Sensory Overload

validation is a 2-way street

 

We get all sorts of calls at our office ~ constituents want new laws, want to get rid of current laws, want help with potholes, with noisy neighbors, with pollution, with crime, with parking tickets, with parks, and everything in between.  Often, we help by simply listening ~ sometimes we can't offer tangible assistance, for example, to a tenant in federal housing, where we don't have jurisdiction.  It's frustrating for them, and for us.

But we can lend an ear, a shoulder to cry on, or serve as a sounding board.  Often, not always, but often enough, the caller gives a sigh of relief, and says, "I know you can't really do anything about [X], but thank you for listening."

Never, ever, underestimate the value of the words, "Thank you for listening."

Today a caller said to me, "Yes, I want to know how my Councilmember wants me to vote on Proposition [XX]."  I explained to her that we can't really tell her HOW to vote, but I can answer all of her questions and give her all the information she feels she needs in order to make an informed decision.  She patiently listened to all of the information, the Pros and Cons, the relevant issues the City Council has addressed in previous votes, etc.  Then she said, "I thought Nancy was one of the most Progressive members of the Council...."  I said, "Oh ~ probably THE most progressive."

"So why are you being so wishy washy in telling me how to vote for this?"

We both laughed ~ and she let me be diplomatic by repeating that I can't tell her HOW to vote.....but I urged her to LISTEN TO ME, as we discussed the particular proposition. ~ :)

Then she asked me about another ballot measure.  She had her voter information pamphlet with her but she said there was no information about State Proposition [XX].  I asked her if she had access to the Internet, or had a computer at home.

She said no.

I asked her if she could come by City Hall, and I could print up the material for her.

She said she was house-bound.

I asked her if she would like me to mail her the material to her home address.

But she wanted to VOTE NOW ~ not to wait for the mailman.

So, I asked her which ballot measures she was still unsure of, and I told her I would read the information to her from SmartVoter.org.  She really wanted to make informed decisions about everything from the State Props. to the East Bay Municipal Utility District races(!).  I adored this woman!  I thanked her repeatedly for wanting to make informed votes, and she thanked me for reading everything to her.  I clicked through the various explanations of the Propositions, the Pros and Cons, I read lists of supporters and opponents to her, and I clicked on to other web sites when she asked me what other groups, such as the League of Women Voters, said about certain issues.

We discussed the Presidential race and whether she should vote for Obama, to contribute to "a huge mandate," or go ahead and voter for the Green Party, "since we have a little wiggle room and just to make a statement about those policies."  We talked about the Pros and Cons of each type of vote, and I told her I would leave that one entirely up to her.

After about 20-30 minutes, I had to go ~ but we were finished with her ballot and she was ready to mail it in.

"I feel very validated in my vote," she told me.

I feel very validated in Myself, I thought ~ wishing I could tell her.

She thanked me, I thanked her, we laughed, she promised to call again if she had any other questions.

Often, even always, we need that other person as much as they need us ~ if only to say, thank you for listening.

  

Don't Forget To Barack The Vote ~ !

I'm sure someone has already sent you the video, blaming you ~ but I crack up every time I watch mine,  especially when that little old lady cusses up a storm.

marinate on this

A few years ago, a new tenant moved into my apartment building.  She was super-friendly and funny, but in an awkward sort of way.  I just assumed she used humor to distract people from getting a good look at her hands ~ the middle and index fingers of each hand were missing, and the rest of each hand was so scarred it looked like perhaps she had survived a fire.  Then the landlord told me that she had some sort of illness or genetic disease, and so perhaps that's why her hands looked like that.  I never really thought about it ~ I mean, who am I to ask?  It's not my business.  So, I never asked and she never told me.

As I saw her more around the building, though, I realized she is a very expressive speaker ~ she waves those hands around wildly to tell a good story, even if that story is, "My first husband, no wait, my second husband drives the Ferraris."

Every once in a while, from her studio apartment two flights up, I would hear her wild laughter, or screaming matches with her "business partner, or maybe fiancé."  In the hall, she would stop me and talk my ear off about politics or perfume, the weather or her weltanschauung ~ sometimes her sentences were as erratic as the wild waving of her hands in front of my face.

