Christmas in the Modern Era

My internet is down and my mail isn't being delivered to my home. Between these two problems I have lost almost all contact with the outside world. I can't blog. (I am writing this from a hotel). I've gotten no Christmas cards this year. My boyfriend ordered and shipped me a Christmas present and I'm pretty sure it's already shipping swiftly back to it's manufacturer. You see I travel a lot for my job and I'm not the best about letting my postal carriers know when I'm going to be gone for days at a time, so they took it upon themselves to decide that if I was going to let my tiny little box get so crammed full of mail that there was no space left for all the junk and catalogs, then I didn't deserve to get any mail at all. Thank goodness I still get my J-Jill, Ann Taylor, and Talbots catalogs, my Lucky Magazine, my Bed Bath and Beyond coupon, and that little packet of coupons everyone gets, you know, the important stuff.

My credit card bill on the other hand never makes the cut. I tried to work around the problem by renting a post office box and informing my credit card companies, other creditors, mortgage bank, and utilities that my address had changed. But one company is still holding out, no doubt in an effort to give me as many chances as possible to pay 30 days late so they can jack up my interest rate to 25% and enslave me for the rest of my working life.

All of this bothered me, but it didn't really get to me until they started messing with my Christmas. Now it's gotten personal. Now it's part of a vast conspiracy to make me believe I will never have a normal life and that no one ever has - or ever will - love me. Aha! but what's a normal life, you ask? Well duh -don't you remember the sitcoms on TV in the 80's? I grew up in the Dynasty age, the Reagan era, when the worst thing that could possibly happen to you was something on an after school special. And I was finally "there". My house was clean, my job was great, my credit was good, and my love life was atrocious - just like on Sex and the City. I had it all.

Did someone find out about my wonderful birthday and all the birthday cards I got? Did they get wind that I was paying my bills on time? I can just imagine someone saying "This has GOT to stop! Great friends, Good credit, birthday cards, and an increasingly popular blog (ok, I can dream), plus a black president!!?? Who does she think she is? A Cosby kid?" (What's disturbing is when I conjure up those words in my head, my mother's image pulls up alongside it - like a Google search). Realistically what might have happened with my cable is that my neighbors moved out and when they did the cable company accidentally discontinued my internet service along with theirs...but then again, maybe that's just what "they" want me to think.

Freedom!!!

Can you feel it? There's a fresh breeze blowing across the country and rippling across the world. Complete strangers are smiling at each other and finding an excuse to talk, feeling an unspoken bond. That's called American spirit. That's called freedom.

The freedom of black people in this country began when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and ended on November 4, 2008 with the election of President Barack Obama. It has taken us 145 years to become free. Here's the thing that most people don't know, but rather they feel it in their spirit: as long as all Americans weren't free, none of us were free.

When I look into the eyes of the people who voted for Obama, whether they are black, white, Asian, Hispanic or Native American, I see freedom. I see release. I see equality. One step closer to freedom for one of us is one step closer for all of us. When I look into the eyes of the people who voted for John McCain, that is, when they will actually look me in the eye, I see disappointment, but I also see something else, something I never expected to see. I see relief. I see that they are relieved that a racial barrier has come down and they didn't have to compromise their religious principles and their values and vote for a Democrat in order to make that happen. For most of them, it isn't that they were racist (well, no more than most of us), it's just that their side didn't have a black man running. So they get to live in a country where a black man can become president without having to participate in the process of making it happen. Now THAT's Freedom!

President Barack Obama was right: He's YOUR president too. You're Welcome.

Why Intellectual Women Don't Like Sarah Palin

Like the previous post, this post began as an email discussion with one of my friends, this time a female friend from Alabama. We are having a discussion about how intelligent, college-educated, otherwise articulate women descend into an inarticulate rage, eyes narrow into slits, breathing becomes ragged, and a dirge of insults begin to spew of which "moron" is the one most frequently used...all whenever the name Sarah Palin is mentioned. Allow me to explain why.

First, it's not just because she's not qualified. Palin initially declined the offer to be Vice President. Why? Because she didn't know what the job involved and hadn't been preparing for it. Most professional women and candidates for office, male or female, have been preparing since they were in college at the very least. You don't accept the job of running the country as an afterthought. But we don't hate her for that. After all who in their career hasn't done that? It is a commonly known fact that in order to be successful and climb the ladder you have to accept positions that (a) are slightly uncomfortable and feel perhaps a little over your head and (b) you know you were chosen because someone likes you (or your influential friend or relative) and (c) someone asked you out of the blue.

But what kind of woman shamelesly and scrupulously benefits from the hard work and long, long years of preparation of another woman and, more importantly, from her failure? It's as if Hillary Clinton was in a wedding and when the preacher asked if anyone had a reason this woman and man shouldn't be joined please speak now, and when the American people spoke and Hillary was out, Palin stepped up, linked arms with the groom and said "I'll marry ya!!" Palin doesn't seem to feel any remorse for hopping into a bed that Hillary Clinton spent years making. That brings me to the third point. She is allowing herself to be used as a political tool.

McCain picked her to create the illusion that the Republicans were having a historical election of their own. That reason alone makes her selection a slap in the face to every highly qualified woman in the country.

But someone's gotta be first and isn't it true that the best way to change an establishment is to first become part of it and then change it from the inside out? That brings me to my fourth point.

She's using her newfound celebrity status to promote the idea that Barack Obama is a terrorist, a muslim, dangerous to the country and all sorts of other negative and irresponsible claims. I'm surprised that so many people don't understand how she evokes such emotional responses. I understand it and so does every woman who's ever used her beauty, feminity and sunny, outgoing personality to win friends and influence people. In the south for centuries the surest way to get a black man in trouble was to have a white woman accuse him of something. But I'm sure she doesn't know anything about that. Which leads me to my fifth and final point.

She's out of touch and not just because Alaska is so far away it could be another country. She actually believes that America is full of "hockey moms" and "Joe sixpacks". She's running for the American people, not as the diverse, multi-ethnic, multi-talented, religiously tolerant melting pot that we are and that our founding fathers intended us to be, but as the American public that she'd like for us to be. As a consequence she's not going to be president of the people who live in the housing projects or of the people who live in upscale condos downtown in large cities because she's never done that and she doesn't know them. She will take an oath of office to serve only the kinds of people she's seen and lived with and whom she thinks represent the entire country.

Until this election she hasn't given a thought to anyone beyond Alaska and people like her. And who can blame her? She seems well prepared for the job she was aspiring to, governer of Alaska. She just wasn't preparing for this job.

Guest Blogger: Dave on "Media-logical Myths"

The post below was written to me in a note by my friend Dave. He read my blog post "Dear Media" and had some particularly interesting insights. I asked him for permission to post it and he said yes. I think you'll enjoy reading this as much as I did:

Dear L/L,

Sounds like you are almost as excited by the election hoo-ha as I am. I find myself unable to watch any of the debates or election coverage because it is all so trivialized with people yelling at each other and trying to make something meaningful out of things that are frankly insignificant, meanwhile ignoring the important elements. We did this twice when George Dubya ran and the mess today is our deserved reward. If we make a better choice this time it will be largely serendipitous since none of the main stream media seems willing to do good old-fashioned reporting. Worst of all, the media seems to have generated certain myths or plot lines, for example "John McCain is a maverick" , that they can't seem to rid themselves of despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.

What I find absolutely most intriguing is how the media buys into republican representations of democrats for being "elitists", key evidence being that John Kerry drinks green tea and Barack Obama eats arugula although both of those are on the menu at most mainstream casual dining restaurants these days and are available at wal-mart and every other grocery store I've visited.

When I think of "elitists", I think of someone who went to an elite private high school and then got admitted to Yale despite his weak high school academic record , getting admitted only because he had a father and a grandfather who created a legacy for him at Yale, and then was admitted to Harvard Business School despite a weak academic record at Yale. He then used his family connections to get a variety of postions in the family businesses of oil and politics proving largely incompetent in most of those positions.

When I think of "elitists", I think of another someone who managed to be admitted to the Naval Academy, an elite publicly-funded academy, despite his own self-described "undistinguished" high school academic record, perhaps getting admitted only because he had a father and grandfather who were four-star admirals and who created a legacy for him at the Academy. He succeeded in compiling a dismal academic record in which he graduated 894th out of 899 in his class. (As an aside, do you suppose being the legacy of two four-star admirals might have been a factor in the Academy graduating him at all?).

He ultimately divorced his first wife to marry an exceptionally wealthy trophy second wife, hobnobbing with the rich and famous, even being reprimanded by the United States Senate for his inappropriate relationship with a central criminal from the savings & loan scandal. Yes, according to the media he was a "war hero" forty years ago, having achieved that status for being shot down over VietNam and abiding by (most) of the military code of conduct although he himself acknowledges that being shot down doesn't make one a "hero" . One might also question how many Naval pilots were allowed to continue flying after destroying four military jets in non-combat duty, perhaps raising the question as to how much influence his father and grandfather, the aforementioned four-star admirals, had to exert on his military career.

