Forked Thread: Psychiatry and It's all Ok

[Isaiah Mpski]

Forked from: Psychiatry and It's all Ok (http://www.breakingopenthehead.com/forum/showpost.php?postid=32953)

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee303/mikeymcd2/002.jpg


As you can see CM,we have about one mile of shoreline-both sides of I-40.We need some inestors who see the possibliities of development and direction.You must know a few fly by nighters who would enjoy a cheap place to stay,hunt,fish,and enjoy a year or so of their life.
It was appraised at 2.6 mil several years ago and surely in China it's worth considerably more.
Come on CM,you're where the action is at.
Your idea of a wave machine is fantastic but expensive.
Help or grants from the Chinese would work much better or perhaps a Mexican cell tower as we are only 2 miles west of 69 to Dallas and beyond.

One other thing about McIntosh County is that it is notable because of it's shallow oil and gas production.You can drill 5 or 10 wells here for the cost of one most other places.

We've got over three hundred mineral acres scattered out over several sections.

The most amazing thing about Lake Eufaula is that at some ponit the lake and the land surrounding it will be returned to the public.The sooner the better I say as it consists of tens of thounds of acres of delta land,untouched for over 60 years.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Ok.For those of you who haven't figured it out,I am blessed by God.
I sold -made a verbal deal with representative of oil company-part of our mineral rights and today the wind generator is going to meet us on the above 79 acres and we're taking the second step to be self-sufficent.The first step was to drill a well 250 deep down to the 64 degree glacial water table.
We need all the help we can get.Physical and mental.
Our plan is to form non-profit company and take back and put to good use McIntosh County Oklahoma.:)
Look at the below picture of MM and tell me what you think of Sunni.
I sure wish Ms Taylor would run a picture of her,MM,and Sunni,autograph it and send it to John D. Son
POB 243
Checotah,Okla 74426;)

[Isaiah Mpski]

OK.It happened.The oil company guys backed out on their deal.I'm pissed.
I have at least 4 wells and on my desk have several checks.One for ten cents,another for eight cents and a few more each less than fifty.They've screwed me from the beginning.
Fuck em.:skeptic:

We'll drill our own wells.
By the way.The leases for government land come up soon.
Anybody else getting interested in my politics.

McIntosh County,Oklahoma.Lake Eufaula.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Why Lake Eufaula?
As you can see,central USA,and the government is doing it's best to let some deep thinking individual put an exempelary(sic) idea to work.

All the delta land and farmlands that were taken by the government starting in the 40's are being leased to the public.

Who else should be allowed to grow the first organic crop of Hemp and the like,but the Indian Nations.:D
Free and forward thinking I say.:D

Let us lease several hundred acres and plant something profitable on it within government specifications.
I'll try and get some aerial views of some of the lands up for lease.


Are there any out there who would work with me out of the farm pictured above.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Come on folks.
It's Sunday.
The Lord calleth thee.
Sell all that ye may have and flee to Lake Eufaula,Oklahoma,although it's a bit cold to be fishing.

[willoweyes]

you catch the biggest fish deep in January.

I would be out there in a flash, Isaiah, if i didn't have my own farm to husband.

My farm is on the crest of an ancient mountain range that was once higher than the Rockies. The mountain bones still poke thru everywhere. It is rough goat country, but at least nobody's wastes flow down over me.


The Goat.


I live what I call the goat lifestyle. That is sort of a rough Oakie lifestyle, common traditionally up and down the Red River Valley. Goats are great. They thrive on Catsclaw Briar. Xtra males (unsatisfactory in most social settings) are eaten humanely. My personal milk goat gives the best milk i have ever tasted. (all goats milk tastes a little different--some goats have richer, sweeter; some goats have ataSTE for some sour herb that another goat wouldn't touch, and that sour herb taste affects her milk). My Goat (Black Angel)'s milk is smooth, sweet, rich, snowy white, and not a hint of "goaty" flavor (because she is a cleanly goat!). As you may imagine, we have a very close relationship.

I LOVE milking goats and I love my milk goat. I was reading Jon Katz's book, I think it's called "Dog Days." he hires a lady to help him care for the farm, and she calls herself the "Farm Goddess." I call myself "The Servant of the Farm Goddess," because the real farm goddess is the queen of the milkers (on farms in the old days this used to be the beloved Jersey Cow).

Id do anything to get my Jersey cow back! Boy, did I love her. My husband, ("Doublecross") made me get rid of her because she would go "Walkabout" occassionally. My husband hates to see $800 walking around.

ps--anyone who wants to pay me for the privilige of working your butt off on my farm, please PM ASAP.

_________________________________
"If it's good enough for Philip K. Dick, it's good enough for me." (the slogan I intend to follow the year upcoming).

[Isaiah Mpski]

I really think SueBee would make you a great hand Willow.
She is of course like doublecross,a lawyer.
And a psychicly powerful one at that.

