Sweethearts, go get that puppy!!!
Grammy, Nan, Daddy, Phyllis, Barb: I wish you were here to see this with all my heart, I do.
Showing posts with label the personal is political. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the personal is political. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Morning in America
Before I go to bed, one more word to two more little girls:
Sweethearts, go get that puppy!!!
Grammy, Nan, Daddy, Phyllis, Barb: I wish you were here to see this with all my heart, I do.
Sweethearts, go get that puppy!!!
Grammy, Nan, Daddy, Phyllis, Barb: I wish you were here to see this with all my heart, I do.
Pride and joy
The expression on this little girl's face?
That's the closest approximation of what I'm feeling, right now. (Via the hilarious/blubber-inducing Yes We Can (hold babies) photoblog. Oh, there are more of them; this is just the one I fixed on first.)
Oh, please. Please. Please.
Monday, November 03, 2008
People get ready
This election cycle has frayed my last nerve. The enormity of the moment, the glimmer of light at the end of an eight-year, grim-ass dark tunnel, the sheer duration of the battle...all of these combined have left me dropping my emotions all over the street like canned goods out of a ripped grocery bag. I am hair-trigger weepy, starting at 6:30 this morning when I saw two people standing on an I-5 overpass in a driving rain, holding aloft a gigantic banner that bore a single word: HOPE. I looked at Joan Walsh's recommendations for an Election-Eve cry on Salon, and teared up at each one of them, had to go back to the Donuts and Bacon campaign (via Mike) just to get my wits about me. So when I read this afternoon that Senator Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, had passed away, I had to put my head down on the desk again.
I was raised by a single mom and, effectively, by her mom; my grandmother was inarguably a far more influential and active and engaged presence in my life than my father ever was. I referred to her often as "my third parent." This is far from the only parallel that leads me to believe that Barack Obama understands something of my experience, can speak to and for me...but this among many things strikes a deep chord.
My Grammy weighed less than 100 pounds soaking wet, and upon every visit would ply you with lemon-poppy seed cake until you begged for mercy. She was also fiercely protective of her family, proud of our accomplishments to a mortifying degree, and unabashedly liberal in her politics. Like Obama's grandmother, she would have been 86.
In November 1992, I was in my first quarter of graduate school and had just moved into my own apartment, so recently that I was still assigned to the polling place nearest the house where I'd grown up. On election day I stopped by "home," and together Grammy and I walked down to the defunct middle-school library, cast our ballots for Bill Clinton, and went home to cross our fingers and bite our nails, because there was no Internet to hover on. I had an afternoon class that day, and most of us adjourned to a campus pub afterwards, where Democratic bedlam rolled out in expanding waves from every announcement of poll returns. At some point I called Grammy--via pay phone--to shout my joyous, tipsy disbelief, the entire bar roaring "Na Na, Hey Hey, Goodbye" to George H. W. behind me. Here's what she said: "The bars are open, on Election Day?" Apparently, the blue laws in Washington had been more draconian in her time.
Tomorrow morning I'll go alone, to the basement of United Evangelical, probably in the torrential downpour the weather peeps are predicting. I am casting my vote for Barack Obama, and I'll be thinking of my Grammy, and his, and my aunt PJ, who was a devoted campaign volunteer before cancer swept her under and away. Of all the people, these few among them, who dreamed of and fought for this moment but did not live to see it. And I am awed: by how privileged I am to do this. By the epic significance of this instant in American history. By the future that I am putting my hand to, there in the booth. By the hope I have clenched in my fist.
We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
I was raised by a single mom and, effectively, by her mom; my grandmother was inarguably a far more influential and active and engaged presence in my life than my father ever was. I referred to her often as "my third parent." This is far from the only parallel that leads me to believe that Barack Obama understands something of my experience, can speak to and for me...but this among many things strikes a deep chord.
My Grammy weighed less than 100 pounds soaking wet, and upon every visit would ply you with lemon-poppy seed cake until you begged for mercy. She was also fiercely protective of her family, proud of our accomplishments to a mortifying degree, and unabashedly liberal in her politics. Like Obama's grandmother, she would have been 86.
In November 1992, I was in my first quarter of graduate school and had just moved into my own apartment, so recently that I was still assigned to the polling place nearest the house where I'd grown up. On election day I stopped by "home," and together Grammy and I walked down to the defunct middle-school library, cast our ballots for Bill Clinton, and went home to cross our fingers and bite our nails, because there was no Internet to hover on. I had an afternoon class that day, and most of us adjourned to a campus pub afterwards, where Democratic bedlam rolled out in expanding waves from every announcement of poll returns. At some point I called Grammy--via pay phone--to shout my joyous, tipsy disbelief, the entire bar roaring "Na Na, Hey Hey, Goodbye" to George H. W. behind me. Here's what she said: "The bars are open, on Election Day?" Apparently, the blue laws in Washington had been more draconian in her time.
