In DC Drag

I saw my people today.
Lots of them, milling around the lobby of the Center.
I smiled, but they did not recognize me as one of theirs.
I was confused and then I remembered what I was wearing, what I generally looked like today. Most days.
It made more sense, but still.
Fuck DC.

Or maybe they were just bitches.

The "where were you" post

Note: I don't think my story is particularly special, but there's something to be valued in having many experiences of the day entering into a collected, public mass of stories. A group story.

When the second plane hits at 9:03 am, I am still in my apartment in Hyde Park, at 51st and Dorchester.
8:03 am Central Standard Time.
I am up early (for me) because it is the second day of my first grad program.
(I had turned on the TV to help wake up.)
I watch the second plane hit, live. It is not surreal.
I call the school to see if it is still open.
The Pentagon has not yet been hit.
The woman gives me attitude, as if I'm some whiny freshman trying to get out of class. "Of course we're still open." "But the planes." "We're open."
Either she hasn't heard yet or the whole thing is still just some freak accident in New York.
I go to school.
We sit in a lecture hall and are told if we need to leave, it's okay.
A new friend without a TV hadn't heard anything.
I hear myself say, "Two planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York." "Oh my god." "I know."
Our conversation is quiet and sounds idiotic to me.
I feel generally safe where I am because, who would attack the south side of Chicago?
Unless they were aiming for the Sears Tower and missed.

The next night, watching the endlessly-looping news, I see Diane Sawyer in a rumpled white dress shirt. Her hair is a small mess.
I think how attractive she looks.
I think I am a terrible person for having dirty thoughts about Diane Sawyer right now.
I stop watching television, or only put on children's shows because everything else is news.
All alternative images are welcome.
I don't remember calling anyone to talk about it, and definitely not anyone one from my program because we hardly know each other and I am feeling shy, though most of us live nearby.
In the month between the attack and the start of war, it seems everyone here signs petitions to stop it, knowing our signatures will do no good.

Truth on torture

(marriedtothesea)

Where everybody knows your name

One of the "uses" of the new year (if we're going to look at it as a thing, and as a thing who we measure by its functions) is as a time of self-reflection. What we have done. Who we have wronged. What challenges have been met. How we can serve ourselves, our families, our communities better.

Go inside and seek our unspoken thoughts.

I am not someone who has to be told to go inside. I could be accused (by myself) of often living inside. I am such a regular guest inside my own head, they have a cocktail waiting for me in front of my bar stool when I arrive.

If you have prayers that float your boat, great. Everyone's relationship to all those things that could be labeled "faith" is, of course, different. What is most useful and resonant to me is mindfulness. Take a law and use it for what it reminds me to be aware of: kindness, justice, peace for all other living beings - all in practical ways that sound significantly less floaty and foofy when one stops eating animals and pretending not to see homeless people. It is not about divine pronouncements, as written by men. I think traditions can be equally functional on multiple levels.

So in these days where I spend hours in services with family, not particularly paying attention though still participating, it seems wrong to follow the advice of taking these days to go inside. If this time is supposed to be different or special, going inside does not make it so. I could use those days to stay out of my head by being further engaged in the service for those few hours. That seems like a false solution, though.

Perfect practice (of any kind) isn't my goal.
But.
If I'm going to maintain that I celebrate these holidays, something more functional has to emerge. Or else, it's just one more moment to press the "reset" button - something we can do at any time, anyway.

Happy new year - may you all figure out what you want to use it for.

The WTF file: Politics & Prose and Market Day

I loved Market Day.

It is a beautiful and moving graphic novel. I wanted to bring it to the LitFest, but it just didn't fit, ultimately, for the available slots.

So when I saw Politics & Prose, local independent bookstore extraordinaire, was bringing the author and his book to do a reading, I was chuffed. If we can't have him, I'm glad someone else appreciated the book as much as I did and wants to showcase it.

The story centers around an Eastern European craftsman, Jewish, who provides for his family as a weaver of beautiful rugs. His vision of the world, even in the shtetl, is through that lens.

Life turned to patterns turned to rugs.

He struggles; the Industrial Revolution looms large, so to speak. What to do when what one values doesn't feed one's family?

But WTF, Politics & Prose?! You schedule this book on Rosh Hashana?! (It's after the second day of services, technically after sundown, but still.) You don't even have the excuse of not being Jewish to say you didn't know.

First of all, that's just dumb planning. Plenty of your audience will be at big, family dinners.

Second, you're jerks. I'm a bit crushed.

Unless...

Unless this is some kind of commentary on how other, contemporary kinds of lifestyles are also no longer observed or adhered to or are hard to maintain. The assimilation of American Jews. Who would therefore now be free to come to a bookstore reading on Rosh Hashana.

I tend to doubt it, though.

The evolution of what I wanted to be when I grew up

1. Butterfly - There is a photo of little me on Halloween, arms out, drawing the attached streamers into the wind. Chicago Halloweens almost always mean thick, winter coats, but at least my streamers matched the extra layers. A winter butterfly in yellow and red and green.

2. Ballerina - Except I couldn't say my 'l's, so I'd tell people, my name is Haddey and I wanna be a badderina.

3. International Animal Rights/Women's Rights Lawyer - I'm sure this shocks no one. I first became vegetarian at age three when I refused to eat anything made of animal. And I got sent to 'time out' in preschool for arguing back to the teacher that you can't say boys have to be one thing in make believe and girls something else. And I kept arguing from the time-out table.

Turns out, I'm none of these things. Though if made to choose, I'd probably pick butterfly lawyer.


(Me and Ruth Bader, we go way back.)

Shocked! Shocked, I say!

Enjoy the comedy stylings of Married to the Sea with me, won't you?

tinker toys and universality

As I try to compose my thoughts on a previous "adventure," every other city pops its head in.
These other cities peek around, find reflections of themselves and tell me, "Me, too! I know that, too."
Every place is different, except for where it isn't.

Overheard in the elevator

[Doors close.]
Ohmigod, I can't believe I did that.
That was so dumb.
Why are you talking to yourself?
Out loud.
You should stop.
Because you're still doing it.
Even though you know you're doing it.
Okay.
No more.
Wow. I'm nuts.
[BING! Doors open.]

 (Photo: Robert Frank)

I was the one talking to myself, out loud, and commenting on the fact that I was doing it. Out loud. Life gets a little meta sometimes 'round these here parts. Or perhaps the word is just crazy.
I would say I worry about my sanity, but I've been doing this for years and the fact that it hasn't gotten any worse probably means that I have just as many filters in place as I did when I would do this, say, ten years ago. Hopefully, I also have slightly better judgment, too, but I wouldn't put too much money on that.

Useless secret of the day

I can name all the wives of Henry VIII, in order, and tell you their fates.

Three Catherines, two Annes, and a Jane.

Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Kathryn Howard, Katherine Parr.

Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, lived.

Tah-dah!

The embarrassing part of this secret: My refresher course on the subject comes from watching The Tudors. Which I think is awesome.

(I mean, horrible, of course, but awesome.)