I had to read a book for class this morning, no need for the computer or anything, so I decided to read down at the Gov’t Plaza (renamed by the #occupympls folks the “People’s Plaza”) for the morning and check things out. Before I left, I checked their needs list (ahem, yours truly recommended on the Twitters that they put a google doc up of needs and keep it up to date) and bought some supplies to donate.

When I arrived at 9:30 a.m., there were probably 40-60 people in the plaza. It was an incredibly calm space all morning, but with this amazing sense of purpose underneath it all. I grabbed a banana from the free food table, donated some money for them to replenish supplies, and heard some of the people involved in organizing discussing the financial committee they had set up to manage donations and costs (things like the port-a-potties cost money). I sat down near some young people playing music and read for about an hour, and then I decided to walk around and check things out before heading home to finish up some writing for class.

Let me tell you what I came away with.

In my life, I have gone to more than my fair share of rallies, marches, etc. I have volunteered for political campaigns and organizations, canvassed, phone banked, and stuffed envelopes. I write all the time, and used to write a lot more about change and issues facing us.

In all of these experiences for the last 20+ years that I’ve been a concerned and relatively active citizen, I have never experienced something like what I saw today.

Yes it was small this morning, but the democratic organization of the people involving themselves (I think that’s key – this isn’t a top down effort, but one in which the people who opt in will define goals and values) was amazing.

There’s the free food table, a donations (of things they need) table, a medical area, a “teach-in” area, a “media center,” and a family area that I saw. What I also saw and experienced this morning was what could be framed in an ethic of caring. The people organizing are addressing basic needs to facilitate everyone’s participation, sharing resources and trusting people to give what they can and take what they need, and to move to higher order needs like discussion and education.

The criticism of lack of messaging and “a point” couldn’t be farther from the truth. One of the tragedies our country has experienced over time is an erosion of our democracy, which came to a head with the Citizens United ruling, but has been rearing its head in different ways – often tied to money. Money is a voice, a source of power, and it has seemed for some time that without money, we had no power – it felt like shouting into the wind.

The thing is that there are many people who have been shouting into the wind. They may have different perspectives and different takes on things, but there is at least one commonality: they feel that the current situation is unacceptable and that, without riches, there is truly only one power that the 99% have and that power comes from collective efforts.

The people down there are democratically organizing with general assemblies and decision-making. I talked to people at the teach-in table – smart, engaged people – about the Constitution, about the labor movement, about tuition and education access, about the ethic of caring and support, and about helping educate each other (For instance, one person said that she’d only seen one outburst happen when a truck drove by and its passengers shouted at the occupiers and one person shouted back something threatening and called him a pussy. I pointed out that addressing misogyny within the community of occupiers would be really good and building understanding of that would be useful).

This didn’t feel like a resistance. It didn’t feel like a protest. It felt like a construction – of community building and building democracy. It felt like a redefinition to a point where I don’t even care if people insult the movement. It really doesn’t matter. What does matter are the conversations in the plaza and of people opting in and voicing their knowledge and concerns and listening to each other. It’s something we’ve been missing.

Today was hard.

It was hard to see the inevitable fallout of last November’s elections today – a fallout we in Minnesota have largely been saved from on a broader level by Mark Dayton’s presence in the governor’s office. There is no veto pen for a constitutional amendment, and so the now all GOP majority MN Senate was free to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and send it on to the House (where it will also pass).

I am no fan of the GOP. They are often willfully oblivious (god, I hope it’s obliviousness) to the social impact of their economic policies, chanting some starry-eyed Randian mantra of “the free market will save us all.” (Get back to me when you’ve had to actually buy your own health insurance, kiddos.) More often than not, I think they lack the ability to see life through someone else’s eyes – to imagine what it would be to have a different existence.

Sometimes, though, I think they enjoy the cruelty that can be enacted when you have power.

Today isn’t the only time I’ve thought this, but it was the most personally painful.

I listened to the testimony for a while, I’ve read the condensed versions of what happened and here are the takeaways:

LGBT and LGBT-supportive did an excellent job of explaining the humiliation this amendment will bring on our state – the hostile 18 months we are about to embark on that will leave scars even if Minnesotans vote no on the amendment. They reinforced that not one family would be helped with the passage of the amendment; they asked Limmer etc. what problem they were trying to solve with this.

The reply? “Activist judges” and “we just want to define marriage.”

What that said to me is: we want to do this because we can; because it will bring our voters to the polls; and because there is not a single story or group of stories compelling enough to make us reconsider because – in reality of realities – we think that you are less than we are and undeserving of basic human kindness.

If you listen to their inability to express what exactly it is they’re worried about or fighting against, they just can’t bring themselves to say what they really think so they insert “activist judge” or “we’re just defining” as though those are actual explanations.

I’m really sad today, especially as a Minnesotan. I’ve been so proud that we weren’t like those other states who were cruel enough to use their LGBT population as legislative punching bags. Proud of the DFL for keeping the Bachmanns of MN at bay.