Tomorrow morning I'll go alone, to the basement of United Evangelical, probably in the torrential downpour the weather peeps are predicting. I am casting my vote for Barack Obama, and I'll be thinking of my Grammy, and his, and my aunt PJ, who was a devoted campaign volunteer before cancer swept her under and away. Of all the people, these few among them, who dreamed of and fought for this moment but did not live to see it. And I am awed: by how privileged I am to do this. By the epic significance of this instant in American history. By the future that I am putting my hand to, there in the booth. By the hope I have clenched in my fist.
We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
So happy to see that thing
I have been remiss in not mentioning this year's Tomato Nation Fall Contest, where the great Sarah Bunting unleashes her readers on Donors Choose. People sponsor dozens of projects in underfunded K-12 classrooms across the country, in increments large and small...and last year, Sars whipped up more than $100,000 freaking dollars. She also danced around in Rockefeller Plaza wearing a tomato costume to reward us all, but that bit is really just the condiment on your bacon-and-lettuce sandwich, because A HUNDRED GRAND. FOR THE CHILDREN.
Times are tough, I surely don't have to tell you. Cartoon moths are flying out of my wallet just like they are yours, and everyone else's. But Sars puts it quite succinctly in her call to action this year, and this is the part that stuck with me:
One of the excellent things about Donors Choose is that, if you donate $100 and/or fully fund a project, you get a little packet of notes and photos from the teacher and kids in question. I contributed to a couple projects last year--a set of novels for one class, a set of art supplies for another--and got a tide of responses, one of which I've kept on the fridge since. It's on day-glo orange paper, each word written in a different eye-popping color of oil pastel crayon, and signed by a kid named, to my delight, Eugene:
Me too, Eugene, me too.
Today was payday, at last, and tonight I clicked through the projects and got choked up in spite of myself, and donated half again what I'd intended going in. I put a few of my dollars toward yoga mats for preschoolers, and an entire stack of Judy Blumes for an elementary class (because ol' Judy is the patron saint of 5th-grade English, bless her), and bowling lessons for a group of special-needs kids, because I am famously a worse bowler than Barack Obama and maybe if someone had intervened when I was still in the primary grades I would not find the lanes so humbling today.
So. Dig through the couch cushions, empty out the spare change in your car's ashtray, and get clicking. Do it for Eugene, and the little bowlers and yogis and readers, or photographers, or playwrights, or budding scientists just itching to dissect owl doots. If that's not enough of an incentive for you, maybe this will be: this year, if we crack the same total, Sars and her tomato suit are headed to Washington, D.C. to help George and Laura pack. Or to be wrestled to the ground on the White House lawn by the Secret Service, whichever. The suit looks nice and cushy and padded, probably for the best.
Times are tough, I surely don't have to tell you. Cartoon moths are flying out of my wallet just like they are yours, and everyone else's. But Sars puts it quite succinctly in her call to action this year, and this is the part that stuck with me:
...maybe you want to give money to your presidential candidate of choice, and the bailout crisis…well, the average taxpayer is going to get punished, without having even done anything wrong.
So is the average public-school student. The government is going to help these investment firms eventually; in a few days Congress is going to ram something through and bail out the big boys. Little boys? Ain't getting squat. Your senator isn't debating who gets what science books or overhead projectors right now, or how much money to earmark for waterlogged Galveston schools. No, it looks like that's on us.
One of the excellent things about Donors Choose is that, if you donate $100 and/or fully fund a project, you get a little packet of notes and photos from the teacher and kids in question. I contributed to a couple projects last year--a set of novels for one class, a set of art supplies for another--and got a tide of responses, one of which I've kept on the fridge since. It's on day-glo orange paper, each word written in a different eye-popping color of oil pastel crayon, and signed by a kid named, to my delight, Eugene:
THANK you FOR THE ART supplies I AM SO HAPPY TO see THAT Thing
Me too, Eugene, me too.
Today was payday, at last, and tonight I clicked through the projects and got choked up in spite of myself, and donated half again what I'd intended going in. I put a few of my dollars toward yoga mats for preschoolers, and an entire stack of Judy Blumes for an elementary class (because ol' Judy is the patron saint of 5th-grade English, bless her), and bowling lessons for a group of special-needs kids, because I am famously a worse bowler than Barack Obama and maybe if someone had intervened when I was still in the primary grades I would not find the lanes so humbling today.
So. Dig through the couch cushions, empty out the spare change in your car's ashtray, and get clicking. Do it for Eugene, and the little bowlers and yogis and readers, or photographers, or playwrights, or budding scientists just itching to dissect owl doots. If that's not enough of an incentive for you, maybe this will be: this year, if we crack the same total, Sars and her tomato suit are headed to Washington, D.C. to help George and Laura pack. Or to be wrestled to the ground on the White House lawn by the Secret Service, whichever. The suit looks nice and cushy and padded, probably for the best.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Rhymes with "raucous"
Mike has a nice post about attending his local Democratic caucus on Saturday, and the broad general details of his experience don't differ much from mine. I too was a first-time caucus...er, strolling the four blocks to Whittier Elementary (go Wildcats!) to cram myself in with the rest of my progressive-minded neighbors.
