Betrayed.

I almost hate to post this after yesterday's post about hippies and bible-thumpers... but this bit of news is so disturbing... Greed is gonna take this country down.

Rep. Cunningham Pleads Guilty to Bribery, Resigns
The veteran lawmaker admits receiving $2.4 million from military contractors and evading more than $1 million in taxes.

By Tony Perry, Times Staff Writer

SAN DIEGO — A tearful, trembling Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Rancho Santa Fe) resigned Monday after pleading guilty to receiving $2.4 million in bribes from military contractors and evading more than $1 million in taxes. MORE....

and in case you're not familiar with my representative.... here's a nice little story about him:


Fighter ace has not been strong on subtlety
By Dana Wilkie COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

***************************************************



I feel betrayed, and I didn't even vote for him... I imagine those folks who voted for him feel the same way I felt when I found out Clinton had sex in the Oval Office with an intern! disgusted. outraged. betrayed. That he would be so disrespectful of the office to which he was elected, and would trade in the respect of his constituency for [ ] a piece of ass or [ ] a mansion and a Rolls Royce ... not sure which is worse.

What Cunningham will forfeit with his plea bargain deal: More than $1.8 million in cash, his interest in his Rancho Santa Fe home and more than a dozen antiques, pieces of furniture and rugs.

Don't feel too sorry for the tearful trembling old guy though. His retirement salary from the Navy --probably about 5K a month-- will do him just fine. Not to mention some sort of pension from Congress.

and Word UP Dems... let he who is without sin cast the first stone and all that... you need to stop the finger pointing and start coming up with a VISION. Folks want to be FOR something, not just against the other guy.

What the World Needs Now...

Is more people to take the time to get to know other people, people that are different than they are.... the world really would be a better place. We are really not that different when you get right down to it, whether you're a bible-loving Christian from Texas or a pot-smoking hippie from the Rainbow family. We all want a nice environment, we want everyone to have enough to eat, to be healthy... we believe in some kind of higher power, god, allah, yaweh, whatever...

This story pretty much exemplifies what can happen when we let go our predjudices and learn to fly together:

A Gospel and Granola Bond
Two radically different sets of volunteers arrived in post-Katrina Mississippi to feed the hungry, and their lives were changed forever.By Elizabeth Mehren, Times Staff Writer

WAVELAND, Miss. — Days after Hurricane Katrina hit, they began cooking together in a grocery store parking lot: evangelical Christians from Texas and Rainbow Family flower children from all over.... MORE...

The Real America...

Too bad we can't re-elect Jimmy Carter

"This isn't the real America" by Jimmy Carter

IN RECENT YEARS, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.

These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights.

Also endangered are our historic commitments to providing citizens with truthful information, treating dissenting voices and beliefs with respect, state and local autonomy and fiscal responsibility.... MORE...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-carter14nov14,0,7164514.story

Anne Rice Born Again

Eeegads. Can it be true?

Congratulations Debby!

My sister just (well last week) completed her initial training to become a Gyrotonics instructor.

If you don't know what that is, you're not alone...

If you are curious, check out the gyrotonics website.

Yeah! Debby!!

Finally!

Julie and Mirna and Susann and me at
The Del Mar Fair...  "they" changed the name to the San Diego Fair,but to me, it will always be the Del Mar Fair.






Tongues.




Suprise!





Scarry...

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Taos.
I was going to do this: http://www.thewritingsalon.net/home-taos.html but a friend, who had gone in 2004 said something along the lines of "DON'T GO!" and when I said, "but I thought you loved Taos," she replied, "Taos yes. The workshop, no." I was so close to putting my money down, and had started to dream of Taos...

Thank god I had another friend who had gone to Taos the year before, but had gone to: http://www.unm.edu/~taosconf/index.htm
Michelle said this was the best conference, not too schmoozy, lots of great events, and of course, Taos. So I signed up for the Creative Non-Fiction workshop.

The Welcome Letter from the teacher scared me.

He assigned three books:

The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick;

I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory by Patricia Hampl; and

This Boy's Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff .

I assigned myself one book: Mountain City by Gregory Martin

The teacher also requested we submit 10-25 pages of our manuscript via email a week before the workshop... Manuscript? What manuscript? I didn't know I was working on a manuscript!

Anyway, after several false starts, I managed to cobble something together, starting with a piece I wrote about banana bread... I titled it "Reconstructing My Mother" and sent it off. In return, I received via email the 10-25 pages of manuscripts from each of the other 12 workshop attendees... and an assignment to provide a written response, 1-2 pages typed for each. I planned to drive, figuring I would have time to wind down from my life, and get into a more meditative space mentally, so I had less than a week to do it in!