I think you two could accomplish alot of work except for one thing.
You both like to drink.
Maybe CM can get the chinese or Russians to donate some big tractors and you could each drive one.I really am going to see what's going on with the bottom land rental program.There's money to be made farming large tracts of land,but like in all government involved schemes,I might better leave it alone.

You have to admit my place offers a survival site mecca.I am basically in the same mountain range as you but ours were worn down to the bedrock.150 ft above the lake.The bedrock is about 10 ft thick and am going to tunnel up under it and carve out some rooms.Power it all with windmills and we're suddenly off the grid so to speak.Glacial water,shallow,coal,gas and sometimes oil.I have 140 plus acres of minerals and a well just across the river from you in Carter County.My Cousin "Rock" King has a place near Denison too.
I haven't made much money off the oil yet.Old well.
How about your daughter.Is she still in Santa Fe?I imagine there are bargains to be had there in Real Estate.My 4 or 5 years in the area remain some of my favorite.Below zero now up around Taos.The skys get no clearer though than there.Probably 14-15 ft of snow up above Pecos.Can you just see me in the Monastary there?Yes.I did that trip too,after the Medicine man.
Ah.I still remember the motto of some of the Brothers there,
"Good wine,good food,loose women"
Our lawsuit looks better by the day.
One of our experts was going over the records again and found the nail for the coffin of Dr's Payne and Rice.Quite exciting.Fishing in Mexico was a bust
Wait till something happens down South and people start running for the Red River,you better have a gun and plenty of ammunition.

I agree.You catch more fish in January but it is just too damn cold for me unless it is a nice boat.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Willow,as you can see,the 5 acres,south of I-40 is where most of the big-150 ft'ers are,mostly red oak.
We want to -remember there is only 0- 30 of overlay on the bedrock.The government broke through it and we plan first to start where the government stopped and move a mountain of dirt-overlay in a south to north direction.26 ft wide,along the government boundry.Build a big mountain.put a wind power generator up,


Definitely want to put some billboards up on both sides of I-40 for Mrs Clinton and then carve out spaces in the ground mass to the east.Cover it all with solar cells.

Where you and DC are Willow was once a shallow sea.Never touched by a glacier.

Oral Robert's dictated at the little pink house on NW part of the 80.Just that should add some extra value to the estate.Maybe he even talked to Jesus out there.I don't know.I wish someone would ask him.I know he was there and that could make it a shrine.
Milam King got the place for me.That makes it even more valuable.

Get a copy of The Daily Oklahoman.Back page is about fishing for blues on the Red River in January.Nicely written full page article and pictures.

[willoweyes]

Dear Isaiah, after posting I was worried that you might take my criticism of bulldozers as a cirticsm of you. Please don't--in my world everyone is free to worship a god of his own choosing. (hehehe).

This is how i see it though:

Running things that operate on animal sweat (that's you)-- it keeps you from cutting down a tree just because the chainsaw has its needs too. You think twice before cutting down a tree with a stone ax. You have to really want to cut down that tree, and maybe even convince others they also want that tree out of the way.

Isaiah, with my verbal skills and your messiah complex, i think we could entice accolytes to your farm, and force them to pay us big money to teach them how to work their butts off.

I was at the very first Renaissance Faire ever held in Waxahatchie, TX. It was a Saturday in early May in a Central Texas creekbottom in a pecan grove. It was misting lightly, and everything was green and soft. 24 years ago.

Renaissance Faires were young--not jaded yet--the craftspeople were Luddite hippies who really wished they lived back then, and who dreamed of surviving with their skills' help, and, like gay gypsies,of travelling from Faire to Faire. . . .Their crafts were artisan boardering on Art--the kids were not into mass-produced crap. "Renaissance" was a beacon light word that kept them going on. It seems in memory like it was only me and Doublecross and our darling Sadie in attendance that day. Many of the gypsies invited us into their living quarters, which were usually part of the shop, but closed off from the public.

I saw no travel trailers.

The dwellings were beautiful, hand-crafted by the artisans themselves. There was a Hobbit Hole for hand-thrown pots, and a treehouse for silk saris, hand-batiked--magic as a child's dream.

I think we could make a place like that.

It's like the Amish say, slaves make you proud, and Machines make you proud, and civilization demands slaves and/or machines. and this is the secret of the anasazi, i think. their wise men peered into that demonic pit of pure fire, and pulled back.


And if that doesn't work out, we could open an Amish Boot Camp for spoiled teens.
01-21-2008 03:27 PM

[Isaiah Mpski]

It's all science Willow,we've figured it out.
You have to be in the right place at the right time to jump into the pond.:D

[suebee]

great post willow.:cool:

[sidecross]

great post willow.:cool:

Yes, it is a great post; we are fortunate to have willoweyes here.:D

[Isaiah Mpski]

SueBee.
Have you looked realy closely at the above picture of the farm?
And of the picture at yahoo group PickOverFlow-misc pic's jon of me and Quanum Parker at his 130th birthday party.
WarChief till the end.
Got addicted to the opium again and let him get away from me.
They say his GrandFather lived to be 300 and rode a white horse and wore a Spainish chest protector-mail I believe it is called.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Is there any sort of computor or program that would let me draw pictures and post them on BOTH?:rolleyes:

