New shoes and other important things ...
Good morning, gentle reader,
Gentle reader is an old fashioned way of greeting folks when you write stuff like this. I think Miss Manners used it ... I think it's kinda cool. It's got an old world ring to it.
I got new shoes last night!!! I got a pair of tennis shoes that are slip ons (what will they think of next?) and a pair of Doc Martin look-alikes. I feel very butch (or maybe very lesbianish ... I haven't figured it out yet -- hehehe (I love my lesbian sisters ... so that's NOT a slam at them ... goodness knows they are the few people in the world who are smart enough to wear sensible shoes).
Branagh is perking up even more. When I left the house last night, I left him in the living room (something I rarely do ... a holdover from the days when Kathleen and I had to make sure that the dogs were separated from the cats when we were gone), I came back and he was up and about barking at the neighbors. I was very happy. He's jumping up and down off the bed much better. Maybe he was just depressed. I didn't get a chance to take him to the dog park last night, largely because I was trying to figure out how much money I don't have. You'd think that wouldn't take very long, since I don't have any. But I got the checking account balanced and figured out.
On a totally different track, you've probably heard that the miners that were trapped in a mine with water up to their necks were rescued last weekend. When I read that they had been rescued, I literally cried. "Finally," I thought, "we saved some and nobody died". I think that since September 11 (we'll never have to say the year ... everybody will know what you're talking about with just September 11) and perhaps even since I was aware of the AIDS crisis, I've felt helpless about disasters. I follow the middle eastern conflict pretty heavily ... at least as far as mainstream news on the internet goes, and it seems to me that the lives of the people on both sides are just f***ed. I can't imagine going through my life every single day wondering which person riding on the bus with you has got a bomb strapped to his or her back and is going to detonate it. Or wonder if that low flying airplane is going to bomb your apartment building and kill you, or worse, have to attend the burial of your 2 year old son, daughter, neice or nephew. I wanna take both sides, and say, "Look, you fools, can't you see you're not advancing your cause, you're KILLING people. Figure it OUT!!!!" And I also want to send them "Quality of Mercy" from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice.
"The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there."
I think that the word "Jew" can be replaced with "Palestinian" "American" "French" "Iranian" "Iraqian" and the list is endless. Elvis Costello said, "What's so funny about peace, love and understanding" (or words to that effect).
I woke up this morning to my alarm clock to a news report on NPR talking about taking the bodies out of a charred building after a bomb had gone off. For a disorienting moment, I couldn't figure out where it was, and whether the US had been attacked again. I immediately closed my eyes and willed myself back to sleep ... I couldn't bear the thought.
And since I believe in personal responsibility. What is MY responsibility in all this? How can I make it better? Do I call Arafat and Sharon in a conference call from my cell phone, and say, "Look, folks, can't we just figure it out? There has got to be a compromise that's workable. There has got to be a way to let both of your peoples live and work together. Both of you have people that are starving." In the movie, Gandhi, starring Ben Kingsley, there's a scene where Gandhi is laying in a bed during one of his hunger strikes and a man comes in and demands that he eats. The man breaks down and it comes out that he had killed a muslim child. Gandhi says, "I know how you can get out of hell. Find an orphan muslim child, raise him as a muslim, and you will find your way."
When I'm tired of helping ... and after Aaron, I'm tired, I need to remember that helping others (in a healthy way) is what keeps me on the path out of hell ... my own hell of self-doubt, self-denigration and self-hatred. Regardless of my worries about my talent, my looks, my singleness, my health, if I can reach out to one person or more, the world is a better place. I believe that. It's overwhelming sometimes, but I believe it.
And mercy and forgiveness are great and noble things. The story of a man who had lost both his wife and his 11-year old daughter to a drag racer, forgiving the boy (now a man) and the two of them going ahead together to educate the public about a danger, reminds me the world is not lost
And, today, I have new shoes, and the world is good.
