A Brief Interlude (or The Leopard Never Forgets)

#6: The Home Front (by Sylvia)

“What passing bells for those who die as cattle?

- Only the monstrous anger of the guns.”

-Wilfred Owen

Everyone has opinions about the Vacaville woman who lost her son in the war and is now demanding a meeting with George W. Bush. They say she’s a nut. They say she’s right on. They say she’s an anti-Semite. I don’t know why, but they’re saying it.

Whether champion or chump, Cindy Sheehan has succeeded in turning the public eye back to a war that was becoming, if not ignored, then commonplace. All we heard about the Iraq war were body counts, and those were becoming something that Americans thought of somewhere between summer re-runs and J.Lo’s personal life. But now people are talking about the war again. People are staging protests and vigils and making T-shirts. When an issue has this much attention, it’s likely that people are going to start calling for change. Liberals, after demanding that George Bush meet with Sheehan, are going to demand that the troops pull out of Iraq. Conservatives, after demanding that Sheehan shut up and go back to Vacaville, are going to demand that there be more support for the troops. Whatever happens, it will be at least an indirect result of the fact that Cindy Sheehan has brought the war back to the front page.

It’s likely that hearing about her has caused you to reevaluate your opinions about America’s goings-on in Iraq. If not, it has probably at least caused you to back even more firmly the opinion you had before.

The second is true for me. Not only has the Bush administration not convinced me that we should be fighting this war, the Bush administration has not even tried to pretend that they are ever going to try and convince me that we should be fighting this war. All they do is give me these flimsy one-word Causes. First our Cause was WMD’s. That backfired, or more, it never existed, so it became Terrism. But wait a minute – what the heck is Terrism? Is that even a word? I guess not - so now it’s Democracy. But I can clearly see that Democracy is not going to happen any time soon in Iraq. Heck, it’s not even happening now in America. So what are we fighting for, huh?

That’s all Cindy Sheehan wants to know. She is asking Bush point-blank, “What is the cause for my son’s death? Not the phony Causes that you give the world. Tell me why he died.”

And our President won’t answer her.

Not only that, but he won’t even acknowledge her.

What more proof do I need that our President is a bonehead?

Like always, radio man Rush Limbaugh has his head firmly ensconced in his you-know-what. “There’s nothing about [Cindy Sheehan’s story] that’s real, including the mainstream media that’s globbing onto it. It’s not real. It’s the latest effort by the coordinated left.”

Every time a son or daughter dies, be they American or Iraqi, it is real. You can just ask their mothers. This is the most real thing there is. I would like to see Rush Limbaugh go up to Cindy Sheehan and tell her that her loss and her struggle is “the latest effort by the coordinated left”. Then I would like to see her tear him limb from Limbaugh.

I support the troops in that I want what’s best for each and every one of those young men and women serving our country. I want them to be safe. They have been led by the Marine Corps into thinking that war is literally a game. In this way they are enticed to Iraq, told that they will be the good guys. Then the Army puts guns in their hands and makes them kill people. This is not their fault. They die and watch their friends die.

I don’t want them to have to see these horrible things anymore, for whatever cause. Like Cindy Sheehan, I want them to come home.

#5: The Unscripted Speculation

(This one I'm making up as I go along.)

What is JoeBob? Really? A few months ago, someone asked me, "So is JoeBob dead, or have you just stopped stalking him?" Since then, I have been thinking about how to best answer this question, and that's what I've been doing that whole time.

As much as I love to exclaim that I stalk JoeBob or he stalks me or whichever, the truth is that I've become convinced that JoeBob is not altogether human. Perhaps he is an angel, but I strongly doubt it. Maybe he is a figment of my imagination.

Either way, he is an entity that comes to me when I am in despair. Not pre-midterm anxiety, not anger, not homework overload. Despair. Whenever I am totally and completely lost, I find JoeBob. Like two years ago, when the weight of the world was on the shoulders of those around me and I was helpless, hopeless, no future. And this last time, when I was so drained that I could feel myself practically call out for JoeBob, wailing on the inside like a banshee.

