L o b a B l a n c a {dot} c o m

What has become of journalistic integrity in this country?

There was a time when I couldn’t start my day without absorbing as much news as I possibly could. This was predominantly during my Angry Blogger^TM days, although I continued to be a voracious news hound during that lull in between those blogging days and now.

I still read and listen to a great deal of news, but not with the same insatiable need. Truth is, I think that my distrust of media outlets has outpaced my desire to be in the know regarding transpiring newsworthy events. I hate that this is the case. I hate feeling uninformed. But I hate the feeling of being manipulated even more.

The distrust began a while ago, although I definitely think it came to a clanging, crashing crescendo during the 2008 presidential campaign. I continue to believe that the coverage of this campaign was offensively manipulative on many fronts, abandoning real news for editorialized irrelevance and pandering to the most inconsequential coverage because it was more entertaining.

Call me curmudgeonly (and I’m sure many of you will), but I don’t want to be entertained by my news. I want to be informed. But when you find that you have to go to personal blogs or Jon Stewart to locate the facts that are missing from mainstream media outlets, it becomes glaringly obvious that there’s something failing within the machine that might become irreparable if it’s not addressed soon.

But when did the machine first begin to fail?

I think the diagnosis is many-layered, but I believe that the problems first began to arise with the arrival of 24-hour news coverage channels like CNN and later MSNBC and Fox News. Here was an idea that had the potential to provide viewers with unencumbered access to the most up-to-date and thorough coverage of news as it happened. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Unfettered access to the truth!

What we got, instead, was a gradual blurring of the lines between honest news coverage and editorializing that has reached insulting levels. Don’t believe me? Turn on any of these round-the-clock news channels and see what’s playing. More than likely what you’re going to find is opinion rather than news. Even when actual journalists are present on some of these shows’ panels, they’re providing their opinions on matters on which they report for other outlets.

It’s reached a point at which we’re not even allowed to come to our own opinions. Prime recent example: News coverage of a local crime that occurred last week started with the news anchor sitting next to a graphic that stated, “Disgusting Act.”

True, the incident in question was quite disgusting. But I don’t need you to tell me that. I need you to provide me with the facts of the crime and let me make up my own mind. Period. That is, after all, your job. To report the news.

However, opinion has somehow cloaked itself convincingly enough that it now mingles with the sheep, whispering its distracting song into the minds of anyone willing to listen. Why? Because it’s being sung by a “news” outlet? Printed in a reputable newspaper?

Do such things even exist anymore? Perhaps, but I believe they are slowly being eradicated by the instant gratification demands of the online generation, combined with features like “Post a Comment,” which more often than not are nothing more than thinly veiled cesspools of racism, ignorance, and intolerance. With the “anonymous” function, most comment sections on news sites inevitably tend to devolve into the modern day equivalent of wearing a hood at a cross burning. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that it’s a White face beneath the hood anymore. Anyone can be hateful! It’s as easy as the click of a mouse button!

It’s exhausting and frustrating and overwhelming all at once. And it’s not going to get any better. True, I know several journalists who strive to remain true to that mythological creature known as “journalistic integrity.” But they, too, seem slated for the inevitable march to extinction, replaced by sensationalism and emotionalism disguised as news.

I’m not naive enough to believe that journalists must be complete blank slates. I know that journalists have their own opinions, their own beliefs, follow their own convictions, and make up their own minds. But they shouldn’t be trying to make up my mind or anyone else’s. Report the news. Nothing more. Nothing less. And if you find that too difficult a beat to walk, perhaps you should consider switching to another line of work. I hear Sarah Palin is putting together her own discussion panel on Fox News…

She started whispering to me beneath the shade of our beach umbrella, during moments when I would unplug from whatever novel I was hungrily devouring that day. I’d stare out at the shimmering sea and simmering sands and I’d listen as this new muse shared with me her story.

It has been quite a while since I heard a muse speak to me, even prior to recent events that left a splintering silence within my mind. My most recent, Eddie, went quiet quite a while ago, which still saddens me. His was a funny, dark story that I very much enjoyed. I hope he comes back to me soon, to finish his tale.

So I made very certain to pay close attention to this new voice. She’s left me no name so far. That doesn’t really bother me much. She can remain nameless if that’s her preference. Beyond a strange hatred of sand, which admittedly I share with her, she seems surprisingly…normal. I’m not used to that.

I’m not typically drawn to “whole” characters. In both my own writing and the creations of others, I’m constantly drawn to and inevitably fall in love with the most damaged of the lot: the widowed CMO, the emotionally scarred ex-freedom fighter, the alcoholic Viper pilot with the damaged past, the brooding CSI with Diastema and dark secrets, the FBI agent whose entire life hinges on locating a sister missing since childhood. There is beauty in their flaws and fractures that I simply cannot resist.

