I imagine this picture's twin is out there somewhere...

The Chair Swing

1. Observe and analyze the situation: Stand and wait; watch.

2. Commit: Move forward quickly, intent on only one thing. Zero in on a chair, move quickly toward the target, plant my butt in the chair.

3. Mitigate risk: Secure all loose objects – sandals in hand, bag diagonally across shoulder. Fasten seatbelt.

4. Allow myself be swept away: The ride begins.

5. Doubt myself: Feel uneasy with the motions. Wonder to myself if this was really such a good idea. Dream up a list of reasons why I should not be doing this.

6. Engage: Realize it’s quite enjoyable. If I leave my eyes open and pull on the chains to turn my swing, it’s really fun. But by now, the ride’s almost over.

7. It’s over: Think to myself, “What fun!” As I walk through the exit door, kick myself for not realizing it until the ride was almost over.

8. Much later: Realize my approach to the Chair Swing, for better or worse, isn’t unlike my approach to everything else in my life.

Every Duck's a Winner

Dear PowerPoint,

How am I supposed to focus on getting my message across when I spend all my time trying to correct the format of your bullets, which you choose to arbitrarily change all by yourself? And then there are the fonts, which I painstakingly changed to 16. Why do you override my choice and change it back to 24, all by yourself? It makes my words run off the bottom of the page, forcing me to start all over again.

You let me indent some of my lines, but on others the option is to indent is greyed out. Why? I beg you: Why?

I'd rather focus on the words and the numbers, but we all know it's all about the pretty colors and the graphics. You know this, don't you? That's why you take over and rearrange everything when I'm not looking.

I only have a few more days with this particular deck, so I'd really appreciate it if you could play nice, and let me type the words and tell you how I want them to look. If I wanted your input, I'd turn that stupid little assistant back on.

Sincerely,
Deck Girl

(obviously, working too much, and this is all I have)

A Day Off

Best. Ride. Ever.




“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone… The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.”
--Lin Yutang (quoted in "O Magazine", October 2002)

Men With Purses

Part of an ongoing series

Knickers

You Naughty, Naughty Boy

There you are, lounging around the living room wearing nothing but a three-piece suit with women's panties underneath when suddenly the doorbell rings. Surprised, you stash the inflatable sheep under the couch and are happy to see a pizza delivery person dancing. As the cheesy music begins you can't help yourself, so you take a bite of pizza, shocked by the size of the pizza bill that confronts you. Before you know it a car pulls up and it's the Dallas Cowboys climbing out with arms full of beer. Being the gracious host, you spank all of them, much to their delight.

The air is thick with the smell of burning stew you left on the stove as 7 people are now writhing in a pile on the floor eating. You're completely absorbed in it, never having enjoyed so many people eating at once.

Suddenly you look up and see a film crew staring at you and you grin foolishly. You're caught! They grab the incriminating Polaroids and run and you tie them up and hand them to the dominatrix as the cheesy music fades out.

The End.

Courtesy of Porn-o-matic(tm), via the sxKitten
Although this particular story slants more toward the category of food fetish than porn.

Tune in Next Month for a Very Special Episode

...Till the one day when the lady met this fellow, and they knew that it was much more than a hunch. That this group, Must somehow form a family. That's the way we all became the Smurphy Bunch.

Disturbing Trend

With New Orleans still trying to recover from Katrina and Key West boarding up for Rita, I'm beginning to think that I have jinxed all the cities I've visited over the past year.

Listen up, citizens of San Antonio, San Francisco, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Miami, Atlanta, and Oklahoma City: I was there, too.

A natural disaster should be headed your way soon.

Maybe

Each day, the dumpster
found itself slightly
closer to the street,
as it inched
its way to
freedom.

You just never know what's going to drive through the neighborhood.

He’s not just a vapor trail

“Not to be crude here, but I’ll never forget that perfume.”

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores
and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I
haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I
don't
weep, do
you?

Charles Bukowski, "Bluebird"

New Orleans
June, 2005

Endless September

I have a love/hate relationship with the month of September. September is a powerful month. It’s a month of retrospection. It’s a month of milestones and change. It isn’t my favorite month of the year, but it’s a close second.

It’s a month of transitions: the start of school, the cooler nights after the less humid days, the end of summer. The air, while warm during the day, has a different feel to it than it would have only 2 or 3 weeks ago. A few of the deciduous trees are already starting to turn here. The cooler evenings drop dew on the grass, making it slick and wet. The days are getting noticeably shorter. The air even smells different. It’s starting to smell like autumn, but not quite.

The little brown orb weavers are out in force again this year, spinning their giant webs so they can eat heartily before the cold weather arrives. One built her web between the edge of my roof and a deck chair, in a space I normally walk from my back door to my car, and after walking through the web twice, I considered spraying her so it wouldn’t happen again. Instead, it’ll turn cooler within another 2 or 3 weeks, and she’ll go away on her own. So I have instead moved my path. Consider me trained.

