Thursday, July 27, 2017

Step Right Up. . .

I have done something today that I have never done before, and that is to sign up to help a political campaign. Damn! Things are that bad. I can hear the organ grinder and see the hootchie cootchie girls already. . .

Here in Minnesota, where we have been hiding behind the skirts of the fabulous Mark Dayton for the last eight years, change could come on big fat elephant feet - and I am going to do my best to stop that stampede. It is bad enough that the legislature is republicon, and it is a tribute to Mark that he has both held back the tide and reversed the damages of the previous Pawlenty piracy. But it will just happen again if we are not careful. Therefore, I am doing something else I have never done before today - I am endorsing candidates. If you read this and like it, pass it on please. I probably won't do it again. Okay, I promise I won't do it again.

The Minneapolis race for Mayor is just as important for those of us who live here. This one has me seething, for I have watched thirty years of white privilege skirt issues, ignore injustices, misdirect good intentions, and in general pretend that the economic and judicial disparities between whites and people of color in this town are nonexistent, not to worry our pretty heads about. Pisses me off so much. The recent increasing intensity between the Blue Union and its charges, however, have pushed issues to the front of the podium, now (but not for much longer) occupied by Vapid Betsy, champion of bicycle commuters and the black hole into which any reason (or perhaps funding, we don't know) around the now-three-year reconstruction of downtown Nicollet Mall flowed. She doesn't stand a chance.

And now I have been called on my cell phone number, which I don't ever give to organizations or websites, by the candidate who appears to be the DFL's pick for Mayor, a perfectly nice married gay man whose best qualification seem to be that he loves loves loves it here. I am so sick of this. . .

So forward into the breach, or ditch, or whatever kind of mudslinging convention politics draws up in difficult times. We have very good choices for each of these positions, candidates with experience and the right stuff to deal with matters at hand. I am not going to cite their qualifications - use the links.

 For Governor, Former Speaker of the House Paul Thissen,  http://www.paulthissen.com/



For Mayor, Rev. Dr. Nekima Levy-Pounds, http://www.minneapolisfornekima.com/platform



Go to it, Babies - pass these names around.


Friday, July 7, 2017

Nailed a Retread to my Feet – Again



It’s a little harder to get excited when it is the umpteenth time around, but the bones are there. The intention is there, and the insights will come. I know how to do this and it should be simply elegant.

Because the alternative is not an option.

I have been recovering from an expensive failure since Christmas. Not for the first time, hardly, but for the first time as a senior. I must now be more careful with my physical resources, get enough sleep, keep exercised, energy I can no longer take for granted. Just as important, Silver Fox and my other friends are mostly retired, and the pace around me has slackened. Relax. Take your time. And so, without complaint and with some relief, I have subsided from forward-looking focus into the busy-ness of the familiar. Floated my thoughts on plans for the garden, sorted anxieties with the contents of my closets, and opted for lubricated conversation at every opportunity.  Porch-sitting has become a specialty.

For my entire life, “learning lessons” has been all about discovering what I DON’T want. It has been a process of elimination, and now that I am in my third stage, I no longer have the time or the temperament to waste on experiments.

But as those thoughts float away into the distance, uncoordinated and unremarked, I can feel my temperature rising with them. I really don’t like not having a plan, and boredom pisses me off.

So I pray for better weather and embark again on a plan for my future. Focus forward, I am still standing. This time I am basing all my choices on personal satisfactions so that there will be nothing to fail at, nothing to ever get over again. This time I am going to just have fun.