as though i haven't already made enough lists for one day....

inspired by a current instant message conversation, here is a list of some things i don't like, followed by another list of some i do:

roaches
verizon
microsoft excel
microsoft in general
capitalism
the irs
insurance companies
window fans that are so loud i have to check and see if there's actually a helicopter flying directly outside my window
sales recordings that dial your number trying to sell you airline stuff and begin the call by making plane sounds (it's very disconcerting)
did i say capitalism?
that time in the morning between waking up and drinking coffee
the way if you wear flip flops in nyc (bklyn incl.) your feet end up greyish at the end of the day
did i say roaches?

of course, the rest of what i usually dislike still applies (Israel, the U.S., war, occupation, prisons, cops, patriarchy, heterosexism, racism, etc) but the list above was just particularly relevant to my last day or so.

things i do like:
watching teenage girls kee-ya (sp?) and break through boards with their hands or feet and listening to their excitement about it before and afterwards
smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk in nyc
coffee
the trees blowing in the wind outside my window
my new air conditioner
breaking boards myself (such an amazing feeling!)
people that inspire me
people whose eyes light up when they are inspired
park slope
that one of my walls in my room is made of brick, which goes perfectly with my color scheme
plants
people who are friendly on the phone
writing poetry in Prospet Park on my lunch break
living within easy travel distance of my family and getting to do things i couldn't before, like meet my brother's new girlfriend and see my little cousins grow up
talking to people from other org's in ny and feeling the movement building over the phone as we make connections with each other
laughing with coworkers
people who teach what they love and love it
blogging and imagining you all reading what i write, and feeling like that makes me a little less far away

cracked paint

Between the monotony of excel documents and the photocopy machine, even momentary meaningful conversations feel like cool breaths of air. And in this 90 + degree weather, the coolness is as essential to life as the air. Someone called today to set up a workshop for women in prison. Our conversation probably lasted about 10 minutes but she was real. I mean, she talked to me like I was human and she expressed emotion and frustration about the situation her organization was facing. Why is it that in a movement which theoretically reclaims the humanity of all people, we still need to relate to each other in such a fake way? I didn't even realize I was doing it too until I talked to her and felt relief. I also did not realize how much I prefer words to numbers. I knew it, but it was never relevant. It's probably the change of temperature from the heat outside to the air-conditioning in the cafe I'm in now (I still don't have internet in my house) that is making my fingertips feel dry, but it feels like it's the databases and numbers that have been occupyingmy brain all day. My fingers feel dry like they were dipped in pale grey paint and left to dry in luke-warm air till the paint stuck and cracked. Like their creativity has been stifled. The minute I allowed my fingers to touch a keyboard, metaphor started to come out (see two sentences ago!), like it was waiting behind some kind of floodgate for me to let it free. I don't want it to sound like I'm complaining. I'm not. Just philosophizing and blogging and wondering about things. Like why do we have to live in a world where my situation- having a job with a salary I can live on that I don't reallyreally hate- is a rare privilege? And like how am I going to go back to Palestine if I only have 20 vacation days/year? And if I go to Palestine, then how am I going to go to San Francisco to see all of you? See, questions, questions. But it isn't complaints. I mean, I know this work has to get done. I only wish it could all happen in poetry, over beers, and after 11am.

the revolution will not be filed

official update from amy to the bay area: i miss you!!!

in other news...i started my job! i'm not sure yet what i think of it. it's a lot of info to learn quick- a lot of computer programs, filing systems, etc...but yesterday, just when i was starting to feel really frustrated with all the techy stuff (how the hell did i of all people end up with a job that required tech knowledge??) one of the self defense classes for teens started happening in the dojo that's attached to our office. and i got to hear a bunch of teen girls yelling "NO!" while they practiced their strikes. so then i felt inspired.

i think a lot of my frustration is just that i'm learning that all the stuff they say about the NPIC (non profit industrial complex) is true. not that i doubted it's truth. i just didn't fully understand, and now, after 3.5 days, i think i 'get it' a lot more. i mean, if all of our effort could go towards planning and organizing for real change instead of filling out all these stupid bank forms and dealing with weird computer programs and filing everything...i feel like someone should write a book about how in addition to not being televised or funded, the revolution also will not be filed. it's all for government/board/other institutions. so i don't know. in this system, i know our options are limited. and as a result of that, we have to deal with the bullshit. and i need a job, and i'm happy that my job supports a good organization. but godammit, why can't we just have the revolution now??

I'm employed!!!