Democracy, it turns out, consists of a lot of standing around, temperature and volume rising, while you wait to actually Decide Things. Nonetheless it was strangely thrilling, for me, to be witness to all that newfound political enthusiasm cramming into the cafeteria/auditorium, 700+ strong. Babies in strollers and on shoulders. A guy on crutches, a woman in a motorized wheelchair. A clump of daycare classmates at my table set to coloring with vigor. People gave up their seats on the long narrow cafeteria benches for white-haired old ladies. My precinct officer, and the subsequent speakers, climbed up on the tables, straining to make themselves heard, and people helped them clamber up and down, clapping politely for each.
A little kid in front of me in the sign-in line clutched a copy of Duck for President. Learning Opportunity! "Dad, vote for Duck! Don't forget," the kid remarked urgently. "Okay, I'll write him in," his dad murmured absently. They weren't in my precinct, so I am not sure whether Duck has a lone delegate heading off to the county caucus. I do feel a certain obligation to point out that, whatever his platform, Duck appears to be yet another white male.
More exciting than the vote, in the initial milling-around phase, was getting to gossip with the other folks from my street about Those Neighbors: rental tenants whose long-time-coming, two-month eviction process finally wrapped up in the wee hours of January 2nd. They had two people living in the garage! someone noted. They were burning chopped-up furniture in their enormous barbecue smoker! a second person said. They'd stagger out to vomit in the alley! announced the guy from the north end of the block. Wow. I didn't even get to tell the story of how one of the cavalcade of stars resident in That House had crashed into my car and driven blithely away. Oh, Trashy Neighbors, now inflicting fresh miseries on someone else's block. They were entertaining, in a way, with their half-dozen shitty vehicles and their monstrous above-ground vinyl pool and their band practice...but I gather that they are not in fact missed.
Where was I? Right, right: democracy. I'm proud to admit I'm part of the Obama tidal wave that swept all four states in contention this weekend, though I'd willingly, gladly vote for either eventual nominee. I am frankly stunned, and thrilled, and humbled, to have such a choice to make. Even last year, a history teacher at the high school Mom worked at told his students point-blank, you will never see a black man or a woman as a Presidential nominee. Not in your lifetime, he informed those kids, a full generation behind me. Not in my lifetime and not in theirs. Well, well. You'd better start swimmin', or you'll sink like a stone, there, Teach.
Mom and Sis both caucused in their respective precincts as well, first-timers all. I wanted to point that out, actually, as a marker of Sis's political evolution. When she turned 18, she felt so disenfranchised, she didn't bother to even register. I think it was at least a decade before she went so far as to secure a ballot at all. This weekend, Sis volunteered as an Obama delegate for the county caucus at the next level. That? Makes me glow, a little bit, way inside.
A privilege, to feel a part of this, of something amazing and unprecedented and so, so hopeful, happening.
Democracy, it turns out, consists of a lot of standing around, temperature and volume rising, while you wait to actually Decide Things. Nonetheless it was strangely thrilling, for me, to be witness to all that newfound political enthusiasm cramming into the cafeteria/auditorium, 700+ strong. Babies in strollers and on shoulders. A guy on crutches, a woman in a motorized wheelchair. A clump of daycare classmates at my table set to coloring with vigor. People gave up their seats on the long narrow cafeteria benches for white-haired old ladies. My precinct officer, and the subsequent speakers, climbed up on the tables, straining to make themselves heard, and people helped them clamber up and down, clapping politely for each.
A little kid in front of me in the sign-in line clutched a copy of Duck for President. Learning Opportunity! "Dad, vote for Duck! Don't forget," the kid remarked urgently. "Okay, I'll write him in," his dad murmured absently. They weren't in my precinct, so I am not sure whether Duck has a lone delegate heading off to the county caucus. I do feel a certain obligation to point out that, whatever his platform, Duck appears to be yet another white male.
More exciting than the vote, in the initial milling-around phase, was getting to gossip with the other folks from my street about Those Neighbors: rental tenants whose long-time-coming, two-month eviction process finally wrapped up in the wee hours of January 2nd. They had two people living in the garage! someone noted. They were burning chopped-up furniture in their enormous barbecue smoker! a second person said. They'd stagger out to vomit in the alley! announced the guy from the north end of the block. Wow. I didn't even get to tell the story of how one of the cavalcade of stars resident in That House had crashed into my car and driven blithely away. Oh, Trashy Neighbors, now inflicting fresh miseries on someone else's block. They were entertaining, in a way, with their half-dozen shitty vehicles and their monstrous above-ground vinyl pool and their band practice...but I gather that they are not in fact missed.
Where was I? Right, right: democracy. I'm proud to admit I'm part of the Obama tidal wave that swept all four states in contention this weekend, though I'd willingly, gladly vote for either eventual nominee. I am frankly stunned, and thrilled, and humbled, to have such a choice to make. Even last year, a history teacher at the high school Mom worked at told his students point-blank, you will never see a black man or a woman as a Presidential nominee. Not in your lifetime, he informed those kids, a full generation behind me. Not in my lifetime and not in theirs. Well, well. You'd better start swimmin', or you'll sink like a stone, there, Teach.
