NC Trees

Quick heads up here while I try to convince my lovely little laptop to act normal (for a laptop). I am in North carolina working for the Obama campaign. I will have little time for bloggery for the time being. The trees here are HUGE!! There are a lot of them! I like it. The job's pretty interesting too. Patience wallabees. There will be stories eventually.

Stick around for the twist ending!

Beginning: Meet Larry. Larry is beautiful. Larry loves the sun. Larry loves the rain.

Middle: When Larry is near strangers, he aggressively moves to gather resources. When near family members, Larry restrains himself, and shares.

M. Night Shynamanamanamakumbaya twist ending: This is non-fiction and Larry is a plant!

Hey Raleigh!

Watch out Raleigh, you don't know what's about to hit ya.
Hey Raleigh, just so you know, I should be touching down in about 48 and a half hours. Looking forward to it.
Citizens of Raleigh. Remain calm. I have come to speak the truth.
Greetings Raleigh. Prepare for six weeks of ping-pong. I am aware that your summers are hot, and your people friendly. Please be aware that my eyes are sharp and my wrists supple. I also just got some new clothing.
Sir Raleigh, this is Sir Newo. Show me your eyes, and you will see mine. Raise your chalice, and it will meet mine. Ride with me and you will notice that your eyes are closed. Open your eyes and go wake up Charlotte.

My flight arrives on Friday 10 minutes to 1 in the afternoon.
I will be there for 6 weeks in support of the presidential campaign of senator Barack Obama.
I'll let you know how it is.

Drive and Thrive (lesson 2)

At 10 o’clock this morning I took the Kimball bus six blocks to the Nova Driving School and Carlos, the self-proclaimed best driving instructor in Chicago. It was our second lesson. Carlos is indeed a good teacher, but he gets impatient with my jerky turns, breaks and starts. He also was not impressed with my sometimes lapses from “my best friend,” the yellow line in the center of the road. At one point, in the middle of the two-hour lesson, I wondered if he would stress me out so much that I would ask to cancel my two remaining lessons. By the end, we were friends again, and I had learned to make a slight but palpable breeze with the wheel and the pedals.

Fast learning is exciting, but it quickly brings out any resistance to the subject matter and/or the method of delivery. I have some of both here, because Carlos can be demeaning (de-meaning, what an interesting word) which strikes on old demons, and learning to drive is freeing in a surprisingly intimidating way. For me, that is. There is freedom in confinement, or at least a structure of resistance to fall back on.

I'm more concerned with learning to fly than to drive, and I may have held fear of being grounded by a car. This time I'm learning how driving and flying are similar. They're both about directing what's yours to direct, and trusting what's not. They both involve words starting with "trans." By the way, when I say flying, I'm not talking about piloting an airplane.

During my summer after my junior year of college, I performed a solo puppet show in Washington Square in New York City. I wouldn’t call the show a success, but the few people who saw it were generally encouraging. An unshaven, possibly drunk man told me I had “thrive… drive… drive AND thrive.”

I’m figuring it out. How to drive. How to thrive.