing to work with returned prisoners his response was direct: “Oh, no no, we can’t be hiring felons. We transport children and other sensitive and at-risk populations”. I thanked him for the information and his time, and put the receiver back onto the telephone base. Then I flipped through some of the materials I’d been given until I hit on what I’d been looking for: ‘EMPLOYMENT RESTRICTIONS FOR EX-OFFENDERS’.

First of all, there are federal laws and there are state laws. Not all state laws are alike, but all state-led restrictions must comply with federal rules.

Some day when I’m really up for a rousing good time, I’ll try to list all the Federal no-no’s. There is a bunch. Specifically in Wisconsin an ex-felon maybe be denied, revoked or refused renewal of license for: private investigator, security guard, private detective, security alarm installer, and their liquor license (if convicted of certain drug-related offenses). Additionally there’s something called the Wisconsin Caregiver Law that identifies specific offenses that affect caregiver eligibility. But there’s also a provision for rehabilitation review of these offenders. (All that stuff can be found here).

So really, the gentleman who was having his horizontal corncob moment really was conducting business illegally: ex-felons who have not been convicted of crimes against life and bodily security or crimes against children have EVERY SINGLE RIGHT to apply for jobs, even at transportation companies who work with children and other ‘sensitive’ populations.

I can understand the reticence of an employer to take what probably feels like an impossible leap of faith with a potential new employee. The thing is, they’re making the same leap with me, or with my law-abiding brother, or with my law-abiding neighbor as they’re making with someone who has been released from prison after a felony conviction (because let’s face it, we have a whole lotta shit that qualifies for felony arrest/trial/conviction anymore). What this employer is doing is wrong. It’s illegal.

At one point I’d turned around in my chair to ask for clarification from one of the MEP staffers. I told her about my telephone exchange and asked her if she could clarify the law and if the guy had legal backing to say ‘no’. She handled it coolly, shrugging her shoulders and saying only "Yep. Some people are going to respond that way. All you can do is move on to the next one".

I can only imagine the levels of frustration and anger returned prisoners must feel upon their release. They have a community who has alienated and fears them, a dismal job prospective and few housing options without solid job leads. My coworker, an ex-offender herself, demonstrated the calm so many other returned prisoners probably lack. Calm they desperately could use - the calm I suspect the rest of us have had the great privilege to never have been concerned about.

Imagine that.