Somebody Up There Loves Me. Somebody up there loves all of us.

The rain dried up. Tonight was safe and quiet again. I stayed at the sleepout a few hours, then came home. Tomorrow we have another meeting toward getting the women’s severe weather shelter going.

I got home in time for the last half of Red Dwarf. Wes is also excited because he taped an hour-long Hawaiian dance performance from PBS. We won’t watch it now, tho’, cause his hero David Letterman is coming on. I’m going to sleep.

Monday and Tuesday night stayed safe and dry. Monday was a scare: some rain and thunder in the middle of the afternoon. The sidewalk was damp, and so were some of the mats. Everyone was given an individual tarp to cover themselves with, and the group had voted that if it really rained we would go into the plaza, crossing the tape barricade, and risking arrest. I stayed until after midnight, using the time to work with Michele on a Real Change story about the sleepout. When it hadn’t rained by then the alert was called off and I went home. Tuesday night was completely dry.

But today it has been raining all day, the misty rain of the Pacific Northwest that seems so light and seeps into everything. If it doesn’t stop, or if it gets harder tonight…

The King County Admin Winter Response Shelter is definitely opening on the 15th, under the management of the Salvation Army. The sleepout is to keep everyone safe until then. But we can’t let homeless people huddle on the sidewalk, getting drenched in rain or in the steamy damp under a tarp, when at least partial shelter is only a few steps away.

There is a chance that King County will hold off calling the police if we just enter the Plaza for shelter during the rain.

This afternoon I am working with folks from WHEEL to send letters to the City Council asking for funds to open our women’s severe weather shelter, then several of us will go to the city budget hearings. Tonight I may have time to drop of a howdy at the Poetry Slam for the birthday party of Alison Durazzi, MC for four years and turning it over to a new MC tonight. Sometime today I need to write up material for a reading tomorrow night on “The Writer’s Role in Society” and turn it over to one of my companion writers to read for me if I’m not there, and make sure Kevin can finish the Out of the Margins broadside without me.

Can’t we all just get along?

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With all this going on, I took the time in the last two days to open two new logs: Muller, for my longer and more contemplative blogs, and AmusedMuse, to give my mentor Thalia closer access to jostle my elbow and make me lighten up.

First, the good news. Besides the fact that obviously none of us have been arrested yet and that I haven’t come down with the flu yet (in spite of standing security watch at the sleepout from 1:30 AM to 3:30 AM) — WHEEL met with the staff at the Frye Apartments today and it looks like we have a space for a women’s severe-weather shelter. We’ll get word for sure on Wednesday.

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I finished the McAndrew stories a couple of days ago. Then I read Scoundrel Time, Lillian Hellman’s intensely personal memoir of the McCarthy era, which I’ve just finished.

Twice the Seattle Times has published editorials condemning pacifism in the current circumstances as “evil.” This seems an especially appropriate time for Lillian Hellman’s famous quote from her letter to the House Un-American Activities Committee: “I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.”

In refusing to name names or testify about any other person, Hellman stood as a beacon of decency during the witch hunt hysteria of that infamous time, when many other famous figures (like Clifford Odets and Elia Kazan) fell all over themselves to slander friends, relatives and strangers in order to proclaim their own ideological innocence and save their careers. Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett, whom she lived with and who went to jail during that awful period, didn’t save their careers. But they saved their integrity.

Standing for peace now is harder than it has ever been. But what is the use of standing for peace when the world is at peace? How hard is it to urge people to get along when they aren’t angry at each other? When does the government need to be criticized, if not at the time when you think it’s making a mistake?

There have been many claims, some probably true, that Hellman exaggerated or outright made up parts of her life. The things I find valuable in this book, however, have nothing to do with those accusations.

In his introduction, Gary Wills has an excellent description of the difference between an ideologue and a radical:

“The popular image of the radical is of the wild and irresponsible ‘bomb thrower.’ But most radicals I have met were extraordinarily civil. They oppose the general degradation, not with a programmatic ‘solution,’ but with a personal code that makes pride possible in a shameful social order. They do not wish to be implicated in responsibility for society’s crimes, which means that they must take a special kind of responsibility for their own acts.”

Later Lillian Hellman says of the effect of the McCarthy era: “My belief in liberalism was mostly gone. I think I have substituted for it something private called, for want of something that should be more accurate, decency.”