When I think of elitists, I don't think of someone who came from humble beginnings, growing up in a single parent household, living with his maternal grandparents for much of his life, starting his college career at lowly Occidental College, and EARNING his way into Columbia and Harvard. I don't think of someone achieving sufficient academic success to be selected as editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review and then going on to teach at the equally prestigious University of Chicago before launching a career in public service. Rather than "elitist", I would see this type of individual as the star of a Horatio Alger dime novel; a rags to riches achievement of the American Dream and someone who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps while gratefully acknowledging all the support and assistance he received from many people along the way.

Two men who largely squandered the special opportunities they were afforded by their respective powerful influential families and another man who earned his way from the bottom to the top. Which of these would you be most likely to describe as "elitist" ??

Ah, but when the facts don't fit with the preconceived story as told by the media elite then the facts must be ignored for mythology is more powerful than reality.

Yesterday, I Voted

Thursday morning I woke up mentally preparing to go to work. But before I could get out of bed something inside nudged me and reminded me that I had something important I needed to do today. I had been toying with the idea of voting early for weeks. With my job and the way I travel I never know what could happen on Nov. 4th and I didn't want to end up missing election day, and especially not such an important election. I knew today was going to be my best chance to vote hassle-free.

As I got dressed, something inside me said "Wear your best...for this is an important day, as important as a wedding". So I took extra care getting dressed. I wore nice (although still appropriate for work) clothes and I carefully applied my makeup and wore my pearl earrings and my diamond and pearl necklace. This was a special day. Today I was going to become "an equal". Maybe I have always been an equal on paper and legally but, for some reason that I had not yet worked out in my head, I felt more equal today than others.

I looked up the address for the election commission in my blackberry. I've only lived in Omaha for two years so I knew I'd have a little bit of a challenge finding it. As I drove down 120th and crossed Fort street, I thought of my home in Carbon Hill, Alabama and of my grandma voting. I remembered how she had taken me with her to vote, standing proudly in line and how, as a little girl, I had wondered what there was to be so proud about. I would often have moments like that, like when I was eight years-old and I finally got to walk to Dee Wright's Cafe by myself. I was surprised to see a sign in his window that read "We serve people of all races and colors". "How odd" I thought in my eight-year-old mind, "why would anyone need to say that?" He might as well have had a sign announcing that the sky was blue.

"Wow" I thought. I was about to participate in the election of Barack Obama. I was about to bring him one step closer to becoming the first black president of the United States. The magnitude of what I was about to do finally started to sink in. Images flashed in my head: images of people marching in Alabama, arms linked, signs waving, policemen with clubs. Images of people hanging from trees, some of their bodies badly burned. I thought of the people who had been intimidated into not voting and of how much courage it took for them to even walk into the offices. That's why my Grandma was so proud. THIS, I thought, THIS MOMENT is what she had worked for. It was what they had all worked for. It was for ME TO HAVE THIS MOMENT.

That's when I gasped, realizing that I had never voted for anyone who looked like me nor had it ever ocurred to me that I would ever have the hope of doing so. And I had accepted it as my reality. "We have never been free before" the realization crept over me slowly, "because we have never been able to do this. None of us have ever been truly free. The possibility of becoming president, this is the last thing, the last step towards equality. The last step to freedom."

"I will not cry, I will not cry" I thought. But the tears fell anyway. They ran down my face from beneath my dark sunglasses. I wiped them away with my hand and wondered if people driving by would look into my car and see the emotional black woman, and wonder why.

As I expected it took me several attempts before I finally found the election commission office. First I had turned around at 114th and Dodge, then I circled back through West Corporation's industrial park. I finally gave in and called the office to ask for directions. "Two blocks south of Dodge and one block West of 114th" the young man had answered me helpfully, almost as if he wanted me there. Perhaps he didn't know I was black. "Stop that" I thought. I finally found the office tucked away on a back street off 115th and Davenport. People were lined up out the door and around the parking lot. Clearly I had to turn my attention to figuring out where to park. I drove across the street where I had seen people walking. "You here to vote?" asked the man in the white utility truck who had waved me to a stop. "Yes" I said. "Well you can't park here" he announced proudly. I smiled at him and said "Ok, thank you" as brightly and cheerfully as I could. He obviously enjoyed being an obstacle. But something in the back of my mind reminded me that relative to the history, this little delay was less than a speck of dust. I think he knew it too. He just wanted to help put it off for as long as he could.

I decided to try my luck at getting a space in the actual parking lot of the election office. It looked like people were leaving fairly regularly. Sure enough I thought I saw a space near the door but dismissed it thinking it must be handicapped. As if reading my mind the people standing in line in front of the door began to wave at me and point to the space. "What? really?" I looked again. "Yes! Come on! Right here!" they waved and cheered. It seemed somehow appropriate, even metaphorical, that there was one little man who wanted to get in my way but many more people welcoming me in.

Dear Media....Don't Take the Bait

Here it comes. The election and inaugeration of America's first black president. And along with it, here come the crazies who are going to try to get their five minutes of fame by doing something negative. Already stories are starting to pop up about dead bears with campaign posters and things hanging from trees. Folks in California put our future president's head on a food stamp surrounded by derogatory racial stereotypes like fried chicken and watermelon.

Autherine Lucy desegregated my alma mater, the University of Alabama. John F. Kennedy was the first Catholic president. George Washington was our nation's first president while were still a wobbly toddler and someone in the congress actually suggested making him King. Someone's gotta be first. It's YOUR responsibility, dear Media, not to encourage some basement-dwelling, mouth-breather longing for love and acceptance to decide that denigrating the first black president might be a quick way to get their own reality show called the Evening News. In fact, I can already imagine the reports, so popular that they become like a reality show called:
"Who Said (or Did) Something Racist Today?"

I'm not suggesting that if we ignore it, it will just go away. But most of these "pranks" are just angry expressions by people who are unhappy and feel powerless about a changing world. Last year when that kid shot up Von Maur in Omaha he did it because he was depressed and to get attention. Don't give that unhappiness, that depression, those cries for attention any more power than warranted. Because like Lee Harvey Oswald, it won't be the real culprits who will put their face on the crime. It will be the aforementioned mouth-breather, stirred to a frenzy by the insanity he sees on TV, and a little warm fuzzy encouragement by the wrong social club.

All those years of "liberal media" name-calling has got you on the defensive now, dear Media, and you're ready to show the world that you can be as tough on a Democrat president as you have these past eight years on the most incompetent world leader in history. They know you're afraid to be accused of sweeping things under the rug. They're gearing up for it and they're going to manipulate your good journalistic ethics for their own dark purposes to wage a campaign of fear and ensure that no other great men of color, like Colin Powell, will ever have the audacity to run for president again.
Don't...take... the bait.

The Scariest Halloween Ever

Frankenstein is loose, just in time for Halloween...and no, I am not referring to McCain or Obama.

There's a story out about Senator McCain and how he was booed tonight at his own rally in Wisconsin for saying that Senator Barrack Obama is " a decent man". These are the same people who are supposed to be conservative Christians for family values. Amidst cries of "traitor", "treason" and "kill him" aimed at Senator Obama, Senator McCain tried to reason with what has become the Republican mob and they turned on him for being decent himself.

I have been mostly silent throughout this election cycle because I did not want to offend my Christian brothers and sisters. But the tme for silence is over. A man's life is being threatened.

Sarah Palin has been applying the principles she learned from the "Republican Campaign for Dummies" playbook, using scare tactics and emotion to win the loyalty of her supporters while ruthlessly tearing down the reputation of her opponent who in this case happens to be a good and decent man. What Governor Palin lacks is the sophistication, political savvy and, yes, downright evil genius of the men who wrote that playbook. What do you get when you give that kind of power and that sized audience to a political outsider with very little understanding of the issues defining her contest but with a talent for cheerleading? You get a mob of frightened, angry people roused into an emotional fervor, irrational, irresponsible, and downright dangerous.

If Obama does win the election, and it looks as if he will, the American people are going to need to unite behind the new leader. Obama is a good man, a decent man, a man who worked hard for everything he's ever gotten in life and left behind the potential wealth a Harvard education could provide in order to live a life of service and, for a time, poverty. He is an example of the best our country can produce. But instead of being proud of him as we should all be, the American people are being told to demonize him, and they are happily and willingly obeying. He is more Christ like I think, right now, with angry mobs yelling at an innocent and, yes, a good man who has dedicated his life to serving others, than at any other time. And the people who should recognize his story best are not even noticing because he once ate a meal with "the unclean". Like Christ, he is not being condemned for what he has done, for he has done nothing wrong, but rather he is being condemned for the people he has known.

The use of these hate-mongering tactics are blinding people to the goodness of both of these men. Right now McCain, bless his heart, is the only member of the Republican party I see who is trying to lead his supporters to behave honorably and to have respect for the political process. I respect him for it and history will remember him well for doing so. But he has lost control of his protege'. Palin, his female Frankenstein, has got control of the mob and someone could get hurt.

Dear Media: Stop calling it news...

Have you no shame? Have you lost all ability to distinguish between real news, propaganda, and tabloid sensationalism? Don't they teach the difference at any of the universities any more?

Nothing Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt do is news, not which baby they adopt nor from which country they adopt it. They could adopt a whole country and it would still not be news.

