"I can tell first thing when I come into a place if the service is going to be awful," sneered the emaciated gentlemen to his three companions, "see that bulge of fat around her belly!"
See the hint of stretch marks, dear sir, as in recently recovering from pregnancy. How would you like to be working on your feet all day, one month after giving birth?
This actually happened at one of my favorite neighborhood diners recently, where the waitresses are busy, hardworking, and almost always pleasant.
"See," said a second gent, head to toe in fair trade Central American clothing, "What happens when you pay them minimum wage - they stop hustling for tips and it's all downhill from there. Portland's even worse."
Dear second gentleman, have you ever spent a day in your life hustling for change? Because that's pretty common on the breakfast shift. I worked the breakfast shift many a year before I had my first professional job. How 'bout you - what's the hardest day's work you've ever done?
I know, spare me the bad old days, but please, where did we get the idea that we have a servant class and that some of us deserve to be "served" in any particular manner?
I used to love waiting tables, for the years that my legs could do it. I felt, mostly, like people were guests in my home. That wasn't just a work ethic. That's a life ethic. I'll try to treat strangers as well as I would family, because that's how I was raised.
Until they start to look at me like a footstool.
No, we're are not the plushy furniture you rest your weary feeties on. We are human beings, and as such, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. We do not yet live in a feudal or caste society - last time I checked. And even if we did, I would beware the consequences of treating the peasants with disdain.
Mostly, in this life, you get back what you have given.
Go ahead, offer up that waitress, nurse, caregiver the bile of your stingy heart.
Just remember who stirring your soup...
Monday, March 30, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Must Make it To Canada
We share everything, David and I.
This week we are sharing a cold.
It's a menacing, snarling virus that I don't want to share with anyone else.
So I'm going to nap now, and see if I'm well enough to go to Canada tomorrow and get taught more of the tools of my trade.
Head must not explode...
This week we are sharing a cold.
It's a menacing, snarling virus that I don't want to share with anyone else.
So I'm going to nap now, and see if I'm well enough to go to Canada tomorrow and get taught more of the tools of my trade.
Head must not explode...
I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places...
I had a visit from a long gone lover in a dream last night. I was running a fever, so it's not surprising the dream was a little weird.
We were hosting a party, and he stopped by, healthy and lithe, not having aged at all. He put his hand gently on my back, or on my hand, as he walked past, and left before all the guests were gone.
"But wait," I said, stepping into the elevator. "I was hoping we could talk."
"It's all be said," he replied.
Damn dream.
And then I was left with a long list of "I wanted, I wanted, I wanted..."
I wanted to fix all the things I'd done wrong, say all the things I never said. I wanted, somehow, to make things finish on that note that story tellers hope for. That ending which makes meanings out of things that have many meanings and no meanings.
On waking, I found myself wondering at desire. How selfish a thing desire is sometimes. I know that there are many churches which espouse that we should only have sex within the confines of marriage, something most of us ignore before we're married, and some continue to ignore after marriage.
Not typically being a pundit for right wing thinking, there's usually an advantage to a least considering the other point of view.
What is sex for, when it's not for making babies?
Is it a way to get closer to someone?
Or is it a way to use someone, as a fleshtoy, to get your freak on?
Is there a problem with a usurious relationship, if it is conducted by mutual consent?
I wish there was an easy answer. I don't think there is.
But I think it's something we need to be able to talk about, honestly if we can, at least to the people we're having sex with.
Most of the broken hearts I've seen or caused or had, seemed to come from not having distinguished what engaging in physical intimacy means.
And it doesn't mean one thing. I believe it probably means as many different things as there are relationships. For me it means things beyond words. But I still think we should be able to talk about it. The more I grow in this wondrous, wounded place the world is, the more I am convinced that it is a many layered system of complex systems.
It doesn't seem to reduce to primal elements.
Listening to the Dali Lama, he pointed out some basic truths, among them that there is no one truth - for everyone. One person, one truth, he said.
How can we hope to engage another, without an understanding of what that engagement means to them as well as to us? Without knowing what their truth is? Lest we wreak havoc in their lives and ours.
We need so much. And need gets a bad rap, so we try really hard never to admit our need. The most secure people I've ever met are people whose needs are being met.
Among the many things we require, we need to be wanted and loved, exactly as we are. And our deepest urges, those things that we are afraid to tell anyone or afraid to share - are probably the things that we most risk in our lives with our intimate partners. It takes great courage to stand before someone literally and psychologically naked.
Focusing outward, then, how can we, as a society, have the audacity to say what is marriage and what is not?
