The confessions of a bus rider (4)

The bridges of Armstrong County or how to persuade your Republican representative to fund public transportation

After the most recent pre-election campaign I realized -like this was not common knowledge already, noted Nim - that Republicans do not like taxes. Or so they say… To be more precise, they oppose both taxation and centralization. So, to write a republican and ask them to establish a dedicated state fund for public transportation in Pennsylvania, because that would raise two issues he (or she) likes to oppose (or at best avoid discussion). One issue is revenue –more taxes, more fees? The other is redistribution of funds (who will get what) therefore centralization. So instead of asking for dedicated funding, what I'd like to ask them (the Republicans) is to reduce taxes. Yes, you read it well: Reduce Taxes. More specific: reduce state taxes. Give each county the ability to re-direct that potential revenue towards whatever that particular county needs more. And if you do look at the numbers, it may even make sense…

For example, when the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission had to vote recently on a new "band-aid" funding solution for the Port Authority of Allegheny County, 22 of the 49 commissioners present decided to oppose it. For example two out of the three Armstrong County commissioners present voted nay. So if it were up to Armstrong County the funding solution as pernicious and temporary as it was, it'd fail. But if you listen to their point, you cannot but nod in agreement. They too have roads and bridges in dire need for upgrades and repairs and when some extra money is available at state level, what does the state do? Patching public transportation budgets in Allegheny County.

It does not seem fair, does it? said Yuri

Well, to be fair, if one uses the 2000 Census numbers and a median 3.3% state tax (excludes unemployment contribution)applied to each median income to figure out each county's contribution to PA revenue from payroll (1) taxes only, it results that Allegheny County's contribution is about $651,783,921 and Armstrong County's is $25,563,236 (2). (And these numbers do not even consider all other contributions such as business taxes, tobacco & alcohol fees, sales taxes etc. ) So what if we wouldn't pay any state taxes from our incomes?
This means the Port Authority's budget shortfall is about 7.2% of what we pay in state taxes. And why we ask to pay less in state taxes, so we could pay more towards local projects without paying more taxes. Same for other taxes the county businesses do pay to
wards the state budget - instate of increasing them, just lower the percentage that goes to the state coffers so more can get to local projects. As for Armstrong county, they shall finance their bridge and road projects from their own residents revenues - after all it is only fair...

Or not? asked Anais -after all this is one state we all live in.

Yeah, but I ride the bus in Pittsburgh and I could not care less about the crumbling bridges of Armstrong County.(Annamari)

Notes:
(1) adjusted gross earnings for individuals
(2) these are very rough estimates of the actual tax contributions that will make most accountants cringe. But they do reflect an actual ratio ... In Pennsylvania the
 counties in major urban metro area generate significantly more tax revenue than rural areas.

Sources:
@lndaley  reports from Dec.13 SPC comission meeting
Census data for Allegheny and Armstrong Counties from :
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/42/42003lk.html
respective : http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/42/42005lk.html

the meaning of things?

Forty days had passed since the death of our dearest friend, almost six weeks. Two weeks since I moved here and started my new job at the Library.


I found the living accommodations very suitable –your friend is even nicer that I was expecting it. And yes, my job at the library keeps me very busy. To my surprise I find it captivating, it is much more about it than re-shelving the books and helping with the new catalogs. Next year I may be the one leading the writing program for young writers.  You may tell Annamari not to worry; I try to accomplish meaningful things.


Surprisingly, the more I get involved into all these noteworthy activities, the more I fall apart from the real meaning of things. This is why I was unable to write poetry lately. The more I do, the less I have something to tell. Isn’t that strange ? (Of course, you shall not mention this to Annamari).


As always,


Anaïs

Eco-Friday: Energy alternatives (repetitive)

As Yuri browsed the web for news on the BP oil effects on energy reform (his business made some bets on alternative energy) his jaw dropped as he read the second comment to an article about the ways the spill could actually hurt the chances for reform.

