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.
8.24.2010
8.02.2010
Parenting Advice from a Jackass
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.
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.
7.10.2010
Be: Here, Now.
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?
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?
7.09.2010
And The Living Is Easy...
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...
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...
6.27.2010
English Well Speeched Here
(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!
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!
6.07.2010
Hmm.
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.
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.
6.02.2010
Cleverly Disguised as a Responsible Adult
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?
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?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
