The Writing on the Wall

Under the South First bridge by the hike-and-bike today, I noticed a painted scrawl: "Houses are graves for the living."

It's supposed to get down below 20 degrees later this week.

I did wonder, bemused, at the hand and mind behind that sentiment. I thought of my own house, which I've been so enjoying decorating and claiming as my own space. It's a haven from the world, certainly; you leave for work, or visiting, or errands - or to stroll along the Town Lake hike-and-bike trail - and there is your very own warm house to come back to. You can also welcome friends, a delicious luxury I've been missing for many years. So I can't agree with the sentiment at all, though I suppose matters might be different if you hired Morticia Addams as your interior decorator.

Or Martha Stewart, for that matter.

There was another interesting series of graffiti along the South First bridge pedestrian walkway, on the high wall that separates joggers, hikers, strollers, and bicyclists from automobile traffic. "Fuck the laws," read one message; and fifteen or twenty feet further along, the next one read "Fuck rent," then "Fuck the system," "Fuck the police," and then, rather to my alarm, "Fuck this wall."

I was with the author up till that point - at least in a spirit of gentle sympathy for his possibly somewhat naive ideals. But as a trail regular, I'm a big fan of the wall between Austin traffic and my head. It's a lot easier to fight for your principles when you're not pinned underneath a Smart Car. (The irony factor alone would be fairly overwhelming.)

People have believed, pretty much as long as they've been around, that everything is going to hell in a handbasket. Well, maybe it is - though you'd need a fairly large handbasket, really, and who would even carry the darn thing? Heck if I know. Well, activism, and attempting to raise the awareness of others about causes that concern you, are noble enough. But the last two entries in the Bryl-Cream series on the South First bridge wall were "Think!" and "People wake up! Shit is NOT OK!"

And here's where specificity would come in fairly handy.

Not to argue, not by any means, that there aren't a lot of things in the world that aren't okay. I think it works well when people single out a particular cause (or two or three) to support, espouse it, possibly recruit others, but allow other people to follow their own paths as well. I donate a little money to Planned Parenthood through work; I give blood; I get a little long-winded (given the opportunity) on the importance of allowing nature and human instinct to take their course as much as possible in childbirth and parenting. This is a fairly tiny sliver of the myriad issues that need addressing, but it is a Thing, and it's mine. I think it's important to find your own cause and support it, whatever that may be, unless you're into defacing public property, in which case I feel the police are fully justified in arresting you and providing you some rent-free digs in the city jail; or unless you're trying to get Sarah Palin elected in 2012, in which case I hope you get run over by a Smart Car.

The Next Day

There are things you'll see in San Angelo that you just wouldn't see in Austin. Yesterday we saw a heavy, elderly man, dressed in overalls and a cowboy hat, riding his bike down the street with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

And the McCain-Palin signs, of course, are everywhere. This is a strange place to be the day after the election. Not so much strange that it was overwhelmingly pro-McCain - this is one of those parts of Texas, perhaps you've heard of them, that isn't Austin - but strange to me that people I'm meeting for the first time today - people I'm meeting in a professional capacity, who are in a position to want to impress me - freely open the conversation with, "Lord, it's awful about the election, can you believe it?"

Smile, and change the subject: I'm at work.

It is going to be difficult - very difficult; but I believe Obama was a great deal more sincere (as well as significantly more articulate) in his acceptance speech last night, when he expressed his intention to serve all the people, not just those who had supported him, than a certain other uniter-not-a-divider was.

Of course the problem (as I see it anyway) with those on the far right is that they tend to feel they are being trampled upon if you stop them from sticking their noses in other people's business. I'm pro-choice, but will allow the debate on abortion rights: if you really believe human life is sacred and begins at conception, defending the helpless does not necessarily constitute meddling. (However, allowing exceptions for rape or incest is hypocritical.) But attempting to regulate others' private behavior, or dictating religion, or telling perfect strangers who they get to marry, is just flat out dumb-stupid wrong - and I'm really tired of the kind of people who scream "persecution" because most everyone else would just like them to mind their own damn business.

Last night represents the first time I've gotten a candidate I wanted, actually. I voted for Dukakis when I was nineteen, but frankly wasn't all that excited about it. I voted for Clinton in 92 and 96, but with some disappointment that he had defeated Paul Tsongas in the primaries. As I recall, pundits at the time felt Tsongas was unelectable in part because of the foreign quality of his name. So I think this election also demonstrates a huge shift towards tolerance and sophistication on the part of the American people.

Now, if only the Electoral Fairy Godmother would sparkle in and issue Obama a magic wand to fix everything right up, we'd be completely set. But failing that, I'll settle for working and hoping for a change for the better.

Mano a Mano

So there's been an absolutely outrageous amount of coverage - to which I know I'm now adding, sorry, but that's okay because only about fifteen people will read this - about the fact that Barack and Michelle Obama good-humoredly pound-dogged each other Tuesday night when he claimed the Democratic nomination.

Personally, I think the pound-dog (the mainstream media seem to prefer the term "fist bump") is a little passé, a little 2003. But the mainstream media appear hardly to have heard of the gesture before. At best, stories in the New York Times and other legitimate media outlets are abuzz because they suggest this explains why today's hip youngsters/young hipsters (take your pick) are particularly able to relate to Barack Obama. At the worst, surprise surprise, Fox "Earth?? Where?!?!?" News has taken out-of-touchedness to a whole new level, pandering to the fist-shaking-old-codger demographic by suggesting that the gesture could be a secret al-Qaida signal: a "terrorist fist jab," in their shrill terms. (Not that they actually said that it was. They just said that's what a lot of people were thinking it might be. Riiiiiiiiiiight.)

Am I missing something here? I know Austin is an unusually hip place. But, you know, I don't get out all that much, and I'm in my late thirties, and still the "pound dog" is something I've been exposed to for years and years, here and there: on the hike-and-bike trail, on Comedy Central, on network TV, fer crissakes. And here's a thought for you interwebz: Just because Oprah Winfrey would look awkward and out-of-place doing something, does not mean it is not a perfectly natural and unremarkable thing to do.

She looks pretty awkward and out-of-place running a book club, come to think of it. Who reads that tripe? But I digress.

Anyway, I'm just pitching in, exactly like the people who reply-to-all to some idiot who has just replied-to-all on a companywide email, telling the idiot in question not to reply-to-all, to say, hello? Been to Earth lately? (I'm not asking Fox News, we already know about them.) What the hell's the big deal?

Meanwhile, here are a few better things for you fist-shaking-old-codger types to do with your clenched fingers.

GMAFB!

So this morning I saw that the TSA had opened and inspected my luggage, right? They left that little note in there. I don't mind that so much. They didn't rifle it or mess anything up or rumple my unmentionables.

But apparently they opened my dad's present, which I wrapped before I left. And they sealed it back up and it looks okay, and I don't mind SO much, but...

When they sealed it back up, they stamped "INSPECTED" across the wrapping paper. Hand to God. What the fuck. Have these people never heard of a Post-It note?

It's not that huge a deal and I'm still at my stepbrother's and they have wrapping paper and I'll just re-wrap it, but sheesh! Wankers.

Why, I might not even vote Republican in the next election.