King me. Final Indiana move.

The Last Four Days

Moved.
Came down with a nasty cold.
Went on two interviews.
Worked 24 out of 40 hours at day job.
Fixed ICE Pay Pal HTML code.
Taught class.
Arranged cable guy, gas guy, garage door guy – all of whom were EARLY!
Dealt with four plumbers and two working (one new) toilets.
Made insurance changes and filled out and faxed in forms.
Found fax machine.
Sewed a vinyl window curtain for the shower.
Lined shelves.
Got brake light and turn signal fixed on car.
Made trips to Wal-Mart and stores.
Cleaned two houses – old and new.
Adjusted to 6am alarms and start of senior year of high school.
Avoided fist fight about work boundaries.

And stayed current on Big Brother drama.

The Next Four Days

…zzzzz.......zzzzz......zzzzz......

(The Secret principles have been applied to title and the next four days.)

School Days

My recent involvement with the new Indiana Clean Elections Coalition has resulted in something completely unrelated: a real hankerin’ to go to school. We meet at the University of Indianapolis and are organizing a Citizens’ Summit there in September. Three of the charter members are professors. And we click. I love it when Miss Charlotte patiently corrects our grammar. I love it when they talk their everyday academic talk and use words like plenary that I have to secretly look up.

My first adult appreciation for higher education came when I worked for CBU in Memphis while finishing my Bachelor’s degree. I loved it. Well, politics and misunderstood pecking orders aside, I loved it. We employees could take time off for class, for studying, for projects, or just for deep discussions all surrounded by impeccable landscaping, grand old buildings and oodles of ideas, and thoughts, and words, and opinions and perspectives.

I’ve wanted a graduate English degree for years now, but my son’s education has always been top billing. And still is. If I had $10,000 to spend on me, though, I’d be at school tomorrow!

Anna at Borders

With all the griping and whining I’ve done about the living situation lately, I think years from now what I’ll remember most is what Miss Hazel said to me on the phone after I had filled her in, in probably way too much detail.

“You know what’s funny about things like this? It’s that none of it ever matters ten years later.”

Point. Set. Match. Miss Hazel. As usual.

My horoscope says August will be full of fluctuations. It couldn’t be more accurate so far, because this is just the 5th and I’ve already had ridiculous ups and downs. Just Thursday, I had a great conversation with an interesting, inspiring woman at work and a nice lunch with another tech writer (even though this one asks me sometimes if I need some work to do and means it), then got home to a humunGus IRS bill from 2005 that I’ll have to spend even more time and money investigating and fixing.

The highlight of the week happened on a lunchtime trip to the Borders in downtown Indy when I asked a girl named Anna to point me in the direction of the recent release of The Portable Writer's Conference.

She walked to the section where it should have been with me and asked, “What do you write?”

I hung my head and stammered: “Oh, nothing. Nothing, really. I don’t have anything published or anything. I just play around with things.”borders.jpg

“I think that’s so cool.”
“Writing is the hardest part.”
“Writers are my rock stars.”
“Like what types of things are you working on?”
“What’s your genre?”

She kept pressing me. And thank God!! I left the store feeling like a real writer, and, since I don't believe in chance encounters and coincidences, I'm going to go back to the store when the book I ordered arrives and thank her some more.

If I never, it'll be too soon.

If anyone had told me this time last year that I’d be moving again exactly one year later, I wouldn’t have believed it. But it’s true. The owners and I discussed at length staying for two years, but after just eleven months, they have decided to sell. I would think that they saw me coming - take advantage of my rent money while it's up for sale - but that'd be giving them way too many points for apparently non-existent smarts..

Lessons Learned
Never rent a house that’s up for sale.
Freakin’ people.

Bad Karma
The owners of the current house now have to put the house back up for rent because they’ve received no offers. It’s been up for sale for 29 days now. 16 days ago, I offered them $200 extra each month in rent to stay another year if they’d take it off the market. Nothing. No response. Chirping crickets, as a matter of fact. So, I turned in my termination notice.

