I like how, just now, when the President made mention of Coretta Scott King's death today in tribute to her good works the entire congregation of primarily old, rich, white men stood in ovation as the camera panned around to the only two black faces its controller could find, zooming in on the (and how unexpected!) studied mix of tenderness, sorrow, and deference to one of their heros clear on their slightly darker faces.

It all just seems like a circus show put on for the people who are already supporters and will cheer when the President says "the", and the people whose minds are so made up in their need to be defined by opposing everything the President defines for himself that they're merely watching to find more fodder for their rants.

And then there's the newly-sworn-in Alito, eyes darting around uncomfortably, clearly not sure whether there's a camera on him or not, not sure if his face is expressing the right measure of austere concentration mixed with the relaxed pleasure he's supposed to have for a night of listening to his leader.

I just don't think I'll be able to watch this much longer without poking my own eyes out while sticking butter knives repeatedly into my ears. What a charade!

I'm in love. The kind of utter, hopelessly romantic sort of love that sweeps you off your feet making you simultaneously terrified to be caught unawares that you're being dropped and ecstatically happy to be happy: Thursday I bought a Trek 1000WSD road bike.

She's amazing.

I'm also in love with [moderately] big city living, again - finally. Our move back to OSS today was done better than I ever could have expected, with the right mix of fanfare, politics, publicized generosity, and self-promoting cheerleading. I'm very proud to work where I do, with the people I do.

I meant to write more, with the historic feel of today's celebration and the presence of people like the city's [chocolate] mayor highlighting the importance of the experience (and the genuine shivers I got in watching the flag hoisted up our flag pole as a member of the soon-to-play zydeco band bleated out the national anthem on his trumpet). But it'll have to wait until tomorrow, because I'm planning to ride my new bike to work tomorrow and I need a good night's sleep.

"I know it's crazy, but I'm a girl and that's how we roll," Carla to J.D. in tonight's Scrubs

That's my excuse for everything. Like illogical jealousy that just seems to pop up at the most inopportune, unexpected times. Ugh, I'm a girl and that's just how I roll.

I wrote this yesterday and fell asleep before posting it:

For myriad reasons, I've been especially weepy-feeling today; there was the nasty spill I took walking back to Darren's house last night that has left me with a rather large bruise on each knee, a bruise on my left kneecap, and a splotchy purple region on my upper thigh from where the various peaks and valleys of the mountainous terrain that is a New Orleans "sidewalk" met my falling leg. Then there's something that happened yesterday that should probably be embarrasing, maybe even mortifying, but being who I am I refused to succumb to the pointless emotion of embarrassment. There's when I just dropped my soda while walking back to our table at the bar where we watched the Steelers romp all over Denver, as if my fingers decided at that very moment to boycott my dictatorship over their daily actions.

In any case, driving home tonight from the Bourbon House, a famous New Orleans French Quarter restuarant where a group of us took a potential new hire to dinner, I took Canal street with the thought that I was already on the east side of town and it'd be easier than going back to I-10. The magnitude of impact Katrina has wreaked on the residents of Lakeview and Midcity - not to mention the even more devastated ninth ward - finally dawned on me as I realized just how many lights are still gone from windows that are still streaked with the grime 7 feet of water leaves behind. Aside from the vegetative debris that has, for the most part, been removed, the area looks EXACTLY the same as it did four months ago.

Every squalid, dark building I passed suddenly meant something to me: each building represented at least one individual's life that has been forever altered, one human face that isn't able to soak in life, life's sun from their favorite window here. And I realized that everywhere, EVERYWHERE in the world, EVERYONE has something to be sad about, their own personal tragedy to discover and then spend the better part of the rest of their lives living to cope, overcome, and smile. In its normal, cyclic internal dialog, my mind thought about how this is how people can care enough to affect change - that each person has some personal drive for some personal cause that is impetus enough for them to make a difference.

This I Believe, that everyone has their own personal tragedy and when it's your own, it's the most important, pressing, challenging experience. I may not face the tragedies of hunger, family absence, or drug abuse, but I've come to accept that my own struggles are MINE, for me to figure out, revel in, and learn from; I can't feel guilty for sharing my minor, petty, average problems for fear that they shouldn't matter to my friends; my friends care because they're MINE (the problems, not the friends), not because they're drastic or terrifying or unique.

Tonight

It's not fair for you to flirt with me if you know that you don't like me.

IA, thanks for trusting me to talk. You always continue to amaze me :)

M, I've never stopped thinking of you as a friend. Everyay. Ouyay areyaya orfay everyay appedwray inyay anymay ofyay ymay ondfay estyay emay oryay iesyay. Are you still in FL?

Ok. So, we know that after years of thought and introspection, I know what I want: what drives me, my passions, what I want to see changed in the world.

And we know that I'm finally tired of pretending I don't really care when I really do. When I love conversations about it.

