Quote Of The Day

"Today is a hard day to be fabulous"
-The Loud Lady With The Big Bags At The Other End Of The Subway Car

I Offend You, You...And You..

In a class yesterday one student was particularly interested in a traditional slave folktale about how people came to have the skin color they do. He shared with me, and with the rest of the class, that in his religion they have a similar story. In his story, God had an oven that he baked all the people in and some came out too light and underdone and this displeased Him, and some came out too dark because they were cooked too long, and this displeased Him, and then He got it right. "And that's people with skin color like mine!" I looked around the room and realized that this kid had just told 95% of the class that they were inferior in God's eyes because of their skin color. Do I critique the story and dis on his religion, or do I let it stand that he is one of the two "good" people in the room? I fumbled, panicked, and said something about how "lots of religions and folktales deal with trying to understand how different people can look different" and then moved on. Yikes.

At the same school, I had two, count them TWO, classes that I was informed were Special Ed classes either as I was entering the classroom or half-way through the class. I adapt, that's what I do, but I couldn't help but notice the absolutely shocking level of Teacher-Yelling that happened in both of these classrooms. This leads me to ask two questions:
1) If you spend 20 minutes yelling at the kids out of a 40 minute class, when does the teaching and learning take place? Sub-question: Is the yelling all these kids are learning today?
2) Why does Special Ed have to equal a punishment for these kids that are especially in need of care and attention?

Fatigue

This schedule of getting up early to work in the garden, teaching all day, and then staying up late to get ready for the next day is not really working for. Monday and Tuesday, fine. Wednesday, getting iffy. Today? I'm just worried about falling asleep on the train and missing my stop.

This has been a relatively manageable semester as far as scheduling and work-load has gone- much superior to last fall- but the stress has been a slow burn that's really getting to me.

Three more presentations this weekend.
Two more weeks at my project site.
One more month till Jamaica.

And pretty soon, I'm going to have a lawn. That will help.

Really?

Yesterday I found myself in the vicinity of Washington Square with only a couple minutes in which to grab some dinner before a meeting. My favorite place for a quick bite is the bing place by the West 4th stop, but it had been closed for several months- the sign said for renovation- so I was excited to see that it was open. I was gifted with the opportunity to not only get a bing, but also to see what great renovations they had done.

Imagine my surprise then, when I walked in and saw not even one change that would account for the two months they were closed- down to the menu stack on the counter it was exactly the same.

My guess is that "closed for renovation" in this case equalled "health code violations." Did I still buy a bing? I bought two.

Today's Pet Peeve (A Continuing Series)

Today's pet peeve is people who are assholes and don't respect artists or art enough to express their disagreement with the art/ists in non-destructive ways. I'm specifically referring to the horrible incident at Mike Daisy's performance of "Invincible Summer" at American Reperatory Theatre in which a group of 87 audience members stood up and left in the middle of his performance, one of them dumping a glass of water on the original outline that he uses to structure his unscripted show. Apparently it was a school group who didn't do a very good job researching what they were going to see and they were offended by the language he was using. It makes me sad, not only because they were rude, aggressive and physically destructive, but because Daisy's performance, which I saw this winter at the Public, is so raw and emotional and funny and challenging, and I think that if they had stayed they would possibly have gotten a lot out of it.

Much has been said about protesting styles and free speech and all of that in the wake of this incident. Sure, of course, Daisy has the right to say what he pleases in his performance. And surely the audience members have the right to stand up and leave if they don't like the performance (you know you all have done it), but even if it was only one kid that made the choice to destroy Daisy's art by ruining the outline, there is something disturbing about a culture of disrespect that allows that decision to be made. Not only did this person feel that he had the right to walk away from something he didn't like or understand, he felt he had the right to destroy it as well.

So my pet peeve is assholes.

Watch the video clip HERE and read Mike Daisy's comment on the situation HERE.

Garden In Progress

This weekend we did a volunteering activity that I heartily encourage any New Yorkers to try. In September, Garden In Transit is going to be covering all of the taxis in NYC with giant flowers for four months. Before that, however, you can spend a couple hours on the weekend painting these giant panels that will bedeck our cabs. It is not only a brilliant public art project, it's a ton of fun. Go to www.gardenintransit.org to sign up for a session. The group we worked with on Saturday painted over 200 panels in a couple hours.

I was so inspired by all the "gardening" that I came home and put in a flower bed of my own in my backyard.

