Setting Off

You know you live in rural Maine when...

You know you live in a rural area when your phone rings at 8:30pm and the caller, a woman you've never met, introduces herself as 'your mail lady' and asks do you still have that catalog she delivered in your mailbox today because - she hopes this doesn't sound like it's totally off the wall - she really liked that fleece jacket on the cover and she has been trying to find it on the internet but she can't for the life of her remember the company name for the catalog and - she really hates to ask you - but do you know the catalog she's talking about?

And you do know the catalog she's talking about and you go get it and tell her the company name and - after apologizing that you're making her wait because you need your reading glasses - you read and spell for her the name of the jacket and find the page in the catalog where it gives the colors the jacket comes in and before hanging up you tell her it really does look like a pretty good and warm jacket and you wish her satisfaction with her purchase.

Arrestingly Beautiful

Coming back into town from a client meeting yesterday I slowed to pull into the market to drop off a whole bunch of plastic bags for recycling.  Because I knew my client visit was going to be mostly a lot of driving with a fairly short time on-site, I had Lucy with me.  She loves to ride.  I tilt my driver's side mirror so that I can watch her muzzle flap in the wind when she sticks her head out the window.  She slays me.

I wait for a local police vehicle traveling west on Route 1, signal my intention to turn, and pull into the parking lot.

The police vehicle pulls behind me into the lot.

I proceed to troll the lot for a parking space - which are much fewer than is normally the case because (1) it's blueberry raking season and (2) it's August on the coast of Maine.

The police vehicle stays right behind me.

I finally find a parking space and pull in.  The police vehicle pulls adjacent and stops.  OMG.  A light out?  No seat belt?  That adventure in Alaska finally, after 35 years, results in charges? 

I get out of the car and the officer walks around in back of my Honda.  "Hello there, officer!" I say, smiling broadly, a huge very full plastic bag full of other plastic bags in my hand.  "How are you doing today?"

"Great!" he says.  "Hey I don't mean to hold you up or anything but I absolutely HAD to ask:  Is that a Griffon you have there?  I used to have one and they are THE BEST dogs!  Well, actually, it was my wife's dog.  It came with my wife.  They are just the best.  Is that a Griffon?  I don't mean to hold you up..."

Ignoring my impulse to snicker at his insistent use of the words 'hold up' I explain Lucy's Labradoodle heritage while she decides if she is  going to stick her head out the window and deign to let someone in uniform pet her.  She decides to growl.

"Now honey," I say.  "Don't be mean to the nice policeman."  She changes her mind, sniffs his hand, and pants while he pets her.  "She sure is pretty," he says.

"People often take her for a small Newfoundland or a Portuguese Water Dog," I say.  "She's almost five years old and she gets more wonderful everyday." 

"Well she sure is pretty," the policeman opines.  "I just had to ask.  Don't mean to hold you up.  You have a good day, now."

I'm in the market for three seconds with the bags and I remember I need olive oil and it would be nice to get some Maine Ginger Root Brew.  In the aisles I see a friend, a new lesbian in a new relationship. We talk.  She's trying to understand the mind bending / heartrending turmoil she went through with her very first lover a beautiful trophy girlfriend who was probably also a borderline personality.  Yeah, I say.  Been there got that t-shirt.  We trade stories which mostly boils down to 'no, you're not crazy'.  I suggest that, since she and the trophy have been broken up for over a year, she might program her phone to reject this woman's daily calls.  That and other stuff.   Ninety minutes later I still haven't started looking for Goya olive oil.  We move to that aisle and happen upon another friend, a dog person, who has recently found a little lost collie.  We're all dog people.  The new lesbian and her new partner, with whom she moved in after four months, have eight dogs between them.  We commiserate.

The market in my town carries neither Goya olive oil nor Maine Root Ginger soda.

I go out to my car empty-handed to find the battery dead.  Apparently I'd been so freaked about the policeman that I'd neglected to entirely turn off the car.

Open the hood.  Within seconds there's a woman pulling into the next parking space says hey what's the problem I have jumper cables.  We hook them up.  Nothing.  I'm visualizing  many many many dollars flying away to repair alternator trouble.  A few more seconds and some guy comes over and says sometimes you have to wiggle them.  He reaches in and does the wiggling with the jumper cables.  My car starts.  Everyone cheers.

On the drive home I explain to Lucy about how I'm so deeply grateful that I'm past the place in my life where I'd be prey to another trophy girlfriend and that if she, herself, wasn't so beautiful none of that in the parking lot would have happened. 

She sticks her head out the driver's side window.  I watch her muzzle flap.

Easter Sunday

So, at about 1:30 on Easter Sunday Lucy and I set out for Jasper Beach in Machiasport - one of the only beaches in the world made up of the semi-precious jasper stone and which is recognized by National Geographic Traveler as one of the world's best wild beaches.

Lucy starts to go a little bat shit when I flip the blinker off of Route 1 out of East Machias because she thinks we are going down to the Point of Main, my family land. Or maybe she goes bat shit because she knows we're going to Jasper Beach. Who the hell knows. She's a dog and I'm a human and, unfortunately for humanity, we can't really read each other's minds.

