Civic Rent

I attended a meeting today between Emory's Law Student's (soon to be Coalition) for Choice and Georgia's Win List. Win list is a Political Action Committee working to get pro-choice democratic females elected to political office. One of the women spoke about civic rent - our obligation to be involved in social and political activities on behalf of our brothers and sisters who cannot afford the luxury of activism. I really like thinking about it in that way, and I figure her voice in my head will get me to the next meeting I'm thinking of skipping because I have homework to do or I'm a little tired or there's an interesting movie on tv. The meeting was awesome. A bunch of first year law students and me, surrounded by all these amazing, powerful women. I know it's obvious, but I've been spending so much of my time as an activist working with 20-somethings that even though I know it's my mother's generation who achieved so much of what we take for granted (and are at risk of losing) that it was really inspiring and comforting to see this wall of support. People my age stumble so much - don't know the right people to call, aren't sure how to organize, don't have enough money, whatever - being reminded that there's this well of resources was a relief.

Living the Dream

Jason Koebler was in Atlanta yesterday (fellow Clevelanders will know who I'm talking about) and I got to have dinner with him and his friend Justin. They're living in Nashville, trying to make the whole music thing happen. It's so cool to watch and listen to them talk about how they feel they're Living the Dream. Which, at the moment, means working crappy-ass jobs (justin moreso than jason) to earn a little studio time and driving down to atlanta to buy shitloads of equipment and staying up all night playing. But they love it and they're so excited...it's awesome. I hope that all of us are, to some extent, Living the Dream; in that we're doing whatever it is we want to be doing for the rest of our lives. Or at least, working towards whatever that thing is. But I rarely hear people talk about how excited they are to finally be on that path and how lucky they are to have found that thing about which they are passionate. So it was really nice to hear these two guys realize just how lucky they are and not take that for granted. And more than that, put in the hard work and effort it takes to do something like music. Sure, it's risky, and not many people "succeed" in the mtv-video-top-ten-single kind of way. But these guys found the thing they want to do and they're making it happen. Scary and risky or not. And I think that's admirable.