Tweet this: KQED & Twitter come to B-High
Recently I joined the Advisory Board for the KQED Do Now. This is a group of educators who are looking at ways to integrate the KQED current event-based Q&A activities on their Do Now site. The goal is to see what it is like to integrate Twitter into a current events curriculum and see how it goes. I decided to use my sophomore classes for the project, as my seniors are so completely overwhelmed with being seniors that they are just sort of walking around in a state of confusion, occasionally proclaiming: “Ds get degrees!!” The premise is not that complicated: KQED provides a prompt, with a basic written overview for them to read and a variety of supplementary multimedia resources, the kids read it, then they Tweet their response to @KQEDedspace with the hashtag #KQEDdonow. Done. Their responses show up in the KQED Do Now Twitter feed and on the live stream on the Do Now web page. Immediately. Real time current events. Precisely the point of current events one might say.
Of course my seniors became incensed with this because it was SOOOOOO unfair that the sophomores got to use Twitter when they had been doing their current events all year on Tumblr. #grassisalwaysgreener Double hilarious as they were totally non-chalant about Twitter when @DanaDanger came to talk to them about it.
Anyhow, it has been very interesting to see how the Twitter project is shaking down in my classes. It definitely illuminates the technology gap for starters. Although a computer is not a prerequisite for utilizing Twitter (one of its key benefits is that it can be easily accessed through a smart phone, and even has utility with any phone that can text, as we saw in the Arab Spring and throughout the Occupy efforts) it is clear that kids who do not have a computer at their disposal are substantially more uncomfortable with trying the unfamiliar regarding online endeavors. Beyond that, as with all lesson plans, there are some kids who love it and others who really just cannot get on board. But they are the minority and that is a victory.
We started with prompt #31 on internet memes (likely why they have been showing up on here) and considering whether or not they are “art”. It was sort of a perfect prompt for my Arts and Humanities Academy kids. I asked them to answer the question and then to create an original meme. They were nothing short of amazing. You can see some of them here. I made one too.
Then I had them go back and do prompt #25 focused on individual internet presence. It was interesting to go back and forth about positive and negative digital footprints, and to share stories about interesting (and “interesting”) results of being out there on the interwebz. The conversation was lively and nearly every student had something to share:
- “Is it fair for colleges and employers to “stalk” you?”
- “Facebook owns your posts?!”
- “Can you actually have private settings?”
- “What is Google +?” (Okay, that was mine…)
- “Okay, you know you Google yourself…”
- “Wait, what if you Google yourself and it is not you but it says it is you?”
- “Maybe everyone should just use fake names.”
It went on and on. We talked about the weirdness of people you have not seen in ages talking to you about your most recent activities because they “saw it on Facebook”, or about people you did not know acting like they did know you because of your digital footprint. We talked about the effects of anonymity. At the initial board meeting we discussed the pros and cons of letting the kids use pseudonyms and it was a unanimous consensus that anonymity breeds false behavior at best, and downright awful at worst. My students tended to agree, though they liked the idea of anonymity in cases, they admitted it was generally to post things that they didn’t feel totally comfortable with otherwise. And like all things, that can be both good and bad.
The next prompt that we did was #32 about the gay marriage debate. This was a response to Obama’s declaration that he believed that gay couples should have the right to marry. This was the least inspired conversation of them all. All of my students had the same answer: “Uh, yeah.” And then that was it. I even tried to do the teacher thing and play devil’s advocate and offer some reasons why people might not agree with it, or that this was just some policy-shmolicy on Obama’s part.
I was met with totally blank stares.
Granted, I work in Berkeley, but none the less, I felt quite proud that my students couldn’t even get on board with why this was a discussion. I bet Rachel Maddow would be proud.
Thus far, the experience has been really positive. Case in point: one of my most interesting (read: very bright and disengaged) told me this project has been the absolute best, he really likes it (and his memes were awesome.) You can meet him here. Further, the Twitter learning curve seems totally encouraging, I think the 140 character limit must be comforting to them. In reality, the challenge of such a limit tricks them into creativity. Well, sometimes it does, but I remain ever the optimist.
#itswhatido
Meow: of Cougars and other such nonsense.
[This is a piece I wrote a while back, which you can now read in it's edited and enhanced version in the beautiful Whore! Magazine]
I have been going to The Gym religiously for the past three months as part of an effort to try to alleviate a knee injury which I was told, none to gently, was much to do with my age and over use of said knee. In fact, the doctor had basically described the problem by saying that while I am forty, my knee is actually more like that of a 60 year old. For more reasons than would ever be necessary to articulate this has landed me in The Gym. As I was working my way through my circuit the other day two girls came over to share my space. It was clear that one of them had a plan and the other had no clue and they were there together as some sort of team effort to “get fit.” I kept working and watching. Like everyone else at the gym I now do that immediate, yet cursory, comparative evaluation of the people around me. For example, these two women were clearly younger than me, but also, not nearly as strong, toned, or athletic. Okay, they were pudgy, in that soft way that somehow is okay in youth. I carried on. They began to chat.
“I was listening to the radio on the way to drop my kids of at school today, and it was talking about how women in their forties want sex way more than younger women.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Like how I guess they have done all this other stuff and now they are just, like, able to get what they want and stuff.”
“Well, yeah, I mean that makes sense. I mean, if you are forty what else is there? It is not like you can do anything else like go settle down or something. You are so old you might as well get what you want.”
I was looking straight at these two at this point. Either I did not appear to be one of those old people who had no other point in their eyes or they really were as clueless as their conversation indicated.
Forty. Too old to do anything else. Might as well get what you want.
I kept lifting weights and considered the myriad interpretations of this conversation replete with contradictions. Am I a sex-crazed, past the point of redemption, goal oriented, middle-aged woman deserving pity? Or was it jealousy I heard? The conversation went on:
“Yeah, I guess. Kind of like Cici. Have you seen her on my Facebook? She is smoking hot. She so tight. And she’s like that.”
“I haven’t seen her except for that little picture, we’re not friends.”
“Oh, well, she is like 36 and she look so good. Of course, I’d look like that if I didn’t have kids too.”
“Yeah, me too.”
I felt sorry for Cici if these were who she called her friends.
As I walked away it considered the effects of women now joining in on this stereotyping and pigeon holing of single women well beyond their early thirties who are not raising young children or married – happily or otherwise. Now, it seems, it is not just men doing the labeling, but other women as well. They all look and judge, and cry “Cougar!”
The double standard is obvious and deserves little exploration or examination beyond reiterating the obvious ignorance and durability of it. In high school, the guys who have sex with lots of girls are studs, the girls who do the same are sluts, it is a universal tradition. As we get older and people begin to pair off into legally sanctioned couples, the men who remain single are called bachelors, a term with plenty of panache and class. The women? They are spinsters, desperate, divorcees. At my 20-year high school reunion I was one of maybe five single people. And of that five I think I was only one of two who had actually never been married. My male friend was congratulated by all his buddies. I was questioned: Are you married? No? Never? Huh. How come? Why not?
Seriously?
Yes, seriously.
Interestingly I have found that it is the men who seem far more desperate to settle down than the women I know, and while I have no evidence beyond the empirical about this, I think it would be an interesting study to see if the issue lies somehow in some strange, buried rejection psychology. Logic would hold that the women who remain single have more likely rejected certain men than never have been propositioned or considered. Therefore, it seems to me that the women who remain single into their thirties and forties may trigger some sort of deep seeded resentment from men, and consequentially, women.
And what of the women who are now joining in the labeling and judging? To say it is simply jealousy seems short sighted, but why do these women care about the single ladies? They have already stipulated that one of the things they find the most offensive is the Cougar tendency to seek younger men, therefore, their husbands are not even under consideration. And I would agree, the type of man who catches my eye is never the middle-aged guy with a wife and kids. Ever. My tastes have remained consistent from my earliest interests as a single teenaged girl. And this, I am certain, is the root of any type of Cougar nature that I have. It lies purely in the aesthetic. It is like everyone around me has grown up and out and older while I still appreciate the man who is out there being single and putting a little effort into his game. Perhaps it is the reminder of a lifestyle that they (mistakenly) believe they have given up. Though I would be quick to point out that no single woman I know has ever even suggested that somehow having a husband and or children should require a) an older man or b) a resignation to the world of abstinence or (perhaps worse) self-conscious sex.
Further, it is important to consider the basic mathematical circumstances that we are dealing with. Women live longer than men. Women (through their own mental torture and the insistence of society) are forced to stay in better shape than men. Women are more likely to be single by choice than men (again, this is unsubstantiated beyond my own years of observation, but will be used as a given here.) There are more women on the planet than men (this happens to actually be substantiated, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html ). Putting these facts together lends a level of understanding, or perhaps necessity, to a measurable part of the female population currently being labeled Cougars.
There are numerous studies coming out around the world describing the plight of men as the gender gap takes on new characteristics (see Where Are the Boys? The Growing Gender Gap in Higher Education, Thomas G. Mortensen, as an example.) In China men struggle to find wives amidst a female population embracing academia and professional options. In America, women are outpacing men academically and professionally (in spite of the fact that their salaries are yet to be truly commensurate) and feel less inclined to settle for a relationship where this discrepancy could cause friction.
