I'm encouraged by all the people who are ready to keep fighting for the future. It's the right idea, I think, because if too many of us quit and the country goes down the shitter it won't matter where you live. If the US goes down in a blaze of facistic hegimon glory, she'll take a fuckload of other nations and people with her. We'd all like to retire to the shire, but it's not a realistic option, especially if you think about having kids.

That's a dark train of thought, but it's where my head goes sometimes these days. I'm struggling. The most important thing is to stop stuggling. My campaign is over. Halfway around the world 10,000 Marines are getting ready to storm a hostile city. Life will go on for me and hopefully most of them. Ugh. It's bad.

I think "emotionally fragile" is the term for my current state of mind, body and soul. Wild mood swings; ups and downs. The other night walking the dark wooded street in Berkeley, watching airplains make their slow arcs and listening to Tom Waits sing about the Heart of Saturday Night was a moment of deep dispair, almost cosmic and transcendent sorrow. Today walking from Valencia Cycles to the bank backed by Toots and 54-46 (that's my number) I had bounce and humor. So it goes.

Art, man. Art! How fucking long has it been since I made art? Too long. Art and love, yeah... but we don't talk a lot about the latter. Been kinda keeping that on the back burner for some time now. Easier that way. I don't know whether or not to believe in sexual healing, but I sure as hell have that feeling. Not that there's a damn thing I can do about it, but there it is.

I don't know where to turn or which way to go. Politics isn't much of a crisis to be honest with you -- I see the way forward there -- but that's no longer such a big deal, no longer a central organizing principle of my existence. With more time to myself, I'm confronted with all I've neglected. So much has fallen by the wayside in the past year, I find myself now looking out over barren territory, lacking in purpose, connection, meaning.

I hit up friendster tonight and in the random gallery clickthrough I realized I already knew two of the girls who I thought were cute on the first page that came up, and then I found out I'm connected to the girl I made out with in Boston through Ben Newman and PeeWee Herman. Oh man. It's that kind of night.

So tell me, oh wise one; what does an outlandish young man do in these times, when he feels beaten, old, confused... I'm open to suggestions. I'm already headed back to NYC for a spell, so that might charge me up a little. But really; if you know any good books, movies, CDs, restaurants, vistas, or hangouts, I'm all ears.

There's this great painting in the Brooklyn MfA office that Joe Felice made sort of by accident. We were spray-paint stenceling a lot of binders to send out volunteer manuals, and a stencel covered in wet red and gold paint fell onto a piece of paper, leaving an outline of our logo in fiery blurred color with other bits of paint spattered about at random. Joe picked it up, recognizing the value of a nice found piece. In small red letters, he finger painted the words, "Today I Learned To Fight" in the bottom right quadrant of the paper.

I've been thinking about that piece of paper a lot lately.

I believe we can fight and I believe we can win. I'll be continuing in this for the near future as my professional occupation, and no matter where my life takes me, I don't think there's any going back to apathy or ignorance.

We will need to play hardball for a few years to keep things from getting fucked up. This means, for instance, we might need to go to the remaining 45 Democratic senators (41 of whom can block judicial nominations) and tell them if they compromise our future for the sake of their political career, we will burn them down; which we can now credibly claim to do.

We will need to stage some very media-savvy protest actions. Here's a hint: ANSWER isn't the answer, but there are smart ways to use political theater to shape the national discourse.

We will need some people to run for office; lay in some ground floor talent. We will need some people to help raise money through benefit parties and the like. We will need research, rhetoric, and most of all the paitence and committment to develop a clear set of principles which we can use to grow our numbers.

But we can do all these things. And we will. And it will be enjoyable work for the most part. The reality is we are coming from way behind in this fight. But we are learning and building and we have room to grow; they do not. And so if we want to, we can win.

My friend Laura Mannino who makes funny things happen back in NYC got interviewed on the Gothamist Blog. Sweet!

For the record, I'm not seriously considering moving to another country. That's a really difficult thing to do. What I am considering is a red state road trip this summer, and being part of an orgnized movement to reform the Democratic party.

We've all earned some down time; so I'll be moving a little slower and leaning into the melancholy for a while. If you're so inclined, go ahead and do it too.