So to have a character come to me with relatively no imperfections? I’m baffled. And a tad bit concerned. Can I do her justice? We’re always tasked as writers to “write what we know.” I know imperfection. Truth is, I prefer imperfection.

Then again, the “what I know” at the moment is too much for me to write right now.

I visited my mom’s grave for the first time on Sunday. Her body is buried slightly fewer than 50 miles away from me.

In weiter Ferne, so nah!

The veterans’ cemetery has yet to place a proper grave stone for her. I’m actually thankful. The thought of seeing both my parents’ names on a grave marker is a bit more than I want to handle at the moment. His must be there because he is the veteran. She simply happened to be the first casualty.

So for the first time, I stood on the ground above my mother’s grave and glimpsed the vastness of something to which I’m nowhere near edging closer. That vastness is more than I may ever be able to wrap myself around properly. At least not alone.

Here, in my lair, this public forum of private mourning, there is solace in knowing that others read my words, that I have somehow shared my sadness without actually having to ask for permission. I apologize for the passive aggressive nature of my sorrow, but I suppose, in some ways, this is how I reach out. I have never found asking for help to be an easy task. The thought at one time used to frighten me into vocal paralysis.

Introversion is a difficult mistress and she will ride you hard and put you away wet if you allow her the indignity of that indiscretion.

But to broach these feelings alone, in the solace of my small writer’s world? Not happening any time soon, I’m afraid.

So for now I lean closer and listen to the whispers of my newest muse. She’s already made her story known to me, but I’m listening for those little clues that will lead me closer to understanding her in ways that will let me give her a proper home. Perhaps she will finally be the story I complete this year. One never knows…

In scanning through recent posts here at the lair, I realized that my presence has been relatively weak as of late. It’s not as though I haven’t been around. I’ve had things to say about little things: books, DVDs, lost memories rekindled for a smile. But larger thoughts have gone silent in my mind. I feel as though my safety zone has become my own personal Twitter feed: limited to 140 characters, if I can even muster that many.

Truth is, I feel as though I’m skirting the perimeter of my life right now. Things continue in my mental absence, but my focus is such at the moment that I can’t be bothered to acknowledge any of it. It’s why my inbox is filled with messages from friends and ImagiFriends^TM alike…and I can’t seem to focus enough to respond to any of them. Not with the depth they deserve. I’m not going to use this as an all-purpose generic way of responding, though. I will write back. I will.

And I will find my focus again. Right now, though, it feels too ephemeral, like spun sugar melting on the tip of my tongue. So I stop trying to reach what has decided to elude me. I let the muses in my mind go silent. Silence has never bothered me. It’s the clatter that presses against that silence that worries me. So I reinforce the silence with silliness. Like ordering a Wonder Woman T-shirt because I remember spinning with abandon as a wee pup, laughing and wishing more than anything for an invisible jet of my own. Or hanging Vulcan ears in the stairwell because I know they’ll make me smile every time I pass them.

Or watching YouTube clips from EastEnders and trying to piece together the puzzle of the delightfully disturbed Slater family because…well, because even in the excessive way of most soap operas (even the ones from Jolly Old England), there’s something there. Something intrinsically beautiful, especially in the fractured, fragile bond between Kat and Zoe, a mother/daughter relationship that, if nothing else, does indeed put the “fun” in “dysfunctional.” Besides, when all is said and done, love and family trump all else and, as Kat tells Zoe, “…it don’t matter. None of it. Because there’s a line, and it goes from me to you.”

Yeah. Not really hard to understand my sudden obsession with those wacky Slaters when you look at it that way.

I miss her every day. Every breath. With a severity that ebbs and flows, but always returns to the shoreline. I don’t say that often, but in my mind it feels like it’s all that I say, all that I do.

I saw my dad for Father’s Day weekend, the first time I’d seen him since I was there for her funeral. It was like seeing a person for the first time after an amputation. There was something missing, something gone that will never be replaced. It’s not like I’d never seen him without my mom around. We’d been on our own many times before, through all the myriad hospital stays she’d undergone since I was 10.

But those were like fractures to the bone, broken but with the promise of healing. In time. This time, the bone was sliced clean through, and all that was left were phantoms of what was once there.

Phantom pains and phantom presence.

My dad told me that, not long after my mom’s death, a squirrel appeared in the little wooded space behind their house. In the 6 years that my parents have lived where they are now, none of us had ever seen a squirrel there. It was always one of my mom’s disappointments. She loved squirrels. The house is still filled with all the squirrel paraphernalia she’d acquired through the years, either on her own or as gifts.

I remember the short period of time in which we had a squirrel as a “pet.” It had survived a fall from the nest when it was still too young to even have opened its eyes. My dad found it, brought it in, and we cared for it, squeezing formula into its tiny mouth with an eyedropper and keeping it in a shoebox until my dad could build it a cage from lumber scraps and chicken wire.

