We Have Entered The Period Of Consequences

Bought your beachfront property in Arkansas yet? Might be time to start doing so. Global warming is real.

Inheritance Fears

Sorry for the no posting over the holidays. Things get busy fast when you have a nineteen month old with you without any scheduled structured activities. I have learned though. I nap when she does. I don't know that it gives me any more energy or makes me more rested, I just know that I do it. Good Yule holiday for us; the young one got many gifts, including to my dismay, several Elmo books. Having not observed the addictive properties of Elmo before, I was surprised at how quicky she took to Elmo - especially since she had never seen Elmo on TV outside of one or two segments on the two Seasame Street videos we own. I actually started to wonder if the day care was showing them videos in spite of their claim not to.

I am still fighting my depression though. Right now it has... faded somewhat. It is not as strong as it was but it is truly still with me. I'm afraid of it and I should be. Depression will kill me if I am not vigilant. I truly and deeply hope that my daughter does not inherit my depression; I think that would be awful. If she does, then my only hope is that medical technology will have advanced enough to treat it more effectively. I pray that I would recognize the symptoms sooner so that she can get help early.

Depression and alcoholism. Both hereditary. Both reasons why I did not want children. I think that the Goddess had other plans because my beautiful daughter was concieved in spite of all the careful precautions we took. No method of birth control is 100%, but my wife and I are both educated and the odds favored us by large margins. And then our daughter came along. She is adorable and so smart but I am filled with fears for her. My challenge is to not let those fears determine how I parent her.

Bastard Fairies

Go download the free new CD from the Bastard Fairies. To be honest, I'm not sure I like it or not - I know it is interestingly different from anything else I listen to. You can then go and watch their YouTube videos, including the controversial one called The Coolest 8 Year Old In The World Talks About O'Reilly.

Are they using that girl for political purposes? Shit yeah. Do I have a problem with it? Not really. I used to do the pro-choice marches at clinics; I've seen enemy children with pictures of bloody fetuses. The enemy indoctrinates their children young; we should not indoctrinate, but we should teach and get them active and involved at a young age. This is the world they will inherit - they'd best know how to fight for it. Would I let my daughter be in a video like that? No, but that is a personal parenting decision. I haven't walked a mile in their shoes to know why they did that.

Besides, I do know that the singer for Bastard Fairies is Yellow Thunder Woman. She is Native American, a direct decendant of the Great Ponca Chief Standing Bear, an Indian princess and member of the Yankton Sioux. So, I don't think she or her family owe the United States, its white cultures and heritage, any respect at all. Nor should they teach that little girl to respect this country. This nation was founded upon the genocide of the Native American and rather than face and renounce our evil, selfish past, we are expanding it to embrace torture and secret prisons.

Just my opinion.

Dangerous Times

I'm sitting here a little bit frightened, very skeptical and very dazed. I've actually been feeling pretty good psychologically these past two days. Past experience warns me that all of this could change and go away in an instant. And it's not like it needs a prompt from the outside world like getting in a wreck or losing my job. It just happens.

So even though I am feeling okay right now - not great but not bad, I don't trust my own feelings and moods. All you have to do to is visit the post Depression's Going to Kill Me and you will see why. Those moods, semi-suicidal and violently self-loathing can consume me.

Over the years I have come to accept the fact that this is a disease, like diabetes or kidney failure. For some reason, my brain does not produce the chemicals needed to keep my moods in balance the way it should. Maybe it is genetic; it certainly is biological. The medications I take supplement the chemicals in the brain I need. Like a diabetic, if I don't take my medications consistently and routinely I suffer the effects of my disease.

It doesn't help that people seem to be unable to understand the simple biology behind it. Telling me to just cheer up and quit being depressed is like telling a person with heart disease to just suck it up and get ready to run a marathon. It just does not work that way. I'm not this way because I have failed morally or I lack strength. How the hell can you say I am not strong? It takes a lot of strength and endurance just to not kill myself sometimes. If moral strength and courage is like a muscle then I must have a hell of a lot more than most people because I am constantly exercising my moral strength and courage.

