Just for the record, if I'm going to die for my country this is how I'm going to do it.
Yesterday a friend informed me to be careful not to pack anything valuable in your check-in luggage when traveling. While passing through JFK, an airport that I've become familiar with over the last year and a half, he had all of the small electronics stolen from his suitcase. Although he had bundled them up in socks and stuffed them in his shoes, the TSA agents had managed to find them because, of course, they have x-ray machines. Well, I make it a policy not to trust people that are likely to steal from me. I mean, after all, if you're willing to rifle through people's property and take what suits your fancy, I gotta ask, how much do I have to pay you to smuggle a bomb on to a plane? What good is security when it's the guards are the most corrupt of all?
I searched whitehouse.gov for the term, "September the 11th" and found 905 entries. I didn't go through them all, but many of them were radio addresses, speeches and the like. I often wonder what the people who died that day would think of all the things that have been done in there name: all the countries invaded, the liberties sacrificed and the rights violated. How many of the 2,967 people who died that day would thank the 2,156 men and women who gave their lives in Iraq, ostensibly the forefront in the war on terror; how many would mourn them as casualties of the same event?
It's never easy, deciding what to do, deciding how to be brave. Should I take every precaution to make sure that I make it to the next day? Here's the thing: Nothing's ever promised tomorrow, today So if I'm going to be brave for my country, let it be here, denying no one else's rights for my security, forcing my ideas on no one else for my piece of mind.
Last night I stayed up late watching "The West Wing." I've only ever seen it on in syndication, on Bravo, but I've caught enough of them to have seen some of them more than once. In this one Leo says to Josh:
"This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out. A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, 'Hey you. Can you help me out?' The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me can you help me out?' And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid? Now we're both down here.' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.'"
Then today, driving out to one of the yards to open up a gate for someone (I know, isn't my job glamorous?) I heard part of a discussion about AIDS research on NPR. It surprised me that there were people out there who were opposed to funding a cure. One lady declared that she was not at risk and that it was a disease that you could prevent by changing your behavior and that people who couldn't change deserved to die. Another man proposed that due to the relatively low number of people (in the United States) that have the disease, it should have a lower priority than things like heart disease, breast cancer, etc. The discussion reminded me of this.
I am reminded of Aldous Huxley who said, "It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than: Try to be a little kinder."
The weekend began with a Christmas party that wasn't. Pokeland Xmas parties are, for the most part, painfully dull; so sans partner, I looked for every opportunity not to go. Salvation came from one of my climbing partners and her holiday celebration; thus I had a legitimate excuse not to go to my own. I was a week early, as I learned only a couple of days earlier and with no time to RSVP I ended up on a Friday night at home, alone -- which was the best option by far. I met up with a cotton-mouthed
Afterward, he went to oversee the evacuation of a refuge pool table from his house and I went home for a quick lunch and a shower before heading out to the city for some holiday shopping. C-line, birthday girl, called me up and asked for a ride into the city (since we both live in CV), to which I asked if she could handle an afternoon of shopping. So I ended up dragging her, kicking-and-screaming (not really), to Union Square and thereabouts, to consider other people's wants (at least for me) for what turned out to be a gloriously beautiful day of walking around downtown. I managed to pick up slight more in gifts than a spent in parking and after a wearying five hours dodging in and out of holiday crowds, we met up with a few other people and headed off to Fringale for a birthday dinner.
After an agreeable meal we moved the party over to Asia SF, which despite it's transgender novelty, boasted the most horrible DJ I've ever been subjected to (it made me think fondly of my high school prom) and some awful drinks. My advice, check out the "girls" if you must, leave before anything worse happens to you.
