Buoyancy

Last night I dreamed I was dropping stones into my ribcage trying to displace my heart; instead I grew to accommodate the weight. From the outside I looked the same. But when I moved I felt sandbags strapped to my legs.

i bought crocs
heehee

As of 11am I will no longer be angry.
Back to the laundry & shit & string beans
With the cheeriest of dispositions.
With love, Jen

I have a problem with organized religion. I quit attending church when i was 15 because i couldn't buy what they were selling.

After having my daughter i decided i wanted her to go to church. St. Mark's Lutheran is an Evangelical Lutheran church and as such they are fairly liberal:

The 1991 Churchwide Assembly (CWA) – the highest legislative body of the ELCA – affirmed "... that gay and lesbian people, as individuals created by God, are welcome to participate fully in the life of the congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America."

Also, they don't interpret the Bible literally, which i think is a hallmark of intelligence.

On Easter Sunday I went to church with my husband & daughter. And while i find church relaxing & oddly comforting i couldn't help feeling sort of bad because i realized that i don't believe that Jesus is any more God than Buddha or Mother Teresa.

I am conflicted because i feel like i should take my daughter to church even though i don't believe it. I want her to have an understanding of religions so that she can comprehend why people do shitty things in the name of God.

maybe Bush didn't get the memo...

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Also see: Bush v Jesus
http://religiousleft.bmgbiz.net/bushandjesus.html

douchebags & meth

It is a quarter to twelve on a Sunday night. I broke down and took some Sudafed earlier to relieve the pounding in my head. I hate the shit because it makes me feel like a crackhead. I become lethargic yet wired as hell. Did you know that pseudoephedrine is the active ingredient in crystal meth?

I have drank about a bottle of wine by myself & am still wide-awake. I feel better but i am stuck awake when i would love to sleep.

Short break: had to call the cops on our neighbors. The house next door to us is filled with Aurora University douchebags. Their greatest crime being a propensity for butt-rock while playing pingpong in the garage. These guys are dweebs. They stay out all night sans females, listening to shitty music, drinking Natural Lite & playing table tennis. I had on headphones & could still hear them. I wanted to go outside & tell them to shut the fuck up but Steve insisted i call the police. Now they are quiet & angrily smoking cigarettes over a smoldering firepit. Fuckwits. Anyone deriving joy from Ratt & cheap beer should be neutralized.

I guess this means i have become an old person. I worry about things like property values. I know the A-town non-emergency police number by heart. I have become The Establishment.

At least i could excuse them a bit if they were listening to good music.

so it goes...

(drawing by Kurt Vonnegut)

1922-2007

"End of the Trail"

(MJ Meketi; lithograph ~ 1970)

While my Grandfather's style of painting or subject matter is not my favorite, i am very proud of his work & wanted to share one of his most well-known pieces. The quality of the lithograph i own is terrible. The original oil on canvas painting has much better color & detail.

My grandparents were not very business savvy & they sold the rights to this print in the mid-1970s and were taken advantage of. My mother tried unsuccessfully to buy back the rights in the 90s.

When i was twelve i went to eastern Tennessee for the first time. I was in an art gallery thumbing through a box of prints when i came across my grandfather's "End of the Trail". I noticed that the name signed in the lower right-hand corner was not his. I immediately showed my mother and she confronted the shop-keep as to whose signature was on the painting. The man proclaimed it was his and when my mother and i challenged him, he became red-faced and hostile. He all but threw us out of his store. After we left my mother was pissed off and teary-eyed. I wanted to beat the man senseless with my pink fluorescent fanny pack.

During that vacation i saw plates, clocks, belt buckles, coffee cups with this print on it - and no name. That was the hardest part - knowing it was my grandfather's work and was not getting credit. Not to mention the profits we were losing out on because we did not own the image rights.

I purchased my lithograph off of EBay a few years ago. The online merchants nowadays almost always credit my grandfather for the image and his name is back on the prints. One time i found a girl selling homemade charm bracelet pieces with the image shrunken to less than a half inch. I emailed her & gave her his name and she then sent me a charm. I thought that was pretty darn cool.

My Grandfather

Michael J Meketi (1918-1987)

with one of his paintings

Painter/Cartoonist/Cowboy

Loved the American Southwest & Native American culture

Religious-themed works located in area churches

Born in Foster, PA to Ukrainian/Hungarian immigrants

Hopped freight trains as a teen during the Depression

Longtime resident of Aurora's "Pigeon Hill" neighborhood

Worked for the Burlington before opening Meketi Art Gallery

St. Michael's Church x 2

(Polaroid 779, 2003)

On my desktop calendar today

FYI

In addition to ranting, i would like to use my blog to post things i dig & want to share with others. Also that i will be going back through my archives & making sure there are proper image credits. Trying to get professional around here...

So, please critique, comment, share good stuff with me too.

"Tears"

Man Ray ~ 1932

For more info on May Ray: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/ray_m.html

mexicans & other musings

(image from: http://www.roadkillbill.com/%21Walmart%28Always%29.jpg)

My father just came into my work to say hello. I am in currently in the office of a restaurant working on my backlog of revenue reports. I am now sufficiently irritated.

We get in to a fairly heated discussion regarding immigrants. He chants the wronged white person mantra of "these wet-backs are taking all my tax dollars". I suggested that rather than getting pissed off at the immigrants he should take up arms against the companies that are importing & exploiting them. He can extol the virtues of capitalism while conveniently forgetting that capitalism has brought us to this juncture. Everything from slavery to state-run daycare are products of capitalism.

