My Decade – A Brief Walk Through the Disaster that is my Memory

I toyed with the idea of coming up with various top whatever lists for the year and for the decade. But in reality others with more time and inclination will do a much better job of summarizing the various odds,  ends and foibles of the past decade of human civilization better then I. Ergo, I have simply attempted to pull from my rather clogged up and muddle mind the key points of my decade. I think, perhaps, somethings are out of order or misplaced. This my friends is why I need an intern, personal archivist or that nifty spell they use in Harry Potter to pull memories out of brains to store them in little jars to be revisited at ones leisure.

Thusly I present M.bot’s decade in review. A rambling and stumbling look at what I’ve been up to these last 10 years of my life. Complete with huge holes and glaring inaccuracies. Please feel free to add, fill in blanks, question and comment as you see fit.

Onward!

2000:

• 1st year of college at the University of Montana in Missoula
• My mother stocked up for Y2K. Including purchasing 50 gallon drums of water and burying things in the back yard. Got me stoked for the end of the world.

2001

• Rock climbed most of the year in all points south of Montana and in Kentucky. Had a blast. Don’t think I did much school work.
• Dropped out of Business school and nearly failed a class on Buddhism
• Had boiling water poured down my back, sustaining 2nd and 3rd degree burns. Got to stay home in Spokane for a while with my cat and best friend, Charlie.

2002

• Hell if I know.
• Would sit on the side of Mount Jumbo and listen to the herds of elk move through the saddle.
• Went to DC for the IMF/WB protests

2003

• Finished college with a degree in sociology. Had to talk my way into the degree since I technically didn’t have the appropriate credits. A kindly secretary in the department finally signed off on my graduation application.
  
• Left Montana and wouldn’t return for 8 long years.
  
• Got a job at Payless Shoes. I opened new stock and prepared it for display. I used to try on all the shoes.
  
• Went to the IMF/WB protests in DC and the big anti-war demos happening there in the build up the invasion of Iraq.
  
• Moved to Olympia, WA to work for  the State Fisheries, Ecology and Parks Committee. Still don’t know what it is I did for them. But got paid well.
  
• Didn’t eat anything  past 7pm for a whole year because Oprah said it was a healthy thing to do.
  
• Lived with my brothers band. The living room was a recording studio so I had to crawl out my window and walk around the outside of the house and in the kitchen door to get food.
  
• Moved to California and bummed around for a bit.
  
• Traveled to Cancun for the WTO protests (though Mike M. doesn’t believe me because he didn’t see me there).
  
• Seeing Lee the Korean farmer kill himself on the gate surrounding the WTO meetings was perhaps one of the most formative moments in my life as an activist. Drove it home that everything we work for and believe in is because people’s lives are at stake.
  
• Moved to DC!

2004

• Moved into a really creepy and stressful house in Eastern Market with 14 other people. I lived in a closet for a while.
  
• Caused a ruckus with pals and the Mobilization for Global Justice (MGJ).
  
• Picketed the CAFTA negotiations everyday at the Mayflower Hotel. What fun!
  
• Made Lots of new and lovable friends (Fuzzy, Rachele, Matt, Basav, Catherine, Kieth, Lisa, Tia, Jeff, Kristine, Sarah, John, Lori and so many more to come!)
• traveled to Haiti after Aristide was over thrown in a coup.
  
• Celebrated 50th birthday of the World Bank by throwing a party with friends in the Lobby. Rewrote the lyrics to Happy Birthday for the occasion. Something about 50 years of death and destruction.
  
• 1st of many times I would be thrown out of the Bank and/or IMF.
  
• Party Liberation Front does an anti capitalist action during the RNC in NYC on Wall Street. Gets us all thrown in Jail. Most successful unsuccessful action owing to the fact that the police (including the chief of police) reacted with such numbers that they shut down the area more effectively then we ever could.
  
• Turns out the PLF was  infiltrated by a undercover cop named Sammy. That’s how the police new we were coming. Woops!