My instructor,Greg Martin, looks like a sweet twenty something young boy, dark curly hair, dimples even for gods sake, but in reality he is a stern task master! and in his 30s. On our first evening, at the welcome dinner, he handed us each a packet 3 inches tall .... more reading material, earning our class quite a reputation around the Sagebrush Inn, our "campus" for the week.

Suffice it to say he is very smart, very driven and quite intense. Fortunately he is kind, and he is a good writer and a good teacher. He really knows his stuff. I learned a lot about the craft of writing, and where to go for more.

I did manage to see some of Taos, as I arrived early and had one complete day (Sunday) to tour: I wandered the plaza in the early morning, and went to the Pueblo, and then the Pow Wow.

Our schedule was full with not only homework and classes, but with other activities: author readings, panel discussions, open mic events and other such literary stimulation. It was great fun.

I was, however, very tired; the intense intellectual schedule, combined with the heat (90s) and the dry dry air, and high altitude have conspired against me. No headaches from the altitude though. (nearly 8000 feet!)

It turns out I picked a good conference ultimately. One of the 10 Best according to USA Today.
It was an awesome experience.

I shoulda been a detective

I'm getting pretty good at it. Finding things. Finding people.
...

I found my mom's high school sweetheart... in Corpus Christi Texas. That story is being written for my book-in-progress, "Reconstructing My Mother." Due out in stores... well, sometime after I finish writing it, and find a publisher, just a few details to work out!

I found my cousin Troy and through him, found my cousins Terri and Todd and Travis who apparently have this cool gaming business in Tallahassee.

I'm sad that I lost my cousins in the first place. Not sure how it happened. They used to live down the street from us. Then they moved to Saudi Arabia, contact got sporadic as we all moved to different cities, states, countries. Things got weird after Papasan died... we all went our seperate ways and had our lives.... then Tia died... and now I find out Uncle George died too. Seems strange that we were so close at one point, and to not even know the fundamental details. It's sad. I want to stop that. I don't have much family left, and lord knows my family doesn't seem to have the longevity gene firmly in place.

Friends come and go... but family is at least supposed to stay on the Christmas card list, even if you don't send Christmas Cards.

My Mid Year Resolution: SEND CHRISTMAS CARDS THIS YEAR! Lord knows I've bought enough of them!

Reconstructing My Mother

I'm working on this project, to reconstruct my mother's life... it is very daunting, overwhelming, interesting, exciting, frustrating and fun. And it makes me cry sometimes.

I've been searching through the one high school yearbook that survived family moves across country (hers and ours) and deaths (hers, her mother's, father's, sister's) There is no family home to go back to. No family to go back to. They are all gone.

The items left are in a box that mostly lives in my garage, but has been visiting the living room floor where I periodically sit and open it, pulling things out to examine them. Its funny what's left of her life. Of course there is my sister and me, and her jewelry, and the tutu doll from Hawaii that we made together, some mementos from her travels in Europe... and of course our family photos and memories. But the questions that tickles my brain, who was she. As a person.

Maybe I'll never know, but I've begun the journey to discover not only her past, but maybe mine as well....

Wikitorial

Crazy. I don't get the purpose of this, except that it makes for an interesting wordplay...

From the June 12. 2005. LA Times:

“Watch next week for the introduction of "wikitorials" — an online feature that will empower you to rewrite Los Angeles Times editorials.”
...full notice here

Wikitorials?

To change an "editorial" which is (according to Wikipedia) a statement by a news organization, expressing opinion ...bla bla bla...
How can another one person change another person's editorial? That is in essence changing what is being expressed as their opinion. I don't get it.
Couldn't folks just write in and express their own opinion, and not change someone else's. Oh wait, those are called Letters To The Editor!

Balance

Merriam Webster Online has as the last definition for balance "mental and emotional steadiness"

There's nothing about balancing work and the rest of life. Not that I expected some sort of How-To, or that I really have much to complain about, but given that balance, or the lack thereof, is such a problem in our society, you'd think the dictionary would reflect that.

I know I have it easy. All I have to do is work from nine to five. You'd think I could find time for fun stuff like like blogging. Or working on my own writing. I don't have kids to take care of, or a husband to consider, and yet I still struggle with finding the time and space, mental space, to work on personal endeavors even when I know they are good for my soul.

So, instead of working on my personal projects, my brain is filled with words for things like Titanium Welding, or EZ Wipes, or grinding tungsten. What's up with that?

