Distracted Mind

Hey kids, want to read something scary? Just head on over to the New York Times for some good old fashioned scary news, coming at you straight from the Lake: Can the Mortgage Crisis Swallow a Town?. Why is this so terrifying? Because it’s true, it’s real, and it’s happening right here.

Honestly, it’s a little disappointing to hear that you really can’t afford as much house as you thought you could. It’s tempting to take the offer that will get you more, even if it may come back to bite you in the ass. I’ll be honest–I thought we’d be able to afford a lot more than we were able to when we looked four years ago, but once we realized what our monthly payments would be, we started aiming a little lower. Of course, not everyone had people looking out for them like our realtor–she was the first one who suggested that we were far out of our price range.

Four years later, we’re ready to get the hell out, as are at least four other households on our block. It could be that we’ve outgrown our house, that it’s on an extremely busy street, that my daughter can’t play outside, or that one of the neighboring houses has a residential count that defies noise ordinances, basic manners, and all laws of physics (oh… did I mention the neglected pit bull pup in their back yard?). Honestly, I don’t know how many people stay next door (I don’t say live, because being crammed into a three-bedroom bungalow like that ain’t living), but it’s a hell of a lot more people than that house was built to shelter. Our house has gone from being a little slice of our own heaven to hell in four years, and only part of it has to do with the scary article in the Times. A lot of it has to do with the state of our city as well.

The crime rate is going up. People are trying to move out and getting trapped by the fear of paying two mortgages at once (and that’s a very real possibility that could really crush a person’s/family’s financial well being), and Cleveland is looking less and less desirable. Just ask my other neighbor, who has had his house burglarized over five times (realistically I’d say around eight, but I’m not sure) by the same people, who have never even been brought in for questioning. The last time he was burglarized, the cops wouldn’t come out–serial burglary doesn’t rate as high when you’ve got drug dealing, gang shootings, domestic abuse cases, and everything else to deal with and not nearly enough officers to handle it all.

It’s more than I can cope with–and judging from the realty signs, more than a few of my neighbors agree. Cleveland was a wonderful place to live, but it’s going downhill and fixing it isn’t glamorous enough to get Frank Jackson or any of our city council members airtime. Taking on the banks, fixing the schools and public services is a hell of a lot harder than offering up a few soundbites, so I doubt most of our officials would be interested in the first place.

Quite honestly, after living here, all I want is a farm out in the boonies with a half mile between me and the closest neighbor. Cleveland, I’ll remember to visit you. Right now it’s time to pack.

Three years ago today, some time around 4 ‘o’ clock, I was home early with chronologically confused morning sickness, kicking back, watching some Xena, Warrior Princess. Then, the fuse box in my crappy Lakewood standard apartment blew again. At least I thought that’s what had happened.

I called the boy, who was still working in Toledo during the week, and asked where the spare antique fuses were.

“No, I don’t think it’s the fuse box. The power’s out here, too.”

Shit. It’s August, it’s hot, I’m at that bitchy, sensitive and exhausted part of my first trimester, and the power’s out. I climbed into the camaro and turned on the radio: the power’s out everywhere. No one knows why yet, there are traffic jams everywhere, there are people stranded in major cities. Wonderful.

I drive around for a bit, avoiding accidents and appreciating the volunteer traffic directors at Clifton and 117 for saving me from some spectacular sideswipes. Giant Eagle’s not out of water yet, so I stock up and pay with a check, since I can’t use my card to pay, or to get some yuppie food stamps at the cash machine.

I get back to the duplex of horror to find my neighbors preparing for an impromptu block party. Since no one knew when the power would be back on, there were fridges of meat and beer that needed used before either got warm and skunky. We gathered candles, any beverages we had available, and sat on Anita’s porch talking and joking.

We sat on the porch, coming up with our own conspiracy theories about the blackout (It was terrorists! No, it’s just incompetence. Maybe the government forgot to pay the electric bill). We gossipped about the house where that doofus blew up the bigwheel, about “Slipper Lady”, and slowly wound down. More people from the neighborhood showeed up, each with a story: Steve had to walk down over 30 flights of stairs to get out of work, someone else barely got out of downtown on a bus.

I don’t think anyone went home until after at least midnight. We were having too much fun — at one point a group of us walked over to the drugstore, which was letting groups of five people in at a time, with flashlights, to buy… you guessed it, flashlights! Flashlights, water, and batteries actually. They had a middle-aged off-duty Lakewood cop manning the back door and a cardboard box to hold cash. It wasn’t exactly a high-security event.