Yesterday, Wife, tried like heck to light into me. She believes that the reason the house didn’t sell is because I was difficult toward the realtors trying to show the house. I have pages and pages of horror stories from the past 19 days of showings (little annoyances like 15 phone calls a day, 4-minute showing notice, 7am weekend phone calls, an irate phone call from the listing agent mad at me because his realtor had to break in (Husband didn’t think to put a key in the lockbox), a realtor with no showing scheduled attempting to break in while I was staring right at him, I could go on). She believes I just overreacted and should have "at least been cordial" in the last case. CORDIAL? Are you freakin' kidding me? Cordial never crossed my mind.

But the funniest thing is that she’s mad because I caused them to “lose the summer months, prime time to sell”. They just decided to sell June 26th, with the first showing on July 10th. And there are multiple reasons for a prospect not to buy this house (tiny little issues like cracks in the foundation and ceiling, backyard spigot leaking under house and back bedroom, mildew/mold bathroom issues, leaning trees....)!

Chirp. Chirp.

It takes a special breed of idiot to blame someone else for their inability to have a complete thought. I guess I should have called the poor people to make sure they thought about putting it up for sale in May or June.

Chirp. Chirp.

Good Karma and Faith that everything happens for a reason
We’re moving into a beautiful, well-kept house in a great subdivision near Austin’s friends, in the Township, and for only a little bit more rent. The owner has no plans to sell, looking at it as an investment property.

And, as of this update at the end of September, their house is still up for sale.

Tainted Love

Since the break-up, my father continues to send me birthday cards. Last year’s sentiment was about 1963 being a great year because it was the year they “got me”. This year I got a once-every-few-decades compliment about what a nice young man Austin has become. But not only was it tainted by a disclaimer that I “had done a good job for a single parent”, it was a homemade card with a picture on the front of him and me together on the patio of a garden home he purchased in 1982.

I distinctly remember the day the picture was taken. My brother was behind the camera. He had a weekend furlough from the halfway house he was in at the time and my father was just thrilled about the fact that the kid had to come to his house, what most folks would call home.

Appearances always being priority, pictures were in order, but each of us knew that the others would rather be anywhere else. We were dressed up for my grandmother’s first holiday open house in her new retirement home. If I recall correctly, the words spoken that entire day could be counted on about three hands.

A lot was happening around this time. My mother had died the year before. My father had been in a drunken stupor for months (I had too, now that I think about it). He was either traveling or at his girlfriend’s (no need to state the obvious here) house most of the time and I was in college, so I had been instructed to give my seven-year-old dog away just a few months before. And he had just sold our family home to move into this hip new bachelor pad.

More than a few of my requests to come home from school for weekend visits around this time were met the same response: “I would prefer that you not come home this weekend”. In many a conversation about my inability to emotionally process my father's transition, my grandmother let me know that he had told her that he was “closing this chapter of his life”. So, apparently, anything before 1982 had no place.

Perfect choice. Thanks for the memories, as usual, Tim.

You can have a town...

I started working for a new client Friday. First days are hectic and awkward, but they went out of their way to make it a comfortable and nice day for me. Computer accounts were set up and ready to use, a whole desk was provided (no cube share, no corner of Bob’s desk “until we find a place for you”), and an unexpected and guided tour of the building was given.

It’s impossible to appreciate everything in just one day, but, looking at going back on Monday morning, I’m a little excited. This client is right on Monument Circle, the center of downtown Indianapolis, and it’s a special experience to work in such an historic area and building.

It was also fun to walk around at lunchtime in the 75-degree sunshine and see all the people scurrying about, talking, visiting, and eating their lunches on the monument steps.

I've never felt so much like Mary Richards in my life and if you know me, you know how happy that makes me. :)

Once I’m settled and a little more comfortable with folks, I want to take pictures from the roof of the building, which they have set up with tables and chairs and call the “deck”.

Indianapolis really is the perfect little downtown. Tomorrow, when I walk around the circle, I'll be looking up and mentally throwing my fuzzy blue beret in the air.

Alive for another birthday

I’m in love. With two people. Brandi Carlile and Khaled Hosseini. What finds. What treasures. I have to keep them apart, though. Each deserves undivided attention. Neither requires it nor demands it; you just want to give it, freely and happily. That’s love.

Another birthday has come and gone. This one went by too quickly. I usually enjoy a few moments each July 17th to think about my past, my present and my future. Test my contentment. Ask myself some tough questions. And, dare I say, praise myself for how far I’ve come.