Nothing Britney Spears does is news anymore for anyone. Even the 12 year-olds have moved on. There's no one left who cares except drag queens. The girl showed her hoo-hoo to tabloid photographers. All of those grown men who were drooling over her catholic school girl outfit for years finally got their coup de gras. There's nothing left to see here. That's one reason she's no longer news. Here's the other...

She didn't even have the sense to get paid for it. This indicates a serious deficit of intellect. No one is calling her retarded (excuse me, developmentally challenged or whatever they're calling it these days) but the child is clearly not right. Just because she can speak clearly, has the use of all of her limbs, and doesn't drool does not mean that her celebrity status should make her fair game. You wouldn't do this to anyone in the Special Olympics. Don't do it to her.

Barrack and Michelle's fist-bump was not news. It was a slow news day so you just picked something cute. I get it. But you shouldn't take for granted that the rest of the American public will get it. Look what happened with that New Yorker cover. From now on when you run stories like that you should start it with, "We know this is not news, but...." Or maybe "Here's something cute for you." I don't care how you do it, but please find a way to make it clear when you're using irony or showing something for human interest or "color commentary" (no pun intended).

John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate is not news. Ok it is news-worthy, but it is not news. She's not the first woman and in fact has no distinction whatsoever. If you haven't noticed, the rest of the country moved on years ago when Geraldine Ferarro was the Democratic nominee back in 1984. If anything this just shows that the Republicans are 24 years behind. Once you've had a female VP nominee 24 years in the past, and a female presidential nominee in the current year, a female vice presidential nominee, especially one with so little to recommend her, is not news, it's a publicity stunt.

Grandpa McCain is at it again...

The Republican strategists on the news are calling McCain's choice of Sarah Palin "vintage McCain" because it is shocking and unexpected. But it is also vintage McCain because it is short-sighted and naive. He has put politics and winning the election ahead of what is best for the country. To state the obvious, the woman has no experience and no qualifications to be President of the United States. But to McCain she is a "wise choice" because she doesn't fall in line with party politics. If you follow that line of logic doesn't that make Obama an even wiser choice? These are the kinds of shocking shenanigans Grandpa will pull when he is in office.

I love elderly people. I am the only person in our church "singles" group who is under the age of fourty. I call the ladies "the Golden Girls" and I love having lunch with them every week. I am also entertained by them. Some of them are still mentally sharp and quick. Others are a little fuzzy around the edges. By my estimate, based on McCain's inability to follow his own logic he's just a few short years away from needing a live-in nurse to watch him and make sure he doesn't try to wash his clothes in the oven. Seriously, are my Republican friends really going to elect this guy? Because if so I'm convinced they'd vote for Reagan if he were still alive, alzheimers or no alzheimers.

This is not a step forward for women, although in McCain's mind it probably seems like it is. In his world view choosing a woman whose only qualification is that she is argumentative just like him and a "chip off the old block" is perfectly acceptable. After all, for his generation it was perfectly ok to pass along a company to your son just because he was your son, whether he was capable of actually running the company or not. Folks, that's what he's doing with our country. He's chosen an heir for his company - us - the United States of America. Now Grandpa's standing back in the corner giggling because he thinks he's shocked us by doing something wild and crazy: he chose a girl!!

I'll bet his next trick will be the "watch me pull my finger apart" trick.

Remember that TV show where Geena Davis was president because she was chosen as the running mate of an aging candidate with a bad heart? Someone needs to tell Grandpa that Hollywood already has that script and his character dies and the show gets cancelled.

Ken

I've never written about a boyfriend before, but this one's different. This one's made of the real stuff. So enjoy.....

I have a new boyfriend. His name is Ken.

Ken lives in Hawaii and came to the "mainland" (which is what they call the continental U.S.) for a conference. He arranged to visit Omaha and me while he was here. I'm not good at planning visits. Ok I am good at it, but it's hard for me to combine planning with fun. My entire life I have either been in charge or I have had fun, but I've never done both in combination. So imagine my surprise when this weekend turned out not only well, but astoundingly so. It was like something out of a romantic movie. That's how I knew it couldn't have been me. It had to be this new combination called "us".

We've been planning this visit for months. I've been very excited and as the time drew closer I was imagining all sorts of romantic things we could do. Then out of nowhere, after calling me 2 or 3 times a week every week, Ken suddenly stopped calling the week before his visit. Actually I hadn't heard from him in almost 2 weeks because he'd been working in a remote location.
I knew he was at his conference.
I knew he was busy.
I was fine.
I was calm.
It was no big deal.
I knew Ken, and he had probably left his cell phone charger back in Hawaii and his conference was in Chicago. I've done the same thing myself.

By Tuesday night I was distraught. Where was he? Why hadn't he at least emailed? I was becoming frantic with worry. I consulted a friend. "No offense", she said, "but why is he coming all the way from Hawaii to see YOU?" (This is the same friend I wrote about in "Independence Day". ). That was her idea of "support".

Well I'd asked for it. It was either talk to her or stress out over not talking to him. Finally she had some good advice: "Just email him" she said, and I did. He emailed me back within minutes. First I was relieved and happy....then I was pissed! He was sitting right there in front of his computer and he hadn't even bothered to email???

On Wednesday night I replied back to his email with one word..."OK". I was trying not to seem upset, but he knew. He called the next morning and apologized. He understood and he didn't try to deflect the blame back onto me with a "you're overreacting" the way most guys would. He'd been busy just like I knew he had. Seas were calm again.

By then it was too late to do any of the stuff I'd been considering. There was no time to go to the grocery store to get the ingredients for a home-cooked meal perhaps by candle light. I had wanted to spend our first evening together on Friday night in the romantic, curtain-enclosed booth at "Spezia" but when I called the booth was already taken. The girl insisted I couldn't have it for the entire weekend. I kept insisting that she check again and finally she found a spot for us on Saturday night at 8:30. Not what I had in mind but that would have to do.

I waited for him at the airport, watching as people de-boarded, searching for his face in the crowd. Finally I spotted him. "Ken!" I yelped. He had the most elated look on his face when he hugged me. "Oh no" my mind panicked "he's going to kiss me". I looked away and held up a hand. "Sorry I can't do PDA" I said softly, trying in vain not to ruin the moment. He gave me a look of disappointment but understanding and he followed me down to baggage claim. I didn't know it but he had no idea what "PDA" meant. Hours later he was trying to figure out why I didn't want him to use a personal digital assistant.

First stop 7 Monkeys for dinner. It's a bar and grille, but the dinner menu is decent, and since I'd been too distraught to plan I figured I might as well show him my world. We couldn't get the little room where I'd had my birthday party. It was full of some other women. Ken pointed out to me that it was called "the Frolic Room". "Really?" I asked. It turns out there is a sign above the door of the room. I'd never noticed. We had a good time and the waitresses who knew me even stopped by to say hi.

Next we went to "Micks". I wasn't sure about taking him there. Not quite friends, not quite family, it's hard to understand or explain my relationships there. It's one thing to tell Ken about the place, but it's entirely another to take him there and expose him to it. Would he be jealous of the time I spend talking to other people? Would he feel left out? He was neither. He was cool and mature and took it all in stride. I hugged all the people I normally hug and hung out with all the people I normally hang out with and Ken slid into my world as if he'd been there for ages and his comfort and ease became mine. It was nice to have him there, a date I had neither to protect nor avoid, but instead expanded my world and enhanced my relationships with my friends.

The next morning, to my utter delight and amazement, Ken took my car and went to the grocery store to get food to make me breakfast. As he headed out with my car keys, I hopped into the shower to get ready for my tennis lesson. I had given him strict instructions: he had to be back by 10:15 am for me to get to my lesson at 10:30. Little did I know he was outside having a showdown with my car, Alexia, my white Land Rover, who refused to let a stranger mount her. The key wouldn't turn in the ignition and the car alarm went off. He struggled with her for a while pushing any combination of butons and finally got the car to start. How I never heard any of this I have no idea.

Next he tried following the directions I had given him for getting to the grocery store. He made a wrong turn right away. (It was my fault) Out here where I live you can go from civilization to farmland in a matter of minutes and have no idea how to find your way back. Somehow he found Mecca, aka Wal Mart, and got food and (here's the big miracle) found his way back again in time to make me breakfast and still get to the tennis lesson. When I came out of the shower, dressed in my tennis outfit, there he was frying eggs with not the tiniest look of distress on his face to let me know the ordeal he'd just been through.

He sat patiently in his jeans, T-shirt, and cowboy boots while we played tennis in the hot sun. Whenever I looked over at him to see if he was admiring my shots (or my shorts), he was doing neither. He was watching the instructor intently and I could see him mentally correcting and comparing his own game. I'd worried briefly about being self-concious or embarrassed. Normally I play pretty well but I haven't had a lesson in a month and here I was playing in front of my new boyfriend. I needn't have worried. After the lesson he met my friend and tennis partner, the married woman. "He's cute" she mouthed to me as we were leaving. She has no idea.