September has a feel all its own. The other months just don’t seem to be as unique in that way. The sensation triggers memories of past Septembers – where I was, what I did, how I felt. September isn’t just a month that transitions us from summer to fall, but it’s always represented transition and change for me personally as well. It’s a month of reflection and awareness.

Friday would have been my 10th wedding anniversary. Much has changed in my life, and in the world, over those 10 years. On bright, sunny September days like today, when the air is warm yet crisp, I’m reminded of my wedding day and my married life that followed. I’m also reminded of the similar days after Hurricane Isabel blew through, and Tropical Storm Gaston, when the drier air was a welcome relief as I cleaned the water out of my home. Of course, I’m reminded of the events of 4 years ago today, September 11, as the weather that day was picture perfect, just as it was today. And in future Septembers on similarly beautiful days, I’ll be reminded of Hurricane Katrina also.

Pirate's Alley, New Orleans
June, 2005

So what do we do, now?

"Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience."

--Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775, at the Second Virginia Convention held at Henrico Parish Church (now known as St. John's Church), Richmond, Virginia


I spent a great deal of the holiday weekend following the horrific stories coming out of the battered gulf coast region, and to say my attention to the news from New Orleans now borders on obsession would be completely appropriate. I have watched them for hours: those less fortunate, but thankful to have their lives, from New Orleans. I know their names, I know their faces, I know what their voices sound like, and I’ve listened to their stories. I know more about New Orleans’ poor than I do the homeless in my own town. Something about that feels wrong to me.

I’ll never get back the hours I have spent on nola.com, or watching the 24 hour news networks, or watching WWL TV’s internet feed, the first local New Orleans station back on the air. I would never want those hours back though. I have learned a great deal this weekend, and not just about New Orleans.

In response to trivial daily frustrations, we often say that life is not fair, and it’s true. About any human living on this planet, a more true statement could not be made. When it comes to Mother Nature, regarding matters of circumstance, and occasionally being in the right place at the wrong time, sometimes life just isn’t fair.

Beyond that cliché, the facts tell the story. Louisiana’s poverty rate is 16.9 percent, which ranks it 50th out of all 50 states in the U.S. Most of the city of New Orleans is built below sea level. It was a bowl, just waiting to be filled. 100,000 of New Orleans’ residents had no ability to evacuate themselves. The levees weren’t built to hold back the water after a category 4 hurricane. Because so much of the land in New Orleans is below sea level, the Red Cross had no designated shelters in the I-10 / I-12 corridor, leaving most of those with no transportation only “shelters of last resort”, which weren’t provisioned very well. Of course, the Superdome was one such shelter.

The Times-Picayune published a fascinating series in June of 2002 called “Washing Away”. Over three years ago, the struggles New Orleans currently faces were clearly presented as a dilemma that its citizens would face. Not might, mind you, but would. The tragedy is that the hell these New Orleans residents have gone through was a given. It was known. Smart people predicted it, blow by blow, and it still happened.

Then, of course, there was the product of the preparedness exercise, Hurricane Pam, in which tens of thousands who didn’t evacuate were labeled as the casualties of a cost benefit analysis that predicted the facts and the future that is now the present in New Orleans. While reading FEMA's summary of the results of the Pam exercise, one bullet, there under "Sheltering", kept pulling me back...

"State resources are adequate to operate shelters for the first 3-5 days. The group planned how federal and other resources will replenish supplies at shelters."

If that was indeed the plan, why did it fail during the first 3-5 days?

I’m not going to throw around statements of blame here, everyone else seems to be more than willing to blame someone for the suffering and death that the rest of us are fortunate to watch from afar in our air conditioned living rooms, with our clean drinking water and fully stocked fridges.

As a reprieve from images of destruction, I ventured out to an unrelated event – a weekly reenactment of the Second Virginia Convention of 1775, where Patrick Henry passionately demanded “Give me liberty, or give me death.” It’s a dramatic recreation of the convention, where our nation’s forefathers sit among the audience, in the same spots they sat that particular March day. Each Sunday, Benjamin Harrison, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and a few other notable Virginians sit in the church’s pews in period dress, and say the same words they’d spoken over 230 years earlier.

It’s a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and I highly recommend it to everyone who has even a fleeting interest in this nation’s history. I’d been there before, but it was 20 years ago. Liberty wasn’t a very meaningful term to me then, though, at the age of 15. This time, the words held my attention. The words spoken all those years ago are just as relevant for us today.

Look what we have become: the citizens of the United States have the freedom and choices that our forefathers only dreamt of – yet the principles on which they built our nation still remain intact today. Our nation has grown and thrived, and U.S. citizens enjoy a standard of living that many in other countries can’t even imagine. We’re fortunate, and as a culture we’re spoiled. Even our refugees and disaster victims enjoy luxuries that residents in third world countries will never have, like a warm meal, shower, toys for the children, and clean drinking water.

Americans are fortunate, and we’re also generous. We give money. We are sympathetic. But most of us sit in our living rooms and surf the Internet with our high speed connections and we’re physically detached from the situation. We want to do more, and we send more money. But I can’t help but think – what is the real problem here? Why are we reacting to a disaster that everyone knew would happen sooner or later? How can we really help?