I know there were plenty of people having fun that night, despite the lack of electronically-powered entertainment — let’s just say that I had plenty of people asking me if my bump was a blackout baby (no, she’s about two and a half months too early for that). For me it was just a hot and sticky night, worrying about a spouse a state’s length away and trying to keep cool in the dark.

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It’s been a busy few weeks around my house, culminating tonight in an event I’ve come to call _The Ordeal of The Tree._

Think of this as one of those rants from a jilted someone. The city of Cleveland, a fine city that I’ve grown to love, has pissed me off with its rather sluggish response to a neighborhood issue; a neighborhood issue planted in my yard.

Coming home tonight, I got a call from my husband, warning me that there were power lines down in the vicinity of our house. Nothing special, just normal storm aftermath ’round here. Nothing registered until I tried to make the turn that normally takes me to our home on West 140 Street. Caution tape everywhere and a whole lot of leaves. No turn.

I went around the block, parked, and affirmed my fear. It was the tree that we share(d) with our neighbors, now laying across W. 140th. _Wonderful._

The tree fell around 4 ‘o’ clock. It’s now nearly eleven, the city just got around to cutting the tree into suitable pieces to deposit on our lawns, for us to further break down and remove. Once they get the tree into pieces they can move with machinery, it’s our problem. Six hours to arrive at _our_ problem, which is ours physically and monetarily. Our tax dollars at work.

Every weekend I try to get out of the house while my daughter naps, just to snap a few photographs. My husband is game enough to go along with this plan, since it gives him some peace and quiet of his own, and I get to wander around the area and get pictures. This plan, I love it.

Of course, there are some difficulties. I always start out wondering where I’m going to go, since there’s so much to see. One of my favorite places is the West Side Market, but I like to get some variety. Today I went to the Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Saint Theodosius, to capture the beautiful domes I see every day on the way to work.

It’s always calming, wandering around and taking photos. It lets me see the city through different eyes — allowing me to see beauty and interest in places I’d normally overlook. It also takes me to parts of the city that I normally wouldn’t travel, which is great.

As the mother of a toddler, I don’t get out too much. I go on walks, I go to work, but I don’t do much adventuring, except during these one or two hour expeditions. I relax, I look through my viewfinder, I’m on my own. It’s an experience that I’ve missed.

Back when I lived in Northwest Ohio, I used to explore abandoned houses along the flat and windy countryside. It was fascinating to see what people would leave behind and how nature would reclaim what was once man’s. Sure, I’d occasionally run across a faulty stair or a wall-dwelling raccoon family, but it was invigorating.

I got some great photos, but I also learned how temporary possessions really are. I’d talk to neighbors, try to get a feel for what happened to the owners (most had died or were put in assisted living). I’d try to leave the place the same as I’d found it, with the exception of a skull (animal, not human) in perfect condition that I carried away from one site in a baggie. I know, it’s a little morbid.

Photographing a city is different than photographing those old, broken houses. For one thing, the city has a life that breathes through every sight. Even the buildings seem to breathe. An abandoned house seems like an echo compared to a city, where the past, the present and the future coexist in the streets and buildings.

The city is kinetic — steam and smoke move through the air as cars fly past on the freeway. A city like Cleveland has a history different from the derelect farmhouses I once explored: where their stories are in the past, Cleveland’s story is still being written. Photographing that story is something wonderful. It’s taking a moment out of time and fixing it, to be remembered as a moment of past and present with a hint of the future yet to come.

[](http://www.flickr.com/photos/tina/137864047/ “Guardian”)

Preachers love to talk about faith as a mustard seed — the small little seed that blossoms into a huge plant. What they don’t like to talk about is faith’s dark twin: doubt. On a good day it’s easy to have faith. Darker days aren’t as easy. Doubt is always hanging out at the edges, ready to step in when faith takes a break. Where faith feels certain, doubt raises questions. Yin to yang.

If faith’s a mustard seed, then doubt is fertilizer. Too much and it’ll burn the plant, too little and the plant is weak, just enough and the plant will be hardy. Finding that balance is rough anywhere, but finding it in a town like Cleveland requires exercise.

Cleveland’s one of those towns that has seen better and worse. Downtown’s in a slump — there are empty buildings and empty streets at high noon, boarded up windows where stores used to have a golden age. The press wants to constantly re-invent the city as somewhere else, when the city’s personality just isn’t going to fit as a new New York, Chicago or Boston. It’s just Cleveland.

We all have our doubts about this place: employment’s sometimes elusive, salaries aren’t what they could be, the suburbs are a constant siren’s call. Our educational system isn’t even second-rate, but still there’s something that pulls us to the city.

