Little Bright Lights

In an instant what one knows to be true is truth, but what one knows to be true changes from one instant to another. Is there any truth that remains constant through time?

I believe in love. Love is a truth that is constant through time. Could love be the little bright lights?

Excuse me, sir.

I spend a fair amount of time working outside during the summer. Usually, it’s because there isn’t any room in the workspace. Sometimes, it’s because I’m dealing with noxious chemicals best used in more ventilated conditions than the stuffy shop. It is never solely because it’s a nice day out, although sometimes that is a perk.

Today, all three of these were relevant. I spent the majority of the day essentially welding a cage out of EMT. EMT is great for running electrical wires through. It is not, however, so great for running electrical current through (i.e. welding), in the sense that it is quite bad to breathe in when heated to high temperatures.

Anyhow, working in front of the shop means that every so often, I have to deal with a passerby who pulls me away from whatever I’m doing. This is typically to either ask for directions or comment on my project. Mostly harmless. It is worth mentioning that there are many, many tourists about during the summertime, and alot of jerks.

Occasionally, I’ll get some guy who will interrupt me specifically to make some disparaging comment related my gender and line of work. I once had someone come up to me, pick up my tape measure, open it and then ask me if I was aware of what “all those little lines” meant. He was so certain that my gender made me that incompetent. I’ve found that I get a lot less snarky comments if I look especially scrubby, or better yet, if I can blend in as a member of the stronger sex. I can pass pretty well for a scrawny man when I’m in full welding gear. You wouldn't necessarily know it looking at me during off-hours, but I've learned from experience.

The rest of the shop, all men except for those in the paint department, gets a kick out of keeping track of every time I get “sir-ed.” Every once in a while, someone will stop to ask me a question that begins “excuse me, sir...” That’s getting sir-ed. Usually I’ll take my glasses or mask off before I answer so I can get the inquirer’s embarrassment out of the way.

I’d imagine part of the reason these people are so often shocked is that, even in this century, it’s quite uncommon to find a woman behind a welding mask or wielding a hammer. It’s great now that we can be doctors, lawyers, and businesspeople with some regularity. But there’s still a mental block most people have against females working hard, and being good at it.

I don’t think I’d be as much of a feminist if I had chosen a different line of work and didn’t regularly experience sexism first hand. I’m sure that it exists in many other fields, but in alot of these, less blatantly.

It is not surprising to me that with a legislature made disproportionately of old men, that an equal rights amendment has never passed. It boggles my mind how any self respecting woman would deny herself the right to equal pay, for instance, by continuing to vote for such sleazy fools. Or not by not voting or caring at all.

Electing a female president won’t change a thing. Just because she’s there, doesn’t mean everyone will respect her. Every flaw she has, every mistake she makes, will simply be attributed back to her initial “flaw”—being born a woman. I have high hopes that society will someday evolve into an entity that cherishes equality and fairness, but I don't believe I will see this during this lifetime.

Stir it up...

Here we go....here we go....here we go again. Missing you is not a crime, but I am ashamed to admit the things I would do to be near you again.

The patio which once bathed in spring's setting sun, is speckled with the shadows of summer leaves. It's beautiful, darlin. Do you think the cats will like the city nights? All the sparkling city lights. Us two, the Little Bright Lights.

I can't wait, to share this adventure. I can't wait to follow this path. It goes where it leads, what a crazy path. It has lead me here to you, crashed in like waves of the sea. Blessed are we, when i have you and you have me.

Bob Marley is wailin' in the background, and my favorite smoke fills the air. So, you see I can't hold back the words, just let them roll from my fingertips. The feelings of you I miss. The sweetness lingers on my lips. I hold back from falling deeper and deeper, there is no getting out of this gutter now.

So, I hope the city is ready for us. Cause I am sure we are going to take it by storm. And life is waiting for us to grab it, tame it, make it ours. where ever we set home is the place we will be. We don't need riches, we don't need things. We will make a home set for kings, and queens, and in betweens. I don't know, where we go...I know we will succeed. I know we'll be happy.

So stir it up.....and no woman no cry....get up stand up...
We don't have riches, we don't have things...we aren't a million lights of a city burning...but we have little bright lights to find the way...and there's always something to say...and everything is gonna be all right...so no woman no cry...no woman no cry....

