being happy today
toads jumping all the way
where r we going, they say
but i sure don’t know
i just wanna go
and hop
and get wet
have fun hang out work with the people i’ve met
sets roots in the air
to get blown away
by my own wind
by my own mind
my coffin’s not lined
with velvet or dead bird’s feathers
it has dirt and worms and roots and seeds
and mud and water
and no sleeves
when i’m done i’ll be rotten through and through
que tal tu?

so listen, i kept meaning to tell you, but i never quite got around to doing so i’m sorry about the time we all went home together. I’m sorry that i did not ask, that i presupposed that it was fine. I kinda thought you were leading me on but that justifies nothing. I wanted to talk about it afterwards, but you looked uncomfortable so i did not bring it up. I wanted all of us to listen to music and talk. But that did not happen, and then we leaned on each other. This may all kind of seem like it’s coming out of nowhere. I should have asked if you wanted to kiss, i thought you gave me some kind of signal i have a way of rushing things and so far it hasn’t worked at all. I’m backing off of that. I thought it was okay. Kissing was not such a big deal . . . unless you don’t want it to happen.

That had not happened to me yet, but once it did i realized how awful it makes you feel. You don’t want to hurt the person and it’s hard to break away, they were your friends. But once it happens you feel so disgusted. Anyway i did.

I keep reflecting on how my actions affect others and why i do what i do.

I did not have a healthy model as to how to show that you like someone, or how to start the conversation. There is a whole context to this having to do with gender roles, both having internalized them and trying to reject them. Like not waiting so the guy makes the first move. Now i’ve seen that the way i handled the situation was based on assumptions and stereotypes, as well as potentially hurtful dating practices like not asking before you kiss someone.

It’s pretty screwed up.

I’m really sorry i had to learn this way because i feel that i hurt you, and i actually hurt myself through these same practices.

I don’t expect anything from you.

The reason why i’m telling you this is because i want you to know that it’s not okay to not ask. That if you don’t want to do something you don’t have to, even if girls think you want to. Your body is not here as a resource for others, it is a living being and your wishes and desires should be respected. You can use it as you please and you can change your mind about anything at any time and don’t have to go through with anything. I recommend you watch a film called “tough guise.” And that if you ever need to talk to someone there are resources you can call. 311 is a good one because they can refer you to hot-lines and stuff. This is kind of what i have learned in the past couple of months and i wanted to share that with you. That’s all.

sometimes i wish we could have talked about all the stuff in our lives that made us take the decisions we did. i know i had plenty of things to say. but i was waiting. i was waiting for things to be less complicated. i was waiting for the situations to change so that there were only two of us, since a relationships between two people is really what i have examples of. i did not know how to do three. sorry. really.

i would have said hey i told him. i told him that i like you too. i never told him that i kissed you but he probably figured that out. you did both live in the same house. i would have said look i don’t care who you go out with because i like our friendship as it is. i would have said that i did not want you as property of mine. that i find that creepy. i was not looking for much other than your company. having fun. walking around and dancing all night talking playing guitar. i would have said a lot of things. but i was waiting.

it’s not like i don’t make mistakes, but i wish you would have said good bye. i mean, come on, we had started to open up to each other and i was ok with whatever you were willing to do – to be. but maybe you did not even know.

i keep giving myself reasons for why you left the way you did. and i guess i get it. i mean no job, police harassment, no id, nothing to do but drink and smoke, plus whatever drama other people bring to your life. dam. i might have left too. but maybe these are things i tell myself to not be angry. i’m not mad. i don’t want to be. but i still casually swear under my breath at you as i think, dam we would have had so much fun doing this together. but you left.

sometimes it’s like something i dreamt. it was beautiful, made me feel beautiful. and i woke up one day and all that was left was that screw from your guitar, and the words you’d say to assure me everything is all right. i find myself repeating them constantly in situations i would normally go dam, what now. it’s all right. it’s all right. and it is. but i still look out the window in case you return, thinking that if you’re there i’m going to turn around and just walk away.

i guess i’ll see you but we won’t meet eye to eye. this is my way of saying bye.

this report puts forth some very intriguing proposals for making chicago a better place, not only in terms of encouraging greener spaces and more affordable hounsing with the aid of the places people work at, but also in thinking of how to desegragate and help our communities develop.

section 4, the one that talks about land usage talks not only about the negative effect of sprawl — like traffic, the destruction of green spaces, etc– and strict zoning codes, but actually looks at why these things are negative and how we can make some changes to keep the positive trends while getting rid of the negative ones.  

i mean the report makes these very plausible suggestions like getting the companies to help their workers get housing, and getting the companies to support the building of green areas and support community development corporations as well as other community organization, etc.

these are all awesome suggestions but i don’t know if companies would be willing to do all this stuff everywhere. for example i don’t see the coal company and the plastic company giving money to organizations that are fighting against the pollution these companies are creating.

