Not So Grounded

Trying to Chill Out

I'm in such a foul mood.  Impatient, claustrophobic, pent-up, manically moody to Do Something but I don't know what except that I'm pretty sure it requires a passport.  Hasn't mattered all day that the weather's magnificent, the air as crisp as a diamond, I got my work done, went to yoga, the house is clean ... I just want to rail or run or drive nonstop to the Central California coast.  For no distinct reason best I can tell.

To be sure, I'm unpleasant as hell to be around.

Fortunately while obsessively reading online about the wrong mission accomplished between Iran & Iraq and one of a zillion on-line reports of Ahmadinegad's speech today (plus here's the full text of today's intro speech by Columbia U president Lee Bollinger) I was lucky enough to open Garrison Keillor's suggestion that I quit acting like a morose teenager. 

Okay, I'll try.  Although I still advise everyone to stay far far away.

Go Dave!

Another Mom & I took our Darling Daughters & 4 other teenage girls to see Dave Matthews Band couple nights ago.  I love DMB, which lands me square among a zillion other people of both genders and at least 2 generations, best I can tell.  I've seen 'em 3 times last 15 months which sounds exceptionally weird for some middle-aged woman.  But so be it.  (Okay, the Vegas show was a complete lucky fluke.  I just happened to be teaching a management course at the same hotel, the same weekend ...)

Yes, it's a great band, great music, they're all excellent live musicians, they play for hours, and they seem to actually enjoy themselves ... but mostly I keep going 'cause the crowd is just so happy.  Everybody's happy -- dancing, singing, goofing around.  Even the drunks.  Even when the lyrics are heavy.  Even when I'm suddenly really tired, 'cause, let's face it, I'm 46, the arena's two hours from home, I just ate the world's grossest fast food, and I feel acutely responsible for the safety & fun & "this better be worth it" of 6 teenages (especially since 5 aren't mine, tickets cost a fortune, and it is a school night ...).  Even when, unbeknownst to me at the time although I later realized I was to blame, the battery of my friend's car is dying out in the parking lot which will subsequently require AAA roadside service at midnight, while the girls lay out on the jagged gravel, eating pretzels mooched off a very nice guy parked next to us, trying to appease their parents on the other end of their cell phones who warn they still have to go to school in the morning ... (okay, maybe they weren't so happy then). 

But there's something really cool about thousands of people spending a few hours on a beautiful late summer night being happy.  All at the same time.  Together.  Singing.  Even when it's off-key. 

(No YouTube post yet so here's a clip from the show Darling Daughter & I attended June 06, her favorite song)

Be a Grown-Up

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted to visit Ground Zero next week while attending the UN General Assembly meeting, to lay a wreath at the site according to a couple of versions of the story.  NYPD said no because the site is currently closed to visitors due to construction.  Everyone else under the sun, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, Rudy Guiliana, and Mitt Romney blasted Ahmadinejad for even making the request.  (Stories by mnbc and Reuters)

I'm sorry -- have we forgotten that the best course is always the High Road?  That in the end what wins out is integrity, respect, tolerance, being bigger than them, and acting like a damn grown-up?  Who cares about Ahmadinejad's motives behind the request.  We all know Iran is a potential military and political threat.  Few believe his outrageous statements, like his questioning the Holocaust.  Laying a wreath at Ground Zero doesn't threaten those facts (or, to be blunt, our precious opinions). 

But allowing him to do so demonstrates we're bigger than all that posturing.  That in the end we're grown-up enough to show the world that anyone can share in honoring lives lost, that everyone is allowed to show his or her humanity when visiting our country, that we truly value free expression and speech.  Perhaps the Iranian President's motives are purely manipulative and political and insincere.  But who cares?  The act itself does absolutely no harm; disallowing it just makes us look as petty & mean-spirited & intolerant and as obsessed with manipulative political imaging as we fear he is.

My Commitment

While trying to figure out how to add a widget I stumbled upon a TypePad feature -- a blog visitor count.  I gotta say I was stunned -- people view this blog.  I swear, I had no idea that was the case.  Okay, I know one of my best friends reads it, sometimes my cousin...  But the count was over 3 dozen, I found a couple of comments by people I don't actually know.  All for a blog I've told virtually no one about. 