He makes sweeping generalizations about immigrants such as "they come here to work for a few months and then sit back and collect unemployment and work the system". I asked him if he had ever bothered to speak with one of the Mexicans he so abhors. I volunteered that he was more than welcome to head back to the kitchen and sit down with one of the line cooks or dishwashers and find out what their lives are really like. Maybe he could hear how painful it is to leave behind their families, or how they work eighty plus hours a week for criminally low wages.

Perhaps if he could see beyond the brown skin he would recognize someone not unlike himself. Maybe if he listened to more than the rolled R's & thick accent he would realize that the propaganda he sees on Fox News or reads in the Chicago Tribune is a pile of steaming shit manufactured to detract from the REAL problems in our economy. Don't get mad at the Hernandez family when it's The Waltons of this country you should be after.

The other thing bothering me is that before he left he kissed me on the head, patted me on the back and said

"I don't know if i have told you how proud i am of you"

I have not done anything particularly remarkable so i asked him what he meant.

"Oh, you know, what you are doing...taking care of Maddie, raising her to be intelligent and well-adjusted...just that you are doing good. It could have easily gone the other way you know"

Gee, that makes me feel like a puppy who just got praised for peeing on a tree instead of a chair leg. Obviously his faith in me ever doing anything more remarkable than raising a "well-adjusted" child & catching myself a good husband is non-existent. I must have really been a fuck-up to earn praise simply for being a mildly productive member of society. Tell me you're proud of me when i win a Pulitzer, or cure nut cancer.

I'm most likely being overly sensitive but he's the same person who told my brother, when he wanted to join the military, that the Army was for the unrefined & ignorant. He did not fight in Vietnam because he is missing a disc in his back. He worked his way through college and was white collar post graduation. I know he has amended his position on military service and that he is proud of my brother who works for the White House Communications department, but it is obvious that neither my brother nor i lived up to his expectations.

Please don't misunderstand, i love and appreciate my father. He is a very kind, generous person. I am indebted to him for reasons that he will never know. I am just supremely annoyed at the moment. GRRRRR!

Back to work...

Sowing the Seeds of Love

(image from: http://www.bananarepublican.info/photos/BOVINE.JPG)

I was recently informed by a friend that this page's content is mostly disturbing. Apparently the bulk of my posts reeked of sick desperation. Not unlike the way a pig smells before it is garroted.

I rarely blogged and when i did it was the way one uses a commode. I purged myself of emotions i could no longer internalize. I would like to clarify that i am not Depressed. I am someone who occasionally becomes depressed. Semantics, my friend.

I don't want to be defined by the whiskey-tinged late night ramblings in The Vault. I'd like to think that there are far more interesting aspects to my personality.

Henceforth, i vow to lovingly tend to this blog. I will nurture the tiny green shoots that burst forth from my well-fertilized soil.

Take my hand as i farm fields of frivolity. Inhale the piquant aroma of freshly spread manure.

Close your eyes and breath...

Indigo Bunting

(image from: http://birdphotography.com/species/photos/inbu-3.jpg)

For species info go to: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Passerina_cyanea.html

Diamonds & Rust

(Arlington National Cemetary 2007, Nikon D40)

Saturday night I was blogging under the influence. Fortunately Sunday morning I had the sense to delete what I only vaguely remembered writing a few hours earlier. Needless to say there are many reasons one should not venture onto the Internet while in a Bombay Sapphire induced state of melancholy.

I don't write particularly well and I suppose that after a few drinks i cease to fully edit my internal monologue as it splashes onto the screen. What i mean is that what comes out after a half-bottle of Cab is more honest.

I am an open & friendly sort of person. I typically don't shy away from personal questions & i like talking about myself a little too much. However, i am a guarded person when it comes to certain things. I don't like to show emotional pain. I want to be tough & for the most part i am. I am an empathetic person but i am detached from those i love. Things that should upset me don't, and things that shouldn't, do. I'll blame it on the stars.

I want to be healthy. I eat pretty well, rarely exercise, have drastically cut down on coffee consumption & switched to green tea. I don't drink very much anymore, i don't smoke unless i'm drinking. But i need to do more to take care of myself. This body is my vehicle & i want to use it to hike & move about the world.

I have been doing well in my classes & applied to different schools. I am trying to pull a decent life together. And my life is good. My discomfort is uncalled for. I shouldn't have cause to feel alone. But i still feel that ache; it is a constant dull ache located in the middle of my chest, a little to the left. And it's the damnedest thing.

My brother has announced himself as libertarian, objectivist, atheist. Well, at least that is what i diagnosed him as and pointed him in the direction of Ayn Rand. I am mailing him Atlas Shrugged and The Romantic Manifesto because i can't stand the bitch. I am not thrilled with his current psychic crises & new found philosophies, but i'm happy to see that at least he's thinking, which is more that i can say for most 23 year olds.

I worry he lacks empathy & understanding. The viewpoints he expresses to me are flawed because he does not take sociological factors into consideration. He truly believes that an upper class white male with a stable family life & a poor black male in the ghetto with a crackhead mom have the same opportunities. I do believe people should be accountable for the choices, however, what my brother needs to understand is that there is not a level "playing field" for children in this country.

I don't mind if he doesn't believe in God, or if he thinks drugs & guns should be legal. I have a problem with him not understanding that although he might have gotten into a bit of trouble in his youth & now works for the White House, that the "obstacles" he (a solid middle class, white male with two parents who went to good schools & church) overcame where in part due to the support system he had & the values our parents & church instilled in him. He was a normal fuck-o teenager who experimented with drugs, did poorly in school & never got in any real trouble. He did not grow up in a neighborhood with drug dealers & shootings with no one to give a shit about him. There is a difference.