[nanouk]

Is there any sort of computor or program that would let me draw pictures and post them on BOTH?:rolleyes:

get yourself a drawing tablet(comes with a virtual pencil), second hand about 25-50 bucks and get to know photoshop.

but to be safe, hibernate 'til spring equinox and sow yer seeds then....

winter doesn't become us.

i wish u many sunny, happy days,

Love and Respect,

~N~

[Isaiah Mpski]

Nanouk,
Thanks for the old world advice.
The seeds are pouring in by the day from the different suppliers and it is just about time to plant potatoes.The only thing growing now are the carrots,turnips,and winter peas-I have an acre of them and they are beautiful.
The weather here in OK but has been terribly cold.About 15 now,but should get up near 45 today.
I'm going out to the farm today and cut some firewood.Only trees that have fallen due to ice storm.
Hope things are going ok with you and yours.
Not many of the old-timers posting much anymore.
I guess I ran most of them off.

Reminds me of the rambling early on in my life.


Sun is breaking the horizon here Nanouk.
How are the two young twins?

And you?
I hope you find yourself in some dry comfortable surroundings.

[Isaiah Mpski]

SB,look at the above picture of the farm and realize your area-and a whole lot more areas along the pacific plate are going to suffer great tribulation etc and so forth along with droughts,famine,and a bunch of other sick drug-addicted crazies etc running around when the lights go out out there and dog-shit city.
Why do you think God allowed the American Indians to be moved to Oklahoma.Because he knew we would prosper and be safe here.
The potential is here SB.We just need some savy investors and dedicated workers.:cry:

By the way.The farm encompasses about 50 acres SB.Lakefront-both sides of I-40.

[Isaiah Mpski]

The Spring Equi. is yet less than two weeks away,
my love.
Shall we come together in the chill of the River by
Santa Fe.
Like it was before the realization
like death.
I still yearn
to keep my dreams alive.
I'm afraid
I am
no longer
a man young to be.


My mind yearns
of building pyramids
again.
Maybe windmills would pay better.:eek:

And ye shall say unto mountain
"Move"
and it shall move.:skeptic:

[Isaiah Mpski]

Gore for VP.

Has anyone noticed a change in the weather.
I mean,it is almost like a winter day here today,
Maybe this will be another year in which we have no summer.Not.

Soltice less than a week away for those of you chasing the gods.

[Isaiah Mpski]

If you will scroll up to the top of the page you can view an aerial photo of "the Farm".
Although,they are hard to see it has some Oaks 150 ft tall at least.Great beams.
The appx 3/4 mile of lakefront we have sits up above the lake 150 on a rock ledge,under which I wish to build part of the home that pays me for building it.
Not really off the grid because we would be adding energy to the system for which we would be paid.

Most of the land in thaT SECTION IS UNDER WATER AND i THINK WE CAN MAKE A CASE TO USE THE LAND FOR OUR ADVANTAGE,IE,PUT WIND GENERATORS ALONG THAT SW FACING CLIFF EDGE.iT IS JUST LIKE AN OIL WELL.
I need small capital investors-10 k or less,backed up by land,in Mexico.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Why in the world would whoever remove the aerial photograph of "the Farm"
It was at the beginning of this thread and didn't take up near as much space as some of Br Sidecross's propaganda.:errf:

[sidecross]

"...It was at the beginning of this thread and didn't take up near as much space as some of Br Sidecross's propaganda."

Well thanks Isaiah for seeing my posts as 'propaganda'; I thought they were informational.

Like anything else information depends not only on the sender but on the receiver as well.

[suebee]

isaiah dont worry. everyone saw your picture and you can 'google earth' your lake and road and shoreline.....pictures take up a lot of kbs or gs or mpgs or whatever, way more than words.

did you go to meheeko?

[Isaiah Mpski]

Not yet.I've been working real hard trying to get a road into the part of the farm that runs along I-40,harvesting corn and getting the land ready to plant a "big" fall garden.It's a long complicated story and we need to talk about it sometime but as it stands now,most of the 40 acres is landlocked by I-40 and a giant chasm which runs through the property.

I don't know if you were posting yet SB but a couple of years ago a beautiful resort on Lake Eufaula sold for back taxes and I tried to get some people to come here and buy it.It cost 250 mil to build.
At the time I didn't have the 100k that it was bought for-the Indians did and now they are tearing it down.It was called Fountainhead and it was a four storied U shaped structure built mostly out of glass and concrete.I bought a dozen or so double paned 4 by 8 glass windows that I intend to incorporate in our "off the grid" home.

