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<p><font face="Algerian">April</font></p>
<p><font color="black">April 2, 2001</font></p>
<font color="#6600cc" face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> </font><font color="black" face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">"</font><font color="black" face="Arial Narrow,Arial">If
you get to it and you can't do it, well, there you jolly well are
aren't you?<small>"<br>
--Lord
Buckley<br>
</small></font> <p><font color="black">I didn't sleep well all last week and
then sprang forward Saturday night and lost that hour. So, despite
the fact that I went to bed early last night, it was difficult
to get out of bed this morning. I began the usual pounding on
myself about waking up and then I decided to accept how I was
feeling. Imagine that. It's not as if I woke up that late. As
I write this sentence it's 8:17. The problem is that if I don't
get out of the house to do my walk before the middle school
kids start arriving for school I don't go on my walk. Apparently
I am still stinging from my own middle school experience because
they make me nervous. I like the walk because it gets me out
of the house and I live in such a beautiful city. It helps me
to remember that. And I need the exercise. I feel better in
my body when I do the walk. I have a Cardio Glide. It's
serves as a place to hang the odd piece of clothing. I intend
to use it as soon as I finish this writing. Being unemployed
can be nerve wracking. I'm great at being a worker ant. I show
up and do my job. Not having that structure makes me nervous.
I am having to develop the way I spend my day. Once, in an imaginative
exercise on how I'd like to spend my day I thought I wanted
to spend the morning eating my breakfast and writing. Having
the site gives me a reason to write and keeps my brain working
to think about what I am going to write. It's all kooky because
I feel the need to be interesting and profound and political
and .... it can be paralyzing. And then there is the awareness
of who is reading. I know a few friends are reading because
they tell me they are. So the site becomes an e-mail to them.
But it has stirred up all these thoughts about what it is to
be a writer and/ or someone who is read. What do I have to put
on a page that might be enjoyable or informative or worth the
few minutes that it takes anyone to read. Since I am given
to analyzing my experience, often times into minute and ridiculous
detail, having a web page has kept me busy. </font></p>
<p>April 3, 2001</p>
<p>I continued to think about yesterday's
entry and the curious notions of what is public and what is
private. The first on line journal that I read was <a href="http://www.willa.com" target="_blank">Willa's</a> and
I was facinated and a bit worried that she was writing about
her life on the world wide web! There are times when she writes
about what she bought at the drug store and times she writes
about computer issues. I really did have thoughts about what
people would think about her site. But I kept going back. I
found it comforting to read about Willa's life. It was a tonic
to what the popular media calls reality TV. A network puts a
few people in an extreme living environment and then watches
how they react. But the fact that they will be watched has play
in how they react. No where near as many people will read Willa's
journal (and fewer will read mine) but reading a tale of Willa,
waiting for the cable man, reminds me of what many of us have
in common. The chop wood - carry water parts of life. She will
wax philosophical sometimes and that's also great. She has no
cultural seal of expert. Her musings are accessible and familiar.
Now as I approach this task every day I have to fend off the
urge to be writerly, the fear of being boring, the dread of
being disapproved. It's all quite inflated when you understand
how the world wide web works. Any site is public to anyone with
a computer but may never be viewed. A friend asked me how many
hits I had gotten. What a concept! I can hazard the guess that
I may have gotten about eight hits, all by people who hold me
in some degree of affection. The fact that anyone reads this
has play in what I write and how I write but the effort has
to be toward something that resembles authenticity. And, perhaps,
an efforted authenticity is oximoronic.</p>
<p>April 4, 2001</p>
<p>I have the terrible habit of leaving
the TV on for noise. Generally, it'll be on a news station.
I try not to do this too often since I don't think mainstream
news is trustworthy and these days I think it may be toxic.
I heard something from a news cast yesterday saying that the
Miami Herald says that Bush would have won. I guess this is
news relative to some recount or something, frankly, I wasn't
paying that much attention. It's ridiculous that we're still
hearing about this. I will never believe that Bush would have
won. There were too many discrepancies and problems. And his
presidency was achieved in this one state. He did not win in
the popular vote. He does not have a mandate. It's all ridiculous.