I didn’t get a chance yesterday, but that’s okay. I received some much appreciated birthday wishes and messages of love, was surprised with a couple of cupcakes and cards, signed paperwork on a new contract, met with a prospect, started a class, finalized website plans with the Indiana Clean Elections committee, and had a lovely, spiritual three-hour conversation and connection with a stranger I now feel like I have known for years.

Austin and his friends returned safely from Chicago's Pitchfork Festival and brought home great stories about some fascinating characters they met. I sent my 45-day lease termination notice, which is a consuming sadness and uncertainty, but the finality of the decision is even a blessing.

Love, work, and a safe, happy kid. Oh, and still alive. Another successful birthday.

Put on hold, by God

Eleven (at last count) phone calls about the house I'm living in (that's up for sale, see previous whine/post), two conference calls in the car with my barking dog in the back seat (have to vacate when the agent needs to show the house, see previous whine/post), and a phone interview in aforementioned car with aforementioned barking dog later, I came home for a little silent prayer time.

After which, I decided to call the listing agent myself to call a truce and hopefully and peacefully lay down some guidelines, but was put on hold. The recording was a meditation tape. Telling me to breathe. To close my eyes. Inhale. Hold. Count. Exhale. Slowly. Relax. Picture yourself on the beach. Hear the waves. Feel the breeze.

That God.

I did eventually have to talk to the agent's voicemail, which, after my typical two to three hours of obsession, pissed me off again tonight, because, as usual, I received no response.

But I get it, God. Women in Ethiopia. Rwanda. Darfur. Afghanistan. Iraq. Katrina. Bigger pictures. Mind off self. Gratitude. Faith.

I donated what I could to an online charity, apologized to the Universe, and went back to my happy place:

cottage.jpg

Driver's License Renewal Day

You know you’re having a bad driver’s license renewal day when:

  1. The Neanderthal behind you in the check-in line uses his outside voice on his 15-minute personal phone call to his buddy about how lax his week has been. And when you turn around to mention to him that it sounds like he has plenty of time to make this call anywhere but within six inches of your left ear, he just responds with a goofy smile and a wink, because he understands how impressed you really must be.

  2. You count four female butt cracks in the pack of riffraff.
  3. The photographer snaps your picture, looks at it on the computer, and says, “Um. No. Let’s try again.” And repeats this process FOUR TIMES.
  4. You arrive and leave on the same page of the book you brought to avoid encounters with undesirables.
  5. You look at your picture when you’re alone in your car and understand the problem: old and angry, a combination impossible to camouflage.

Take my July, please

Let me get this right….

Sunday 7pm: Austin helps me hang pictures next to the new bookcase that was finally (ordered two months ago) delivered Saturday. I unpack the last box (of books) from our July 2006 move to this house. The living room is complete and I’m happy with it.

Tuesday 1pm: I get to thinking that I could spend the month of July not desperately looking for a new project but finishing my first draft. The relief from this first-time freedom will last nineteen more minutes.

Tuesday 1:20pm: The owner of the house (we rent because of Austin’s tentative college plans, my future New England plans, my Mississippi house that took forever to sell last year, my new debt-free conviction, I won’t go on) calls.

“We’re having financial troubles and need to put the house on the market.”

"Uh. Uhm. Uhhhhmmm. Is there a magic rent number I could pay to be able to stay another year like we discussed? I just need one more year. We discussed that when I moved in. Son starting college, blah blah. Right? Do you remember that?"

“Yes, but we have no choice. Do you want to buy it?"

Uhhh, hell to the -  "No". Did you not hear me two sentences ago?

"Well, we want you to stay while it’s up for sale, though. And it could be up for sale for a while.”

"Ummm…yea...okay."  (think the boss in OfficeSpace)

Tuesday 2pm: 30 minutes of mad, madder, and the infamous Karen silent rage. I understand multiple mortgages (though these folks have four mortgages and are in their mid-fifties, which I don't understand) and hard times, but I’ve settled on irate. We just moved in 11 months ago. WTF.

We’ll be paying rent, taking care of the place, the yard. Of course you want us to stay. How nice for you! Did you plan this? This could make a girl feel used, if she thought about it for 30 more seconds.