Women in their forties are better equipped to seek and create sexual relationships that are more satisfying. This is from experience, knowledge and diminishing concern about needing to behave a certain way based on the age-old social rules of “How To Get A Man.” It all equates to confidence. And herein lies the real issue behind the Cougar label. Confident women freak people out, in just about any circumstance: dating, work, politics, school, and on and on and on. This is a conundrum because there is a general understanding that confidence is somehow desirable and beneficial, but apparently it is the Goldilocks syndrome: must be confident. But not too confident.
The term Cougar is also often misused. Carrying with it a clearly negative connotation, the label suggests a women seeking prey – and of course this prey would be younger. Younger because it is easier to snare or manipulate? Maybe, but I would guess it is more likely to do with aesthetics than anything else. No one ever asks Hef why he likes buxom blondes in their twenties, it is his obvious taste (and I rarely hear him being described in predatory terms, which I am sure we could all argue would be far more appropriate than suggesting a 38 year old woman with a 20-something boyfriend is predatory.) The label itself does little to consider the actual nature of any sort of relationship between an older woman and a younger man, and the obvious suggestion that the women had to chase, capture and claim her young man is offensive at every level. If Hef is excused from labeling because the women come to him rather than him chasing them, it seems obvious that the assumption a woman has had to chase a younger man only gives further credence to the chauvinism that perpetuates such labeling in the first place. How could anyone know if the women sought the young man or it was the other way around? I can say with certainty that I am not a chaser though I certainly date younger men.
I recently began asking men (generally single) what they thought of the term Cougar. Did they think of me as a Cougar? Did they think it had positive or negative connotations? The results of my informal straw poll were predictable but still interesting. The men I know who I consider confident and intelligent took the term with a grain of salt (and of the ladies who would earn the label, they were generally complimentary.) Bartenders were very positive, apparently older women tip very well. Young drunk frat boys were also very positive, though I would assume they would have been as equally enthusiastic over a bacon wrapped hot dog in their condition. My married (male) friends saw a place for the term, but likened it more to Sex and the City’s Samantha, who they appreciated far more in celluloid than the possibility of reality. Everyone I asked assured me emphatically and repeatedly that I was in no way a Cougar. This made me laugh because in just about every situation where the subject came up I was with a younger man, or had last been with a younger man. It belied their acceptance of the term showing that in fact they do all see it as an insult, and one they would not levy on a person that they know or like. Of note, they defended their insistence that I was not a Cougar on the basis of my arrogance and unwillingness to pursue. Another backhanded compliment?
In even a superficial examination of history it is easy to see the discomfort that females who own, promote or embrace their sexuality have engendered. This has long been the domain of the fancy peacock – not the more subtle of the species. Anytime a woman acts in a way that is considered more masculine in tradition she is bound to run into some friction. Hence the double standard. I would guess this double standard will far outlive the current terminology and will morph into a series of new descriptors as humanity carries on, especially in light of the fact that the current trends in gender disparities appear to be on a trajectory that will only intensify the situation. From harlot to whore to slut to dyke to bitch to desperate housewife to Cougar and beyond,
A few years back I met a nice young man at the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens. I was in the latter half of my thirties and he was just at the midpoint of his twenties. I would describe this young man as strapping – he was after all, one of the famed New Zealand All-Blacks, 6’2”, 230 according to his official stats page, with what I will describe as negligible body fat. Clearly younger than me, that fact was of no consequence to him (or me) as we walked around the City all night. We heard nary a word regarding our (unlikely?) pairing. The following year I met a nice young man from Chicago at the same tournament. Our presence together should have garnered far less interest than my pairing from the year before. Yet as we walked around the always crowded corner at the top of D’Aguilar street in Hong Kong’s Lan Kwai Fong, a group of boisterous Aussie and British guys who had attended the tournament dressed in matching pink tutus and sparkly cowboy hats (also pink) looked right at me and started to point and yell, “Cougar! You are such a COUgar! Hey, here’s a COUGAR for you!”
I went from stunned to mildly irritated to embarrassed to enraged in less than five taunts. A man (sans wedding ring, by the way) in a sparkly pink dress was trying to insult me because I was with someone younger than me who could not obviously kick their ass in an All-Black-minute.
Seriously?
Yes, seriously.
And so it goes, around and around. The Cougar label suggesting far less about those to whom it is attached and disclosing far more about those who choose to throw it around. At it’s root, it seems to be a way for those who feel threatened by less conventional women to somehow disenfranchise them through put-downs and insults. In terms of a cultural phenomenon, the existence of a “Cougar” population seems a completely logical outgrowth of the demands that society, and the name-callers especially, have put on women for years. You demand we look good, be achievers and embrace the virgin-whore dichotomy, and this is what you are going to get: a huge group of women terribly disappointed with their available options for partners leading us to embrace single-dom and consider unconventional partners.
I am reminded of any number of tales of genies bearing promise of wishes granted. Be you oh-so-careful when given the chance to make your wish.
Three day weekend – pfffffffftttttttttt!
Malcolm X Day is a public holiday in Berkeley, and there is much that could be said of that, but what it translates to most immediately is a three-day weekend for me. Or, rather, it should. Instead of enjoying the pure bliss of an extra day of respite, or at least a day to whatever it is that I want to do, I will be spending anywhere from four to eight hours sitting for the CTEL exam. Oh, and it cost me around US$300 for the privilege.
What is the CTEL, you ask? It is the California Teacher of English Learners Exam. As someone who started teaching before CLAD/BCLAD and then left the state to teach in Nevada for nearly a decade before going overseas to teach English Learners (see what I did just there?) I am absent a specific “credential” that is required for me to teach in the state of California. Basically, I need to prove that I have the skills and knowledge to teach non-native English-speaking students.
Did I already mention the part where I taught in Asia for more than five years? Or that I started teaching in the SFUSD, a district with some 60 languages in their EL program? Or that I taught in schools that were hugely Latino for years on the other side of the Sierra?
I assume you can glean my irritation with this situation. [To be fair, my HR people really tried to find a way to grandfather me into this, but the State of California is not having it. Apparently five years of teaching English in foreign countries does not really make one qualified to teach English in America.]
In terms of practical knowledge, the test is quite easy, especially as I have been teaching ELs for well over a decade. The answers are logical, and I am well-practiced in the strategies and pedagogy that the CTEL promotes. But, passing this test will be another animal all together. It is not about practical knowledge or pedagogical expertise. It is about the language of three sets of “standards” that are meant to be incorporated into our teaching: One must be able to cite the ELA (English Language Arts) standards, as well as the supplemental RLA (Reading Language Arts framework) and the ELD (English Language Development instructional program) by name and number. Oh, and there are also the CTEL standards….
In a nutshell, all students are meant to make AYP (that would be Annual Yearly Progress) and meet the benchmarks in the ELA standards that indicate grade level proficiency. The ELD standards serve as “a guide to instructional intervention” designed to move those ELs not meeting grade level proficiency towards said grade level proficiency. And the RLA? Well that is a blueprint for how to implement that ELA standards. The CTEL standards are there to measure the standards and quality of teacher effectiveness.
Frankly, it is all a lot of BS that makes me want to SMH and IMHO is a total waste of time.
I am not convinced that knowing who is behind the different theories of language acquisition and development is going to make me a more effective teacher in the field. In any way. Further, I am unclear on how spending all this time trying to remember their names and their theories (Krashen and the imitation and learning hypothesis, Skinner and his behaviorist theory, Chomsky’s innateness theory with its LAD and CPT, Piaget’s cognitive theory, Bruner’s interactionist theory) when I could be cogitating on effective pedagogy (and my own lesson planning for my real, non-theoretical, students with whom I have only a few weeks left to get through more curriculum than is possible…)
And, while these guys all have interesting things to say about how and why people learn language with more, or less, success, it all comes down to the same stuff - always.
- Younger is better because young learners learn in more authentic ways
- The more time and support and validity you give to people’s native cultures and languages, the more comfortable they are trying to learn a new one and the better their attitudes are
- When people are around other people who speak a language they are trying to learn, they learn more
- When you help people understand how words work in a new language and how they are connected to their own, they learn faster
- And, as my graduate advisors always said, repetition is the heart of education
Anyone who has done any teaching, particularly with non-native English speakers (or in several instances that I can name, NON-English speakers) knows these things instinctively. Create a comfortable and fun and positive environment and people are willing to try harder (duh), answer questions, provide raw materials for learners to experiment with be it new words or pictures or movies or comics, or whatever. Talk. Talk to each other. Ask questions. Listen. Clarify. Engage.
It is basically an instruction list for any teacher, or any human really, who wants to engage with others.
So, there you go, now you do not have to buy any review books. [But you better get a hold of those standards - the four sets combined are more than 250 pages of 8.5 x 11 paper.] I did buy a book however. And my goodness, what a huge waste of my money and the paper used to print it. It was about ten pages in, into a book that is supposed to be about how to teach English, that I started to notice the typos. Forget basic editing errors of tense, subject-verb agreement and spelling, this book called Noam Chomsky “Chromsky”, confused “self-confidence” and “self-doubt”, juxtaposed letters in acronyms and mislabeled diagrams. To be fair, it was called the Monkey’s Guide, perhaps I should not have relied on my native speaker’s tendency to assume an idiom there and really understood that more literally.
No offense to the simians and their old world relatives.
So while many of my colleagues, and all of my students, are enjoying a day doing little to do with school, I will be trying to tick off that last little box for the CCTC. And all I can do is sit here and wonder, what would Malcolm X do??
“I run this land you understand, I make myself clear!”
