Imperfect Tense

2011

2011-12-31T13:09:00.000-08:00

A very incomplete and haphazard look back...

1. I made my first hard cheese! Sort of. Well, I did make it, but it didn't quite turn out how I'd hoped. It was a farmhouse cheddar, made with the brilliant press my brilliant husband made. I fretted and fussed about whether it was aging properly, if the temperature was right, if the humidity was controlled, what about adding a damp sponge, what are those spots, are they mold, should I worry, but cheese is just mold after all... and then it turned out, and it was actually edible! But a tad odd, flavor-wise, maybe over-aged. So we were going to cook with it, get creative, but then we didn't, and it sat in the fridge, and then it did get moldy. After all that misplaced bother, I ruined the cheese at the easiest part and my glory went with it. Stuck to soft cheeses after that, but there's always next year.

2. We chased ducks. Frequently. With great enthusiasm.

3. More fun with fermentation... inspired by Sandor Katz, I harvested wild yeast for an Ethiopian honey-wine, and made a control mead as a comparison. It was very exciting when the bubbles started appearing in the vapor-lock, and I was so good about taking daily notes, being scientific about it - until I wasn't. They are still sitting in my cupboard, far too many months later. I have no idea what lives in those bottles now. They don't look or smell scary, but somehow I don't think they're just getting better with age. If I ever brave it, I'll post my results.

4. We chased sheep, too. And had wagon rides.

5. Took students on a field trip up to Portland. We ate from food trucks and felt very urban.

6. I did lots of yoga, and felt good about myself. Then I did much less yoga and felt less good. Cause, or correlation? Now I'm getting back into it, spurred on by my two-year-old who loves to do downward dog and happy baby, and has invented ocean pose (standing with feet wide, chest forward, arms back, goofy smile).

7. Two weeks in Europe, cha-cha-cha. A remote Alpine village and the Eternal City. With family, food, and fun. What's not to love?

8. Summertime: the park, the hands-on science museum, biking with the trailer, playing in the fountains, hiking at the lake, eating ice cream. Oh, and rafting! And a toddler campout, whoo-hoo! And we borrowed a friend's campervan - oh, the memories. It was lovely. Next summer: back to backpacking.

9. We picked fourteen pounds of blueberries! Still making smoothies with them.

10. Outrage at the world alive and kickin' with a little help from Jon Stewart. Can't tell you how often I find myself saying, "we saw this guy on the Daily Show..." I do also catch NPR occasionally and read the Sunday NY Times. (I share a subscription with 3 neighbors, so there's actually incentive to get up early to get the sections I want first. That would be the Review and Styles. And then I get the magazine after everyone else because I like to do the crossword, but they tend to stack up, adding to the general clutter in our house. It's a good system, overall, though we've never managed to sit together, drinking coffee and discussing what we read. Someday.)

11. Learned to play the ukelele. My debut performance, a duet with my man at our neighborhood open mic: "In Spite of Ourselves" by John Prine and Iris DeMent.

12. Back to school for everyone. Rapped about US history (I'll post that soon) and challenged my students to an Iron Chef contest. Reaffirmed how good The Outsiders is to read with kids.

13. Was an Emerald Citizen for Halloween, as part of an Oz group. My little one was the Lion, and his buddies were the rest of the crew. We had some princess and witch mamas, too. It's the kind of thing I swore I'd never do, but I love the parade and it's no fun if you're not in costume, and it was pretty sweet, actually. Still won't dress up my dog, though. With the occasional antler exception.

14. Drumming! Mostly taiko.

15. Kicking ass at Celebrity, which is always super-fun, and not actually about the score. For some reason Jesus shows up in every game - maybe we should read something deeper in that?

Happy New Year!

Stolen Moments

2011-12-14T14:44:00.000-08:00

(there's gotta be a million things with that title...kinda makes me want to track them down)

I'm supposed to be somewhere else, doing something else. Nobody knows I'm here. Nobody knows what I'm not doing. It's a rare quiet moment to myself, a moment that feels not-quite-naughty, and oh-so-nice. I'm enjoying the silence, and the ability to focus on one thing or let my mind wander, as I please, without the constant peripheral scan that is toddlerhood filling the space. It's just me filling the space, or not filling it. I know that later I'll regret not having used this time more productively, but right now, this is worth it. I so rarely get to be irresponsible anymore.

It's delicious.

Two

2011-11-13T19:26:00.000-08:00

Just over two years ago, my boy came into the world and everything changed. The biggest surprise is how much fun we're having, how entertaining this toddler is. And the part that was expected but is no less powerful because of it is how profoundly I love him, and how something in my soul has shifted to embrace this new role.

I've read a lot about other people's experiences - some heartwarming, some heartbreaking, some that bring on the giggles, some that make you tear your hair out. In one way or another, they're all cliches, no matter how well-written, but they're all also very true. I don't know that I have any new words to add to this, so here are a few of my kid's instead (and you'll get a feel for what tickles us pink, not to mention our generation, as we train our own personal Teddy Ruxpin - it's a great feedback cycle, because he likes to make us laugh, which then makes him laugh, and on and on):

"Stop! Hammertime!"

"Ice ice baby"

"A palpable hit"

"Need more marmite please"

"Hello salaam konnichiwa-wa"

"Baila baila"

"Zola come!"

(responding to "Who you gonna call?") "Ghostbusters"

And of course all the usual daily conversation and quoting and chattering to himself. The way he is growing his language is just fascinating. Life is a play-by-play, with lots of repetition from him and demanded from us, and it amazes me how he puts together new sentences and draws connections across contexts and even time. He absorbs the books we read and the songs we sing and counts pretty well and is starting on the abc's. I'm beginning to understand what's behind Rosetta Stone, though I've never actually tried their system.

The part you can't tell from reading this is the adorably hilarious way he says things, pronounced not quite right, and possibly not even intelligible if you don't hang out with him a lot. (This would be one of those cliches - every baby talks cute and funny, right? - that we marvel at despite their triteness. Just because it's not new in the world doesn't mean it's not new in our world. And better, cuter, funnier than all the other babies.) I've never managed to capture it well (where are you when I need you, phonics?!) and I'd rather not do it wrong, but I hope I remember it. I may have to try for some audio recordings. It's almost more about the emphasis and pacing than the sounds, actually.

And he still uses sign language all the time, which I love and hope we continue. And all sorts of other things are happening - climbing, riding, painting, swinging, picking tomatoes, throwing balls, being naked, eating, chasing the dog, counting, singing, hugging, napping, waking up, seeing friends, playing outside, doing puzzles, fun running....it's kind of an awesome life.

I don't know where I'm going with this - I just wanted to mark the occasion in some way. It's a big freaking deal (my language monitor has kicked into overdrive; it used to just be on at school and off at home, but hearing my toddler shout "HOLY CRAP" forced me to pay a little more attention to what comes out of my mouth) (though I do snicker when the sailor talk sneaks out) (and now I've even lost track of where this sentence was going...). The days of afternoon whiskey tastings and lazy mornings sleeping in are on hold for a while. But the snuggles and dancing and hanging out are pretty awesome.

He tries to climb back in to my belly sometimes, and it just ain't gonna happen. He's out for good, so watch out, world!

30DSC-3: A Song That Makes You Happy

2011-08-17T12:53:00.000-07:00

(yes, hello, here I am again, the time, she flies, the blog, she lays fallow...)

A song that makes me happy? There's lots of those. I even made a mix once upon a time called "The Happymaking Mix," but I'm not sure I can remember what's on it. I may be able to find it somewhere, but I may not - in an episode that did not make me happy, my car was broken into and things were stolen, mixtapes among them.

This was years ago, when I was on my way to Boston from Denver via New Orleans. I was visiting a friend and parking was an issue - I found a place where I could legally (and for free, except not really, in the end) leave my car for a few days. I checked on it regularly and made merry, listening to live jazz and planning alternate life paths: a job building floats at Mardi Gras world and living a short ferry ride across the Ol' Miss in a sleepy, beautiful historic district....I still wish I had stayed, sometimes.

But then I checked on my car and found the window broken! The horror! See, everything I owned at this point was in my car. My whole material life. A nice yellow chair (which we still have and love) and several bags of clothes and miscellany. I lost my favorite hiking pack which traveled across Europe and a handful of mountains with me, a Gregory pack which they no longer made. Every time I take the new one out, I lament this loss. I lost all the clothes inside of that pack, nothing I can specifically remember except that now and again I wonder why I can't find a certain hat or shirt and then realize they were in that bag. And a case full of tapes, mostly mixtapes, completely irreplaceable. None of that stuff was worth much except to me - ain't that always the way?

I called it in, with low expectations of the N.O. P.D., who lived up to their name. Insult to injury? I got a parking ticket (in a different spot, one with a broken digital meter that didn't display how much time remained) the morning I left town. You can imagine how I took that - in pieces, with swearing and stomping calmed only by a last beignet from the Cafe du Monde. Oh, but they weren't done with me - they tracked me down, in a new state that didn't match my driver's license or car info (still registered in CO). I wrote them back, explaining the whole thing, down to the broken meter, very politely. They sent a new bill, doubled. I wrote again, less politely. They sent a new bill, doubled again, with threats of a collection agency. I swore a whole bunch more and wrote them a damn check.

And I still love New Orleans, and long for the life I might have had, though I've never been back.

Um. So. A song that makes me happy? Let's go with "Life Is Beautiful" by Keb Mo, because I heard it at the end of a movie last night and it moved me in a way no song has done for a long time. Possibly because most of what I listen to these days is aimed at the under-2 crowd. To be fair, many of those are songs that make me happy. How can you not be happy about tap-dancing rhinoceri?

But I'll stick with the Keb Mo for my answer. Let's go dancing on the juke-joint floor...

30DSC-2: Least Favorite Song

2011-06-06T13:00:00.000-07:00

Another ridiculous one. But easier, I suppose, than the favorite. I'll just go with the first response that popped into my head: anything by Alanis Morissette. So whiny and irritating, at least that's my memory of it, since I haven't actually listened to anything by her since "Ironic" was on the radio all the time.

When I was in high school and college and actually paying attention to music, I was kind of a snob about it. I was quick to dismiss bands as bad (all the fruit ones - Blind Melon, Lemonhead, the Cranberries - oh how I mocked my hallmate for her Smashing Pumpkins habit) or embrace unlikely ones as great (Skinny Puppy, anyone?), especially if it might move me up a notch in certain eyes. I've become much more generous in my old age, thinking less about the image and more about my own enjoyment. So there's really nothing on my iPod that embarrasses me, not even the Little Mermaid soundtrack ("everything's better down where it's wetter, take it from me!").

I'm almost tempted to go give Alanis a listen now, but I just can't shake the memory of how annoyed I would get. Nothing personal, but I'm not sure even my new forgiving ears could take it - ironic, eh?

30DSC-1: Your Favorite Song

2011-06-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

Well, that's just a ridiculous question. Last time I looked at our music library, iTunes showed that we have something like 24 days worth of music, if played nonstop (it's on our other computer, or I'd check the exact numbers). 576 hours. 34, 560 minutes. That's more than 10,000 songs. Ten thousand! And that's just the music we actually own. How could I possibly have one favorite song, for all my moods, for all times of day, for my stuck-on-a-desert-island mishap?

I have a thing against repetition, too, so even the songs I love become otherwise if I listen to them too much. The radio (how quaint!) has ruined many a song for me this way. (This is potentially a problem with a small child who is all about repetition, but that's neither here nor there.)

But not answering at all is a copout, so here is my right-now answer to this question, with signs posted about the right to change my mind as often as I want.

[...tick...tock....tick...tock... This is harder than I thought, coming up with one song I'm willing to claim as my favorite. Even just a favorite. I'm back to "this is ridiculous," but still want to choose something... tick...tock...]

Ok: "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor. Of all the songs that ran through my head just now, this is the one that I cannot listen to without singing along, without turning up the volume, without getting up and dancing/acting out. Many other songs are better in many ways - I wouldn't actually want to listen to this right now - and I know I didn't even think of many songs that would live up to the label of favorite, but it'll do.

And hey, maybe the underlying empowerment message would get me through the dark days under that lone palm tree.

30 Day Song Challenge!

2011-06-03T13:16:00.001-07:00

Today was the last day of school for me, and I may have to get on the annual obligatory blasting of Alice Cooper (after the baby wakes up, that is), although I don't quite feel that same sense of release this year.

I made a mix cd for the kids in my class, and I was tempted to put "School's Out" on there, but gave in to my better, more adult self (or perhaps simply to the fear that a few of the parents wouldn't take kindly to it). It was really nice to spend a couple hours just listening to music, my music, not baby music (even the good stuff gets old). To pay attention to it as more than just background, to sink into the memories and stories that go along with each song. So I thought I'd use the Facebook song challenge as an opportunity to do more of that. It'll take me more than 30 days, and I hear the kid waking up now, so I won't even start, but here's the list so I can get back to it as I have time:

day 01 - your favorite song
day 02 - your least favorite song
day 03 - a song that makes you happy
day 04 - a song that makes you sad
day 05 - a song that reminds you of someone
day 06 - a song that reminds you of somewhere
day 07 - a song that reminds you of a certain event
day 08 - a song that you know all the words to
day 09 - a song that you can dance to
day 10 - a song that makes you fall asleep
day 11 - a song from your favorite band
day 12 - a song from a band you hate
day 13 - a song that is a guilty pleasure
day 14 - a song that no one would expect you to love
day 15 - a song that describes you
day 16 - a song that you used to love but now hate
day 17 - a song that you hear often on the radio
day 18 - a song that you wish you heard on the radio
day 19 - a song from your favorite album
day 20 - a song that you listen to when you’re angry
day 21 - a song that you listen to when you’re happy
day 22 - a song that you listen to when you’re sad
day 23 - a song that you want to play at your wedding
day 24 - a song that you want to play at your funeral
day 25 - a song that makes you laugh
day 26 - a song that you can play on an instrument
day 27 - a song that you wish you could play
day 28 - a song that makes you feel guilty
day 29 - a song from your childhood
day 30 - your favorite song at this time last year

18 Months

2011-05-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

Hey baby – you had your half-birthday last week, on May 4. A year-and-a-half old.. Not sure why this date seems like more of a milestone than 17 or 19 months, but it does, and here we are. I think I’ve finally gotten beyond feeling surprised that we have a baby, and now it’s just life.

Though you’re not really a baby anymore. You’re a full-blown toddler, a real boy, with a pretty awesome personality and a lot to say. Toddler isn’t even the right word, because it doesn’t show how fast you bounce when you zoom around (zoomtoddle?), or the shock on your face when you trip over your own feet and go splat, or the joy you find in being alive.

I look at pictures from the early days, and I’ve already forgotten what that’s like. So I want to try and capture a little bit of you who are now, even though I know I can’t get it all down. In theory I prefer living life to recording it, but I already regret not taking more pictures and (yipes) videos. So here’s something of a snapshot of this moment:

You are all about doing it for yourself these days, as you get stronger and taller and smarter every minute. You can reach those buttons on the washing machine now, and climb up onto the chairs, and you want to choose the shirt you wear. Or not wear, more often choosing to be as naked as possible.

Your latest obsession is with the car keys. You’ll stand at the car for 20 or 30 minutes, trying to get them into the lock on the door, pushing away my hand if I try to help guide the right key in. When you get a key stuck in far enough that it stays, you let out this wicked cackle, a burst of “ha!” as you stamp your feet and wave your arms. It’s hilarious, until we have to take the keys away, and then you let out an ungodly wail.

You’re learning new signs and words all the time. You say mama and dada and pop and ba (ball or bus). Dog, of course, your first real word and still a favorite. Ka is your car/go/keys word, almost always said together with the sign for keys, which you learned after seeing it only a couple times. Nyummy-nyummy is food, and you slurp for water, putting your hands to your mouth for both.

You’re a good eater, more interested in having what we’re having or drinking out of our glass than anything special for you. And you have strong opinions about what you want, and sometimes we can’t tell, and then we’re all frustrated. When in doubt, peanut butter seems to do the trick. Or tofu. Sometimes all you want to do is give your snacks to the dog. You know how to tell her to sit and lie down, and she’s always gentle taking treats from you.

Other signs: ball/more (fingerbabble makes it hard to tell, sometimes, but usually we can figure it out with context or by asking you), banana, dog, bird/duck/frog, gorilla (also an old fave). Flowers – you’re so cute: you’ll squat down to smell them, and pull us with you as you make the sign. Bath, cow, water, book. (some top hits these days include Mr. Brown Can Moo, Doggies, Goodnight Gorilla, One Little Duck, Go Dog Go, various baby sign books). I’m sure I’m leaving things out – oh, milk! - can’t forget that one. A sort of universal arm wave with various noises can mean airplane, elephant, truck, butterfly. Please and thank you charm everyone.

When we go to the Science Works garden, sometimes you run gleefully down the paths, but more often, you just stand at the gate, opening, closing. As you let people through and they say “thank you,” you'll sign it, and they always think you’re blowing them a kiss. At home, you’ll stand in the window, so excited to be able to get up on the ledge. You watch for bees and cats and wave to the neighbors when they walk by. It’s adorable.

You are super energetic and active when you’re awake, and you sleep well at night and at nap (except when your big teeth are coming in). You love to play with balls, kicking, tossing, watching us shoot hoops, sitting on the couch and throwing them for us to chase. Sound effects make you happy. As does dancing to music. Although you still ask for “Cows” sometimes, you’re more into the Barnyard Dance and especially the Tickle song. Snuffling like a pig always gets you giggling.

You love the bath – splish splash! Water in general: puddle jumping, throwing rocks into the lake, smacking at the tetherball base after it rains (dibble dibble dopp…). Pouring water from one cup into another, experimenting with amount and speed. Climbing! You can make it up the ladder on the play structure now. Slides are sometimes fun. You love to be outside, or out running errands. You’ve just started showing interest in the sandbox, and are figuring out that you don’t really want to eat the sand.

