It's a blustery day and Basho is shaking. The wind started kicking up last night and the front door creaked and creaked and Basho planted himself on top of me while I slept. I woke up and he was almost paralyzed by fear. Sheesh. I've been attempting to do all the things one is supposed to do to help a scared pooch get over his fear--i.e. ignoring the shaking, trying to get him up and rambunctious over his stuffed animals, not cooing and comforting him (which teaches him that he should be scared), etc. Still, here is, at my feet, shaking in his boots. He follows me around, can't stand to not be touching me, won't eat, won't drink. It's weird--he's normally so relaxed, even when big scary noises are all around--fireworks? No big. Thunder? Whatever. But wind? Oooooh. Full-blown phobic reaction. I hate it.

I slept like the dead last night. I had intended to get up super early again and hike, but instead, I slept 10 hours straight through. I feel great, but I think I won't be hiking. I have tentative plans to go to the movies with Timalina this afternoon and have definite plans to finish my reading and grading for class.

Long talks with my folks yesterday. My mom described Dan's presence at home: "his despair is a cloak covering us all." He doesn't sleep, he drinks more than you can imagine, his anxiety is so bad that he begins to shake just thinking about going to work, he talks about his wake (he wants us all to be drunk and happy), he doesn't read, he barely writes. It's bad. The one crack of hope: he said he wanted to get on some medication--no talking therapy, but he did agree to a psychiatrist. His first appointment is next week. My mom sounded so relieved when she told me this. I'm so relieved. Dan is drowning down there. He needs a lifeline. I talked with both of my parents yesterday at different times and both said, independently, how great it was that Dan got up that morning and made his special marinade for some chicken and that he seemed happy. That's when I got really scared--hearing how glad my dad was that Dan was up and in a good mood--my dad never says things like that. I feel a strong need to be home.

My dad and I then proceeded to get into a fight over affirmative action. That was unpleasant. Ok. It wasn't really a fight--but we do disagree and I didn't like it. My dad was a civil rights activist back in the day and I was shocked to find out that he is opposed to affirmative action. He's on a search committee at work and he's pissed at the EEO officer on the committee. We spent a good hour and a half on the phone talking about this and I still feel rather unsettled. It's weird--I think we do agree on this, practically speaking, but he just can't stand the idea of affirmative action. He then began to sing the poor white man song and I almost lost it. That's when the discussion turned into a fight and I told him maybe he would like to discuss his enlightened ideas with Trent Lott. I think I really hurt his feelings. But then we all calmed down and we started talking in calmer voices and by the end I feel like we actually got somewhere. He thought it would be really good idea to have a forum at his school on race relations. I think so too--it sounded like there was a lot of miscommunication and resentments that were building there. I was distressed, he was distressed, but I hope something good will come out of it.

I think what it comes down to is that bureaucracy is never good at implementing real change. I got the impression from my dad that many people don't understand the purpose or value of affirmative action--just that they are told they have to do it and if they have a problem with it then they're racist. People, I think, need to learn about this stuff if they're to be expected to implement it. People should have a forum to talk about it, to ask the questions they are afraid to ask now. A couple of years ago I took a class in oral history in Chapel Hill and we focused our work on the desegregation of Chapel Hill. I interviewed a woman who was 12 years old when forced desegregation happened and listening to her talk about its affect on her was chilling. No one talked to those kids--white or black--or those teachers about why this had to happen. They were just expected to do it. So much pain and resentment came out of that. Same thing with many affirmative actions programs, it seems like. It seems so basic--people need to know why, to be able to talk about their fears or their pain or their history. Nobody's going to understand anything otherwise.

Anyway. Blah.

Right. I've much work to do and at this point, I am officially procrastinating. Good day.