[Image] my breakfast - doesn't really have anything to do with the post, i just thought it looked pretty. i've mentioned it before, but i just want to say that it's really true that if you come yourself with positive energy, it can have an enormous effect on a situation and your experience with other people. i am also fully aware that this is easier said than done.

last night, i was dreading my meeting after my previous encounter with the troglodyte at the helm of the group. i had tried to speak to him a week later at another meeting and his response to my saying that i found his name-calling unacceptable and would appreciate that he refrain in the future was "kom an" or "bring it on."(hence my blatant calling him a troglodyte - i figure if it's ok for him to call me names, i can do it too.)  i will admit i was quite in despair that anything would ever get better. but i reminded myself that i had as much right to be part of the group as he did and that i wouldn't let my fear of his bad behavior keep me from showing up and contributing.

and then i had a glass of wine.

and i watched the daily show. and it was the one from last week, where my boyfriend jon stewart talked about my boyfriend clinton's speech at the DNC. and it put me in a positively euphoric mood. and although it made me a few minutes late for the meeting (i couldn't leave jon and clinton alone here at my house when they had been so kind as to come by), it changed everything.

my positive energy filled the room and affected some of the others as well - bowled them over a little bit, actually. and we had a great meeting wherein a lot of people had their say and expressed opinions similar to mine about how we need to involve the community to get buy-in for the project. and the troglodyte sat at the head of the table, sour puss expression on his face, and his energy was no longer allowed to pervade the group, because it had been replaced with positive energy. i won't even say my energy, because mine only started it and then it snowballed and became the positive energy of everyone in the room.

so the lesson here: a little alcohol and politics really can change the world.

or at least my little corner of it.

~  *  ~
i know that it's september 11, but i really can't join in the memorial cavalcade of posts. tho' that day changed the whole world and we are still reeling from the repercussions, it feels quite remote and in some sense always has. because it did happen at a physical distance from me in my safe, comfy life in denmark. and i didn't know anyone who was involved or injured or killed there that day. i've never even been in new york. which isn't to say that i don't, in my own way, mourn the tragedy of those lost lives, it's just that it was and remains somehow very far away from me.

the evening it happened, we drifted, together with friends, to the american embassy, where others had also gathered in some unspoken agreement and we stood there together in stunned silence, many of us holding candles. someone began to sing a haunting song (i don't remember which one) a capella. it was a welling up of solidarity that came naturally as a response to the tragedy.  sadly, looking at the world, i'd say it's dissipated greatly today. so that's all i have to say about september 11.