Enchanting Juno

My dearest blog,

I've been neglecting you, I know.  I am ashamed, you who have given me so much and asked so little for the past 18 months, you have enriched my life and brought me friends, and new passions and knowledge and hours of amusement.

I've been in a mood, a mood full of the echoing windswept emptiness of a moor in winter (and I've lived in Yorkshire in January, I know about these things), a bleak mood, a sour-tempered Heathcliff of a mood, tho' hopefully less abusive.

I cannot tell you the reason, dear Blog, because you will, through no fault of discretion, but through your very nature, share it with the Internet, and I am not ready for the Internet to be privy to such personal things.   I realize that you may have trouble believing this, given some of the things I have freely told you of, freely and vulgarly in some cases.  But there is is.  This is my limit.

And because of this constraint, this bleakness, I have slighted you for content, fallen into the most shameful cheap cat blogging and some really shocking fleece displays as a distraction from my dessicated words, my uninspired spirit, my shallow insights.  While it is possible that the world presently has no gifts of watermelon, no post office harmony, no joyful street fairs, no poetry, it is far more likely that I just cannot see them.

Please know, dear Blog, that I am aware of my deficiencies and am striving mightily to overcome them.  I will do better by you as soon as I am able.  In the meantime, I remain, as always,

Your devoted,

Juno

Wool Pig.

If you'll look over on the right sidebar you'll see a little button marked wool pig.  It & the woolcentric button below it are my favorites because between them they capture both the aesthetic and the greed that, I am afraid, are fully characteristic of yours truly when it comes to the paraphernalia of this passion.

Over the past few weeks I've been wandering the web looking for fiber, whilst being periodically mocked by someone for not stocking up at Maryland.  Actually, the mockery started 40 seconds after I bought the wheel - I have patiently tried to explain that I wasn't ready to spin yet at Maryland and so the batts didn't speak to me, but she just laughs. 

Anyway - wandering for fiber.  Obtaining fiber is different from buying yarn in that you really can only get it from small batch vendors.  Most of the shops I've seen have a small selection because producers are, in many cases, preparing product right behind the fiber producing animal's manufacturing curve.  So sometimes you have to wait until the bunnies are clipped.  Or the dying is done to your order.  On-line ordering is always a roll of the dice, and in this area it is even more of an adventure - what are you going to get?  Is it what it looked like?  Better?  Worse?    But that's part of the fun.  Anyway, I've been wandering, right?  I started out looking for small fiber samples, so I could start to get a feel for different wools, etc.  Very sensible, very restrained, right?

Then I was distracted by some shiny colorful objects I saw at Claudia's, plus, you know, there's eBay, that tool of the demon gods, and the lovely and beloved Kim and her crack producing bunny tribe.

I assure you I didn't do this all at once.  But somehow a little here, a little there, and through some harmonic convergence there were a couple of small delays and.....yesterday I got a note in my mailbox.  You have five packages, please come to the pick up window.  Oops.

Five.  Huh.  I don't think I was expecting that many...well, let's see.  Um - yeah, OK.  Maybe five makes sense.  How embarrassing.  And I loaded them into my trunk and went back to the office.

It was a crappy day.  The air quality sucked.  It was so hot it was an effort to move my brain.  In an effort to prevent dehydration I drank water instead of Dieta Coka, my one true love, and consequently was nauseated all afternoon.  I've been brooding over an argument with an old friend that has me questioning the nature of friendship.  There might be one or two other things as well - I'm just trying to give you the flavor of what was a long, tired drag-you-down day at the ass end of a long week.

Now, I'm a little shy about this - ordinarily I wouldn't get this much stuff at once unless it was a festival  - or if I did I certainly wouldn't cop to it.    But I came home.  I remembered the boxes right before I left the office and felt some dim stirrings of life in my soul.  That's right, remembered....I was so off my game I hadn't been dreaming about fiber all day.  Fiber...hmmm.  I brought the boxes in.  I unpacked one and reached in, ahhhh....then another, and another, undoing twist ties ever more rapidly until I was surrounded by......this:

Which was too funny not to share.  Theres angora/silk/wool, alapca, alapca/silk/wool, romeny/mohair and 80-leven different kind of wool samples.  There's YAK, which is so soft it is essentially frictionless.    Oh dear. 

I strongly suspect that Rhinebeck is going to be quite, quite excessive, I am warning you now.  Although I haven't the foggiest where I will put it all.

