Let's make a couple of things totally clear: I miss being able to drive to see the ocean any time I want. I miss seeing mountains so much that I think my heart will break from the pain. I miss palm trees. I miss cheap, good sushi. But I do NOT miss traffic jams!
I drive 30 miles each way to work. The trip takes me exactly 30 minutes and I only have to go though 2 traffic lights. And at one of those lights I can make a right turn on a red signal (which it's legal to do in Kansas, by the way).
But there are some days, like today, when I have to go into Kansas City for some reason. It's times like this that all hell breaks loose in my little brain. I turn into a white knuckled nervous wreck just thinking about driving in Overland Park (one of the Metro's many sprawling suburbs). Cars in every nook and cranny. Four lanes of moving death-on-four-wheels. My God! It's a nightmare!
Most of the time, when I go into KC outside of business hours, it's not too bad. Traffic keeps moving and I feel pretty confident that I'll survive if I can just stay in my lane and not think about the impending doom. But today I had to venture out during rush hour. And it was raining to boot!
I was just knew I was going to die!
But, as you can see, I didn't. I made it. Somehow my Los-Angeles trained driving brain kicked-in and I managed to keep myself alive. It's like there's this little part of me that still remembers how to do it. In my soul still lurks a Californian road warrior with nerves of steel.
I changed lanes.
I bobbed and weaved.
I drove at 65 miles an hour or more.
All the while shifting gears, and occasionally even moving my hand off the wheel to switch from one public radio station and another.
Lest you think, however, that the whole event made me believe that I might readily readapt to Californian traffic some day, let me put some of the rest of my journey into perspective.
When I got back to Lawrence I stopped at a simple 4-way stop -- only to see two opposing cars directly ahead of me have a T-bone crash. One person crept into the intersection without checking around carefully first -- my guess: Cell phone strike again!
About six miles from home I had to slow down when a 4-point buck decided to cross the road about 100 yards in front of me. Little bastard! It's mating season and the call of the wild just couldn't wait, I guess.
And in those next six miles before I turned into the driveway, I passed at least three skunks snuffling along the side of the road. They're getting ready to bed-down for the winter these days, and let me tell you: The roadsides are littered with their little stinky selves.
But I was mighty proud of myself: I'd managed to drive into the big city and live to tell about it. I survived heavy traffic.
I felt invigorated!
So brave!
So totally ... Californian.
If I could just have topped the whole day off with a delicious plate of sushi it would have been completely perfect.
Oh well. I guess I'll just have to settle for having had a totally empowering day instead of a perfect -- traffic free -- one.
Not too bad for a Kansan, huh?
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Terry the Socialist
Well, we made it through the election. People all over the blog-a-sphere are sharing their experiences. Obama's changed the world! I'll never forget where I was the minute I heard that he won! It's a night I'll remember for my entire lifetime! It's the beginning of a new age! I still can't believe we're really getting rid of Bush!
All true, and all rather bland -- no personal detail. No individual spin. It's been a momentous election cycle and everyone seems to have a story or two to tell. I think that's what finally convinced me to start this blog. When I started hearing about some of the numbnuts in blog-land who were making their voices hear, I thought: Well Hell! Even I can do that!
So ... here's my first try ...
How do I respond when someone with a red state of mind accuses me of being a Socialist?
It happened more times in the last few months than I can recall. By now I've got my answer down pat. Yeah, I tell 'em, with a smile creeping across my lips. Compared to you I'm a freakin' Commie Pinko. And to be perfectly honest, I don't consider your accusation all that slanderous.
This usually confounds them. What do you mean? they gasp. You think it's OK for lazy people to take money from hard-working folks so they can lay around all day and drive Cadillacs?
No, I'd typically respond. I don't think it's OK at all. But I do think it's OK for people who earn over $250,000 a year to pay more in taxes than I do. And I wouldn't mind paying 50% in taxes if it meant that I and everyone I love had health care from the moment they were born to the minute they died. Or if it meant that everyone in the country could go to college if they wanted to. Or, if it meant that people who've worked hard all their lives could stop working when they celebrated their 62nd birthday.
By now, most people who dared start the conversation with me were standing there totally dumbfounded. They just can't believe what they were hearing.They're totally incredulous with the mere idea that someone they actually know -- someone they maybe even like -- might believe such blasphemy.
At first these blank stares made me uncomfortable. People who thought they were about to get-my-goat are typically shocked when I agreed with them. Yup, I'd say again. I'm a Socialist.
I'd explain to my red-stater-friends that I'm the child of a union organizer. It's not really a lie -- I don't think. Family mythology says Pop almost didn't get his tenure because he had the audacity to be a unionizing-kike-from-New-York who brought the dreaded union to the white-mans-club at the university where he taught. I don't know if it's true (mythology rarely is, after all), but the realization that I more or less inherited these deviant tenancies usually bought about an ah-ha moment from the person I'd just bowled over with my admission of proud guilt.
You could see them working it all out in their heads. After all, people in Kansas understand the notion that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Dad was a farmer, they say proudly. And while I'm no farmer, they go on to explain, you're damn right! I listen to country music.
People have long memories in Kansas. Everyone knows where their people came from and how they relate to the long line of relatives that came before and will come after them. And so when I told them that I was -- more or less -- following in my father's footsteps they seem to back-down a bit.
Oddly enough, though, as the months wore on leading up to the election I began to care less and less if they understood how I developed my notions of social-responsibility. After a while all I really cared about was that they come to understand that I don't consider my redistributionist-tenancies to be something for which I should be ashamed (like how I worked that little McCain-ism in there?). To be honest, I just sorta stopped caring if they cared.
Get over it, I'd tell them. Different opinions make the world go 'round. It's why I'm American. I have the right to believe differently than you do.
