"The Rising Price of Love"

Marc is married. Phew! I wrote it. In terms of my personal awareness, nothing is true until it's in print. I can think it, mull over it, sing it, speak it but it's just not the reality until it's scratched out on paper or typed on a clean white background to stand as evidence. For those of you who don't know, Marc and I met in January 2001 while I was breaking up with Lucas. Marc was supposed to be somewhat of a temporary distraction from the mounting chaos in my life. Instead he became the symbol of all that was not quite right.

"The Saint," as he referred to himself, grew into a haunting intractable challenge. I compromised myself for him. I lost myself in him. I feel miserably in love with him. He responded with what seemed like longing resentment. He always popped up, never went away, grew jealous of everyone and everything around me, he'd break plans then complain if I still went our but he really never seemed to like being with me. We split up - many times - but the day that I fully accepted that it was over and that I was not just okay with it but satisfied was April 30, 2003, nearly two years ago. You might ask, "if she was so satisfied with the breakup, why is she writing about him a year and a half later?"

The answer is simple. He's happy romantically but I'm not. I'm pissed about it. He's found someone to share his life with and I let a lot of my youth pass playing house with him. I feel like I missed a lot of something while I dated Marc and he didn't miss out on anything but solitude during the same period. It's classic, I guess, I don't want him, but no one else is supposed to either.

The last piece of my puzzle with Marc revolves around the gulf between what he saw the relationship as and what I did. After things ended he started to refer to me as his best friend. I never felt that way about him. I loved his hollowness, egoism, brashness because they were elements remiss in my own character. But because of all of those things I was distrustful of him. I was anxious around him. I was rarely comfortable telling him what I was thinking or how I was feeling. I was weak. I didn't like myself when I was with Marc and in a way I'm insulted he would want that woman as a best friend, because she's not me.

Marc never knew me and for his sake, I hope I never really knew him either.


ps - the book "The Rising Price of Love" tries to deal with all of the after effects of the sexual revolution (Relationships, Singles, Dating, Marriage, Divorce, Child Welfare)...it's written by a guy who seems to think he's a global economist/futurist. I am going to read it, I'll let you guys know if it is as much bs as it seems at face value.

Losing Battle

Some days you wake up from a dream, but you don't know it. You feel like something has happened to you and you can not shake that feeling. In the pit of your stomach there is angst and an inexplicable anxiety. You quake worried that the unspeakable thing that occurred or that you did will result in some penultimate punishment. At some point, however, you run into someone who was key to your crime who seems to know nothing of it. You realize you were dreaming. The feeling of utter freedom, release and peace that comes in those first few seconds of realization are priceless.

What about the days when you wake up and have that same feeling, but never run into that saviour? The days when it is the reality that someone you loved as a part of your soul, mind, being will never be in your company again. Those days when you know that the last time you will ever see their face, it will be shrouded in a mask of death. The moment when you remember the last time you saw them walking, talking, breathing, eating a double cheese burger, chicken fingers, jalapeno poppers and swigging on a Coke while playing pool with you -- would always be the last time.

My baby brother is gone from this world. His first child is expected within weeks and they will never meet. I am left here without him fearing that I never knew him well enough as a man to let his son or daughter know how very special he was. I want to know how the last seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and months of his life were spent in exacting detail. I want to know he never suffered insurmountable pain and that he was not alone when he left. Somehow I think these details will bring me closer to him although he is gone.

I really really want to know if he ever knew how much I loved him.

Keeping Tabs

I really dislike misplacing things. I do it frequently, however. I regularly spend several minutes daily searching for my keys only to find them handily clipped to my belt loop or swimming in the bottom of my purse. It's the same with old e-mails. You know the drill, friend or acquaintance sent you their new e-mail address two months ago but you don't remember if they sent it to one of your three SBC accounts, the hotmail account, yahoo, g-mail, limits.com or work. So you painstakingly search for some message entitled "I hate impersonal group e-mails but..." - or - "New Contact Info" fearing all the while that you impetuously deleted the message at one trivial moment or another.