Not quite so colorful yet, but give it a couple months. ZPJ and I have also spent the last few days diligently tilling, raking and hoeing to get the rest of the yard ready for lawn seeding. It seems a little ambitious to start a lawn from scratch, but there is a lot of dirt back there and it is effing expensive to get enough slate, gravel, bricks or decking to cover it all. So grass it is. I am unaccountably excited about the prospect of mowing the lawn all summer- more from the idea of that "fresh cut grass" smell in my house than anything else.

Things I learned Yesterday At My Project Site

1. One of my kids is in the hospital because he has sickle cell
2. One of my kids just found out his grandma has cancer
3. One of my kids works 35 hours a week in addition to school so that he can give his mom money for the rent
4. If I just leave them alone for awhile, there's a chance they'll come up with some really cool performance stuff, like break dancing with basketballs

(please ignore the possible ethical violations in sharing this- but none of this was told to me in confidence, and none of you actually know where my site is)

Seriously?!

This morning, two more people entered my apartment when I was not exactly ready. The first was the cable guy and, true, ZPJ let him in, but I was naked!!! Someone got yelled at about that. Then, not even an hour later, after ZPJ left, the repair guy barged in without knocking, just like he did yesterday. I kind of yelled at him too, being a little tired of beign walked in on, and he actually chided me for not hearing him knocking. I was sitting on the couch five feet away!!!! He's so not my favorite.

I probably just would have been irritated, but my mood was heightened to furious by the fact that after the cable/internet guy came to install our service, we actually lost service. Our service was crappy at best, and occasionally non-existent, at our old apartment, and when we moved to the new apartment we magically were able to pirate a perfect connection. But we are law-abiding folk and called Time Warner to have them come and legalize our connection, but once the guy came here and "turned it on" it completely stopped working. So we are again without internet (besides the connection that I am now again pirating), even though we are trying to be on the up and up.

Screw people who walk into my apartment when I am not expecting them. And screw Time Warner.

TA On The Wall

Overheard (hard not to when it's shouted in a small room) in the teachers lounge of a Brooklyn middle school yesterday:

"Don't tell me 'above average intelligence'!...Fucking Annie. It want to put a fucking baseball bat to her fucking head...this school gets worse every day...these kids are getting more more stupid...They're so fucking stupid I can't take it...Don't fucking judge me for saying it...If we can say kids are smart we can say kids are fucking stupid...They're not disabled, they're fucking stupid...Para's* are stupid too...I need a fucking Para for my Para...No, not you, Margie*."

*Para-professionals; un-certified classroom assistants, specifically in special needs classrooms
*Margie; the woman with the raised eyebrows reading her Daily News in the corner of the lounge

Rude Awakening

Got up super early for a class this morning, then came home after to catch a nap, and then just five minutes ago, as I slept unclothed in bed, was awoken by a repair man coming into my new apartment without knocking to install weather stripping on the back door. Could have been a great opening for a dirty movie, but instead it was just an awkward and disorienting way to wake up...fortunately I stopped him before he got a free view of the goods...

So now I'm typing this entry to look busy while he's fixing my doors. Maybe I should chew him out for barging in, but I'm too half-asleep and disoriented.

Settling In

After two months, I've kind of settled into a groove with my thesis project kids. Things have been going relatively well lately, but then, how bad can it go when only two kids show up? No, no, it's not always that bad. I had three today, which is a 50% improvement from last week. And there are two more that would come, really they would, but doctor's appointments and such keep getting in the way. And one of the kids has what seems to be fairly serious pooping issues that cause him to leave half way through every workshop because he can't take care of business in the school bathrooms and needs to go to the comfort of home. But we are edging towards functionality, one half-hearted improv at a time. Will we have an provocative and inspiring performance at the end? Probably not. But today one of the boys expressed a real interest in doing live graffiti art during the performance and if we can milk that into a 30 minute show, with a couple of break-dance-numbers interspersed, I think I'll officially have a successful project on my hands.

Why I Missed Book Club Last Night

I don't know if my subway station was actually that bad- I preferred to stay home rather than find out. I hope the rest of you stayed dry.

Adjustments

Well, I'm all moved and unpacked (almost) and everything. The moving wasn't as bad as it could have been, considering that it could have been yesterday during the torrential downpour instead of Saturday during the warm sunniness. Yesterday during the rain I just sat around inside and unpacked boxes and watched the new backyard fill up with puddles. Lots and lots of puddles.

It's strange being in a new place. I like it so much, but the space is just so different and I'm trying to get used to it. I couldn't really sleep well, especially the first night. So many strange new noises. And the bedroom has a window that goes directly into the sunroom that I keep open and it has turned into an all-night kitty path that leads directly to my head. The cats like the new place, too, and I think they will like it even better when the rain subsides and I can let them in the backyard.