Somehow, I assumed that the the state of her hands had something to do with her sometimes-strange behavior.  I never asked.

Today though, as I walked into the apartment building, she was walking out.  She asked me how I am doing, and something about the election.  I wasn't really paying attention because I was juggling two bags, and walking, and reading a book, and hurrying to get inside for the strawberry mochi I was craving.  Then she asked, "You know, I keep waiting to ask when I'm going to get to vote for you." ~~ I looked up.

In the past 3 or 4 years, I have had maybe 3 or 4 conversations with her ~ she knows where I work and what I do for a living, and around election time I include her in my usual "YOU MUST VOTE LIKE THIS" email rants recommendations.  I was just so struck by how much she feels she knows me, all contained in that one question.  All I could mutter was, "Well, when there is an election for wackiest neighbor in the neighborhood, you can vote for me then!"  She laughed and said she would beat me hands down.

I tried to keep walking inside but she said something about having just sent in her absentee ballot since she is registered in another county, "because of this," and she held up her hands.  I must have looked really confused because she asked me, "What, don't you know about this?  Remember ~ in 1999, I was carjacked and held hostage for 19 days and shot."

Um, NO ~ I think I would remember that.

I told her it had never occurred to me to ask "WHAT IN THE WORLD HAPPENED TO YOUR HANDS?"  I thought that would be rude.  She waved away my embarrassment, and explained how  one day in 1999 she was delivering a new car to someone in the Bay Area, she took a wrong turn, and  carjackers pulled her out of the car.  She put her hands up and told them they could take it ~ but one guy pumped the 12-gauge shotgun and shot her at point-blank range ~ just as she crossed her hands in front of her face.  I didn't ask how they held her hostage if they shot her first. 

Then she showed me how she was shot.

YOU ~ right now, put both of your hands in front of you, palms down; now place your right hand over your left hand; and now raise both hands together in front of your face, at about nose-level.  She did that for me, and there was an almost perfect hole, the size of a 12-fuckin'-gauge shell, through her hands.

She said her hands and arms absorbed most of the shot ~ and then she made me feel in her left hand where so many of the pellets are still embedded.  You can't really tell, by looking at her face, that she was shot straight-on like that.  Her hands and arms, though, tell a different story.  When I realized that the shot pellets would have exploded into scores of burning embers, I understood why her arms looked like they had been in a fire.

Then she explained how they tried to rebuild her hands through skin grafts, but it required getting the palms of her hands surgically sewn to her hips, for the grafts to take.  She waved her left hand in the air, laughed, and said, "But I'm too animated for that!  I told them to only sew one hand to my hip!" 

She told me that she considered getting prosthetic hands ~ they would create a winter version and a summer version for her (lighter and darker skin), and could even add beauty marks and tiny little hairs, just like real hands.  "But I eat out A LOT," she explained, "and what if the prosthesis flew off at dinner!?"

And she laughed.

Then she said, "But I can still do this," ~ she put her hands up and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "Whadda ya gonna do?"

And with a big smile she told me, "And I can still marinate my steaks."

asked but not answered

"A lot of bands have something to say," explains TV On The Radio producer/multi-instrumentalist David Sitek. "We have something to ask." 

When I first heard Golden Age, off TVotR's Dear Science, album, I felt like it was the anthem to Election2008 ~ a nation at 'a twilight consciousness', stumbling out of the past 8 Bush Years, blinded by the light at the end of the tunnel, hoping it's not actually a train heading straight for us ~ as the song warns, "Like the sun spitting happiness into the hereafter ~ Oh here it comes like a natural disaster."

Apparently, I'm  not the only one who felt this way.  Nik Dirga over at BlogCritic, writes:  "They're still a band that thrives on tension, but this is also a pitch for global audiences. I don't know if TV On The Radio set out to create the soundtrack to the Bush years, but the push-and-pull of anxiety I get from their albums makes as good a background music as any. Acidic asides on the state of the nation — "I'm scared to death that I'm living a life not worth dying for," goes a line in "Red Dress" — blend with very personal dramas. TV on the Radio are nervous, but their fears make for some unforgettable sounds."

