I don't know why exactly my blogging has fallen completely off the map.  For a while, I was writing nearly every day.  I don't know if I've become a less interesting person, or more introspective, or maybe just lazier.  I think I'll go with lazier.

Oftentimes I write on this blog about the unfortunate sides to living in Montgomery (and there are many), but in the interests of being "fair and balanced" (ha!), I feel compelled to discuss a few stories from the other side.  The other day, I went to get a leaky tire patched at a repair shop, and the shop was able to take my car as I was standing there and fix it in no time flat (no pun intended), which *never* happened when I lived in Boston.  They also (without asking) checked the pressure in all the other tires and filled those that were a little low.  I then went to get a replacement car key at the local hardware store, and although they didn't have the right blank, the local locksmith just happened to be at the hardware store (again, small town).  He made me a duplicate from his truck, and when I realized I didn't have any cash, I asked him to hold the key until I could go to an ATM, but he just laughed and said, "just come to me the next time you need a key made."  I then took my car to the wash, where I was able to vacuum the car for free and got an exterior wash and dry for $4.  $4!  I then went to the grocery store and to work out, and in both places ran into people I knew (and liked).  All of this goes to the "small town feel" that Montgomery has, for better and for worse.  And sometimes I forget to accentuate the positive or realize that there is positive in nearly every place, no matter how limited in other respects.

Once again, I've been traveling, which leads often to material for blog posts.  I don't really want to talk about the reason that took me to Chicago, as it's still painful in my mind and it won't be helped by talking about it any further, so instead I'll comment on a few things from my travel time:

• While in the men's bathroom in Memphis, I was using the urinal when another man stepped up next to me and started using the adjacent urinal.  He then looked in my direction and muttered, "F**cking lawyer".  I don't know quite how he knew; did I pee in an over-litigious way?

• I split a hotel room with my friend Amit from college, in order to save some cash.  At one point we were waiting for the elevator when we overheard a man talking to the front desk about the hours for the free hotel breakfast.  After he got in the elevator, I told him not to eat the eggs, because they were a) not real; and b) practically inedible.  Amit and I talked to him for maybe 15 seconds while riding up in the elevator, and as Amit and I were exiting the elevator, the guy smiles and says, "Good sex!"  That is one hell of a presumption.

In other news, have I mentioned lately that I'm really, really sick of flying?  You know you've flown too much when the automated airport messages are the soundtrack to your dreams.  And yet I have to fly once next month (CT), once in May (CT again), once in June (New Mexico), and once in July (New Mexico again).   I want to be a moss-gatherer, as opposed to a stone doomed to rolling (2 points for anyone who catches the reference).

As I've mentioned before, travel makes me contemplative. It's probably a function of several things: the fact that there is some amount of time of "forced relaxation", such as during takeoff when electronics are banned; seeing so many different people walk through the airport and wondering about their lives; and not talking to anyone for a good portion of the travel day. Sometimes I find these days to be the ones where I realize the enormity of the gap between who I really am and who I often wish I was. Anyway, here are some random fragments that found their way into my thoughts:

• While we were airbourne yesterday, I stared out the window of the plane at the white nothingness all around us. It was particularly bright, and unchanging. My eyes couldn't penetrate its whiteness, and no matter how much the plane bounced around (which it was doing a lot), the whiteness never changed. The thought popped into my head that this is like my conception of death: my mind can only imagine this whiteness, but not what's beyond it, if anything.
• I've noticed more and more airports have rocking chairs, even Reagan National. I wonder whether this is a concession to the aging Boomers.
• It occurred to me that when one is on a plane and they tell you (during the safety instructions) to put on your own mask before helping others, it is one of the few times in life when we're ordered to be selfish.
• Sometimes I am plagued by a desperate desire to prove myself in order to be praised and a concomitant, deep shame if such praise is bestowed. "It's human", people say to me all the time, but I don't know. It leads me once again to wonder whether we ever truly know if we do good things for the right reasons, or whether there even are right reasons.

