I’m agitated today and the Laundry is a good place to be for that. There are at least 16 agitators in here not counting the other people or the dog and even then they would only make 18 though every now and then it rises to 19 when the leather-jacket guy comes in to check on the dryer. But Emma is quiet and the woman sitting in my usual space is reading so they don’t seem agitated right now. It’s just me and the 15 inner workings of the washing machines. I’m irritated by the limited help that I’m getting from my San Antonio book publisher on promoting my book. There, that’s it. I have calmed down some though after filling a page with the f-word (my mother is reading this) in the many ways it can be used in a sentence. That helped me blow off steam and see that the biggest frustration is not having enough time to work my day job, write on two different manuscripts, and market a book that’s been out for ten months without much selling success in a city where 5 million visitors come every year and a state where Texas History is required for every child in public school. San Antonio is key to TX history. I’m not the only one that made a model of one of the five missions out of toothpicks. Besides, I was told that schools were a secondary market when my chapter on a juicy, online sex-solicitation blackmail story got cut. I forgot that there was a classroom audience. My bad. Besides, what’s the difference between a story about a whorehouse and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the husband and wife tag-team solicitors presenting settlement agreements to entrapped paramours except that the incidents were over 100 years apart. I know. Online-sexual encounters and school children are a sore subject even if the children aren’t involved. However, it did seem like a teaching opportunity though not the kind the adolescent boys would take away. I agree on that point entirely. (FYI, my editor and friend, Patrick, has been very helpful so he’s good. This is a corporate agitation-causing shenanigan and the business of books.)
Okay, I feel better.
I will be in San Antonio hopefully doing some book signings (see above) April 11-13 and in Dallas April 14-17. For those of you in Dallas, I’ll be letting you know about the book signing open house on Sunday afternoon, April 15.
To more interesting agitators and topics: the jailhouse theme of the sandwich shop fits very well with peaceful, non-violent resistance types of agitators. I’ve only been arrested twice for civil disobedience and those were pretty staged, nothing like the kind with billy clubs, fire hoses, police dogs, tear gas, and bullets. Nothing like that at all. In D.C. the plastic handcuffs on my wrists in front of me kept coming off and I had the darnedest time keeping them on to maintain the image of resistance. My jail time experiences (or experience as one of the two I paid my fine only 20 steps from the police wagon that brought me in after which I walked about 20 steps to and out the front door of the police station) were not particularly world-shaking though they taught me a lot, especially because of the people who I was arrested with.
The first time was in Cleveland, Ohio in May, 2000, outside the United Methodist Church (UMC) General Conference, the major big deal, every four years, lasts for two weeks, legislative branch of the denomination meeting. They conduct their business much like Capitol Hill with committees, sub-committees, bills/amendments/propositions, lobbyists and blowhards but without the sensitivity about prayer or the separation of Church and State. Not that C&S are separated, check out Institute for Religion and Democracy (i.e. Religion for the Unification of C&S) and their plan to take over the leadership in the UM, Presbyterian, and Epicopal Church denominations and the correlation of how that will infect Congress with a Christian Conservative agenda. I met the then executive director of IRD months before the General Conference. We were sitting at the same table for dinner. I’d lost my name tag, so he didn’t know who he was sitting and chatting with. Nor did I as I was new to the gig. We’d gotten pretty familiar before he asked what organization I was with and we realized that we were each talking with the enemy. We paused in silence for a moment and then went on with our conversation. Make of that what you will.
Back to agitators, the organizers of this arrest were Mel White and his group, Soulforce. Several historic figures of civil rights and civil disobedience were in their number, informing their spiritual foundations and direct actions. Some of these included Arun Ghandi, grandson of Mahatma Ghandi; Yolanda King, Martin King’s daughter; Jim Lawson, a leading strategist on peaceful non-violent resistance in the civil rights movement including the training of the students who staged the lunch counter sit-ins and the Freedom Rides; and Robert Graetz, who had his house bombed after he stood with King during the Montgomery bus boycott. In earlier arrest, these folks and their ancestors were not shackled in plastic, slip-off handcuffs.
I forgot to say that we were demonstrating against the UMC’s policy and practice of discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (“Queer” in political parlance) people. We were outside the Cleveland Convention Center where the conference was held. Everything was well planned. The mayor’s office and Cleveland police all knew ahead of time what we were doing, all 218 of us. After a walk around the center in silence, we lined up 20 at a time in the driveway so that we blocked traffic. It was a very moving experience if only for the company of people who I was arrested with. Their historic roads of heartache and persistence in the ugliness of violent discrimination gave credence to our cause. Still I knew that as I was in the holding cell, later finger-printed, frisked, and put in a regular cell that I was not suffering as those that had gone before me. Another civil rights mentor and dear friend who I was arrested with was Gil Caldwell, the co-author of one of the manuscripts I’m working on (and why agitators are on my mind). He has continued to teach me about the realities of racial discrimination even as he says I am teaching him about Queer civil rights.
