streetwalkers update

I wanted to have more to report when updating on our pedestrian safety campaign but things are pretty slow going so I am going to go ahead and give the breathless masses the skinny.

<<< I got married to this image after my original post. I am thinking of adopting this as my alter-ego for the duration of the campaign. Would going to meetings in full costume be too much?

I was able to meet last week with David Woosley, the head of the Lawrence Traffic Safety Commision. Mr. Woosely was incredibly helpful in giving me some very clear direction in the Now What/What Next department. I spoke at length with a traffic officer at the Lawrence Police Dept today and will meet again with a community liaison sometime in the coming weeks, then it will be back to the city commission. The lags are a bit frustrating but the city and the LPD have been WONDERFUL in helping me get in touch with the right person, set up meetings etc.

Thank you so much for all of your continued interest and active support!

i always feel like somebody's watching me (part II of gin...)

My 4 year old is in that wonderful stage of development where she is obsessed with rules. I have read Piaget and I get it. She is at an integral and first stage of developing a functioning morality. She will move on to a time when she can be more nuanced, less black and white, less rigid; unless she ends up a Republican (relax Small Govt Steve-I kid!). But holy crap, is she ever hard to live with right now. Of course I can't say crap, that's a bad word, and I so don't want to get hauled in for questioning. She has instituted a preschool police state, a toddler-tarian regime.

 these two fellas are so heavily represented in my house that it reeks of pipe and cigar smoke

gin and dys-tonic (part I of II)

egosyntonic /ego-syn·ton·ic/ (e´go-sin-ton´ik):
a psychological term referring to behaviors, values, feelings, which are in harmony with or acceptable to the needs and goals of the ego, or consistent with one's ideal self-image ... Acceptable to the aims of the ego.

egodystonic /ego-dys·ton·ic/ (e´go-dis-ton´ik):
a psychological term referring to thoughts and behaviors that are in conflict, or dissonant, with the needs and goals of the ego, or further, in conflict with a person's ideal self-image ... Repugnant to or at variance with the aims of the ego.
- Wikipedia

As parents there are things we're really proud of. We tend to express these things vocally, while actively disowning (just as vocally) what does not fit with the complex beast of a self-image we have constructed. My question is: why? Why are we making these loud and bizarre announcements?

mom in the mirror

Recently, I attended a parade with my daughters. My four-year-old, in an effort to signal her pleasure and excitement, pumped her fist into the air with a loud "woop!" I was delighted but also befuddled. To the best of my knowledge she doesn't even know who Arsenio Hall is. Look at this amazing creature unfolding herself in front of my eyes -- my non-projecting, open-environment, free-to-be you-and-me, eyes.

Then I began to notice something. Me ... fist pumping.

It seems every time I turned around that week, I was pumping my fist and wooping about something. Why? Beats the hell out of me; I didn't even know I was doing it. With this observation, a reckoning was ignited: I began to look at my daughter, and -- like a cartoon character on an island seeing their side-kick as a chicken wing -- saw only a mirror. And a bizarre face staring back at me.

Left: Random fist pump baby found on awesome site of fist pumps pics