One of the best and most surprising effects of the election of Barack Obama has been an igniting in me to remain active in local and national politics. There is no excuse for apathy and passivity at this point. I will no longer sit idly by while a government who is accountable to its citizenry acts in opposition to the will of the people. I will learn/teach myself, with brute force if necessary, how to be a truly participatory citizen in a participatory democracy. I'm thankful that we have the potential to hold this new administration to the standard set by the campaign, and I will avail myself of every opportunity to do so. Below is my letter to our current (D) senator. I look forward to writing many more, to Bingaman and to Senator-Elect Udall. The letter isn't very elegant, I wrote it in a hurry this morning before work because I wanted to get it out before I left. I also plan to call his senate office to give an abbreviated statement that reflects the same sentiment.

Dear Senator Bingaman,

It is unconscionable that such a vocal opponent of President-Elect Obama's candidacy would be empowered by Senate Democrats to block Obama's agenda in the Senate.

The Cinemark CEO gave approx $10K to support the passage of Prop8. Cinemark owns nearly all the theaters in Albuquerque. I don't care. Until the company recognizes what they have done and corrects it, I will not patronize their theaters. Here is the statement I sent them on their form for contact.


Based on the news that the CEO of Cinemark has donated approximately $10,000 to support the passage of the discriminatory Proposition 8 in California, I have come to the conclusion that my family and I will no longer attend Cinemark-owned theaters in my community, Albuquerque NM. In addition, I am calling for friends and family around the country to identify Cinemark-owned theaters in their area for boycott, if they are as outraged as I am by this attempt to enforce some Americans' personal religious convictions on all people of the State of California. I presume the ultimate goal of this bigotry is to prevent same sex couples in all states affording themselves of the right to marriage that has been found constitutional by the Supreme Court of the US, most notably in Loving v Virginia (1967) and Turner v Safley (1987). This action by your CEO is unacceptable to me and, as such, I will no longer support your company.

Ha ha, I have no news. This weekend I met my goal of crocheting an item directly from a pattern. I made a dishcloth.

Status report:
listening to: Wig in a Box: Songs from & Inspired by Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
working on: entering one kajillion names and email addresses to a new work address book group. There has to be a better/technologically easier way to do this. I feel like a donkey.
eating: planning on veggie soup B made this weekend for lunch. Also fruit.
grieving: Tony Hillerman
planning: to make phone calls to voters in my area using the "contact voters" tool on the Barack Obama website. Scary!
thinking about: nanowrimo

Also, we watched Mongol and The Namesake this weekend.

Well, it was shocking to go to my olde blogge and find that my last entry was a MONTH ago! I blame twitter. Seriously. Lately there have been things/ideas I could possibly feel like blogging about, but if it would take more than 140 characters to express it, then FORGET IT.

For sure I can say that I am one of those I predicted who would not complete the 100 day raw food challenge. We got derailed in August and never quite got back on track. I know for sure I got derailed, I don't know if I caused B to stumble as well, I can't speak for him. But as I sit here and think about it, I feel okay about it. I'm still eating more healthily and taking better care of myself than I have for most of my life. One of my downfalls is really enjoying eating for entertainment. And I know I said I didn't want to do that anymore, that I want food to be fuel, but I don't know about that. I mean, I don't know if I want to give up eating for entertainment. Sharing the experience of the art of food is something that B and I enjoy doing together. It makes life feel kind of drab if we cut ourselves off from that. I think realistically I need to acknowledge this and structure/discipline myself accordingly. 

My back started hurting before I started this job, and it hasn't quit. My health insurance coverage starts 11/1, so I just have to keep living on ibuprofen for a couple more weeks until I can get this checked out. It's definitely made it hard to want to be here at this job, sitting for 8+ hrs/day. And not really concentrating on it. It was a temp job until last week, when I was hired permanently. While I was a temp, I can honestly say I was only making a "temp" level effort. But now that I'm permanent, I really need to give it some more, and being in constant pain (sometimes low-level, sometimes more) doesn't make that easy. And I'm starting to feel guilty about it. 

OK, I can't make any promises, but now that I have access to update this blog here at work, I'm hoping to write more frequently. The end. 

OK, the first day is done. I know I can do this job and the people (all women) are perfectly nice and relatively normal, as you get in any academic/hospital office -- especially if they're all women.

The job involves kind of managing the process for substitute doctors who have been credentialed through the university to be placed at sites all around the state. In addition to being "credentialed" through UNM, they have to be credentialed or "privileged" at each individual clinic or hospital (or hospital "system"). That means that although a university may say "yes, this doctor is who she says she is and she did attend these institutions and does have this job experience" (all verified as part of the credentialing process), the hospital or clinic has their own application process to be allowed to work specifically for them.

All this stuff takes a long time! So whether on-call specialists, or newly minted doctors in their 3+ year of residency, or someone who has just graduated from residency, they all want to work, to be substitute doctors if they don't have a regular appointment. Plus they make pretty good money. And the lengthy process can cause frustration, to say the least, among a group of people not known for their humility!

That's who I get to wrangle and assist. I'm actually looking forward to doing this job, I know I can do it, and well.

I'm off to start my new job in about 20 minutes. I was thinking the other day about the following revelation I had: ( not really a revelation at all to normal people, but definitely one to me) people respond well to those who are genuinely nice and kind.

OK, obv, I know. But I am not genuinely kind to people.  I have the kind of distrust and shyness rooted in deep insecurity. I never let people in or act openly around them. But the other day I was at Costco getting my membership card. I felt a genuine kind and warm feeling toward the cashier. Not for any reason, just because I felt it. And I acted friendly and nice accordingly. And I could tell the difference in how she helped me vs how I project the interaction would have gone if I was my normal "act kind but feel nothing about this person" self. 

See that's how I normally am...nice enough, no one could fault me, but with no true kind feeling behind it, people can sense that! So of course she would have been nice and helped me, because that's her job. But that wasn't the interaction we had! We had a real one, two real people! It was weird! 

All this is to say that a new job is a new opportunity for being the kind of person who is real and kind and open with people. I have nothing to protect or fear from these new people, not at this stage. I don't want to be the kind of person who prompts strangers to feel sorry for her husband...and I have been that person before. 

So, time for a fresh start of genuine affection for people and an openness of spirit that people respond well to. Because we all do! I do! I want to be the kind of person I like! The end.