The other one mentally ill people get a lot of is this goddamn stupid idea that if you are mentally illl then God is punishing you for some reason. Hey, if your God works that way, maybe that is not a God you are worshipping. That's more like what I imagine a devil would be like. This would be like God punishing an infant by giving the infant leukemia. I don't believe that our creator - The Goddess - works that way. I really don't. I don't see Her as being that cruel.

Anyway the real hidden trap with depression is this: sometimes, even when you take your medications as prescribed, depression can still sneak up on you and overtake you anyway. I hate it, it isn't fair but shit, it just creeps up on you and gets you without warning.

And that is why I feel I can't trust my own mind today.

Good Morning Goddess Brigit, my name is Andy and I am an alcoholic. I have been kept sober, one day at a time, since Imbolc of 2001 by your grace and your grace alone. I'd like to take this moment to thank You, my Higher Power, for this daily reprieve. Today is a good day to be sober. Please be with me today all through the day and help me stay sober all day long. Show me Your will for me and grant me the power to carry that will out. Thy will, not mine, be done. Blessed Be.

Now that's how you start a good day.

A Little More Comfortable In My Own Skin Today

I am feeling better tonight...

Maybe it it because I got a contract to right another article (during my blogging hiatus I was actually paid by two national publications in my field for my writing) for a pretty prominent magazine in my professional field. Being paid to write. You have no idea. That's like someone writing me a paycheck for eating pizza... it's not as good as sex but it sure the hell beats work.

Maybe it was my beautiful daughter yelling "Daddy!" as she climbed out of the car seat to greet me when my wife came home.

Maybe it was my Higher Power stepping in and reminding me that This too, shall pass.

But I really don't think it was any of those things... I think it was because I wandered over to Cute Overload and saw this:

Dammit, it is well nigh impossible to feel sorry for yourself when you look at a photo like that of a poor dog in socks...

And yeah, that's right, I'm a guy and I wear kilts and hang out at Cute Overload. You wanna make something out of it, huh? Huh? You want your ass kicked by a guy in a skirt? Didn't think so.

Nothing is Really Worth It Anymore

Pretty much sums it up.

I went to a Yule/Solstice celebration this weekend and for a brief moment I felt connected but it was transient and long since gone. I have even less patience with my toddler now than before and know that I am failing as a father and husband.

No sleep again last night.

I'm gonna read the Big Book pages 60-63 which my sponsor assigned to me and pray but it won't help. But it will kill some time so why not.

Tired

My morning has been spent fixing flat tires, picking up other broken cars from dealership repair shops and things like that. I am going to nap. Last night my wife, I and my daughter went to her office Christmas party. If I ever wanted to feel stupid and out of place, that was a good place to choose to go. My daughter threw a huge temper tantrum and I did not know what to do.

I am going to go pray and read the big book and then nap.

Not Aloof, Just Angry.

I have recently learned that some people think I am aloof. I just want to make clear: it's not that I am aloof, its that I hate you. I'm not sitting around thinking I'm better than you; I'm actually sitting around wishing you were headed to Iraq. It's not that I don't care you had surgery. It's that I'd hoped you'd die on the table.

And if these sentiments aren't in keeping with the title and purpose of this blog, well, shit, then what is?

Depression's Gonna Kill Me

It's been so long since I've blogged, I've pretty much forgotten how to post.

Had to stop and write because I am going a little bit crazy. Maybe a lot crazy. I'm not ready to have a cigarette or take a drink, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'm glad I don't own a gun. The temptation to kill myself has been on the edge of my mind off and on for many months now.

My daughter is the primary reason I have not done it. I wish I had not had her. Not for her sake. I love her, she is beautiful, she is bright, she is sunshine. But I don't think I am coping really well with being a father and all the time I spend with her is time that I feel like I am acting the role of the good dad. One time she bit me - hard - and it hurt like hell and I yelled at her "NO! Don't bite me!" She looked like she was about to have a heart attack she was so frightened and that was when I thought maybe she just saw the real me.

