Nothing on my end; just pure brilliance from Jay Smooth.
“As long as we are human, we will never be perfect in how we treat each other. As long as we are human our imperfections will always be embedded in the institutions we maintain. As long as we’re human, our present reality will always be based on an imperfect history. As long as we’re human — there will always be more work to do.”
(Quote transcribed by Awearness blogger, Andrew Huff)
About three weeks behind schedule. I’ve been pretty much walking in a daze for the past couple of weeks, pretty much just walking, blending in with the New York City landscape. I’ve been waiting for that big bang, for that monumental moment…I should say positive big bang, for that positive monumental moment, that would lead me to say “is it 2009 yet? Well fuck, yes it is 2009! About damn time!”
To the average person with a lukewarm grasp of politics, it might seem a little silly to be emotional and overwhelmed by this change in administration. However, as one who has been involved in social and political causes since the start of the 2000 presidential campaign in 1999 (particularly centering on issues that Bush and like-minded folks just love to zoom in on), it has somewhat been…umm, what’s the word that I’m looking for here? Oh, yes, HELL:
Comprehensive sexuality education vs. abstinence only education, unwillingness to discuss comprehensive immigration reform, the DREAM Act failing in the Senate, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE raids, the five-year bar on public assistance programs for recent immigrants, the lack of serious discussion around healthcare reform, Bush’s first executive order: the reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule, the attempt to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment and federal-funded marriage promotion programs targeting low-income women, the delay on expanding access to emergency contraception, cuts to Medicaid, the “Partial Abortion” (which is not at all a medical term) Ban, Alito and Roberts, refusal to release yearly funds to UNFPA since 2001, the recent midnight regulation expanding health personnel’s (in pretty much in all capacities, from administrative to direct service providers) ability to deny healthcare services to patients (particularly reproductive healthcare service, surprise, surprise) on the basis of “conscience.” **
And this is just the shit that I personally have some connection to only at the federal level, I’m definitely missing many things, and it’s not, by any means, all the things that has pissed me off. I really don’t think I have the time to list everything out. All I can say really is that it’s been an exhaustive eight years.
Part 2: What I Realistically Expect
Coming up next!
*I will edit/add on to this throughout the day.
**At the moment, I have not linked the listed items to appropriate sources, but I will later on today and tomorrow.”
From the 1/18 edition of New York Times Magazine:
(Click the image below to head over to the online gallery)
[…] 52 full-page color portraits of the vice president-elect and the incoming president’s advisers, aides and cabinet secretaries-designate (some of whom may have been confirmed or may have withdrawn by the time you read this), along with those legislators who are likely to prove influential in helping to usher into law what the new administration sets out to do. (President-elect Obama declined to pose for a formal picture.) The portraits were taken in mid-December and earlier this month in Chicago and Washington.
“Speaker Pelosi Presents Capitol Cat Cam”
From The New Republic, in regards to today’s new Change.gov video, featuring incoming White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:
At the very end, he addressed this one: “Is the new administration going to get rid of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy?” He responded, “You don’t hear a politician give a one-word answer much, but it’s yes.”
About damn time!
I woke up, slept perhaps three hours. Before I went to bed, I drank a glass of wine. I repeat, one glass of wine. I feel as though I had five. So, I feel and look like crap. Due to my persisting emo state (please see the previous two posts), I really don’t care that I feel and look like crap.
However, I realize now that I should really change that outlook, just a bit.
As I type this, there’s a major TV station/network affiliate, whatever, in the office. A totally short notice thing (seriously, I never even heard the doorbell ring), my supervisors come to the back and say to us three that the cameraman is going to just film us working, so act natural. In my silly little head, I thought that he was just going to do a quick observation of the back office, swing the camera around for a millisecond and leave. Ohhh, how wrong I was.
The cameraman focused on each of us, and I do mean focused. He focused, viewed and highlighted. Of course, I look like crap: hair’s dirty, my face is peeling due to a glycolic acid peel that was left on too long and excessive crying, I have minimum makeup on, and my eyes are puffy and dry.
I’m pretty sure he also zoomed in on my vinyl toys, corkboard with I Can Has Cheezburger printouts, political cartoons, and silly Obama buttons, a Powerpuff Girls poster on the wall, and BOB the Rat (a plastic black rat from Halloween 2007) chilling on my bookcase. So, my hot mess ass could air at 6 or 11pm, or both, on Channel (incoherent blabber).
Yeahhhh, fan-bloody-tastic day we are having, fan-bloody-tastic! Can ah has drink nao?
Wine is to be sipped, not gulped.
I understand, you feel miserable.
You feel like shit.
Your heart is shattered,
and you don’t know where most of the pieces went.
Under the desk, under the bed?
Maybe a piece or two in the living room.
But, it’s too late to start searching for them right now.
I understand, you need to be numbed one way or another.
Zinfandel awaits you, chilling in the refrigerator.
Better than the stash of vodka, tequila, rum, and whiskey
that sit on the shelf collecting dust.
Let them collect that dust,
as you may recall what happened two years ago,
I don’t want that to happen again.
I understand, that was one of the hardest decisions you’ve ever made.
You wonder if he hates you for what you did.
He might, but you needed to do this for yourself.
Your focus and energy headed in one direction and it never returned,
not by fault of the other, as there is no fault.
You’re just becoming aware of what you need,
and of what you weren’t going to receive.
There will be many days where will you write verses.
Different titles, different lines, different tongues,
but all with the same shattered pieces.
Sips, darling, sips.
no ha razón para ver en color.
(Christmas tree at the building’s main floor. Yeah, that little dude on the right…he just appeared out of nowhere)
(Just a Canon PowerShot SD750)
The Shit to Get Out of the Way: Vanity
1. Diligently go to the gym; “manipulate” my figure and get it down to 36-24-36 (…I got my reasons, don’t question me!).
2. Exfoliate, exfoliate, exfoliate.
3. Build up my metabolism to the point where I’m eating 2400-2500 calories a day again.
4. Pick up kettleball training; powerlifting; parkour.
5. Remind myself of the beauty I possess; don’t wait nor anticipate for others to do it for me.
Marks of Adulthood
1. Move the fuck out already.
2. Adopt a furchild.
3. …I really want a furchild.
Artistic Ambitions/Personal Development
1. Pick up my guitar again.
2. Actually be publicly funny, because if I could write it, I could say it.
3. Be crafty (the reason why I don’t see the things I visualize in my head in the stores is because that means that I have to do it myself).
4. Volunteer my services to smaller non-profits.
5. Fuckin’ write more!
The Ones I Know I Won’t Accomplish, But Force of Habit to Mention
1. Stop procrastinating.
2. Stop picking at blemishes.
3. Stop hesitating (no, not the same as procrastinating).
4. Finally fall in love with the anticipation that I’ll receive love back (…I acknowledge this misfortune as a way of life).
Things That Needs to be Done, Like This Week
1. New Orleans in late March (First Big Girl Trip on my own; business trips don’t count) (book by Friday).
2. Get that damn DSLR camera; enroll in photography class (by Friday).
3. Additional bellydancing classes, because I know I got potential (by Sunday).
4. Learn how to drive…finally. MTA trains are not for my own personal use (and at the rate that fares are going up, might as well) (Permit on Monday).
Things to Learn (Before I Go Mad and/or Jump Off A Roof)
1. Learn how to disarm fear and anger, as the persons it’s directed to don’t care about me or what they have done to me.
2. Learn how to forgive.
3. Learn how to let go.
4. Learn how to trust.
5. Learn how to say “I love you” to those closest to me.
6. Learn how to fully live.
Under Construction...Until I Say So 