The next day when Goliath-over-David arrests were made inside the convention center on the floor of the conference, we weren’t so organized but we got through. Picture 35 or so people disrupting Senate proceedings and you’ll have a bit of the picture. Okay, so the convention center auditorium is also used for basketball games but it was that somber –a line of us going down the center aisle between rows and rows of tables, seating 1,000 delegates, the room in utter silence and solemnity. Now that was a traumatic experience, several amps up from standing in a driveway blocking traffic. I could feel the anger and hatred rising like steam from those who despised us (voting tallies would say that there were about 650 of that sentiment, though some of those just found us distasteful). The scene got especially harrowing when a woman, not in our group, almost jumped off the balcony above us in an anguished and tearful lament. I’ve never seen 6 white men in dark suits scramble so fast to move the table below out of the way and somehow prepare to catch her –it would not have been pretty. Fortunately, upstairs other men caught her legs and body and pulled her down. What followed were several intense hours of negotiations, reports, and votes, ending with the group moving up onto the stage just behind the presiding bishop. Quickly the Cleveland police entered stage right and arrested the protestors including a couple of bishops who joined the group as they were taken away. I had left the floor earlier with another coalition leader during a break so that we could bail the group out of jail. They were released several hours later after an $11,000 credit card charge, biggest bill I ever signed. I did not leave a tip.
The arrest in D.C. was outside the Catholic Bishops Conference. The difference between Catholic and Protestant demonstrations was that the Catholic songs that we sang as we circled were in Latin instead of English. Other than that it was the same. I was getting terribly sick as we stood out in the cold and drizzle. By the time we got to the police station, all I could think about was getting back to the hotel and bed. But then I recognized a woman two people in front of me. She was one of the drag queens that threw the first spiked heels at the New York City policemen in what is now known as Stonewall, the riot that many mark as the beginning of the Queer rights movement. (Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots for more history.) I was in line paying my fee before I caught a car back to my sickbed and I realized that yet again I’d been arrested with someone that was there in one of those important beginnings with the real tear gas, barricades, and time of sacrifice. She was still fighting, resisting, and inspiring. And for those who are wondering, she was wearing tennis shoes.
My heart is with these agitators today and the machine kind too. This part of the wash cycle is essential to jarring the dirt out of the fabric (social or otherwise) –some loads need more than others. I’ve found it tricky to time pushing clothes I forgot to put in the machine down into the suds before the agitation starts. One, the sudden change makes me jump. Two, agitators aren’t called agitators for nothing; they can beat your hand up pretty badly (different from the non-violent kind). The rinse cycle eventually comes and then the spin, much like press conferences and damage control. Then the moment of truth arrives, did the wash come clean or is there still more dirty laundry?
Monday, February 26, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
RED LIGHT
RED UNBALANCE LIGHT INDICATES WASHER HAS SHUT OFF. RAISE LID – DISTRIBUTE CLOTHES EVENLY – CLOSE LID – CYCLE WILL RESUME AUTOMATICALLY.
We could all use a “red unbalance light” if not for ourselves, at least for others to see, register, and avoid. Not that we’re not a bit unbalanced all the time, shifting weight, opinions, contradictions, priorities, but the red light indicates that the load is so off that the machine has come to a stop. Only a re-distribution will get things going again. Really what we need is the yellow light, the one that comes before the red one, the warning that the wet stuff better be shifted or it’s coming to a grinding halt. (I’ve always thought that an “Asshole Crossing” sign would also be a helpful forewarning.) This light would come on even before the machine started to shake and bounce around, prior to the loud knocking noises. However, if you come into the laundromat, start the load, check the clock, and plan to come back about the time it finishes, then it’s a real pain in the ass. You come back thinking stage one is done only to find that it’s the lean-over, pull-on-heavy-wet- towels, threatening-lower-back-spasms time. This is a very similar feeling when coming back to the dryer to see that the door wasn’t all the way shut so the dryer never turned on and the wet clothes look a bit bewildered laying on the floor of the botched circular ride. Hopefully, the timer only starts when the dryer goes and not when the quarter went in. Either way, the laundry process has been interrupted and efficiency lost because when it all comes down to it, no one really wants to sit in a laundry waiting on clothes. Except for me maybe.