I had my first blog-iversary last week, and didn't really notice it until after the fact.  It has been a really amazing year and blogging has been a big part of that, but I've been struggling with this thing recently.  It takes an enormous amount of time.   I've met some extraordinary people, made some friends who I think will be part of the course of my life.  I've learned a lot about who I am, what I want - the choice of what voice I use here has forced me to be more aware of how I speak to the world in general, how I present myself, what my motivations are.  What I want.  What kind of value I put on things.

In the beginning I was extremely secretive but very open.  And now, the more I talk, the less I say.  I know some of you.  There are people who might feel left out if I talk freely about the time I spend with my friends...there is this ferocious pull between public and private gatherings, a delicate balance between arranging to sit down with friends for a knit night and how much you can say without giving the impression that it is a public gathering.  And it isn't that meeting people in a public way is bad...but sometimes you just want to sit with your girlfriends and not worry about are we blogging this?, without having to deal with people who genuinely believe that reading your blog means they know all about you.  Instead of 1/10 of 1% of what you choose to reveal.

There was a conference last week - BlogHer - for women bloggers, and although I did not attend I've been very interested in the discussions I've seen popping up elsewhere about it.  I got into blogs first, then knit blogs, rather than just finding the hobby online, and I still read a lot of them - parenting blogs, identity blogs, political blogs, arts blogs - it is an interesting world full of pain and humor and humanity and outrage and sex and cooking and thinking.

This idea of an identity blog has really been fascinating me, because whatever the ostensible topic, the most interesting sites are identity blogs - the stamp of the creator, the mind of a thinking person, is what keeps me coming back, no matter what the topic.    Look at some of the links in the Not Knitting sidebar.  I think you'll enjoy the trip, and that's just a tiny fragment of what is out there.

I need to do a lot more thinking about how and what one reveals, what the point of privacy really is, how much responsibility I have for the feelings of virtual strangers and if that ought to be a limitation I place on myself.  Because if this is an exercise in self-knowledge at least, what is the point of watching my tongue?  I'll be cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in to saucy doubts and fears...and for what reason?

In the meantime, I keep spinning.   I know some people wonder "well, what are you going to make with all this fiber?"  It can seem like a big deal - I've heard comments that really have trouble letting go of the product end of the question - and the answer is, I don't know.  It doesn't matter.   

I am spinning because it brings me a kind of peace I've never been able to pick up at will before, something that used to only come by grace and happenstance, in miraculous flashes, that now belongs to me with the slide of silk and angora and wool against my finger tips.    I am spinning because it gives me a baseline for what right feels like. 

Heh. Looks like a hobby, feels like mental health.

What am I going to do with this yarn?  I gave some to my therapist last week because he really liked holding the skein.  And that seems as good a reason as any pragmatic one to do anything.  I am going to keep spinning to make myself happy.  Yarn is a happy by-product of it. 

Happy yarn.  And I'll figure out what to do with it eventually.

Harlot-mania

I had a whole thing written and then the computer locked up.  Something about needing to expand the memory cache to accommodate the pictures I was uploading, then ......nothing.

So beginning again.

Does anyone else remember the ads for the Broadway show Beatle-mania, which ran in the 70s?  It is a particularly vivid memory and probably a sign that I watched too much television.  But last night reminds me of my memory of those ads: something about the dazed & gushing attendees.  Then add the bemused star, and the nice ladies from L&T who really looked they could not quite believe this was all for knitting. 

When we were waiting in line, one of the minions tried to tell me that the room would be crowded and encouraged me to check my bag.  I looked at her like she was insane and said "but there is knitting in there."  She looked down the line of people, most clutching various totes and parcels that looked like they might also contain knitting, and apparently decided that we were all crazy and it wasn't worth arguing about (you could absolutely watch the progression of thoughts on her face) and went back to whatever else she needed to do.

There was plenty of room, although I think the pretty waiters had some trouble negotiating the landscape of bags - keep 'em limber, that's what I say.

Cassie and I hesitated for perhaps 11 seconds on whether to seize chairs at the front table (of course.  really) and were joined by Cara and Jen.  And a nice woman called Linda reading Jack Finny and another one called Tree whom we encouraged to start a blog.   The lights were terribly, terribly hot, but within 3 seconds of sitting down there was yarn everywhere, and then cameras and then wine.