“This Cristoph guy, he’d note later, blames it all on environmental activists. As if, using faulty , untested equipment in deep water drilling was not something that BP could avoid. I wonder if a thorough investigation, if one will take place, is not going to bring up some risk analysis papers that show that the cost of the spill is less than the costs of a few more years of testing and research to reduce the consequences of such accidents. But, no, it is those darn environmentalists who sent poor BP digging…mhhm… drilling for money in deep waters .”


“To me it looks that the conservatives themselves are potential sources of alternative energy” shrugged Annamari.


“How comes?”


“With so many interpretative twists and turns on the facts the conservatives seem like a pretty good source of vibrations to me”

Note: the articles mentioned above:

Why the Oil Spill Could Hurt the Chances for Energy Reform and

How Everyday Behaviors Can Produce Clean Energy

Confession Tuesday: girls & gadgets

Annamari. two notes.

"It is common knowledge that most guys do not like to ask for directions. This is why they invented the GPS. And cell phones with GPS service...



There are also a few girls who do not like to ask for directions. Like me. It does not take us long to become gadget dependent. So when I had to take the kids I watch for the summer to meet their parents at the country club -which, by the way, is quite close to their house- I only asked for the street number.


I traced my way using the Google map app, and I dragged the poor kids around the golf field to someone's house. But I'm lucky - the owner was actually in the yard so I did not have to actually knock on someone's door to ask for directions. I just had to say :” Hello, hello? hmm…I need to get to the country club building. Do you have any idea how can we get to the Country Club ? My GPS is telling me it is right here…”



Of course, the GPS got me across the golf field from the Club’s building. And I still had to stop and ask for directions. I had to drag the kids all the way back. But this time we took a shortcut – we crossed the field."


....





"The WeatherBug app –weather forecasts, of course- does also use the GPS feature to determine my location. Lately it had played tricks on me –when I tried to check the weather I discovered that according to my GPS I was in Texas or Indiana. And quite a few times. Even in Alaska. Once.


One rainy day I woke up in Sunnyvale, California. According to my GPS… because outside it was still Pittsburgh, still raining. I called off work. I realized that if I get out , in the rain I will be unable to enjoy my sunny day in Sunny Vale in California."

"

Note: a mishap when I edited this blog lead to the deletion of  several links towards on-line magazines I do read from times to times. I recovered several of them and you can find them now under the label "Places".

Gifts: and alphabet letters according to...

Yuri:
Achievement culture:
The culture of self-appointed gods.
Annamari:
Business education (American style):
To go global with a company that has not started doing business locally yet.
Nim:
Civility:
The behavior exhibited by our artificial alter-ego.
Anaïs:
Destiny (acceptance): to belong, humbly
Mona:
Freecycle:
Currency free trade market based on one's desire of objects another has but does not want any longer.

The blog author:
Grace (religious):
A gift of love from friends and family.


and a graceful gift is a gift that gifts beyond the original intention, such as
Yuri: One Laptop Per Child
Mona: Autism Romania
Annamari : Invisible Children
Nim: Color Online Book Donation
Anaïs: the Book of Hopes and Dreams

Real Stories From Someone's Real Life

Term finals week. You all know the drill : gotta do my homework, gotta do it. So I have to protect my sleep deprived neurons from interferences so I can focus on the d*** (due?) projects.
In the bus I turn the sound on my Ipod to the max . Usually I let myself be drawn in the chatter of bus riders (and so I found out that from all deserts one can serve in a cafe or restaurant; the sinfully sweet, extremly rich fudge has one of the best profit margins). But not during my term finals week.

My Ipod to the max - the song is "Deshabiliez-moi". The guy next to me , Arabian and french speaking to my best guess, gazes with a look of wonder in his eyes matched by a movement of sudden interest. I close my eyes and smile for I know what follows. Next stop: California , going down in the swirling rhythms of a cell block tango. And when she says "So I took the shotgun off the wall and fired two warning shots... into his head." I smile. Believe you me, there is a difference between a puzzled expression and one of mere wonderment. So by the time the song reaches the conclusion of Al Lipshitz' faith, an unexpected result of artistic differences, the bus guy moves a few seats away. Too bad. If he had stayed he would have figured out how one can solve problems in spite of atmospheric disturbances.

