I was off last Monday and played Patti Smith on my mandolin and finished/started a Moleskine. Watched a good film. Started a new book. It was a good day.
Geez, it got cold quickly! I just started wearing shoes (not sandals) last week. Fall came so early this year that I feel like I missed it. But I’m glad to have some winter. It started early in the Dale three years ago, but then the winter was warm and depressing afterward. Maybe we’ll get some nice winter wonderland this time around in Charm City? I’d better get some better fenders for my bike! My storm windows are closed at home, and I actually wore my scarf at lunch yesterday at a nice cafe’.
Finished a big grant application Friday. Worked Saturday. Took off yesterday. Back to work today, and I feel like I should be stressed out about something.
Back on my bike, too, after six days off, taking transit and walking. Knee was bothering me, and it didn’t go away after a lot of time off the bike, reinforcing my belief that it’s more from sitting than cycling. It’s not really a sharp pain, and I think I’m making it worse by holding my leg funny.
It’s very very cold, and I’m looking forward to cycling at any rate. My ride into work is almost entirely downhill, so I don’t think I can really hurt my knee any more (?).
This list is over.
Since Obama was elected, stupid racist people are getting a little more…active. Read more. Schoolchildren shout “Assassinate Obama!” Okay, so kids are being taught by someone to be so full of ignorant hate as to call for the murder of a President-elect. If they still yell that after he’s in, should that be, something you get arrested for? I mean, you can’t go to jail and stay there for something you say. I would never want that. But is it to be construed as a threat worth of at least a look?
Maybe I sound like an advocate of the Patriot Act or something. But come on. Will we really tolerate kids yelling that? I may just be speaking out of an unspoken fear that one of these racist assholes will actually act on their hate.
If black kids in New Orleans in 2005 yelled “Assassinate Bush,” that would not have been tolerated, even if it wasn’t necessarily and entirely racially motivated.
If the kids are not being taught to be so hateful by someone else and are in fact that bad on their own, this is doubly true — we can’t tolerate this. We can’t control someone’s heart and their hate, but we can discourage the expression of it. Can’t we? Should we?
Monday, I was at work between my normal workday and a community meeting I had to go to at night. My knee was bothering me again, so I read up on what a trainer in college told me I had. She was crazy, but I think she was right. Except about the part about surgery. Turns out it’s almost always exercise/PT, often involving cycling. The inflamation is worse when sitting. Yes. So I took the long way to the meeting, and my knee felt a good bit better. Yesterday also. But I thought I’d rest it today and took the bus, which I’ll do for the rest of the week. Okay, maybe it’s a wuss move, but at least I’m not driving, right? The bus is its own kind of fun, actually.
And I met another cyclist in the church basement at the community meeting Monday who wears the reflective ankle straps I wear to keep my pants out of my chainrings. I told him I was glad to not be the only one to have them, and we talked about favorite jeans ruined by chainrings and chains. I also became less anal about wear-and-tear on my bike yesterday, through realizing that getting upset about a new scratch on my fork blade, when there are dozens all over my bike and that it had some from the shop anyway, is just stupid.
Either deal with it, or hate my bike and never ride. Never ride? F@#$ that.
And I finally have shoes on! I realize there are people at work who have never ever seen me in shoes. This is funny. The purchase process was almost too good to be true, for someone who doesn’t wear leather but doesn’t want to drop $150 on shoes either. First place I looked, got em. Very nice price, too, with free shipping to boot. Picked up my package at someone else’s house, strapped a large box to my bike (bought two sizes to try) and rode home in rush hour. It was awesome.
But I don’t want to portray myself as a constant consumer, at least not of anything but notebooks, coffee/tea and bike innertubes.
[Click here for larger image.]
I can’t place this little devil in its location from far out because you’d never see it. Excuse the bad close up and dirty floor of a hidden recess in my bathroom.