At that point they'd usually nod knowingly. My guess is that they were thinking something like: Poor girl. She can't help it. It's how she was raised.
So, at this point I can either get mad because they're pitying me, or I can just get over it -- like I'm telling them to do. I don't care if they like it and I don't even care if they feel sorry for me and my misguided judgment. I just care that they accept the fact for what it is -- the way it is. I believe differently than they do. And even they have to admit that it's OK.
It is, after all, what we can all agree makes being an American so damn worthwhile.
All true, and all rather bland -- no personal detail. No individual spin. It's been a momentous election cycle and everyone seems to have a story or two to tell. I think that's what finally convinced me to start this blog. When I started hearing about some of the numbnuts in blog-land who were making their voices hear, I thought: Well Hell! Even I can do that!
So ... here's my first try ...
Terry the Socialist takes on Kansas ... One person at a time.
How do I respond when someone with a red state of mind accuses me of being a Socialist?
It happened more times in the last few months than I can recall. By now I've got my answer down pat. Yeah, I tell 'em, with a smile creeping across my lips. Compared to you I'm a freakin' Commie Pinko. And to be perfectly honest, I don't consider your accusation all that slanderous.
This usually confounds them. What do you mean? they gasp. You think it's OK for lazy people to take money from hard-working folks so they can lay around all day and drive Cadillacs?
No, I'd typically respond. I don't think it's OK at all. But I do think it's OK for people who earn over $250,000 a year to pay more in taxes than I do. And I wouldn't mind paying 50% in taxes if it meant that I and everyone I love had health care from the moment they were born to the minute they died. Or if it meant that everyone in the country could go to college if they wanted to. Or, if it meant that people who've worked hard all their lives could stop working when they celebrated their 62nd birthday.
By now, most people who dared start the conversation with me were standing there totally dumbfounded. They just can't believe what they were hearing.They're totally incredulous with the mere idea that someone they actually know -- someone they maybe even like -- might believe such blasphemy.
At first these blank stares made me uncomfortable. People who thought they were about to get-my-goat are typically shocked when I agreed with them. Yup, I'd say again. I'm a Socialist.
I'd explain to my red-stater-friends that I'm the child of a union organizer. It's not really a lie -- I don't think. Family mythology says Pop almost didn't get his tenure because he had the audacity to be a unionizing-kike-from-New-York who brought the dreaded union to the white-mans-club at the university where he taught. I don't know if it's true (mythology rarely is, after all), but the realization that I more or less inherited these deviant tenancies usually bought about an ah-ha moment from the person I'd just bowled over with my admission of proud guilt.
You could see them working it all out in their heads. After all, people in Kansas understand the notion that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Dad was a farmer, they say proudly. And while I'm no farmer, they go on to explain, you're damn right! I listen to country music.
People have long memories in Kansas. Everyone knows where their people came from and how they relate to the long line of relatives that came before and will come after them. And so when I told them that I was -- more or less -- following in my father's footsteps they seem to back-down a bit.
Oddly enough, though, as the months wore on leading up to the election I began to care less and less if they understood how I developed my notions of social-responsibility. After a while all I really cared about was that they come to understand that I don't consider my redistributionist-tenancies to be something for which I should be ashamed (like how I worked that little McCain-ism in there?). To be honest, I just sorta stopped caring if they cared.
Get over it, I'd tell them. Different opinions make the world go 'round. It's why I'm American. I have the right to believe differently than you do.
At that point they'd usually nod knowingly. My guess is that they were thinking something like: Poor girl. She can't help it. It's how she was raised.
So, at this point I can either get mad because they're pitying me, or I can just get over it -- like I'm telling them to do. I don't care if they like it and I don't even care if they feel sorry for me and my misguided judgment. I just care that they accept the fact for what it is -- the way it is. I believe differently than they do. And even they have to admit that it's OK.
It is, after all, what we can all agree makes being an American so damn worthwhile.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Starting Anew -- Why am I doing this?
Blogging? What a crock! Why in the world would someone think that there were others out there who gave a damn about what they thought. I mean, really ... what a self-inflated crock o' crap. Why would some bonehead in the northwoods of Louisiana think I cared about what they had to say? Then again, I guess they wouldn't expect me to read their blog.
But here I am anyway -- blogging away on a dreary Saturday afternoon. Frankly, I don't think anyone will ever read this. It's not about others finding out what I think. I don't really care if they know. It's more about me writing for the sake of creatively exercising my brain. If my friends want to read this, they can. If my family wants to read it, they'll be able to.
I can't remember when the idea of being an essayist first came to me. I think it was when I was living in Nebraska and I wrote a commentary that was eventually published published in Nebraska Life Magazine. I like writing. I've written articles about historic events for magazines and articles for kids magazines. I've written countless grants (I am, after all, a "grant writer"). But I've never written an essay -- a strictly comic observation just for the sake of getting it out. I think I'd like to try.
So, here I am. Let's see how it goes.
But here I am anyway -- blogging away on a dreary Saturday afternoon. Frankly, I don't think anyone will ever read this. It's not about others finding out what I think. I don't really care if they know. It's more about me writing for the sake of creatively exercising my brain. If my friends want to read this, they can. If my family wants to read it, they'll be able to.
I can't remember when the idea of being an essayist first came to me. I think it was when I was living in Nebraska and I wrote a commentary that was eventually published published in Nebraska Life Magazine. I like writing. I've written articles about historic events for magazines and articles for kids magazines. I've written countless grants (I am, after all, a "grant writer"). But I've never written an essay -- a strictly comic observation just for the sake of getting it out. I think I'd like to try.
So, here I am. Let's see how it goes.
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