C. woke me at 10:20EST the next morning and I trundled out of bed and considered my options for the morning. I decided that I was going to for go further procrastination and finally get a Christmas tree. So after a lethargic bit of putzing around I drove the brutal half mile to the tree lot. After a half hour of examining and cross examining trees, I ended up with a noble fir that now sits nicely naked in a corner of my house. I didn't have much time besides stand it up and drill some holes in the trunk to let it drink, before I had rush out and continue with the futility of holiday shopping. I managed a bit of hurried gift buying before heading up to Richmond to deliver a steping stool and buy some wine. As it turns out I know a surprising number of people in the area and after about an hour of reminiscing I head over to another couple's house to visit with their newborn and his sister. I spent the waning hours of the afternoon learning how to clip a young girl's hair and how to sit very still while watching Mary Poppins.
I bid my friends farewell after a few hours of domestic bliss and headed over to my final destination of the day for a "cool or crap" holiday gift exchange. Everyone was in good spirits and there was far too much food. All the wine was sweet and the gifts for the most part were cooler than crap. We spent the remainder of the night emulating rock stars, skiing down slopes of mashed potatoes and throwing Turkish delights out into the night.
From the topic of one labor of love to another, Richard has asked me to post about his new game, "Infected" for the PSP. If you're interested go to his site and take a look, it's a cartoonishly violent and gory FPS, with some very inventive on-line play. I'd play it myself if I didn't get motion sickness.
Yesterday I woke up, late and lazy, having taken the day off from work to see my new niece. By the time I started down, they hadn't yet left the hospital so I picked my mom up from my brother's house and went over to see the happy family. My other niece was at her other grandma's and I wouldn't get to see her until later in the night. When I got there, L. was lightly napping and O. was fast asleep. D. was in the corner typing up a recounting of the mass hysteria surrounding the birth. For those of you in the know, the second child normally comes faster -- that is, much faster -- than the first. Somehow this bit of midwifery escaped the notice of my brother and sister-in-law. O.'s brith started very much the same as A, some pain beginning midmorning and escalating through the day. By nine that night the pain reached a point where the jetted off to the hospital. Apparently (I wasn't there) this was on schedule with A.'s birth. A was born at 3:00am the morning following the onset of discomfort, so they figured they had some time to go before O. was coming out. By 9:30pm however, my brother was parking in the "Ambulence Only" spot and they were wheeling L., my sister-in-law into the Emergency Room. They doctor's were skeptically of course of a hysterical pregnant woman who claimed that the baby was coming out "right now". They were less skeptical after they found out that she was fully dialated and they could see the baby's head already. After a bit of frantic rushing around the hospital, they made it to the delivery room just in time for the baby to come out. It was 9:50pm.
As you can see, November was not kind to me. I've never been a particularly quick writer and I think that was what did me in. It's all empty excuses of course, I could recount the hours sitting in front of the laptop watching the cursor blink. I could detail the countless visions and revisions for a single paragraph, but it does no good to lament the past. Other people have asked what I plan to do with what I have. My new goal is to work up to a pace that will allow me to finish next year's Nanowrimo. So I will be continuing with this story, at least until I write myself into a corner. Don't expect too much from this month or the next, however; it is the holiday season after all.
I've been listening lately to Sting's "Mercury Falling." The title itself is a bit ambiguous, does it refer to the planet Mercury falling toward the horizon? That's what I always thought. The easier explanation is that it refers to a drop in temperature. It's appropriate somehow that I'm listening to a song about temperature drop on a day that my breath is clearly visible in the air, even in my house. There are some albums that I can listen to from beginning to end without skipping a track and for some reasons this is one of them. It has two songs that are written in seven. If you ask me there aren't nearly enough songs written in seven ... or five for that matter. I'm not sure why I feel that way or what that means. I'm not sure what I thought the planet Mercury setting on the horizon should symbolize. I think there's a chill in my brain somewhere.
I replaced the furnace filter in my house the other day. Now my furnace actually heats the house. J., my former roommate, will probably be infuriated with me when she reads this, thinking back on all those cold days in the room farthest from the furnace. Oh well, eventually I'll learn how to take care of a house.