The first time I saw this album CD cassette cover it was hot off the presses in the fall of ’86. I was a high school junior listening to it in the little red (was it a Datsun?) pick up truck of a senior who I had a mad crush on. It was basketball season and he was a basketball star and so it was working out for me (JB would taunt me endlessly on the days we went to AP Calculus, sitting behind me: “N.I, N.I., N.I., N.I…” he would hiss) that aside, I remember being absolutely enthralled by every song on the cassette that would play on repeat as N.I. and I sat in that inconvenient little truck. One more reason to put up with N.I., I suppose. That “relationship” made it through the basketball season, about all one could have hoped for, but me and the Beasties lasted much longer.
We were white kids in the suburbs, stuck in a decade whose music would go from entetainting early 80s music to the shittiest era of music known to man. (I think our prom theme song was White Snake, or it could have been Bon Jovi – which has a little more retro-panache, but either way: Ouch.) I was always trying to find the next cool thing (or the next cool-all-over-again thing), musically speaking (well, with regard to boys too…) Some of my favorites at the time included The Cure, The Violent Femmes, Run DMC, The Rave-Ups, OMD, the Beatles, the Stones, and maybe a little Madonna.
Remember those? Not a bad sampling relative to what we were dealing with (and I still listen to almost all of of them – True Blue requires alcohol), but geneerally speaking, we were ready for something new.
The song I liked the best right away was “She’s Crafty” and then my next favorite was “Girls” (hey, it was 1986.) Then it was “Paul Revere”. Eventually I loved every song on the record except for “Fight for your right” – don’t know why, I just never liked that one. The whole album was a riot. And by riot I mean the entire denoted meaning: a noisy, violent public disorder caused by a group or crowd of persons, as by a crowd protesting against another group,a government policy, etc., in the streets, a disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons acting together in a disrupting and tumultuous manner in carrying out their private purposes, violent or wild disorder or confusion, a brilliant display, something or someone hilariously funny. I recall my dad saying that it was a joke record. “They don’t play instruments,” he said. “I hope they are in on the joke,” he commented.
I think so.
License to Ill was hardly their best work. Paul’s Boutique and Hello Nasty may be my favorites. But then again, Check your head and Ill Communication are pretty awesome too. Suffice it to say, I just love the Beastie Boys.
In 2009 I won tickets to see them headline at Street Scene in San Diego thanks to a Twitter contest – it was the best prize I ever won. But then they had to pull out of the tour because MCA (Adam Yauch) was too sick to play. I was terribly disappointed, but mostly just relieved to know that MCA seemed to be pulling through by the fall of that year.
The Beasties would come up time and again in my life… last year succumbing to popular demand, a colleague and I lipsynched “Paul Revere” for our freshman, there is a video of it somewhere floating around YouTube. One of my seniors in AP Lit chose “Brass Monkey” for his song analysis as part of his culminating assignment for our unit on poetry analysis. I think he was trying to stick it to the man – the man being the teacher – by choosing the most nonsensical song he could. Who was laughing when I could school him on all the finer points of not only the album it come from, but the general evolution of the Beastie Boys, and their influence on hip hop? Well, really, we all were, but score one for the teacher. Most of my friends and I still make Beastie references with regularity: Hey Ladies!!
So on a sunny spring day when I hear that MCA was finally taken away by Cancer, I am overwhelmed with myriad emotions. One of the authors of the soundtrack to my high school and college years, MCA is indelibly imprinted on my musical heart and soul (probably my parents’ too as they had to listen to the music on constant reply for at least the last two years we lived together) is gone. It makes me a bit sad, somewhat nostalgic, totally Intergalactic, overly pensive, yell Hey Ladies, wonder Watcha Want, and overwhelmed with Gratitude.
But mostly it makes me wanna take a Slow Ride.
Thank you MCA. You made so many things so much more fun.
RIP Adam Yauch
The Illusion of Perfection, Part 2
Ahh… the Illusion of Perfection. So illusory (and elusive) that people actually believe they can not only obtain perfection, but that it might matter.
I have long been called a perfectionist, by myself and others I suspect. My grade school teachers noted it in the way that I worked (or quit working) when something did not come out exactly right on the first attempt. For a long time in my professional life I was convinced, categorically that if I made a misstep in any way shape or form, all would be lost. While there are a lot of advantages (professionally) to this mindset, it does little for sanity, relationships, or general well-being.
And if all is lost, then what do you do? Really? What do you do?
If you are me you spend a lot of time kicking your own ass. This is a drag. In every way imaginable.
For some time now I have been really trying to work out what really does matter. You hear the cliché all them time that on one’s death bed one will not think back on all the work that they did not do, or the worrying that they did not do…
I think (as with many clichés) this may be the real answer.
Could it be that simple?
On April 15, 2012 something happened that has since shaped much of my attitudes about what really might matter. While this was a catalyst for me in some ways, it was something I had been grappling with for much longer. But a catastrophic event can do this to a person… send them further and faster on a train of thought. After April 15 I started thinking about how it might not be the end of the world if I did not grade 120 papers on the exact day I got them. I started to think that in some ways my inability to present perfectly comprehensive and amazing lessons everyday might be acceptable. I thought I might not wash those dishes right then, I might go to bed and let someone rub my head. I looked around and thought, it just might be okay to do nothing for a minute.
In many ways, my present working environment has contributed a great deal to my ability to see that, while perfection may be a worthy goal, it is not a required outcome in order to achieve really amazing, important, valid things. I am working these days with the most creative, flexible, dynamic groups of people I have ever worked with. Without being patronizing or pandering in any way, these folks have a really solid grip on appropriate priorities for the tasks we have at hand. Consequently, they also have a really clear understanding of how to make sure the pursuit of perfection can coexist with the pursuit of happiness (or at the very least satisfaction.)
I can’t really express how grateful I have been for this – especially recently as I grapple with intense grieving for inexplicable losses, true instability as a teacher working in a public school under the painful thumb of state budgets, insane student behavior as spring approaches and I again find myself at the helm of a group of seniors who do not know how to deal with all the emotions associated with the impending transition that high school graduation brings them whether or not they are ready for it.
When I think about all these things – and all the other shit that is strewn across the world and the human race: genocide, poverty, domestic violence, failing economies, war, the mass marketing of fear, global warming, endangered species, racism – suddenly I get a whole new view of what matters. And what does not matter.
What matters? Spending time with the people who enrich your life, whenever you can. Doing things that energize and recharge you. Minding the three gatekeepers of the mouth: The first gatekeeper asks “Is it true?” The second gatekeeper asks “Is it kind? For those who qualify for the first two, there is a final question. The third gatekeeper asks “Is it necessary?”
And what does not matter? Internet trolls, and angry little men in general. A student who is righteously indignant that I took a page out of Mr. Hand’s book and did not allow him to come late to my class with food. A stack of ungraded papers. Handouts stapled imperfectly.
Tonight I will go to the gym and be punished by my trainer and love it. Then I will walk home and cook dinner for the really kind person who came to meet me just so I didn’t have to walk alone. Then I will get to spend time chatting about the things that matter with someone who matters. I will probably do some work to prepare for tomorrow. I will manage any crises I need to, including cleaning the cat box. And I will sleep well. Grateful for the opportunity to do all these things whether I like them or not, for another day.
All is not. lost.
I love irony: Spending May Day at the Federal Reserve.
Today is May Day. For many years I associated May Day with the Maypole and faeries and flowers and such. All very pagan and Mother Earth-y and all. I never knew that it was International Workers’ Day… likely because we don’t really familiarize ourselves with holidays that don’t offer days off, I suppose, and the US is not one of the 80 nations from around the world that recognize the date as an official state holiday because we celebrate our laborers in September. There are a few interesting wiki-factoids about the history of May 1st in the US here. A more global summary (or at least British) from the Guardian detailing the history of the International Workers’ movement can be found here.
Now, I was raised in a very labor-friendly environment. My family has always been pro-labor (as a pre-teen I interpreted this to mean that they quite enjoyed providing me with a nice variety of chores…) and I hail from a fairly humble socio-economic background coupled with a pretty liberal socio-geographic origin. As such, I believe in power-to-the-people, and worker’s rights, and I did not eat grapes until I was old enough to read about why I never got to eat grapes, and I support a livable minimum wage and fair labor practice law. Further, I do believe that the mal-distribution of wealth in our society is not a result of a working market economy and hard work v. indolence, rather it is a result of a cycle that is either virtuous or vicious, depending upon which side of the divide you stand.
Because of all these facts, I was met with some fairly amused raised eyebrows from one my colleague when I told him that the first available day that I was able to schedule my Econ classes for a tour of the Federal Reserve was May 1. Further, I was told by my contact ‘on the inside’ that “the vault was currently closed.” If the vault was closed in February, what was the likelihood that it would be open in May? On May First, no less, when the Occupy Movement was planning for their biggest day of action ever?
And so we would be in the vault of the SF Fed walking among millions and millions of dollars (hopefully), while outside there would be… well, we did not know.
I do know that last night as I sat in my apartment in the Mission, I heard people on the street yelling about “a party at Dolores!” which does make me wonder when I am thinking the point is to organize not get wasted…. And in less than an hour these people were trashing local restaurants, coffee shops, private cars, and the police station on my street. No matter how much I support labor and the ideas behind the #OWS movement, I find this kind of arbitrary vandalism not just counterproductive, but also ignorant and offensive. Really, of all the neighborhoods to fuck with? The Mission? Do your research assholes.