Thank you for reassuring me that everybody knows where to flee-exit 265-I-40,Lake Eufaula,Oklahoma,when the bottom falls out.Just get ready to accomplish something though,whether it's picking peas or getting involved in the local politics.
There's half a world out there waiting to be conqueored.Time is being wasted

Besides that,airplane fares have gotten ridiculous

[Isaiah Mpski]

That's right Sue Bee.Eastern McIntosh County,Oklahoma. Where I-40 crosses eastern lakeshore of Lake Eufaula.:D

[suebee]

isaiah, fyi - 'off-site' direct shipment to oklahoma (from me to you versus from, say, storrs winery to you) is PROHIBITED in oklahoma. i did cart around twenty bottles from cali on my road trip. well, twenty on the way east.

[willoweyes]

I din't know where this should go--somewhere in this godforsaken mess i posted a story about my obama dreams--as i suspected, it is a country-wide phenomenon. . . .

(this by judith warner @ the NYTimes+)


Sometimes a President Is Just a President

The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right when I needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs, and then he was being yelled at by my husband, Max, for smoking in the house. It was not clear whether Max was feeling protective of the president’s health or jealous because of the cigarette.

The other day a friend of mine confided that in the weeks leading up to the election, the Obamas’ apparent joy as a couple had made her just miserable. Their marriage looked so much happier than hers. Their life seemed so perfect. “I was at a place where I was tempted daily to throttle my husband,” she said. “This coincided with Michelle saying the most beautiful things about Barack. Each time I heard her speak about him I got tears in my eyes — because I felt so far away from that kind of bliss in my own life and perhaps even more, because I was so moved by her expressions of devotion to him. And unlike previous presidential couples, they are our age, have children the same age and (just imagine the stress of daily life on the campaign) by all accounts should have been fighting even more than we were.”

As we all know, in journalism, two anecdotes are just one short of a national trend. I figured that my friend and I couldn’t possibly be the only ones dreaming, brooding or otherwise obsessing about the Obamas. Were other people, I wondered, being possessed by our new first family?

I launched an e-mail inquiry. And learned that they were. Often, in strikingly similar ways.

Many women — not too surprisingly — were dreaming about sex with the president. In these dreams, the women replaced Michelle with greater or lesser guilt or, in the case of a 62-year-old woman in North Florida, whose dream was reported to me by her daughter, found a fully above-board solution: “Michelle had divorced Barack because he had become ‘too much of a star.’ He then married my mother, who was oh so proud to be the first lady,” the daughter wrote me.

There was some daydreaming too, much of it a collective fantasy about the still-hot Obama marriage. “Barack and Michelle Obama look like they have sex. They look like they like having sex,” a Los Angeles woman wrote to me, summing up the comments of many. “Often. With each other. These days when the sexless marriage is such a big celebrity in America (and when first couples are icons of rigid propriety), that’s one interesting mental drama.”

Most dreams, however, were, like mine, more prosaic.

There was a dream, sent from Minneapolis, about buying Barack the perfect sandwich, and a dream from Westport, Conn., about inviting Michelle and the girls over for lunch and a play date: “I told her I’d make tuna fish sandwiches and cupcakes, and told her that she didn’t need to worry about the kids, no need to hire a sitter or extra secret service, that I had a nice basement/playroom for them. I explained how hard it was to move to a new home, and to take her time if she needed to unpack or run to Costco or something. She asked me about other supermarkets, and I told her that Stop & Shop had a sale on tuna fish and paper towels.” And one woman in Wisconsin had frequent daydreams about having the Obamas over for a glass of wine.

One woman wrote that when she couldn’t get to sleep at night, she “lay in bed and thought about the Obama girls in their rooms at the White House. I thought about Marian Robinson up on the third floor. And about Barack and Michelle, a couple who clearly have a ‘thing’ for each other, spooning together in bed. It helped me relax.”

I understood perfectly where these cozy dreams of easy familiarity came from. It was that sense so many people share of having a very immediate connection to Barack Obama, whether they’re black or biracial, or children of single parents or self-made strivers; or they’re lawyers or community organizers or Ivy League graduates or smokers or basketball players or Blackberry users or parents or married or Democrats. A lot of people share the fantasy that having the Obamas over for “dinner and a game of Scrabble,” as one daydreamer put it to me, is something that really could just about happen.

“This is the first president I’ve known who looks, talks and acts like a peer,” is how one Washington man explained it to me. “Notwithstanding his somewhat exotic life story, I feel like I understand what he’s like and where he’s coming from. And despite his incredible achievements, he still seems like a lot of people I know. If you stopped the clock in 2004, in fact, or maybe a couple of years earlier, he’d feel roughly like a peer in terms of accomplishments, too. Of course I know nobody with his political gifts, speaking skills and confidence, and he’s also a gifted writer and thinker. But I feel like one or two different turns for Obama or me and he could have been someone my friends and I wouldn’t think it extraordinary to have in our circle.”

Sometimes this sense of close identification turns a bit dark. There’s a subcategory of people who feel that they really should have true intimacy with the Obamas. Because they went to school with them. Because they used to dream like them. Because, with one or two “different turns,” they maybe could have been them.

These are not the people made most happy by thinking about the Obamas.

“They do seem to have it all together — a great marriage, beautiful children, a modern day Norman Rockwell family,” said a divorced Harvard grad with children in a top D.C. private school. “Why them, not me?”