In the late afternoon, after lunch, we went to the Omaha zoo. I haven't been to the zoo since I was 8 years old and went to the Birmingham Zoo on a school field trip. I remembered it being hot and stinky and the monkeys wiping feces on the glass of their cage. Not my idea of a fun trip. I haven't been back since. But apparently Zoos have changed in the past 30 years. (Imagine that?) I've heard good things about the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha and I figured Ken would like it. Plus I've been dying to see the butterfly exhibit so we went straight there. We saw lots of butterflies but I admitted being dissppointed. "What's wrong?" Ken asked, "Were you expecting to be covered in a cloud of butterflies?" .................................................How did he know?

The place is really nice, covered in trees, like walking through a forest. We walked everywhere, to the giraffes and the big cats and bears, and there was a nice breeze throughout the place. The giraffes were tall, elegant and gorgeous, my favorite of all the animals. There were kids everywhere. I don't know why that surprised me but it did.

We went home happy and only a little tired and took a nap on my chaise. Then we got up and Ken went to his hotel room to dress for dinner and I went to shower and get ready. When he came back we only had a few minutes to get to Spezia and make our reservation in time. I was dressed in an elegant but simple little black dress with my hair up, and he was handsome in his navy sports jacket and slacks. He held the car door on the passenger side open for me and for an instant I thought "I should drive" but it was fleeting. If he wanted to be a gentleman and drive I shouldn't deter him. So I dutifully climbed into the passenger seat and he went around and got into the driver's seat of Alexia. As if it were scripted, the key wouldn't turn. "Ok," Ken said "This is what it did last time. Now what do I do?"

I had no idea.
It hasn't done that to me in years since the first months I owned it. "Just push the key in and turn" I said.
"I'm trying" he said, "it won't turn".
"Try pushing the unlock button" I offered.
Nothing he did worked. The car alarm went off and I pannicked a little.
"Oh my Gosh, We're not going to make it to our romantic dinner" I cried inside. I was beginning to get discouraged and impatient with the whole situation but Ken was being so good I tried not to show it. We switched places and I tried doing the same things I'd just watched him doing. Still nothing. "Hand me the manual" I said. He did and I read it frantically, finding nothing that would help. Back and forth we went, reading the manual, switching places trying to get the car to start. I was getting crankier and crankier and he was so calm it was calming me down, keeping me from melting down and giving up completely. Finally, a half hour later at 9:00pm I vaguely remembered something about turning the steering wheel to get the car to unlock. Sure enough it worked. Relieved we set out for the restaurant. "But they've probably canceled our reservation" I worried aloud. Ken, ever the gentleman and ever prepared to take care of things, offered to call them. He pulled out his cell, listened carefully while I spelled "Spezia" for him two or three times, and then called directory assistance for the number. I listened impressed as he carefully pronounced "Sss-Pee-zee-ahh" into the electronic voice system. Even he was surprised when the system understood his pronunciation and got the number right away. He contacted the restaurant. Our reservation was secure.

We had our romantic dinner, and afterward came back to my place and had a walk under the stars around the pond. "A starlight walk" he called it. The evening was cool. We walked slowly, me in my black dress and now wrapped in my shawl, and him in his navy jacket, looking up at the sky and straining so long my neck started to hurt. He pointed out the big and little dipper and I learned that what I had been calling the little dipper was really the throne of Cassiopeia.

My Version of "And Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room?

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise

Dirty, impoverished, enslaved and poor
Not even allowed to walk through the front door.
Not good enough to sleep in your bed
Turned up your nose at this nappy head.

You can have nothing, was their solemn cry
I'll take even less, I dared to reply.
I want nothing that I do not earn,
I could not enjoy it, now watch me and learn.

Fast forward to now and look at me,
Didn't you know this is what you would see?
Had you no eyes, no brain or no heart?
Had you no imagination to predict this part?

I'm a dark ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Adapted from "And Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou. Copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou.

Only Human

"Is that a tattoo I saw when your shirt raised up?" one of my new friends asked me during our softball game. When I answered no, she added, "Oh, I was thinking maybe you had a wild side we don't know about." I squinted briefly at her, shaking off the tiny questions that fluttered and glistened like soap bubbles all around my head..."What was she looking for?" I wondered. "Why would it matter if I have tattoos?" Only later did it occur to me that what she had probably been seeing were the scars from the fibroid myomectomy I had in 2005. I don't have a tattoo but there have been times I've considered getting one.

Her curiosity and search for my wild side is understandable. It's only human to look at someone we like and admire and to make comparisons. Recently I wrote a post called "Independence Day". I've said before that all of my posts write themselves and that one was no exception. It strained to get out of me like a child and I couldn't understand why it begged to be written so badly. After it was created I felt bad about what I had written about my friend so I took it down and buried it in my drafts folder. Then tonight it occurred to me why it needed to be written. For years somewhere deep down in the recesses of my mind I have been chiding myself for not being more competitive professionally like my friend. And then when I found out her life hadn't turned out so well after all and I wrote this post it came across like I was gloating, or worse yet, revelling in the failings of my friend. But I was doing neither. I was only being human.

Any success I have is God's,
my failures only, belong to me
There's no need to search for scars
I have plenty
though they may give you comfort to see
and I don't blame you if you do
after all you're human too

The Center of the Universe

Yesterday was my birthday and I awoke feeling like a princess. I felt like I should lie back on satin pillows all day while I did my laundry. My boss had accidentally sent out my birthday announcement a day early so the emails with birthday wishes had already started to come flooding in. You know that feeling of anticipation you get on the day before a holiday? That's how Wednesday felt, like Birthday-eve, so that by the time the actual day arrived it was built up to the point that it felt like a national holiday.

I have never had a birthday like this before. When I was a child no one ever made a big deal out of my birthday except to talk about it all day long. So although I knew the day itself was special it never occurred to me that I should feel special too. My ex-husband tried to make me understand. He was the youngest of three kids and an only son with two teenage sisters when he was born, so he'd always been treated like a prince. He'd had birthday parties his whole life and because his birthday was during the school year and his mother was a teacher the entire school was invited. He feels sorry for us poor kids with birthdays during the summer.

My first birthday after we started dating we went out to dinner with the married couple who had fixed us up and he gave me at least 6 or 7 presents. I remember a tennis racket, a gold necklace, and I'm ashamed to say I can no longer remember the rest of the presents. I was so touched. I didn't feel that my birthday was special but I did know that I was special to him. I don't think there was any doubt after that day that I was going to marry him.

After we were married he started having birthday parties for me to which he would invite all of his friends and make them all buy me presents. He would even tell them what presents to buy. It felt a little bit like when the teacher makes the other kids play with you at school. He would have invited my friends except I didn't really have any. It's not that I'm unfriendly. Quite the opposite. It's just that I was still pretty new in town and the one thing I've forgotten about having a boyfriend is that once you do you no longer hang out with anyone else. Come to think of it, not having a boyfriend in Omaha has been sort of a blessing because it's forced me to get to know lots of other people. (There I go looking at the bright side of things again).

Yesterday I celebrated my birthday at 7 Monkeys, a bar and grille on 156th and Maple in this room. I love this room because it feels like it was meant to be used in an episode of Sex and the City. I think people who know about this sort of stuff would call it art deco. It was my first attempt at getting my friends from different groups together. I have church friends, bar friends and work friends. I didn't invite everyone I know because of course some of my friends just aren't going to mix well with others. Honestly if some of my friends met some of my other friends they'd be so mad at me they'd never speak to me again. If you don't believe me click the link. So along with a tinge of guilt over all the people I didn't invite, there was a feeling of warmth and happiness that I could get everyone together under one roof without having to get married (or die) to do so. After we left 7 Monkeys we went to Mick's! where, I was surprised with a birthday cake lit up with candles. I don't do surprises well, especially when they make me feel like the center of attention and a room full of people are all looking at me. This is due to the childhood trauma of having been raised in a household of about ten aunts and uncles and getting whippings everytime someone called attention to me. There was no such thing as good attention. Attention equalled trouble as far as I was concerned from about age 3. That's why I was shocked to feel no strangeness, no trauma, no feeling of wanting to run and hide when said cake and candles were brought out. All I felt was love from everyone in the room.

In the months since I've written this, the sentiment "all I felt was love" has often been mistaken for "in Love" with Mick. I have to smile because that is soooo my sister. It means that my search for her through my blog-writing has worked and she's "here" in my heart, where I wanted her to be. I have added "from everyone in the room" because that's what I felt and those are my words, not hers. I apologize to anyone who misunderstood. No hard feelings. Even I didn't fully understand till now.

My sister left this world in 2003 and she and I never understood each other. We approached life from completely opposite directions. For me the bar experience was my way of stepping out of my perfectly engineered life and getting a little messy, walking in her shoes and better understanding her choices, of finding the part of myself that I rejected because I didn't like the reflection that I saw in her - my gift of understanding to her and her gift of creativity and of open-mindedness (and open-heartedness to me). I think if she could have given me a birthday present this is exactly what it would have been.

The Nanny Diaries...

Well the vacation is over and I'm back home. It was an interesting weekend. My friend brought her 8 year-old daughter along because the child's father, my friend's ex, lives in Florida. My friend spent half the day in my hotel room working on the book and the other half in the room she was sharing with daddy and daughter.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great for a divorced couple to be friends. I am friends with my ex. It works for Demi Moore and Bruce Willis. But my ex didn't steal my credit card on my last visit to see him. I don't pay the mortgage on a house for my ex to live in, a house we nearly lost in foreclosure because he was gambling our income away. The problem with being friends with an ex like that is there is always an elephant in the room that everyone is trying to ignore. And no one sees elephants better than kids.

At one point the child threw a HUGE temper tantrum because she wanted to go shopping with mommy and me. Eventually this tantrum landed in my room..... with me....alone. This seemed an odd time to leave her with me, I thought. I wondered if mommy and daddy were spending quality time together.

I hugged her and comforted her and told her that mommy loved her and we wouldn't be gone long. I remembered my training from sales school....get them to say three yes's and you've got them sold. Maybe it would work on kids too.
"Who bought you a sewing machine today?" I asked.
"Mommy did" she said.
"And who got to pick Mongo's for us to go eat the best lunch ever?" I asked.
"I did" she said.
"And who played with you in the ocean today?" I asked.
She had caught on....."Not Mommy!!!!" she wailed.
"Yes, Mommy did" I said. And I could see her resolve to stay mad melting away.

Eventually she calmed down and I went to take a shower and change. She sat in the room watching tv and when I came out she was entertaining herself by pouring the $4 bottles of hotel room water out the balcony window. Probably on somebody's head.

Moments later mommy showed up at my door, furious! What was taking me so long?? I was scathingly criticized for comforting her daughter during her tantrum. I was accused of letting an 8-year-old take advantage of me. Didn't I know when I was being played by a child?

Um....she's a child. She's 8. She has by default permission to "play me". It's my responsibility to figure out what it is she really needs and then meet that need so that she will no longer find it necessary to "play me" and she can learn to ask for what she needs in an honest, respectful and healthy way instead of manipulating. Call me old-fashioned.

"What did you say to her?" my friend asked.
How was I supposed to answer that? I tried to make you look good you b-word?
"I appealed to her sense of logic" I answered.
Impossible for my friend to understand because her sense of logic only appears for short bursts of time, 2 to 3 minutes max.

"Do you ever doubt yourself?" my friend had asked earlier in a totally unrelated conversation.
At this point I am seriously doubting my taste in friends.

Independence Day

This is the 4th of July weekend and I'm spending it at the beach with my friend. We are writing a book about her life and her career. She's an engineer and also has a business as a professional coach and she wants to use the book as part life lessons, part professional coaching instruction manual.

I love my friend. She and I have known each other since around 1992 when we worked as interns for the same company. I was the quiet, studious little engineer, the one who put her head down, obeyed orders, did what I was told and worked hard. She was the political juggernaut who behaved as if every assignment she was given was a fight for civil rights. I imagined it was exhausting to be her, but she had some good points. She was always questioning the establishment and policing our management to make sure she was getting the same treatment as the male engineer in our department who, let's be honest, was given more perks and seemed to do much less work.

She was the first person who pushed me to compete at work. Up until that point I had never seen work as a "competition". For the most part I still don't, but I know that just because I don't naturally function that way doesn't mean I can ignore the fact that most of the professional world does. She was right, if a little over zealous about her message. You have to stick up for yourself, look around, and make sure you compete and fight for what you deserve or no one will give it to you.

After I graduated and finished the internship we lost touch. When last we saw each other she, ever the ambitious one, was getting ready to take her GMAT exam and enter MBA school. I on the other hand was just interested in getting my feet wet, using my degree, and finding out just what an engineer was and how I would do it. I took a small, unglamorous job in a remote area of Alabama where there were no professionals and no one to date. I didn't hear from her for years and assumed she'd gotten her MBA and was continuing her fast track career to the top. A few years later I saw her picture in Ebony magazine and she was being featured as one of the most eligible single African American women in the country. "Good for her!" I thought, and I was proud of her because it seemed that she was well on her way to getting what she had always wanted and what seemed to me her birthright. She was beautiful and outgoing, popular with men, and hungry for career success. Meanwhile I was dating my college sweetheart long distance and content, though lonely, in my tiny little garage apartment in Alabama.

Cut to today. Her career has been derailed several times. She's been making bad decisions about men, especially men with whom she works. She's started her own business as a professional coach but is finding it hard to find clients. She's been married and divorced with a man who steals from her, has a gambling problem, and forfeited on their home mortgage. She is a single parent, struggling to maintain a lifestyle just beyond her reach and spoiling a daughter who doesn't know how fragile it all is. I am also divorced but with no children, no foreclosure, no gambling, no debt. My career has also been derailed a couple of times but the position I have now is a perfect fit.

So now here we are, on the beach, writing a book. I'm trying to listen without judging and without advising her or playing armchair therapist. It's always easier to see where other people have gotten stuck, much easier than it is to coach and unstick ourselves. What's shocking is the number of things our lives have had in common. It's as if God gave us the same material to work with and then sat back to watch what we'd do with it.

I wonder if she is getting the same value out of this experience. I doubt it, but I can always hope....

Prelude to Apocalypse

The power was out last night for a big chunk of Omaha. I drove around town looking for hot fast food and every McDonalds was closed. That's how I knew it was bad.

I had spent the early part of the evening stuck at work. I had headed home twice but had been stopped by the high winds and common sense which told me I was safer where I was for the moment. Some people left anyway and I have no doubt many of them ended up with hail-damaged cars and stalled on flooded roads. When the winds finally died down and it felt safe enough to leave I passed along highway 75 North headed home and the southbound lanes, only a few feet away but separated by construction barriers, were flooded.

When I got to my neighborhood the traffic lights weren't working but the people had the intelligence to automatically turn it into a 4-way stop, driving politely and in an orderly fashion. My kind of people. Intuitively smart and organized. No traffic cops in sight and none needed.

By 9:00pm I was starving. I wanted a hot meal, not the cold food that was spoiling in my refrigerator, so I was finally forced by hunger to leave home in search of food. I instinctively started towards West Omaha but it was instantly clear that things only got worse in that directon. All of the lights were out and all of the businesses closed. At 132nd and Maple, the home of my Baker's, several power line utility poles had been blown down by the strong winds and crews were out working on them. Traffic was routed south.

Most of the traffic lights weren't working. I drove through the busier parts of my neighborhood surveying the damage. The Omaha police force was out directing traffic at the major intersections. Giving up hope of finding food, I decided to head towards the bar where at least I would find the comfort of good company, good music, and good drink. But the bar was closed. Apparently the damage was widespread.

On the way there I had to enter the other, neglected part of Omaha, the part that the city government seems to ignore or at least considers less important. Things were worse than I thought. 90th and Maple, usually an ok area, was like the land that time forgot. It was a drive deeper and deeper into chaos. No policemen in sight. Trees and debris still littered the streets. Some folks were smart enough to treat the major intersections as if they were 4-way stops, but others had no clue and either sat there in their cars holding up traffic or driving randomly into the intersection with no sense of order. Bless their hearts, these were definitely not my people.

When I got closer to the bar in Benson the IQ seemed to go back up again. There is for some reason a series of traffic lights, one after the other, in the middle of streets instead of at intersections. I imagine these were placed there in the old days to allow the people to cross the streets safely to go into the businesses, but now it just seems odd and antiquated, but also quaint and sweet. In fact that's how the people were driving...cautiously, carefully, not systematically and clean like in my neighborhood but with a different kind of system that indicated an awareness and politeness for all the foot traffic in the area.

By now I was really hungry and getting cranky. I drove back towards West O a different way, along Military which had to be better than driving down Maple where at one intersection the people seemed to be trying to drive in order but there were too many who wouldn't follow the system. At that intersection I did something that is uncharacteristic for me: I lost my temper. I honked at a car that drove out into the middle of the street. "Relax!" yelled a man as I drove past him sitting at the bus stop on the same corner. He was right. I needed to relax. These are the types of conditions that either bring out the compassionate side or the worst in people. In my defense, I was also hormonal.

Finally I found a Burger King that was open. It was located, of all places, at 72nd and Sorensen, considered a "bad part" of Omaha but in a newer and relatively nice area. I smiled at the fact that, in the midst of all that had happened, it was this section of town that was up and running.

The entire drive had looked like something out of the beginning of a disaster movie. Traffic everywhere as if people were looking for something...food....answers...lights...other people.

I got my food and headed home. I promised myself that I would make use of this experience by making a list of all the things I'd realized I needed. I mentally added cans of tuna and baked beans to the list. Should I get a generator? A grill? If this ever happens again I want to be prepared so that I can be hospitable and helpful to people, not cranky at them.

And a child shall lead them: 4 Boy Scouts

When I wrote "Tornado" a few days ago it was because it seemed like a good story. I almost left the word "surviving" out of the title because to use that word implied that there was a possibility of not surviving and honestly that thought never entered my head. I believed when I went to sleep that night that I would wake up the next day, though to what I didn't know. There were no fatalities that night and no reason to expect that there would ever be any this season. "Surviving" was just a word.....just a title....just for sensationalist purposes. I have since taken it out.

Who am I that I should even know one, much less two, of the young boy scouts who were killed in the tornado last week? I have been in Omaha for not quite two years. I have no kids the way most people my age have. I don't have teenagers to get me involved in the community. I feel like I know almost no one, although of course that is not true. But how on earth could I possibly know two.....????