Mom and Sis both caucused in their respective precincts as well, first-timers all. I wanted to point that out, actually, as a marker of Sis's political evolution. When she turned 18, she felt so disenfranchised, she didn't bother to even register. I think it was at least a decade before she went so far as to secure a ballot at all. This weekend, Sis volunteered as an Obama delegate for the county caucus at the next level. That? Makes me glow, a little bit, way inside.
A privilege, to feel a part of this, of something amazing and unprecedented and so, so hopeful, happening.
Monday, June 07, 2004
They've gone and grabbed old Ronnie
(Bonus points if you can identify that line.)
I suppose I should talk about the death of Ronald Reagan. I don't know that I have much to add to the discourse, though...I mean, I have no love for Reagan, the President; I'm a little flabbergasted at the media hysteria, in fact. The Great Communicator! The most beloved and popular and cherished and adored President of all time, forever and ever, don't even try to argue, amen. Really? I don't get it.
I mean, I was a free-lunch kid. So I had Reagan to thank for the threat of a lot of ketchup. He invented and demonized the Welfare Queen; we weren't on the throne, but we were definitely part of the court. I spent no small amount of time in my adolescence fearing a nuclear holocaust, fearing The Russians, fearing it would be "Red Dawn" in the school-bus zone outside Washington Middle School at any moment. (I also feared algebra, the aliens in the movie version of War of the Worlds, and that my mother would die and we'd be sent to live on the farm with our dad, so take that as you will.) I don't remember gleaning anything in particular from the Iran-Contra scandal except, Politicians lie. All the time, like rugs, lie lie lie.
Reagan was the first President I can remember paying any attention to. The pompadour! The apple cheeks! The scary wrinkles! The "Well..." I mean, I knew who Carter was, but I couldn't tell you a single word he ever said. A kid on my bus in second grade went to Washington D.C. on vacation and returned with a wind-up toy, "Jimmy the Walking Peanut," the buzzing clockwork hilarity of which was the sum total of my political consciousness at the time.
Reagan was the first President I could quote. "Honey, I forgot to duck." The Challenger speech, its ending swiped from a poet I could Google in ten seconds but can't remember now. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" I've heard that 20 times in the past 48 hours...thing is, it gives me a little shiver still, because...they did. Eventually, they did. A big hunk of it stands in my company's conference center, as art. Holly roves freely about in a unified Germany. I don't lie in bed worrying about The Bomb any more...though as an adult I've discovered that there are things so much scarier that it's better to not think of them at all if you ever want to sleep again. Dubya, I'm looking at you. Whatever Reagan's legacy, he was better than the current guy holding the contract for the big red phone.
But. Forget the President. I can spare a little grief for Reagan, the man. There are more violent, more painful ways, perhaps...but I can't think of a crueler way to die than Alzheimer's, for victim and family alike. Nancy, scary Nancy, tiny and brittle and fierce--she looks like my grandmother, who always loathed the comparison--it was obvious that they adored each other, and that she loved him to the end. I cannot imagine the horror of watching your husband, partner, father, friend, recede into silence, an enormous speechless toddler, mobile but without thought. A windup toy. The Walking Peanut.
I've read a lot of bitter forums today, people complaining that however much the Reagans suffered, they had help: Nancy could get the best medical treatment for her husband available, could have respite care whenever she needed a break, had coverage and concern her husband denied scores of poor Americans. It's true.
But. I saw that clip half a dozen times today, while I chugged away on the eliptical trainer at the gym: Nancy, putting her ferociously coiffed head down on her husband's coffin, bereft. Goodbye. I have said those goodbyes, myself, recently enough. Say what you will of the President, but...I can grieve a moment for the man.
I suppose I should talk about the death of Ronald Reagan. I don't know that I have much to add to the discourse, though...I mean, I have no love for Reagan, the President; I'm a little flabbergasted at the media hysteria, in fact. The Great Communicator! The most beloved and popular and cherished and adored President of all time, forever and ever, don't even try to argue, amen. Really? I don't get it.
I mean, I was a free-lunch kid. So I had Reagan to thank for the threat of a lot of ketchup. He invented and demonized the Welfare Queen; we weren't on the throne, but we were definitely part of the court. I spent no small amount of time in my adolescence fearing a nuclear holocaust, fearing The Russians, fearing it would be "Red Dawn" in the school-bus zone outside Washington Middle School at any moment. (I also feared algebra, the aliens in the movie version of War of the Worlds, and that my mother would die and we'd be sent to live on the farm with our dad, so take that as you will.) I don't remember gleaning anything in particular from the Iran-Contra scandal except, Politicians lie. All the time, like rugs, lie lie lie.
Reagan was the first President I can remember paying any attention to. The pompadour! The apple cheeks! The scary wrinkles! The "Well..." I mean, I knew who Carter was, but I couldn't tell you a single word he ever said. A kid on my bus in second grade went to Washington D.C. on vacation and returned with a wind-up toy, "Jimmy the Walking Peanut," the buzzing clockwork hilarity of which was the sum total of my political consciousness at the time.
