TGIF

I was face down on my desk when I decided I really, really need a coke. I told my co-workers I was leaving and would be back. I had to go off campus because I believed I had no change. Or cash or anything else a vending machine might take in trade.

As I was walsking out of my office I checked my jacket pocket, Hallelujah! 55 cents in change! I checked my wallet again and found a dime! Saint’s be Praised! I didn’t have to go off campus and risk losing my parking spot! I would be able to score my fix in my own building. Woo-Hoo!

I went down to the closet where they hide our coke machine and fed it my change. It obediently spit out a coke. A half filled coke.

Grrrrrrrrrr. Cursing.

I stomped back upstairs to my office, told/shrieked my tale of woe to anyone who was listening, collected my purse and went off campus to the gas station and kissed my good parking space good-bye. I headed to what I believed was the closest gas station, it was not the closest gas station, the other gas station I think is closer, I could tell this because I had to time to think about the relative distances while I on the way there. If it were the closest gas station I wouldn’t have had time for that much analytical thought about relative distances. Anyway. I went into the more-distant-then-anticipated gas station and bought a coke and some raisins, natures own speed and went to check out. $3.67! Coke owes me $3.02and gas money. As I was walking back to my car I was able to right a garbage can that the wind had just knocked over and thus saved the world.

Coke does not owe me a parking spot because I got mine back. Yay.

I didn’t go to my ACORN meeting Wednesday night. I just didn’t want to go. I could have gone but I had baking for actual human beings to do and while I could have done that same baking Thursday night, I wanted to do it Wednesday night. I also think that the meetings are a big pile of time waste and I would go to them freely if going to them was proving something. So far so not, I feel an obligation to attended the meetings but I don’t want to be there.

It also annoys me that in the meetings the phrase “the community” is used over and over. The Community Needs To…, The Community Should… The Community Deserves… Members of the Community… It does not mean the people who live in the area, it’s shorthand for the poor black folks in southeast Raleigh who have historically been used and abused when they weren’t being ignored. Times have changed, there are a whole lot of different people in the area who are being used and abused and ignored as well. Being reminded over and over I am not a member of "the community" does not make me not feel a part of The Community.

The leader guy wants us to lead, we aren’t leaders. We want him to tell us what to do but he's not talking. He's "facilitating" he wants us to come up with ideas and we are idea free. I think most of us would at least attempt whatever was asked of us but he wants us to come up with our own projects. If we could come up with our own projects we wouldn’t need him or his meetings. We want a magic wand and he keeps his locked in his trunk. He seems to believe that we have magic wands of our own or together we can achieve magic wands or something. I have miss placed my magic wand fragment.