a dry spell
I'm feeling so uninspired lately. Or maybe I'm just calmly prioritizing and avoiding any mental stimulation. The soft grey of the world has induced a mental complacency and drawn me away from my computer to other things... like... making Christmas cards. I should be studying for finals. I should be using my brain. I should be writing here and having something useful to say. But I'm not and I rather enjoy it.

I'm not sure what's behind my mental ennui. Not only that, I feel guiltily selfish (as I always do in this stability) and put more energy towards ignoring my friends' problems than I do toward helping (or being considerate) of them. Cos, the truth is, I just don't care to be a part of anyone else's drama. I'd rather just take care of myself and live quietly. Does that make me a bastard?

I think I'll be going on sabattacal from the blog for a while. Now just because I'm uninspired-- I'm leaving Eugene for Seattle in a week to stay with my family (which only has dialup and a computer it hurts my eyes to use) before going to Belize for two weeks. You can bet'cher bottom I won't be writing from there. I'll have better things to do-- like drink Mai Tais and Salsa dance with creepy mexican guys.

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Friday night Justin and I watched Pearl Harbor after coming home from the Ballroom Dance at Gerlinger. Strangely enough, this is a DVD we've owned since this summer and never watched... nor have I ever really had the urge to watch it until Friday night-- the eve of the Pearl Harbor bombing 52 years ago. And I didn't even know. I'd heard mixed reviews of the movie and thought that I'd find watching it akin to watching an extended version of the epic melodramas Armageddon or Titanic. I suppose it was exactly like I expected in a way. I made fun of Ben Affleck for a good hour or so before something inside me cracked and started parralelling the movie to September 11th.

In case you hadn't figured it out already, I'm a flaming liberal. I'm bisexual, a pagan, and a tree hugger... how could I not be a democrat? I hate war (an oxymoron?) and I wish we would do everything in our power to stay out of it. Unfortunately, the country is currently being led by a Republican with the IQ of a fork and the vocabulary of a five-year-old-- but who is backed (i.e. puppeted) by some of the darkest, most villainous politicians in history. I mean, CHRIST, does anyone else see the irony here? He put POINDEXTER, a man infamous for withholding information from Congress in charge of something called the "Information Awareness Bureau." HAHHAHAA. I'm laughing. Not. This is a man who would DARE to call American superior above all nations as IF there's some scale on which our superiority rests beside his own justification for "counter"- terrorism and global warfare. I can see W's train of though: Ahm' Gunna be the first Pres'dent in a while to take over 'nother nation. Hope y'all likes my present, it's gots lots of purty oil for ya. Thart'll fix thu 'conomy right up!

Git. ARRRRGHHHTTT. Hasn't it been proven enough now that we're sick of meddling in the afairs of others? That acting on the grounds of "divine intervention" and just plain "being the best damn country every" will only get us MORE spite? Stupid bastard. I can see World War III right over the horizon.

In fact, it hit me straight in the face while I was watching Pearl Harbor. I'm "of age" now. So are all my friends. And we're (in all liklihood) being forced into a war that we don't agree with by a man that we didn't even ELECT. I'd prefer, if there's to be a war in my lifetime, that it actually be something other than a "counter-terrorism" measure against a country we simply *suspect* or harboring INDIVIDUALS or a '"pre-emptive" strike on a country we THINK has illegal weapons (seems like we're baiting them to USE them, no?). Thankfully there are still people who join the armed forces willingly. Now, I don't know WHY someone would do this except to have their college tuition paid in full but I guess I'm glad SOMEONE does. Because it means that dissenters like myself and my (more male) friends will be able to react longer before being shipped off [kicking and screaming] ourselves.

About the time FDR was making his famous "December 7th 1941 is a day that will live forever in infamy..." speech, tears were streaming down my face. No, it wasn't the bizarre love triangle betwee Affleck, his best friend, and Nurse Betty (though it did draw its share of snide comments.), it was the thought that the same might happen to me: that the people I love will be send off to die or kill blindly for a hopeless cause. All the pent-up fear and frustration tearing through my mind was streaming down my face.

Fear. If there's a draft, I don't think they'll take only men this time. I don't think they'll refrain from drafting college students-- they need the educated to push the buttons.

Death. Biochemical warfare. Gas. Germs. This time, people I know will go and come back sick or not at all. This time it's something I might feel. This time, I'm supposed to WANT to protect our way of life... instead I loathe our means.

Retribution. It's never as easy as we think. People will always fight back, tooth and claw. Some are waiting for an excuse to fight, to pay back their neighbors or sting the instigators. Why are we so willing to use that word, PATRIOTISM as an excuse for racism and homicide?

A great sinking fear settled on me; the deep depression of hoplessness; a pity for a world which I thought should contain beauty and kindness. I went to bed shaken and alone, thinking of a time to come where my peace of mind would be shattered. A foreshadowing of change.

I don't want to go to war.

Something in that stupid Hollywood rendition of battle tore down the defenses on my mind for almost a whole day. I stayed despondent through Saturday; hurt, alone, and ragged. I cried at the littlest thing and saw ugliness wherever I looked. Sunday I woke to find my blinders back in place, aware but ignoring what I can't change. Things will always move "forward" in the direction that those in charge think is "up." What can I do when a nation that screams is ignored?

There is too much left unsaid to risk an early death.

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The river has reached a new low. It should be the rainy season by now and the clouds hang low and moist over the ground: but it will not rain. It's rained once in the last two weeks and otherwise been misty and cold. The sand flats of the Willamette are again bare and exposed; the water is lower now than it was in August. The ski resorts are having to make their own snow. But somehow evverything remains soggy, as if it were perpetually sprinkling-- as if there weren't a drought.

I don't really DESIRE rain. I know rain brings with it the bone-chilling damp and darkness of my depression. But I do want rain. I don't want the valley to dry up this winter and bake to evaporation all spring and summer. I want the plants to be happy and the river to sing instead of whisper. I do miss the patter of water on the rooftop Sunday morning. I think if it doesn't rain all december that something will happen come dry season that none of us wish to see.

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I saw the birds dance again on Friday, coming home at dusk. It was 4:30, just before the streetlights turned on and the birds were circling and dancing, hundreds of them amoebic in the sky. I stopped and watched, my mouth open with wonder. Again, they danced for five minutes- groups separating and turning in unison- before they settled low into the trees. This is the third time I've seen it.

Tomorrow is my Japanese final. Wednesday I'm going to see Tori Amos with Alex in Portland. I've got one more paper to write and I'm working full time... then it's off on vacation for a few weeks or doing nothing at al.