You like Cassie's shawl?

Stephanie was lovely - you will be unsurprised to hear that we laughed until breathing seemed optional.  Her voice is deeper than I expected, and very flexible, and she has an expressive face and an extraordinary sense of vocal timing - she's a story teller.  But we knew that already.  She's the fastest knitter I've ever seen.  She knows where Philadelphia is now. She didn't get to go to any yarn shops yesterday. (The room gasped in horror.  Just like a Victorian heroine.) I wish I could say more than that, but anything I've come up with seems facile and stupid. 

I was amazed by how comparatively few bloggers there were, although the non-bloggers seemed amazed by how many bloggers there were.  Or that such a thing as blogging existed.  But everyone was knitting, socks and sleeves and scarves and sweaters and 100 different styles of knitting, new knitters (I met one young woman who'd only learned 3 weeks previously) and, well, I'm not going to say old, cause y'all will hurt me - I'll go with experienced.

I kept looking around expecting to see someone I knew, it felt so familiar.  But it was just knitters.  Eventually, I met Cari and Em and Valentina, and another Cassie and Mindy and Melissa and Irene and Sarah and Jackie.  And saw Kay again.

Lion Brand and the Craft Yarn Council and L&T were very, very good to us.  Lion Brand, of course, doesn't hurt themselves by participating, but it is a nice gesture and by making it about the Dulaan project, I think they do themselves honor. 

If everyone in that room made a hat or two out of their big ass ball of Wool-ease, that would be what, 200 hats?  300?  400? more for Ryan.  Go look at her post from yesterday and get cracking.  That goes for me too.

After seeing that crowd, I believe there are 53 million knitting and crocheting woman out there (no one seems to have numbers on men - anything from 3 to millions, I expect)  and I have this sudden weird sense that none of us are alone.  We might be solitary by nature, or we might be at a knitting group 4 nights a week - personal choice - but if we need them, these other people are out there with their needles and their wit and humor and love.  We can look out for each other, cutting across lines of age and style and opinion and whatever to strengthen humanity.  That might seem like a lot to ask of a hobby (or craft) - but look at Dulaan, look at Knitters without Borders, look at the Afghan-along.  I think knitting has what it takes.  Knitters have what it takes. 

I'm so tired today that the only reason I made it to work was that I had to move my car to avoid a ticket and once I was in it, it seemed easier to park at work than find a spot in my neighborhood, so I know I'm forgetting things.   Be very impressed that I managed all the links.

It is a sign of my tiredness that I completely forgot to say that everyone was lovely.  Nice.  Funny.  Welcoming.  There was a certain  amount of fabulousness.  For the first time ever in the history of a largish group of people going out for tapas and drinks, there was too much money on the table at the end, rather than not enough.  I told you knitters have what it takes.

And we need some kind of social usage plan - when you meet someone you've emailed with for several months - do you shake hands?  Hug?  Make out? 

What else?  Oh, right - knitting.   Yes, Julia, I started with the back..

And perhaps tomorrow some further thought on anonymity - or as someone put it, "lying."

Why?

Last week my therapist said  "You've been reading a lot of blogs.  Let's talk about why.  What do you get out of them?"

Fifteen minutes later I stopped talking, pretty much without having paused, and said "What was the question?"  He grinned and said "Well, you answered it."

What I'd been talking about was how it felt to have connected with a world of people who share and understand my passion - for whom the passion for fiber and creation isn't an oddity, who understand that a hobby isn't just a way to pass time but can be a call of the spirit.  And who are also pretty much a good bunch of folk.  All communities inevitably have grouches and jerks, but so far, with knitting and knit blogging, the unusually smart, articulate, passionate, funny, interesting, engaged and thoughtful people far outnumber the bores and the boors.

I'm odd, so it is possible I just attract and am attracted to the like-mindedly odd, but I don't run into that many of the like-mindedly odd in the real world.

I find so much out there that is interesting in blog-land (which, by the way, needs another name, because that's just an ugly word),  not just in the knit blog world - windows into people's suffering and joy, passion and pissiness, and constantly find myself stumbling onto the articulation of an idea that has been floating around in me only half understood.

People outraged, people falling love, people enjoying, venting, mastering skills, remodeling kitchens, reading, learning, changing, marriages beginning and ending, children being born or, so tragically, lost.  People discovering their lives, and themselves, risking themselves by exposing something to a stranger and gaining something in the process - knowledge, perspective, agreement, discussion, a greater sense of self.

