My life in Vermont is certainly not an exciting one. I love my apartment which is right in town: comfortable, spacious, and convenient to the post office and library. I’ve been to the library only once, preferring to read the books that I have first. Right now, I am reading Greg Herren’s The Orion Mask. If you are a long time reader of this blog, then you know that Greg Herren is one of my favorite authors.

My weekdays tend to consist of getting up, taking a shower and heading to my office. Usually, the first thing I do when I get to work is fix cup of coffee. When students are on campus and the campus eateries are open, I often eat at one of them for lunch. The staff tends to eat together which is nice; I never have liked eating alone.I guess that comes from my mama always cooking supper when I was growing up and we all sat down for meals together. How my mama worked a full time job and came home and cooked a full meal every night is beyond me. Most days when I get home from work, I cook a simple dinner for myself and usually watch Jeopardy. I rarely eat out, and almost never on weeknights. The only time I eat out is occasionally on the weekend, especially if I drive up to Burlington. One of my favorite local dishes, which is actually a Canadian dish, is called poutine. Poutine is French fries topped with cheese curds and smothered in gravy.  Everyone makes it differently, but with that set of ingredients, it’s hard to go wrong.

On Saturday, I do what shopping I need to get done, unless that shopping calls for Burlington, then I make trips to Burlington on Sundays. I don’t go to church every Sunday, but I do occasionally go. Just like eating out by myself, I am not a fan of going to church alone. Every other weekend or so, I take little road trips. One Saturday I drove down to see Dartmouth College. Another weekend I drove up to St. Albans. I am trying to explore more, but I’ll be honest, the roads in Vermont are a tad bit scary to me. Everywhere you go, you drive through mountains; sometimes there are even parts of the mountains sticking up in the median of the highway. I try to drive very carefully because accidents are common on these roads, but I do enjoy taking little road trips.

Work is going great. I have mentioned before that my predecessors had two very different ways of doing things. Some of their ways I have merged into mine, but mostly I established my own filing system and my own system of record keeping. If something were to happen to me, someone could easily step in and take my place. There should not be any problem knowing exactly where I am on different tasks because I keep up with everything on a workflow spreadsheet. It allows me to look up any interview and know exactly what needs to be done next. After my interview today, I will go in and update that system to reflect where I am currently.

So that is kind of an update on what life in Vermont is like. I miss my family, and I especially miss my cats, but after seven months, I’ve pretty well settled in. By the way, today marks my seventh month on the job. I’d say things are going well.

Writing a blog each day is not an easy task, especially when you live a relatively boring life. I could talk about work, but quite frankly, yesterday was kind of boring and I left early. I actually had time I needed to take because I’d come in early on Monday to interview the general that I had scheduled and then I counted the tv show as work, because it was work related. By the way, the television show went really well, at least I think so, I haven’t seen it, nor do I plan to since it aired live. My interview with the general also went exceptionally well. After two and a half hours we’d only made it through Vietnam, so that interview will continue tomorrow. These are little snippets of excitement, if you can call it that, but mostly my life is rather mundane. 

I will keep blogging each day because I enjoy doing it and somehow, I always find something to say, even if it’s only a pretty picture. However, with this blog post, I think I have rambled along enough. I hope everyone has a wonderful day.

John Archibald is a columnist for The Birmingham News/al.com. His column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the paper, and all the time at al.com. If you are not familiar with al.com, it is the best source for news about Alabama. Unlike the television stations and newspapers who all have a particular political bent (mostly religious, conservative, and Republican), you can always count on al.com to tell the truth. They don’t print a story unless they can back it up with evidence, not something that can be said for most television news people. John Archibald is one of my favorites and I want to share two of his latest columns. The first is a fantasy that never was nor ever will be, but it’s a nice fantasy, one that would make the south a true paradise that it should be (minus the heat, although sweet iced tea does slightly compensate for that). The second is Archibald doing what he does best, telling it like it is. He’s good with calling out hypocrisy, some thing that too often the news media forgets to do. Though he is talking about Alabama politics, he might as well be talking about politics anywhere. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did.

I want my South back

I want my South back.

You know the place. It recognized the past, but didn’t wallow around in it. My South could laugh at itself, because it knew deep down it had it made. It had food to make you drool and music to make you feel, and it had the prettiest of people. It blushed at compliments and shook off insult, because the quirks other folks ridiculed were the wrinkles that gave it character.

And characters.

It was proud, but it was not afraid. It was welcoming, and it was – I swear it’s true – gentle.

