No riots in my neighborhood last night. They were across town. You did hear, didn't you, about the BART shooting? I thought Oscar Grant, the man shot, looked familiar, and then I thought I was crazy, but it turns out he was the butcher at my local grocery. Sigh. We are hoping for peace and a
swift resolution, but I'm thinking that might not happen as fast as we'd
like.
Also, don't parents teach their kids to protest anymore? What
the hell? Those kids lying down on the ground, in the position he was in when he was shot to death, that's an effective protest.
Chest-bumping riot police and jumping on police cars (of the wrong
police agency, at that)? Morons. (Of course, I think I knew We Shall Overcome before I knew my ABCs. It was an easier melody.)
From heavy to light.
I'm back to writing every day again. I managed to take three days off before I got too cranky to even be around myself. I wrote, and everything slipped back into place. I think I might actually be a workaholic or something. I'm not even kidding. I think lala would say I'm the last to know, but it does kind of come as a surprise.
Now, having worked for a few hours, I'm enjoying my morning. It's overcast, but it's that bright, hectic overcast that comes right before a shower. I was going to go for a run, but if it rains, I'll just stay inside and Wii Fit it a little.
I just about died the other night when I was playing with it, and I unlocked the MEDITATION game. Dude. What's it called? Locus Focus? The goal is to sit in the lotus position on the board and not move while staring at a candle on the screen. You can hear boards creaking, and then a moth flaps by and gets burned in the flame, and then a mosquito buzzes. If you move your center of balance, the candle flickers, and then if it flickers again, you're out. I made it all the way through! 180 seconds! Champion of meditation! Woot!
As tongue in cheek as I'm being, there really was something to it. Sure, I was playing a game with a controller and a TV, but I was meditating. I was watching my body, my breath. My mind went pretty empty, except for focusing on my center of balance. I am completely aware of how anti-meditation this sounds, but it was strangely effective, too. Whoever came up with that one had a lot of cojones, and I love it.
I'm getting a cheap massage-school massage later today, and I'm planning on spending a couple of bookstore gift cards today, too. (I think the new Meg Cabot books, book 10 of the Princess Diaries, where Mia writes a romance sounds delightful and it has great reviews. You can also purchase the "romance" she writes, too! I've never read her, but it sounds like fun. Good marketing ploy.)
You were taught how to protest? (I certainly wasn’t, though I think I’d have (had) better sense than to jump on police cars as a protest.)
I love Meg Cabot. There. I said it. Love her wit and speed and general loveliness. Enjoy!
That BART shooting is so awful and so sad…
We JUST got a Wii Fit. Haven’t tried the Fit part as we got it a few days after we got the Wii (both were out of stock after Christmas). But even just the plain Wii is so much fun (apparently I box well and suck at golf)! Can wait to get onto the Fit.
No riots in my neighborhood either. (but you knew that) And I’m sad and angry.
You are a write-aholic! What a nice addiction, even better than the fiber one, and it will be paying bills!
I don’t think the rioters are morons. I don’t support rioting, and I don’t think it was an especially good plan, but given that the attitude of BART PD (who is responsible) and the city of Oakland (who is not responsible but in whose jurisdiction the shooting occurred) has been “Yeah bummer, we’re totally gonna get around to looking into that sometime”, I can’t really say I blame them, and no one should be surprised. It’s easy for me to say, because my car didn’t get set on fire, but I think it would be a lot worse for Oscar Grant’s death just to be a forgotten administrative problem for BART Police.
And no, not everyone’s parents teach them how to protest.
If parents don’t teach kids how to protest, it will be the end of the hippie movement! There will be no composting, patchouli, or chickens! And I like two of those three things!
But I agree: the rioters as a whole aren’t morons. I support them. The ones who get filmed jumping on police property will, if identified, get cited for vandalism and assigned a court date by mail, and the people who try to chest-bump police in riot gear aren’t the smartest in the bunch. THOSE are the morons of which I speak. But the rest, they’re cool.
For locals: we’re meeting for drinks at Flora tonight at six. Their windows got smashed last night. Let’s support downtown Oakland!
I may have to try Meg Cabot. As a random romance suggestion: Have you read Sherry Thomas? _Delicious_ was truly wonderful.
I was teaching freshman writing in South Carolina during the WTO riots in Seattle. I asked my students if any of them had ever protested, and they told me that no, there wasn’t anything to protest anymore because that had all been settled back in the 60s.
The BART thing is so awful. No matter what side you look at it from. Not what we need right now.
And I will NOT whine about wanting a Wii. I will NOT.
And yet I honestly didn’t hear a thing about these riots at all … now I need to go follow the links and read about it….
I also like how the Wii suggests you go do something else after a while. That is just plain good sense.