Hey hey. It’s early and I’m debating taking a train to the Mall and running over to the Tidal Basin to see those beautiful trees before the hordes descend. I have SO. MUCH. WRITING. to do though, and I need to get to Virginia and make a dent before the weekend since we have our first softball game tonight somewhere around the Washington Monument (or the Ellipse, depending on where we field save), and we have a preseason tournament out in Greenbelt on Saturday that’s at least 3 games, possibly as many as 7. Hence the debate. Do I have time? Or should I just wait till Sunday morning when I don’t have to squeeze 800 other things in to do? Who are we kidding — I’ll run around the hood here shortly and save the trees for Sunday when I can relax and take it all in. Anyway, since I haven’t written anything here for a bit, I felt like maybe a check-in was in order.
My brother John told me once that one of the biggest problems he saw that I had was a tendency to assume people were acting from a good place and had good intentions and were trustworthy without knowing them long enough to see evidence of any of those things. “I don’t trust people until they give me a reason to,” he said. “You trust as a default position. And that’s why you get hurt a lot.” I guess. I have a real bitch to vent out about that…but I don’t think I’m going to. I know, right? So unlike me. It’s just that when a situation goes down — let’s say a group of people walks away and leaves you alone in a crowd without explanation (my mother was horrified. “You’re a woman! That’s not safe!”) — and a stranger, a guy, witnesses it, and looks at you as you’re standing there watching them walk away, and says, “Are those your friends?,” and you say, “I thought they were…,” and he looks at you dead in the eye and says, “I don’t think they are,” you really have all the information you need. So what’s the point of even trying to make sense of it? As a friend of mine noted the other day, “Sarah, if you spent half as much time worrying about the people who actually give a shit about you, things would improve.” Damn straight. So, whatever. Live with yourselves and your behavior. I’m so tired of trying to mentally work out the whys, and I’m real tired of feeling bad about it. Now I just have to figure out if the pettiness extends to gargantuan asshole levels — which I suppose I’ll find out tonight — and once I know that, the douche/non-douche ratio, I’ll be able to make some decisions. Sorry to curse so much. I just wasn’t allowed to growing up and so it’s a particularly bad habit when I’m feeling rebellious and frustrated. There are worse crutches I guess.
On a somewhat related note — only in as much as it’s representative of a reason someone else is being grumpy with me — don’t tell me to look something up and then be mad at me if I do and it proves my point. I mean Christ Almighty, that’s what I do. For a living. And I generally — at this point in my life, having made the mistake as a younger person — don’t assert something unless I’ve got some evidence (if the evidence proves false later, that’s another issue) to back it up. Maybe I should just hand out a card when people meet me that says, “Warning: feisty, passionate, not afraid to argue, doesn’t mean harm. Probably will cry.”
In any event, I guess we’ll see how things play out but I gotta say — I’m pretty free of emotion about anything lately. I don’t guess I’ll ever be truly cynical — I don’t care enough about fitting it to play it all cool like nothing touches me — but I do have to emotionally take breaks where I just don’t give a shit. For a little while. Otherwise you people would fucking kill me. And that’s not going to happen.
Now for the good news! Just kidding. You know, you can’t go in an start smashing up 2/3 of the economy without panic setting in. And that’s really all the stock trade runs on — the emotions of investors. How they feel and what they intuit based on gut and experience. So, ya know:
And I’m really over the glassy-eyed, incredibly ignorant, 20 something, catchphrase tossing, no experience-having, but-I’m-aggressive-and-kinda-mean-so-I’m-gonna-shove-my-ignorance-in-your-face kids that got this trainwreck of an administration elected because HOPE! and CHANGE!. Gah. Substance is a good thing, too. And track record. And voting history. And associations. And all that other stuff that is the true measure of a person and a leader. Looking at you sociopath I used to know. Feeling pretty good now about all the aspersions you cast on anyone not a total progressive? But then I guess you’re likely moving back to the center now because that benefits you and that’s how you roll. Principles are hard.
Speaking of: “Let the scapegoating begin,” says my Pops. Whatever. Laying down with dogs and all that.
This one is far more intriguing because I believe she may sing to avoid going to jail. And if the Elijah Cummings part is true — and it’s looking like the evidence is strong that it is — I can see why Issa has focused on this and put Benghazi on the back burner. Low hanging fruit is good leverage. And this is just the window dressing.
This is old because it’s been so long since I’ve updated here, but I liked it. It is true — there’s no strong evidence to suggest that the man called himself God. As a good Jewish man of the 1st century, that would have been blasphemous. But as my old friend Thomas Cahill wrote in this amazing book (huge fan of this author), the Pentecost (new testament) is where the real mystery lay. Something turned these no accounts who hung around with him into different men who traveled the world to talk to people about their friend who died but had these amazing ideas about spirit and love and mankind’s place in it all. And what that thing was is where the meat is.
Just an interesting read that came through a listserv I’m on. If you work in communications, you should probably avail yourself of the knowledge contained within and take it for what it’s worth.
Why are you doing this? It’s like spitting into the wind. No one believes you’ll do anything except to prove you’ll do something and that will be a complete disaster because it’ll be for the wrong reasons.
Alright, I’m out. I’m sorry for being a jerk to you if I was. I really am.
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