It is with this mood that I headed out to meet my kids to head to the Fed. I called my contact at the Fed this morning before I got to work to double check… “We are still on, right?” “Of course!” “Okay, I just wanna make sure, because… you know…” “We are all set, see you at 9:30!”
And so we went with the following objectives: tour the Fed, and then interview folks on the street and ask them about the economy, what is the economy to them? They were armed with templates and Sharpies and charm. My contribution is here:
We were unofficially greeted on the corner by a street crier dressed like a Minuteman and decrying the “system”. To be fair, much more articulately than I would have predicted. As we got to the entrance of the Federal Reserve Bacnk building, a small group of protestors put down their bongs (seriously) long enough to warn us: “Don’t go in there! They will brain wash you!” Hm. I always get annoyed when people tell me I can be brainwashed because of the implied suggestion that I am mentally feeble enough to be susceptible to brainwashing. We went in anyhow, obviously.
The tour at the Fed is actually really interesting, and it is always validating to have the presentation cover material that I have taught my kids *and* they remember. What is the Fed, officially? [The Bank for the banks.] Why was it created? [To deal with financial panics...] When was it created? [Under W. Wilson in 1913.] Who oversees the Fed? ? ? ? [Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. And he would be the mostly likely candidate to have any oversight over the Federal Reserve...]
The currency exhibit at the SF Fed is fabulous and the design of the main exhibit was the work of the husband of one of my colleagues [Cool factor: high.] We got to see one of the most comprehensive collections of paper currency ever, (even got a CD of it – woo hoo Fed swag… they did make 81.7 billion last year…) and then headed down to the Vault.
My kids talk about money with the term “stacks”. Lots of money is “stacks on stacks on stacks…” There was enough time to utter the word stacks enough times to even suggest the amount of currency we were looking at in there today. Millions and millions of dollars. Pallets of bills. Seriously. The standard box, when full of hundreds, holds 46 million dollars. We also learned that approximately 56 million dollars are shredded everyday (we all got a bag of the shreddings…) The place smelled so strongly of – well, of money - that it almost rendered you dizzy. We spent a lot of time trying to work out what effect working in this environment would have on one’s consciousness regarding money: would become obsessed? Jaded? Criminal? Prudent? It is hard to say. Seems like it would be awfully tempting to shove a few Benjamins in one’s pockets if you knew they were going to the shredder, no? Hard to say.
Ultimately, of course, the Fed presents itself in a very particular way. Though our guide was pretty candid (she told me they have never been robbed when they guard we were with told me he was not allowed to talk about things like that, and she talked about how transparency has become a real issue because for so long the Fed really was just like this giant, silent Mothership.) I appreciated her candor. When we left the building, there were a few more protestors here and there, but really, there was not much happening. [Tonight, it is clear we got lucky getting out early because things did get ugly in certain parts of the downtown area.] We walked around and breathed in the fresh air.
I contemplated the contrast in life on Sixth Street and a building holding more money than even my most voracious teenagers can fathom. It did seem strange. And in a way we did strike by not going to school today. But really, if my choice is taking these kids into the Belly of the Beast to show them what is going on, or to ave them breaking windows of local merchants in my neighborhood, I definitely choose the former.
We will be examining the other side of the story next week when we watch this little cartoon:
I am all for a fair and balanced approach….
The Illusion of Perfection, part 1
I knew a couple once, in what was like another lifetime, that seemed like this absolutely RomCom reality. They were like perpetual honeymooners. It wasn’t just that they never fought, it was that they clearly, outwardly (and in every way) adored each other all the time. All.The.Time. It was as if they had somehow managed to capture that first week/month/(or so) thrill of infatuation and live within it.
It reminded me of a Disney movie.
Umm. She was asleep. Yeah, I know…
I spent quite a bit of time with this couple, and I will not say when or in what capacity because in this case confidentiality is really important, but the more important thing is to know how much I idealized these two. He was older and she was his second (younger) wife. And they fawned over each other, and they were ever considerate, he in the way the foppish guy in the RomCom always is, eliciting groans from the male audience, and ‘awwwww,’ from the girls. Even tough girls do it so don’t front. She was sometimes silly in that reborn nerd girl kind of way, and he always played the straight man, ever patient, never getting ruffled. They seemed to be a Perfect Couple.
The person I was with when I first met them had no time for them. He was not impressed at all. My next partner during this time – not always the sharpest tool in the shed – always said he thought something was off. [Sometimes those well-used tools shine bright.] My mom said the same thing of them, not that it was an act exactly , but that it certainly seemed to exact effort. Eventually, I knew their secrets. All of them. Well, all of hers, and the ones he had shared with her. I imagine with the number of secrets she had that he would never know, he must have had some doozies that she did not know. They were the kind of secrets that, even in a soap opera, would elicit incredulity. It was clichéd dirty laundry of the worst sort. And even when she told all my secrets, I never told hers because I knew that he would leave her if he found them out. Absolutely. As far as I know they are still together, but she must go to bed every night knowing the secrets she cannot tell. I think now that this is what contributes to her manic adoration. But I don’t really know. Anyhow, that was the Perfect Couple I knew.
I found myself thinking of this perfect couple not too long ago. The Neo-Honeymooners. I was living in that heady, intense, early onset adoration that develops – if you are lucky – in the initial stages of a relationship. While I was giddily (is that a word?) soaking it all up, I was amazed that it appeared I had stumbled upon that magic elixir of perpetual infatuation. This would never end! Huzzah! I win!
I forgot for a minute that every magic elixir I know of knocks you out and leaves you with a whopping hangover at best, or maybe just puts you into some comatose state of delusion [see exhibit Sleeping Beauty, above.]
And so when the moment came when I had to see this person as a real human and not some Disney character, I had to pause. Had I failed? Was I doomed to a perpetual cycle of up and down romance always culminating in some sort of dramatic downward spiral? Those were my first thoughts. Definitely. But then, I sat with myself and looked at those ideas more closely. It dawned on me that as reality emerged through the foggy illusion of [let's face it, one-dimensional] perfection, it was probably happening for him too in regard to me. And he did not seem all that troubled by it. When I fretted about my own reality poking through the rainbow haze, he didn’t do anything, he just stayed right there.
And that is something.
This whole living in reality thing seems very adult. And there are parts of it that also seem really uninspired. But, I do not go to bed harboring secrets. And I know that he is not bothered by the fact that I did not put away the clean laundry, or that everyday is not like a RomCom holiday. We are humans and [mostly] doing the best we can for each other all the time. I guess that means we really like each other. A lot.
Then I though about another “Perfect Couple” I know. And another. And another. What has made them all perfect is how they embrace the imperfections. [Or, at least manage them and deal with them...] I know this is not always easy. Or fun. But that is the magic of the real Honeymooners: One of these days, POW! Right in the kisser…!
The Kramden’s knew what a real honeymoon was.
I have – I’ve got an explanation. A perfect one. I’m a dope. Not a run-of-the-mill dope, the world’s champ. For years I’ve been taking for granted the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me – you. I’ve never shown you the appreciation you deserve, Alice. You could walk outta that door right now and I wouldn’t blame you. You deserve something better than me. There are a million guys who’d give you anything if they could have a girl like you.
Ralph, I don’t want a million. There’s just one guy I want: you.
Baby, you’re the greatest.
Words for a moment when there simply are none.
For there is nothing heavier than compassion.
Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone,
a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes. ~ Milan Kundera
There are some things that are so horrible and awful and terrible, that they don’t ever seem real. Until they are real. And even now when they are real, I find myself continuously being drawn back to a place of suspended animation and disbelief. That this reality cannot actually be real. But it is real. And it is horrible and awful and there are simply no words in any language that can impart the kind of raw, visceral sadness I am speaking of.
I woke up today for the third time since a permanent shift occurred in the reality I inhabit. And the cats wanted food, and the sun came up, and the people went to work, me among them. As I sat on the train, knowing I would soon be riding the same train back to the City with 50 tenth graders, I read the news. I wanted to read about news really far away from me. From places where terrible, awful things happen all the time and so they don’t seem like such incomprehensible aberrations. And the first thing I read was about how this month is National Stalking Awareness Day. I am fairly certain in this context the focus is on internet stalking, but the connection between cyber-stalking and real stalking is too real for me. Especially now.
There are a litany of self-aggrandizing idiots on the internet who consider themselves “internet-famous” (a euphemism for being NOT famous…) and as such are constantly blubbering on and on about how they are “stalked.” These people post photos of their boobs all over the interwebs, try desperately hard to be titillating… and then cry, “Oh my! That person thinks I want to talk sexy with them!” Or, “God, that person is so obsessed with me!” In light of what it really means to be stalked, and what is on my mind today, these sad little people only add insult to the injury I am feeling right now. The things that lead a person to stalk another are probably impossible to be understood by any other, but when the outcome leads to tragedy, it points to a whole host of problems that have far-reaching effects. And when the tragedy touches you in a deeply personal way, you find yourself trying to make sense of things that make no sense and becoming enraged about pitiful people you don’t know or care about on the internet while you ride the train to work because to think about the pain that is really weighing on your heart and soul is so awful you cannot even breathe when it enters your mind.
I need to breathe.
We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who’s right and who’s wrong. We do that with the people who are closest to us and we do it with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don’t like about our associates or our society. It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others… Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground.”
~Pema Chödrön
Looking for explanations for the inexplicable is probably a road straight to insanity, but it is something I keep coming back to. It also leads to assigning false causality to minutia, and to conjecture, and to blame. I wanted to place this overwhelming grief onto someone else for the simple relief that anger might offer. For a moment I felt better.
