Whose Side Are You On?

This is indeed one of the most important -- and perhaps contentious -- debates in American culture right now. Forget Democrats vs. Republicans, Left-wing vs. Right-wing, creationists vs. evolutionists, Mothra vs. Godzilla -- when the Great Revolution comes, Americans will have to take a stand: Bacon, or Tofu?

As an elitist, enlightened liberal, this decision has the potential to cause me great angst. I've seen documentaries (well, at least one, anyway) depicting a pig slaughter house, and yes, I got kinda teary-eyed -- how cruel! how inhumane! how freakin' delicious! As a highly evolved liberal, I KNOW that tofu is a better choice -- for the planet, for my body, for the poor pigs being slaughtered. I know this, and yet the smell of frying bacon makes me drool like a baby -- if I walk into an IHOP, or Denny's or Perkin's or any neighborhood diner, any resolve I might've had flies out the window.

Don't get me wrong -- I don't hate tofu. In some cuisines, it's preferable to bacon -- I don't want curry with bacon, or pad thai with bacon, or stir-fried vegetables with bacon (although I think I may have just come up with a new idea for a restaurant). I even bought a cookbook a few years ago -- I Can't Believe it's Tofu!. The problem was, I could.

So when the time comes -- when the gauntlet has been thrown down -- I know which side I'll be on -- and it will include a side of pancakes.

P.S. OOps, almost forgot -- bad blogger! -- for you physical types that aren't satisfied with merely discussing this topic, you can act it out with these bendable action figures, available for purchase here
or here.

What's a Gal Gotta Do to Get a Job Around Here?

Fact: I am currently unemployed. Resolved: I will never, ever, put the following on any resume', curriculum vita or application: "Check out my blog!"

I was going to write this post about what it's been like to be unemployed for the past 9 months -- the longest I've gone without a job since I was 16, I think. And about mid-life career changes and how, unlike many folks my age, I HAVE followed my "passion" for the past twenty-something years, managed to make a meager (but always fun & interesting living), but now find myself zooming towards 50 with nary a nickle in retirement savings, and no health care.

Instead, I'm going to write about the picture I posted, and what that says about me. Here's the other one I was going to post instead:



Cute, right? Still makes the same point, but not nearly as offensive.

See the thing is, I have sort of a subversive sense of humor. I have been fortunate in that most of my work has been in the arts/theatre, where people like me are plentiful -- "birds of a feather" dontcha know. But out in the "real world" -- well, one must behave oneself, and conduct oneself in a manner befitting a professional. One must wear the proper attire and utilize power-point presentations whenever possible. One must exhibit a demeanor of seriousness at all times. One must hang out at the trendiest bars and get totally trashed every weekend. One must pretend.

Alas, my ability to pretend extends only so far. As Frank Zappa says "You ain't what you're not... you are what you is". And I is ... well, perhaps that's what I really have to figure out.

Timing is Everything

I have to admit, I was pretty fond of my last post, "You Don't Know Jack". I mean, I found this amazingly powerful photograph (that someone else took), accompanied by a great article (that someone else wrote), and then linked them oh so succinctly to my own thoughts and -- damn, if I wasn't feeling like a writer! So, I let it sit there for a few days -- I liked that it was the first thing you saw when you came to my blog. Sort of like having a really poignant welcome-mat (is there such a thing?)at your front door.

Now what? "Well, ladies and gentlemen, I guess that about wraps up this blog. I'm such an amazing writer I've managed to sum up the whole of human existence in 6 or 7 posts. I'm off now to create the next great work of art -- shouldn't take me long!"

It seems this situation calls for The Farting Preacher. Nothing brings you back down to earth quite as well as a few expertly-timed farts.

Don't Know Jack

You know, I don't think there's anything I can say right now that will not seem trite -- or inappropriate -- against the backdrop of this photograph. I was going to write about how my life feels "frozen" these days --how everything just seems stuck, unable to break up and move. While searching for images to accompany this post, I found this photo almost immediately. Taken by Max Ortiz for The Detroit News, it accompanies this article.

I, of course, was using "frozen" simply as a metaphor. But I am not homeless in Detroit in the dead of winter, where metaphors mean jack-shit.

R.I.P

Side by Side

Or, same sentiment, different medium/artist:

From "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"

Two together!
Winds blow south, or winds blow north,
Day come white, or night come black,
Home, or rivers and mountains from home,
Singing all time, minding no time,
While we two keep together.

by Walt Whitman


She calls him Bear, he calls her Bird. Bear's a homebody -- would prefer spending time in his den to just about anywhere else, loves his long winter's naps, and contentedly wears grooves in the paths of his life -- he'd prefer not to have to think so hard and so much about things, and just do what comes naturally.

Bird, though, is a restless soul. Nesting, then flying, then nesting again, then flying, and on and on. As she gets older, the flying part is getting more and more wearisome, for though she's a bird, she doesn't travel particularly lightly (damn all of those books and magazines and craft supplies and record albums!) Still, she has a habit of saving cardboard boxes and bubble wrap. She looks at maps, and plans escape routes.

Bird sometimes feels stuck in jobs, in places, in situations, but she never feels stuck with Bear. Every day feels like a new adventure. She nudges him, wakes him from his slumber, and shows him a different path to tread, and he always, always gives her a warm, sturdy place to land. And so onward they go.

