Brooklyn Brightwood Batahola

Year again. They go so fast on this blog.

2012-01-01T13:55:00.000-08:00

Sunday January 1, 2012

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Spontaneous trip to Disney World, slide down natural water slide and climb into old mine shaft, walk across Brooklyn Bridge, and sneak into a music festival in the trunk of a car.

2. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Megan!!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No

5. What would you like to have in 2011 that you didn't have in 2010?
Freedom from graduate school!

6. What days from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory?
Passover on Prospect Place; Felisa's 30th--dinner with Reina & Johnny, going to every single attraction in Animal Kingdom, EVEREST and also the white water ride; co-hosting our families for Father's Day at Kitchenette; Grandma Millie's 90th birthday; drawing one tree for an hour in Riverside Park for Science class; the Fort Greene concert with Janice especially watching the sunset; seeing The Future with Laurel and Tom and totally losing our shit; the water in Opal Creek; my kids' first day of 6th grade with their parents sitting in the back of the classroom agreeing with everything I said; my 31st birthday party where I accidentally made out with a flower vendor and he tried to give me all his wares and I graciously accepted only one rose; the haunted West Village scavenger hunt and just as much waiting for it to start, seeing the giant hawk and the sand painter and the Occupiers all mixed up in Washington Square Park; my father's retirement party; going by myself back to Cherry Lane Theater and seeing movie stars there (well just Andrew Garfield but I found out later Emma Stone was there too I didn't notice her); taking my kids on their Dylan's trip and most especially the art gallery aka frame store; hosting New Year's at 587.

7. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Being a good teacher a lot of days

8. What was your biggest failure?
Neglect of 7th grade math, not taking care of my body

9. Did you suffer any illness or injury?
No

10. What was the best thing you bought?
A hat box. My olive green and mustard yellow cardigans. My sister locket.

11. Where did most of your money go?
Frivolities

12. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Disney World, living with my roommates.

13. What song will always remind you of 2010?
Someone Like You

14. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Following through

15. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Not applicable

16. How did you spend your end of the year holidays?
Christmas dinner at 66 was the best ever with ham and mashed potatoes and red eye gravy roasted chilli lime acorn squash and grapefruit avocado salad, just Mom and Dad and Hel and I. New Year's Eve, I hosted a small Quaker faction, and we played games and ate lots of good pizza and drank whiskey and bourbon and watched Dick Clark, who is still at it after all these years.

17. What was your favorite TV program?
American Horror Story

18. What were your favorite films of this year?
Harry Potter VII, Bridesmaids

19. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I ate oysters with my co-workers, spent a gorgeous weekend in Ithaca with Helen, and then celebrated a month later at a bar in the meatpacking district

20. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Being already done with my last Bank Street paper.

21. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
All about the earrings and cardigans.

22. What kept you sane?
My bosses, and the people I live with

23. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010:
10,000 hours

24. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Control yourself: take only what you need from it

This year

2011-01-06T16:22:00.000-08:00

1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?
Caravanned to Columbus, ate the worm in LA, gambled in Vegas, drove across the country, carved my initials in wet cement, bought and set up a Christmas tree all on my own, and taught 7th grade.

2. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Jess and Hung!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Maggie

5. What countries did you visit?
Juuuust this one.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you didn't have in 2010?
A masters of ed.

7. What days from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory?
Helen's graduation, Chestine's birthday at the unexpected hibachi restaurant right after the zombie parade, my feverish, straight-haired self standing on stage on the day of my kid's graduation as they marched down the aisles of the auditorium to "The End of the Road," dancing with Malia to "Can't Stop the Beat" on the pier after Hairspray, every second of the cross-country drive, the first day of school and the Fabuloso moment, playing Settlers of Catan with my family in my new apartment with more pizza than we could eat.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Moving, in every sense of the word.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not taking care of my anxiety

10. Did you suffer any illness or injury?
No

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My new bed.

12. Where did most of your money go?
RENT

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
My new school.

14. What song will always remind you of 2010?
Hold Yuh.

15. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Writing.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Internet procrastination.

20. How did you spend your end of the year holidays?
We had Christmas dinner in NJ, then got snowed in at 66. We did not venture out until two days later, when we drove five minutes to New Roc to see True Grit and it was like the effing Wild West out there, blinding swirls of snow, banked all over the street, with garbage cans rolling across intersections like tumbleweeds. Laurel and I helped Mom with the living room, and Helen and I went to the Tsocanos' for an intergenerational Quaker new year.

21. What was your favorite TV program?
Hoarders and The Wire.

22. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Janelle Monae

23. What were your favorite films of this year?
The Town, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, True Grit, the Social Network.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
30! With cupcakes, dinner parties, and spontaneous night trips to Boston.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Justice for 308.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
I really had no vision this year. I want to bring wide-leg trousers back into my life in a big way, though. Still, nothing makes me feel better than thick wool tights and a short skirt.

34. What kept you sane?
All of my families, and my beautiful home.

35. Who did you miss?
Anna

36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010:
When our context changes, so do we. Love sticks around.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

Live blogging the viewing of a 7 year old Sandra Bullock thriller

2010-12-16T18:17:00.000-08:00

9:03
[Opening credits]
Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt? Why don't I know about this movie? Why would you put Michael Pitt and Ryan Gosling in the same movie unless you were doing a Rope variation?

9:05
You wouldn't.

9:17
Wearing black pants with a brown shirt buttoned all the way to the top button. Sign that a guy reads Nietzsche and is going to be a problem in your life.

9:45
You wake up to one of your customers standing above you wrapped in saran wrap and your first question is whether he brought his cheerleader friends? That wouldn't be my first question.

