At work, there's a cat who lives in the courtyard. Her name is Precious. She's stripey and round. People feed her and look out for her, bring her treats and boxes for shelter. She does her own thing, hanging around. Nobody can catch her. 

Today she walked up to me and let me pet her and scratch her head for about ten seconds. 

Today I was thinking about how we are what goes into our brains and we produce what we consume. Last night I was knitting to wind down before bed, and I had a horrible cheerleading routine chant stuck in my head. It was so lame that we took the time to learn it, and though the pattern of stomp and clap was invigorating, the words were so stupid that we dropped it from our repertoire. 

Yes, I was a cheerleader in high school. The popular girls lettered in sports and won trophies, the freaky girls stomped and shouted in the basement of the gym. The popular girls called us lazy and hated us, until we were their battle drums and pipes at game time, boosting them to victory. 

still, 28 years later, I get the cheers stuck in my head. 

I was thinking that I need a new dreamscape. I need to read some poetry, go to a museum or ten. Today I seriously thought to myself, "self, you've been good about your savings account. Nobody's holding out a permanent position at this job for you. See if you can get a weekday off and go to the Penn Museum. Soak up the Sphinx." 

But I can't take a day off without a doctor's note. Maybe there's a kind archaeologist or historian on staff who would write a note for me. "Lindsay is under my care for dysphoria and ennui, and needs a strong dose of beauty. Please excuse her from work for the day." 

Then I paid the monthly utilities, and OH HI, REALITY. Maybe my $70/day after taxes is more important than I thought. 

So, maybe I'll just see if I can dig up some good recordings of poetry to listen to and chase the stomp and shout out of my head. 

I was writing on paper about this and figured it was a good enough thing to get into on screen. Or maybe I just type faster than I scrawl so it's more comfy. 

I've never been a morning person. Ever. Like, even as a small child. 

In my older years, I figured out that it's partly a personal space thing. Mornings where I have to interact with people are upsetting. No, seriously - there's this weird sort of bubble around my psyche that is overly sensitive and easily bruised by contact with others that early. It's why I rarely ever say, "good morning"; that phrase is particularly cruel to my soul. 

(Okay, it didn't help that my asshole father used to force those words on me and my sister and demand we respond in kind, but still. "Good morning" is reserved for a select few loved ones who understand me.)

Being self-employed and making my own schedule for years has allowed me to avoid mornings, a lot. An obscenely comfortable bed, animals that are hedonist jerks/sweetiepies who also love the bed, and a naturally late ciradian rhythm usually dictate that my days usually don't start until 11am at the earliest. 

(I know, hate me - but know that in turn, I don't usually get the clean cool scruff of morning or the wide-open-day-ahead feeling that mornings usually afford.)

I was just thinking, though, as I was journalling, that mornings weren't always awful. Boston mornings were gold for me. Idunno, the combination of taking the dog out into the cool air, the coffee, the solitude-bubble formed by a cloud of music-noise at the right level, and coffee, and writing, brought back that feel: the cold crowded fuzz of foot-commuting with headphones and notebooks and trains of people in that cold grey. We were all respectful of the fact that it was morning. No one pressed horrible greetings on you. No one made eye contact. But it wasn't out of animosity; we were all part of the same club, and something about that and the sensate noise of walking from stations to destinations and vice versa feels holy in my memory. 

Sigh. 

Maybe I can do mornings a little more. 

I might have to, if I want to make enough money and keep a proper swim habit. 

I just wish I could walk distances like I used to. Whatever. 

Metric. Metric is good morning music. Okay, they're good music, period.

First armwarmer done (needs blocking). Second started. Watching Extant, which is Good. 

EDITED TO ADD: Season 2 of Extant is lame and stupid and boring. Fuck That Shit Right In Its Neon Blue CBS Ear. 

I didn't go to improv class last week because I was sick. Today I went back. I was crabby as a barrel of Dungeness crabs during Crabfest.  I wanted to punch my most negative co-worker, Duane, for claiming that Olive Garden is a terrific Italian restaurant. 

Then I went to class, where it's just offer, receive, give; build and expand, listen with a different part of your brain, and everything feels better now. 

Magic. 

Here's a thing about improv and listening. 

My iPhone has bricked itself.  T-Mobile could not unbrick it, so a new one is on the way, should arrive today.

My contacts appear to have not backed themselves up to the Cloud thoroughly, so I may be seeking phone numbers when the new device arrives.

I am getting a replacement, not an upgrade, which is good news because I just got this case for Christmas and it is the Best Case Ever:

This is just to say, then, that if you have called, texted, or snapped me, I am not ignoring you.  I am looking forward to the post-Ordeal-of-the-Phone snaps very much.

A new thing for me is that very cold weather makes the blood vessels in my eyes burst. I've had red, sore eyes all day, and there's nothing I can do but put eye drops in them and close them. 

Ow. 

Yesterday, I tried to explain segregation to Hunter, who just turned four in December.  Media has a large progressive population.  We have a strong arts community and a lot of local outreach.  If Hunter had a black girlfriend (or boyfriend) and they walked down the street holding hands, no one in Media would bat an eyelash - but most of the people they passed on the street would be white.

Hunter is one of the most privileged people in America.  He is male, tall, blond, white, well-spoken, intelligent, celebrates Christian cultural holidays as well as Jewish holidays, so even though he's Jewish, he can blend in with the majority.  He has 20/20 vision, he is fast, strong and thin, he is able in every way. He is charming and perceptive.  He learns quickly.  His family is not wealthy, but we are comfortable enough that he wants for nothing. His parents are not divorced.

Hunter needs to have a strong sense of justice, because he may never experience life being unfair.  He needs to understand that he is privileged, and become the kid who stops the bully instead of joining the bully, ignoring the bully, or, even worse, being the bully himself.

