So, I am thinking about this attitude I am seeing among the political parties. Republicans are the traditionally conservatives. Democrats are the compassionate liberals.

So they say.

I feel compassionate. I feel liberal. But why don’t I feel very much affinity for the Democrats? I feel like I should like them more than I do.

Democrats are against war, right? So am I. But I still feel there are times when it is necessary. Those times should be determined with careful consideration. I think force is justified in certain thoughtful circumstances. Yet, I am not hearing as much thought from the anti-war protestors as I need to be intellectually satisfied.

And even more than war, which is a once in a while activity, I am concerned about people who are oppressed. People who may not have had the opportunities that everyone deserves. The litany: women, minorities, etc.

And the democrats are the ones supposedly for the underdog. The party for women, the party for the minorities, that’s what they think they are.

And yet, something about it is sounding funny to me. It’s a little too canned. Political correctness is getting stale. Affirmative action, women’s rights, all those things may or may not be sincere. The question is, are they working?

This is feeling wrong to me. Is the goal truly to have an equal playing field or not? What is the exit strategy to the war on civil rights? Is there a reason why we want to have a set of underpriviledged people to help?

Okay. It’s hard for me to understand. I just don’t get it. Where I grew up…I don’t know. Maybe everyone was underpriviledged. It just felt very equal.

So here’s the thing that gets me thinking. I look around at the neighborhoods here in Los Angeles. I started thing when I wanted to become a home owner. Which areas have good schools? Which ones will keep their value?

Chris grew up in Claremont. Claremont is one of the snootiest ordinary places I have ever seen. These people have a sense of how superior they are. I didn’t get it. They talk about the surrounding areas, Laverne and San Dimas and Upland and Rancho Cucamunga and Pomona.

The voice changes. When they talk about the different cities. But it’s not just the people from Claremont. Everyone who is from LA talks about cities with different tones of voice. And the tone of voice depends on the person talking. Baldwin Park is not a scary place to a brown person. And Long Beach and Inglewood is comfortable to an African American.

But to a jewish friend, Silver Lake can be scary, depending on where you get out of the car. But then, maybe she worries too much.

I find this confusing, and I am not really sure what to thing of these different tones of voices. What are all these people talking about? Are they just being prejudiced?

I found a website talks about it. What are we really talking about, when the tone of voice changes? Bottom line is crime.

Chris grew up in Claremont. In 2002, Claremont had no homicides. Next door, the city over, San Dimas, had 0 homicides. One city over from there, Pomona, had 18 people killed.

What the hell just happened here? Why does Pomona kill people? Why does San Dimas live peacefully and Pomona not?

Chris told me that there were a lot of Hispanic gangs in Pomona. THe houses are a lot cheaper in Pomona. Pomona had 448 incidents of robberies and 805 incidents of aggravated assaults. What is going on?

I do not think that Hispanic people are more inclined to violence and killing. I think that people do the things that make sense to them.

Somehow, San Dimas and Claremont have a society where killing people does not make sense. Why does killing people make sense to the people in Pomona?

Have the police come to expect that assault and robbery and murder happen in Pomona and not in San Dimas? What the heck are the police doing over there?

And Pomona is not the worst. Long Beach had 67 homicides, and Compton had 52. What the heck are the police doing?

Why is this an accepted thing? Why does Compton kill people? Why does Pomona kill people?

I can’t tell you. I don’t know. But I do not believe it has anything to do with a person’s ethnicity. I know it has to do with what those residents believe, the story they tell themselves about what is necessary to get through life.

And what story are the liberal types telling?
“You’re going to need help. You’re pathetic.”

I reject that condescion. I don’t believe in liberality that disempowers.

You know what I think? I think that this whole thing is a lot more about economics than almost anything else. Having money is having independence, it’s having choices.

But money comes from hard work. Protestant work ethic, “he who shall not work shall not eat.”

Handing out money for disempowered people does not empower them. Getting anything for free does not make a person better on the inside. Hard work and challenges are what make people grow, you grow to meet the challenges you face.