Foreword

June 24; shattered.
The evening Ieronim’s body fell for the first time.
He was raised. And his body kept on falling ...

I turned as the sound of breaking glass startled me. Nim’s body collapsing along with the shattered crystal crumbles of what was once my praised Riedel & Schott Zwiesel wine set. His bones made a dry crackling noise as suddenly they were also crumbling glass and his flesh seemed to give away under its own weigh. With a puzzled look on his face he released a low, gurgling sound (He was trying to say sorry). As Yuri rushed to stop the fall, his chair resonant crush on the wood floors like parched foliage crushed by jackboots.

Few moments before, I was talking with Yuri and Annamari about the possibility of recession proof investments; we were trying to help with one of her papers, one she had good chances to publish in a specialty journal. Bored by our discussion, our two “English majors” started taking the dirty dishes to the kitchen. This was by now routine: since Annamari started to join us during the weekly dinners, Nim started to help with the dishes pretending our business talk bored him. Yuri claimed that the real reason was that he could not stand Annamari. (I think that he was becoming keen on Anaïs).

Shortly, he retrieved his balance ; his voice and quirky sense of humor:
" How are you feeling"
"Featherlight. I am free now - Hieronymus, the angel, has fallen"

From Plato to Hedwig ...

Yeap, I did finally watch it. And I did like it. Hedwig and the Angry inch has one more fan now, if you'd like to put it this way. It's true that I'm a lousy fan- I rarely buy tickets to concerts and t-shirts:almost never. But I heard there is a cult in some parts of Europe and in the US as well, so it won't miss much because of my lack of fan-like behavior.

But I had to write about it. It is on of those movies I hesitated to watch [1]- Hedwig, the drag , on the cover made me fear something a little cliche such as Victor/Victoria without the charm of Julie Andrews. To my surprise it does go deeper than that, and to my surprise it offered an interesting view on Plato's Symposium. Not only that song about the origin of love being inspired by Aristophanes' myth. Love is also presented as creation, or did you miss that point in Plato, as well as above and beyond gender and sex [2].

Hedwig also raised some interesting questions about being a drag and the relation between hair and identity, and I have to admit I never thought to much about this relationship before. But now I get it: why do orthodox Jewish women wear wigs and covering one's head has such a symbolic value. This movie was my a-ha moment, and I do tend to favor movies that are the cause of my a-ha moments even if not that popular.

Than I feared that too much symbolism is going to spoil it. As someone said -that it will be just another one of those cheap, independent flicks with great pretenses. But it does stay entertaining.One does not need to care much about Plato to enjoy the movie. There is good music and quite a touchy love story. And, in my opinion, Hedwig is very well played by John Cameron Mitchell. Of course I am no movie critique.

And since I am no movie critique I was not sure I am going to post about this movie until...I was walking from the bus stop to my job, thinking about an e-mail I was planning to write my friend about the movie when I crossed path in , three times, with this man, a transvestite , wearing a Hedwig wig. Now I'd been working here for three years now and I never seen him before, and I hadn't seen him since...Strange,isn't it?

[1] I do not recommend the movie to anyone that has issues with man kissing man or transvestites.
[2]"you were more than a man, more than a woman" form small wicked town, Tommy Gnosis version.

about a name...

This weekend my children decided that my name is Hannah. 

"Close enough, but not quite" -I said - but there was no way to change  their mind. So this weekend I was mommy also known as  Hannah.

I only traveled a little but I had been called by many names - all these names, revolved around my original, birth-certificate, name. Hannah does it too. And from all these names the one I came to like the most, almost love it:  Annamari...

Maybe because I like  the sound of it - even though I could never quite pronounce it right.

Maybe because I was told that a girl by this name was able to bring two different worlds into one , even for a moment , just as I have tried lately...

Maybe, just because the song(1).The one that I wait to find translated, one day, as good morning gift to be opened carefully over a cup of deliciously steaming coffee . Even though I  fear that once I'll know the meaning of all its words, I'll like it less ....

(1)Egyszer falun

Biciklipedált tapostam én,
S a vázon
Egy kitelepített lány ült.
Lejtön lefelé,
A lány neve Annamari

.........................

