Monthly Archives: February 2008

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Politicians and potholes.

Thursday, February 7th, 2008

Now that Mitt Romney has dropped out of the race I guess it’s decided: Barack Obama is the last handsome candidate remaining and therefore I must cast my ballot in his favor. Hm. Good grief, you know I’m always kidding about this, right? (And for the record, I was never planning to vote for Mitt Romney, even if he is a stud). I’ve actually spent some time these days trying to learn more about these folks who would be President and I am a little bit torn. Who is the best, really? At one point I was sure it was Obama, but maybe not? Maybe I’ve just been caught up in the hype? It’s exciting to think that Wisconsin’s primary might actually matter this year. In the week preceding our election they will all come to our fine state talking sweet, but who will really bring change? Who will get us out of Iraq? Who will make health care affordable to all Americans? Who will pay attention to the poor and hungry, both in our country and in the world? And who will fix these potholes???

I’ve never seen so many potholes in my life–this winter has not been kind to our roads. Yesterday we got over a foot of snow. We are one inch away from the record snowfall and only halfway through winter. We are one pothole away from the record also, and I think that one of these days while driving, my car might fall into one and that will be the end of me. Politics won’t even matter, I’ll be dead or at least lost forever, swallowed up by the crumbling asphalt. Who will I vote for then? Who will vote at all, once we’ve all disappeared into these potholes?

Oh, and one more “P”. Persepolis has finally come to a theater near me! I have been waiting a long time for this! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl6kH3xPwDU&rel=1]

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Giving up (but not really giving up).

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

Speaking of conscience-driven meltdowns, thank you, really, for the feedback after my last post. I suppose I tend to freak out every once and again that I am not doing more with these words that I type, as if a few powerfully constructed sentences in a scarcely-read blog could change things in a broken world. You have kindly brought me back to reality: writing should be an enjoyable experience; when it ceases to be so it no longer benefits anyone. As for writing anything of great impact, it’s a bold assumption to begin with, to think that I could beget any change on my own. It’s a precarious line to walk, that bordering earnestness and arrogance. I can do nothing alone, and words are dead without a larger, nobler force behind them.  So!

So here, for now, I will write for enjoyment (mine and hopefully yours), I will write to improve my skills as a writer, and, when blessed to do so, I will write an occasional piece to challenge our comfort and rouse awareness. I know it sounds like a simple solution, like two days after this crisis of conscience I have come completely to terms with my role as a writer, and of course that is not true. It’s something that I’m sure I will continue to grope at, and probably should, because although creating should be fun, it shouldn’t be easy. Maybe that is a flawed statement; feel free to tell me so.

Anyway, today is Ash Wednesday, and in case you were wondering you can expect plenty of new posts in the weeks to come, an announcement made necessary after the Great Disaster of 2006 when I gave up blogging for Lent. This year I will not give up blogging. This year I am giving up two things which are very dear to me: music, and soda. Soda is the old standby: I will give up soda because it is my addiction and I want to be free of it.  And I will give up music because it has become my idol, and I’ve grown tired of it.  My ears and brain could use a break, and my affection could stand to be refocused.  No more listening to music on my drive to work, no more listening to music in my painting studio, no listening to music while I write in my blog.  More than soda, I am looking forward to this music-fast.  I am looking forward to quiet, to the chance to hear my own thoughts and to spend time in prayer and meditation.  From now until Easter I will be listening for something entirely different than melodies and minor keys.  What will I hear, I wonder?

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The curse of a blogger’s irrepresible conscience.

Monday, February 4th, 2008

If I have any talent as a writer, most of the time I waste it. Most of the time I exist passively, reactively. If I write, I rarely get lost in the act, and on the occasion that I do get lost in it, get carried away with the process of selecting and layering words and sentences, it is usually about something meaningless, if you inspect it in the grand scheme of things.

Why is this? I think I really enjoy writing, and I think I understand the power of such an art form. Written words resound long after they are written, long after they are read. I realize this, so why can’t I discipline myself–first to write with regularity, and second to write something of importance? I’ve been sitting on a draft about Darfur for the past couple of weeks and I can’t bring myself to finish it. Why? Isn’t the issue of genocide a bit more consequential than the story of how I lost my favorite sweatshirt? But if I only write about Darfur two times a year, doesn’t that make me the worst kind of hypocritical “activist?” And if I write about it every day doesn’t that simultaneously give me the airs of self righteousness and send me into guilt-wracked depression? Not to mention won’t all of you stop reading this, maybe? What am I supposed to do when the most urgent matters facing us are so unpopular and so unpleasant? And why do I have to use so many questions when I write about my personal issues of conscience and writing? Why can’t I just feel good about what I am doing?