He is hope. A restorative, an antidepressant, and an almost supernatural sort of force, it feels like. He brings up memories in me like oil, gushing up from somewhere within. But it's not just the random memories, it's the feelings in those memories. That is how he affects me, how he points me back to the light again. And my sightings of JoeBob are not selective. Not by me, anyway.

It's like he knows when he needs to come. And if he does again, I know that he will.

#4: The Reaction

You knew it was coming. I hoped it was coming.

My good friend, who will remain unnamed, has sent me a bit of mail that I think should make my other good friend Connie quite jealous.

"I was reading your blog. And I, um, I have to say that I sort of like polo shirts. I have one. And it's comfortable. Perhaps you have seen it.
It's black, and it has a palm tree on it. I might get another one. It's gray with a poodle on it. I like the way polo shirts look in some cases.
Have you ever seen anyone wear a polo shirt with baggy jeans with holes in them and dirty All Stars and lots of glow-in-the-dark pink and black bracelets and a tattoo necklace? Well, that's how I wear mine, and I think it looks sort of cool. Personally. Not very preppy at all, right?

Anyway, what I'm leading to is that maybe when you take over the world, I could just wear the occasional polo shirt, here and there. If I was not allowed to, I might be sort of bored and uncomfortable. And I am your best friend, you remember.

Oh, and another thing. I don't care what anybody says, I LIKE John
Mayer. I think he has good songs. What, I ask you, about Neon? And "Back To You" totally fits my life. Well? WELL?"

I regret to say that in the land I am currently dwelling in, I have been trained into thinking that polo shirts are quite preppy. And I'm sure that if anyone can make them look less so, it is my best friend. Unfortunately, I can't remember the polo shirt in question, but I'm sure it's quite awesome indeed.

I will issue an amendment to Law 2 from The Edict: You may indeed wear whatever you want as long as it meets the approval of the highly trained elite guards that will patrol the cities. They will know what to do.

I don't, however, remember mentioning John Mayer. While I am not the biggest fan of his music, I do love "Neon," and I'm afraid that I do not know the song "Back To You". Certain health conditions (laziness) prevent me from looking up the lyrics at the moment. Maybe later.

#3: The Revelation

Apathy is death. Worse than death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds the beasts and insects.
KotOR 2 fans, you probably know where this comes from. If you don't, a vision of Kreia says it at the end of the secret tomb on Korriban sometimes.
Faithful readers of my Scissors Happy blog also recognize this quote from yesterday.
That doesn't particularly matter, but when Kreia said that, I was shattered. Completely caught off my guard, because I thought I'd made the right choice, though it turned out to work anyway. I was especially taken aback when visions of all of my favorite party members (sans Mandalore) repeated "Apathy is death."
Anyone who knows me knows that apathy is what gets me through my day. If I care about everything, I don't have time to indulge my inherent selfishness.
Heh. I'm a dreadful person.
Seriouusly, though, I need apathy. I'm an overly sensitive person. This is only enhanced by a deluge of teenage hormones that make me liable to spontaneously combust if I'm not happy.
So I breeze through heavy emotions freely with a lovely sort of fan of apathy.
Up until that phrase. "Apathy is death". Now, I have practically developed a symbiotic relationship with the KotOR games. When all those people that I have come (unhealthily) to think of as real turned on my good buddy Apathy, it was like a cold slap in the face. If anyone else had said it, I would have ignored it. But this message reached me through the one source I would believe.
I've realized that Kreia was right. Apathy is worse than death. Apathy is standing around while people kill and die around you, or staring at the wall while people are working hard. If you're being apathetic, you're just in the way. You might as well be dead, and at least then you're probably easier to talk to.
So do us all a favor and take action. No one ever became world ruler by sitting around and not caring.

#2: The Edict

I don't have a real rant today, but I've got something just as good: my plans for world domination laws.

No, not my plan for world domination; you think I'm going to give that up? No, you'll have to persuade me a lot harder to do that.

You'll learn soon enough, if all goes well. At that point, some laws will all go into place:

1.) You will all be named Adrianne or Adrian. The spelling will depend on gender or preferred gender, and your pets are no exception. In fact, no one is an exception!! I will be allowed to address you all as Sharona addresses Monk in the hit USA series "Monk": a-DRI-an! (or, alternatively, "*A*-drian!")

