wizard’s quest.

wow – i wasn’t really planning on doing an update today. i’m in madison and there is a fresh coat of snow on the ground – i had planned to be up early and go make a day in the city. but the basement in annie’s parent’s house is dark (a la the beardshear basement) and i slept very late. so after some great oatmeal i was making plans to go see some of john muir’s inventions at the madison history museum. alas, i’m not waiting for mike to finish wedding invitations and have nothing to do and no reason not to write about the past several days.

the most important bit of information is that we lost our fight to stop the constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex and civil unions in wisconsin. honestly, i was shocked and pissed the entire evening. i spent the entire day organizing a canvass – beginning at 7AM at the polls to make sure they were open and ending at 9PM to get the final numbers for the referendum. based on my milwaukee district (we rocked it – got out more supporters of our position than ever before and blew the ban out of the water), i was expecting the amendment to be dust. but as i ate my gyro from comet cafe, i watched the polls slowly tip in favor of the neo-conservative christians that are scared of anything other than marriage. i was in no mood to socialize afterwards. i sat at the bar but didn’t drink. i sat with people but didn’t talk. but i realize that this is just a small battle in a larger fight. we will lose more than we will win, but it is the confidence to fight and the belief that we will eventually win that is the the true victory. still it was hard – even harder to watch those who really have a stake in this fight suffer defeat. it confirmed my present opposition to participating in such a discriminating institution. the next big fight will be in massachusetts in 2008 when another referendum will be up – this time to ask the people if they would like to legalize same-sex marriage and civil unions. if i can, i’ll be there.

the next big thing is wizard’s quest. we went to the wisconsin dell’s for the two days after election day. conservation voters was nice enough to pop for a cabin in the woods and we passed the time away with drinking good beer, building great bonfires, and catching up on the episodes of LOST that we missed during the election drive. overall, it was great. it was frustrating at times to co-exist with so many organizers under one roof. too many people trying to lead just makes my head hurt. the dells, overall, is a real shit hole. it’s all the terrible things that i hate about our culture: t-shirts promoting racism, sexism, and an assortment of other “isms”, businesses that mock native american culture (not enough that we slaughtered their people and uprooted their lives, now we name motels after then greatest leaders), and an overall disposable culture. yet as mike and drove down the strip, we got a taste of all the glitz and were hooked. mainly, we were caught by the torture museum, the house of horrors, the 90 HOLE PIRATE ADVENTURE GOLF COURSE, antique photos (to be posted soon), and finally wizard’s quest. right when we saw it, we knew that we had to go. convincing other was another matter. we had no idea what the hell the whole thing was. the place was closed and all we could see was a full size dragon model in a window display. i can confidently say that it was the best $12.00 i ever spent. the story is that we are mortals challenged to enter “quadrasphere” (13000 square foot fantasy, themed labrynth) and free four wizards that are imprisoned in four realms (earth, water, fire, and air). we had to answer questions to gain enought magic to free the wizards. it was awesome. there were slides, hidden passages, zelda-like puzzles (having to open drawers on a cabinet in the right order to unlock a secret passage to a ladder that led to a potion making tower), and a lot of crazy tight passages (crawling on my stomach through a hidden tunnel filled with chucky cheese balls – scary as shit). i love interactive adventures in which i have to climb and crawl, but also think about what i’m doing. all those days of zelda served me well. the zelda-logic was the key. i was pushing on every wall, moving every sliding panel, and always looking up when it only appeared that i could go left or right. overall, it was amazing. it took us an HOUR and A HALF to play the game. and we didn’t even win! so it’s not a walk in the park – we were rushing from realm to realm and still ran out of time. we spent a solid 5 minutes with the girls at the front desk asking about parts that we missed (“where the hell was the fire realm bookcase”) only to groan in unison. they told me that most people don’t make it their first time. luckily i know about this amazing place and that they change the game ever 6-8 months.

if you’re ever passing through the dells, it’s totally worth stopping for this shit. i’m going to play the new zelda and go back to kick it for real.

a fair wisconsin.

for the last few days, i have shifted my focus away from conservation and have been pouring myself into work with fair wisconsin.  currently, there is a referendum on the november 7th ballot that will amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriage and invalidate all “legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals…”  this amazes me.  there are times that i forget that the world is sick with ignorance and fear over people living their lives as they choose.  then i remember that the current polls place 46% voting for this amendment and 46% voting against.  that it should even be a question is the real frustration.  regardless of what people might say, america is not the home of the free.  our freedom, like our moral righteousness in regard to imperialism, is a shame.  there are freedoms that are core, but the fact that there are continued assaults on the legal protections for both abortion and same-sex/civil unions make me notice the lines that our freedom has to color within.  this compounds with my growing disgust for the existing power structure.  i realize that my work now is, to a large part, pandering to the status quo – playing the game by their rules.  we define “power” with the terms of the current power-holders.  our battles are fought with votes and money.  my questions is not if these battles should be fought – anyone who truly knows me could know my committment to progressive social change – but if we should even waste our time working with bullshit politicians and crooked corporations.  what i’m looking for is a redefinition of what “power” really is and what social structures we really “need” to exist.

i told mike today that my anarchist tendencies are growing more and more as i get older.  i realize that this society may not be able to be or may not be worth fixing.  i believe that it will lapse and our lives will change dramatically, including the restructuring of our power structure (hopefully) toward a more local and village structure.  but i know very little of anarchism – i do know that i truly believe in community build upon mutual respect.  i think that the anarchism word is used far too freely.  i question if i could truly see anarchy and be happy.  then again, that is the programming that i’ve been given since birth.  society is our mother, we need her for our survival.  i guess where i’m going with all of this is that i believe that the current structure for power is fundamentally flawed and must be replaced by a power structure that i’ve yet to fully understand.  more on these ramblings later i suppose.