Amateur

When did the word "amateur" take on an almost negative connotation? Merriam-Webster Online defines "amateur" as:

1 : DEVOTEE, ADMIRER
2 : one who engages in a pursuit, study, science, or sport as a pastime rather than as a profession
3 : one lacking in experience and competence in an art or science

Usually the first definition is the preferred... seems to me, however, that in the vernacular, the third definition is preferred.

This is on my mind because at work we are trying to come up with a term for our customers... many of whom are not professional fabricators, for example, but may actually be quite proficient. If we call them amateurs it could be taken by some to be insulting.

I may just have to call the verbivores....

sky

Infinite colors filtered through water laden clouds into light blue light of day, dark blue light of night.
Always there reminding us that possibilities are endless and no matter how hard we try we can never touch the edge.
sky.

I write

I write every day for ten minutes. In my dreams.
I write my dreams
I write because I cannot speak my heart.
I write words and phrases and sentences that sometimes say nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.

I write to cry. I write to laugh. I write even when it's wrong.
I write stories of lives real and imagined and half remembered.
I write so that I can remember.
So that others will know who I am.
I will know who I am.

rainbow

Purple streams of consciousness pierce the silver clouds of your minds' sky as yellow arrows flow north along the red rock canyon floor.

The infinite sound of whispering wind and thoughts not spoken aloud are held close-- tucked away in a pocket of truth, or in your pink terry cloth bathrobe.

A blue pearl of sanity rolls out onto the floor and
no
one
is
there
to
catch
it.

Your heart beats the rhythm of green primordial ooze bubbling up through the earth's core filling the universe with questions left unanswered.

"Where does the rainbow end, on your soul or on the horizon?"


________________________
inspired by pablo neruda's
Book of Questions
and
a writing workshop with Jill Badonsky

Poetry Slams and such

I've been away from the poetry scene for a while, but I'm going to check out the Cardiff Library Poetry Slam tonight. More to see some friends than to hear poetry, but who knows, I may find it inspiring none-the-less.

Life and Death and Butterflies

74.
I counted 74 butterflies when I went outside today for a few minutes.
To smoke.
It is spring in San Diego and the painted ladies are heading north.
With our recent rains, we apparently have a plethora (isn't that a great word!) of the whispy winged bugs. They seem to head off in twos and threes... then you'll see a lone butterfly, you can almost hear saying "hey, wait for me!"
My boss Jim says he was at a party the other day and mentioned the butterflies and no one there knew what he was talking about.
74 butterflies in the space of 5 minutes. How can you miss that?
Not to mention the numbers I've hit with my car. Thunk. I feel like a butterfly murderer.
Thunk.
It's a bit disconcerting.

* * *

I have a lot of thoughts about Terri Shiavo. Too many to articulate now. But does anyone else find it ironic that her parents want to force feed her... and that what apparently caused her brain damage was an eating disorder. "AH WA" she groaned. Which her parents have interpreted to mean "I want to live." I pray for them. I pray that they find the strength to accept the inevitable. To accept that their daughter has been gone for the last 15 years.
(I'm sighing and shaking my head now.)

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/27/Columns/Living_will_is_the_be.shtml
Ditto on that....

on Writing

Strangest thing happened last Saturday.
I attended a workshop, taught by Judy Reeves which was awesome. I had expected to mine some more nuggets for the personal essays I'm trying to write, and submit, and potentially publish. Instead, the characters from my "story" showed up.

I call it a "story" because I am not sure what form it will take. Novel? Screenplay? Short Story? Novella? it is at this point a mystery. Which makes it very difficult for me to write, not knowing what the goal is, not having an outline, just some compelling characters.

Anyway, I can't help but wonder... did they show up to distract me? so I will once again have 1/2 finished projects... or did they show up to tell me I need to tell their story? Maybe I need to look at this differently. Maybe it is possible to do both. While writing about tungsten grinders, and Plasma Arc Welding Torches....of course.

Hmmm.

February

is half over.
I've not updated this blog. I've been working on another one instead.
http://MondayNightWriters.blogspot.com
I'm so excited, my fellow writers from the San Diego Writers, Ink class "Become a More Powerful Writer," taught by Sue Diaz and Candace Toft have joined to form a group for read and critique and general writing support.

And today, I am taking a class from Judy Reeves.... who taught the first writing workshop I ever took, about 10 years ago.

Which means, I should have some good writing by the end of the day... perhaps to post tomorrow.

January

Jingle bells
Annoy me
No more
Unless
Avid
Revelers continue
Yuletide festivities