Parking with strangers

There are few thing weirder than the cell phone waiting lot at the airport. Especially the Sea-Tac Airport, where driving into the lot feels kind of like you just got tricked into driving yourself into the impound.

I already try to avoid eye contact with neighbor cars at stoplights (unless of course we're racing. Or making flirty eyes). Here, it's almost impossible to keep to yourself. Even if you manage to park facing a wall, or in Sea-Tac's case, one of the four barbed wire topped chain link fences surrounding the lot, neighbor car are coming and going at a pace that rivals my attention span when playing DJ with a loaded ipod (i.e. lots of turnover) and every time they come or go, there's that moment of concern where you don't really think the driver won't hit you while pulling in or out.

My luck tonight was a middle slot where you're staring straight into their faces, or headlights, as sometimes is the case, because no one expects to stay long in the park and wait, and why turn off your brights anyway. Most people are either pretending to sleep (because it just isn't possible to come anywhere near REM with an arrival just a phone call away. If you wanted to sleep, you'd have stayed home to nap and made your friend wait with their bags like a normal passenger), keeping busy with phones, books, or newspapers (the best kind of neighbors, in my opinion), and no matter what, everyone is eying the few randoms who pace around the lot with their dogs or cell phones as if they didn't know that there's a wholly captive audience in all these parked cars bored out of their minds with nothing else to look at but their wandering. It's a like a drive-in theater with no entertainment.

The guy next to me seemed to be coming and going from somewhere in the back of the lot (maybe there are snacks) and rummaging around his trunk, which was unfortunate since I was parked in and he was parked out so we exchanged obligatory smiles three different times until he finally stayed put and left me be to make mental commentary on all the neighbor cars' choices of rear view mirror hangings (it doesn't take flowers, ballet slippers,or a grad cap pendant to remind me that I don't plan on decking out my car in that fashion [though it does make me miss Thai taxis with enough Buddha bling and fresh jasmine hanging from the mirror that the driver has to hold it steady around corners]).

Better off testing your luck idling at the arrival terminal.

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Fighting Entropy

Entropy – a measure of disorder; the higher the entropy the greater the disorder

I'm looking around my bedroom now, somehow surprised by the disaster of space. It's as if my closet has revolted against me, along with drawers and shelves, and all are refusing to keep my things in order. Or maybe I'm just a lazy bum. How does it get like this? I swear I hang up my shirts at the end of the day and put my shoes and laundry in their proper homes. When that falls behind, I swear I Mary Poppins it up, tidying in the high-speed, spoonful of sugar kind of way. But still, this. Chaos.

The Law of Entropy has way more to do with life than with thermodynamics. No matter how much energy is exerted to keep order, disorder inevitably follows. Not to be a cosmic pessimist, but don't you ever just wish there was a pause button?

It's why my room isn't clean, my hair has a rat's nest of tangles no less than 4 hours after I brush it smooth, my purse is filled to the brim with odds and ends (when did this staple remover get here anyway?). It's why I'm always just catching up with my body's incessant call for another shower, shave, and bowel movement. It's why even after the good and clean I feel after taking the sacrament on Sunday, by Saturday next, I'm due for a repeat.

I'm fighting entropy at work, to keep food donors from succumbing to the much easier route of dumping their food product. I'm due for an oil change; my glasses are broken, my toenail polish is chipped all but the big toe. The sun is burning "out", the US economy and position as world superpower is deteriorating, people are becoming less intelligent, moral, and motivated. Blah blah blah, the downward escalator keeps moving, right?

Entropy.

Disorder.

Just sayin'.

The light

Love this song. Love the flowers in Rapunzel's braided hair. LOVE floating lanterns* and their jellyfish effect on the sky. Harmony and hope. If only her eyes weren't so big and his goatee so creepy.


*first time I floated these suckers a tree almost caught on fire. It's harder than it looks.

Getting involved...

I remember a few years ago I was dating this guy who was "into politics." Obama was in his breakout days and we spent our first date sparring over the guy's flaws (mostly me) and merits (mostly him) while accidentally hiking up the backside of Mt. Timpanogos (and mostly agreeing on everything). Dreamy, right? Months later, as elections season escalated and everyone joined the zeal, he surprised me by one-upping the "into politics" fakers who can talk the talk with the help of MSNBC's election guide by supporting his local representative, Don Jarvis, one of Provo's only conservative Democrats. I set up a sign in my yard, talked him up to sound cool, and sadly, came away from the campaign with little else than a t-shirt.

I was excited about the idea of local politics, but had very little idea what that even meant. This was made especially clear to me a month ago when our public policy intern quizzed me on what a State legislator is and does and I failed miserably. The intern was prepping us for a work-sponsored field trip to the Capitol, where we'd go to lobby for hunger relief funding.

Why didn't anyone ever tell me that ONE, You're allowed to just GO to the Capitol and knock on your legislators' doors and TWO, They WANT to hear what you think?

DW, with all your activism oozing from your pores, you failed me.

Ooorrrr maybe they've been telling me this for years (and by 'they' I mean teachers, public service announcers, strangers on the streets with clipboards...)

I wowed the pants off one of District 5's representatives (figuratively, jeez!) and he wants to come by and see what we food bankers are all about. I also ran into my friend Troy who, in an odd turn of events, was there lobbying for some Pharmaceutical something or other.

No need for nitty gritty details at this point but the point is this: local politics rock socks! I could totally get into this. Federal lawmaking, schmoozing and decision-making seem so far away, all wrapped up in the mess that is The Man. Olympia is where decisions are made that affect my day-to-day life. And, though I'm sure there are doubters, I really do believe that I can have an impact on how those decisions are made. Maybe there's a locally-elected position someday in my future.

Good thing that 92 years ago women joined forces with posters like this, Comptroller Knudson has a ring to it...

Mister Blue Sky

This morning I woke to bright blue skies. I lazily ignored my impulse to seize the day and fill the precious hours of brightness with a hike, bike ride, or finagling a rowboat and lake launch site. Instead, I set up shop on the patio porch and soaked in the Vitamin D, just waiting for seratonin to kick in (seratonin = serum + tonic, i.e. happy juice). I lay like the family lab, curled up with a stack of books, my phone and laptop within arms reach. The sun hit my knees, shoulder, and best of all, my cheek, temple and right eye, warming not just the surface of my skin but deep into my brain, an area that rarely receives such warmth. When my brain begins to boil, I move to the shade, and let just my feet enjoy the sun bath. The happy juice has kicked in and I'm pulled together again. My stuffy nose is drying, I have forgotten about 33,000 pounds of rotten onions, delayed apples, and social fatigue. I just need to calm down already. Just a taste and I can handle a few more days of rain.

As long as I have ELO's sweet 'do and shades in my life


Or a little moving on music