Hospitality 101

I packed up the car to leave as he was on his hands and knees with a bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels working to erase all traces that we had ever been there. I made the decision to leave somewhere between "before you get started cleaning up, when are you leaving?" and him dragging out the vacuum cleaner and pulling furniture from the wall to catch any errant dog hair which was barely visible to the naked eye after a mere two days visiting for the holiday. Traveling is already its own little hell; staying somewhere that you are constantly reminded how put out your host is makes it heartbreaking. Driving away, I actually physically ached in a way that reminded me of the soul-punching disappointment of a failed relationship. I don't know what it is in him that reflexively knows how best to feed a lifetimes worth of hang-ups and neuroses but the man has a gift. I like to joke that my father is a man who will give the shirt off his back but will make sure to let you know how much it costs. He'll also let you know how cold he is now, but that he's glad and blessed he had the shirt to give. Catholic and Jewish guilt, you've met your match; miscegenation brings us the best of both worlds.

Very aware (again) of how having a dog in the house was near anathema to my father, I sought to earn my keep for the few days I stayed with them and left, wounded and semi-determined to not stay with them again. I ran errands, picked up prescriptions, and tried to minimize the impact of our presence as much as possible. I slept on the couch because the dog was not permitted upstairs, endured recurring comments about dog hair, and watched him grimace every time she shook or scratched behind her ears. He took a picture of my dog and printed it for me and told me the title of the picture was 'No dogs in the house.' I told him I didn't get it. He kept going on about needing a day to clean up after I left and even though I told him I would clean up, I packed up the car and dog to leave while he was on his hands and knees hand-wiping the floor because I wasn't going to be an additional source of stress for him. If he was that put out to accommodate us, he should have just said no.

It is so cliche to invoke the father daughter relationship as the backbone of any discussion on how women deal with men but what I learned about love from my father is that it is conditional and that you both earn and show love through work. You work to jettison guilt or prevent censure. So friends, I don't know what kind of guest I am but know that I'm really uncomfortable being your guest and this is why. I know exactly how put out you are and feel like it is only really acceptable to foist that inconvenience on family. I try to relax by thinking of how I would want you to feel in my home (welcome and carefree). But if you find yourself arguing with me over trying to leave things as I found them (i.e. washing sheets, towels, cleaning), here's the reason you should just let me do it. It is the only sure way I know to convey gratitude and affection and ensure most importantly that you won't resent me (at least not for that). I know it's the right thing to do for the wrong reasons but trust that I am a work in progress and hope one day to rest as easy with you as I should in my own home. If nothing else, I hope it makes me a better host.

The comedy of politics: great SNL piece

Andy Samberg-such a funny guy. Well played, Andy, well played.

Snow blankets and Loneliness

I was walking the dog, enjoying the lights of the city and turning my loneliness in my hands like worry beads, trying to figure out if this feeling was a fog, a heavy cloak, or something else. I was consumed with giving my feeling the right reference. I've settled on snow. Loneliness feels like the hush of a heavy snow. It's hard to picture the street below, much less the spring that will soon follow the winter storms. Sometimes it can be brushed off like the light dustings that fall so heavy and blow so quickly away in the same day. But more often loneliness feels like it will always be winter and there will always be snow.

I'm convinced someone always sees this

Date: 24 November

Time: 1942hrs

Location: Somewhere on 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA

Activity: Walking dog

Description of incident: Dog wanders in circles across mine-leaden field of other dog's random crap on a dark rainy night. Dog manages to find suitable spot to lay down her treasures. Dog lays down treasure save one nugget which is left dangling from her backside attached to her by the undigestible grass she insists on eating at every opportunity. She finds this uncomfortable and disconcerting (no doubt, the same way you feel about my decision to share this story). She hobbles around hunched over trying to get it to drop. I use my bagged hand to grab the grass and nugget from her hunched over rear end. Even though it is necessary, there is no way this doesn't look like a very wrong thing to be doing.

I am convinced that someone always sees me doing this and is totally grossed out. He is probably very cute and inclined to strike up a conversation until he witnesses me rummaging around at my dog's backside.

