Why does this seem so simple on everyone else’s blog?  Argh.  I’m going to keep trying, stay tuned.  It seems I will need to solicit HELP.

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Still no photos.  For some reason, I cannot figure out how to upload them.  I am in the process of trying to figure this out, so stay tuned.  I am dying to write about The Lyon  and I really want photos for the post.  I hate being technically deficient.  When it comes to technical difficulties, I am so quickly stumped by my one or two options, and beyond that all I can do is ask someone else.  Frankly, I don’t know how all these people seem to just "know" computers.  

I once lived with a depressive computer programmer in Boston who was freakishly brilliant and equally as anti-social.  He told me that he “understood machines better than he understood people.” He spent more time with machines than he did with people, and machines were intuitive to him in a way that human interactions were not. He also told me, when I probed about the nature of his extreme intelligence, that “ when he is given two pieces of information, he just seems to know the third.”  I always found that to be such an insightful observation about that kind of uncanny, and in his case, scientific, intelligence.  

I guess I have that feeling of “knowing” beyond what there is “reason” to know, when it comes to the emotional, internal landscape.  I took a great philosophy court in college called “Ways of Knowing”  that explored the various ways we come to know things-though experience and the expectation that things will happen as they have happened before (e.g., the sun will rise tomorrow), through mathematical certainty, and also, among other things, intuition.  This course, like many courses at my feminist women’s college, had a feminist bent, with a focus on intuition, as it has historically been conceived of as a “woman’s way of knowing,” and thus discounted on the dominant, male-centric, historical landscape.  It’s true. Intuition is so underrated.

During that time in the mid-nineties when I lived across the hall from the genius, agoraphobic, computer programmer–in a house full of outcasts who wouldn’t have known each other if we hadn’t all rented rooms in the same house in Cambridge, I was deeply connected to the world of symbols and metaphor.  I was deeply connected to my intuition.  Everything seemed to have some between-the-lines psychic significance, and I don’t think it was just the pot. : )  I could sort of float through my life looking for signs and symbols as to what to do next.  I wrote all the time and was very tapped into my creative side. I knew when I decided to move to LA in 1997 that I was going to be moving out of the deep, dark internal world that I was so tuned into and was going to be immersed in the external world of forms, bathed in the stark sunlight of Los Angeles.  As I had been getting kind of depressed (even though peaking creatively), I determined this was the right move for me at the time.  I thought I needed to be more engaged with the physical world and that I could always come back to my interior world.

Now, I am not so sure it’s that easy to get back to where you were before. You think these accumulated layers are easily removable and that you can strip down to your essence, to a person you were before, any time you want.  But then you try, and these layers are harder to remove than you’d like for them to be. At least that is what I have found to be the case. I know it’s not about where you are physically located, but sometimes a physical move can spur a deeper, internal change, can’t it?  I think now is a good time for a move for me, for my family.  I am just going to put that out there.  Universe: I am ready to move.  I want to move.  I want to explore a new place with my new son in my new identity as mother.

And my intuition tells me that the pendulum should be swinging back about now.  That positive change would be cultivated by a new environment. I have loved my life in Los Angeles much more than I had ever thought I would, but I am now longing for somewhere foggy, even gloomy, where colors pop against the grey.  Somewhere you can where boots and tights and jackets nearly all year round.  Somewhere you want to be cozy, indoors curled up by the fire with a good book. Somewhere not so outward and in your face.  Somewhere with subtle complexity and shades or gray. My Man is vigorously looking for a new job, so my desire for a move is joined with my desire that he finally be able to make the career change he has worked so hard to make.  Right now, I am really praying that he get this job he has applied for in San Francisco.  Please God.  He so deserves this opportunity.

As for me in the here and now, I am still decompressing after a grueling week in federal court.  It sounds more glamorous than it actually was.  Or maybe it doesn’t sound glamorous. Maybe that’s just me.  Even after six years of practicing law and being exposed to the huge discrepancy between television court room dramas and the real behind-the-scenes snooze fest of research, research, research and writing, writing and re-writing–I was still sort of let down by the whole process.

