(no subject)
I'm at the intersection of 39th and Sandy, drinking coffee in the January sun. No work today, nothing immediately pressing, and it's always good to see the sun here during the winter months. My cell phone tells me it's 50 degrees in Portland, but I'm in short sleeves, scribbling by myself at a table for two, and it feels alright. At first, I tried sitting on the other side of the table, facing the sun, and while it lights up the page, and the heat feels good on your face, the glare is too much, too bright if you're trying to concentrate on something else. It's kind of like when you're looking into the eyes of someone you secretly and deeply admire but shouldn't fall in love with. You can't stare; you can't lose yourself in the light of that thing. But it's nice to be in its company for a little while.
...
The morning of Christmas eve, I wake up late on the couch in Nick's apartment, neck cramped, back cramped, itchy feet because I've slept in my socks. My brain lazily weaves together the thread of events that have lead me to this position. Johnny Walker Red, Johnny Walker Black, Johnny Walker in Blazers colors. A payback win over Denver. Opening my backpack on the car ride back, only to find that the family-sized container of salsa had exploded inside. A long, meandering conversation in the apartment with Andy and Nick, shut in from the snow and the cold, smoking inside, animated philosophizing, talk about writing and women and who knows what else. We are drunk. Laughter and electric light leave trails in the smoky air. Winston Churchill, we assure ourselves, was composed of 40% alcohol.
I open my eyes and everything is a gray, dehydrated haze. My head swims, shapes and shades blending together, the apartment reeking of ash. I drink too much, I tell myself, I always know it in the morning, I'm always half-ready to swear off it. There's a fuzzy, unsteady rectangle on the wall, and I try to bring it into focus. I play a game with myself, pretending that whatever I see in this rectangle will have some sort of portentous significance in my life. I play this game more often than I should, knowing full well that not everything we come across in the world is infused with meaning, that most of the time we invent our own meanings for things, that most of the time these 'meanings' are simply a reflection of our own subconscious emotions and desires, our personal hopes and fears. Still, sometimes that is meaning enough.
It's a Gustav Klimt print -- two women in a loving embrace, their forms nearly indistinguishable from one another, hair spilling out around them as if underwater, as if they are floating together through Klimt's sea of sublimely imperfect patterns.
I can't construct a divine meaning for the appearance of the painting. I know better. I know why it's there -- it's because Joni hung the print there once, and if you're resting your head on the arm of the couch, that's what you see. But it's certainly a nice image, and it reminds me of someone else who lives far away.
I peel myself from the couch and check the kitchen for coffee. No coffee. I wander back into the living room and look over his bookshelf. I often enjoy looking at a person's bookshelf -- they're usually full of books I should read but never seem to get around to, volumes of stories and facts and explanations that are not yet a part of my consciousness. A physical reminder of how little I know about anything. One of the first books on the top left is a thin paperback, Carl Jung's Synchronicity. I reach for it, only to disrupt one of Nick's lego structures and send it tumbling to the carpet, where it breaks into pieces.
It's Lego Robin Hood, being carted off to jail in a prison wagon, except the driver has lost his whip, has popped out of his seat, the horse is on its side and the walls have broken apart, giving Robin a clear path to freedom. He could jump the driver and tie up his hands with the whip. He could grab his sword and bow, help set the horse on its hooves and ride off into the woods, off to rejoin his friends and do good throughout the land as he awaits the return of the Lionheart.
Instead, I set about putting everything back together as it was. I reattach the horse, put the driver back in his seat, whip in hand. I piece together the walls of the cart, attach the roof and re-affix the blue plastic weapons to the outside of the cart, out of reach of Robin's stubby little Lego arms. I put the set back where it was, in between the pirate ship and the guard tower, and I go out to the front porch to smoke and peruse Jung.
I wonder if Nick has left for Redmond already to be with his family. It's nearly noon, but it would be strange for him to leave me in the apartment by myself without so much as a goodbye or an instruction to lock the door. Then again, if you know Nick, it's not so strange. It's almost a complement, a sign of trust. I knock on his bedroom door, "Nick?", then open it. He's gone, and I laugh to myself. I do the best I can to clean my salsa-splattered backpack, gather my things and head out into the melting snow, locking the door behind me.
