i guess the good thing is that he’s making me think about stuff i’d rather’ve continued to avoid. i did get angry tonight. he pissed me off. and he was right that it wasn’t what he said, or the tone he took, as much as it was our baggage boiling over. i know i can’t be with him again, even as a friend, because as much as the hurt, the anger, and the hatred have simmered down these past years, i still feel it way down deep and being around him brings it to the surface.
i remember the moment i started letting those feelings slip away, even wishing them away. i stumbled across some saying. it may’ve been a quote on someone’s facebook page or something i read in an article, but it said, “hating someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die”. i mean, that’s one humdinger of an actualization. just wishing it would go away doesn’t make the hate go away, but being forced to recognize how toxic it is for my heart and soul makes it easier to understand why i need to let the hate go. and when i let it on its own, that bag of hate, anger, and hurt settles itself into a place where it doesn’t consume my here and now.
it’s kinda like being a tough girl all the time, and pretending that i don’t indulge in moments of self-pity, that i don’t sometimes feel hurt and angry that i have such a hard time doing something as ordinary as walking. though the pain and anger over that complication in my life will never go away, it lives in its own place at the bottom of my soul, right where it belongs. so it doesn’t stand in my way of waking up to an extraordinary life every day.
this doesn’t seem unhealthy to me. i don’t feel like i’m “burying” my feelings. they are there. i recognize them, i accept them, i let them rear their ugly heads here and again, but i don’t allow the difficulties in my life define who i am, or the relationships i have with others. i can’t. or i suffer. those around me suffer. my happiness is rendered lame. even though i wish i could have it all (cuz there are really great parts to him), it is time to recognize and accept that when he’s around, my energy finds its way to and opens up that bag of hate, anger, and hurt so it leaks into my here and now. and that’s just not okay with me.
i’ve worked too hard on me the past few years to sacrifice my happiness, contentment, and peace. and i won’t, not for any relationship whatsoever.
~k
31 January 2009
30 January 2009
banish the grand old party!
our new president extended a hand. he did something his predecessor, the douchebag-in-chief, never even offered his own party, much less the folks on the other side of the aisle, and proposed that we work together to try to resolve the economic crisis now plaguing the country. and instead of accepting his hand, the republican members of the house of representatives slapped it away contemptuously.
part of me gets and accepts that there is a certain ideological philosophy that divides our politics, that the other side is opposed to big government, while my side doesn't really feel that way. there's the side that promotes laissez-faire economics, politics, personal responsibility, healthcare, and education. and then there's my side that recognizes how great a theory laissez faire is. but like other great political idea(l)s (e.g no child left behind and communisim), in practice, they are both unattainable and quite simply, idealisticly retarded.
it was that grand laissez faire economic theory that got us into this mess, and while economic watchdog groups warned (e.g. in 1998 when brooksley born of the commodity futures trading commission tried to issue regulatory schemes into the derivatives business) that the fit would certainly hit the shan if we did not pay close attention to the over-leveraging of these shaky investment scams, the shitstorm went awry. and then when the foreclosures began and people like barney frank (democrat, massachusetts) were sending smoke signals to a treasury and congress unwilling to budge from free market ideology, bear stearns and lehman brothers (some of the best trusted brands in the money world (who probably would've held a majority of those retirement funds our dumb-ass former president wanted to privatize last year)) went belly up. and then, to add insult to injury, hank paulson dumped $350 million taxpayer bailout funds into banks to infuse capital and beef up lending, but when he didn't bother to pay attention to what they were actually going to do with the money, the banks went to try to buy private jets and to help issue $14 billion worth of bonuses to the ship sinkers while the rest of america moved and continues to move steadily toward bankruptcy.
yes, what a great fucking job the free market has done to ensure the stability and success of the american economy.
my point is simply that the gop's grand small-government philosophy looks great on paper, sounds awesome in economic theory classes, and much like karl marx's manifesto, makes the idealist in all of us go gooey in the knees. but in practicality, it has failed so miserably that we are all left wondering if we'll have a job tomorrow, if we'll have a roof over our head next week, or a dollar to our name next month.
those guys fucked up, and their impractical ideals fucked us on the way. so they need to get the hell out of our way so we can try to clean up the mess our way.
i do fear that these gop madmen have no ears, and that should they ignore the will of the people, they will scream on their way to a barren mantua, as romeo once did,
"ha, banishment: be merciful, say 'death';
for exile hath more terror in his look,
much more than death: do not say 'banishment'."