I found an eerie parallel in Lillian Hellman’s reflections on Henry Wallace’s campaign for President in 1948, and my own reaction to Ralph Nader’s candidacy in 2000.

“I had seen a third party as necessary in this country–I still do–but I had not wanted all energies turned toward a presidential campaign. I had thought we would concentrate on wards, districts, even neighborhoods, building slow and small for a long future, and I disagreed that so much energy and money, all of it in fact, was being gambled on a man about whom I had many doubts.”

Gary Wills again:

“The radical thinks of virtuous people, while the ideologue thinks of orthodoxy. The radical hates vicious and harmful people, while the ideologue hates heretical ideas, no matter how ‘nice’ the possessors of those ideas may be. The radical tries to uphold a private kind of honor in a rotten world–like Hammett’s ‘private eyes,’ serving society without respecting it, seeing men and not just abstract Crime in the victims of their hunt. Hammett wielded that most self-wounding of human instruments, irony; and ironists make terrible crusaders. The worst thing one could have wished on the mousy world of Communist ideologues in America was a dozen more Hammetts.”

My sweetie Wes loved those last lines. He is a radical and compassionate man. He is also an ironist, and “a terrible crusader.”

One of the ironies Wes found in the September 11th aftermath was a TV interview with several “top counter-terrorist experts” in which they were asked if they understood Arabic — and none of them did.

But then you know what Lynn Cheney, the V.P.’s wife, says. Pushing multi-cultural studies right now, particularly Arabic studies, would “send the wrong message.” It might be interpreted to mean that we ought to be trying to understand the Arabs.

I guess none of those counter-terrorist agents wanted to send the wrong message.

I just read the news. I grieve.

I do believe that militant Islamic fundamentalism is a threat like Hitler: bin Laden and friends want to cleanse the Arabian peninsula and all other Muslim countries of all Jews, Christians, and eventually anybody except those exactly like them. We had to stop Hitler, even though it meant going to war. We have to stop bin Laden.

But our victory in World War II did us a great deal of moral damage. It convinced us that we were always the Good Guys and we could always dictate what was Good to the rest of the world.

God help us, that this conflict not further inflate our false sense of moral superiority. God help us, that we go on to correct our own wrongs. Because bin Laden is right in this: we will never be at peace until there is peace and justice in the Middle East.

God help us, that more innocents do not die in this carnage.

This is not a day of triumph. We should always mourn when we have to go to war.

Yesterday I just spent my time on Xanga reading and commenting. I almost caught up! Now you’re all writing again!

I’ve felt exhausted ever since I slept on the sidewalk Monday & Tuesday night. Wednesday I just did a security shift and went home. Thursday & Friday I just helped set up and then went home. Last night I skipped out altogether, because the prediciton is rain for either Sunday or Monday night and, if we have enough support, that may be when things come to a head. I want to be there, and I don’t want to be sick. I’m fighting off a cold, and the operative word is “fighting.”

(If any of you have come in in the middle of this saga, it starts on September 29. Or you can get the gist of it at http://insideshare.hypermart.net/issues/.)

I hope we don’t get arrested tonight. This isn’t the only thing going on. WHEEL is also working on opening a women’s severe-weather shelter, and we have a meeting with a possible host tomorrow afternoon. I hope we don’t get arrested Tuesday either, because I’m on the hiring committee for a new women’s shelter organizer and we’re doing interviews Tuesday at 5PM. And Kevin and I still have to get the latest edition of the StreetWrites “Out of the Margins” broadside published!

When my schedule got so crowded earlier this week that I refused to look at it, I just told myself, “Go with the Tao,” and it worked. I didn’t worry about time, focused on the moment, trusted the next one to arrive by itself (), and everything coordinated beautifully.

But right now I’m sitting here sniffling at the Tao and feeling punk.

Congratulations to Erin_Go_Braless! Winner of SavageWeakLink Week 10/1 (A special gift for Erin, from Virtual Chocolate.)

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I’ve recently unsubscribed to some folks, and it’s not because I don’t love you! I made a vow to not let my Sites I Read list get over 40, and it has. In fact, the vow was first to not let it get over 12 — and then 20 — and then 30 — and then 38… Now I’ve gotten it down to 34 and I’m going to keep tightening the belt.

