Democrat Vs Democrat -- It’s No Big Deal
Current mood: Political Again

Maybe?

The reason Clinton and Obama are going at it with each other is because they want to win the election, and they both have an actual chance of doing so this time.

The first thing that will happen when we have a Democratic president and congress will be that they will begin fighting among themselves.

Because people who are not sheep disagree with one another. And having the country run by people who are not sheep will be a nice change.

I dunno. It's a thought.

6:53 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Falls Apart
Current mood: Aging

House needs work all the time or it will crumble. Not spectacularly, just rot and sag and leak and rot and get boarded up and torn down after years of neglect.

Me, too. You, too. Obvious, well known.

Known and realized are very different things, and both come in degrees.

If I take good enough care of the house, it will outlast me. With luck.

(Five drinks a day is too much, according to a neurologist. Denial is the first stage of grief. Let's see if I can stay there for forty years.)

Let's hope. Why not. What else is there to do?

I'm going to be grey and saggy, dustier and dustier inside until I'm all dust, but meanwhile, I'm going to dance, and occasionally fix my house.

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Soundtrack? You Want a Soundtrack?
Current mood: Off Base

In movies, all the characters in a scene have the same music. They seem to feel it, to be a part of it. It ties them together. It unites new lovers gazing into each other’s eyes before they kiss. It makes a fight scene *feel* like a fight. It pretty much makes the characters and the audience feel the way that makes sense for whatever has to happen.

You don’t get background music. However you feel, and whatever you do, it all has to be explained to everyone in the damn room if they are to understand you. First, shit happens. Then, you feel something. Then, maybe you do something. Then, you have to explain it. You have to talk, talk, talk, all about your boring impressions of what happened and how they relate to everyone else’s imprssions of what happened, and how you feel, and why you feel that way, and how does everyone else feel, and why, and on, and on, and on.

It’s awkward. It’s ungraceful. It’s crude. It’s usually at least partly wrong.

Because there is no theme. No reason. No writer. No POINT to anything that is happening, and nothing ties it, and us, together, but talking. Lots, and lots, and lots, of talking. And listening.

When all you want to do is put a sword through the people around you, and, for once, have it, have anything at all, make at least a little sense and fit in to some kind of story.

But it won’t. You’ll only be asked to explain. And you won’t be able to.

6:52 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Struck

Here’s a bit of a surprise for those of you who know me.

I had a stroke. Not the kind that makes one side of the body hang like slack like a latex mask, but rather the kind that makes the right side peripheral vision go away and then, a minute later, makes the rest of what you see look like an underdeveloped polaroid, or a faint black velvet painting, or just like you’re in a dark room. But I can read and type and do all the usual stuff. Just not scan a table of contents, find the remote, or recognize people I know until they speak. Okay, couldn’t find the remote before. But it really is wierd not recognizing a friend right away because he or she is in black-and-white-o-vision.

Pretty much. I miss taking in a scene at a glance. It’s much easier to set something down and forget where I put it because I used to just *see* it out of the corner of my eye. Not so much anymore.

People are nice to me because I was in the hospital. I have paid time off and insurance to cover the medical bills. Other than the partial blindness, this is a great vacation for me. Weird stuff, though, and I wish I had just gone to work rather than pulled my car over and lost half my eyesight Monday 10 March 2008.

Some of my color vision has been coming back, though mostly over the first few days. Now it’s where I kinda, sorta think it may still be getting better. As I am able to see more, the part of my field of vision that I lost, just right-of-center, gets images stuck into it by my brain to fill it in. Stuff that isn’t there, like I’ll see a shelf on my right at eye level that would bonk my head, if it were there.

If most of my vision doesn’t come back, my driving days are through. My motorcycling and scootering days, too. That’s the stakes. I can probably get rides to work, or work from home. I will miss riding my motorcycle. I’ll have my girlfriend drive, and I will sit on the perch behind her, looking very much taller than she is, because I am, and because the back seat is high.

I really want my stuff back, and I really like not having to work these past two weeks, but I am beginning to want to go back to work anyway, just to be there doing things.

Yep, life is weird, and I haven’t seen the half of it.

7:01 AM - 4 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

Racist Jokes
Current mood: Awakening Into Another False Consciousness Onion L

And others. Mostly classism, mostly economic. D. Boon and others have observed that the only color that matters is green.

What's crazy for me is that, with all the casual jokes and slurs there are for every class of people who aren't in the club, or who partake less of the set of characteristics that define the Man (again, money's the one that matters, but skin color and gender and religion and all manner of other trivial things stand in for it), it's only very recently that I realized how much stratification there is in society.

Having a house, and a job that pays well, puts me in a position where, for the first time in my life, I'm paying other people less than I make to do stuff for me. Maybe that's it.

I might go to a parking lot some day soon to ask some of the guys who assemble there each morning to come and work on my house for a hundred dollars a day.

This is messed up. It's messed up that someone else is there and I'm here. It's messed up that, relative to a bunch of folks, I'm a guy in a parking lot, as I will be if I lose my job in the coming economic downturn. It's a hierarchy, and I'm above a lot of people in it right now. I'm using someone else's money (metaphorically and to some extent literally); I have the privilege of using more of it than some others and less of it than some other others.

