A cold front will bring strong northerly winds of 20 to 25 mph with gusts to 40 mph to much of south central Texas before midnight.

The first norther of the season.  Entirely expected, yet momentous. And by me anyway, forgotten completely till it started.  I come in to work, and leave, an hour later than the rest of my office and I stayed at work even later than usual tonight, not because I was slaving away, but rather catching up on tweets and other happenings in my corner of the world. Hey, it’s Friday.  The world outside my big window at work was completely dark, I was oblivious. The time changed last week and I’ve already gotten re-acclimated to driving home in the dark again.

Then I remembered I had to pick up a prescription, and that there was nothing I was doing that I couldn’t also do at home, so I bundled up my stuff and left. I stopped to turn off the lamp left on by a coworker, then walked out into the hall and it was like walking into a dream. I knew, just knew, the entire 11-story building was empty. It wasn’t scary that I felt, more like a frisson of pure emptiness. I was wary but not afraid being in this void yet public space, all the lights on, the elevators working, all just for me and my lonesome. The elevator dinged louder than usual and I got in and rode down, every footstep and building creak audible as I walked through the first floor lobby past the lighted portraits of long-dead university presidents, then out into the fresh air.

I saw the wind before I felt it, before I’d even gone outside. My building is surrounded by a series of ponds, lighted at night, and there were crazy ripples blowing across the gleaming water’s surface. I pushed open the door and the wind ripped it out of my hand and slammed it back, then forward and closed. It was the perfect puncutation for the sudden change of scene: leaves swirling everywhere, students walking past in their sweaters and jackets, hollering at each other, cars whizzing by. Friday night in a college town, all around ebullience.  I felt invisible moving through it, I certainly wasn’t part of it, but I didn’t begrudge it either.

I drove to pick up my meds, waiting at the drive-through window longer than I wanted to, watching the citizenry stream in and out of the grocery store. Payday for a lot of these folks, merely a beer run for others. Everybody was dealing with the crazy wind, little kids squealing,  plastic bags flying around, dust whipped up and hanging over the whole parking lot, holding weird patterns from the milling headlights.

I was glad to turn toward home, and get out of town. The moon not yet up, it was pitch black as I headed west.  I drove with my windows open, enjoying it. Definitely a norther, buffeting my car as I drove up through the winding hills and home. At the house, the dogs were giddy and crazy. Anyone who lives with dogs knows that happy wild barking.  I’m usually cautious about keeping them quiet when possible because of my asshole neighbor, but tonight I let them get their ya-yas out for a while. How could I not let them bark? The tall cedars around my house were whipping around and creaking in the wind.  The moon, absent all the way home, wobbled up though the crazy dancing boughs and silhouettes of leaves.  Like a bowl of butter, waning gibbous, but mighty bright still. Between the gusts, I heard the windchimes of the neighborhood pealing out their tones, and my dogs were not the only ones baying.

My two cats came streaking one after the other out of scrub at the back of the yard, each leaping up on separate fenceposts, then across the rocky yard and up the steps of the deck. In their wake, a group of yearling deer clattered out of the brush and came to a standstill, their noses up in the air, whuffing and snorting in this new chill rolling out of the sky.

Tags: Hill Country,norther,weather,Wimberley
Categories: Domicilium, Get Out!, Persistent Illusion, Texanstantinople
1 Comment »

At the end of the day, Prop 8’s passage was more a generational matter than a racial one. If nobody over the age of 65 had voted, Prop 8 would have failed by a point or two. It appears that the generational splits may be larger within minority communities than among whites, although the data on this is sketchy.

What we are protesting is the injection of that faith into public policy, not the church’s views or their leaders’ right to convey them!

Tags: Election 2008,GLBTQ,National Protest,Prop 8
Categories: 365 Days a Queer, Flea Circus, Metonymica, The Blind Lady
No Comments »

Lot of it going around.

Change that is.

I found my initial theme template cumbersome to manage, In addition, I had been wanted to try a different approach for a while, something that fit me, the whole of how I communicate online, better. Also, given that a great deal of my traffic is RSS driven, something that fit readers better.

And so. This part, the blog part, reserved for longer posts, and when the camera comes out of rehab, photoblogging. Simple and clean, though I of course cannot refrain from tinkering with widgetry and plug-ins.

And this part, the tumblr part, for more instantaneous, off-the-cuff, gadfly stuff.  I considered combining the two in one place but the hybrid templates I test drove seemed just as cumbersome as my previous one.

As for your RSS feeds:

• if you just want writing, use the blog feed.
• If you want all of it, the blog posts PLUS  twitter, music, and other esoteric impulsivity, grab the tumblr feed.

And so, we carry on.

Tags: Blogs,feeds,tumblr
Categories: Domicilium, Mise en Place, Persistent Illusion
No Comments »

Been tinkering and screwed up. At the moment, comment functionality is crap.I doubt this is too earthshattering but wanted to point it out in case anyone was wondering “what side” the problem is on.  It’s on mine. But I’ve got weekending to do as well, and thus this may not get fixed toot sweet-ish.  Too pretty outside to be dicking with css.

Maybe this is as good a time as any to let on that I’m considering some major design changes? As soon as I get my ducks in a row , virgotex.net will be taking the Tumble-hybrid route, which I considered, and should have done, at the start. Better late than never.

So, expect changes.

Categories: Domicilium, Get Out!, Howdy! Howdy! Howdy!
No Comments »

It’s that time of the year here in Texas where we have an honest-to-god four or five weeks that resemble the Season formerly known as Fall.  The temps have cooled down noticeably, there’s a bit of a breeze most days, and the winding hilly backroads I travel are littered with swirling leaves.  During this time of year there’s a certain quality of the light, usually in the late afternoon but sometimes in the morning too, that combines with the coolness, the red and the gold, and for a few fleeting moments, evokes strong memories of my time in the Northeast. I’ve got countless postcard-like memories of autumn days in Brooklyn, several pages from Boston, more fleeting snapshots from Montauk, Provincetown, Narragansett, Portland.

One of the recurring threads in those memories is my sweet friend Fred, rememberer of birthdays, teller of stories, and most especially giver of music. I don’t even know who and what all Freddie turned me onto anymore, it’s hard to sort it out.  But he definitely was the one that told me about Mary Lou Lord, took me searching for her in the T stations she favored. The last time I saw her was aboveground in Cambridge, at the legendary Middle East (briefly mentioned in this video). She shared the bill with Daniel Johnston and of course they sang Speeding Motorcycle together and Mary Lou told the massholes trying to yammer over Johnston’s warble to quiet the fuck down.

Tags: Boston,busking,Mary Lou Lord,Music
Categories: Howdy! Howdy! Howdy!, Weasels & Vultures
No Comments »

Adrienne Rich
from 21 Love Poems

XVII
No one’s fated or doomed to love anyone.
The accidents happen, we’re not heroines,
they happen in our lives like car crashes,
books  that change us, neighborhoods
we move into and come to love.
Tristan und Isolde is scarcely the story,
women at least should know the difference
between love and death. No prison cup,
no penance. Merely a notion that the tape - recorder
should have caught some ghost of us: that tape - recorder
not merely played but should have listened to us,
and could instruct those after us:
this we were, this is how we tried to love,
and these are the forces they had ranged against us
and these are the forces we had ranged within us
within us and against us, against us and within us.

(click the Blip.fm widget for audio)

Tags: 2008,Adrienne Rich,Prop 8
Categories: 365 Days a Queer, Could be Verse, The Blind Lady
No Comments »

Hello, Chicago.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.

It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.

We are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It’s the answer that led those who’ve been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.

A little bit earlier this evening, I received an extraordinarily gracious call from Sen. McCain.

Sen. McCain fought long and hard in this campaign. And he’s fought even longer and harder for the country that he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine. We are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader.

I congratulate him; I congratulate Gov. Palin for all that they’ve achieved. And I look forward to working with them to renew this nation’s promise in the months ahead.