I miss that place. But then, maybe it never really existed at all, outside my head and my hopes. Maybe it was just an aspiration and an ideal, passed along by Southerners who knew this place and its people were nothing more or less than the sum of their scars. Where they came from shaped who they were, but did not dictate where they’d go.

That South was real to me. And I want it back.

I’m talking about my South, the way Morgan Freeman would say it or Harper Lee would write it, with pain up front and promise on the back end. I’m talking about the South the way we wanted it to be, the way some of us believe it can still be.

Not the Confederacy, or George Wallace. Not even Lynyrd Skynyrd, though the band will play on my soundtrack. I want the Southern Pride, but also that Southern Promise.

My South is not a place that blames everyone and everything for the unfairness of it all. It’s not one that pines for a day that probably never was and never should have been. My South could not watch unaffected as old people suffer, or stand by as children go without.

It was never a place so insecure that it barred its doors, never so offended by the ways of others that it wished them suffering. It saw needs and filled them. It saw hurt and eased it.

Oh, there was always hate and pain and righteous wrong in the real South, in a land built on man’s inhumanity to man. But centuries of sins brought together a magical blend of cultures that made us something better than our parts. Our Eden was already perfumed with clover and honeysuckle, and together we added barbecue and collard greens. You can smell it today.

It’s a place where you can laugh long and joke about anything. Except mama. It’s a place where being a gentleman has nothing to do with a seersucker suit, where it’s OK to disagree about politics or policy or even football, but it’s never an excuse to be rude.

Maybe it’s true that my South only existed in my head. Perhaps it was just a romantic notion, as misguided as those who look back at the good old days and see only good. But my South is not just the past. It is the hope for a better future.

In my South we are one people in one amazing place. Proud of who we are and proud of where we have been. And in my South we are proud of the changes we have made. We look at each other and see … each other. We know pain, but we believe in promise.

Because we know we can be more, and better, and kinder, and fairer. We can be more giving and more forgiving than the world would ever imagine. And we can do all that better together.

In my South.

Alabama double standard: Politicians judge you, but not themselves

For a bunch so holier-than-thou, the Montgomery gang sure has become forgiving.

Of each other, I mean.

Oh, they’ll judge you and me on our politics and national origin, our race and gender and religion and values. They’ll poke around in your bedroom to see who’s there – and who’s not. They’ll throw you in jail just to look tough on crime. And – oh yeah – they’ll disqualify you as their brother or sister if you don’t interpret your Bible the same as them.

But let a few fall off their high horses and the pillars of piety start to crumble.

Personal responsibility gives way to tolerance, of all things. Alabama values become fluid. All of a sudden – quick as a lawmaker can say OH MY GOD, WHAT IF THAT WAS ME – mercy and compassion debut in the Capital City.

Because self-preservation trumps accountability.

I swear Rep. Mac McCutcheon is like the lifeguard in this cesspool. Anywhere there’s a politician drowning in a deep end of his own doing, there’s McCutcheon to drag him to safety.

He was there for Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard. Soon as Hubbard was popped on 23 felonies for using his office for personal gain, McCutcheon came to assure us “Mike Hubbard is our Speaker and our friend.”

Now he’s there for Gov. Robert Bentley, with an amendment to a resolution that will derail attempts to impeach the governor. Because forgiveness and compassion are important.

This from a guy who once sponsored a bill making it illegal for ex-cons to homebrew beer.

And if McCutcheon’s the lifeguard, Rep. Jack Williams is the pool boy. He rushes to anyone who fouls the water and apologizes for the mess.

He talks so much about forgiveness these days you forget he used to talk of “accountability” and “responsibility.” When some Republicans questioned whether a guy facing 23 ethics charges really should be speaker, Williams lamented “the politics of personal destruction.”

Not the personal destruction of crime. Or scandal. Or governing with a hand out and an expectation of special treatment. The “personal destruction” he criticized came from people demanding better.

This is where we are. With a group of so-called leaders who want to blow up the whole system because they can’t keep their noses clean. That’s why Williams last year sponsored a bill that would gut the ethics law and allow indicted politicians to beg for money to use in their own defense funds. It is why the Ethics Commission – which would rather give a politician a road map around the law than to hold him to it – now says it’s OK for Rep. Randy Davis to take a job from a company with political interest.

Alabama politicians always find a way to take

If you can give a legislator a job with a wink and a nod, campaign finance and ethics reform means exactly squat. These wolves have huffed and puffed and blown our hope for honest government to hell.