There’s a beat to Cleveland, but it’s more of a [Pogue-ish](http://www.pogues.com/Releases/Lyrics/LPs/RumSodomy/DirtyTown.html) style than top 40. We are a dirty old town.

Our buildings, our walls, they have a history that is written in the stone — Elliot Ness, Rockefeller, Garfield, we have our greats and our fallen. We’re a town of immigrants pulled together by commerce and location, a network of neighborhoods that co-mingle, separate and single, each with its own flavor and language.

We’re east and west, polarized nearly to the point of passport requirements. Go ahead — ask a West Sider for directions to [La Gelateria](http://lagelateriacleveland.com/).

We’re all these things, but we’re even more. When friends from out of town visit, I make a point of taking them to the West Side Market. Why? Because it’s a Cleveland thing. We buy pierogies and sausage, maybe some chocolates or some pasties, and we absorb the market atmosphere because it is _Cleveland_. We cruise around the neighborhoods, looking at the churches, we walk around West Park and Ohio City, we go to the waterfront. I take them on a tour of the reasons why we live in Cleveland and they’re _jealous._ They want these things in their cities.

Finding faith in a city requires acknowledging the doubt and going one step further; digging past it to the roots. Finding faith in Cleveland means finding that one elusive but excellent mom-and-pop restaurant — the one with only ten tables but whose owners welcome everyone as if they’re family. It means looking at those dirty neighborhoods for what they were and what they’ll be. It’s reconnecting with the history behind the city; the good and the bad. Finding faith again is about finding doubt and making it fertile enough to grow something good again.

[Tim Russo](http://democracyguy.typepad.com) has been chronicling the election snafu as it unfolds, but I’d like to voice a few concerns of my own.

First off, my voting experience was uncomplicated. Other than not getting the card to read the first time, the voting went off without a hitch. That said, I’m still concerned.

First off, what about a paper receipt? It seems to me that the paper trail was a selling point. Having to read everything on screen and verify that way was a pain in the ass, and the receipt that printed out and scrolled off never to be seen again didn’t help me either. The receipt issue was, and is, extremely annoying.

Second, [what about people with disabilities?](http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=5693) Sure, there’s supposed to be an audio booth at every polling place, optical scanning devices were supposedly available, but none of that was widely (if at all) publicized. How are people with vision impairments supposed to vote? Well, if all the other options fail, they can vote by dictating their votes to someone who _may_ cast them accurately.

Someone with limited motor skills may find the touch screens to be unwieldy–they require a degree of accuracy that many individuals with motor-impairments can’t muster. If you have severe palsy, how can you ensure that you’re going to touch the right candidate’s space? It could be a fairly long and frustrating process for people with motor-impairments. I’m thinking that there will be some lawsuits regarding electronic voting and accessibility.

The whole electronic voting thing is playing out like a bad farce. I’d like to think that the machines had been tested before today, that kinks had been worked out, but it doesn’t seem to be playing out like that. Polling places are closing down due to mechanical errors, people are angry and frustrated with the new technology. While both Daman and I had no problems, we’re also used to working with technology (being the computer geeks that we both are) and aren’t exactly citizens average.

It’s almost primary time and that means that the loonies are coming out of the woodwork. The Conservative Primary Fairy (hereafter known as CPF) left a little blue goodie in our doorway the other day, one that’s been a source of amusement for the adults in my household. If there’s one thing that will make me simultaneously laugh, curse, and bring me back from the blogging dead, it’s mindless ultra-conservative propaganda.

This precious little folded piece was masterminded by the Ward 20 Republican Organization and its _esteemed_ leader, Richard May. Its heartfelt, conversation-style is a little conspiratorial and extremely humorous. As an independent and staunch _non-republican_, I was roaring.

Just so that you can share in the joy and outrage, I’ll give y’all a few snippets of this masterpiece on paper. Any italicized emphasis in the quotes is mine.

_The Opener. The following paragraphs have been plucked from the opening statement of this leaflet because they are so. Absolutely. Precious._
“On Tuesday May 2nd the Ohio Republican primary will present voters with the opportunity to state if they want the moderate Ohio status quo this party has run for the last sixteen years or if they fully embrace the conservative revolution as the national party has done for nearly a generation.”

_The first paragraph’s grammar and punctuation are indicative of the entire leaflet. If there’s anything this organization is *actually* conservative about, it’s punctuation. They don’t like it and they won’t stand for it. Not a comma, not an apostrophe. The only reason why periods are allowed is because people need to be told when a full stop is in order, or else they won’t remember to BREATHE!_
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This mind has been more than a little full the past few days with projects and plans, since I’ve got a newly two-year-old and some very cool projects happening at CSU (can’t talk about them yet, since they’re still in the planning stages, but I promise that they’re cool). In addition to the second birthday, I’ve got a little list of the things that have been going on:

* Creating the [Refresh Cleveland site](http://www.refreshcleveland.org)

* Designing a new theme for Distracted Mind (this one is going to be available as a free theme for the public as well very, very soon). Get a whiff of that new theme smell!

* Contemplating creating a support group for re-design addicts. Really. How many times does this make?

* Figuring out my shiny new [Olympus Evolt E-500 digital camera](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=burningrivers-20%26link_code=xm2%26camp=2025%26creative=165953%26path=http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%253fASIN=B000BK39N4%2526tag=burningrivers-20%2526lcode=xm2%2526cID=2025%2526ccmID=165953%2526location=/o/ASIN/B000BK39N4%25253FSubscriptionId=0EMV44A9A5YT1RVDGZ82). I love my shiny new camera — it’s the reason for the new theme. It definitely has a bit of a learning curve, but it’s absolutely awesome to hold a camera that doesn’t feel like a toy, that I can focus manually, and that helps me take good photos. Lots more pictures coming soon.

* Crocheting a [cardigan using a knitting pattern](http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall03/PATTsonnet.html). Really, this isn’t as hard as it would seem, but I’m a perfectionist and have ripped it out three times. ARRGH!

* Entertaining lovely furnace estimator guys to get an estimate for a new furnace and central air (ahhh… central air). This will replace the behemoth incinerator of a furnace that’s been in our house since 1942. Seriously, the thing looks like you could use it to get rid of bodies and at _maybe_ 55% efficiency, this old momma’s got to go.

* Interviewing for a different job.

* Realizing that I _love_ my current job. Honestly, I’ve got the closest thing I’ve come to my dream job. I get paid to research, learn and teach technology in a _hugely_ creative environment. That and nobody minds that I prefer macs. How could I leave this?

* Turning down the different job. It felt _very_ weird to decline the opportunity, since I’m 27 and started looking for jobs on the backside of the dot-com boom. I still feel strange saying no but like I said, how could I leave my current job? Sometimes you just need to be reminded of how good you’ve got it by looking at how other work environments operate.

* Celebrating the fact that it’s been two years since my twenty-one (!!!) hour marathon of happy-fun-childbirth. The toddler years are _so_ much more fun than those first few months of newborn haze and tears (mine, not my daughter’s). I can’t tell you how much more fun it is right now with my comedian of a daughter who wiggly-dances to the theme song of _King of the Hill_.

My post on Feagler’s speaking engagement at CSU has had a few comments, and I’d be remiss if I said they’ve been in Feagler’s favor. I’ve spewed some venom against our dear Dick in the past, but I’m actually looking forward to his lecture.

In all fairness, I think that Dick Feagler has a lot to offer as a speaker. I think that the title of his lecture says it all: as a columnist and writer, he is a gatekeeper for local media. The news really is what he says it is. He’s an old-timer, yes, and he can bloviate with the best of them, but he has value. The fact that he is, in a small part, a media gatekeeper, means that it’s important to hear what he says. Even if I disagree with him.

I’m going to try to go and see him, if work allows, because I want to hear what he says. Honestly, I think it could be good. His views on blogging aside, Feagler has a valuable perspective–he’s seen a lot and can has time on his side. I want to see if the curmudgeon act is just that–an act. The man doesn’t always write about how the good old days are better, and he does, on occasion, write powerful stuff. Just because I disagree with his views on blogging, or find his lack of research on the subject to be more than a little disturbing, he’s a good writer. I want to hear what he has to say, and perhaps respond to his views.

This is what I think blogging has to offer to the “old media”, and vice versa. As the face of media continues to change and merge, we’re going to have more discussions. The ideas that old media is wrong, or that the new media is impetuous and inexperienced will fall away as we have more conversations between the two. I want to see what Feagler has to offer to the new journalists and writers coming out of Cleveland. I hope I won’t be disappointed.

CSU is hosting Dick Feagler on April 3, from 1:45 – 3:00 p.m. The title of his lecture? “News Is What I Say It Is”. The free, public lecture is sponsored by the School of Communication and the Society of Professional Journalists (CSU student chapter), and is located at Drinko Hall, in the Music and Communication Building, 2001 Euclid Avenue Music and Communication Building, 2001 Euclid Ave.