Identity (Iteration 1)

What are we to make of intersecting identities? I relate this to a very old Values Council discussion (it happened to be our first in the virtual world, actually). The question was posited, "Why is religious identity such a big damn deal now?" I suppose this ignores questions like, "Has it always been?" or "OH IS IT? I HADN'T NOTICED!"

Anywho, we decided that perhaps the autumn of 1989 provided the fertile ground for its "resurgence," since when "the Wall fell," the world ceased to be discussable in terms of Soviet and Free World. Of course, people had been religious during the Cold War, and for thousands of years before that. Probably since forever.

Of course, identity is far more than just one's vision of ultimate reality. There is tribal allegiance, gender, nationality, some construction of ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, location, socioeconomic background, height, weight, preferred brand of cigarette, language, history (both personal and otherwise), cat-lover or dog-lover or dog-lover-cat-hater, pasta fanatic or gluten-allergic, handicapped or able-bodied or somewhere-in-between, vegan or not, and a whole slew of hyphenated, tongue-in-cheek bits of what constitutes a person.

So what does identity mean nowadays? Can we be sure? Why does it seem important to the level of life-and-death at some times and completely inconsequential at others? Why doesn't one act as a militant whatever until that point at which being a whatever comes under attack by someone who is explicitly or implicitly not whatever? What does identity mean for us? What does identity mean for me?

As a young undergraduate, I wrote a paper on linguistic diversity wherein I claimed that discourse communities could be both as broad and as narrow as we could possibly conceive, since one's linguistic identity was a combination of many factors, a handful of which are listed above. Perhaps I was looking too specifically at the subject. Perhaps identity as identity is a worthy topic of discussion. The meta-identifiable bits of what makes humans interesting are what I concern myself with.

That, and what how I'm going to get all my schoolwork done this term without suffering a nervous breakdown.

Statistically Significant

Woke this morning with the phone not answering my commands.

Went south. Forgot my Stats notebook. Laptop screen died. Pen ran out of ink. Class took a long time.

Lots of other mostly terrible stuff, but at least my head wasn't aching like yesterday

Came home. Lots of boxes in the mail. Ran to store to buy vegetables. Came home, finished the cabbage.

The boxes contained the leftover stuff that I had been unable to take with me back to the mountains after Christmas, so I now sit surrounded by spoils. My new saucepan is among them, and many books. And a boot dryer.

Balance in all things...

Empire Strikes Back

Empire (specifically the American blend), as we conceive of it today, is no longer the globe-spanning economic/linguistic political structure that we knew from the days when the Union Jack flew highly and proudly from many corners of the world. Nor is it as simple as America's enormous overseas military presence. No, today's Empire is far different. It's not as simple as drawing a line between hegemony and empire, or coercion and cooperation. The Empire, which has a distinctively American flavor, is a super-structure that floats above everything that we know. It encompasses, of course, linguistic, economic, and legal concerns, but at the super-systems level, the very idea seems to lose its nebulousness and fall back to earth.

In doing so, we see today's Empire as its own sort of regime, much like arms control. States are party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty in many cases because the benefits and legitimacy that membership bestows far outweigh the costs associated with not being involved, or leaving.

The Empire, since I believe it deserves the definite article preceding it, is simply the world-wide regime that encourages participation, because staying out of things and not "playing by the rules" is nowadays both unfeasible and irresponsible.

So whose Empire is it? It's everyone's, really; a hyperdemocracy gone supernova. But in reality, it belongs to no one. It is simply a byproduct of our development in a globalizing era. And I, ever the optimist, also feel that it might have something to do with our development as people.

Everything is always on its way to somewhere.

Hay Mow

A hay mow, in case you weren't aware, is where you store hay.

You pronounce it like "hey now."

I've always had a hay mow where I've lived. Not so much in the last few years; no room in apartments for hay and such. There are many fond memories related to hay mows in my life. I miss my hay mows.