That thought reminds me of a guy who told me that if you love what you’re doing, you’ll do it for free. He looked at me, then my writing pad, and back at me to make his point. We had been talking abut food stamps, disability, and anti-employment sentiment. I’d met Eddie several months before when he’d first come to town, pack and tent on his back. He was living up Grizzly Gulch near the old lime kilns (built in the late 1860's). In fact, some other guy came back with him one night and was so drunk he fell into one of the tall old brick structures. Not so good, bad in fact. Didn’t know what he’d look like when the sun rose. He was okay though.
Anyway, this conversation with Eddie was in winter and he was telling me that he was now living with his girlfriend in her place near the Laundry and describing the last time he went down to get food stamps –he was a regular. The food-stamp worker had said that he looked young and fit and employable and why didn’t he get work. He didn’t know why but he answered back that he didn’t want to pay taxes.
"Does it bother you that I work and pay taxes that go to paying for your food stamps.”
“No, not really.”
We talked on about getting money when disabled and that his girlfriend received social security benefits for psychiatric reasons. He was musing about ways he could make that work for himself. I gingerly asked what kind of work he’d want to do if he was working. He replied a bit too quickly that he’d had work, done this or that, but that he really didn’t want to put all his time into something he hated. I sure understood that. A couple of years ago, trying to find income here in Helena, I answered an ad for a marketing job in grocery stores. I got the packet in the mail with full instructions on how to market products from my little cardboard table cheerily decorated with little American flags (one example) to attract grocery shoppers to sample the new food or beverage. Relatively, effort expended to dollar received (except for having to schlep one's own table, cloth, said flag, microwave or crock pot), it was an okay job. What threw me though was the hairnet and apron that I was required to wear. The woman on the front of the instruction book looked very happy, eerily so. Fortunately, I had to go out of town and by the time I got back all the positions were filled. The name of the company was New Concepts in Marketing. Isn’t there a truth-in-advertising clause somewhere? I’ll never look at the food-sample people the same ever again. Flag or no flag, they are moving the economy along.
I then applied at Osco because I saw that they did not have to wear uniforms. However, as part of the application process, I had to sit at a computer and answer a 100-question (maybe it was 300) survey that they used to determine team spirit, level of happiness per hour of subservience, anger management, and patience. After being asked the same question the 25th different way, I was certain that I would flunk the test. They kept asking if I’d ever had problems with a supervisor, been angry enough to use profanity in public, and if I played well with others. By then, I was broken, cursing, hated team players, and knew I would not get a call. I didn’t.
I’ve gotten out of whack before. I shouldn’t have needed a yellow or red light, the machine was shaking and quaking and making a loud racket but I kept going. By the time things grounded to a halt, my engine was burned out. I know what employment disability is like and redistributing the heavy stuff afterward so it wasn’t hard at all to understand where Eddie was coming from. After he left, I pondered how the world could manage without work and pay, the money exchange. I’m no economist or cavewoman so I didn’t come up with any good ideas. There are people that like, even love, to work. There are people that don’t care to “pull their own weight.” There are people that can’t do either one. Green, yellow, red lights. I don’t know that this is a case where “it takes all kinds.” I do know that there are Like Kinds and the piles really shouldn’t be washed together but if so, on cold.
My present job (have I mentioned that I work as the development director at the Myrna Loy Center?) took me to the State Capitol this week to give a 3-minute testimony at the HB 9 Cultural and Aesthetic Grants Program Hearings of the Long-Range Planning Appropriations Subcommittee (I worked really hard to get all the words in the right order). The grants are funded by interest earned on the Montana Cultural Trust, its corpus established from coal money long ago (meaning I can’t find the exact dates or type of levy/tax information online) provides funding to at least a three-page, single-spaced, type-size 10, excel spreadsheet list of non-profit organizations. I got to listen to about 20 of them before I testified for the Myrna --as we affectionately call the center. The best and l o n g e s t testimony was from a senior citizen of the town of Conrad, population 2,500. She said that when she found out that their grant had been cut in half, she cried so much and was so sad that she had to go to the doctor to get Zoloft. She was a gem of a citizen and quite funny in her persuasive, older-woman-from-one’s-childhood-church way, sweetly reprimanding the committee about funding her town’s art council. In a nice touch, one senator leaned over to the chairperson and said, “Now, you know her son.” I bet they got a grant. Another testifier was told by the chairman, “Be sure and tell the Weisners hello.” Back to our million citizens in this giant land of Montana, I do like that neighborly way. The only drawback is that sometimes (not all the time) if you don’t have a mama from Montana or know the Weisners, you don’t get to play with the big kids.
The best part of going to the capitol though was taking pictures. My friend Barb works in the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs and she showed me around. My friend and fellow Myrna staff member, Krys, was also there that morning. Both were game for Kodak moments, as you can see.