I think about this a lot, more than I thought about it with Archer, because Archer, though he is also quite privileged, did not have the Houser Viking genes and attitude, and also comes from a "broken home".  Archer saw firsthand what it's like to be outside the "norm" and Archer's response was almost always compassion (and when it wasn't, he usually got a lecture from his mother).  

Yesterday, I was determined to explain who Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was to Hunter in a way that was meaningful and yet didn't lose his 4 year old attention span.  Of course, I started with music.  

When I was little, my brother and I had a few Sesame Street albums, including this one with Pete Seeger and "Brother Kirk".  At the time, "Brother Kirk" was this guy in a flat cap who talked funny and sang the Martin Luther King song.  I looked him up yesterday and found out that his real name is Reverend Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, and, in addition to The Ballad of Martin Luther King, he wrote more songs about black heroes (Harriet Tubman, etc.).

It's a great song, and catchy (I remembered it 30+ years later), so I played it for both kids, and I explained to Hunter who Martin Luther King was.  I said that in the United States, there were white people who didn't let black kids go to the same schools as white kids, who didn't let black people eat at the same restaurants as white people and who didn't let black people sit wherever they wanted to on the bus, they had to sit in the back.  Martin Luther King fought against those people, but he didn't have a gun, he marched and marched with so many people that they changed the world, and it got better.  It's still not right, but it got better.  Black kids were allowed into schools and restaurants and they could sit where they wanted to on the bus.

That, I figured, was enough for one preschooler's attention span.

He said, "The white people who wouldn't let the kids in the schools, they were the bad guys."

I said, "Yes, and Dr. Martin Luther King was a hero because he fought for the black kids to be able to go to school just like the white kids did."

I also explained (because I remember thinking about this a lot when I was a kid), that white people aren't really "white" skinned, our skin is closer to pink, and black people aren't really "black" skinned, their skin is closer to brown, those are just words people use. 

Equality starts with us.  Equality starts with understanding that people who look different, speak differently*, think differently, like different music, smell differently, know a different set of cultural norms - that those people are people and have the same rights as we do, and that if they don't, it is OUR JOB to make sure they do.

Equality is not about who you like or how you think people should look or behave, equality is about hiring the most qualified person for the job, treating each person who commits a crime the same way as every other person who committed that crime, about suspicion of wrongdoing based on actions, not physical appearance.  Equality is about understanding that if you yell at a kid every time you see him, he will put his fingers in his ears when he sees you coming, and other kids might too ... so a black man will be more inclined to run from a cop than a white man will be, and that doesn't mean the black man is guilty, it means that cops have a shitty track record with black people.

Equality is about understanding that in the Race race, we are not all on the same starting line, so we have work to do if we want to find out who is really the fastest to the finish.

Equality is a marathon, not a sprint.  The training plan is hard, and we will get injured, and after that marathon, there's another one, and another.

"Now, it's time for you to take a look
At that mirror on that wall
Did you pull that trigger?
Were you there at all?

And there's a sickness in this nation
And it seems to be obviously clear
Gonna kill a man with hate
Because he would not die from fear.

And I've been to the mountaintop
Today I have a dream
Don’t you ever forget
The words of Martin Luther King" -Rev. F. D. "Brother Kirk" Kirkpatrick

He sung that on Sesame Street in 1974.  It's 2016.  We have a black President, but we also have a high black body count and an incarceration rate that is the highest in the world (the WORLD, including China, Iran, Libya!).  If the current incarceration rate continues, 1 in 3 black men can expect to spend some time in prison in his lifetime.  NAACP Criminal Justice Fact Sheet here.

Think about your three closest friends.  Think of one of them in prison - as a certainty.  Now, your three friends, they probably don't kill people, right? They might do some drugs, though, or get drunk and a little belligerent?  A lot of my friends do ... but I don't expect any of us to get arrested or go to prison.

One in three.

We have a lot of work to do, America.  Every last fucking one of us.  Every damn day.

* this is the hardest one for me.  I am totally serious.  People who do not use proper grammar are the second-easiest group for me to discriminate against without thinking about it.  The easiest group for me to discriminate against are those who discriminate against others.  As Tom Lehrer said, "I know there are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings and I hate people like that."  I am more motivated to work on my grammar snob problem.

It's a cold Tuesday in January that feels like a Monday.  On Monday, a holiday, I cleaned the garage enough to fit my car in. Cause I'd rather clean the garage than scrape morning ice/snow from the car, now that winter has finally decided to make an appearance. 

To get the car in the garage, I need to move my ex's truck. Which I borrowed 6+ weeks ago to get a Christmas tree and never got around to returning. (I have an comfortable relationship with my ex, so things like borrowing his truck are no big deal.) Except it won't start.

So, a cold Tuesday morning in January, I get to jumpstart his truck. Which I do, and think back to a lifetime ago, 1993(?) when I jumpstarted a friends Volvo in Pittsburgh. I was 23, she was thirty something. She remarked on how cool it was that we- two women - could jump a car without help of a man. True then, true now. One woman even.

Car is now in the garage. Yay me.  Though I did manage to lose my keys somehow in the operation. And it is too damn cold to keep looking for them. They'll turn up, and I am an adult, I have a spare. And a way to get into my house without a key. 

Also, 2 weekends ago, I made this, with some help from friends.

I'd hoped to find my parachute to cover it when I cleaned the garage, but no luck. Not sure what I want to do next with it, and I'm out of poles. Though I do still have a truck that runs now, so I can pop over to Lowes/Home Depot anytime to get more.

I stayed up too late watching the SOTU. 

I love my president. Not because everything he does is right, but because he does more of what's right than any president of my life has.