Day 3

Today I felt like I *did* something. It was productive in the usual sense of the word. I got up with TM instead of sleeping until close to 11 in the morning and went to my first meeting. It was with a member of GRIID (Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy) and we met at the Wealthy Street Bakery, often mentioned by Rob Bell at Mars Hill. That's a whole other topic. I think I have a digression problem.

Anyway, over the best bran muffin I've had in Michigan (although sadly still not of NYC caliber) I had a great conversation with this guy about media literacy, media reform, consolidation of media, news analysis, coverage of the Iraq War, anti-academese language and most importantly - how I could get involved! This could be the first community involvement I do since I graduated from college, and I was really excited by it. I was also really heartened by discovering the tip of the iceberg that is the progressive community in Grand Rapids and West Michigan as a whole. I've seen pieces of it at Mars Hill when I go with TM, but because of my stereotypes that I have, it's hard for me to see faith communities as progressive. (Don't lambast me; I know that this is my own "junk" and it's part of what I'm hoping to work on while I'm here. Admission: I carry around a lot of anger based on past experiences with churches and the like.) Grand Rapids has this ultra conservative reputation of a boring small town city that worried me when I was getting ready to move here, but I have to say I haven't run into it yet. Sure, Sundays are dead but when the city opens back up on Monday, there's a whole lot of progressive stuff going on.

After I got back from this meeting, I got online and went to www.mediamouse.org, in which GRIID is situated, and spent hours surfing the Progressive Directory. I have a CSA picked out for the summer, coops to shop at, and new ideas for people to meet and talk to.

My second meeting of the day was with a fellow gainfully unemployed person who is taking a lot of time to travel around. I met with her at Global Infusion, incidentally, this is where I became an engaged person, and had a lovely cup of jasmine tea. We had a great conversation and she gave me lots of new people to talk to and places to go. I was pretty sure that I was going about this thing correctly, but it still felt really affirming to hear someone tell me that this networking stuff was exactly what I needed to be doing. It's just so contrary to the [ineffectual] way I've gone about getting a job before: plopping out the resume. I'm really hoping this works.