Every marriage is different, based on different rules and assumptions. Every marriage has it's own private universe of comprehension. How many times have you heard one person in a couple say "I married my best friend" ?
My husband and I share this uncommon belief that there is little difference between the commitment we make to our friends, and to our marriage. That's a good thing, because we'd probably make someone who didn't share this belief more than a little miserable, insecure, or frightened. But we are pretty attached to each other. And, as much as we can, we befriend for life. Being married sometimes hampers the amount of energy we can give our friends, but our door is always open and there is always a spare couch.
I am even a little suspicious of the structure that tries to restrict my commitment to a single nuclear family. The larger our family the greater our security in the world. Security of all kinds. Love, friendship, support, camaraderie, advice, help with the living of life, the give and take in times of need and plenty.
So if my best friend happened to be a girl, does that makes a difference in whether or not I should be married?
If we allow ourselves to go down that track, then do we start checking on whether people who are marrying and having sex intend to have children?
People who are passed child bearing age, should they not be able to marry?
How can we have a state create a constitutional law which prohibits any marriage?
If one is really going to bring religion into the government - something we are not supposed to do anyway, consider this:
God was the first matchmaker.
Where love is found, is there not also god?
And what god hath joined together, let no man put asunder.
We were hosting a party, and he stopped by, healthy and lithe, not having aged at all. He put his hand gently on my back, or on my hand, as he walked past, and left before all the guests were gone.
"But wait," I said, stepping into the elevator. "I was hoping we could talk."
"It's all be said," he replied.
Damn dream.
And then I was left with a long list of "I wanted, I wanted, I wanted..."
I wanted to fix all the things I'd done wrong, say all the things I never said. I wanted, somehow, to make things finish on that note that story tellers hope for. That ending which makes meanings out of things that have many meanings and no meanings.
On waking, I found myself wondering at desire. How selfish a thing desire is sometimes. I know that there are many churches which espouse that we should only have sex within the confines of marriage, something most of us ignore before we're married, and some continue to ignore after marriage.
Not typically being a pundit for right wing thinking, there's usually an advantage to a least considering the other point of view.
What is sex for, when it's not for making babies?
Is it a way to get closer to someone?
Or is it a way to use someone, as a fleshtoy, to get your freak on?
Is there a problem with a usurious relationship, if it is conducted by mutual consent?
I wish there was an easy answer. I don't think there is.
But I think it's something we need to be able to talk about, honestly if we can, at least to the people we're having sex with.
Most of the broken hearts I've seen or caused or had, seemed to come from not having distinguished what engaging in physical intimacy means.
And it doesn't mean one thing. I believe it probably means as many different things as there are relationships. For me it means things beyond words. But I still think we should be able to talk about it. The more I grow in this wondrous, wounded place the world is, the more I am convinced that it is a many layered system of complex systems.
It doesn't seem to reduce to primal elements.
Listening to the Dali Lama, he pointed out some basic truths, among them that there is no one truth - for everyone. One person, one truth, he said.
How can we hope to engage another, without an understanding of what that engagement means to them as well as to us? Without knowing what their truth is? Lest we wreak havoc in their lives and ours.
We need so much. And need gets a bad rap, so we try really hard never to admit our need. The most secure people I've ever met are people whose needs are being met.
Among the many things we require, we need to be wanted and loved, exactly as we are. And our deepest urges, those things that we are afraid to tell anyone or afraid to share - are probably the things that we most risk in our lives with our intimate partners. It takes great courage to stand before someone literally and psychologically naked.
Focusing outward, then, how can we, as a society, have the audacity to say what is marriage and what is not?
Every marriage is different, based on different rules and assumptions. Every marriage has it's own private universe of comprehension. How many times have you heard one person in a couple say "I married my best friend" ?
My husband and I share this uncommon belief that there is little difference between the commitment we make to our friends, and to our marriage. That's a good thing, because we'd probably make someone who didn't share this belief more than a little miserable, insecure, or frightened. But we are pretty attached to each other. And, as much as we can, we befriend for life. Being married sometimes hampers the amount of energy we can give our friends, but our door is always open and there is always a spare couch.
I am even a little suspicious of the structure that tries to restrict my commitment to a single nuclear family. The larger our family the greater our security in the world. Security of all kinds. Love, friendship, support, camaraderie, advice, help with the living of life, the give and take in times of need and plenty.
So if my best friend happened to be a girl, does that makes a difference in whether or not I should be married?
If we allow ourselves to go down that track, then do we start checking on whether people who are marrying and having sex intend to have children?
People who are passed child bearing age, should they not be able to marry?
How can we have a state create a constitutional law which prohibits any marriage?
If one is really going to bring religion into the government - something we are not supposed to do anyway, consider this:
God was the first matchmaker.
Where love is found, is there not also god?
And what god hath joined together, let no man put asunder.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Fields of Gold
It is not our wealth that makes us whole.
It is our memories that make us wealthy.
And the smallest bits of golden memories that this good life gives us are that are precious cannot be purchased, cannot be sold, cannot be foreclosed upon, cannot be taken away.
In our adolescence as a country we have made a worship of individualism, and broken our hearts on its empty promises.
So, today, if you find your pocket empty, fill it with someone else's hand.
To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, to serve only takes a willing heart.
Service isn't sacrifice. Service isn't communism. Service ranges the spectrum from simple kindness to giving your life willingly for another. It's a wide spectrum. We can all find a place for ourselves somewhere in there.
Personally, i thank god for stevie wonder every day.
Sometimes service is just finding our passion and sharing it.
There are many reasons to do something, and profit may well be the least of them.
Work, with passion, at work.
Live, with passion, at life.
And you'll never be poor.
It is our memories that make us wealthy.
And the smallest bits of golden memories that this good life gives us are that are precious cannot be purchased, cannot be sold, cannot be foreclosed upon, cannot be taken away.
In our adolescence as a country we have made a worship of individualism, and broken our hearts on its empty promises.
So, today, if you find your pocket empty, fill it with someone else's hand.
To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, to serve only takes a willing heart.
Service isn't sacrifice. Service isn't communism. Service ranges the spectrum from simple kindness to giving your life willingly for another. It's a wide spectrum. We can all find a place for ourselves somewhere in there.
Personally, i thank god for stevie wonder every day.
Sometimes service is just finding our passion and sharing it.
There are many reasons to do something, and profit may well be the least of them.
Work, with passion, at work.
Live, with passion, at life.
And you'll never be poor.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Happy Love the First Lady Day
Hello Again,
I have two other blogs which have now become defunct. Apparently I didn't water them enough. So I thought I'd best give this one a bit of what's on my mind before it too vanishes into the ether.
Posing as a Christian, Chris Kelly has called the first lady a "b****".
Faith, hope and charity, says the good book, and the greatest of these is what boys and girls?
Humiliation?
Slander?
Cruelty?
Hands, anyone from the back, anyone who EVER went to Sunday school?
This morning I woke up to the lyrics of "Rebel Jesus", originally by Jackson Brown
Sometimes I think that someone went through the bible, such as has survived, and marked out all the passages that actually refer to what Jesus had to say. They say the devil can quote scripture to his own end. It seems to me to be a pretty good litmus test to measure the intentions of a self declared Christian. If by his fruits you shall know him, then ask yourself, truly, are they Sewing hatred, or kindness? Anger or acceptance?
Faith, hope and love.
The greatest of these ... is, and always will be, love.
Send the first lady a valentine, just to balance the scales.
I have two other blogs which have now become defunct. Apparently I didn't water them enough. So I thought I'd best give this one a bit of what's on my mind before it too vanishes into the ether.
Posing as a Christian, Chris Kelly has called the first lady a "b****".
Faith, hope and charity, says the good book, and the greatest of these is what boys and girls?
Humiliation?
Slander?
Cruelty?
Hands, anyone from the back, anyone who EVER went to Sunday school?
This morning I woke up to the lyrics of "Rebel Jesus", originally by Jackson Brown
All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants' windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
As the sky darkens and freezes
They'll be gathering around the hearths and tales
Giving thanks for all god's graces
And the birth of the rebel Jesus|
Well they call him by the prince of peace
And they call him by the savior
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
As they fill his churches with their pride and gold
And their faith in him increases
But they've turned the nature that I worshipped in
From a temple to a robber's den
In the words of the rebel Jesus|
We guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why they are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus|
But please forgive me if I seem
To take the tone of judgment
For I've no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In this life of hardship and of earthly toil
We have need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus.Always gives me goose bumps, right up there with "in his name all oppression shall cease".
Sometimes I think that someone went through the bible, such as has survived, and marked out all the passages that actually refer to what Jesus had to say. They say the devil can quote scripture to his own end. It seems to me to be a pretty good litmus test to measure the intentions of a self declared Christian. If by his fruits you shall know him, then ask yourself, truly, are they Sewing hatred, or kindness? Anger or acceptance?
Faith, hope and love.
The greatest of these ... is, and always will be, love.
Send the first lady a valentine, just to balance the scales.
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