But what I kept thinking about was how many little things come
out of the mouths of news people that have play in how so many
people perceive their reality. It seems as if I and too many
of my friends are having trouble right now, specifically in
terms of finding jobs. Spirits are low. Life seems uncertain.
Some of this is just a normal reaction to difficulty but how
much of it, I wonder, is fed by a background noise of lies.
I kept thinking about that little pro Bush comment yesterday
was interestingly timed considering that we are in this stand
off with China. Could it be that the media might think we need
to accept this president select? Despite the fact that he's
gone back on campaign promises. Despite the fact that he can
barely make a public comment given his limited vocabulary. Despite
the fact that even with Florida he did not win the majority
vote. But we need to accept him if he's going to take this stand
against China. Why else would news of the Florida recount be considered
worthy at this late date? </p>
<p>April 5,2001</p>
<p>The little background news blip that
I heard on Tuesday became a full blown news festival yesterday
with all the coverage focusing on the Miami Herald report. The
Hearld report talks about the various methods of chad counting,
or not counting, which would have yielded a wildly variant numbered
win for Bush. In <a href="http://www.salon.com" target="_blank">Salon.com
</a> there is a great article by
Jake Tapper titled: And The Winner Was? I tried to link to it,
unsuccessfully. Trapper writes that " More favorable to
Gore, however, was the Herald's reexamination of all the
undervotes statewide, including what can only be called a re-re-examination
of those from Broward, Palm Beach, Volusia and Miami-Dade. In
this review, which went above and beyond what the Florida Supreme
Court ordered, a loose standard would have given Gore a victory
of 393 votes." Funnier yet is an article there today
in which an agency reports that Buchanan would have won. When
they weren't talking about this Miami Herald thing yesterday
they were talking about going in and getting our boys out of
China. I know it seems as if I might be waxing conspiracy theorist
but it all seems orchestrated. Suzanne says that having Bush
as President is like being kids in a car, Dad's driving and
he's drunk. She says Colin Powell is like mom, grabbing the
wheel just when things are about to swerve out of control. </p>
<p>April 6,2001</p>
<p>I had dinner at Da Flora with Caitlen
last night. This morning all the blood is still in my belly
happily digesting. My brain is fuzzy. The food was perfect.
We shared the sweet potato gnocchi and a smoked trout appetizer.
I had roasted pork and white beans. We drank a bottle of wine.
Flora and Marybeth made us feel quite at home and cared for
including bringing us a plum tart and some port. We had a wonderful
conversation including our concerns about getting in to grad
school. She is decades younger than I but we share this transitional
story line. This morning I'm trying to think of something to
write. It's been an hour of trying. Oh, well. </p>
"<i>Whenever
I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world,
I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that but
not with all those flies and death and stuff." -Maria
Care</i>y <p>April 7,2001</p>
<p>All my dreams last night had an apolcolyptic
quality. Lot's of tribal imagry. It was as if I hadn't been
watching enough TV lately and my dreaming mind was making up
for the lack of kookiness. </p>
<p>Since last week's debate on Jazz and
race I have been thinking about my own skin color and its function
in my identity. There is an
image of a white child who, seeing a black person for the first time, rubs a
hand on black skin and checks to see if the blackness has rubbed off and on to
them. Why don�t they imagine that their whiteness will rub off? Perhaps it is
because their skin, the color of their skin is never questioned relative to
identity. Their skin is just skin. This may only be true in liberal circles. In
racist circles the whiteness of the child�s skin is pointed out to them at a
very early age. But noticing
difference does nothing intrinsically and it not automatically measured
vertically. It�s all the things that happen after one notes difference that
establish how that difference is measured. I am most aware of this when very
young children notice that I am fat. It is a moment of clear perception and
acknowledgement. If I affirm their perception it becomes another adjective. Too
often a parent will rush to tell the child that saying that I am fat is very