Along the photograph lines…I went cross-country skiing on Saturday as the snow was bountiful and the day gorgeous. However, I have not put on a pair of those narrow sticks in about 25 years. There is a particular muscle on the inner thigh that hadn’t made itself known to me in about that long too. Friend DD tells me that there is a certain age that it is okay to take Advil before and after exercising. She also said that face-plants, full-body spread-eagle falls, are reminders of how much we loved tumbling in the snow when we were children. That was way more than 25 years ago so that memory will take longer. Still it was a beautiful day and the snow tasted really good.
It is very quiet at the Laundry this afternoon except for meeting the Drew Family, two adults and three children. Kim and Joe are the new owners of the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop and Soup Kitchen. (I had The Smuggler today, roast beef with whisky garlic cream cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, onions and some other things on wheat with the potato salad.) They moved to Helena in the late 1990’s and their son grew up coming here. He knew Sambo as the “sandwich man.” Kim and Joe both seemed very happy to have their new business. Kim said that this neighborhood is the friendliest in town, “people wave at you when you go by it's a community within a community.” She’s certainly not the first or the last to make that comment. They have just added to the cheer.
Meanwhile, Emma is trying to figure out a sound, that of a crumpled dollar bill going in and out of the change machine. She’s cocking her doggie head and ears. Ah, finally the quarters. Back to nap for her. Not much of a fan base today, only a few brief, “you’re dog is so cute.” One admirer was a young woman that came in with her friend and happened to say “fuck” as she was sorting through her laundry. She quickly apologized to me. I said that I didn’t fucking care what she said. “That’s my girl,” she laughed. Emma twitched.
Until next time, remember:
FOR PERSONAL SAFETY: AFTER RAISING LID BE SURE TUB HAS COMPLETELY STOPPED BEFORE REACHING IN.
We could all use a “red unbalance light” if not for ourselves, at least for others to see, register, and avoid. Not that we’re not a bit unbalanced all the time, shifting weight, opinions, contradictions, priorities, but the red light indicates that the load is so off that the machine has come to a stop. Only a re-distribution will get things going again. Really what we need is the yellow light, the one that comes before the red one, the warning that the wet stuff better be shifted or it’s coming to a grinding halt. (I’ve always thought that an “Asshole Crossing” sign would also be a helpful forewarning.) This light would come on even before the machine started to shake and bounce around, prior to the loud knocking noises. However, if you come into the laundromat, start the load, check the clock, and plan to come back about the time it finishes, then it’s a real pain in the ass. You come back thinking stage one is done only to find that it’s the lean-over, pull-on-heavy-wet- towels, threatening-lower-back-spasms time. This is a very similar feeling when coming back to the dryer to see that the door wasn’t all the way shut so the dryer never turned on and the wet clothes look a bit bewildered laying on the floor of the botched circular ride. Hopefully, the timer only starts when the dryer goes and not when the quarter went in. Either way, the laundry process has been interrupted and efficiency lost because when it all comes down to it, no one really wants to sit in a laundry waiting on clothes. Except for me maybe.
That thought reminds me of a guy who told me that if you love what you’re doing, you’ll do it for free. He looked at me, then my writing pad, and back at me to make his point. We had been talking abut food stamps, disability, and anti-employment sentiment. I’d met Eddie several months before when he’d first come to town, pack and tent on his back. He was living up Grizzly Gulch near the old lime kilns (built in the late 1860's). In fact, some other guy came back with him one night and was so drunk he fell into one of the tall old brick structures. Not so good, bad in fact. Didn’t know what he’d look like when the sun rose. He was okay though.
Anyway, this conversation with Eddie was in winter and he was telling me that he was now living with his girlfriend in her place near the Laundry and describing the last time he went down to get food stamps –he was a regular. The food-stamp worker had said that he looked young and fit and employable and why didn’t he get work. He didn’t know why but he answered back that he didn’t want to pay taxes.
"Does it bother you that I work and pay taxes that go to paying for your food stamps.”
“No, not really.”
We talked on about getting money when disabled and that his girlfriend received social security benefits for psychiatric reasons. He was musing about ways he could make that work for himself. I gingerly asked what kind of work he’d want to do if he was working. He replied a bit too quickly that he’d had work, done this or that, but that he really didn’t want to put all his time into something he hated. I sure understood that. A couple of years ago, trying to find income here in Helena, I answered an ad for a marketing job in grocery stores. I got the packet in the mail with full instructions on how to market products from my little cardboard table cheerily decorated with little American flags (one example) to attract grocery shoppers to sample the new food or beverage. Relatively, effort expended to dollar received (except for having to schlep one's own table, cloth, said flag, microwave or crock pot), it was an okay job. What threw me though was the hairnet and apron that I was required to wear. The woman on the front of the instruction book looked very happy, eerily so. Fortunately, I had to go out of town and by the time I got back all the positions were filled. The name of the company was New Concepts in Marketing. Isn’t there a truth-in-advertising clause somewhere? I’ll never look at the food-sample people the same ever again. Flag or no flag, they are moving the economy along.