I’ve cut a few folks who haven’t posted for awhile, like recent daddies jmarcusross and HerbieTheElf, and others that I haven’t gotten around to for awhile. I’ve kept folks like dveras, sangreal, mbiberg and catana that I read because they cover the kind of topics I’m interested in, people like Alice, PhotoPete, percymoss and ryoushi who take me away from it all, and those like VeryModern and CyberGoddess who no matter what they write about will write it in a way that is a joy to read. And we all wait anxiously for the return of GudKarma and Deviant, so I have to stay subbed to them.

If I’ve dropped your subscription, please forgive me for just being old and tired and not able to keep up with everything — you can see what kind of choices I’ve had to make! Please stay in touch, and alert me if there’s any special news.

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I recommend all the sites on my SIR list for good reading. They aren’t just friends I read to exchange chat and eProps with — although that’s a good part of Xanga, too. (That doesn’t mean they are the only ones worth reading! It means they are all I can keep up with!)

Encouraging new folks and folks who need help is another part of Xanga. Esentia, sangreal, and perze are all good folks who could use some emotional warmth right now. Please visit them and say Hi.

Sometimes we turn away from folks in pain because we don’t know what to say and we can’t do anything to help. Just letting someone know you’re there is a big thing. The simplest comment you can make is two eProps and a

Have you ever been in a disagreement with someone and it turns out both of you have an entirely different interpretation of what’s happened? (Is there any other kind of disagreement?)

Wednesday I had to take an extra-strength painkiller just to get my body moving, and I was still so exhausted that my emotions felt flat. I figured this was all for the best, because we were going to talk to King County Executive Ron Sims face to face and I would be too tired to lose my temper and bite his head off. Not that I usually bite people’s heads off. It is ineffective, and my mouth isn’t really that large.

We didn’t meet with Ron Sims, but with his Assistant Executive Rod Brandon. Rod was very sympathetic to our position, but said that something — he didn’t know what — had made Sims “intransigent” about dealing with SHARE. A number of other high-powered people are pulling for us and trying to get Sims to meet with us. They reported that Ron Sims told them he is angry at SHARE because we didn’t try to work out this problem directly with him first. We went straight to the public and started trying to make him look bad.

We’ve got copies of half-a-dozen letters we’ve sent since Sims first announced he was recommending not opening the shelter; in every one of those letters we asked for a meeting. Our head organizer followed up each letter with a phone call, asking to schedule a meeting. So on the face of it this sounds nuts.

But what we have here is a culture clash. In Sims’ world, the executives get together and hash things out between each other. In his world, our guy was supposed to call his guy and do lunch. But we’re a grassroots organization. “Our guy” is a staff member who helps get us together to make plans and decisions (with help from us), does the paperwork (with help from us), carts the mats and blankets and supplies around (with help from us), and out of 30 years of experience in community organizing and shelter work makes recommendations about policy and actions — but we have the voting power, we make the decisions. Staff is never allowed, by our organizational policy, to have a private meeting with another agency and make decisions that affect the whole organization. All meetings with another agency have to be group meetings, which any member of SHARE who wants to can attend (although we do meet ahead of time to coordinate what we will talk about, so the meeting won’t be complete chaos.)

To Sims, that looks like our staff person is not being up front, but is dishonestly hiding behind a bunch of homeless people. The idea that we (the homeless and formerly homeless alike) are actually making decisions and setting policy for ourselves is just out of his mental ballpark.

Knowing what the problem is isn’t the same as solving it. Educating folks like Ron Sims to respect homeless and formerly homeless people as decision-makers working to help each other, not just as poor huddled masses waiting to be helped, is tough. Any suggestions welcome.

In the meantime, we are staying on the sidewalk and waiting to see what progress our friends make in getting Mr. Sims to talk with us. No arrests yet. All quiet on the Seattle Front.

Last night I just stayed to help set up and do the first security watch, then I went home to bed and slept ten hours. After reading a bit. Nothing stops me from reading!

Bookaholics Twelve-Step Program We admitted that our reading addiction was completely beyond our control. We couldn’t believe that any other Power in the Universe could control it either, so we gave it up and reformed as a Book Club.