You are so observant, learning so quickly from watching us, watching older kids, trying things out yourself. You’re getting more social, too, with other babies, almost all a little or a lot older, so you have a lot to observe. You use tools well, turning over tupperware to step on, or grabbing my finger to push a button, or reaching for something under the couch with a long wooden spoon.

Bodies are fascinating for you, and you'll point out all the bits emphatically - head, ear, toes, teeth, belly button, nose. Tongues sticking out make you laugh, from the first time you noticed it in the Global Babies book to when the dog pants to anytime at all, and you'll stick yours out too to show how fun it is.

You like to be helpful, bringing us our shoes when we ask, and putting things back where they belong. Sweeping and vacuuming. Mopping up when you spill (or when Zola drools). You recognize us in pictures, and kiss yourself in the mirror. It’s amazing how much of what we say you understand, and how well you can communicate back.

There are so many smiles, giggles, snorts, grunts. Shrieks of joy and loud yawps as you talk back to the ducks and frogs. It’s a fabulous soundtrack to our days. And when we hug, and you say “Bobo” (from the book), it’s the best thing ever.

It takes a lot of energy to keep up with you, and it can be hard to get things done. But when we’re in the moment, we really have a good time. And it’s true: the days are long but the years are short, so we’re trying to be in the moment as much as possible. Turns out having a kid is really fun – at least when you’re the kid.

I’ve been writing this in bits and pieces, as I do so many things these days, and every time I come back to it I think of more (penguins!). It’s impossible to get it all down, and it's not as poetic as it might be, but it's better than nothing, so I’m going to stop here and let it be enough.

You are smart and strong and beautiful and funny and adventurous. May the fourth be with you, little man (yes, that’s a Star Wars reference). We love you, forever.

The Not-Quite-Cruelest Month

2011-04-21T13:03:00.000-07:00

(although with this icy weather after being taunted by a few spring sunshines, and with being icky-sick for a few days, it sort of feels that way...)

Did you know that April is Poetry month? I meant to post a poem a day. Oops. Here's one by e.e. cummings:

o sweet spontaneous

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting

fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
,has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

beauty how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)

babymama

2011-03-24T11:48:00.000-07:00

Having a kid continues to be a delightful surprise (I'm still surprised we have one and I'm delighted, and surprised to be so delighted, and am constantly surprised by what comes next).

But as he gets older, I'm realizing that it's time to reclaim some of myself. I basically surrendered to life being all about the baby for the first year, and (mostly) embraced the opportunity I had to slow down and pay attention and enjoy it. I know it won't ever happen again and I want to hold on to the experience. And: when I went back to teaching three mornings a week, that fed another part of me and made me happier all around, even with the complications it created (it's truly impossible to read student papers with a toddler intent on mischief squealing and crashing around).

It's spring break, and I've overused my line about the only wet tshirts in my life these days being when the little man is naked and pees on me. It's not like I ever even did the whole crazy girls gone wild tequila parties, but something in me is longing for that. Sunshine, loud music, and a total lack of responsibility - that sounds great. Drunken groping frat boys, hangovers, loss of self-respect? Not so much. And yet, being home with the kidlet this week has me dreaming of Daytona. There's a bit of sadness about what I've let go by making the choices I've made, but more than that, it's an awakening that I need to put on my oxygen mask. I need to stake out some experiences that are just about me.

I don't want to become someone defined only by my child. I don't want every conversation to be about poop and naps and teething. I am thrilled to be a mama. I actually (surprise!) love spending hours reading books about monkeys and dancing to songs about cows and chasing him around and generally being silly. But that's just a part of me, and it will still be there when I am at a drum class or writing poetry or hanging out at the bar.

Even mama bears got to get their groove on.

Circle

2011-03-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

I sat in a circle of women last night, women I see every day, but in a different way. Mostly there is small talk, and community business, and sharing tasks like cooking meals, and catching up on life in snippets between the distraction of children.

Monthly, we sit together with intention. We hold a sacred space for all who are there and those who are not. We don't all make it that often. I don't always feel like going when the time comes. But the circle is always powerful and always worth it.

This is something new for me these past few years. Talk about "sacred space" and "letting the universe guide you" still makes me squirm a little inside. But that's not the important part. The magic lies in taking the time to be together more deeply than everyday interactions allow. Something stronger is created when we speak from the heart and when we truly listen to each other, whether or not there is a speaking stick.

There were candles, there was wine, there was laughter and sadness. But most of all, there was connection, opening, support, love. This is how we change the world.

26, 27, 28... Sigh

2011-03-03T11:46:00.000-08:00

Well. I didn't quite make it. (posting every day in February, that is) 'Tis only too representative of many things I attempt. I suppose one lesson to take from this is one I've learned many times but still don't manage to do, obviously: make things easy for myself. If I have a routine built in, if it doesn't take extra effort and can become a habit, it will happen. If there's a place to put stuff every time, I'll put it there instead of piling it up on the kitchen counter. Etc., etc. Clearly late at night was not the time for this, and I don't know what is, but I'll keep trying to figure it out. Not daily. But sometimes.

And happy day after Read Across America day! Courtesy of the NEA, in celebration of the world welcoming El Doctor Seuss and his magical words and pictures. Oh, the places we'll go.

25

2011-02-25T21:30:00.000-08:00

A dozen books I've read recently:

To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely

Devil May Care, Sebastian Faulks (as Ian Fleming)

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, David Sedaris

The Important Book, Margaret Wise Brown

Talk to the Hand, Lynne Truss

The Edge of the World, Kevin Anderson

The Hippopotamus Song: A Love Story, Michael Flanders

The Big Bang Symphony: A novel of Antarctica, Lucy Jane Bledsoe

Sword of God, Chris Kuzneski

Wild Ducks Flying Backwards, Tom Robbins

Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins

24

2011-02-24T21:21:00.000-08:00

When you have to whip up a quick'n'easy dessert to please the masses, here's what to do:

Six-Minute Chocolate Cake, aka Chocolate Depression Cake (the era, not the feeling, b/c no butter or eggs) and Dump Cake (b/c you just dump it all in). There are many versions; this recipe is from a friend of a friend I stayed with on a road trip many years ago.

1 2/3 C sugar
3 C flour
6 T cocoa powder
2 t baking soda
1 t salt
2/3 C oil
2 T white vinegar
2 C water

Preheat oven to 350. Combine dry ingredients and get rid of lumps. Add the rest. (you can theoretically do all this in the pan you bake in, but it usually doesn't work as well for me) Pour into a 9x13 pan and bake 30 - 40 minutes. Frost if desired, but you're on your own for that. Enjoy!

23

2011-02-23T21:02:00.001-08:00

I spent all day thinking it was the 22nd. Now I feel like I missed a day. I also kept switching to rooms with clocks set differently, so I kept gaining or losing a few minutes. Like I'm in a time machine that skips, or needs a good kick in the tires.

Gotta play around with the paradoxes a bit. The whole killing-your-grandpa thing. Back to the Future. Einstein's Dreams. Chrononauts. Alternate and parallel histories.

* * * *

Not connected at all: I hear that some girls in college don't eat so they can drink at parties without worrying about the calories. WTF?! I disapprove. Gonna start showing up and shoving Twinkies down their throats before they do their keg stands, something to absorb the alcohol at least a tiny bit.

* * * *

Also unconnected: now that I need people to watch my boy sometimes, I realize how genius the Babysitters Club was. Kristy, you did have a great idea! We had a near-emergency (not life-threatening, just afternoon-plan-threatening) situation yesterday with a sick sitter. Luckily the kids these days all have their cellular devices on hand, and we got a replacement at the last minute. I wonder if I have any of those books floating around. Such happy memories.

* * * *

But wait! What if we could send a babysitter back in time?! We could have the Sisterhood of the Time-Traveling Sitters! I sense a miniseries in the making. And get to work, quantum physicists!

22

2011-02-22T21:20:00.000-08:00

What does society owe junkies? What responsibility does it have for creating them? What does humanity demand of us in response? Where does compassion fit in? Personal responsibility? Politics and the media? Friends and family? Ethics and justice and the law? How can a socialist libertarian balance out all the opposing voices?

(yes, we watched The Wire; yes, I'm tired; yes, I have to finish my homework before bed; yes, this kind of stuff keeps me up at night; no, I don't have the answers)

21

2011-02-21T20:42:00.000-08:00

It's proving to be rather difficult to do this every day. I haven't been able to stick to my photo-a-day thing either. But when I do, I like that moment to think about what's going on that day, and I like looking back on them. When I first tried it a few years ago, I actually kept it up for several months. Of course, I ended up with a lot of pictures of my dog: it was my default, if the end of the day rolled around and I hadn't snapped a pic yet. I'm not sure what my default is for this - poems, recipes, babble. Which brings us to....

Happy President's Day! Wherein we celebrate the Gregorian-shifted birthday of our first president, about whom we believe many incorrect things. It seems like these holidays that are intended to be meaningful, an opportunity for us to remember something important (MLK Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, etc.), they shouldn't be days off; instead, there should be some kind of mandatory ceremony. I don't really think we should do that, I just know that the meaning behind these days has become: Yay! No school! Huzzah! There will be much rejoicing, and very little recognition of why we're all sleeping in or out skiing or whatever.

Wooden teeth for all!

20

2011-02-20T19:50:00.000-08:00

1985. That's not a very long time ago. I was in elementary school, at least vaguely aware of the world around me, although this particular need would not arise for another decade or so. Today in history - February 20, 1985: Ireland legalized the sale of contraceptives.

That kind of shocks me. Maybe it should shock me that it happened at all, what with the Pope in charge. It continues to amaze me how strong a hold religion has on people. Here, too - playing no small part in the current attempts to strip us of rights we take for granted in the civilized, modern, developed, freedom-loving, democratic superpower we live in.

Maybe I'm out of touch with "real America," whatever the hell that is. But I know that if you ever talk to a woman who has been raped or sexually assaulted or abused or needed an abortion or can't afford to send her kids to preschool or stay home with them or is old (and I guarantee you know one, even if you don't think you do), you'll realize how absolutely fucked-up all this is. This list is from MoveOn. It makes me crazy. I'm pretty sure if Jesus was around, he'd be walking a different walk. Right to life? Please.

Top 10 Shocking Attacks from the GOP War on Women

1) Republicans not only want to reduce women's access to abortion care, they're actually trying to redefine rape. After a major backlash, they promised to stop. But they haven't.

2) A state legislator in Georgia wants to change the legal term for victims of rape, stalking, and domestic violence to "accuser." But victims of other less gendered crimes, like burglary, would remain "victims."

3) In South Dakota, Republicans proposed a bill that could make it legal to murder a doctor who provides abortion care. (Yep, for real.)

4) Republicans want to cut nearly a billion dollars of food and other aid to low-income pregnant women, mothers, babies, and kids.

5) In Congress, Republicans have proposed a bill that would let hospitals allow a woman to die rather than perform an abortion necessary to save her life.

6) Maryland Republicans ended all county money for a low-income kids' preschool program. Why? No need, they said. Women should really be home with the kids, not out working.

7) And at the federal level, Republicans want to cut that same program, Head Start, by $1 billion. That means over 200,000 kids could lose their spots in preschool.

8) Two-thirds of the elderly poor are women, and Republicans are taking aim at them too. A spending bill would cut funding for employment services, meals, and housing for senior citizens.

9) Congress voted yesterday on a Republican amendment to cut all federal funding from Planned Parenthood health centers, one of the most trusted providers of basic health care and family planning in our country.

10) And if that wasn't enough, Republicans are pushing to eliminate all funds for the only federal family planning program. (For humans. But Republican Dan Burton has a bill to provide contraception for wild horses. You can't make this stuff up).

19

2011-02-19T18:10:00.001-08:00

Experimenting in the kitchen again. Glance at one recipe, compare with another, change everything anyway, and hope for the best. Tonight, it's with carrot-apple-raisin bread, in the oven as we speak, so I'll update with results. At least it's not dinner for 25 people, which is often the case. I almost never try out a recipe first if it's something new, I just go with it and figure we can always order pizza if it's really terrible. Hasn't happened yet (though the pseudo-Greek watermelon pie was not a hit with everyone - it was compared to stale jello and also fresh tuna steak sushi...not what you go for in a dessert; good thing there was a backup honey-walnut cake!) I'm not very good at following recipes exactly or carefully, and usually it comes out pretty good. But I wish I understood all the chemistry of it better, without having to understand the chemistry of it. Like if a recipe calls for 2 eggs but I only have one, what will that do to the final product? Does it really matter if I weigh my flour or sift it? Oops - I forgot to add the [fill-in-blank] but we didn't even notice. What would have been different if I'd thrown it it?

Anyway, there are also vegetables roasting that need a stir, so I'll sign out for now and hopefully we'll eat well.

18

2011-02-18T21:10:00.000-08:00

Here's another Wire-inspired ramble (we just can't stop watching it!). It's really depressing to think of all the neighborhoods where kids can't play safely, families don't feel comfortable in their own homes, the elderly aren't respected, and gunshots are a regular part of the soundscape. I know that human life has been cheap for most of history, and in many places today, but it's so far from my reality that it's hard to accept. There's always a cost to someone, a mother, a brother, a child, a friend. And it's so senseless. Not only are the kids not playing safely, they're playing at being gangsters, or they actually are in the gangs. Depressing isn't even the right way to say it, it's worse than that, but it's also such a huge problem that I don't know where to begin. I hate that our society glorifies violence. I know it's not new (hello, gladiators; hello, public lynchings) but I'd like to think we're evolving towards something more positive.

17

2011-02-17T18:50:00.000-08:00

88 years ago yesterday, Howard Carter opened Tutankhamen's tomb, setting off a spike in Egyptology, legends, and debates about the appropriateness of scavenging the dead. Also: fodder for one of my (in)famous history raps at school. It's better with the beat, but not much.

Tut was a boy king, a 4^th grader in charge

He was only nine but he was livin’ large

His tomb was found in the 20’s by an Englishman

It came with a curse that killed Lord Carnarvon

The first royal tomb that was left un-robbed

Full of clues about his life and even his job

As a kid he played and hunted though he walked with a cane

He married his sister and he changed his name

He strapped on a beard and partied with the gods

His advisor did the work, according to the odds

Ten years later: a murder mystery

Tutankhamen died young without a chance to live free

3000 years ago but the gold still shines

On his burial mask: what lies behind those eyes?

King Tut!

16

2011-02-16T18:58:00.000-08:00

Double the pleasure, two in one day, oh whatever will I say?

Scuppernong!

That's my new favorite word, although I haven't had many opportunities to use it. It sounds like something a pirate would say, doesn't it? Avast and scuppernong, me hearties! Off to the scuppernong with you, mate! Arrgh, it be the foul scuppernongs rolling in! I could do this for a while. It makes me giggle. Alas, the actual meaning of the word is not so delightsome. It's a kind of grape, probably well known in the wine world and much snacked-on by Scout and Jem in To Kill A Mockingbird.

I almost wish I hadn't looked it up.

15

2011-02-16T18:47:00.000-08:00

Teething baby. Sick papa. Tired mama. And so, a lovely poem from John O'Donohue:

A Blessing For One Who Is Exhausted

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight,

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken for the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

14

2011-02-14T19:24:00.000-08:00

Why is it so much harder to start things and stick to them than it is to quit? What do they say, you have to do something 21 times (in a row, more or less) for it to become routine - but you only miss once and suddenly you're on that slippery slope downhill. I'm talking about my posting this month, but could just as easily be referring to exercise and eating better and cleaning the house and, and, and. (never seem to have this problem with cookies or computer games, though!) So. I will resist the temptation to make more excuses and just get back on the ol' horse and buggy. Call it a vegetable and move on.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I've had my ups and downs with this holiday. The usual "overly-commercial-who-needs-a-reason-to-express-love" bitching and moaning, balanced by the occasional affair with lace doilies and pink construction paper. And glitter, don't forget the glitter. These days it's mostly an opportunity to eat sweets and carefully manage the onset of the sugar high in preteens.

They totally dig the stories about Lupercalia, which the Christians supposedly horned in on, as they do: bring on the bloody goat hide slappings, and rejoice! Be fertile! But let's keep the candy and chocolates. Buffet-style traditions are the best; take what you like and leave the rest.

13

2011-02-14T19:23:00.001-08:00

oops.

12

2011-02-12T09:53:00.000-08:00

I'm not quite sure how to start this, or what exactly I'm trying to say. (the teacher in me is always paying attention to the meta-entry, thinking about hooks and sentence fluency and what I ask the kids to do - read like a writer, write like a reader - but the writer in me can't always get there, and I've decided it's more important right now to just write, giving myself permission to write badly - as evidenced by the last few entries - and not hold myself to the standards of articulateness I'd like to achieve, especially in this non-revised form of publishing) (ok, that was really an aside that matters only to me, but hey, that's what you get) (I'm too much in the habit of thinking aloud to model the process at school, now I can't keep it in) (and now I really don't know what I was going to say - it's like at the movies, when there are so many previews that I forget what I came to see. Not that I've been to the movies recently.)

Right. So. Anyway. Egypt! That's where I was going. Not actually, though I'd like to someday. Everything that's happening there (and Tunisia and other places) reinforces the notion that I live in a bubble. I see friends posting about it on Facebook, but my updates are about food or the baby. I read columns about it, but write about tv shows and fermenting things. Things like honey wine, not revolutions. Which get fomented, not fermented. Dinner table topics are about family vacations and yoga classes, not world politics. Of course that's not always true, but on the whole, it's far too easy to ignore what's happening, even when it's shaking the world.

I make a point of humanizing current events whenever possible at school, showing the kids that these are real people with real lives. Yet it doesn't seem to stick in my own life - and I'm an educated, upper-middle class white girl who spent half her childhood in Africa and Asia. It's no wonder the average American doesn't have a clue.

