digging the tunes

there is a song in my current play list i keep going back to. so i followed a dustland fairytale to day & age, and the killers has been running on repeat. it's good, it's where i am, and i'm listening...

a night out in silver lake

i met a friend for happy hour, and the great conversation turned into friday night out. i looked at my watch at 7 or so, and the next time i checked, it was midnight. all six hours were chock full of fun catching up, and random moments of the near-ridiculous sort.

we spent the evening sitting at the stairs-end of the downstairs bar in a german pub with three stories, a vantage point from which we saw everyone who ventured through. one of the greatest things about the east side is that it's a place where all congregate. by all, i mean, old, young, preppy, hipster, burger kings with birthday parties, intellectuals, dummies, and folks from all ethnic backgrounds in all shapes and sizes. i saw hairdo's and ensembles that would put most towns' halloween parties to shame, and gals whose updos and pink scarves would've been a better fit in the hallowed halls of a beverly hills alehouse.

one of the highlights: my friend and i were having a conversation about politics with some retard who fancied himself informed, when some crazy-eyed vamp plopped herself down in the one open seat between ourselves and the other end of our chat. while this might not seem all that odd to the two of you, there were a dozen empty seats at the bar that didn't offer the opportunity to act as a wedge between folks in an ongoing conversation. the retard left the bar, and the vamp sat there most of the night acting bizarrely. i'm pretty sure there's no doubt she's a witch...

and there was the super cutie palestinian boy who engaged us in a most interesting conversation. as y'all know, i'm fascinated by the middle east, and my intellectual and emotional curiosity for the ongoing conflict in gaza is as unrelenting as my need to talk to someone who isn't israel-centric. not that i'll ever understand the conflict or be able to solve the problem, i can't help but want to try...

so you see, from kings to witches, and dimwits to the insightful, a night out in silver lake is never one you'd call ordinary...

~k

67,833 words is all it took

it's not just that i finished a novel, it's that i actually finished something i started...

i'm awesome at starting projects i never finish. i'm not sure if it's because i lose interest half way through, or maybe it's that i don't ever commit to anything enough to need to see it through to the end, perhaps a combination of both, or even something else altogether. i don't know, but i know that something about finishing this feels like more than just finishing.

oh, and since i'm sure you're dying to know, i finished that never ending playlist with U2's in a little while yesterday morning, and this playlist kicks ass!

anyway...

i know it seems a little bit crazy for someone who has graduated from college and grad school to make a claim that i don't finish what i start, but those bigger things were, like, ends to the means they once were. the novel is something else. it's its own commitment, took my constantly growing voice as a writer, gave me a gauge to grade my craft, made me work harder, longer, and seek out greater detachment, so i'd be able to someday let it go. it has been its own journey. and it seems as if it's a bigger risk to finish the damn thing, than it would have been to have spent my whole life writing it.

damn, this play list is rocking my world tonight!

cuz it's going out into the world now. next week begins the road to the greatest numbers of rejections i'll get, well, till the ny times hires me and i start getting all the hate mail i've been sending to bill kristol and david brooks the past year. and it's scary to me to send a 6-year (probably seven even) labor of love out into the world where it could find nary a fan.

but i'm me, so i'm going to close my eyes and jump.

~k

trust in the time of heartache

many years ago, i sat down to write a novel. i sketched out my time line, my plot, and the bios of the main characters. i then set about researching, as it's set in a fairly obscure period in ancient egyptian history, writing bits of the story here and there, trying to figure out _how_ to write it, and eventually editing the damn thing for so long i wondered if i'd ever let go. i'm 34 pages shy of completing my final edit, and i find that it's as much a fictionalized autobiography of my marriage and divorce as it is anything.

don't get me wrong. it's good. i can weave a helluva tale, and being a bit of a wordsmith helps build the bugger, but it's a whole lotta me, and a whole lot of my greatest tale of woe, no doubt about it.

so aneksi is my main character. she is telling the story of her rise and fall as one of egypt's forgotten queens, in her own words, at the very end of her life, the very last day of her life in fact. aneksi fell in love with the wrong prince, but with him had an extraordinary love affair, and an even more extraordinary life. she was, as machiavelli would say, one who became a prince through ability rather than fortune, but lost her kingdom because of fortune. hers is most certainly a tale of woe, but of great love, great circumstance, and a great ride.

the point of my post, though, is trust. you see, aneksi has an affair at the end of her life. 'tis with a man she loves, but will never be in love with, because her heart belongs to the fuckshow she first loved. the end-of-life lover, despite not being her great love, is her "greater love" because she gives everything to him, including her unwavering trust. her first love got her blind trust and he fucking blew it to high hell with his betrayals. her greater love, however, was able to garner post-traumatic experience trust, the kind we keep so close to our chests that we don't give it away, cuz we don't want anyone to hurt us like blind-trust-guy hurt us. and she gave it to him.

she knew how trust hurts, and she gave it to him anyway. that aneksi. she's got some balls. and i sure do plan to follow her lead when i next get my shot at love....

'cept that, unlike my aneksi, i'm giving my heart too.

