All Hallow’s Eve

I seem to have found another good person in Fargo, which is nice. Good politics partner.

That’s pretty much it for the happy, cheerful stuff. I’m rather pissy so we’re going to embrace the mood and let it all out, hopefully a purge will help”

I hate that my eyes are dull and lifeless. I smile and it doesn’t reach my eyes.

This last week was dull and rainy, definitely affecting my mood. The forecast for the next few days is supposed to contain sunshine, so hopefully that will help. It didn’t help that with the fall back, even though the additional hour of sleep is nice, I’ll now be driving home from work in the dark. Previously, I would drive home in the dark, but that was because I’d stayed late at work – now, It’s dusk by 5 and it just sucks. I’m going to have to take mental health breaks to get my daily doses of vitamin D.

Wow, really pissy mood tonight.

I hate that no matter what I do, I can’t lose weight. I dislike that I can’t turn my intensity off – as much as I try; it seems the only way is to drink and loosen up, but that’s not kosher in my world. Especially when I end up as I did on Friday night, a total embarrassment to myself. I hate that someone I work with scheduled a conference call for 7pm on a Sunday night and then let it run for two fucking hours. TWO HOURS, folks, on a Sunday night – talking about the same things over and over and over again. I am so mad that because of a couple of stupid decisions made by people when I was a child have resulted in me needing thousands of dollars in dental care every year of my life. I cannot stand that dental coverage isn’t included in my benefit plan so I pay all of it out of pocket. I hate that my government can’t get it’s act together and pass comprehensive health care reform with real teeth – it’ll have been a year on Wednesday that we elected Barack Obama and we STILL don’t have a bill.

Well, that felt good. Never fear, there are good things going on in my life – new friends, movement from my members of congress in the right direction, good work going on, vacation time on the horizon, feeling massively accomplished as I’ve had 22 days straight (minus JUST ONE) of media coverage in the state, my moods have been better, contrary to this post … I’m just needing to get it all out.

Hope everyone’s well. I was a gremlin/gargoyle/devil for halloween – perhaps I should wear my horns more often? It’s only appropriate.

No Use Crying

So this week has been quite the rollercoaster and it’s only Tuesday evening. Yesterday started out fairly well, my Mondays are usually filled with conference calls which means that instead of going to the office where my cell phone doesn’t get reception, I can work out of a coffee shop in a super comfy chair, do my work and make sure that I’m in cell phone range at the appropriate times. Except yesterday, as I was reaching for my coffee, I accidentally knocked it over and into my laptop bag. Thankfully I was working and my laptop was out of the bag, but really, satchels aren’t meant to hold liquids.

You might be able to say this was an unconscious act of sabotage as this past weekend I went browsing for a cute new bag for my laptop which would also double as a purse and found one, but couldn’t justify the expense since I already had a laptop satchel. Well, now I have it. You can’t really get the coffee out of this sort of bag and it’s not washable.

Today started out in a bipolar sort of way – getting a good, yet questioning email forward from my boss and a legislative office. It related to the fact that the coalition I’m a very active part of here in state was called IDIOTIC in the editorial of today’s paper. I love being called “stupid and politically destructive” on the opinion pages, it’s so politically constructive to engage in that sort of dialogue. What I take away from the situation is we’ve done our job so well that it’s really pissing people off – not only that, but we’re obviously running the opinion editors mad because we submit so many letters that they’re forced to print us daily. Yes, DAILY. Today is day 17 out of 18 that we’ve had a letter, OpEd or article that was placed by or about us. Oh, and I had the OpEd in another largely circulated paper, this time under my own name.

Anyway, that was all very rollercoaster-y before we even got to 10AM and then, this afternoon I took a conference call in my car since I don’t have reception in my office (AT&T sucks in ND, and while there is some reception in certain parts of town, working out of a cinder block building inhibits any weak signal that might work). Well, long story short, I locked my keys in my car. Because I’m brilliant. But then I got a free couch!

But then Joe Lieberman announced that he’s a major douchebag. Not that this is surprising, I mean, endorsing John McCain last year after running as Vice President on the democratic ticket a few years before kinda gave that away.

So, I’ll end this with a quick note to Wednesday:

Dear Wednesday,

Can we please have an even keel? I don’t care if it’s boring; I’m just not a fan of rollercoasters and we’ve had enough peaks and valleys already this week.

Thanks much,
Alex

In lieu of a photograph for this post, I’m reposting in its entirety an OpEd from the New York Times which I feel speaks directly to my last post. I hope you enjoy it and take something from it with you.