...
I'm at Backspace downtown, thinking that it costs too much to blog at an internet cafe. This month especially. But I wanted to say some things about the war in Gaza, about my hopes for US foreign policy, about a few things I heard during Senator Clinton's confirmation hearing today. For now, I'm going to have to condense my frustrations into a few general questions, which are no doubt echoing across the blogosphere.
1) Something that has always confused me about mainstream thought in US foreign policy: why do we refuse to open a dialogue with 'terrorist organizations' and 'rogue states'? For years we (US and Israel) have stubbornly held to this method. We refuse to recognize what brings these groups (Hamas, Hizbullah) to power. We purport to sponsor democracy in the region, but if a group we have labeled as a terrorist organization is elected democratically, we then reject their legitimacy, cutting aid to the region, further impoverishing the poor and essentially sending the message that the only way a group like Hamas will have a voice is through acts of terrorism and violence. Both sides then opt to blindly fixate on this unrealistic goal of mutual annihilation. If this pattern continues, how do we honestly expect anything to change?
2) Israel has stated its intentions not to hurt civilians. They've dropped leaflets telling Gaza residents to evacuate. Then they close all movement through Palestine's border with Egypt. Where are civilians supposed to go? How can destroying a population's homes, schools and infrastructure, killing hundreds of trapped residents, disrupting humanitarian aid -- how can any of this encourage a population to turn away from groups like Hamas? How does this not pour gasoline on the fire?
3) How can Hamas justify continued rocket fire on Israel? Certainly not militarily. It hasn't worked for 40 years. And after Israel's recent 2006 war against Hizbullah, Hamas had to know how Israel would react to such an attack. They stood to gain no military advantage by pissing off Israel, but they did it anyway, perhaps to rally international opinion against a state they knew would react emotionally and disproportionately, at the great expense of the very people Hamas says they are there to protect. Attacking Israeli civilians is just as inexcusable as the Israeli army 'accidentally' killing Palestinian civilians.
If you can't tell, thinking about this makes me upset. I'm going home. If anyone can hear me out there, I am asking us to please reconsider the costs of clinging to ideology and hard lines. As much as prominent, supposedly moderate leaders (Harry Reid, Zvipi Livni) may hold to the current course, I do not believe I am in the minority.
...
The morning of Christmas eve, I wake up late on the couch in Nick's apartment, neck cramped, back cramped, itchy feet because I've slept in my socks. My brain lazily weaves together the thread of events that have lead me to this position. Johnny Walker Red, Johnny Walker Black, Johnny Walker in Blazers colors. A payback win over Denver. Opening my backpack on the car ride back, only to find that the family-sized container of salsa had exploded inside. A long, meandering conversation in the apartment with Andy and Nick, shut in from the snow and the cold, smoking inside, animated philosophizing, talk about writing and women and who knows what else. We are drunk. Laughter and electric light leave trails in the smoky air. Winston Churchill, we assure ourselves, was composed of 40% alcohol.
I open my eyes and everything is a gray, dehydrated haze. My head swims, shapes and shades blending together, the apartment reeking of ash. I drink too much, I tell myself, I always know it in the morning, I'm always half-ready to swear off it. There's a fuzzy, unsteady rectangle on the wall, and I try to bring it into focus. I play a game with myself, pretending that whatever I see in this rectangle will have some sort of portentous significance in my life. I play this game more often than I should, knowing full well that not everything we come across in the world is infused with meaning, that most of the time we invent our own meanings for things, that most of the time these 'meanings' are simply a reflection of our own subconscious emotions and desires, our personal hopes and fears. Still, sometimes that is meaning enough.
It's a Gustav Klimt print -- two women in a loving embrace, their forms nearly indistinguishable from one another, hair spilling out around them as if underwater, as if they are floating together through Klimt's sea of sublimely imperfect patterns.
I can't construct a divine meaning for the appearance of the painting. I know better. I know why it's there -- it's because Joni hung the print there once, and if you're resting your head on the arm of the couch, that's what you see. But it's certainly a nice image, and it reminds me of someone else who lives far away.