I pull into what passes as a parking lot at Jasper Beach. (Anywhere else this would be a circle dried mud where it's level on the edges but here it passes for a parking lot.) As a city person in a previous life I recognize the leavings of other visitors: fast food wrappers, tampon casings, and two 5-gallon buckets off the trail about fifteen feet which are too suspicious for me to investigate.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In real time I don't actually get onto the beach for about an hour because there's a mom and a kid about three years of age and this dog. They are returning to their car which is also a Honda Fit. I think, "Jeez. What are the chances of THAT?" Their dog senses Lucy in a way that only other dogs can understand and both their dog and Lucy go bat shit. To make matters worse, their dog is the semi-little variety that always acts, in the presence of other canines, like they are at LEAST three times their actual size.

I wait in my car. The littler dog barks and barks and barks and barks, circling my car and Lucy is returning all the bravada. Their dog shows NO interest in getting into their car. The mom is clearly embarrassed. "He was just perfect for the last two hours but now...." I try to help her but a half hour later I give up and leave the the parking lot.

Long story short: Lucy and I drive down to Starboard, the speck of a village where I grew up. We drive up to Bucks Harbor and down to the boat launch. Wasting time. In my mind I'm getting less charitable about the fact that a dog is keeping us from our walk. On our way back to Jasper Beach I am relieved to see the mom and the kid and their little dog heading outta there in their car and that, finally, Lucy and I can go for our walk.

It's not until I get out of my car that I see that the fucking little dog has scratched up both the driver's side and the passenger sides of my car. Curses. Curses. Curses.

Lucy and I hit the beach. There are sticks to be thrown. Incoming tide in which to swim. Things to in the wind and on the beach to smell. There is lots of running. On Lucy's part. There is nice meeting up with a poker buddy and her golden lab, also walking one of the world's best beaches. A much, much, much more civilized exchange. Very quiet, actually. I observe that canines have their codes - just like us. My poker buddy and I catch up on the news of the day, mutual friends, observations about canines.

On my return to the car - where I have fresh water for Lucy, there is a couple with their chocolate lab and a kite. The same couple who got married on the beach yesterday? They appear engrossed enough. They are on the wrong side of the berm to get the wind but I don't tell them that. Instead I make a mental note to bring my kite the next time Lucy and I come to Jasper Beach.

It's Easter. We return to the house, twenty minutes away at 30 miles an hour. Perhaps the sun is warm enough to support time on the deck with recent New Yorker magazines and a drink. Lucy and I are out there for about 30 minutes in the watery late afternoon sun. On the next hill a neighbor surveys garden plots accompanied by a little child and three dogs - one of which is a Newfoundland that looks as big as a calf. Their turkeys gobble gobble gobble every minute or so. Lucy sleeps as I read about a new Director at the Metropolitan Opera: Tosca having been "a disaster". I loved their Tosca production. What does that make me? A prototypical example of the next wave of opera lover? Or something else?

Broken Heart

It's the day before the Equinox, our first real spring day. Sixty degrees. I've thrown caution to the wind and put into the garage my snow shovel and a 50-pound bag of ice melt. No matter that many here still mutter about not getting too cocky about spring because remember that blizzard we had in late March of 1956. Tomorrow, in Annapolis, boat owners will celebrate The Burning of the Socks which they do every spring equinox in order to bring work and customers into the boatyards. They actually burn their socks, which they tend to wear only in winter. They don't wear socks again until the next equinox.

I get the idea that I'm going to spend a lot of this afternoon in my hammock, slung between two dying maples. I determine to bring a book with me: Fatal Shore. I also bring my IPod. And some ice water with lime juice. Before I go out to sling my hammock I post on my Facebook page: Hammock. Book. IPod. Immediately a friend comments that she likes my status and don't forget to wear sunscreen. I throw caution to the ever-increasing breeze and lay there, in my hammock, face to the sun, no protection whatever. It's the first time the sun has felt warm since October.

When I actually get into my hammock all desire to read leaves me. The pages of Fatal Shore flutter in the wind like a flip book. The weather report for today gives sunny and a little breezy, giving way to clouds. Squinting, no clouds yet, holding my IPod above me against the glare, I make out a woodpecker in the branches directly above me. Listening. I have a feather from a wing like hers in my kitchen, in an old glass inkwell that my ex-lover gave me in 1977 when we were courting, when she presented me with a tiny bouquet of Forget-Me-Nots. That was in Alaska. The state flower. The feather is black with tiny white dots. The woodpecker darts in and out of the branches. Listening. Calling. Listening.