Tomorrow

There is a Christian song, a very old one, called Tomorrow. In it, the singer responds to Jesus' declarations and invitations, "Tomorrow. I'll give my life tomorrow. I've thought about today, so much easier to say, tomorrow..." and on and on in the way that is expected of a non-committal procrastinator. In the same way that procrastinating sinner is assumed to meet their doom for having eschewed the gift of salvation when it was available, I know my life is slipping off the rails when I both fail to plan for tomorrow and put things off until then. There is a point in almost every day when I simply give up on the lofty goals (laundry, bathing, food shopping, house tidying-these are my lofty goals) from the previous evening that I wake up in the morning dreading. This is why I end up staying up all night when I get anything done. It takes me all day to gather the energy to actually do something in the house and the trip wire is usually activated at night when the prospect of a tomorrow with the same things left undone becomes unbearable. It is such a needlessly painful experience but I simply can not help myself. No amount of self awareness both of what I'm doing or the pain that it causes serves as motivation to change my behavior. The one thing Dr. Awesome said that I've been thinking about without wondering incredulously how she manages to stay in practice with people paying a $125 an hour to listen to her talk, is that when I explained to her that discipline to me is, 'doing it anyway' she said that disciplined people don't wait to want to do things, they just do it. It really wasn't much different than what I said but it highlighted pushing through a lack of motivation and being instead driven by principle. Then I re-read parts of the Rolling Stone article on David Foster Wallace and noted his spells with using discipline as a means of ordering his mind and keeping his demons at bay. Then I thought of the little slices of life that find me doing the things I ought to do with little thought and the feeling I had when I recognized that I was keeping house, grooming, and moving through my day with none of the usual angst. When I notice, I feel like I've just snuck up on myself and then I try my best to remain quiet and let me enjoy as much of this lightness as possible. I also wonder how long I'll allow myself the respite. I also understand why DFW would count among his happiest days, his time living in a closet of a room. It forces a discipline of necessity that removes the need to make decisions for one's betterment.

But I don't live in a broom closet and though I have purposely downsized my life, it still does not offer the cramped simplicity of DFW's digs. I think somewhere in the delta between my hyper idealized desire for discipline and whatever it is that won't allow me to have even a modicum of it in any sustainable quantity, lies an area of discovery that I'd love to understand. I sometimes think I misrepresent myself, that I go on and on about lack of discipline when what I really mean is a lack of perfection. No wonder I'm rarely happy with myself.

Women who take relationship self-help books seriously

Please stop. If you can't help yourself then please resist "helping" others by dishing out inane advice from books like "He's just not that into you" and "Why men like bitches." I'm not any better qualified to give dating advice than you, in fact I'm a total spaz, but I still think relationships are far from formulaic or that there is some method I'm failing to apply to hook and sink the perfect guy. In fact the more single women I meet and talk to, the more I realize that regardless of the method, we're all still single. Whether we wait for guys to call or grab him by the tie and straddle him, we're still single. Whether the girls are using match, e--harmony, dating constantly, or never dating, we're still single. It's maddening but my philosophy remains, it's wrong until it's right. I am me. I can only be me and I want to be with someone who wants me. I hope to change and grow as I age, I endeavor to be better versions of myself always, but however I evolve, I am still connected to an essential, elemental, me. I know books that sell their methods with anecdotes of success but I don't have a single friend or acquaintance who owes their marital status to a self-help book. In fact the only women I know talking about self help books with any sense of authority about the truth they contain are single like me and trying vainly to find some truths to buoy them through the unanswerable questions who, what, when, where, why, how, and most importantly, if there will ever be a man for them. Oh, and the smug women and men who write them.

Twitter, blogging, Facebook, MySpace

I just read a horrible story today about a boy who committed suicide in front of a live web audience. He announced his intention to kill himself and then took pills and died not long after. The entire thing was streaming live, including the arrival of the police to the scene. A sidebar on the tragedy was this oft repeated sentiment that there is a generations of folks who live out their lives on the web, chronicling every non-event, every intimate detail of their very ordinary lives as if anyone would have any interest. The truth is that we are interested in one another, we do get caught up in the mundane and fantastical, not just of celebrities, but of each other. The web is so big that you don't often have to go far to find someone or something to connect and relate to. It gives people voices and a sense that because the medium is not as fleeting as the spoken word, that their thoughts may find their way to like-minded souls eventually. It is a community and while we can discuss and argue what kind of community it is or what we may be missing in our tangible lives that we seek in virtual connection, it is nevertheless to me just reinforcement that no matter the medium, human beings seek connection and community with one another. I know it is a strange place to go given my tragic lead-in but I could say nothing about the young man that his family and friends won't say better and with authority I lack in the matter.

