portoBlog

This entry was written using my portoBlog. It isn't entirely honest to call it my portBlog as the Powerbook I am using belongs to AU. They do let me use it at home and so calling it mine for the purposes of this Blog aren't entirely misleading. To reinforce this point that hardly need be made at all is that fact that I thought to call it a portoBlog and am the only person who Blogs on it. So there... It is my portoBlog.

For the last two weeks I have lived and worked in Washington, DC. Go back and read that last sentance for emphasis. I live at 1414 17th Street NW in apartment 701 (shameless promotion of my address so please send me mail) and work at Americans United for Separation of Church and State as the WebMaster. Despite the slight mysogeny of my title, it is shaping up to be a great job filled with opportunities at creativity and a real chance to help an organization that I deeply care about.

I was scheduled to start work February 1st but when I read through the hiring materials I realized that health insurance coverage doesn't start until the first of the month following my start date. To start on February 1st would then doom me to a month on the uninsured rolls. Even if such a roll existed and despite the fact that being on it would lend me as a number to the cause of nationalized health care, I think it is important to have health insurance. Jason, the HR guy, and I e-mailed back and forth for a bit and he got permission to shift my start date to January 29th.

Julie and I flew out Friday the 25th (causing her to miss a Friday and a Monday of classes) to help us move into our apartment. We spent the weekend going back and forth to IKEA buying and exchanging defective furniture interupted only long enough to assemble it. By the time Monday afternoon rolled around for Julie to leave we had successfully constructed an apartment. As can be expected a tearful departure ensued and the last weeks have been spent helping eachother to make it through this transition period. I find that it is easier because we know that we will be living together again in a few months.

To pass the time before starting on the 29th, I wandered the city in search of a ruckus to raise. This took the form of seeing Chicago and eating dinner with left wingers. The closest I came to a ruckus was the protest outside the capital which was supposed to be about the State of the Union but you wouldn't have known that being there. A small group of people, maybe a few hundred, stood out in the cold listening to bands while watching the state of union on a screen by way a CBS, a camcorder watching CBS, and a cheap projector. I have never before so appreciated close captioning. Sadly the deaf are doomed to believe that most public speaches contain strings of repeating letters and basic ASCII characters.

I managed to contain my excitement and get some sleep Tuesday night before starting work. If I remember correctly I even overslept a little and got to work late; what a good start. Those first three days raced by. I wasn't really given a chance to settle in. The server had crashed the weekend of my move-in and I had to pick up the pieces of that crisis and prepare for the board meeting the following Monday and Tuesday. While I was sitting in my office Thursday night after the office closed Barry came in and we chatted about television, movies, NPR, and the web. Then Friday morning brought a meeting with Joe about short term goals for the site. This combination of meetings eliminated any reservations I had about accepting the position and I spent the weekend coming to that conclusion.

The board meeting, while far better than it had been built up to be, was a bath in strategic planning jargon and flip-chart paper. This was to be the final session of the strategic planning process (I came at just the right time). The website (code for my job) is one of the top strategic goals. During the two days of meetings I really got a feel for how hopeful the organization is about the potential of the website. It is both exciting and frightening to have such high expectations. I am now focusing my energy on developing a plan for myself so that I will not, in my most self deprecating moments, be able to tell myself that I am not doing anything at all.

After Julie and Jacob left to drive back to Peoria (see below for an explanation), Anne Marie called. She understood my experience of aloneness in a big city. The hardest part is going home to nothing. Now, thanks to Julie and Jacob's 13 hour drives each way, I have a television and computer (in addition to this mac). But those things are not company. Even NPR failed me in my aloneness. Both stations at once, as if in a fiendish plot to hurt my feelings, went into fund drive at the same time. My dear friend NPR left me with nothing but the silence.

AM suggested making tasks for myself, activities that increase the chances of meeting others, and pass the time away from the house. Towards this end I have been trying to volunteer at the DC Jewish Community Center which is just around the corner from the apartment. A week of e-mailing and phone calls led up to five hours of html and inline css coding monday night. Now I have gotten far ahead of myself. That's the problem with writing these things in pieces. This is exactly why I need to update the site regularly rather than try to catch up all at once.

After the board meetings on Monday and Tuesday I had to quickly prepare for a Wednesday morning Education Committee meeting. This consisted of me attempting to discuss the limitations with some of their ideas and then being negated by people in attendance from other organizations who have little to no investment in the discussion. I shouldn't complain about that too much because this domain name makes it glaringly apparent who I am. As time goes on I will reach a balance of honesty and self-censorship with repsect to work happenings. The rest of Wednesday raced by as I knew that by the next morning I would see Julie again after a week and a half of talking on the phone.

They pulled in front of the building just as I was getting back from picking up my dry cleaning and getting keys made for Jacob. It was amazing how much stuff Julie fit into her car. She brought books, clothing, food, the TV, all of my computer equipment, hangers, a laundry basket, kitchen utensils, and much more. I wish I had a picture because she put so much effort into packing that car. When she comes out again in March for Spring Break she will drive out again with more of our crap. Because of her work the apartment feels more like a home, now I am just waiting to share it with her and it will really be home.

While Julie and Jacob slept the day away I worked until they came to meet me at 5:30. Since Jacob had never been to DC before we walked up to the Supreme Court and then around the capitol to the national mall. Instead of heading to a metro we enjoyed a great evening walk down the mall to the washington monument turning north to pass by the White House. Just as we were walking away towards the "Presidential Palace" it slowly started snowing.

The shivering walk back to 17th and P was hardest on Julie because she forgot gloves. I thanked them for their long drive with dinner at Kramer's Afterwords Cafe and coffee and reading at Cosi. They spent Friday at the Spy Museum and met me again after work. Friday and Saturday passed quickly with dinner in Adams Morgan, shopping for work clothes, and a long walk along the Potomac and back up the Mall. DC is so wonderfully walkable. Now that I have my bike I am so excited to have access to the city again.

This week, my first real week of work uniterupted by meetings has been wonderful. We are constructing a more comprehensive Resources section with PDF and printer friendly html versions of all of print materials. To compliment this we are making a Current Issues section with all current material sorted by issues, ie Vouchers, Prayer in School, etc. I really want to make AU.org into both the difficult to accomplish combination of activism and resource provider. We are the only national organization devoted exclusively to the separation of church and state and religious liberty. PFAW and the ACLU agree with us but without AU the separation of church and state would not be as strong as it is (and that is saying quite a bit).

Today we filed two federal suits in Iowa protesting state funding of the Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship InnerChange program. Prisoners in this overtly evangelical program live in special Honor cells for which they have keys to come and go at their leisure. They have special access to widescreen tv's, art supplies, computers, and more frequent family visits. The kicker is that the program is paid for out of the profits from exorbitantly priced phone calls made by the general prison population. But who am I to question Mr. Colson who, because of his involvement in the Watergate cover-up, spent his share of time in prison? Of course he was pardoned by Jeb Bush in time to vote in the 2000 elections. It is reassuring to know that almost a whole generation of Southern African-American men are being disenfranchised for petty drug crimes but a prominent Republican can be forgiven for his crimes against the principles of our democracy.

Oh it is nice to be caught up with this blog. Look for more soon. I always say that but you should look for more. Really, I promise this time and that makes it different.