I then applied at Osco because I saw that they did not have to wear uniforms. However, as part of the application process, I had to sit at a computer and answer a 100-question (maybe it was 300) survey that they used to determine team spirit, level of happiness per hour of subservience, anger management, and patience. After being asked the same question the 25th different way, I was certain that I would flunk the test. They kept asking if I’d ever had problems with a supervisor, been angry enough to use profanity in public, and if I played well with others. By then, I was broken, cursing, hated team players, and knew I would not get a call. I didn’t.
I’ve gotten out of whack before. I shouldn’t have needed a yellow or red light, the machine was shaking and quaking and making a loud racket but I kept going. By the time things grounded to a halt, my engine was burned out. I know what employment disability is like and redistributing the heavy stuff afterward so it wasn’t hard at all to understand where Eddie was coming from. After he left, I pondered how the world could manage without work and pay, the money exchange. I’m no economist or cavewoman so I didn’t come up with any good ideas. There are people that like, even love, to work. There are people that don’t care to “pull their own weight.” There are people that can’t do either one. Green, yellow, red lights. I don’t know that this is a case where “it takes all kinds.” I do know that there are Like Kinds and the piles really shouldn’t be washed together but if so, on cold.
My present job (have I mentioned that I work as the development director at the Myrna Loy Center?) took me to the State Capitol this week to give a 3-minute testimony at the HB 9 Cultural and Aesthetic Grants Program Hearings of the Long-Range Planning Appropriations Subcommittee (I worked really hard to get all the words in the right order). The grants are funded by interest earned on the Montana Cultural Trust, its corpus established from coal money long ago (meaning I can’t find the exact dates or type of levy/tax information online) provides funding to at least a three-page, single-spaced, type-size 10, excel spreadsheet list of non-profit organizations. I got to listen to about 20 of them before I testified for the Myrna --as we affectionately call the center. The best and l o n g e s t testimony was from a senior citizen of the town of Conrad, population 2,500. She said that when she found out that their grant had been cut in half, she cried so much and was so sad that she had to go to the doctor to get Zoloft. She was a gem of a citizen and quite funny in her persuasive, older-woman-from-one’s-childhood-church way, sweetly reprimanding the committee about funding her town’s art council. In a nice touch, one senator leaned over to the chairperson and said, “Now, you know her son.” I bet they got a grant. Another testifier was told by the chairman, “Be sure and tell the Weisners hello.” Back to our million citizens in this giant land of Montana, I do like that neighborly way. The only drawback is that sometimes (not all the time) if you don’t have a mama from Montana or know the Weisners, you don’t get to play with the big kids.
The best part of going to the capitol though was taking pictures. My friend Barb works in the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs and she showed me around. My friend and fellow Myrna staff member, Krys, was also there that morning. Both were game for Kodak moments, as you can see.
Along the photograph lines…I went cross-country skiing on Saturday as the snow was bountiful and the day gorgeous. However, I have not put on a pair of those narrow sticks in about 25 years. There is a particular muscle on the inner thigh that hadn’t made itself known to me in about that long too. Friend DD tells me that there is a certain age that it is okay to take Advil before and after exercising. She also said that face-plants, full-body spread-eagle falls, are reminders of how much we loved tumbling in the snow when we were children. That was way more than 25 years ago so that memory will take longer. Still it was a beautiful day and the snow tasted really good.
It is very quiet at the Laundry this afternoon except for meeting the Drew Family, two adults and three children. Kim and Joe are the new owners of the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop and Soup Kitchen. (I had The Smuggler today, roast beef with whisky garlic cream cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, onions and some other things on wheat with the potato salad.) They moved to Helena in the late 1990’s and their son grew up coming here. He knew Sambo as the “sandwich man.” Kim and Joe both seemed very happy to have their new business. Kim said that this neighborhood is the friendliest in town, “people wave at you when you go by it's a community within a community.” She’s certainly not the first or the last to make that comment. They have just added to the cheer.
Meanwhile, Emma is trying to figure out a sound, that of a crumpled dollar bill going in and out of the change machine. She’s cocking her doggie head and ears. Ah, finally the quarters. Back to nap for her. Not much of a fan base today, only a few brief, “you’re dog is so cute.” One admirer was a young woman that came in with her friend and happened to say “fuck” as she was sorting through her laundry. She quickly apologized to me. I said that I didn’t fucking care what she said. “That’s my girl,” she laughed. Emma twitched.