Maria

Maria threw darts at maps and traveled the globe, and depended on the kindness of strangers but slept with a machete just in case. She lived in places and ways that seem unreal and found a way to scratch a full life out of wherever she happened to be. She lived bravely and with conviction and determination. She had a wild mane of black hair and a beauty both striking and serene. When she moved to a remote plain in Idaho, it was no surprise that she lived "off the grid" as in all the stories I heard about her, she had never lived "on" the grid. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer nearly two years ago, I remember hearing that she had felt it even earlier than that but didn't have insurance. Although the news initially saw her declaring she would go quietly into that night and refuse treatment, she actually ended up defying the odds so many times that I lost count as she rallied from hospice and returned home after she was given weeks and hours to live over and over again. It was a long and painful goodbye for her and her family but the family was able to rally around to see her, laugh, cry, and try to say something like goodbye. If you believe that God ultimately keeps the time on our stay here then she wasn't here a moment longer than we all needed her to be and her life continues in her frighteningly beautiful daughter and two handsome boys. I hope for her passing to imbue them with that same steel rod of determination to live and push through things and that her loss will give them a well of strength they can draw from and remember her as the source of. I never met her in person, never even spoke to her, but I still can't believe she isn't here anymore. My dear friend is grieving her, the one who told me everything I know about her sister Maria, who finally laid down her head to rest on Saturday November 15th, 2008.

Introducing: The CrushCode Chronicles

Do not ask me what it means. I do not know. I do know this is hilarious.

I also know that I'm not giving out my number to random dudes anymore. Ever. My made up boyfriend (working name Slash Thudkill) was working great as a graceful declination from getting caught up in the phone number exchange and then I left the program for no good reason last night. Security guard at my building hits me up for the digits and even sets me up to use the boyfriend excuse and I don't! I'm going to blame a depressed immune system on account of my bronchitis. So dude calls me today, twice, one minute apart. left a snarky voicemail and then sent me a high priority text message (I did not even know you could do that) that said, "called twice. your move." It was 1:30 in the afternoon on a work day. You are calling me on my cell phone. In the middle of a work day. Twice. One minute apart. Dude, you need to relax.

Also Burnside turned me on to a great link in this post.

A suggestion from the sexiest woman alive

So they just named Hugh Jackman sexiest man alive--I agree completely. Hence the title and the thought for the day which I'm only now finishing a few days later.

If you are alive and have ovaries, chances are that you don't have many pictures of yourself that you like. You also probably like old pictures that you used to hate. It is a strange and mocking vanity us ovary carriers have. So I have a suggestion and before I reveal it, I must first give credit to dearjes. dearjes is the only way to describe her as she is quite dear and also pretty amazing. She told me once that every year for her birthday, she takes a picture of herself. I think one year the 'self-portrait' was of her feet but the picture I saw of her was amazing. She's already beautiful and ridiculously photogenic but this picture captured on film the beauty we know of her everyday. A great picture. She confessed that she went through quite a few bad pictures to get this one good picture and it got me thinking that maybe I could take a good picture after all. I just needed to practice.

Well it just so happens that my awesome laptop has an built in camera and an application called Photo Booth where you can snap away to your hearts content and even use cool effects--sepia tone is a personal favorite. So I've been snapping away whenever the mood hits me for about year trying to get "candid" but flattering pictures. I'll paste a few below for the weekend and then I will take them down so if you're reading this later, that's why there are no pictures. There is nothing particularly great about these pictures but I really like them because they are 'elemental.' It's not so much that I look good in these pictures as much as I just don't look bad. They also feel very intimate. I think that the lighting and angle of the shots convey an intimacy. What I've also learned is that I don't normally take an okay picture when I'm feeling decidedly unsexy. The point is, give it a try. I think you'll see faces that you didn't realize you had.