The Speaker will go to trial. It looks like the governor has fouled his pool in legal and personal ways. The chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court is again facing complaints from the Judicial Inquiry Commission.

And our government is as crippled as our trust.

If you don’t think so, just look at what Hubbard has done to budgets of the state’s district attorneys and the attorney general – whose office is prosecuting Hubbard. Look at what he does to routine bills prosecutors want to see passed.

This session he diverted several of those bills — which had absolutely nothing to do with himself or the armed services – to the Military and Veterans’ Affairs Committee. To die.

That committee, by the way, is chaired by Rep. Barry Moore. Who was charged with perjury – and acquitted – by the AG’s office.

They don’t want oversight. They don’t want accountability for themselves. And they don’t want the law to apply to them.

Just remember it, the next time they judge you.

I wasn’t feeling well, so I went to bed early last night. Depression does that to you. While I’m on antidepressants, there are still depressive days. Days when the headaches and depression catch up with me and all I want to do is sleep. Yesterday was one of those days when it all caught up with me, so I can gave in and went to bed.

Loneliness is one of the hardest things. I have friends I talk to everyday, but it’s not like someone being here with you. I knew when I moved to Vermont I would be lonely this far from home, but I thought I could handle it. I know I will deal with it, but it still brings on a major sadness.

When I first moved to Mississippi in 2000 for graduate school, I was lonely then too, but that loneliness lasted only from the time I moved until classes started. I quickly found friends and had people to hang out with on a regular basis.  Yes, there were still lonely times, but I handled it because I knew my friends were close by.

Here, it is different. I have friends at work. But beyond work, they have families and I understand that. They have their own lives and their own things to do. While l enjoy living close to the museum, I’ve considered moving to a more active town. I could live in Burlington and have an hour drive to work, or I could live in Montpelier which is only 15 minutes away.

I don’t think those moves would actually relieve my loneliness though. Plus, it would mean driving more each day, something I don’t want to do. You see, when I first moved to Mississippi, driving alleviated some of my loneliness. It took my mind off of being lonely. Driving doesn’t have the same relief it used to have.

When my friend died in a car wreck, driving long distances especially in Vermont where nearly all roads are through mountainous terrain, my anxiety rises considerably. I’ve tried driving around on Saturdays or Sundays, but at some point the anxiety usually strikes. Its severity is lessening over time, though, as I try to face my fears.

I know people are going to suggest I join some organization or another and meet new people. That however, is easier said than done. I am a shy person. It takes me time to warm up to people. That makes people think I am standoffish. I get nervous and I try, but I’m just not very good with people I don’t know.

When you are single, I guess loneliness is part of life. It will get better as I get used to being alone again. Honestly, I just wish I could go home more than once a year. It might also help if I had my cats with me. At least my cats would provide me with some companionship.

In the immortal words of Britney Spears:

My loneliness is killing me (and I)
I must confess, I still believe (still believe)
When I’m not with you I lose my mind
Give me a sign
Hit me, baby, one more time

Well, my visit to the dentist went well. I had some pain once the numbness wore off but not too bad. Also, the tooth looks great. I was expecting an ugly amalgam (silver) filling but he did a composite filling to make it look like there was no filling at all. I wonder how my insurance will react to that. When I looked at my policy, they cover composite fillings only for anterior teeth and this was my far back tooth. He didn’t ask and I didn’t mention it because I’ve never had a dentist do a composite filling on a back tooth before. I trust this dentist knew what he was doing, since I’m sure he deals with my insurance company the most. I do work for the town’s largest employer. I will worry about that when the bill comes.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions about Montreal. While this will be a one day trip, I plan to come up by myself and at least spend the weekend at another time. I’ve been waiting for winter to be over before I did too much traveling.

I’ve gotten better about driving. Since my friend died in an auto accident, I’ve had several panic attacks while driving, but that has slowly gotten better. When I drove to Massachusetts and Connecticut for work, I did just fine, so I’m hoping that’s one side effect of that awful tragedy that is getting better. I think it also helps that I am on an anti-anxiety medication.

Friday night, I have a special dinner to attend. It is one in which I am required to wear a suit and I can’t decide which one I should wear: the gray one or the blue one. I’m leaning more towards the gray, but I also like the blue. Which would you pick?

  
I’m looking forward to the weekend and to this work week being over with. It’s been a busy and stressful week, and sadly next week looks like it won’t be any different.

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,” or so said Benjamin Franklin. I went to bed super early last night, but not sure I woke up this morning healthier, wealthier, or wiser. It just means that I went to bed early last night and forgot to write a post for today.