Not inclined to read, I scan my IPod. Playlists...music does not amuse. Podcasts: The Ascent of Money...Secrets of InDesign...Understanding Balance Sheets...Nanotechnology, The Next Big Thing. I choose This American Life, the episode about frenemies, those people close to us about whom we have a great deal of anxiety, friends with whom we hesitate to spend a lot of time because of this anxiety, friends with whom we feel competitive, like those women on New Housewives of Orange County. Part of the Frenemies broadcast is about the genesis of the phrase "I'm not here to make friends..." which, it appears, was first uttered on an early episode of The Apprentice, a reality TV show. It's been uttered on reality TV shows many times since then which is the point of reality TV. Frenemies concludes. Then I listen to a collection of pieces by Scott Carrier; one is about amnesia. Carrier interviews a hypnotherapist, asks her generate thirty minutes or maybe an hour of total amnesia in him, but she doubts that she can. Few people are really that willing, she says. He goes for it but, upon coming out of hypnosis, is disappointed to find that he can still recall what he's been doing that day, the name of the friend he brought with him whose job it would be to help him navigate when he'd forgotten everything. A psychologist, also part of this piece, suggests that we forget that which makes us uncomfortable. The fact that he's not willing to forget becomes part of Carrier's podcast. This material is not really the sort of material that I should presently be listening to. But I persist. I have this feeling.

It's been five days since I learned that my friend died, with her partner, in a boating accident on Chesapeake Bay. My friend of over 35 years whose body washed up on Westerhouse Beach five days after she left in bad weather to presumably take the boat to Colonial Beach, on the other side of the Bay and up the Potomac. Her partner's body has still not been found. This was in December. I am sitting in the sun in Maine on the day before Equinox. I learned of her death in an email sent to me by our mutual friend and my friend's long time lover, now, of course, her ex. The three of us were together constantly in college in Alaska. Robin majored in geography.

It's been five days since I learned that my friend died. In that time I've sent email to everyone I could locate who knew us in Alaska. I've posted of her death on two email lists and people I have not met, but who have a sense of my life, have emailed back to give me the strength I've asked to borrow.

In Google Earth I've found Robin's House on her peninsula at Deep Creek. In the satellite view, her boat is tied up at her dock. Although one couldn't tell from the satellite, it's a Chris Craft, a 31 footer. I've searched for, found, and closely examined nautical charts of the waters between Deep Creek, Westerhouse Beach, and Colonial Beach Marina. Especially in the area identified as The Targets immediately south and west of Tangier Island, around which they would have had to navigate to get to the marina from their origination point. The Targets are a bomb site where naval aviators out of Norfolk practice getting good at hitting things. It's also said to be a good fishing spot. Anglers bring up unexploded ordinance, however, so one must be careful. There's a circle on the charts labeled "Prohibited Area". I've even conducted Google searches on Chris Craft, hoping to find out if her boat might have come with Loran installed. But no luck. I only learned that Chris Craft makes boats a lot bigger than the one that broke up, presumably in the area of The Targets. People who look for such things in circumstances like this have found deck chairs, a table, and small pieces of the boat but nothing else. Robin was identified through an autopsy and investigation. They found a car registered to her at Colonial Marina and the police put two and two together.

It's been five days and now I know a little bit about the waters around Tangier Island. I know that some guy who fueled them up said the weather was nasty, that he warned them not to go out. I know there were conflicting reports about how many people were on the boat. I want to know the cause of death, if the examiner found water in her lungs. I want to speak with the investigator and the reporter who posted five stories that I could find. And that guy who fueled them up, him, too. I want to get in touch with her two friends - the ones she told me about the last time we talked on the phone who have bought property twenty miles from where I live and who report that they love it there, that they eat out every night they're here. It was this couple who assured my friend who emailed me that, no, I had not left Maine. That I was still to be found here. My friend, the one with the news, tells me that once she found me she tried to call. But she would reach my answering machine, hear my voice, and go to pieces. No message. And so, three days before Robin's birthday I get the email.

I, too, am in pieces. Broken up like the boat. Who knows. I don't. I'm sleep walking into and out of the hole in history that now exists in my heart.

I have voted NO on Question 1

I have voted NO on One. Here's why:

• This question is fundamentally about equality;
  
• All tax paying, law abiding citizens should have the full, unadulterated benefits of citizenship;
  
• All citizens should be able to direct and receive inheritance, decide who visits in the hospital, and how their end of life transacts;
• No citizen should be forced to take on considerable financial expense to obtain legal contracts that, essentially, finesse the benefits and assurances granted to same-gender commitments;
  
• In the history of our state and our nation "Separate But Equal" has consistently failed to fulfill its original intentions. Consider: School segregation, the Tuskegee Airmen, and women in the military. Better yet, consider Washington County's status in relation to the rest of the State of Maine.

My faith (Religious Society of Friends - Quakers) has been uniting same-sex couples for years. This is because the Jesus we know has taught us by his deeds that all people have their measure of Light and are equal under God.

This I know and this I believe.

I encourage all who have not yet voted to take these considerations into your hearts.

Then join me in voting NO on One.

Storm

Here I am, up with Lucy at 4:15 as she shivers and pants her way through the storm that's plowing through here this a.m. It's raining cats and frogs and there's nearly continual thunder and lightening.

The power is out.

I'm hoping that the stuff I gave Lucy will take effect some time soon. I am beginning to wish I hadn't stopped work on that ark. And forget the equivocation on the "nearly continual" thunder and lightening. It's an all the time thing.