Part of me feels like I either have to do it or not do it. Either I devote every page of this blog to things that I find truly pressing–things like social justice and God and creative responsibility (wasn’t that the initial point of this new blog, after all?), either I do that, or I throw it all out and write about television and bizarre dreams and what I ate for lunch that day. Either it is everything or nothing, because that is just the way I think, I have never been good with the middle ground, not in anything.

But part of me knows the danger of committing to something greater than I can handle. I can be roused to passion about a cause, but I don’t know if I can maintain that passion daily, which might make me a crummy human being but does it make me a crummy writer, to admit that shortcoming? I would consider this something of an internal crisis, and I would gladly hear any kind of advice or suggestions you have on the matter.

What is my obligation as a person who thinks and a person who writes? Can I get away with writing for fun, or is that completely irresponsible? And if so, is there a balance, and if so, how do I find it?

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What do you lose your breath for?

Friday, February 1st, 2008

Today I lost my breath for art. Really. Art made my heart pound. Literally and quite physically, that is. Because I was given a mission: to deliver a grant proposal to some civic building in downtown Madison, and I was given a deadline. It was exciting. But, now, if you know anything about being six-months young in Madison, you know that nothing makes sense downtown. None of the streets are two-way and there is not even a sensible grid-pattern but something like this:

It is a very nice layout, aesthetically, as it allows not one, not two, but eight incredible driving views of the Capitol, (and I thought Milwaukee’s view of the Art Museum/Starburst was cool from Wisconsin Ave) but when you don’t know quite where you’re going it can be a real trick.

I reach the downtown with about fifteen minutes left on the clock. I have a vague idea of where I am going. I have a street name, an address, a wrinkled printout of awfully cryptic driving directions from Yahoo Maps. I’m looking for Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and feel I’m close, so I pull my car into an available parking space. I have two dimes on my person which buys me 11 minutes at the meter. Fortunately it is Casual Day at work, so in my jeans and Chuck Taylor knockoffs I start down the sidewalk in a quick jog, but where am I going? I won’t have enough time at the meter, I realize, and jog back to my car. I stop in a hair salon and ask for four quarters for my dollar. Kindly the receptionist obliges me, and I ask her where I might find Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. She tells me it is the next street over, parallel to this one. “Parallel to this one?” I ask, gesturing to the street on the corner. “Yes, parallel to that one,” she agrees with another smile. We are not gesturing to the same street, though neither of us are aware of it at the time. I thank her and jog back out of doors and plug the meter with a hefty 36 minutes. I’ve lost time, and now, instead, I run. I run down a block, I run left a block. I see a woman standing on the corner and ask her where I’m going. She says to turn left and I’ll be there. I thank her and I run to the left and I am not there (perhaps she thought I asked for King Street). I run to the men waiting at the curb for the bus, and they direct me three blocks in the other direction. I thank them and I run off, and now my shoes are untied and I’m gasping for breath because I haven’t run like this since 8th grade basketball. But I’m running out of time. The art depends on me! I run from corner to corner, the grant proposal tucked under my arm. I run with abandon, dashing in front of cars and leaping over those who have gone before me and not made it; I’m crashing through hurdles of budget cuts and dashed dreams and an artless future. I am the runner of Marathon! And when I reach the Department of Cultural Affairs I will die, having exclaimed with the last of my strength, “Here! A grant! And all of the beautiful things in life must go on!”

The woman at the desk is pleasant, smiles when I burst through the door and say between gasps, “I have a (gasp) grant proposal to (gasp) deliver!”

“You are just in time,” she says, and she seems proud of me. It is 4:28. I, too, am a little proud of myself. Pieces of satisfaction break off of me and drift upward, lodging themselves into the ceiling where they will hang forever. I have been leaving pieces of satisfaction behind me ever since this happened. I enjoy a mission. And I can certainly use the exercise.

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