Light and Laughter,
Travis
Gentle reader is an old fashioned way of greeting folks when you write stuff like this. I think Miss Manners used it ... I think it's kinda cool. It's got an old world ring to it.
I got new shoes last night!!! I got a pair of tennis shoes that are slip ons (what will they think of next?) and a pair of Doc Martin look-alikes. I feel very butch (or maybe very lesbianish ... I haven't figured it out yet -- hehehe (I love my lesbian sisters ... so that's NOT a slam at them ... goodness knows they are the few people in the world who are smart enough to wear sensible shoes).
Branagh is perking up even more. When I left the house last night, I left him in the living room (something I rarely do ... a holdover from the days when Kathleen and I had to make sure that the dogs were separated from the cats when we were gone), I came back and he was up and about barking at the neighbors. I was very happy. He's jumping up and down off the bed much better. Maybe he was just depressed. I didn't get a chance to take him to the dog park last night, largely because I was trying to figure out how much money I don't have. You'd think that wouldn't take very long, since I don't have any. But I got the checking account balanced and figured out.
On a totally different track, you've probably heard that the miners that were trapped in a mine with water up to their necks were rescued last weekend. When I read that they had been rescued, I literally cried. "Finally," I thought, "we saved some and nobody died". I think that since September 11 (we'll never have to say the year ... everybody will know what you're talking about with just September 11) and perhaps even since I was aware of the AIDS crisis, I've felt helpless about disasters. I follow the middle eastern conflict pretty heavily ... at least as far as mainstream news on the internet goes, and it seems to me that the lives of the people on both sides are just f***ed. I can't imagine going through my life every single day wondering which person riding on the bus with you has got a bomb strapped to his or her back and is going to detonate it. Or wonder if that low flying airplane is going to bomb your apartment building and kill you, or worse, have to attend the burial of your 2 year old son, daughter, neice or nephew. I wanna take both sides, and say, "Look, you fools, can't you see you're not advancing your cause, you're KILLING people. Figure it OUT!!!!" And I also want to send them "Quality of Mercy" from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice.
"The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there."
I think that the word "Jew" can be replaced with "Palestinian" "American" "French" "Iranian" "Iraqian" and the list is endless. Elvis Costello said, "What's so funny about peace, love and understanding" (or words to that effect).
I woke up this morning to my alarm clock to a news report on NPR talking about taking the bodies out of a charred building after a bomb had gone off. For a disorienting moment, I couldn't figure out where it was, and whether the US had been attacked again. I immediately closed my eyes and willed myself back to sleep ... I couldn't bear the thought.
And since I believe in personal responsibility. What is MY responsibility in all this? How can I make it better? Do I call Arafat and Sharon in a conference call from my cell phone, and say, "Look, folks, can't we just figure it out? There has got to be a compromise that's workable. There has got to be a way to let both of your peoples live and work together. Both of you have people that are starving." In the movie, Gandhi, starring Ben Kingsley, there's a scene where Gandhi is laying in a bed during one of his hunger strikes and a man comes in and demands that he eats. The man breaks down and it comes out that he had killed a muslim child. Gandhi says, "I know how you can get out of hell. Find an orphan muslim child, raise him as a muslim, and you will find your way."
When I'm tired of helping ... and after Aaron, I'm tired, I need to remember that helping others (in a healthy way) is what keeps me on the path out of hell ... my own hell of self-doubt, self-denigration and self-hatred. Regardless of my worries about my talent, my looks, my singleness, my health, if I can reach out to one person or more, the world is a better place. I believe that. It's overwhelming sometimes, but I believe it.
And mercy and forgiveness are great and noble things. The story of a man who had lost both his wife and his 11-year old daughter to a drag racer, forgiving the boy (now a man) and the two of them going ahead together to educate the public about a danger, reminds me the world is not lost
And, today, I have new shoes, and the world is good.
Light and Laughter,
Travis