wrong, despite the obvious truth.<span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-font-family:
"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;
mso-bidi-language:AR-SA'>The larger social climate and historical event horizon
taught me to think about race and other forms of cultural or social divisions
but my own skin color was never the topic of critical thinking.<span
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p>
<p>April 9,2001</p>
<p>Amy Goodman was on Washington Journal
yesterday. She held forth against a fellow whose name I didn't
bother to remember. They covered a variety of topics. He
talked about China's expansionism. Of course I want China out
of Tibet and I imagine people in Taiwan are more worried about
the current US/China standoff than anyone here. But hearing
those ideas brought back memories of the domino theory. And
this fellow kept referring to COMMUNIST China and their propaganda
as opposed to our free press. That must have been particularly
ironic for Amy who goes to do her award winning news show every
day in a climate of fear and intimidation. But Amy used the
forum to make points about the military industrial deal with
the devil, Chinese economic dependence on Wallmart and other
US corporations and she made a pitch for Lori
Berenson. She was dignified,
articulate and informed. Washington journal is a call in show
and that can be a little scary. Before Amy was on there had
been a caller who suggested a boycott of Chinese food. Ironic
to the point of being cliche was the moment when the moderator
asked Amy and "the guy" who their favorite authors
were and "the guy" mentioned Evelyn Waugh and F Scott
Fitzgerald. Amy spoke about her interview with Alice Walker
and mentioned Elisabeth Allende. </p>
"<i>In
the zone of perdition where my youth went as if to complete its
education, one would have said that the portents of an imminent
collapse of the whole edifice of civilization had made an appointment."
-- Guy Debord</i> <p>April 10,2001</p>
<p>The board of supervisors in SF is considering
the city attorney's request to make changes in the current business
tax system. Last year a trail court held that the current tax
system might be unconstitutional. A crowd of impassioned citizens
filled city hall last night to beg them to vote against what
is perceived as a concession to the massive and dominate corporate
culture. At one point supervisor Tony Hall said that no one
ever said that justice was fair. Well, actually someone did,
Daniel Webster. Hall is, perhaps, confusing justice and things
that happen in our courts. But our courts are only as good as
the people operating in them. It will take a certain amount
of courage for our supervisors to resist what the city attorney
is asking them to do.</p>
<p>April 11,2001</p>
<p>I heard Suzan Sontag in "a conversation"
with Orville Schell. What was spectacular about her was her
refusal to be spectacular. Schell kept asking her ridiculous
questions designed to evoke a sound byte and she answered practically
all of them with I can't answer that. In fact at first I thought
we might be up for an evening of her saying nothing and taking
quite a long time to not say it. But after a while I realized
that she was refusing to be "an expert" just because
she's published and in doing that she was modeling a way in
which we might talk if we weren't trying to be clever. It might
have been more dynamic if Schell could have more than one approach
in his line of questioning. He wanted her to talk about all
the anti war things she'd been involved with in the sixties
and she talked about all the civil rights thing she had not
been involved with in the fifties. He wanted her to name people
that were her heroes and she said the people that were her heroes
were not famous. She was inadvertently talking about the way
in which private opinion and public opinion may need to be separated.
She may have an opinion about China and the spy plane but she
would not want to use her celebrity to give it public voice
since she is not an expert on China or spy planes. It was interesting
to be listening to someone who was more or less saying I may
not be interesting. That became what was interesting. It is
a current fascination for me since I do this goofy little public
pontification that is only actually read by one or two people.
It's interesting because of how it changes what I say and how
I say it. I'm not sure I know how it does but I know that I
edit and rewrite and fuss. </p>
<p>April 13,2001</p>
<p>My back went out. I didn't do anything.