Reagan was the first President I could quote. "Honey, I forgot to duck." The Challenger speech, its ending swiped from a poet I could Google in ten seconds but can't remember now. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" I've heard that 20 times in the past 48 hours...thing is, it gives me a little shiver still, because...they did. Eventually, they did. A big hunk of it stands in my company's conference center, as art. Holly roves freely about in a unified Germany. I don't lie in bed worrying about The Bomb any more...though as an adult I've discovered that there are things so much scarier that it's better to not think of them at all if you ever want to sleep again. Dubya, I'm looking at you. Whatever Reagan's legacy, he was better than the current guy holding the contract for the big red phone.
But. Forget the President. I can spare a little grief for Reagan, the man. There are more violent, more painful ways, perhaps...but I can't think of a crueler way to die than Alzheimer's, for victim and family alike. Nancy, scary Nancy, tiny and brittle and fierce--she looks like my grandmother, who always loathed the comparison--it was obvious that they adored each other, and that she loved him to the end. I cannot imagine the horror of watching your husband, partner, father, friend, recede into silence, an enormous speechless toddler, mobile but without thought. A windup toy. The Walking Peanut.
I've read a lot of bitter forums today, people complaining that however much the Reagans suffered, they had help: Nancy could get the best medical treatment for her husband available, could have respite care whenever she needed a break, had coverage and concern her husband denied scores of poor Americans. It's true.
But. I saw that clip half a dozen times today, while I chugged away on the eliptical trainer at the gym: Nancy, putting her ferociously coiffed head down on her husband's coffin, bereft. Goodbye. I have said those goodbyes, myself, recently enough. Say what you will of the President, but...I can grieve a moment for the man.
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Thanks for the liberty, and stuff
Yes, I know--I'm coming to Memorial Day a bit late.
Anyway. Over the weekend, I saw this Bon-Macy's commercial on television: people in convertibles, kids frolicking in sprinklers. The voiceover lady declared with warm pomposity, "Memorial Day...a time to remember...a time to relax..."
Me, scoffing: "A time to shop!"
VO Lady: "...A time to SHOP!"
And I've been thinking about it since, trying to parse out how I feel...wondering how I should feel. How should this make me feel?
I think first of WWII, I guess: because it was a just war; because the memorial (which, honestly, I find pretty ham-handed) was dedicated this weekend; because all the news sources and Toms Brokaw and Hanks are quick to remind us that members of that generation, Great and Merely Average, are dying at a rate of 1,100 a day. A day! I had a grandfather in each theatre: Dad's dad went ashore in Normandy, though several days after D-Day; Mom's dad roved the Pacific, performing some sort of clerical duties in the Navy; a family photograph shows him impossibly skinny and jug-eared, hunched over a typewriter with a worried look. Neither one lived to see their memorial; neither one spoke a single word about their war, in my memory. My mother told me later that her dad's only request upon returning home was that his wife never serve him stewed tomatoes again. Grampa was a legendary junk food junkie, true--but it wasn't that he'd grown weary of canned tomatoes, out at sea. It was that it reminded him of the carnage he'd seen.
What to make of it, then, the crass commercialism that's turned a day of reflection into a bargain bonanza? Should I be offended on behalf of all our granddads, the teenagers in sailor suits or olive-drab helmets who saved the world or died trying, who came home and golfed and mowed lawns and kept their nightmares to themselves? Should I be horrified, being urged to grease up the MasterCard as if it would "honor" the current crop of America's sons and daughters have volunteered themselves for George's morally ambiguous train wreck in Iraq?
Or...is that the point? Did (do) these men and women fight to uphold our standards of freedom, right up to and including the big-dumb-goodnatured-Golden-Retriever qualities of the American people? Is democracy's best feature the way it entitles us to surfboards and hot dogs and bad television and good deals on bathmats and crockpots and a Free Gift With Purchase at the Clinique counter?
I really am asking, actually. Because I've been thinking about it, and I really don't know.
* * * * *
Hard to tell--after looking at these for half an hour, they're ALL him--but I think that the Wilson in the front row, far left, is my Mom's dad. Have a Snickers or a packet of corn chips in his memory, won't you?
* * * * *
At the grocery store tonight, in their display of red-white-and-blue picnic-type items for either last weekend or the upcoming Fourth of July, I saw a case of what were basically battery-operated, strobing red taillights, like a cyclist would use...except that these had American flag stickers on 'em and were labeled "Spirit of America Patriotic Flashers."
Yep. Expose yourself to democracy!
Anyway. Over the weekend, I saw this Bon-Macy's commercial on television: people in convertibles, kids frolicking in sprinklers. The voiceover lady declared with warm pomposity, "Memorial Day...a time to remember...a time to relax..."
Me, scoffing: "A time to shop!"
VO Lady: "...A time to SHOP!"
And I've been thinking about it since, trying to parse out how I feel...wondering how I should feel. How should this make me feel?
I think first of WWII, I guess: because it was a just war; because the memorial (which, honestly, I find pretty ham-handed) was dedicated this weekend; because all the news sources and Toms Brokaw and Hanks are quick to remind us that members of that generation, Great and Merely Average, are dying at a rate of 1,100 a day. A day! I had a grandfather in each theatre: Dad's dad went ashore in Normandy, though several days after D-Day; Mom's dad roved the Pacific, performing some sort of clerical duties in the Navy; a family photograph shows him impossibly skinny and jug-eared, hunched over a typewriter with a worried look. Neither one lived to see their memorial; neither one spoke a single word about their war, in my memory. My mother told me later that her dad's only request upon returning home was that his wife never serve him stewed tomatoes again. Grampa was a legendary junk food junkie, true--but it wasn't that he'd grown weary of canned tomatoes, out at sea. It was that it reminded him of the carnage he'd seen.