When it grew a little bigger, we realized “it” was a “she.” We named her Peepers, and for a while, she became part of the family. I can still see my mom standing in the square of sunlight from the kitchen window, washing something off in the sink while Peepers sat on her shoulder.

I don’t know how to process the appearance of the squirrel in their yard now that she’s gone. It’s a bit much for my overly rational side to try to assign it to anything more than just coincidence. But that portion of my soul that cries out to believe in the fantastical and the unexplained, the part that cherishes the message of undying love in books like To Dance With the White Dog…that part of me wants to believe that it’s more.

My dad seemed content to believe. And so that will be enough for me for now. That and Wonder Woman shirts and EastEnders clips and Vulcan ears and whatever else is required to extend the silence between the silliness and the clatter.

The radio traffic reporter called me “honey bunny” this morning.

Okay, not me specifically. It was all part of her goofy on-air banter, her way of making her usually dismal news to us groggy Beltway commuters a little less soul-crushing. As much as I loathe my commute, I always love listening to her.

Truth is, the traffic report is pretty much all I can stand listening to anymore. Everything else sounds jumbled, confusing, off-key. Podcasts wash over me, the words trickling through the cracks in my concentration and flowing away without leaving any trace of their passing. Music? Dissonant and irritating, like pebbles stuck inside my shoes.

So I drive in silence most of the time, and I keep my brain from straying to places I’m not yet ready to go by watching the world as it zooms past Sammy’s windows. This morning it was all the joggers. Like the lovely older Asian man who jogs with the precision of Swiss watches. It’s not just his predictable punctuality but his movements as well. Strides perfectly measured, syncopated arm swings, even the towel always tucked around his neck seems to flop in pre-planned rhythm.

Or the gaggle of college girls crowding others to the side as they dominated the sidewalk, trotting along like sun-dappled mares with their upswept ponytails swinging in hypnotic unison.

It’s enough to make me wish once more that I jogged. Only problem is that my knees and back used to play softball in high school. I suppose the rest of me played as well…but my knees and back still remember those years the most. Still feel those years.

Sometimes I miss playing softball. I’d like to think I was good at it. I won a few awards from those years and when I was finished, I’d made it to shortstop, which I’ve been told is a pretty important position. Really, though, I played because it was in my blood. One of the first gifts I remember receiving was a whiffle ball and bat set and a little lefty glove from my three aunts, two of whom played on various softball teams for most of my childhood.

And then there were the hours that my mom and I spent playing catch. Even when there was very little else we could do together without tempers and tensions flaring, this was our oftentimes silent truce. I can still see our gloves in the hall closet, her full-sized righthander’s leather glove with my little pee-wee league lefty glove nestled inside it.

I remember how, for my birthday after the first year I made the school softball team, she had my dad drive her all over the place (this was well before the days of Sports Authority or Modell’s), trying to find a new lefty glove for me. She wanted to make sure I was ready for the next season, ready with a grown-up glove to finally replace the one I’d been using since 2nd grade.

I can still smell that clean, new leather, still feel the supple give of the grain as I slipped my hand into the glove for the first time. I stopped keeping my glove in the hall closet. Instead, it stayed in my room, usually with a softball tucked into it to keep its shape. I’d oil it regularly and often sit in my computer chair in the evenings, absentmindedly tossing a ball into the glove as I watched television. During softball season, I was very rarely without that glove on my hand.

It was around this point that my mom stopped wanting to play catch. My throws, even when I tried to moderate them, were too hard, too fast, and she was too proud to admit this. So she simply stopped playing.

I remember not long after I moved out, I was visiting my parents and needed to look for something in the hall closet. I happened to look down and there was my mom’s glove, still sitting at the top of the junk bucket, empty except for the dusting of cobwebs across the ball pocket. Too many years had passed by that point, but I still remember wishing that I’d had my glove with me, that we could go play catch once more.

I never saw her glove again after that. I’m not sure what happened to it after my parents moved a few years ago, although I strongly suspect that my dad might have tossed it during their pre-move cleanout. He views sports equipment with a special disdain usually reserved for politicians or fundamentalists (not hard to imagine I’m his daughter, eh?).

Perhaps I’ll ask him where her glove is next time I visit. Perhaps by then I’ll be back to listening to music and podcasts. Perhaps by then even innocent random observations won’t lead me down the very pathways I’d been trying to avoid through the observations. Perhaps.

I’ve been keeping a secret from you, denizens, but now it’s time I come out.

I used to be a major country music fan.

I know, I know. That statement just sparks WTFery, right? I am the one, after all, who often reminisces quite fondly about my metal hair days and I even recently expressed my still-bright love for old school rap and go-go. But there was a period of time in my life when I traded in my metal cred and my go-go bounce for the love of a little slide guitar and fiddle.

How did this happen? Honestly, I’m not really sure. I know it involved patient but persistent prodding from a very good friend whose veins ran hot for country. It was her ultimate goal, I think, to convert as many of her friends as possible. And, for a brief moment in time, she succeeded in convincing me that country music was worth my time.