2005

• Went to Porto Alegre, Brazil for the World Social Forum with my pal Matt. We had to pretend to be married in order to share a room at the Jesuit hostel.
• Moved into Catherine and Basav’s amazing basement. Best house I ever lived in while in DC. The very best! I even became part of their adoption process as a member of the household. Went to immigration, had an FBI background check, the works. Now they have little Ranvita and I feel like an aunt!
• Purchased my most beloved red and silver Jamis bicycle. A “bad ass commuter” as the guy at Landry’s bicycles says.
  
• Went out on the road for an epic tour with  Cindy Sheehan and co. from Military Families Speak out doing media. 30 days in a Winnebago with some seriously stressed out military families and vets.  Another reason I pop up in google searches a lot. Mostly being disparaged on right wing blogs.
  
• Got a  plot at the Blair Road Community Garden with John, Lori, Fuzzy and Tia. The place swelled to three plots and became my oasis in the city and a sort of refuge from the grind.
  
• Helped form the DC Resistance Media Collective which among other things did some bang-up media around the 2005 Inauguration protests. The DCRMC is partly responsible for the ridiculous number of times I come up when search on google.
  
• Did media and comms at the inauguration and along with lots of other people was doused in copious amounts of chemical agents by some over zealous, trigger happy DC cops. The incident would lead to a law suit which change DC police policy to heavily restrict the use of chemical weapons. Go us!
  

2006

• Another hell if I know kind of year.
  
• Joined the National Conference of Organized Resistance (NCOR) Collective.
• worked in the media office at the School of the Americas protests in Fort Benning, GA.
  
• gardened a lot at the community garden
• didn’t work for a while
• got pretty sick actually – for a long, long time. Might still be sick actually.
• Worked briefly at a Big NGO (BINGO) and failed at the bureaucracy.

2007

• Began traveling a lot between DC and California to spend a lot of time with my dad.
  
• went to Germany with a pal for the kick’n protests of the G8 – marched through miles of wheat fields, out ran a German water cannon(!), broke through not one but 5 police lines to successfully blockade the G8 summit. It was crazy! Pictures!
  
• quit my job
• moved into a crappy, crazy house – no idea why I gave up on the good ole basement.
  
• went to the first United States Social Forum in Atlanta. It was amazing! So very inspiring.
  
• I was diagnosed with asthma which I still blame on Atlanta.
• Became friends with V-suds after she decided I was cool and not trying to destroy MOB’s life. Now we’re all chummy as can be.
  

2008

• Didn’t work any sort of regular job.
• spent a lot of time in California with my dad.
• worked a lot at the DC Infoshop, trying save it from closing. Kind of like trying to save Beta from VHS.
  
• helped to curate the Expressions of Nakba exhibit for the 60th anniversary of the disposition of Palestinian lands.
  
• Performed “My Palestinian Pen Pal” puppet show with Anna for kids.
  
• Asylum vegan cheese fries make a come back and my gut doth protest!
• Did a rock’n action with some wonderful folks to protest the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war. Pictures!
• No War No Warming mobilization in DC keeps me busy but not too busy.
  
• Decided to move to Boston
  
• My dad passed away
• I spend the summer in California with the family
• I actually make the move to Boston into the finest house I could have dreamed to live in.
• I started my first real job in 2 years

2009

• enroll in Boston Universities Graduate school of Social Work for reasons only known to the gods. Best I can tell I need some way to better structure my time.
• Adjust, and readjust a million times over to emerging new realities and life courses that I encounter in a life post my father.
  
• Have many a New England adventure including apple picking, the Stonehenge of the Americas and a village made from Jelly Belly’s.
  
• Holy cow! Mahsa and I canoe the 740 mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail in 35 days. You better believe there are pictures!
• Decide Twitter is the Jam
• Miss DC friends fiercely!
• Begin to plot next big scheme (shhhhhhh, its top secret and involves goggles).
• Plane gets hit by lightening thus I stop flying all together and take a train across the country to see my family.
  
• see to wolves while passing through Montana and remember how gloriously beautiful the west is.

The end of the m.Bot decade! Phew! What do I have planned for the next decade. Oh boy! That is another list in the making that will include the resurrection of my zine and more blog posts.

