week end.

So the first week of the new year ends with a sense of hope, even though I have no clue what the future holds and after the absurdity of the past 3 years of joy, depression, laughter and constant misadventure, I have just accepted that God with His infinite sense of humor has plenty more curveballs coming my way.

It looks like I'll be employed a little longer, and it makes the daily grind seem almost like a beautiful thing, though having coworkers that I actually enjoy, non-soul-stealing work to do, not having to wear a power suit, and lunch breaks replete with free classes, food and good music that I missed the first time around.

Looking forward to a weekend of unknown factors, except that I get to celebrate Ethiopian Christmas on Sunday, which I'm looking forward to immensely.

Where I'll be hanging out, there's at least three cultural groups represented there... Amhara, Tigrey, Oromo, two countries at political odds with each other. It seems like everyone has stories about getting beaten up by police, spending time in prison under dictatorship, their relatives jailed or stoned to death in villages.

The language isn't that far removed from Aramaic, the music is hypnotic and beautiful and I get this sense of ancientness and timelessness that's incredible. I wish I understood Amharic so I could understand the sermons, though people do translate for me and I'm grateful for it.



All the talking heads on TV who talk about 'The War on Christmas' don't have to worry about, well, getting blown up while attempting to worship together.
Stories like these are rare but they give me something resembling hope.

It's very easy to get Americentric when it comes to Christianity, to frame everything in partisan terms related to political parties and schools of thoughts, when there's a whole lot of other believers all over the world who have way bigger things to worry about and history way older than ours who see things very differently. .



I don't bother with New Year's resolutions anymore because I start a lot of things I can't finish, but if all goes well I'll be adventuring in Boston a few days in the week before Easter (already have tickets and a fellow traveler), and hopefully road tripping to Buffalo for a few days when the snow melts to visit people I enjoy way too much to only see them once a year.

I've also got a nephew on the way in about 4 months, which is so crazy to think about. With my sister's blessing, I bought him an awesomely illustrated hardback version of Charles & Mary Lamb's Shakespeare stories even though he's still in utero and won't appreciate it for another ten years at least. He's got a pair of brilliant and wonderful parents who aren't going to give their kids annoying toys that make noise and have batteries and hopefully I will play the part of Lovable Eccentric Auntie well.

And the creative juices have been flowing, and I just have to go with it when it's like that, whether it's concocting color schemes with glaze and experimenting with form, goofy Photoshop shenanigans, the endless possibilities of printmaking, or collages that mix together my twin obsessions of early Christian and medieval art and abstracted graffiti forms.

The pigeons have been making their presence (no pun intended) known and we've been enjoying the comedy of nature vs the urban landscape. Mad props to the good people of Adobe for making entertainment possible.



Have a good weekend, everyone.

best of the blotter 33

COMPLAINT, DETROIT AVENUE: At 10:34 p.m. Friday, a man was seen staggering and drinking from a champagne bottle. When police caught up to him, they confiscated the bottle and determined it was sparkling grape juice. The man was advised and sent on his way.

HERE, YOU DEAL WITH HER!: A Bainbridge Road man forwarded his personal phone calls to the Bainbridge police station to avoid talking to his ex-girlfriend Feb. 17.

Police received three phone calls on the emergency line from an upset Brayton Trail woman trying to reach her former boyfriend. She told police she hoped to discuss their past relationship.

Police told the man to stop forwarding his phone calls to the station.

THERE’S NOT ENOUGH TOYS: Chagrin Falls police responded to a report of a boy, 5, who did not want to spend custody time with his father Feb. 27, only to learn the reason was his father didn’t have as many toys and games for him to play with at his house. The mother then allowed the boy to take some toys and games with him, police said.

PHONE MESSAGE, LANDER ROAD: Police received a call about 2:15 a.m. on Christmas from a woman wanting to know “why the Shell gas station was not answering the phone.”

SUSPICIOUS SITUATION, SPRAGUE ROAD: At 12:38 p.m. Dec. 21, a concerned citizen told police that two teenage boys wearing army fatigues were carrying a long silver pistol in a holster, and appeared to be heading toward Interstate 71.

Police located the boys, and spoke to one of their mother’s, who stated she knew they were out playing.

They were advised of their “very suspicious” appearance.

SUSPICIOUS PERSON, WILLIAMSBURG DRIVE: On Sunday, a caller reported a suspicious man walking weird on Williamsburg.

The caller felt the man was out of sorts and she was concerned about break-ins in the area.

Police responded and stopped a man on Sturbridge. The man was discovered to be a 16-year-old boy who was listening to music and dancing on his way to his home on Jefferson.

SUSPICION, LOCKLIE DRIVE: A caller reported on Dec. 14 that two juvenile boys were arguing in front of her home.

One of the boys walked up her driveway and said they wanted to sing Christmas carols. The resident denied the boys and they left in their vehicle. She told police there were 6-7 boys all together.

Police responded to the area and found vehicles on Medway, Tourelle and Longspur. All the boys checked okay and told police they would go home for the night.

SHOPLIFTING, SOUTHPARK MALL: Two juveniles were held for shoplifting at SouthPark Mall at 6:07 p.m. Thursday.

According to police reports, one of the juveniles had stolen a bottle of Tim McGraw cologne, valued at $33.40, from Sears.

The store chose not to press charges because the boys were returning home to Kuwait the next day. They were released to their mother.

THEFT, PEARL: Someone on Dec. 22 stole five frozen turkeys kept on a dock as gifts for employees of Value World, 6858 Pearl. The turkeys were among 41 the business operator bought as gifts.

CRIMINAL MISCHIEF, CHATMAN DRIVE: A woman told police at 4:29 p.m. Thursday that earlier in the day an unknown “husky” white male in his 30s had attached a gray scarf to the antenna of her vehicle while it was parked in a lot.

REPORTED DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, PEARL ROAD: A woman called police to report that a domestic dispute was going on at 12:39 a.m. Friday in the apartment unit above hers. It sounded as if someone were being thrown against the wall, she said.

Police went to the unit to find that the subjects’ bird had gotten out and was flying around, banging into things.

INFORMATION, NEWKIRK DRIVE: A resident reported that he had his snow blower and leaf blower chained on his porch and hidden under a blanket. At about 5:52 p.m. Dec. 13, the complainant stated that someone had removed the blanket and then put it back, in an apparent attempt to steal his property.

No footprints were observed at the site. The man has now set up a booby trap with wires and pop cans and told police he will call if anything comes up missing.

DAMAGE TO PROPERTY, NEWKIRK DRIVE: A woman said she woke up about 8 a.m. Friday to find that her picnic table was turned over and moved. Her gate and her neighbor’s gate were open. Her siding was damaged and covered in blood. The neighbor stated that her house “shook” at about 1 a.m. that morning.

Police responded, discovering that a deer committed the damage.

DO A LITTLE DANCE, KICK A LITTLE TRUCK . . . : A South Euclid man, 39, told police Feb. 15 his girlfriend got mad at him because he did not get up off the couch fast enough to move his truck from their driveway to suit her desire. He alleged the girlfriend, 41, kicked the truck several times, causing damage.

When police queried her, she denied kicking the vehicle. Instead, she said, her boyfriend must have mistaken a kicking action for her dancing alongside the truck.

DISTURBANCE, CHILLICOTHE ROAD: A BP convenience store employee called police after three suspicious males attempted to purchase alcoholic beverages Dec. 20.

One Huntsburg man, 21, appeared to have a legal ID. The employee described the males as Amish.

OVI/HIT-SKIP, U.S. ALT. 422:

Police received a call shortly before 9 p.m. last Friday from a witness reporting a “possible drunk driver, asleep behind the wheel” of his car at state routes 91 and 43. The witness followed the car, and reported it running the red light at SOM Center and Solon roads before getting onto westbound 422, at some point allegedly running a Ford Explorer off the road. Police located the suspect at the I-271 entrance ramp from 422, where his car was stopped and blocking traffic. He initially told police he was going to his sister’s house in Oakwood, which police noted was in the other direction. Although they did not detect the immediate presence of alcohol, the man was unsteady on his feet, had slurred speech and prescriptions in the car.

He also told police that “Ozzy Osborne and his music made me do it.” As police await lab test results, the suspect is charged with OVI, hit-skip, and failure to control, in addition to the previous breaking and entering charge.

can I be stupid for a minute... I was looking in that half-empty glass...

I was running through downtown to catch the train, trying to figure out why there's so many people in TSA and DHS uniforms around, not so much because of terrorists because who gives a damn about blowing up Cleveland but because every day I feel more and more like my world is turning into some creepy Orwell Meets Huxley superfuture.

It doesn't personally affect my way of life because my skin is pale, my ethnicity is neither Latino or Semitic, my gender is the weaker sex, and the only real political action I've ever been a part of was a March for Life in high school and a road trip to a demonstration about the genocide in Darfur in college, both of which were relatively uneventful. But I know that the lives of others are constantly getting messed up and that's just not ok.

The governor of my state wants to privatize the prisons, the prison system being so messed up to begin with but to add profit margins even more than there already is, is just downright scary, while my city pins its hopes on slimy businessmen with big mouths and unrealistic promises. It says it can't keep all these schools open but is building another juvenile detention center, and my country is still doing shady things all over the world and here too. Maybe I'm just reading too much Balko, but the precedent for tyranny is unnerving.

Meanwhile, I keep on keeping on, trying to make sense of things and keep them in perspective. My friend around the corner and I did our art therapy as she sculpted pots that look like Dr. Seuss landscapes and I dripped glazes down the sides of bowls trying to get a color scheme that reminds me of Venetian glass and the luminous medieval enameling that I saw at the art museum.

My art teachers have always said I work too fast, and looking at these works of art that were created over years has made me want to slow down and execute even more detail, to create something beautiful.

We make dinner afterwards, stay up late drinking pots of tea and pondering God, man, woman, and the universe, and all the sea changes that occurred in the past year. It's reassuring to know that I'm not alone, to remember that there's a lot of us just trying to make it through.

branding iron

Seriously people, this year on my corner of the world won't all be about Alice in Chains, generational conflict, and the travails of life in the Rust Belt.

Randal is way more entertaining than myself about a book that came through here about personal branding and I honestly don't know what planet some of these people live on. It had to do with shampoo and a trademarked "YOU" or something and talked about how the reason women are sexually harassed is because they don't wear proper business attire and that men are judged by what shoes they wear.

Because women are "totally asking for it" and we should judge a man by the pattern on his tie. Right.

It's bad enough to be judging someone by what brands they wear, but when we start talking about what brand a person IS and that some are more desirable than others, well, what the heck? And we do judge if we're honest. I don't tend to trust people who wear expensive suits who want me to vote for them or who try to sell me something, and I can't take someone's ideas seriously if they can't spell.

I guess we call this labeling and typecasting by any other name which I thought was a bad thing and there's this strange cultural social Orwellianism of all of us theoretically being equal but some of us still being much more equal than others.

I like to give my boomer compadres a hard time, but my fellow millenial spawn appear to be taking the narcissism to a whole new level and we don't even get some good music or something resembling the civil rights movement out of the deal. Just a lot of tweets and likes.

I really wonder about my generation when I see these other people who are my age who have bought into this whole idea of not just marketing as something you do to pay your bills, but as something you make a life out of because you're just so damn special and so damn interesting in a calculated kind of way.

And I know I don't work in an environment or culture with such individuals, and they probably don't attend the esteemed academic institution I work for because they consider state schools beneath them. I wonder where these people live, where they party, how they sleep at night, what kind of relationships do they have? Clearly they don't live here, I think, having blown this popsicle stand for places like Chicago and either coast. Their parents probably live in a nice house and wouldn't talk to mine because we don't have any social capital.



But then I remember that there was this guy when I was at Kent who was my age but throughout undergrad wore suits every day and was one of those people who everyone knew and all that. I think he's probably gone on to be successful and I guess people like him are the kind of people that get things done but that's just not how I roll I guess.

And the subbacultcha is all about the personal brand just in a collective tribal sense... having the right haircut, the right band t-shirts and accessories, the right attitude, and it can be just as catty as any celebutante reality show, only with a heavy dose of sour grapes and "at least I'm not like THAT" thrown in.



So I look at these nebulous questions like "What is YOUR personal brand?" or "How does your appearance enhance your brand?" or people promoting a "personal brand toolkit." It's already a soul-sucking enterprise to sell things, but to sell yourself often at the expense of others...

I don't even have words and it sounds childish and immaturely punk rock to say corporate whore but what kind of other real description is there? Not that I'm advocating the absurdity that is Adbusters, and it's true that people do still judge, but to wholeheartedly embrace it seems so profoundly wrong.



Speaking of branding, this one was big among my old crew back when Sub Pop was awesome.



I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me? I look pretty good but I'm just back-dated as it is.

no he ain't gonna die...

In honor of the early morning workplace arguments over whether Alex Chilton or Layne Staley is better, or, the eternal culture clash between the boomers and their spawn.

I don't go broke, but I do it a lot...

My younger sister and I had a conversation about drugs the other day and she was shocked that I've never smoked weed because I "seem like the kind of person who would," which is something people have said to me ever since high school because I was relatively mellow, drew trippy doodles in a sketchbook, was incredibly skinny and long-haired and listened to weird music.

She hangs out with a bunch of suburban hippie and metal kids who are probably a lot like my friends at her age, who skateboard, get stoned, and listen to Black Sabbath and Sublime but she's somehow never heard of Cheech and Chong, which my dad and I introduced her to over Christmas. Kids these days.

Caffeine is my mom's vice of choice and while she swears she's not addicted, she can't go a day without her coffee. I used to make fun of her but then it became my drug of choice as well. I didn't start until I got my first and current "real grown up job" and found that I really did like the taste of black coffee.

It got to the point where it didn't matter if it was good coffee or not just as long as I had it, and I soon realized that between work, Saturday mornings with my mom, and Sunday mornings at church where there is always good strong coffee, thanks a pastor who drinks espresso by the cup and the Ethiopians, I now drink at least 2 cups a day.



"We just ran out of coffee" on my 4am day is a scary sentence to hear because if I don't have it, I'm either sleepy or cranky and can get by but it's just not the same. We put our five dollar bills together so I could make a run across the street at 7:30 in the morning to buy a pound of house blend much to the amusement of the baristas who live off our culturally acceptable addictions.

Now we're stocked up for awhile and I had this totally guilty look when the head honcho came in early while I was in the middle of my early morning coffee ritual / 15 minute break I never take.

Upon return, I was rewarded with a copy of 'Dirt' since mine disappeared around the time all the drama went down and I moved out and I drove out to the burbs to meet up with the family for my uncle's annual New Year dinner. It blew my mind again and reminded me of recording "Down in a Hole" and "Would?" off WMMS onto cassette tape, listening to the radio with my dad, and conversations with my crew of friends back in the day wondering why Layne Staley is dead and Dave Navarro is still alive.



I worried about my little sister and some of the really negative stuff she was listening to coupled with the whole unhealthy self-image propagated by girls on the Internet who think that emaciation and cutting is sexy.

Then again, my musical diet in high school was almost exclusively dead or might-as-well-be-dead rock stars, coupled with the writings of Poe and Hawthorne with most of my art done with colored pencils on black paper.

I still think that Conor Oberst and these whiny indie kids who claim Hall & Oates as their biggest musical influence ever suck, but my boomer coworkers and hipster friends think that what I like sucks too. It must be one of those generational things. Then again, my dad likes this song just as much as I do.

every week I need a new address....

Having a week of vacation without school or work for the first time since I was fifteen was amazing but I really don't mind coming back to the routine, now that the apartment is as clean as it'll get, I got plenty of socializing and time to read books, listen to good music, drink tea and watch awesomely terrible Ernest Angley Christmas specials ("And Jee-zus IS the Christmas Tree!), white rapper videos from the likes of House of Pain, 3rd Bass, and Snow, and Krull with my neighbors around the corner.

Everyone acts shocked when we get the annual thaw, and it was great to leave the house in a hoodie instead of a winter coat to pick up a fellow DJ and go up to the station on Friday afternoon to do a "Grungy New Year" with the sweet and sludgy sounds of the Pacific Northwest. We did the more obscure bands (Green River, Mudhoney, the Wipers, the Gits) and then the b-sides and rare cuts from the ones that get played on the radio still.



It being the middle of the day meant that we couldn't play most of the requests we got for fear of being smacked by the almighty FCC so we threw in some Stooges and midwest 80's punk like Naked Raygun but it was fun to play Nirvana covers, dig through the racks of vinyl, and have guys in Lakewood singing this song over the phone to us.



I wanted to take pictures of the frozen lighthouse on the lake but it had already begun to melt like a wicked witch but we went to Whiskey Island and took pictures anyway and I fell through a snow drift into the lake but the water was only up to my ankles. The park was closed technically but everyone was out there with their cameras and pets.



It's days like that when I feel damn lucky to live in this city when the lake is greenish blue and icy, the shore is littered with sticks and Black & Mild stubs and I got a full tank of gas and no plans except to be a slacker for the day.



We got food and went up on the balcony at the West Side Market before making excursions to the Glass Bubble Project to hang out with random friendly people who give me history of Parma while I take pictures of Morty the chicken, random stuff on the walls, and lamps that I would have in my house if I had money.





I took her to the graffiti walls before it started to rain, and we took pictures of paint and general Rust Belt disintegration that never gets old. It was too cold for the skaters and the gangbangers, but "Cleveland/LA" graffiti covered the art that was left and the skaters had built jumps and ramps on the concrete.





I had a lot of New Year's Eve invites, but really wasn't in a mood to be social among strangers, or drink so Lindsay and I went to Algebra for strong cardamom-laced coffee and Scrabble and overhearing earnest conversations from zealous recent converts to Islam on the evils of Facebook as a tool of Western fornication. It seemed like every major social ill went back to the other major branch of Abraham's descendants owning the media or fornication which I should have counted because it was said more times than I've ever heard anyone use it.

Meanwhile, we dispensed with scoring and the banning of proper nouns and Shabba made an appearance on the Scrabble board before going back to her parents' house to watch the ball drop and bang on pots and pans. I still don't understand boy bands or Ke$ha, but I probably never will.



I came home and stayed up awhile longer thinking about all the crazy that transpired over the past year as the gunfire crackled a few streets over. One of my friends stopped over the next night with her dog and we're plotting trips to Boston and road trip excursions to weird places, with my flexible vacation time and her teacher's schedule. It's too bad This Noah's Ark/Tabernacle extravaganza is on the other side of the country because she said it's amazing.

My great-aunt died this weekend as well, making it into the new year at the age of 99. She was sassy and completely lucid up until the end and spent most of her last days going to Mass and playing pinochle. It's the side of the family I don't know nearly as well with cousins I only see at funerals, but the ones I did know outside of that were telling me about their trip to Poland, giving me some family history and asking when I'm going to make something of myself and go to law school, considering my lack of income and matrimony.

"I'm happy with the way things are," I insist, knowing that I can't explain my cynicism about the rat race of modern society or this whole idea of romance, that I prefer cheap rent and something that looks like bohemianism but is really more that my interests are eclectic and that all my furniture has been inherited from previous roommates and elderly relatives.

And yet I enter 2011 with uncertainty, wondering if I'll still be employed by the end of the year, wondering if having something on my record really means it's expunged if I try to get another job, wondering what proverbial shit is going to hit the fan this year, trying to trust God with an increasingly uncertain future.

I'm ok with the possibility of downward mobility but I know that there's not too much further down that I can go, knowing that while there's a lot I contribute, I'm ultimately disposable, with little seniority and being constantly reminded that I'm just a kid by my boomer overlords even though I'm closer to 30 than 20. We were all young once, right? Right? Or maybe everything was just handed out back then, the right hands were shook, the right credentials earned back when it meant something.

Is part of the fight of climbing the ladder a response to this anxiety, because it's better to be knocked down a few rungs than be at the bottom completely? Is the whole culture of sucking up and tooting one's horn born just as much out of desperation as ambition?