Path to Enlightened Insanity

I spent another great day with Shawn. He came and picked me up from work last night and drove me to his house (an hour a away) I stayed over. Then, I spent the day there and caught up on the news and my homework. After that he took me out to dinner at Don Pablos and drove me back to Dayton for work. Four hours of driving for me! He is soo sweet and kind. I mean I guess I did drive all the way to Memphis to visit Tommy, but this just seems so kind. Things are still looking on the up and up with me and him.

In other news, Why doesn’t everyone in the world think like me? (well it would make the world boring, but probably less stressful.) I just read the wonderful article from the BBC about Bush’s MLK Jr. Day Speech and of course he’s promotion tolerance and civil liberties in front of a Christian cross. What is the President doing making a national speech in a Church? Seriously, I know its a bit of a long shot, but I’m paying him, he should not be conducting the nations business in a house of worship. If he wants to attend church he can do it on his own time, get his ass in the pew.

Maybe I just get pissy because I’m an agnostic and I feel like Bush is pushing religion (to be more specific Christianity) as something to hold the nation together. PLEASE! Religion is the one place in this country where we are the most divided. Go to a church, it will most likely be homogenous — its been researched and people worship with people who are just like them.

I also thought it was funny that MLK Jr’s widow is preaching peace: "We commemorate Martin Luther King as a great champion of peace, who warned us that war is a poor chisel for carving out peaceful tomorrows," Corretta Scott King said, she added "May his challenge and his example guide and inspire us to seek peaceful alternatives to a war with Iraq"

It would be interesting to do something drastic if we do go to war with Iraq, like denounce my citizenship. As strange as it may seem, its the best I can do to separate myself from a government and a nation that seems generally bent on violence. But then again, I’d also be losing my right to elect my leaders, but not that my votes ever count. (yes, I know its a common refrain, but I’m a liberal libertarian in a conservative area of the country, we’re really outvoted as far as things usually go…)

Hmm… time to get some signs made to copy tomorrow to catch myself a roommate, and I should get to sleep, even thought I have 10 hours until class…

Its amazing how well my and other people’s (Shawn specifically) skills at procrastinating are honed… I’m at his house and we’re supposed to be doing "Homework". But we’ve both wasted an hour or so browsing the net and reading news individually.

But watching Shawn wrestle with the cat on the desk had been … well … cute. I miss having cats around, and well Boots C. He was such a dignified and distinguished, but genuine cat.

Well… Time to get onto reading plays…

I’m sort of rewriting an entry because EspressoBlog crashed and lost it.. I already sent an email to the developer and got him what he needed to debug the problem.

I’m at work right now… a bit early because the car is broken down, and my dad had to drop me early.

As far as Lambda Union goes, I’ve figured out a few things:
1. Jeremy Wright is an asshole, and a poor leader. (Not new news)
2. I care and am invested in the organization too much just to get up and walk away, which means I’m going to have to learn to work with Jermey Wright. As much as he is the President, we’re equals, I’ve been involved in the organization longer than he has, and I’ve had a position within the organization longer than he has, so the fact that he is the President is just a fluke of nature.
3. I need to limit my areas of involvement. I’m not going to be able to affect the whole organization in the position that I am in, so I better must make the areas that I’m involved in really damn awesome, and have fun. Already I’ve got a bunch of new ideas to reinvigorate the website and get things going, so it should be cool.

I think the thing that I’m looking forward to is less bullshit. Its gonna be great not to have to deal with minutes and attendance and typing all that up, and getting it on the website… But I gotta get rolling toward the floor at work..

Vegetable Oil Fires are fun! … Hehe.. not really, but a was sautéing portabella mushrooms for dinner tonight with Shawn and a bit of the oil went over the side to the burner and caught fire…. ehh.. shit happens.

The menu for tonight:

Vegetarian Lasagna – with Portabella Mushrooms, Spinach, cheese and all that good stuff…
Salad – Still haven’t figured whats going into it.
Hot Rolls – Kroger brand, I wouldn’t trust myself baking them yet..
Juice – Drinkage… probably would be cool to have some vino, but ehh oh well.

And as always this dinner is a community effort… thanks to Veronica Warner (for the recipe and idea), Dad (for taking me shopping), Lauren (Portabella advice), Señora Kay (General advice), Ali, Tim, and Toyna. If I missed you I’m sorry…. let me know and I’ll edit you in later.. ;-)

I had a conversation with a “birdie” this morning about last night:

Birdie:i think it was sneaky how jeremy brought people
Nicholas Barnard: he did?
Birdie:: uh-huh
Nicholas Barnard: I joked around about it… but not really
Birdie: didnt you notice the big group of girls
Nicholas Barnard: hmm… true.. but not everyone was voting…
Birdie: yeah they were
Birdie: /did
Nicholas Barnard: I should’ve known something was up when there was an email from casey wanting to vote for jermey

In addition I only lost by two votes. So I guess the thing is that I have the satisfaction of knowing, that I won, and Jermey just tilted the dang thing. Thats his conscience, and I hope he’s a christian so he can burn in hell for being so deceitful.

Well, I’ve calmed down a bit and put things in perspective. Talking with Jenni and holding Will seemed to help, why I don’t know but, I tend not to argue with things that seem to work.

I’m still convinced Jeremy is a bad idea, but my involvement in Lambda Union revolves around working with him more than anything else. Essentially I’m not sure I want to work with him or not.

Didn’t get any homework done tonight, but oh well, things could be worse.

The Nightquil is kicking in, so nighty night all!

