alexis in the city

happy SF-iversary to me

i’ve lived in san francisco three years today. that’s almost the longest i’ve lived anywhere, ever, but it’s definitely the longest i’ve lived anywhere i remember. my record for longest ever was los angeles, from when i was born till i was about four, but that doesn’t really count since i don’t remember it. my longest in recollection was fairfax, virginia where we lived from first through third grade.

three years may not seem like a long time to a lot of people, but in military brat terms, it’s EONS. what really surprises me is not that it’s been three years, but HOW FAST it’s flown by. no wonder people get stuck in the same city their whole lives. for this reason, i always have the fear not too far from the front of my mind that i’m going to wake up one day and have been here for ten years, foregoing a lot of the other things i wanted to do and places i wanted to live. this fear, though, is a common theme in my life, coupled - i’ve decided - with my upbringing and my hard-charging, never-settle personality. i believe i should do and have whatever i want, and i’m determined to make that happen!

this theme brings me a great feeling of restlessness about once a year. usually i’d switch jobs, but now that i have my own businesses and am self-employed, i constantly do that. last year i abated it with a three-month trek through asia. this year, i distracted myself by thinking about a move to thailand. the truth is, right now i have no idea what the future holds, how long we’ll stay here, and where we’ll go next. we love our life here, but the plan has always been that this would be a stepping stone to other things. what are those other things? i have some abstract ideas, but no real concrete plans. the alexis of three years ago would’ve been obsessive and freaked out about that. the alexis of today is still a little obsessive about it - but slightly less so. san francisco is helping to teach me to be present in the path that i’m on, every day, and not always looking forward. for someone like me, this is not an inconsequential lesson to learn.

if i make it to my fourth SF-iversary, i’m throwing a huge party, and ya’ll are invited.

the “feminine wound” is a disservice to feminism

a couple months ago, my sister gave me a book called “dance of the dissident daughter” by sue monk kidd. this post is by no means meant to be a review of the entire book, since i could only get through about half of it. it was horribly written (especially considering kidd is a writer), it drew some ridiculous parallels and came to some groundless conclusions. all of this would be ok considering it was written as a memoir, but kidd was also making the case for her transformation from traditional, evangelical wife to what i would describe as hippy-dippy, dance naked under the moon (seriously she does this), find feminist meaning in EVERYTHING (and i mean everything - from a woman crying on the front porch to a tree in a forest), borderline pantheism. i’m going to need a little bit more than “i learned to trust the divine within” to be able to swallow that transition!

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Legalizing prostitution is tricky*

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

~ronald reagan

i recently asked a friend to write about his view points on limited government, as it’s a topic that’s been on my mind lately. i recognize that limited government and true conservatism are different from much of what we see on display by the so-called “conservative” right. to use a political party classification, the views of the libertarian party more readily match up with that of true limited government. i hear many on the “conservative” right go on and on about their affinity for limited government seemingly without realizing the contradictions they’re espousing.

don’t get me wrong, i understand the need for cognitive dissidence when examining political viewpoints, and i’m not trying to suggest that *i* have all my opinionated ducks in a row. there are certainly specific views that i hold which i have trouble reconciling with other views. the idea here, though, is cognitive dissidence: i.e., recognizing that these opposing opinions exist.  this is something i haven’t seen too much of.

i get the feeling that some limited government proponents espouse these viewpoints in as much as it benefits them, without taking things out to their logical conclusion. in other words, they want limited goverment in the areas where THEY want it … but they’d rather not think about the other areas. in fact, some of the principles that the “conservative” right holds with the most voracity i’ve found to be in direct conflict with the idea of limited government. here are some examples i’ve thought of:

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this is how i feel

the topics i’m overwhelmed about are a bit different than this blogger - mine would be more like indefinite detention, war, pacificm, etc - but the sentimets are the same. she says, “You’ve heard of writer’s block? I think I may have writer’s flood.” yes. i have it to. but better posts are to come …

proud to be un-american

as i’m in the process of re-constructing my “jesus for president” blog post after my computer met its tragic end, i wanted to jot down a few thoughts that don’t involve as much dissection and effort as the content of my extended post is turning out to. it’s promising to be quite the epic post - if i ever finish it.

as i’m reading”jesus for president“,  i’m still working out how i feel about certain issues that are covered in the book. ryan stopped reading it part-way through because he thought it was too self-serving and i had another friend who warned me that it would make me a pacifist. in absence of the ability to construct super-deep thoughts on the subject right now, i decided to quote a portion of the book where one of the authors (shane claiborne) responds to an experience he had while working in baghdad. he’d been interviewed on CNN and been asked if - by being there and working on humanitarian aid missions while opposing the war - he and his group were traitors. he composed this response:

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