I presently live about 2/10ths of a mile from where my grandmother used to live when I was a kid. I used to stay with her a lot in the summer. I never had any fear of thunder and lightening but I guess she must have had some. Whenever there was a thunder and lightening storm she used to wake me up, get me more or less dressed (like, I'd have a coat and socks and shoes plus my pajamas), and she'd get us out to the car, having unplugged everything in the house. Then she'd drive around - my grandfather never went with us on these drives - until the storm had passed.

She drove around town, what there is/was of one; we never stopped to watch the storm action and we almost never talked during the drive. She just drove. Then the storm would be over. She'd drive back home, fix some Lipton tea with milk, and we'd go back to bed.

This storm is moving off as I write. Sounds like to the northeast. It should be quiet enough in less than an hour, if it continues to travel at its current speed, for Lucy to settle down and for me to go back to bed.

Ah geeeez. Another rain band barreling through.

I've unplugged my computer and the other electronics. The sky has lightened and morning is here.

'scuse me while I go make some tea.

A Statement in Absence about Maine Marriage Equality

I'll be absent from the hearings in Augusta next week when many friends will testify about marriage equality in Maine. Work demands I stay seated and at the keyboard up here in Washington County.

But perhaps you will suffer a few random thoughts, based on experience.

For me, the cogent issue before us is citizenship. Other components of marriage equality stream from that such as equality and responsibility. But the real issue - and, I think, the most effective context for speaking about this issue - is citizenship. The benefits that flow from the way marriage is set up serve to protect and strengthen the smallest unit in our society. If we function as equal contributors in society and are willing to take on equal responsibility we should enjoy equal citizenship. That's it.

I learned a long time ago that appealing to a pol's sense of humanity, appealing to their hearts by showing that their friends suffer for lack of laws they refuse to enact, appealing to their own history, quoting doctors / psychiatrists / lawyers, and showing that societies in which enfranchisement has been established have not crumbled basically does not work. But speaking to their Puritan guts is effective.

That's why, if I was there next week, I'd say that I work 60 hours a week to improve the economic conditions in the poorest county in Maine. I volunteer with community and civic organizations. I attend my town meeting and vote every chance I get. I have a religious practice and participate a religious community. I have a creative life. Like everyone else I know I don't enjoy paying my share of taxes but I do it.

In short, I'm exactly the sort of person you want in your community: the effective, responsible, committed partner in society.

What I don't have is enfranchisement.

I pay more in taxes because my relationship is not recognized by the state and federal government. If I have a health crisis, my parents, with whom I have not lived in nearly 40 years and who are over 80 years old, could claim the right to make critical decisions about my care if they chose to challenge the decisions of my parter. If I were to die, my partner could legally be granted less time to grieve. I have no rights to disperse my property nor can my partner receive survivorship benefits. These and many other conditions flow from civil recognition of my committed relationship.

I'd tell them that I realize they'll make their decision to either change this condition or somehow find it within themselves to continue to apply the status quo. I'd encourage them to do the right thing.

D/DWWMSG Recommends One Nation Under Dog

I came home late from work recently - as I am wont to do too often lately - to be greeted by my faithful canine, Lucy who was all excited and very insistent that I pay full and immediate attention while she told me, in detail, about that night's proceedings of her Dogs/Doodles With Working Moms Support Group (D/DWWMSG).

She felt especially heard, she said, with this group. Way more nourishing than her reading group (which meets on the nights I teach creative writing) and her chess club (which meets on the Sunday afternoons when I must attend meetings of Downeast Farmers' Alliance).

It seems that some of the dogs (she's the only Doodle) in the D/DWWMSG are also in the reading group. All are excited about One Nation Under Dog: Adventures in the New World of Prozac-Popping Puppies, Dog-Park Politics, and Organic Pet Food. http://www.indiebound.org/book/0805087117

She has long been concerned, Lucy said, about the elevation of canines to their new status which, she believes, robs them of their rich and most essential dogness. But only recently, thanks to her support group, has she been able to put her thoughts into words. It's been a real breakthrough. Perhaps you can relate.

She believes that many canines who are taking prozac, for example, feel that the emphasis placed by human keepers on things like facials, counseling/channeling, high-end dog care products, and so on have, by their insistence on anthropomorphizing the dog they live with, deeply disenfranchised their dog from the pack.

In essence, no one has sought to ask dogs what THEY want! (Except for those who represent that they channel dogs but Lucy says most in her circle wryly assess that humans who purport to channel dogs are really channeling their own chemical imbalance.)

So I feel like I got a good overall sense of her concerns - she couldn't go into detail because of confidentiality expectations - and I promised that I'd pass on to this group, and to others who live with dogs, about the book and the website.

The bottom line, for Lucy anyway, (she wisely insists that she does not and cannot speak for all dogs everywhere) is simply this: It's The Toys, Stupid!

The House is Angry. But Not Angry Enough.

Media report: Spurred by anger over A.I.G. bonuses, the House voted 328 to 93 to levy a 90 percent tax on any company accepting more than $5 billion in bailout money.