It's shocking to me that I still respond to negative physical
events in body with the thought that this wouldn't be happening
if I wasn't fat. It an quieter voice these days but it's still
in the mix. When I go to the chiropractic office there are all
physical types. If being fat were the single causation that
wouldn't be true. I injured my back lifting a box incorrectly
once and it has been sensitive ever since. My knee, which has
been going out since I was a kid, went out yesterday during
my walk and that may have been when my back went out but I didn't
notice until later. The bummer about this is that my friend
Jane is visiting from Oregon and I'm doing the cooking for Easter
brunch. And my chiropractor is on vacation. So I've made and
appointment with her partner. I have my magnets on and I've
been ice-ing and using the heating pad and rubbing on arnica
and every other trick I have up my sleeve. Pain is the great
leveler. It hurts too much to sit at the computer and write
so I won't go into a long dissertation about the current police
state in Ohio. </p>
<i>"The
best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals
can turn the worst laws to advantage."
-</i>Alexis de Tocqueville<i>
</i> <p></p>
<p>April 14,2001</p>
<p>My back is still sore and feels as if
it could be excruciating as a result of any false move. My
chiro will be back on Monday so I'll be fine. For now I'm just
slathering my self with arnica. Yesterday I learned that I was
accepted into the MFA program At <a href="http://www.usfca.edu/online/">U</a><a href="http://www.usfca.edu/online/" target="_blank">SF.</a>
I'm oddly giddy about it all. And tomorrow is the resurrection.
I like how all these pagan holiday's were morfed into
Christian holidays. <a href="http://www.kpfa.org/1pro_bio/1b_visio.htm" target="_blank">Caroline
Casey </a> was talking about Friday
the thirteenth. I may not remember it exactly but it had to
do with Friday being the day for Venus and thirteen being a
day to procreate in some ancient tradition. She was saying that
it was a day to make love all day. Somehow that got turned into
unluckiness. Go figure. I'm figuring that I'll just decide that
it is a beginning and that I am coming out of this tomb in which
I've been.</p>
<p>April 16,2001</p>
<p>I occasioning find myself in the company
of a few people, maybe in a class or in a social situation and
someone will say that someone else, usually a famous person,
has gained weight. I'm always dumbstruck. I wonder what the
comment means. I wonder what that meaning is meant to imply
to me since I am sitting there. It's just another example of an
unconscious and internalized ism. Fatism. And usually they are
"nice people". It would not occur to them that they
are making uninformed or misinformed assumptions about a group
of people. It would not occur to them that I am one of those
people. I am a fat person. It's dangerous to remain silent when
such thinking is expressed but allowing it to go unchallenged
is more dangerous. From Texas, home of so many things that
seem to be making me miserable these days, comes proposed <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57642-2001Apr8.html" target="_blank">legislation</a>
that would grant tax breaks to the thin. It would be possible
to get some of the tax break if you were fat. For example I have fat friends who have low or
"normal" blood pressure. They could get the same tax
break for which a thin person would be eligible. And if they don't smoke they could get more of the tax break. But
it is an example of how a kind of person can be privileged.
Such is the nature of ism thinking. There is this obtuseness
in the thinking.
I always want to say it's a fat thing... you wouldn't understand.
The person with this not too bright idea is being considered
for the post of surgeon general. Imagine the power he might
wield from that position.</p>
<p>April 17,2001</p>
<p>When I write here I feel the need to
be clear, whatever that means. And I'm not always clear. It's
really uncomfortable to doubt out loud. Today I have many thoughts
about the events in Cincinnati, the ship full of children bound
for slavery and our SF board of supervisors. The supes voted
to accept the settlement last night and I am really sad about
it. I am also angry but the sadness is speaking louder today.
It all becomes overwhelming, mixes with my events in my own
personal life and I become kind of pushed in. My impulse is
to not write. But I thought that I would write about this
dysphoria and my struggle to sort though all the things that
are going on in and around me. But there aren't really words.