 

Changing the World
By BOB HERBERT
Published: October 26, 2009

One of the most cherished items in my possession is a postcard that was sent from Mississippi to the Upper West Side of Manhattan in June 1964.

“Dear Mom and Dad,” it says, “I have arrived safely in Meridian, Mississippi. This is a wonderful town and the weather is fine. I wish you were here. The people in this city are wonderful and our reception was very good. All my love, Andy.”

That was the last word sent to his family by Andrew Goodman, a 20-year-old college student who was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, along with fellow civil rights workers Michael Schwerner and James Chaney, on his first full day in Mississippi — June 21, the same date as the postmark on the card. The goal of the three young men had been to help register blacks to vote.

The postcard was given to me by Andrew’s brother, David, who has become a good friend.

Andrew and that postcard came to mind over the weekend as I was thinking about the sense of helplessness so many ordinary Americans have been feeling as the nation is confronted with one enormous, seemingly intractable problem after another. The helplessness is beginning to border on paralysis. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nearly a decade long, are going badly, and there is no endgame in sight.

Monday morning’s coffee was accompanied by stories about suicide bombings in the heart of Baghdad that killed at least 150 people and wounded more than 500 and helicopter crashes in Afghanistan that killed 14 Americans.

Here at home, the terrible toll from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression continues, with no end to the joblessness in sight and no comprehensible plans for fashioning a healthy economy for the years ahead. The government’s finances resemble a Ponzi scheme. If you want to see the epidemic that is really clobbering American families, look past the H1N1 virus to the home foreclosure crisis.

The Times ran a Page A1 article on Monday that said layoffs, foreclosures and other problems associated with the recession had resulted in big increases in the number of runaway children, many of whom were living in dangerous conditions in the streets.

Americans have tended to watch with a remarkable (I think frightening) degree of passivity as crises of all sorts have gripped the country and sent millions of lives into tailspins. Where people once might have deluged their elected representatives with complaints, joined unions, resisted mass firings, confronted their employers with serious demands, marched for social justice and created brand new civic organizations to fight for the things they believed in, the tendency now is to assume that there is little or nothing ordinary individuals can do about the conditions that plague them.

This is so wrong. It is the kind of thinking that would have stopped the civil rights movement in its tracks, that would have kept women in the kitchen or the steno pool, that would have prevented labor unions from forcing open the doors that led to the creation of a vast middle class.

This passivity and sense of helplessness most likely stems from the refusal of so many Americans over the past few decades to acknowledge any sense of personal responsibility for the policies and choices that have led the country into such a dismal state of affairs, and to turn their backs on any real obligation to help others who were struggling.

Those chickens have come home to roost. Being an American has become a spectator sport. Most Americans watch the news the way you’d watch a ballgame, or a long-running television series, believing that they have no more control over important real-life events than a viewer would have over a coach’s strategy or a script for “Law & Order.”

With that kind of attitude, Andrew Goodman would never have left the comfort of his family home in Manhattan. Rosa Parks would have gotten up and given her seat to a white person, and the Montgomery bus boycott would never have happened. Betty Friedan would never have written “The Feminine Mystique.”

The nation’s political leaders and their corporate puppet masters have fouled this nation up to a fare-thee-well. We will not be pulled from the morass without a big effort from an active citizenry, and that means a citizenry fired with a sense of mission and the belief that their actions, in concert with others, can make a profound difference.

It can start with just a few small steps. Mrs. Parks helped transform a nation by refusing to budge from her seat. Maybe you want to speak up publicly about an important issue, or host a house party, or perhaps arrange a meeting of soon-to-be dismissed employees, or parents at a troubled school.

It’s a risk, sure. But the need is great, and that’s how you change the world.

MeMe

Wow. Two posts in a week. Though this one may not count since it’s a meme, but it’s one that I liked and spent a good deal of time thinking over.

1. Why is there poverty and suffering in the world?
Greed, irresponsibility and the refusal to address moral imperatives.

2. What is the relationship between science and religion?
They work in tandem, in my opinion. Though religion to me is a far different idea than it is to most others.

3. Why are so many people depressed?
The person I lifted this from answered in a way that I whole heartedly disagree with in terms of self-reliance. I believe many people are depressed because we live in a world where people are so involved with the self rather than a community.

4. What are we all so afraid of?
Isolation. Which is ironic because I see folks isolating themselves more and more everyday, consciously even.

