Shaving For A Change

(barking with my dog)

Chick is waiting. I am waiting. We're all waiting. This is a pretty tense day. I just finished work and am showered and I've even shaved, for a change. I think a day like this deserves a smooth leg and armpit. I haven't shaved in a while because a) I'm lazy b) the last time I shaved I missed huge patches and looked like a spotted pig and d) I forgot to.

So when will election results be clear? (I mean, presuming there isn't more election fraud this time which take weeks to get sorted out.)

No matter what the outcome is, there will be one thing worth celebrating:

BUSH WILL BE OUT OF OFFICE IN TWO MONTHS!

And he can't come back.

!!!Quick!!! What Bush boys are left who could conceivably run for office? The old man is out for good. Can Jeb run for President? What about Neil? Or Marvin? Are we free of the Bush clan now? Will the twins run for president?

Well, ultimately it doesn't matter because we've got McCain to replace him and there's a thousand more Bush's with different last names just waiting in the wings to fuck everything up even worse than it is now.

Hey, that doesn't sound optimistic.

I didn't shave my legs so I could sit around thinking the worst. I have laundry to do, food to cook, hail to enjoy which is so much like snow...only hard...like golf balls. I have InDesign to struggle with because no president is going to bring us the amount of hope we all need. We are going to have to generate a lot of it for ourselves. I plan to do my part by helping people to empower themselves. (But InDesign is still kicking my tookus good)

I feel the overwhelming urge to make mini pitas so that I can have mini-pita-pizzas for dinner. Doesn't that sound good? With home made tomato sauce (from locally grown tomatoes...aren't I insufferable?!) and slow cooked caramelized onions.

The one good thing our political jerkfest has forced us all to do is look inward, trust ourselves more than our government, to reassess our moral compasses. * So many people are suddenly thinking more about the car they're driving, the trash they're making, and the power they're using than they were before. You can scream and scream at people to make better choices but until the economy forces them to their knees they really don't see why they should be inconvenienced.

So that's going to be my strategy for keeping hope alive: thinking about how if Obama wins at least someone in the White house will try to lift a finger to end the war and maybe make strides in a more progressive direction. But if he doesn't? There could be a good side to that.

Because if Obama gets elected and really manages to make positive changes then Americans will once more be lulled into inactivity, obscene disregard for their responsibility to the environment, and to our local economy. But if he doesn't get elected and the economy continues to worsen (which it will if we continue our war abroad) then perhaps some good change will come from a newly more deeply chastened people.

Looking at it that way, it doesn't seem so horrifying to watch my country go to hell. Maybe that's just what we need to kick our asses into gear.

Anyway. My legs are smooth. Come what may.

There's been lots of jokes about moving out of the country from people on both sides of the great political dividing line but it's so sad to reflect that our country has let its standards and honor slide so far that no one will welcome us over their borders. Canada doesn't want us. My own father is a Canadian citizen and at one point in time I had hoped to move there and be sponsored by him. But he didn't feel that losing my US citizenship was worth anything in the world. I have always found it so curious how much he seems to value my citizenship here though he never saw fit to become a US citizen himself. In fact, even though he's been living in Israel for over 30 years he's still both a citizen of Canada and of Norway.

Back then I might have been able to sneak my way into a citizenship even without the aid of my father, but now? Nobody is going to welcome us into their fold. Which could amount to being stuck in a country I am increasingly ashamed of.

There's going to be a lot of flag waving either way today. I hate flag waving. I hate all the two-bit patriotic heart swelling and swaggering that every election seems to inspire.

That's just more proof that I'm not a fun person.

UN-FUN ANGELINA.

I'm going to go put some music on and try not to panic. Maybe I'll just sit in the purple chair with Chick and bark at the guy next door who comes outside to smoke cigarettes.

Remember that I don't have TV so if anyone gets any juicy bits of news about the election, would you please let me know? Also, although I'm terrified to listen to NPR right now, if someone local can tell me what radio channel they are? Maybe I'll give it a brief listen.

I feel like we're all falling.





*It's so ironic that both parties would ardently nod their heads in agreement to this statement even though they each cherish such different interpretations of what that really means.