Excedrin: Racial Tension

In consideration of older men and selected other thoughts

Karaoke was good last night. I didn't sing but it was because I didn't feel like it, not because I was terrified to, which is an important distinction. There were so many people there, you could hardly hear anyone at the mike and only 5-10 people in a tiny room that had to have been beyond capacity could actually see you. I screamed back and forth with a couple of nice women and was pleased that more than half of the women who showed up weren't interested in singing, were coming out for the first time, and had also recently moved and wanted to make some women friends. A surprising number of women had boyfriends or husbands. Most were dressed even more casual than me, some took a little more care, so I definitely did not feel like the loser in walking shoes. All in all, I'm glad I went. Met some interesting people (always), had a very full day, including lunch with a friend who happened to be in town, and woke up this morning with a sore throat in what feels like the same cold I had three weeks ago. I hadn't had a cold in two years and this year, I've been sick three times now. Totally weird and very irritating.

Friday night, I took some out-of-town folks to my neighborhood bar/cafe. There, I saw Boston, an older guy (older-than-my dad-older) I met about a month ago when I wandered in to the place to shake off a funk I was in. He has a dark hair that has gone mostly gray, a kindly weathered face, a wonderful Boston accent, and killer blue eyes. I think he's at least 20 years older than me but I like him. We had a nice talk, walked out together and that was that. Last night, the place was crowded and he had just given his seat the the guys I was with and I invited him to join us. Though he had eaten already, he ended up staying with us the entire meal and even after the guys left. We talked about everything under the sun and like the last time we talked, I felt a weird energy coming from him. If I'm right it was 1/3 loneliness, 1/3 alcohol, and 1/3 lust--not in an aggressive way, but as an extension of his loneliness. He reminds me a bit of Jay, because their loneliness is similar. but Boston is a quieter soul. He strikes me as the type who could earnestly fall in love with a stripper. We left the bar and walked a few steps before our separate homes drove us in separate ways and the space between us was pregnant with something that I thought I recognized but didn't really want to. I gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, he lingered at my neck in a way that could have meant nothing but I think it meant something. I know I'm one for overblowing things--IBC springs immediately to mind, but this feels different.

I don't want to date Boston. He has 4 grown sons, he's older than my father, and I refuse to believe that if God ever had anything at all in mind for me, that Boston would be who he sent. What has me here typing about him is I think what Boston feels happening between us is what I feel between me and every wrong guy. I bang my head against the wall and say, 'how do we talk for hours? how does he share his soul with me and still want to be with somebody else? how can things be so easy between us yet I feel he doesn't seriously consider me romantically? what is wrong with me?' If Boston and I are splashing on the same emotional pheromones, I can see with some degree of objectivity why I seem often to have these long term emotional affairs with the likes of Maybe and IBC and others who haven't been assigned monikers. Like I am (inexplicably) to Boston, these guys are attracted to something about me, maybe they're attracted to my attraction to them. Who doesn't like feeling wanted? Even though I think there is something in them, perhaps a basic decency, that won't allow them to take advantage of the uneven emotional playing field, I do run on the fumes of something in my passive pursuit of their affection. Maybe they are the innocents and I generate all the romantic tension and energy all by myself. But it could also be like the lyrics from the Mamas and Papas:

"I saw her again last night and I know that I shouldn't
To string her along is just not right, if I could then I wouldn't.
But what can I do? I'm lonely too, and it makes me feel so good to know she'll never leave me."

And my favorite, which feels like a shout out to IBC:

"I'm in way over my head, now she thinks that I love her
Because that's what I said, though I never think of her."

Such a jingly sing-songy tune with 'whoa' lyrics.

I'm not sure how, but I can't do Boston like that. It helps that I don't really go to the bar that often and so I'm unlikely to run into him a lot but I will run into him. While I don't need to borrow that trouble in advance, wringing my hands and trying to figure out how to be, what to say, I will be thinking in the coming days how I would have liked my many beyond reach men to treat me. I know I don't have control over his emotions and he's free to like or dislike me the same as everyone else, I just see this as an opportunity (if I've read this situation correctly) to sow something into the world that I will one day benefit from in the way someone conducts themselves with me.

And now for something completely different.

A great song and fun video. Anyone who saw Inside Man will remember this song from the opening and closing credits. I love the dances in this video. They are gettin' down.

