Up late again. One interesting side effect of prolonged unemployment has been the steady tilting of my sleep schedule in a later direction. I've always been a night owl, but am now finding that left to my own devices and schedule, going to bed at 3 am doesn't feel too odd as long as getting up at 10 is also OK. I remember working swing shift at Wherehouse Records eons ago, from 4-midnight, and even then that seemed like the best possible work shift to me: wake up around 10; have the whole day to do errands, go to school, whatever while everyone else is at work; work from 4-12; then spend a couple of prime late-night hours relaxing before going to bed at 2.

Of course, this presupposes either a somewhat isolated life or a group of similarly-minded friends and loved ones, which might explain my total lack of dates for most of 1986. Well, that and my incipient coming out the following spring, but that's a tale for some other time. Right now I have to get to bed, because despite my nocturnal nature, I've agreed to call and wake my sweetie up at 7:15, which means that I have to at least be awake enough to hit speed dial properly.

Posted at 01:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just another mellow day at the ranch…I could get used to not having a day job except for the apparent need for money. And the innate need for structured activity. Well, and the desire to commune with similarly engaged folks on a consistent basis. Still, I am making use of the time and the $$ haven't dried up quite yet. I'm hoping to at least get some kind of retail job to keep the cash flow going, but even those have been hard to come by. With Boeing apparently ready to lay off a bunch more people, I don't expect that to change anytime soon, either. I may have inadvertantly launched a freelance life by default. We'll see what shakes out with the irons I still have in the fire.

One good thing that has come from all of this, though, is finally finding the time and drive to take writing seriously. I may not ever be able to make a living from words alone, but I've at least reached the point where I write them anyway. It's still difficult to let go of needing to do it perfectly the first time, but there's a little voice now that says, "If shitty first drafts are good enough for Anne Lamott, then they're good enough for you. Go write some already." I hope that voice decides to stick around for a while.

Posted at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Winona LaDuke
South End Press
2000

This is an inspiring and frightening book. We are more aware than ever, as we unlearn schoolbook history, of the incredible devastation the settling and expansion of the United States had on the indigenous peoples of this continent.

But that is a general understanding, and based in the past; in All Our Relations, Winona LaDuke makes it more specific and ties it tightly to the present and future. The devastation is still happening now, and is well beyond the point where Native Americans are the only people affected.

The structure of the book is simple but effective—each chapter discusses the history of a tribe from the time before white settlement to now. In particular, LaDuke goes into some detail about each tribe's understanding of their native ecosystem and their place in it, and constrasts that sharply with the attitudes of the European settlers who claimed and colonized it. From the Seminole to the Cheyenne, the pattern is distressingly similar: white colonization of native lands (usually by military force), Native Americans killed or moved to reservations, and extreme environmental destruction of their former lands through industiral development and its subsequent pollution.

It's not hard to see how LaDuke can make the case that the disregard for the Native Americans and for their land went hand-in-hand. And that disregard continues now not just for them, but for anyone who would suggest putting limitations on the almighty corporation. That's the frightening part. The inspiration comes from her accounts of how many tribes are fighting (and have historically fought) to keep their lands unpolluted. Tribe after tribe is putting itself ont he line all over the country to hold industrial polluters and the government accountable to environmental standards, and in some cases there have been victories.

As LaDuke says in conclusion,

There is, in many indigenous teachings, a great optimism for the potential to make positive change. Change will come. As always, it is just a matter of who determines what that change will be.

[Originally published in Reclaiming Quarterly #80, Fall 2000]

Posted at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

About three years, to be precise. I've been an Indigo Girls fan since the beginning, wherever you'd measure that from for a person outside of Georgia. I'd measure it from about '89 forward when their first Epic album came out. Their latest CD, Become You, came out last Tuesday, and I've been listening to little else since. I'll have a full writeup in the Reviews section shortly, but after a week's worth of listening I'm smitten. Lyrically it's one of their strongest, and musically it seems to have integrated the more experimental sounds from recent albums into the mix of their acoustic harmony blend. Highly recommended.

Posted at 12:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I love this trend of utilizing the connections between weblog writers to exchange tangible objects. The first one I came across was 1000 Journals, then 20 Things and the Secret Santa Exchange. The latest is Burn, Baby Burn!—a summer mix CD exchange. You come up with a mix CD, burn 5 copies, and send to a list of 5 bloggers that you get from the central server. Then you get 5 CDs from other folks on the list. Since I'm on the hook already to make a happy summer mix CD for my sweetie, this gives me a handy deadline.

Offline interactions like this are a way of creating new relationships and deepening existing ones, especially in a form of communication that can often be one-way. I read a lot of blogs and often have some sense of knowing a person by what they write, but it's a limited understanding and always filtered to some degree—projects like this can add another level and open up additional channels of communication. Besides that, they're a lot of fun and they set loose interesting art bits upon the world, which is always a good thing in my book.

One of the best such bits I ever recieved was part of a live community event—the National Poetry Slam. Before the final competition, people were running up and down the aisles flinging little books and stickers at the audience, and I caught a booklet of haiku by Big Poppa E that's still my favorite souvenir from that intense night.

Posted at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So with all of this unemployed time on my hands, you'd think I would get more reading done. It's been a bit more than usual, but not as much as I'd secretly hoped. However, the last two nights have been completely decadent from a words-consumed standpoint. First, I devoured all four volumes of Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, which my brother lent me. I had never heard of it, but it turns out to be a 4-part graphic novel written and illustrated by the director of Princess Mononoke, which is still one of the most profound experiences I've ever had at a movie. It was a bit hard to follow—it's black and white, and the characters all look similar due to the anime style—but the themes of human violence and ecological destruction that Princess Mononoke explored are dealt with deeply here too.

Yesterday then brought an unexpected gift (see Random Present Day at right): Walking Home: A Woman's Pilgrimage on the Appalachian Trail. It is exactly what it sounds like—a modern pilgrimage story, full of adventures, near-misses, and a cast of fellow wanderers straight out of Chaucer. It was inspiring in all the right ways, which is to say that it had a lot to say about perserverance and sticking to a goal, but equally as much about knowing when to detour and when to stop. The vignettes that author Kelly Miller paints about her surroundings, her internal and physical struggles, and the other hikers ring true and human, and there's a lot of humor along the way. Needless to say, I tore through this book in one sitting also.

All that, however, does little to make a dent in the huge reading pile that is one whole bookshelf in my room. I'd estimate that there's probably at least 50 books there just waiting for me, along with a pile of magazines by the bed. It's intimidating and luscious at the same time, a jungle of books where one might reach out and grab me at any point. How lovely!

Posted at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)