The Skin And Bones Of Love

Civil Rights Is Not Just A Racial Issue

I am struggling to concentrate on the fact that I don't know how to do anything with the InDesign software and need a dummy book which means scootering in the rain to the library. Meanwhile my head is absolutely screaming inside at the bigotry that is still haranguing the homosexual sector of the population. I keep reading posts on other blogs about yet another attempt to keep gay people in domestic partnerships from becoming legally recognized as couples.

It is a civil rights issue and it just amazes me how we have to go through this all over again. The last time in our country that we fought over such issues was during the civil rights movement of the 1960's. You would think, that if we can recognize how wrong miscegenation laws were, we wouldn't need to cover the exact same territory again. And again.

Yes, I'm emotional right now. Apologies to those who dislike it when people believe passionately about anything. My passion doesn't actually interfere with my logic, which is lucky, and luckier still that I have logic at all when so many of my countrymen have none.

People (yes, mostly Christians) used to think it biblically wrong for a white person to have sex with a darker skinned person. What they were essentially arguing is that melanin in the skin is something that God cares a whole lot about and it offends him when people with different concentrations of melanin in their skin get together in the sheets. Worse yet when they get married and have babies and get the same rights as more "moral" unions.

A body, what it looks like, its racial profile, the color of its skin, the genitals that develop, the amount of hair it has, is all determined- not by evil or good qualities in a person- but by the particular combining of the genes donated by the body's earthly creators. Chromosomes decide what gender we are born with and hormones often have a strong influence on how our body functions and relates sexually.

Our bodies are just biological matter. Skin, bones, blood.

A penis is made up of the same essential material as a vagina.

Why does anyone care if people of the same gender decide to love and honor each other for the rest of their lives?

Perhaps an objection is that they cannot go forth and multiply which is the only reason for getting married, supposedly.

NEWS FLASH: the earth is overpopulated!!!

Many gay couples who want children either have one through a surrogate or adopt one. ONE. Maybe two. The very difficult aspect of similar gender prevents them from easily multiplying themselves and the expense of adoption does the same. When they adopt they are taking care of one of the products of disastrous unions between man+woman. Children are littering the earth and not being taken care of.

So it seems to me that gay marriage might possibly provide something we really need: loving homes for children abandoned (for whatever reason) by pro-life parents.*

You know what? Since my country made laws preventing gay couples from being legally married, we should make a law preventing anyone who masturbates from being married. Cause you know what? Supposedly god doesn't really appreciate that either. Wanna guess how many people masturbate at some point (or all points) of their lives?!

Maybe you haven't ever done it, and gosh, go bless yerself for showing such delightful restraint... but I have never met a man who hasn't enjoyed regular sessions of self loving and why not? And women? Women are much less likely to admit it (being so coy about such things in spite of women's lib) but are just as likely to be enjoying some sexy sessions with themselves too.

I really think it's time to appreciate that being gay is just one different but unharmful way to love another human being and when a gay couple wants to settle down together and make a steady life with vows to support each other and protect each other it is just as beautiful as when it's between a man and a woman.

Skin, bodies, bones, teeth, hormones: each and every one of us is made up of exactly the same materials. The only difference between us is in how those hormones, bones, water, skin, chemicals, and matter are distributed according to the map of our individual genes. There is no moral value inherent in the way one body lacks testosterone and another has different neurological wiring; or how one body has one x chromosome and another has two; or how one body's skin lacks pigment and another has a lot of it.

We are all made of the same matter. When any two adult bodies come together consensually there is no moral value attributable to their union of flesh. Moral value is attributable to behavior. When you look at a couple, the only thing you should be concerned about is how they treat themselves, each other, and the world outside of them.

*******************

I sent my Oregon ballot in today. Voting is done. I am no less tense than anyone else about the outcome. If McCain wins I will have to fight off a very strong desire to leave my country. I happen to love Oregon and my little town in it, and can't afford to move, so I won't. But it will be painful to face the next few years here. I am so sick and tired of my country's downward slide since Bush took office.

I wish I could go vote on proposition 8 in California. All I can say is: I give you my support! Equal rights for gay people is just as important as racial equality and gender equality is to me. I see no difference in the issue and my spirit is with you. I hope like hell that proposition 8 is voted down.