If I make a joke about race or class now, besides being rude, I'm trying to make a joke about my position, about the whole idea of position, about the pecking order. But I'm just making a joke about people who have less: less power, less money, less freedom.

There are no jokes about the Man, or I don't know any, or I won't tell any. Racist jokes are part of the system of privilege; they are not *about* the system of privilege. (I hope there are jokes about the Man. Jokes about the little guy getting hurt aren't funny. It's only funny when someone like me gets hurt.)

And here we all are, all of us in a big, pyramid shaped pile, with most of us near the bottom. And I have money, and I need someone to fix my roof, probably someone who doesn't have a roof of his own. Isn't that funny?

3:58 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Persona Non Mostrata.To Einstein / the Primaries, with which this Post Has No Connection
Current mood: Chianti, Etc. Mambo Sun.

I have this stupid real me that I never show to anyone.

It's not a big deal, like superman never revealing his real identity. Or Peter Parker, either.

It's just that I'm this big old scared little kid or whatever, and I always find it best to limit and control what others see of me to insure that nothing bad happens, to the extent that I can insure something like that.

Fact is, I know I can't limit the extent to which bad drama happens, and sometimes, I make it happen by trying to protect myself.

Of course controlling how you talk and act is also known in various circles as good manner or persona.

But, however you slice it, trust is an issue for all parties involved.

Yeah, of course I'm dependent on various lubricants to let anything out at all, but then it all comes down to choice of avenue of recreational escape or none, and if you're here, there's probably at least one in there, so welcome to the mirrordome, and graduate before you start trying to teach.

Currently listening : Electric Warrior By T. Rex Release date: 25 February, 2003

7:21 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Signing Off (for tonight)
Current mood: yipes

people.

things.

my fucking weakness.

Why any of this?

seriously.

sex? money? power? safety? what is it?

what's so fucking important about you? Or me?

I had something to post, but I forgot it.

I miss Libby, and this is solo Scott, signing off.

6:39 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Wanna-Be Revolutionaries
Current mood: Who’ll Be First Up Against the Wall?

Some little kid in a sandbox talking about how he owns the park and is
going to build a big hi-rise condo there to put all his vintage race
cars in is no less believable than someone telling me how they or their
candidate is going to change the world.

In other words, I'm sick and tired of people bragging about how they're
going to do things that they do not have the power to do, and I'd be
much more impressed by someone showing that they have the power to do
things.

10:03 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Why would it be OK for non-Democrats to pick the Democratic candidate?
Current mood: Everyone’s Arguing in Bad Faith

Barak Obama is doing better with independents than Hillary Clinton is, to the extent that it's making a difference with his lead in delegates.

lambert at Corrente asks, Why would it be OK for non-Democrats to pick the Democratic candidate?

It made me think, and this is what I thought:

Because that's the way some states have organized their democratic
primaries, and because the candidates have been campaigning for their
votes with full knowledge of how the system works.

It would not be okay to change the rules in the middle of the race.

--Then more, about the general pro-Clinton, anti-Obama slant I read there--

I neither love Obama nor hate Clinton, but I voted for him because he'd
just voted for the Dodd/Feingold amendment that would have removed
telecom immunity from the PAA/FISA bill, and Clinton didn't vote. Also
because his money is from small donors. Also because he voted against
the US using land mines while she voted for it.

Also because he speaks well. It's not everything, but it does matter.

Why do you make out that supporters of Obama are suckers for pleasant
speech? Why do you imply that he's empty and that she's full of great
ideas and skill and ability to get things done? And how many candidates
have won elections by NOT having a successful public image? Is there any
other real criterion?

I worry that his health care plan is not as good as hers and that hers
is not as good as I'd like. I agree with you that his sound-bytes are not
substantial.

I won't be sad if Hillary wins, but I will be surprised, because she's
lost a lot of primaries in a row, because I read that she's running a
poor campaign, and because I feel good when I see Obama ads, and I feel
bad when I see her ads.

10:03 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

I keep thinking that I need to be nice, er, nicer.
Current mood: Er...

1) I should go out and express myself. Happy, sad, whatever. INTERACT
with folks more.

2) I should not worry about drama that will ensue from people knowing
what I think, or just from people seeing me there. Drama, though it IS
dramatic and emotional, is the stuff of life and not be be avoided.

3) I should however, try not to be malicious or dishonest.

Where it gets confusing is when I wonder what to do about someone
leaving trash on my porch or being nasty to me in some way. I guess it's
not the right time to address that issue.

Where it's clear is when I am feeling tired, weak, confused, or just not
able to deal with stuff, that I have to stop snapping back, exaggerating
difficulty, acting like some kind of martyr, or whatever. I have to say,
as kindly as I can, that I feel like crap and that I just can't deal
with it right now, whatever and whoever it is.

That is, the goal is, when I want something that does not fit with what
the people around me want, to say so, kindly, respectfully, and nicely,
and then to go do it, whatever it is.

10:03 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment