Folks,

If you added me as a friend and I had not added you until just now, it's because I had totally forgotten that I had to go into the friends thingy and check a box. I remembered to look at it today and noticed a large number of people who had added me over what looks to be a year or so. That's apparently how long it's been since I actually looked in there, so sorry for not keeping up. Welcome to the Tempest, all of you.

( Quizzy Fun )

Take The Chakra Test at HelloQuizzy

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http://www.storyofstuff.com/

I'm sure many of you have seen this, but if you haven't it's worth the time. Much of the work I'm doing in sustainable development deals with these issues. Annie Leonard presents this information as well or better than anyone I've seen.

***

Life has funny ways of testing us. Surrounded by my friends, I spent New Year's Eve bringing in the new year with song and celebration. We sang, we danced, we drank, and we all felt the potential of a new year begun in as fine a fashion as I can imagine. I am usually aware of the way the people around me are feeling, and the vast majority of the people we shared the party with were gleefully bouncing and swaying to the music. As always, there were some people who were not as "into" the scene as others, but even those people seemed to have a good appreciation for what was going on.

This New Year's was unique in several ways, one of which was the amount of time I'd been at the venue. We opted to get there early... really early. Like 1:00pm early. We wanted to guarantee we'd have the tables to fit all of our people, so we made a day of it. Conversation, a few new friends, and a couple of early drinks made the time fly. Since I was expecting to drive later I never really let myself kick into a drinking gear. I drank cider and water back and forth and got to enjoy Magner's without ever feeling the effects. My main source of intoxication was the music and energy around me, and sadly that left me susceptible to a hard crash.

My hard crash came at the end of the night. As we all gathered our belongings I asked some of the folks at one of our tables to pass me my jacket and sweater. I had been using both earlier in the night to hold tables for our group, and when the party got started they were hung on the back of a chair. When we couldn't find them we presumed they must have gotten knocked to the floor or shifted to another chair. Several minutes of looking yielded nothing, and that's when I began to become concerned. Had it been my leather coat I might have been more worried right away, but this was my gray and black winter jacket and by black postman's sweater. Not only are they unremarkable, but they're four sizes too large for anyone else to wear! Surely no one would have made off with them, right?

Wrong.

A check of the call log on my cell phone (which was in the coat) reveals that it has been used to make several calls since it vanished. I must presume that it, along with my jacket, sweater, wallet, keys, gloves, and scarf were stolen. Not just stolen, but stolen from a Celtic New Year's Party whose participants were limited and most of whom I knew. My initial rage was incalculable. I sat there, seething, while my friends searched the bar. We all postulated that someone may have taken it by accident, but the whole time I knew that wasn't very likely. If someone hadn't simply noticed an unattended jacket and decided to take it, then someone moved it and felt the weight of it or the bulges in the pockets that contained my belongings. My mind moved at a thousand miles an hour, contemplating both the reality that the items were missing and the ramifications thereof. I knew I'd have to cancel credit cards, have ID's reissued, and go through tons of paperwork and legwork to get back the things that were taken. There was the financial reality of replacing the items, none of which were horribly expensive but were all difficult to find and combined number in the hundreds of dollars. There was the thought of explaining to my friend Megan that the scarf she knitted me for Christmas hadn't even made it till the New Year and the loss of the child-like joy I felt when the gloves (which I had purchased only two weeks before) had arrived and I found they fit my hands better than any pair I'd ever owned. Most of all, there was this dumbfounded amazement at the character of the person who would do such a thing. Sure, it happens every day, but there? Then? In the swirling joy and celebration? 

At first I wanted to find the person responsible and take revenge on them for starting my new year out with a kick to the balls. I wanted to hurt them, and for a few minutes the pain I felt made me think doing so would be justified. I was furious at myself as well, angry that I'd let my guard down. I'm normally careful to the verge of paranoia, but I'd let my familiarity with the setting and the people relax my instincts. For the first hour or so afterward I couldn't silence the little voice in the back of my head saying "See? See what happens when you trust people? See what happens when you let yourself relax?" Other thoughts took other paths: "Are you sure you want to spend your life helping people when this is how people are?", "Did I do something wrong? Why did this happen? Is something punishing me?" I tried to put a good spin on it so that my hard crash wouldn't be a buzzkill for everyone and proceeded to fail miserably in doing so. I could tell my smile never reached my eyes and every "Happy New Year" that passed my lips had an edge on it that would slice diamond. I was pissed, hurt and sulking and it was completly transparent, which made it even worse. To those who were there, I'm sorry if I was short with you or brought you down in some way. Such was not my intention.

I'd likely be raging and sulking still if not for having to listen to my own words thrown back at me just a short time later. One of the new Beyond Awaits songs that Mike and I have recently recorded talks about overcoming adversity and rising up for change, love and the acknowledgement of our collective self. I'll post some of the lyrics at the bottom of this entry for you to peruse so you can get what I'm talking about. In them I heard my own message about choosing love, and I begrudgingly accepted the idea that I shouldn't overreact to this theft. I want to be able to laugh it off and be very Zen about it, but I'm not there yet. Knowing the right thing and feeling it are two entirely different things, but as yet I've been able to contain my negativity and let it consume me. I can't forgive the theif quite yet, but the knowledge that I will is at least some comfort in all of this. Even though I don't know exactly when it happened, I've decided that my jacket was stolen while it was still 2008. Then, if I manage to get anything at all back from this, I can count it as a net gain for 2009.

Happy New Year, one and all. Be well, but surely be.

Partial lyrics for "Rise Up!" by Beyond Awaits. (Album: TBD, incomplete)

Inner-city teacher just tryin' to make the grade
Just a humble preacher just tryin to light the way
Teenage single mother just tryin' to do right
Proud and weary father, just workin' through the night

These are the forgotten, the ones who hold the line
For each new step forward they still fall two behind
Fallen victim to the lifelines that never seem to come
Left behind, abandoned, by damn near everyone.

It's time to be a hero, it's time to get it right.
The time is now to heed the call, it's time to stand and fight
We don't fight with weapons, we don't need no guns
Sing the words that Desmond says, with love the war is won!

Rise up!

It's time to make a choice now, it's time to turn the page
Time to find our voice now, it's time to make a change
Stand up for your brother, help him on his way
Show love for one another, join me when I say

Rise up!

Take wisdom from the Elders, Ubuntu in our hearts
We are all connected, I am because we are
You may be the difference, together Yes We Can
the path of least resistance leads nowhere in the end

Rise up!

Contemplative, the Tempest rages on.

So, while I had planned on hopping up to Muskegon this weekend it looks like I may be staying local due to the huge friggin' blizzard. I'll let folks know if anything changes.

Our president took credit for keeping America safe from terrorism since 9/11 today. For kicks and giggles I pulled up some approximate numbers and did some math for the sole purpose of writing the following paragraph:

Yes, George Bush has kept the USA from terror attacks since the 9/11 attacks. All it cost us was our national morality, our international reputation, and 2 dead American soldiers, 14 wounded American soldiers, 4 dead Iraqi Security Force members, at least 21 dead Iraqi civilians and $871,670,702 PER DAY.

Well done, Mr. President. Well done.

...but I've been as busy as I've ever been. Scratch that, busier. I told Phil I feel like the starship in some sci-fi flick that's been pushed so far beyond it's designed speed that little bits of it are starting to fall off. For the moment those little bits are things like laundry and sleep, and by falling off it just means they aren't getting done. No permanent damage yet, but I'm on the lookout for "stress fractures in the internal structure" to continue the metaphor.

The problem is that it's so damn exhilarating! Stressful, sure, but to be fully engaged all the time, sprinting from task to task, and still getting the big stuff (and a lot of the little stuff) done is absolutely amazing. Maybe it's just the way I work. Maybe it's my version of extreme sports and the rush I get from pulling off 50 things at once is the same as someone else gets from jumping off a mountain on a skateboard. There's certainly risk involved in both, but damn, most of the good things in my life came about because I rolled the dice.

My biggest gamble as of late has been this Irish Christmas in America show. This could either go very well or fail miserably. I've learned so much about producing and promotion in the last three months that if this doesn't blow up in my face I'd be tempted to make it a yearly event. The TV commercial went on the air yesterday and both the Kalamazoo Gazette and the Battle Creek Enquirer are doing major features, so if the dice come up well and people show up I may just pull this off. My charitable/promotional deal with the Greenwood/Millwood PTA fell through, but I said to hell with it and gave the members a discount anyway. Not only that, if we make it into the black I'm still going to give something to the disadvantaged kids. It's the holidays, dammit, I wanna do some good in the world.

There's so much more to tell, but I'm going to save it for later. I've already spent 22 hours in front of this computer (Major paper on Indonesian institutions, culture and identity... don't ask.), and I'm in need of some sleep.

Oh, if you're one of the folks who I've neglected somehow, my apologies. I'll catch up with everyone soon.

Oh oh! One last thing: Project 209210 has officially launched. Yes, it's cryptic. No, I'm not telling... yet. :)

Evolving, the tempest rages on.

 Smiling sadly, he unplugged the machine. 

She lost it once... never again. 

Gasping, he asked the betrayer, "Why?"

The flashing blade brought great relief. 

Despite his wounds, he stood up. 

What she saw stopped her heart. 

Trembling, she opened the last door. 

Feeling sated, he dropped the pen.