A house divided against itself

Siiiigh, I could never have predicted feeling so free back up in here.

I'm watching Ken Burns' Civil War documentary. Quotes from some of the country's most talented, perceptive, passionate writers. Mary Chestnut, Fredrick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and countless soldiers.

As a nation, we began by declaring that "All men are created equal." We now practically read it, "All men are created equal, except Negroes." Soon, it will read "All men are created equal, except Negroes, and Foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this, I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty. To Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
-Abraham Lincoln

I appear this evening as a thief and robber. I stole this head, these limbs, this body from my master and ran off with them.
-Frederick Douglass on his escape from slavery

Some themes I recognize, and tell me if you see them too:
Fear of increasing federal power; assertion of the righteousness of one sector of society over another; discourse playing out like a fistfight.

Another year...

Older. Altogether changed.

It has been a year since I've written a post. I feel shame. Not because I haven't been keeping up the brog, but because in the span of a year, I have not written anything I would hold up to the light for all to see. Except for one comic strip...a birthday card to Jeremy.

I'm not going to promise a fresh start. I only plead,

Calliope! Through the deadening smog and concrete of my world I call to you!
O Morpheus, Dream! Would that I could visit your realm for a spell, and feel your endless gaze behind my eyes!

Yeah, I've been reading The Sandman. Neil Gaiman rules.

We'll see what happens. Flicker on, rancorous illumination!

It happens

Her tinny voice came to him from across the country, another coast: "So you left, I can't believe it. Did the city crumble behind you as the plane took off?"

"Ha, why do you say that?" He fiddled with new batteries for his remotes. One fell on the floor and rolled somewhere.

"Shit," he mumbled.

"Huh?" She sounded absentminded, but who knows with her.

"Nothing. Why would the city crumble when I left it?"

"Oh, I dunno. I just imagine the buildings crumbling as you took off in the plane, I mean you'd been there longer than anyone. You'd become an institution there."

He didn't know what to do with that. Maybe she was serious. Apathy took over.

"Hey I gotta go, I gotta get this TV set up."

"Ok then...goodni--," but the line went dead before she finished, probably hung up too fast. Damn hinged cell phones, conversations over before they begin.