5. When is war justifiable?
I do not believe war is ever justifiable, though many will call me naïve for thinking and saying this.

6. How would God want us to respond to aggression and terrorism?
First off, I don’t believe in God the way this question seems to imply. That said, we should always respond to aggression and terrorism with much thought and peace.

7. How does one obtain true peace?
To me, what I’m about to say is ironic because I have been stressed to the max in the past year and, on the surface, most definitely not at peace; however, I’m able to feel perfectly fine with what I am doing and that I’m not doing any more (and at peace) because I know that I am doing everything in my power to make this world a better place than it was when I arrived. Which is the only way I can imagine anyone could obtain true peace.

8. What does it mean to live in the present moment?
Listen and engage.

9. What is our greatest distraction?
Self promotion.

10. Is current religion serving its purpose?
In my mind, absolutely not.

11. What happens to you after you die?
The rest of the world keeps spinning. Hopefully, your impact lives on in your physical absence. If not, I’m prepared to say you didn’t do enough.

12. Describe heaven and how to get there.
I don’t believe in heaven.

13. What is the meaning of life?
Currently, the meaning of life for me is to amplify the stories of the disadvantaged to ensure they’re heard by the powerful. Truly heard.

14. Describe God.
The energy that I am, that you are, the combined energy between the two of us. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

15. What is the greatest quality humans possess?
When called upon, the collective will and ability to do good and make things better today than they were yesterday.

16. What is it that prevents people from living to their full potential?
Self doubt, lack of motivation and lack of support.

17. Noverbally, by motion or gesture only, act out what you believe to be the current condition of the world.
…

18. What is your one wish for the world?
Peace on both an individual and collective basis.

19. What is wisdom and how do we gain it?
Wisdom comes in many forms: experience, thought, introspection, discussion.

20. Are we all one?
Yes, and our whole is greater than the sum of all of our parts.

Lah Te Dah

Wow.

I didn’t think it’d been over two weeks since the last time I posted. As I said on twitter earlier, this year has both flown and inched by. The days seem to inch by, filled to the brim with things to do, people to see and so on and so forth – but they all start to add up and before you know it, another month has flown by. I remember planning for a huge event at the end of August thinking it would never arrive and holy smokes, that was almost two months ago.

Anyway, it’s been busy around here. So far I have a streak of eight straight days of having a piece running on an opinion page in the state – mind you, they’re all signed by activists, but nevertheless … we’re getting the word out about health care reform like you wouldn’t believe. Who knew that if you put two over achievers together they’d own the editorials here?

Ah yes, my partner in crime – I finally have one! She’s pretty awesome, sent from HQ and is all sorts of coolness personified. She’s nearly like the sister I never had – we antagonize each other ’til we can’t stand it, but all in good fun; the best thing about her is that we get along famously when it comes to work which makes this job so much more fun. It’s fulfilling as it is, but now it’s super fun. And she’s from Texas, so she totally understands my bipolar approach to snow and cold. I love it and hate it at the same time. Or maybe I love it and fear it at the same time.

Speaking of snow! I was having to drive to the other side of the state last weekend in a snow storm and while I know my friends who were born and raised here think it was just flurries and a mild, if that, snowstorm, to me, not being able to see further than a quarter of a mile felt like a white out. In OCTOBER. Yes, it’s been snowing off and on for a few weeks now, though this past Saturday and Sunday were all sorts of gorgeous.

One last thing regarding snow: I finally got my first ever pair of snowboots. They’re probably a bit much, but hey, they were on sale, they look cute (if snowboots are ever cute) and they have wicked awesome traction. Since I’m a big sandal fan and not so much a closed toe shoe fan – they require socks – I also invested in some super cute socks. Wow, I can’t believe I’m writing on my blog about socks. Anyway, I figure, if I have to wear boots and they require socks, I might as well have the cutest feet around. So I splurged and bought socks that will keep my feet warm, stylish and, best of all, happy. As well as match my super awesome BRIGHT! PINK! HAT! Or toque as my Canadian friends would say.

In the Last Three Weeks

I have …

Assisted in taking one of the largest insurers in the country and their state affiliate to task.

Dipped my toes in Lake Superior.

Had a great meeting with both senators.

Roadtripped it to see beautiful fall colors for the second time in my life.

Been yelled at by a congressman in public for challenging him on health care reform and having numbers to back my stance up.

Seen the world’s biggest hockey stick. (And it’s not in Canada, surprise!)