I reply: Only 90 percent? Why isn't the House angry enough to levy a 100 percent tax? What does that unlevied ten percent want to accomplish? Recognition for trying? I thought they only did that, these days, in kindergarten. (That's one of the things Glenn Beck is crying about these days, anyway.)

Further, my imagination is challenged to understand why all 423 House members were not angry.

Further still, I ask, why didn't the House levy ANY company receiving ANY bailout money which, I remind us, is my money, your money not THEIR money.

This whole deal - and I use that word deliberately - hearkens back to the good ole days (economically speaking) of government advise to Americans immediately after the Twin Towers collapsed.

Remember "Shut up and shop?"

Please join me in recognizing the same tone now.

Presently, however, their advice to the American people is much abbreviated.

Now it's simply "Shut up".

Letter to the Editor: Transport Stim for SoME - Ditches a'brim with money and jobs

Editor:

Re the Blaine House announcement that Maine's $162 million share of the transportation portion of the stimulus package will be used to upgrade roads, railways and waterways, primarily in southern Maine:

I'm so thankful I live in Washington County where all our highways, byways, and bridges are in the same pristine condition now as when they were laid. I'm glad for our transport infrastructure that speeds commerce to and from our towns and villages with 21st century efficiency.

And, oh yeah, while I'm at it, I'm moved to note that I'm grateful that all our homes and businesses in Washington County are wired with 3G broadband and that our cell towers are strategically distributed so that we are blessed, in every regard, with connectivity to the globe which enables the engine of industry to chug away 24/7 - bringing good fortune and prosperity to every citizen here in our little piece of heaven.

That's GOT to be the reason that decision-makers in Augusta have determined that all $162 million dollars of Maine's share of transportation stimulus - and the jobs the work will create - will be apportioned entirely to southern Maine, right?

What other reason could there be?

I'm Mad as Hell...

I just watched, for the first time since I saw it in a theater right after it was released, the film Network. I'd recorded it off TCM as they broadcast their month of Oscar-winning films.

Network was the first movie I walked out on. I thought it was awful. Just awful. I didn't ask for my money back I just left. I haven't walked out on a movie before or since.

Let me say, however, that having watched it tonight I understood my first viewing experience as akin to the way literature is wasted, many times, on the young. Like, the way high school students take a disliking to Charles Dickens.

Tonight I understand that Network is more a premonition than an film.

I encourage everyone to run to your video store, surf on over to Netflix, or do whatever it is you do to rent movies. Order this one. Sit down and watch it until Howard Beal tells you to get up out of your chair.

Then go over to your nearest window facing the nearest bloom of population, fling open your window, lean your torso out, and yell for all to hear: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

Today I Fell In Love

...with a shop vac.

Yes, boys and gurls, ladies and ladies, when I understood the power of this tool - when I experienced the exhilaration - when I saw with my own eyes how the suction cleared the plaster dust, wood shavings, sawdust, and random nails from...well...every possible surface... My heart melted. They always say "lick don't suck" (well, we gurls say this) but, believe you me, there are exceptions to this rule.

I was unable to help myself from imagining the way my entire living room - nay! Perhaps my stairs, the second floor landing would look in a week or so after all the work is DONE!! I was awash in serotonin.

Then I discovered...extensions. I tried at least three and they ALL worked miracles of which I never could dreamt last week when I walked into my house immediately after they knocked down the wall between the DR and the LV. It was morning in America. Life seemed worth living again.

Possibilities opened up: If I could accomplish all of this in an afternoon what did that mean for - could I hope?!?!?! - hooking up my satellite tee vee???

If you can dream it you can be it! Yes We Can Yes We Can Yes We Can!!

Wiping with a wet cloth, then wiping with a dry cloth (like Dawn told me to do) I excavated first my bookshelves - powering through more plaster dust and sawdust and using those cloths until, after an hour or so, I had brought my electronic equipment back to its original luster. (These items had been under cover but, for the purposes of exaggerated storytelling I'm, well, exaggerating...)

Could I successfully bring back 100 channels and nothing on without calling DISH Networks' Help Line? With my shop vac beside me I methodically connected this to that, dusted of this bit of coax and screwed it into that receptor and - angels flying close to the ground - soon I was watching The Obama Express on CNN and, during commercials on CNN, re-runs of 3rd Rock From the Sun on TVLand and when commercials came on that channel, back to the Obama Express. What more could I want?

In keeping with my construction-like surroundings (what am I saying? My surroundings are construction in REALITY) I mixed myself a screwdriver, positioned the shop vac where I could glance lovingly over at it, at will, filled with gratitude, and took a seat in a chair I'd cleaned off.

I've only now surfaced to share my joy and will be returning, in a twinkling, to 3rd Rock From the Sun. For the time being I'm ignoring those tiny voices coming from my left shoulder that observe about how "100 channels and nothing on" might be closer to the truth than I'd allowed ten days ago when my access to tee vee was first interrupted.

After all, since I'm able to channel surf to CNN I've learned that the Obama's are installed in the Blair House - now that that evil son of a bitch Dick Chaney has finally pissed away enough of his wickedness and allowed The President Elect and His Family to moved out of a hotel and into The Blair House - and that there are Inauguration activities starting tomorrow which I can now watch.

