The Thin Orange Line: Wanna Join?

The Washington Area Clinic Defense Task Force has put out a call for people who can take shifts at a clinic in Fairfax. Also, there is an upcoming training session (April 27; downtown DC; Metro accessible) for people all over the Washington Metro area who want to join the Task Force.

More details on the WACDTF webpage.

Reasons to do it:
- Because you don't get enough wank online
- Because you need a crash course in zen serenity
- Because sometimes there are cupcakes (really)
- Because when the snow is piled high, someone needs to direct traffic around corners so there isn't a crash

... Because one day, there was a patient so frightened of the protesters that she literally clung to me as we crossed the parking lot.


After the training, you get to decide how often you're available and where, so escorting can be shifted around your schedule.

People in other areas: Googling "clinic escort" or "clinic task force" and your location will probably find you your local group.

Yet More Blather About Cleaning Up the House

I've angsted for so long over getting rid of things that used to be important; the suffocating weight of "someday I really ought to do minor task/project x, y, or z" or the depressing pull of "this was so important to you once, why isn't it important to you now?" (Cue scene from Labyrinth. You know the one.)

Then there's money flow. I get paid once a month, so the money comes in, the bills get paid, I have a brief spending spree, and then I have to penny-pinch until the next payday; lather, rinse, repeat. There's little I'd like more right now than to wave a magic wand, drop a boatload of cash, and get everything I want done in the house done in one big flurry of workmen, but I can't. As it is, I'm having to think several weeks and prioritize big expenditures before they can be made.

It took until today to realize that this is, in a way, incredibly liberating. The ghosts of past projects are flooding out of the house, while what I really want to have in my environment, what I have given serious consideration, what is important now trickles in to take its place.

This isn't an inoculation against the work or even buyer's remorse... but it does make the work much nicer. And it goes faster now - it feels so good to get rid of old stuff I felt I really ought to do someday and know that now I don't have to do it any day!