Depression - that's where I have been these past months. i'm doing just about the minimum to get by - going to the psychiatrist, kinda talking to my sponsor, praying in the morning... but that's about it and the prayers feel really fucking hollow. I feel like I am talking to empty space again. The psychiatrist and I have been playing with my meds a little but it does not seem to make a difference (well, except the six months I was on Zoloft and could not get an erection or feel any erotic or arousing feelings at all - some ways that was a blessing. With no interest in sex at all, life was a little simpler). She -the psychiatrist - pretty much feels that at this point its up to me. I have to do something to save myself.

You know, like go to an AA meeting. Or meditate.

I pretty much don't see the point.

I do want to talk to my sponsor, but she has her own problems now and I am actually scared for her. I also don't feel like I can do anything to help her. So, I just watch her with her worries and problems and feel like I can't talk to her about mine. In Maslow's Hierarchy of needs her problems are on the security/physiology level and mine are higher on the list.

Maybe I'll send her a link to this anyway. AA tells us that we should share our problems because giving another person a chance to help us may help them get away from their issues.

Funny thing is that at work and in my professional life, things are going very well. But when you feel like this, all that just turns to ashes in your hands.

All my life I have fought my depression and today I really am starting to feel like I'm close to losing.

I'll end with a stupid fucking AA gratitude list:
I am grateful for
my daughter
my wife
my relationship with my parents
my lack of a relationship with my sister
my dogs
my fish
my houseplants (don't laugh, nurturing them can be very healing)
The pay my job gives me. Fuck the job. I just want the money.
Credit card debt is almost paid off
my friends
The Creatress, The Goddess whom I don't feel is real at all anymore.

I don't feel safe blogging anymore

which is why I have not been doing it. Need to figure out what I am going to do about it.

How Lame Is This?

Well here I am a Yearly Kos and I don't have wifi so I cannot blog... I have ethernet cable but the hotel does not have access. Meanwhile, Air America is sponsoring free wifi for all participants...

So I am on a borrowed laptop and do not want to monopolize it.

Brief summary...
Met Kos, Atrios, Joe Wilson, Matt Stoller, Chris Bowers, DarkSyde, Devilstower, a bunch of reporters, a bunch of bloggers and it is very cool.

Anyway, I am a little overwhelmed, tired, and hungry. I have been running like crazy as a volunteer, making myself useful whereever and whenever possibled. So I am needing to take a break. Will blog more as I get access to computers...

Blessings to ya'll.

Why I Am A Progressive

Image from Project for the Old American Century

Few better places than Texas exist for growing up progressive. If your beliefs can survive being tempered in the forges of that blood-red state, they can survive anything. I remember in 1979 as a ten year old when we had our classroom “election.” Our teachers did not believe in secret ballots. Guess who was the one kid who didn’t vote for Reagan? Even the black kid voted for Reagan. That’s how Republican it was.

Life would have been easier if I had become conservative. Heck, it would have been easier if I had simply kept quiet about being a progressive. I can’t stay quiet or pretend to be a conservative. When I do that, it just about kills me. I figure it’s healthier for me to just keep raising hell.

My earliest memory of anything political comes from high school. Our school district enacted a dress code I objected to – so I went to school wearing a skirt to protest. That hasn’t changed; you’ll still more likely find me in a kilt than pants.

I was also kicked out of high school for funding and publishing an underground paper. All it contained was short stories and poetry – no sex, minimal drug references and actual advertising paid for the printing (until the school called the advertisers and they cancelled their checks). I was lucky, my parents backed me and threatened to sue and I was reinstated into school. A result of this is my undying passion for the First Amendment.