So, I am not impressed with the flavor of compassion I am hearing from liberals. If a helping hand is required, and I do not reject the idea of a helping hand, let’s give one that allows for decency. Let’s find ways of letting people exercise their own power, their own dignity growing.

THe problem is large, but so are most that are worth solving. I can’t help thinking, what does San Dimas know that Pomona doesn’t?

“Equal Pay for Equal Work”

Listening to the debates tonight, I heard Kerry say, “women are earning 76 cents on the dollar compared to men.” This is shocking! I wasn’t sure it was true.

Wireless to the rescue. I looked it up. I don’t see women so much in that role. Unless the guys were making way more money than I thought, I figured it was not quite the story.

But I looked it up. It seems to have some figures behind it. Man, I was hoping that we’d gotten a little further than that.

But this story puts a little thought into the figures. According to her, when you take some important factors into consideration, the wage gap is more like 98%.

Whoo hoo! and Ms. McElroy makes some very good points. I’ve thought about this, in these terms, for quite some time. Leaving aside the prejudicial and sexism stereotypes, what is the major difference between a man and a woman? A woman is the one who bears the children. It takes nine months for gestation. And it takes some time to get over the process of shoving this little person out of your body.

After that, mothers may want to take time out of their career to spend time with the child. A choice that she can make. That is, the lucky ones who have the economic room to not work, or work less for a while. Many women make the choice to have less responsibilities in their career, so that they can be available to pay attention to their child.

This does not diminish a woman’s capacity to perform any of the duties her career may have demanded. The fact is, a choice like that, one that takes a woman out of the running, off the rat race and into the baby track, has wage consequences.

If a man took several months or years out of the prime career growth time of his life to do another project, it is fully expected that he would not be able to walk away with no ground lost. It doesn’t work like that.

And a women should not expect that she can hit pause and step right back in where she left off. That wouldn’t be fair.

If we were to embrace the capacity that women bring to the table, it would be wise to find ways to change the culture of the workplace. Why do we have to work 24-7? Geez.

It would be good to have a jobs that allow for a balance and a challenge. We need that, so that the children don’t get left behind.

But it seems like women are not being left behind so much anymore, and for that I rejoice.

From Earth to the MOon

So, I got to watch some TV this weekend. THey were showing this miniseries about how we got to the moon.

It was eerie. All these suited men with glasses going, “I don’t know if this is possible. It might not be possible…But we have to do it.”

And they proceeded to screw it up for the rest of us forever.

HOW many times have I faced that same dillemma in my IT jobs?

Management “we want this”
Me “I don’t think we can do that. I dont’ think it’s possible.”
Managment “Have it ready by next tuesday”

Impossible doesn’t mean impossible anymore. Not for americans.

Of course, we wouldn’t have all these cool toys and stuff to have the jobs we do if it weren’t for NASA. I, of course, worked at NASA for a year intership to learn to do what I do.

So I should be grateful.

But man…we just can’t give no for an answer anymore. Not since we’ve sent a person to the moon.

fools!

How many fools does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Fools always travel in ships.

There are the fools of Gotham.
There are Shakesperean fools.

There are people who are surrounded by fools.
Imbeciles.
Idiots.
Nincompoops.
Morons.
Incompetents.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Foolishness!

Today, I have the phrase for me:

I am a sad fool.

I cannot escape my own ignorance. I can choose many actions, and all of them seem foolish to me. No choice appears to be a wise one. There are times when this is so, situations when you cannot come out like a hero.

Not everyone is the hero. The rest of us are Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, bit parts, left confused and out of the major action.

I love that play, “Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are dead.” It brings up all kind of questions about what the HECK we are trying to accomplish in this big wide world that has big important things happening that WE CANNOT AFFECT very much.

Then there’s Billy Joel’s song “We didn’t Start the Fire.” We are left with the result of a history which, through hindsight, we would not have chosen.

