Category — Catch All

The first Trimester at the Marlboro Grad Center has ended! I made it through ten credits of an MBA in Managing for Sustainability while holding down a full time job! How’d I do? We’ll know for sure when the grades come in … in the mean time I have posted two of my book reviews [in the sidebar under ’sustainable practices], so you can decide for yourself.

Is this work pace sustainable? For another trimester or two …

This post is from Dear Old Dad, who had no idea he was blogging when he was talking to me on the phone the other day.

I was watching the news the other night, and all these republicans were explaining why Bush had to veto the child healthcare bill. They all sat in a row and said “… but it would be Government health care …” and each time they did they would wrinkle up their noses to indicate disgust. And, I thought, when did the notion of government become such a bad thing? Look around at countries without governments … look at Myanmar, look at the Darfur, look at Iraq, where we went in and ripped out the government. They are not doing so well. Live is not so good there. It is not such a bad thing to have a functioning government.

Well, there you have it. There are a number of ways you could go with this. You could take the Bradshaw approach and wonder about those government politicians who think government is a bad thing. Just what are they doing in the job then? They must hate themselves, must have wicked self-esteem issues. And you know where that leads …

Or you could go look at the constitution, which says (I checked) that “We the people” established the constitution to “promote the general welfare”, among other things.

General Welfare … Public Good … Hey guys, however you say it, the purpose of the government is to look out for us, provide a collective mechanism to do things we need that we cannot do individually.

Maybe these republicans are wrinkling their collective noses because they realize they are unable or unwilling to serve the public any more. Or maybe they just find it distasteful. All those common, needly little people grubbing about in their ordinary little lives.

Or I could just leave it alone, cause Dear Old Dad usually puts it pretty well.

“Got any spare change, man?” Too cold to even stick a hand out of a greasy parka sleeve, hunched against the wind. Snowing today, thick, piling down and Don is on his way to meet her, her simple ‘yes’ on the phone an hour ago in his mind like red manicured nails against a pale silk blouse, a perfect ripe raspberry on a dab of whipped creme. On his way and this aparation out of the alley, “I’m trying to get a hotel room for the night.”

Don doesn’t even bother to feel his pockets, he has just stopped at the ATM, knows he’s only got a twenty in his pocket, carefully extracted against a monthly budget that’s pretty well blown. He would, he might, he could, this guy looking like all the others, beard gone teeth gone, shivering, or maybe staggering, this guy looking just like he did back then could really use a hotel, something, the wind is brutal.

It is Valentine’s day and Don is not sure at all if Sandy was thinking of this when they were
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… Are you a good witch or a bad witch?

This fundamental question, "what are you" is one where there can be many versions of true, all contradictory, all spot on.

I recently had read a ‘blurb’ written for a newsletter at one of my jobs.  I got interviewed, the editor went off, and out came one true picture of who I am:

[…] and a masters of science in statistics.  His current work involves modeling mortality ratios […] He is also employed at XXXX where he has been a sampling statistician for over a decade.  As an active divorced dad raising two blooming adolescents keeps XXX pretty busy.  In whatever time is left, XXX reads an eclectic mix of science text and junk novels, cooks, stays involved in the XXXXX community farm, and imagines he is a writer.  He is also active in community service, working with persons in recovery on a volunteer basis.  Traveling when he can, recent trips have included Costa Rica, San Francisco and the Grand Canyon.  He currently lives as caretaker, at the XXXX XXXX park in XXXX.

I looked this over and I though ‘This is a guy I might want to meet.  This sounds like a guy who has a good life, I thought when I read it.  Careear trajectory on track, traveling, kids, interesting … together.  I might even be jealous of him.   And, every word is true.

Now twist your head slightly, and squint a bit … blink a little to clear the smoke stinging your eyes, and you see …

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Warm yesterday.  Up to what, maybe sixty degrees.  And sunny.  And a friday.

So I go sit down on Church street, and the place is packed.  People everywhere, enjoying the sun.  That first sunny day, stepping out without a coat, without that subconcious cringe bracing for the cold, for the shock of a chill.  I sit and have a smoke, and watch everyone strolling about watching everyone.

Who are all these people? Was reading in ‘Guns, Gems and Steel’ that a tribe can get up to a hundred or so people before you have to have a more formal social orginization, some kind of structure.  The ‘big man’ can’t remember everyone’s name.  From somewhere else, I remember that city-states cannot get bigger than say, a thousand or so, before direct governanace dosen’t work.  A thousand being about the number of people you can gather in a stadium, or on a senate floor, and have the conversation be workable.

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Well.

It has been several weeks packing, organizing the move, moving, cleaning out the old apartment, getting the basics set up here, and … getting an Internet connection.  I’m whipped.

For a move of less than six miles, this took a lot out of me.

But the distance seems a great deal more than six miles.  I have moved from a half-hour commute, hours spent running into town (for meetings, for the movies, for the kids, … ), no-yard, what passes for moderately urban here in Vermont to the a place where I can’t see my neighbors lights at night, in one hundred and eight five acres of protected land. Within ten minutes of my office in downtown Burlington.

And, when I saw this house, walked up the broad wood stairs to the typical hundred year old  second floor full of knee-walls, sloping ceilings, there was this room with a window facing the pines and the fields, in a dormer, just the right size for my desk.  White plaster walls, slightly beat up, flat three inch pine molding, wood floor.  Room enough for my books and a small couch. 

A writers room, the New England Version of the archetypal Paris starving-artist garret.

I knew this place was a home I had been looking for for a long long time.  It only took me seven years and two divorces to get here.

I remember the end of the first marriage, trying to convert a four by ten porch into a study, winding up sleeping down there at the end, amid the sheetrock and half finished wiring, the phrase "Never underestimate the effects of the physical space."

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