Now it is Monday again and I have to come out of my moving haze and begin remembering all the non-moving-related things in my life that need to be done, like lesson plans and papers to write, phone calls to make, presentations to plan, and on and on. Fortunately I don't yet have internet on my main computer, and the keyboard doesn't work very well on the desktop, so once I sit down at the desk I should hopefully be relatively free of distractions. That's the plan, anyway.

Uhh...

After successfully taking the train this morning to my far-away residency, I had to catch a local cab from the train station to the school. I got in a AAA cab and was surprised that the driver was a woman. Or maybe more surprised that I was surprised, having never really noticed that drivers always seem to be men. We chatted on the way to the school, mostly about rising gas prices and the weather and then, out of nowhere, she says "you know what else I hate? Immigrants. All of them. They come here and want money and food stamps and health care. You know what I mean?" I sat in the back seat in stunned silence as she stared me down in the rear-view mirror. Finally I responded "well, I guess we were all immigrants at one point, right?" and she quickly changed the subject back to gas prices and road rage. Although it quickly slid into a subject about foreign drivers with road rage. I said nothing else, not wanting to incite any more rage than necessary.

This and the driver yesterday who didn't know how to find the Long Island Expressway from the BQE. I don't even know. I am so done with cars.

They Wouldn't Lie To You, Would They?

1. Go to maps.google.com.
2. Click on Get Directions.
3. From: New York, New York.
4. To: London, England.
5. Read line #23.

Top Delight

I am so, so glad that Carisa didn't win. Damn that was close.

Meditations on the Outer Boroughs, Pt. 2

Taking the train to the end of another borough can take a lot of time, and sometimes it takes longer than you expect, but usually even with delays, you will get there within maybe twenty minutes of when you think you will.

But when you drive in a cab and the google maps says it will take 30 minutes, and the last time you drove to the same place it took 30 minutes, it can still take 90 minutes, so even if you give yourself some extra time you can still show up 45 minutes late for your class. And classes are only 45 minutes long.

I'm sticking with the trains for the rest of the residency.

Meditations on the Outer Boroughs

I do not like empty subway cars. They are one of the most isolated places in the city, and it doesn't feel right. When I am in a full subway car, the strangest, most unbalanced people might come in and I would not even notice them, let alone be threatened by them. But in an empty subway car, I regard anyone who enters with suspicion.

Transition

Tonight was the first push of the big move. We moved a dozen or so boxes over to the new apartment with a Mighty ZipTruck. The renovations are all done and the place looks great. I'm excited to start unpacking and filling it up. The crazy thing is that for all we moved tonight, we hardly made a dent. This is crazy because when we moved into our old apartment almost two years ago, we came with only 14 boxes and a couple borrowed pieces of furniture. Amazing how much we can accumulate, huh? Fortunately my dad is coming into town on Saturday to help with the moving, and he's drawing a crew made up of aunts, uncles, and other Long Island friends.

All things considered, it will be the easiest move I've ever made. Not only is our apartment relatively small, but it is the first time I've ever moved to a new place in the same city. Nay, even the same neighborhood! Once, in Seattle, I moved within the same city, but there was a two week gap between houses so I rented a storage unit and camped out on a friend's couch for awhile. So this will really be a breeze in comparison. And my dad will be here! He's a Master Mover (self-proclaimed). I'm posting a "before" picture- stay tuned for the "afters."

A Week In Pictures

My Adventures in P-Land:

Mama and A-Babe- She is simply perfect, although she seems to sleep about 23 out of every 24 hours. Oh well. She's doing a lot of growing right now. She's on her way to catching up with Uncle Z.

This is my man, Little E. He showed us around town all week and woke us up every morning.

It was so beautiful in P-Land. Sunny every day and warm every night. We spent a lot of time sitting out on the porches of various breweries with old friends.

The Spring BrewFest was notably lamer than the summer Fest, since it was in the Convention Center, but ZPJ and I did our best regardless to drink lots of beers and get pirate tattoos. Can you find them?

In addition to tattoos, we also got some face-designs at the Children's Museum, which we visited with Misses AF and LF.

Our hosts made us a beautiful brunch with mimosas the morning we had to leave them.
It was sad to leave them, but then we got to wake up with Mr. Feather Boa on Easter morning and look for Easter eggs together (even though his dad gave him an unfair advantage by standing really close to the good ones and shouting "OVER HERE!!! OVER HERE!!!")
Is it strange that most of our vacation was spent hanging out with other people's children?