Added later: I also wish my own state would keep fighting to allow gay marriages. California was really trailblazing deciding to legally recognize marriages between same sex partners. You'd think that a state that legally recognizes an individual's right to kill themselves when terminally ill would be progressive enough to allow gay marriage. Perhaps it's coming soon.

I would like my brain to stop spinning now. I would like to feel hopeful about the future in my country. So I'm going to go do what I always do when I'm feeling buzzing mad or barely able to keep myself from imploding: cook food.



*I'm not working on any assumption here. If a woman opts to give birth to a child she doesn't want or can't take care of she is demonstrating a belief in pro-life. All those unadopted children out there flooding the foster care systems are the results of choosing life. No matter where you stand on the issue, the many unadoptable children in this country are direct results of choosing "life". I honestly don't see how it is morally alright to give birth and abandon your baby to the state but not alright to kindly spare a tiny being such a life. But whatever. AAAARGH.

Naive

Every living being has the same basic wish – to be happy and to avoid suffering. Even newborn babies, animals, and insects have this wish. It has been our main wish since beginningless time and it is with us all the time, even during our sleep. We spend our whole life working hard to fulfil this wish.

Naive: –adjective

1.	having or showing unaffected simplicity of nature or absence of artificiality; unsophisticated; ingenuous.

2.	having or showing a lack of experience, judgment, or information; credulous: She's so naive she believes everything she reads. He has a very naive attitude toward politics.

3.	having or marked by a simple, unaffectedly direct style reflecting little or no formal training or technique: valuable naive 19th-century American portrait paintings.

4.	not having previously been the subject of a scientific experiment, as an animal.

Another definition of Naive: a person who disagrees with your views.

What interesting justifications do anti-choice people make in their minds for the killing of children in Iraq? Is it alright because they have a different religion? Or because they're a different race? Or because they're already born?

Judge for yourself. This is only my opinion. Which I'm supposedly allowed to share. So I'm sharing it.

Now back to the music and the canning and other regular programming...

An Apology For War
the other side of 9/11

The heart of a people is often laid deep in the seeds of the fruits they grow. Open it up and you will see a history, a folklore written into the planes and angles of juicy colorful flesh, and you will hear a music you may or may not recognize. If you destroy the seeds a people saves, you destroy what's in their hearts. Today many of my countrymen and women are turning their attention to mournfully remembering the civilian deaths that were a result of the terrorist attack against the twin towers on September 11, 2001.

Every year, when this day rolls around I am made acutely uncomfortable by this lingering look at our losses when so much more and worse has happened since then. Every year as my people get in touch with their anger and their sorrow I feel like it is a dangerous idolatry, this memorializing of the dead made into a patriotic show. Personal sorrows were many and for each person I can understand remembrance. But every year it seems that people use this moment to justify war. "Remember all those people who died because of those heinous terrorists? It's a good thing we used that opportunity to invade a country that wasn't harboring the perpetrators of the crime because you know they are evil anyway..."

On this day seven years ago I heard the impossibly sad news about the twin towers and heard the death toll counts rising and I said to Philip "You realize this means we're going to war, don't you?" He agreed. I knew that our crooked president, if he wasn't somehow directly responsible for this heinous act itself, would absolutely use it as an excuse to go kill a whole lot of oil-hoarding evil Arab people.

What I kept thinking about was what impact all of these events must be having on the Arab-Americans in our own country. People with loved ones living in places that our government has vilified and then invaded, and then not seen fit to keep a death toll. We are a people made up of citizens from around the globe, a major part of our beauty lies in the people who have come to give us all the benefit of their cultural past, their perspective, their uniqueness, and to give us color.

The events of 9/11 must have had a tremendous impact on every American with a Mediterranean look to them. Going through the airports must have been hell, to be more scrutinized than other paler European-style faces had to have stung and felt like in injustice. What was it like to listen to people talking about Afghans like animals deserving to be executed? Afghanistan may be poor in the global economy but it is rich with history, with current vibrancy, and Americans didn't really care after 9/11.

