Freedom Isn't Free

Dateline: Haiti

The coverage of Haiti's presidential election has been interesting. It's my belief that Aristide was kidnapped, abducted 2 years ago. But this election seems to have gone down like all other elections.

No, wait.

People came out in DROVES for this election. I believe over 86% of the eligible electorate was registered. The US can boast an eligible voting population of roughly 75% of its total population of 293.7 million folks.
We cast about 1.2 million votes for our president in 2004. That means roughly half of us made it to the polls to cast the vote.

Haiti has 86%, and we have almost 50%.

Nice.

It'll be interesting to see how it all unfolds, if the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere is pulled from "abject poverty" to a level on par with the "second world".
We never hear of second world countries. We hear of first and third world, but like the middle child, the second world,
(if it exists) is overlooked.

Careful. We all know that a nation cannot be ignored. Haitians are pretty amazing people do not confuse a country's financial status with the wealth of its people.

Free from Stress, Sorta
So it is my duty to care for the best dog in the whole world for the next few days. A friend is dealing with kidney health issues. She's a year younger than I am. And she's dealing with kidney issues.

When I got the call on Monday night I followed her lead on calm. My brain raced a mile a minute thinking about kidney failure and I offered her one of mine. She has donors, and this latest complication came on suddenly. I didn't know what to say, but "Yes, of course I'll house sit!"

I haven't been home enough in Oakland to become attached to the place. And the least I can do is walk and feed the dog and make sure the house is undisturbed for when she returns.

In the last month I have fielded news of birth complications, cancer of all flavors, brain tumors, mental illness diagnoses, and death.

I'm not naive to think this is novel for today or even this month, but it seems that 2006's mark on the world with be to bring the conceptual to a personal level. We may emphathize with friends who are ill or gone. We may wince when we see surgery scars from people we know. We may stop and give a dollar to the man or woman who has had the same story we've heard.

But perhaps 2006 is the year we'll allow ourselves compassion, instead of reserving it for the proverbial rainy day. I think it's great to save. But sometimes we are miserly on compassion and love.

Instead of knocking us over the head with waves and wind and flood and earthquakes, I think 2006 will touch us and remind us that "tragedy" can be a personal experience. It may not be an overblown media event. It can touch us. And we can decide how to handle our humanity and support the humanity of those around us.

Mills College Up and Coming Reading
In doing research for a performance that I want to do with some of my students, I attended a reading at Mills College this afternoon. My friend Alyson was reading in it. She's getting her Masters there. She's a writer and a presence to be reckoned with.

I arrived a little late because of traffic and found her playing the role of emcee, calling each author to the podium to read her piece. I sat in the back of the Bender Room in Carnegie Hall...a gorgeous room of windows and crafted wood. The event was framed in such a beautiful way, perfect for word pictures.

Elmaz Abinader, department head of Mills College English department read a bit of her memoir. She read about her experience in Yemen (Aden) and the tradition of what seemed like the national siesta there. At 2 pm a leaf is ingested, and I believe it's /gott/. It has a lifting sort of effect on whomever consumes it, which seems like everyone there from her account.

She also spoke of the Yemeni love of poetry. Daily in the newspaper. People quoting poetry of American poets not so well known in the United States to her.

She considered this amazing. And I considered the power of a country's citizenry so educated that it knows the literature of other countries. That is powerful.

I'll guess that Yemen is not a major oil power. It's kinda forgotten among the Middle Eastern/Arab states, but I was impressed to hear of the love of poetry.

That's lovely.

Alyson read some personal pieces. I felt her father's life taken from him in the hospital in one piece. And that amazed me as I sat in the back, the sun setting, sending orange light over the college outside of the Bender Room.

At the conclusion of the reading, I went up to Alyson, hugged her and congratulated her on her reading. I apologized that I was on to Comedy Sportz for rehearsal.


Comedy Sportz
4 years ago I stepped off the Comedy Sportz stage. My life was getting hectic.
Ever since I have practiced guerilla improv with my friends and students and random strangers. It makes a great first impression. People think you're fun!

I've been thinkin', since I am not in the classroom this cycle that I could reconnect with grown up activities I could participate in after 7 pm and I really wanted to try improv again.

Every Valentine's Day weekend there's a Battle of the Sexes show and I wanted to call Jeff Kramer to see if there was room for a crusty veteran like me to come back.