Life is full of tiny cute miracles (1)

“Life is full of tiny cute miracles like yellow butterflies”
“Or like unexpected flowers blooming (I read this somewhere)”
“ Did you know that if somebody touches your ear with his lips you could hear his soul?”
“ Do you think so?”
“ I know so.”
“How come?”
“Because I believe it. (But not as in ‘I have an opinion about it’, I have faith…)”
“Ok. Than come closer …can you hear it?”
“No.”
“See!”
“It has to be done with the right intent. Nibbling my ear does not count.”
“ I guess I haven’t been given your faith”
“Faith is not given. Faith is demanded. To believe is an action…”
“Yes”
“ Than faith is something you ask and take. It’s a choice. Same for love”
“You can not choose to fall in love. That just happens”
“True. But to fall in love is not same as to love. To love is an action. So you get a choice: to love or not to love…”
“So you can love anyone than? Any person that is, ‘cause is your choice”
“ I guess. If you’re God or a saint. In theory, you can go to a store and buy any clothes you want. But you don’t because what you do actually buy has to fit your size, your pocket, your taste…”
“You trivialize love. People are not clothes”
“Not as simple as fashion, I admit. But don’t they come in different colors and sizes, aren’t they used depending on occasion and taste?”
“That’s silly”
“So it is. So it is”

(1)this post is a comment to this one: " O minciuna repetata..."

2009

This year, for the first time since I moved to the States, I had the opportunity to enjoy my traditional New Years' Show on TV: the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra's New Year Concert.
The pleasure was somehow spoiled by the little cherubs' dance on the Blue Danube (awful costumes), but it brought back memories. Not that my people back home were big lovers of classic music -but they enjoyed Strauss and the opulence of the decor. I enjoy classic music (more than just Strauss) and I have to say that this year's conductor was an inspired choice(1). As a plus : the Haydn final was delightful and I had a hard time not to applaud to the rhythm of the Radetzky March (it is tradition but the neighbours here would not get it).

as for my 2009 to do list -I did remember to buy make up remover on the 31st (yes!!!), now I have to remember to use it (2). I also finished my hallway project that adds wall hooks to the tree coat -thus we do actually get to sit on the couch and not use it for coats...so with two things from my list already accomplished I can call it a good start...

thus, to everyone : A happy new year!!!

(1)from their presentation: " the Argentinean-Israeli pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim. This all-round musician, who debuted as a pianist with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1965 and conducted the orchestra for the first time in 1989, combines his musical abilities with ideas and gestures which give his work significance beyond the concert hall. Among the many awards Barenboim has received was the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in Vienna in 2006, where the foundation's board of trustees noted his "unifying efforts toward peace in the Middle East". "
(2)not to remove make up, but to clean my skin

Readwritepoem #49 - from Nim's notes

Since he started his chemo treatment, Nim started to act very unlike him. He locked himself in the house most of the time ignoring calls and visits, reading and browsing on the Internet. We still kept an eye on him, since he had become way too sick to do his own housework and Anaïs took over, but sometimes he would not even let her in. And she told Mona one day that he was involved in some type of support activities for refugees. And we were like:
“Nim? Refugees?”.
The apartment complex two streets down from his house started to host refugees about eight –nine years ago, since the Bosnia conflict. And after that, it was the Liberians and in the last years the Burmese. And I have to say they made quite a colorful patch, if you consider that this is a suburban area where most people consider themselves Irish or Polish just because their grand-grandfathers came here from the old Continent looking for jobs during the booming years of the steel industry. But Nim never seemed to notice them, not until now. And I still think can not get myself to think in better terms about him. I worry about Anaïs, lately they became very close and she smiles less often.


Yesterday, though, I had to go in her place to drop his groceries and some stuff Mona sent to him and I noticed from the moment I entered the twilight quality of silence that took over his house. He was in bed so I had to put the groceries away, not that I did mind…but when I was almost getting ready to leave I noticed this, on a paper tossed on the corner of the counter:

“When you feel that
you hurt in a realmdom of pain
think .

