whenever we wanted, we'd stop by the side of the road and dance.

i'd buy a winnebago along with someone to drive us across the country in it. we'd see everything from maine to california, the shores of the atlantic to the shores of the pacific, from canada to mexico and all the plains, mountains, forests, lakes, canyons, and craters in between. from the decadence of times square to the innocence of the dakotas. we'd go when we wanted and stop when we wanted and whatever looked interesting, we'd investigate. we'd sleep in the winnebago or in a tent or in an old-school highway roadside motel. we'd eat eggs in the morning and steak in the afternoon and have coffee whenever we damn well pleased. we'd see the stars and the moon and the sun and the rain from the windows of our winnebago and from the windows of our eyeballs. we would read a dozen books and then read a dozen more, learn to play chess, to yo-yo, to grow sunflowers in the camper. we'd talk until communication no longer required talking. we would spend days on end just fishing or only hiking or in a casino until we couldn't tell day from night anymore. we would rent bicycles and canoes and tuxedos and picnic baskets, whatever we needed, we'd lease it and use it and give it back and move on. we'd wear our blue jeans every day, and whenever we wanted, we'd stop by the side of the road and dance.

in the aftermath

i'm not going to talk about the campaign or the election or how i voted or how you voted.

well, not per se, anyway.

i would like to talk about where we go from here.

first, i recommend a wait & see attitude. whether you voted for trump and you're elated, or you voted for clinton and you're devastated, or you voted for someone else or feel some other way -- wait & see.

my spidey-senses tell me that the trump administration will be neither as terrible nor as fabulous (per your point of view) as expected. it's just not possible. even with the executive and legislative branches of government squarely in the GOP camp, it's not like that's enough power to change the world. if combined exec+leg control were all it took, the world would have already been changed by now - several times over and in myriad directions. we'd all have change-of-world whiplash. plus, if you think all the GOP legislators are on board with trump's platform, i'd say you've been living under a rock. there are many forces at play, so why not just wait & see.

if you watched his 60 minutes interview, you heard trump say some things that didn't seem to be in line with his campaign boasts. sure, he's still talking about building a wall, but now it's a combo wall-fence. sure, he's talking about deporting illegal aliens, but it's the hard-core criminal element he's after. who can argue with locking up or deporting thieves, rapists, murderers... hopefully not anyone! he said that he will work on getting the hard-core criminals out, let the dust settle, take stock of the situation, and make a plan to move forward. personally, i think rounding up the hard-core criminals could take the better part of 4 years anyway, so why not just wait & see.

trump has said he'll repeal obamacare and i say, GOOD ON YA. that thing is a hot mess and if you can't admit that, then... ugh.... okay, firstly, we need universal health CARE, not universal health COVERAGE. secondly, obamacare is much more geared to the interests of the insurance companies than those of the health care consumer. i'm not saying we don't need to all share in the burden of our collective health. truth is, we will do so either way - either we pony up on the preventive side or we're socked on the reactive side, when all costs go up because not all can pay. i'd prefer to pay on the preventive side. firstly because it makes more damn sense. secondly, it costs less. thirdly, healthy people are happy people and damn if the world could use more happy people right now. maybe you don't agree with me on any of this, but before you pre-mourn the passing of obamacare, consider that it's a HUGE thing to repeal, and maybe it won't happen at all or won't happen in the nightmare scenario where it affects people adversely. i'd like it changed. you'd like it unchanged. can we assume we both want to the best, and wait & see?

i don't want to go through the platform and plan item by item. i realize trump is supported by some hard right-wingers, but he's pulling a mixed bag of characters into his cabinet. he said he'd do something different -- maybe that something different will be to work for an end to the damnable polarization that is ripping our country apart like that thing that came out of sigourney weaver. i realize some people are afraid of his supporters, who are doing terrible things in his name, who are intolerant and full of repressed anger. but just because those people support trump, why do we believe trump supports them?

trump is at heart a builder. he loves to build things. he wants to build up the USA. unless we are going to dissolve our little experiment in democracy altogether and no longer have a country called USA, why not build it up?

sure, he's crass. he says witless things. but guess what? so do most people. if you literally believe that men do not actually "talk that way" when they are together - from the locker room to the board room - well, sheesh. c'mon. they do. they just do. i am not saying it's right, but jeez. we're not droids. ever heard of testosterone?

i don't think it's right to round up illegal aliens and deport them - nor do i believe it's feasible. and, i don't think it will happen. remember when obama said all items to be voted on would be posted for our (our = you, me, regular folk) to review on the internet before they were voted on? well, if you don't, i do. i was pretty excited about it. and... it never came to pass. probably not feasible. that's just how it is with campaign promises - whether you are on board with them or not, they don't all come to pass. you just have to wait & see.

i am in favor of a strong military because it's a dangerous world. i am a capitalist and believe that strong businesses of all sizes make for a strong economy with jobs for everyone. i am in favor of welfare-to-work ala bill clinton. i am in favor of letting people make the choices that seem right to them, to live their lives how they see fit, as long as they are not drawing on the state for support. conversely, i believe that if you are drawing on the state for support, the state can hold you to some standards of behaviour, with those standards being ones that focused only on minimizing your draw on the aforementioned state. i am in favor of affordable health care and although i don't know how to fix the health care crisis, i don't believe it's by regulating soda size or contributing to insurance megaliths. i am in favor of equal pay for equal work and marrying whoever you damn well please and coming to america to make a better life than you could have in whatever godforsaken war zone you were born in.

*sigh*

what are your thoughts? agree, disagree, leave a comment, let me know.

a canyon and a wall

a thousand emails
cancel out to
nothing,
only noise -

a cacophonous monotony
that can't replace
your voice.

the distance now between us is
a canyon and a wall -
much too deep navigate and
way too high to crawl.

sweet dandelion wishes,
softly floating on the wind -
little seeds that fly away
and don't come back again.

i whisked a dandy floater
up into the sky,
saw it safely on its way
and didn't ask it why

cause you don't ask dandelions
where they're headed,
where they've been.
you kiss them once and let them go
a'floating on the wind.

(this came out all at once, like one poem, but reading it back again, it sounds like it should be two. what can you do? art.)