I've struggled with this for a while. -- oh crap -- I got interrupted and thought I'd get back to this today, but now it's too late, so I'll just leave the notes I left myself and try to revisit this later --

(generally know the headlines, but not the details. have opinions that come from reactions and the daily show, not carefully formed. helping those less fortunate. accident of birth. place and time. altruism/selfishness/guilt. difficulty of true empathy, really being able to imagine living that life. not always a bad thing - tribes in amazon as well as garbage pickers in philippines. desire to experience it, sometimes. travel changes perspective. to what end? meaning of life? waxing overly philosophical?)

11

2011-02-11T21:09:00.000-08:00

tgif. and welcome back glee!

10

2011-02-10T20:50:00.000-08:00

... [tick tock] ...

I've been sitting here for at least ten minutes, wondering what to write, spacing out, not even thinking clearly enough to capture some random stream-of-consciousness crap to fill the space. But I'm tired of giving up on things I've set out to do, so I feel compelled to write at least this much. When my students start explaining why they haven't done their work I tell them I only want to hear the interesting excuses; I don't care about how you left your backpack in the car or how the printer isn't working. With that in mind: I can't do today's post (which btw was going to be very clever and/or profound, possibly even life-changing, certainly not just a list of things that come in tens or how to say ten in other languages or anything like that) because I'm still recovering from the tiger ambush we narrowly escaped earlier. (See? Even my "creative" excuses are lame right now. Bedtime. Sigh.) Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

9

2011-02-09T22:19:00.000-08:00

Gleanings from Wits and Wagers, a party game that lives up to its hype:

Amelia Earhart disappeared in 1937

Magellan began his circumnavigation in 1519

There are around 60 unprovoked shark attacks every year

(No numbers for provoked shark attacks)

NBA players make an obscene amount of money

The oldest woman on record was 122

The tallest woman was 8 feet, 1.75 inches

Americans each eat 150 pounds of potatoes in a year

FDR was president for a very long time

But only about half as long as Mandela was in jail

The U.S. hosted 6 Olympic games in the 20th century

Extras in Jaws were paid $64 to run screaming across the beach

And something about dwarf-tossing, although that may not have actually been in the game.

It's almost like a poem, don't you think?

8

2011-02-08T20:01:00.000-08:00

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said: "Is it good, friend?"

"It is bitter - bitter," he answered;

"But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart."

--Stephen Crane (1895)

7

2011-02-07T21:03:00.000-08:00

Dreaming of palm trees and warm water, spicy food, real food, tastes completely unlike what's on the menu here, served from a sizzling pan in a cart on the side of the road, the side of the beach, gritty sand scratching the bottom of my feet, drinking from a coconut lopped open with a big knife, surf beckoning, crashing, flip flop, flip flop, hot, wet, elephants and monkeys, mangoes, oh the mangoes, juicy, sweet, wash it all off in the ocean, laugh, dance, swim, sweat, breathe.

6

2011-02-06T19:19:00.001-08:00

Apparently I've fallen into the habit of writing these at night, when I am not so articulate nor witty nor long-winded. That could be good or bad, I suppose. At least it is a habit, if you can call six days worth of something a habit. Hey, if they could have a war that long, I can darn well develop a habit in that amount of time.

So: another snippet that may or may not get pursued in more depth. Just pretend Kristof or Gladwell is writing this and has done the appropriate research and fill in the missing insights and connections they would make.

We've been watching The Wire, after starting it somewhat reluctantly. A friend of ours has all the discs and it's been passed around the neighborhood with such rave reviews that I overcame my resistance to another police drama and I'm glad I did. It's a really good show (we're just starting season 3, so don't give anything away!), different from the rest - nice slow pacing, realistic perspectives, great writing, strong characters. None of which is what I want to talk about tonight.

The thing it's brought up for me over and over is how completely messed up our prison system and the whole justice system is. It's not a new opinion, but it's been reawakened. It doesn't punish effectively, it's not enough of a deterrent, it doesn't rehabilitate, it doesn't make the streets any safer. (This would be a good place to insert some of that research a better writer would have done. About what percentage of our population is locked up, and the disproportionate numbers of young black men, and the extreme sentences for things that are barely a crime, and recidivism, and violence in jail, and so on.) It just fucks people up, and actually seems to make things worse in some ways.

And far too many people - including some of my middle-school students when I was in New Mexico - just expect and accept that they will end up there at some point. Like my friends and I expected to go to college. You do your time, then you move on, maybe even using new connections and new skills and new resentments to fire things up when you get out.

It really depresses me. Enough to take action on prison reform? I don't know. Enough to pile onto my guilt about not doing enough to change the world and help those less fortunate, all the while feeling like that's a sort of pretentious and superior claim anyway? Absolutely. And that's not even touching on the whole death penalty issue. Sure, in a perfect world, I can see how some criminals (say, Jeffrey Dahmer et al) deserve to die. But ours is far from a perfect world, and it's just not right. Let go of it, Texas.

Tomorrow: something cheerful! Maybe.

5

2011-02-05T18:44:00.000-08:00

This one's just a quick note, on a topic I've thought about before and may delve into more deeply someday. We listened to part of an interview with Peggy Orenstein on West Coast Live this afternoon, about her new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter. I gather it's about the Disney princess phenom and how it's bad news for girls and for our society. I'd like to read it. It got me thinking about the whole idea of branding and commercialism, and my relationship to it, especially now that I've got a kid. I can be pretty rabidly anti-brand - unless it's a brand I like, of course. I'd happily dress my baby in a Cookie Monster outfit, or in a Red Hot Chili Peppers shirt (but maybe not the Ramones, in this overly-hipstered era). Just like it is for everyone, it's shorthand for who I am, or at least who I want the world to think I am.

4

2011-02-04T13:56:00.000-08:00

Happy day after yet another way to celebrate and mark the New Year. It's sort of convenient, really, all these chances to reflect and renew. Birthday, birth day (not the same), school year, seasons, calendar year, other people's calendar years....so thanks, Chinese, for yesterday! Bring on the hoppity hop - you don't stop - Year of the Rabbit! And another chance to make resolutions, since that didn't really happen on the ol' January One this year.

I go back and forth on how I feel about the whole idea, how high to make my expectations, how to create resolutions that aren't destined for failure but are still meaningful enough to bother with...you know how it goes. This year I think I'll keep it simple.

Make stuff

Do things

Go places

Dance

Write

Floss

3

2011-02-03T09:36:00.000-08:00

I like it, but is it art? The age-old debate - one of them, anyway, along with the meaning of life and what's for dinner - of whether or not something is worthy of the title. Art. Full of pretentious weight and a whisper of tweedy elbow patches struggling with black berets, highbrow and lowbrow and a fridge full of kindergarten scrawls. To garfunkel or not to garfunkel, that is the question.

I remember traveling to Florence and seeing Michelangelo's David: on a pedestal in a cupola, alone, lit by a sunbeam from above, much larger than I expected, and oh-so-beautiful. The detail in the hands bringing marble to life and inspiring all sorts of cliched reactions. But - there was a copy out in the piazza, where the original used to live, was meant to live, sculpted as a replacement when David himself was getting too weathered (or something like that, my memory's fuzzy and I haven't bothered checking out the story). Nothing special, really. A little dirty, and just one of a whole row of statues. But put them side by side, cleaned up, and I probably couldn't tell the difference. Or swap them, and the copy in the cupola would seem superior to the original outside.

Context is everything. We see what we expect, and react in ways we're taught. It's really hard to trust ourselves to have a true opinion because of all the baggage. And most art is (or was) meant to be seen in a living setting, a home or a church or the side of a building. Sterilizing it and hanging it in a room full of art changes things. (and hey, all those pristine white Greek temples? were really painted in bright colors) Especially when you're fighting for elbow room with hordes trotting by, video cameras at the ready, recording something they'll never actually watch at home, missing what's right in front of them, and getting right in front of you.

Even so, the chance to see all that is well worth it, and just got better, thanks to Google's Art Project. A video we'll actually watch. It just appeared, but I'm already taking it for granted, planning on using it with students, assuming I can find anything I want online. I like to look at familiar places, and to explore new ones.

It's hard to remember when we didn't have the world at our fingertips. Let's be sure to get the rest of ourselves out there and transform a virtual experience into reality.

2

2011-02-02T20:57:00.000-08:00

Almost messed up and missed day two - and now it's bedtime and I'm halfway to incoherent with all kinds of things running through the mind. Not sure if I can muster up the juice to be pissed at Palin (we're always a few days late on the news, whether it's from Jon Stewart or the Sunday Times, which usually takes most of the week to get through) or to be fascinated by the idea of brain transplants, which came up in a class discussion today after reading "Flowers for Algernon." And though I'm tired I can hear the sounds of the A-Team in the next room and I'm tempted to stay up and watch, because how can you miss out on that? None of which is leading to a fruitful entry, so here's to writing for the sake of writing, and dreaming sweet dreams, and resisting the lure of Hannibal and Mr. T. Good night.

1 - Start With A Whimper

2011-02-01T19:08:00.001-08:00

Well, more like a sigh. I decided at some point that I wanted to see what would happen if I posted every day, and chose February as the time to start. Total coincidence that it's the shortest month! Of course, having decided that, I kept it quiet because if nobody else knows about something it's easier to quit. But I met in circle today with the girls, and stated it out loud as my intention, so here we are. Nothing to say, really, but I had to send something out there into the great unknown. Here's hoping I tap into my inner Hamlet-monkey, or else this will be a month of wasted words words words...

Buddha, Jesus, and George Carlin Walk Into a Bar

2010-12-26T10:04:00.001-08:00

(I'm sorry to say I don't actually have a joke to go with that opening; maybe I'll work on a punchline and get back to you) (or maybe Steve Martin will write a play and save me the trouble)

'Tis the season to fret about stuff. It's actually been on my mind a lot lately, as we try to turn our house into more of a space we actually love, a home that is functional and fun. The problem is that no matter how much surface area is available, it gets covered with clutter. Adding more space just invites more piles. We need containment, carefully planned out containment.

But: what I really need is a willingess to let go. Somehow I have developed a sort of modern version of Depression-era stockpiling. Drawers full of old rubber bands and matchboxes with one match and too many glass jars because they might come in handy some day! Clothes I've had since high school but haven't worn since college but still like! Mountains of used padded envelopes in case I need to send lots of fragile things in the mail! Candy canes from three years ago that are finally in season again!

It's the treehugging solar-powered locavore in me: I just can't throw things away. I can reuse and recycle with the best of them, but I hate waste. I still get sad when we let the spinach go bad, but at least it gets composted. I'm getting better about giving things away for someone else to use, but that's where I run into my attachment issues. Having moved a lot and culled a lot, I hit a wall at some point and just want to keep the stuff I still have. Because, you know, I like it. Or I liked it at some point. Or it has meaning, it was a gift, it's an emotional connection to a person, place, or time. I blame Black Friday, instead of Black Tuesday.

But it's time to let it go. Embrace Craigslist, Freecycle, Goodwill. As I'm bombarded with commands to buy, to do it for Jesus (Happy Birthday!), I'm going to listen to the Buddha instead. Or maybe George Carlin, with a twist: "How come your shit is stuff and everybody else's stuff is shit?" Or hell, even the bumper sticker on my car: "The best things in life aren't things."

It's a little sad to admit that when I threw away (recycled!) the wrapping paper from xmas presents yesterday, I felt a small thrill. It was like I was doing something daring and not-quite-kosher. It was wrong, but oh-so-right. Now if only I can bring myself to do the same with the bags full of old wrapping paper in the attic... (but what if there's a birthday, and I need to wrap something?!)

New Year's Resolution: get rid of at least one thing every day. And then stop thinking about it!

On hold, maybe

2010-11-10T13:51:00.001-08:00

I've been feeling like taking a social network/blog break lately. People always go on about how the internet connects them and blah blah blah. It's true, sort of. I'm more in touch now with some old friends (and some other random people) and I sure do spend a lot of time online, mostly happily and without too much fallout. But. I think right now I want to put that energy into my actual flesh-and-blood life.

On the other hand, I may well get sucked back in at anytime. So. This may or may not be an announcement that I'm taking a break. See you soon, or in a while, or even later than that.

Suffragette City

2010-11-02T21:04:00.000-07:00

Some food for thought on Election Day:

American women have been voting for less than a century. The 19th Amendment was passed in 1920, a hard-won victory that was a long time coming. (Iron Jawed Angels is a great film about it.) That's in the realm of oral history. It still kind of shocks me how recently that happened, and how we take it for granted.

New Zealand is usually mentioned as the first nation to give women suffrage, in 1893, but a handful of places did it in colonial times (New Jersey, Pitcairn Island) and didn't implode or bring the heavens shattering down upon themselves.

Swiss women didn't get the right to vote until 1971. That's almost in my own lifetime. For better or for worse, we expect that in places like Saudi Arabia (still no vote for the ladies), but Switzerland?! I thought they were so civilized.

Of course, I sort of thought we were civilized too, until the recent craziness took over the airwaves. At least we have Jon Stewart.

I almost didn't vote in this election, because I've felt shamefully uninformed lately, but I just couldn't let it go. I waffle between feeling really strongly about what's going on - to head to D.C. for the Rally (no, not Glenn Beck's!), to get out and canvass, to make my voice heard loudly and in possibly offensive rhyme - and feeling sort of apathetic, or maybe hopeless, about the whole shebang. But even though I didn't march, I felt something run through me when I dropped my ballot off.

So thank you, Susan and Lucy and Lydia and Elizabeth and Alice and Inez and Victoria and all the others who made it possible.

Dancing Queens

2010-10-16T10:04:00.000-07:00

A while back, I wrote about the lost art of the mixtape. And I recently rediscovered one of the best. My first year of college, two friends and I created this tape to be the perfect dance mix, with built-in time to catch your breath. We laughed so much while we created it, and I wish I could scan in the cover art I made (we each made our own for our own copy of the tape). Think fishnets, and sass, and groovin' and love. Four years later, at a party shortly before graduation, someone put a tape on: it was the mix we had made! It had made its way around the school, passed on for its legendary powers to get people up on the dance floor. And we laughed and laughed as we danced. And here's how it went:

Side A

Dancing Queen - ABBA

Respect - ARETHA

Stuck in the Middle - STEALERS WHEEL

Into the Groove - MADONNA

Sweet Dreams - EURYTHMICS

Take On Me - A-HA

1999 - PRINCE

Groove is in the Heart - DEEE-LITE

Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon - URGE OVERKILL

Vogue - MADONNA

A Fine Romance - LENA HORNE

I Will Survive - GLORIA GAYNOR

Side B

Let's Go Crazy - PRINCE

Tainted Love - SOFTCELL

Wonderwall - OASIS

Laid - JAMES

Jump - THE MOVEMENT

Big Time Sensuality - BJORK

Son of a Preacher Man - DUSTY SPRINGFIELD

Hooked on a Feeling - BLUE SWEDE

Take a Chance on Me - ABBA

St. Elmo's Fire - JOHN PARR

Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps - DORIS DAY

You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman - ARETHA

Girls Just Want to Have Fun - CYNDI LAUPER

And though we made this tape more than 15 years ago, and it was a mix of our different tastes, and it's a little scratchy from being played so much, and it breaks my personal mixtape rule of using the same artist more than once: it's still fabulous!

Be that girl.

Livin' La Vida Loca

2010-10-16T09:48:00.000-07:00

Oh dear. I appear to have missed September completely. How did that happen? Actually, that kind of thing happens all too often these days. I say to a friend, "Let's get together soon," and soon turns into several weeks. Weeks that are full of not a whole lot, and at the same time, everything that matters. Hours spent chasing a ping pong ball as it bounces down the sidewalk. More hours spent hiking in the woods, baby boy snuggled close, twisting and turning to watch the dog scamper and pounce. Mornings at the farmer's market, afternoons in the park, ten minutes here and there climbing the back of the porch swing. The days just disappear, and I try to hold on to the moments.

Also - September means back-to-school, so that's been taking up a fair bit of time that I might otherwise be recording my grandiose opinions on the world. My head's been in Mesopotamia and Egypt, to the point that I'm not even sure who's running in the local elections. (and I've discovered that in some ways I'm incredibly unobservant: on a walk one day I'll ask if that house has always been that color, or that lamppost has always been there, and usually it has, and I've walked by it hundreds of times without noticing. So the political signs in people's yards are not so helpful)

It's not like I'm so super-busy doing this-that-and-the-other, although I get to the Y for yoga and pilates, and have the occasional game nights with neighbors. Not so many dance parties or poetry readings, not a lot of going out for dinner, or staying up all night being wild and crazy. Sometimes I miss those times, when I was just gearing up for the evening activities at a time I'm now usually in bed, maybe even asleep. It was fun, and part of me still wants to be that girl. Part of me still is, somewhere inside. But my life is loca in a whole new way, now.

And I am happy.

Of Meat And Men

2010-08-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

I just read Julie Powell's second memoir, Cleaving. It's about learning how to be a butcher while she cheats on her husband. Or tries to get over cheating on her husband. Whatever. My verdict: the bits about the meat are good. Clear voice, fun recipes, compelling. The bits about the men? I don't care. And the bits where she tries to find meaning and metaphor about the men in the meat? Irritating. I wasn't sure I was going to make it through the whole book because of it. I did, and could have done without the whole last travel section as well. But the bits about the meat more or less made up for it.

My initial reaction was actually a lot more harsh - I said some mean things about her while I was reading, wanting her to focus on the interesting stuff and leave the forced introspection out of it. I had a similar reaction to the Julie & Julia movie (I didn't read the book) - I like the Julia bits, not so much the Julie bits. But now that I've sat with it a bit, she's grown on me some. It's her memoir, so she's entitled to write about whatever she wants. (kind of like blogging, no? Which is where she got started, after all. But I doubt I'll be reading that anytime soon.) And it's her life, to fuck up or fix up however she wants. I just wish I didn't have to read about so much of it.

