While cleaning out my agenda in preparation for the onslaught of ‘05, I happened upon some notes from a lecture by Gus Speth that I attended in conjunction with a Yale Alumni Assembly. Here they are, unedited.

I love men who wear green pants with pink grosgrain ribbon belts non-ironically. Yes, they do exist, as Bob Martin Class of ‘54 can attest.

Vision of sink, water flowing down.

• Increased carbon dioxide = disruption of global climate
• 100 to 1000 x species disappearing caused by deforestation in the tropics (1 acre a second for 40 years)
• Desertification - agricultural production size of Maine
• 90% of predator fish gone, over 1/2 corals
• Our fat tissue carries toxic materials
• 75% of fisheries are overfished (vs 5% in ‘60)
• Spring arrives early, huge loss of ice in arctic & antarctic glaciers, thinning of the arctic ice sheet

WHY?

1. Did not deal w/underlying forces
   • huge pop growth
   • phenomenal expansion rates of economy & deploying technology which was not designed w/environment in mind
   • market pricing which does not reflect economic costs perverted by environmentally perverse subsidies. Failure to have environmentally honest prices
2. Relied on international environmental law
   • Process is flawed - treaties are toothless
   • not bad enforcement or bad compliance; bad treaties. process of passing a treaty is flawed.
   • U.S. demos & repubs drag feet on intnat’l treaties

SO WHAT DO WE DO?

• need to deal with population issues; poverty
• ensure that technology captures best of environmental thinking
• need to be environmentally responsible for our products & have our marketplace consumption patterns follow Europe’s lead on eco-labelling
• getting the prices right

• in U.N. for six years
• Former environmental advisor to Carter
• Green investor movement

I bought his book, Red Sky at Dawn I think, but haven’t made my way through the pile to read it just yet.

God! Could life be any more interesting and complex and unabashedly fun?

Last night I went to see my high school friend Dorothea kick ass on the drums in Duenow, the band that she and her husband Zach created. Afterwards, we piled into their big ass green van (with friends Joel, Josh, and Chance the big ole’ dog) and headed over to an afterparty at Underbar that a friend of a friend threw together.

Underbar is below the W hotel — whose neon signage formed the backdrop for the 20041218 Union Square Park footage — and teeming with blue button down Wall Street types. Dorothea walks in in her get up — can we say, Frederick’s of Hollywood, I kid you not? Garters, bustier, stilettos, the whole nine. And she’s a hottie patottie - platinum blonde, fake lashes, perfect porcelain skin, gorgeous. She was a rockstar at the Academy and now it’s fucking official.

So we’re in tow and everyone is looking. It’s quite a sensation. And we get a booth and free bottles of Ketel One and We Are Fucking Rockstars and I Am With The Band. Joel and Josh are interesting as fuck; Joel’s got a love in NYC though he lives in Chicago and does spoken word poetry, Josh gave me shit about the Citigroup thing but we shared our love for Magnetic Fields/Future Bible Heroes. They all wanted to know about my non-boyfriend.

And I’m sitting/standing/holding hands with the girl in the Frederick’s of Hollywood getup. As the unmarried fully clothed one, men approached me left and right, suggesting that —’s proclamation that I could have any man I wanted may have a nugget of truth. I’d forgotten the fun of fucking with a man whose had a few drinks who thinks he’s more clever than you are. Ha! Part of me feels sorry for the Greenwich Capital Markets sales guy who ventures a toe in the water to chat with me, only to realize that I’m not a money hungry girly girl.

I promise I only gave my number to one guy, and frankly, his friend from out of town was cuter (but less interesting).

So Zach, Dot, Chance and I git into the green van and drive on over to BKLYN and I literally make ‘em a bed to sleep in, put up a ghetto shower curtain, project the macro lens brilliance onto the wall. Dot drops some advice about the situation and thinks my plan is a good one; I realize that shit, I actually do like dogs, I’m just scared to death that I might kill one if I had to be responsible for it.

But anyway. So life is interesting, there are tons of people out there, and I think I can deal with the “loss” of Dan without totally losing my shit. (Ha! We’ll see about that.)