These are people for whom the Obamas are not just a beacon of hope, inspiration and “demigodlikeness,” as a New York lawyer put it, but also a kind of mirror. And the refracted image of self they see is not one they much admire.

“I keep thinking about how I squandered my education and youth,” the New York lawyer wrote to me. “I went off to college from high school being completely community-minded, doing a lot of volunteer work for the homeless and for hunger and tutoring poor kids. Then I got to college and forgot my ideals. Barack was my year at Columbia. Why wasn’t I hanging out with him and being serious and following my ideals instead of hanging out in clubs? Same with law school. I partied my way through instead of taking advantage of all that I could have. Both Obamas were there when I was. I feel like if I’d been a better person I would have gotten to know them.”

A Washington lawyer expressed similar sentiments: “I feel like I know Barack, that I have worked grassroots and have created change in the way that he has. I [also] have feelings of a mom who had possibility but ended up running school auctions and mediating family business matters rather than having the opportunity to be out there on a national level creating change. So when I watch Barack I feel like: I can do that … and what am I doing with my life? Even though he is way smarter and more articulate than me.”

Another Washington woman, a global health care consultant, expressed her sense of Obama-inadequacy in a dream: “I dreamed I was an Obama girl. I had a chance to be in the same room with him for the first time. There were dark velvet chairs and he was standing there with all this dark and mist around him. His lips so purple and sensuous as if to be otherworldly,” she wrote to me. “I moved gently toward him and then I said the wrong thing. Obama tamped it down like some vapor that didn’t register. He wasn’t even flattered.”

(“Like a lot of folks, I have anxiety about being outside of the Obama administration universe right now,” she then explained to me. “Even though I was at the ‘it’ ball of inauguration balls, I still felt like other balls were greener, or more purple, or with credentials completely out of my control — more young. I really feel like I’m scrambling internally … to deserve Obama cred and all I’ve got is this over-my-head wonder for the man that amounts to being an Obama girl.”)

For some, not knowing the Obamas has almost turned into a feeling of being snubbed or excluded. Like in middle school. It’s funny. Almost.

“Why won’t my kids be sleeping over at the White House? And as my daughter noted, why couldn’t she get to sit front and center and see the Jonas Brothers and Miley perform at the kids’ inaugural concert? If she went to Sidwell, then she might have these chances, she said …” wrote a mother whose kids are not at Sidwell Friends school with Sasha and Malia.

“Will Michelle stay down to earth? She could prove it by joining our book club,” wrote a Sidwell mom.

This is, perhaps, the price of faux-familiarity. If I were Barack Obama (or Michelle, for that matter), I’d be a little scared. After all, when people are wearing their egos on their sleeves, it’s so easy to bruise their feelings. What will happen if fantasy turns to contempt?

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From 1 to 25 of 289 Comments
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1.
1. February 5, 2009 10:33 pm Link

Thanks for gathering and sharing all these snippets of dreams and ideas about the Obamas.

I admire them so much that I manage to put aside my jealousy that they’ve done so much with energy and education while I’m just limping along.

Glad to hear your DC perspective, too — I’ve imagined the Sidwell school pickup line has gotten even more competitive and showy.

My inlaws were in the Kennedy administration and described a very similar swirl around them socially and in peoples’ imagination. Surprisingly similar to some of the sentiments you mention here. Wanting to be included, dreaming you were their friends, hoping to be invited to the ball.

The week before inauguration, my 9 year old said “I bet the kids at Sidwell Friends would really want to become friends with Sasha and Melia. I know I would…” Me too, sweetie.
— Margaret
2.
2. February 5, 2009 10:35 pm Link

The Class of ‘64 was the title of Anne Applebaum’s WaPo piece this summer. She included herself along with Michelle Obama and Sarah Palin in this celebratory recognition of what was apparently a prolific birth year for the 2008 political landscape.

The inchoate Palin envy that took its place beside the Michelle-mirror-of-self-reproach, was a kick in the gut; the coup de gras in my bleak conclusion that I’ve done nothing meaningful with my life.

I’m over that now and happily resettled into my cozy, so very private, reality that defined my then-44 year old life. I wonder about Palin’s dreams now, the incredulity she must feel in those first moments of wakefulness–not at the Naval Observatory–but in Anchorage, Alaska. I avoid thinking of Michelle’s nightmares: the crippling worry, and the primal need to protect her family.

and I’m newly thankful to remain who and where I am.
— E. Eileen
3.
3. February 6, 2009 12:00 am Link

First of all, like all of your columns, I wish you would be clearer that you and your friends don’t make up the entire world of people, and that most people on this planet didn’t go to Princeton and Harvard and Columbia.