Current book: The Compleat McAndrew by Charles Sheffield; short stories about an eccentric space engineer written by a scientist as an “excuse”, he claims in the foreword, to putter over intellectually fascinating problems. I grew up on this kind of stuff, although I’ve branched out to a lot of different kinds of fiction (and non-fiction) since. I like the stories themselves. But it looks like I was wrong about the McAndrew stories being the ones I remember that included jokes about the Scientist, the Mathematician, and the Engineer. Does anyone remember stories like this?

The Scientist, the Mathematician and the Engineer were kidnapped by a flying saucer, and woke to find themselves at one end of a long room with a beautiful naked woman reclining on a couch at the other end. They all hit an invisible barrier at once, trying to dash to her side. A voice came over the intercom announcing that the invisible barrier would lift at intervals, and at each interval they would be allowed to proceed half the remaining distance to the woman on the couch. The barrier then lifted, and the Engineer dashed forward. The other two sat down, though, and laughed at him. “It’s Zeno’s Paradox,” they yelled. “Don’t you understand? If each time you advance you only go half the remaining distance, you’ll never get there!” “Yeah,” he called back, “but sooner or later I’ll get close enough!”

The savageweaklink game is down to Erin_Go_Braless and me. If you haven’t read Erin’s log yet, do! It’s lively. And if you haven’t voted yet at savageweaklink, do!

Erin has excellent remarks in her latest blog about widening our community. This game has been one way I’ve made new friends on Xanga. Hi to new subscribers disclaimer, Jadedbruja, and notallthere. Everybody grab some Virtual Chocolate and let’s party!

You love me, I love you, Hope you’ll never be untrue, But I’ll have chocolate if you do; You can count on chocolate! – Zeke Hoskin

How did I ever do this, while I was homeless? ‘Course I was six years younger then, and sleeping on a mat with two blankets on an inside floor is a lot different than sleeping on a mat with two blankets on the sidewalk. It’s not just the slightly increased resiliency of linoleum over concrete. I used to be grateful for street cleaning machines. They are now the Enemy.

I slept better tonight than last night. I suppose over time I could learn to tune out the traffic, the security guards talking, the buses, the occasional pedestrian like the one who went by the first night dribbling a basketball, even the street cleaning machines. While I was staying in shelter back in ’95, I could lay awake at night counting 30 different snores and identify each one — but I could tune them out and go to sleep when I wanted to.

Tonight the yellow “area closed” tape was stretched across the front of the Admin Building plaza, closing off all access from the sidewalk. We had to make the choice between breaking through the tape and probably getting arrested, or sleeping on the sidewalk. I recommended acting on a gradient, start low-key and work up, sleep on the sidewalk tonight and see what we have to do tomorrow. A few folks wanted to charge the barricades right now and damn the torpedoes, but everyone ended up voting for the sidewalk tonight.

Another quiet night. I’m back home, it’s almost 7AM, and unlike most of the rest of the folks out on the sidewalk tonight I get to take a nap in my own bed and have a shower and a hot breakfast, before I do some more work. At noon today our homeless women’s group, WHEEL, is holding a vigil for a homeless man who died last week. Afterward we’re going to the King County Executive’s office with a plaque listing the twelve people who have died alone outside, often of violence, since our first vigil just over a year ago. Above the list is a quote from the Exec himself at a memorial service for people who have died while homeless: “In any other population, this would be considered an epidemic. Let’s do everything we can to make sure the list of the dead is shorter next year.”

We’ll ask him to help make that happen by opening the shelter tonight. Where I and the others sleep tonight — on the sidewalk, in the Plaza, in the Admin Building, or in jail — depends on what he says then.

Are you feeling the suspense yet? I sure am!

To the tune of “Hard Times Come Again No More” by Stephen Foster Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears While we all struggle with our housing forms There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears O, Red Tape, come again no more ‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary Red Tape, Red Tape, come again no more Many dreams you have strangled, and woven shut the door O, Red Tape, come again no more There’s a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away Filling out all those governmental forms Tho’ her voice would be merry, ’tis sighing all the day O, Red Tape, come again no more ‘Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave ‘Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore ‘Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave O’ Red Tape, come again no more O, Red Tape, come again no more While we seek mirth and beauty and music bright and gay There are pale forms scribbling on the floor Tho’ their voices are silent, their pleading looks still say O, Red Tape, come again no more

The comments on Tuesday’s entries in the savageweaklink game are an interesting glimpse into how people think about writing, as well as how they write.