It fills a void I am not sure I even knew was there, something akin to the community of a college campus, or the lost neigborhoods of communities that've been eaten up by town-center-less development. Akin, but not the same.

It is brilliant.  A gift.  I'm grateful.

Thank you.

So very busted.

It looks like I am out of the blog closet, at least a little bit.

Regular visitors may remember I said some uncensored things about my LYSs last week.  Yesterday I was there buying needles and the store owner looked me in the eye and asked me why I was talking behind her back.  Someone told her about the post - hey, local people, say hello.  I didn't even know you were there -and she figured out it was me.

I was completely dumsquizzled. 

I also give her a lot of credit.  I had it in the back of my mind to talk to her - I had chosen the time of day for my visit with the notion that I might find her there - but I hadn't fully committed to it, because the idea of standing there and just up and saying something was really alarming.    

So we talked about the specific experiences I'd had a problem with, and her thinking about store and its direction and the personal component of finding out that the criticism was out there in the world anonymously.....and in the end I offered to take the post down because it was never my intent to harm her business, just to vent after a particularly frustrating experience.  I think, tentatively, that the conversation ended positively.  I guess I'll find out when...if...I can go back.

Her underlying point was that she would have appreciated a direct approach and in retrospect it is blindingly obvious that I should have done that.  But I was genuinely conflicted about whether I could or should talk to her.   I feel bad about it because the one thing that I had not focused on is that I genuinely like this woman.  And as the owner of a small business, the last thing I would want is to find out someone had a bad opinion or a bad experience and didn't let me know..... I keep hoping someday I will wake up and always know how to do the right thing, or what the right thing is.  But I am pretty sure I should stop waiting for that to happen.

It is interesting me how the process of blogging has changed for me with the evolution of an audience.  In the beginning I was talking to myself, and I wince now over the over-mannered tone of some of the earliest posts.  I didn't know how to talk to the void.  But blogging is a form with an evolutionary voice, maybe much more than some other forms of writing, because it is, to a certain extent, an amateur's medium and an interactive one.  Knit blogging in particular is like this, as we seem to be seeking a community rather than only a voice.

And as readers appeared and conversation started going back and forth, I know my comfort zone of topics changed a bit.  And again with certain changes in my life.  And again when I met other knit bloggers for the first time.  And now again, when people in my daily life might be starting to know about Enchanting Juno. 

I didn't write the post to have it get back to her, I wrote it because it was my experience and I was frustrated and I wanted to get it off my mind.  It had never occurred to me that it wouldn't be my choice to reveal, because it had never occurred to me that anyone would put two and two together.  Or care.   

I am here to tell you, you may not be as anonymous as you think. 

I guess is you want to really be a mystery, you have to have a Rock Chick-like level of devotion to oblique misdirection, slight of hand - and, of course, actually be mysterious.  With her a hundred percent on Johnny Depp, particularly got up in Keith Richards drag, but otherwise, I just don't have the stamina for that kind of persona.

I am going to have to figure out where my lines are.   If I have a frustrating experience, this is a likely place for me to defang it by telling the story - whether it is on a date, or in a shop or out in the world in some other place.  And having this place to let off steam, to retell my own narrative, to understand my own life and experiences, is really important to me.   I don't know where the obligations of social usage collide with self censorship.

Last night was knitting group.  A very funny remark was made.  It is a story I would ordinarily tell you.  The woman who told it now knows about the blog - because, of course, I had to tell the Knit Goddess about the intense mortification of being confronted with my own actions, and there was general discussion. So, do I tell you?  Do I ask her permission? It isn't a question of saying something bad about someone - I think this woman is hilarious and cool and interesting and dirty minded in the best way.

And speaking of dirty minded:

Those super huge wood scarf needles - the Size 50 ones?  Aside from being incredibly awkward to use - like kitting with remote robot arms - could they be any more obscene?

I don't want anything to do with crafting with a tool that looks like it came from The Honeysuckle Shop. 

Talk about wood.

God (or not), true love & epiphany.

(Updated 1/6/05 to add context)

The most fascinating thing I’ve read today: The New York Times featured a selection of answers to the question “what do you believe is true that you cannot prove?” posed to a variety of thinkers. 