Until next time, remember:
FOR PERSONAL SAFETY: AFTER RAISING LID BE SURE TUB HAS COMPLETELY STOPPED BEFORE REACHING IN.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Countdowns
When I was in Chicago in January, I was given a keychain by two dear friends, Mary and LG. It has on it a digital running countdown of the days George W. has left in office. Right now it is 715 Days, 9 Hours, 8 Minutes, and 56.2 Seconds (I had to type that fast because each .something really moves the clock). This little keychain makes me happy every time I look at it. When I first laid eyes on it, there were 750 days left. Each day is one day closer to the end of an administration that I have no good words for. (Go to http://www.backwardsbush.com/ to get your own.)
715d, 9h, 5 m, 34.4s
I’m thinking of other countdowns today as I sit at the Laundry. The count stopped this week on the life of a one-of-a-kind, national, political, biting voice: Molly Ivins. She long-reported on the Texas Legislature but didn’t stop at the borders, there wasn’t a powerful politician that was free from her sharp wit and keen wordsmithing on behalf of the powerless. She’s the one that nicknamed George W. Bush, “Shrub.”
One column I remember well from 1992, she wrote that Ross Perot’s economic plan was as welcome as a wanton woman at SMU Theology. (Some papers ran the word, “whore.”) Working at SMU Theology at the time, I wrote to her and told her how proud we were to be mentioned in her column, invited her to our Women’s Week conference, and signed my name and “the other wanton women of SMU Theology.” Not long after I got a postcard of Ralph, the swimming pig, jumping off a rock at Aquarena Springs in San Marcos, Texas. It read, “Dear WW of SMUT, Would love to come to talk to WW, but this year is out. Booked to the gills. But keep me on your dance card for further on down the line. Best Wishes, Molly Ivins.” At first I thought that someone had played a joke on me but then I knew that few would have access to Ralph’s card, a performer that Molly Ivins favored. I’m only now noticing how she addressed it, simply,
Marilyn Alexander
c/o the Wanton Women of SMU Theology
Dallas, TX 75275
A couple of years later she spoke at SMU and when I asked her to sign my copy of her book, I showed her the postcard. She laughed, said that she remembered and then wrote, “For Marilyn, another wanton woman, Raise more hell!” Kindred spirit for sure.
I’m looking at the obituary from last Thursday’s New York Times. She had countless good lines. “After Patrick J. Buchanan, as a conservative candidate for president, declared at the 1992 Republican National Convention that the United States was engaged in a culture war, she said his speech ‘probably sounded better in German.’” Another quip: “There are two kinds of humor… One was the kind ‘that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity… The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule. That’s what I do.’” Her voice was passionate, insightful, and powerful. To check out her final column, Stand Up Against the Surge, go to
http://www.creators.com/opinion/molly-ivins/stand-up-against-the-surge.html
I’m still in shock that we won’t be reading her fresh words and cunning commentary anymore and her loss is just way too soon after the death of her friend and another extraordinary Texas woman, Ann Richards. We’ve lost two national treasures.
715d, 8h, 46m, 51.3s
Then there is the war in Iraq that has no countdown. Besides the above three people giving rise to things political, I’m in this frame of mind because I’m writing up an interview to be included in my book on Laundry stories. Through the Laundry community, I found a soldier to interview that had just come back from Iraq (that was in the Fall of 2005). Living in Helena has made me much more aware of the troops serving in this dreadful quagmire. The National Guard and Army Reserve are big employers here and because it is a small state (in population, real big geographically), it seems that when a Montana soldier dies, I pause a bit longer in thinking about him or her and the soldier’s family, kind of like neighbors down the block. Also, I’d not been to a homecoming parade for returning soldiers before but on Thanksgiving Day in 2005, I was on Last Chance Gulch, the main street through downtown, with the crowd waving little American flags and cheering to the troops hanging over railings of military trucks and sitting on top of tanks. I was moved that they had returned from sights and sounds and experiences that those of us present could not imagine --except maybe for the WWII and Vietnam veterans in the crowd. Hats and signs helped identify them.
I disagree terribly with this war that we are in. We shouldn’t be there and we’re going to have a hell of a time getting out. Our administration has really made a mess of things, a horrific calamity in a land that already had plenty. But even with these personal thoughts and convictions, I wanted to hear from someone who had been there. I needed to hear a soldier’s perspective, even if it was only one of many.
He agreed to come to my house on a December morning. The smell of the freshly-baked pumpkin bread filled the air. I put on tea and we sat on my couch. He was very gracious, trusting and generous to tell his story to a stranger after he finished, but two hours later, he told me that he hadn’t been able to tell anyone about it from start to finish. He said that either people didn’t have that much time or hadn’t asked.