To me, writing is a continuous balancing act between being true to what I want to say and paying enough attention to my readers so that I communicate it effectively; respecting the importance of what I have to say enough to craft it as well as I can, without editing myself silent; going deep into myself but also looking outward, listening to others.

Some other folks feel that to go back and edit what they write, to try to craft it, would make it dishonest. And to some extent I think that can be true — you can overwork what you want to say until you take all the dangerous edges off of it, leach all the fire out of it.

Or they feel that dumping personal thoughts and raw emotion on the page to share with readers is enough; “Take it or leave it.” It stumped me at first, and for a long time, why anyone would write in a public forum and at the same time say that they didn’t give a damn what anyone thought of their writing. But trying to see from that viewpoint, I think I get a bit of it. “This is what I have to offer. If it works for you, good, but I’m not going to rework it.”

I have a moderate version of that attitude. I will work hard to communicate, listen to critique, rework up to a point. And then I just accept that some people aren’t the audience for my particular writing.

There are millions of different kinds of writers because there are millions of different kinds of readers. If everyone read the same books the bookstores and libraries couldn’t keep them in stock and we’d all be fighting over the dog-eared shreds.

Maybe comparing different writers will always be like comparing quilts to banana bread (at least apples and oranges are in the same food group.) Why don’t you go on over to savageweaklink and leave your own opinion?

At 7:45 last night I went out to join the 8PM SHARE rally to open the Winter Response shelter, after spending all day catching up with any time-sensitive email in case I spent the next few days in jail.

That would be an ironic way to lose the savageweaklink game wouldn’t it?

The flyer had said we were meeting in the Courthouse park but the announcement at the meeting was that we were meeting in Occidental Park, three or four blocks away. So I gave myself enough time to check out both places by 8. I started with Courthouse Park, just a block uphill from where I live, but I didn’t see anyone, so I turned downhill to check out Occidental park. Halfway there, tho’, I met a man coming from Occidental who was looking for the rally. i went on down to see if he’d missed anyone and he went up to see if I’d missed anyone. I didn’t find any rally at Occidental or the nearby Pioneer Square park so I went back up to the Courthouse, and this time I went on through to the back of the park and found the rally. But now I couldn’t find my fellow searcher. (He did turn up later.)

This was beginning to feel like the day of the Harmonic Convergence, when I stumbled around Sand Point in the pre-dawn darkness with 2000 psychics who didn’t know where we were supposed to meet. At least this time nobody fell in a gully.

It also reminded me of my midnight search for Tent City 2, up in the Beacon Hill Jungle… but I digress, and I’m trying to write shorter blogs.

After all that, they nominated me to stand up on a bench and get the evening organized!

Things did run remarkably well after that. The main thing was getting everybody settled down and reassured. (“If they decide to arrest us, they’ll warn first, and you’ll have time to choose what to do.”) Then everybody — including our community supporters — grabbed a mat and two blankets from the truckload SHARE brought and crossed the street. The KC Admin Building is right there.

The building has a recessed entrance, creating a very large patio with a partial overhang. There was a line of yellow tape just on the street side of the stairs leading up from either side of the doors to the upper patio levels. That still left a large stretch of patio. Sleeps forty, we found. We just laid down our mats and blankets, set up coffee and security watches (there were a dozen KC security officers, police officers, and Sheriff’s Department officers, but we still provide our own in case they want to take coffee breaks.) After awhile several officers came over and asked if we planned to break down the doors. We said “No.” They asked if we planned to be out by the time people started coming in to work and we said “Yes. We plan to operate the shelter as it would be operating if it were inside, which means ‘opening’ at 9:30 PM, with everyone getting up at 5:30, cleaning up the area, and being out by 6 AM.” So they said, “That’s fine with us. We’ll all find out what King County says tomorrow.”

I was up for most of the night, but when I did lay down for a nap between watches, I felt an incredible sense of peace.

A lot of times, when you do what you think is right you don’t have to fight.

This may look like two entries in one day. The last entry was Sunday night, for me. This is Monday morning.

True Confessions

I did some hollering on a couple of folks this weekend. When I get angry, I like to use it as many ways as I can. So this morning I’m going to do some self-exploration, and you get to be voyeurs.