Think
They learn under an asbestos roof
In the sweltering heat.(1)

In the sweltering heat:
an old temple, the alphabet , a teacher
all these orphans had left.


All these orphans have left:
education and music, one Bengal gram
a day.

A day
for refugee camp inmates
to recall

To recall
the tang of fresh cinnamon flow over the sea
by Trincomalee. “

Note: (1) the whole story here

"Thalassa! Thalassa!"

…the sea! the sea! cried the Greek warriors after they spent weeks, no, months searching their way back through foreign lands, enduring many hardships.

The land ! The land! Shouted the watchman at the first sight of the foreign continent hundred years of ago, from the ship that searched its way through storms and dead calm for months, or was it years?

Money !Money! cried Annamari when she saw her scholarship funds in her account at the University, after a month and a half of hardship and fighting with the bureaucracy. For the hardships of our life are not in the battles we fight on foreign lands, or in the sailing of foreign seas searching for new continents (after all there are no more continents to be discovered). The hardships of modern life are in the small unnerving events of every day; a scholarship that takes to long to be deposited in your student account, a computer that broke, a bus that is late, the misery of a cold day: "I had been sick as a dog ", she'd say.

"Yes, Anaïs, this is how we die today, slowly, with the miseries of each and every day" said Nim.

"But there is hope, shouted Anaïs, there is faith and there is love".

Anaïs on Annamari

Annamari is my one friend that gets upset about my love dream, she calls my Nim a figment of my imagination, for she does not think much about him. But I think I guessed him right and I think that there is a man to be loved.
We often disagree Annamari and I. She calls herself pragmatic: she will not allow herself a foolish love. One should know where her interests are since no woman had benefited from such a foolish love before. It will break your heart and kill your laughter. This is how she speaks about love and life.
But you should not think that she is without ideals. She believes that women should have equal rights and incomes; that most children born with a disability can succeed and they have the right to live a normal life; that there should not be social classes and hungry people. She tends to think that anybody can become a millionaire.
We all love her keenness. She is full of energy, of all the sun that blessed her childhoods. She reaped the love of her family, the cheerfulness of her friends, the admiration of her teachers.
And I loved her the day of the day of the trip to this Romanian Orthodox Monastery sixty miles north of the city. The four of us in the car: Mona, Yuri driving, Annamari and I, chattering about Sci-Fi books. She was paying close attention, her look intense, charming as a four year old captured by the mastery of finger painting. While she hadn’t read as much fiction as we did, she always showed a genuine interest for knowledge, points of view to be remembered, details to be noted and events that are worth mentioning. She wanted to borrow some Ray Bradbury books, since a friend of hers, a boy at her university, liked him and spoke greatly abut Bradbury. But as we chattered and chattered, Mona mentioned the Handmaid’s Tale. The dystopian novels. Yuri and Mona became more serious in their discussion, the skewed ideology that governs these ‘perfect’ worlds was not a genre but part of their past.
Always eager to impress Mona, Annamari recalled how she read once, as a child, a dystopian novel about books and their importance, a novel named after the papers’ burning temperature.
“Oh, but that is Bradbury’s 451 Fahrenheit. So you read it after all”
“I guess I did”, she said and blushed. She said nothing until we got home. Her self-conscious gaucheness in front of Mona, was one of the few things that shadowed her gaiety.
So was Annamari and all the treasures she held inside under the chaotic memories of childhood games and laughter.

Annamari on Ieronim (Nim)

I like Mona. I love Anaïs like she was my little sister; she is as frail and sweet as the little girl that died a long time ago, my real little sister. I respect Yuri, he came a long way and kept his dignity.
But Nim, how could I like him or respect him? Anaïs told me that he has this unique ability to listen, but I could not find one story to tell him. She fell in love with him. She was vulnerable and he was soft spoken and handsome. When she met him his body did not show clear signs of his illness. He stood dark and tall, his large shoulders, his long legs. He looked as someone that took sun baths in the middle of the winter and smiles constantly, well groomed and polite, but hollow.
A drunkard. A hedonist. A gay man.