Rehearsals are still at 7:30 on Tuesdays, but he's no longer in Santa Clara. Comedy Sportz is in downtown San Jose, right in the old art house theater that I saw Want, a film my friend Amy worked on and my friend Houman was in. Interesting peek into the dreariness of the .dot com world. It did an excellent job laying the setting for all of the main character's internal struggle...all the external messages of a capitalist culture displayed on ads what he was going through. I recommend it as a snapshot of the late 90s, early 2000s.

So I show up a little late after having a discussion with mom (who was in her telenovelas, so I left her alone), and dad who was talking to me about seeing my nephew and my relationship with my brother.

The theater is filled with lots of college dudes and a smattering of women. Let me clarify: I am one of two people of color in the room. The other is a younger, cool quirky Asian woman.

Funny, though. The room wasn't unfriendly, but I am a little more political now than I was back then. We were doing singing games. COOL.

I was nervous...rushing in and wearing a dress...but singing games? Aw, yeah! Bring it on! This room had 4 years experience on me. But I had my faux fabulous voice.

I quickly became friends with everyone through the games, changing groups and hugging and kissing everyone as I met them. It's the Puerto Rican/Erika tactic. It breaks down the barriers. People MUST encounter me!

It was so much fun just to be in the room with adults who just play. That's what improv is...make-believe. Pretend. And we do it in the context of a scence with suggestions from the audience.

It's the BOMB!

After a few songs, we moved on to montage, long-form improv.

This was the technique that scared the hell out of me when I had left. I always felt a lack of confidence in my ideas, so I would try to eek out a bit part.

Tonight I had NOTHING to lose and did a scene cross that involved making tortillas and blessing the hands of a novice with water. I was into it. My miming was pretty good and I felt my mother's accent come through as my character -- Maria.

The scene came back with music later...which I thought was hilarious. I had an adversary named Ana and we did telenovela drama. (Ana was played by the very blonde Justin fresh from Comedy Sportz San Diego. That was awesome, by the way!)

The Comedy Sportz National Tournament is in San Jose this year. That's awesome. Improvisors from around the nation will be coming down to basically workshop, perform, and crack each other up. Sign me up for that. I want to evangelize about laughter!

The Drive and Awkward Mike Phone Call

Apparently I missed three calls while in rehearsal. One of them was from my friend Mike W. up in the Portland environs. I called him back and we talked his car, my dance encounter last night with Maurice the Brazilian, his plans for Valentine's Day and boy was that a buzz kill to the conversation.

Now, in retrospect I guess that may have been weird, because we were in this non-relationship thing for the last three years. I avoided any mention of Valentine's day for fear of "ruining" the relationship. But if you don't have or acknowledge one, you don't have to celebrate specific days. You are a leased partner.

Let me tell you that I am not bitter about our relationship having come to a close. And I dig his new girlfriend. Heck, I am super proud that he is acknowledging relationship. Yay 34 year old male! Go You and your emotional growth!

Things got weird when I was asking about V-Day plans. I am vicariously living through my friends who have relationships. There are lots of cute romantic plans in the works.

Maybe it's because he's tired from working on the house or dealing with car issues.
Either way, it was not the jovial Saggie talks we usually have. We laughed over the term I coined, "Meganified" /meg ON ih FAhID/, to describe my hyperness. But that was it.

It's kinda like when you turn to your favourite station and all of the music just seems okay.

Oooooookay. Let's end the phone call. Erika has to stop by her house to pick up clothes for 4 days while she housesits Kayla.

Kayla, The World's CUTEST Dog!

Kayla became my instant companion over Thanksgiving. She's active, and short-haired, and beautiful. Black with an undercoat of brown. I know she's a mixed breed, but I have no idea of what. I just think she kicks ass.

Well, Kayla has been cooped up in her garage since about 5 this morning. Um, and I arrived about 11:30 pm. POOR Kayla.

I opened the door and then let her out and she was a bounding doggie who just wanted to play. I took a few maneuvers to get her leash on and then calmed her down so she could realize we had to move OUT the door. *giggle*

Once we were on the sidewalk she took to sniffing cars and gardens. A few steps and then something interesting would catch her nose. Up Swiss, over to Glen Park. We walked at the edge of the park and we passed a beautiful white kitty who was scoping the land from a perch on a fallen log. Kitty would have talked to me, save for the hyper dog attached to my hand via a thin string. Kitty moved a little closer, but exercised caution when it saw Kayla.

I can't say I blame the kitty. Kayla is Odie loving. She may not know she needs to show restraint.

The walk was good. All throughout it, I saw the waxing moon and the Amelie theme played over and over in my head. Ah, the fairy tale.

Here's to positive thoughts for the world. I love myself. I want GOOD health for everyone and a decent night's sleep.

Buenas noches!