workin’ on the weekend

So, instead of just going to my office to do work on the weekend as I have done in the past, today I actually get paid for going in on a Saturday.  (see news article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/nyregion/09juvenile.html?ref=nyregion)

I was all hemmin’ and hawwin’ about it and then I realized - shortly after 1pm today  - that I was part of history. 

13 kids in detention that, 2 months ago - woulda sat there for the whole f’in weekend.  For the most part - these kids were in for silly things - jumpin’ a bus w/o fare, stealing a cellphone, a school fight, scaring a bypasser.  These are not children who murder, rape and maim.

Nearly all of them were released to family or foster parents today.  I got paid and I got to see kids walk out free.  All of that and I got out of work by 4:30 today.  I’d say it’s more than worth my time and the pay of anybody working for the City.

 

I sit here now making a long-promised CD for an attorney who used to do my job.  A man very committed to the kids, who just couldn’t wake up one more night at 4am worrying about his 300+ clients and jumped ship.  He told me he had a penchant for bands who were part of the Black Rock Coalition. 

I figured I’d give him a CD with some great new music.  In fact, at an office party, I drunkenly promised it and have yet to deliver!  I hate that I will have to say - it is “modern” or someshit, but I have to.  TV on the Radio and Apollo Heights isn’t for everyone.  But for a man who counts “Cosmic Slop” as the 2nd best bass line ever…I think he’ll be fine.

I should go to bed soon - but I’ll probably stay up a bit and read some more about some thing I’ve been wondering about.  My so-called research list.  I do that all the time.  It’s OK.  It is.

gay gay gay! yay!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons - California, 2008*

I have my own issues with gay marriage - but I have NO ISSUES at all with this.  So lovely.

See my youthful commentary:  http://citizenjane.diaryland.com/20000323.html

(oh yes - 2000…)

Mature Disclaimer:  Marriage for immigration and/or health care purposes only.

If I had no class-based reason, I agree with my youthful diatribe (see above.)  But now that I’m over 30 and have the above concerns, I’m more than open to taking advantage of it.  I hate that!

Hate it!

I still wish we lived in a society (world) where none of your entitlements and/or benefits were based on who you (fuck) sleep with on a regular basis. 

Fuck the Establishment. 

 

road trip!

So the rockstar and I are gonna go south tomorrow. 

We leave sometime in the mid-morning and make it south of mason-dixon line by early afternoon.  We visit my brother, perhaps some friends if we can make it - and likely stay overnight with my momma and stepdad.

That house is sad right now because they had to put down one of their dogs.  Elvis was his name and he was a sweetheart.  He wasn’t very old, but had a cancer that was making his life unbearable.

My momma’s not taking it too well.  I did buy her something, though it’d be hardly called a mourning gift.  Honestly?  It was a box of a new sort of cereal I thought she’d like.  Call me silly or practical or what you will.  I can’t help it. 

I haven’t seen her since Easter.  The rockstar?  Since xmas.  This visit will be quick because we are on our way  - waaay south.  Like Georgia-south.  That’s about as South as the rockstar has ever been (as far as I know) and we are damn excited.

While there, we get to see REM and Modest Mouse and The National.  We are beside ourselves with this impending joy - so much, we are forgetting how much those tickets cost.

Speaking of that, we are also forgetting how much gas costs (and how much the maintenance appointment for my car costs) and we’re just taking off. 

For the rest of the summer?  It’s NYC and Long Island beaches for us.  Specifically Jacob Riis Beach and Long Beach and perhaps a jaunt to Fire Island. 

As for my mother.  I’m glad I’m going to see her.  I’m not so much looking forward to a rural household overtaken by gloom - but I’m hoping for the best.  They do have a swimming pool.

 

meet the press

 I’m sad to lose him.  I always looked forward to his show on Sunday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn5CmvAubkE

 

Weddings, Funerals and DUI Appearances

(c/o Snorg Tees)

I decided to be both sarcastic and true this Father’s Day.  I sent the above t-shirt to my father.  He is a man who prior to finding Jesus, owned only one suit.  Said suit was used for weddings, funerals, and DUI appearances.  I’m not kidding.

Despite finding said savior, I’m sure he’ll find this funny and he might even wear it.   He has been known to rock the Far Side t-shirts, too.  My favorite as a lass was the shirt declaring “SAFE SEX” and featured a cartoon of a dog humping a man’s leg.  It was a summer staple in suburban Maryland.

As a child of divorced parents, I have more than just one father, of course. 

I’ve sent my stepfather DVDs of spaghetti westerns and John Wayne.  He and my mother tend to watch reruns of western TV shows every night and watch TV generally - all the time.  I figured they’d enjoy some uninterrupted gunslinging.

This year I’ve also decided to go all out and send a card to my uncle Mark, too.   As my father’s older brother, my uncle has proven to be quite the aged hippie, living with the consequences of a fabulous life in the 60s.  Gout, Hep-C, general fogginess.  As the only person over 40 in my family who didn’t seem to give a shit who I date  (and to keep wearing an earring in his left ear) - I figured it was time to recognize him.

Though presented with JESUS on numerous occasions, my uncle has yet to find Jesus and/or follow him.  As he said so eloquently to my father last summer, “I found all that enlightenment in the late 60s in San Fran.  I’m good.”

Here’s to a man who still owns only one suit:  for Weddings, Funerals and DUI Appearances.

Happy Father’s Day.

Sweetie, I’m lost in the supermarket…

After 8 years without a car, I finally gave in and bought a 2005 Toyota Matrix back in December.   (No, I don’t have kids, but I like to be able to carry stuff in the back!)   

I live in the city and have been used to taking the subway - so I don’t drive it very often.  When I do though - I have to admit, it brings me back to the time when I was a lass in Maryland and gas was 99 cents per gallon and it wasn’t beyond me to drive for no reason.  You know - Spring just hit, the radio blaring, and I’m 17 years old in the mid-90s.  “Bull in the Heather…”

That time is over and as guilty as I feel about having a car - I’m glad I do.  My Toyota Matrix has proven to be incredibly good on gas - so much that I fill her up only once every 3 weeks or so.  I also have family living in a different state who are not near train or bus stations by any means.   Also, my lady’s band was having such a hard time getting their equipment to shows, it was starting to get ludicrous.  (Can you just imagine a black woman trying to wave down a cab who can carry a full drum kit to the lower east side?)

Anyway - I don’t drive very often.  I end up taking the car to work once or twice a week.  Its only about 8 miles and I enjoy it.  I don’t have to stress myself about the parking issue, and I make a trip to the grocery store that has a parking lot.  That’s what I try to do when I drive.

I found myself there yesterday.  My Trader Joe’s paper bags in the shopping cart, I saw a woman staring at me.  She was a middle-aged, white woman wearing an FDNY T-shirt.  Her husband was inspecting the meat and was not looking pleased.   I scooted my cart by them - I was looking for Pita Bread… In addition, I found some lovely red Swiss Chard and beautiful nectarines.   La-la-la.  The produce at this grocery store is not always so stellar, but hey they always have the tofu I like and the nut selection ain’t bad.

I spent way too much time in that grocery store yesterday, but I finally wheeled my way over to the registers.  They had only three open, so the line was long.  I was texting my lady when I saw the FDNY woman come up behind me.

She pointed to a magazine on the rack. Lindsay Lohan?  Brangelina?  No.  “The black one.”

I put my phone in my pocket and paid some attention.  But not too much.

“He thinks he’s going to win.  Like he’s some sort of Robert Kennedy.   He better watch it with all that ’sweetie stuff.’  I’m not kidding.  I don’t want to vote for that old man.”

Yikes.   I figured out what she was talking about later that night.  The “sweetie” comment that Barack Obama made to a reporter.  But more interestingly, she totally did not strike me as someone who cared.  I had a naive assumption that a middle-aged white woman wearing an FDNY t-shirt who clearly drove to a supermarket in Queens was a Republican.

Likely?  She isn’t a Republican at all, but a Clinton supporter and clearly feeling what I read here:

http://www.caglepost.com/column/Froma+Harrop/6607/White+Women+Take+The+Gloves+Off.html

We all know that I wanted Dennis Kucinich.  I still want him.  I am not an Obama or  Clinton supporter becaue they both deny GLBT folks full rights.   Domestic Partnerships or Civil Unions are NOT going to cut it for me. 

Now that the primaries are over however, I’m not going to vote for McCain.  No fucking way.   I will fall in line and vote Obama.  I know that, but the party needs to make sure that FDNY woman - and those like her - fall in line, too.   I do not like the idea of middle aged women out there voting for McCain just because they have never heard the times John McCain has called a woman “sweetie.” 

We all know he has. 

 

awake and listening

I am awake at this hour.  It may be that I slept and woke.  It might be that I could not sleep and am still awake. 

Does this matter?

I wonder about the music that plays while I type.  Yeasayer, Joan Jett, My Morning Jacket, Gold Streets, Renminbi, Swati, Yes, and CocoRosie.  I can’t pretend that this music does not hurt me.  Or heal me.  Or make me feel nothing.

I’m not really wondering. 

Just happens that these are the people who play the music I have recently added. They play in some random order that I have devised.  Without thought, without meaning.

That reminds me.  I saw a man on the subway this morning who reminded me of my soul.  A man I have known for years that I regret not really knowing anymore.  I’ve always thought that I have no soul, but this guy - he reminded me that I probably do.  That I have the kind of soul that kicks and screams, yet loves and holds.  He asked intimate, important questions.

Questions about the woman.  Not just Me The Woman, but  The Woman Outside. 

The Woman who makes up my soul. 

No, she’s not a g-d, but she is what I think about as I lay down to sleep every night.  Even when she’s not yet beside me.  Even when she’s still writing, wondering, thinking.  Or drinking, eating, seeking outside. 

She makes me feel. 

I am not awake.  I am not asleep.  I am here.  Just here listening and remembering.

 

white voters

Full Disclosure:  I voted for Dennis Kucinich. 
(And yes, even after he withdrew.)

(note the laughter in this video)

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/youtube-debate-will-you-support-gay-marriage-video/

Now that Dennis is no longer viable…

Back when Hillary had a chance, Nikkie and I were really annoyed that John Stewart was clearly not making fun of both Democratic candidates equally.  He used to make jokes using both - but it was obvious that he was making fun of Hillary but only making fun of the way the media portrayed Obama.  He was never actually making fun of Obama.

After awhile, we got used to it - and then, John really did put out something.  In the states she had won in the south - it was so clear.  They did not want to vote for a black person.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Wk25Am6Jo0s

I can’t dispute this and for chrissakes, it was not a surprise at all.  And while West Virginia might be “special,” we knew (as you do,) there are going to be plenty of white folks that just will not vote for a black person. 

Let’s hope that “the many flavors” of white folk actually come through and make sure that The (f’in) Maverick does not win in November.

I was reading a NY Times article and Timothy Egan does have a point:

Clinton, if she really wanted to do something lasting, could ask her supporters why the color of a fellow Democrat’s skin is so important to their vote.

What he misses is that Hillary Clinton, despite her and/or her campaign’s mistakes, has already done something else very lasting.  She ran for President.  

I admit that she, her campaign, her message has been incredibly flawed.  I hate - HATE - a lot of what has come from it - but I hate more the reactionary crap that has revealed the sexist society we live in. 

It makes me more and more sure that this country is not ready for Dennis Kucinich or anybody like him.  (Damn tiny vegan that he is…)

 

gym rat

So I somehow managed to get another 2-week free membership from that behmoth gym chain.  I have to say, I love me some gym-going.  Makes me all proud and shit when I go.  I am actually one of those people who gets all smiley when I’m sore in the morning, too.  (That should tell you a lot about me.)

I should really join it for reals.

I used to belong to a painfully local gym back in the KG when I was in law school.  Giving my drinking and law study habits then, I wasn’t too regular about my attendance.  Mostly the drinking, I have to admit.  Last fall, my good friend and I got a freebie and we had a grand ole time going after work.  She moved to Jersey shortly after though, so I dropped the idea of joining.

Given my swelling middle and my positive feelings this week post-gym, I really ought to reconsider being a real member.  The place is a subway ride away, but right on the way home from work.  And really - you get off the subway and it looks you in the eye.  That close, even.

I don’t want to buy new clothes, so it really is a simple choice:  Join the gym or quit drinking beer.

Easy choice, I’d say…

her

That’s my girl.  Check out her writing:

http://coceyea.wordpress.com/