He didn’t come home to a big fan-fare because he did not go with his unit but was sent with one from Missouri. But those that were there when he stepped off his plane wept with joy to have him back. Because he joined another unit, he entered into an already-established pecking order. He was an outsider from the start and had his authority challenged from day one. To sum up his overall experience, he had a supervisor that made work and life hell, oversight of troops that needed his emotional support as much as his logistical direction, and travel on roads that constantly had to be checked for IED (improvised explosive device). In order to do his job as a communications technician he had to travel out to three different hubs to work on internet satellites and internal networks with the threat of an explosion at every turn. He didn’t dwell on the danger as much as the working conditions with his boss. I came to see his experience as a really bad job but in the pit of explosive hell. He had a very humbling story and I was in turn humbled that he would tell it to me without knowing my political persuasion or any reason to think that I would really listen.
715d, 8h, 22m, 44.2s
There is the time running down until the kick-off for the Super Bowl this afternoon. Now, let me say, it is thought that all lesbians follow professional football religiously, as well as other sports. In contrast to a gay man who once said, “Organized sports are optional for my people.” However, for this woman-loving woman, I am not one to sit and watch football games on a given Sunday afternoon or Monday evening or whenever they are televised. My sister, Liz, has to call me the first Saturday in November to tell me who the victor was between our rival alma maters: Texas Tech (hers) and Texas A&M (mine). I never remember that they are playing.
Today I’ll make an exception as I did back in the hey-day of my youth when the Dallas Cowboys were quite the thing. Since the Chicago Bears are in the line-up this afternoon (Mountain Time, 2 hours earlier than Eastern evening) so I have some positive sentiment and loyalty to my friends in Chicago. In fact, two just called me on my cell phone, Jim and Terry, ones for which the sport is optional though the parties surrounding the grand sport are not. I’m also interested that this year marks the first time that both head coaches are African American: Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy. Both seem to be extraordinary men of great character and steady leadership. No matter which team is victorious, it will be the first time an African American coach won a Super Bowl. So the televised game for its historic meaning is another good reason to join the millions of viewers. Still, you can see, my reasons are so not-lesbian, but so be it.
715d, 8h, 18m, 23.2s
Finally, here at the Laundry, a count-up has just begun. There are new owners for the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen. Sambo retired on Friday, his last day to serve up grub. We wish him well. I’ll keep you posted on the new developments in the lunch fare.
There are beginnings and endings all the time. We wait, we mourn, we listen, we cheer, we part, we greet, and the clock keeps ticking.
715d, 8h, 16m, 17.3s
715d, 9h, 5 m, 34.4s
I’m thinking of other countdowns today as I sit at the Laundry. The count stopped this week on the life of a one-of-a-kind, national, political, biting voice: Molly Ivins. She long-reported on the Texas Legislature but didn’t stop at the borders, there wasn’t a powerful politician that was free from her sharp wit and keen wordsmithing on behalf of the powerless. She’s the one that nicknamed George W. Bush, “Shrub.”
One column I remember well from 1992, she wrote that Ross Perot’s economic plan was as welcome as a wanton woman at SMU Theology. (Some papers ran the word, “whore.”) Working at SMU Theology at the time, I wrote to her and told her how proud we were to be mentioned in her column, invited her to our Women’s Week conference, and signed my name and “the other wanton women of SMU Theology.” Not long after I got a postcard of Ralph, the swimming pig, jumping off a rock at Aquarena Springs in San Marcos, Texas. It read, “Dear WW of SMUT, Would love to come to talk to WW, but this year is out. Booked to the gills. But keep me on your dance card for further on down the line. Best Wishes, Molly Ivins.” At first I thought that someone had played a joke on me but then I knew that few would have access to Ralph’s card, a performer that Molly Ivins favored. I’m only now noticing how she addressed it, simply,
Marilyn Alexander
c/o the Wanton Women of SMU Theology
Dallas, TX 75275
A couple of years later she spoke at SMU and when I asked her to sign my copy of her book, I showed her the postcard. She laughed, said that she remembered and then wrote, “For Marilyn, another wanton woman, Raise more hell!” Kindred spirit for sure.