It took a tragedy to bring real attention to New Orleans’ poor. I’m sure they struggled before Katrina hit. They struggled with other aspects of their lives, not surviving flooded streets and homes, but basic survival, nonetheless. Where was Geraldo then? Why did it take such a tragedy for the nation to stand up and take notice that so many people were living in a city that was a veritable bowl, waiting to be filled with flood waters, and those people had no means of escape?

I don’t blame the government. The government provides assistance and housing for many people that live below the poverty line. The government takes care of its citizens in many ways that allow impoverished Americans to live in luxury compared to many other nations. It’s not the government’s job to take care of everyone. It’s all of our jobs. If we blindly continue to trust our government, at any level, to take care of us without questioning, without educating ourselves, and without helping others, we’ll continue to be sorely disappointed. Just as we are now.

We only seem to have a true community spirit when there is a tragedy on a large scale. We talk about victims, we feel sorry for them, and we donate money. We donate our time. But would they have been victims if we’d paid more attention to their situations before a natural disaster occurred? If Kanye West cared so much about the victims before they became victims, why wasn’t he helping the poor of New Orleans live better lives before what little they had was destroyed? At least Kanye West admitted he was a hypocrite. The truth is that most of us are.

I think about my own city and the issues we have here. Over the weekend, I begrudgingly admitted out loud that I actually love Richmond, despite its politics, crime, and poverty. The crime in New Orleans has received almost as much attention as the rescue efforts and my city has a higher crime index than New Orleans. We have a great deal of poverty. We have a high teenage pregnancy rate. We have recently seen a dramatic increase in organized gang activity. Only a few years ago, we ranked 2nd in the number of murders per capita for the nation – second only behind New Orleans.

Each day I go to work I drive through a high crime area of the city, where public housing sits between beautiful old homes that represent some of the most beautiful architecture in the city. I see more prostitutes on the street now, they walk the streets and I see them in the mornings and on my way home. Just last week, two college students were shot behind the 7-11 where I sometimes stop to pick up a cold drink. Over the past few months I have seen two businesses close their doors and join the numerous other boarded up buildings along my commute. My company built our office building in the most impoverished section of town; it was part of a revitalization effort in partnership with the city.

But most of us just commute to and from the suburbs, and we’re immune to it all – the plight of our neighbors living on the streets and all around us – as we return to our cable news and comfortable lives, as if what we see on the streets is a bad movie with a nice, tidy ending. We don’t even consider the lives of the beggars on the corners with their scrawled signs worthy of the same consideration we’d give a reality show. We know much less about them. Why should we care? We turn a blind eye because it makes us uncomfortable. Whether I like what he said or not, whether I agree with him or not, kudos to Kanye West for bringing up a painful subject and for making people squirm. For making us uncomfortable. And for making us think.

I live a comfortable life. My basic needs are met in every way, and I have an overabundance of other luxuries. Much of this is due to the choices I have made in my life, but I was also fortunate to have good parents who provided me with a strong foundation and taught me how to succeed. Just because I have been so fortunate, I don’t believe that leaves me with no obligation or desire to share what I have and what I have learned with others less fortunate.

It’s not the government’s job. But that’s something that we Americans have grown to accept. Everyone is on the bandwagon now, asking why the government didn’t take care of New Orleans’ poor and evacuate them. It wasn’t really just the government’s job – it was also the community’s job. And we’re the community. We have no right to be outraged about any of it, because we certainly didn’t care about the poor of New Orleans before Katrina headed their way.

We’re in need of a modern day revolution. We Americans have so much – knowledge, freedom, comfort, money, food, gadgets, information – the list is endless. Yet, we’re individually selfish with what we have and we hesitate to even share it with our neighbors, until they’re displaced. We work hard for what we do have, and yet, everyone expects the government to take care of those that do not, or are unable to work. Everyone expects the government to take care of babies born to unemployed mothers. And yet, for the most part, we citizens do nothing to help, to educate, to focus on improvement and prevention, except donate our money – in the form of taxes to our government and expect the government to take care of it. Or we donate cash if there is a disaster – to help us feel better about ourselves. So we can remain comfortable and feel like we’re helping.

I don’t have any answers, and I don’t have an agenda. Revolutions always start with the people – ordinary citizens on a mission for change and improvement. Revolutions never start with the government. The beauty of the United States is that the citizens have a voice. We don’t have to wait for the government to take care of us and fix our individual lives. We don’t have to wait for the government to fix our communities for us. We have the power to do it for ourselves. But as long as we’re individually comfortable and complacent, and our communities’ poor are hidden from view, we do nothing. Until we’re personally affected, or unless giving is fashionable, as it currently is, we turn a blind eye.

I am angry. I'm emotionally angry at the unnecessary suffering. But it angers me that everyone expects the government to step in and take care of everything for us – to clean up the mess to which we’ve turned a blind eye – and take all the blame.

I don’t blame the government. I’m to blame; we all are. Because as long as we're comfortable, we sit quietly and do nothing.