Dandelion Seeds

I haven't written in a few weeks. That darn Facebook sure is a time sucker. Plus, I've been living and thinking. Lots of hard thinking.

I drove three hours each way to see Adrienne Rich a few weeks ago. I went with a woman that I have known for five years that at first I considered a young person that I indirectly worked with through my job and now see as a colleague and fellow feminist and literature enthusiast. She is walking and receiving her MFA in Creative Writing tomorrow.

Seeing Adrienne Rich was not what I had expected. I thought that she'd be tough and that I would feel totally inadequate as a lesbian and as a feminist. Like I hadn't done enough. Wasn't radical enough. That dreaded inner "enough." Instead I remember her calmness and appreciation for what is, all the while still challenging and questioning. I hope this is where I am at 80 years old.

My own questioning and challenging involved a temporary position that I sent on to as many people as possible. In this economy, I want to make sure people know about the few opportunities that exist. But, I couldn't just send that job description on and hit "delete." I reread it and sent out a little hint to the director that I thought it was a great position and would love it myself if only... To her credit, she responded and I will now be going back to another field that means the world to me, domestic violence work. Add an LGBTQ component and the fact that it is temporary and can therefore end when I start my PhD and the position is perfect! As if the stars aligned to make this opportunity appear for me. It's a drive away and I will need to spend a few nights away from my sweetheart but I already have friends willing to let me sleep on their futon until I figure this all out.

I am listening to my heart again. And there are wonderful people in this world that want to see a better world. I meet them every day.

These dandelions fit for me. They are considered obtrusive but they are really quite the opposite. They "nourish" as my neighbor said recently. The round globes of seeds have now dispersed for the year, settling into cracks in lawns. Some people will spray something on them next year when they flower. Then they will die. Other people will let them go to seed and spread once again. I love dandelions and can relate to them even though I still do not know quite why.

I am leaving an empty chair at work and that scares me. But my style has always been to make mutual decisions with those that I supervise and to share everything that is important for us to contribute as much as we can to the community. Whether or not I have been a model director, I don't know. I know that I have made a small contribution to the young people of my community and have followed a mission that believes that everyone has the right to make decisions for themselves. I stand true to that mission even as I prepare for my departure. Women need to make decisions for themselves and no government or ideology should stand in their way (Bless you Dr. Tiller.) I will continue to believe this as I prepare for my next challenge.

My Eyeball

I had a strange dream last night. I was injecting liquid into my right eye with a small funnel. Part of the funnel was supposed to gently sit on top of the eyeball. I discovered that my funnel had pierced the surface. And so, I started to pull it out. This is when I learned that it actually had pierced through my entire eyeball. While in my numb dreamlike state, I heard sound effects as I pulled it out equal to those in a cheesy horror film. I then proceeded through my dream experiences with my one eye closed. No one really noticed that I had done anything to my eye and I was questioning the severity of my situation. I could still see out of the eye when I chose to but it ached.

May

I am just plain happy that decent weather is finally here.

Procrastination Methods

I am going to start sharing additional procrastination methods as a further procrastination strategy. It is my hope that in so doing I will get so bored with procrastinating that I will actually get to work!

1. Google the author of a book you have recently enjoyed, find his/her facebook page and write them a message. The book in question is the graphic novel Arab in America by Toufic El Rassi, a Beirut-born American. Excellent. Haven't heard back from Toufic yet :)

2. Take photographs of the dandelions in your lawn and get yourself totally pissed off that people would actually have the gall to poison their lawn and kill them. How sad for them and the dandelions. What is so awful about dandelions?

3. Besides checking facebook and updating my status way too many times a day, I have been working so I have no more procrastination ideas to share. I imagine there will be more to come. Or, if you the reader have any that you would like to share...

Political Consumption in a Bottle

To continue with with my procrastination maneuvers, I am going to share the bottled water that I discovered yesterday. The company is Okanogan Highlands Bottling Company which sells bottled water with different labels on it so that your water consumption can have a political message to it. According to the website, the label and the owner, the water bottling company started in 1998 as a response to the cyanide leach gold mining that was taking place in Okanagon County in Northeast Washington State. The idea was that "water is more precious than gold." An extra twist is that after you consume the precious cyanide-free water that was actually bottled in Oregon not Washington, you can send a message in a bottle to your favorite representative in the other Washington, D.C. The website shows you step by step how you can drink your water down to the last drop, write a message, roll it up, put it inside the bottle, place stamps and mailing labels and send. According to the label, purchasing this water is POLITICAL ACTION. By buying bottled water you are helping ensure clean water, according to the branding.

Starting in 2003, consumers were also able participate in the peace process and send a personal bottled message to the President of the United States. The description of this product on the website is just beautiful:

Much care was taken in designing the Water for Peace label. We learned from developing the Water More Precious Than Gold label that words are powerful. Dr. Masaru Emoto of Japan describes in his book Messages From Water how water responds to that which surrounds it. By photographing the crystalline structure of frozen water, Dr. Emoto demonstrated how music, words, pictures, and intention actually changed the quality of the water inside the container. Positive words on the label create "high vibration water" within the bottle. We decided to create a totally positive, inspirational and beautiful water label to enhance the already delicious spring water we are using.