Then, however, came the Bush administration and all the über-jingoistic insanity that went with it. And there went my love for country. Music, that is (don’t think I don’t know what you jingo dingoes say about my traitorous liberal bleeding heart commie kind being America haters).

Here, in fact, is the original blog post I made on September 9, 2006, to ring the death knell for my country music love:

It’s been over for a while now. We were just going through the motions because…well, we’d been together for more than 10 years and we were comfortable together, even in our mutual unhappiness. We had changed so much, especially in the past few tumultuous years, that there really was no more common ground on which we could agree. So we met for one more time last night. It seemed at times to be as great as it had been when we first met. But there was the taint of change still there, still reminding me that it will never be truly that great again. At the end of the evening, we parted ways, perhaps not for good but at least for a while.

And so comes to an end my love affair with country music. It couldn’t have been a better ending though – third row seats for Terri Clark. In the words of Wayne Campbell, she wails. I’ve always loved her voice and her lyrics as well as how, throughout her career, she has remained different among the bevy of Nashville Barbies. It was a strength that added to her allure. I think right now though, even she is relenting to the deluge of jingoism roiling through the country camp. Though she’s not draping herself in red, white, and blue, she has definitely undergone a shift that has dimmed her uniqueness just enough to be noticeable by long-time fans.

I will continue to listen to Terri Clark’s CDs, as I will continue to listen to the country CDs that I have purchased over the years. It’s a small collection, to be sure, but truly representative of why I loved country music in the first place. I was drawn to it for its simplicity, its honesty, its honky tonk chords and whiskey-soaked vocals. Now, however, there has been a pervasive attitude shift, and the simplicity has been replaced by simple-mindedness. And that’s my stop.

I think what sealed the fate of my love affair was last night, staring at the no-neck beer keg two rows in front of me who was wearing a T-Shirt that posed the following philosophical question: “What do deer and women have in common?” From the drawing of a mounted deer head with large antlers next to a buxom blonde wearing a camouflage bikini, I figured the answer would have to include the word “rack.” But no, it wasn’t even that clever. He leaned forward and I saw the answer: “The hornier the better.”

At that moment, I understood: These were not my people and I was not their people. I don’t want to listen to the music of a people who so blatantly debase women. This included the no-neck beer keg two seats down from Mr. Buck-and-Fuck, who constantly yelled out lewd comments to Terri Clark whenever she would engage the audience in friendly stage banter. Interestingly, he never made a peep when the male opening act talked to the audience. Disturbingly, his wife never made a peep when he was harassing Terri Clark. She and others around him simply laughed at his ribald shouts encouraging the singer to strip on stage. Had I paid for a striptease accompanied by the blathering of a bellicose redneck, perhaps I would have been more inclined to be amused as well.

I’m not blind. I know that country music is a genre geared toward people with a completely different mindset from mine. For more than 10 years I was an East Coast Yankee in the Confederacy’s Court. It wasn’t until last night that I truly felt like an outsider. I guess our differences are now just too deep a chasm at this point. Does that make me a fairweather friend? I guess it does. So be it.

So Terri Clark sang the swan song of my love affair. I couldn’t have asked for a better farewell.

I keep trying to imagine what “Mr. Buck-and-Fuck” from the above blog post is probably saying right now about Chely Wright. Not one thing I’m imagining is kind.

A lot of people don’t know who Wright is, so a brief Loba rundown. She debuted on the country scene back in the mid-90s, won some awards, had some big hits (hits, you pervs…hits) like “Shut Up and Drive,” “Single White Female,” and “Jezebel.” Though never hitting the dizzying heights of fellow country songstresses like Martina McBride, Faith Hill, or Shania Twain, she had a solid career and a solid following. Toward the end of my waning interest in the genre, I remember that she was also climbing onto the “Love This Country or We’ll Burn You Alive” patriotism bandwagon (led, of course, by Mr. “Boot to the Ass” himself, Toby Keith) that I think many country artists felt they needed to ride in order to survive in the genre, with some song about a “Support Our Troops” bumper sticker on her SUV.

[Yeah, is it any wonder I stopped listening to country music? Like any true traitorous liberal, overt expressions of patriotism that involve the acronym "SUV" make my soul frown. What can I say? In many ways, I'm still blue through and through.]

Because of my distinct disdain for Bush-era country music, I really had no idea that Wright had fallen off the radar in recent years. She came out with a few more CDs, but never really hit the levels of popularity that she had in the 90s. Then, poof, she disappeared completely for several years. During this period of solitude, she reached a point in which, tired of praying and wrangling and hiding, she stuck a 9mm in her mouth and nearly ended it all.

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The thought of no more Chely Wright in this world also makes my soul frown, for distinctly different reasons. Whatever stopped her from pulling that trigger, I’m so glad she made it through that darkness.