At our house near Oglesby, the hay mow was where I brain-wrote my first play. From what I recall, there was a Princess and possible some sort of "White Knight" figure. The plan was to stack bales of hay into some rudimentary "castle" structure, from where the main action could occur. The whole thing fell apart, of course, without the appropriate strength (I was 4 or 5), and a clear dearth of engineering experience. That, and it was difficult to find actors, given the lack of a script, costumes, and money (or cookies).

Someday, I'll finish writing the damn thing and I'll hire some actors and it'll be made into a really cute indie film.

We're gonna need a lot of hay.

Old smells

The stairwell in my building smelled today. It probably wasn't different than it's ever smelled, but for some reason, today's stairwell aroma reminded me of Mike's old house. So as I carried my load of laundry down to the washers, I did that old "let the memories wash over me" thing. It was pleasing.

Went to S. Broadway today to check out the thrifting. Finally found a pair of second-hand black wingtips. Picked up a nice blazer and some brown pennyloafers, too. The shoes, especially, smell old, but that's probably because they are leather. Ended up a few blocks north for our Winter bar crawl some hours later. There, too, I encountered a smell that took me back, although I have no idea where back is.

Scent is very strongly tied to memory, and for as long as I can remember, I've been a "smeller."

I've created scent profiles for the homes of my friends and family, and compared them to other locations. I'll occasionally walk into a room somewhere and think, "Gods, this smells exactly like Bob and Kathy's house!"

Naturally, all of this leads me to the obvious question: Do I, and my lodgings, possess a certain je ne sais quoi?

Further research will be needed.

Intersections

I went to Sidney’s this morning for coffee in the usual manner. Ordered a “Shot in the Dark,” which is basically their Peruvian blend with espresso. I explained that I had been born in Peru. This elicited some interested hoots from the wonderful coffee-ladies. Naturally, full disclosure necessitated that the truth be explained, and it was.

“Not really. It’s a small town in Illinois.”

But it became interesting again, right.

“Mom’s a soil scientist, dad’s a forester.”

Got my coffee and went my way. As I was crossing 14th Street, sans WALK signal, I was almost creamed by a pickup truck. This is no joke: if the driver hadn’t been paying attention, he would have turned me into a road-pie. It certainly didn’t help that I was wearing the following in brown: shoes, socks, pants, shirt, and tie. It wasn’t so much getting plowed-up by a truck that would have been embarrassing, it would have been that I was spending my time crossing the street thinking about stopping in at Sidney’s for coffee on a weekend. Maybe if the coffee-ladies weren’t so cool, I wouldn’t have almost got crushed.

Moral of the story: I didn’t have an adrenaline rush; no emotional response whatsoever besides humor. There was a mad smirk on my face as I made it across the street, though. Weird.

The Balcony

Scented footsteps lead me to the balcony where she
stands replanting my lavender that the squirrels
dug up to hide winter-food. Smiles, a breath, she
leaves to clean the earth from her nails.

I bring myself down to the chair, the air wants to
carry the last seven weeks of summer with it. I am
accompanied by a text about bees and a chablis.

She returns to un-empty the chair across from me
to read Colbert. It is our favorite time
of day, this stasis. There is all time.

Can’t put a color to the sky I say looking past her
and over the beech tree with birdfeeders. She’ll
agree; even the clouds aren’t quite white.

I’ve run out of wine I say and set down my text to
retreat indoors and fetch a new glass and one for
you too my dear and she nods. Pouring is
impossible when she tilts her head back to laugh at
a particularly outrageous passage. My bees are not
that funny.

Returning with the wine, she sighs and stretches.
The best part of being awake– we can’t tell if the sun
will stay for three hours or thirty minutes but it
certainly smells like the end of a day.

And so we read until the light fails in its duty to
illuminate the page and we fall indoors again;
clockworks keeping time with the heart.

She’ll sing. I’ll ponder. We’ll collide.

Breezes from the balcony now that fill the house
with promise of night. Candles, light houses.