And now I hear people talking about being ashamed of Minnesota. I said it while I was trying to cope with this brand of cruelty politics, but I’ve changed my mind.

The GOP isn’t giving us a choice on this – Minnesotans will have to reject this brand of cruelty politics in November of 2012 when we are actually going to be asked to enshrine anti-lgbt legislation into our constitution. There will be a massive amount of misinformation put forth (cruelty politics can’t succeed without scare tactics and actual lies) and we have to educate the public and get people to the polls.

This is not about marriage. This is a referendum on whether or not LGBT people are welcome in Minnesota as full partners in this state.

Enlist yourself. Go to Outfront and sign onto the email blast at the very least. Talk to your family and friends.

The Minnesota that I believe exists will reject this. But we have to help.

Next week, most U of M employees are getting furloughed. For those of us who had the pay decrease, we’re “strongly encouraged” to take vacation during that time.

I’m going to follow their advice, mostly because Megan is being furloughed anyway and it will be nice to not actively think about work for a week.

I hereby designate next week to be furloughcation week.

What are you going to do with this free time? Something productive? Pshaw. You need a break.

Here’s your first recommendation of what to do:

Watch Cougar Town

I am dead serious. This is the best fluffy sitcom you’ve ever refused to watch because of its stupid and offensive name.

As the producers learned relatively quickly, the whole “older woman on the prowl” theme was dumb and unwatchable, and the whole “dysfunctional friend-family” is far more entertaining than being repeatedly scandalized/titillated by a woman in her 40s having sex (EEK!).

In my countdown list, I will give you three reasons to watch this show – and give you one to watch on Hulu right now to get a taste. Even though it’s in the middle of Season 2, I think it communicates the show’s sense of humor. And then you can judge me.

3. Laurie
Honestly, she is my number one favorite thing about the show. I love her. I want her to be real so she can be my friend. I have a fondness for badass, crass, fun ladies, and her “sexy, townie ho” self is sheer perfection. The actress (Busy Phillips) does such a great job of conveying the sensitivity underneath her big personality and…yeah…can she please be real and hang out with me?

2. The relationship between the main character and her ex
One thing I really like about this is that Courtney Cox’s character and her ex-husband, with whom she has an 18-year-old son, have a complex, adult relationship. I feel like we don’t see a lot of that depicted – where people share a difficult history and still have to continue a relationship. That’s pretty much any healthy divorced couple with a kid in existence.

1. The characters and their relationships
I mean, isn’t this why anyone would want to watch a sitcom? You’re not watching for the action, the intrigue, or the mystery. You’re watching because you like the people you see enough to laugh at their jokes and want to see them play out their days.

Anyway, that is Part 1 of what to do on your furloughcation. I may recommend more dumb TV shows (or even not dumb, but most TV shows are pretty dumb), and will more likely recommend brain relaxing things. If you want to go be all intellectual, go read journals for me and write an IRB submission.

Many of you see this as it either feeds through Facebook’s notes function or via an RSS feed.  For those of you who go to the site, I’ve changed.

Not exactly for the better.

I just could not stand my old site anymore. The nearly four-year-old design; the nearly four-year-old code.  It’s basically a truism that designers/coders often neglect their own sites to a point of pain, and so I gave up.  Rather than have four-year-old code, I’m trying on WP themes that other folks have designed.  I’ve settled on this one for now, it isn’t quite what I want, but it’s closer than anything else thus far.

So here is the reason I’ve completely given up on designing anything for now…

…drumroll…

I have a dissertation topic.

And it’s going to rock.

I tell you, I just want to take a big red stamp and write VOID across the last two summers.  With our transient homelessness last year and Megan’s completely inhuman course load this summer, we are just hoping next year things will settle down.

There are so many things I’ve wanted to share, especially later this summer, but I screwed up my ability to type with blah blah blah nerve pain blah you type too much blah physical therapy.  This is not the first time massive pain has gotten in the way of my ability to work.

The first time the wrist/neck/arm pain got so bad I had to see the doctor was in 2003 sometime.  It is just too much to be on the computer all day working and then writing at night.  It adds up.  I wrote a draft poem that I still think about when I’m in that much pain and since I’m feeling all stupidly exhibitionistic today, I’m going to throw part of it up here.  It’s not done, it’s not great, but it’s called Pointe.

Before ballet class, we played at it—
six-year-olds timing the enduring tiptoe—
later, physics gave an equation
for the pain, pounds per square inch.

I never put on pointe slippers. Pale pink,
flat nosed, satin ribbon crossing the ankle—
a dancer unveils her feet like Salome,
the reveal is blackened toenails,

calloused yellowed scales.
I didn’t know masochism then,
not obsession or drive,
just no more ballet.
——

That’s all of it I’m going to paste in, but the point is that many of us are driven past/beyond pain and I’m never sure if it’s healthy or not. We work so hard and so much and these movements that will come back to haunt us in the end are repeated without thought. The point is that obsession and drive unchecked are a little dangerous and we wind up hurting ourselves.

What a happy medium is, though, that I just do not know