It's as if an event travels into my psyche and bounces like
a pin ball though various triggers, personal, political and
spiritual. And I am left feeling a bit punch drunk. Sometimes
all I can say is .......</p>
<p>April 18,2001</p>
<p>Yesterday I was able to listen to most
of the <a href="http://www.sfsfw.com/" target="_blank">Mayor's
Summit on Women</a>. I was disturbed
by the general tone. There was a lot of the kind of "follow
your bliss" stuff that you hear on Oprah. Which I think
has value but I also think it can be just another job for a
woman. Take care of the kids, clean the house, do the shopping,
have a job and follow your bliss. And you can't do all that
then it's your failure. And there was very little mention of
real issues. There were lot's of mildly randy jokes, references
to breast and penis size. All in good humor and yet in keeping
with the lack of depth or substance. <a href="http://www.berticeberry.com/" target="_blank">Bertice
Berry</a> was fantastic. She has
that rare ability to speak from her body, mind and spirit all
at once. And she is also funny but it is humor that is also
reflective. There was an overwhelming presentation by Hafsat
Abiola, a 25 year old human rights and democracy activist from
Nigeria. Her father, M.K.O. Abiola, won the Presidential
election held in Nigeria in 1993 but served out his term in
solitary confinement, incarcerated by the military. He died
in prison on the eve of his release. Her mother, Kudirat, was
a democracy leader who organized major strikes, and fought unrelentingly
against military rule. In 1996 she was assassinated in the streets
of Lagos. Continuing in the path forged for her by her parents,
Hafsat is the founder and director of the Kudirat Initiative
for Democracy (KIND), an organization dedicated to restoring
democracy in Nigeria. Ironically,
for me, was that one of the most political speakers was <a href="http://www.marianne.com" target="_blank">Marianne
Williams.</a> I've liked her in
the past. I am given to metaphysical flights but I never heard
her be so fierce. </p>
<p>April 19,2001</p>
<p>Yesterday I caught a few minutes of
<a href="http://www.fatso.com" target="_blank">Marilyn
Wann</a> in a debate on MSNBC. I
missed most of it but apparently she was debating a doctor on
the value of stomach reduction surgery and general heath issues
behind fatness. At one point the moderator asked her why she
was so fat. It's such a stupid question. No one would ask her
why are you short. When people ask me that question I feel as
if I need to talk very slowly, as if they may have a learning
disability. Ya see, there is this stuff called DNA and
we all have it. And I got some genes that mean my body will
be fat. But when I was a little girl people didn't know that
much about genes. And they tried to get me to be thin. I didn't
really have thin genes. But I tried diets. Lots of diets. And
they never worked. And, in fact I was always a little fatter
after each diet. So now I'm this fat. It's not that hard to
understand. Marilyn was tough and handled all his stupid questions
in her usual fierce and rebellious manner. MSNBS was pitching
a show they had on last night about people who have undergone
this extreme and dangerous surgery. It was not a critical examination
of the surgery. It was a commercial for it. Fat people lost
weight and talked about how much better their lives are now.
They all seemed sad to me. Because they never addressed the
rage at a culture that tortured them, emotionally, mentally,
in their jobs and families. And put them through a painful
surgery that robbed them of the joy of food. I was watching
one guy exercise in his after surgery zeal and I thought why
didn't he just do some of that before instead of the surgery?</p>
<p>April 20,2001</p>
<p>A friend recently told me that she was
an atheist. I asked her if that meant she believed in nothing
or if it meant she did not believe in an individually personal
god. She does in fact believe in something. Loosely characterized
as energy, the universe, spirit. I've never been more clear
that I need my relationship to god and never more clear that
I don't know what I mean by that. And so much of my day is spent
in trying to feel into and think about what I mean by that.
I belive that, as a young girl with no father present, I reparented
myself with god. And so god had those qualities of father that
I understood. Then I rejected that notion and believed in nothing
for a while. and then I began to study Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufiism,
and pretty much everything that came along. And then I went
through a long period of time in which I knew there was something
but it wasn't anything with which I could connect. Now, I just
close my eyes and wonder/wander and it feels like connecting.
But the word god is like the word love, when you talk about it
out loud, everyone thinks they know what you mean. And usually
not much of what they think comes close. Especially when you
don't know what you mean. I know I want god. It seems like an
important acknowledgement of an elemental mystery and an awareness
that there are things of which I am part. </p>
<p>April 21,2001</p>
<p>I am preoccupied with events in Quebec.
