woke up this morning afraid that it would rain on our parade; literally, our town has one big parade and it's always in early december when the weather is cold and snowy and miserable, and this year it's supposed to rain but who knows? the clouds hang and it's mild now, but anything can happen, and if we walk in the rain or don't walk, or stand there shivering, either way i'll give you a report.

my wife hangs every day on the possibility of the news from the twins, who may or may not arrive at any minute, so she wants to get work done and is under pressure from all angles sociologically and administratively. the burden of it all got to her and she was down for a day or two while life hurried on at its frantic pace and the boys get into their materialism and preparations for the holidays. by materialism i mean, they talk to their friends, they focus on what they want, everyone focuses on what they want, and that's what we talk about for about a month. i'm sick of it already.

as for me, i'm into african music, but oddly enough i could get what i want, more than enough of it anyway, just being online, going there, and listening regularly. i think actually spending the money on these musician folks is a good idea, but i don't actually need it, and don't actually feel that i really need anything. i'm more like these occupy folks who say, if you don't give your money to the big boys (walmart, target, the banks) then everyone would be better off. but i'm not sure everyone can live up to that high standard. how can you tell your kid you're not going to get them the big electronic this year?

going around town, i now listen to almost exclusively african, and this brings to mind a dilemma i've been feeling lately. life is, actually, what you do, and for a couple of months now (a little more) i've been committing about twenty minutes a day to aggregating news from africa onto a single site which is nothing more than a collection of links to recent news articles. it was originally intended to be an entire resource collection that would help my son and me to learn programming, use journalism skills, find a field to become an expert in, etc. and in fact there is a lot in there, a lot to know, a lot to learn, etc. i've learned an enormous amount from becoming a focused news junkie and learning more about the continent and its issues.

but now, the time has come to decide whether to keep doing it or not, or, if so, how to keep doing it (it would be possible to back off, and not be so religious about my efforts, but then, a holiday is coming and i should have more time for it)...the fact is, i have irons in lots of fires. i am trying to write a novel. i have short stories coming. i work on haiku...most of all, i have a linguistics book in the works, which really needs a lot of attention. and now i'm becoming an africanist?

i originally did it for my son, so that he could use journalism, and french, and learn programming (at least as little as i know) and feel productively occupied while he looks for a job that suits his abilities. i wanted to show him how you have to take the world at what it is and create your own scene, so as to have something to show for your time on earth, and learn about what you love and get better at it by practice and by diving in with your whole self. he barely got a toe in though he did try it. i accept the fact that he's not about to do what his father wants as i surely would have never done what my father wanted, either. aha, but, after starting, i got into it myself. it was cool. it still is. i may make him feel guilty, but i want to keep doing it.

alas, that's my dilemma. what about the poetry, the novel, the jigsaw puzzle on the livingroom table? or the ling book? sometimes it's all i can do to do the laundry, the dishes, get matching socks on the boys, get across town without getting mad and popping off on some old person who takes an hour to turn right and get out of the road. life goes on that way, and almost a majority of my class has no chance of passing, no ability, no desire, or no tendency to do the work, thus leaving me with an ironic smile and no choice but to slip off into the break, giving them all what they deserve. time for a tree; time to mail calendars; time to make a card; time to get off my you-know-what and get going. but first, the parade.