Sunday, July 27, 2008
It's a bird... a plane... a departing Patriot
It's that time. I stand at the door of my greenhouse with my specially framed portraits of Dubya, Dickie, and the Hero of the Other War that Shouldn't Have Been, (the presumptive R-Nominee) and big you all the fondest of adieus.I have to admit that I find it hard to retire. Even when I was sick of poring over student compositions and struggling to maintain consciousness in faculty meetings, I kept telling
myself that I needed to keep going, at least for another few years.I have loved tapping away and Photoshopping on this blog and am grateful for the cyber-pals I have made here.
I will continue to visit you in your dear, subversive URLs. Perhaps I will even be reincarnated someday.
For now, though, it's time to stop. Sometimes you just have to go.
For many of my fellow bloggers, I know that this is unimaginable. Here comes the election, and McCain, if not as ridiculous as Dubya, poses many rich possibilities. I trust you all to mine them all.Perhaps I am more like Vaughn Meader after JFK was shot.
However, I am never going to get any other sort of writing done if I keep logging in to trot out my political anxieties, and frankly, they are many. I am tired of them.
For now, I will probably just see how many brilliant flowers I can get blooming, how many outrageous salads we can create from our very
good earth. I am tired of the punditry, the politics, the pettiness. Just let me watch the hummingbirds sipping at the bee balm.Our Maddie dog was recently diagnosed with cancer. She is still a very happy, if easily tired-out dog, and we are channeling all the love into her that we can have in these waning weeks. We will not drag her down to Boston for chemotherapy and radiation; she hates going to the vet for the most routine ablutions. We will soup up her diet with omega-3's and anti-
oxydents and all manner of beneficial methods of keeping her close to us. I don't want to write any more about this heartbreak than what I have just tapped in (she's only 10). I don't have a hell of a lot to say. I have a strong feeling that whatever comes next isn't going to make for a good read.Thanks for stopping by, and Godspeed.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Notes from a Truant
I can't offer any excuses for my month-long absence. I guess I'm ambivalent about going on with the blog. Most assuredly I am obsessed with the garden. I am accustomed to reading much better stuff than my own elsewhere, and it pains me to perpetuate mediocrity. My blog has been something of an indulgence, a getting out of the ya-yas (no relation to the sisterhood). Lately it doesn't seem to be enough. I don't know.It's been raining for the last several days, and I've been down with some bug, to boot. No energy for the garden, and now just sopping tropical weather with thunderstorms that scare the pee from the doglet.
Still, I can't resist a comment or two...
On 'That' Cover--What a bomb. (Not as in 'Da Bomb')... it's all our fears rolled into one, turned inside out. We don't worry that our presumptive nominee is this kind of guy; we worry that we have opened the arsenal to assholes like Limbaugh. This cover (of a magazine I've subscribed to and adored for many years) is the flash point for all our anxiety about the upcoming election. It's not that the cover couldn't be drawn; it was just a way stupid choice, satire or no satire. And it isn't satire, either. Not really. (You can thumb through the Handbook to Literature on your own.)
Why We Need to Vote These Rascals Out--The current crop of Republicans is limited to its limited playbooks. You can only propose what you are when you lack vision. Dubya and Dickie are oilmen, so they offer oilmen's solutions. Gas prices out of control? Drill off the coast. It won't solve anything, but hey--it says we're doing something. McCain is a soldier. The war in Iraq was a fuckin' mistake? Plunk our soldiers in that unfortunate country for years to come, because fightin' and killin' is what I know how to do. I haven't mastered anything else--don't even know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, but that doesn't matter when what you are is At War. God. What a complete absence of knowledge and imagination.
Other than these less than fresh observations, I haven't much to say. That's the nice thing about the garden. The plants are perfectly content if all you do is free up their roots and give 'em a little snack. They don't need your wisdom. They need to know that you're aware of their requirements.
I don't think I'm capable of much more.