Everyone kept asking us all week "so, when are you two going to start a family?" and we would smile and laugh and then give each other the aren't-you-glad-we-use-birth-control look. I absolutely adore everyone else's children. But I'm just not ready yet. I do, however, wish that most of these little guys lived a little closer to me so that they wouldn't grow so much between visits.

Here she is, Dear Readers. Look closely because she'll double in size before I get any more pictures of her:

Red Eyes

I hate flying red eye flights from west to east, but I especially hate flying them when they are delayed for hours and hours and you really want to leave but you just can't. Fortunately, we found out it was delayed from The Internets before we left the house, so we won't be stranded too long. So, here I am, just chillin' at my in-law's house and waiting till it's late enough to go to the airport.

Grumble Grumble Grumble Grumble

Beautiful Spring

P-Land is about two months ahead of NYC in terms of blooming flowers, budding trees, and buzzing bugs. It was like traveling ahead in time when we got off the plane- before we even saw the plants we could smell them. The air is alive here.

Not only has the weather been joyful- I have been happy as a pig in poo with all the babies people have around here. And opposed to in NYC, I actually know all the babies here, so the parents don't mind so much when I snatch them up and jiggle them around and try to eat their tiny little toes. It has been delightful.

I am half excited to return to NYC and half dreading it. I'm looking forward to moving into the new apartment and planting the garden and going back to work. I am also still consumed with a feeling of impending failure when I think about my project- it is literally keeping me up at night. P-Land is a wonderful break, though. I look around at friends and family and see very clearly what my life would have been if I never moved east, and what it probably will be like if we ever move back, and I am so happy that I did move and also that I have this place to come back to if I need to. Even though I never lived here, it really is home.

I can't wait to leave tonight. I need to get out of this city before I commit to doing one more thing that I don't really want to do.

Why can't I let myself off the hook sometimes?

Why do I have this failure-related anxiety that I just can't shake?

Wish me luck...

Overboard

Auntie Lauren went a little crazy buying baby clothes yesterday...but I was right. It did make me feel better. And I was no match for all the frilly pink sundresses. I'm sorry. I just wasn't.

I also got a new pair of jeans. Similarly to MNS, I have been recently dealing with the disintegration of my old jeans in inappropriate places. This is to be expected when, like me, you buy all your jeans at certain large chain stores known more for their inexpensive style than the quality of their goods. So while out shopping yesterday I stopped at this chain store hoping to find a replacement pair that would adequately cover my personal parts. It seems, however, that jeans are now "out" because the jeans section of the store was understocked and picked over with almost no styles available other than short shorts. Fortunately, after digging through an abandoned pile of discontinued pants, I found a pair in my size and rushed to the dressing room to try them on. This pair, however, had the same problem as the pairs I have been wearing for the last several months- holes in inappropriate places!!! The difference is that for this new pair the hole in the butt seems to be intentional and stylish. At the moment it is just frayed- nothing too personal is showing- but I worry about what will happen after a few washings, given the quality. I guess I'm going to have to put a patch in. But a patch on the butt is somehow more acceptable than a patch in the crotch, so I bought them anyway.

I went to see The Long Winters at a small Park Slope concert packed with ex-Seattlites last night. It was a delightful show. The music was simultaneously poptastic and complex, the banter was charming and ironic, and the crowd was friendly and, with the exception of the woman right behind us, NOT incredibly drunk. After the show we went out for a farewell drink with Ryan, who is moving to NC today to start a new bus business. It turned into farewell drinks, and now its only several hours from when I fly out and I am hungover, tired, and have not yet figured out how I'm getting all these new baby outfits across the country. But it was totally worth it. Alright...off to pack...

It's Gray Out Today

I was so excited to sleep in today for the first time in awhile, but my morning sleep was plagued by stress-dreams and even after I woke up I just laid in bed for awhile and let the anxiety overtake me. Not an auspicious beginning to spring break. I think what I really need to do right now is get out of my pajamas and go to Target and buy baby clothes for my new niece. ZPJ might disagree and say that what I really need to do right now is laundry so that we have clean clothes to take to P-Land, but can't we both be right?

Top Drag

Is anyone else really disturbed that Carisa beat out Goil last week on Top Design? I know I'm five days late on this news, but I was busy Wednesday and didn't see the re-run 'till today. I'm really glad that Michael finally left, but I dislike Carisa almost as much as I disliked him, so I am very upset that she made the top three. To be fair, her designs have been getting better the last couple weeks, but I can't take another week of her rolling her eyes and blaming everyone around her for her bad time-management skills. I'll miss Goil. He was just too cute.