Like: she starts with an interesting description of how to take apart a pig, and then goes off on the symbolism of how the flesh (aka she and her lover) clings to itself and has to be pried apart carefully to avoid tearing a ragged edge...blah blah. Get back to the juicy stuff. More meat, less men!

Choose Your Own Amendment

2010-08-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

You're walking down the street on a sunny day when you spot someone who looks out of place. This person is loitering and anxiously looking around. He is wearing a funny cap on his head and is darker than most people who live in this area. If you: go up to him and ask in a friendly way if he needs help, turn to page 32. If you: check your bag to make sure your concealed weapon is loaded before calling a buddy for backup, turn to page 57.

PAGE 32: Well done! He just needed to find a public restroom he could use. You are a kind human being that offers us all hope for the future. Live long and prosper. Go forth and multiply.
PAGE 57: Good job! You scared him so badly he peed in the street, splashing your shoes. You are the antithesis of all that America stands for. Go directly to jail (or better yet, to school), do not pass Start, do not collect $200.

Selected Amendments, as interpreted by the squeaky wheels we love to hate:

The First? Only when it applies to me!
The Second? Hell yeah!
The Fourteenth? We don't need that no more.

And while we're at it, let's write a few more that will redefine the world to fit our narrow-minded perspective. (Is this where both sides whip out Leviticus to prove a point?) Apparently only a few red-blooded patriots really know what the Founding Fathers had in mind. God forbid any of the rest of us actually read the Constitution.

Oh, how the blood boils. It makes me inarticulate. The worst of it may be how poorly this represents our people, but you'd never know it from what you see in the media. (except Jon Stewart, of course, peace be upon him) Hearst created a war out of nothing (ok, not nothing, I'm oversimplifying history to support my point, just like everyone else) and it's happening again, people lining up to take sides over issues that didn't even exist until the flames were fueled by the Fox flock.

And the so-called "Mosque at Ground Zero"? Neither a mosque nor at ground zero. What a good opportunity for peacemaking and community-building that's getting twisted around until it will only end badly. Let's fight more wars - after all, what else do we have those guns for?!

I don't know about you, but when I chose my own adventure, more often than not, I ended up dead. Unless I cheated and looked at all the options until I found the happy ending. It was always there to be found.

Parenting Advice from a Jackass

2010-08-02T18:52:00.001-07:00

It was too windy to read the paper in the park today, so I ended up listening to a nearby phone conversation while hanging out with the boy. (Ok, yes, I would probably have listened in anyway.) He was going on and on about all sorts of things, interrupting himself now and then to yell at his kid. Here's the nugget of wisdom he had to share, loudly:

If your seven-year-old keeps pooping his pants, you should make him wear them on his head and (I quote) "smell that shit all day until he learns not to do it again." If you don't have the heart for that, you don't let him out to play and you be sure to tell his friends why.

He also talked about a girl he knew who was scrawny because she was a junkie, but could drink anyone under the table and win bets. They'd split the cash. He was real proud of that. Delightful, no? I admit he sort of endeared himself to me when he talked about the dirty hippies who won't get a job and don't wash their hair. He was most upset about how bad dreadlocks smell, except for this one hot chick he knew with platinum dreads - all the rest remind him of his cat's hairballs.

On a vaguely related note (well, not related to hairballs), I came across some equally revolting parenting advice in the classic manual "What to Expect: The First Year." In a listing of games to play with little ones, they included this rhyme: "Clap hands, clap hands, till daddy comes home, cause daddy has money and mommy has none."

Yeah, you read that right. Welcome to parenthood, ladies and gentlemen.

Be: Here, Now.

2010-07-10T15:19:00.000-07:00

My yoga teacher started class this morning with a lovely Mary Oliver poem (aren't they all?), about attention. Ironically, although I live in the present a lot these days, I couldn't do it during yoga. Every time she'd tell us to center and sink in, to pay attention, my mind would wander. And then I would notice the wandering, and try to focus, and still end up with eyes and thoughts darting around the room. The woman next to me kept doing poses wrong, and I wanted to correct her, or have the teacher fix it. The man in front was huffing and puffing and generally making a new age spectacle of himself. My pants kept sticking to me in funny ways because of how hot and sweaty I was. Nevertheless, it was a great class and a great way to start the day. Here's the poem:

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver (1992)

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

And The Living Is Easy...

2010-07-09T08:31:00.000-07:00

Summertime! A time for barbecues and hammocks, for popsicles leaving purple tongues, for dancing and swimming and late nights under the stars. Or, these days, for early nights watching tv, peeking outside and wondering if it's ok to go to bed while it's still light out. A whole new world. Actually, now that the boy is more or less reliable about bedtime, and we have a monitor that works at quite a distance, we've managed a few fun evenings with friends. But those carefree days are behind us - and ahead of us, as we watch our neighbor kids run shrieking through the sprinklers and tumble into a pile, laughing all the while.

We are trying to keep adventuring; we even went rafting, to celebrate the 4th, with baby on board. It was a tame and empty stretch of river, a handful of splashy spots amidst the gorgeous scene, just perfect for his first time out. Hopefully a sign of days to come. As we were de-rigging at the end, we chatted with a guy who said he started taking his kids real young and how his oldest son is a river guide. The future? (And then he slept through the fireworks that night, hurrah. Can't say the same for the dog, but she's always been a fraidy-pup with noises like that. Thunderstorms back in New Mexico sent her trembling into the bathtub.)

I live in each moment. The trees, not the forest. It all seems like it's going so fast anyway. The fish may be jumping (don't know if the cotton is high) but I have small waves of anxiety because I haven't planned for the fall yet. Has it really been six weeks since school ended? How did that happen? Here's how: one day the grimace at the sweet potato becomes an open mouth asking for more, bright orange giggles delighting in this new experience. Squeals of joy greet the sight of the dog hunting her tennis ball, ears flying in the wind, a pounce in a cloud of dust. Grunting marks the hard work of rolling and rolling and rolling, trying to push up, to stay up, to get where you want to go, and finding yourself going backwards instead. Somehow, in the midst of all the ba-ba-ba-ba-babbles, you are growing up, one day at a time.

One of these mornings / you're goin' to rise up singing / Then you'll spread your wings / and you'll take to the sky...

English Well Speeched Here

2010-06-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

(If you're not familiar with that book - a collection of signs from around the world about ladies with nuts and suchlike - you should check it out; it's quite hilarious. As is Anguished English, a history compiled from student writing, in which Socrates dies of too much wedlock.)

There are two parts to this whole English language thing I'm thinking about: one has to do with making English the national language, and the other has to do with how well native speakers speak (and write) it. I'll start there, because it's more clear to me what I think, which is: spelling matters! And commas! And apostrophes! And knowing how to use them correctly! I laugh at all those cartoons and books with funny examples, but really it makes me sigh inside. I tell my students that all those other traits of writing they're taught - organization, content, voice, etc. - have to do with what people think of their writing. But the conventions affect what people think of them. I am incredibly judgmental of restaurant menus offering "onion ring's" or a van with painted sides promising to Get Your Windows "Clean"! (Is that code for something?) And especially newspapers with errors. They actually have people who are paid to make sure there are no errors, even if they're just typos that spellcheck missed. Do your job! Yes, I make what are probably unfair assumptions about the intelligence of people who make these mistakes. Suck it up and learn how to write right.

My favorite example of why commas are important: Let's eat, grandma! Leave that comma out and we're suddenly talking to Hannibal Lecter. The kids always get a kick out of it. That said, I support poetic (mis)use of the language. It's like what I was taught about painting: you have to learn the rules before you can break them. Once you can draw a good still life, you can go nuts with your spatter-painting and call it art.

The other part, the idea of making English the national language, well, it's a little more complicated for me. My initial reaction to the folks who propose that is that they are prejudiced and backwards and generally can't speak English all that well themselves (have you seen the signs at Tea Party rallies?). But once I get over it and start to think about the idea, I find that I'm not so sure. When I travel, or if I live abroad, I don't expect people to speak English to me. Yes, the reality is that in a lot of places people do, but that doesn't mean they should have to. Maybe folks in the tourist industry, but not the general public. I consider it my responsibility to figure out how to communicate with them, to learn the local language, even to say my name differently. I wouldn't expect to be able to get a job if I couldn't speak to the natives. So why wouldn't that be the same for people coming here?

And yet. It doesn't feel right to force people to live a substandard life because they can't understand English. To have a hard time getting good medical care. To be labeled stupid because they fail a test at school. To be unable to feed their kids because nobody will hire them. I don't know. I'm running up against my socialist libertarian tendencies again. Isn't there some kind of compromise that allows people to live decently and hold onto their own culture while also assimilating and acknowledging they're in the good ol' US of A? Can we celebrate our diversity and communicate clearly?

Of course this issue is tangled up in the immigration issue, which I won't get into except to say: when I taught in New Mexico, my students didn't realize there was such a thing as legal immigration. They'd only ever heard of illegal immigration. That kind of blew my mind.

Now I'm off to join Lynne Truss and her posse of guerilla grammarians, ninja mask on and sharpie in hand. All ye who err, beware!

Hmm.

2010-06-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation yesterday about feeling unmoored now that school is out, even though I was only teaching two afternoons a week, and how it's important to have something to hang my days on - if not a job, then a yoga class, or a baby date, or a women's circle, or something. Something on the calendar, to anchor the otherwise aimless space. It's not aimless, of course, it's filled with the most important work of all: raising my boy. Nevertheless, especially after 7 months (!) of it, it feels like time to get out and do something else. I'm starting to hit my wall of going round and round with the baby toys, how can we entertain you now, what can I do to get that heart-melting grin and giggle, constant energy and attention. It's exhausting. And when it's nonstop, it stops being fun, and I don't want to stop having fun with my baby. So the time has come to bring in the babysitters and work out a balanced parenting schedule (I always wince using that as a verb. Well, a gerund here, I think, but still) and go dancing.

The other piece of it had to do with working and how we undervalue the work of being at home and raising a kid. (and I get the double hit, with my "real" work of teaching being undervalued too! Oh sure, we say education is the most important thing, but we don't walk the walk.) As I live it, even in an enlightened and progressive area, I feel how unfair it is. If you can't define yourself with money, you don't count. You don't get the benefits of being retired (think palm trees and daiquiris) and it's almost like you're not a real person. Yes, I know this is not news, but it is new for me to feel this way, to feel like I have to justify what I'm doing somehow, to fight for the recognition that I am working more now than I ever have before. No, it's not a "job" that pays me money, but I don't have a union guaranteeing me a coffee break every 4 hours either. (Sorry, kid, you can't get up from your nap yet, it's not time for me to clock back in) Ok, this isn't totally fair, a lot of people celebrate this time in our life and clearly do value it. They're not the ones I'm talking about. (I get a lot of props for teaching, too, but my microcosm isn't matched on a national level)

I don't know exactly what I'm trying to say; I'm not feeling particularly articulate at the moment, but that conversation has been bubbling around in my mind and I needed to get it out somehow. And I may not be getting drinks from the cabana boy, but I do have something way better, a most incredible little man that lights up my life and lives up to all the hype. So there, world.

Cleverly Disguised as a Responsible Adult

2010-06-02T09:18:00.001-07:00

That's what a magnet on our fridge says, and it feels pretty true. Sometimes I just get overwhelmed by the things we're supposed to do, as dishes and dust pile up around us. Isn't there some cleaning gene that kicks in when you reach a certain age? I don't seem to be any better about it now than when I was a teenager with a messy bedroom. But it seems to come naturally for the adults I know. The real ones, that is, not like me. Maybe it's a generational thing. All I know is that we'll finally get so frustrated (or the smell gets bad enough) that it motivates us to spic'n'span the place, and then there's this optimism that it will stay that way, and it does for a few days, and suddenly the mess creeps back in. Then we swear we'll never cook again, and that will fix it! I hold on to a notion that if everything just had a proper spot, it would end up there and stay clean. But it expands to fit the place, filling whatever surface area is available; we're equally messy in a 1600-square-foot house as we were in a tiny campervan. Actually, I think we were better about it in the van, so maybe we need to downsize again. I also thought moving into a new house would make it easier to keep it clean - you can't blame the crud in the corners of the bathtub on the last residents - but no. I'm reminded of the argument I used to use against making my bed: it's just going to get messed up when I sleep in it tonight, so why bother? I just swept - how is there dog fur all over again? Why bother? Well, actually, unless we want to star in a Hitchcock film about deadly dust bunnies, that's worth doing. Especially now that the boy is starting to scootch around and get his face in it.

I'm looking at a pile a foot high of newspapers that I haven't (or have) read. Why is that still there? And the bag of outgrown baby clothes to take to the consignment store that's been sitting there for a few weeks? Who even knew that you had to dust your window blinds and stair railings? And your plants?!

One of my students tried to sell me a plant for a fundraiser, and I told her I have enough things to keep alive these days. Ice cream for breakfast, anyone?

It's A Small World After All

2010-05-21T09:03:00.000-07:00

[This is an excerpt from a "personal statement" I had to write as part of an application for a seminar on teaching about Asia. I wasn't really prepared to write it and had to take advantage of naptime, so it's just what came to me in the moment.]

My first foods were rice and dhal, and my first bedtime stories came from the Ramayana. I spent half of my childhood overseas, in India, Kenya, and Sri Lanka, and have since traveled to more than 30 countries. My experiences define a strong undercurrent in my teaching: I want to expand the horizons of my students and introduce them to the world they live in. It's a little simplistic to say I think this is the way to saving the world, but I kind of believe it. So many of the problems we face stem from a lack of understanding and awareness - it's easy to destroy or ignore something (or someone) you know nothing about.

When the tsunami hit in 2004, I was living in Santa Fe and teaching 7th grade Social Studies. We were studying New Mexico history that year. My students didn't usually pay too much attention to the news if it wasn't an assignment, but of course they heard about the disaster and were horrified in an abstract way. However, it didn't really mean anything to them; some of them couldn't even locate it on a world map. One day I brought in pictures of myself at their age in Sri Lanka, and suddenly it became real. These were real people who had died, lost their families, their homes, their livelihoods. We looked at maps and followed the news. Students who had never left town were engaged in the lives of people half a world away.

That kind of cultural crossover, of making someplace abstract and exotic into a reality, is powerful. I want my students to be interested, to care, to believe in the possibility that these are places they can go and people they can know. The world these kids are growing up in is changing so fast and getting smaller all the time. They can hop online and watch video taken from a cellphone in Beijing. They can follow instant updates from a kid their age in Korea. It's easier than ever to travel. While growth and technology blur borders, stereotypes and insularity are growing too.

I want to teach kids to be fascinated by other cultures, not scared of them.

Milking the Signs

2010-05-01T08:55:00.000-07:00

I've been signing more and more with the boy, not just baby books and songs, but reviving my college ASL days and signing what I can, when I can. I pulled out my sign language dictionaries to help, since it's been a lot of years and although I'm surprised at how much has come back naturally, I am far from fluent or even really conversant. When I was looking up the sign for "milk" to see if it was different than what they teach in baby sign (it's not), I happened to notice the sign for menstruation on the same page. This particular dictionary has little memory aid descriptions for each sign. Here's the entry:

"Menstruation, Period: Tap the right cheek twice with the palm side of the right "A" hand.
Memory Aid: The cheek can suggest the cavity of the uterus and the action can suggest the loosening of material for the discharge of the menses."

Really, Perigee Visual Dictionary? Really? Because, yuck. I'm all for oneness with our bodies and finding joy and power in the natural womanly cycle, but come on now. That seems unnecessary.

Cheek uteri aside, it's really fun to get back into ASL and think back to the good times we had at school. It's such a good way to express yourself, and so often feels totally intuitive to me. For years I've used a handful of signs in my everyday life and at school - yes, no, I don't know, who, all done - things like that. I always eavesdrop when I see people signing, but have never been very good at keeping up with signs at speed, just like with any new language. But it's so pretty to watch, and it makes me feel good when I recognize a sign in the flurry. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival incorporates ASL into their productions frequently - most recently a deaf actor played the ghost in Hamlet, so those interactions were all in sign. That worked really well, but sometimes it seems more forced. I like watching it anyway.

It's one of those forking paths on the timeline of my alternate lives. I was thinking pretty seriously about getting involved with the National Theatre of the Deaf, which was just down the road in Hartford and put on some beautiful productions. I loved watching the synergy between voice and sign and body - it was a beautiful dance, and I wanted to be a part of it. (another one of those alternate forks was doing light design for dance - I was going to go work at Jacob's Pillow the summer after graduating, but took a road trip across the country instead. Which is a whole 'nother blog post or several. Did I already write about the hairy pits? I"ll have to check.)

Alrighty, then. Signing off.

Lost Art of the Mixtape

2010-04-25T13:41:00.000-07:00

Kind of like Lost Wax casting, only not really at all. I was waxing (ha!) nostalgic to my teenage students the other day about mixtapes, and realized I was totally dating myself* when they didn't get it at all. "But you just make a playlist, it's so easy!" Exactly. It's so easy. And therefore it loses something. Yes, you still have to choose just the right songs, and can work on making the perfect cover, but it's not quite the same. Making a mixtape was a big deal. You had to spend hours cuing up the tapes and knowing exactly how long the songs were and waiting to hit stop at just the right moment. And all that came after poring through your music and your friends' music, tapes scattered on the floor all around, popping them in and out of the player to hear the songs, and hear if the transitions worked... There was that in-between period, of using cd's to make a mixtape, before you could burn it onto a new cd, which wasn't quite as involved but was still a very hands-on kind of process. Something about the tangibility of it all was magical. It meant something.

Mixtapes were the love letters of my youth.

That said, I totally dig the easy access to music these days, and those same students make me cd's, which is a great way to hear new stuff, and the internet brings its own magic. But I still miss the true mixtape.