But the relief was short-lived.
The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive. ~John Greene
The events that transpired in my hometown on Sunday afternoon, to people who I have known and loved for so many years, have left me and this small town adrift. That a family who I hold so dear in my heart and who have had a tremendous influence on my life are going through something so horrible is unconscionable. It is unfair. It is enough to engender feelings of anger that I was unprepared to deal with. But the worse I was feeling, and the more wound up in anger I became, I realized I was only adding to the horror of this situation. And compassion and forgiveness might be the only way I can regain some sort of balance in my mind. I do not have to forgive an individual who I have always struggled with for being who they were, but perhaps as the only way to quell the negativity within my mind, I would have to forgive them for this final act, if only as a small act of compassion towards such an injured person. This forgiveness actually felt quite selfish. I was doing it only for myself and simultaneously felt wracked with guilt for attempting to forgive.
But I kept thinking about it. In forgiving one person, I was not minimizing the other. Nor was I excusing the behavior of that individual, in recent times or further back. What I was trying to do was realign my energy to focus on the people for whom I am intensely grieving. And then, strangely, I started to feel a bit better.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle. ~ Plato
As I look back on the life of my friend who has been taken away, the interconnectedness of all of us becomes so painfully clear, and not just because we come from a small town, but because the lives we live have far-reaching effects in wonderfully positive ways, as well as some that are terribly tragic. To try to understand why things happen after the fact is futile. There is no way to truly understand what you watch from any sort of distance, really you would be lucky to have a clear understanding of things you directly experience.
There are no words I can offer right now to a family I wish nothing more for than relief and peace. A family that has always welcomed me, and remembered me, and supported me no matter what. And to the friends I have on all sides of this tragedy, I feel equally helpless. Perhaps for these reasons I find myself here, writing in vagaries and tangents. Though it is little compensation I am sure, I turn now to another great mind:
To know even one life as breathed easier because you have lived… this is to have succeeded. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Please give if you can: Conover & Sullivan Childeren
*photo: Curtis Stankalis
Of baseball and a couple other things I have loved, and not.
The world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self awareness.
I love sports. For real, I do. People who know me, know this already. [I am not one of these girls.] I love the thrill of competition, I am competitive – in things I should be, as well as those I should not – I use friendly competition in my classroom – sometimes between the kids and me, sometimes among them alone – even though I have been told that “the classroom is no place for competition”. And for so many of these reasons, I have always liked sports. I am a quick study and can learn the nuances of games quickly, and as such I am able to quickly deduce if I like a sport or not, as a spectator or a participant. Basketball, I love, clearly. Tennis I can get into. Golf can be thrilling – no lie. The end of a classic track meet with the 4×400 meter relay is incomparable. Rugby is fantastic. Cricket, more humorous to my American mind. Soccer? Yeah, I can appreciate it, especially as I learned all the parallels between the international futbol and basketball. Hockey? Can’t get into it. NFL? Oh man, I have tried to like it, but alas, only the college game will work for me. Volleyball? Surfing? Awesome. Cycling? I am getting it.
And baseball? I love it.
I don’t really like playing baseball, but as a spectator, I have aways loved the game. I am a NorCal kid and I grew up watching the A’s at the Coliseum through the amazing 70s and late 80s, and all the times in between. I also spent many a day watching the G-Men out at the Stick, sort of loveable losers, but always so much fun. The memories I have from and of my Bay Area teams are all amazing. I gravitated towards the A’s for many reasons: the DH, the friendly vibe, the sunnier-than-the-Stick Coliseum, the winning tradition, Billy Martin, Eck, Stew, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But many of my closest friends chose the Giants over the A’s. It was never much of a thing, we all had our own teams to cheer on and we had fun. So much fun!
But then something yucky happened. I can’t put my finger on it exactly. All of a sudden, I started hearing really disgusting classcist, and basically racist, criticism of the A’s from Giants fans: they were “ghetto”, they were “thugs”, they were “too poor to matter”, “If I wanted to hang around [add your own undesirable] I would go to an A’s game”, and all sorts of other ad hom attacks that had little to do with anything at all baseballesque. Some might say it happened when the Giants organization built the amazing and beautiful AT&T Park. Some, like Keith Olbermann, might argue it had more to do with the Giants finally winning a world series. As far as I am concerned the jury is out on the cause, but the effects are as clear as day, and as a result I will avoid AT&T park for the foreseeable future.
Here is why.
The other day I got a Tweet from a Twitter friend, who is a total Giants fan, a season ticket holder for years, and a true supporter of this team, who said he had tickets to the exhibition games between the Giants and As at AT&T that he was not going to use, and knowing that I bleed Oakland Green and Gold, he offered them to me. It was perfect, I was on break, it was a day game and as the last spring game we would get to see lots of different looks. I was psyched and replied that I would love to have the tickets.
We headed out to the park and took our seats in the sunny, full bleachers. I wore a black A’s hat, hardly all that obnoxious, and was glad to see a good number of A’s fans around, I have grown tired of the out-and-out mockery that lately leads to pretty cutting insults from Giants fans just for being an A’s fan. In no time it was 3-1 Oakland. The previous two games had both been won by a single run by the Giants, so as one would expect there were a good number of brooms in the hands of the Giants fans. It seemed like a great day for a friendly game between two teams who are rivals only due to proximity.
But by the fourth inning (and bear in mind we are talking about midday, like maybe 1:30 p.m.) I began to notice that the Giants fans were not cheering for their team. They were basically just hating on everyone and everything. There were a couple of lovely notable exceptions, but basically, instead of cheering for their team, they were talking shit about the A’s players (and their families, and their genitals, and how pathetic they are – I’d love to see some of these fuckers try to face even the shittiest pitcher in the majors…) The obscenities were flying. And there were kids and families all around us. Then there was a huge fight – between two female Giants fans that got the attention of the entire bleacher section. Then there were two Giants fans who caused such a scene with a young family with two young kids (all sporting the Orange and Black and having a great time) that the ushers had to get forceful to remove the fans, and the fans never shut their mouths, in front of the kids. Then a Giants fan came and sat in front of us – loud, belligerent and not in his rightful seat – who, when he stood right in front of me, I told to take a seat. But oh! He was not going to take that… “What are you missing sweetheart?” He shouted at me. I told him I don’t like to miss anything, and then he got really aggressive. Tried to get the people around him on his side and finally got a less than pleasant walk up the stairs with the Cowboy. The obnoxious fan never shut his mouth the entire time, and he degenerated to personal insults after our first exchange. I cringed to think that the Cowboy was having to deal with this idiot, but I knew the guy would be sidewalk lining if he pushed it too far.
Were it not for the two really nice ladies sitting next to us, we would have left for sure. And at this point it was only 6-1 A’s. No matter, the Giants fans kept on going about how the A’s, and all things affiliated with them, are the worst sort of garbage.
Now don’t get me wrong… I can, and have heckled, with the best of them. I see a place for it… but there is a way to heckle. Seriously. For example, I love to hate on all things Duke. They are a fabulous team to hate on, but make no mistake, I am hating on the team and what it stands for: years of success and domination. The Bluedevils are really good, and I would never say otherwise – that is what makes them fun to hate: they always win! (Well, not always… hehehhhehh…) And it is never about the kids themselves (and let’s face it, that is what all these athletes are: kids) it is a macro ‘us and them’ sort of thing. It is silly goofiness to rib my friends who love Duke and it is always in fun. I also enjoy a rivalry, but at the end of the game, it is about loving the game, not hating the opponents (at least for too terribly long, and certainly not because of their hairstyle or income level). Giants fans seem to have forgotten how to love the game, instead always going on about their stadium, how they have the best food, hating on everyone, even their own people. No one has ever been killed at an A’s game – but in 2010 a Giants fan was killed by another Giants fan at AT&T Park. I never see fights at A’s games… and funny enough, whenever I point this out, this new breed of Giants fan says, “That is because the A’s suck so bad, no one would bother to go to their game/ fight over them.” Seriously? I could give shit why people around me are not violent, crass, drunkards, as long as I am not around them, and I would far rather be around the happy fans out at the Coliseum than around these people I found myself surrounded by at AT&T Park.
As we walked out on Wednesday I heard people saying “Oh, who cares losing to Oakland? They are garbage, it doesn’t even matter” and “Whatever, we still win more games that they ever will over there.” I always have to bite my tongue about this when it comes to comparing World Series wins – really Giants fans? Do you know the history? Sigh. I left the game feeling sad for what people now have to immerse themselves in, just to have a nice day out at the yard.
And that was just the start of it. In telling my family about our day out at the ballpark, I heard a far worse story about a friend who took his family to the Monday night game. And again, it had nothing to do with the game, the players, or the A’s. This family is part of my family, and they are tried and true died in the wool Giants fans from forever. A drunken Giants fan caused a horrible commotion and my friends along with their young children, were caught in the crossfire – and they were not in the bleachers! To be fair the Giants organization is doing everything in their power to do right by my friends, but that they have to is simply an embarrassment.
I guess it doesn’t matter how nice your stadium is, eh?
Like I said, I have no idea when this all started to happen, but all I have to say about it is it’s a damn shame. I am not stupid enough to fall for logical fallacies like hasty generalizations, red herrings, ad hom attacks, straw man, or slippery slopes. I know too many amazing Giants fans who have been with their team through thick and thin, and they love this game – the highs and the lows. What I do know is this: I am really looking forward to seeing a lot of A’s games this year – at the Coliseum – and I know they will probably break my heart again, it is the reality of being a small market (read small budget) team with an incredible eye for talent (read farm system). But I still love watching them play.