What to make of it, then, the crass commercialism that's turned a day of reflection into a bargain bonanza? Should I be offended on behalf of all our granddads, the teenagers in sailor suits or olive-drab helmets who saved the world or died trying, who came home and golfed and mowed lawns and kept their nightmares to themselves? Should I be horrified, being urged to grease up the MasterCard as if it would "honor" the current crop of America's sons and daughters have volunteered themselves for George's morally ambiguous train wreck in Iraq?
Or...is that the point? Did (do) these men and women fight to uphold our standards of freedom, right up to and including the big-dumb-goodnatured-Golden-Retriever qualities of the American people? Is democracy's best feature the way it entitles us to surfboards and hot dogs and bad television and good deals on bathmats and crockpots and a Free Gift With Purchase at the Clinique counter?
I really am asking, actually. Because I've been thinking about it, and I really don't know.
* * * * *
Hard to tell--after looking at these for half an hour, they're ALL him--but I think that the Wilson in the front row, far left, is my Mom's dad. Have a Snickers or a packet of corn chips in his memory, won't you?
* * * * *
At the grocery store tonight, in their display of red-white-and-blue picnic-type items for either last weekend or the upcoming Fourth of July, I saw a case of what were basically battery-operated, strobing red taillights, like a cyclist would use...except that these had American flag stickers on 'em and were labeled "Spirit of America Patriotic Flashers."
Yep. Expose yourself to democracy!
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
If you believe in fairies, clap your hands!
Grrrrr. Hard day. I woke myself up by sneezing uncontrollably this morning; at first I thought I'd inhaled a stray cat hair in my sleep, or something, but the snuffliness persisted. I popped a Benadryl, the only thing in the house, and headed off to the gym, where I was given cause to wonder, is it possible to fall asleep on a Nautilus machine? Because frankly I was thisclose.
Then to work, where the day was consumed with one of those busywork, cut-n-paste tasks...tedious, but weirdly satisfying at least, when you can quantify the pile of items you've moved to the "Out" heap from the "In." I continued to sneeze and sneeze and sneeze and sneeze, though, in the grip of what I hope is an allergy attack; after six hours and change of trying to blow my face off the front of my skull, I staggered out and caught the earliest possible bus.
But. On the bus, I was unable to stop listening to the conversation of the two women behind me. And believe me when I said I tried. I struggled to doze; I hummed the love theme from "Dr. Zhivago" to myself. But no...I had to pay attention to them, and their first topic, The War. You know, the one in Iraq? (Thank goodness that's over with, huh?) Woman A was insistent that President Bush had "honorable intentions," whatever the hell that means, and that we should stay there and finish up the plan. (Woman B, to her credit, seemed to be taking the "uh, what plan?" tack that was trumpeting in my own head.) Woman A also was very disgusted with those nations now pulling their soldiers out of the region, backing out on their "promises" to help; they were "cowards and quitters!" in her eyes. I wondered whether under her guidance we'd still be sorting out Vietnam. I sneezed. I bit my tongue. Thankfully, they moved on to a new topic: The Gays. Uh oh.
I wasn't going to get all po-litical in this blog. I wasn't! It was going to be all wry observations and pop-culty fun-ness and would you believe the koo-koo things people order at the espresso cart? So if you're here reading for that, scoot on off to TWoP or something for the afternoon, loveys, and I promise you ruminations on hotdish and bingo tomorrow. But at the moment, I have a soapbox to stomp around on.
I'm pro-gay marriage. I have multiple reasons for this; the first is that I see it, at its core, as a church/state issue. Marriage is a legal, civil contract in this country, first and foremost; you don't have to get married in a church, or make religion a part of the ceremony at all, but you do have to get that license in your hand, just like you do to drive or to fish or to dispense cocktails. It's a civil right, and to deny it to a segment of the consenting adult population is discriminatory, period.
I also support it for general cultural (and pop-cultural, I guess) reasons. I don't get the gnashing and wailing over protecting marriage as An Institution. Are you kidding me? Look how the straight folks have botched it up, for crying out loud. (Exhibit A: my poor, young, clueless, ill-suited, now-divorced parents.) How many straight couples are going to court for a Do-Over, or loathing each other through decades of marital acrimony, or throwing their hands in the air and just shacking up, or fame-whoring their way through the latest round of "The Bachelor" on my goddamn television? I hate to break it to you, folks, but The Institution, she is in a world of hurt already. Why not let the homosexuals take a crack at it? There are gay and lesbian couples clamoring to get married; maybe weddings will become a hot new trend. Look at what the Queer Eye fellows have done for belt-wearing. (Thom! Love ya! Need a hag? Call me!)