The "Si se puede!" water was launched in December of 2007 and supports reforming current "immoral immigration procedures." If the purchase is in Washington State, one dollar from each case of water will be donated to Washington Community Action Network (CAN!) Washington CAN!, a statewide, grassroots lobbying organization that works on immigration among other issues.

I am torn. I love the creativity and good intentions behind the water bottling effort. I also appreciate the call to political action through the letter writing. But as a friend on facebook explained, "There has got to be a better way to spread messages than selling cheap goods." I agree. I met the owner at the World Rhythm Festival and expressed my concerns. He said that he looked into using bottles made out of corn but that the corn used in these bottles was genetically modified. Sometimes he wonders if he should just give up. I shrugged. I didn't have an answer to that. He may be encouraging others to be more politically active, or not.

I have been asking myself how the political efforts of the Okanogan Highlands Bottling Company differ from the Ethos Water campaign. For each bottle of water purchased, Ethos Water, which is owned by Starbuck's, will donate $ 0.05 to their goal of providing $10 million in humanitarian water relief efforts throughout the world by 2010. What bugs me so much about the Ethos Water campaign is that the privatization of water is one of the reasons there are water shortages throughout the globe. Buying a commodity that should be available to all but has been privatized in order to provide water to those whose water has been usurped is hypocritical. Water is a right, not a commodity.

We live in a consumer culture and we all navigate within it. But marketing commodities as a means of creating political and social change makes me very uncomfortable. While the Okanogan Highlands Bottling Company may ask the consumer to write a letter after buying and drinking the water, the route is circuitous. Consumers don't need to buy bottled water to write a letter or donate money to Washington CAN. They may even be able to donate more than $1 per case. This type of consumption is passive and perhaps even cowardly. And I am not even discussing the waste. I will leave that to Chris Jordan:

Plastic Bottles, 200760x120" Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes.

Partial Zoom

Detail at Actual Size

Clicking Away

I am in Seattle for the World Rhythm Festival. While I do not have any musical ability, my sweetie does. So while she drums, I have been trying to work on a paper. I say trying because I have managed to do everything but. It's been a really lousy few weeks and just getting away and being in a city for the weekend is so much fun. We took a bus ride to Ballard to have Oaxacan food and found myself clicking away. I often wander over to tiny red's blog and wonder why her images are so much more colorful than mine. I have decided that the urbanscape has something to do with it. My photos at home are beautiful in their own way. They usually suggest space and isolation with spare color just like the landscape.

The Visitor

I saw The Visitor last night. It's a good movie, very sad. I'm still struggling with how it ended. It painted a realistic depiction of my country's flawed immigration policy. At first I thought the film was reaffirming U.S. exceptionalism, but now I think not. It got me questioning whether the U.S. is really such a wonderful place to live for immigrants as well as for those born here. A happy Statue of Liberty moment contrasts with a giant U.S. flag at the airport.



Further thoughts on the film posted a bit later in the day:

I can't get the main character, Walter, out of my head. He is a financially successful tenured white male professor at what appears to be a prestigious university in Connecticut. Walter has been in a funk for the past 20 years. He is forced to attend a conference on his supposed specialty, globalization and the "third world." Everyone at the conference looks just like him- a statement on who makes world economic policies. At first I resented the fact that the film focuses on Walter. Tarek has a much more important story, in my opinion. However, the more I think about it, it makes sense. Walter, like many in this country, are living in a numb stupor and are politically disconnected from others in the U.S. and in the rest of the world. Walter is the perfect metaphor for what many including Marita Sturken in Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch and Consumerism from Oklahoma City to Ground Zero would call, apolitical and disengaged innocence. I'll have to write about Sturken's book at some other point. The book is excellent.

"Unedited"

I haven't been doing any real writing on here in awhile. I am not even sure what my readership is anymore. My life has been wonderfully busy with my work, my class, my girlfriend, and my cats. I put the "wonderfully" in here, which surprises me, because I have also been a bit stressed trying to balance all of these aspects of my life, especially school. Jumping into a class with a bunch of PhD seekers has been challenging but also very energizing as, so far, I have been keeeping up!

This renewed sense of self may have had an influence on me and therefore may have indirectly contributed to the wonderful words that a coworker said to me the other day. She said that I have an "unedited voice." I was surprised because alot of editing occurs before I speak, including at (perhaps even, especially at) work. I called her on that fact and she acknowledged my very honest attempts at diplomacy. "Perhaps I should say "your brave voice, that will say what it believes no matter the consequences," she added. OK. I'll take that.

I hope that is true. There are days when I worry I have turned into the mainstream commodity consuming and paper pushing bureaucrat that I criticized during my youthful years.

I will keep speaking what some consider "unedited" and what for me is just what needs to be said. I also encourage you to do the same.

Way to Go!!

Congratulations to Helem are in order for being the 2009 recipient of the Felipe de Souza Award given by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) for their work on LGBTI rights in Lebanon. Helem was the first LGBTI organization in the Middle East and they have been working hard to ensure human rights for LGBTI friends in Lebanon. Thanks Helem for your hard work and thanks IGLHRC for recognizing it!!!

Closed Zone

The animator of Waltz with Bashir made this smart video Closed Zone with Gisha, the Legal Center for Feedom of Movement. It has been sent to me by friends on facebook and has also been posted on friends' websites. This last time I saw it at Modern Mitzvot. Just in case you haven't seen it, I thought I'd share. Now its time for me to get off the internet and read one hundred pages.