One example I liked:

Donald Hoffman
Cognitive scientist, University of California, Irvine; author, "Visual Intelligence"

I believe that consciousness and its contents are all that exists. Space-time, matter and fields never were the fundamental denizens of the universe but have always been, from their beginning, among the humbler contents of consciousness, dependent on it for their very being.

The world of our daily experience - the world of tables, chairs, stars and people, with their attendant shapes, smells, feels and sounds - is a species-specific user interface to a realm far more complex, a realm whose essential character is conscious. It is unlikely that the contents of our interface in any way resemble that realm.

And another:

David Buss
Psychologist, University of Texas; author, "The Evolution of Desire"

True love.

I've spent two decades of my professional life studying human mating. In that time, I've documented phenomena ranging from what men and women desire in a mate to the most diabolical forms of sexual treachery. I've discovered the astonishingly creative ways in which men and women deceive and manipulate each other. I've studied mate poachers, obsessed stalkers, sexual predators and spouse murderers. But throughout this exploration of the dark dimensions of human mating, I've remained unwavering in my belief in true love.

While love is common, true love is rare, and I believe that few people are fortunate enough to experience it. The roads of regular love are well traveled and their markers are well understood by many - the mesmerizing attraction, the ideational obsession, the sexual afterglow, profound self-sacrifice and the desire to combine DNA. But true love takes its own course through uncharted territory. It knows no fences, has no barriers or boundaries. It's difficult to define, eludes modern measurement and seems scientifically woolly. But I know true love exists. I just can't prove it.

There are a ton more, all extemely provocative.  And wouldn’t I love to be described as a leading thinker?  Unlikely, I admit it freely, but what a point for the C.V.   It is mezmerizing, exciting reading, beliefs about rationality, religion, love, life and evolution.  I just figured out (the slowness highlighting the unlikelyhood of my ever being referred to as a leading thinker.  Or thinker, full stop) that this is part of a larger article in The Edge (via Storytelling, thank you), a site previously unknown to me, but which will clearly taking its place in the Bloglines What I Do Instead of Working Magic Time Sucking Machine.

John Brockman, the publisher & editor of The Edge says this in his intro, an idea I find almost more interesting than the article itself.

In 1991, I suggested the idea of a third culture, which "consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are. "

I also have to link to MagnificentBastard’s list of Useful Things for Psychiatry Learned in Straight Jobs. 

USEFUL THINGS FOR PSYCHIATRY LEARNED IN STRAIGHT JOBS:

From selling cars:
There are three times to deal with a person's objection:
1. Now.
2. Later.
3. Never.

From writing for a newspaper:
1. When you lie or are dispassionate about something, it just feels wrong to say it out loud.
2. Someone will always disagree with you, whether you are right or wrong.

From working at a group home:
1. Kids love structure and limitations and boundaries. Without them, they will break the law just to get attention.
2. Some kids really do need meds.
3. Kids are capable of learning a lot of psych buzzwords and at being confused about exactly what their problem is. Words like CONSEQUENCES and DECISIONS and RESPONSIBILITY and CHILD ABUSE and MOLESTED and DEPRESSION are words that they don't really understand. Still, they are exposed to these words in group homes and in hospitals, and even though I didn't know what a CONSEQUENCE was until I was about 24 years old, we expect kids to know what we mean when we say things like, "Well, Little Billy, you must know that poor decisions have bad consequences." And Billy stares at you as if you are a space alien. He should.

Things I learned from a lab PI:
1. Even if you fix a broken leg, sometimes you're still a midget.
2. MDs can't plan experiments and don't follow directions.

Things I learned from teaching:
1. Just because kids are nodding their heads doesn't mean they understand a darn thing you're saying.
2. If you can tell the truth--and tell it elegantly and with enthusiasm--lessons can be learned very, very quickly.

Things I learned from my time as a psychologist's patient:
1. You know that black, ugly shit deep inside your soul that scares you to death and makes you vomit when you think about it? The wall of shame? Well, that's the shit you need to talk about. And don't be shy, because everyone has something they are ashamed of. Shame makes us human.
2. Defense mechanisms sound like this, "Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah." They sound like dispassionate lies. When you hear a defense mechanism, it's time to ask another question.
3. You know the mommy/daddy stuff? It never really goes away. It's like cigarette smoke in the headliner of a used car.
4. Psychology is pointless without bravery.

This list just blew me off the earth.  Perhaps some of it is obvious, but it so neatly encapsulates some of the ideas I’ve been thinking about work and life and my future that I can’t stop reading it. 