It was kind of cool to be in a suit in the mahogany and marble court room, to be at the counsel’s table and up at the podium, your honoring this and your honoring that, cross examining hostile witnesses, showing incriminating powerpoints on the pull down screen, pointing at the screen with a laser pointer, speaking slowly enough for the court reporter and loudly enough for the Press Telegram reporter who reported daily on our case.  Nevertheless.  It wasn’t all that.

It’s such a hyper controlled environment with rules upon rules upon rules.  Not a breeding ground for creativity, folks.  Spontaneity, out of the question.  It’s all about form.  The presentation of your arguments.  The clean logic of points and subpoints and laying your foundation and entering your unobjectionable evidence.  Establishing The Record.  Respecting the decorum of the court room, being prompt and put together and exceedingly deferential.  

It was certainly a good experience, but somehow it was anticlimatic.  (We don’t know the outcome yet.  It could prove more exciting if we actually win.)  It wasn’t enough for me to feel validated in delegating my duties as mother, even though I do really appreciate the support of Super Nanny, and I do enjoy having the intellectual outlet of work.  It’s just that The Lyon is turning one in less than 3 weeks, and it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to leave him.   It was relatively easy at 6 months, but now, he’s more aware, and I am more attached.  And man, oh man, do I see the age old predicament of woman.  

Maybe the strong pull of wanting to leave LA is wanting an exit strategy, an escape valve from this difficult existence I’ve set up for myself.  I feel like I’m working 2 full time jobs between office work and lyon duty.  And, have I mentioned that he is waking up at 5am and has been consistently doing this for weeks (sometimes even earlier).  It’s truly exhausting.  Mama is tired.  I hope something changes soon, because the status quo is not  sustainable for the long term.  I’m trying to be patient in the not knowing what is coming next, but I feel it has been a waiting game for some time now.  Something has to give!  In the meantime, I am determined to focus on the meaningful aspects of my life, my family, my friends, my home, balance, creativity, beauty, dedication, commitment, patience, perserverence, establishing internal peace and finding ways to do good deeds and help others.  Oh and finding time to exercise and sleep.  Amen~

Ew.  At the office on Sunday, and again tomorrow, which would otherwise be a holiday.  I’m trying to find the poetry in unsuspecting places, but I’m sort of reaching into dusty corners. 

Let’s see. . . I just put water in the tulips and irises that were on the secretary bay outside of my office.  They were completely drooping in sharp u-turns in a bone dry vase.  Cindy must not be much a flower person to have forgotten her valentines’ flowers.  She was so excited about receiving them from a woman in our firm’s DC office with whom she has been flirting with ever since they met as part of the gay, lesbian, transgender alliance in our office.  I didn’t even know she was gay until I started asking hetero-centric questions about the "man" who sent her flowers.  I’m surprised I didn’t know, because she is apparently openly gay and our office is not very big and I’m pretty chatty kathy with all the secretaries.  Yay, I love gay!  There is a huge drive for us to have more openly gay employees.  We recently got an email titled "you’re so gay, you probably think this is email is about you" strongly encouraging closeted gays to come out.  I almost wanted to come out as 20% gay, or whatever I might be, just to give the group at least 20% of my support. And now I might have saved the flowers for gay cindy!  ( update: I did save the flowers.  Upon leaving the office 6 hours later they were as erect as, . . .well, bad analogy.  Let’s just say it sort of take my breath away to see them so sunny and alert).

I went running this morning while the lyon took his morning nap.  It wasn’t far (probably less than 2 miles) but at least I did it.  And it felt sooo good.  The weather is stunning–sunny and cool, about 65 degrees.  The perfect running weather.  And I listened to Modest Mouse, which I keep coming back to over the years and still really love.  So that was happy.

