Sharpied

I woke up today with a telephone number Sharpied on my arm: 916-498-8452.

The sun was exactly where it usually is in my bedroom in March, and I got up and woke up my 16 year old and he hauled his always tired in the morning body to the shower. My wife had been on call all weekend (midwifery's least favorite feature) and was fast asleep. Our house guest met me in the kitchen on his way to a 14 hour day of work on Liz's new office, more drywall and carpentry, and off he went. Craig our friend and renter poked his head in and asked me how it had gone, and it was then, right in the middle of scrambling eggs and toasting bread and making chai, that I remembered the number.

I'm in my fifties, late ones at that. Married, and for a long time at that. So this isn't the kind of number one might have in one's twenties. Or thirties for that matter I suppose! And it wasn't the kind of number you write on your arm to make sure you know who your ride is from some giant event, or who the designated driver is and how he might be contacted at last call.

No, it was the legal support number from Occupy Sacramento. I"d written it down partly because I did a nonviolence training in the Rotunda corridor at 5:30 (the building closes at 6 and the many CHP officers were getting ready to issue a dispersal order to the couple hundred people still in the building). And of course I also wrote it down in case, as can easily happen, the police aren't too picky about who wants to be arrested at a civil disobedience action, and who would prefer not to be, thank you very much.

I'm going to grade papers now - back to mundane reality - and then talk more about the action, and what I felt and learned, and some thoughts on Occupy 2.0.