Tag: CNN

Watching The President Sign the Healthcare Bill With Tears in My Eyes *

President Obama signed the healthcare reform bill today.  I watched it on CNN.  It’s powerful, emotional and deeply meaningful to me even though I am not in the midst of a health care induced financial crisis.

And yet…

I have made decisions in my life that dismissed and diluted my creative work because I thought it was more important for me to spend my life force contorting myself into the kind of person who could work quietly, efficiently and productively in a large business office.  I wanted to be the kind of person who deserved health care insurance more than I wanted to generate my own work.

And…

That whole not trying for a second kid for multiple reasons… But at one point, one of those reasons was a very real fear of giving birth in a hospital while between jobs and therefore without insurance.  We have friends who did this and they did have to declare bankruptcy and their marriage did end in divorce.

*caveat: I sent a version of this to NYCMOMS blog which means it’s actually and original post for them.  Can’t sort it out now, time for after school after test prep pick up followed by; Delivery of the Girl Scout Cookies to Daddy’s Office in The City!

We’ve got the good pilot

I have been a weepy mess, tearing up  several times a day, ever since Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger ditched a US Airways jet safely in the Hudson River last Thursday. The cinema-cheesy symbolism went straight to my core and I am convinced that the United States of America is an airplane and Barack Obama is the cool, calm Carey Grant/Sidney Poitier/Jimmy Stewart type genius pilot who is going to save us all. Or not.  Everything makes me tear up.  Boats. Airplanes. People asking me what kind of coat I have because they need to buy a warm one before they leave for Washington, DC  for the Inauguration. Twitters from friends who are on their way to DC or already in DC.   Martin Luther King Day. Fresh snow.  Civil Rights Movement veterans on CNN.   My husband telling me Obama chose a Nobel prize winning physicist as his energy secretary.  Listening to “This American Life”.  Miley Cyrus in a grown-up red dress.  Malia and Sasha Obama taking pictures of Miley Cyrus.  My 8-year-old rolling her eyes because I am tearing up because I am watching both my kid and  Malia Obama mouth the words to the Disney tween songs they both know by heart.  Reading the Inauguration Parade lineup that includes both the Crow Nation of Montana and the Brooklyn Music and Arts Program.  I’m just sitting here with my seatbelt on looking out the window at the water putting all my faith and hope in the pilot as my life flashes before my eyes and I pray for a safe landing:  Ourfatherwhoartinheavenhallowedbethynamethykingdomcomethywillbedone-onearthaseitisinheavengiveusthisdayourdailybreadandforgiveusourtrespasses-asweforgivethosewhotrespassagainstusandleadusnotintotemptation-anddeliverusfromevil-AMEN

If you’re blogging about process and there’s not a performance involved you should shoot yourself

Tonight nothing is more important than electing Barack Obama president in November.

However,
My current task is to present a clown piece on September 11 (leaving plenty of time before November to work for Barack Obama.)
My head now is filled with the momentous Obama speech…
“In the words of scripture hold firmly to the hope that we confess” Don’t know what that means but it sounds pretty.”
And I’m thinking of using a Billie Holiday song….
So
Today has not been particularly productive.
There was a nice e-mail in the morning from Lorraine about playing and being on the same page.
My kid got up late and was cranky when she did.
I said “Hey it’s almost lunch time” and “Do you want to go to zoo?”
She cried.
She didn’t have any words so I assumed existential angst about the end of summer and start of the school year.
So I felt guilty.
We made scrambled eggs together using two pans, the regular one and her tiny single serving one.
Catsup.
We made art with a new set of stamps.
We played Junior Scrabble.
We went swimming at the Y (though we weren’t there earlier in the afternoon when Michael Phelps was!)
We hooked up with The Husband/Daddy
We went out for Thai food.
We were late getting home and missed part of Obama’s speech.
Tears during what I did see.
After the speech–It’s so shocking as the parent of an 8-year-old to see how much Malia Obama (just tuned 10 in July) has grown since he first declared in 2007. He started the campaign with two little girls and now he has only one little girl and one tween!
The CNN silence after the speech cameras finding shots of streamers hanging by a thread.