Typically, the media focus is on the few protesters that broke
down a part of the fence and not the enormous amount of protestors
who remained peaceful. It's just a way of trying to
convince the public that the protest is not serious. It's only a few extremists.
40,000 of them. </p>
<p>I kept thinking about what I wrote yesterday,
especially the phrase I want god. The phrase reflects an externalization
and objectification of god. Those are things I'm always ranting
about and yet they are present in my thinking and feeling about
my relationship with god. Which, I think, reflects a spiritual
immaturity. And when I wake up from this kind of thinking and
remember that my more clear thought is that I am immersed in
god I feel an overwhelming sense of peace. The notion of a relationship
lives in dualism. And, sometimes, so do I. </p>
<p style="line-height:0;">Those who don't
feel this Love </p>
<p style="line-height:0;">pulling them
like a river,</p>
<p style="line-height:0;">those who don't
drink dawn</p>
<p style="line-height:0;">like a cup of
spring water</p>
<p style="line-height:0;">or take in sunset
like supper,</p>
<p style="line-height:0;">those who don't
want to change, </p>
<p style="line-height:0;">let them sleep.
</p>
<p style="line-height:0;">This Love is
beyond the study of theology,</p>
<p style="line-height:0;">that old trickery
and hypocrisy.</p>
<p style="line-height:0;">I you want to
improve your mind that way, </p>
<p style="line-height:0;">sleep on. </p>
<p style="line-height:0;">I've given up
on my brain.</p>
<p style="line-height:0;">I've torn the
cloth to shreds</p>
<p style="line-height:0;">and thrown it
away. </p>
<p style="line-height:0;">If you're not
completely naked,</p>
<p style="line-height:0;">wrap your beautiful
robe of words</p>
<p style="line-height:0;">around you, </p>
<p style="line-height:0;">and sleep. </p>
<p style="line-height:0;"> Rumi</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<i>"Groundless
hope, like unconditional love, is the only kind worth having."</i> -
John Perry Barlow <p>April 23,2001</p>
<p>I wonder what <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/new_literary_history/27.1emerson.html#FOOT5" target="_blank">Mikhail
Bakhitin </a>would have made of
events in Quebec? I think he might have loved the carnival and
said - ignore the wall. Maybe even celebrate the wall, decorate
it stand close and press your lips against it. I am not a Bakhitin
scholar so I can't say. It is my strong desire that the message
of the anti FTAA activism not get lost in the conversations
about the demonstrations. I like how many <a href="http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Globalism/quebecdayone.htm" target="_blank">different
approaches</a> to direct action
were represented. I am finding it difficult to articulate how
I feel about the extreme manner in which the police handled
the confrontations with demonstrators. Report after report from
activists say the same thing. It felt like war. It stirs up
the kind of fear and rage in me that has no voice. I remember
endless conversations in 1968 about whether or not peaceful
protest would work. I am always hoping peace will work. It's
encouraging to see how many people went there, knowing that
there were more people who were not allowed to cross the border.
The movement is big.</p>
<p>April 24,2001</p>
<p> Last night, on American television,
the fat chick got the guy! What a joy! Cameryn Manhiem did a
made for TV movie modeled on the Cyrano De Bergerac story. She
did a great take off on the moment when Cyrano, having heard
someone disparage his nose chastises them for not being more creative
with their attack. She used fat but stayed with the form and
it was great to see that tip of the hat to the Edmond Rostand
play about De Bergerac. And a man, having fallen in love with
the thinking of a woman, embraces the package in which that
thinking lives. And notices that his own inability to find her
beautiful before falling in love with her mind was ... dumb.