2.) Everyone will dress like I dress. Don't worry; this still gives you choices. But very limited choices, and I'm afraid that polo shirts are not included in that. Babies can wear "Oscar the Grouch" clothes. Yay! Oh, hey, and everyone has to learn the Grouch Anthem from "Follow that Bird" and sing it three times a day.

3.) You will refer to me as "The Benevolent" or "The Leopard." Or a combination of the two.

That is all. You may proceed.

#1: The Rebirth

When I started this blog two days ago, it was going to be a collection of really long rants that were completely unrelated to JoeBob. I thought, well, I'm never going to see him again, but the word "stalking" in a title will probably attract someone, right?
Well, yesterday on the bus home, I was quite depressed because it was the first day back from Winter Break, and I hadn't been on my Xbox for about 19 and a half hours. I got on and said to myself, "I wish I could see JoeBob again." I wanted a reminder of my past, when things were bleak but routine.
Right before approaching the Ulloa and Sunset stop, I thought, "We're going to stop here even though no one's getting off." It was a totally random thought, as I could not see the single person who stood waiting for the bus.
We stopped. The doors opened.
On walked a guy with a black beanie and oversized silver headphones. His hair had been cut, but it was still him, and I recognized him instantly.
It was JoeBob.
Staring straight at me, looking like he knew it. As soon as our eyes locked, I turned away, covering my smile with my gloved hand. I could not believe it.

What are the chances of me seeing him again after over a year? And recognizing him? Even stranger, I saw him 2 days after establishing the blog of his namesake.
I wonder if he recognized me. I was wearing my distinctive skull necklace, Giovanni, and I know I was wearing it the second time I ran into him, near the end of '03. Could he have known? Why am I so obsessed?

Somehow, this chance meeting is like a miracle to me, and I'm not sure why. I feel like I'm being given a chance to change this year, to start over. Like I've been reborn into a new being, unsullied by the hatred that I've carried for so many years.

Maybe that's what this is supposed to be. JoeBob is back to show me that I have a choice: I can get through this year, or I can just continue down this band of thorny darkness.

Maybe I'm just exaggerating. But I'm going to take this impossible coincidence as a sign that I can survive.

Prologue

Yes. It has come: a place for the Urban Leopard to finally rant and rave philosophically while everyone else reads angry bursts and blonde moments instead. A place where the Leopard can, if you will bear with me, dig her claws into something more real.
And you don't have to read this. By no means feel obligated. But it's always here. And I'm not going to take it down without a genuine restraining order from JoeBob. Or whatever his name really is.
But hey, how is he going to figure it out?

---

JoeBob-FILES

Who: JoeBob is not really his name, but rather, one I invented for him. In reality, he is a guy that I have seen twice, both instances in the fall semester of '03, riding an 18 MUNI bus down towards Lowell High School.
After the first time I saw JoeBob, I realized that if I colored a little on the picture of a guy in a planner I bought from the Book 2 Book center, it looked exactly like JoeBob. And thus, I realized that I had found probably the single person that I will remember for the rest of my life, even into my late 80's.
The reason I remember him so vividly is that as soon as he got on the bus, he drew my attention. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but he fascinated me just by being. He got off at the SF State stop, and I exhaled. I didn't know why, but I knew that our fates were eternally linked.
The second time I saw him, he was on the bus already when I got on. I was thrilled: JoeBob was back. He didn't get off at State this time, though, and when I stood to get off at Lowell, I looked up to see him looking at me.
He gave me a strange, sort of surprised look. And I stepped off the bus in a daze.
Did he really look at me? I don't know. Maybe it was all in my mind. But from then on, I have been eagerly awaiting JoeBob. Maybe, in my wildest dreams, I would find him once more.

Physical Description: Long black hair, beanie, brown eyes. Both times, he was wearing slightly large headphones and carrying a skateboard. I can only assume that he was a student at SF State, but maybe not, since he only got off there the first time. Layers of baggy clothing.

And now his legacy will live on until the Leopard disappears.