Getting Started...am I a blogger?

So about a month ago I started reading my friend's blogs (which I'll link to once I figure out how), and they're kinda fun. At the same time, I've been doing a lot of thinking & wanting to do some writing...

I'm taking the plunge to blogland--not that I plan to be a diligent daily blogger--I'm still learning to navigate & figure out this whole blog thing. Who knows whether I'll actually maintain this and post regularly--I'm not sure.

If you're reading this then you presumably got my email update...and you know that I"m looking to do a lot of political thinking & learning, so I'm thinking that this may be a place for me to play with ideas.

I think it'll also be a place for random thoughts--I seem to always want to share lots of random details/thoughts that don't necessarily fit into conversation (is everyone like this or is this one of those things that comes from my upbringing?)....anyways, if I post them here you can choose to read them...or not.

Here's one that I started writing a couple weeks ago when I was in Kansas:

I just spent about 48 hours in Kansas. Why Kansas? Everyone asks (and I’ve been in so many places over the past month that no one knows where I am--”I thought you were going back to CA” they say, and I AM I say—but that’s via Topeka Kansas to visit my 2 Grandmas.

Grandma Rion is 88, in the Independent Living part of the retirement center that Grandma Carter (102, or is it 103?) lives in in the highest level of assisted care.

Geez am I drained! IT takes lots of energy to be with old folks, and for me respecting my elders means a helluva lot of patience and doing things that aren't particularly comfortable--like sitting while the seconds tick slowly by as Grandma Carter eats blenderized hashbrowns & scrambled eggs in a silent dining room full of old white women. We don't make getting old pleasant in this country--I think a lot about the struggles that my brother (who has Down Syndrome) and my physically disabled friends have faced for integration and basic respect...and old people face similar stuff--they're isolated in nursing homes with underpaid (and thus transient & undertrained) staff, and they don't get to interact & be with & get support from folks outside. Ultimately, I think integration is key--this whole thing of shipping off old folks into homes away from younger folks doesn't make sense to me (and I know that in many cultures it aint' like this!). grrrr.

But my Grandma Rion is younger & much more "with it". Grandma Rion & I stayed up late telling family stories (her telling, me listening)--this has been our project for the past 5 years—our way of connecting, and she’s amazing. I love it! and so does she. We almost went to the Brown v. Board of education museum today that opened up on the 50th anniversary last May—but we couldn’t find it. Grandma was a clerk at the courthouse in Topeka—her second day of work was May 17, 1954—and she copied the Supreme Court decision for reporters! Crazy! Of course, that also means that both my parents went to segregated Topeka schools before then--I need to ask them about that one of these days.