For one of my first political campaigns, I proudly campaigned for Ann Richards and if I could I’d vote for her again. Ann kicked ass. She made no apologies for being a Democrat in a day and age when it seemed like every Texas Democrat wanted to announce they had become a Republican. Ann Richards stood up for equal opportunity for every Texan – even the dark skinned ones! That wasn’t very common in Texas and still isn’t.

I cannot separate my moral values and my progressive beliefs. I express my moral values by fighting for progressive causes. All people are the children of God (however that God is conceived – Goddess, Buddha, Allah, Jehovah et al.), and all of God’s children deserve respect. We have a responsibility to each other. Our Creator gave us this earth and if we are stewards of it, then a responsible steward cares for, nurtures and respects that which the steward is responsible for. If God gifted us with brains, then we must honor God by using those brains both creatively and rationally.

Today I am a progressive because I want my daughter to live in a better world than the one I live in. She should never have to be paid less than men for the same job. Nobody should tell her what to do with her body or forbid her to enjoy her sexuality. Her future should be filled with a rainbow of friends representing all of humanity. When she has grandchildren, they should walk on a greener earth and breathe clean air.

That’s why I am a progressive.

Guess Who's Talking?

Official first word: "Cat."

It actually makes sense. In her world, everything interacts with her: mom and dad and the dogs. The one great mystery is the cat who runs and hides from her. Our daughter has long been fascinated with the dark, stealthy animal. So it was not too great a surprise to hear her repeat "Ca" "Ca" when she saw Thelma. Within the past two days it has become "Cat" with a very soft "t" sound.

Pretty cool first word for a young Wiccan, eh?

I am so late for work...

I can't believe I am stopping to post anyway. You'll have to live with a photo of Mexico and presume that it is intended to be some really vigorous rebuttal of some right wing immigration talking points.

Have a good day!

Thank you all.

When I killed my previous blog I honestly figured only a couple of folks would make the hop over or check in. After all, I had not updated regularly, the templates needed correction, and I abandoned it without notice. I have been amazed at how many people have emailed to ask what happened and find the new blog.

Thank you.

I also want to note the nice notes I got from some conservatives. Blogging apparently transcends politics.

Again, thank you. It really moved me.

Beautiful Morning

Today I am just pausing and enjoying the beauty of this morning. There is nothing quite like an late spring morning; the crisp light that outlines each leaf, the dew damp grass underfoot. The smell of flowers.

Time to pause and simply say "Thank You for everything!"

Then hug my daughter and wife and run to work.

Try not to get too serious today.

Various Miscellenany

Guess who's walking? Yep, up to sixteen and seventeen steps at a time before either sitting on purpose or sitting because gravity caught up to her. No words yet although I think we are getting closer and closer...

Photo was taken at her one year birthday party this weekend. That was very cool; we had four 1 to 1.5 year olds over so we created a baby mosh pit in the living room and let them rip. That reminds me, we have some thank you's to send!

Obviously I have not figured out what to do in terms of anonymity and my family. I wasn't going to share photos, but hey, without using names it does not matter, right? That seems like a slippery slope right there.

One of my commenters suggested using pseudonyms for my wife and child. Problem is, I tried that with my very first blog and it was not very successful. I'd forget to use my wife's pseudonym and leave half my readers confused and the other half thinking I had a girlfriend on the side.

I'm going to have to figure this out and soon.

In the meantime you can watch what 15 year old Ava Lowery created to help promote Yearly Kos.

Memorial Day.

Pardon me if I don't see anything to celebrate.

Yearly Kos Makes The New York Times

Sweet! In less than two weeks I will be in Vegas rubbing elbows with folks like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Senator Barbera Boxer, Senator Russ Feingold, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Representative Brad Miller, DNC Chair Howard Dean, General Wesley Clark, George Lakeoff, Chris Mooney and oh so many, many more progressive luminaries and activists. This is Yearly Kos, the first annual convention of the progressive blog Daily Kos.

The New York Times appears to have noticed what we are up to and they aren't the only ones... I've seen the media list and it is pretty impressive.