The worst is when you know that finding that e-mail address, or cell phone number or business card is the ONLY way you can ever contact this person again. It's not high school anymore, you can't just call Ms. Smith or Ms. Johnson and ask where Carrie and Jenn live these days...It's not even necessarily college anymore, you can't just call the Alumni Association and say that you misplaced so-and-so's e-business card and need to invite them to a networking luncheon. There is no more social safety net and people can remove themselves from your life much more easily than you can get rid of a stain on your sofa cover. Bad analogy - unless you know me well.

In the last year, I have lost people. They are not deceased or bitterly anger with me. They just disappeared. People who got a pretty candid look at my soul are out there circulating and I have no say in whether I'll ever see them, hear their voices or embrace them again. One of these folks surfaced when a friend took her dog to the vet and ran into him. Another called my crazy co-worker the other day to reinsert himself in my life. There are others, unfortunately. Each time I lose someone in this way, I feel a little bit less connected to humanity. I feel a little bit more isolated and a whole lot smaller.

I hope no one feels like they've lost me...and if they do, I hope we find each other soon.

The Chiefs Do So Have Hall-of-Famers

Doesn't it just burn you up when you fail to respond with that perfect come back-- those few words that slide off your tongue with ease that silence the antagonist immediately. Doesn't it irk you just that much more when the perfect retort comes to mind only moments later, when you LATER realize the blatant failure of logic in another person's argument. Geez - I HATE that!!!!

On Sunday August 8, 2004, Bob Brown, Carl Eller, Barry Sanders good ole' horse face John Elway were inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. My dear ponies fan friend decided to rub it in by asking "Who do the Chiefs have in the hall of fame!?!" I hummmmmed and hawwwwed for a few moments and said " Len Dawson!" He said - "Is that all you can come up with?" At the moment that was all -- now, I know there are many many more:

LAMAR HUNT Owner(1972) - 1959-Present
BOBBY BELL(1983) - 1963-1974
WILLIE LANIER(1986) - 1967-1977
LEN DAWSON(1987) - 1963-1975
JUNIOUS (BUCK) BUCHANAN(1990) - 1963-1975
JAN STENERUD(1991) - 1967-1979
Mike Webster(1997) - 1989-1990
Joe Montana(2000) - 1993-1994
Marv Levy Coach (2001) - 1978-1982
HANK STRAM Coach (2003) - 1960-1974
Marcus Allen(2003) - 1993-1997

What really eats me now is that Elway is the only player who contributed significantly to the success of the Denver Broncos to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. So, tomorrow evening when the Chiefs line up against the Broncos at Mile High for their first game of the season, I'll have the comeback ready...

I love this game!

More Shock and Awe

Today while driving in the Loop I was taken aback, disgusted and angered as a large truck passed me covered in grotesque imagery. The truck - another Republican Party campaign tactic - was plastered with pictures of aborted fetuses juxtaposed against dimes and quarters to give scale to the images. It was difficult at first to figure out exactly what the representations were because everything was covered in blood. Once I realized what the images were I was certain they must be fake, because they were so graphic, so large and so openly displayed.

IMAGES OF A TRUCK BEING USED IN THIS CAMPAIGN

!CAUTION! LINKS BELOW ARE GRAPHIC, DISTURBING AND TASTELESS.

ONE || TWO

This tactic harkens back to so much manipulation and propaganda that is dumped on the American people that is just accepted. Why is Howard Stern fined 2.5 million and his station half a million dollars for lewd and inappropriate talk and dropped by the Clear Channel monopoly while CSI: Miami featured the forced expulsion of a severed human arm from a crocodile during prime time? Why the flap over Janet's "wardrobe malfunction" during an evening of two groups of men violently throttling each other? I personally find a nipple exposed for less than three seconds far less infuriating or disturbing than severed prehensile matter and other fetus parts covered in blood and in effigy stuck in traffic in front of me. Whoever is drawing the distinction between what is detestable and unacceptable and what is just giving us all a good "dose of reality" needs to be replaced. More and more frequently, violence is seen as acceptable and violent imagery is rewarded while sexual content or conversation is consistently derided and punished.