And it doesn’t matter. Remember the Jeff Goldblum character in Jurrasic Park? Chaos theory…Just one drop of water can move across a person’s skin in different ways, moved by invisible, imperceptible pulls and tugs.

Choice is so powerful! That’s what Tony Robbins says! That’s what Viktor Frankl says.

And it is still not quite powerful enough. It is certainly not all-powerful.

So I, like King Lear, can rage against the storm and affirm the choices I have made. But that doesn’t mean they were right. And it doesn’t mean they affect as much as I want them to.

But that doesn’t excuse me from trying and trying. And trying and trying.

And that is what makes me a sad fool. Sad, as in pathetic. What hope, what importance have I, in the scheme of human history?

Just as much as anyone else. Maybe. And that isn’t very much.

But at the same time, it’s everything.

Every day is the day to get up, in spite of what seems to be futility. That drop of water might be affected by my striving, by my will.

And yet, it’s good for me to know that my choices are not that powerful. That I should be humble, knowing that I am a pathetic slob trying to make something of myself and leave a little scratch on the planet that makes it better, not worse.

And it’s good for me to know that I am a fool, so I can laugh at my foolishness, and have patience with the pitiful effects of my scratching.

For we know, from the beginning, what good does pride do anyone? never has. So, I’ll be the hopelessly hopeful. I’ll be the optimistic pessimist. And I’ll laugh and my sad foolishness, and in laughing, I’ll find the strength to keep on.

children of the firm

I’m beat. Work made me work really hard, and I spent the week away from home. I am done now, and I am even taking monday off.

It took three trips to this location to finish. The first time, I stayed with friends. The second, I picked the cheaper hotel, and I rejected it. Too much graffitti nearby. It was a barely revitalized motel.

This time, third time, I got to stay with the top dogs in the nice hotel. I even snuck out to the hot tub at the end of the day, and it was wonderful. I sat there in luxury, staring at the beautiful stars. I was a little bit grateful to the firm for giving me a chance to stay at this pretty hotel. I would never have paid that much on my own.

And then I thought about how i had rejected the other motel. It was more expensive than I would have chosen to pay, too. I wondered if the top dogs would have stayed at the motel. They might have found it objectionable. We find a lot of reasons to complain about what our firms provide for us.

If I don’t have to pay for it, I might as well insist on the best. It costs me nothing.

I wondered if the top dogs would have chosen less luxurious surroundings. I thought, maybe not. They do make more money than me. I wondered if they also felt that they could insist on the best from the firm, and if they also felt like it costs them nothing.

Because it does cost everybody something. The money to pay the bill comes from somewhere. It just seems so removed and far away that it feels free. At least it does to me.

But for the top dogs, the partners, they have a share in what happens. They own the firm. It’s their money going away to put an expensive pillow under my head. Do they realize that? Or do they also feel very removed from the costs of doing business?

The movie “The Corporation” talked about corporations making the businesses that we do gets to be further and further away from consequences. That leads to irresponsibility.

And that made me think that all of us, all of the people from our firm were maybe, behaving like children. Someone else, we don’t know who, would get the consequences of our choices and actions.

Someone else will handle the bill.

That can’t be good for business.

Write On

I’ve been working steadily on writing a book. It is not a novel, which is what everyone assumes. It is a memoir. I’m trying to write about what it was like to be with my family and go over to Russia to teach English in a private school with a Christian curriculum in 1991-1993.

I started out, and in January, I had about 100 pages written. THen I realized that I had to stop TELLING the story and I had to start writing the experiences. What I had been doing with the first 100 pages was being my current self, the ironic cosmopolitan with PERSPECTIVE on what happened back then.

Absolutely NOT the way to tell a real story. If I distance myself from my own story, how can I expect to draw in a reader? But the fact is, I didn’t want to dive in. To call these memories painful would only be the tip of the iceberg. Nothing is just as simple as pain. Pain is such a flat word. I needed to dive right back in to THEN and write what it was like to live it.

It is not easy to do that. I’ve now re-written to the point of having 140 pages.