And we know that I'm ready to accept the insurmountable challenge Following My Dreams is sure to be, that I very likely will fail in my pursuit of "something." And yet we also know that, to refer back to my favorite quote, "...no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity." (The Alchemist)

So I've accepted my idealism, accepted that it must be tempered with a dose of realism to have any hope of accomplishment, I've got the encourgement and belief of great friends who tell me I can do anything if I let people see the - trite as it sounds - genuine fire in my eyes, and I'm stuck on the "where to begin" part of things.

So where do I begin? I feel like this trek along my Passion's Road is going to require me to feel like Ron did in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when he thought Harry had slipped him some felix felicious(sp?), or lucky juice, and just follow whatever seems right and applicable at the moment.

To find an idea, belief, person that moves you deeply enough, touches you strongly enough to make you willing to give up your entire life’s being to see it through. IA Jonathan says this is what determines the people who make a difference and why they do so in particular fields, because they are willing to give everything to see through fruition that passion that is particularly theirs.

But like true love with a person, how do you know you’ve stumbled across your true passion, especially when you grow up being told that what you think you know at a young age you don’t really know? Even though I felt like I could cry on Saturday night when I was talking to Tom about how much, how deeply, I wanted to save the world in my own way (the alcohol might have made me hyperbolize a smidge), am I really willing to give up everything – all the comforts I’ve worked for for myself – to clean the environment help Sudan stop suffering make people understand and care for each other?

Am I? Especially when my “dreams” are so broad and stereotypical and far reaching? What if I suddenly realize what a horrible mistake I’ve made in listening to The Alchemist? And yet, I know in my heart what I must do – follow my Personal Legend (if you’ve never heard of that phrase, read The Alchemist!.

Ugh, this is so frustrating to feel trapped in a circular argument with myself about this whole abstract "dreams" thing. Ugh.

Outside the ramble that is my mind's continual confusion, it's been a good few weeks with more on the way. Thursday I'm going to Atlanta (wooo!!) and Sunday-Wed it's offshore.

Saturday night was a fun time in the French Quarter, where we had a conversation with a 30-ish woman about our "kids" - I, apparently, had three (ages 6, 4, and 2) according to a very intoxicated friend; but the random woman told me something that stuck with me and for some odd reason I've taken to heart. Maybe it meant more coming from a stranger who somehow got this impression from a 30 minute conversation (not about the kids - that rouse was given up pretty quickly). She told me that I was amazing and after asking her "WHY" with a look of shock on my face, she told me because I was beautiful. "A natural beauty," she said. It reminded me to never underestimate the power of kind words in passing, and the way they can have unintended effects. I want to be more honest with people and tell them really nice things to maybe make someone else feel the same sort of surprised and touched way she made me feel.

Even though the woman had obviously been drinking, she seemed honest when she said it and why not just take something at face value without analyzing why I don't really believe it to be true like I normally would, right?

And so what if I'm not really "beautiful" -- I've decided that everyone deserves to feel that way once in while anyway.

Next time I see you, I'm telling you something honest I like about you.

Can someone please explain to me why the New York Times devoted 2 "pages" online to this story, about a "real life" Melrose Place-esque apartment, while "U.N. WARNS THAT MILLIONS RISK STARVATION" receives only 2 sentences? TWO SENTENCES. That's not even enough to call it a paragraph.

I know, I know - until Africa becomes a politically sensitive location for the US, which really means once it becomes of economic interest because of oil or becomes of social interest because of more Christians and/or white people living (and dying) in the area, it will remain merely a blip on Congress's collective radar.

I know, I know - there's the war in Iraq, the war on terrorism, problems in Afghanistan, massive hurricane damage, Iran's unclear nuclear ambitions, oil disturbances in eastern Europe, losing the battle for democracy in Haiti, the fight for environmental protection and against poverty at home - but I still can't wrap my mind around how a wholly unenlightening feature on neighborly inbreeding is worthy of more NYT attention than STARVATION. Or India's purposefully declining female population. Or Fujimori's registration to run for president (again) in Peru.

I know, I know - the paper has to print the stories that will make people buy each day's edition, and people like to read fuzzy, human-interest related pieces. I know we ran many softer-than-a-two-minute-soft-boiled-egg stories when I was Focus Editor. But I still feel like the Times has a responsibility to its readership to provide a more somber, harsh, realistic view of the world as it's actually happening. And now that they own the International Herald Tribune, an old standby favorite of mine, that's not even an independent source of world-focused news!

So why is the average NYT reader more interested in the travails of apartment complex 126 than the daily struggles of people living on less than $1 a day? Is it because it's easier that way, to not be forced to face the reality of the disparity we continue to live in, unaffected as we pay more for a cup of coffee than the majority of the world sees in a week? Is it because humans are naturally, inherently self-centered and more comfortable being ignorant to the plights of their worldy neighbors? Or is it because the media, space, geography, and time make it easier for us to forget the sun rises on someone else's poverty while we bask in its setting's glow on prosperity?

