I will miss my neighbors more than they’ll miss me, I think

If things go the way they should, we will be out of our home of nearly 16 years as of Friday morning. We’ll sign a bunch of papers, hand the keys over to a nice family, and we’ll move on.

We’ve spent the last few weeks packing and boxing and tossing and giving away stuff. I have been so busy I haven’t had a minute to stop and think — or, worse, to stop and cry. This is unusual for me, as I am a huge fan of nostalgia, as is any self-respecting hillbilly, and I can stand on any square inch of this house and tell you some significant event that happened there. Every ding in the wall, every scrape on the floor has a story.

There were only four of us, but we filled this space.

Last night, our neighbors threw us a going-away party. We very much needed to pack and get ready for the big truck coming tomorrow, but it was a sweet gesture so we went, bearing beer and Italian cookies. (I know. It’s a gross combination if you think about it, but I love me my cookies and my husband is not an enemy of the occasional brew.)

This is the kind of neighborhood where we all pretty much keep to ourselves, but we still manage to know each others’ business — like when we go on vacation, our children’s names, our pets’. I once hit a rock with the mower (turned it into a geode, more like it) and it made such a noise just before it stalled that the neighbor down the street called out “Are you all right?” When the couple up the street divorced, we felt bad for the both of them. It’s that kind of place.

Right next door lives a widow with three gorgeous daughters. We’ve been here long enough to have known her husband, and when he died of cancer a few years ago, things kind of fell apart for that family.

We did what we could but I never felt like it was enough. In keeping with the code of the neighborhood, I didn’t want to over-friend, but I also didn’t want to see the family floundering. We had them over for a few meals, the girls and I made cookies, we gave them an old computer, our old lawn mower. I don’t record this to sound like a good neighbor. In fact, those were just things. The relationship never seemed to gel and I always felt guilty about that.

But the widow came to the party, with one of her gorgeous daughters. While everyone else mingled in the kitchen (isn’t that where the best parties happen?) she and I sat on the couch and she told me she always appreciated knowing we were there, watching over the family, making sure they were safe. She said she always thought of us as powerful sentries, that after the worst happened and her husband died, she knew that if she ever needed to, she could call us (though I don’t remember her ever doing that).

Back before her husband’s death, our house burned down and she was one of the first people to come over, and she carried a big plastic tub (which I still have) chockful of white towels. If you’ve ever been to a house fire — your own or someone else’s — you start to think that the world is one giant ash pile, and that acrid smell of watered-down ash never leaves you. And here came our neighbor bearing the whitest and fluffiest towels ever. I will never forget that. I told her tonight on the couch that we were even, and as I walked home, I cried.

I woke up at 5 a.m. and it’s nearing midnight now and I feel some more tears coming on. I worry that the cork is out of the bottle, and I’ve held it together so well up to now.

You know what, though? I am lucky I am to have loved a place so much that it hurts to leave, to have sunk roots deep enough to feel, well, uprooted by this move. By Friday, I will be a tall and skinny puddle, but it’s all good. It really is.

Some details about the murder of Dr. Tiller

Accused killer Scott Roeder — who pleaded not guilty in his preliminary hearing today in Kansas — had been a visitor to the abortion doctor’s church, Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita.

Two men say they chased him from the building after he allegedly put a gun to Dr. George Tiller’s head and shot him. He threatened them, and they called police.

Though he pleaded not guilty today, Roeder has said in earlier interviews that if he killed Tiller, it was in “defense of the unborn.” Here’s information about letters Roeder wrote to his son, released with his son’s permission.

A trial has been set for later in September.

Put a beat to it, and all politics/news events swing

How do you wake up dead?

Auto Tune the news, Gregory Bros.!

Sin taxes. An idea whose time has come and stayed

This CNN piece explores the various ways states are looking to raise money during our economic crisis, from legalizing (and taxing) marijuana in California, to charging a $5 entrance fee to strip clubs in Georgia.

So far, it’s mostly been talk, so why don’t we take it further? Taxes on cigarettes and alcohol have traditionally been a cash cow for states, but what about taxing all sins, and grading them — though this is not the fundamentalist way, where a sin is a sin is a sin — by severity. The worse the sin (and we’re not talking crime because we already have a judicial system to deal with that), the higher the tax. And state governments can offer either a pay-as-you-go system, or a prepay one, should you be planning a trip far down the road to perdition.

I vote we attach to lying an exceptionally light fine. And gossiping, too. But the others? Tax ‘em to high heaven.

God/Allah/Allah/God

If you’re a believer, what do you call your Supreme Being?

Agnes Monica is Southeast Asia’s Miley Cyrus — or maybe Miley Cyrus is the U.S.’s Agnes Monica. Regardless, Ms. Monica has a song called “Allah Peduli,” or “God Cares,” that can’t get airtime in Malaysia because of a law that restricts non-Muslim from using the word “Allah.”

In fact, Christians, at least, have used the word to refer to God for centuries — but I wonder how the former Fourth and Forest church of Christ would react to someone who started a prayer with “Dear Allah Who Art In Heaven…”

Altar call to change the conversation on homosexuality and faith

More on Human Rights Campaign here.

And thanks, Dan Gilgoff, at God & Country.

Staying on the Catholic team

It isn’t easy, says Eileen Markey, on Killing the Buddha.

This is such a graceful essay. When do we say we’re no longer on the team? How much do we need to cling to, and how much reject before we’ve pushed ourselves off the bench?

How about a black Bachelorette? Or Bachelor?

Rachel Skerritt counts not one African American in the history of ABC’s “The Bachelorette” or the longer-running “The Bachelor.”

As contestants, yes, but not as the Main Event.

High unemployment = more volunteers

In Florida, where unemployment hovers around 10.6 percent, hurricane season finds a host of highly-skilled volunteers standing ready.

Yes, they’d rather be paid for their work, but for the time being? They’re willing to help. It’s one of those unexpected gifts of a recession.

The artful notion of beer diplomacy

Rumor is — and we’re all about rumors here at DJ — Sgt. James Crowley and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., will meet Thursday at the White House for that beer that Crowley suggested, and Pres. Obama organized.

Not up to speed on Gatesgate? Earlier this month, police arrived at the Cambridge home of Harvard Prof. Gates on suspicion of a breaking and entering when in fact, it was Gates who’d arrived at his home and found himself having to force his way in. Words were exchanged, Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct, and hauled off in handcuffs. Crowley was the arresting officer.

Discussion raged about racial profiling in America; Obama weighed in at a press conference, saying Cambridge police acted stupidly; he later rescinded that, saying he could have calibrated his words better. Crowley, a cop who teaches cops not to racially profile suspects, suggested the men sit down for a beer.

This is what I love about this whole thing. Crowley’s smart enough to know that if you sit down for a beer (a game of cards, a meal — we called this “table fellowship”), it’s much harder to argue. You’re sharing something (though the make of beer is still being discussed) and eventually, that can lead to sharing something more. (In my family, we couldn’t talk unless we were playing catch. Even as grown-ups, you could find us out in the backyard, tossing a ball back and forth. We call that baseball fellowship.) (Not really, but still.)

Meanwhile, watch for a House of Representatives resolution that calls on Obama to formally apologize to Cambridge police. Me? I’d pick up the bar tab for the president and as many representatives as we could crowd into a dive bar in D.C. Let ‘em talk it out, hug it out, work it out, and move on.