The Key to Successful Politics

I’m standing in the kitchen and the sound of feet running – four small feet -- pounds down the stairs, around the corner and toward me.

“I’m just, I’m just, I’m just…!” shouts Jaelyn

“Give it back me! Give it back me!” Addison’s shouts intermingle with his sisters.

Jaelyn appears first, running full tilt a fist clenched in the air. Addison jumps at the fist like a puppy toward a bone. Only --- this puppy is angry.

“Give it me!” he shouts.

Jaelyn uses a condescending tone as she leaps away from him and places the Quarter on the counter next to me: “I’m just showing Daddy!”

“But I was reaching down to get it and she took it!” He shouts.

They repeat the same mantras louder and louder until the kitchen is so full of speech bubbles that none of us have any room left for thought bubbles.

“Alright!” I shout, mustering my most stringent dictatorial tone. “EVERYbody to time out!”

Once they are sitting on the stairs, I explain the rules of the next Act:

1. No one may stand up out of time out until everyone is ready.
2. They must negotiate a compromise that everyone affirms.
3. Once they have agreed upon a compromise, they must bring it to me and tell me what they’ve decided.

If any rules are broken, the punishments will grow much more severe.

I go and sit on the couch and wait. The following is a close to verbatim translation:

ADDISON: Well! Jae-jae. I found the quarter and you just took it away from me and ran away and I said that I wanted it. And you not listen to me!

JAELYN: Okay. Well. I was thinking that I would bring the money to Daddy and then when we find another money then we would divide it evenly. Then we would both have money equally.

(she’s really selling it and she stands up to pace as she waxes eloquent. I chasten her back into her seat.)

JAELYN: So that way we both have the same much money.

ADDISON: And THEN! When we both have money, we both buy computers for ourselves. And then when we go somewhere and we see a treat, we’ll just put the quarters in the machine and get our treats!

JAELYN: Okay!

And they run to tell me the agreement. I confirm the details with Addison:

“you’re going to buy computers first with your quarters and then use them for treats?”

They’re both happy and delighted with each other. If only all of politics were so simple. On the other hand – if this sort of interaction were normal, there’d be no such thing as dramatic action and rising stakes through dialogue in conflict…

Peace~

An (Half Baked) Ode to Finitude

Tonight, I am exceptionally grateful that the world's volume is only halfway turned up.

It seems extraordinarily good to me, as I drive North on Cleveland Avenue in Canton Ohio at 10:30 on a thursday night to be listening to an annoyingly staticky version of "Someone to Watch Over Me" ...

And to note how many of the yellow lightbulbs that form the border on that oldschool Arby's sign are out. You know the Giant 10 Gallon Brown Cowboy Hat that says in lightbulb script: Arbys. And doesn't match the recently refurbished simulation roastbeefeteria behind it...

And to marvel at how the carefully lit colonial steeple which actually rises out of a yellow brick Nondenominational church appears to hover with gentle divinity just atop Auto Zone for several blocks before you drive by it....

A half baked world, with so much static feels so homey tonight. And so hopeful...

Free Woody

My student Scott has been telling a story (episode one & episode two) about his friend who was recently expelled from Bob Jones University.

The whole thing is so funny to me partly because I used to live in this particular world, and when I see THIS video that got Woody expelled from Bob Jones, I remember believing that most of these reasons (used to expell him) were good ideas:

. Sacrelig/blashpemy - The song played in the background is titled Jesus, The Holy One. Since, Christ's name is used in the song, it is blasphemous to make a humorous video using that song according the BJU administration.  100 demerits.

2. Dancing - The type of comedy that was performed was of a very physical sort, and since music was played in the background the BJU adminstration called this dancing.  100 demerits(note: apparently the BJU administration considers dancing and blasphemy to be sins on equal level).

3. Swearing - No one swore, but someone who saw the tape said they heard someone swearing. 

4. Innapropriate music - The owner of the soundtrack has played the music loudly on his hall and no one has ever said anything about it.  However, he didn't take it by to get officially checked. 

Lynn and I are trying to figure out what social action we should promote from you, my loyal readership. Should we deluge Dr. Bob Jones' email box with pleas for Woody's amnesty? his re-admittance? Hmmm. Would that be a case of the cure being worse than the disease?

btw: if you haven't got time to get involved in our cause, you should at least take a moment to check out the video...its some not every day that you get to see sacrilege, dancing, swearing & inappropriate music on one website...

5:40:55 A.M.

I'm preparing games for Ms. Spider's Tea Party this morning at Jaelyn's school. Its wierd that this will be the first time that I'll be a "room parent." I've always felt a little leery about it...like room-parenting would be a little too controlling a presence in my kids lives...but on the other hand I love watching them through the one way window...

I'm trying to find a replacement for the teacup relay since relays are too one-student-at-a-time-focused. Something that involves bigger parts of the group...

Last night at the Y, I was on the elliptical machine, thinking about the games I keep trying to choose between, and I thought:

I can't believe how nervous I feel about this. I feel really sick to my stomach.

Turns out. I was just sick. I won't go into any details, but I feel FINE this morning. Only I'm not having any coffee.

hope your morning and day is full of:

peace~

recent haunting dreams

You should probably know before I write this that:

The Cabin.

is The Place that I love more than any other place in this world. I have returned there every year for my entire life and as if the continuity weren't enough, the pools of history and mythology and the natural beauty are pretty astounding.

Here are some photos that don't even start to evoke the richness of the place as it resounds inside of me.






So. Given that.

Isn't it odd that The Cabin has only been the setting for nightmares in my dreams for the last year (maybe two)? Why is that?

(i know, I know, get a therapist, this public navel gazing is the worst of all blogging habits...)

Last week I dreamed: Horrifically:

That a pack of wolves was standing on the back porch of the cabin. And they were fierce and cruel and had horribly injured several people (that I didn't know) who were standing nearby bleeding, screaming, crying, paralyzed.

And I, too, was paralyzed. Both by fear (slightly) and by disinterest. I was horrified, but also knew I wasn't in danger, and I just couldn't summon enough emotion to care.

Hmmm...couldn't summon enough deeply felt emotion. That could be a key to interpretation.

Okay, I'll log off now, and dedicate the rest of these ruminations to private reflexion...

peace~

Laupes...

I surfed into this idea -- which is Me!

Actually I to be a laupe more than i am one...

but at least when I'm reading about the Laupes -- there's this moment of: "Oh! I belong!"

and then you read a little further and you say:

"well, I kinda belong..."

and then you think about it for awhile and read what the other laupes are writing and you say:

"Oh. Well. For a moment there it was nice to belong."

And you click back through the pages that you took to get there and you think,

"well it was beautiful dream, at least, while it was mine. Just like all the other communities with their moments of thrilling communitas. Thrilling dreams."

+ there's some great writing....