How will things ever change if we can't find the room - or the compassion - in the limitless space - and empathy - of the internet to publish more than TWO SENTENCES about an entire people's suffering?

I wish I could change the world. I wish I knew where to start. I wish I had the confidence to think my actions, once deciding where to start, would make a difference so that I could fulfill Gandhi's, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

When I'm lucky, these moments are followed more closely by each other, these moments of simple clarity when my intentions are transparent, my ideas are clear, and my honest desires aren't shrouded by what my mind says should be. It's the path to get there that's not so obvious. But I enjoy this feeling of stress-free utter helplessness; I know what I want more than anything, I'm fully aware of what I'm willing to do to get it, and yet I can't move. I am stuck in time in location in situation even though my heart feels more confident than ever before that it knows - it knows! - what it needs to do.

It's pleasantly easy to feel this way, knowing I'm being completely honest with myself without rationalizing why I shouldn't worry about not being able to change things because, so my mind usually says, I don't really want them to change and this is fine for now, enjoy what you have and stop thinking about how to make the future happen right now. Because right now I know. I know that I am more happy than anything in the world when I'm traveling and seeing new places. I am more content being around people than being here alone in my house. As stupid as it is and as much as I disagree with myself for these emotions, I want to be in love again. I want to really care about someone. Being with my closest friends over the holidays, physically feeling present in every moment and as though every sense was heightened - I was LIVING - reminds me how little everything else matters and how tired I am of being selfish. For someone else to make you more happy than you'd ever know how to try by simply showing that they were thinking of you; to be visited again by the knowledge of what it feels like to put a smile on someone else's face.

And I know who, too. Well, kind of. And I'm tired of pretending, forcing uncomfortable emotions to scurry from my brain, that it'd be okay if my foregone conclusion that I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life actually does come true. Because I'm not okay with the idea of being alone for the rest of my life. I've done the alone thing, proven I can make it. Myself has found me and we've gotten to know each other well enough that I think it's time to bring someone else into the relationship.

Paper and pen met many times in the past two weeks and it feels weird to try to recapture all of that here, as if it would steal some of the raw thought that lured the ink across the page. But I did have a wonderful time at home with family and D and H. My mom, uncle, and I discussed real things we hadn't ever even tried to broach before, things I had only ever talked about with Dr. S before - my dad, boys, relationships, my family's lack of emotional expression and its consequential suppression of my expression of emotions in life outside of the internet, etc. I felt more attached to my family, more impressed by them as people, individuals than I had in my previous 22 years.

I went to the beach, where I talked to my uncle for hours about Sudan and hope and why the little efforts we make in our lives to do some modicum of positive change for the "world" matter and religion and hope and pessimism and hope. I saw Pride and Prejudice and discussed with Danny why we set ourselves up for disappointment by seeking entertainment from these softened, idealistic visions of a reality that doesn't and won't ever exist? Is that what love is supposed to make the world look like, the hills that green and the individual blades of grass that differentiated from every other blade, highlighting our own unique but lovable quirks? Wondering how you can make a list to give to someone and ask them to think about you all the things listed in these song lyrics, to allow me to make you feel about me what those lyrics say. Tell me that,

"I can't bear these nights of thoughts
of going on without you
this mood of yours is temporary
it seems worth the wait
to see your smile again"

or

"There is no need to test my heart,
with useless space.
These roads go on forever,
there will always be a place, for you.. in my heart"

My parents have redecorated my room in the past 2 months, so that you'd never even know I had ever lived in the room. I told my mom I didn't like it. (What was I supposed to say, thanks for erasing me?)

I don't want my wall to build back up, post-being in the comfort of friends and home and reality, I don't want to be protected. Ilikefeelingvulnerablerigtnowitsmorerealthisway.

Tonight, this was true as my wails of "melody" wafted from my gaping mouth to escape into a dead surroundings:

"On the way home
this car hears my confessions.
I think tonight I'll take the long way."

Oh, and my insurance adjustor is coming Friday morning to tell me if my walls have to be torn down because of residual water damage. ah, the reality of walls of a different sort.

I'm alive!

Tom's peer pressure is forcing me to type through my heavily shutting eyes, willing every fingerstroke to finish this sentence so I can sleep.

My past week in London = amazing. Pictures soon.

Words soon, too.

Oh, and what do you think the seven wonders of the ancient world are? (and NO PEEKING on the internet! that's part of the challenge!) How many can you name with some certainty they might be on the list?

Of our small, unscientific sample of moms, friends, London hotel conceriege, and flight attendant, no one's been able to name all seven on their own yet.

If I die of cholesterol poisoning and uncontrollable puking (imagine that cinematically inspiring scene from Team America here) tomorrow night, tell my friends and parents that I loved them. Wendy's Challenge, here I come. (FYI: Wendy's Challenge, verb To eat every item on the Wendy's value menu in one sitting)