My wife is rather terrified of mice. But in a kinda cute and funny way, not in a heart-attack way. From time to time, mouse jokes and pranks pop up. I recently got a bug in my crawl to tell her there was a mouse in the living room of our apartment. I made a scene of chasing it to the bedroom, watching it, reporting its movements and then telling her it hid under her dresser, which is next to the bathroom door. All night she asked if I made up the story, and I said I didn’t and offered more tiny pieces of information and details to make my story more believable.
I have used small rocks I’ve collected over the years to act as bugs and mice and rats on folks when they would walk into poorly-lit rooms with these critters in their minds, put into their minds by me or by the critters themselves walking around Baltimore. This time, I took one such rock from Rockport, Massachusetts and placed it in a dim spot in the bathroom. Then I put a twisted q-tip under it for a tail. I thought to cut the ends off to make ears. This is the result.
If I thought I would not give away the joke with my camera, I wouuld have gotten pictures of Mrs. P’s reaction. She went into the bathroom as I crept up to watch. She turned on the light, took a step and saw my little creature in the shadows and jumping up and down, one leg at a time, a sort of cute little running in place at high speed, accompanied by giggly squealing. She ran from the room and found me nearly pooping my pants in laughter.
But lest you think me cruel, she was laughing as she was jumping and screaming.
For Photo Friday: Sharp, because, dang, my Mini Mouse Rock was sharp!
Now that we have a President that a lot of folks who are activism-oriented seem to like (at least from what I’ve read), what will activism mean?
I was at Red Emma’s Monday having lunch with a co-worker, and I wondered what things might start to look like among activists. Will folks continue to rail and rally against The State because certainly beaurocracy will block a lot of Obama’s plans, or even because some folks really just want The State to go away on principle? I found anarchism attractive while Bush was in office, especially the first time. Most of the people in the country didn’t want him for a President, but there he was. Obama has so many people inspired and seems so inspired himself that I have to wonder what we can get done in the next four or eight years without the help of The State? I don’t really know enough about anarchism to be able to answer that.
Will activism mean working with the Obama administration, against other parts of The Machine in order to change things? Will activism mean working with The Man? Or is it a misunderstanding of activism to suggest that working with the government is unusual or somehow makes something not activism anymore?
Community organizing, national service and working with government groups to get things done are all activism, no?
In my [first?] year of national service, I find the election of Obama inspiring, in that maybe some of the hurdles that hinder the kind of work we do may shrink or disappear with the new administration, that we will have more help in fighting the good fight, in addition to less resistance.
Maybe what we think of as activism can instead become known merely as participation? But that requires more than a new man in the White House. If we can continue the act of getting off our collective asses the way some of us have started to, with the huge voter turn-out this year, might we just begin to participate in our own democracy again to such a common extent that the concept of activism becomes obsolete?
I would propose a new policy for bloggers to adopt. While controling free speech is shaky ground, and I would not advocate controling speech in public, one’s private website is another matter. What I mean is that, non-voters should not get comments published on other people’s sites. They don’t want “their voices to be heard.” So they won’t. Shouldn’t whatever. I don’t know. I’m tired from not sleeping. With excitement! If you don’t vote, at least blog or write or something. Someting. But, honestly, I have to say that, you know, ahem, if you don’t vote (for someone), you suck. I mean, even if you don’t like the two biggies, there are third party candidates. And if you don’t like them, there are local elections. And if you don’t like them, there are ballot questions. And if you don’t care about any of that, well, I’d be surprised you’ve read this far.
Moss on a wet rock
Not helping or anything
Non-voters suck hard
There’s a blog for the Central Baltimore Partnership now, with links to the Charles North Vision Plan. It’s a great pdf with nice images.
On the 13th, at Metro Gallery (Charles and Lanvale), there will be a reception/open house to both present the plan to the community and to celebrate the community’s involvement. All are invited and very much encouraged to blog it, Flickr it, etc.
Fatherhood