*I love myself, I think I'm grand. When I go to the movies, I hold my hand. I put my arm around my waist, and if I get fresh, I slap my face. --Ogden Nash

UPDATE: a couple days after I wrote this I was reading Sherman Alexie's new collection, War Dances, which includes the poem "Ode to Mix Tapes." "...the last track/ Was the vessel that contained/ The most devotion and pain/ And made promises that you couldn't take back." As always, it's a book that hits you where it matters. He is such a powerful writer.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Vagina

2010-04-23T09:03:00.001-07:00

So you know how every language has its hilarious faux pas, leading to mortified teenagers who grow up with the same funny story to tell? In French, if you say "Je suis pleine," meaning literally "I am full," you have just announced that you are pregnant. Ha ha! Or in Spanish, similarly - "embarazada" means pregnant, not embarrassed, though you will certainly be blushing if you make that mistake.

Well, I just learned about one in sign language that tops those. I was at a "Babies in the Library" group (for the first time, and possibly the last, because: chaos! And the hormones that make me care about my baby crying don't work for other babies, so they're just loud and annoying) and we were learning to sign some stories and songs. We made it through "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" with no problems, but when we got to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," one of the women stopped the lady teaching us (who teaches baby sign, so oops - how embarazada for her! But this other woman works with deaf kids and actually uses ASL, so she wins). She was trying to be gentle about it, all "doesn't that have another meaning?" Blank response. She had to lay it out: "I'm pretty sure it means vagina."

There we were, more than a dozen men and women holding our thumbs and fingers together in a diamond shape, waving our vagina hands above our babies as we sang to them. It was fabulous.

It's true that baby signs are often simplified, because they can't quite manage the grownup version - just like when they talk, they simplify words - but that's a far cry from mixing up diamond and vagina. Although kind of funny if you think about all those ads for diamond rings being swapped out. They're irritating enough with their message that men can buy forgiveness and love because all women are so shallow that they only care about the bling. But now I'm getting sidetracked.

And yes, we are starting to use some basic signs with the boy, in the hopes that he'll learn to recognize them and start using them in a couple months. We'll see how it goes, but I'm all for expanding our communication.

Also, my title was kind of misleading, so here's how the new version of the song really goes:
Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a vagina in the sky...

Try it, it's fun!

Happy Meat

2010-04-10T09:26:00.000-07:00

(oh dear, I now have an image of Kermit tap-dancing around hanging sides of beef, joined by some cheerful sheep and the odd goat; chickens to perform their own foot-scratching sensation later, perhaps even juggling their eggs with a flourish...)

So anyway. I've been trying these past couple of years to eat in a way that makes me feel good about myself, not so much for my physical health but the health of my soul. Mostly this has meant avoiding meat from the industrial agricultural behemoth, and looking for local/sustainable/organic/humane flesh. What it comes down to is that I finally cannot ignore the images of cows standing in rivers of their own shit as they are injected with all kinds of drugs and fed a mix of grains and offal, or pigs with their tails cut off so they won't be chewed on by the other pigs, or chickens with Dolly Parton breasts, unable to support their own weight, or any of the other horrible things going on in the world of meat.

There are lots of compelling arguments for eating the good kind of meat: healthier, tastes better, works in harmony with the environment, and so on. All positive, but just kind of the silver lining for me. I am driven by the hope that the animal I'm eating lived a happy life. Guilt (as the Jews and the Catholics know) is a powerful motivator, and if I am going to eat meat at all, I need to find a way to feel good about it. Yes, I realize that in the end they die, no getting around that, but I'm actually ok with that part of things - assuming the slaughtering is also done as humanely as possible. (I do think you have to face that fact, and we actually learned how to slaughter and butcher a chicken a couple years ago, and may do a lamb or buffalo at some point.) Even the big guns (McDonald's et al) are a lot better about that than they used to be (thanks in large part to Temple Grandin), but that's still just the end of their life - which they wouldn't have at all if we weren't raising them to be eaten - and I want to know the rest of it was good, too. You know, visions of the happy farm animals we give to children in coloring books. Sunshine and flowers, cows with big brown eyes and long raspy tongues finding the delicious clover, pigs rooting in the forest for acorns, chickens picking fat juicy bugs out of the grass... Meanwhile, the system takes care of itself, working together as nature intended (more or less). Can't you just hear the hopeful and triumphant soundtrack? I mean, they don't have to play Mozart and massage the beasts, but a certain amount of carefree frolicking would be nice.

These days, with the omni/locavore movements picking up speed, it's becoming easier to do that and easier to explain to people (just mention Michael Pollan and the farmer's market). Where I live, it's even fairly easy to find happy meat at restaurants. Granted, when I travel, I have to decide how much of my principles I'm willing to put on hold (and how many images of suffering animals I'm willing to watch dance through my head - is the pepperoni pizza really worth it? Probably the pig wouldn't think so...) but I have hope that these ideas will spread and people will begin to make choices that will ultimately change the industry.

For our part, we've joined a meat CSA with a local ranch. We get 5 pounds of frozen meat a month - cow, pig, chicken, lamb, and/or goat - and emails with little updates of how the animals are doing (springtime brings babies!). It feels good and tastes good and is good for our local economy and the environment. Everybody wins. One of these days we'll get out there for a visit and meet the meat.

Operating Instructions

2010-04-08T09:02:00.000-07:00

I am finally getting around to reading this book by Anne Lamott, which is a journal of her son's first year, and I am totally entranced. She captures the ecstasy and agony of motherhood so perfectly, even though her situation was fairly different from mine. I have to make myself put the book down so I can savor her entries, and I'm already thinking about reading it again. Maybe even right away. Which is fairly unheard of, for me. This may be a keeper; one I'll buy as soon as I've returned this copy to the library.

I've been journaling about the boy off and on, more off than on, which often makes me disappointed in myself. I know there's no "supposed to" with journals, but I can't help feeling that mine won't be what I want, years from now. And, oddly enough, I find that I self-censor what I write (which Lamott decidedly does not) - maybe because I do intend to read it again, or pass it on to the kid, and am already constructing the memories I want and sweeping others under that proverbial rug? Not willing to admit the really hard stuff, or at least glossing over the truth with a throwaway line, a joke about being tired, or papa earning points to do fun things? Contrast that to Lamott, who readily admits to calling her son a little shit and understanding child abuse (though not ever hurting him). Most of my entries end up in the second person, so it seems I am addressing the boy's future self, though I'm not sure that was initially my intent. Who knows if he would ever even want to read this stuff? It's so hard to imagine what he'll be like as he grows, though I talk to him about it all the time. We've agreed that he won't play football, though most other forms of activity are fair game. And he has to be gentle with the hearts he's sure to break. [aside: I can't quite call him "my son," sort of like I couldn't quite say "my husband" for a while. It's just too weird.] Maybe I need a second secret journal, with a heart-shaped lock and key, like my childhood diaries. Of course, those keys were always the same as the ones for cheap luggage locks, so really anyone could have opened them, but it felt more private. That didn't stop me from hiding it, nor did it stop my older brother from finding it and reading it. Oh, the laughter (his), the tears (mine), one more battle in the sibling wars. Actually, we got along quite well, but you just can't escape some things. [another aside: do you think all those gruff TSA folks spend their breaks reading little girls' diaries?]

I don't know if I would have appreciated this book before starting this whole kid adventure, but I highly recommend it. Certainly for anyone in the throes of babyhood now, but not only. It is brilliant, beautiful, funny, painful, and most of all, true.

March Forth

2010-03-10T09:09:00.000-08:00

The small boy turned four months old on March fourth! Four long months that have zipped by. Already it's hard to believe he grew inside of me - I lived through it and I still can't wrap my mind around it (I guess that's why it's a miracle) - and came out, half as big as he is now. He eats, he naps, he pees, he poots and poops, he drools and squeaks and squeals, he grins so big it defies gravity. His favorite toy is a hand, fingers wiggling to watch and grab. And he french-kisses his monkey rattle. It's possibly the most adorable thing I've ever seen.

Meanwhile, my out-of-body self is watching me try not to become a cliche, as the baby has become the center of my universe. Certainly when others ask about him or compliment him, I'm happy to share, but otherwise I'll bring up other topics instead. I don't carry pictures around (except in my heart), and I have time away, time to be me and to interact with the world as a whole adult human, not a mother. And yet. As much as I appreciate and need that time and those activities (teaching, circles, the Y), I miss him, even if I'm only gone an hour. It's not that I'm missing him and thinking about him while I'm gone; actually, it's almost as if I don't have a baby, but as soon as I get home, all I want to do is snuggle and kiss him.

(oops - I hear him waking from his morning nap, so this will have to do for now - that's how we roll these days)

Take Back The Tea Party

2010-02-11T09:46:00.000-08:00

They took the flag, they took family values, they took the whole idea of patriotism, and now they're taking tea?! Hell, no!*

I like to think of myself as open-minded and anti-polarization; let's all get together and talk to each other and work things out, y'know? Surely we'll find we have much more in common than not, and we'll approach the world with a new perspective. You'll take me hunting and I'll take you to a poetry slam, and we'll laugh about it over a beer afterwards. But holy shit, these tea party idiots just get my hackles up and send me to the other corner, ready for a fight. Peace, love, and understanding go right out the window.

Have they even read the Constitution? Do they know anything about our history other than whatever soundbites Glenn Beck and Rush feed them? Are they totally blind to their hypocrisy and idiocy? This is where I'm supposed to write about concrete examples and powerfully articulate my position, in a well-reasoned and somewhat witty fashion, leaving no doubt about the proper order of things, but I just cannot approach this in a calm way. A few points:

-"Government stay out of my Medicare!" Really? Because without government, there wouldn't be any Medicare. It's a government program, see. You don't even care enough to find out about your own health benefits?
-"Gay marriage threatens the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman." But divorce, adultery, and abuse don't?
-"The second amendment gives me the right to bear arms." Ok, but why do you need to get a new semiautomatic every month? What the hell are you hunting - Godzilla? Are you stashing one in every room of your house so you can protect your family (and increase the likelihood of one of your kids shooting himself or a friend)?

Don't even get me started on abstinence-only "sex education" (because how is that educating anyone about sex? Multiple studies have shown how ineffective that is) or "death panels" or Sarah Palin. When did we become a nation that cared more about having our politicians over for a barbeque than about how they run the country? I damn sure want the leader of the free world to be a whole lot smarter than me! I have to say, sometimes I'm tempted to reinstate some kind of required testing for voter eligibility. I know, I know, it doesn't work that way, and all the wrong people would get screwed, but it makes me so mad to see what's happening.

And I'm not an economist, but I am pretty clear on the fact that we need to pay taxes to run this country, and we need to make some sacrifices to make change happen. No, things aren't ideal, but you shouldn't protest something you don't really understand, and I bet all those folks with "Honk if I'm paying your mortgage" signs don't really understand. Our economy is complex, people; it's not so simple as you want it to be.

Yes, I know I will always fundamentally disagree with many Americans. There is no way a country this big (or any size, really) could all think the same way about things. But it would be nice if there was actually some thinking going on! I have to believe that if a lot of those people took the time to sit down and get educated, they would sing a different tune. Maybe not my tune, but one that was thought out and had some actual facts and solid reasoning behind it. Those folks I can share a beer with.

I suppose a kind of silver lining here is that although they get a lot of press, they haven't reached critical mass. So get out your teapots and your Earl Grey, leave your stupid colonial wigs at home, and have a cuppa!

*although it was kind of funny at the start with all the "teabagging" going on...

Butter Makes Everything Better

2010-02-10T08:56:00.000-08:00

...especially when you copy the wrong number down in the recipe and use three times as much! Couldn't figure out why the cookies spread out so differently from last time, even dripping off the pan and causing some serious smoke alarm trauma (for the dog, anyway, and the baker; the baby was just fine). Our alarms are ridiculously sensitive and our vent hood fan is sucky (or rather it's not sucky enough), so it's a regular occurrence in our neighborhood. Note to designers and builders: kitchens are generally the place wherein one cooks, creating smoke at times. Please adjust accordingly.

But oh boy, were those cookies good!

You Can Even Make Your Bunkmate Squeal

2010-01-29T14:15:00.000-08:00

(or so say The Skunks, in their ska version of YMCA. Take that, Village People!)

I went back to the Y (my gym) yesterday, for the first time almost since I got pregnant - so, it's been almost a year. It felt really good, but my abs are voicing their disagreement with that today. Suck it up, muscles, it's time for you to get back in action. Except really, I didn't hardly do anything. I'm taking this all very easy. I've been doing some yoga, and going for walks, and did some gentle weight stuff. Won't be signing up for a triathlon anytime soon. But I'm glad to be reclaiming my body (although the boobs still belong to the baby, let's be clear about that!).

That's really all I have to say right now. Just felt like I broke through some invisible motivational seal (or maybe the Y had moved to Narnia, or Brigadoon, and no matter how often I intended to go, I never quite made it...) and wanted to announce it to the world. Hopefully this is not a fluke, and I'll be showing off my washboard abs before you know it! (As if. My 3-month old baby has more of a chance of that than I do.) (Which is ok, really, I never wanted the crazy muscly look) (But the Linda Hamilton Terminator Mom look, that's another story) (T2, that is) (did she have a six-pack? I just remember her arms being damn sexy, and her kicking some serious robot ass, which is a totally handy skill these days, no?)

Y! M! C! A!

Memories of Mordor

2010-01-12T09:53:00.000-08:00

As I get my equilibrium back and am figuring out how to balance baby time and mama time, I am actually starting to get some things done. One long overdue project was to create a backup copy of the blog we kept while in New Zealand. It still exists online (on a site we can no longer sign in to), but we have no idea how long that will be true. Some theories of the internet would say forever, but we would be sad if it disappeared one day. I actually think we tried to keep copies on a jumpdrive or our laptop while we were writing the entries, but if so, they are in hiding, so I started over.

Reading snippets as I went was fun and perhaps a bit dangerous: I feel the stirring of the wanderlust beast within... and our little boy just got his passport in the mail, after a somewhat silly discussion from the folks at the post office (where they accepted the application) about his photo not being perfect because the background was wrinkly. Really? He's a baby. He looks like a baby. The photo looks like a baby. By the time he gets the passport, he'll look different. By the time we go anywhere, he'll look even more different. Anyway, it wasn't a problem, and the passport's here, and now we're dreaming again.

It's very exciting, actually, with a new design (and microchipped? well, our dog is, so why not our baby) incorporating pictures and quotes to make the patriotic heartstrings swell. Just flipping through it, I wanted to break into song. No Canadian flags sewn on our backpacks! And so much possibility in all those empty pages.

As for Mordor, 4 years ago (4! years!) we had just hiked the Tongariro Crossing, which is where they filmed Mordor and Mt. Doom, and then were headed off to wwoof some more. Should you be so inclined, you can read all about it via claireandmatt.com. I can't believe it's been that long...time really does go by fast when you get old. So who knows where we'll be 4 years from now? Frolicking through the French countryside? Basking on the beaches of the Bahamas? Munching our way through the markets of Morocco? (apparently, wherever it is will require alliteration...) Or Down Under, once again, caravanning across the Australian desert? I do have campervan envy for my neighbor's EuroVan... Hello world, here we come! Someday.

Fromage de Chevre

2010-01-05T12:09:00.000-08:00

I'm getting my cheesemaking chops back in action! My neighbor gets a regular supply of fresh raw goat milk from a local farm, so we teamed up to make chevre. I had the starter culture and the instructions, thanks to the New England Cheesemaking Supply (they're the folks Barbara Kingsolver wrote about in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle). We weren't sure about using the unpasteurized milk - we figured it's probably fine since they drink it all the time - so we decided to experiment with two batches, the raw stuff and some storebought milk. Unfortunately, the only goat milk still on the shelves at the store was ultrapasteurized and low fat. Not ideal, but hey, we're flexible.

I almost hate to reveal how simple it is to make this kind of cheese, for fear of losing some of the sparkle, but it really is simple: heat the milk to 86 degrees, turn off heat, stir in culture, cover and ignore for about 12 hours or until it sets to a yogurt-like consistency. Ideally the room should be about 72 degrees. Then line a colander with butter muslin and gently transfer your cheese, hanging to drain for another 12 hours or until it's as thick as you want it. Eat, delighting in your creation!

The tricky thing for me about cheese, even one as simple as this, is that I am not good with scientific precision. When I cook, I often ignore measurements, or approximate them. This is more or less a cup, right? And I'm not really sure how much it matters - all the experts make a big deal of exact temperatures and times and equipment, but I usually end up messing it up somehow - and then it turns out delicious anyway, but it's hard to know what effect my haphazard ways have on the final product.

In this case each pot of milk got warmer than they should have, up to 90 or 95 even (milk gets to 86 fast!). The division of the starter culture - an envelope with about 3/4 teaspoon of powder in it - may not have been exact, so one may have had a bit more than the other. I'm not sure what the room temperature was - probably around 70, and fluctuating through the day. It set for about 10 or 11 hours, not 12. We didn't have two pieces of butter muslin so we folded over layers of a wide-mesh cheesecloth for the store milk. Um...that may have been it, for variables. Not such a good experiment, then, since we aren't sure why they came out differently. Oh, and most importantly, we forgot to taste the two milks first to compare them in that form!

But: delicious results. Totally different, both yummy. And so beautiful and pure and white. The whole raw milk came out more or less as I expected, recognizably chevre. The flavor seems a bit more sour than I associate with it, but only a bit. (and maybe that's because I don't usually eat it for breakfast) The storebought ultrapasteurized low fat milk came out very wet and creamy, sort of like a mix of yogurt and sour cream. But I happily savored spoonfuls of it early in the morning, and had to put it away before I ate it all.

As I said, no idea which variables caused the difference. Only one way to find out: try again! Soft cheese are great for their relatively instant gratification. One of these days I'll build a cheese press and make some hard cheeses, but it's that much harder to repeat experiments when you have to wait 6 months to taste. Now I just need to find someone local with sheep, or water buffalo...mmm....