The thing I miss about my old work is that it revolved ‘round focused analysis of ‘why’ and problem solving – so within the structure of my day, I spent a lot of time tinkering with my understanding of how things and people work, how to draw them out and move them forward effectively to a useful purpose.

My soul is so deadened these days that I’m losing that part of myself – when I run into it somewhere, find a reminder that pings my personal recognition meter, it feels like someone hit me with a 2 x 4.

I don't want to be an ostrich.

I’ve been in a funny mood for the past few days, reading all sorts of things that amused, moved and enraged me, sometimes at the same time, and I’ve been working on this post off and on, but with a lowness of spirit that made me doubt whether I should, whether I was just repeating things said far more eloquently by others.

Strangely, it comes down to a question of why I blog, why I read them. Am I voyeur – peering into the lives of others, an exhibitionist, exposing myself to strangers? Am I searching for my own voice, or an outlet that is lacking in my everyday life? I don’t know the answer, not completely, but I think it is something I shall return to over time as my understanding develops.

I’ve been reading Kerstin over at CrazyDaisy and I think what she’s been saying is heroic.  And before anyone gets upset about the use of the word, I understand what I’m saying.  I don’t often toss around words without thinking about them first.  But taking a look at your own life, and deciding to open your mouth about what is important to you, to be awakened to the need for change and to act upon it, I think that is brave and difficult and risky, even if it is not obviously dramatic. Maybe I admire what she is saying so much because I share her outrage, her sense of astonishment and fear and anger, but I am finding it hard to formulate a plan of action of my own. 

But she’s a big mouth broad, in the best sense, and I salute her for it.

The point has been made that talk is not as valuable as action, and I would agree if by talk you mean "self-congratulation, vile personal slander and handwringing" but that's not what this is. This is shared information, emotion and perspective.  Which is essential. Expressing conviction, persuading and arguing, discussing, is fundamental to what this country should be. I've read things on both sides, things that didn't always convince, but did remind me that the issues are complex ones and that the thoughtful person is what I'm looking for, the blogger I want to read, the friend I want to make, even if we will never agree on a single issue.

If people are really freaking out because Kerstin & others are adding a new and opinionated perspective to their sites, I think that’s pretty sad.  The world we live in is full of change and potential both fearful and magnificent.  There is room for quiet places full of fiber and domestic pursuits and the cheerful sharing of a beloved hobby, but a world that only has that dimension is one that is hiding from something else, a windowless cellar.

Every day I read blogs – knitting, yes, but also culture, opinion & politics - and the news sites, and I see fire and vanity and prideful ignorance on the march, I see people – soldiers and civilians – at risk and I see reports of terrible outrages against all our common decency, our common humanity.  And domestically, I see a slow and terrifying erosion of the hard-won privileges of freedom in the illusive name of safety and public opinion and righteousness.

And I don’t know what to do, where to start.

It is oh so very tempting to just hide my head in yarn and domestic concerns and let my sense of powerlessness be my guide.  But I think that’s wrong, plain and simply wrong, even if I don't know what to do about it yet. 

If knitting blogs are a refuge for you from the rest of the world, then I am sorry the encroaching reality is making that refuge feel less secure, but our world isn't safe.  Honestly, it never was, but even less so now.  And people have a right to write what they want, to stop when it is no longer meaningful to them, to embrace whatever topic feels urgent to them. 

I don’t know if a blogger owes anything to her audience - perhaps.  But I do know that first and foremost she owes something to herself.   We have to bear witness, to make a noise about what we see that is wrong, fundamentally wrong.  Self-censorship to keep the peace is a first step toward becoming something that colludes in silence.

I've been thinking about this in light of Veteran's Day.  I don't think I've given much thought to Veteran's Day before, despite the fact that my grandfather served in WWII, my uncle was a Marine, my father a peacetime Naval officer and a couple of my cousins served or still serve in various branches, but it seems relevant right now: I voted for John Kerry, and one very significant reason was because he served.  Because he has taken life in combat and knows precisely the cost of that to his own soul and the soul of the nation he serves and with that wisdom might, might have been able to wield the weapon of US supremacy with delicacy and without swagger, pride or folly.

I started out trying to answer a question - what do I get out of this, why do I do it - blogging. And I haven't really answered it.  I barely touched it.  But this is what I have to say today.