I’m looking at the obituary from last Thursday’s New York Times. She had countless good lines. “After Patrick J. Buchanan, as a conservative candidate for president, declared at the 1992 Republican National Convention that the United States was engaged in a culture war, she said his speech ‘probably sounded better in German.’” Another quip: “There are two kinds of humor… One was the kind ‘that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity… The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule. That’s what I do.’” Her voice was passionate, insightful, and powerful. To check out her final column, Stand Up Against the Surge, go to
http://www.creators.com/opinion/molly-ivins/stand-up-against-the-surge.html
I’m still in shock that we won’t be reading her fresh words and cunning commentary anymore and her loss is just way too soon after the death of her friend and another extraordinary Texas woman, Ann Richards. We’ve lost two national treasures.
715d, 8h, 46m, 51.3s
Then there is the war in Iraq that has no countdown. Besides the above three people giving rise to things political, I’m in this frame of mind because I’m writing up an interview to be included in my book on Laundry stories. Through the Laundry community, I found a soldier to interview that had just come back from Iraq (that was in the Fall of 2005). Living in Helena has made me much more aware of the troops serving in this dreadful quagmire. The National Guard and Army Reserve are big employers here and because it is a small state (in population, real big geographically), it seems that when a Montana soldier dies, I pause a bit longer in thinking about him or her and the soldier’s family, kind of like neighbors down the block. Also, I’d not been to a homecoming parade for returning soldiers before but on Thanksgiving Day in 2005, I was on Last Chance Gulch, the main street through downtown, with the crowd waving little American flags and cheering to the troops hanging over railings of military trucks and sitting on top of tanks. I was moved that they had returned from sights and sounds and experiences that those of us present could not imagine --except maybe for the WWII and Vietnam veterans in the crowd. Hats and signs helped identify them.
I disagree terribly with this war that we are in. We shouldn’t be there and we’re going to have a hell of a time getting out. Our administration has really made a mess of things, a horrific calamity in a land that already had plenty. But even with these personal thoughts and convictions, I wanted to hear from someone who had been there. I needed to hear a soldier’s perspective, even if it was only one of many.
He agreed to come to my house on a December morning. The smell of the freshly-baked pumpkin bread filled the air. I put on tea and we sat on my couch. He was very gracious, trusting and generous to tell his story to a stranger after he finished, but two hours later, he told me that he hadn’t been able to tell anyone about it from start to finish. He said that either people didn’t have that much time or hadn’t asked.
He didn’t come home to a big fan-fare because he did not go with his unit but was sent with one from Missouri. But those that were there when he stepped off his plane wept with joy to have him back. Because he joined another unit, he entered into an already-established pecking order. He was an outsider from the start and had his authority challenged from day one. To sum up his overall experience, he had a supervisor that made work and life hell, oversight of troops that needed his emotional support as much as his logistical direction, and travel on roads that constantly had to be checked for IED (improvised explosive device). In order to do his job as a communications technician he had to travel out to three different hubs to work on internet satellites and internal networks with the threat of an explosion at every turn. He didn’t dwell on the danger as much as the working conditions with his boss. I came to see his experience as a really bad job but in the pit of explosive hell. He had a very humbling story and I was in turn humbled that he would tell it to me without knowing my political persuasion or any reason to think that I would really listen.
715d, 8h, 22m, 44.2s
There is the time running down until the kick-off for the Super Bowl this afternoon. Now, let me say, it is thought that all lesbians follow professional football religiously, as well as other sports. In contrast to a gay man who once said, “Organized sports are optional for my people.” However, for this woman-loving woman, I am not one to sit and watch football games on a given Sunday afternoon or Monday evening or whenever they are televised. My sister, Liz, has to call me the first Saturday in November to tell me who the victor was between our rival alma maters: Texas Tech (hers) and Texas A&M (mine). I never remember that they are playing.
Today I’ll make an exception as I did back in the hey-day of my youth when the Dallas Cowboys were quite the thing. Since the Chicago Bears are in the line-up this afternoon (Mountain Time, 2 hours earlier than Eastern evening) so I have some positive sentiment and loyalty to my friends in Chicago. In fact, two just called me on my cell phone, Jim and Terry, ones for which the sport is optional though the parties surrounding the grand sport are not. I’m also interested that this year marks the first time that both head coaches are African American: Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy. Both seem to be extraordinary men of great character and steady leadership. No matter which team is victorious, it will be the first time an African American coach won a Super Bowl. So the televised game for its historic meaning is another good reason to join the millions of viewers. Still, you can see, my reasons are so not-lesbian, but so be it.
715d, 8h, 18m, 23.2s
Finally, here at the Laundry, a count-up has just begun. There are new owners for the Jailhouse Sandwich Shop & Soup Kitchen. Sambo retired on Friday, his last day to serve up grub. We wish him well. I’ll keep you posted on the new developments in the lunch fare.
There are beginnings and endings all the time. We wait, we mourn, we listen, we cheer, we part, we greet, and the clock keeps ticking.
715d, 8h, 16m, 17.3s
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