On Herschel, On Moishe, On Shlomo*

2009-12-25T16:55:00.000-08:00

Ginger scones.
Presents (mostly for the baby, because: cute).
Frost-cicles on all the trees.
Walking the dog.
Family.
Naptime, sort of.
Tea with honey.
Dreams of tropical seashores.
Games.
House of Thai.

Happy Xmas!

---
*these were Hanukkah Harry's reindeer, when he took over for Santa one year. SNL, circa Jon Lovitz.

Hacienda de Zesty, or "I've Got Moxie!"

2009-12-15T12:53:00.000-08:00

We had a gas station snack pack yesterday, an off-brand peanut/pretzel/etc. mix that was "Zesty Ranch" flavored. It wasn't very good, but it was worth it for one thing: in Spanish, it was "Hacienda de Zesty" flavored! When I live in a house that deserves a name, that is what I will call it.

The reason for going to this particular gas station, aside from the obvious refueling opportunity, is because they search far and wide for delicious oddball beverages. (Disclaimer: I have not yet actually been, but was picked up yesterday by my husband who had purchased some) I was excited to find a local source for Moxie, which I have long enjoyed but rarely find. I've even been to the Moxie festival in Lisbon Falls, Maine! (thanks to a good friend with a cabin nearby) I was surprised that it came in a plastic 20-oz bottle (has it become more mainstream than I thought? rarely a good sign), but when I cracked the cap and that smell wafted out, it was delightful. Actually drinking it was somewhat disappointing - it seemed too sweet and a bit flat. Maybe it had been sitting too long, maybe they've changed the formula (could high-fructose corn syrup be the culprit?), or maybe my memory has clouded the reality...

What I know is that I associated the same odd deliciousness found in Moxie with bitters and Chinotto (an Italian soda) - also things I like that most people don't (or not without a good deal of alcohol, anyway). Another reason to love the magical internet: while it might have been more fun to go on an expedition and try and find out what's in those drinks, it was far easier and quicker to hit the google. Gentian root, that's what. Hurrah for that! Also for the chinotto, which is a citrus fruit. Not sure how those flavors overlap, but now I kind of want to try growing them...

Ok. There's my involved ramble for the day. It's lunch, which means it's time once more to crack that cap because, hey: I've got Moxie!

NaBloNoPoMo

2009-12-08T12:01:00.000-08:00

As November approached, I said to myself, Self! You'll be home with lots of time, looking for things to do. What a good opportunity to actually commit to National Blog Posting Month, known to those in the know as NaBloPoMo. It's pretty simple: you post to your blog every day. Much easier than NaNoWriMo, wherein you must write a novel in a month. Heck, the posts don't have to be long, or interesting, or even words. A lovely way to get into the habit of posting more. Good on you! Ah, but in reality? Not so much. In fact, not even one post. And now it's December.

But! I had a baby, so that's cool. And now I'm doing all the things you do with a baby, to wit: gazing in wonder, whipping out the boob, talking in ways I swore I never would, singing nonsense songs, occasionally freaking out at the responsibility I have for this tiny being, leaking milk, not sleeping enough, taking pictures, agonizing over our ridiculous consumer society, wondering what he's going to be like in 10 or 20 years, snuggling.

It's pretty great.

So hopefully I will actually start posting more, and not always about the baby. Rock on.

The Government Ate My Baby

2009-10-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

After initial unconcern, then schools closing because the outbreak of swine flu was so bad, my doctor wants me to get the vaccine, and finally got some in, after weeks of not knowing when/if she would. This is good, yes? But we live in a place where people routinely do not vaccinate their children (something like 12 times the national average for exemption requests at school - which, among other things, led to a recent outbreak of whooping cough. Whooping cough! Pertussis! Who knew it even still existed, outside of Victorian novels? Cheese and Rice. [that's how fearful Mormons avoid using the lord's name in vain - say it out loud, you'll see]) and therefore have been sending around all kinds of info about how the vaccine is going to damage my unborn child. (who the doctors think is most at risk if he actually gets the flu, which is not unlikely these days) Except. Except!

They are spouting incorrect information. (specifically in this case about certain ingredients that are not actually in the H1N1 vaccine) And it really irritates me. And the internet doesn't help, with all the crazies out there going on about how bad for you things are, and how untested, and so forth. The problem is that they aren't always wrong, but it's sort of boy-who-cried-wolf, and then it's hard to know what to actually trust, but my gut does not point me in the direction of the people who write IN ALL CAPS and clearly have a limited understanding of the English language and an attachment to government conspiracy.

I'm getting the vaccine today. So there. Just needed to vent a bit.

My Uterus Ripens

2009-10-25T12:50:00.000-07:00

There's just something about that expression that tickles me. As I've reached the "any day now, or else another few weeks" point of pregnancy, I decided to actually flip through some of the books on birthing that have been filling up a shelf, given to us and ignored for all these months. Having done so, I concluded that it would have been fine not to look at them, for the most part. Got some amusement out of visualizing strawberry mists to float on (don't really think that's going to happen, but you never know). Can't even remember the other funny bits. But I will say that - as common wisdom around here goes - Ina May's Guide to Childbirth is the one to read, if you're going to read one. She's got a good attitude, lots of experience, a nice combination of common sense, humor, appreciation for modern medicine, and trust in a woman's body. She talks about how men would brag if they had a body part that could do what our girly bits do, and I have these great images of men shooting pool, drinking beer, and claiming "Mine dilated to 13 centimeters, dude!"

That idea - that our bodies are built for this and know what to do - is the most helpful birth prep for me. It's something I can believe in and hang on to and has moved me beyond the "very small hole" anxiety of the early days. Heck, I'm even aiming for orgasmic! If I can't have dolphins, I can at least hope for that.

On another note entirely, Glee may be my new favorite show. It has some unnecessary side plots (the wife with the fake pregnancy) but on the whole is pretty damn entertaining. Except I got that irritating Beyonce song stuck in my head after the last episode I saw (we're watching them online, and therefore are behind a few weeks). I can't quite put my finger on why I dislike it so much, but something just doesn't work for me about that whole "If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it" bit. I'm sure some clever feminist has a well-articulated argument about possession and objectification and all that jazz, so I'll just get on her bandwagon, wherever she is. You go, girl!

This whole television-on-the-internet thing has totally ruined my self-righteousness about not having a TV. And I missed World Poetry Day, and meant to post some choice rhymes. Even if they didn't actually rhyme. Another time.

Ok, back to the daily lounging about and feeling uncomfortable. :)

Gay Pride March Of The Penguins

2009-10-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

A side effect of not teaching this semester is that I just missed Banned Books Week, the ALA's celebration of the freedom to read. It was last week, and when I'm in class, I always do something about it with the kids. We look at lists of books that have been challenged or banned and discuss why and read some of them and talk about what they think is appropriate or not, and so on. It's pretty great.

While I'm not advocating reading Stephen King's _It_ to your five-year-old (though I read it probably far too young, in fifth grade, and had nightmares and called it one of my favorite books for years afterwards), or the Penthouse Forum to your grade-schooler (they'll discover it soon enough on their own anyway), I'm pretty strongly against the kind of censorship that book banning is all about. Especially when it's led by the religious nutjobs who think they should be the moral arbiters of our society.

Case in point: The most frequently challenged book in 2008 was _And Tango Makes Three_, a children's book based on a true story about two male penguins in the Central Park Zoo who hatched an egg and raised a baby. It's totally adorable. It won all kinds of best book awards. It is not going to make your child - who will love this story, because penguins! Yay! - grow up any gayer than they otherwise would.

Other than the ridiculous challenges to kids' books (Bridge to Terabithia, The Giver, Goosebumps, In The Night Kitchen, Where's Waldo, Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret, to name a very few), the ones that really irritate me are the challenges to the "classics" (including Catcher in The Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Catch-22, Lord of the Flies, Gone With The Wind, Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Of Mice and Men, etc). For one reason or another, these books are considered some of the very best written - you can argue with the literary merits if you like, but to ban them? Why don't we want to raise a generation that thinks, that grapples with issues they may not agree with, that takes on the complications of being human?

So go out and read a banned book, and tell people all about it. Score one for the Queer Penguin Alliance!

I [blank], Therefore I Am

2009-09-23T10:42:00.001-07:00

Descartes was sitting in a cafe one afternoon, enjoying a croissant and people-watching. A waiter came over and asked him if he'd like anything else; he replied, "I think not," and disappeared.

I'm having a bit of existential angst these days, as the school year is rolling and I'm sitting at home, growing a baby. Lots of time for reflection, amidst the sleeping and eating.* I've realized that teaching isn't just what I do, but it's part of who I am, and though I can't imagine being that veteran teacher who's been at the same school for 30 years, I also can't imagine not teaching at all. I read the paper and want to cut out an article to bring to class. I learn a fun fact and want to tell the kids. I hear a joke and think of them. And - it's really nice not to have to do the work right now.

We go to dinner parties and meet new people and ask, "What do you do?" but we mean, "Who are you?" I know there's a degree of luxury in those things overlapping, and that for many (most?) people a job is just a job, a way to make a living so that they can get on with who they really are. Johnny Paycheck sings their tune ("Take This Job and Shove It"). But most folks I hang out with are lucky enough to do something they want to do, and find fulfilling. So now that there's this empty space where that used to be, I'm floundering a bit.

I know that in 6 weeks or so, I'll be glad for the time off, and it will be hard to go back. In some ways, this is a good crossroads for thinking about change: is there something else I want to do? Are there things I've given up on, branches on the alternate timeline of my life that I could climb out on now? Well, it's too late to be a ballerina, but maybe this is the perfect time to start writing for real. Or...I don't know - but it does sort of seem like an opportunity. I teach, I am a teacher, and I love it (and it's not perfect, of course), but I don't want to get stuck doing something just because it's what I've always done.

I feel like I should break out into an Andrew Lloyd Webber song, a not-quite-operatic baring of my soul that will somehow resolve all my problems with a long-held high note. (heh - I spelled his name wrong at first, as Weber - the legendary creator of the Phantom of the BBQ, Jesus Christ SuperGrill... George Foreman ain't got nothin' on him!) This kind of brushes the edge of that whole "just a mom" issue. Except I'm not even a mom yet. I'm just...at home. With lots of time that I know I should savor because soon my life will change dramatically and I'll look back on these days fondly blah blah blah. Or I should be frantically sewing baby blankets and researching breast pumps.

I've been thinking about this a lot and I'm not really sure I captured what I wanted to say, or even really know what I want to say about it, but I wanted to put something out there. Now that it's down, I can go back to contemplating my navel and working on filling in the blank. Or, you know, take the dog out, pick some veggies from the garden, and enjoy the afternoon.

*my life these days is nicely summed up by a poster in the children's bookstore downtown: Snack. Nap. Read.

Sartorial Determinism

2009-09-19T10:41:00.000-07:00

So I've finally started tackling the baby stuff that has been showing up on our doorstep and getting tossed unceremoniously into our loft to be ignored over the last several months. We certainly appreciate all the hand-me-downs, but weren't quite ready to face them. Now...well, it's becoming more and more real that a couple months from now the squirming critter will be on the outside, my spleen will be once more unmolested, and we better get organized! At least a little bit.

But really? This is what people think we want our baby to wear? Actually, there's plenty of neutral or neutral-enough stuff in the mix, plain colors and stripes and vaguely cartoonish ducks. But I don't think I can put my kid in a McBaby onesie - oh yes, the Ronald has moved beyond special sauce, working on subliminally turning the next generation into a loyal consumer. He's not alone - Disney and Looney Tunes and every other registered TM seems to make an appearance. And even if we avoid the blatant brand whoring, he's going to be imprinted with baseballs and trucks and all things blue, because he's a boy! and that's the American way.

Let's not even get into "made in China" here. At least this stuff is being reused. There's nothing like having a baby to set up a wrestling match with your principles. Is it organic? Local? Sustainably made? Free of negative cultural messages? Or toxic chemicals? Although it really seems like the primary question for the people that make this stuff is: Is it cute?!

(it's like those awful motel comforters and wallpaper - it's hard to believe somebody was actually paid to come up with those designs)(because if it doesn't say "baby" on the front, people won't be sure that's what it is?)(though I admit to slightly melting over a couple of the fuzzier outfits)

Apparently I'm not any better with baby clothes than I am with my own. I don't have that mysterious feminine shopping gene. I have a somewhat embarrassing pile of stuff that I can't even identify. But one thing I know for sure: I do not need a giant pumpkin costume for my kid.

To Snip Or Not To Snip

2009-08-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

Hamlet didn't have his priorities straight. Then again, he wasn't expecting a baby boy, and probably the question of circumcision wouldn't have come up for him anyway. I guess I'm making some assumptions about 16th century Europe. Except for Shylock, of course, but then we'd be mixing our Shakespearean metaphors. All of which is entirely beside the point.

There was a time when this decision would have been made for us, and probably still would be in many places, but instead, it's a choice we have to make. My initial instincts are to say yes, snip it off, because that's the cultural norm I grew up with. Every penis I've had the pleasure to know has been snipped. (was that too much information?) It's been true enough of even casual acquaintances (skinny dipping and so on) that I've noticed the few turtlenecks in the crowd as standing out. But that's starting to shift - in fact, I'd say most of the little boys running around our current neighborhood, who do often run around naked, are not snipped. I'm less sure about the adults, though not at all shy about asking. So now we actually have to think about it.

The problem is that even a dip into internet research reveals people on both sides who are totally nuts, and totally convinced you are going to RUIN YOUR CHILD FOREVER if you make the wrong choice. It's a bit harder to find actual rational info on this. When I talk to people I know about their choices, it's not much more useful - they're not crazy dogmatic about it, for the most part, but don't really add anything helpful to either side. Yes, there's potential that it can reduce the risk of disease, but if you teach the kid to wash well, it's not such a problem. Yes, it's potentially unnecessary surgery, but with fairly low risk. Nobody really knows about sexual sensitivity - although one guy pointed out that he could not have handled any more of that in his teenage years! Some folks say leave it alone and let the kid decide - but how many boys or men do you know that would actually choose to let someone near them with a sharp knife? I'm not even going to get into the arguments about birth trauma and related issues from suppressed painful experiences as a newborn.

Turns out this is quite a hot-button topic, though. One interesting angle I hadn't considered until I recently read a few articles/posts/etc. related circumcision to Gardasil and our double standards for boys and girls when it comes to sex. Apparently the CDC is considering recommending circumcision as an HIV preventative. When Gardasil appeared on the scene, a vaccine for girls that helps prevent HPV (which can cause cervical cancer) the moral majority came out in force against it, claiming it would encourage promiscuity. Not once have I come across that argument about boys and le snip. There's not an exact parallel here, but it whiffs of the old slut/stud dichotomy.

Also related: for those who don't want wrinkles, there's a new injection out there for you made of baby foreskins! You can fill in your own jokes on this one.

Speaking of foreskin jokes (because really, what better topic is there? there's that one about the rabbi and the wallet that becomes a suitcase...) - I'm reminded of an old SNL fake ad for a fancy car that showed how smooth the ride was by having a mohel perform a circumcision in the back seat while driving over a bumpy road. And this is why I love the internet - I just took a detour and found the clip on hulu, which I'd link to if I knew how, but if you search for SNL fake ad royal deluxe circumcision - you, too, can enjoy that fine viewing experience.

All of which is to say, I'm still kind of where I was to start: let's do it, because it's what we know, and it looks funny otherwise. I'm helped along by a friend who shared Dan Savage's take on the matter: "Cut cock tastes better." Words of wisdom, y'all.

50 Bands I've Seen Live

2009-08-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

(from a Facebook tag - but I'd rather post it here)
(I think there are supposed to be some rules about this, but I don't know what they are, so oh well)
(these are in chronological/associative order - meaning I'll plug in ones I'm reminded of as I go along)
(shall we move on from the parenthetical notes now, into the meat of it?)

My first concert! I was...12? 13? Only allowed to go because my brother and mother would be there too:

1. Extreme - the real reason I wanted to go, but we missed most of it because of traffic and parking issues. "More Than Words" can still bring a flutter to my aging heart.
2. Cinderella
3. David Lee Roth - he rode in on an enormous penis. I mean, microphone.

It's hard to be a young music fan. At least it was for me, though I was luckier than many. But I missed out on some shows I would have really liked because I was too young for the clubs and then too cool, once they got popular enough to play big venues. :) Red Hot Chili Peppers are the prime example.

Other shows in the high school era, mostly at the old 9:30 club. Again under the protection of my older brother at first. And my elbows, and a sports bra. Most of these shows involved mosh pits and stage diving, which was fun for me because I was little enough to be passed around and around and around.

4. Lucy Brown - recently rediscovered on YouTube, with joy, since my tapes got stolen years ago when my car was broken into in New Orleans. Then the NO PD (ha!), completely unhelpful with the theft, tracked me down in Boston and sent me a parking ticket.
5. The Toasters - pretty sure I've seen them more than once
6. Reverend Horton Heat - them too - Jimbo was pretty badass standing on his upright bass
7. Checkered Cabs
8. Skavoovie
9. Let's Go Bowling
10. The Skatalites
? - you may be noticing a ska theme at this point, and I know I saw a bunch of shows, but sadly cannot actually remember the details of who/when/where... I know I saw other shows in DC, too, but again, they are lost in the mists of teenage time. Not alcohol though, I was straight edge through all that.

Oh! One of my favorite shows ever, at WUST radio hall, before it became the new 9:30.

11. Bad Brains
12. Living Colour

Hmm. I guess that takes me to the college years, though I feel like I might have to do some research to flesh out the earlier bits.

13. The Testostertones
14. Ska King Crab
15. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - who I remember liking on tape, but after the concert, repeatedly referred to as the "Jon Spencer Ass Explosion"
16. Fishbone
17. Maceo Parker - these last three were at one show - kind of an odd mix, no?
18. Ani DiFranco
19. God Street Wine - at Toad's Place, because Matt was kind of an insane stalker fan
20. Dar Williams - a Wes alum, she played at her 10th reunion, which was my graduation year, and again this year, at my 10th and her 20th.

