4 a.m. storms

i was awakened by the rain just before 4 a.m. it's been raining a lot in recent days, but the sun also breaks through and it's nice for a short while, luring you outdoors, only to be chased inside again by another deluge. changeable, unpredictable, much like life. it would be easier to cope with if i was better at going back to sleep when it wakes me. night before last, there was rain, thunder and lightning - husband even got up and unplugged the router, since we've lost it to lightning before. funnily enough, that night, i didn't hear a thing and slept right through. when i wake, i have a bad habit of looking at my phone. these days, it's filled with distressing news about mass shootings and the racist, bigoted president who inspires them. and one article just leads to another and suddenly an hour has gone by. it's hard to go back to sleep after reading about all that. it can feel so hopeless, this downward spiral we seem to be in. and my worries about my gorgeous child choosing to go live there among all those guns seem especially acute at 4 in the morning. no wonder i can't get back to sleep.

mass murders and other disappointments

i've been searching for words about the most recent school shooting in oregon. although i do have strong opinions about this topic (get the guns out of the hands of the maniacs and everyone else), there are so many (kristoff, bruni, blow) who have said it better than i. or just look at these sobering gun death statistics that good assembled. or did you know that there have been 994 mass shootings in 1004 days? and there, on a guardian graphic, were the words platte, south dakota and six red bodies to signify 6 lives ended by a mass murderer (who also happened to be their father/husband). what will it take for change to come? how many people have to die over a misinterpretation of the constitution?

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i'm hoping that when my new job begins (october 19, i'm counting down the days), that the daily nightmares i've been having about the jerk who did away with my job in lego will go away. i think they were brought on by seeing him a week or so ago and having him nearly refuse to shake my hand in front of a bunch of people. it apparently weighs heavily on my subconscious, as he's been making nightly rude appearances in my dreams. 

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i'm also looking forward to my new job because it means that i have a good excuse to step down from the increasingly problematic local board i'm on. i've worked hard for more than three years and now our wonderful new library/community space is up and running. i can make all of the things happen there that i am interested in making happen (salon evenings, creative workshops in a creative space, debate evenings, board game evenings, spoken word, pecha kucha, etc.) through the other board i'm on. it seems the one that "governs" the house is falling to pieces. the chair of it has been through a horrible personal crisis and instead of stepping aside, has become a control freak who wants all the credit and doesn't want to do any of the work. another member of questionable graphics talent pushed his idea for a logo through without considering other submitted contributions. and the muttering person who is obviously bitter for having lived the wrong life has decided that it's enough that we serve some stale, donated chips and cheap box wine at the big opening reception this upcoming thursday (this despite that we had a 10,000kr budget for food). i am no longer proud of the work being done by the group, so i will be stepping down from it. and it will be an enormous relief. and i am a bit grateful to them for feeding the characters for my novel.

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and speaking of that muttering deficit person, i noticed today that she had actually had the nerve to switch places in our creative workshop with someone who was on holiday, taking the better spot by the window and the better cupboard for herself. there is a chance she agreed it with that person, but it still seems really underhanded to do it while she was away. how can grown women behave like this?

beyond logic and reason

last friday, south dakota's governor signed a bill which will allow teachers to carry firearms into their K-12 classrooms in the state of my birth. the bill does not mandate that teachers carry a firearm, but it authorizes an ominously-named "sentinel" who has had training (ala law enforcement training), to carry a gun on school premises. (you can see a whole list of all the bills he signed on friday here - there is probably reason to be alarmed on numerous counts, but that's another story.)

when i first read it in a new york times facebook post on friday, my initial reaction was a flush of embarrassment. people know i'm originally from south dakota and they will ask me about it, holding me responsible, taking me to task (tho' i haven't voted in south dakota for years (i vote in illinois, as it was the last state where i lived before moving to denmark)). but people took me personally to task back in the era of the monica lewinsky saga - "what are you doing to your president?" ("what monica did, given the chance," was always my pithy answer). alas i have no pithy answer for this one.

after a couple of days of thinking, my embarrassment hasn't abated. mostly, i think that south dakota was duped into this by a clever gun lobby. they got some numbskull of a freshman member of the house to introduce the bill, fed him a bunch of lines about it making schools safer, especially rural, isolated schools (where, to my knowledge, there have been no shootings) and some ego-stroking about being on the leading edge of the arming teachers movement and the republican-controlled legislature and governor steamed it right through. without thought or substantive debate. and frankly, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. and if they're not, i'm certainly feeling ashamed enough for them too.

even the largest newspaper in the state, the sioux falls argus-leader (which my parents refer to as the scene of the crime, since they met there), hasn't had a single editorial on the topic (at least not that i can find online). and they too should be ashamed of themselves.

a powerful gun lobby pushes such an detestable piece of legislation through in a conservative, sparsely-populated state and thinks it will start a domino effect of legislation in other states. and sadly, they're probably right. because we now live in a world where we legislate our to alleviate our fears. lawmakers are reactive, not proactive. but all of the legislation in the world can't prevent the lunacy of an individual with easy access to firearms.

these school shootings that have been happening (for years now - i remember one in the early 90s when i was a student at the university of iowa) are tragic and horrible and shouldn't happen. but how anyone can think that ensuring that there are guns present in a school can possibly help is simply beyond my ability to logically comprehend.