AND WE STILL HAVEN’T GOTTEN ON THE PLANE.

My mind panics when I think about (think about writing about) going to Russia. And that is exactly how I felt during the time I was getting ready to go. That is the time I am writing about, that getting-ready period.

Right now, I am filled with those feelings I had then. And I am missing those people I knew then. I am SO missing them.

I had to do a little cyber-stalking. God bless Google. What’s Dean up to? What about Alex? Tommy Piper?

They say you can never go home again. I say, you can never go anywhere again. Some things never change, but I am not some things. It’s very sad to me, to realize that I can’t ever recapture the closeness of a friendship. Or realize the closeness that I once wanted.

People change. I change. It makes me sad.

Not that I would have it any other way. You couldn’t pay me enough to stay the way I was back then.

Anyway, I am surprised at how real these people are to me. It is like they just walked out of the room. I’ve had to struggle to remember their personalities and their speech patterns. I have to try to create dialogue with them…I say create…But it is more like remembering…And I remember up scraps of things I’ve done and said with them…And there they are. Like I could reach out and touch them. Like I could give them one more hug goodbye.

And I wish I could.

Some people just stay there

I met with a colleague who works across the street from me. It’s hard to find people who do what we do, so it’s pretty exciting when we can meet.

How funny is that? Don’t all multi-national companies do conferencing? Video conferencing is part of a lot of businesses. But we still don’t get noticed. None of the job sites have “Video Conference Adiministrator” as a possible job category.

Stealth Career.

So one of the things my neighbor wanted to talk about was how to get Mo’ Money. An extremely worthy topic. He wanted to triangulate, find out what we video people are worth. He has a certificate…I’ve been thinking about getting one. And we chatted about possibilities.

He kept saying, “don’t get the wrong idea…” when I was being very honest about my strong desire to make as much money as possible.

I am making less than I have, that’s for sure. What do I come to work for, if not to make as much money as I can with my time? Sure, the free coffee is nice, but it’s really about the paycheck. Let’s not kid ourselves.

Dude had been working at that same firm for 10 years.

TEN YEARS. Holy Crap. That’s crazy. My dream is to keep a car for ten years. Not to work in the same compeny.

He was surprised to hear that I had moved around in my career as video guru. I told him, that is the only way to get the big pay increase.

TEN YEARS.

I’m a little too restless. I have “grass is greener” syndrome. And it’s not just the money, although money is very important. It is also the challenges. I want new projects, I have to have stimulation. Repetitive think injuries can happen. Do the same thought process, with no changes, you atrophy.

Or in my case, get cranky.

That being said, staying in one company has a few advantages. Companies have figured out that it’s cheaper to underpay people for years and years.

Dude had 5 weeks vacation. WOW! I would love that.

And I bet he didn’t worry about being let go.

I don’t ever trust an employer. I’ve participated in too many layoffs. why not me? It’s a possibility.

So I’m always on the lookout.

But some people just stay. I hardly know what to think about that.

The american dream

About a million years ago, I took a few martial arts classes. It was fun; I wouldn’t mind doing it again. I just have to find the time…

Anyway, one time, the teacher, while dismissing us, brought one new guy forward. Turns out he wasn’t new:

“Jeff…Come up here jeff! I need to take a moment. Everyone, you should congratulate Jeff. You used to be a lot bigger…How much weight have you lost?”

Jeff was a little shy. “About Sixty Pounds.” He was proud, though.

“THis is an accomplishment!” the Teacher praised him. “This is a big deal! I had to take some time and give you kudos.”

At that time, I was in sore need of some weight loss myself. I was amazed at the big deal made over this guy. 60 pounds, that is an accomplishment.

How much time do we spend thinking about losing weight? here in america, I think it is always on our minds. The American Dream. Just to lose that 10..15…50…150 pounds we need to lose.

My older brother Mark has been on a diet. He’s inspiring. I don’t know how much weight he’s lost exactly, but he came down from looking sort of substantial to looking how I always remember him.