In my usual fashion I considered skipping the memorial services. I sat at my desk. I prayed. What else could I do? I checked the news, I cried for these young children who would never get to live as grown-ups, I emailed my friends to pray. Then one of my co-workers asked me if I was going to one of the memorial services. "Are you going?" I asked her. "yes" she said. "Then I'll go too." I was going for her. I never know what I can do in those situations when I am not close to the families. I don't see what good my presence would do or how they would even know I was there. But I would go with my friend.

After making the decision to go to one, I decided that I should also go to the other one. I left work and went alone. The place was packed. I was the only black woman in the audience. Well, if you count the bi-racial teen then there was two of us. She looked at me accusingly (as teenagers will do), as if to say "you didn't know him, why are you here?" I just looked at her and smiled slightly, letting her know that she was right, I didn't "know" him the way she did, but sometimes adults just do things because they're the right things to do. I wasn't going to get caught up in race that day.

I wasn't going to think about myself at all. I could have easily sat there, a tall black woman with locked hair dressed professionally in a bright yellow bolero jacket and black slacks, amongst these plain Nebraskan folk, many of them farmers in their ordinary clothes, and I could have felt very much out of place. In fact for a few minutes I did. The people who normally hug me barely gave me a look. Some of them seemed to want to avoid me. "Why?" I wondered. "Is it because they don't want to show how familiar they are with me in front of all of these strangers?" No matter, I could forgive them and show them grace and mercy. Things will be back to normal later. I was not going to get caught up in my own thoughts and feelings of being an outsider, not now. This was not the time. The young man we were memorializing wouldn't have cared. That was his lesson, his example to me: to put my social anxiety aside and not let it get in the way of life.

He was the least self-concious kid I've ever seen. His total lack of self-conciousness reminded me of my brother when we were kids. This young boy scout was a constant reminder to me that life wasn't about appearances. He didn't seem to care that he wasn't "cool" or to even realize it. He was just a good, sweet, little kid going through that awkward teenage phase who loved God and who lived life with more enthusiasm than anyone I've ever seen. I have been self-conscious all of my life. But for Sam I would do this, sit here and forget about myself and just be a human being sharing in the feelings of other human-beings. And an interesting thing happened: My clothes and my race melted away and all that was left was me.

You can say as one of my Catholic friends did that God had no message in what happened, that sometimes bad things just happen. "Some people say 'everything happens for a reason" she said, "but that's not true. God does not treat us like pawns in a chess game. He loves us more than that." These were her words, and I mostly agreed with them.

OK, not pawns. Not chess. Not a game. But God doesn't interfere? Are you kidding me?? Has she READ the Bible??? God does nothing BUT interfere. It's good because it's the only way we know he exists. I didn't say anything. Riding home from the memorial service wasn't the best time.

What I don't believe is that 96 people can be hit by a tornado in the middle of a wooded campground surrounded by trees and ONLY 4 of them be killed. Have you seen the pictures? That place was destroyed. THAT is the miracle. But then why those 4? I don't know. But read 13 year-old Sam Thomsen's sermon that he read at church just a few months ago. If it doesn't move you or touch your heart, you don't have one. Then let me know what you think.

Barrack Obama's VP: General Wesley Clark

Ok, Mr. Obama, I know you didn't ask me but just in case you're paying attention I'm going to offer my opinion on who you should choose as a running mate...

General Wesley Clark.

The only way he could be any more perfect as a running mate is if he were a woman.

Ok, I know this is where I'm supposed to provide the compelling arguments in his favor, showing that I made this judgement based on information rather than some emotional or traditional reasons. I started not to do this. I started to leave this article just as it was, ending with the "woman" comment above. But I can do better than that.

I've decided to leave the emotional/traditional/"I think he'll be a good president because his Daddy was a good president and that's good enough for me" type decision-making to the people who follow that pattern of behavior. (I swear to God an otherwise intelligent female chemical engineer once said that to me about Bush). Plus I shouldn't just assume you know the reasons. I am an intuitive and intuitives tend to expect people to fill in the blanks. It's a compliment to you really. But the world is ruled by S's - sensing people who need information and detail, and as much as I give out information as an intuitive, I receive it as a sensor, meaning I like detail. So here are the reasons, but before we go into detail about "why Wesley" I think it's best to start with a discussion of "why not Hillary?" Here's why not:

Reason number one: For Mr. Obama, winning over Hillary's supporters may mean losing his own. There are a lot, and I mean a LOT, of people who hate Hillary. If Mr. Obama were to add her to his ticket, he would undoubtedly lose some of the swing votes he had; those nice, intelligent, thinking Republicans and independents who want to vote for change. Sure, he would gain her 18 million supporters, but there's no telling how many of his own suppporters he would lose in the process. That's just not good math. You NEVER alienate your own base just to get more votes. That type of action would make him look weak and, well, too political.

Reason number two: She still wants to be President. She didn't stretch out her own campaign that long just to be VICE president and I don't think she would be happy to accept the traditional role, that is, being there just in case something happens to the President and in the meantime providing the occasional swing vote in the Senate. John Adams called it the most useless job ever invented by man and Hillary is anything but useless.

Which leads us to...
Reason number three: We would have two Presidents. I don't think she could stop herself from pushing her own agendas even when they contrast starkly with his. That would be a serious distraction from taking care of the business of getting the country back on course.

And here are the reasons for choosing Wesley Clark as his running mate:

1. Obviously his military background
2. He didn't just serve in the Army, he achieved the rank of General. They don't just hand those out for good attendance.
3. He served in Kosovo so he has experience dealing with a war in the Middle East. Hmmm, wonder why we'd need THAT qualification in a leader?
4. He was valedictorian of his class at West Point. I have nothing against C-students. I was one myself in college. Yes it's great that we live in a country where a C-student can be elected president, but hasn't that theory failed?
5. He's a relatively young 61 years old.
6. It's hard to overlook how handsome he is. That's gotta bring Hollywood running.
7. He is both multi-ethnic and multi-religious. He's White, Jewish, Methodist, Baptist and Catholic. Plus he's a southerner who was raised in Arkansas. You can read about how this is possible in his bio, but to my mind that's got to draw in a lot of different votes that Barrack Obama may not have gotten otherwise. Hey, if you look far back enough, he's probably even black.
8. He was aligned with Hillary in the primary. And since he's run for President before it's probably safe to say that she was considering him as her running mate. That means representing her agendas without having to actually represent HER, thus perhaps skimming a few of her 18 million votes and leaving the die-hards still voting for John McCain out of spite, which honestly makes them the same as people who voted for Bush because of his father and isn't that where the irrational people belong?
9. Clark is going to continue to hold his own ideas while remaining loyal to the President.
10....I don't have a reason number 10 yet. I've decided to reserve that spot for if and when Clark is chosen and the media starts pouring out all the laundry, clean and dirty.

P.S. Has anyone noticed that no one is asking who McCain's running mate is going to be? It's almost as if no one cares.

Tornado

As I lay in my bed asleep Saturday night, my dreams were injected with a faint high pitched whining sound. The sound kept getting louder. "I think that means you need to wake up" a voice in my head said, as in my sleep I tried to figure out where the sound was coming from.

I awoke to realize it was the weather alert sirens going off. "Oh great" I thought. "I wonder how long that's going to go on?" I was not yet awake enough to realize that the sirens were not a test, but were alerting us to a real weather threat which meant I needed to take action. Groggily my body started to move. For some reason I had slept in my yoga pants and a t-shirt, not my usual sleepwear, so I was basically "dressed". Throwing back the covers I could hear the wind and trees blowing outside, the rain hiting the roof and sides of my condo with more force than normal. I think it was those sounds that finally jolted me into reality.

I remembered my friend A's words from the other day, "You're in the interior of the building surrounded by other homes, AND you have a basement. You're SAFE." His words played like a recording in my head and reassured me. As I headed for the basement stairs I spotted a pair of sketchers at the back door, the ones I normally wear to play golf. I grabbed them to put on and ran down into the basement. For some reason I went straight to the window and looked out, trying to see the exact moment the tornado would touch down. I could see my neighbor's basement lights were also on, letting me know that they were taking this as seriously as I was.

I turned away from the window and looked around the room, my mind finally grasping the entire situation and starting to think about what I needed to do. I had no chairs down there, and no folding chairs to bring down. A treadmill and an eliptical machine were placed in front of the window. I could actually lie on the treadmill, but I would have to move it away from the window. Other than that, the basement only held boxes of christmas decorations, a lamp with a fisherman's basket for the base and fish shadows on the shade, and a single bottle of red wine on a little wine rack, the beginning of my wine collection. "No, look at EVERYTHING" my mind said. My goodness my mind is so much smarter than "I" am. So I re-surveyed the room again and this time I acknowledged the roll of remnant carpet against one wall. Hmmm...

I grabbed the carpet roll and dragged it into the small closet-like space between the stairs and the innermost wall. I unrolled it and the space was instantly more inviting and comfortable: a shelter. I moved the little box containing a camp stove out of the way, hoping. My hopes were rewarded, there was an outlet back there. I brought over the plastic tub of Christmas ornaments and the fisherman's lamp, making a nightstand of them and plugged the lamp in, then ran back upstairs and grabbed my pillow and the duvet off the bed. I had my paperback copy of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejdice and a bottle of water. It was a cozy little shelter and I was ready to settle in.