We were in the middle of the SHARE Power Lunch. This is a weekly meeting of the participants in SHARE, a group of homeless and formerly homeless men and women who run a network of self-managed homeless shelters and other resources. We were discussing a crisis: a lot of shelter space has just been lost in one are, and King County is saying it won’t open the Winter Response shelter this season, that it’s opened every winter for 11 years, that’s managed by SHARE. And they say that SHARE is lying, manipulative and untrustworthy, which they’ve never said in 11 years, but I don’t think that had anything to do with stirring me up.

Background included for the rest of you listening to my thoughts here, who don’t know SHARE: We have eight staff members for our 400-bed shelter network, and about 20-25 “SHARE2″ folks hired out of the shelters to do 8 hours of work a week in return for housing. A majority of the work is volunteer effort by shelter participants, and a few previous shelter participants like me who’ve stuck on. Staff do donkey-work like admin and shuttling supplies around, and make recommendations and suggestions for organizing, but don’t get a vote. We have 11 Board members because we’re a registered non-profit and that’s how we have to be organized, and the Saturday Power Lunch is our official Board meeting; but in practice, everybody who is homeless or formerly homeless is invited to meeting, every shelter and other SHARE program has to have someone there, and everyone there (except staff) has an equal vote.

Boring stuff over. Hopefully.

Staff had recommended that we go down en masse Monday night and open the Winter Response shelter. If this sounds like it has a potential of turning confrontative, it does. Groups have been talking about this and planning for the possibility all week, but this was the first time that the organization as a whole was going to vote it up or down. We discussed risks; those of us who’ve been in similar things in the past explained that if the police are called, they will warn everybody before making any arrests, and no one has to be arrested unless they want to, and there are lots of ways to support the group besides being arrested. We discussed who our allies are.

Then this guy gets up and starts a long rambling discourse summarized as “I have a question. Can a homeless person who has just made one mistake be barred on one person’s decision and forced to sleep out in the street?” As soon as the rest of us realized that he was not discussing the issue on the agenda we started trying to interrupt and tell him to bring up his case at the appropriate point, but another guy spoke up and said, “Let the man speak!” and the first guy said, “The reason this relates is, I think we should be solving this kind of problem before we’re discussing setting up new shelters or asking homeless people to take risks.” The other guy spoke for awhile saying basically the same thing, that we were abusing homeless people inside the organization, so we shouldn’t do anything else until we’d cleaned house. Except all of this took a whole lot longer than I’ve described here, because both these guys repeated themselves a lot and whenever they got the floor they wanted to wander all over it before they gave it up.

I started by being a lot more patient than anyone else wanted to be, because I wanted to make sure that if there had been any abuses they were addressed. I explained what the grievance policy was and how to appeal a bar and what to do if you wanted to change how SHARE worked and volunteered to personally help to whatever extent they needed.

How they proceeded to piss me off:

1. Neither one would agree to table this matter until the end of the agenda and allow regular business to proceed.
2. They repeated themselves a lot and never acknowledged hearing anyone else’s point.
3. Complainant #1 would not be specific about what he had been barred for. (I found out why later: he’d been barred for making an obscene phone call to a woman in the same building, and if he’d said that, he’d probably have lost all sympathy.)
4. Complainant #1 kept talking about “This governing body” and “Maybe you’ve all forgotten how it is to be homeless,” when almost everybody around the table was homeless, and this is a self-governing body.
5. Complainant #2 sat there and said that staff made all the decisions around here. He had already sat through three quarters of a meeting in which shelter residents had been discussing decisions among each other and voting on them, and when I said that Board members don’t have any more power than anyone else and the members of SHARE make decisions for themselves he told me to my face that I was lying. I’ve been involved in SHARE for almost six years now, I’m Board President and I know how little anybody listens to me, I’ve never even seen this guy before, and he tells me I don’t know how things work around here, that staff and a bunch of Board members who’ve probably never been homeless make all the decisions.

Annoying little git.