but the suggestion i found really interesting was the one that said we should reformat the way  property taxes are distributed. the report metions that the way things are now leads to a very un equal distribution of these taxes and has a negative effect by making regions compete against one another instead of working together to make the public education system better (for example).

that is how the section ends, by saing we can make all the changes we want but we need to resructure the governance and taxation framework if we really want to have lasting changes. it’s the redistribution of resources so everyone can share them.

i think that seems pretty true, but i don’t know how that will happen.   

 one time i attended a training on what to do if there was a raid in your workplace or home. a raid carried out by immigration and customs enforcement (ICE). there the speaker mentioned that cell phones can not recieve collect calls. this may not seem like such a big deal at first but i have recently had the experience that a friend of mine was put in jail. he can’t communicate with his mom, who is not home, becuase her cell does not accept collect calls, and his visiting day is only one day a week.

when he called me i did not pick up because i did not know it was him, until i  heard the message on my phone saying i had a collect call from the cook county departmant of corrections. that my cell did not take collect calls but that if i wanted to i could call a number and set up an account. i did just that . the charge was of 25 dollar increments and right away they charge you five. i talked to him like three times and the money was then all gone. i was being charged 2 dollars and something cents plus like twelve cents every minute. it was a complete rip off.

when i told my parents they were bothered by the fact that it is so expensive and hard to be in communication with the people in jail. i mean most people in jail do not have vasts amounts of money to begin with.

i tried to get this number to his mom but i could not find anyone who knew what it was. none of the legal clinics i called new. the cell pone companies said that cell phones can not take collect calls. it was all very frustraiting. yea it did end up being on my messages but even that number is somehow connected with the cook county department of corrections so i don’t know if i could accept other collect calls…. like from an immigration detention center.

that is one of my biggest worries. how de we get in touch with our friends and family when they have been taken from us by an unjust justice system? i don’t think jail really provides a healthy way for people who have done something harmful to reintegrate themselves into our communities. if anything it just makes it harder. but this is a topic i shall take on later (maybe another day).     

point being jail is expensive and some peole make a lot of money out of that whole system of trials, arrests, managing prisons, building and running prisons, etc. and the people who bear the brunt are mostly those from communities of color and other marginalized communities.

how does it make any sense to put someone in jail for five years for 5 grams of crack while that same amount of cocaine, a more expensive and pure drug from which crack can be made, will most likely only bring probation (and the maximun jail time is 1 year).

http://www.sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/publications/dp_cc_sentencingpolicy.pdf

that’s a good website to see a study about this and the disparity between race that is there. since cocaine is more expensive it’s bought more by people who have some money, while crack tends to be bought by people with less money (or at least there is that perception which might influence wo gets searched for what). what is true is that more african americans go to jail (for longer periods of time) for using a less pure less expensive cocaine derivative.

just the whole way this is set up is biased. how can our communites work toward not being targeted? and to protect ourselves from discrimination? i mean is this the right approach, and just what does that mean.

cops are suppose to make our communites more secure. that’s why there are so many blue light camaras. but if our youth is being targeted, and the police continue to abuse their power, then something is wrong and we need to change it to create a healthier and more just environment. but i don’t know how yet. copwatch maybe. more know your rights trainings, yea. but we  need more.

in class we are currently talking and reading about immigration and how immigration brings with it economic revival as well as diversity in terms of people and cultures. the article that talks about buffalo (the place) mentions how important it is to try and get people to stay in a city as oppose to it being transitional. people need to want to stay to make thing better for themselves, which makes things better for everyone, like getting better access to education and transportation.

i guess if you’re just passing by you can always say that these things don’t concern you because you’re only there for a bit. but the thing is, we need to fight for the here and now as well as the future stuff. the mindset that some things are not our concern can lead to a type of complacency where we don’t join in solidarity with other people, making it harder for them to fight and harder for ourselves when something we are concerned about comes up.

i think it is important to fight to better our access to a variety of different things where we are currently living, making it possible for all of us to grow as a community.

in the article about buffalo the author talks about how there is a section of town where many people seeking refuge or residency of some type, they are immigrants and many don’t have the proper u.s. required documentation. they don’t have access to jobs and housing, or any money or assets they might have had because of the situations they are coming from. If jobs were available i do think they would take them, part of what they are looking for is a place to stay. unfortunately u.s. laws are not favorable to people who break them, even if these laws do more harm than good.

laws play a big part of what happens and what people can do. to make people stay there have to be jobs, housing, education, etc. But these things are closed off to certain populations and so end up harming the country instead. i don’t understand the logic behind not letting people work, specially if it’s people looking to settle and grow, like the article argues is the key to keeping a city alive.

conclusion, need to fight in our communities to get resources we want, and not compete with other communities for resources but instead fight in solidarity with them. if we find that we live in a system where we have to compete for access to education and jobs, things that are central to our lives, then maybe we have to start thinking about changing it. how is the bigger question, and there is more than one answer.