I guess my point is really that I can respect you even if I strongly disagree with your politics. I can never respect hypocrisy or double standards.

"I deserve to get a call once in a while."

"Believe me, I've had things go against me many times, plenty of times. I deserve to get a call once in a while."
- Jennifer Capriati of her win against Serena Williams after a poor call by US Open umpire

ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST - next to the equality and fairness lessons my mom really hammered in- that was always the mantra. I remember the first time that I realized that the boys were pulling away from me athletically. That suddenly they could run faster and maybe farther, that they could kick the ball harder in kickball, that they could really peg me during dodgeball games and that they were nearly taking my arms off during RED ROVER. I also recall the first/last time I tried - and failed - to play the "weaker sex" card. My little brother and I were biking and running at this little paved over play area in Swope Park. He came up with the clever idea of having a race. We lined up at one end with my mom on the other side of the play lot waiting to declare the winner.

On your Mark...
Get Set...
Go...

Jason and I took off, only I was already behind him within seconds. I couldn't let him humiliate me without doing anything. So I grabbed my leg and fell to the ground writhing in pain. A performance worthy of Shakespeare in the round. I rolled to and fro, panted, moaned in phony agony and waited for my mom to come rushing to my side to fawn over me and forget that my brother would have decimated me in the foot race. The seconds soon turned to minutes and I realized that I was making an even bigger dolt of myself by making my loss into a Broadway production.

No one likes a disgraceful loser and people loath a boastful winner. The only thing I can think of as worse than either is a winner who somehow thinks the victory was "owed" to them. The fact is that umpires, referees and judges are human, they will make mistakes and the second fact is that this humanity will work to each athlete's advantage, at times, and disadvantage, at others. Capriati's statement after her US Open victory today just opens up a can of worms no one wants to deal with. Should we go back to footage of every match ever played by each woman - Capriati and Serena - and tally the times that the judges have slighted each, divide by the total number of matches each has played and them multiply by some factor of the number of victories each has racked up? This seems to be Capriati's suggestion. I don't agree.

Great - you won - now be a decent sport and go home with your head held high - not because you were paid back for all the times you were let down in the past, but because you played a stellar game and came out on top.

Too bad - you lost - now be a decent sport and go home with your head held high - not because you lost because of one bad call and it would have otherwise been yours, but because you did your very best.

The presupposition of this argument is, of course, that the playing field is indeed fair.

Labor Day

when i was growing up i knew there was something wrong with the republican party. while my mom and my grandmother always voted - my grandmother was one of the older ladies at the polling place who kindly gets you signed in and shows you how to use the punch card - i don't recall them ever telling me they were democrats. however, there was just always something about those republicans that rubbed me the wrong way. perhaps it was the fact that alex p. keaton was a young republican and was such a detestable being or that both ronald reagan and bush 1 both look slightly simian.

i have to admit, friends, that despite the fact that the republicans have done nothing to merit bush 2 remaining in office, if the democrats don't kick it into high gear like yesterday, we are going to be in for another four years of ignorant, arrogant bullying and the use of tax dollars to kill and dominate rather than reify and educate. there are institutions in the u.s. that are corrupt in which humans are abused and tortured. bush has detained people for years denying them the rights we that demand other countries extend with the explanation that we are basically afraid of them and what they have to say.

make the time to talk about your stance on the issues with at least one person before election day (November 2).

click here for a chart of the electoral votes by states as posted on the federal election commisson website.

Asante!

Kidogo changu pokea na dua njema nakuombea.
Please accept this small thing from me along with my prayers.