The inconveniences. Ours, of course. You want to put a FSBO sign in the yard first to save the commissions. How many drooling agents will be knocking on the door every day? What time on weekend mornings will you start pounding on roof shingles or knocking on the door to come inside to fix this or that? You mentioned wanting to tile the kitchen floor. How nice for us. How many prospective buyers will be traipsing through the house looking at our stuff while I have to drive around the block 100 times with the dog? Will we have the joy of fumbling with lockboxes on the doors, too, if FSBO doesn't work?

You don’t know it yet, but we will, of course, be moving. I’m ridiculously private and won't be able to take it. 

So, I need to polish my crystal ball to see three years into the future, find a place, sign another lease with another stranger, and move AGAIN (which causes a "moving chain reaction" to accommodate multiple transitions in the next couple of years).

I still feel like throwing up.

With a sign going in the yard “within a week”, my July isn’t mine anymore.

Freakin’ people.

Ever

There is so much I miss
But there is so much I don’t.

I had no idea that I would be thinking now
Of the tiniest of moments then.

Life today consists of strangers
Full of polite and random encounters.

I wonder what would make me belong again
And how long this will last.

Everyone needs attention, affection, and supportive love
Or hope.

Space Invasion

I don’t know what’s going on but, for the past four evenings, strangers with badges and clipboards have knocked on my door. One will come by, then another about every 15 minutes. It must be their attempt at divide and conquer, but they obviously don’t communicate about what houses have already been ambushed.

Nothing (well, almost nothing) makes me madder than people I don’t know invading my personal space, in which I include all house entrances.

I only open my door to either someone I recognize or someone less than 4 feet tall (they’re cute and sometimes have candy).

The last one got a little snippy that I wouldn’t open the door and communicated my lack of interest and frustration at the multiple attempts at solicitation to the peephole. I guess he felt like he had every right to invade my privacy and that I was being rude. As usual, the nutty situations boil down to degrees of dumb.

Nonproductivity?

My life has slowed down considerably in the past year and I still haven’t shaken the feeling of being unproductive. Austin’s in Atlanta visiting his grandparents and cousins and having a great time. He actually called me today, which I’m still not over. He’s usually hard to keep on the phone for more than about 30 seconds when he goes out of town.

I can’t wait for Saturday. I get to meet the Alliance for Democracy crew here in Indy. They’re ramping up public campaign funding efforts in the state and working on a summit in September. I hope they like me and let me help! I really do think public funding is the key to a better, more populist, democracy. I just finished an introductory Clean Elections DVD hosted by Bill Moyers (love) that the Director lent me after a quick (I actually rambled for two hours – poor Stevie!) hook-up at Wild Oats last week. I’m in that high-hope phase, until told otherwise.

I have four books ready for pick-up at the library and ten more on hold. Nobody told me Joy Fielding came out with a new book in April. My favorites are JF, Jodi Picoult, Elizabeth Strout, Elinor Lipman, and Fannie Flagg. I surely thought I kept up well with their book release dates, but the years do seem to be spinning by faster these days. Or maybe I’m spinning slower.

I’m working on my class presentations and content and enjoying every minute of it.

I placed my monthly Amazon order and can’t wait for my 3-CD-set of Federico Mompou music!

I think we finally have a nice, reliable, reasonable lawn service guy arranged for one of the three widows who live behind and on either side of me. I hate to hear the stories about service people who have overcharged them, failed to show up for appointments, or just treat them badly. I hope all goes well tomorrow. This guy did some work for me last fall and he went out of his way to do a great job.

I’m reading through Austin’s college workshop material and learning a lot about the process. It sure has changed since 1980 when I was putting stamps on my applications!

I enrolled in a Writer’s Weekly class that starts in July, a day before my birthday. I thought it would be a nice present to myself.

I successfully gave the evil eye to a rude and ridiculous woman at my day job. She looked shocked that someone would look at her so coldly. It was a happy moment and I couldn't help but walk away and smile. She has to be my age and tries so hard to be cute. She spends hours upon hours on personal calls every day, laughing at her own cute comments, and flirting like she wasn’t married with three children. Have I mentioned she has two first names? Ruthann. Nauseating. She should have picked one at age 25.

I’ve organized a plea/plan/proposal that I will submit to a Director at my day job tomorrow, since their direction and finances have changed (rumor has it). And in preparation for an outcome that involves less or no work, I have updated and consolidated an “Opportunities Listing” spreadsheet of contacts I’ve made over the last few years.

