fears

I still live in NE Ohio. I've got no doubts about where I am geographically to be sure, but I still live in NE Ohio. This is easily evidenced by the fact that every day I download a half hour of NE Ohio news broadcast from Kent State's radio and listen to it either on my drive to work or my drive home from work. I know more about what is going on there with regards to politics, arts and culture, you name it. Plus when I am at work, I eagerly anticipate the rising sun in Cleveland - cause it means I get to hear whats going on in the social scene that I am missing as well.

On the other hand, I am loving life over here. I love my house run like a ship right now and now that school is done, things run so smoothly. Plus, I love my artists and my boss (its about time I supplied you with a name - Bethea). The other day when I decided I wanted to wear false eyelashes because the heavy eyeliner look would be vastly improved by having long lashes - one of our makeup artists put them on. Do you know what Bethea said? She asked if I'd ever worn false eyelashes before, told me to follow the makeup artist's instructions as to when to close and when to open my eyes and then she gave me instructions on taking them off. And then she proceeded to answer the phones as I had them applied. Then I found a picture of the look I was going for online. You see, the heavy eyeliner, dark look is actually the Keira Knightly look, which is in stark contrast to the other look I have been striving for - Jane Smith - not Angelina Jolie, but her character. I just like the clean smooth lines. But thats not the point, the point is that then I proceeded to have my hair done. It was the middle of the day folks, my boss should have been telling me to get to work, not how great I looked. And I have to add, its not like Bethea is some middle manager, she owns the company.

But back to NE Ohio, on the false eyelashes day, on my way home I thought about Gravity Hill. Can you believe it, Gravity Hill? Where did that come from? Then I started driving through Kirtland and Mentor in my head. Everything looked clear and consistent in my head, but its kind of strange cause some of the things I saw were from specific periods that have already passed. Like a sign I saw on my way to vote a few years ago that read "Vote Your Conscience, Not Your Fears". Okay, that was more than a couple years ago - that was prior to W. being elected the first time. I listened to the sign, I voted Green, I contributed to the dividing of the left. It happens.

And then it happened, I turned to my closet to pick out something to wear for a play we were going to that evening. Not formal, but not too casual. And then tragedy struck. Clearly that was the Jane Smith look, not the Keira Knightly look, but nothing was making me take off the eyelashes. Once I had regained the ability to open my eyes, I wasn't taking them off. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I couldn't find anything to wear. I was totally stumped. It was the first time that I had ever tried to match clothes with eye makeup, for sure, but I am so good with this suff normally. I tried this on, I tried that on, I really didn't like anything. I got confused and just decided on black pants, black shirt and a grey sweater. Highly unimaginative. The play, "Defending the Caveman" was great. Then I put a couple of rand down on roulette. I lost. But, I just couldn't bring myself to take off my eyelashes that night. So I slept on my back and was in the constant state of wanting to turn over and not letting myself.

I had just as much trouble getting dressed the next morning. What is clean that matches my eyelashes? And on my drive to work (listening to NE Ohio news) I was listening to the Green party candidate for Ohio governor speak. I was kind of irritated by this. I've been following the issues raised by Strickland v Blackwell. I've been trying, very hard to keep an open mind to both sides, though there is no doubt I am biased. And I still haven't mailed in my absentee voter registration, so there isn't much I can do about it anyhow. When Fitakis, the Green Party candidate says that for the first time in a long time, the lefties in Ohio are in a strong position to vote their hopes, not their fears. I looked around expecting to see South Mentor as I drove past. But all I could see was house after house with Joburg style 8 foot high walls (maybe these were the 10-12' variety, I was in Houghton at the time) topped with electric fencing and electric gates opening and closing while cars pulled out of them, some people blowing kisses out the window to their poor, trained to attack dogs were left to guard the fortress. (Mandela lives on that street, I don't know which one is his house, but I drive past it six days a week - but he doesn't drive, I've seen him at the pharmacy recently, he can barely walk.)

Vote your hopes, not your fears. I wonder what that means here. I shrugged my shoulders. I'm not tearing down our wall, its spikes or electric fence, I'm not getting rid of the guard dogs, I'm not driving around with my windows down and in lieu of that, its not like I can get on the next plane out of here. I shrugged again and tuned back into the the important political issues of NE Ohio. Maybe something unexpected will happen. Maybe something great will fall into my lap. I just hope its not one of my eyelashes. So maybe I should go back to the Jane Smith look. Its just one way to contextualize voting your hopes, not your fears.