Also, I am as obsessed with the Obamas having sex as the next person, but we don’t know marriages until you’re inside them, and let’s just leave the Obamas alone. I’m sure they have their issues like everyone else. This is the same thing people did with the Kennedys and look what we found out about them.
— Diana
4.
4. February 6, 2009 12:28 am Link

I dreamed that I read a column about President Obama in the New York Times that took the country and its problems seriously. This column wasn’t it.
— ol’ married woman
5.
5. February 6, 2009 12:45 am Link

These stories were both amusing and sometimes a little disturbing. I have to admit wondering on occaision what it must be like to be friends with the Obamas. Mostly just curious about what it would be like to receive an invitation to a cocktail party with them or fly on Air Force One. I just never imagined the detailed fantasies that I read here. I think the Secret Service may need to touch base with some of these people. That said, they do seem to have a really cool life and I am happy for them.
— Grant
6.
6. February 6, 2009 12:46 am Link

Taking a shower and smoking a cigarette—-after having had sex with you, presumably?

And it’s somehow unclear what your husband is angry about?

Paging Dr Freud to the Warner residence! Paging Dr Freud to the Warner residence!
— jimjoyce25
7.
7. February 6, 2009 12:54 am Link

And to think my fantasies about Obama are just that he stop trying to convert my Republican neighbors. They don’t play nice (or Scrabble, for that matter) and they have never been good neighbors.
— me
8.
8. February 6, 2009 12:55 am Link

I’m almost exactly the same age as both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and I swear I’ve not had innocent or improper fantasies about either one of them. If I’ve thought about it all, I’ve decided I could hang out with Clinton–he’d make a good brother for me, as a matter of fact. As for Bush, well, ugh. (Oh no! Am I secretly harboring cheerleader envy?)

The Obamas, like the Clintons, are “round” characters, are three-dimensional. The Bushes are “flat,” one-dimensional types. I like the sense of dynamism we’ve seen in the first two families and have been
constantly dismayed by the static qualities of the third.

Ah, I remember 1992, when someone I might have gone to high school with assumed the presidency! It was a cause for reflection, and a certain amount of generational pride. It sounds as though you’re going through a similar experience, Ms. Warner.

Thanks for your blog entry.

Nancy
— Nancy
9.
9. February 6, 2009 1:11 am Link

Thank goodness I skipped the fantasy stage and went straight to contempt , oh, sometime back in 2007 when I was about 80 pages into the carefully packaged story line of “Dreams from My Father.” The man is a phony, through and through. Just about every word he speaks is hollow.

Take, for example, the quotation from the inaugural speech that my 7-year-old had to “put in your own words” last week, and which I’ve consequently had baked into my brain: “The challenges we face are real. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America: They will be met. ”

Nothing but passive voice. Nothing but euphemism, verbosity (”short span of time” instead of “quickly” or “soon”), vagueness and one big, empty and meaningless promise. *Who* will meet these challenges? When? By what means? What challenges are we talking about, anyway? The economy? Iraq? Terrorism? Global warming? The war on all classes below hedge-fund manager?

*I* put the quote into *my* own words, as this: “I want you to have faith right now that someone, sometime will eventually fix all the nation’s problems. Don’t expect anything quickly, and please don’t let yourself be troubled by any initial actions of mine that might suggest I’m just as much in the pocket of multinational corporations as my predecessor was. Don’t worry. Be happy.”

Needless to say, reading this blog lately has been about as appetizing as a box of melted Pepto Bismol truffles. But it makes me feel blessed not to have been blinded, and I’m curious as to when Ms. Warner and her Obama-girl crowd are finally going to wake up.
— JMB
10.
10. February 6, 2009 1:26 am Link

I, too, have worked grassroots and tried to create change, but this, oddly enough, has not given me a sense of entitlement to be part of the Obamas’ social set. In fact, one of the things I admire about them is their reliance on old friends to keep them grounded, while half of America is dreaming and scheming about how to become part of their inner circle. Sure, I’d love to go to the White House now that it’s no longer enemy territory, and I’d be thrilled if Michele or Barack passed me an oatmeal cookie, but I really believe they have more important things to do than play Scrabble with me or hang out with my book group. I want them to stay safe, get enough rest and exercise, and continue to be living proof that doing good, doing well, and having an enviable family life is something to which we can all aspire.
— Maryanne Conheim
11.
11. February 6, 2009 2:02 am Link

These anecdotes are disturbing. I hope they are very isolated.
— fjd
12.
12. February 6, 2009 2:17 am Link

Do you ever write about non-neurotic people or do they not exist in your universe?