It seemed like a good idea at the time

I'm supposed to be going out to sing karaoke with a bunch of girls I've never met in about 15 minutes. I know I need to get off my duff and meet people and conquer silly fears like singing karaoke. Who better to do it with than people I've never met, right? But I'm not feeling it. I can wear cute shoes and walk seven blocks in pain but arrive looking more like I care or I can wear good shoes and look like I'm chaperoning the group I'm with. I hope someone else in the group is as pragmatic as me...big sigh, deep breath. Wish me luck.

Pieces

My friend Rock Star used to have a little wooden box full of Mensa puzzles at his desk. Most were squiggly pieces of steel that you had to get back together or take apart in ways that weren't obvious, at least to me, until the puzzle was solved. I would come to his desk for breaks sometimes and try to work the pieces together or apart. Very often I would put the squiggly puzzles back in the box and wish I was smarter or that my parents had made me play more chess growing up so I would have had a more agile, spatially oriented mind to tackle the puzzles with.

This writing I've been churning out over the last year has been like those recalcitrant pieces of steel. I feel like I'm moving toward something but it is unclear what that is. If I were a singer, I'd be trying out for American Idol, unsure if I'm as good as I want to be but finally willing to give someone an opportunity to pass on me. And, just to fully commit to the analogy, I'm one of those contestants during audition week that doesn't make the initial cut. Something about me doesn't fit--you don't want to hold your hands over your ears when I sing, but you wouldn't line up to buy my CD. Maybe it was the outfit, maybe it was the song, maybe I looked too old, but something didn't click. Something is not clicking in part because I don't know what I want from this. Not unlike my approach to dating, I'm hoping that someone will discover me and then tell me what I am. Am I an advice columnist? An author of modern-day parables? A diarist? An author of those really long greeting cards?

It seemed when I solved one of the puzzles at Rock Star's desk, it either came by a serendipitous positioning or with deliberate study and care paired with serendipity. Either way, the puzzle never resolved in the way that I thought it might and luck was always involved. I got a response from a local publisher today who wished me luck even though my "project" wasn't one they were interested in. It didn't upset me because not knowing what I wanted, I didn't really give them anything to accept or reject. I need to think on this. I love writing. I love words. That will be true no matter what. If this never goes anywhere or gets any wider a readership than my friends and the random people the world over looking for pictures of fire (most disquieting worldwide search term-ever), it was everything it needed to be. I'll just be me; a mid-level bureaucrat that loves words who will write pieces for her friend's special occasions and for their general amusement at her wacky adventures.

The Father's house

I'm sitting at my father's desk, hoping I'm up early enough that he won't come downstairs to see me at his computer. It seemed like later, but it was in fact 4 am when we(the dog and I) woke this morning and I, badly in need of an updated prescription saw the time as 7am. I've been trying all morning to keep the dog quiet and move stealthily through the house and while that's simply the right thing to do if you find yourself awake at 4am in shared quarters, skulking around this morning brought back some of the familiar anxieties and guilts of home. I'm sure part of it is the normal chafing at returning to a context where you are a child first. Part of it is knowing that my father is making a huge accomodation in hosting both me and the dog and the eggshells I feel I am walking on in having any inconvenience he experiences in hosting me being related to the dog. If I were to whip out my armchair pyschology degree, I would say that how I feel right now is precisely the same discomfort I have at being hosted by anyone. If I know I'm putting family out to spend the night, how much more am I inconveniencing someone who isn't even obligated to love me? I'm sure I'm just scratching around what could prove to be a very profitable topic for the mental healthcare industry but I'll let it rest for now.

I was at my old place yesterday, making repairs before my renter moved in and learned something new about the innards of washing machines when I had to replace the clutch, or more specifically, the agits that provide resistance in the clutch and allow the agitator to work properly. No one reading this needed to know that much about it but I was so proud to have made that repair myself. Talking with a neighbor later that evening she essentially told me that being too self sufficient and squared away is probably contributing significantly to my marital/social status, that men are probably intimidated, etc, etc... I don't buy that for a minute. Plenty of squared away women have their pick of men and if anything, they find the selection lacking, not the other way around. I'm just weird and have cosmically bad timing and taste in men. But it is interesting to consider what makes a person counsel someone in that way; that I need to pretend to be something else just to hook the guy in. There is enough facade involved in dating and both parties end up with surprises about the other after some time without going the extra mile to confuse a man about my fundamental nature. I'm not helpless but that doesn't mean I don't want help.

