Saturday, July 1, 2006

I never meant to Feel like this.

I am, someone I don't know these days. I find myself longing for family -- my own family. Children and soft sheets, linens on baby beds and handsome hugs at the ends of long days. I see myself in the shoes of people I know, people who I so often look at and say "we are so young!" But for some reason, it makes a sick sort of sense, this monogomy. I think I'm just tired of standing on city streets with headphones and a book. I appreciate my idle time, but my eyes move so quickly about me wondering. And now, a random lyric break from Imogen Heap (Hide and Seek), because the poetry is brilliant ...
ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
midsweet talk, newspaper word cut outs
speak no feeling
no, i don't believe you
At work tonight I had some good laughs with my cubicle mates. Our "pod" if you will. It's Joe, Joanne and ... Leslie? Anyhow today is Canada Day and while reading the story and the startling statistic of exactly how BIG the border between us and them is ... I stopped, startled, and said "Do you guys think it's weird at all that we're so ... you know ... at peace? Not worried at all? I mean, what makes Canadians such a peace loving people?" They all kind of laughed and Joe proceeded to make comments about Canadians (Joann has family from Canada and threatened to toss ice his way). I suppose it makes sense. No one wants to battle it out in the tundra of Western and Northern Canada. But why? Even the French-influenced (and still speaking) areas don't want to hand our asses to us from the North. Yet for some reason we seem to not get along with those dirty, stinkin' folks from the South (sarcasm, here). Just think about, what's the deal? There are contested borders all over the world, even in the most developed countries, yet we seem to be complacent with our neighbors to the north. Why does it work? I'm just ... honestly it seems silly, but it's really mind boggling. I think I'm going to have to grab a book on U.S. and Canadian complacency. If you have suggestions, do let me know.

I stopped in at my favorite bar/restaurant/cafe/bookstore tonight and picked up a new book. I'm still getting through The Bone Woman, but I'm worried I will quickly lose interest (after having read the Rwanda section, I'm worried Bosnia will be the same gripes over politics and tribunals). Anyhow, I picked up The Plot Against America, a fiction piece by one of my favorite Jewish writers, Philip Roth. My first exposure was in my Jewish American Fiction course, when we read Goodbye, Columbus (a brilliant story). The man is a great writer and I got through 15 pages while standing waiting for the bus. The book's premise? Lindbergh is elected president of the U.S. in 1940 and goes into cahoots with Hitler, creating a very different dynamic in the U.S. than that which existed. After years of reading and hearing about the struggle of American Jews in dealing with the distance from the Holocaust, the inability to help and feel what their brethren felt, I think it's brilliant that Roth is taking this route to discuss how it COULD have been. At least that's what I'm hoping he does. It's reconciliation with tragedy, and damnit, that's what we do. Expect to hear more ...