Now, I’ve read some comments from people who think that Wright has made this announcement about her sexuality as a means of re-igniting her career and kicking up promotion for her new CD and her book. In watching the above clip, I can see a certain truth in that. Maybe it’s because I’ve written speeches and advertising materials before, but I can immediately detect the “pull quotes” from her comments, those little lines that she’s probably going to repeat so many times over the next several weeks that she’ll be saying them in her sleep. Regardless of anything else, Wright is an entertainer, and just like all others in the entertainment industry, she must market herself to audiences as part of her chosen career. This, like everything else, is another part of her pursuit of her celebrity. All part of the business…

I also see a woman who nearly ended it all because of what she was hiding from the world, and still seems quite fragile and uncertain as she struggles with what this will do to her place in a genre that, in her own words, is comprised of conservative mindsets that are not readily known for kickin’ it rainbow-style at the annual gay pride parades. True, kd lang has been out for years, but she’s also been outside the country realm for years as well. Although lang won a Grammy for her country debut, she was never accepted by the Nashville elite and soon walked away from the mainstream genre completely.

And then there is the fact that even something as supposedly important to country music fans as enjoying those almighty American freedoms can get you in serious trouble. Isn’t that right, Natalie, Emily, and Martie? The Dixie Chicks know all too well how quickly country fans will turn on you. I still remember all the newsreels showing former fans burning their Dixie Chicks merchandise and running over their CDs with tractors. Why? Because Natalie Maines dared to speak her mind. And she and her bandmates paid for it, with radio stations refusing to play their music (I suspect some still would rather drink roadkill-infused moonshine than play a Dixie Chicks song) and people aiming death threats toward them and their families. All for Maines’s simple sin of exercising her right to free speech, which apparently many country fans believe is only extended to those who toe the same lines they do.

So, yeah. This is not the announcement you make when you’re trying to get country fans to buy your stuff. This is the kind of announcement you make when you want country fans to fire up the bonfires and the tractors and make death threats toward you and your family.

But you know what? I hope that country music fans prove me completely wrong, show me that things do change. However, I can’t really say that I’m holding my breath. I even tried to check out what country fans have been saying about Wright, but what I’ve found instead is a none-too-surprising silence coming from many of the big country representatives. County Music Television has nothing on Wright’s announcement on their Web site. Neither does the Grand Ole Opry (although they’ve got bigger problems right now, with Nashville floodwaters leaking into their home).

I was even shocked to see that our local country station, WMZQ, has fuck-all about Wright on their Web site. You’d think being located in the evil liberal empire of the D.C. area would have rubbed off even slightly onto this station. Of course, they are owned by blatantly conservative Clear Channel Communications, so there you go.

Of all the country sites I visited, the only one I found that mentions Wright’s announcement was Great American Country, with this piece on their blog.

Small step, to be sure. But even small steps get you where you need to go in time.

I also hope that country musicians surprise me, too, and embrace Wright rather than ostracize her. I know there are those within the country ranks who have it in them to do so: The Dixie Chicks, Dolly Parton, and Garth Brooks immediately come to mind. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see. I really hope for the best for Wright, regardless of her reasons for her announcement. The best and maybe a duet with Terri Clark. “Dirty Girl” maybe?

Loba plans and the Prophets laugh. I had places to go, people to do today. Instead, I’m sitting inside, watching as the “one inch” of snow that the meteorologists said we were going to get has transformed into multiple inches. I know a lot of girls who would get excited over more inches than originally promised. I’m not that girl.

I’m also apparently incredibly dirty-minded. I do apologize. However, I never said that Loba’s online lair was kid-tested and mother-approved.

So I remembered another dream. Not that big a deal to most people, I’m sure. However, Loba very rarely retains memories of dreams. For a long time I thought that I didn’t dream at all. Then Dr. Crusher and Data explained to me that if Humans didn’t dream, we’d go crazy. That was when I knew that I had to dream…I just never remembered any of what I was dreaming.

I realize now that I only remember the dreams that I wake up during. Like this morning. I was having a dream about something that actually happened. It was my final semester of college. My classes were over for the day and I was walking to my car when I ran into someone from my high school graduating class.

This probably doesn’t sound like that big a deal to most people. You go to a state university located fewer than 30 miles away from your high school, you’re bound to encounter a classmate or two on campus, right? Maybe if you went to a normal high school. I did not. The number of students in my graduating class didn’t even reach into the double digits. So this was a pretty big deal.

In both my dream and in the real experience, I remember the awkwardness of the encounter…the surprise on both sides, the slight joy mixed with discomfort. I can’t speak for my classmate, but I understand now that my discomfort was based on the fact that encountering him forced me to come face to face with a part of my life that was slowly fading, as was the person I was during those days. College is a time of reinvention and discovery, and while there were no external signs of any major transformation on my part (no pink hair, no tattoos, no piercings…I’m insanely vanilla in my appearance), inside I knew I was different from the person he once knew.

