The scent.. wafting to my nose.. like an invisible cloud woman.. it is pleasant, and envelops me... the source? A broken perfume vial sits on the ground near me at the Coffee Tree. People move like busy bees, the prescribed conversations take place a thousand times a minute, information transfer on IRC, people helping each other, laughing at each other, and talking. The primal chatter in a new medium. All the technology cannot, and should not, change our basic needs. The tiny god, with information and power flowing and present even when not active, the medicine man of a tribe weaves medicine the same as he weaves power, tracing a need with his finger, and meeting it with an owed favour and a leaf.

This morning before work, I finally reached the animal protection people, and brought my avian houseguest onto the path to destiny. It was a long drive, through strange areas of town, but parts of it were very pretty -- the street it was on, Verona road, went through some areas that were mostly empty of signs of civilization. Of course, being Pittsburgh, I also encountered and stumbled a bit over local specialties -- roads where you need to turn in an intersection to stay on the same road, and fast roads with signs that are invisible until one is already locked into turning or not turning. Hooray for Pittsburgh roads. The centre was small, but nice, and the people there seemed really cool. If it wern't so long a drive, I would definitely volunteer there. I am trying to keep my footprint on the earth fairly small, but perhaps for the purpose of caring for animals, it's worthwhile to be driving a lot more. *shrug* The people confirmed that the bird was just a baby, and seemed hopeful that it would do ok.

I got a phone call from the communist international people I ran into who sold me a magazine on the weekend, suggesting I join their reading group. I'm tempted to do so, but the thing I worry about is that I'm not actually a Communist, I'm just investigating it with an open mind. It might be awkward if I read the suggested book, show up, and end up asking questions that are serious and that question the established. Even when I was a Libertarian, I never agreed with the party platform entirely, nor did I feel obliged to. I'm not so interested in discussing socialism, or politics in general, with people defending any kind of orthodoxy, and I worry that that's what the reading group will be. I suppose I should give it a chance.

Last night, I bumped into a self-described Republican with Libertarian leanings at Coffee Tree, and she was really quite intent on dragging things into a political discussion, despite everyone else present's best efforts to politely deflect the conversation elsewhere. None of us were really in the mood, but the conversation started. Thankfully, N showed up and saved me -- I heard that things later got quite heated between her and the guy who suggested I read Stalin's side of things. I continue to be fascinated at the growing visibility of the divide in our society between people who are liberal and either openly "social democrat" or communist, and people who are conservative and either Libertarian or religious right Republicans. The liberals have finally mobilized to strike back.

I also recently ran into someone who threw a fit over Mumia's speaking at Pitt. Maybe you'll like my response...

Here is an interesting article for you to read (the excerpt is the link): For an Indian, who is also a school teacher, Thanksgiving was never an easy holiday for me to deal with in class. I sometimes have felt like I learned too much about "the Pilgrims and the Indians." Every year I have been faced with the professional and moral dilemma of just how to be honest and informative with my children at Thanksgiving without passing on historical distortions, and racial and cultural stereotypes.

Through bum luck, I had nobody to climb with today, so I didn't go. That's ok. Everything's ok now. I even ran into strange ex-gf who decided that it's cool to move in right across the street after we break up, and it didn't get me down. The hour hand has moved another notch on my life.