I spent the morning with the lyon.  We played so hard it’s not even funny.  And I made up a new song for him–the first new one in weeks.  "Send that whine, back to the winery, send that whine back to the whinery, send that wine back to the whinery, I did not order that whine.  Send that cry back to the cry factory, send that cry back to the cry factory, send that cry back to the cry factory, I did not order that cry.  Send that fuss on a bus back to the fussery, send that fuss on a bus back to the fussery, send that fuss on a bus back to the fussery, I did not order that fuss.’  I still need to the work out the transition and then the loop back to what I DID order, which was a "smile all the way from smileland . . ."  Can you tell he was fussy this morning?  Well, you would be too if you were up from about 2:30 to 4:00.  I was, that’s for sure. (please, god, let him sleep through the night tonight–what is going on recently?)

Oh and last night at about 5:30, the whole family went on an evening walk and stopped in, unannounced, to see neighbor friends who have a daughter 3 months older than the lyon.  We hung out outside by their veggie garden and then ventured inside once the sun set where little Amelie has lots of toys that the lyon doesn’t have.  The kids ate strips of hormone free chicken and cheese quesedillas and steamed carrots and peas and the parents had decantered red wine and drunken goat cheese and artichoke lemon pesto dip and we listened to Band of Horses, which they let us take home to burn.  (note to self: make frequent visits to neighbor friends around dinner time.)

Just before 7:30,  I carried the lyon home in the ergo, all warm and cozy close to my chest with his little Colombian poncho over his head, hanging over his back.  And with him facing forward in the ergo, he is completely vulnerable to kisses on the mouth, so it was practically a makeout session all the way home. Then, he went gently to bed, and J and I were able to get some work done before going to bed ourselves.  We really like the neighbor friends more and more every time we hang out.  He is cuban and works from home and she has her own business, amenityhomes, selling "home and nursery acessories inspired by nature and made from organic cotton and natural fibers."  They are smart and fun with a lot of the same interests we have, and we’ve always felt very "ourselves" around them even though we haven’t known them that long.  Plus, they possess that all important quality in LA, proximity.  It takes a village, y’all.

Let’s see, what else is there to be happy about today?  Oh, the delicious vanilla soy latte I picked up from Casbah cafe and the hormone free, free range, yadda yadda, turkey sausage my man made me this morning with two similarly cruelty-free eggs, fried sunny side up, just like I like them.

Oh, and I heard this really interesting special on KCRW (the best outlet for npr ever) about the deification of Abe Lincoln after his assassination and how he has taken on an identity as sort of a secular god in our country, become an ethical moral compass for a country that (supposedly) does not have a national religion.  It was riveting to hear various perspectives on how he kind of got cornered into being anti-slavery and how it was really some time into the  civil war before he decided to make the civil war be about slavery, but what a great feat it was that he ultimately accomplished the abolition of slavery, which had plagued the country’s consciousness since its inception.  Ah ha, it’s President’s Day.  (and the fact that we have less than a year left with this catastrophic nitwit at the helm makes me feel cautiously optimistic about the future of our country).

Finally, I started a new book and am finding it really inspiring and page turning.  It’s Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith.  I haven’t gotten to the part where she finds jesus, but I’m loving the take on spirituality and all the delectable details of the 60’s and 70’s (re: drugs and nature and counterculture politics) so much, that I don’t think she will turn me off when she actually does turn to Jesus. 

(Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Jesus.  It’s just that I’m not much of a monotheist–I’m more into a hodge podge quilt of jesus and buddha and brahman and jah and paganism and CIM and yoga, tempered with a bit of existentialism, some depressive nihilism, and some plain old science, spiced up with poetry and art and hedonism; basically, in a nut shell: the search for truth, what if, so what, and just in case.)

