I've Always Enjoyed Her Sense of Humor

by Gerald Locklin

She's an old friend
And I don't see her very often,
But she has a way of turning up
When I'm talking to a girl I've just met,

And she will invariably storm up to us
And confront me with, "where is the child support check?!"

Then turn on her heel and storm from the room,
Leaving me to make inadequate explanations.

Not a life multi-tasker, yet another rant about the census

I find myself once again, on this cool June evening, availing myself of the impassable yet sympathetic ear of my blog and ranting about the Census. Yes, yes. We have already established that I am not a life multi-tasker and am therefore struggling to think about things other than this fiddlesome job. But tonight my beef is too legit to quit (I just awarded myself 5 points for the early 90's music reference). The Census is refusing to pay for one of my workers prepaid calling cards and I think that is negligent and overly bureaucratic at best and downright CLASSIST in most lights.

So the census claims you do not need a phone for this job yet you are required to leave your number on the notice of visits you leave at every house. In theory, you could leave the main offices number, yet with no central database, the ability to follow up on phone calls made to the office is extremely remote. More than that, it is basically a grassroots campaign done in every district by people with little to no field organizing experience. Furthermore, it is a dangerous job in many ways and to not carry a phone would be foolhardy. Anyway, you need a phone.

Most of the people the census is employing do the job because they need the money. Prior to this job, it's not like they had caches of petty cash lying around to pay a cell phone bill every month. When it became apparent that they needed a cell phone, they bought the only plan that made sense: one with no activation fee with a pay as you go option because hey, they don't know when this job is going to end. During orientation, you sign a telephone reimbursement form that says you can be reimbursed for census related expenses, provided that you have an itemized list of your calls. This is where the problem comes in.

You can't get a formal itemized list of calls with pre-paid or pay as you go phones. And the census has decided not to accept handwritten ones.

This lady isn't even technically under my direct supervision. However, I feel pretty strongly that she gets her $40 back- not simply because she needs the money, which she does, but because it is SO unacceptable to allow bureaucracy to crowd out compassion and human sense in this manner!

I understand the census's concern. They don't want to be paying for personal calls but we have tried EVERYTHING we can think of to get this list and our request has been rejected three times! I spent an hour yesterday chatting with _Christoph B from T Mobile just to document our attempts and still nada! Even _Christoph B was sympathetic! My boss is great and doing what he can, it's just one of those things I guess.

I once visited an anarchist squatters club in Germany. It was really fun. I'm thinking now that they are former census employees.

End rant.

Me and Jazz

So this past week, I've been thinking a lot about how I don't sing jazz anymore. Or really write it that much. And about how that really stinks. Ever since I discovered jazz in ninth grade, I've been obsessed. Well, I was enthralled long before that but ninth grade was when I put a name to it. I distinctly remember being enraged when my mom told me it was "Just a phase". Sadly enough, I haven't sung with a combo in over a year. A year! Yeah, I write semi-pithy pop and sappy singer songwriter stuff but I miss the jazz! I sound so much better as a jazz singer, it's the perfect outlet for bratty jabs, jazz theory is more intellectually challenging for me and it's so fun!! It's a little late to make a new year's resolution, but this year is not going to be as jazz-less as the last.

I've got a couple of charts I would love to record so if you know of a few good musicians in the Chicago-land area, lemme know! In the meantime, feel free to revisit (and download) an old fav--

http://www.mediafire.com/?mmm21mvj1dz

Let Freedom Ring

To Everyone Who Thinks they are fighting "The Man" by not responding to the census:

You're not. You're just screwing over your community. If you have a social security card, the government already knows all of this information about you and is tracking you. It's hilarious that you sign up for credit cards, have an email account, have facebook, BUY PROPERTY and use government services like city water and yet somehow think you're the lone wolf evading the government's grasp. The only thing you are doing by not responding to the census is decreasing the number of people in your community counted therefore decreasing your congressional representation, federal allotments, public sector services and the likelihood that businesses who use info provided by the census will invest in your community. Way to win.

If you are an undocumented immigrant- thanks for doing all the jobs we don't want to do. I support your attempts to evade a government that won't give you amnesty.

Sincerely,

Yet another disgruntled federal employee

PS. There is a seventh level of hell for people who yell at people with tough and tedious jobs.

Things I Didn’t Know I Loved: After Nazim Hikmet

by Linda Pastan

I always knew I loved the sky,
the way it seems solid and insubstantial at the same time;
the way it disappears above us
even as we pursue it in a climbing plane,
like wishes or answers to certain questions--always out of reach;
the way it embodies blue,
even when it is gray.

But I didn't know I loved the clouds,
those shaggy eyebrows glowering
over the face of the sun.
Perhaps I only love the strange shapes clouds can take,
as if they are sketches by an artist
who keeps changing her mind.
Perhaps I love their deceptive softness,
like a bosom I'd like to rest my head against
but never can.

And I know I love the grass, even as I am cutting it as short
as the hair on my grandson's newly barbered head.
I love the way the smell of grass can fill my nostrils
with intimations of youth and lust;
the way it stains my handkerchief with meanings
that never wash out.

Sometimes I love the rain, staccato on the roof,
and always the snow when I am inside looking out
at the blurring around the edges of parked cars
and trees. And I love trees,
in winter when their austere shapes
are like the cutout silhouettes artists sell at fairs
and in May when their branches
are fuzzy with growth, the leaves poking out
like new green horns on a young deer.

But how about the sound of trains,
those drawn-out whistles of longing in the night,
like coyotes made of steam and steel, no color at all,
reminding me of prisoners on chain gangs I've only seen
in movies, defeated men hammering spikes into rails,
the burly guards watching over them?

Those whistles give loneliness and departure a voice.
It is the kind of loneliness I can take in my arms, tasting
of tears that comfort even as they burn, dampening the pillows
and all the feathers of all the geese who were plucked to fill
them.

Perhaps I embrace the music of departure--song without lyrics,
so I can learn to love it, though I don't love it now.
For at the end of the story, when sky and clouds and grass,
and even you my love of so many years,
have almost disappeared,
it will be all there is left to love.

Bug's in a movie!

Mads is in a movie! Her friend Jonathan is making a mockumentary and asked her to be in it! Here's the trailer. She's the drama queen. I like that.