On comments

I'm still blogging here and have not figured out a way to push the content to this site so folks don't have to shuffle back and forth. Work in progress... I did want to highlight the link above as a shout out to the silent readers (all 5 of you) of the blogs. You'll find the same in the link but for ease, here's what I had to say on the topic of comments:

"I know my readership is small and a couple of folks have talked about not quite knowing what to say or feeling self-conscious about putting it out for others to see. To them I say, not enough people read this for you to worry that a lot of people are going to be available to judge your reaction to a post. It absolutely makes my day to see that someone has reacted to something that I wrote so please, if you have something on your mind, share-even if you want to tell me to pull my head out and get some fresh air."

Great Sabbath Story

Monks getting into a fight at a Christian Holy Site. Unrepentant about it to boot.

What I'm doing

I've bothered several people today and have still others I plan to bother. I have spent almost every evening after 7 pm in the bed writing and messing around on the computer until the wee hours of the morning. I should be in Virginia right now jettisoning stress by attending to important things but opted instead to bring weird energy into the yoga studio and hang out in my underwear writing a two paragraph e-mail to a local publisher for most of the rest of the evening. No one has time or inclination to lead me through the maze of figuring out how to do something more with this writing but I hope to learn something from the rejection which is why I bothered at all. Hopefully, I will get some sort of feedback with the rejection rather than a vacuum of silence. I hope also that I won't be as dense as I was earlier this week. I was waiting for someone I had never met and went up to a guy who bore a slight resemblance to pictures I had seen of the person I was going to meet. I asked him if he was Mr. Smith and he laughed and said 'No, but he's a handsome guy!' and slapped my shoulder. I looked at him and just walked away. I was embarrassed to have gone up to the wrong guy and even more puzzled that this random other guy thought the guy I was meeting was handsome. I was concerned that he knew this other guy and was going to laugh at me even more when he did show up. 12 hours later, I got the joke and felt like a total jerk.

Adding me to your favorites on Technorati

I have no idea what I'm doing....

To do: get new hobby. get boyfriend.

It is a lovely lazy Saturday. I've been working on something for weeks now that I can't seem to get right that I think I will submit to the Washington Post. I've been entertaining sending links to random people and just generally stirring things up so I can have something interesting to think about. I've been practicing taking pictures of myself to see it it's possible to take a good picture and I've got a crush on my yoga instructor because he's the only man here who touches me. He's most assuredly gay but he has this well of calm in his eyes and has a great touch. When he touches me, it reminds me that people need touch. I have got to get a boyfriend. I joined meet-up.com and am now a member of various groups that plan all sorts of neat stuff. I've not been to a single event, finding that my desire for company never seems to mesh up with their event schedule. Story of my life.

The local coffee shop is great. It is often so crowded that you have to sit with strangers if you'd like a seat and I find it somehow a good antidote for the loneliness that comes with a new city. I read my book, eat my food, and feel like I'm just hanging out with friends who can enjoy each other's company without talking. Today, I was at a table of three of us who were strangers to one another. The other two had computers and cell phones to keep them entertained; I had a book. It was all good. I kept dropping food and otherwise eating like I wasn't in public, hunched over my food like I was in prison and barely looking up until it was gone. Still, it was all good.

Things that make me laugh about myself: My hesitancy in submitting an idea for a show because the submission guidelines warn that you must be willing to appear on the show. I paused and then laughed. I'm not going to be on a TV show! The thought that I'd have to avoid being on television, I love my imagination sometimes. But if I ever do become rock star famous for writing, I will be calling Oprah out for not answering my e-mail. I can see it now, sitting on her couch, stumping for my latest navel-gazing book, and telling her that I was actually looking forward to coming on the show to confront her for not personally answering my e-mail. Then I'll read from my letter provided by her staff, who will have dug up my submission from long ago and oh, how we'll laugh. The tag line for the show will be, 'IP settles grudge with Oprah at 4. Find out what it is and Oprah's surprising reaction."

Seriously. I've got to get a boyfriend.