 So, in an effort to broaden my horizons and to focus on betteirng myself (not to be confused with battering myself), I tend to intersperse every book of fiction with something spiritual (or  pseudo spritual) to help fix my gaze on that which is eternal, or unchangeable, and feels more like being in love and less like being frozen with terror.  I don’t expect to reach nirvana, but I don’t expect to stop trying either.  So, that’s where I stand on that, which is to say all over the place.  But this book, despite its apparent pull towards plain old christianity is so far really, really great.

And that’s about it (other than the big ticket items of course, such as the health of all my loved ones).   So this is probably it for a couple of days since it’s a marathon race to through the big trial Tuesday through Thursday.  Wish me luck!

I have just a few minutes before my computer battery dies and before I crash on my keyboard asleep from being up since 5am, but I want to take this time to thank my lucky stars for my man, my soul mate, my best friend, my lover, my numero uno en el mundo, my valentine.  This 8th valentines day together may not have been our most extravagant (you  lured me in when we were still students–you did kind of pull a bait and switch on that one)…but I am more in love than ever.  What stands out to me at this moment is how we can still have so much fun.  Even midday lunch in downtown LA today, both on 5-6 hours of sleep, you after a job interview all the way on the west side, and me preparing for trial all morning–and somehow we were laughing so hard I almost snorted that pisco sour we shared out of my nose.  Sure, the laughter wasn’t as debilitating as it was two years ago when the buttons on your shirt popped off and your hot chest popped out and we just couldn’t stop laughing about that and everything else from that point on.  So much so that we had to take our fancy pre fixe dinner to go.  Or even as much as a few weeks ago at that magic show dinner when we were laughing so hard we almost coudln’t speak to the waiter.  But it was a good laugh nonetheless.  Especially for midday downtown. I love that you  get me.  Like nobody else in my life ever has.  That is one of the first things I noticed about you.  Nothing I said fell on deaf ears anymore after I met you.  Still, socializing with others, less hyper-focused on each other than we used to be, and I will say something in that party chatter passing, and you are always the one to hear me, to not miss a beat and respond as if on cue.    We are on exactly the same page–whether that page is intellectual, passionate, emotional, philosophical, musical, spiritual, sexual, political, or just plain kickass fun.  You are right there with me.  Thank God I have you by my side on this journey.  There is no where else I would rather be.  I know that we are growing into the same being, like two coiled roots of the same tree.  and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Feliz Dia del Amor y Amistad, mi Corazon.  Namaste.

I guess I should look for the lesson to be learned in feeling like a total failure.  Surely, there is some greater truth to be embraced, some bigger lesson to be learned.  Something I’m “working through” to get to the other side.  But I have the sneaking suspicion that I’m just not all that.

I’m really not a stellar lawyer.  I don’t have the patience, or the desire, or the focus to really excel.  I’m a closeted type B in a sea of type A’s.  I mean, what am I trying to prove?  Sure, I bring in some income, but we could adjust our lives and live without it.  Yet, I trudge onward, stifling a free-floating middle-of-the-night anxiety that mistakes will be uncovered.  I will be discovered.  All hell will break loose.

And I’m not a great mom.  Not when I’m not there half the time.  How can I be?  Actually, being a mom may be my stronger suit.  It’s the domestic duties that push me over the edge.  I’m not great at balancing being a mom with all of that.  With bills and errands and tidying up.  When I spend the day with Lyon, at the end of it, I’m surrounded by open cabinets, dirty counters, scattered toys- the detritus of a day’s activities.  I’m frazzled and exhausted.

Yet, when I come home from work, Aminta, our godsend of a nanny, has everything in order, all of his bottles are cleaned, the grocery shopping is done, DINNER IS MADE (can you imagine?), the dishes are clean and put away, he’s napped and played and bathed.  How does she have a better handle on my life than I do?  And (gulp), I really think little Lyon loves us about evenly.  It’s not like I’m a clear frontrunner.  Maybe I have a slight lead, but that’s it. 