And I live under no illusion: this is not my team, they don’t owe me something, they are not my friends. They are athletes who get paid (or not) to do a job. It just happens to be a job I love to watch them do. Plus, I feel like some sort of proud parent as I watch all of Oakland’s studs light up the rest of the majors… Talk about looking for the silver lining… but that is the job of a fan.
And as a fan, I love this game.
Oh, and –>
Mental Body Imaging.
I used to live with a bulemic (truth be told, I have lived with two bulemics, two anorexics, an exercise bulemic, a laxative addict, and several compulsive eaters – but hey, I came up in the 80s where, according to Movado watches – and the general social consciousness – you could “never be too rich or too thin” and I certainly had my own food issues: I ate). The bulemic to which I refer now had a lot of other issues, as I imagine most do, but I bring her up now to make this point: I used to look at her and think to myself, “Wow, you are a really horrible bulemic. You are still fat.” True story. When I think about how I would think these things about her, I feel pretty bad, but then there was a lot of other shit going on in that relationship. Still, looking at it in print, it’s a pretty embarrassing thing to admit.
At the time, I remember being somehow acutely aware of my own physicality, but also totally unconcerned with it; a rare combination I have not since experienced. Of course, I was 24 and super active and looked great. I am not sure I ever crossed the threshold of being conscious of looking great, but, I knew at least enough to know that I did not need to hate myself via my appearance.
And I did not think about it a whole lot more for quite some time.
Then I moved to China Light (Hong Kong.) A place with all the constraints of Old China and the demands of the West. In other words, aesthetically speaking, the vast majority of women are fucked. I know the body-positive set says something like a bajillion women don’t look like supermodels and only eight do, or something, but in Hong Kong it is far worse. It is worse because there are women of every ethnic and national background trying to co-opt the best features of every other group. If this were possible in reality the tragic mishmash would be horrible, but as it is you see Asian women with the natural inclination towards thinness perming their hair, whitening their skin, augmenting their breasts, reshaping their noses and eyelid surgery. Western women are straightening their hair (that which they do not remove), coloring everything that can be colored, darkening their skin, and liposucitoning the rest away. South Asian and Middle Eastern women follow suit with their own tendencies – threading, whitening….
And all of them are dieting. No one is thin enough.*
When I first arrived in Hong Kong I was not fat. I was not even chubby. I was thin. But I would go into shops and local shopkeepers, who do not let you try things on, would say, “Noooo… not for you Missy. Too big.” Local people would comment on how “strong I was.” A lovely euphemism for too big to comprehend. And if your local friends thought you had put on a few pounds, they would simply say to you, “You fat.” The objective delivery made it all the worse because it gets you in the mind-set that it is not an insult at all, but a reality, and likely a reality you are going to need to deal with. Soon. [I am reminded of the Chinese restaurant in Kota Kinabalu that I saw called Soon Fatt. Sigh.]
When you are surrounded by people who are a fraction of your size, you just get used to feeling huge. And the longer I was in Asia, the more huge I felt. Bear in mind, I am 5’10″. I generally weigh about 150 pounds, give or take. I am really active, very strong (in the non-Chinese meaning of the word) and pretty healthy. Living in Asia I wore an extra-large in everything. Bigger if it was available. It was just the way it was. When I would come home, the sizes I wore would get increasingly smaller. I remember coming home in 2008 and going to Banana Republic where the sales person sized me up as a six. I laughed out loud. I have not been a size six since middle school. But vanity sizing had hit in the States and so the sizes were quite literally nothing but a number. It was a joke (especially at the mid-market stores, like Banana, etc.) The thing is, I am a size ten. Legitimately, that is the size I wear. I have very broad shoulders and a wingspan that is longer than my height, not to mention a 34″ inseam. I.Am.Not.A.Size.Six. My old clothes attest to the accurate size, my new clothes say I am a six or an eight.
Lies.
But it says a lot about what we are working with in terms of body image. In Asia, no matter how small you are, you are never small enough. And in the US when people are too big (they are) the solution has been to adjust sizing to pretend you are not so big. Both scenarios tell us that we are not okay as we are. And for some reason that is an incredibly easy truth to hold fast.
Before I came home from Asia I spent six weeks in India. I was at an ashram for the majority of the time. How I looked was absolutely not a focus. I was there for a whole slew of other reasons. The focus on the aesthetic slipped easily away when washing one’s hair became an ordeal best left for once or twice a week and getting clothes clean, at least for this Westerner, was not a reality using a concrete slab and hard soap. I lost so much weight in the ashram that I stopped having my period. This was not intentional in any way. But when I left the ashram and I had a look at my physique, I was entranced. Enamored. It was amazing. Always having been healthy, I was now skinny. It was a total trip. Obviously my body was in some state of shock, and so was my mind. But having once reached the “Promised Land” I have never been able to let it go.
I returned to Hong Kong and everyone I knew was so pleased with how I looked. Then I moved home to the States and you can imagine how I looked relative to my surroundings. But, once out of the ashram, and back to a more regular life, so too was my body more regular, and oh! – the disappointment of regularity. Beyond the disappointment, there is the next phase: chasing the dragon. And once you are in pursuit of an inappropriate goal, you are on the treadmill which, unlike any other treadmill, actually has a destination: BDD.
Body dysmorphic disorder is described as “a somatoform disorder, wherein the affected person is concerned with body image, manifested as excessive concern about and preoccupation with a perceived defect of their physical features. The individual’s symptoms must not be better accounted for by another disorder; for example, weight concern is usually more accurately attributed to an eating disorder.” It is on the same continuum as OCD and can manifest in a number of ways. There are sorts of online tests you can take to determine if you have BDD – but really, if you think you have it, you probably do. The severity varies and in no way am I in need of hospitalization, or is it effecting my work (in fact, my work often is a forced counter-balance to my own issues because I am overly conscious of being “body-positive” [I'll get to this "body-positive" nonsense in a moment] in front of my students because somehow in spite of how I might be feeling about my shit, it seems like I am somehow responsible for not contributing to theirs). Still, the disconnect between how I see myself and a more likely reality has been growing for some time now. Well, since I came home, specifically. And the fact that back in the land of corpulence I am more freaked out than I was in Asia is an irony that is not lost on me.
In Asia I had the built-in safety net of impossibility. With no chance of meeting the “ideal” you are free to just do your thing, this is why it is so much harder for my Asian friends over there. However, after I returned to the US, my altered perspective began to emerge from a more subconscious level, right out into the forefront of my daily existence. This grew into a silent obsession with the minutia of my appearance. My physicality. My hair. My nails. My skin. My BDD has manifested in an internal dialog that is getting a bit tedious, frankly.
A while back I found myself looking at one of those “body-positive” websites a friend had posted on Facebook. And while I certainly can see where there might be something positive about it, I found nothing aesthetically tolerable about it: the sizes, the shapes, the stylings, none of it. In fact, as I looked at pictures of legitimately large women lolling around in lingerie, I started getting irritated about it. I mean, it is not like fat is healthy. I wondered how these people could walk around and not seem bothered by all the things that were bothering me.
After I looked at the website for a while I looked at myself. And instead of seeing my same old size ten self, who should have looked pretty damn fit in comparison – I saw those images. And it was real. I looked and looked and looked and tried all sorts of angles and still, it was all this deformed distorted unpleasantness. It was all I saw. Last week I saw myself in a photo someone had just taken. I did a double take. I was cracking up over something and looking totally relaxed. I could not believe that was how I looked. But it was me. I looked in the mirror.
Total disconnect.
It is strange. Rationally, I know I look fine. But somehow, it is so easy to convince oneself otherwise… And then the things l love to do become chorish. And all this Photoshop v. non-Photoshop stuff, or the whole “Real women” campaign, and the body positive shit just becomes even more annoying. Even hanging around someone who thinks you are simply amazing (hi mom!) in every way cannot really combat the weirdness. I imagine it will be something I always think about – but I hope for now at least, that whether or not my reality matches that of others, it can become a little less important. We’ll see.
Right now I’m going to the gym.
Or not.
*All data is empirical and based on personal observation rather than statistics, though it is easy enough to find stats that both support my statements and refute them with equal vehemence and frequency.
The Day of the Fool: The paradigm of the precipice
In tarot card reading The Fool is the card that I like the best. Well, one of the cards that I like the best – and truth be told I don’t know a ton about the whole tarot tradition, but for reasons you can supply on your own, The Fool has always been a symbol that resonates with me.
The card, if it has an identifier, is usually Zero – the perfect number because in every way, literal and figurative, Zero can become anything, an amazing gift for The Fool when he reaches his destination, any destination. I am especially pleased that April begins with what is April Fool’s Day, after the long, hard slog that March so often is – for everyone, but I think especially for students and teachers.
Caesar [to the Soothsayer]: The ides of March are come…
Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar; but not gone.
March has so much mythology of its own… “in like a lion – out like a lamb”, the historical wariness of the ides (though you all should know, of course that ‘ides’ simply means midpoint, and thus, not to be Debby Downer, but every month has their own ides…) And like Caesar, for me to heave a sigh of relief at making it to the midpoint of March will always be a shortsighted endeavor: the ides of March have a particularly rough residual effect for those of us with our eyes fixed so desperately on the prize that Spring Break always promises.