The truth is that Americans didn't really care who had to die, just as long as someone paid for the deaths resulting from the crashing twin towers. Revenge is a very old past time and has not, even after thousands of years of seeking it, made anything better. It keeps our rivers full of bodies is all. We went looking for a fight the second we got the horrifying news. And when we couldn't find enough blood in Afghanistan we invaded Iraq because our President and all his evil men had our attention squarely set on the tragedy. "Keep people afraid and sad and they won't notice that we're invading a country we have no excuse to invade and even though no one else in the world would support us we are so righteous with God behind us...."

This is not a God directed war we've been waging. It's a political invasion and occupation. It can only end badly.

Once the evil was done and the death toll kept rising year after year I began to hear people say things like "We can't just leave Iraq now because we have to clean up our mess first." I have never heard such rubbish.

Let me ask you all this: If you had a plumber come to your house to fix a little leak, and he excavated and hammered at your pipes until all the plumbing in your house was broken and the water was gushing, the sewage sludging into your basement, even though when he arrived there had been but one small leak, would you consider this person qualified to clean up and fix the mess?

If you answered yes then you are deeply stupid.

So here we are. Seven years into war. A war we had no reasonable excuse to wage in the first place. The real terrorists were never caught but in the mean time we've managed to kill a shitload of Arabs, lose some more of our own people, deposed a leader, start a civil war, and one of the worst crimes we've committed? We've imposed rules on a people we have no right to impose anything on that have the potential to crush their heritage: we've made it illegal for any Iraqis farmers to save their seeds for harvest. They are required to buy their seeds from the United States, from our companies selling genetically modified seeds.

Like all true terrorists, we are attempting to rip out the hearts of an entire people.

This makes me sad beyond belief. I am sick inside with shame for my country. A country with the potential for greatness squandering all its chances on wars it should not fight and cannot win. I am ashamed at how hard it is to find out how many Iraqis we've killed, because if you're going to kill people you should be accountable for it. Our own laws support this. God supposedly agrees. Jesus doesn't even think we should kill at all.

If we're going to mourn everyone who died as a result of the attack on the twin towers then we need to also mourn for all the people who have died as a result of our seeking retribution. Americans love to print the numbers of American soldiers who've died so there's no problem keeping track of our beloved own (which undoubtedly includes plenty of Arab-Americans who have ties to Iraq, what a mind fuck that must be!) and so the total number of American lost (including the Twin Towers incident) is: 7,443 American people. *

I had to check a lot of sources, many no longer current, but it seems that if you average out the estimates available (which vary widely) everyone can pretty much agree that at least 100,000 Iraqis have died in the war, a huge majority of those civilians. Men, women, and children not in the military.

Women and children. The United States has a hell of a fucking lot to answer for. How many of these civilians were related to American tax paying citizens? Should we not also be honoring the loss of these people? People who did us no harm.

For every 1 American killed, we have killed 13 Iraqis.

What I want to know is: When will we decide that we've killed enough?

Our government has done this in our name, sullying all kinds of other names in the process such as "God", "Justice", and the most laughable of all "Freedom".

Enough was reached a long time ago. Enough is now. Enough.

I'm not going to throw rocks at our troops who, having enlisted in a job in which there is no room for freedom of opinion, have been doing what they promised to do which is doing what they're told. I don't respect what they're doing because killing people under any circumstance besides urgent self defense, is to me, indefensible and a crime. I don't care what flag anyone is carrying. I don't care what color your skin is. I don't care who you pray to. Killing is wrong. But bring our troops home. I will not harass them nor bring them down.

We've killed at least one hundred thousand Iraqi people.

We've become the Nazi's to Jewish people.** We just haven't reached the same death toll yet. Is that what it will take? Do we need to kill 6,000,000 men, women, and children before we see that what we're doing is wrong? That what we've done is invaded another country, oppressed them, killed their people-innocent people, and decided that we have some "right" to be there? What will it take for us to take our actions seriously and demand, as a country, that our tyranny over Iraq end?

I thought we viewed dictatorships as evil. We are the worst dictatorship of all right now.

So tonight I am sending out my apologies to the dead and the families they have left to mourn. I'm so sorry that my country has committed these heinous crimes against you. I'm so sorry that my country, of which I am a part, has smeared the blood of your innocent children (who resemble so many of our children) across the streets with grenades and bombs. I'm so sorry we've put laws in motion that could destroy your gorgeous and ancient heritage, family stories, and indigenous crops that you have grown for centuries.