I’m just floating in this in-between land where I don’t feel critical to any component of my life. My people love me, yea, yea, yea.  But why?  I’m not sure.  What do I really bring to the table?  I have this feeling that I’m just circling around, creating little messes, making grandiose promises to myself I almost never keep, making a lot of plans that don’t come to fruition.  And ya.  This is my life.

I’m just having a shitty day, I suppose.  And it promises to be a shitty week, with trial one week away and little “emergency” fires erupting all over the place.  And me.  Just putting out little fires, and  often spreading embers that create new little fires for me to put out.  It’s so Sisyphus and the rock.  What a waste.

I had heard that this is the pervasive feeling of working moms—feeling like they’re failing on both fronts, on the job, and at home.  But it’s like anything, there is a big difference between knowing something as an intellectual fact and experiencing it as happening to you.  And let me tell you, feeling like you’re wasting your life, your precious life that is whizzing by, so that you can make half-assed attempts to try to juggle more than you’re truly capable of juggling is a crushing feeling indeed.

My Man is in San Francisco right now, coming home in a few hours.   He’s interviewing for a job there.  I hope he gets it, so we get to move, and I get to escape this reality.  Even escape the super nanny.  I know, “wherever you go, there you are,” but maybe it will be a slightly different version of me.   . . .

Or maybe I will at least be able to recognize God a little bit better in a new environment.  Somewhere with cleaner air and greener hills and taller trees.  Somewhere I don’t fall back on my fail safes, my same old same old bad habits and routines.  I have been living in LA for over 10 years now, and I am frothing at the mouth for a new adventure. I feel like this phase of my life has flatlined.   I am stuck in a rut.

And the sad part is that I told myself not to assess my life during this phase ramping up to trial.  I know this is going to be challenging, because I am going to be busier and more stressed than I want to be.  I know this, and yet, it will truly be over in two weeks.  Why can’t I just listen to myself and reserve judgment?  Just be on auto pilot for a couple of weeks and reassess after this trial?  I’m so self indulgent.

I hate when I get into this feeling-sorry-for-myself mode.  It’s so pathetic.  I would do well to learn a thing or two from friends I have that just don’t “go there.”  Don’t let themselves explore these feelings, don’t show any weaknesses, aren’t so quick to pop open the champagne for a pity party.  And yet, here I am.  Blah.  I’m so sick of myself right now.  Ew.  What a gross way to feel. I’m sure that’s really going to send out the right vibe to the universe. 

I’m new to this blogging thing.  When other people seem to work through things, they seem to truly reach these pithy epiphanies.  They arrive on the other side of whatever problem they’ve explored.  Well, not me.  Not tonight.  I’m all conflict and no resolution.  I’m just plain old in a funk.  I’m not going to lie. 

Though, wait.  Even as I was about to "publish" this, I felt the need to add that I am I am aware of how much I have to be thankful for, I know that and don’t mean to seem ungrateful.  And then, whoa.  Maybe I actually do feel a little better, even without tying everything up with a bow.  I can see how the process of writing really is cathartic and maybe I just needed to allot the time and place for the pity party so I can be done with it.  Maybe. . . We’ll see.

My roots are in New Orleans. It is my hometown, and virtually all of my family is from there, or other small towns in Louisiana. The city was more than just the backdrop to my childhood—more than just the scenery where events occurred, it was its own character, central to the story itself. In fact, it was hard not to feel as if I was anything more than an “extra” in its story–the story of New Orleans, a grand dame, drag queen who threw her weight around like the Mississippi were nothing more than a boa to be tossed around her neck. The city lights burning cigarette embers to be stomped out by her high heels.