This just in: Obama not Jesus

Everyone blogging on this theme of what elections don't magically address, we get it. Everyone trying to manage our collective expectations, it's okay, we know this Presidency has challenges ahead. We hope but aren't sure that Obama-Biden will leave the country better than they found it when their tenure at the helm is up. Like promotions in the military are based on a confidence in your ability to serve at the next higher grade, an election is always a gamble. No one would have voted for Bush if anyone had the faintest inkling of how he and Cheney were going to hand the country back to us in 8 years. Yet while they were pursuing their agendas and committing the country's resources to wars, we were no less equipped to feed the hungry here at home, or share the gospel, or support our churches and communities in need. Yes, there is an abundance of sentiment and fervor at rallies and in general for Obama that made/make many Christians uncomfortable because they recognized, I think, people being touched in a way that inspired religious-like zeal and devotion. I think many Christians were kind of hating on that. Maybe even a little threatened like Jesus was the best band ever and was slipping in the charts to someone who couldn't even read music. Maybe even a little moved themselves in ways that threatened idolatry. It's easy to do and not wrong to warn against it. I'm just saying that perhaps there's a little more to those exhortations to remember in whom your salvation lies if we dig a little deeper or are a little more honest as individuals and as a Christian community about the place where those concerns spring from.

And finally to those reminding us that Obama isn't Jesus, that our hope does not or should not rest in any man but in Christ, we get that too. Anybody who doesn't probably isn't reading your blog.

The Afterglow

While my head is still spinning that I went to bed on election night and actually knew who my next president will be and while I am still relieved, elated, and inspired that it was Obama, I just wanted to get a few thoughts down.

I thought McCain gave a wonderful concession speech and it was good that Palin didn't talk at all though she appeared to be struggling to hold it together. It was the McCain that I saw tonight that as an independent voter I think would have been a strong contender for my vote had he not made such a troubling and bewildering choice in his running mate. Cest la vie, it is done and I'm elated with America's choice.

Now there are no more excuses. The man isn't keeping us down, he's not pulling strings we can't mount defenses against, whatever we fail to achieve as Americans, as blacks, as women, we have to own those failures as our own. Are there obstacles? People who deliberately advance agendas contrary to individuals and groups? Absolutely. But as much as I didn't cast my vote today to elect a black president, I am so ridiculously proud that my country did and showed that the primary consideration for the majority of Americans was who they thought was most qualified to lead our nation. Every single black person in America could have voted for Obama and that would not have won him the White House. I appreciate more than I or anyone of any color can convey what this means to our ambitions, hopes, dreams, and love for our country, but I'm not a fan of the race-centric discussions. Let him be our President first, a man of color second.

I also wanted to share how in love with my nation I am tonight. How in love with the thought that Americans and the world will get to know a black family that I identify with, that is not a caricature of black packaged and sold the world over. I am proud that they will be the ambassadors of both my ethnicity and my citizenry for this country and for the world. They inspire me to be a better public servant, and a more civic minded American. I am proud to work for the government and the challenge he has issued to roll up our collective sleeves and get to work inspires me to raise the bar on how I discharge the duties I've been trusted with. I told my mom earlier tonight, long before any projections were made that the thought of an Obama presidency made me want to work in Washington and work in the seat of government to facilitate the realization of the vision in 'Yes We Can.' It feels like a calling-so strange after the apathy of my adult voting life never feeling connected to the person who led our country, casting whimsical and arbitrary votes for a particular candidate because it was how my breakfast settled in my stomach on that particular day. It never felt like my vote mattered. I never felt I had an active role in shaping the future of my country. And now the work begins.

And on a slightly frivolous parting note, I'm happy that America will get to know a black woman. If Michelle starts an end-run on educated black women as desirous company and mates, that will be enough for me. I will finally get some play. I don't care if it's a fad. I'll finally be on the right side of one.

Seriously, what is the deal with the Fire Sale picture?

I can not imagine why so many people the world over are interested in fire. And why they come here to get it. I googled fire images and mine is on the third page of results. Getting kind of creeped out about what the world is up to in its quest for fire pictures.

Weirdness

Not sure what is going on in the world but I'm seeing traffic to my site all going to this post about my lame party plans aka, the fire sale. The picture is from photobucket which is where I get a lot of the pictures for this blog. Turns out it just easier to imbed pictures that way than it is to import them from my computer library to this site. Anyway, it's just weird.