Memo – Random

Bot Robotics International
World Head Quarters
1 Pegasus Way
Botland, MA 02130

Memorandum

Date: 10/28/2009
Fr.: m.Bot
To: mahsa.Bot, Powlsy
Re: Failure

It has come to my attention that a system wide failure with the class 1 AI m.Bot 2.0.1 was experienced last night – Tuesday, October 27, 2009. The exact time of the failure is unknown. Our technicians speculate that it began in the early morning and continued throughout the day.

The tracking mechanism is installed in all Class 1 AI m.Bot models. The tracking mechanism in the unit it question registered it to be at Bot Robotics International World Headquarters at 1 Pegasus Way as of 7:00am on Tuesday, October 27. After that the whereabouts of the unit are unknown.

The unit was recovered, after extensive searching by our technicians, at the BU Library at 771 Commonwealth Avenue.  The unit was found to be in confused and disoriented state. Technicians removed the unit and returned it to Headquarters at 1 Pegasus Way for deactivation and repair.

Unfortunately the defect which caused this incident still eludes the technicians. A programming update for the Class 1 AI m.Bot is being developed. Hopefully this will improve the ability to track the Class 1 AI m.Bot. Technicians also intend to improve the communication capabilities of the Class 1 AI m.Bot model so it can transmit information about system functioning, failures and status updates more frequently.

Of concern to us is that the Class 1 AI m.Bot involved in this incident, m.Bot 2.0.1, was expected at your place of residence. We apologize for any inconvenience the system failure of the m.Bot in question may have caused you. I would ask that you assist in the upgrade of the m.Bot in question by sending any suggestions for the technicians you may have.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter.

 

Sincerely,
m.Bot Primus

 

Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

Grrrrowl!

This Monday night was perhaps one of the best nights of my life thus far. The founder of  great organization called 826 Boston which does writing and tutoring programs for youth is also Dave Eggers…you know the kickn’ author whose also just a little deamy? Well, Mr. Eggers also wrote the screenplay for the new Where the Wild Things Are movie. As a benefit for 826 Boston (and other 826’s around the country) they held a spcial screening of the movie at the big theater downtown.

Preparations for this amazing evening of entertainment began weeks ago as we planned our costumes. Yes our costumes. It goes without saying that my friends and I would be dressing up.

We cut and sewed and stitched and glued for almost 10 hours the Sunday before the screening. We inhaled a lot of fake fur all the while. But boy oh boy was it worth it!

Mahsa was Carol and I was Max - which is so true in real life

We arrived at the theater to find it packed and without many people in costume. So we took our seats and began to dress up. It didn’t take long for people to start to look and laugh. One guy said we were 1000% awesome. I couldn’t agree more!

But the truely best and most awesome moment came when the man, Mr. Dave Eggers himslef complimented us on our costumes! Oh swoon! He even gave us a shout out in the opening Q&A. Yeah!

What you can't see is that we all have really fuzzy long tails too

It was one heck of a splendid evening. Plus the movie was so well done and wonderful. Oh, I think I could go on and on about how it relates to our radical communities and organizing circles and our endless searches for fruitful and everlasting communities to sustain us….sigh. We are Wild Things and in the end if we aren’t careful we’ll just smoosh each other and tear off each others wings.

Oh and the part where we made fools of ourselves (but still had fun) was when we went wild rumpusing in front of the movie screen trying to get everyone to growl.

The Impending Hatching of a Baby Snuffleupagus

Oh boy! I bet you didn’t know that Boston is the the only place on earth where snuffleupagus’ are born. Its true and I have chosen the best time to move to Boston too. This year I will be able to witness a once in 50 year event: the hatching of the snuffleupagus’

The big day should be arriving soon. I would guess by the size of the snuffleupagus pods hanging in the trees that it’ll be a matter of weeks.

Of similar curiosity is the recent development that has the trees in the park ozzing small  plastic containers. I have yet to figure that one out. But my prevailing theory is that the trees are trying to appeal to young people by looking more hip.

Check out the snuffleupagus pods!