I peel myself from the couch and check the kitchen for coffee. No coffee. I wander back into the living room and look over his bookshelf. I often enjoy looking at a person's bookshelf -- they're usually full of books I should read but never seem to get around to, volumes of stories and facts and explanations that are not yet a part of my consciousness. A physical reminder of how little I know about anything. One of the first books on the top left is a thin paperback, Carl Jung's Synchronicity. I reach for it, only to disrupt one of Nick's lego structures and send it tumbling to the carpet, where it breaks into pieces.
It's Lego Robin Hood, being carted off to jail in a prison wagon, except the driver has lost his whip, has popped out of his seat, the horse is on its side and the walls have broken apart, giving Robin a clear path to freedom. He could jump the driver and tie up his hands with the whip. He could grab his sword and bow, help set the horse on its hooves and ride off into the woods, off to rejoin his friends and do good throughout the land as he awaits the return of the Lionheart.
Instead, I set about putting everything back together as it was. I reattach the horse, put the driver back in his seat, whip in hand. I piece together the walls of the cart, attach the roof and re-affix the blue plastic weapons to the outside of the cart, out of reach of Robin's stubby little Lego arms. I put the set back where it was, in between the pirate ship and the guard tower, and I go out to the front porch to smoke and peruse Jung.
I wonder if Nick has left for Redmond already to be with his family. It's nearly noon, but it would be strange for him to leave me in the apartment by myself without so much as a goodbye or an instruction to lock the door. Then again, if you know Nick, it's not so strange. It's almost a complement, a sign of trust. I knock on his bedroom door, "Nick?", then open it. He's gone, and I laugh to myself. I do the best I can to clean my salsa-splattered backpack, gather my things and head out into the melting snow, locking the door behind me.
...
I'm at Backspace downtown, thinking that it costs too much to blog at an internet cafe. This month especially. But I wanted to say some things about the war in Gaza, about my hopes for US foreign policy, about a few things I heard during Senator Clinton's confirmation hearing today. For now, I'm going to have to condense my frustrations into a few general questions, which are no doubt echoing across the blogosphere.
1) Something that has always confused me about mainstream thought in US foreign policy: why do we refuse to open a dialogue with 'terrorist organizations' and 'rogue states'? For years we (US and Israel) have stubbornly held to this method. We refuse to recognize what brings these groups (Hamas, Hizbullah) to power. We purport to sponsor democracy in the region, but if a group we have labeled as a terrorist organization is elected democratically, we then reject their legitimacy, cutting aid to the region, further impoverishing the poor and essentially sending the message that the only way a group like Hamas will have a voice is through acts of terrorism and violence. Both sides then opt to blindly fixate on this unrealistic goal of mutual annihilation. If this pattern continues, how do we honestly expect anything to change?
2) Israel has stated its intentions not to hurt civilians. They've dropped leaflets telling Gaza residents to evacuate. Then they close all movement through Palestine's border with Egypt. Where are civilians supposed to go? How can destroying a population's homes, schools and infrastructure, killing hundreds of trapped residents, disrupting humanitarian aid -- how can any of this encourage a population to turn away from groups like Hamas? How does this not pour gasoline on the fire?
3) How can Hamas justify continued rocket fire on Israel? Certainly not militarily. It hasn't worked for 40 years. And after Israel's recent 2006 war against Hizbullah, Hamas had to know how Israel would react to such an attack. They stood to gain no military advantage by pissing off Israel, but they did it anyway, perhaps to rally international opinion against a state they knew would react emotionally and disproportionately, at the great expense of the very people Hamas says they are there to protect. Attacking Israeli civilians is just as inexcusable as the Israeli army 'accidentally' killing Palestinian civilians.
If you can't tell, thinking about this makes me upset. I'm going home. If anyone can hear me out there, I am asking us to please reconsider the costs of clinging to ideology and hard lines. As much as prominent, supposedly moderate leaders (Harry Reid, Zvipi Livni) may hold to the current course, I do not believe I am in the minority.