He’d always been fairly slim. I think it was because he had been a perpetual student for so long. One of his remarkable achievements was living off a 25 pound bag of dried pinto beans for a year.

He’d been given the bag from my oldest brother. Like a great number of people, Bryan had been attracted to foodstores. For emergencies…the end of the world that was supposed to happen on y2k, or some natural disaster or the tribulation that comes right before the second coming of Christ…You have to be prepared!

Except he also had to move. And all those food stores didn’t fit neatly into the Uhaul. Which is how Mark got the sack, and was able to afford the fulfillment of another american dream: a college education.

My brother Bryan is not alone in his gut need for self-sufficiency. All those bags of beans…where they really belong is in a cabin in the woods, you know?

Chris took me to see Hearst Castle this friday. As I was driving with Chris up the highway one, through all these lovely remote places, I was seized with a desire for a cabin in the woods.

“Chris, wouldn’t you like a little cabin somewhere? A getaway sort of place?”

“Like at Whitney Portal?”

He and I like hiking in mountainey places. So we dreamed a bit.

“Wouldn’t you like to build a log cabin? If we bought a piece of land without any building on it, it would be cheap!”

“What about electricity?”

“Psh! We dont’ need electricity! We can get a generator! Solar power!”

He kept driving. I thought about all the things we can get away without.

“Except we HAVE to have water. That’s important.” I knew someone who built a whole gorgeous house on a patch of land that didn’t have a well. Water is key. “Maybe we should get it on a lake, or a river or something.”

That’s another American Dream. Your own land. Self-suffieciently. The shotgun and the “NO TRESPASSING” sign.

Well, maybe not the sign. I would like a cozy place where people would not be easily able to find it. Needley trees cushioning the space around small walls.

Mark, newly skinny, was telling us more about his self-evaluations. He was working the Color your Parachute book. He was trying to find the right sort of career for his talents.

Another dream-the career dream. Chris is an entrepenuer. Just enough to make me freak out. Work for the man? Get a pension? Not for my man.

I am nervous to be self-sufficient in that way. But Chris makes it happen. God bless him. His American Dream is his own business.

Folks at work here are constantly making pools for Lotto. Buy 100 dollars worth of tickets and split it if any of them win.

I ask them, “What would you do if you won?”

They seldom get past the first month…A big party, a big trip.

But what then? Life is long…How do you fill the hours without a dream? And if you make your dream come true too soon, where are you?

Mostly, they say, “If I won, you wouldn’t see me around HERE anymore.”

I remember there were people who won the dot com lottery. 20 something millionaires. And they showed up to work. What else would they do with their time? They liked their jobs. Some of them, anyway…

Hmm…I wonder. I know for sure what I would do with a lottery windfall. Go back to school. But you know, that might only be the first few years. What would the dream be then?

William Hearst had the windfall. Well, theoretically, he worked very hard for it. He had a lot of businesses. But he had all the money anyone would want.

He spend his free time shopping. And throwing parties.

The American Dream. Is that what we’re about?

independence and intimacy

So Chris and I have been together for coming up on Five Years. It is time to take this whole thing seriously. So we’re going to take it to the next level.

RELATIONSHIPS!

None of us would be such relationship chickens if we hadn’t have those bad experiences. Now that I’m “taking it to the next level” that fire alarm that was comfortably damped…You know that alarm bell? The one that starts ringing DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! when you allow another person to become too important to you?

There are trip wires over certain parts of the heart that set the alarm off. When that certain cologne sets the back of your neck prickling. When you lean in. When your knees buckle thinking about him the next day.

The risk of wanting. The risk of denial.

But I had damped that alarm. It’s been practically five years, I had lulled it. Comfortable, known. When I lean in, he meets me there. He doesn’t let me fall.

But now I’m Leaning Further. More is at risk. Maybe I’m too heavy for him to catch. Maybe he’s not willing to lean in too.

DRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDR!!!!

Take a deep breath. Those years count for something. I think they do. I hope they do. If they don’t count, nothing does.