Instead of wasting mental energy envying Barack and Michelle Obama, people would do better to make their own lives and marriages happy.
— Lincoln Greene
13.
13. February 6, 2009 2:19 am Link

What’s wonderful is that this political/cultural experience is propelling American society - and perhaps the planet - into a whole new phase of evolution and development. But, like the deep tremors felt moving from adolescence to young adulthood, this change is stressful, even agonizing. We are growing up as a country and as human beings, learning to live responsibly with uncertainty, dropping the personal and corporate facades induced by consumerism, looking at ourselves with more collective candor and a search for real meaning. Who cannot applaud this unfolding human drama? But…we are giving up comfortable notions and platitudes, exchanging them for painful scrutiny and re-evaluation. Let’s encourage and support ourselves, our families and our neighbors in this effort, as we will be stronger and larger people for it.
— Laurie
14.
14. February 6, 2009 2:19 am Link

I’m a current ivy league student and have this nagging, back of my head, wouldn’t share with anyone fear that (although I’m involved with a lot of community service and social justice issues) the next Obamas are running around our campus, and I’m not friends with them. With everything I have to do, this seems like a ridiculous, ungrateful thing to think about … but I think about it.
— ana
15.
15. February 6, 2009 2:33 am Link

I think the Obamas are refreshing as a breath of fresh air. Lots of couples actually love each other…surprise to observers that are accustomed to the tight superficial smiles of many political figures. I think they are a wonderful example for a nation tired of “same old…same old” and the daughters are sheer delights. Politically, it is not going to be an easy road to sucess, but at least we know he has a really supportive family base as well as a majority of the American public to back him up…since he did win the election with that majority. Why have a President we must think of as an intellectual equal? Don’t we want him to be smarter and sharper than we are? Why suppose any of us could do a better job if the breaks had just gone our way. He made his own breaks and saw the opportunities. We don’t need to have the President over for a glass of wine or to be part of the Washington social scene (God forbid). We need a President who will get us out of the mess that the last administration left the American people. Bottom line…the American people have elected someone who can do that.
— GRIFFIN
16.
16. February 6, 2009 2:35 am Link

Oh, give me a break! Do people really have time to have these fantasies?

The feelings of inadequacy and wasted time that some peers of Obama expressed make sense. But to dream of being the second Obama wife? Someone needs their head examined.
— Paddy
17.
17. February 6, 2009 2:37 am Link

I have yet to have any dreams about the Obama family, but have had a recurring dream (over the last eight years or so) of Jenna Bush. She and her mother would appear, together or separately, in various costumes and I always had to enter entertain them in conversation. My favorite dream was being at dinner with the whole family (including Cheney who was sort of a dark shadow at the end of the table). Pere Bush kept looking over at me and about to say something but could never quite get it out. Everyone was very uncomfortable with me being there except Jenna who was on my left and dressed in purple silk. It was obvious to me and to everyone else that we were an “item” though not officially…
— Nico Jenkins
18.
18. February 6, 2009 2:39 am Link

I prefer real people to images. I recall that other perfect couple, the Kennedy’s and “Camelot”. Reality is invariably at odds with fantasy. The Obama I’ve seen so far has consistently compromised his promise of change, of driving the money-changers from the temple. Instead, they’re being installed as our “new” cabinet.

Obama said that he needed to win so that we could use his “plan” to pull us out of our economic tailspin. Turns out there is no plan…just a hodge-podge of wish lists, and a vacuum of leadership.Where is the “plan” for mass transit to help us move away from autos? Where is any mention of nuclear energy, something in which the French are miles ahead of us? Where was the plan to ransom strapped homeowners? Where was anything resembling a document with Obama’s imprimatur?

So far, we have lyric cadences, but little substance. Let’s put aside sweaty dreams ’til we see clear indications of leadership.
— Lionel Libson
19.
19. February 6, 2009 2:59 am Link

I often get teased into reading Judith Warner because of the titles of her pieces. But whenever I read them, I feel so alone - like she’s voicing something from a bubble where people are all rich and educated or perhaps that only I’m in a bubble that is not. I’ve not met people so privileged but so flippant and unconcerned about those who are not. Each article is more elite musing than the next.
— sue
20.
20. February 6, 2009 3:07 am Link

It would not surprise me if the feelings of kinship and shared experience with the Obamas described here were also a national phenomenon at the beginning of the previous administration. Just substitute New York journalists and D.C. lawyers and global health consultants with Texans who like to clear brush and guys in Alabama who feel like they could have a beer with the new president.
— Matt
21.
21. February 6, 2009 3:07 am Link

You know, there’s a reason why most people don’t talk about their dreams. On waking, we realize that they don’t make much sense, and sometimes they are (or should be) pretty embarrassing.

I’m really not interested in your fantasies of having sex with our president. I’m sure it was quite nice for you, but after you rubbed the sleep form your eyes, you probably should have kept that to yourself.

Thanks for not sharing next time.
— Steven Bock
22.
22. February 6, 2009 3:11 am Link

I tend to feel like I absorb most of the collective neuroses that move through the collective human unconscious. Praise goddess! Hallelujah! I don’t have any Obama envy.

Like the Obamas, I am brilliant and a law school grad. True, I don’t have an Ivy credential but I am secure about my intelligence. Also true that I have not, not yet, published any books, let alone bestsellers. But I am a good writer.

I raised one child. She graduated from an Ivy.

I am 55, poor, single and. . happy. I am happy. I don’t envy the Obamas. I think I might have had some Obama envy when I was younger, perhaps in my thirties or forties, when I was still striving. But now, I’m happy.