I'm so sorry. If I could depose Emperor Bush and prevent his evil brethren from taking charge when he steps down, I would. If I could undo this stench of death in your country, I would. I am but one person. Please, please know that not all Americans are blood thirsty self righteous butchers. Please know that some of us think on your loss and wish we could send you back the seeds of your heart. Some of us wish we could open the universal rivers to share food, conversation, laughter, cultural understanding and enlightenment.

Tonight, while my country remembers the 2,974 people who died from the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, I am remembering the 100, 000 we have so far killed in an effort to make ourselves feel better.

My shame is deep and complete. Please forgive us.

* Sources for this information: September 11 attacks, and both American and Iraqi deaths,

**I am 100% aware of the gravity of such a statement. I stand by it. What we're doing in Iraq is slaughtering innocent people. It's what Hitler did to not only Jewish people but to all people who opposed him. I do believe that there is a deep racism in my country against people of Arab heritage and it is no different than Adolf's prejudice against jewish people. I'm was horrified to hear a relative of mine call someone a "raghead" once and until then I actually didn't realize there were derrogative words for Arabic people because in my circles people have few racial prejudices.

Sew or Mow?

(plus an impromptu discussion of about the virtues of Oregon)

I promised a little peek at the coat project and here it is. A swing coat and the orange fabric I have chosen to make it out of. I was hoping for a sumptuous dove grey or charcoal color wool but since I was limited to what was on clearance this was my only choice. I'm lucky that I happen to LOVE this color. I'm just not sure it's going to be complimentary on me. I'm hoping that the glow I feel just looking at such a happy color will make it look good on me.

Sew or Mow? Indeed. I want to sew but vying for my attention are a whole lot of other things such as the garden beds which need building. It's been easy to ignore outdoor projects what with the freak snow flurries, the nasty bone chilling wind, and the rain we've been having...but suddenly it's nice out again and those beds are calling to me. I started mowing the lawn which has become quite overgrown. As usual, nothing is really simple. Before making the raised beds and situating them in their permanent spots I need to mow the lawn, but to mow the lawn I need to pick up the two weeks worth of dog poop.

I picked up the poop like a pet hero and then I started to mow. I really dislike gas mowers and electric ones seem like a nightmare of immanent electrocution so I requested that Philip locate an old fashioned push mower. He did. It's old, it's squeaky, but it works really well! I love mowing with the push mower. It's an upper body work out, especially when you've not mowed the lawn before and it's become a meadow of flowing grasses. So after getting about 20 feet of lawn sheered down to a respectable golfing* length I finished making the first of my raised beds and measured it into place in the corner of the yard.

Then I had to take a really long break.

It's the next morning and I'm still on the break.

This morning is the Master Gardener's plant sale. It's an annual fund raising event and one hundred percent of the proceeds from it go towards supporting the program. I've never been to it before. I've heard tales about it: how cheap the plants are; how you can fill up a pick up truck with plants for $25; how people line up at the doors to get in; how they will jostle each other with elbows and shoulders to get at the plants they want; how they will steal plants out of your cart.

Dudes. This is not a side of my fellow gardeners I want to see. In fact, this is not a side of my fellow human beings that I want to see. Ever. So I have been sorely tempted not to go. However, I'm on a budget and I have a blank slate of a yard. I feel that it would be stupid of me not to at least check the sale out. What if I can get some things I really want for super cheap? A person in my financial position cannot laugh down my nose at a plant sale. So my mom will be picking me up in a while and we will go see what the truth of this sale is.

Maybe I'll see the dreaded DD** there.

Meanwhile, ex-president Bill Clinton is speaking today at our High School. If this was 1988 I would be so excited I'd be teasing my hair into impossible height right now. Unfortunately this is 2008 and we've seen Monica, Whitewater, affairs with corporate America, and the Clintons are poison to me, particularly because of their little partnership with Monsanto. No one will ever get my vote who supports Monsanto (or similar companies) and is helping them eradicate biodiversity and choice in agriculture. I'm very impressed with Hillary's improved hair, naturally, she's come a long way sartorially since she was the first lady of the US, but she's spreading evil and I would love to go ask some very pointed questions of Bill today but I hear he's only speaking for an hour and then he's splitting.

