My mental circus, inside and out.

A few weeks ago, high winds from a tornado came tearing through Emma's town, twisting and uprooting many huge trees.  A friend at her meditation circle said that she had bought a condo for the woodsy view, but twelve trees were ripped out by the winds.  She said, "That was my lesson in impermanence."

Emma had planned to travel this summer, but for various reasons, including her own negligence at preparation and planning, has resulted in the blissful opportunity to just stay home.   Her own trees survived, though the neighbor's porch awning was smashed.  And parts of the garden are magnificent because of the rain, the lavender, the dogwood.    Emma is feeling much less need to prove that she is somehow different, somehow extraordinary, all delusions of the self anyway.  Everyone in the neighborhood putzes around in their gardens, expecially the seniors. . .there's an Obama meeting down the street tomorrow. . people have peace signs out on the lawn.  There was the brief appearance of a McCain sign but it was quickly disappeared.  A woman in a wheelchair walks her small dogs every morning.  Mothers come down the street pushing strollers.  Twice a week, Emma goes over to Horsh'ssmall apartment (weird, given how wealthy he is) and has sex for four or five hours, whcih is somewhat exhausting for overweight, midldle-aged people like them, so they've had to ration it.  Horsh, being a complete workaholic, doesn't want to go anywhere except to serve as a marshal at a local golf match. . Emma has no idea what a golf marshal is or does, but it all sounds very Republican.   And hilariously, Horsh made a comment to Emma when she happened to  wear a skirt that he preferred that to "proletarian jeans."  It's all highly amusing, the incongruity of it, but that, as Freud said, is the basis of all laughter.

Posted by: EmmaPele at June 25, 2008 21:17 | link | comments (2)

Last week, Emma went to the National Conference on Media Reform with her son, his girlfriend (who is about to go off to Northwestern for a graduate degree in journalism), and her friend Gerry, one of those people who channels a lot of native anger into politics.  Emma's son says that Gerry watches too much Air America where the participants throw around their conspiracy theories in an echo chamber.  So Gerry, who has ideas, spent time chasing Ariana Huffington around trying to get an ear.  Emma wonders why part of the left has degenerated into conspiracy theories, especially as she was observing one woman who kept trying to grab the mic during the panel with Catherine Crier to preach about the 9-11 conspiracy.  You don't really need to waste your time obsessing about a conspiracy theory to see what is wrong with America: greed, hatred and delusion.   Anyway. ..  it is well worth watching Bill Moyers give the keynote.  And the lineup was fantastic:  Naomi Klein, Amy Goodman, Phil Donohue, the guy who founded FAIR.   The conference got the attention of Bill O'Reilly (not surprising, since there was plenty of direct O'Reilly baiting going on) who called the attendees a bunch of loonies.  Hard to see Moyers as a loonie.

Emma felt obligated to blog about that, given all the talk about the people taking the media back and making it more democratic.

Other than that, it is summer.  The days are gorgeous.  Emma is well-fucked.  She has discovered the wonders of texting on crackberry, err, she means blackberry. The garden is growing.  The neighborhood is idyllic.  A black man may be the next president. The kids are preparing to move out and finally start their own lives.   Wow, good karma!

 

Posted by: EmmaPele at June 16, 2008 20:52 | link | comments (2)