Wow. I can't even remember who played at Spring Fling each year, or what other school bands I liked. Again with the research. So...moving on, post-college:

20. The Buttery Lords - crackers with soul. oh so creamy.
21. Willie Nelson - at the Colorado State Fair, and again years later at the Sandia Casino

Shows I worked in Denver and Boulder, at various venues, including the Fillmore, the spanking new Pepsi Center, Macky Auditorium. Lots of fun stories from those days. Not least because I was one of a few women in a mostly macho world, of the tattooed or old-fashioned variety.

22. Hootie and the Blowfish - though I didn't actually see much of the show, and was never a big fan. But Hootie himself (Darius Rucker) came out afterwards and shook our hands and thanked us. Classy.
23. Reba McEntire - whose show I worked again in Boston, a year later
24. Montgomery Gentry
25. Alan Jackson - I discovered, to my surprise, that I actually quite like country music. And western. :)
26. Celine Dion - I liked listening to their crew speak in Quebecois French
27. Corey Hart - who really does wear sunglasses at night
28. Kiss - really, what can I say? Fabulous! And there was a great car outside, a VW bug with a giant Gene Simmons tongue running down the top. He's kind of a shlub with no makeup or costume. But boy howdy, do they put on a good show.
29. Ted Nugent - yes he did shoot a flaming arrow through his guitar onstage
30. Skid Row, but just barely - dinner made us late, and we only caught the last song - these last two opened for Kiss
31. Bruce Springsteen - nice juxtaposition - they played after Kiss, who came with many trucks of props and costumes and giant sets and so forth, but this was a bare stage and just hours of great music
32. Limp Bizkit
33. Primus
34. Bette Midler
35. Kid Rock
36. Backstreet Boys - it was Halloween, and the tween girl shrieks were scarier than any monster

okay, I know there's more, so there's clearly going to be an update to this list. An aside: one of my favorite shows to work, though not a band, was when WCW (wrestling!) came through. I'd be listening on the headset to them swearing when the pre-rigged cage didn't come apart at the right time...got to meet Hulk Hogan...help set some serious pyro...and though it's all an act, they take some serious hits, and the blood is real. Also: The Little Mermaid on Ice was very sweet. "Everything's better, down where it's wetter, take it from me!"

Shows I worked in the Boston area, at various venues:
37. Gipsy Kings
38. Jimmy Buffett
39. Britney Spears
40. N'Sync - who asked to be rolled onto stage in laundry carts so nobody would see them, and who brought a tanning bed along on tour.
41. Boston Pops - which was a fun show to set up, on Nantucket, but because of it I missed Ozzfest.
42. Roberta Flack - who took on the Fugees with a sense of humor when she sang "Killing Me Softly"

again with the bad memory, except I do remember driving home from Foxboro Stadium on empty roads at 3 am with the country music station on loud (yes, they listen to country in New England) and hearing Kenny Chesney's "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" for the first time. What's not to love?

Miscellaneous shows I've seen since, or maybe in between, as I begin to remember other shows I saw earlier:
43. Olodum
44. Ozomatli - in Santa Fe and, oddly enough, at the Jackson County Fair, where I was sadly too pregnant to dance much. Such a good live show.
45. Hot Club of Cowtown
46. Blue Oyster Cult
47. John Kay of Steppenwolf
48. Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks
49. Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
50. Van Morrison
(hey! I made it to 50 without any help!)
51. Ashleigh MacIsaac
52. The Chieftains
53. Michelle Shocked
54. Devil Makes Three
55. Les Claypool
56. Son Volt
57. Cowboy Junkies
58. One Horse Shy
59. Flat Five String Band
60. The Rogue Suspects

Whew. I'm kind of exhausted from doing this. Lots of memories, and frustrating almost-memories. I'll be back with an update after doing a little research, though!

UPDATE!!

ok, I'm just going to throw down a list - thanks to those who helped me remember - still probably not complete, but better:

311, Uncle Trouble, Jethro Tull, Creedence Clearwater Revisited, John Fogerty, Kool and the Gang, Staind, Lyle Lovett, Soul Deacons, Brave Combo, G Love, French Funk Federation, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Tornado Riders, March Fourth, Medeski Martin & Wood, Michael Franti & Spearhead, and Bat Makumba.

The end.

Things In The Garage

2009-07-20T16:27:00.000-07:00

Or, Categories For Clutter: a list poem

Things that cut
Things that make holes
Things that hit other things
Things that clean
Things that are pointy
Sawdust
Things made to stick other things together
Things made to take other things apart
Things that make you go "hmm"
Things that fill holes
Things related to painting
Things that will kill you
Things that will help you reach taller things
Things that somebody, somewhere, might want
Things that play music, with the help of a carefully balanced box of screws
Things to do with caulk
Things that used to not be junk
Things that tell stories
Things that make you laugh
Things designed to keep you safe
Dreams

Mucous Plug

2009-07-11T08:39:00.000-07:00

I bet that gave you a delicious image, eh? So we've started going to childbirth classes, which just highlights for me what an odd direction our culture has taken, ever further away from the basics of life and death and community. In the class of about 20 people, only 3 (all women) had ever been present at a birth - which the teacher said was more than usual. All (men, too) had seen a video, except for us - we've been studiously avoiding them. But the time has come to start facing the reality. I've known the general mechanics of how this will go for a long time, but it's the details that matter now. And hoo boy, are there some gory details!

It's like the difference between looking at the instructional diagram in the textbook and actually dissecting that pig in high school biology. The images don't match up, and finding the right bits was always tricky. So we learned about things like the mucous plug, which conveniently blocks up the cervix to keep infection out. But at some point, hours or days or weeks before birth, it falls out - called the "show", even though in reality it is a hunk of slimy bloody snot-like stuff. Yum!

And the actual birth? The part where you see the head emerging from that now-slightly-larger hole? Totally horrifying. Oh, yes, I'm sure it's magical too, no, really, but - totally horrifying. Lots of slime and screaming and hairiness. Can't wait. Not going to start hitting up youtube for more videos. And why would you want to be that woman, shown in all your glory to birthing classes round the country? Why would you want to record the experience on video at all? Are you gonna show your kids someday? Why would you do that to them? I'm all for keeping a journal and sharing that way, but come on now.

This is not going to make me like oysters any better, either.

Summertime...

2009-06-17T10:43:00.000-07:00

And the living is easy...

Hammock. Popsicles. Books.

Garden growing like crazy, and smelling delicious.

Puppy chasing ducks at the lake.

Sunshine.

What's not to love?

Princess Power

2009-06-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

So there's a new Disney princess coming to town, and everybody's talking because she will be their first black princess. Welcome to the modern melting pot, Walt. So there's all this brouhaha about whether or not she's upholding negative stereotypes or is a positive role model who can be a shining beacon for little girls of color everywhere...

Well, I'm not actually that invested in the race issue, but it brought up an old peeve of mine, regarding those darling princesses, and Disney in general. It's that whole gender thing. Why do all those girls have an impossible hourglass figure, which they tend to show off in fairly revealing outfits? Why do they always rely on a man to come to their rescue? Do we really want our girls growing up thinking that a kiss from Prince Charming is going to solve all their problems?! (a prince they've never met, by the way, who often kisses them on first sight and often while they are unconscious...) And what about the mothers - they're always dead and their replacements are always vile. Aging in Disneyland seems to mean turning wicked and warty - where are the elder wise women to look up to?

So we basically have this constantly repeated message that beautiful is good and ugly is evil. And by "beautiful" we only mean one thing, regardless of skin color: perky boobs, tiny waist, rounded hips, flowing locks. And make sure you are somewhat hopeless without the help of a hunk - even if you're a little bit kick-ass, you can't do it all alone! I admit I haven't really been in the Disney loop lately, so maybe there's a whole slew of riot grrl princesses with spiky hair that come in all shapes and sizes and don't ever need a man, or maybe they even do some saving of their own, or hell, even love another woman! But I haven't seen them.

I love pink. I think being a girl means all kinds of things, and that frilly and strong can go hand in hand. I'm not against love or fairy tales, but the image Disney holds up just pisses me off. It's time to bring fantasy a little closer to reality.

Slow Food for the Brain

2009-05-27T08:27:00.000-07:00

I just read an article about how Newsweek is reinventing itself to fit in this age of instant information - who wants a magazine that brings you news once a week, when it's already old? Me, that's who. Well, not so much that I want Newsweek, but I don't really feel like I need to know everything five seconds after it happens. I'm perfectly happy reading only the Sunday Times (and I share a subscription with 3 neighbors, so I don't even get to it all on Sunday!) for my news updates. Complemented by the occasional NPR hit, if I'm in the car at the right time. And the stuff that is really important gets through somehow.

You know how cities are starting to do things like car-free Sundays? Maybe we should do cellphone-free days, too. Or rather, internet-free days. (I think I'm one of the few people left whose phone is only a phone, just like that proverbial cigar)* I mean, I love the internet, it's magical, but it's nice to take a rest from it all sometimes.

Information overload, y'all. Break the cord.

*ok, now I have an image of a city full of people walking around with penises, typing messages into them, holding them up to their ears as they yak away...oh Sigmund, where are you now?!

Interior Renovation

2009-05-02T10:25:00.000-07:00

Hello! I don't know what Miss Manners would say about blurting this out on the internets (though apparently there is a whole consumer category of sickeningly cute cards I could send), but yes: I am growing a baby! In my tummy. And it is getting to the point where it is weird not to be able to mention it in passing, but in this day of reconnecting with faraway friends, it is also weird to figure out how to tell people I don't normally talk to. And so, even though I am not totally enamored of Facebook, it became the path of least resistance. (which, somehow, a very small opening in my anatomy will become for a several-pound baby?!)

The little critter, thus far unsexed, is due on November 3 - Election Day. The primary vision I have for this event is the scene in Spaceballs where the alien rips out of that guy's stomach and tap dances his way along the countertop of the diner... I realize this is not actually how it's going to go; I have a basic understanding of biology (though let me tell you I avoid the videos - people will gush over the beautiful images and invite me to watch and suddenly I have a lot of hair to wash and toenails to clip) but it is still something of a mystery to me how it all works out.

I've had a relatively good time of it so far, able to go about my daily life, thankful for my days off, and apparently glossing over the nights, when I usually feel really crappy. Sort of like having the flu all the time. Really? Women used to do this 10 or 15 times in a row? Thank you, Margaret Sanger! Though I mock the whole "blossoming womanhood" part of this, and am not likely to be the earth mother I once thought I would be, it was pretty amazing to actually see this little being inside of me, looking surprisingly human already.

Everyone tells us how exciting this is, so I guess we're excited - and also a bit terrified. Not sure at all what is going to happen to our lives this fall, but hoping that in a general way we will just continue to live like we always do. Obviously things will be different, but it's not like we'll never travel again or be able to do the things we like. We hope. Don't disillusion us with your tales of baby madness and misery, please! Just tell us how wonderful it is, that it's the best decision ever, and we are going to fall in love.

The adventure continues.

Sprouts!

2009-04-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

I went through a phase recently of being obsessed with growing sprouts in a jar. So easy! How did I not know about this before? Cheaper, and fresher, and fabulouser than buying them. And so easy! Did I already say that? Ok: you need a jar with a mesh lid. You can make one or buy one (I bought one for $3). There are fancy sprout people that sell fancy sprout accoutrements which if you get very excited you might want, but are really unnecessary to get you going.

1. Put a spoonful of sprout seeds or lentils or whatever seed-y things in the jar and soak overnight.
2. Pour out water through handy mesh lid. Rinse with fresh water. Drain. Leave at an angle so it can continue to drain.
3. Repeat that evening, and each morning and evening for the next few days.
4. Watch as they grow! It's like magic. Depending on the sprout, it will take 3-6 days to be delicious.
5. Eat! Marvel at the crispness. Nature's goodness, direct to you. By you.

I'm sure I must have planted potato or avocado or something in second grade, I mean that's the kind of science kids do, but somehow the magic of it did not quite grab me back then. Now? It is absurdly exciting to check on the sprouts every day. Or hour. I'm almost tempted to sit and watch them, they grow that fast. I want to take pictures and make a flip book.

So actually, I have to admit, I haven't made them recently - we weren't eating them quite fast enough, and then had lots and lots at once so they wouldn't go bad, and they lost a bit of their charm. Tarnished, like. But not forever! I envision sprouting again soon! I remain enamored of growing sprouts on a live-aboard boat, or tying a bag to my backpack as I hike through the woods, fresh vegetables ready to join my dehydrated meals... heck, apparently just sprouting the beans a tiny bit makes them much healthier. But this is not about healthy. This is about magic. Something from nothing. Apparent exemption from the conservation of mass. I know, I know, not really - there's all sorts of science to explain it. Shush up with that. It's magic.

April is the Cruellest Month

2009-04-03T23:26:00.000-07:00

Just as things were warming up, it snows. I'm really over it. And I really don't have much to say tonight, but I was feeling guilty for letting this languish unattended to for so long. And hey, it's poetry month! So, a poem, one of my new favorites:

Bridal Shower

Perhaps, in a distant café,
four or five people are talking
with the four or five people
who are chatting on their cell phones this morning
in my favorite café.

And perhaps someone there,
someone like me, is watching them as they frown,
or smile, or shrug
at their invisible friends or lovers,
jabbing the air for emphasis.

And, like me, he misses the old days,
when talking to yourself
meant you were crazy,
back when being crazy was a big deal,
not just an acronym
or something you could take a pill for.

I liked it
when people who were talking to themselves
might actually have been talking to God
or an angel.
You respected people like that.

You didn't want to kill them,
as I want to kill the woman at the next table
with the little blue light on her ear
who has been telling the emptiness in front of her
about her daughter's bridal shower
in astonishing detail
for the past thirty minutes.

O person like me,
phoneless in your distant café,
I wish we could meet to discuss this,
and perhaps you would help me
murder this woman on her cell phone,

after which we could have a cup of coffee,
maybe a bagel, and talk to each other,
face to face.

--George Bilgere

Mardi Gras!

2009-02-24T15:40:00.000-08:00

This Tuesday, she is fat. So fat, and so full of mischief. And meat. And candy and masks. Dancing. Oranges. Small man-shaped dolls on fire. Music and parades. Huzzah!

The first time I ever saw Venice was during Carnevale, and it was fabulous - added to an already magical city. We stayed out all night following the revelry. Someday I'll get to Brazil, and samba my heart out. One of my alternate timeline lives involved moving to New Orleans, living across the river in Algiers and working at Mardi Gras World, building floats for the parade.

And so people will be celebrating all over the world, one of my favorite holidays, but nobody celebrates it locally. I mean, I've got my beads on and will take some good cheer to the bars tonight - toot toot! - but it promises to be somewhat sad and lonely, as Mardi Gras celebrations go. I remember the days when the only thing keeping my shirt on was concern I might see a student's parent... maybe I'll be able to rustle up that kind of ruckus and take it to the streets. A one-woman carnival!

Tonight, anything is possible.

What If The Mightiest Word Is Love

2009-01-20T16:11:00.000-08:00

The title is a line of Elizabeth Alexander's poem from today's Inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama. When I asked my students what they thought of it, they said the only part they remembered was "A teacher says 'Take out your pencils. Begin.'" Actually, they thought the whole event was awesome. I do too.

This is going to be one of those crystallized moments of history, the few that you always remember where you were, what you were doing, who you were with...JFK getting shot, man on the moon, 9/11... There was a sparkle in the air, even from 3000 miles away, with a somewhat choppy internet stream. This is the America I believe in, the one worth belonging to and fighting for, the one that lifts hearts and shows us a better way, the one in the dream; this is my America.

It's a perfect time to be studying US history; we just wrapped the Constitution. I can almost feel the presence of those men as they wrote the documents that define our lives. Scandalous, whoring drunks they may have been, but the Founding Fathers did something incredible (as did the women, of course, though we don't see their names!). The enormity of creating a nation - a work still in progress - is just mind-boggling. But today. Oh, President Obama. Yes, we can. I know all our problems aren't going to disappear; we aren't going to turn into magical unicorns prancing through starlight, it's not the Age of Aquarius...but for a moment, I can drop my cynical remarks and angry reactions, and just feel. Feel the joy, and hope, and redemption, and yes, love.

What else could be the mightiest word? What kind of a world can we create?

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T16:31:00.000-08:00

That's it, really. Hope it's a good one all around. I'm pretty darn excited for it.

31 Flavors

2008-12-01T12:18:00.001-08:00

I turned 31 a few days ago, so here are 31 things about me, in no particular order:

1. I am currently obsessed with Flight of the Conchords.
2. Although it doesn't quite live up to the hype, I do not regret my Furminator purchase.
3. I have traveled to more than thirty-one countries.
4. I dressed as an Ewok for Halloween when I was about five (and living in Kenya), and my costume consisted of strips of brown paper attached to a pair of overalls, long brown socks on my hands, and a sign aroud my neck saying "I am an Ewok." There may have been ears.
5. Over winter break during my senior year of high school, I read everything by Albert Camus that I could find.
6. I almost always have homemade kimchi in my fridge.
7. Also: homemade yogurt.
8. I will happily sing either the boy or girl part of Meatloaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" for karaoke.
9. I am too old to headbang. Or perhaps simply out of shape for it.
10. When I was little, I used to bring (or make my mom bring) a peanut butter sandwich to restaurants in case they didn't have anything I would like. Now, I'll try just about anything at least once. I like to give things a second chance. But I'm done with oysters.
11. I wish I knew Yiddish.
12. I don't think there is nearly enough dancing in our world today.
13. I am a bit of a beer snob.
14. I often buy wine for the label. Clever goes a long way with me. And cheap.
15. I have probably read Robert Heinlein's "Time Enough For Love" more times than any other book, although not recently.
16. My dog is a masterful frisbee-catcher.
17. I do not believe in God.
18. I often swear in Italian or French.
19. I have shaved my head twice.
20. I write and perform history raps for my students. This is a line from the most recent, about the American Revolution: "Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Tea Act too; Intolerable and hollerable, what're we gonna do?"
21. Power tools, while not necessarily a girl's best friend, make me happy.
22. My favorite bumper sticker says "Read a fucking book," but I won't actually put it on my car.
23. I crocheted a bag using plastic grocery bags as "yarn."
24. I learned how to slaughter and pluck and butcher a chicken.
25. I am growing vegetables for the first time.
26. The best sunrise I have ever seen was atop a Saharan dune, reached by a camel ride and a hike.
27. I quote from "Clerks" on a somewhat regular basis, though it's been years since I've watched it.
28. I knew the Weird Al version of a lot of songs before I ever heard the originals.
29. When I get bored, I dye my hair in bright colors or rearrange my house.
30. I am a stickler for spelling and grammar.
31. I believe in civic engagement, and making the world a better place.