Soundtrack: Yellow by Coldplay, live, from the You’re So Beautiful Mix.
To do: See Life Aquatic with — tonight, finish Christmas gifting!!, crank out a few more hours in the ofc

I met this person six days ago. SIX! And the universe is exploding with potential, fireworks-ing into possibility, thundering with WOW!

What I love the most is the utter lack of ambiguity. He who does not sign all emails to everyone with love signs emails to me with Love! And puts it on the You’re So Beautiful mix! This is black and white!

No more guessing about what the other person is feeling — it’s all very clear. No more struggling internally trying to make myself feel something I am not — I know exactly how I feel.

* sigh * Oh my word, I feel like I am seventeen again. ‘And I can’t sleep, ’cause you got strange powers.’

Have a brilliant weekend!

I work on the 46th floor. From my cubicle, I can see the East River and all of Manhattan. Today, crisp and cold in its winter beauty, the sky is clear and you can see the hills of Jersey, the Palisades, the whole wide world in the distance.

I’m playing Track 21 of the You’re So Beautiful! mix that a certain someone gave me on Tuesday. I don’t know the name of the track but it’s gorgeous, has this floaty purply blue quality that makes the lungs feel expansive and infinite.

I heard a girl’s voice and I looked up from my computer to see who it was. I knew today was the children’s holiday party for the company and I thought it might be one of my boss’ daughters. I immediately saw two girls, one probably seven and the other 11, with their faces pressed up against the window looking out over the world. They were pointing and drinking it all in unabashedly, much in the way I wish I could ogle the view and not look like a freak (can’t exactly press your nose to the glass while sporting business attire…).

Their father, whose cube I’ve walked by countless times, whose cube is filled with pictures of his daughters, whose cube has always made me smile, is behind them and showing them the City to their softly squealing delight.

My heart, meanwhile, is brimming with emotion from recognizing that the seemingly neverending GUy Smiley saga is finally over. And then I see the father put his hand on his youngest daughter’s shoulder and squeeze, and I am thinking of the love between my own father and myself, and I am struck by the beauty of it all and immediately begin to cry in my cube.

Not a weepy sad cry, but a ’sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world it hurts’ kind of cry. The cry of celebrating the release from the grip of the memory of Guy Smiley, the cry of knowing the boundless love of a father, the cry of the sum of all possibilities of the world.

And with this track on repeat I am thinking about the heartbreakingly beautiful eyes and heart of this man, this amazing man, this beautiful soul who has made me look at the world with eyes anew and dazzled me with the aching deliciousness of feeling connected and alive and hopelessly head over heels.

Hurry up, Friday!!!

Just enjoy this, you silly girl, let these strange powers take you under and make you blush on the inside. It’s the rare magic elixir you chased in vain for four years, the narcotic of affection and connection that make you dizzy with the infinite possibilities of the universe.

As surreal as it seems, this bliss exists. The horizon stretches out and wraps its warm arms around the earth and fills the day with vibrancy, injects each moment with energy, infects its victims with the fantastic desire to embark on new adventures together.

Like kissing in the brand new daylight of New York fuckin’ City amidst the hustle and bustle of Union Square and pretending that the rest of the world has melted away and no longer exists, all the while fully cognizant that the rest of the world really does exist, and that delivery truck driver watching the whole New York moment unfold is probably thinking that these two young kids in all their hotness and glory and beauty are probably in the throes of a maddeningly passionate brand-new love affair.

God, to fall in love in New York City on a crisp winter day. Gets you higher than the 46th floor.

Shit, man. You are so fuckin’ beautiful.

I’m not stupid, I just believe in the wondrous possibilities of the universe. I feel things intensely — I love people intensely and I am open to the infinite ebbs and flows of the world around me.

I give a shit about people, about people I don’t even know, and I hunger for human connection. Life is meaningful. Yes?

I have no respect for those who exploit these things about me. In fact, I feel intensely about them as well, but in an entirely opposite way.

The being-toward-death evolution continues …

I am so friggin’ confused.