Not as ________ as Us

Yesterday I came up with three different things I wanted to write about, and now I can't remember a single one of 'em. Fall has descended on the cove with a slow southern drawl; chatting up each tree individually. Yesterday was the coldest day we've had so far, and the staff walked as briskly as the air.
Ah! Remembered something!
In one of my last posts, I talked about how we reduce people to one word caricatures and when we do, we can justify treating them as subhuman. I am realizing how often I do it to some degree.
This was especially prevalent when I had to drive around the NoVA/DC area often; road rage is a form of this reduction in the value of fellow peoples. That person is no longer someone who just wants to get home; he's the asshole in the Toyota.
The ability to reduce the worth of someone else allows us to increase our self-importance; since they are not as ______ as us, then we are better. Ergo, we "deserve" to get what we want, and right then. It's why we're terrible at patience, courtesy, charity, graciousness, peace. All I can see is me.
And nothing in society does a thing to curb this practice! We are increasing our sense of isolation; we do not have to talk to people anymore. Everything is automated, automatic, and numeric. Even at the hospital you aren't called in by a name; you are a number. It's our country's foreign policy in a nutshell: be like us or suffer the consequences.
There's an Anne Lamott quote that says, "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
I want to live a life of grace in being able to see someone as wholly human, warts and all, and be able to respond to them as such.

Sonny Gets Sunnier Day By Day

Sonny and I. He's getting his hindquarters massaged, which is why he has that far away look in his eyes.

Drink the Sand

“People want leadership...and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.” (From the motion picture The American President)

For some reason I think about this quote often, because I think that the word leadership can easily be replaced with a myriad of other needs. Hope. Love. Belief.
I don't want to drink the sand. I want to know the difference.

Soft Parts

Part of my job has me running a snack bar, which is quite the flashback to the days of yore working at The Gallery with Mafia Marge and what became the Taps Week Crew, which is not the point of this post, though notable.
Because it's the fall, ol' Windy Gap (where I live and work) is constantly full not of the traditional YL programs, but with private schools, large corporate groups, etc. Each group has its quirks and we try to accommodate them as best as possible, understanding that this facility is for their use and not for our comfort levels. So if they want to freak out about mixed gender swimming, then they can do that. This most recent group has been fabulous, respectful, kind, etc. I loved them until last night.
The Sippie (snack bar) was opened late just their Senior class and chaperones, which means that absolutely no one was coming in, and I was sitting at the register reading a nerdy book and trying to stay awake. For some reason, several teachers/coaches/parents were congregated in close proximity. That is when I began to overhear their conversation. They were talking about a new teacher, who happened to be on the trip. They were talking about his "queer shoes" and how he'd be fired if he kept wearing them pink girl shoes. I then realized that his "queer shoes" were a pair of red crocs. Not pink, red. Crocs. The current trendy a-sexual shoe. They just kept bashing this guy, whom I'd met earlier in the day--recent college grad, very friendly, went to a Christian college, kinda guy one would expect to teach at a Christian school. He'd taken up knitting as a hobby (started as a joke, then discovered he kinda liked it--talked to him about it) and obviously, to these kind folks, that just upped his firing potential. They said if he ever came to school wearing a pink shirt they'd all quit if he didn't get canned.
So there they were, just tearing apart this guy who dared to be even slightly different than them, while the kids they were to be mentoring and guiding in the concepts of grace and compassion and faith were listening to them and agreeing.
WHAT!?
They went on to talk about how they thought all Muslims were violent and ignorant and ready to jihad us all off the planet, etc. I guess I just forget that people actually think and talk this way about others. And have the gall to do it in large groups. There is no room for the benefit of the doubt in a preset notion. We make decisions based off little (or false) information and use that as a blanket policy; Pink is a girl color, ergo guys in pink are girls. 1 Nun is killed in response to the Pope's recent anti-Islamic remarks, ergo all Muslims are bloodthirsty and vengeful.
Does the ease of preset come with age, with a lackadaisical view of relational investment?
I sound credulous when I say that with all that makes us hard, it'd be worthwhile to hold on to the soft parts, but if we don't, we all let ourselves become one-word caricatures.

State of the Union

Here is what I know:

* My job requires me to have keys to three different golf carts and carry a walkie-talkie. This makes me happy. Listening to the conversations happening over the radio makes me feel connected to everyone else. It's white noise that is occasionally personal.

* Potatoes are incredibly versatile, yet differ from tofu in that no matter what, they always taste like potatoes. Science needs to do something about this.

* Asshole the Cricket was viscously massacred by my roommate while he was trying to take a shower. My roommate has been given a metal. Asshole was unceremoniously dumped in the trash. And this is what happens when you wake me at night. Be warned.

* Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love" (most famously known from the motion picture "Karate Kid" starring Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita) sticks in your head like cold molasses. Seriously. Get this out of my head.

* I wonder how Jimi Hendrix would have affected the rise of the hip-hop movement if he had lived. I feel like his blues influence would have helped create some amazing songs.

* On that same thinking, Janis Joplin would have been twice married and had three kids. She would not be in music anymore. She'd live in Oregon.

* Jim Morrison would have gone bald and yet still made it look hot. That's all I know about that.

* Spying on people will always creep me out. As will clandestine organizations. Unless I'm in them, then I feel that they are fabulous.

* I have yet to meet a person who doesn't want to belt out the "NA NA NA NA-NA-NA-NA NA NA NA NA HEEEYY JUDE!" climax of the Beatles' "Hey Jude".

*In 2000 my friend Amy and I wrote predictions about where we'd be in the year 2005.
I was completely wrong about myself.
I am very, very happy about this fact.

* Reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close during the 5th anniversary of 9/11 brought back feelings I didn't know I had.

* When (and if) I ever settle down with someone, I will miss feeling giddy and nervous about them. There is a terror and a delight in uncertainty.

* I've been checking books out of a library owned and run by a 10 year-old. That is fabulous.