And, oh yeah, the Israelis announced a unilateral cease fire now that their Knight in Shining Armour is moving back to Texas in two days thank you Jesus. Like that's any great surprise. I was more than a little surprised, though, when Ehud Olmert sincerely assured the people of Gaza that the Israelis were not their enemies. Like, wow! How GW Bush of him!

Okay, I could go on...it's probably a good thing not to. I'm missing 3rd Rock. And, icing on the cake, I can sleep as long as I want - first time for this in ten days - tomorrow a.m. I wonder if I can get the shop vac upstairs????

Signing off now.

The shape of the table

I wasn't wild about Obama's choice of Rick Warren but I have to say that, after I had some time to reflect, I wasn't surprised.

Obama has always, always been driven more by the desire to bring everyone to the table - regardless of whether they share his ideology - than he's been to fill the seats with those who share his world view. What seems to matter most is the willingness and ability of opposites to work together at the table toward a pragmatic and realistic end.

When he was elected to head the Harvard Law Review many African-American students who had placed their hopes in him to bring more African-American students onto the editorial committee were disappointed when he instead put together a committee comprised of some of the most outspoken conservatives on campus. The thing he wanted to achieve, he said, was a Law Review of the highest caliber. (For more about this, watch Frontline's piece on Obama, aired before the election.)

He's done this before during his time as an elected official. Some of those who helped him in Chicago have felt left behind because he offered no quid pro quo. (The July 21st issue of the New Yorker discusses this at some length.)

Obama, to my view, is not the lefty many believe him to be. Instead, his core is pragmatism. The change he brings is that the seats at the table will filled by those who share pragmatism - but not necessarily ideology.

I think Obama made a miscalculation by elevating Warren at this time. I don't think Warren deserves the honor he was given. It really is like a bucket of tarnish was dumped over the glow of his election.

I also think that we will see, in the not too distant future, the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (a gift to us from the Clinton administration), and recognition of civil rights. That's because Obama has a track record of pragmatically moving toward inclusion to achieve outcomes that we support.

He has no track record of throwing us under the bus.

I'm willing to wait and see what his actual outcomes are before I make a decision about the weight and proportion that Warren leaves behind on January 21.

Insidious

It's like being a figure in an O'Henry story: Tiny, tiny particles of ice falling and falling. If you are out in it for a minute or two you hardly notice it. If the particles land on something warm, something that's alive, they melt immediately. But if they fall on something inert, like pavement or windshield or wood pile or porch it freezes and becomes another tiny, tiny particle in a layer that builds and builds and takes on weight and form. A sheen gathers on everything.

During the big ice storm of whatever year that was I was living in California in the Bay Area. The place that personified The Idea of California. Our storms, then, consisted of wind and rain that inspired me to wonder if my car could be randomly flung through the spaces between the Bay Bridge supports. To wonder if I and my 1965 VW Bug, which could be repaired with a screw driver, would land in the deadly waters of San Francisco Bay. Many scary commutes on that bridge that winter. But I had faith in the bridge. It had, after all, been put back together after our earthquake and had, somewhere on the structure, at least one protective gargoyle installed by the welders of 1989.

Anyway, The Ice Storm. My experience of it consisted of listening to NPR broadcasts from The Bluebird Restaurant in Machias - where they had a generator. And getting updates from my mother and her husband who kept their wood stove going and who urged the repair people, on the 9th day, to go help someone else because - after they got two hours of electricity - they were getting along fine. And second-hand reports of my father and his wife who were living off the grid and who were vaguely aware that the rest of Maine was having a really hard time.

This is no Ice Storm. (The Bluebird Restaurant now has a sandwich named after The Ice Storm. It's a comfort food classic: real turkey and lots of gravy on top of white bread plus cranberry sauce and a roll or two. It's a meal to warm the needy heart of any local Calvinist. I don't eat out much now but this sandwich is what I order when I'm at The Bluebird these days. It's predictable.)

But the way the particles fall and fall from the sky, slowly building up, while my lights are on and I'm listening to music and talking with my community on the internet...it's insidious.

The Gay Problem

During marriage discussions, of late, I remember that, for me, this and all discussion about The Gay Problem is rooted in equality.

Our equality is not something that should ever be decided by voting. It's something that's inherent because we breathe.

A proposition I have forwarded for years is this: Unless and until we have full legal and civil equality, gay people are living under conditions that suggest taxation without representation.

Just like every citizen of the United States, gay people are required to contribute to society in general by paying taxes, building up social security, and paying property and other taxes.

But unlike its contract with other citizens, society enacts legal and cultural prohibitions against gay people that effectively prevent us from serving in the military, enacting family structures, holding various kinds of employment, inheriting property, and naming certain beneficiaries.

In many jurisdictions we cannot expect to obtain mortgages or business loans.

In certain jurisdictions we must transact our lives behind filmy but absurdly convoluted layers of secrecy in order to avoid physical harm and even death.

Our youth have no guarantee of a safe learning environment; there are more of them homeless on the streets than any other demographic.

In short, we are hidden in plain sight.