Hmmm, not quite.

I needed my cell phone. Another trip upstairs. This time I also grabbed my purse and the six-pack of water I'd bought at the store that day. Back downstairs. I lay there and read a while, but the floor was too hard. I'd never get any sleep. I remembered a foam mattress I had in one of the extra bedrooms on the 2nd floor. But I didn't want to go back up there and get it. I thought of my male friends and how, if one of them were here, they would do whatever it took to make me comfortable and would go get it for me. "But I have no man" I thought. "Then you must do for yourself whatever you would want a man to do for you" said the survival instinct that had been guiding me all night. Up I went.

As I was getting the foam mattress, dumping the clothes that were stacked on it to the floor, I spotted my sleeping bag sticking out of a box. I thought it was long lost back in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but there it was right when I needed it. I grabbed it too. On the way back I grabbed a bag of Cheetos and a bag of Pepperidge Farm oatmeal raisin cookies. Back down stairs and spread out first the foam mattress then the sleeping bag. I lay down on it and it was more comfortable than my bed upstairs. "Now you have everything you need", I thought. I looked at the clock on my blackberry. I knew I'd been pressing my luck. "There are to be no more trips upstairs" said my survival instinct, quite firmly. The clock read 2:29 am.

I lay there and read for a while. I have to admit I liked the adventurous feeling of it. I was safe and comfortable and having Jane Austen to read made me feel even more secure. Just before I drifted off to sleep, I reached up and turned off the fish lamp and turned on the little flashlight I'd had in my purse, using it as a nightlight and hoping it would keep the spiders away. I slept well under the circumstances. I dreamed that the exterior wall of my basement was blown away to ground level and my neighbor's entire building was gone. When I awoke everything was in tact. I went about my normal routine and later in the morning I checked the news online to see if any of Omaha had been hit. The first tornado had touched down at exactly 2:30am.

The Hillary Experience

Sooner or later, we as women all have to go through this. No matter how beautiful we are, or how smart, or funny or athletic or 'pert near perfect we are...sooner or later we're going to have to let go of something that we knew for sure was ours.

It's official, Barrack Obama is the Democratic nominee for president, but Hillary Clinton still won't end her campaign. The papers today are full of details and analysis about how Clinton, a virtual shoe-in, lost the nomination anyway. And everyone has accepted it except Hillary.

I have to tell you that I can relate to this. I know what it is to be the perfect candidate, to have everyone supporting me, and to be the assumed heir only to lose anyway. Not in an election, but in love and romance. In fact, I am learning at almost the exact same rate she is. But unlike her I have a great example to watch. I have a bird's eye view of the fact that despite her perfection, Barrack Obama is in fact the perfect candidate right now. There's no disputing it. I like to think that the Universe always works this way. Yes, I may have been right, but I'm not right now. So my job changes from proving how perfect I am, to exiting the stage with grace and dignity and supporting the true winner.

Hillary, my dear, I am sorry you are having to learn this lesson so late in life. The fact that you can live to be 50-some-odd years old and not have the sense to know how and when to bow out gracefully makes me feel blessed that I am learning it right now. The universe is a wonderful instructor. In what I have come to call "the Hillary experience" it is showing me just how carried away one can get with the concept that determination, hard work, and desire will get you there.

The reason Hillary lost the nomination can be debated by the experts, but I can tell you exactly why, in my humble opinion, she is not the right candidate right now. It's because she's myopic. The fact that she's so doggedly determined to stay on a course when it has so obviously failed is evidence that she is disturbingly similar to her predecessor, president Bush. I'm afraid that under her we would have had 4 more years of going full speed ahead in the wrong direction, even if it is in the opposite direction.

What has touched me most about all of this? How gently and patiently and respectfully the rest of the Democratic party has handled her, refusing to push her out or to criticize her. Even if she hasn't behaved with dignity, they have certainly treated her with some. It encourages me that there is still decency and a sense of respect for her intelligence and her abilities, for her position as a former first lady, and for the historical significance of what she was trying to accomplish and it reminds me of a time when honor and respect still existed in government.

Flying Trolley

I had a choir performance last week. True to form, I had no idea where it was.

Ok, I had SOME idea. It was taking place in Florence, Nebraska as part of Historic Florence Days. I drive through Florence every day on my way to work. The place is all on one street, maybe 4 or 5 blocks long, with a big park right off the way. We'd probably be performing in that park, I thought, but just in case we weren't I had my blackberry with me so I could pull up the directions in the email our choir director had sent. I always have a contingency plan.

I arrived at the park with plenty of time left. There was already someone in the park playing instruments and they didn't look like they were leaving any time soon.

"Maybe if I park here and watch, I'll see some of the other members pull up". I parked and waited. No one came. I started to worry. Time to pull out the directions. (Like a guy I always ask for directions only as a last resort, but unlike a guy I don't wait until the situation is hopeless.)

I found the email in my blackberry but when I scrolled down for the directions they were in an attachment instead of in the body of the email where I could have easily read them. "No problem" I thought, "I'll just open the attachments". But the attachments wouldn't open. I looked at the clock and my extra time was starting to melt away. What to do? I called the director but he didn't answer. I considered driving in to the office, logging in, and checking the email and I even started driving in that direction but quickly realized I'd never make it in time.

I parked my car and walked to a sidewalk book vendor who was part of the festivities. Before I could even ask I heard her say to one of her customers, "I'm getting ready to go hear the singers." Great!

"Where are the singers going to be?" I asked.
"Over at the old depot" she said.
"Where's that?" I asked. (You mean there's more to this place than only one street?!!)
Another lady, a customer, started explaining the directions to me, but my mind was racing too much to absorb what she was saying.
"Look" I said, "I'm one of the singers and I need to get there quickly."
"Oh, you're in luck" said the owner. "Here comes the trolley. He'll take you."
Great!

I stood at the curb and waited for the trolley. I hadn't paid a lot of attention to the directions but I had listened enough to vaguely realize he was pointed in the opposite direction of the depot.
"No problem" I thought "I've got plenty of time for him to circle the block and take me back. How big could Florence be?"

I got on to the trolley and explained my situation to the driver. He wasn't real clear but he did say he could take me and I made it very clear that I only had like 20 minutes. You can drive clear across the entire city of Omaha in 20 minutes.

I took a seat, smiling and saying hello to the other passengers, happy people with children and ice cream cones. The driver continued on his tour and it didn't take me long to realize that, despite my obviously desparate plea to go straight back to the depot, he was going to do his ENTIRE tour.

We went to a church, past a school where we stopped for someone to get off and buy fresh baked goods, and then turned down a dirt road. Oh dear.

I cautiously made my way up to the front of the trolley, not easy to do when it was wobbling around on the dirt road and I was still wearing the skirt and high heeled sandals I had worn for church that morning. "Sir", I said, "I really do need to get to the depot immediately." He said nothing." On my way forward I noticed he had a tip basket. I fished throuh my wallet. I had about 4 singles, a ten and some twenties. I only had a few minutes left. "Please, sir, if you could get me to the depot, I'm in a huge hurry and I'd really appreciate it." I dropped the ten in his basket to show him just how much.

The trolley lurched forward as he floored it. As we flew through the streets of Historic Florence I was pretty sure we were making history right then because it's safe to say that trolley has never gone that fast before or since. Oh, and he got me there on time. I even had time to warm up.

Spring Fever

I watched two robins playing in my backyard today. They were flitting about and I don't know how I knew, but I could tell something romantic was going on. "Oh how cute" I thought, thinking it looked like they were trying to mate.

Wait **nose wrinkling** how Do birds mate?

Anyway, one of them started making a lot of noise that vaguely resembled "get off of me"! The other one persisted and kept chasing about until they finally ended up in a patch where a lot of other robins seemed to be hanging out playing and relaxing. The fighting couple annoyed the happy robins and they all started to take off. "Hmm....Just like humans", I thought.

One robin continued to chase the other around the yard, not bothered by the fact that they'd annoyed all of their friends. "Hmm....must be the boy trying to pounce on the girl" I thought. Then I took a closer look. The smaller female was actually the one doing the chasing. It was the big boy who was running away.

"Awwwww....REALLY just like humans", I thought, smiling.

Blessings & Success

When you move to a new city there's no one, even after two years, who really knows who you are. Our lives are a crazy quilt of experiences that have shaped us and if we're lucky there are a few people who've been around long enough, and understand us well enough, that they know the story for every patch. My best friend is one of those persons. Without these people to vouch for our stories and explain our quilts, the rest of the world will just come to its own conclusions and will quite often get it wrong. That is frustrating. That is what I'm feeling right now.

My move to Omaha was the final step in reaching my life's goals. Not because I wanted to live in Omaha, but because moving here allowed me to take the last step in my career; the final step I had dreamt would define my career success. I know that sounds odd, but my dreams never included a specific place, just a description of my job and my lifestyle. And now I'm living it.