I tried a new scallops recipe. It wasn’t great, but a nice try. Sabrina enjoyed a lot of them.

So, even though I feel unproductive, maybe I’m just productive in a new way. I may not be out driving the roads constantly carting my kid to and fro or attending school and extra-curricular activities on a daily basis anymore, but I’m still getting things done. Just less parental and a whole lot slower.

Writers' Conference, on second or five hundredth thought

After months of carrying the brochure around and re-reading the schedules, I have decided not to pursue this year’s Midwest Writers’ Conference at Ball State. I’ve thought about going since 2003, but I have yet to sign on the dotted line.

And I think I’ve finally figured out why: it’s just not for me.

The three-day session with hotel would cost about $600. There are scads of workshops to choose from, but none really jumped out at me. There is only one author I’ve heard of and he’s not exactly my niche. The only manuscript evaluator with whom I felt an online connection was Heather Sellers and she’s only reviewing five manuscripts. But the real reason behind my decision is that I have to admit my own weaknesses. I’m not a networker, I’m not an initiator, I’m not a seller - especially if I’m flying solo – and I know that I’m not ready to fight 200 people for a five-minute session with an agent or publisher. I don’t know that I ever would be.

Though, I imagine someday, under different circumstances, this conference might be a treat to attend, I think I would be better served right now by more of a retreat environment, a community college class, a couple of critique/editing/validation partners who might constantly remind me to ignore the gremlins, as Cynthia Morris would say. I thrive in supportive, non-competitive environments.

I’ll never, ever, ever forget my first writers’ conference in 2001. It was the Welty Symposium at the Mississippi University for Women in Columbus, MS, where attendees listened to readings from authors and participated in a panel discussion about these writers’ lives and experiences. So it wasn’t a conference at all, really.

Regardless, it was a spiritual awakening for me. This sounds strange even to write, but I felt like I became my God for a moment – I left my body and was looking down at myself as though I were my own child. I smiled at me and welcomed myself home. Floods of tears (hidden as well as could be expected in an auditorium) and waves of contentment.

I was surrounded by history and academia and like women and Southern writers, past and present. Mississippi is the best place in the world to connect with spirits and ghosts and I was moved and changed by the experience.

Maybe the MWW has intercepted a call home. It might be time to go sit with Ms. Welty again. Take a week or so to listen to her and reconnect with the Spirit she stirs in me. Then, maybe she'll give me some pointers on our next steps.

Saturday

11am. The best night’s sleep I’ve had all week. The dog is beside herself about the possibility of the day. I’m at home. Austin’s at home. The porch is sunny and warm already. Perfect for lying down and sniffing in the wind. One bowl full of food and another full of fresh water. I fix turkey pitas with Trader Joe's Hot and Sweet Mustard (yum) and let Austin move my office radio to the screened-in porch. I can see him reading the directions (good boy). He bought a grill yesterday and is almost as happy as the dog. To be fair, Sabrina also got brushed today, so the bar is pretty darn high, but with no school and all A's and B's and a good clothes shopping trip, he's up there. I can hear him singing along to music from the 70’s. That always cracks me up. Cycles. I start my third book of the weekend. There must be ten neighborhood kids across the street at the house with the only pool for miles around. They’re riding big wheels and directing each other in their outside voices. A baby squirrel gets closer to us each time we go outside to turn the potatoes. It makes his mother mad and she squeaks at him. He runs back to her. I've never seen so many green leaves. I will miss summers in this house. Steak. Talk. A window. Information. Respect. Love. He let me put gel in his hair. He checks it and redoes it, but he let me. June is traveling month for Austin as well as most of his friends. Possible g-bye grill party tomorrow. I will need to leave the house. List of possible activities to keep me busy. A check in the mail. Vacuum and Windex and Clorox Swipes. Febreeze. Austin goes out till curfew. Check Web and e-mail. Neighborhood settles in. Dusk. Candles. Two old movies on the DVR to choose from. Sabrina snores and dream-twitches beside me. Heat lightning. Blessed. A little prayer for the world.