The scents, sights and sounds were so overpowering, it was impossible not to be imprinted with them forever. I remember the thick, heavy smells of chickory coffee, fried beignets, creole spices, turtle soup with sherry, rain releasing the heat from the hot summer streets, cigarette smoke and magnolias–sweet, sweet magnolias. And the carnival-like visuals I took for granted: the elaborate Mardi Grass costumes, the horse drawn carriages waiting at Jackson Square, the Spanish architecture of the French Quarter, the cobblestone streets, the oak-canopied avenues, the muddy Mississippi and the massive steamboats barreling down her path, the breathtakingly high ceilings, the ornate banisters and moldings and intricate wrought iron balconies. And the sounds: the music, the music and . . . the music. Seeping through the cracks of doorways and windows. Horns. Lots of brass. Drums. Pianos. Laughter and clinking glasses until the wee hours, or even the late hours, of the morning. I love this city. This city was in my blood. (My parents moved me from there, kicking and screaming, when I was a sophomore—and to Houston in the oil-rich eighties, no less. Suburban, pedestrian nightmare (though I did make a small group of my closest friends there).)

Now, after Katrina, the party is indeed still going on, but it is past its peak, well into the depressing realm of lingering alcoholic guests slurring words, saying the same things over and over again, avoiding leaving because they don’t like what they have to go home to, and don’t want to face themselves when they wake up. The city is tinged with a palpable despondency. The unabashed debauchery, so definitive of earlier days, can still be found in pockets, but it feels sort of anachronistic. A sentimental reference to another era, not the in-the-moment celebration it used to be.

New Orleans is a poor city. A poor, port city, mired in corruption. There is no booming industry there; the major industries are tourism, shipping, oil and gas (the coastal waters are pocked with offshore oil rigs), with tourism being its biggest industry. That is always a bad sign. Tourism never really brings in that much, does it? I guess now that they have gambling there, it may be a bit more, but whose pockets does all that casino money line? It’s just downright seedy. The City is so morning-after-vibe, makeup smeared, breath stenching, and its major industry being dependent on having a glamorous image is just plain sad. Sad in the way that “fancy” hotels in third world countries tend to miss the mark. They usually have big lobbies and empty rooms, appealing menus with half of the food unavailable, with cured meats (i.e., cold cuts) being a luxury item, condensation seeping through the poorly-sealed walls. (I guess I am thinking here of my visits to Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Cuba—Caribbean countries, not far from New Orleans, something about that heat, maybe, makes them feel the same).

And the crime is no joke. New Orleans has always been the city where I have felt the most fear. It was always so hard core. The stories we heard growing up were not of petty crimes; no, it was always dramatic, unfathomable stuff. Murder. Rape. Big, horrible, drawn out details. Lot of guns. In fact, the year I met my husband, he went to the jazz fest with some friends and was mugged. And by “mugged,” I mean some asshole strung out on crack held him at gunpoint, pistol whipped him twice leaving a very large scar on his forehead between his eyes, took everything he had, including his shoes, left him face down on the ground, forced his friend to run away, basically leaving him for dead, and, perhaps on a whim, decided not to kill him, though he threatened to do so. And that’s really not that big of a deal. I’m not even willing to write some of the really horrible stories I’d been aware of happening to people we knew growing up. Like I said, it’s hard core. But also, it’s in that kind of heightened fear environment that people tend to be the most lively, the most alive. It’s like if you’re not dead yet, you might as well be living it up.

I don’t know why New Orleans is so on my mind these days. Maybe it’s because Fat Tuesday was just last week (same day as Super Tuesday). But I think it’s also because I have been thinking of my friend, A, the one who lost her husband the day after she birthed her baby, 4 weeks ago from tomorrow. What was once such shocking news has now settled a bit, and although no less traumatic or upsetting, it is less surprising, less surreal, more . . . real. And the rest of us can move on. We carry the loss heavy in our hearts, but we can get back to the business of our lives. Our loves, our children, our jobs. We can pay homage, say our prayers, send our gifts, pay our respects, but in the end—not even a month later—we think about them a little bit less and are lying if we don’t admit we are just so glad it’s not us. I hate that. Because some of us—A, A’s parents, Forrester’s family—they are not able to go back to business as usual. They never will have that luxury. Or not for a long, long time. I feel thankful, yes, of course, I am thankful for my life, my husband, that this awful, disorienting, unjust tragic thing did not happen to me. But I am so sorry for that. I’m truly sorry that I can’t absorb some of the pain for her. I don’t know how people go through these things alone.