I think he could understand this truth as well. While he still looked the same as he did in high school, he had changed his name (and in fact seemed quite flustered when I called him by his old name). He was in a state of reinvention as well. So there we stood, two people identifiable to each other only on the outside, still in a state of flux on the inside. Not really all that into being reminded of those people we were trying to leave behind.

There wasn’t really anything more special than this about the dream, just like there wasn’t anything more special about the actual encounter. In reality, I think we shared about 10 minutes of conversation in which we caught up with what each of us was doing, and that was that. No offer from either side to exchange numbers or e-mail addresses. Just a smile and a goodbye. That was more than 10 years ago now. It was the last time I ever saw anyone from my graduating class.

I think this memory resurfaced in my dream world because recently I ran into someone else from my old school. It completely threw me off because: A) I didn’t recognize her at first (she was barely a teen the last time I saw her and now she’s a grown woman); and B) she so quickly recognized me. Again, insanely vanilla in appearance am I that I can still be identified by someone who last saw me when I was 17 years old. But though she recognized me on the outside, I was acutely aware that the person she saw on the outside was no longer home on the inside to the person she remembered from those days. The foundation is admittedly the same, but the rooms have been cleared out, given a fresh coat of paint, and completely redesigned.

I’m not really sure where I wanted to go with this post. It was just something on my mind as I sat here in my geek cave, watching the snowflakes tumble and twirl from the sky.

To the denizens who have threatened to send out an APB on Sammy and me if I don’t post soon…haha. Of course we made it home in one piece. Sammy is a wonder car. Not even I can change that truth.

The drive home was happily uneventful. Little spits and spurts of rain here and there, but nothing terrible. We arrived back in our neck of the woods to find that most of the snow had melted. I think this is the fastest I’ve ever seen snow of this magnitude disappear so quickly before. Usually, it would take a minimum of a month before we could see the ground again. Ah, that global warming myth…

So Sunday was the day of rest. And errands. And Sims³. I spent a mortifying 2 hours just designing one Sim character. It was around about that point that I realized there was something really off in my universe.

Don’t get me wrong. I love The Sims. I’ve been a huge fan of that game since it debuted almost a decade ago. I can’t even begin to calculate how many hours days I’ve sacrificed to my Sims addiction. Of course, such calculations would then require that I figure how much of my life I have given and continue to willingly give over to video games, be they PC games, PS2 games, or now XBox 360 games (friggin’ Aerosmith Guitar Hero and Mortal Kombat).

As much as I love video games, and as much as they make me feel like I’m still a kid when I’m playing them, the simple truth is, I’m not a kid anymore. Time continues to eke forward, no matter how little mind I pay it. And so I ended up having a bit of an existential freak out as I was trying to settle down and fall asleep last night. Instead, I began running through the list of things that I always thought I would accomplish in this life before shuffling off to whatever universal waiting room there is beyond this.

Truth is, I never really made any plans for leaving a large dent on this plane of existence. I suppose you could say I’m unassuming (or as unassuming as any one with Multiple Internet Personality Disorder can be). I did once have a dream though. Just one.

I wanted to write.

Words, as many of you have no doubt figured out, have always been my passion. I love the beauty of language. How words can be combined to form shear joy or utter despair. Swords of the sharpest edge can’t compare to words wielded by a skilled writer.

Writing is what brought me out of the shadows when I was in school. I was always satisfied with standing out of the spotlight, doing the work that needed to be done, making the grades that my parents would find acceptable. Doing all that I could not to make any waves that would draw attention toward me. But then our 6th grade English teacher introduced us to creative writing. And that was all I needed. I devoured each assignment she gave us with a passion that I don’t remember ever feeling for anything else in my scholastic career.

Even when that section of our coursework was over, I continued writing. Silly little stories, always about my friends, always about imagined adventures taking place at our school. I found those stories a while ago. Oh, were they awful. But at the time, they were like Pulitzer winners to me. After a while, I began branching out, leaving behind the comfort of my familiar friends, and began creating new friends and new places. And the themes grew darker and sometimes more frightening. What else would you expect from a horror fan?

The point, though, was that I was constantly writing. Constantly finding new places to set up residence for however long it took me to weave my latest tale. I spent a month with snow-stranded friends being hunted at a lodge in Vermont. Then I traveled down to a tiny Southern beach community, to spend month with new friends as they unraveled the story behind their mysterious new classmate. Then I was drafted into Starfleet. I spent quite a bit of time stationed on a Galaxy-class vessel, weaving, unraveling, and re-weaving stories there.

That was more than 10 years ago. And what have I done since then? I earned a degree in English, which I used to secure a job writing policy briefs, speeches, and whatever other linguistic minutia my federal agency clients require of me. I’ve heard my words uttered by well-known government officials. Each time that happened, a little spark within me fizzled into darkness.