In my opinion, if you're so desperate for votes that you are speaking in McMinnville's High School, you ought to be allowing questions and be prepared to answer them.

I have often thought of Oregon as the United States best kept secret. It happens to be the best state we have. It's funky, it's gorgeous, it's wild, it's full of progress and at the very same time it is also stodgy and old fashioned. It's a strange mixture of independent thought and traditional people. I fell in love with it in 1978 and I never did stop loving it. It has rarely made appearances in film, in ad campaigns, or the news. It isn't generally the place everyone talks about visiting for vacation like they do California. It's an alarmingly religious state (in my opinion) and yet it is the only state (to my knowledge) that legally allows assisted suicide in terminal medical cases.

Oregon kicks ass!

I've been noticing lately that it has been turning up on the rest of the country's radar more and more. A big Hollywood film is coming out that takes place in Oregon. People are discussing our green cities like Portland and Eugene...and taking notes. Our wines have been getting some notice as well, and more and more people are moving here. People like me.

And now, suddenly, Oregon (who no one has previously valued in the primaries, since we are almost the last state to vote in them) matters to the politicians. Well, watch out, because Oregon is hardly a predictable political field. Oregon is a state of surprises and I think it's hard to impress.

I see only five things wrong with this beloved state of mine:

• People don't take care of their teeth here.

• Avocados don't grow here.

• Citrus doesn't grow here.

• There are too many churches.

• And coincidentally? An alarming rate of teen pregnancies.***

*I think golfing is silly. Just in case you wanted to know. Go ahead, get your nine irons out and have a ball...don't be shy. I think it's a game for stodgy republicans. Maybe it needs an image clean-up. "Golf- the new hockey!" Ha ha. My brother plays golf once in a while and it's something I can never quite wrap my brain around.

**Doubleknit Disaster

***A correlation which I see as being very tightly bound together.

Move Over Heather Bailey!
The next design star has finally arrived.

Now, I've just done an exhaustive two page google search on my newest multi-dollar idea to make sure that no one has already stolen it. So far it seems that everyone has come dangerously close to good clothespin ideas and then totally missed the mark by doing clothespin magnets (which are cool, of course, but really don't compare) or clothespin dolls which are cute and folksy but when what you want is cutting edge? Not so much.

True genius lies in a clever use of cheap materials that take a minimum of labor to transform our perceptions of them from mundane to cutting edge design. I think I can safely say that with the clothespin hair accessory I have climbed new heights of sartorial domination and glory. Heather Bailey may come up with glamorous accessories that everyone wants, and she may have a face that is softer and dewier than a baby's bottom, but I, the great single monikered designer-ANGELINA, have done what everyone dreams of doing: come up with a trademark so complicated to keep track of and so clever that it will take years for anyone to figure it out and at that moment my posse of lawyers will descend on the unwary lesser "designers" like a pack of unfed wolves and make me a billionaire with the resulting lawsuits.

No, but seriously...It's time to get serious. This is the face I wear when I start talking earnestly about HOPE IN AMERICA on national television. A face that is properly concerned and serious while conveying a kind of honest yearning in the heart for a better world for future generations conveyed to you by the far off gaze that I achieve when thinking about how much I love cheese and how serious it would be if I could never eat it again.

I wonder if Max would get sent to the principle's office if he revealed his thoughts about President Bush. He may say things like: people in a story book the teacher has just read to the class "should all just go kill themselves", and by doing so effectively ruin the lives of all the kids he's in class with, but I wonder how much worse it might be if he was to tell his thoughts about the mighty evil Michael Vick who we all think should be mauled by dogs or, as Max likes to suggest: that he "be thrown in a jail cell filled with dog fur for the rest of his life?" Or how he would throw Bush in jail if he was in charge. The nice thing about my kid is that he's still on the good guy's side. Mostly. I wonder, if he blurted something out about God that no one in class agrees with would he get sent to the principle's office?*

I see the greatest misstep of Max's "incident" in school was that he spoke without raising his hand and didn't say anything that really had to do with the characters, exactly. I don't think what he said was so terrible. I think his teacher knew I wasn't on the same page of horror as she was. I am 95% sure I have been a nonstop disappointment to her as a parent which you should know has not made me feel the least bit bad about myself so much as it makes me acutely aware of what a disconnect there obviously is between her life experiences and mine.