~k

the never ending playlist

i love every song on my ipod. some more than others, and some songs sometimes annoy the shit out of me, but they are all my favorite songs.

when i'm not reading super dense books on liberalism, the cold war, and anything by thoreau, i live on shuffle. till 18 songs tickle my fancy. then i burn 'em, and play the cd till it burns out, by which time i've shuffled enough to burn a new list. thing is, i haven't burned a cd since november...

i have shuffling rules (of course i do). i shuffle till i reach that magic number 18 (cuz that's what will consistently fit on a cd). i don't start over, but i give the universe free reign to let the music talk to me. i give it as long as it takes, usually anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. like, i get where i am in heart, soul, and life because a certain song's lyrics or thump will speak to me. and only when i get to that 18 do i feel i'm ripe to hear the the message. and then i play the list over and over and sometimes over again.

for five weeks i have shuffled, and i'm still a song shy of a burn. this run has played a lot of really random stuff i rarely hear. lotsa beastie boys, eminem, madonna, j.t., even more nine inch nails than usual. it's a random mix of fun, thumpy, bumpy stuff, but nothing i hear. i mean, it's all good, i'm enjoying the ride, and maybe i'll even make it to the end of my ipod.

it's just kinda weird.

~k

my new year's resolution

in 2008, i jumped off a cliff and flew. 2009 is my year to take delight in the flight.

i have spent the entirety of my being on a mission to nowhere. though always with a goal, something i drove toward with ferocious determination, i was so focused on the end of the road, i didn’t notice the road. this year there is no end, but only the road. my only resolution is to enjoy the road, and revel in its bumps and turns. though i will frequently indulge in a fair dose of wonder and “what if”, it is so i will recognize the next cliff, and be ready to jump...

~k

who is in the right when war is the answer?

i am, admittedly, new to the world of foreign policy. it has only been since the award of my fellowship that i've begun to pay as much attention to the world section of the ny times as i have been the op-ed and politics pages. and while there is clearly nothing new to the ongoing battle between israel and the rest of the middle east, i have no idea who is in the right.

it is very clear to me that the ny times is on the side of the israelis, as is most of america. i too find myself in that camp, only because i read, hear, and pay attention to what's being reported around me. i see the word hamas and terrorism springs to mind. when i think of israel, whether it's right or wrong, i think of holocaust retribution, a fresh start after a devastating loss, a new beginning for a people whose entire existence has been fraught with surviving attempts at mass extermination. i can't help but feel that the jewish people deserve their holy land.

and it's not like that land of milk and honey was really all that before israel declared itself a nation in 1948 (i'm not 100% on the facts here, but i think the league of nations created a nation or perhaps confirmed the existence of the british mandate of palestine, after the first world war, with the intent of providing a nation for the jewish people. then in 1947 that stretch of land known as palestine was split in half by the united nations, half to the jews, half to the arabs, and the jews of israel half had to go to war with the surrounding arab nations in order to officially demand its independence. i don't think palestine was officially recognized as its own nation until the late 1980's?). either way, it's been a land embattled in war since the beginning of time. i wouldn't want to live there.

anyway...

okay, so treaty after treaty, followed by wars, outbreaks of violence, terrorist activities, crimes against humanity, et al, by both sides, there exists this 5-ish mile strip of land that separates israel from the mediterannean sea. gaza. gaza was governed by egypt till 1967, when israel kicked its ass and took over the strip of land by military occupation. notwithstanding a few israeli settlements, the people who live there are not israelis. they are arabs, and they don't like israelis. in the '90's, there were a series of negotiations in an effort to transfer government authority over to the palestinians, and by 2005 israel was out of gaza. sort of.

israel still maintains control over airspace, anything in transit, immigration to and from, visitor travel, and issues related to taxation of israeli goods and services. this makes it feel to palestinians that israel hasn't really left their land. even today, it is israel who allows or denies humanitarian aid into the gaza strip.

gaza is in limbo. it is a "territory", owned by no one, governed by fighting palestinians and economically pinned by israel.

in 2006, there were palestinian elections to determine who would rule the gaza strip. the terrorist group hamas won. no real surprise there. the arabs living in the gaza strip don't like the perceived israeli occupation, and they elected (i'm not saying this was a good move) the intolerant, no nonsense, militaristic, "let's just kick their asses" hamas terrorist group to lead. the results of the election led to a lot of internal fighting between hamas and the other palestinian faction (the more moderate group), fatah. economic sanctions were instituted by the western world, even most of the arab world refused to accept hamas leadership, many palestinians fled the gaza strip, and hamas blames it all on israel.

since 2007, when hamas effectively ran out any other palestinian gov't and took the reigns over the gaza strip, they have been poking at israel. they have shot more than 10,000 rockets into towns in southern israel, have in all likelihood been using government funds to purchase military weapons instead of investing in farms, education, and infrastructure, and have waged an ongoing attack against israel.

israelis, though they aren't necessarily being killed by these ongoing rocket and mortar attacks, are suffering psychologically, individually and as a nation. at some point it seems that they have a right to step it up and remind hamas-controlled-gaza that they won't want to mess with the big dogs.

the thing is, how far do they go? when does it stop? the ny times is reporting that nearly 400 palestinians have been killed, many of which are innocent civilians. on the one hand, you wanna tell israel, "ok, enough's enough, you've made your point. back off, and open the roads for humanitarian aid to get back into gaza." and on the other hand, when is it ever okay to take 400 lives for the sake of making a point?

really, who is to blame? i don't know. i still don't know. maybe there isn't a right and a wrong. maybe it's just meant for the madness to go on and on and on. in writing this, i'd hoped to find someone to blame, and someone to make it stop. but i'm right back where i started, with only questions and no answers...

~k