I’m sitting here trying to think of something to write.  I don’t know why I haven’t been writing.  I miss it, but I am so unmotivated to get on here and write lately.  There is so much going on in my life and work that I just don’t take the time.  I can’t blog at work.  I can’t chat on MSN or listen to Launchcast.  I miss these things.  I miss the people I used to chat with.  I miss the music I used to listen to.  Last weekend I found, in a used CD store, the album Emotional Technology by BT.  Hadn’t listened to it since I stopped listening to Launchcast and it was great to hear it again.   The song Somnambulist is awesome!  So my new mission is to get lots of new (old) music that I have missed for the past 5 months.   I just read over what I wrote there about not being able to blog & chat at work.  I’m not trying to dis my new job.  I actually really like it.  I’m coordinating lots of charity fundraising and volunteer events within a large organization, which is really cool.  I have a large network of people who are really appreciative of what I am doing.  Even though I have an ideological aversion to corporations and all that they stand for, I have discovered that there are things I really like about working for them.  Perks are nice.  Also working with a lot of people on really large projects is a big plus for me.  Perhaps I have some strange sense that by working on Corporate Social Responsibility I can actually make a difference.  Perhaps I am just fooling myself there.  At least it is good to like my job for now.   I think perhaps that blogging was filling a void I felt when I left working for a large corporation.  The last place I worked had only 11 employees, and when you have such a small group, it is hard to ignore the person with the freaky personality - you know the one; there's one in every workplace - the one who might have a temper tantrum or go off on you at any moment.  At least in a large organization there is a buffer against that shit because there are so many other people you can interact with.  I am a people person and I like having a large network of people to interact with.  When I went to work at that last little company I think I really missed having that network, so blogging filled the void.  Now that I am working for a large corp again, I have that network back again in my daily life, so perhaps that is one of the reasons I am not turning to blogging as much.  Of course, not being able to blog at work puts a major damper on it as well.  Let’s be honest…I used to spend a couple of hours a day blogging while at work.  Simply can’t do that now.  And so very often I am too exhausted after the kids are asleep to want to get on the computer in the evening, which really sucks because I have lost a creative outlet and clearly my writing is suffering for it.  So, I guess the only thing to do is stop complaining about not having a creative outlet and actually use this wonderful creative outlet that is here for me.  K.  That’s what I’ll do.    (Please excuse this rediculously self-ingulgent meandering ramble.  I'll write about something real next time, I swear!)

I laughed at this quote:

"Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands--and then just eat one of the pieces." ~Judith Viorst

I laughed especially becuase right now I am on day 6 of a cleansing program-no sugar, dairy, red meat, alcohol, or chemicals. I am doing really well with it!  But that is fodder for another blog.  Gotta get up early tomorrow and go for a run.  G'night. :)

'Twas the month after Christmas, and all through the house

nothing would fit me, not even a blouse.

The cookies I'd nibbled, the eggnog I'd taste

All the holiday parties had gone to my waist.

When I got on the scales there arose such a number!

When I walked to the store (less a walk than a lumber).

I'd remember the marvelous meals I'd prepared;

The gravies and sauces and beef nicely rared,

The juice and the cookies, the bread and the cheese

And the way I'd never said, "No thank you, please."

As I dressed myself in my husband's old shirt

And prepared once again to do battle with dirt--

I said to myself, as I only can "You can't spend a winter disguised as a man!"

So-away with the last of the sour cream dip,

Get rid of the fruit cake, every cracker and chip

Every last bit of food that I like must be banished

"Till all the additional ounces have vanished.

I won't have a cookie -- not even a lick.

I'll want only to chew on a long celery stick.

I won't have hot biscuits, or corn bread, or pie,

I'll munch on a carrot and quietly cry.

I'm hungry, I'm lonesome, and life is a bore

But isn't that what January is for?

Unable to giggle, no longer a riot

Happy New Year to all and to all a good diet!

I Have a Dream

Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. Source: Martin Luther King, Jr: The Peaceful Warrior, Pocket Books, NY 1968

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.

One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.

So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.

The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring." And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

 In My Daughter's Eyes

In my daughter's eyes I am a hero
I am strong and wise and I know no fear
But the truth is plain to see
She was sent to rescue me
I see who I wanna be
In my daughter's eyes