so i’ve been putting in really, really long days at the fair wisconsin office in milwaukee.  i leave home around 7:15AM and make it home around 11:30PM – exhusted, but excited.  there is a huge possibility that we will defeat this ban and wisconsin will become the first state to defeat such a measure.  this, above all others, it a reason to fight.  i read a great labor strike quote out of germany: “if you fight, you may lose; if you don’t fight, you’ve already lost.”  nothing could be more true.  i do whatever is needed – run canvass materials, set up literature pieces, phone volunteers and voters, and direct field canvasses.  i’m stoked for tuesday – i think i’m going to just sleep at the milwaukee office tomorrow night.  it’s not everyday that you can make history and shove a rejected ban right up the asses of the marriage defenders.  its really late and i’ve been working for 16 hours – so the post is a bit here and there.  i might follow up on this later, esp. on anarchy and the concept of society deconstruction.

a second life and a requiem

today was a pretty good day.  i did have to wake up really early to finish some work that i simply didn’t do yesterday.  i’ve been doing that a lot lately – not doing.  but by that i mean not doing things that i don’t want to do.  in place, i’ve been doing exactly what i want to do and it has been great.

i realized today that reading the whole newspaper is a very long process and that most people probably ready about 1/10th of a paper.  the new york times is so huge that it would be impossible to read the whole thing.  here i thought that if i were to read the paper, i was suppose to read the whole thing.  scratch that.  but there was an article about second life – an online world with over 1.5 million people from around the real world.  this baffled me so much, that people would choose to live their lives in a virtual world rather than the actual world, that i had to check it out.  i signed on as P.M.Sapwood (they let you choose your first name but you have to pick from a list of last names) and started to explore.  they gave me some Linden dollars to start off with (the article told me that they currently exchange for about 250 Lindens for $1 – the record for the total U.S. dollars spent in Lindens in one day is $575,000!) and i hit the tutorial island.  i made it a grand total of five steps, talked with one other person called something like “celestial warhammer,” encountered a talking parrot, and decided that second life was fucking stupid.  it was a beautiful day in the virtual world, but it was also a beautiful day in the real world.  so i logged off and went outside.  maybe i’ll try it again, but i’ve decided to put less hours into things that don’t show tangible benefits for me (this excludes the accumulation of a sizable Linden bank account).

i also was invited to go to the milwaukee symphony to hear mozart’s “magic flute” and “requiem.”  the magic flute was alright but i didn’t go to hear singing, i went to hear the instruments.  honestly, opera singing somewhat annoys me.  some is nice, but most is shrill and drowns the music.  i decided that i like baritones.  but the requiem was amazing.  there was a full chorus and i totally dug the singing since it was about 100 voices.  requiem is so powerful and forceful.  i loved it.  but i found that symphonies somewhat lull me into a semi-sleep.  i am paying attention, often moving in the music.  but my eyes are closed and i’m tuned out to everything else.  it sounds creepy, but it’s almost like a trance.  i also remembered something that i love.  it’s when the lights go down on the audience and come up on the musicians.  then the hall goes silent before erupting in applause for the primary violinist.  they come out, thank the crowd with typically one to many “oh no, me? please, no, no, no” before the whole orchestra tunes to a single key.  i love this.  they come in one by one and you can hear each instrument adjusting to match the note until the sound is resonating through your chest.  amazing.

we’re all here: heathens, heretics, kids with blue socks.

what do i love more than saturday and sunday mornings. i wake up around 9am to the sound of the dog jumping into my bed and curling up in the curve between my legs and my chest. that could be one of the best things first thing in the morning – well, if you’re a dog person of course. pixie is the dog that i’m living with at the moment. she’s small and somewhat “yipee,” but she’s starting to grow on me (despite my sworn dislike for little dogs). and breakfast is a ritual that i’m really getting into. in the past five years of scrambling in the morning to finish course work or go to work, i never really appreciated breakfast. now it’s two pieces of toast, an apple with some sunflower seed butter, and a bowl of cereal. mix in good conversation with jim and sandy, as well as a copy of the newspaper and i’m damn near content. given the minimal things that I own right now (a backpack, some clothes, a camera, and a laptop), my life has not been highlighted by stuff. even more, i don’t really know anyone here besides jim and sandy – there are some kids, but no one that i’ve really come to know. so it’s amazing to really appreciate the simplest of things – sitting at the kitchen table and talking about handball (which I’m trying to talk Jim into teaching me), having breakfast, and hanging out with the kids next door and talking about all the “creepy” stuff in the neighborhood (they call everything “creepy;” yesterday they came to the front door to hand deliver a baby carrot and instructed me to share it with jim).

on sunday i’ll be flying to boston and, most likely, my fate with green corps. i’m going with a positive attitude and a hope that i can make the program into something that i’m passionate about. things can’t stay where they are – i’m not being driven to do this work and i find myself making plans for something other than this.

and it seems like i can’t stop buying things that sound interested. so i bought my camera, we already covered that. but a few days ago, george asked me if i wanted to buy his recumbent
for some unknown price. i rode it in the parking lot and it was awesome. a bit awkward to steer with my hands below the seat and a bit uncomfortable to lean into my turns so much. but the seat make a diamond frame seem stupid. incredibly comfortable. now i just have to come up with the cash to grab it before someone else does.

if i do quit this job or get fired, at least i’ll have a camera and a recumbent (and of course good friends) – the makings of a coast to coast ride in the spring/summer.

photos, photos, photos.

so i got my new camera: a nikon d50 digital slr. i’m still learning the ropes, but so far it’s awesome! i took some photos around the house and at lapham’s peak state park. check’em out on flick, my precious!