Jellied Clam Juice Ring

2008-11-23T12:38:00.000-08:00

Yes, that's more from the Joy of Cooking, but doesn't it sound like some arcane sexual practice? Or object, maybe. Let's not go there, it's can only lead down a bad road.

I don't really have anything else to say, but I've been going around repeating "jellied clam juice ring" for days now, and hoped that putting it out there to the world might help me stop. But you should try it! It gets all kind of interesting responses. It's all I can do to keep it inside when I'm at school. For the most part, the little switch in my brain works beautifully, and I don't spout inappropriate things around 12-year-olds, but as soon as I get home, boy howdy.

This cookbook has become something of an obsession. I suggested that we limit our eating to its recipes for a year, or a month, but I didn't get much enthusiasm - maybe the deep-fried calf brains were a turnoff? I think I will try the bananas wrapped in bacon, though. How could that be anything but delicious? A perfect addition to thanksgiving tradition.

A Whale of a Time

2008-11-14T13:08:00.000-08:00

We've been saying for years that we should have an old-school Joy of Cooking dinner party, because of all the fun recipes like "Cheese Carrots," which requires you to shape cheese into carrots! With a sprig of parsley for the green bits. How droll! And delicious! It looks like a carrot, but it's....cheese! Yeah. I don't know. Apparently - even though I recall much laughter at the time - it wasn't fun enough to spur us into actually having that dinner party. But! Now we found something even better. I cannot possibly make it more entertaining than it is, so here is the original recipe, courtesy of Irma S. Rombauer:

"OPOSSUM

If possible, trap possum and feed it on milk and cereals* for 10 days before killing. Clean, but do not skin. Treat as for pig by immersing the unskinned animal in water just below the boiling point. Test frequently by plucking at the hair. When it slips out readily, remove the possum from the water and scrape. While scraping repeatedly, pour cool water over the surface of the animal. Remove small red glands in small of back and under each foreleg between the shoulder and rib. Parboil, page 132, 1 hour. Roast as for pork, page 407. Serve with: Turnip greens."

*Do you think any cereals will do? Cocoa Puffs? Froot Loops?

There's something about a recipe that encourages you to keep your food alive for ten days before you cook it. If possible. If not, well, I suppose it won't be quite as savory, but it will do. And just in case you think that's a fluke, there are pages devoted to these critters - raccoon, peccary (?!), woodchuck, squirrel - there's a delightful line drawing of how to skin a squirrel: apparently once you've cut the skin a bit, you hold it down with your shoe and pull up on the carcass, and it will just peel right off. How many shoppers at Whole Foods know that useful tidbit, do you think?

So we have a new dinner party to plan, now. If anyone is feeling extra-ambitious, she recommends allowing 1/2 pound of whale meat per person (see page 362). I'll bring the Cheese Carrots.

Democracy, With a Cherry on Top

2008-11-11T15:56:00.000-08:00

It wasn't so long ago that I lamented the lack of excitement in Oregon's efficient vote-by-mail system. I still think it's the way to go, but I'm missing out on more than the "I Voted!" sticker: if I lived in New York, I could have gotten a free mini vibrator from Babeland! Now that's empowering the people.

We've come a long way from the time when vibrators were used by Victorian doctors to relieve a woman of hysteria (you knew that, right?). Nobody would admit it was a sexual thing, but women just kept going back for more...and more...and more... and right there, again, please, doctor....oh! Now you can knowingly drop a Rabbit reference into dinner table conversation - and if they think you're talking about opening a wine bottle, well, maybe it's better that way. (in my head I was going somewhere with this, but it doesn't seem to have worked out that way. Pretend there are some intelligent comments in the mix, leading us to the current Bush-free era - except between our legs - when hopefully we will revive real sex education and generations of sexually aware and empowered young men and women will come of age)

Go Obama!

Dog Days of Summer

2008-08-22T20:52:00.000-07:00

The ancient Greeks and Romans may have thought them evil (yes, I just looked up the origin of that phrase, o wondrous internets that you are), but I have been lovin' me those dog days. Delightful, delicious, de-lovely indeed. Floating in the hammock, floating in the river, floating all around. It's the first summer I've actually had off since I started teaching. But. Here they are, almost at an end; I was back at school today getting the room ready... I actually have a bit more time but it's pretty packed - we're headed to Burning Man, and then I have a family trip planned, and then I get back right in time for the bell to ring. Except there are no bells where I teach. Hurrah for that.

And while I do love me some sum-sum-summertime, I think it's kind of a cruel trick we play: for 12 or 16 or more years of our lives, we get oodles of vacation, 3 months off at summer, a couple weeks in the winter, fall and spring, and oh why not take this holiday and that one too... and then bang! You're supposed to grow up and get a job with 2 weeks off? Working 50 weeks? 40-hour or more weeks? What you talkin' bout, Willis? Luckily, even though I didn't go straight into teaching, I never have worked 50 weeks in a row. Oy. Of course, devil's advocate poking his wiry snout up here - all that time off, especially over summer, and the kids have forgotten everything they learned last year. There's a certain amount of 2-steps-forward, 1-step-back involved. But hey, that's the least of what's wrong with our education system, and it's too late and I'm too calm to go into all that.

Point is, I'm coming around to the notion of going back to school, knowing that I've got one last befeathered and be(faux)furred fling ahead of me in the Black Rock Desert. But I don't think I'll be bringing those photos to show and tell.

Little Brother Is Watching

2008-07-22T10:32:00.000-07:00

Once again - you rock on with your bad selves, YA authors. And non-YA authors who do a good job of it. This time around it's Cory Doctorow's book Little Brother, a timely tale of government oppression and up-to-date young freedom fighters! Up-to-date meaning they use modern technology to hack the system, harnessing their intimacy with the internet to make things happen.

And let me just take a moment here to wax poetic about the Internet and all its bits and pieces. I am something of a Luddite, preferring my 79 cent mini-spiral notebook to fancy digital versions (I never fail to make myself laugh when I write a reminder on my hand and call it my "palm pilot". I'm usually the only one laughing, but that's ok). My favorite blackberries come off the bush, juicy and dripping, even better when you grab them from a kayak on the river. But! O how I love the internet, O let me count the ways, the joy of google and wikipedia, and the games and the blogs and the time-suck and the power of people being able to put themselves out there and mobilize and connect and engage with the world, even if it's from a lonely, darkened room. So thank you, Al Gore, and thank you, porn, and thank you, all you young folk who know how to work the system. Now if we could just get everyone to use correct grammar and spelling.... (ok, I know that's a losing battle, and I was once a queen of "kewl" and clearly fill my entries and emails with a slightly more ee cummings-esque take on Strunk and White - but could you just not sound so stupid in the process? Cleverly done bad grammar, that's the ticket.)

Anyway. I'm off to press this book onto as many students as I can. This is where I navigate that tricky line of "is it okay to recommend a book with "boner" in it to middle-schoolers?" I find that I don't have very good judgment about what is appropriate; I tend to treat my students as if they're adults, and maybe it's just because I was re-reading some very well-thumbed Jean Auel (you remember - Mammoth Hunters, Clan of the Cave Bear, her womanly mound and all that) in my sordid youth. There's reality, and there's parents, and there's me, wanting to stand firm in my beliefs and also keep my job, so I recognize that 11 and 14 are not the same, and also that each kid and each family has their own line.

But hey! If you're reading this, you're old enough to read that. Off you go, then. (note to older "non-tech" types who think this isn't for them - if you have fond memories of a hippie youth, you should like it, and anyway, it's a good picture of where we're headed if we're not paying attention)

Rez Life

2008-07-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

It seems like the most powerful books I'm reading these days are meant for young adults...a far cry from The Babysitters' Club (though I freely admit that I read and loved those, and Sweet Valley High, too - and still harbor a little fantasy that I could come up with a series as fruitful - it's like perpetual motion, and they're really all the same, but you just keep reading the next book, and it's fabulous). The one I just read is Sherman Alexie's book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Whether or not you're familiar with life on the rez (and I am only tangentially) this book is worth reading. There's just something so true about his writing, a truth that goes deeper than the stories (his other stuff is good too). I know that isn't very descriptive, but it's the best way I can articulate it. And the cartoons are great. Note to self: start hanging out by the YA shelves at the library...

The Book Thief

2008-06-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, stop whatever you're doing and get to it. One of my students recommended it to me this year - he actually wanted our lit class to read it, but I got it from the library and saw that it was too long, so I never got around to reading it until now. It is the best book I have read in a long time. Fair warning: it's also quite heartbreaking. It's about WWII, and though I was into darker stuff when I was younger (Clockwork Orange, etc), I've never done well with the real stuff - I have a hard time watching movies about Vietnam, for instance. And of course, reading about the Holocaust. I just don't understand how people can do what they did. Or maybe I do understand it, and that's why it's so hard. I am always amazed at what people are able to survive, and I know it's going on today, with rape camps in the Congo, and, and, and... It just doesn't seem possible. Anyway. Read this book.

My Dog Ate My Dreams

2008-06-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

I've been dipping in and out of the world of women's circles this past year (not a sewing circle, and we don't look at our cervixes, but kind of the same thing). I went to one right around the spring equinox, and we all got little jiffy pots and dirt and nasturtium seeds, which we planted with intention, to symbolize our dreams for ourselves. It was all very sweet. And then I brought my little pot home and watered it, and over the next few days was amazed to watch the plants actually grow. And grow, and grow, and grow! Now, I have never really had a green thumb - this is the first year that I've had more than one houseplant, and it's a big deal that they're all still alive (I even killed cacti in my younger days). So third grade science, or whenever we stuck toothpicks in potatoes - or was it avocado pits? - and put them on the windowsill, that was the last time I've really seen a plant come to life from a seed. It's amazing! It's like magic! How do they do it? And these grew so fast, you really could almost watch it happen. They were tall and beautiful, a shade of green that means life, and I waxed poetic over them, and nurtured them, and moved them into the sun, and then out, and worried about how much water they were getting....and then I let them die. Almost.

The theory was that after they sprouted up, you were supposed to plant them in the ground, pot and all, and they would take root and flourish. And they're great plants to have around - nasturtiums are the pretty flowers you get in salads at shmancy restaurants; they're edible, and a bit spicy. I started looking up recipes for nasturtium vinegars, and envisioned having a whole border of nasturtiums offering up their blossoms for my palate. It was delightful. The thing I didn't do was actually plant them. I meant to, several times, really I did. It made me sad to watch them wither and fall over, no longer able to support themselves. Two of the shoots were sacrificed to keep the other one hanging on to life, a hint of pale green still in its stem. I began to worry - I'm not usually into all that spiritual woo-woo stuff, but if these were supposed to symbolize my dreams and intentions, what was the message? That I am passionate at first, but unable to follow through, letting my dreams wither and die? Not this time! I finally put them in the ground, carefully loosening the roots, lovingly mixing compost into the dirt, gently mulching around the top. Live, little plant, live! I poured my heart on them, along with some plant fertilizer. I felt sure they would recover, and prove that I can follow through on my intentions. My dreams would thrive!

And then my dog ate them.

I Read Somewhere...

2008-05-22T17:39:00.000-07:00

I've been noticing how often what I have to say starts with "I read somewhere..." It could be the next hot drinking game. And then we'd all be very drunk. Children: stop reading! It will only end up badly, with cheap tequila and anonymous postcards home, begging for money to support your Sunday Times habit.

I Am American, Hear Me Vote!

2008-05-12T17:28:00.000-07:00

I live in Oregon, where voting is all done by mail. It's actually super-efficient, and I think it would be good for other states to do this, but there's a little bit of a letdown, too. You don't get that "Get out the vote!" energy, where you brave the weather and stand in long lines with a whole cross-section of America, feeling like you're part of something bigger, the satisfying push of the button as the green light comes on, or ka-chunk of the lever - popping an envelope in the mail just isn't the same - and perhaps saddest of all, you don't get a sticker. Those "I Voted!" stickers were always my favorite part. Maybe I'll just have to make my own, and wear it around, and hand them out to people. If you wait until the very last day and drop your ballot in the box instead of the mail, there's usually some streamers and a flag, and volunteers congratulating you. But it's not the same, and there's still no sticker.

Nevertheless, it feels good to vote. Granted, the more I learn about our electoral system, the more pissed I get - come on, people, this is democracy? To hell with the founding fathers, we gotta represent! Besides, I believe if they were around today, they'd be all for changing it up. Superdelegates - out the window. Electoral college - what the fuck? We can read now, you konw. Most of us. (that's a whole nother entry right there) Popular vote, man, that's what it's all about. And then we just have to work on educating the masses - I won't go so far as to say we should reinstate some kind of test to be able to vote, but it's pretty depressing when you hear what some people think. From an interview on NPR: (this is a woman talking, in Indiana, I think) "I don't think the world is ready for a woman president; they might think less of the US if we elect Hillary, so that would be bad for our foreign relations. But I'm worried about Obama's past as a Muslim..." Where do these people live? Oh yes, Indiana - and all over, I'm sure. And that's the people on the right side of the force - though I find when I actually talk to Republicans, we have a lot more in common than the media would like us to think.

Ok. I hope you all got out there and made your mark. It's what being American is all about. That, and Dairy Queen. Mmmm....

I'm Only Jew-ish

2008-04-24T20:18:00.001-07:00

(thanks and apologies to whoever - whomever? - I heard on the radio for that title!)

I live in a cohousing community, which is not as much naked hippie commune as people think, and no, we don't all live in the same house. But we do have a common house, where no one lives, but there's a kitchen and useful space for gathering. And we have meals together weekly, and tonight we had a mini-passover seder. With chicken curry. (Now you see where the "ish" comes in) And with a passel of small, impatient (is there any other kind?) children eagerly wanting to drink their grape juice, we chose the 2 minute haggadah. Have you seen it? Everything you needed to know, condensed: "We were slaves in Egypt. Now we're not. That's why we do this." (more thanks and apologies to who(m)ever actually wrote it!)

I'm technically not one of the chosen people - my dad is Jewish, my mom Methodist, neither are practicing, and I grew up around Hinduism and Buddhism and a mishmosh of other stuff. But. It was always something we celebrated culturally - I was one of those lucky kids, with all the presents and none of the services. And I've always been vaguely agnostic, though I went through phases - militant atheist, wannabe wiccan, and so on. As I get older (I'm halfway through my golden year - I turned 30 on the 30th!) I'm coming to realize that basically we know nothing, and there's an awful lot of inexplicable shit that happens. So is there something out there? I don't know. It's still no excuse for killing lots of people in the name of. But it is pretty damn amazing, when it comes down to it.

All in all, we had a grand old time, and ate yummy food, and the dog got the have the shankbone (which was really a dog bone). Let's hear it for the Jews!

The Morning After

2008-04-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

I somehow feel like this is a big deal, even though it isn't really: I started a blog! Look out world, here I come! Except nobody even knows about it yet. And everyone and their dog seems to have a blog these days - for real, have you seen all the dog blogs? Nevertheless, there is a tiny frisson when I think of it. What will I write about? Will I add pictures? How often will I publish? How long will it last? Is it an auspicious time to do this? Should I have poked around in some entrails before getting started, or checked my horoscope? Will April 19 become a date to celebrate? Will I get a book deal?! (aside: I think we should revive the interrobang, don't you?)(also, we should adopt the Spanish upside-down question mark, although that would look silly in a string of questions...hmm)(and - Esperanto!) Ok, the end for now. Off to the real world. Chances are these first entries won't be that compelling, as they'll just be me being excited about this new toy. But perhaps they will be sheer genius, and we'll all go 'round shouting off the rooftops for everyone to check it out. Heh.

Rejected Blog Titles

2008-04-19T19:58:00.000-07:00

I've been coming around to the idea of having a blog for quite a while now...when I finally decided to go for it, the hardest part was figuring out what to call it. This is why I may never write a book. It's a good thing I had help naming my dog. Fittingly enough, it reminds me of the early days of the internet, of the very first time I had to come up with a user name for a bbs - and then later, learning you weren't unique, as various email programs helpfully offered suggestions like "yourname742". Eventually you didn't care what name it was, as long as it didn't already exist. You told yourself you could always change it later, but of course, you couldn't; it became who you were in certain circles. So - the list of alternate identities for this blog:

Dance Backwards
Vivo Ergo Cogito
Naked Mango
Tickle Your Catastrophe
Unbought Stuffed Dogs
A Poem About Everything
Reality Tastes Like Bread
Geographic Memory
Ceci N'est Pas un Blog
Literature and Butterflies
Absolutely Trivial
The Unexamined Life

There were more, too. Some that wandered over from other lists: Cherry Blossom (porn star/psychic/romance novelist names), Panty McSnuffles (things I call my dog), Le Singe est Disparu (things that always make me laugh), Dancing Queen (mix tapes).

But I'm sticking with Imperfect Tense. It's from a line by Nietzsche, which goes something like: "Life is a never-to-be-completed imperfect tense." Now we just get to wait and see what happens!