Lately, I've found that traveling leaves me feeling very contemplative, which is conducive to writing blog posts. I have a lot of travel coming up, which is fortunate for you, my avid readers. :)

So this past weekend I was in Portland, Oregon to help draft a new Uniform Law on partition. I've blogged about this before in great detail and won't go into it again, except to say that it's an issue that causes thousands of families (primarily African-American) to have their ancestral land stolen from them. What's interesting to me is that every appointed person on the drafting committee is white; the only black person in the room was brought by our Heirs' Property Retention Coalition (which advocates for actual family members). Not only that, but the entity that drafts uniform laws (it's called "NCCUSL") was doing a whole bunch of other laws this same weekend, and every person on every committee that I saw was white. Without exception. And nearly all male, too. You talk about examples of who really controls the country, and this is it. Fortunately, some people at NCCUSL seem to recognize this deficiency, and one high-up person at NCCUSL asked me to help them think out how to get more advocacy groups to come to come. I told her the problem is that most groups can't afford to pay for airfare and hotel and all that, so they might need to help. My Coalition is fortunate in that we have (or had, at this point; we've used it up) a travel grant to come to these meetings.

One of the hard things for me at the meetings on a personal level is that I don't get a lot of respect. This is partially due to the fact that I'm at least 15 years younger than anyone else there, but it's also because in this environment I'm not good at being a dispassionate advocate; I tend to get emotional. I think it's because I get so mad at the business people who are trying to shoot this proposal down, 'cause some of them just don't care about poor people at all. But such strenuous advocacy tends to diminish one's effectiveness. The other people there are who are on my "side" are much more effective, but I take some consolation in knowing that I'm a big part of the reason why we're all there.

Okay, back to being contemplative. Random thoughts from my trip:

• I love the Portland airport, as it's so well-organized and calm and spread out. Plus they have a place that sells garden (i.e., veggie) sausage hoagies with marinara and parmesan. Delicious.
• At one point at the Portland airport, I heard a Philadelphia band called the Hooters playing on the PA system of one of the restaurants. I grew up listening to them, but have hardly ever heard them when I've been out and about.
• The Dallas airport does not engender the same serene feelings as Portland, and for some odd reason, there were a number of birds hopping around the floor in one of the terminals. I wonder how airport life works out for them.
Overheard in one of the men's bathrooms, said by a guy talking on his cellphone: "I measured myself and lost 1/2 inch since the last time." TMI, no matter what it means.
• The sound of my suitcase wheels going over the tiles in the Dallas airport is exactly the same sound and rhythm as the start of a song on one of the Chemical Brothers albums.
• In Portland, everyone's young, everyone walks, and 1 out of every 2 people seems to have a dog.
• I'm a member of Hertz Club Gold (a benefit of being an ABA member), and when I was checking out my car, I marked off on the car status form that one of the doors had some scratches on it. As I was pulling out, I tried to give them the form but they said they didn't need it. I said, "But how do I prove those scratches aren't mine?", to which the agent replied, "we don't bother with that stuff for Gold members." Ahhhh.
• Salem, Oregon bears a strong resemblance to London in terms of the fog. In fact, it has to be the foggiest place I've ever seen. I visited downtown Salem, or at least I *think* I did, but I'm not really sure because I just couldn't see where the heck I was going. It's an odd, patchy fog.

Okay, I've definitely become very cynical as far as politics go, but I found myself very moved by Obama's speech last night and it's hard to imagine anyone feeling differently. He's such a powerful orator, utilizing both his community organizing background and almost a gospel-like cadence that you can just ride on until he's done. I don't know precisely what the future holds, but I'm no longer fearing to find out.

I would've been more pleased if my friend Josh Segall (who was running for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 3rd District) had managed to pull out a victory, but he made it far closer than anyone would have ever dreamed.

Oddly, at the same time as Obama's success shattered some of the racial boundaries in our country, others continued to persist. From the NY Times: "Among the more unusual measures on this year's ballots was one in Florida that would repeal an old clause in the state constitution that allows legislators to bar Asian immigrants from owning land. The repeal would be symbolic, as equal protection laws would prevent lawmakers from applying the ban. With 78 percent of precincts reporting just before 11 p.m. Tuesday, the vote was close, with 52 percent voting to preserve the clause." Good grief.