If that's where civil society and its laws wishes to place us and, for whatever reasons they wish to continue to do so, I say OKAY. BRING IT ON.

My Final Solution to The Gay Problem is Cut Me Loose.

I would love to put the funds I now pay into my local, state, and federal governments in another pot that I could use for my self sufficiency. Lord knows my standard of living would immediately improve by magnitudes.

I could say more but I'll stop here. I have a lot to do between now and tomorrow morning when my work week starts.

( I was away from home most of Friday night and all of Saturday helping, as a member of a committee I'm part of in my small town, to get ready for a community Veterans Day Supper. We fed 260 people - 66 of whom were veterans. The vets and their spouses were our guests for the dinner. After we finished with the dinner and cleaned up I came home and stayed up too late - I slept in really late this morning. I still have to get out my check book and pay my monthly bills and then get ready for a meeting at work where we'll discuss how we can implement economic development projects that we hope will improve conditions here in one of the poorest counties in the United States.)

All this to say that, as a citizen, I show up. Most of us do.

I'd like the hobnailed boot off my neck now, please.

Or, if that's not on America's Legal and Cultural Agenda, cut me loose.

Two Words

At some point during last week's financial meltdown, when I began to feel as though we are living through times more apocalyptic than 9/11, two words started to pester my consciousness.

At first they were a suggestion.

Then they became a whisper.

Then they morphed into a concept as I read Sunday's NY Times articles about AIG's special units.

Now they're a full-fledged roar.

The two words?

Fiduciary Responsibility.

"Fiduciary responsibility" is a very, very serious legal and professional rule of law that is part of the bedrock of insurance/financial operations and professional behavior.

And that's not even considering the aspect moral responsibility which, in insurance and financial circles is called "moral hazard". Because, after all, we are talking about insurance/financial markets.

Fiduciary responsibility is so serious - or maybe I should say "was" - that violation is considered grounds for criminal prosecution.

I have not seen nor have I heard these two words in all the print and broadcast media I've consumed in the run-up and day-to-day coverage of the causes of our global condition.

These two words, it seems to me, are the most fundamental root of what we are now living through.

What does "Fiduciary Responsibility" mean? In summary it commits professionals to:

• Utmost Care - The agent is bound to the higher standard of a professional in the field which extends the standard of duty to investigate within the means of the profession, to ensure the maximum protection and information be provided the principal.

• Integrity - Defined as the soundness of moral principle and character. It means the agent must act with fidelity and honesty

• "Honesty and Duty of Full Disclosure" of all material facts, either known, within the knowledge of or reasonably discoverable by the agent which could influence in any way the principal's decisions, actions or willingness to enter into a transaction

• Loyalty - An obligation to refrain from acquiring any interest adverse to that of a principal without full and complete disclosure of all material facts and obtaining the principal's informed consent. This precludes the agent from personally benefiting from secret profits, competing with the principal, or obtaining an advantage from the agency for personal benefit of any kind.
  

• Duty of Good Faith - Includes total truthfulness, absolute integrity and total fidelity to the principal's interest. The duty of good faith prohibits any advantage over the principal obtained by the slightest misrepresentation, concealment, threat or adverse pressure of any kind.

None - and I mean NONE - of these characteristics existed in the basis of selling subprime mortgages.

None of these characteristics existed at AIG and other insurers and banking interests when professionals bet they would never have to pay off mortgage insurance claims or document their assets at actual value.

Logically (and I realize that greed, not logic, is the operator here) this means that there are a great many people who, because they violated their professional/legal fiduciary responsibility, should be criminally prosecuted.

Anyone else sharpening the little pointy ends of his/her pitchforks?

How Racism Works - by Kelvin LaFond in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

• What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
• What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?
  
• What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said “I do” to?
  
• What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?
• What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
• What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?
  
• What if Obama were a member of the “Keating 5”?
• What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

— Kelvin LaFond, Fort Worth

How Racism Works on Jack & Jill Politics at http://tinyurl.com/4yv4ts

Visit Pam's House Blend. Always steamin' at http://www.pamshouseblend.com/

Dressing Palin's Caribou

It's been interesting to observe the story elements the Red folks trot out to prop up the credibility of Their Sarah as The Genuine Article.

Like: They want everyone to know that she hunts and fishes and that she shot a caribou. This is to encourage the inference that, because she did these and other outdoorsy things (while simultaneously believing in Jesus a lot), she's "just like you and me, by golly. Praise God and pass the ammunition."

I lived in Alaska for 18 years. EVERYONE who has lived in Alaska for any length of time has several common stories.

We each have our "bear story": The one about how we had a terrifying run-in with a black bear / brown bear / Kodiak grizzly / sow bear with cubs. These have several common endings: You survived; you almost died; someone you know died; the bear survived; you shot the bear, bled the bear, gutted and dressed the bear, and now it's in your freezer.

We each have our "moose story": The one about how we had a terrifying run-in with a bull moose / yearling moose / momma moose with yearlings. These have several common endings: You survived; the moose (same word for singular or plural) survived; you hid in a safe place while you watched the moose demolish your car / garage / pick-up truck / 18-wheeler and afterward you watched the moose shake it off and lope away; you spent several days in the hospital; you shot the moose, bled the moose, gutted and dressed the moose, and now it's in your freezer.