So what am I going to say to all these famous Democrats and political activists? I'm going to keep it simple:

Don't listen to the press and the polls. Do the right thing -providing oversight for the executive branch, defend the Supreme Court from further right wing extremists, call for an end to the unjust and illegal war in Iraq - and the public will catch up to you.

Return to Democratic core values: equal opportunity for everyone, educational access for everyone, affordable medical care, stand up for the little guy against the giant corporations.

Don't abandone your constituencies. Americans of all creeds and colors, mend and women, gay and straight.

Clean up your own mess - get Rep Jefferson and Mollohan off their committees and pressure themto resign from Congress. We are not the party of criminals; the Republicans are.
And finally - remember the words of Sam Rayburn: I am a Democrat without prefix, suffix or apology. Don't let the corporate media or Right Wing noise machine intimadate you. Stand proud and lead.

Anything you want to add? I'm listening.

We Are The Bad Guys

I keep looking at this picture of an Iraqi girl, wearing the blood of her parents who have been shot to death by US soldiers at a checkpoint... she's a girl like my daughter. I wonder where she is now. Who is taking care of her, can she go to school, is she even alive...

I read today that in addition to the Pentagon admission that United States Marines committed a massacre in Haditha there are now eyewitness accounts. United States Marines murdered at least five girls, ages one, three, five, ten and fourteen.

We aren't heroes. We aren't bringing Democracy. We - the United States of America and all of her citizens - are participants in murder. The men and women who brought us there by deceit are still in power, the companies who cheat our soldiers of proper armor and food are still profiting from the American blood spilled for no good reason - yes, they are dying for a futile cause. Our soldiers lives are being wasted, squandered on nothing, nothing at all... there is no good reason for them to be there.

It is criminal what our government is doing to our soldiers and the people of Iraq. Just criminal. Our government is manufacturing psychopaths with PTSD and pushing them to the front, to situations where massacres happen.

It is so angering, so depressing, so infuriating to read this news. You want to give up, you want to say the hell with humanity, you want to drink and make it all go away...

But there are other people out there who fill you with hope and renew your energy. For example, you should visit Peace Takes Courage and see what one fifteen year old girl has done.

Then you pick up and keep on keeping on. Because as stained as our beautiful United States is with war crimes and degraded by the criminals who govern, there is still a core of worth to our country that is not dead. We washed the stain of slavery from our country, we can again reclaim our former place as a leader of nations in civilization and humanity.

But Goddess, do we have work to do to achieve that...

Brief Music Friday Post

For some reason I have been in a Psychobilly mood recently and when you think psychotic and Rockabilly there's a couple of bands out there but the first and the best are The Cramps. Poison Ivy, above, always was one of my favorite guitarists in the sense that she picked out her own style carefully and with great deliberation. Nobody sounded like her. She also was one of those women who eternally puzzle me, adopting a sleaze vamp pose when clearly whatever else she is, she is not a slut. She reminds me of a dear friend from college who adopted the moniker Hatchet Slut (to this day that is who I email). I can't figure 'em out but I love 'em.

Late for work so I must run.

Stay sick.

Feelings

I was surprised how violated I felt about my coworker using my blog against me in an attempt to get me fired. I was not sure I had the right to feel that way because - hey, I put it out there for anyone to see, right? I was not ashamed of what I had written, why should I be? There was nothing inappropriate about it. I stand by it, all of it, the good, the bad and the poorly written.

Yet I felt hugely violated by the whole thing and found I could not post on my blog.

Which is kind of lame when you think about it. It's not like I was raped or anything. Nonetheless the feeling is real. Trying to deny a feeling like that is impossible.

So the blog had to die. Which sucks.

I have to go now. I have work to do for the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.

Back In The Saddle Again

So people want to know why I killed my former blog, The Kilted Liberal, especially since it finally seemed to be taking off and getting a real rythmn to it. Here it goes.

