sorry I'm such a bore.

I haven't posted anything of 'substance' in a long time--aside from a few small 'reflective' posts here and there. I could sit back and claim that my reluctance to post has been due to the fact that I've been struggling with bouts of laziness. However, that would be quite far from the truth. There have been days, even weeks, where I felt as if I WANTED to write, but I've never sat down and picked up the pen to do it. It's like I feel as if I have nothing to say. The past two years of my life played out as if I was in a perpetual forest of new discoveries: dark, mysterious paths weaved in and out of towering trees that would almost inevitably lead me to a meadow of cultural awakening, language acquisition, or lively nights at the pub.

I have to break away from that. The Czech Republic for me--at least the immediate life--is over. Erie, Pennsylvania is my new abode, and the people I see daily on my bike rides to work are my current neighbors. So, where am I to go to now? The enigmatic forest has turned into something of a bore. The cultural meadow has morphed into nothing but a vast, hollow desert: nothing to see, nothing to do.

You see, even my thoughts have been jumbled, and feel as if I'm writing with a pen that doesn't write in black or red ink, but in white or gray, colors like the paper: My writing blends in, offers nothing new, easily disappearing between the blue lines and the red verticle margin.

I wish I had an interesting story to tell....

Election Day Reflection

Today during the election, my boss, Gary Horton, was a man on a mission to motivate the masses. He organized vans to take those, without the means of transportation, to the polling station, where they would be able to cast a vote. He canvased and recruited teenagers from the local 'projects' to hand out 'Elect Kathy Dahlkemper' placards--our much-aligned congressional representative who has been lambasted in the news--and by 'tea partiers'--for her suggestion that Americans should ride their bikes more often. He entertained guests who meandered into the nonprofit where I work. And chummed up to some volunteers and potential political allies.

Isn't it fun during election time?

At one point during the afternoon, Gary was in the midst of a 'ra-ra' moment, when he turned to a group of about five teenagers that were part of his canvasing crew. A few of them had recently started to lament the uncomfortable cold conditions that they were fored to work in, and were showing a waning enthusiasm for the job. Gary jumped on the issue at hand, and sprang into a lecture of how blacks had gotten the right to vote. "They were lynched and burned," he said in a voice rising to an apex like that of a baptist preacher. "Blood spilled, people were whipped, and white people suppressed." I felt awkward, REALLY awkward. I felt the glances of some of the younger teenagers on my skin, and I dropped my gaze to the ground. Why did I carry this shame? Why did I, at that moment, feel as if I was the only one guilty for the problems of this nation's past? And why, does Gary always have to emphasis the 'white' when speaking about the 'others'? Is it justified on his part? Or, is my shame just another twisted version of the White Man's Burden....

No one likes being judged solely by the physical manifestation of genetics and melatonin.