thoroughly exhausted from donuts-with-dad at seven a-m, roller skating last night and swimming today, so i had a cup of coffee tonight at the yoga bean coffee house and settled in for some irish music and dancing while the boys romped with some other kids in the back. i don't actually dance, because the steps are complicated and you have to learn them. i also don't play fiddle, although they let me play a few times, because the songs also are complicated, you have to learn and practice them over a few years. the place was crowded; it was fun. the kids enjoyed it too. but the coffee lingers now, and i can't sleep.
donuts-with-dad was an interesting school experience, because even though i consider donuts to be the most shallow, empty, sugary food that actually hurts me an hour or so later, it's universally popular; my son wanted two of them; almost every dad of every kid in the school was there as well. they filled up the gym. it was an experience. it had been postponed two or three times for whatever reason but people must have wanted it so as to not let it die, and then all attended, even on a very cold morning at seven no less. unbelievable.
and then, there was skate night, where i really felt my old bones, but i went around on those skates anyway, and it made my heart speed up a bit and i worried a little about my own condition. actually it's the donuts that really make me worry, because i used to be able to eat two or three of those too, but now even one makes me jumpy, but the thing about skating is, it seems to require more of me than, say, the walking or swimming that i do a lot of. it's just more rigorous. out there on the floor you get to hear all the new music, and see all the kids do their thing.
out on the street i saw something i really didn't like. a couple of guys were getting taken out of their car by an ems emergency vehicle. three or four police cars and two fire trucks surrounded their car, except that another car, which seemed to belong to a woman, was behind them. they were taken out of their car with utmost care as if they had both broken their necks, yet they had looks on their faces that showed a little smugness, as if, no way they broke their neck, but they would make the poor woman pay for this anyway. in other words, all the neck brace, gentle handling, backing into the emergency vehicle, etc., all seemed like it was for show. i looked at the two cars. there was not a single sign of the one having hit the other, though i would assume that perhaps the woman had back-ended the men's car. no sign that one car had even touched the other. the poor woman's insurance company was going to be taken for a ride, i guess. and everyone knew it. free ambulance trip all the way around.
saw two confederate flags in the dorm windows. they must have been up there for king's day, or maybe they were there all along and i just didn't see them. what do you do, ask people to remove stuff like that? a lot of people wouldn't hesitate. this is way up on the fifteenth floor, seventeenth floor, etc., no way to apply any kind of free speech to a window like that. the ironic thing is, people get all roundabout when it comes to that flag, they'll claim it's not racist, or it is more southern pride than pro-slavery, or pro-confederacy, or whatever, blah blah blah. i don't buy it. on one level, it's pure racist. and, to make matters worse, the whole texas-flag thing basically celebrates an era when white people came out here on the plain, and just killed indians by the hundreds, turned around and killed the mexicans who they had lived peacefully with for years, then became their own nation, etc., so, much as i like texas pride, the whole lone star thing is kind of tainted too. i got a lone-star tie over christmas, but i've been trying to wear it, and in the mornings when i go to put it on, this big honking white star on red and blue, i have trouble aligning with all that history, some of which, to tell the truth, i don't even know. i've become a bit distrustful of all flags, or that kind of symbol, for that reason, they bind up a number of movements and represent sometimes a whole progression of violent social activities that led to that symbol having power in the modern world. and when you take it on, wear it, put it in your window, or on your car, for example, you are lending power to it, or at least taking on what people recognize as a symbol of these things...you don't know how other people see it, but, you can be sure it's not always going to be good.
a bitter wind, down from canada, has left the whole country pretty cold, and the traditional wisdom from up north goes, when the wind comes from the northeast, it's always trouble. it's circling around over all those lakes and picking up that icy bitter windy character, and it sometimes dumps snow and ice on everything & folks here, for sure anyway, just aren't used to it, and can't handle it very well. it made for some very cold walking, but it's ok, i like walking these days, and i consider it a bit safer at the big intersection, if i'm on my own two feet, and i can jump when somebody does something stupid. lots of stupid things these days, we hear the police all over the place, and the ambulances, and my guess is, the weather is getting to them. weather doesn't kill people, people kill people, but, doesn't matter, weather makes people go bonkers. a good time to stay home, wrap up in some blankets, and make a fire.