Yup, it's true. I'm employed! I'm going to be (starting on Monday, 7/30) an administrator for an organization called The Center for Anti-Violence Education (actually called "CAE," since activists and organizers only speak in acronyms...do we just have so much to do we don't have time to pronounce whole words?) If you're curious, the website is www.cae-bklyn.org
Now I'm off to Providence (the city, not the state of mind/being) for a few days to visit a friend...and now I really gotta speed up the apt search because otherwise I have an hour and a half commute every morning...and waking up that early a lot of days in a row is really not appealing.

mostly ranting

Rants:

1. There is no such place as "israelpalestine." I don't know if any of you have ever encountered this, but people keep wanting to talk to me about israelpalestine. and there just is no such place. there is a place called Palestine. there is an imperialist apartheid state currently known as Israel, referred to often as "48." The place I went to over the winter is called Palestine. I did not go to israelpalestine and i did not go to Israel either.

2. As my mother put well, I think, "you can't really be colorblind after the age of like, 8." I love my mom, she's awesome. What I do not love is 4 hour long conversations with friends which start out as discussions about hip hop and turn into discussions about language and dialect, where the person saying racist things in these discussions says "But I'm not racist, this isn't about race, I don't even see race, I'm colorblind." And telling a story about how you were once the only white person in a group of four and you told all the people of color not to tell racist jokes about each other so they could all get along better really does not make you a good person. Sorry.

Ok enough rants for now. More to follow soon, I'm (unfortunately) sure.

Now I feel a little better because I'm in Brooklyn with Sarah! We're subletting a place for a few days. The place is in Bushwick, which I've decided is a neighborhood I really like. There are a lot of families and I guess I like that. It makes the city feel cozier.

Oh and two things I love about BK:
1. drinking on fire escapes
2. apartments with rooftop access

going to check out a place in bushwick today...still waiting to hear back from a job interview...i'll post the details of the job if i get it.

how do i end blogs? i am never sure.

confessions from a past life

moments like this are what give meaning to the term "moment of weakness."

i just added a friend of mine from Palestine to my facebook (yes, i have facebook, i just don't use it). i realized i still have an old friend from high school on my facebook friends...one who happens to be in the u.s. military. he and i haven't really spoken since the start of the war in Iraq. i stared at the computer screen for a few minutes, contemplating deleting him. realizing the contradictions of having her and him both called "friend." i didn't do it. why? is it just curiousity? like looking at his facebook page is some kind of window into the life of "the enemy." or is it my own past that i want to look into? a past that includes a friend who voluntarily joined the military. and a present that includes a friend who, however supportive of me she pretends to be, leaves messages on his myspace telling him he's "so hot." i wonder if she posted that when she saw the picture he posted of him in uniform with a gun. who the fuck thinks it's hot for someone to kill people in the name of imperialism? and what the fuck is wrong with me that makes me not just delete this guy from my life and my memory? and what will happen when he comes back here? and ends up hanging out with the friends of mine who do still talk to him? will i see him? and if so, how will i stop myself from yelling at him that i too have seen war, only i have seen it from the other side, and how dare he inflict occupation on people, doesn't he know what occupation means, does, is? when i talk like this to even my closest friends here, they talk to me about "acceptance" and "friendship." so suddenly i'm the bad guy, for wanting to cut him out of my life (even though something stops me from cutting him out of my facebook). suddenly i'm judgemental, and he, despite the fact that he's killing people in a racist and imperialist war, gets to be the tolerant one, because he's willing to "tolerate" me and my radical politics. it makes me want to scream. instead, i'm just posting a blog.

red is for blood

red for blood.
white for the people who settled here and drew the blood from the indigenous Peoples of the continent(s).
and what is blue for? sadness? sadness as deep as the ocean and wide as the sky?

fucking fireworks.
who the hell decided that emulating war is celebratory?
i hate the fourth of july. a fucking celebration of colonialism and war. at least it's appropriate, right, to celebrate US "independence" with explosions. it sounds like bombs and gunshots outside, and i know that it isn't, but my stomach still turns over when i hear it. the poet in me is playing with the words. "fire works." fire works for what? works for colonization, imperialism, genocide? sad, because fire itself is a beautiful thing. fire works, however, are not.

i'm not good at blogging about anything other than the present moment, but i'll try to talk a little about my past couple weeks.

so there was camping in massachusetts- "summercamp." it was fun. it feels a long time ago now, so while i had lots of rants about it when i was there, it feels hard to access that now, which might not be a bad thing. basically: "radical" politics, patriarchy, & white privilege. i shouldn't generalize though. that was really only some people who were there. but of course those are always the ones who seem to take up the most space.

then the ussf. movement building rocks. for me, the highlight of the forum was when some folks who are organizing around the border wall b/w the u.s. and Mexico stopped by the Palestine Tent to talk about divestment from both border walls (that, and the one in Palestine). for those of you reading this who dont already know, the same (israeli) company is a part of the building of both the walls.

i'm listening to climbing poetree right now. they were at the ussf. listening to them always brings a calmness to me. not a false calm that assumes there is actually calm and peace in the world, but a calm that encompasses anger and pain, and then surpasses it with inspiration and hope. ahhh.