You would think that people would be happy for me, especially other Christians. You would think that when I say "look, look what the Lord has done" they would see me and say "Amen. Praise God". But they do not. They say "what makes you think you're so special that God would answer your prayers when he doesn't answer anyone elses?"

It's true, ladies and gentlemen. I don't know if the majority of Christians are this way, but the ones I keep encountering do not believe that God actually answers prayers. And so when I tried to have this conversaton at lunch last Sunday, I think I offended someone at the table. Yesterday the sermon was about, you guessed it, success, and how we don't know how to measure it, and the ways in which we measure it are not God's ways. And the minister, as he spoke, looked pointedly at me, or so it seemed.

I was shocked...disappointed...disillusioned believing (incorrectly) that that he was preaching a sermon about something I had said without ever hearing my side of the story first. A sermon based on heresay. This happened to my best friend years ago when we were in college. I no longer remember what the sermon was about, I only know that my friend was mentioned in a sermon or speech of some kind and she was highly offended, so much so that she stopped going to church there and eventually changed schools. She was only 18 or 19 years old and she handled it remarkably well for a young girl her age.

If this man knew me or anything about me he would be circulating petitions to make me the poster child for success. I was so shocked that I could imagine having a crisis of faith if I had been younger. I could imagine doubting the existence of God. But thankfully I am 38, not 18, and I felt, not a crisis of faith, but shaken in my belief in worship assemblies and ministers who think they know it all; men who forget to follow the caution they preach cause a world of trouble. Just look at Jeremiah Wright.

I prayed about this as I drove to work today, my best time for prayer. If I had been saying what he thought I was saying, then yes, that would be cause for alarm. People should not think they are better than other people, or that they are blessed because of their actions or because "God loves them more".

"We don't know", said the minister, "if something is a blessing or if we are a success until we look back."

I agree, and I do look back. I keep journals and I can go back almost 15 years and read my own words of prayer. I can (literally) look at my life and all around me and I can see the answers. I am sorry if everyone hasn't done this. But my telling of it and my rejoicing in it does not make me prideful. Has every prayer been answered? Of course not. But every answer is a blessing.

New note: Added June 4, 2008:
Of course I couldn't let things hang like that and let this fester, so I called my minister and told him how disturbed I was about his sermon, and asked him if there had been any discussion about the lunch conversation. I was relieved when he said no. I told him about my 15 years of journalling and he was really affirming. He said "Good for You" and told me that is exactly what he was trying to get people to do with his sermon. (He really IS a good minister & I felt guilty, but relieved and forgiven...whew)

Told ya the universe does that. Of course it could have been just that once the topic came up, people continued to talk about it all week until it finally worked it's way to the minister and he thought "ah hah, that would be a good topic for a sermon!" But I think if that had happened he would have told me.

Nahh....

New note added:
Looking back I think the reason I experienced this is so I could understand and relate to the traumatic experience of my friend. Thanks Universe.

The Problem with Blogging

The thing about blogging is that someone almost always inevitably reads more into a post than I intended. I once had to delete my entire blog because one of my reader’s thoughts got carried away. That’s why my blog profile says I’ve been a member since 2004, but my posts only date back to 2006. I deleted the two years that I wrote prior to moving to Omaha.

So now I can see it happening again. No sooner did I write about my “psychic connection” to an ex-boyfriend then I can almost see the weeds starting to grow and choke other relationships. Not to worry. Honestly, I have this sort of “psychic connection” with almost everyone I know and care about. I just wrote about him as an example because it’s particularly strong with him, not because we’re closer than most, but because we both have a quality I haven’t been able to articulate yet. I’m not a Star Wars geek, but the best way I can put it is “the force is very strong with both of us”.

Sometimes I meet people who have no “force” at all. He is the first person I’ve ever met whose signal is strong. I have nothing to do with him having it. It was there when I met him. Our meeting was a coincidence of someone who is really “loud” (him) meeting someone who has a really sensitive “ear” (me).

One of my qualities as a "receiver" is that I hear and reflect back, the result of which is that people who are around me begin to develop their own abilities. So if you and I, dear reader, have never shared a thought or called each other when one of us was thinking about the other then we probably haven’t known each other long enough or well enough. But if you hang in there and relax, I’m sure we will.

Grown-up Easter Barbie

Sunday morning. Here’s how it went:

8:00am. Alarm goes off: beep-beep-beep. Slap! Snooze.
Alarm goes off again. Slap! Snooze again.

Repeat above about 10 times. Why that many? Because I actually got up around 9:20 and the snooze goes off every 8 minutes.

Great. Now I have 10 minutes to get ready for church and 30 minutes to drive. Stumble to the shower.

Out of the shower. Glance at clock. That's ok, I can drive to the church in 20 minutes. 10 minutes to get ready and 20 minutes to drive.

Now what to wear? Hey, it’s Easter! That means I should wear something pretty. Pull out floral skirt. It’s probably too big. I haven’t worn it since I lost weight. Try on skirt. It’s not too big. Curse skirt and hang it back up. It’s too floral and Hawaiian-looking anyway. This is church not a luau.

Hmmm…what else? It’s cold today. Not Easter-like at all. Not like the South. Better wear something pretty AND warm.

Oh, there’s my long white linen skirt. Admire it. It IS pretty. Check the size. Definitely too big. Try it on. Yayyy!!!! It’s too big!! Definitely going to wear this skirt. And it’s ankle-length so I can wear boots! (I love boots.)

Now what top? Black linen with the white embroidery? Try it on. Hmm..verrry slimming. Looks good with skirt. Am I really that slim on top? I look almost delicate. Nevermind, black and white are definitely not Easter-y. Back into closet. Will keep in mind for funerals. But it's too pretty for funerals. Maybe for a festive spring funeral.

Hey there’s my yellow linen jacket with the ruffles all around the edges and sleeves. Never worn it. Verrrry feminine. Too feminine? It’s from J-Jill! It’s allowed to be too feminine. Anyway is there any such thing? Probably not. It’s Probably too big. Try it on. Hmm, lovely. Too big in a way that fits, not too loose.

Now, I have an outfit. Glance at clock. Ok, well I can get ready in 5 minutes and get there in 15.

Walk into bathroom. Pull my hair back. Why doesn’t it look right? And why does it look different depending on the angle I pull it back? Because they’re different angles, duh…now get a move on. Pull hair back and take it down. Repeat at least 10 times.

Well that took long enough. Don’t even THINK about makeup. Exit bathroom. Glance at clock. Ok if I leave now I have 10 minutes to get there.

But I need a coat. Which coat? And perfume.

Glance at clock. Drat!! 5 minutes!!!!!!!!! I’ll never make it!!!!!!!!!!!

Walk towards garage. Pass powder room mirror and get a glimpse of almost full length of outfit, including lime green coat which looked very Easter-y in the closet but on me just hangs.

Great. Everything’s too big. I look like a pastel-colored bag lady. Maybe I should…..

“Oh no you don’t” I think…….and mentally push myself out the door.

Made it. Only 5 minutes late. Service ok. Go to Easter brunch with girlfriend. Two little girls who are mixed half-black/half-white walk past our table holding the hand of their mother who is white. The older one looks at my girlfriend and makes a shocked face.

“Don't be shocked” I think, “You’re going to be one of us some day”. (Unless of course Barack Obama wins president in which case you'll get to be whoever you want to be and your skin color won't matter, I continue my mental conversation with her. )

They walk by again later. This time I catch her eye and flash her my best “grown-up Barbie” smile. She smiles back and gives me an “Oh my, you look like a princess” look. “Yes, and you’re going to be one of us someday” I give her a knowing look and a nod back. This time she looked like that would be just fine with her.

There, that's better.

Let There Be Light

The ultimate destination of faith is to come to that point where you realize that (1) eternity is a very, very, very long time and (2) no situation is permanent and (3) suffering may seem like a bad thing (OK it actually IS a bad thing) but imagine the monotony of a life with no struggles or growth...it would be like a world without seasons. Saying suffering isn't bad would be like saying winter isn't cold. It is, but you can avoid freezing and sometimes even manage to enjoy yourself.

I would love to live in a "spiritual Hawaii"......a world of no problems; a paradise. But to live in a physical world with changing seasons, well......... that is like living in Omaha, Nebraska. The winters are long and hard here to be sure, but not impossible and not nearly as bad or as long as they seem. Just like all suffering, it looks far worse to the people who aren't going through it. The dread of it is worse than the actual experience.

A friend of mine at work emailed me the story below. I've heard it before and probably you have too. But it is exactly what I think of Christianity. The people, believers and atheists alike, who believe themselves to be good people because of their own abilities are like candles that think they lit themselves.


Does Evil Exist?

The University professor challenged his students with this question.

"Did God create everything that exists?"

A student bravely replied, "Yes he did!"

"God created everything?" The professor asked.

"Yes sir", the student replied.

The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are, then God is evil."

The student became quiet before such an answer. The professor, quite pleased with himself, boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question professor?"

"Of course", replied the professor.

The student stood up and asked, "Professor does cold exist?"

"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students nickered at the young man's question.

The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460? F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat."

The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?"

The professor responded, "Of course it does."

The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?"

Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course as I have already said. We see it everyday. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."

The professor sat down.

The young man's name -- Albert Einstein