A year already and so much change
Happy Birthday Encantada. You’ve been an interesting project.

It would be sad, I know, if things didn’t change. And how do you measure what could be considered “a dramatic change” or not? what’s dramatic? Slight things, to me, sometimes feel dramatic. It’s all part of the perspective.

Something that continues to bother me about the Bush administration is that we’re always asked to just have faith that they know what they’re doing. We’re not shown these things; they’re rarely, if ever, proven. Yet still, “You will see” is the bone that we’re tossed. I’m not against them – I’m just flat-out offended by them.

I truly don’t think that 9/11 could have been completely avoided. I don’t need to hear the president apologize and I feel that I have the general gist of where, why and how our national intelligence failed. I’m tired of the posturing. I think we’re wasting time and effort requiring blame for something past. What I do want is a plan, proof that we have learned our lesson. Proof that we have addressed our vulnerabilities. Show ME. Quit this finger-pointing bullshit.

When the call to war came over a year ago, I, like many Americans, wasn’t satisfied with the information that we were given, but I, like most Americans, understood that there were legal and possibly valid reasons to take action. I, like most Americans, hoped that “the government just knew something that I didn’t,” something that would be vilified with time. I’m not being impatient now, and I’m not calling our international efforts a waste. But I am offended that my little hope turned out to be empty and that there is the audacity to ask that we *hope* again. I feel burned and asked to make the same mistake again.

I’m offended, and that really isn’t acceptible. I’m offended that I’m still tossed vague responses and that there is no effort by the administration to clear the haze, but rather to install more smoke and mirrors.

Asking for blind faith is a fkking lot to ask. It’s a lot for God to ask – so much so that the world majority isn’t Christian. And let’s be frank here – it’s a lot for our government to ask. I just wish there was a reality check somewhere. Some frank conversation. Some looking me straight in the eyes.

I’m tired of being treated like an idiot. My hope for the next presidential race, or for any race for that matter, is better, more informational communication and for a get-down-and-roll-up-your-sleeves approach to the majority of outstanding problems that are begging to be faced. I know you can’t please everybody, but we can’t close our eyes either.

A sea change is occuring in my past life and in the current life of someone I love. Though I put distance and years between who I am presently and who I was years ago, I still hate the fatal closing of the time portal. There are quiet evolutions that we as humans constantly undergo. The hugest understatement I can imagine. It’s amazing; it’s amazing to me that so much shared experience (by humans) is so rarely discussed. People in our lives change, I mean seriously change personalities, and we go through the ordeal and we all experience loss and concern and fear, and it’s interestingly not fully communicated. It’s like being a parent: no one talks about how freaking insane that is. How unbelievably difficult and trying and rewarding and shocking. People do it all the time and it’s like, “yeah, no biggie.”

Though I’m considerably off the subject.

Congratulations Russ & Ruth

The last time I saw you *collective*, right after the fabulous cream cheese and strawberry-filled pancakes and right before the pier on Venice Beach, you received a phone call, via cell phone, confirming the news.

And here you are, 9-ish months later, making the blogosphere present to your *collective* unique edition of the grand experience.

I love that you did this. I love that you wrote it this way; I love that it finally gave you something to write about, even the taste of the food or lack thereof. I even appreciate the tone, the manner of description, the stark-hospital-pressure-alien-strangeness that you’re both experiencing. I like that thought of partnership, of two walking out of one door together and into another.

It’s good. It’s good to read. And I’m happy for you.

It’s Official

Ahhh, thanks so much, KO…

Turn up your speaker volume LOUD and sit back. Because THIS is the official song for the summer, my friends. Deemed so by encantada, ever-dependable in her penchant and life search for the bounciest, most powerpop fabulousness available on this planet.

Take that, Starry-Eyed Surprise…take that Steal My Sunshine. (guilty guilty pleasures. awww yeah)

I kid you not; I just applied for jobs at NASA, the US Tennis Pro’s Assoc. and the with the world’s leading distributor of anime and manga, goddamit. Today’s going on the books for most random shots in the dark.

Oh Goodness Gracious

Not writing is losing. It’s neglecting an avenue of expression from an already steam-building combustion engine in calamitous need of an outlet. It’s also stifling. Not writing here, for me, also means not doing any online reading. Not finding other expression, not seeking other human voices, not seeing new inventive talent. Not getting new windows into the lives of friends. Clearly, yes, the Web is not my only source, but neglecting it is like being an American who never visits another country and thinking that this, this right here, is the whole goddamn world.

And we’ve got the comfort thing wrong, I think. We rue against complacency and attest boring relationships and jobs to “being too comfortable,” and say that that is the really bad thing, the comfortableness. our one-word degenerate for not doing any personal growth. I think never getting comfortable is a worse fate. Never settling in, never sitting down, inhaling and just being, regardless of perceived consequence…building anxiety and paranoia…that’s much worse. I’d rather be comfortable…

When I get to neglecting, I get to neglecting the whole lot. My newspapers are stacking up and my magazines are getting dustier and dustier. Beloveds call both the cell and the land line, then they look online, then they might email, then they resort to maybe sending a text message, then they call back to say, WTF. Which is completely deserved. This isn’t a sad kind of neglecting, it’s a lazy one I think.