Jon Pareles adds: "There’s still a deep streak of dread on the new album. Its title, “Dear Science,” includes the comma because it was the salutation of a letter Mr. Sitek posted on the studio wall while the band was working on the album. Mr. Adebimpe said it was written “in a kind of kid’s handwriting on yellow notebook paper.” The letter was addressed to Science itself, demanding that it “fix all the things you’re talking about” or shut up."  Yup, that about sums up my feelings ~

I could go on and on trying to find the perfect permutation of adjectives to describe TVotR's music ~ moody-soulful-music-layered-under-heavy-elegiacal-lyrics meets heavy-afrobeat-rhythms-with-flowing-orchestral-sounds in a dark, smoky jazz club, they dance and talk all night, drink some 1970's David Bowie with chasers of Purple Rain and Thriller,  fall in love and end the night with a bang ~ ~ ~ "bells, timpani, marching drumbeats, saxophone, flutes, husky vocals and a guest appearance from Katrina Ford of Celebration."  But I'm not very good at expressing myself so you will have to listen to them for yourself, and see them on tour if you can.

It doesn't hurt that the guys are super smart and cool, too:

A high-rise apartment building is going up next door to Mr. Sitek’s studio. “They build one skyscraper, and skyscrapers get lonely,” Mr. Sitek said in his three-pack-a-day rasp, lighting up in the alley alongside his favorite Williamsburg club, Zebulon. “So then they call their friends and more skyscrapers come, and they throw a party. And the next thing you know there’s a skyscraper blogging about the skyscraper scene in Williamsburg.”

Early on, TV on the Radio benefited from the talent-spotting and reputation-building of the indie-rock blogosphere. But eventually the band felt typecast. “I’m done with cool,” Mr. Malone said. “I’ve been done with cool for years.”

gratia plena ~

~ because any two people in love are simply living a life of grace, and their personal decision to make their love and commitment public is a blessed event, and because who are we to tell anyone whom he or she may love and cherish until death do them part, and who are we to say 'No' when they ask for the State's or the Church's blessing . . . . .

The very talented John Raymond Barker, aka Jerby, produced this video ~ and I am very honored he included several of the photos I took of the Oakland June 17th weddings.  [It's better in high-quality [mp4].]

And if you live in California, you really don't have to think twice about voting no on Prop. 8, right?

parlez-vous chester french ~?

They are not French, nor are they sculptors.  They are Harvard Hipsters ~ Chester French. 

They took their name from Daniel Chester French, the American sculptor whose best-known work is the sculpture of a seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

I like "She Loves Everybody" ~ it's catchy and quirky ~ reminds me of Helio Sequence a little.  "People" is poppy-fun ~ the light lyrics reminds of "Homies" by "The Sympathetics".

Thanks to the oh! how lovely Jamie for pointing out these two cuties are on tour ~ November 17-24 throughout California.

sensory overload

1 am ~ feeling the full effects of the recent events, stresses, thoughts, mile-long and unfinished to-do lists, all amidst this Depression2.0 and crumbling financial institutions (hopefully my creditors will go out of business!).

In honor of my unfinished to-do list, I can only think in bullets right now.  Current sensory overload contributors, in no particular order, although #1 is the most worrisome:

• Received short email from my little brother Rudy Monday afternoon.  He also is so busy it was mostly a forwarded message, confirming his next assignment.  Six to 12 months in Afghanistan; and he ships out Thursday afternoon, from Dallas.  He was in D.C. when he received the email, had to be in Austin the next day, Fort Hood Wednesday morning, and Dallas Wednesday afternoon.  I freak out and call him; explain that this is not the way to handle his current family crisis.  He points out that Iraq (he spent a year in Baghdad '06-'07) was/is 10x safer than Afghanistan.  Yes, I know.  He was hoping for the "easiest" of the assignments: Djibouti.  Now that's Arrona-style; make the crisis better by doing something harder.  I dropped everything at work to book a flight to Dallas.  
• Last-minute flights half-way across the country are not cheap, not even affordable.  Ruby, my savior, gave me one of her Southwest credits, which eased the pain on my bank account, which has worries of its own anyway since it's at WaMu. 
• I will be out of the office for 3 days; my boss pointed out all of the policy issues piling up on my desk.
• Realizing I have at least three Ordinances to research and draft by December.
• Attending the Mayor's Budget Conference.  Five-day shutdown between Christmas and New Year's, without pay.  Bah humbug.  Sorry mami, no "Channel" for you this Christmas.
• Not only do we get Christmas without pay, but no cost of living increase, either.
• Which would be ok (PBJ sandwiches are pretty tasty) if the salt in the wounds isn't a City Hall shut-down every other Friday, or, a 20% pay-cut.  On top of no Christmas.  On top of no COLA.  I figure I will have to start paying City Hall just to show up and work.
• Realizing I only have a few months left before Everything Changes,  if it changes, before I leave City Hall, leave Oakland; existential suicide someone called it.
• Getting an email from my Afghanistan research guy in L.A., saying, "Will we get to see your brother when we're there?" 
• Realizing it's 1 am and there is ajax all over my bathtub.  I have to clean; it was embarrassing.  But I will be out of town you point out.  Yes, but neighbors will be in and out, checking in on Bill and I will be mortified if they see this mess.  It's my thing; move on.
• Three jobs.  Working until 2 am every night.
• Taking work, from all 3 jobs, with me on the trip.
• Realizing it's 1 am and my laundry is still downstairs.  Still need to pack.  Oy.
• Getting my laundry and realizing it's still damp.  Wondering if that cute skirt will dry by 6 am.

But the Good News:

• Realizing I have three Ordinances to draft by December ~ at least I will leave a little bit more of a pseudo-legacy, for better or worse.  But it does feel amazing to have your name attached to a law.  Nerd-alert.
• After the family time in Dallas, I will drive to Austin to finally meet up with La Ruby.  I can't wait, can't wait.  Her name is my birthstone and it shows.  She is wonderful.
• The new lens for my camera.  Beyond my "photo" abilities but hopefully I will learn.
• New eye glasses.  I found the frames by accident at the "Sundry Store" across the street for $5.99!  Then just had my optician add the lenses.  Similar frames, from Sean John and Versace and Revlon (!), cost $150 to $200 at the optical place.  Cheap Frugal is Fun.
• My mom's kooky, adorable phone calls.  I spoke with her last Sunday; they were on DAY 8 of no water and no electricity due to Hurricane Ike.  She sounded so happy because she told me about the milanesa *deliciosa* she had cooked the night before, with arroz y frijoles y una salsitia buenísima, híjole ~ all by the tiny glow of a little lamp. attached to a generator she was hoping would not burn out  Thank goodness they have a gas stove.  She explained how she has just been staying indoors eating.  "Ay!" she explained, "I have to get back on my eating plan.......Ay, pero mari, que riquísima la milanesa...luego, luego paro de comer."  I asked her what they do without water.  She laughed and explained that when my dad needs to go to the bathroom he says, "Voy al baño ~ I go outside."  She laughed and said "Es funny."  I love that.  Here are some other Arrona-ismos we have:
  • Ay, eso es bad manners!
  • Que dumb.
  • Que nice.
  • Estoy aquí watcheando el Tiger Woods.  [My dad loves Tiger Woods.]
    
• She explained the back yard was still filled with the downed trees, the downed fence, and tree-limb chaos.  Then she opened the door and said, "Oye, oye ~ los pajaritos. Que lindos verdad?  Cada día me cantan a esta hora."  Even with no water, no electricity, a mess to clean up, and tenants to help with hurricane repairs, she was waxing poetic about the song birds outside, that sing to her every day at that hour.  How does she do it?
• Now going to sleep, about 1/2 an hour early.  Beauty sleep much needed.
• Having this song stuck in my head for many months, and Lovin' Kanye with the lovely Estelle, who sings like she just woke up from a nap:

How rude and selfish of me ~ and how are you doing?