Loba Disclaimer: I do still love my current job. It’s far different from those early days. Far more computer geeky, and far less gov-speak. But what happened to my dreams of writing? Not even dreams of becoming a famous author…you know, the kind who gets their name printed on their book covers in fonts sometimes triple the size of the actual book title. No, I never dared to dream that large. I just wanted to write.

Now I realize that I spend far more time living in other people’s worlds than I do in my own. Whether it’s The Sims or some other video game, or whether it’s my attempts to read 50 books in a year (which, by the way, I haven’t yet given up on). Always someone else’s worlds. No longer mine.

So take this as an early resolution if you must (although, dammit, I detest resolutions): I will get back to writing. Not only will I get back to writing, but I will complete something by the end of 2010. Hopefully, it won’t take me quite that long, but if it does, it does. I’m not going to let this die within me. I used to love to write. Hell, I still love to write. Why else would I keep coming back to this lair (besides all you lovely denizens, of course)? So time to return to my other worlds. Time to get reacquainted with all my other friends. True, some of them have been occasional traveling companions for some time now. It’s time to give them a more secure home.

Who knows? If I come up with something that doesn’t make my beta readers vomit, maybe I’ll even attempt to be published. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it…

I haven’t been eating bananas every day like I usually do. That’s the excuse I’m using for what happened.

See, potassium deficiency apparently runs in my family. Lack of potassium has certain side effects, one of which is horrible muscle cramps in your legs.

Like the one that woke me up this morning at 5 a.m. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I can sleep through anything. Almost anything. Having my calf muscle twisted into an Auntie Anne pretzel shape apparently does not fall under the “Almost Anything” category. The pain is excruciating but quick, although the soreness lingers. I can still feel the remnants of that sweet agony in my every limping move today.

It’s days like this that burst my mental image of me still being on the edge of 17 (guess no white-winged doves will be singing for me today, eh, Stevie?).

So I went back to my banana pattern this morning. Want to know a secret though? I hate bananas. Unless they’re barely ripe…skin still a bit green. Firm flesh.

Sorry, I really don’t mean to sound vulgar in my description, but that’s how I like my bananas. If they’re too ripe (what most people would probably consider “normal”), I can’t stand them. I’ll get through maybe half a banana at that stage before I simply can’t go on.

I especially can’t stand listening to another person eat a banana. Nails on a chalkboard? Don’t bother me. The gooey, viscous shlup of someone masticating banana bites? Oh, the humanity! I have left conversations in which someone was eating a banana. It’s either that or trying to explain why I just shattered a molar in an effort to refrain from sucker-punching them.

Is that normal? Of course not. Am I normal? If you can’t already answer that question, you need to spend a little more time perusing the lair. I’ll wait…

…

Done? Good. I suppose I could just start taking potassium tablets. But I hate the thought of taking vitamins. Isn’t it better for you to get your vitamins and minerals from natural sources? I also know that there are lots of other foods out there that are as rich with potassium as bananas. Bananas are, however, the most convenient to eat on a daily basis.

Just as long as they’re young and firm…

[Yeah, I was being unnecessarily dirty just then.]

Haven’t really been in a talkative type-ative mood as of late…although I did remember to set my Flashback Friday to publish. I was very proud of myself for that (not for knowing how to set it to publish, but for remembering to set it…I think all my time with the Captain is wrecking my memory, denizens).

[Okay, here's a tangent for you: Why do all the alcohol Web sites make you plug in your birthdate before you can surf their site? I'm sure it's for some ridiculous legal reason (doesn't that sum up most legal reasons though?), but all it is is ridiculous.]

The weather has turned a bit maudlin this week, which leaves Loba feeling pensive and introspective. You know, unlike how I am most of the time. It also has left me craving comfort clothes. No, not “com-for-ta-ble” clothes. Comfort clothes. Like comfort food, only not edible. Although possible tasty.

[Tangent 2: The slow pronunciation of the word "comfortable" is the unspoken punchline of perhaps my favorite blonde joke ever. I'd be happy to tell it to you all next time we meet up at Central Perk for coffee.]

Right now, I’m wearing a comfort sweater. It’s chocolate brown and made of a material that feels like I skinned a Gund plush toy. Guess that’s why I call this my “teddy bear” sweater. I was so pleased with it when I first bought it that I went around to some coworkers and encouraged them to “pet my sweater.” Subsequently, I believe that I was the inspiration for a new “pet me” scenario in my company’s sexual harassment training.

In the evenings, I’ve been snuggling up in a gray and black Tasmanian Devil hooded shirt that I bought when I was a high school senior. It’s not a sweatshirt per se…just a long-sleeved cotton shirt to which the manufacturer added a hood. Thanks to my anal-retentive laundry skillz, it still looks pretty decent. The black has faded only minimally and the Taz logo is still intact, although it does look like it’s had the “craquelure” filter applied to it (w00t to my PhotoShop geeks on this one).