I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart, and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on the train home to Delaware, the vice president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.

And I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last 16 years the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation’s next first lady Michelle Obama.

Sasha and Malia I love you both more than you can imagine. And you have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the new White House.

And while she’s no longer with us, I know my grandmother’s watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight. I know that my debt to them is beyond measure.

To my sister Maya, my sister Alma, all my other brothers and sisters, thank you so much for all the support that you’ve given me. I am grateful to them.

And to my campaign manager, David Plouffe, the unsung hero of this campaign, who built the best — the best political campaign, I think, in the history of the United States of America.

To my chief strategist David Axelrod who’s been a partner with me every step of the way.

To the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you’ve sacrificed to get it done.

But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.

It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.

It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.

This is your victory.

And I know you didn’t do this just to win an election. And I know you didn’t do it for me.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3477482826040622447

Show me more… »

Tags: Election 2008,Grant Park,Obama
Categories: Flea Circus, Howdy! Howdy! Howdy!, Metonymica, Persistent Illusion, The Blind Lady
No Comments »

Let’s fervently hope so, anyway. What else left to say? If you can, work the phones tonight, or see if your local Dem. headquarters needs volunteers tomorrow. We still need to GOTV. It ain’t in the bag yet.

Pimped-out Stretch Crack Van all day over at First-Draft tomorrow. Athenae gave us guest-posters the keys, too! Just as well, since  I everyone will be too hungover to write read my usual Wednesday post. Anyway, you can catch me there.

And now, SuperBarack!

Tags: Obama
Categories: Flea Circus, Howdy! Howdy! Howdy!, Metonymica, Weasels & Vultures
No Comments »

What a crazy month. And what a crazy week just past, this full seven days before the Big Day. It’s too big to describe it just one way or capture it easily. Which is why a lot of us are so all over the map emotionally. Yeah, it’s been a long time coming, but it’s more than just tiredness. Earlier in the week Athenae was mulling over this piece of the big picture:

But it isn’t enough. It can’t be enough. We can’t give ourselves a pass starting on Nov. 5 the way I think we might have four years ago. I keep thinking about that campaign, about four years ago at this time, how sure I was that we were gonna turn back the tide, how that was going to be the break that would make it okay, a statement, loud and clear: YOU DO NOT DO THIS IN OUR NAME YOU BASTARDS NOT IN OUR NAME NOT IN MY NAME NO. And everything that’s happened since has been informed by the conviction that we as a country had a chance to stop it and we didn’t. It isn’t enough that on Tuesday we’ll stop it from getting worse.

Every coffin come home on a plane in four years was one that didn’t have to pass this way, every bill you opened from the hospital that only sort-of fixed you was one that didn’t have to be this high. Everyone shot, everyone starved, everyone lost, everyone scared, it isn’t enough that it’s almost over because it’s not almost over. It’ll never be over. And over doesn’t mean it never happened in the first place.

The dead are not less dead yesterday so we can have a better president today. The imprisoned are not set free upon Inauguration Day. You do not do a good thing and get to put down your weight. One good deed doesn’t clear you; two wrongs don’t make a right but a right doesn’t cancel out a wrong, either. Absolution isn’t cereal, it’s not something you can buy, no matter how much you stack up on the checkout counter. I don’t believe in retroactively assigning the purpose of the Bush years’ suffering as getting us to Obama, because it feels cheap, like we’re letting ourselves off the hook. The dead are still dead. The fires are still burning. The prison doors remain shut. And we are not absolved.

Stories like this one are playing out every day and they will be for a long time. So many people in this country have broken hearts, for a lot of reasons that won’t be fixed on Tuesday. Be sure and listen to McMurtry’s anecdote at the end.

James McMurtry, Ruby and Carlos

Tags: Bush,Cindy Sheehan,Election 2008,Iraq,James McMurtry,Music
Categories: Flea Circus, Howdy! Howdy! Howdy!, Metonymica, The Blind Lady
No Comments »