So I take a look and see where there might be weak spots in our RELATIONSHIP.

I don’t particularly like talking about relationships. Actually, I like talking about The Relationship too much. I feel like if we just have a good hour or two of conversation then we can settle everything….And I know I’m wrong about that. Having endless talks about The Relationship does not make as much of a difference as I feel like it does. Basically, we can talk about how we do things, but if we don’t get out and do them, we don’t have a chance to make the little improvements that would change the situation.

So, talking about it is not as helpful as I feel like it should be…It only feels good if the talks are basically insincere. It only feels good if he tells me what I want to hear.

Chris is very much a sincere person, so he won’t play that game.

I went to the library and got some books on communication. The ideas of power in a relationship are very important.

I weigh myself every day. I weigh my power relationsips every day. I can feel a very slight tip. I don’t always know what to do about it, but I know when I’m giving too much.

I was raised on very traditional female roles, so i always felt like I was required to give more. Because women were supposed to be subservient, that the man was supposed to support mom & kids (I don’t have kids, but that was supposed to change) and mom was supposed to do everything else. Including put up with the Man.

I tried to recreate that. When I was married, and I started to support my husband in school, I felt that this was an aberration. This is not how things were supposed to be. He was supposed to support me. He was going to graduate and then support me.

But that didn’t work out. He flunked out. So then we left college behind, and I got the first job I could, and started working very hard. He spent a lot of time trying to find the Perfect Job.

I ripped through three imperfect jobs, and then he finally found his perfect job.

Well! Thank god! I could now relax into the pose of subservient. I quit, because I wanted a break.

But I should have just taken a two week vacation. It was deep blackness, man, I don’t like not working.

But then I found a less important job than the Husband. I was a little intern. He was the important one. So I could maintain the right position.

I was very sad, without his company. I liked being with him. At least I remembered liking being with him. I wanted to spend time with him, but he always came home very late. It seemed like he did it on purpose! why would he stay away from me?

Finally, after weeks of crying at home and waiting for him, yelling at him when he came home because I was waiting so long, I said, No More.

If he wasn’t going to be there in the evenings, I would find someone else to play with. If I was crying at home, it was my responsibility to fix it. I thought I would just go out.

I told him, “i want to do this.” He thought it was a great idea, he told me I shouldn’t be lonely, I should go out and have fun. Go out with your girlfriends!

But then…I said, “This will change us. We won’t be as close anymore.”

He didn’t get it.

But I watched it happen.

I went out, I played with other people. Other people who thought I was interesting and smart and funny. Who didn’t play games and shelf me, and ignore me and break promises and let me down.

These other people listened to me. They TALKED with me. I thougth I was going to explode with happiness, to think that I had people listen to me.

And I gained independence. I knew who I was.

But I lost intimacy. That man, who I had been so desperately in love with, who I thought I would die without, had to go. It was a choice between me and him. He left no options.

There was the subservient role he offered, and then there was me.

I couldnt’ even fit in the role anymore. It was like pants that were too tight.
If I had tried, it would have resulted in escalating violence. I was scared of him

no more. I couldn’t go back. But I didn’t know where forward led.

More independence.

Yes, that particular choice was very obvious. My independence led me away from intimacy.

But then I started thinking….

How many women refuse to know things, because it will lead away from intimacy? It’s a standard thing (I hear) for girls to not do TOO well on their grades because they don’t want to be separated from their peers in high school.

I work in a highly technical field. I get lonely, because very few people know enough about what i do to talk about it. My independence made me give up the intimacy.

I bet that the women who work at beauty salons have a lot of things to talk about and share with each other.

I have felt like it’s a sacrifice, to learn things. Yes, it’s a benefit too, but it’s a sacrifice.

Intimacy is so important to me. That’s what Chris gives in abundance. He is always there for me.

And yet, he never gets in my way. That’s what helps me to feel comfortable with him. I HATE it when someone gets in my way.

And yet, I really wish I could be closer to people. Its a constant tug.