donuts-with-dad was an interesting school experience, because even though i consider donuts to be the most shallow, empty, sugary food that actually hurts me an hour or so later, it's universally popular; my son wanted two of them; almost every dad of every kid in the school was there as well. they filled up the gym. it was an experience. it had been postponed two or three times for whatever reason but people must have wanted it so as to not let it die, and then all attended, even on a very cold morning at seven no less. unbelievable.
and then, there was skate night, where i really felt my old bones, but i went around on those skates anyway, and it made my heart speed up a bit and i worried a little about my own condition. actually it's the donuts that really make me worry, because i used to be able to eat two or three of those too, but now even one makes me jumpy, but the thing about skating is, it seems to require more of me than, say, the walking or swimming that i do a lot of. it's just more rigorous. out there on the floor you get to hear all the new music, and see all the kids do their thing.
out on the street i saw something i really didn't like. a couple of guys were getting taken out of their car by an ems emergency vehicle. three or four police cars and two fire trucks surrounded their car, except that another car, which seemed to belong to a woman, was behind them. they were taken out of their car with utmost care as if they had both broken their necks, yet they had looks on their faces that showed a little smugness, as if, no way they broke their neck, but they would make the poor woman pay for this anyway. in other words, all the neck brace, gentle handling, backing into the emergency vehicle, etc., all seemed like it was for show. i looked at the two cars. there was not a single sign of the one having hit the other, though i would assume that perhaps the woman had back-ended the men's car. no sign that one car had even touched the other. the poor woman's insurance company was going to be taken for a ride, i guess. and everyone knew it. free ambulance trip all the way around.
saw two confederate flags in the dorm windows. they must have been up there for king's day, or maybe they were there all along and i just didn't see them. what do you do, ask people to remove stuff like that? a lot of people wouldn't hesitate. this is way up on the fifteenth floor, seventeenth floor, etc., no way to apply any kind of free speech to a window like that. the ironic thing is, people get all roundabout when it comes to that flag, they'll claim it's not racist, or it is more southern pride than pro-slavery, or pro-confederacy, or whatever, blah blah blah. i don't buy it. on one level, it's pure racist. and, to make matters worse, the whole texas-flag thing basically celebrates an era when white people came out here on the plain, and just killed indians by the hundreds, turned around and killed the mexicans who they had lived peacefully with for years, then became their own nation, etc., so, much as i like texas pride, the whole lone star thing is kind of tainted too. i got a lone-star tie over christmas, but i've been trying to wear it, and in the mornings when i go to put it on, this big honking white star on red and blue, i have trouble aligning with all that history, some of which, to tell the truth, i don't even know. i've become a bit distrustful of all flags, or that kind of symbol, for that reason, they bind up a number of movements and represent sometimes a whole progression of violent social activities that led to that symbol having power in the modern world. and when you take it on, wear it, put it in your window, or on your car, for example, you are lending power to it, or at least taking on what people recognize as a symbol of these things...you don't know how other people see it, but, you can be sure it's not always going to be good.
a bitter wind, down from canada, has left the whole country pretty cold, and the traditional wisdom from up north goes, when the wind comes from the northeast, it's always trouble. it's circling around over all those lakes and picking up that icy bitter windy character, and it sometimes dumps snow and ice on everything & folks here, for sure anyway, just aren't used to it, and can't handle it very well. it made for some very cold walking, but it's ok, i like walking these days, and i consider it a bit safer at the big intersection, if i'm on my own two feet, and i can jump when somebody does something stupid. lots of stupid things these days, we hear the police all over the place, and the ambulances, and my guess is, the weather is getting to them. weather doesn't kill people, people kill people, but, doesn't matter, weather makes people go bonkers. a good time to stay home, wrap up in some blankets, and make a fire.
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