I’m back in the saddle but not riding far yet. My throat has gone from red giant to white dwarf and I’m sort of always tired, but I think that is because I lost a few pounds in my deletrious delerious weekend.
Some blogger buddies have started up No Cleveland Wal-Mart and I’m contributing in a hopefully cooperative constructive honey-like manner to balance their big bad stick. I’m an ideaman, I don’t have the knowledge or experience to really effectively do more, and I can’t in good conscience just repeat a party line without thinking about it, but sometimes kids say the darndest things.
Politics is fucking boring. At the City Council meeting last night I thought I was going to croak, partially because I am still a bit punchy, but mostly because the first hour or so was nothing but hot air as a couple of new councilcritters were instated. I’d helped pass out Wal-Not pins as people came in and at one point, after all the backpatters had sprained their wrists and quieted down, a bunch of people stood up and started chanting No More Wal-Mart, which, while certainly rude, in retrospect seems to have been the only way to get a voice heard. Unlike my small hometown council meetings, regular citizens don’t seem to have a chance to speak their peace/piece [an interesting confluence]. So I guess if we can only speak by being rowdy, then rowdy we will be.
It was strange, afterward, to meet a bunch of rich old white guys, be introduced and then slowly squeezed out of the circle of conversation, only to have one reform minutes later, that at least let me not have to listen over a shoulder. Group dynamics like that are interesting, and since no one, not even really Bill, George or Tim, know me from Adam I can’t say I blame ’em or even want to have a more central role. I guess I’m sort of an extra jack in the deck. As I’ve said before, I’m a flanker, a tactical and precise kind of person. Head-on ain’t my thing, so ther periphery is where I’m most comfortable.
I finally consumed solid food thanks to my excellent friend Lauren, who bought me meat-laden soup and has been subsequently wracked with guilt pangs. The guilt pangs have made me feel just as warm inside as the soup did.
Story idea:
A painter kills himself or kills someone else and their blood is splattered on the painting, or a painter paints with people’s blood. Art-crime, probably been done before.
I read The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander whilst not delerious this past weekend. It was nice to revisit the books I read in 7th grade. Currently I’m about 100 pages into Sophie’s World which is an easy-to-read whimsical novelized history of Western philosophy.