Add to this that I generally teach seniors, who are in the throes of Senioritis while faced with the reality that the class I teach is required for their graduation, and then add to that, our winter break was especially early this year and Easter painfully late, as well as the reality that the 3rd Quarter ended on March 30 and so the reporting of these required grades takes on a whole new drama. The Third Quarter Slump leaves no stone unturned, no person untouched. Then there are all the other human foibles that begin to show when people are feeling frayed, spread to thin, tired, etc., etc., oh! And all of us teachers who work under the State of California’s current educational economics also were laid off on, fittingly, the Ides of March, and the weather has been chaotic, and the news has been disheartening, and and and and…
I welcome The Fool.
I’ve missed you. I’ve missed time for myself. I’ve missed the commentary along with the private satisfaction of knowing that you know little more about me when I write about… well, me. I’ve missed calm. I’ve missed believing that ‘life is good’ while I watch the news and see a man who killed five of his family members in South San Francisco, perhaps over March Madness sports wagering, while I follow the story of a repeatedly rejected wanna-be police officer who shot a young man in Florida and is allowed to say he was ‘standing his ground’. I’ve missed the levity that we all demand spring bring us – regardless of the reality that we need rain and stormy weather. I’ve missed the confidence that gets shaken when we worry that we cannot do it all.
I have made it through March. And April First brought with it bright sunshine. Sleepy smiles. Strong coffee. Kitty love. A week without work. Good hugs. A new beginning. A change of direction. Yoga. Baseball. The Beach.
Keep the faith.
“Halt! Identify yourselves, in the name of the Empire!”
The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities, some considered to be unnatural…
I am currently teaching a unit on imperialism in World History. We are working through the causes and effects of imperialism and the different strategies of empire building in order to ultimately determine if we think that the United States is/is not/was/was never an empire. We examined the Ancient Maya, China in the age of Dynasties, the Spanish, the British, and compared and contrasted their strategies, goals & ambitions, purposes, and results. Then we determined that, like all good social scientists, we needed a model in order to effectively assess all of these empires. Our archetype of empire is the Galactic Empire. To this end the students came up with a list of characteristics that they believed must exist to merit the label: Empire. The list looked something like this:
- Territory
- Army/military strength
- Influence
- Power
- Money
- Respected by others
- Allies
- Renown
- Strong leader, perhaps an autocrat, definitely with cult of personality
- The five elements of “civilization”, which include skilled workers, advanced cities, complex institutions, advanced technology, and record keeping
- Ambition
- Hierarchy
- Unique cultural traditions
- Independence
It is a rare and joyous moment when something like Star Wars is validated as meaningful academia. The idea that Star Wars could actually be a legit focus in the study of World History has been one of these moments. Of course, I now must tread lightly so as not to ruin something cool by ‘schooling’ it, but that is a chance I am willing to take.
As these students began to put together composites of the characteristics of the various empires we looked at – focusing specifically on their aims, ambitions, and methods as time (and let’s face it, attention) is always limited in high school you’ve gotta be selective, so we are – certain trends become clear. Trends not only in the characters of the empires and their imperial designs, but trends in the scholarship. This is fun when the students start to notice these things and ask questions….
Why did everyone think the Maya were all peaceful?
Why don’t we learn how they partied?
If the Maya calendar is so accurate, why don’t we use it? [Chased by the inevitable follow-up, 'cause then we're all gonna die in December!]
The second of our empires who aimed for a sort of self-sufficiency the Western World has never seemed to understand was Ancient China. My students seem to instinctively understand the Chinese response to Britain, “We don’t need you. We are awesome.” [On a personal note, I find it fascinating how this attitude has persevered throughout all of China's history and is alive and well today. Not that I disagree, but it is an interesting cultural legacy.] And the students totally understand China’s attitude because, well, because of their size, really. When we write on the board that the land area of China is 9,569,901 km sq (which I have to convert into square miles, thank you very much England… 3,694,959) and then I write down the land area of Britain, 241,930 km sq (and this is generous as it include the entire UK… 93,409) the kids laugh.
What? The Maya had more territory!
That is so small? Is it bigger now? [No...]
Hold on, why did they call it *Great* Britain?
Still, the students also seem to totally understand the shift in power once drugs are introduced, and the opium wars are one of the most logical lessons we’ve covered in History so far this year. But they are perplexed by the Treaty of Nanking and further confused by the Open Door Policy.
Um, I think I am reading this wrong because it seems like the Chinese got totally screwed in this Treaty. Who would sign this?
Wait, no one agreed to John Hay’s plan, but he said people did… and that worked? That’s like a Jedi mind trick! [smiles]
Uh, when did the United States even get involved?
Maybe everyone was smoking opium or something… [Ah, would that it were so simple...]
In general Britain confounds them. They fully understand the need for Britain to spread out and take over the world, but they don’t understand how they were able to do it. We talk about gunboat diplomacy and dollar diplomacy. We talk about short-term and long-term considerations (and miscalculations). They keep asking why Britain called itself great. We talk about how the sun never set on the British Empire. They mention that the Spanish had already used that saying a century or so earlier… and we consider the effectiveness of British imperialism as a commercial ambition and a matter of national pride. They seem to understand this. In contrast considering Spain’s hyper-religious focus, they seem to think the Brits had a better strategy by not alienating every non-Catholic on the planet. What was that going to do for them anyhow? they ask. I refer them to Mel Brooks in agreement.
All the while, pretty much every third question is, “When are we going to watch Star Wars???” [The other primary questions having to do with why Britain is *Great* Britain (insert all size matters jokes here, and trust I have been hearing them, these are sophomores, after all), and if we are going to watch all six Star Wars films. (I did mention they are sophomores, right? Disregard the idea that there are no silly questions...)]
And so tomorrow, it begins, in a galaxy not so far away, armed with all sorts of comparative data, and a timeline of the Galactic Empire from the year 19 B.B.Y. (the year the Empire was established) to the year 137 A.B.Y. (the year in which the Remnant of the Galactic Empire joins the Galactic Alliance, while all the displaced Siths are simultaneously infiltrating the emerging conjoined governments…) they will get a chance to examine the Galactic Empire, its aims, ambitions, strategies, the cyclical nature of imperial strength, and the ever-present Force to put the finally piece in place for their model of empire and identify the similarities they may see between the Galactic Empire and…
- The Empire of the Maya: ”Listen, I can’t get involved. I’ve got work to do. It’s not that I like the Empire; I hate it! But there’s nothing I can do about it right now. It’s such a long way from here.” – Luke Skywalker
- The Empires of Ancient China: “The Empire reaches far and wide, and is made up of countless individuals who all strive for the same overall goal: stability.” - Imperial Advisor Ars Dangor
- The Spanish Empire: “I have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new Empire!“- Darth Vader
- The British Empire: ”We must move quickly. The Jedi are relentless. If they are not all destroyed, it will be civil war without end.” – Palpatine
Then it falls to them to determine the state and/or existence of the American Empire…
“We are an Empire ruled by the majority! An Empire ruled by a new Constitution! An Empire of laws, not of politicians! An Empire devoted to the preservation of a just society. Of a safe and secure society! We are an Empire that will stand for ten thousand years!“―Palpatine
*all quotations from taken from Wookieepedia.
Broken.
Going to leave this brokedown palace,
On my hands and knees, I will roll, roll, roll.
I went to see a friend tonight that I had not seen in years. We were thinking that it had probably been Pre-Y2K the last time we actually shared space. We sort of knew what to expect in that strange “I’ve seen you the Facebook” way, but still it had been ages. I had a few reservations about going – mostly I was feeling tired and not totally into going to a show, but it felt like I had been cancelling and cancelling and it would be nice to catch up. Still, there was something just sitting there right outside my conscience niggling me, causing me to feel uncomfortable enough to be conscious. I was a little late, but so was he, and then there was the standard cock-up at the door, as is often the case at local shows. Once inside, my anxiety completely dissipated as I was immediately swept up into the familiarity of the Auditorium. My response to live music and the accompanying scene is visceral and inescapable; it is in my DNA. And it is so easy to overlook so many things when you are suddenly the one who can sit anywhere, go anywhere, do anything, because you are with the right people.
But this night I wanted to talk to my friend. I wanted to ask him so many questions. What he had been doing. How he was. Who he had seen. Share our collective conscience. But he was in show mode. After a lifetime of always being that right person who got so many perks for so many of his ‘friends’ it is painfully evident that this has become his entire social currency. It made me sad. It made me want to just be one of those regular people talking in the crowd, milling, wondering what is behind the black curtain and up the private stairs. But it was not to be.
My friend is still my friend. He will always be. But he is broken. And that is heartbreaking. No matter how hard I tried, the disconnect, bordering on dissociation was just so hard to be around. I watched how people regarded him and saw how they sized him up weighing opportunity and cost – a simple economic equation for them, discounting the person underneath. Whenever things got too touchy everyone would fall back on the old times, old names, old faces, old places. There would be a moment of comfort and then everyone would move on. I watched my friend not really move on. Such a life he has had – so amazing in so many ways but still so lonely and sad in others.
After everyone gets what they want, who will take care of him? Looking around at the beautiful venue I could hear Jerry and his words took on a whole new tone.