We each have our "almost lost a (fill-in-the-blank) from frostbite when I got stranded for three hours because of (fill-in-the-blank) between (fill-in-the-name-of-the-town) and (fill-in-the-name-of-the-town) story". These have several common endings: You survived; you have a permanent numb spot on your (fill-in-the-blank); you don't have a (fill-in-the-blank) anymore; you'll never go outside again when it's 60 below wearing only a mad bomber hat, a flannel shirt, a wool sweater, a down jacket, mittens, long johns, pants, insulated socks, and mukluks.

We all know people who died in small plane accidents, who fell off mountains / glaciers / fishing boats / snowmobiles and were never seen alive again. Most of us know people who simply disappeared. We all know people who live so far out in the Bush that they can come into town only by walking miles through the woods to the nearest track and flagging down the train. Some of us know people living really far out in the Bush who never come into town.

We give a wry and knowing nod to secessionists who want Alaska to pile up all its oil money in its own sandbox and quit the rest of the United States and who have formed political action committees to make it happen.

Every one of us know wingnuts who have risen to places of responsibility beyond their aptitude simply because of the church they go to, the people they know, and the ear marks they channel. Alaska is just like anywhere else in that regard. Except that the population is so much smaller there that you tend to know these wingnuts personally.

The truth is that in Alaska, Palin's life experience and homespun yarns are entirely conventional. But people in the Lower 48 don't know that. And you can bet the Reds know that they don't know that. So they're playing it. And she's playing along. Sounds like she's "just like you and me" - only, due to the caribou she makes sure we know that she shot, bled, and gutted, they ask us to award her extra credit for displaying Classic American Rugged Individual Toughness about which most of us have only nostalgic reference.

Try this recipe at home: Start with with the Republican Party. Pound for eight years with George W. Bush til tender. (You'll know when it has reached the right consistency because it will appear wide but it won't be very deep.) Chop until dicey. Add one Sarah Palin. Add 6 oz of Miss Alaska and fluff carefully. To this mixture add a few jiggers of melting glacier water and several chunks of receding ice cap. Shake and pour. Sprinkle with nostalgia to taste. Serve immediately with an accompaniment of chilled barracuda ceviche, et viola! Whaddaya got? Fox news! And anecdotes instead of issues.

I could go on. That's probably apparent.

Suffice to say: I suspect the Reds want us all to bite down HARD on how much in common Palin appears to have with the hockey mom next door - and masticate long enough to really savor the flavors in the class and gender appetizers they've laid before us. And then they want us to start eating our young while we earnestly discuss amongst ourselves the exquisitely politically correct ways we must acknowledge Sarah Palin.

Don't be distracted by those tender nuggets!

Instead, ask yourself: "Who benefits?"

Then get back to work on the boring stuff: Economic parity, energy sufficiency, poverty, health care, education, infrastructure, the environment. Put out your yard sign. Volunteer at the phone bank. Knock on some doors. Donate it if you got it. Let's win this thing.

I Accept

So I opened my email this a.m. while waiting for a conference call (lil' ol' multi-tasker me) and found a message (subject line "I Accept") from "John" aka John McCain Himself. I was somewhat affronted because we don't know each other well enough to be on a first name basis but what really raised the alarm was that it started out with "My Friends..."

Well, I was apoplectic. What have I ever done to get on an RNC mailing list?

I have not lately used The Lord's name in vain. (Although I did change the channel last night a quarter of the way through The Passion of the Christ which I was watching simultaneously with that show that has that Brit chef that says fuck all the time going to save restaurants with his advice and gustatory ethics.)

Perhaps it was that email I sent to WVOM containing a PSA for a class I'm teaching - but THAT was for WORK!

Perhaps it was those letters I've sent the white house that sometimes get replies like "Vice President Cheney thanks you for your thoughts {yeah like I'm going to believe THAT} but, unfortunately, he can't respond to all letters..." Yeah, like I'm sure. He's only my employee after all.

But to return to my apoplexy: I clicked, of course, on that little link they put in there so that you can unsubscribe which, of course, I wanted to do I mean, like, NOW. So it takes me to this page where they have four reasons to choose from:
- I am a supporter but don't wish to be contacted until closer to the election
- I am a supporter but prefer to get updates in the mail
- I am a supporter but do not wish to receive email any longer
- I am no longer a supporter and want to be taken off the email list.

I didn't check any of their boxes because none of it applied to me.

But, thankfully, there is also a comments box. Which I filled right up telling them that I was not now and never have been a supporter of their campaign, that I couldn't imagine how they got my email address, and that I demanded to be removed NOW.

Well.

Turns out that, in order to unsubscribe, one MUST choose from one of the choices they give. How fucking Republican. This I REFUSE TO DO as I'm sure they take stats, like the Mormons, to inflate their total numbers to the press.

So four emails later to several addresses I really had to dig for...we'll see if I get off their night train to the land of the zombies.

I'll keep you posted.