I think I should flash her my HOPE IN AMERICA look more often to give her some reassurance. Then I should give her one of my clothespin hair accessories and later on nail her with a well timed lawsuit. Then I can afford to get Max a private tutor who will teach him how to fight with a sword, write secret notes in invisible ink to very important people, and strategize like a general while thinking creatively like a genius.

I can almost hear your awe for me growing in the space between us. I have that effect on people sometimes so I won't let it distract me.

You see what happens when I get gussied up for a passport photo? I get all self portrait obsessed and start morphing into the next Heather Bailey.







*He exited class the other day being lectured to by a little girl who was saying to him "Don't believe the creations, believe the creator." When I asked him what she meant he said they were talking about god and that he had said that there's proof of evolution and that this little girl is always saying this same thing to him. You know what that means? He's engaging in a lot of arguments about god at school. When pressed, he admitted that he kind of likes arguing about it.

The Importance Of Being Seed

I think it's a pretty safe bet that George W. Bush thinks pretty highly of his own seed. I imagine that he treasures his family jewels, maybe even more than his wife does. You can say that people are hard to know, that it's impossible to know what's in their hearts and in their minds. I disagree. While there is a whole universe of knowable things I don't know, there are some things I can't help knowing and one of those things is that men think very highly of their sperm.

If men didn't think their sperm was pretty important they wouldn't dedicate so many hours of their lives trying to plant it somewhere fertile. Or at least somewhere available. Or anywhere, really. And sometimes, unfortunately, everywhere.

These were my thoughts as I knelt on the ground ripping weeds out of the dirt in preparation for planting my medicinal herb and flower garden. Seeds were arcing into the air all around me as I yanked ripe grasses and wild green things out of my fresh soil. Seeds scattered onto my head, stuck to the hideously long hairs on my arms, and fell back to earth to wait for the next rain. Which will probably be tomorrow. The earth's seed is everywhere. It's no more a secret what the earth has planned for them than it is what man has planned for his. These are not unknowable things.

I found myself wondering why Christians often speak as though the seed of man is so sacred. It isn't as though it's scarce. It isn't as though it's wisdomous. No matter how good the sex you're having is, the seed itself imparts no everlasting afterglow of god. Not even if you intend the seed to sprout a tiny human being. There is plenty of seed to be had and generally it is more than willing to travel to all ports of call.

I couldn't get this out of my head. How protective people feel about seed.

About their own seed. These thoughts came to me as I recklessly scattered the seeds of plants I have never formally met before and whose common names I don't know, let alone their formal Latin names. I was essentially performing reproductive services to those that had already produced flowers and were ready to send themselves into the wild wind.

I am the wild wind.

There is almost nothing more important to human beings than the protection of all seed. How do so few people realize this? So many people out there think of gardening as a "hobby". Something all of us shriveled up Mrs. Marple types do to pass the time until we die. An unimportant activity. We fuss around with our flowers and our sweet little veggies and have not realized that we've missed out on shaping the world with politics, or by starting a corporation that eats other corporations, or that we could have been spending all our time arranging charities to milk the egos of rich people so that they can feel alright about the fact that many of them and their friends in their swank mansions and their shiny Hummers are living at a much greater cost to us all than just the livings their companies take away from the small fry.

From me. From me in my unimportant sweet little garden full of seeds.

It's not a crime to be rich. That's not what I spent time in my garden to hear the seed say to me. That's not what comes to me today. I would love to be rich. Bring it on universe! I've got my tiara ready.

What I heard whispering along the soft sheaths of evening sun illuminating my vicious work with flecks of gold is that gardening has become a form of rebellion. It's one of the reasons it feels so good to do it. Seeds used to be a stronger currency than coin. Seeds for food and seeds for medicine.

Seeds are life.

You could not have your mansions and your hummers if man had never learned to cultivate seeds for feeding himself. You can thank seeds for giving you your diamond life.