~k
part of me gets and accepts that there is a certain ideological philosophy that divides our politics, that the other side is opposed to big government, while my side doesn't really feel that way. there's the side that promotes laissez-faire economics, politics, personal responsibility, healthcare, and education. and then there's my side that recognizes how great a theory laissez faire is. but like other great political idea(l)s (e.g no child left behind and communisim), in practice, they are both unattainable and quite simply, idealisticly retarded.
it was that grand laissez faire economic theory that got us into this mess, and while economic watchdog groups warned (e.g. in 1998 when brooksley born of the commodity futures trading commission tried to issue regulatory schemes into the derivatives business) that the fit would certainly hit the shan if we did not pay close attention to the over-leveraging of these shaky investment scams, the shitstorm went awry. and then when the foreclosures began and people like barney frank (democrat, massachusetts) were sending smoke signals to a treasury and congress unwilling to budge from free market ideology, bear stearns and lehman brothers (some of the best trusted brands in the money world (who probably would've held a majority of those retirement funds our dumb-ass former president wanted to privatize last year)) went belly up. and then, to add insult to injury, hank paulson dumped $350 million taxpayer bailout funds into banks to infuse capital and beef up lending, but when he didn't bother to pay attention to what they were actually going to do with the money, the banks went to try to buy private jets and to help issue $14 billion worth of bonuses to the ship sinkers while the rest of america moved and continues to move steadily toward bankruptcy.
yes, what a great fucking job the free market has done to ensure the stability and success of the american economy.
my point is simply that the gop's grand small-government philosophy looks great on paper, sounds awesome in economic theory classes, and much like karl marx's manifesto, makes the idealist in all of us go gooey in the knees. but in practicality, it has failed so miserably that we are all left wondering if we'll have a job tomorrow, if we'll have a roof over our head next week, or a dollar to our name next month.
those guys fucked up, and their impractical ideals fucked us on the way. so they need to get the hell out of our way so we can try to clean up the mess our way.
i do fear that these gop madmen have no ears, and that should they ignore the will of the people, they will scream on their way to a barren mantua, as romeo once did,
"ha, banishment: be merciful, say 'death';
for exile hath more terror in his look,
much more than death: do not say 'banishment'."
~k
29 January 2009
my night counting homeless
i showed up tonight a wee before 8, at a community center in some burb called duarte, out in the san gabriel valley (that would be bum-fucked-egypt to an urban villager like me), with a mission i didn't particularly understand, and its methodology a complete mystery. i was somehow and for some reason going to be counting homeless people.
who knew that every coupla years the homeless population needs to be counted in order to secure federal, state, and local funding to homeless service and housing providers? when last this was done, two years ago, there were more than 75,000 homeless people counted in los angeles county.
so anyway, tonight i showed up at this community center, got my t-shirt, snack, and information packet, went through a brief training session, and was paired up with my team-mates (i didn't know a soul in the room, though there was a volunteer or two who knew me from one of last summer's camp obamas). shortly after signing a waiver (yeah, awesome!), we were sent on our merry way with a flashlight, a clipboard, a pen, a map, and a tally sheet. yep, that's right. we were canvassing after dark, and instead of counting votes, we were counting folks.
we mostly drove around because our turf was a residential suburb on the north side of pasadena (so lame. i mean, i learned my lesson. next time i'm going out to count homeless people, i'm going to hollywood). so we drove our turf, looking futilely for the suburbanite homeless population.
we did find one or two homeless dudes walking around, as well as a van or two that had been converted into a motor home parked on the streets of suburbia. and it was most certainly an adventure, though next time i canvas for homeless, i'm going to a part of the city that will require me to do so on foot, with a flashlight and a can of mace, and i'm taking a big burly boy with me.
it was an interesting evening, and most definitely the most unusual community service project i've yet undertaken. and what did i learn in all of this? that even the homeless don't want to live in the burbs...
~k
who knew that every coupla years the homeless population needs to be counted in order to secure federal, state, and local funding to homeless service and housing providers? when last this was done, two years ago, there were more than 75,000 homeless people counted in los angeles county.
so anyway, tonight i showed up at this community center, got my t-shirt, snack, and information packet, went through a brief training session, and was paired up with my team-mates (i didn't know a soul in the room, though there was a volunteer or two who knew me from one of last summer's camp obamas). shortly after signing a waiver (yeah, awesome!), we were sent on our merry way with a flashlight, a clipboard, a pen, a map, and a tally sheet. yep, that's right. we were canvassing after dark, and instead of counting votes, we were counting folks.
we mostly drove around because our turf was a residential suburb on the north side of pasadena (so lame. i mean, i learned my lesson. next time i'm going out to count homeless people, i'm going to hollywood). so we drove our turf, looking futilely for the suburbanite homeless population.
we did find one or two homeless dudes walking around, as well as a van or two that had been converted into a motor home parked on the streets of suburbia. and it was most certainly an adventure, though next time i canvas for homeless, i'm going to a part of the city that will require me to do so on foot, with a flashlight and a can of mace, and i'm taking a big burly boy with me.
it was an interesting evening, and most definitely the most unusual community service project i've yet undertaken. and what did i learn in all of this? that even the homeless don't want to live in the burbs...
~k
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