And I support it for personal reasons. For the record, I'm straight, and single. I just bought a house on my own, and I'm proud of my independence therein, but I long for a boy to play with, and make weekend plans and pancakes and babies with, and possibly get legal with, not necessarily in any order. But friends of mine, people I love dearly, and who love each other dearly...can't get married. They aren't entitled to seize the exact same joys and miseries and legal protections and property rights and social acceptance and big fat Greek wedding and tax status and public declaration of unity that I'm entitled to, someday, just because I happen to be a girl who likes boys. And that's wrong.
It's time, people. It's just plain time.
Back to the ladies on the bus. Woman B, again taking the middle ground, voiced the belief that some folks are just born gay. (Actually, she said that "God made them" that way. I shan't quibble.) Woman A, though, was more dubious; she was "fine" with the gays, as long as they weren't all "in [her] face" about it. Woman B pointed out that she didn't know anyone who ran right up and shouted "I'm gay!" at first meeting. Woman A was still uneasy, though. "I don't mind...I just don't believe in it," she kept saying. Believe in what? Gayness? Gay people? Like ghosts or alien abductions or the Tooth Fairy? (Okay: hee.) I don't believe in blabbing one's sociopolitical opinions so loudly on the bus (yeah, I prefer the subtleties of the INTERNET!)...but dammit, Woman A, you were still there.
So. Recap: allergies, sneezing, gym, work, cranky, yay gay marriage, vote Ron Sims, over and out.
* * * * * *
Got home to find arborists dismantling the giant, limb-tossing, decrepit evergreen in front of the house...which needed to be done, but the chain-sawing and wood-chipping? NOT SO SOOTHING. Grrr.
Then to work, where the day was consumed with one of those busywork, cut-n-paste tasks...tedious, but weirdly satisfying at least, when you can quantify the pile of items you've moved to the "Out" heap from the "In." I continued to sneeze and sneeze and sneeze and sneeze, though, in the grip of what I hope is an allergy attack; after six hours and change of trying to blow my face off the front of my skull, I staggered out and caught the earliest possible bus.
But. On the bus, I was unable to stop listening to the conversation of the two women behind me. And believe me when I said I tried. I struggled to doze; I hummed the love theme from "Dr. Zhivago" to myself. But no...I had to pay attention to them, and their first topic, The War. You know, the one in Iraq? (Thank goodness that's over with, huh?) Woman A was insistent that President Bush had "honorable intentions," whatever the hell that means, and that we should stay there and finish up the plan. (Woman B, to her credit, seemed to be taking the "uh, what plan?" tack that was trumpeting in my own head.) Woman A also was very disgusted with those nations now pulling their soldiers out of the region, backing out on their "promises" to help; they were "cowards and quitters!" in her eyes. I wondered whether under her guidance we'd still be sorting out Vietnam. I sneezed. I bit my tongue. Thankfully, they moved on to a new topic: The Gays. Uh oh.
I wasn't going to get all po-litical in this blog. I wasn't! It was going to be all wry observations and pop-culty fun-ness and would you believe the koo-koo things people order at the espresso cart? So if you're here reading for that, scoot on off to TWoP or something for the afternoon, loveys, and I promise you ruminations on hotdish and bingo tomorrow. But at the moment, I have a soapbox to stomp around on.
I'm pro-gay marriage. I have multiple reasons for this; the first is that I see it, at its core, as a church/state issue. Marriage is a legal, civil contract in this country, first and foremost; you don't have to get married in a church, or make religion a part of the ceremony at all, but you do have to get that license in your hand, just like you do to drive or to fish or to dispense cocktails. It's a civil right, and to deny it to a segment of the consenting adult population is discriminatory, period.
I also support it for general cultural (and pop-cultural, I guess) reasons. I don't get the gnashing and wailing over protecting marriage as An Institution. Are you kidding me? Look how the straight folks have botched it up, for crying out loud. (Exhibit A: my poor, young, clueless, ill-suited, now-divorced parents.) How many straight couples are going to court for a Do-Over, or loathing each other through decades of marital acrimony, or throwing their hands in the air and just shacking up, or fame-whoring their way through the latest round of "The Bachelor" on my goddamn television? I hate to break it to you, folks, but The Institution, she is in a world of hurt already. Why not let the homosexuals take a crack at it? There are gay and lesbian couples clamoring to get married; maybe weddings will become a hot new trend. Look at what the Queer Eye fellows have done for belt-wearing. (Thom! Love ya! Need a hag? Call me!)
And I support it for personal reasons. For the record, I'm straight, and single. I just bought a house on my own, and I'm proud of my independence therein, but I long for a boy to play with, and make weekend plans and pancakes and babies with, and possibly get legal with, not necessarily in any order. But friends of mine, people I love dearly, and who love each other dearly...can't get married. They aren't entitled to seize the exact same joys and miseries and legal protections and property rights and social acceptance and big fat Greek wedding and tax status and public declaration of unity that I'm entitled to, someday, just because I happen to be a girl who likes boys. And that's wrong.
It's time, people. It's just plain time.