The importance of seeds is implicit in fairy tales: do you think Jack could have sold his cow for a bag of bean seeds if seeds weren't equivalent to coin?

Some of the most important seeds are so small that once you've dropped them carelessly you will never see them again. Human survival hangs on the smallest breath.

All the power in the world is in that knowledge. I hope you already know it. Nature doesn't accept coin because she can't do a damn thing with it. Money is meaningless if there are no natural resources to back it up. Does anyone remember that? Money represents the commodities that humans need in order to live their lives: food, water, shelter, materials to build shelter, the power to do the work to grow the food (horses or gasoline), and the materials to clothe themselves against the elements. Money stands in place of gold. Gold is good for decorating pretty people, but gold is also used in a lot of other alchemical applications. Metals are used for tools.

On and on it goes. As far as commodities go, food and herb seeds are much more valuable than human seed because finding unpolluted sources gets harder every day. There are more people than the earth is comfortable supporting. That's why we have famines. That's why we have plagues. We don't need more people. We need more resources to take care of the people we already have.

Sperm is cheap. Open pollinated seeds are not. The government wants us all to believe that genetically modified seeds are the answer to world starvation. Partly because no one wants to talk about family planning. Partly because there's not enough money in trying to feed people in ways that protect our resources at the same time. Nature doesn't approve of the kind of human industry that destroys her own. There are all kinds of reasons not to support genetically modified seeds or the foods they grow up to be, but the biggest one is that crushing diversity will rape the earth, not feed it. It already has.

Do you believe that all people should be white? Do you think all people should be black? Is it healthy for people to concentrate gene pools? I direct your attention to the large chinned Hapsburgs if you need proof. Do you believe that it was good that the Nazis tried to obliterate the Jews? Do you think it's righteous that Genghis Khan tried to out-breed half a hemisphere of people and kill most of the non-egg producing people at the same time?

Genetically modified seeds are the Nazis of the plant world. And the insect world. And whose world do we belong to? Are there still people who don't see that the plant world, the insect world, and the people world are the same world? To try to breed a master race of corn is no less evil than trying to create a master race of people. Nothing but bad can come of it.

We survive in diversity. We grow stronger by interbreeding. Every race has something beautiful to add to the earth's gene pool. Every plant has something to offer to the soil teeming with life.

Man's seed is cheap.

I'm out there tonight and I can feel the ground murmur. I can hear the din of life evolving with every breath I take. Man is arrogant. And when I say man, I mean man and woman. We are all in this together. Men, women, hermaphrodites. Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, and absolutely every fucking gorgeous color in between.

This is not my party line. I don't have a party line. I'm too busy working my civil disobedience to belong to a party. This is what I hear, what I see, and what I know.

The most potent rebellion you can engage in now is to grow open pollinated seeds in your garden. Grow food. Grow medicinal herbs and flowers that the insects we depend on for life need to keep on living.

There are moments when I hate George Bush and his sperm that has spawned two really vapid girls. I hate what he stands for. I hate the liberties he is trying to take from us all. He has taken enough.

But when I'm out there grinding dirt into my big knees, getting a grip on hostile weed take-overs, and watching the most beautiful first leaves of seedlings unfold shyly in the late spring chill, what I see is the universe in miniature. It's all right there. All of us. You, me, and Jessica Simpson. I may sometimes hate Bush, but he's human just as I am. He may be misguided. He may smell like evil, but he's like the weeds in my yard. I don't actually desire a yard free of weeds. The weeds are part of an integral system of wildness, of brawn versus delicate balance. The weeds are part of the eco-system just as I am. They belong in the whole melange of life we're living on this planet. They just can't be allowed to choke out the light.

I don't wish harm on Bush. I wish him to be powerless. I wish that he may be cut down to my level. I wish that he may see from a different perspective. I kind of hope his dick will shrivel just a little. But only when I'm feeling really angry and overwhelmed by the stench of war.

My knees are covered with dirt. I have cut a path for the banquet I'm preparing for the bees, lacewings, lady bugs, butterflies, wasps, you, and me. The beauty of us all was right there for me to drink. The bitter, the sweet, the living, the dying, the young, the old, we are all at the same table and I desperately want to share my wealth. Such as it is.

Because even if man's seed is cheap, my life is rich.