It’s a far gone lullaby, sung many years ago…
Mama, mama, many worlds I’ve come since I first left home…
I looked at my friend and realized that he did not really want to talk and catch up. He wanted to fall into the familiar old roles, he the connection, me the groupie, and let’s get it on. We had come into the evening from such entirely different experiential universes and with such different objectives, I realized that we would never – at least tonight – be on the same page. And so I had to go.
All the birds that were singing are flown, except you alone….
Fare you well, my friend.
xo
“He’s not online. Like, at all.”
I now know someone who does not use the internet. Seriously. Does. Not. Use. It. Lives without Google, without Z.E.E. (Zuckerberg’s Evil Empire), without the inclination to Tweet that which might be profound. Or profoundly banal.
Imagine this.
It is strange, isn’t it?
My first reaction was not a reaction. I did not care as this was not the way we met, communicated, or spent time. He does text and gets a substantial amount of joy from the photo text option on his moderate I.Q. cell phone. But, he does not emoticon. In fact, one of the first conversations we had involved his dread of the emoticon. I do not emote via icon to him. When I told one of my favorite people (ironically a friend from the halcyon days of MySpace…) about this, he said, “Cool.” Of course, we are not interneting so much ourselves these days, so that could explain it. Seems real life has become tantamount to us both. [Thank goodness for cell phones and G-chat. Hahaha.]
It made me think of another one of my favorite people, also an internet friend, though a local one, who said one time, “I don’t care what people say about Facebook. I don’t care what I say about Facebook. The fact of the matter is, if someone is not on Facebook these days, I don’t trust them. Why aren’t they on there? What is their deal?” [I think Zuckerberg just got a boner down in his undersized Silicon Valley digs.] Sometimes when I feel like the only place I get information is the Facebook, I agree. Other times, when I wish the only place I got information was not the Facebook, I beg… literally, beg, to differ.
I tell my students [frequently, repetition being the heart of education and all...] that I got my first collegiate degree without the internet. They cannot grok this. I try to explain how fascinating we thought it was that we could look up books, (you know, the kind with the pages that you turn, not scroll) on a computer at UCSD and we could see what books were on the shelves at all the other UCs. If we really wanted a book we could get it. Two days later off a van that drove around the interlibrary loans. That was the shit! They tilt their heads at me and look at me like a very interesting specimen when I tell them these stories. It is like reverse SciFi or something.
The internet is a strange place. But I like it –> “Boy, you sure are a funny kid, Johnny, but I like you! So tell me, what kind of a boy are you, John?” I have always been (and still am) fascinated by people who cultivate relationships on the internet, keep them on the internet, and call them IRL. I am equally fascinated, like in the way you cannot stop looking at something so freakishly awkward, by the demise of these internet relationships. The fallout seems exponentially larger than a real life break up because these people involve their entire internet universes. It is very, very bizarre.
The other part about the internet that I like is its memory. Of course I would. I have a pretty dangerous memory myself. Recently, I was giggling about a confession that someone had posted about how she was showing her tits on Twitter for attention, not actually for breast cancer awareness. You.Don’t.Say. This same sad lady also publicly sold out her self-professed best friend for an internet bestie. And then there are the romances. That shit stays forever. And you know that is making people cringe. And in the seemingly endless range of the online universe, isn’t it strange how these relationships can overlap? Wow – now that is super awkward.
Anyhow. I was telling my non-line friend about some of this stuff last week. I was trying to explain why a friend of mine was so upset about a certain situation. And in telling the story, of the internet affair and its demise, I realized he was looking at me with his head tilted to the side wearing the exact same expression I see on my students when I talk about life before the internet. I tried harder to explain the situation, sure I was not being clear. But the more I explained it, the more ludicrous the entire thing started to sound.
Suddenly, I couldn’t make sense of a story, that admittedly was pretty far-fetched, but had always, in my mind, been somewhat of a linear narrative.
“But, they didn’t know each other?”
“Well, I mean, not at first. I mean, no. No, yes. Yes, they knew each other. But then they had to meet each other.”
“I don’t understand. Did they know each other, or didn’t they?”
“They met each other eventually. A few times. Or, well, at least once for sure.”
“So, they were like acquaintances.”
“I think they were in love.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Well. I don’t know…”
It did seem pretty silly standing there face to face with someone trying to explain this.
Now it was me who tilted my head to the side with an expression of curiosity to look at my non-line conversationalist. He looked pretty good. And it is no wonder… while the rest of the world is inside, connecting online, this boy is out riding his bike, surfing, running, sitting in the sunshine, and living. IRL.
“Cool.”
Seriously, Federal Reserve? Please, grow a pair. Bill Murray would.
I have just scheduled a field trip to the Fed in San Francisco for my 60 seniors as part of their economics curriculum. This is a pretty cool trip, and I anticipated it to be especially interesting in these current socio-economic circumstances.
As I was on the phone with the Fed yesterday I had several of the students who would be a part of the trip in my classroom. They were certainly curious about the trip and are generally enthusiastic about field trips, as you might imagine.
“And, um, just so you are aware, the vault is currently closed to tours as a result of all the protests.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yes, because of the Occupy groups or whoever, the vault is not open for tours.”
“We cannot tour the vault?”
“That is correct.”
["What the fuck? We can't get in the vault?!?! That is so lame!!"]
“Excuse me for a minute. — gentlemen, do you think that you could control at least your language while I am on the phone? — Okay, so if we cannot tour the vault, then what will we see on this tour?”
“Well, the rest of the tour still happens.”
“Yes, but the vault is what the kids want to see.”
“Well, I am sorry, we are simply not doing that right now because of all those protestors.”
Huh.
All those protestors.
I took this news mostly in stride, thankful really for a minute to have been able to find a day that we could actually go, what with all the schedule constraints that come with seniors in May. Then I went home and told the Cowboy the story.
“What? Are you kidding me? That is so unacceptable! That is a federal building, people have the right to be there!”
“I know, I guess they are worried…”
“About what? Unruly students? Are you kidding me??”
Huh.
Later we went for a walk downtown and conveniently passed by the Fed at 105 Market Street, still currently all cordoned off from… from the unruly public, I guess? There were three Occupy activists nearby standing politely at a makeshift table disseminating literature and flyers to anyone who stopped to ask them for it. They were quiet and unobtrusive. As we looked into the lobby of the Fed the security was as subtle as an unmarked police car on Oakland’s International Avenue. It seemed incongruous juxtaposed against “all those protestors”.
Huh.
When I came to school this morning and told my partner about the field trip and the issue with the vault he became animated with amused, but righteous, indignation.
“Are you kidding me?” I sensed a trend.
“Well, they said maybe by May it would be open again…”
“Um, May Day? Do you have any idea how many Occupy events are probably planned for that day?”
“Oh. Yeah. You are probably right.” I considered. But he was back to the vault…
“That is ridiculous! They have a such gall to say that the vault is closed! That is the whole point of the trip….”
And he trailed off about the inconsistency of banks still gouging him with unavoidable fees while he was not even allowed to visit them.
Huh.
I felt remiss in my original lack of righteous indignation. But when I need to, I can definitely cultivate a nice rage. And the more I thought about the Fed’s decision to close the vault the more ridiculous it became. And also the less original. How banal to take it out on the least criminal element in society as a defensive response to being called on the carpet for your own bad behavior: “See what you terrible protestors are doing? You are ruining it for the kids!”
Um… no, actually, don’t YOU see big Federal Reserve Bank? YOU are ruining it. For everyone. You could have taken action a million different ways, and the petty action you choose to take is to shut down access to your institution to students of economics?
Brother, please. I don’t want your coins…
Are my cats actually aliens from another dimension?
Look at this.
Look very, very closely.
I am suspicious.
Gung Hei Fat Choi from this Metal Dog to all of you!
I had no idea how much I would be influenced by Chinese traditions when I first arrived in Asia. But now, eighteen months into my repatriation, I have to say, I’ve not left it all behind. In fact, I have kept a fair amount of it in daily practice.
- I don’t wear shoes in my house, and I would really rather you didn’t either.
- I love chopsticks.
- I say “Aiyahhh” all the time, and Chinglish is never really that far a way.
- I love Chinese astrology, and yes, I believe.
- I adore the ideology that surrounds the lunar new year in terms of preparedness, ensuring good fortune, and appreciation for new beginnings while venerating the past.
The Chinese are true champions of the practice of ignoring mutual exclusivity (among other things) and in many ways they truly embody the belief of hedging all one’s bets for acquiring a better future. Paying big dollars for license plates with fortuitous numbers (6, 8, and 9 in particular), submitting college applications on auspicious dates, appeasing the ghosts, beginning each year with a completely clean slate.
Aha. Now you see why I like it: clean slates are nothing short of divine.
So, I did all my cleaning. I gutted the closets and got rid of a ton of shit. I cleaned base-boards and I dusted. I also realized how much I absolutely loathe dusting. I got the laundry all done, I flipped the mattress and made the bed, I washed windows and cleaned the refrigerator. I organized my sock drawer and dusted all my books. I remembered again how much I freaking hate dusting. I cleaned the cat box and washed dishes. I tossed old magazines and filed all my paid bills. I balanced my check book and took care of my banking for the month. I vacuumed and then I vacuumed some more. I backed up the computer and zip-tied loose cords. When it was all said and done I saw I had to dust one more time. Aiyah.
And then I sat down and looked around. I missed Cita, who used to do all this for me in Hong Kong, but felt pretty good about getting it done here. It did feel like I could get everything done now that the foundations were in order. And all before the New Year so as not to sweep out any of the good luck. Nope, I do not want to do that.
Amanda