So, my voice started getting louder and louder. When #2 said that we should postpone the Monday night action I calmed down and asked, “Is that a motion?” He made it a motion, somebody else seconded it, we discussed it, it was voted on, there were only two votes for it and the majority for going ahead Monday. When another woman at the table showed me a Bar Form that did not have the Grievance Procedure on the back of it (all the new ones are supposed to) I calmed down and said that would explain a lot of confusion, and told staff that we have got to make sure everyone has the new forms. But most of the rest of the discussion, I was busting out without waiting for the chairperson to call on me, and I was hollering.

Laying it all out here does help me. (I apologize if it bores anyone else.) I can see my buttons that got pushed:

1. The accusation that I don’t know what I’m talking about.
2. The accusation that I’m lying.
3. The dismissal of something I consider urgent as being of no importance.

The first is a lot more sensitive than the second. Do I feel less secure about my knowledge of what’s going on than I do about my honesty? BINGO! I have a 42-year history of The Great Gray Fog, from three years old until diagnosis and treatment 7 years ago. At both ends of the bipolar cycle, you aren’t really aware of your environment or of people. And in my childhood, in a combination of codependence and empathy and being a bookworm rather than hanging out with peers, I was rather naive and easily convinced. I have made a lot of mistakes about what was really going on.

I disciplined myself to be more skeptical, more objective, more observant. (One of the things I like about being a writer is that it makes me more observant.) But I am obviously still sensitive about that. And I have some concern that I am being conned, I am being used, the staff of SHARE really are manipulating all the rest of us and I’m defending them. So I’m going to have to do some thinking about all that.

The tension on #3 is residual; most of my early life anything that was important to me was dismissed by everybody else in my life as unimportant. Yeah, there’s still pain there. I’m crying now as I uncover this. Damn, I thought I was over that! I have a whole tribe of people who care about me and about what I care for, now. I also find it easy to accept that not everyone is going to have the same priorities. If we were all working on exactly the same cause, the world would probably be three miles deep in whales. But that pocket of pain will still twinge if something I’m totally caught up in is just dissed.

Part of what happened was that I still, on occasion, meet someone’s refusal to listen by raising my voice louder. I know that this is ridiculous, ineffective, a waste of time and energy, I don’t do it often — but I still do it occasionally, all right? I’m not perfect. True confessions.

The final capper was when man #2 was on his way out the door after the meeting and I ran over to make sure that he wasn’t going to just give up, that he would follow through on the grievance process. And he said, “Yeah, I know what I have to do. I have to go somewhere else, ’cause nobody in SHARE wants to listen to people like me, that’s what I have to do.” Then I blew up again, turning away, saying, “You mean you don’t want to be helped, you just want to have your way!”

That’s something else that angers me. If someone wants to accomplish something, they will use the means that will accomplish it — including diplomacy and negotiation. If someone refuses dialogue and negotiation, I am of the opinion that their real purpose is not what they say they want to accomplish.

I am angry whenever someone says they are trying to help people, or help themselves, and what they do is at odds with that. Usually I use that anger, any anger at something I consider wrong, calmly and fairly effectively. But according to my sweetie, and a few other folks, I do rant a lot about obstinate people.

Of course, I’m just purposeful and persistent. :)

Saturday night I handled another annoyance much more calmly, possibly because I’d blown off so much steam earlier. One man came to the benefit reading by mistake; he thought it was a report on the racism conference in Durban. He asked if we were reading poetry or prose, we said “both”, I introduced myself and pointed out the other readers, he said he bought Real Change but he usually prefers “informative reading.” I grinned mischievously and said that we liked to consider Real Change informative; we really did have more than the poetry page. Then he got defensive and said that poetry can have information in it too.

This is just introduction. As we waited for enough people to gather to start the reading event, several of us were gathered around the book table browsing. This guy went on and on about Al Gore and everything bad he did about the environment and welfare reform, and why the Democrats are just as evil as the Republicans, and yadayada. After awhile he caught on that he was being ignored in droves. He stopped and said, “But nobody wants to listen, eveybody has something more important to do.” I looked him in the eyes and said, “The one thing in the world that bores me the most is preaching to the converted.”

He blew up, saying, “I just wish that some of the ‘converted’ would actually start doing something!” and left.

Now that I was able to laugh about. One of my pet peeves is people who come up and start telling you what you ought to be doing about The Cause without first finding out what you are already doing (okay, that and people who confuse “doing something” with “sitting around ranting about it”), but this case was just a chuckle.

If it weren’t for people, what would people find to laugh about?