My Brain Hurts

I feel like crap. The worst part is, I don't know why I feel like crap. Sometimes, you get a head cold, or bronchitis, or something like that, and you know what it is, and you know that it will pass. Or you pull a muscle, or konk your knee, and you know that it will heal. You know that in a week or so, you'll be back to your old self again. This time isn't like one of those times.

I hate not knowing things. I remember when I was in kindergarten, I took to letters and words easily -- even before going to school, I was looking through books and practicing writing letters and even making up my own words (the biggest spanking I ever got was for writing my made-up words all over our blue upstairs walls in orange crayon). The first time I was introduced to the concept of math, however, I cried. I still remember so clearly sitting in a little chair at a little table with three other little kids, and choking back sobs as I tried to figure out how many sticks I'd have if I had three to begin with, and my friend gave me three of hers. I suffered upset stomachs and dry heaves most mornings for the first few months of first grade, all because of math. Eventually, something clicked in my head and I "got it". The dry heaves went away.

So when I'm feeling like crap, and I can't get in to see a doctor because a.)I recently moved and don't have one yet b.)I'm unemployed -- well, actually I was offered a job, but I can't start until my fingerprints have cleared, and after two tries, the nice folks at the fingerprinting place still can't seem to get a clear enough set of prints on me, so technically, I'm still unemployed which means c.)I'm uninsured, although I did apply for insurance online a few weeks ago, and after filling out a lengthy application and then going through a lengthy interview over the phone, I'm still waiting to be approved -- anyway, when I can't get in to see a doctor right away, I will self-diagnose (it's so easy, what with the Internet and all) and fret. I think I've got it narrowed down:

*Labyrinthitis
*Vestibular neuritis
*hypothyroidism
*hormonal imbalance (menopause is looming, after all)
*some kind of vision problem
*something viral -- a mild flu that won't go away

Ofcourse, lurking in the back of my head -- in the back of my dizzy, lightheaded, water-balloon of a head -- is the word "tumor". It's written in orange crayon on the blue walls of my head. I shouldn't have written it there, but I did. Now I'm just pretending that I didn't, because that's the least likely thing it could be. I know that much.

I made an appointment to see an ENT. I'll get to see him in the first week of April. My brain hurts.

Trickle Down & Out

This graph haunts me. I can't stop thinking about it. Take a good look at those numbers. In 2005, the average C.E.O in America earned 821 times that of a minimum wage earner. In 2005, minimum wage was $5.15 an hour. That works out to $4,228.15 an hour for a C.E.O. Perhaps by now that number has dropped somewhat. Perhaps -- probably more likely -- it has risen. The Economic Policy Institute's website is chock full of these kinds of sobering facts.

Unless those C.E.O's possess some kind of magical powers -- are able to shoot lighting bolts out of their asses, or heal the sick with just a gentle touch of their mighty hands, I can't justify the humongous disparity in earnings between them and their lowest paid workers.

Anyone who has ever had kids, or worked with kids, knows how much time is devoted in teaching them to share. Maybe C.E.O's need to go back to preschool until they learn to share.

I Wanna Be a Coal Miner

You never know what you're going to find on this blog. Think of it as one of those funky little second-hand boutiques you sometimes stumble across while wandering around a Big City, or maybe even a run down, musty junk store with a grizzled proprietor hidden in a corner, eating bologna sandwiches and reading vintage issues of MAD magazine. You get the idea.

Yesterday I was on my mini stair-stepper, watching a really interesting interview on LinkTV, when I saw this commercial for coal. Actually, the commercial was part of the film/documentary, "Burning the Future: Coal in America", and the interview was with the director, David Novack.

Trying to make burning coal and coal mining sexy -- blows my mind.

Funny Thing About Music...

The four of us were in Geez's van, I think, heading for the funeral parlor to finalize the arrangements for our dad's viewing. A cold, bright "Black Friday", we were all a little groggy from the night before. Dad had waited until we were all in town, until we had all had our Thanksgiving meal, until all of the kids had whispered good-bye and gone off to bed, to finally take his last breath. We were in the dining room, playing movie trivia, so I expect the last sounds he heard were the four of us and my sister-in-law yelling out names of movies -- "Citizen Kane!", "Ben-Hur!". My dad might've even been playing along in his head, beating each and every one of us at this game -- he loved movies about as much as he loved us, as much as he loved his cats.

So we're in the van, and Bug, the youngest of us, says "Hey, you guys want to hear this CD? I'm playing this all the time now, and I think you'll really like it -- especially this one song...".

In my mind, we're in the van, and it's cold, and I'm sad, and I'm listening to "White Winter Hymnal" by Fleet Foxes, and I keep seeing my dad in his final days -- a little baby-bird of a man, so frail, so small -- not at all like the dad I knew growing up. And I remember a song he sang to me when I was little, something about "saucy little chickadees" in winter snow.

Recently a friend posted on facebook that she was listening to "White Winter Hymnal" and dancing around her kitchen. I don't think I'll ever dance when I hear this song.

Look Ma! I'm Bloggin'!

Whoda thunk it? I just got my driver's license at the age of 46, and now I'm blogging? Somebody stop me, before I get an iPod!