Well thats it. I’m out of eBoard.. The new eBoard lineup as of today:
Jermey Wright, President
Allie Lane, Vice President
Duncan Hines, Treasurer
CeCe Houser, Secretary
Tom Lewis, Office Manager

Note that my name isn’t in it? Fuck. Its amazing how much of my identity is tied in with Lambda Union. And how much I fucking hate Jermey and his fucking smug attitude and his willingness to sleep with just about anyone who will do it. And the fact that he took advantage of [name deleted 3/30/03]. God don’t these people ever realize what type of fucked up crappy leaders they’ve elected to these posts?

I don’t know what I want to do with Lambda Union. I really don’t fucking know. The historian, Safe Space Coordinator, and Panels Director positions are open, and I’m still the webmaster. I really don’t want to be the Lambda Union webmaster. Its turned into a bitch position.. no dreaming no real space to grow in it. Theres no leadership in it.

God I’m just so lost right now. Its amazing how much I put on getting that position.

Jenni and I are going out for coffee tonight to discuss… so…

okay this uhh another eJournal entry on the voice cell phone thingy… ummm I’m sitting here rehearsing my speech for Lambda Union tonight upstairs (unintelligable) umm I never realized how much I really wanted this position umm… I’m up against Tony Black, Germaine, and Jeremy. Ummm … Tony you bless the kid he’s got a great heart but he doesn’t realize what he’s getting himself into… ummm he just should run for secretary or an appointed position … ummm Germaine … I don’t know why I don’t feel Germaine [should be President] maybe I’ve got some ableism going in but I don’t know why I don’t feel Germaine should be President … umm shes a great gal and all but some reason I just can’t seem to accept myself umm seeing her as President of Lambda Union… I don’t know if thats ableism or I just don’t see her as the right person. Ummm Jeremy oh god ummm … what a drama queen ummm … (exhale) I don’t know I’m just fustrated with Jeremy and he can go off he doesn’t seem to do much work it me it seems like the Vice-President never does work… Josh never did work last year Jermey never does work. Most of the time he’s in the office he’s either on IM or he’s playing cards there on the computer ehh… I mean you know stuff you know I’m just trying to eat and I’m not doing a very good job on it but ummm I just really want this position and I wantta get out of the way I just wanna I don’t know why I want this position its just strange. mmm gotta get back to eating so thats the end of the journal ….

I’m lounging in the Lambda Union Office, and I can’t find something to do, so this is a good thing. I’ve been looking at Shawn’s and my eJournal and expecting a new entry. So, I feel a need to do a huge wrap up entry, but I’m not going to.

Shawn and I spent most of the weekend together, it was lots of fun! ;-) Boy, he is Beautiful!

I just had dinner with Jenni and William last night. William looks like he’s really happy that Jenni is home with him more. I still find it amazing that William is growing up soo fast! Next thing I know he’s going to be asking for dating advice or something.

Tommy (Molly’s girlfriend) just gave her commentary on what she thought about Molly’s resignation/impeachment threat, and I’m still annoyed that they don’t see that having Molly removed as president is something that we (eBoard) did we did for the good of the organization, it wasn’t something that we did to be spiteful to Molly.

I still have doubts about the Lambda Union elections tonight. and my speech is still unrehearsed, so…

I just feel as if I need this position, and its the best thing for me and the organization, but the members will decide tonight.

In other randomness, I determined that in 2004 Jenni will have known me half of her life, and I will have known her half of my life in 2005. And neither of us will know each other for more than 91% of our lives. Take a look at the Extended Entry to see all the gritty details of the Excel spreadsheet.

Time to go work on the speech more!

read more…

Tonight I picked Jenni up at Barnes and Nobles after work. She was almost in tears. Without going into all the details she ended up terminating her employment at Circuit City. This is no small matter; she has worked for Circuit City for four and a half years.

Interestingly enough I expected her eventually to resign, just not in this way. Jenni has been struggling with balancing motherhood, work, and family; she has been feeling she hasn’t been paying enough attention to William.

What I find so interestring in this society is how much we don’t value parenthood. I feel that parenting is the ultimate gift that you can give, it is something that you never will be, and never should expect to be fully repaid for, giving the gift in and of itself is reward enough.

I guess the best example I can give of this, is when I’m holding, or burping, or playing with William, often it is alot of effort and sometimes results in my clothing being puked upon or salivated upon to no end. But these are so inconsequential to me, I derive an immense amount of joy from being with William, despite the fact that he drains my energy when I’m with him, and he requires all of my attention.

When I talked with my mom on Sunday one of the things that she said that I agreed with, is that the home and children need a parent to take care of them. The more and more time I spend with Jenni and William the more I realize that taking care of children is a full time job, and really does deserve the same respect as any other full time job.

I would have to say that perhaps because our society is so focused on what dollar value we can derive from something. Perhaps this is really a failure in economics being taught correctly. We’ve not as a society been taught to identify and attempt to quantify all costs and opportunity-costs associated with a choice; I believe too often people look at the monetary cost, and don’t fully examine the emotional, relationship, psychological, and personal costs involved with a choice.

For better or worse, I am beginning to think I agree more and more with Dr. Irvine’s thesis in Doing Right by Children, of which a core piece is that we are living above any standards that we have previously lived at as a society, but we are placing our children at a status below where they existed during the “golden age of childhood” in the 1950s.

I guess it is easy for me to say this as a non-parent, its always easiest to throw stones in a glass house if you live in a concrete bunker. The one thing is that I’ve really started critiquing parents, and noticing people who are doing a very good job vs. those who should have children services called on them.

I could keep going on I think, but at some point in my life I wish to have my own kids, but just want to wait for the right time in my life to adopt a child.