The character that Cameryn plays says that she can not abide
unkindness. Yet when she gets her chance to perform a comedy
routine in a big venue, a chance given her by an older comic,
she makes jokes about the his age. I don't see the difference
between fat jokes and age jokes. So, made for TV movies might
not be the place to be totally radical but Cameryn did give
the fat chicks a great moment of television. </p>
<p>When I was a kid my mom had a playbill
from the Rostand play and I would read it over and over. I loved
Cyrano. In the play, Cyrano does not get the girl. He allows
her to believe that the thinking that she loved lived and died
in a beautiful body. It does seem difficult for us to believe
that love is blind. Even more difficult to believe that fat
is beautiful. There is one moment in the movie where Cameryn
sees her fat shadow and seems ashamed. I guess I this is a step
in a cultural process. </p>
<p>April 25,2001</p>
<p> Monday morning my friend Lynn surprised
me when she showed up with her acupuncture kit in tow. She gave
me a bit of massage and some needles. My back, as a result,
has been feeling quite good. However, I was so tired yesterday
I took two naps. When it was time to go to bed I was worried
but I went right to sleep and slept hard. I'm always amazed
at the way needles work. I feel great. This morning I had no
big polemic waiting for me to get to the computer and it's hard
for me to write when that's true. Doing the site is a real window
into the way in which I feel valuable only when I'm being entertaining
or informative. Last night I watched Dark Angel and NYPD Blue.
Great fun! I started watching NYPD Blue when Jimmy Smitz was
on and I have remained addicted. They did some very interesting
things about race and homophobia last night. Dark Angel is just
fun. I feel good.</p>
<p>April 28,2001</p>
<p> I didn't write for the last two days.
I was not buried in worried e-mail saying, "you're not
writing, is everything OK?" So, this is the sound of one
hand clapping. My back was bothering me and it was bothering
me that my back was bothering me. So, I lay on an ice pack and
read <i>A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius </i>by Dave
Eggers. I had been resisting the book. I mean do I really want
to spend time reading the manic musings of a young white boy
from privilege who has no real problems except of course for
the death of his parents and raising the brother? But people
that I like and whose opinion I respect kept saying it was good
and in a book buying frenzy I bought it. And it's good. I am
begrudgingly enjoying it. I mean he does things that really
annoy me, like refer to his hair as normal, in a comparison
to the hair of people of other races or be worried that the
skin of the young woman he is going to sleep with might be saggy
and have varicose veins. But he is relentlessly aware of the
problematic nature of being who he is. He is not apologetic.
He is aware and he goes on and on about his awareness. So, he
wins me over and he makes me laugh or cry and besides my back
hurts so all I want to do is lay on an ice pack and read. And
I was in one of my dark depressions that even I find annoying
so I try to not share them. I had a few calls and felt better
when I was talking. Then the call would end and I'd grab the
ice pack and head back to bed. Barbara adjusted me yesterday.
My back is sore but it's not out. And today I'm going to hang
out with Marilyn and then see Amy Goodman speak tonight.
</p>
<p>April 30,2001</p>
<p> </p>
<p> I received a rejection letter. I think
it may be my first but I may have blocked the memory of others.
<i>This American Life </i>just didn't like my SIMS piece. There
is this goofy idea that a way to tell if spaghetti is done is
to throw it against the wall and if it sticks then it's done.
I feel like I've been throwing spaghetti against the wall for
years and it's still not done. I'm still not done. It's an obscure
metaphor. The same day I got the rejection letter I got an e-mail
response from Aaron Peskin, my district supervisor. I had written
to him during the days of debate on the business tax settlement.
He didn't really speak to what I said in my e-mail, (although,
it had been about two weeks and I forget what I said.) And he
voted for the settlement so he didn't listen to my plea. I do
think it was great that he wrote at all since he must be busy.
It was a short thank you kind of a note. It may have been written
by an aide or it may have been a form letter. I guess I think
that since it took so long he may have written. And somehow
receiving a rejection letter and an e-mail that didn't really
respond to me dove tailed and I went into this no one wants
to hear what I have to say thing. Any conflation of those two
things is loopy and I need to knock it off. </p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><i><span style="font-size:11pt;">"T</span></i></font><i><span style="font-size:11pt;">he
world is big. Some people are unable to comprehend that simple fact.
They want the world on their own terms, its peoples just like them
and their friends, its places like the manicured patch on which
they live. But this is a foolish and blind wish. diversity is not
an abnormality, but the very reality of our planet." -</span></i><span style="font-size:11pt;"> Chinua
Achebe</span>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
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