Thinking Aloud

I just read Lee Iacocca’s new book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone, tonight and I have to say that there wasn’t anything in there that screamed insight to me. There were facts and information, but all easily google-able. He spent most of the 250 pages bashing Bush. Okay, rightfully so. There is a bandwagon rally now, futile and way too late as it might be. There are countless wrongs that this administration has committed: ignoring the Geneva Convention, ignoring that whole Saudi 9/11 “thang”, Iraq, Halliburton, crimes, crimes, crimes, oil, oil, oil. But it’s all old news. Hell, if all Lee Iacocca can do is gripe, what can the rest of us do?

The one argument the former CEO made that pulled me to his corner (for another minute) was that voting should be a DUTY in a democracy, not just a RIGHT. We should be required to vote and penalized if we don’t - we don’t get to use the child credit on our 1040’s if we didn’t vote in the last election. Something along those lines. I like that idea. We should be responsible. Accountable. I like that idea. But, wait, then there’s that whole popular vs. Electoral College voting dichotomy. 2000, wasn’t it? Popular vote sure didn’t mean much in that election (and I’m not a Gore fan). Even our Dancing With the Stars votes mean something.

Then he turned on me. He had a revelation fairly early in the book that Congress should take a year off and meet at a convention center by a lake to review each bill they have passed in recent years to evaluate its performance. Then, they could cut what isn’t working in favor of those that are.

Are we supposed to believe these people would sit in a room and accomplish anything so good, so beneficial, so logical, so black and white? The same people who spend most of their 97 days (the least amount of time served in US history, by the way) voting for their own raises and pension increases and pork projects in the dead of night? Puhhhleeeez. These people would be comparing hairstylists and drivers and the number of buildings or wings named after them before the first day’s $1,000 lunch was served.

About mid-book, Iacocca touted Joe Biden and John Murtha as his personal friends and high moral examples. Strike two for me. And I thought I’d like you, man.

And then, close to the end of the book, he riled me most of all. He droned on and on about the trillions upon trillions of national debt we have now. Debt to other countries as a result of our government’s shameful, ill intentioned, and completely orchestrated Iraq War. We know, we know.

Yes, I’m pissed off. I believe most of us are pissed off. But if Iacocca has no pull other than to publish a “we’ve heard it all before” bitch fest of a book, what can be expected much from us lowly working class folks?

Apparently a great deal. He then had the gall to call upon Americans to “get off the golf course and do something”. His effort at sounding like a leader was to tell us that we need a leader to tell us that we need to be willing to give back to our country and pay for the rewards of living here.

For something as wonderful as universal health care, for example, we should all be willing to sacrifice - to give up a tax deduction or the cost of a gallon of gas a week or a pothole repair this month. All for the common good of the good ol’ UsofA.

Capital B Bullshit, Mr. Iacocca. Strike three. You’re out. Go ahead and retire (he talks endlessly about how he can’t retire). Nobody will really mind.

Enough. I give more than enough. And what do I get for my investment? Daily, make that hourly, stories of the bazillions of dollars blatantly wasted by my government and its corporate bed buddies. All as some politician or CEO is going to tell me to cut back?

So, to Mr. Iacocca, I say this: Bazillionaires first, Mr. Iacocca, bazillionaires first. And thanks for the book. It oozed leadership.

Nothin'

Leave it to Hope Clark to put it all in a nutshell. Her latest formula:
For every hour you email, read, network and conference, you owe your writing a like hour.

One of my favorite characters ever written is Dwight in Elinor Lipman’s Then She Found Me. I just read that Colin Firth is going to play Dwight’s part in the movie written by Helen Hunt due out later this year. I could not be happier! Understated, peaceful, content confidence. I can’t wait for this one! I missed Dwight the minute I closed the book and I still miss him. His name in the movie is Frank. I’ll have to get used to that.

Tomorrow, most folks go back to work. I'll go to Lulu’s Electric Café. I’m going with my laptop and my notebook and I’m going to finish a User’s Guide that’s due June 1st. I'm behind, but with a little focus, I think I can get it done tomorrow and make a dent in a Tutorial due the same day. It's my own fault. I'm a practicing procrastinator.