I am happy that the Obamas seem happy. I very much enjoy glimpses of them together. As has been pointed out, they really seem to like and love each other. There seems to be real sexual chemistry, too. They love their girls. I love photos of Barack Obama kissing one of his girls on the top of her head or carrying his seven-year-old daughter as if she were a tiny toddler still. I love these glimpses into the doting father. I think collective glimpses into a happy family might be one of the greatest gifts the Obamas will end up giving us.

I guess I think that people who envy the Obamas or . . anyone else, or people who compare themselves to the Obamas or anyone else . . . I think those people have personal development work. I think one of the many things wrong with our culture is that we define ourselves by external measurements instead of by our personal happiness.

Isn’t there something in the founding documents of this nation about the right to pursue happiness? It seems that we have lost sight, as a culture, of pursing individual happiness. We seem to be all mixed up.

One thing I MAYBE envy: I envy Michelle’s ability to afford to indulge her enjoyment of clothes. I envy that she has many opportunities to wear lots of wonderful, fun clothes. It is fun to dress up, dress down, to express one’s self with one’s sartorial choices. . . . naw. . I’ve thought about it a few more moments. .. I would hate it if I were always on display. Where does she find the time to shop? I have read that she doesn’t use a stylist. How does she find the time to match up outfits to appearances? Clothing is fun. Shopping is fun. But it doesn’t define me and I am just abouat certain it does not define Mrs. Obama. I hope she has fun with clothes. It looks like she does.

On and on I chatter.
— Tree Fitz
23.
23. February 6, 2009 3:13 am Link

What is this need Americans have to feel that their president is someone just like them?

It was one of the main reasons for GW Bush getting elected, and in spite of his atypicality seems to be working also for Obama.

Freench people don’t want a president just like them, any more than they would want a plumber, financial advisor, chef or professor ‘just like them’
— Helene in Paris
24.
24. February 6, 2009 3:16 am Link

great column. I too had a dream about Barack Obama. We were at some sort of luncheon together. He was very friendly and a bit provocative . I may have sat in his lap. It was a little surprising, but he seemed very real and approachable. I guess I’m not alone in my dreaming.
— caroline ghertler
25.
25. February 6, 2009 3:32 am Link

OMG!!! Some of these people sound absolutely “WHACK”
Be happy with your own lives and accomplishments and
stop fretting about the Obamas!!!
— charles harris

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[suebee]

no wonder i like staying in my house.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Sue Bee.Is it true that California residents can legally grow six pot plants?

Texas is a place of alot "unusual" stresses.I've always said,
"..When you cross the Red River or the Rio Granda you're in a different world".

I've seen people go to prison there for growing a couple of pot plants.

The weather here is fantastic.Luker has decided to go back to Texas.
I think his Mother has talked him into believing he can "accomplish" more in the Austin area,despite the fact it took him ten years to get a degree.She is really a go getter.Really into producing her own movies.Beautiful woman.
No drinking or smoking around her though and I think Johnny is going to have a hard time adjusting to that as,depending who is around in the developments around "the farm",he is used to getting up never before eleven,sometimes later than two,smoking and eating as much of anything-except bathtub meth- and putiing himself to sleep on cheap beer and xaxax.
Yes,he will surely miss the life of a "lost boy"
Sailing the waters of Lake Eufaula Oklahoma.Looking for arrowheads and fossils;riding his bike on the trail we have,building a tree house in one of the 400 year old or 150 ft tall trees.
Totally in a place where one can live off the land if one has too.
No boss cept Mother Nature and the utility companys.

Anyway back to the weather.Rode our MF yesterday for several hrs.Anticipating some spring storms tonight.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Hows the weather is SF SB and DSC CM?:p

I think spring is springing.I saw 5 or 6 toronados high in the sky yesterday.They get lower as the weather get hotter.
How exciting eh SB?:hmm:

[suebee]

it takes a medical mari license (available from many friendly docs) and then you can have 6 plants per license is the general rule. i dont know how much regular dry stuff you can have on hand. since i dont have a license. and dont smoke. :cool:

[Isaiah Mpski]

How would you like to lease about 100 sq ft of land and learn to garden?:D xo

[Isaiah Mpski]

SB.Evidence that one or more of the Cannibinols has an anticancer effect has been introduced on this forum.Whether smoking it is the right way to get a proper dosage I am doubtful.
I think though,when two things are uniformly done in the US most of our drug problem will be solved.
No 1 is of course establishment of laws regarding Cannibus like California has in all 50 states.
No 2 is making clinics available -like methadone clinics-but give out drugs which have an amphetamine effect.
Lets face it.Most people who take speed,crank,meth,coke,crystal,crack whatever etc are depressed and/or suffer from lack of energy or motivation.There are several drugs on the legal market that would giver the user the desired psychological effect as any illegal drug.

The answer to it all is to make it all legal and tax and control it.
Get rid of the criminiality and the evil.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Do we have any NORML people on this board ?

[Isaiah Mpski]

Dr SB,you seem rational enough to answer a question.:p
How would Juan get the word to President Obama that he would like to see Joe Brown,at least listed,as being considered for Supreme Court Judge? :hmm: