The Aerie
Given the recent spate of deaths over the past few years, you'd think I'd've learned a lesson about putting things off. But of course I have not - I continue to take the usual things for granted. My birthmother turns 61 today, and yet I take her continued existence for granted. There are so many things that I don't know about my heritage and background, and yet I don't regularly interview my birth-relatives about my heritage.
My birthmother had told me in the past that her parents had come down from Nova Scotia to Cape Cod. As Kelloggs, we are supposedly all ancestors of two brothers Kellogg who came to America in the 17th century. But that myth has to face the fact that people migrate all the time - we could be other Kelloggs who migrated later. Who knows? She told me something else funny. She said that her sister did some genealogy work, and had found that some of our ancestors had been... Eskimos.
Eskimos?
I don't know if that's true, but I won't find out if I don't search. I wont find out if I don't ask. And the longer I spend working, slaving away at my job, and not seaching for these facts, the greater that I risk not being able to find those answers.
My birthmother surprised me when I called her today, but mentioning not only Nova Scotia, but the town of Ingonish. Given the last names of her parents, my maternal birth-grandparents, it ought to be able to track my genealogy back a few generations.
But will I do it? Not today, and probably not tomorrow. Because I'm stuck here slogging away at life, without time for vacations into the past. I guess there's nothing new about this, everyone has to get by. But I've been hustling for a long time, and I guess I'm getting tired of it. I need a break, a vacation, a real getaway. I need months off.
And when I get those months off, what will I do with them? I think I will go someplace, like Nova Scotia, or Tennesee, and take the time to look into my past.
Eskimo?
I'm not a master dumpster-diver. My wife has books by this woman (whose name is pronounced "Decision" but spells it Dycycyzyn or something) who has made a dual career of first, providing for her family exclusively through dumpster-diving, and second writing several books about it.
As the woman apparently resides in a small town in Maine or New Hampshire or someplace equally primitive (the locals carry stone-tipped spears and wear skins) I imagine she has a very limited set of dumpsters to access, and her antics are quite well known around town. Like as not, generous locals deliberately place household items and canned food in dumpsters along her path, out of sympathy for her poor children.
Anyway, while I'm not as bad as all THAT, I'm also too pragmatic to completely shun dumpster diving altogether. I don't go heels-up in rotting food, but neither do I ignore the obvious gems in the dross.
Chairs are a pretty common find. One man's throne is another man's toilet, and vice versa. For years I used a nice high-backed office chair that was in the dumpster with a bent piston. It didn't go up-and-down so good, otherwise it was fine, and at $100 it was better than any chair I could buy for myself at the time. Recently I rescued a pair of rolling office chairs, and while they were a bit dusty with gypsum but the kids like them.
So I'm cheap, but at least I'm not stupid. I was walking to my car today and had to pass this dumpster near an apartment building. Next to the dumpster was another chair, so I gave it a look but it was 'way rickety. As I turned to go I happened to glance in the dumpster, and caught a glimpse of something blue and plastic that looked like a large toy. Circling the dumpster I looked down and there was a vacuum cleaner.
I hauled it out and looked it over. Brand new, not a mark on it. Attachments still snug in their brackets. Shrugging I figured this was worth at least checking it out, and I hauled it home.
It roared acceptably loud when I started it up, but it lacked suction. My son helped me disassemble it and we determined that the suction pump works fine, but that the air filter was clogged.
I downloaded the manual (man, the Internet is useful) and we learned that the filter is washable. So the filter is washed and upstairs, drying. Tomorrow we'll try it out. If it doesn't work, new filters are all of $15.
Our old vacuum was a wedding present from my wife's grandmother, meaning that it's over 15 years old. Works, but it's a pain: it spins the front agitator with a rubber belt over a vertical spindle off the motor. The spindle builds up so much hair that the belt slips off, the hair is as thick as a rope, and it can only be removed by sawing through it like a knife. It's like dissecting a dead rat. No thanks.
So we'll see if the new vacuum works tomorrow - but what a sweet deal if it does. A $100 vacuum, free, because somebody apparently didn't think to clean the air filter.
Well, I can only speak for myself, but honestly I think it's the aftermath of the 2000 election.
The 2000 election made clear that the electoral system in this country is screwed up. Revelations of all sorts since then simply exposed what has always been the case: it has always been an imperfect system, subject to everything from mechanical failures to organized fraud.
But that forces the electorate to question the system, which is not something the people want to do. Once you tug on one thread, the whole sweater of American Democracy is at risk of unravelling.
And I think that's what everyone is afraid of this time. Last time the controversies were unanticipated, and swiftly dismissed - part of the reason that Al Gore was so willing to stand in the Senate chambers and award the victory to his opponent was to quell America's fear of the system breaking down. His acceptance of the results proclaimed, "Look, the system is working."
But this time... what? Hopefully whoever wins, the victory will be decisive. What we're all worried about is a close, contested election, followed by revelations of impropriety, and then what? What happens? The Supreme Court would probably decide, but... it's that "but" that has people worried.
I don't think those fears are concrete - I don't think people are imagining James Carville or George Stephanopolous marching on the White House at the head of a mob of angry villagers. But I think it's the uncertainty that's lending energy to the anxiety. We want to have faith in the system, but we're forced to question the system, and that leads to fear.
And it doesn't help that the stakes are so high. In peacetime, well, let challengers drag out the process, who cares. But there's a war on. Terrorists are turning their mad gaze our way. And honestly Cheney doesn't help. Sorry to sound partisan, but between using the Effenheimer on the Senate floor to threatening America with nuclear terrorism if they vote Democratic, Cheney is encouraging the view that the system is breaking down. He's torn down the genteel guardrails and we're barreling down the mountain road, glimpsing the abyss at very sharp curve.
Shoddy reporting and incomplete information gave me a brief, panicked glimpse into the abyss this evening, and brought to the surface hidden feelings revealing just how anxious I am about this political season.
It started when I flipped channels on the television and caught the last few seconds of the story of a man being attacked. The man's name was David Strom.
Now for those of you not in Minnesota, David Strom is the head of the Taxpayer's League of Minnesota, one of hundreds of neo-conservative front organizations across the nation. This one holds the state Republicans hostage with a "no tax increase" pledge, forcing Governor Tim Pawlenty to look elsewhere for funds to support our crumbling school and highway system.
I'm not a fan of David Strom: as a matter of fact I consider him a bit of a media whore, constantly inventing new and audacious reasons for the press to write stories about him.
Despite my thorough dislike of the man's policies, I was not prepared for what I saw when I followed up the story by visiting the website of local news organization KSTP:
Man attacked outside family farm
David Strom was attacked and burned Tuesday night outside his grandmother's farm in Otter Tail County...
The story went on to relate that the victim was not only set afire, but had his tongue cut out!
Honestly, I panicked. It was a quiet, stunned panic - not running about screaming, but a desperate search for assurance. What had happened? Was this the same David Strom? Was this a politically motivated act?
I hadn't until that moment realized just how anxious I am about the election. All the fears I've been stuffing down vomited to the surface like Mt. St. Helen's magma. I felt as if I were living in a hut in Dharfor, and I'd heard a scream outside. If this were a politically motivated attack, might it herald more than a week of similar attacks? Was civilization about to crumble into chaos? I wasn't afraid for the safety of my self and my family - at least not directly. I was more concerned that a week from now a lot of people would be dead and the city would be under martial law.
My panic was not entirely unwarranted. Just days ago, Right Wing nutcase Ann Coulter was attacked with pies during a speech. Mind you, I think both Coulter and Strom are Right Wing nutcases - but violence, even the tossing of a cream pie at a speaker, is absolutely and completely the wrong wrong wrong way to oppose their philosophies.
Coulter has the right to speak her piece at any podium stupid enough to have her. Strom has the right to bamboozle any press fatuous enough to lend attention to his absurd policies. And if you don't like what they say you have the right to speak up and oppose them, to protest, etc. And if it seems unfair that they have the Scaife foundation behind them and you don't, well, it IS unfair - get over it and put a stone in your sling, David.
So, fearing that we were about to see a week of unprecedented violence, I tried to find out: was the David Strom in the article the same one as the head of the Taxpayer's League?
Reading the article was no help: while the victim was described as 33, with a history of drug abuse and mental illenss, well, that doesn't rule out anybody (no joke intended). One can be 22, hooked on drugs and schizophrenic, and with treatment and medication by age 33 you can be living a decent life - or even running the Taxpayer's League (okay that was a joke). I didn't know if that Strom was 33 - I thought he was older - but again, one can't be sure.
So I tried calling KSTP. I tried calling the local Star Tribune newspaper. Oddly enough, there was no one answering the phone on a Sunday afternoon during a Vikings game. Finally I broke down, and phoned a local columnist I know who I figured would be able to tell me.
He took my call graciously enough, and confirmed that none of the descriptions - mental health, drug history, and most importantly, age - applied to Strom. I apologized for interrupting his dinner preparations, and rang off.
I was embarassed at having gotten panicked, but only slightly so. I mean, how stupid do the people at KSTP have to be to post such a well-known name to such a horrific tale, but not clarify that this David Strom is not THAT David Strom?
But I also feel guilty... because I feel better knowing that the victim of this violence was not attacked because he led the Taxpayer's League. This makes me feel better? Some poor man is horribly, horribly mutilated in my state, and I'm relieved that it wasn't done for political reasons? I must say, I confuse even myself.
But now that my fear over this election has surfaced, I can at least face it. I'm mortified that something horrible is going to happen between now and next Tuesday, I'm frightened beyond reason.
Let's hope my fears stay that way, just fears. And let's hope David Strom of Otter Tail county somehow manages to heal.
Well, and if David Strom of the Taxpayer's League decided to take a monastic vow of silence, I guess that would be okay too.
The Steve Miller Band (and it's a sad blog that opens with "The Steve Miller Band") sang "Time keeps on slippin' into the future." My time doesn't slip into the future, unless the future is at the bottom of a greased luge chute.
I was reminded of this today when I went to work. First I forgot my badge. Whatever their other failings, my client takes the trappings of security seriously, and so the guard desk tried to call my supervisor to let me in. She was not in. Neither was my team lead. Neither was the guy across the aisle from me. In fact, nobody was in.
I knew this, of course, because this is the week that everyone with whom I work is at SANS Las Vegas, leaving me, the lonely contractor. to hold down the fort.
With no one to let me into the building, I suggested that I could just zip home for my badge. The guard was surprised, but that's because few of my fellow employees live within only a couple of miles of downtown (although one fellow lives across the street in an apartment building - a bit too close to work in my opinion). For most employees, a trip home is a 90 minute (at least) round trip to the suburbs.
But I went home grabbed my badge, dropped of this week's check at the bank, and was back in half an hour. I waved at the guard, passed my badge in front of the sensor, and set off all the alarms as I tried to walk through the door.
When the ringing subsided I returned to the guard desk. He waved my badge in front of HIS sensor. Worked fine. The picture on the badge looked just like me (poor sod). He suggested calling my supervisor until I reminded him I was the guy from half an hour ago.
Now possessed of my malfunctioning badge, he at least had some indication that I had some business being in the building, or else i was a skilled and particularly brash forger. So he handed me a temporary badge and let me in, advising me to take my real badge to the security office.
Now, like I said, my client takes security seriously. The security office is hidden behind double-thick bulletproof one-way glass in the sub-basement, behind a sliding door with a camera and a speakerphone. The creepiest part isn't when you have to push the button and ask to be let in: the creepiest part is when you don't have to because the door slides open as you approach... they're watching you. It makes me nervous that sometime I'll be sitting in the bathroom stall and a little hatch will open and dispense a new roll, while a tinny voice says "Noticed you were out."
I handed my badge through the slot beneath the imposing black pane of the security booth. A moment later a voice said, "It's expired."
"What?"
"Your badge, it was for six months, and it expired today."
Wow. I've been on this contract for six months. Six months. My kids are six months older. I'm six months older. Everything is six months older.
I'm not ungrateful. The buzzards of credit were circling when this job arrived to carry my mutilated finances off the battlefield where they had been abandoned. Only now, six months later, is my bank account coming out of the coma, and there are months of painful rehab ahead.
But wow, six months. I was on the other side of the solar system when I started this contract. I'm coming up on having held this contract longer than I held some jobs.
I'm glad I've got the work, and my finances are recovering. Just wish time wasn't slipping away so fast...