A little bit of love can go a long, long way.

[raybear]

ManCrush (who is a straight attorney my age who works near my desk and likes to be awkward buddies with me and for awhile had a man-crush on me, hence the nickname) is at a Hootie and the Blowfish concert tonight. Do I also need to tell you that this is the guy who tried to tell me he "grew up in the Bronx" when really it was Manhattan? Or would you have guessed something like that already?

Today has been a busy, but good day. I crammed my morning routine into 90 minutes and managed to have enough time to cut my hair and shower before foxycoxy came over to the house. We biked down to Humboldt Park and saw the press conference given by Elvira Arellano, who announced she's going to D.C. next month to pray and fast in front of Congress, so that if she's arrested, it can be done in front of the people who are supposed to have helped her by now. I'm paraphrasing a longer and more moving speech.

Afterwards we biked up to Kuma's and had a drink and a burger and discussed oppression, and pedagogy, and the pedagogy of the oppressed. I spent the afternoon running only TWO errands, instead of four, because the traffic was so horrible, plus the car was having problems starting each time I parked. I got home and my glasses broke, so now I have a piece of a paperclip holding them together. I barely made it to work on time -- I didn't even bother to put on a real shirt, so I'm here wearing dress pants, dress shoes....and a grey undershirt. It kinda looks okay. It kinda also looks like the gayest outfit I've ever worn here.

One of my errands was taking my first box of records to Dusty Groove. He only took about 1/3 of what I had, but I made $104 on them, which is perfect since I was hoping for $100. Even better since he didn't even take all of them, so I can now make the rounds to Reckless and others. When he handed them back, he even said, "you have some really good stuff in there. Even though we don't usually carry some of it, I would have bought it anyway except we're so backed up on vinyl." I have sold music and movies and books several times in the past, and I have never ever been complimented on the things they passed on. They always seem perfectly content to tell me "yeah, we don't need these." So it made me I think I can still make pretty good money on the remainder of the box. Especially since the money from today is already spoken for, as I just remembered that I need to send a check to my therapist.

It's also not that much cash when I think about the amount of money I initially paid out for all of my records in that 2-3 year period. I spent a LOT of money on music, in my quest to be a DJ. One year I collected receipts, for tax purposes, and I think it was about $2,000. One year. And that was a year that I DIDN'T buy any equipment. (Remember my Akai MPC3000??) And so when I got in the car outside of the record shop, I thought about $100 is only a fraction of what I initially spent, I started to cringe and feel regret and anxiety, except then I just stopped for a moment. I did become a DJ. I've done some strange gigs, some fun gigs, hell, I've even played music while MC Lyte was next to me in the 'booth', and it never turned out exactly how I thought, but I did do it sufficiently enough to say, ok, I've done this, and this is not how I want to both earn my income and spend my creativity. Next life choice. If I'm letting go of all the physical evidence of it, I can let go of the mental baggage too. And just enjoy the few hundred bucks I'm getting back now to pay off some bills and remove some of the stress of my current life, without resorting to digging up old stress.

Besides, I'm not getting rid of ALL my records. I still have my absolute favorites, those most meaningful and most beloved and worthy (even if not collectible). Including RZA's Bobby Digital which I rescued from the box, mere moments before loading it into the car.

Comments

Re: Elvira Arellano

[swampgirl.livejournal.com]

can't resist the impulse to respond:

my understanding of the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution is that it strengthens one of the original premises of the document-- that everyone in the US has certain basic rights, no matter whether they are in the process of seeking documentation, going through an asylum process, or are simply "illegal" in the moment. See, for example, the Plyler v Doe Supreme Court decision.

And anyone who has worked extensively in the foster system knows that intense damage can be done to children who are separated from their biological parents, especially children who have a strong bond with bio parents and especially when foster placement with a positive, stable family does not occur (as it often does not).

If the child welfare system separated all children from parents who didn't obey the laws of the land, well, 90% of kids would be removed from their bio parents and placed with foster parents (and about 90% of the foster folks don't obey all laws all the time either) -- you can find information about the stat that 90% of adults in the US could be subject to incarceration for breaking a law (e.g. driving crimes, use of marijuana or riding in a vehicle with someone else who has marijuana, hitting someone, stealing something, not to mention all the much more serious crimes) etc -- see Victor E. Kappeler, Mark Blumberg, and Gary Potter. The Mythology of Crime and Criminal Justice Third Edition. Chicago: Waveland Press, 2000.
also -- http://kapsi.fi/~pjt/pink/laws.html for information showing that you may be someone who cannot be bothered to obey the laws of the land.

am not saying here that we don't need to consider immigration issues, and am not claiming that violating (now defunct) sodomy laws or riding in a car with someone who has pot in his backpack is the same as border crossing. (why capital gets to cross borders freely but labor cannot is another argument.....) i am suggesting that the line between "The Criminal" and "The Law Abiding Citizen" breaks down quickly when you begin to seriously consider the data on the percentage of citizens in the US who have broken laws.

Most children whose parents break the law are not removed from the parents' care, and data on family separation show that keeping families together is usually more beneficial to the child than sending a child to foster care (depending on the nature of the parent's lawbreaking and the availability of positive, stable foster care).

Not sure why anyone would advocate a long prison for an undocumented person. In Illinois, it costs around $20K - $30K per year to keep a woman incarcerated, not including costs for children who are maintained by the state through the foster system. I'd rather put my money elsewhere.

We'd all likely be dismayed by the economic ramifications of the loss of labor by undocumented workers with an incarceration policy. Can you imagine? All the low-paid undocumented workers stopping production and instead of contributing to the economy, becoming a net cost in the prison system? The US economy would suffer a severe blow. Which is not to say that it is acceptable for employers to pay any workers less than a living wage.

And not that random anonymous posters want to hear my pov on the matter, and certainly raybear can make the arguments more cogently than i, but, big false claims get on my nerves....

Re: Elvira Arellano

[raybear.livejournal.com]

thanks for your response! you brought up some points i hadn't thought of immediately, namely the economic aspect which is easier to discuss i think amongst differing opinions on how to 'deal with' immigration. because two people with vastly different ideas of what is ethical could still come to terms that money benefit/cost effects them both equally.