About two and half weeks ago I got called into my boss' office. Time for my performance review. I was not nervous, if anything I was looking forward to talking with him about my job and upcoming and ongoing projects. The background to this is that my boss is a conservative Christian. He's told me that he believes in the end times and I know he struggles to reconcile his scientific understanding of evolution with a literal interpretation of the Bible. My boss is also a registered Republican and very active in his party. He's a smart guy, he's very fair and for every fault he has, he also has a positive. Overall I like him, I respect him, I love learning from him and I think he is a good man.

So I go in for my performance review and he hands me a stack of papers about a half inch thick and says, "What's this?"

It was a stack of pages printed from my blog. Someone had helpfully highlighted the parts they felt were most incriminating. Specifically they had singled out every post mentioning the following:

my practice of my religious faith

my recovery from alcoholism

times I felt tempted to drink

any mention of sex

my political views

any mention of work

any posts done during work hours

Now, let's be fair here: those last two are fair game I'd guess, even though I never mentioned where I worked or specifically what I do. And there was one post that essentially said I hate this fucking place. And I have no excuse for posting during work hours except boredom. My saving grace is that there were only six instances of it and all six were one or two line posts, i.e. I saw some thing interesting and posted a link.

But aside from about eight pages, the entire rest of it was Wicca, politics, drinking and sex. Some of the entries had been copied and pasted rather than printed out directly. This allowed my enemy to show only what she wanted to show.

I'm a lucky guy. My boss leaned over the desk and said: I don't give a shit what you believe, or who you vote for. In fact, I don't even want to know. I just want you to work hard while you are here. I trust you and I depend on you. Don't ever, ever post about work again (yeah, I know, I'm doing a shitty job living up to that already) and never post during work hours.

And then in front of me he tore the papers to shreds and dumped them in the trash. I got a 3% raise instead of the 5% I expected. I wasn't going to bitch about that just then.

See why I respect my boss?

When I left his office there was a coworker kind of standing across the way. She was pretending to talk to some guys in their office but she was staring at me. I know she knew about my blog. See, I was dumb enough to tell her about the old one and I guess she followed me to the new one.

I kept my face expressionless and went to my desk and began to clean the papers on top of it. This was not deliberate; I was simply remaining calm. Then I saw she was smiling. She thought I was cleaning my desk out and she was enjoying it. On my desk is a decorative black marble ball about four inches in diameter; it weighs about six or seven pounds. I really wanted to pick it up and smash her fucking brains out with it. Instead I sat down and got back to work.

The expression on her face when she realized I was not going anywhere was priceless. I do wish I had a camera for it.

For some reason, ever since then she has been very nervous about being in a room with me. I'm not sure why; I'm always perfectly polite. Maybe she thinks I'm just as nasty and vicious of a person as her.

So why did she do this? I'm not really sure. We disagree about politics and she is somewhat religious, but I don't think that is it. What seems to have set her off is one of my posts on women. I related a specific circumstance which was not about her, but I think that she thought it was about her. That's my best guess, but I really don't know.

What am I going to do about it?

Keep blogging. But this time, I am going to try to remain anonymous. That sucks. I really enjoyed sharing pictures of my baby girl with you guys. But her name is distinctive and the biggest value I got out of blogging was an ability to be very honest with my feelings. I'm thinking of starting a separate blog which will be very public, attached to my name and career, but that will be very bland and as a matter of self preservation, dishonest. I kind of need to do that; I'm about to be published in a major publication in my profession. But I won't talk about that here.

Pretty fucking sad, eh?

Maybe I'll just have to start my own company so that I don't have to worry about keeping others happy so I stay employed.

Lots of prayer, meditation and 12 step action needed on this one...

Photo is of the Rocky Mountains from just behind Denver in Golden Gate State Park. On the far right is Estes Park and Longs Peak. In the middle is Mount Evans. Both Evans and Longs are over 14,000 feet high and I hope to climb them both before I die. The photo is of my home, I just don't live there yet.

Starting from scratch...