I'm only beginning to get this whole thing.   Don't misunderstand -- I'm not suddenly ego-inflated, thinking people are making a point to read My Stuff.  Just the opposite -- it makes me feel humble.  I didn't quite appreciate that when I started a blog I made a commitment to Participate in something that is way bigger & more important than me.  That really has nothing to do with my blog per se.  I joined a club and then rudely only attended meetings when I felt like it.

So I get it.  And I promise to write regularly.  Not 'cause I'll have anything interesting to say, mind you.  But 'cause participation, meaningful engagement, some kind of connection that I don't actually understand is what this gig is all about.         

Opening My Homeland Security File?

I just applied for a fellowship with MoveOn.org, which John & I are certain will put me on some Homeland Security list of subversives.  I'm not exactly sure why I applied (besides the fact that I love the thought of being added to a list of subversives ...) I haven't applied for a job in a decade or more, but I was lured by something compelling.  Mostly I love what they do and think it would be a way cool way to spend a few months.  And 'cause when contemplating today's blog post I find my brain too full of options, and most are political.

I'll pick the rally in Jena, LA in defense of the black high school students suffering from too harsh punishments for what is actually larger, more complex racism that deserves a much more nuanced & civilized response than what our justice system seems to offer.  (Here's a current NPR report)

Here's my dilemma:  I completely understand & support the protest actions that occurred today in Jena; yet, I am utterly heartsick they had to occur at all.  A black high school student asks a teacher (or the principal -- I've seen both reports) if he can sit under a particular tree that unspoken custom reserves for white students.  The teacher/or/principal says a student can sit wherever he likes.  A morning or two later three nooses are found hanging from the infamous tree, inflaming everyone's varying emotional responses.  The principal wanted to expel the white students who did it; higher ups said suspension; tensions mounted; a white boy was beaten up; six black boys were accused & jailed. 

But I wish I could turn back time to the morning the nooses hung -- and change the trajectory.  Call me naive & polly-anna, but the whole damn school -- if not the town -- should have STOPPED and had a big ol' long conversation & soul searching & concerted hard-ass intervention forcing EVERYONE to wear a pair of the other's shoes long enough 'til they fit.  Would've been way more valuable than anything that went on in academic classes those days or subsequently in courtrooms and newspapers and the zillion private opinion-polarizing discussions that have taken place all over town and now all over the country.  And -- although I hate to sound disloyal to a righteous cause -- it would have been way better to do this upfront, the morning those nooses hung in the sun, than after thousands of people hit the streets.  Fighting.  Reminds me of Rodney King on tv during the LA riots in April 1992, crying & pleading, "Why can't we all just get along?"  Remains one of the most courageous things I've ever heard.

What's a Widget???

Just discovered & love Ideal Bites and they have a cool widget feature I can add to Not So Grounded.  Except I have no idea what a widget really is or how to add one.  Can someone help?

Stick to coffee

Tip for a gorgeous fall Sunday morning in a quiet house with your new husband, no kids, and a warm bed:  don't read the most recent issue of the New Yorker cover to cover.  By the time I finished George Packer's assessment of our utterly dismal Iraq-withdraw options I wanted to pull the blankets over my head.  So I did. 

Don't misunderstand -- it was a great article, of course.  But how could we have been so stupid four years ago?  Every political scientist I know predicted every one of these outcomes before our agression began.  And it just pisses me off that most everyone else thought they were just being partisan or too liberal or naysayers.  Bill Moyers' Buying the War is a great soul-searching look at how the media capitualted its responsibilities in looking for facts, reporting truth, and engaging in even the most basic critical assessment.

I did eventually get lured out from under the covers.  And decided to research the one ray of hope Packer mentions in one of the later paragraphs -- Iraqis building movements & organizations & efforts to promote women's rights, healthy secular structures, and other civic societal infrastructure.  It's helping some. 

Just Something Lovely

Bono's tribute to Luciano Pavarotti.

(Link to original image.)