“I am no Mrs. Dalloway for sure” smiled bitterly Annamari. Why did she offered to host the party in the first place, I have no idea. She does not like Nim. Maybe she did it for Mona, not to impress her, but to come out as her equal, a partner. Mona , she is good at this, throwing parties. She was raised in a family where a woman was defined by her ability to entertain, by her taste, by her knowledge of foreign languages. A woman should know how to manipulate men and servants to attain her goals, or her husband's. Annamari’s family was a lot simpler; I imagine most parties were for weddings and baptisms.
It had been Claire’s wish to have a party before she left with her husband back to Nimes. She wanted to tell us good-bye, but she had no longer a place suitable for a party, her rooms engulfed by half packed books and clothes and stuff. Claire wanted to say good-bye to all of us, but mostly to Nim, for she had not seen him lately, since he got sicker and stopped going out of the house. Annamari jumped in: “I’ll do it. We’ll have the party at my place”. I do not think it took her more than a few minutes to realize that she trapped herself in an absurd challenge: she , Mona’s favorite, Mona’s apprentice, had to throw a party for a man that she did not like and fail to impress the friend she cherished, because she was totally “gauche” when it came to organizing a party. She will embarrass herself in front of us for she knew that the party was Claire’s wish, but was meant for Nim, and we all knew that Mona was better than Clarissa Dalloway could have ever been.
She had to push the date around, so Nim could come, and we all ended up choosing the worst time for her: she will have to rush back from work and prepare the party, since Claire chose one the few Saturdays when she had to work. It made her freak-out over each detail, each dish, the quality of ingredients…And, in the end, Nim did not show up.” He was not quite well, he sends his regrets” mutters Yuri entering the door alone. And I see her, behind the kitchen counter, breaking down the peppers in anger while still preparing the salad she did not have the time to finish before we came in.
We all like Nim, but her. I couldn’t quite understand why she does not like him. He was always nice to her, but she avoided his company from the start. Maybe it is because she likes people such as Mona and Yuri: accomplished, satisfied with themselves, useful, and Nim in his awkwardness makes her uncomfortable. She finds no use for his company, for it is not a thing she could learn from him other than the bitterness of failure, the unspoken sadness of being the inadequate one among us. She seems unable to understand that his kindness is twice more valuable, for it comes from a glass that is half empty. She likes to keep her cup full.

But, I got ahead of the story again.
Let me introduce myself: my name is Annamari and I grew up on the Balaton's shore. My parents little village was close to Badacsony, so our blood had mixed with wine when we grew up.
We moved to Pest when I was about 8 or 9, and there I went to school and college. It is not much I can say about those times, all I remember is the lake and the wine that shines in glasses as the warm summer sun over our skin when we laid in the dust...Those were my handsome years.
My time started when I came to US to get my MBA, it is here that I met Mona and her friends. It is here that I met Anaïs and started this conversation without finality, this one about beauty.

I came around Mona while I was working as an intern for a consulting agency. She was one of the bosses and , in spite of being one of those that keeps her distance , she befriended me. Why she chose me, I could not know... Maybe we discovered a common language or maybe there were her own memories about Balaton. So she invited me one day to dine at her house, and that became our routine even after I finished the internship and returned to school.

Mona lives in one of the city neighbourhoods, where rich and poor mix. She chose it because it is the only spot in this whole metro area where you can find real diversity -the Europeans, the Hispanic, the Africans , the Asians and the African Americans living near by the older Hebraic and Anglo-Saxon families, she says. " You come to appreciate this: being able to interact with people from the your part of the world without trying on purpose. Especially after you have lived here for so long. Plus I am too lazy to walk for the sake of walking, here I can walk to places, to meet people and that keeps me in shape." (There is a certain fullness in her beauty indeed). Her house, the call it here a Craftsman, not to large, not too posh, but with unique features that had been restored to their original beauty: the marble mantle, built in bookcases and the exquisite woodwork of the banister and railings. The kitchen, however, it is new and modern, with a sleek elegant look accentuated by its stainless steel appliances and tall cabinets. It is in the kitchen where you would find Anaïs, on a tall kitchen stool her notebook on the counter top. It is her favourite place, by what was once the hearth of the house.