Today I went to the Kenan's Mill Festival in Selma, Alabama.  I try to go to some of the more unusual events in Alabama so that ... well, so that I have some material for these blogs.  Anyway, this particular festival featured a demonstration of the grist mill in action, which actually was totally interesting.  The mill, which is powered by water and which grinds corn, is over a hundred years old, and as the guy working the machine commented, "it's very labour intensive."  Apparently the mill went out of production in 2002, and now mills just twice a year (about 300 pounds each time).  Watching him fiddle with all the wheels and knobs and such was like watching Phileas Fogg in action.  Anyway, we watched the corn meal being made, and then we (being my friend Robin and I) each purchased a bag of the just-milled corn.  We then went and sat on hay bales (no joke) and listened to quite good bluegrass while Robin ate something called "Hoppin' John", which has black-eyed peas and ham hocks.  And no visit to an out-of-the-way festival in Alabama would be complete without getting lost on the way back, and folks, using run-down barns, cows, and hay bales as markers in Alabama is a recipe for failure.  Fortunately, we found our way and located a gas station just before I ran out of gas.  I will truly miss experiences like this if (when!) I depart for parts-unknown-but-known-to-be-more-openminded-than-Alabama.

Okay, I've decided it's time for me to do a photo caption contest. Here is the photo (which, by the way, is not a doctored pic, but is an actual photo from the end of the last debate, when the candidates were leaving the stage):

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The winning caption (emailed to me or posted as a comment) gets special recognition in my next post.

While I'm (sort of) on the subject of politics, here is a warning about straight ticket voting, a type of voting that can inadvertently lead you in some states to not cast a vote for a presidential candidate.

On Tuesday of this past week, my cousin Mel, who was 90 and truly the patriarch of my family, passed away after battling cancer. Some people say, "he was 90 years old but your cousin?" Well, not my first cousin, obviously; my grandfather Ben was his uncle. Actually, as it turns out, I'm blood-related to both my cousin Mel and his wife (aunt Bev), a sort of "family tree doesn't fork enough" situation that makes me fit in well in the South.

So cousin Mel was a pretty special person. To wit, he did all of the following things after serving in the U.S. Army, opening/running a series of childrens' clothing stores for 25 years, and retiring in 1983 at age 65:

• He began studying theater and art, and started performing in shows.
• He became an avid painter, and his paintings hang in homes all around Pittsburgh.
• He became president of the Monroeville Arts Council.
• He volunteered to teach art to high school kids, which earned him an award from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
• After losing both of his sons to AIDS, he became a tireless supporter of the Shepherd Wellness Community and founded a support group called "Jews With AIDS in the Family".
• He hit a hole-in-one at age 81.
• He was bar mitzvah'd at age 83.

In other words, he's done 10 times more during his "retirement" than I have done and can ever hope to do in the peak years of my life. It's humbling, but also inspiring.

Anyway, his funeral was today at the temple, and we had an hour prior to the funeral for people to visit with the family, but it wasn't enough time: hundreds of people showed, and the waiting line for visitation was out the door almost the whole time. There were people there from the Wellness Committee, from his art classes, from the theatre, from the Arts Council, from his general circle of friends, from... you get the idea. As one person put it, once a person came into Mel's life, they stayed in. And the people who came were of all different ages, races, backgrounds ... I was just floored.

So I was with the family as we greeted visitors, and even though I only came back into Mel's life within the last year or two, and even though I was just a cousin, a number of people told me that Mel had talked to them about me. That made me a bit misty. Some other observations from the visitation period:

• After shaking about 300 hands, I can attest that a number of people have really creepy, unpleasant handshakes that make you want to stick your hand in a hot flame. These handshakes fall into the "lumpy/knuckly" category, the "limper than a dead mackerel" category, or the "I hope that's your hand I'm shaking" category.
  
• A germophobe would not do well in such an event.
• My cousin Steven (who's about 60) stood next to me, and Mel was his uncle (Steven's father was Melvin's brother). At first, Steven introduced himself to people by saying, "Uncle Mel was my father's brother", to which I pointed out, "if he was your uncle, then doesn't that pretty much mean that he was your father's brother?" Then he started saying, "Uncle Mel was my uncle", which was worse. Finally, he resorted to "Mel was my uncle", which I accepted. I then later realized that in fact Mel could have been his uncle by virtue of being his mother's brother, so I determined to keep my mouth shut as far as future deailngs with familial relationship status, given that I cannot usually sort out such relationships without some sort of genealogical GPS.

As far as my uncle's work with the AIDS group, he once commented, "You know, this work has really made me a better person. But I truly wish I could have my sons back and have remained a terrible person."

I was glad to be a part of this whole experience, and my family is so embracing and welcoming. They always make it seem like they're so privileged just to have me there, as if I've done them some great honour. It embarrassed me at first because I thought it to be a sly dig at my absence over the years, but I've come to realize that it's just what they say it is and nothing more. I hadn't realized there was family like that.