I love this shirt. It’s baggy, warm, and floppy…exactly what I want to change into after I work out and want “down time” clothes. Same with my red fleece pajama pants with the polar bears all over them. Warm, snuggly-soft, and cute to boot!

Comfort clothes, people. Comfort clothes.

Everyone’s got them. I know someone who has a pair of comfort sweatpants that are worn so thin you could watch television through the fabric (although why bother when you can just pick one of the myriad monster-truck-sized holes for your viewing pleasure?). Doesn’t matter, though. They’re comfort sweats. Anything to make the increasingly cold and dreary autumnal fade into winter a bit more tolerable.

So I’m snuggly-warm in my teddy bear sweater, counting down the hours until it’s Taz hoodie time. And, no, I don’t invite coworkers to pet me anymore. Denizens, however, are a different story…

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, we are meant to honor those who protect and defend our country, our freedoms, our rights. So it is on this day as it has been since before even my parents were glimmers in the eyes of their parents.

Last night, 14 hours before we were scheduled as a nation to observe this solemn moment, the Commonwealth of Virginia injected a lethal dose of chemicals into John Allen Muhammad, and a grateful nation ended the life of one of its soldiers who brought his conditioning to kill onto his home soil.

For those not aware, in 2002, John Allen Muhammad and his then 17-year-old accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo were known as the Beltway Snipers. They killed 10 people in the D.C. metropolitan area throughout the month of October. Further investigation determined that they killed numerous others during a cross-country trip that zig-zagged from Washington State to Arizona to Alabama to the D.C. area. Muhammad trained Malvo using the sniper skills he acquired from his military service, which included deployment during Operation Desert Storm.

Even after more than 7 years, I can still tap into a fear that I thought unfathomable before that October. The year prior, our entire country felt fear injected through our universal veins. But it was still a disconnected fear, even for those of us who work and live so close to the Pentagon, who have family and friends who worked there, or in the Twin Towers. Yes, it touched our lives. Yes, I knew people who lost loved ones in the attacks. But it touched me in the way that any such violence touches us: with distant whispers that, yes, such things happen…but not directly to me.

Muhammad and Malvo brought the whispers close to our ears, ominous threats breathed down our necks with icy intimacy. It was the frustrating randomness of it all that crippled us. People doing everyday tasks…pumping gas, vacuuming their cars, shopping for groceries, waiting for a bus. We took these tasks for granted until the day we realized that someone out there could at any moment end our very existence simply because we needed a gallon of milk or to top off our tank before we headed home.

Why?

What in Muhammad’s life brought him to these acts? Reports after the fact indicated that he showed signs of disturbance during his service time. But in war there is little time for coddling or concern. And then they are processed out at the end of their service…and then what?

We send these soldiers out into battle. We train them to kill and we ask of them the greatest sacrifice that any human is able to offer, that of their own life. And they do it, because it is their job. Their duty.

They come home and what then becomes of them? The suicide rate among soldiers is at an alarming high right now. We weren’t even sending those with physical wounds and scars to decent treatment centers for a while, so is it any surprise that those with internal scars should completely fall through the cracks?

Of course, all of this is speculation on my part. Maybe Muhammad was deeply damaged prior to his service. If true, though, it begs the question of how he was able to pass through the ranks undetected as insufficient for military duty, especially duty that would train him to be a sniper. Maybe his military time had nothing or little to do with his actions in 2002. Then again, life is not a series of perfectly separated incidents. Our lives are tapestries, woven together in complex, overlapping patterns. Tug one thread and a thousand begin to unravel. Even soldiers not yet deployed to combat zones can crumble under stresses unseen or unknown until it’s too late. The recent events at Fort Hood stand as proof of this.

Only when it is too late do we finally respond with a resounding call to “make them pay” for their crimes.

The United States has executed more than 1,000 people since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. We claim that states with the death penalty option see fewer crimes deemed punishable by death. Crimes still occur…just not ones bad enough to qualify for death. Some view this as justification for government-sanctioned murder. The system works!

Some will undoubtedly call me naive and a bleeding heart. They’ll accuse me of not understanding because I have never lost someone to the crimes of another. And that’s very true. I cannot say what that would do to me, how that would change my opinion. But I do not know for certain and, to be honest, I do not ever want to know.

So in my naivete I grapple with these questions. When is murder right? When we sanction it with yellow ribbon magnets on our cars and Veterans Day sales on camcorders and iPods? When we obfuscate it with words like “justice”? Will humanity ever reach a point in which we no longer feel entitled to kill each other for our differences, our prejudices, our possessions, our beliefs? Or are we simply too defined by genetic programming that trickles down through the millennia to the time we burbled up from the primordial ooze? Are we nothing more than animals who learned to make laws we will inevitably break? Or can we aspire to become more? Become better?

I don’t know. Maybe, though, that’s the best place to start.