Memories

My brother would be 47 years old today. He’s been gone for 14 years now. Hard to believe how fast that time has gone by. I remember the funeral, if you could call it that, like it was yesterday. My ex kept my son and my father, grandmother (mother’s mother) and I drove to Memphis to bury him with my mother. My grandmother and grandfather had bought four plots decades before. They were meant for the two of them and their daughter who died in 1980 and her husband, my father. But my father remarried years ago, so it was a perfect fit for his plot to go to my brother. I’m not sure why I didn’t fit in the space, but it made sense and still does.

I remember my father looking at his only son lying in his coffin, holding his hand and shaking his head with incomprehension. My brother died in jail and was sent to the funeral home with his belongings, which all fit into one trash bag. Granted, it was the larger lawn and garden size, but it was still one trash bag. The only words my father said were, “How can someone be in their thirties and die with one hefty bag of stuff?”

What he was really saying - what really stumped him - was that his son had died with so little when he had been given so much. Money, that is. My father had spent thousands upon thousands of dollars trying to get my brother on the right track in life, and in his mind, Pat was the only thing blemishing his appearance as a complete success.

While I didn’t know my brother as well as I should have because he didn’t live at home full-time after the age of 13 in an effort to make him be a better person, I really just felt sadness. I still do. Sadness about a boy who just wanted to be good, but couldn’t. He wanted to make people happy, make people proud of him, make people love him, make people be who they could never be. He used to draw beautifully. He created things for everybody. He sent our grandmother homemade cards, because she asked him to draw for her. It was the closest he got to someone being genuinely proud of him. He was forgiving, trusting, and a considerate, sensitive soul.

And he should get credit for trying so hard to be a good boy. Unfortunately, the only people left who knew him are me and my father, whose viewpoints on everything about the past cancel each other out.

An Ode to Ron Paul

“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”   -– Mahatma Gandhi

The media talk about there being too many choices in the presidential race, to which I scream:

Too many choices!?!?!?! Are you kidding me?

I’ve never seen a group of more identical people. A vote for one is really a vote for another.

There may be a lot of pre-candidates, but there’s not an individual among ‘em. And certainly not one who’s running for us, the people.

Save one. One who stands, not for himself, but, out and alone, and 100% for America.

I’m standing at the gates of Nirvana. And its name is Ron Paul.

An Ode to Ron Paul

Integrity, loyalty, and fortitude.
The way it was, the way it should be.
Sincerity, responsibility, and logic.
All wrapped up in an impeccable voting history.

One. Ron Paul.

Rejects his own congressional pension.
Lowers his bills to avoid patient assistance claims.
Voted against the Iraq war the first time.
For smaller government, more liberties, and NO corporate games.

One. Ron Paul.

How many candidates want to solve illegal immigration?
How many want to get rid of the IRS?
How many want to leave some issues to individual states where they belong?
How many refuse corporate campaign money and everything that suggests?

Only one. Ron Paul.

I feel like I did when I found Joyce Meyer, giddy and twinkly and tingly.
I think Ron Paul might just be Hope for America, like his campaign slogan says.
Because I do feel a little sliver of hope that Americans might finally be fed up.
If we don’t begin to demand more, we don’t deserve more than another bought and paid for prez.

The one for me. Ron Paul.

I’m going to go contribute now. Even though it may just buy you some paper clips.
Today, I thank you. I appreciate your record, your character, your service to us.
Just to be near and feel the residual rain of Hope for America,
I wish I could drop everything and hit the road following you and your campaign bus.

A dream. Ron Paul. Check him out. And VOTE.

www.ronpaul2008.com

http://www.ronpaulblog.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul

===========

I also dream about asking these questions. If only I could.

To Joe Biden: Why must you start every sentence with “Look”? You might want to LOOK around you. There’s a big world. And it’s round. And it’s offended. By you.

To Hillary: Why? Just why? (This is rhetorical, of course, because I do know I’ll never understand.)

To Edwards and Kucinich: Seriously?

To Rudy: You’re kind of who we talk about when we say “men suck”.

To Barack: Hmmmm. You said you would support public funding if Hillary would. Sounds awfully safe. I’m still watching you, though. And hoping.

To Mitt: Oh, come on.

To Mike: Step it up, man. Or just call it a day.

To John McCain: God bless ya. How do you feel today?

To The Others: You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

To the always lurking Gore: Please stay in Tennessee. I can’t afford you.

To Dr. Ron: HOPE for America. God knows we need it. And more people like you!