Back to the ladies on the bus. Woman B, again taking the middle ground, voiced the belief that some folks are just born gay. (Actually, she said that "God made them" that way. I shan't quibble.) Woman A, though, was more dubious; she was "fine" with the gays, as long as they weren't all "in [her] face" about it. Woman B pointed out that she didn't know anyone who ran right up and shouted "I'm gay!" at first meeting. Woman A was still uneasy, though. "I don't mind...I just don't believe in it," she kept saying. Believe in what? Gayness? Gay people? Like ghosts or alien abductions or the Tooth Fairy? (Okay: hee.) I don't believe in blabbing one's sociopolitical opinions so loudly on the bus (yeah, I prefer the subtleties of the INTERNET!)...but dammit, Woman A, you were still there.
So. Recap: allergies, sneezing, gym, work, cranky, yay gay marriage, vote Ron Sims, over and out.
* * * * * *
Got home to find arborists dismantling the giant, limb-tossing, decrepit evergreen in front of the house...which needed to be done, but the chain-sawing and wood-chipping? NOT SO SOOTHING. Grrr.
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Dropping my marble in the jar
Seattle had a special ballot today, to renew two levy packages supporting our public school district. So I stopped by my polling place on the way home and filled out my bubbles, in the affirmative for those who care. Perhaps when I become a property-tax-paying citizen in March, I will feel differently...but in the meantime, who am I to deny the little children their crayons and abrasive paper towels and asbestos-protection jumpsuits and whatnot?
Nearly everyone I know now votes by absentee ballot, through the mail. I did so myself in college, which at the time consisted of poking out chads with the provided Punching Tool. This was, if memory serves, a bent paper clip that also conveniently sandwiched ballot and voter's pamphlet together in the envelope. Dukakis in '88!
And of course there's talk of elections and referrendums being decided entirely online, in the near future; I'll be able to cast my vote with my feet up, defending democracy without having to tear my eyes from an "ER" rerun, should I so desire.
But I'll miss the polling place. There's something to be said for standing in line with your fellow citizens, juggling dripping umbrellas and registration cards in the junior-high library or the church basement (which smelled like every Girl Scout meeting I ever attended, firing a neurological event unchanged for 25 years). Going to the polls is the literal expression of "voting with your feet." It feels more like a civic duty, when you have to sign the register on the line a polite senior citizen has carefully hemmed in with a strip of tagboard.
I currently vote in an elementary-school gymnasium. I dig it, determining the fate of my community and, periodically, my nation, in a room with hula hoops and jump ropes hanging from the walls. The building smells like varnish and chalk and hot lunch. Occasionally, there's a bake sale, Tupperware tubs of cookies and brownies and crooked squares of sheet cake for a quarter. Once, at the end of the table I spotted a box of Twinkies. It was clear that someone's harried mother had driven to the Albertson's at 8:49 that morning, muttering
for crying out loud do they think I'm Fannie Farmer? and maybe next time you could tell me sooner that you need 56 vanilla cupcakes like I don't have enough to do; get that look off your face, you'll take these in and like 'em! The Twinkies had sold well.
I take it pretty seriously, I suppose. Though I've always been disappointed that there were never any curtains, no levers to pull, here in the Pacific Northwest. Our voting booths are some weird love child of an easel and a plastic patio chair. If there were actual levers, political choices chunking mechanically into place at my command? Imagine how I'd love that.
Nearly everyone I know now votes by absentee ballot, through the mail. I did so myself in college, which at the time consisted of poking out chads with the provided Punching Tool. This was, if memory serves, a bent paper clip that also conveniently sandwiched ballot and voter's pamphlet together in the envelope. Dukakis in '88!
And of course there's talk of elections and referrendums being decided entirely online, in the near future; I'll be able to cast my vote with my feet up, defending democracy without having to tear my eyes from an "ER" rerun, should I so desire.
But I'll miss the polling place. There's something to be said for standing in line with your fellow citizens, juggling dripping umbrellas and registration cards in the junior-high library or the church basement (which smelled like every Girl Scout meeting I ever attended, firing a neurological event unchanged for 25 years). Going to the polls is the literal expression of "voting with your feet." It feels more like a civic duty, when you have to sign the register on the line a polite senior citizen has carefully hemmed in with a strip of tagboard.
I currently vote in an elementary-school gymnasium. I dig it, determining the fate of my community and, periodically, my nation, in a room with hula hoops and jump ropes hanging from the walls. The building smells like varnish and chalk and hot lunch. Occasionally, there's a bake sale, Tupperware tubs of cookies and brownies and crooked squares of sheet cake for a quarter. Once, at the end of the table I spotted a box of Twinkies. It was clear that someone's harried mother had driven to the Albertson's at 8:49 that morning, muttering
for crying out loud do they think I'm Fannie Farmer? and maybe next time you could tell me sooner that you need 56 vanilla cupcakes like I don't have enough to do; get that look off your face, you'll take these in and like 'em! The Twinkies had sold well.
I take it pretty seriously, I suppose. Though I've always been disappointed that there were never any curtains, no levers to pull, here in the Pacific Northwest. Our voting booths are some weird love child of an easel and a plastic patio chair. If there were actual levers, political choices chunking mechanically into place at my command? Imagine how I'd love that.
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