Much love and peace, always.

Missing You

I miss you like a part of me
is walking along the shivering sea
but part of you is still here with me
and waits for the right time to be
I wish you were here as I go to sleep
I'm with you in all my thoughts
I am waiting for the time we keep
together, but apart.

Sweeney Todd

I just finished watching Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd.

I have to say, after finally seeing the movie, there was absolutely no creativity in the costume design for the drama department. I didn't realize she [the costume designer] basically ripped off the movie right down to the hair styles.

Weird.

The movie wasn't bad, though...as far as movie adaptations of musicals go. Cutting the ensemble numbers was smart, I find it's harder to suspend one's disbelief when an entire ensemble bursts into song in a movie than just one person.

Look at me.....I sing to the cats all the time.

I mean I know I am not the "norm", but it at least proves it is plausible that humans spontaneously burst into songs about their lives.

It's a little harder to swallow a whole group of humans bursting into song about other people's lives in a narrative format, in rhythm, and three part harmony...with a round.

The movie moved a little slow for my taste, but I often find Sondheim a little slow at first. The first time I saw a production of Into the Woods, I was dumbfounded as to why it had not been cut in half. Now, I love Into the Woods, and indeed almost all Sondheim. He is complex, slow....but brilliantly complex.

New Jersey Drivin

So, I used to live in Jersey. Yes, I was for a time, a Jersey girl. It didn't last long. I was young. I was foolish.

When you live in the state, weird things make sense to you: the "jug handles", the "no left hand turns", even the slow slow driving in the rain.

Maybe you know what I'm talking about. Maybe you've never had the pleasure of drivin' through the drrty. Let me catch you up to speed.

In Jersey there is a severe lack of left hand turns. In order to turn left, one has to go right. Sometimes its a little thing called a jug handle, sometimes it takes you on a detour through suburban sprawl that leaves you wondering how anyone gets to work on time.

Most everyone else calls it crazy.

If you ever drive through the state in a rain storm (and by rain storm I mean "rain showers") you will notice something unique. Everyone, and I mean every one, slows down to a crawl.

"It's just water," I yell time and again, but still they have slowed to a 30 mile per hour crawl down the inter state.

Live here a while, though, and it all starts to make sense.

My girlfriend's theory is it's in the water. You drink enough of the water, you begin to understand the civil engineering of the armpit of america.

It's a nice theory, unless you drink bottled water.

No, my friends, drive in Jersey long enough and you too will begin to understand why there are no left hand turns.

If you are from the New York/New England area, or indeed any other state you can't possibly come up with a good explanation of these automotive oddities.

The explanation, however, is so simple it hurts.

Stupidity.

We can't fathom it because, well it is outside our experience. People so stupid they can't be trusted to make a left hand turn? Impossible.

Oh, but it is possible, my friends. It is possible, and it exists. Drivers every where are unique. In Boston they have a death wish, they wish to die. In New York City they have a death wish, they wish for you to die. In DC they just like driving in perpetual circles, it keeps them from being driven in circles by the government. In Jersey, my friends, they just cannot be trusted to make that left hand turn.

And the rain, you say? Ahh, the rain.

If you ever find yourself on a major highway in a rain storm surrounded by these scary stupid drivers, you will find yourself slowing to a crawl, too.

Bashing New Jersey is not the purpose of this post, though (Yes, it actually is.) The real purpose is to let you all know, that we have made the trip down to the shore and back. Safe and sound.

It's going to be a long lonely summer, but we have begun the trip that is life. And we will find out where it leads.

Centri.fugal (sěn-trĭf'yə-gəl) adj.

(from Latin centrum "center" and fugere "to flee")

1. Moving or directed away from a center or axis.
2. Operated by means of centrifugal force.
3. Physiology Transmitting nerve impulses away from the central nervous system; efferent.
4. Botany Developing or progressing outward from a center or axis, as in a flower cluster in which the oldest flowers are in the center and the youngest flowers are near the edge.
5. Tending or directed away from centralization, as of authority: "The division of Europe into two warring blocs, each ultimately dependent on a superpower patron, is subject to ever-increasing centrifugal stress" (Scott Sullivan).

centrifugal. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/centrifugal (accessed: May 06, 2008).