The Masters Would Have Immortalized Me, and other summer realities

I haven't been writing here lately because I've been living. Summer always happens fast.

I went to a marriage celebration that seemed like it brought so many things full circle. It made me content, proud, and excited. And the lemony asparagus was so delicious.

I've gone up to Pinecrest a couple times. I pet my poodle a lot and relish her adoration of my attention. I went on a road trip and hung out with friends. When Sacramento strangers asked me what I do, I replied "I'm on vacation." In a few days, I'm going to Costa Rica. I have no idea what I'll be doing there, but I love Costa Rica. I love the soft sweet Spanish, I love "con gusto" and "pura vida", and I love salsa (the dance), gallo pinto (the food), and I LOVE guanabana (the fruit--you might know it as soursop, although I never did). So who cares what will happen once I get there. I don't care at all.

After Costa Rica, I'll be in Boise for the end of July. Then, somehow I have to get to New York by mid August. The dream is to ride my motorcycle, and second best would be to find other people with a car with fewer broken parts than mine who also are going to New York, and to share the ride. After that, I'll consider taking a train. Obviously, the worst thing would be to fly.

What comes next for the unemployed and savings-depleting Laralyn who wanders around California? This summer is so full, but then next, I don't know what to do with myself first. I have a lot I want to do, but I don't know what to do first. There are years in the making here. My self needs an occupation. Myself is this body that needs food and a little shelter. Myself is several decades left on earth if I'm lucky, and all the connections that my heart can carry.

I want to be a writer, I think, but I don't have anything to say. I've never liked plots. I don't like sad stories. This is why I don't write much fiction anymore. I might be in an independent film in the fall, if it gets funding. I want to crew a yacht cruising around the Galapagos. I want to live in a van. I want to learn to surf. I want to make coffee and drink coffee. I want Provence and Tuscany, mostly I want to be in the realness of the idea of loud dinners with big families with lots of bread and olive oil and wine. I want to grow organic vegetables, for someone else, with someone else's instructions, someone else's love in the soil, someone else's dirt on my hands. I want to feed people. I want the ocean. I want it deep in my heart, pushy and salty and terrifying me with its opaque indigo. I want fire in the palms of my hands in everything I do, and I want to forget the moon for a while and be a summer child, a sun daughter.

I've been reading a lot. A lot of it I forget, but some of it I don't. I thought about listing all of the books, but it'd be so deceitful. It would make it seem like I have all of those words in my mind or my soul, and I certainly don't. They just stretch me out and keep me company.

I wear sun dresses and big hats more fearlessly these days, and sometimes I catch my reflection and think I look fabulous, like one of the soft curvy goddesses painted by the masters. I found this wonderful project, and ever since, whenever I see my body, my skin, I see an oil painting, soft lines and deep curves, or a fresco, surfaces for reflecting light, or a watercolor, hazy and sweet and warm. I'm not at all into the fat acceptance movement, but I am into seeing those particular edges of my existence as quite lovely and strangely beautiful even while they are under reconstruction. I'm into being comfortable, like an artist's model. I guess what I'm saying is that I've recently discovered that the greatest men would have painted me, if I had lived near enough to them in time. And if they would have loved me, then everybody with any sense must love me, and I love me, and anybody who doesn't think I'm glorious has no idea that I quite nearly modeled for Botticelli (I only missed the gig by five centuries) and so I saunter and flow around California in this basil green cotton dress, knowing that I'm extraordinary when I smile, without having to bother being painted at all.

Maybe next I'll practice humility.

Quotation of the Day x3

"We keep our troops wherever we want" -Vladimir Putin (Source)

Geez, Vlad. Who do you think you are--America?

And then there's this bag o' goodies:

"since 1945, the US has tried to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders." -John Pilger (Source)

The truth is that I've become almost completely cynical and hopeless about the global Hunger Game of Thrones War of Terror that is being waged against the population of earth. Rich people with massively lethal toys make me sick.

If you haven't read Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, I'd highly recommend it. If you don't have time, I'll leave you with a sentiment that I think should be plastered on billboards in all first world nations and on the walls of high school campuses:

"I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee. I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that." -Kurt Vonnegut

An Open Letter to Gov. Jerry Brown and the State of California

Dear Governor Brown and the State of California:

I've been noticing a lot of large-scale state-centric activism altering the geography of American political power lately. Some states as political units are pushing for broad change by implementing it on their own, becoming massive pilot projects for the nation. Consider the moves that are being made by Washington, Colorado, Oregon, and soon California, in opposition to the federal government. This gaining and defining of political rights and powers that has received so much attention in the media is part of a wider tendency of nature to delegate demanding tasks to increasingly specialized executive organs and to evolve pathways that shift weight downward to correct top-heavy systems.

The attempts of lower levels of government to differentiate themselves will of course be met with mixed success. Some innovations, such as NYC's large soda bans, have been ridiculed as poorly conceived and sloppily enacted. Other changes, those more successful ideas that have been implemented peacefully and thoughtfully, have fascinated the nation and have convinced many that the local men and women who govern the states are more capable and more in touch with their citizens than the distant capital can ever be. Soon, California will follow the leads of Washington and Colorado and vote on whether to defy the DEA in order to legalize a Schedule I drug. Of course, "defy" seems to be too strong of a word, since the capital hasn't truly taken a stand against the states who have blatantly disregarded its policy. The federal government, too big and too busy to enforce consistently even its most notorious statutes, has implicitly permitted this assertion of state sovereignty, and it is in the interest of every American to find out what other rights of decision-making we can claim.

The authorities that govern California, including the citizens at large, unfortunately missed their opportunity to set a truly landmark precedent and compete politically by being the first state to claim the right to legalize marijuana. There are other opportunities, however. I believe that the State of California should demonstrate to other states and to the federal government, which is too big and too busy to negotiate all of this world's controversies, ways in which money might be better spent and people might be freed through previously unconsidered political innovations. There are so many possibilities for how government might be made more efficient. Legalizing a peaceful, profitable, relatively harmless crop is just the first step.

California has the chance and the duty to pioneer the next state sovereignty activism project, and it needs to be something big. My suggestion is to amend California's tax code to offer households unlimited dollar-for-dollar tax deductions for private contributions to non-profit organizations. A huge part of California's burden is taking care of people, which we currently attempt to do through inefficient welfare programs that are too bureaucratic to be efficient and too impeded by political distractions to be fully dedicated to their causes at the collective level. Non-profit charities meet needs where governments fails to, and they do it with fewer people and fewer resources more successfully than overburdened governments. Specialization is the life force of economic efficiency. Let governments govern, but let us delegate to charity specialists the care and keeping of the needy--the poor, sick, orphaned, jobless, homeless, and mentally anguished. Giving public programs the chance to compete with private efforts for funding and attention through unlimited deductible charitable qualified contributions would not only hold our public programs to a higher standard, but would also reveal the true preferences of California's citizens and allow highly respected, well-established, innovative groups to do what they do best: alleviate the suffering of the impoverished and outcast. Such a change may be initially seen as drastic, but taking advantage of charitable giving as a way to correct California's dire economic situation is not nearly as drastic as allowing our state to stagnate and bankrupt itself while our people grow hungry, poor, weak, and embittered against their leaders and protectors. Our financial and human resources should be freed to flow to where they are most valued.

Most of what goes on in government has been tried before, many times, with only timid changes and semantic differences; it's no wonder we see only negligible improvements at best. Consider something really new: a government that isn't afraid of asking for help from privately organized, conscientious citizens. Let some of our tax dollars skip the politicking and go straight into the hands of the volunteers, the healers, and the servants of the under-served. Most importantly, let the people decide who deserves to spend these hard-earned wages. Can you imagine a government that ASKS for money instead of taking it? Can you imagine a government that acknowledges its lesser talents and hands a small portion of the reigns over to those more qualified and more passionate? Americans are extremely charitable as individuals. Let's invest in that spirit, and use it to solve some of our very glaring problems.

I hope you will consider deeply the role California might play in liberating the process of political evolution from the sluggish, porcine, distant federal government by empowering citizens and setting an example to other states who also are looking for big solutions to big problems. Legislation to independently legalize non-violent black markets, grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, withdraw support for dangerous imperial foreign policy, end police brutality, improve transparency, and decrease corruption are all within California's reach. In short, California could become a much better place. I look forward to your reply and would be happy to talk with you further about these ideas. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Laralyn Murphy