When tragedy strikes there is a lot of immediate attention to the matter, a lot of heartfelt exchanges, a palpable feeling of love. It brings out the best in people for a while, you are reminded of “what’s really important.” But then slowly, we get lost in the shuffle again. There is just so much to take in. So much despair. It’s hard to contain it all. And our attention spans are so short. We forget so easily. We move on. I saw this with New Orleans. I did this with New Orleans. After I had found everyone I knew there, and after the news machine stopped feeding us round-the-clock images of people stranded on their rooftops and looting fresh water and whatnot, and started getting back to the daily grind of plain old murders and car chases and war—after the nation moved on, I moved on.

I have a hole in my heart for this city. I think we are always nostalgic for our childhood home, and I can imagine when the place itself is so impressive—so exuberant and intoxicating and turbulent—this feeling is only amplified. I don’t want to forget New Orleans. I don’t want to forget where I come from. And I don’t want to forget my friend as she raises her daughter as a single mother. As a young widow, no less. I want to do more than just thankfully enjoy my little life. I want to give back. I am determined to find my footing in this life and to refocus on “what’s important,” and to keep my focus there. I have been a bit self-centered in recent years, living in the little bubble of my life, my friends, my family, my community. It’s not a bad way to live, but with Lyon in the picture, I want to live by example. I have to be more actively involved.  When I was a child, I was soooo sensitive, so concerned about death and poverty and unfairness and all the big issues.  I made one promise to God in that serious way that only a child, perhaps, can talk to God.  I promised that I would "help people."  I didn’t know what it meant.  But I knew I meant it.  

And now what?  What am I really doing.  True, I’ve hardly turned down anyone who’s asked me for help, for spare change or whatever.  But I’m not living a life of service.  And I’m becoming more materialistic as I age, finding that I "need" more and more things. I don’t want to turn into this person I don’t recognize in the mirror.  So, my 2008 resolution is to find more ways to give back.  I want to live my life as an example to Lyon.  I want to lay the foundation of adding value to this planet and not wasting time.   I want to get back to what I really care about, strip it down to the bare bones and let that be enough. I want to get back to my roots.

The good news is, I finally have chosen my candidate, and it’s…. OBAMA. 

The unfortunate news is, I didn’t realize this until after I voted for Hilary.  I was just hopping back and forth over the fence for weeks.  When I was there, looking at the ballot, I just felt, …"Hilary."  And as much as I tried to remove gender identity politics from the equation, a part of my feeling did come from my gender identity.  I felt like it was a case of the eager beaver "girl" who worked hard, earned her gold stars, paid her dues, i.e. had more experience and qualifications vs. the casual, easygoing confidence of the new guy in town, who, despite having less qualifications and experience, people just "like" better.  At the time, my instinct was that a vote for Obama was me jumping on the bandwagon of charisma and Oprah and Maria Schriver and his dazzling smile, and not sticking to the merits, not giving Hilary her due recognition.

But sometimes you don’t know what the right decision is until you make the wrong one.  I watched the results last night and realized I had a pit in my stomach as California was going for Hilary.  I do believe Obama is the change we need.  And my two top policy reasons for voting for him are (1) he stood out against the war from the beginning, and (2) he has not taken a dime from lobbyists.  Okay, and (3) I think there is more momentum behind him to win the general election and, by the same token, I think a Hilary nomination would unite the republican party.  They clearly want to run against Hilary.  So that’s it.  I’ve crossed over.  Besides, he is just a damn compelling speaker.  Wow.

In any event, we can’t lose.  (unless, of course, we lose).  Either one would amazing–historical, inspiring and a VAST improvement from the dictatorial nitwit we currently have at the helm.  My God.