10:03
Sandy is such a bitca with all her rapist-hitting ways.

10:11
This boy's bone structure is so fly.

10:21
Lol when she said let's talk about Goldilocks for a minute, I definitely thought she meant Ryan.

10:26
Pole-vaulting? Really? Pole-vaulting? This is the story of an evil pole-vaulter?

10:28
Oh jesus this guy is an arrogant idiotic prick. But I like this exchange.
"Did you ever get any help for any of this?"
"Yes. I became a cop."

10:35
That creepy-ass melded portrait is totally unacceptable.

10:42
I don't believe that charm/seductiveness is an indicator of conscience in one direction or the other. Just something to keep in mind.

Moving Day(s)

2010-07-28T13:37:00.000-07:00

7/28/10
4:37 pm
Disgusted with life right now. Surrounded by piles of things to throw out. That's all I see when I look at my belongings now--why isn't this in a black garbage bag yet. Nothing that I will have to carry out of here has any intrinsic worth except for books and a few pieces of furniture. EVERYTHING ELSE MUST GO.

7/29/10
12:20 am
The van is full. My apartment is still full. I hate all physical possessions. I want to live like a Spartan. Do Spartans drink wine? That's what I am doing. Going to sleep for a few hours then try to beat the garbage truck at 5 with a few more loads. GOD BLESS THE NYC SANITATION DEPARTMENT, YOU ALL ARE MIRACLE WORKERS, AND YOU AMAZE ME.

11:45 am
Going to DD's for dose of iced coffee. I honestly believe this will never be done.

NEW. YEAR.

2010-01-05T16:43:00.000-08:00

1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?
Indiana. That's...basically it. It's been quite a year. I got lost on a dirt road in a corn field on the way, so that was cool. Oh, and I paid for a cell phone instead of getting the ~free upgrade.~

2. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Andra and Jon! Morgan and Kristin! Annika and Will!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What countries did you visit?
Will you accept, Indiana?

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you didn't have in 2009?
Time.

7. What days from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory?
Inauguration--the first dance. The last day of school--listening to Michael Jackson with my students for four hours. Blair's goodbye party. The top of Mt. Hamilton, and basically all 7 days of Portland coffee. The night when a demon thought it would be *so funny* to SLAM open Felisa's apartment door just as we were falling asleep, when it knew full well we had seen Paranormal Activity that day.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
829.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Losing my joy at work these past few months? Question mark.

10. Did you suffer any illness or injury?
The flu. Speaking of which, one of my poor babies projectile vomited all over the classroom today, so I'm gearing up for a Swine flu outbreak.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Brunches at Kitchenette's, and also shoes. Just, all the shoes.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Sephora's. LOL JK rent.

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Oh honey. Summer.

14. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Bad Fucking Romance.

15. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Reading periodicals and partying.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Is it wrong to say, work?

20. How did you spend your end of the year holidays?
With family of origin and chosen family.

21. What was your favorite TV program?
Dollhouse, Criminal Minds, Dexter, and How I Met Your Mother. All pretty accurate reflections of my life.

22. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Glen Hansard, Antony, Passion Pit, Adele...these are my discoveries, right? Not, like, the world's. Because I totally stan Kelly Clarkson now. Also John Legend, the cast of Glee, Adam Lambert, Wale, and, truth be told, all I've really listened to for the past month is the Fame Monster.

23. What were your favorite films of this year?
Where the Wild Things Are, This Is It, Drag Me to Hell, and there are a bunch I haven't seen yet.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I remember something like a birthday candle in a shot of tequila. 29 BITCHES!!! This is an awesome age.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Seeing more theater.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Really big rings and really short skirts. Boots up to HERE.

34. What kept you sane?
My co-teachers, my roommate, and my friends. And, I hate to admit this, but the whole point of this entry is to look back and remember, oh yeahhh, that was 2009, right? So...Pinkberry.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
One of my co-teachers and I are planning our next ELA unit around lady GaGa, so that's pretty severe.

37. Who did you miss?
Anna

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009:
Success looks like failure up til the very end. Fight like hell.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

To be lonely is a habit
Like smoking or taking drugs
And I've quit them both but man was it rough

(Our lives are too earth-centered)

2009-05-11T19:56:00.000-07:00

My students and I are doing a science fiction unit. We've worked all the required standards backwards and forwards, so now I'm teaching them what I think they should know. This week, stereotypes. I'm trying out an 8th-graders' version of Stuart Hall tomorrow. Then, the John Ritter Buffy episode. The inevitability of this day in my life is hard to overstate.

My human credential

2008-05-22T19:31:00.000-07:00

Thank you for being the one who proves what I am

On Voting

2008-02-04T19:03:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I will wake up and it will be election day. I will wash my hair and eat my Cheerios in the dark like usual. I'll pile on wool tights and a wool skirt and suede boots and a wool coat and hat, and when I walk out onto 104th street I'll be able to judge how many minutes it is before 7 by the strip of pale that shows above the East River. I'll buy a medium cup of coffee with milk and no sugar from Cesar on the corner. I love this routine. It is always one of my favorite times of the day.

For my kids, these same minutes are probably drudgery. What they wear and what they eat has been forced on them. They have not gotten to choose yet what river they want to live next to, or even how they take their coffee. And then they have to come look at my face all day.

I wish I could mark tomorrow for them like it will be marked for me. I will be pulling a lever for a presidential candidate who is making history. I have scrupulously avoided telling my students who I am voting for, even my party affiliation--but they know no matter who it is, we will be reaching our hands into history with that vote.

It's not our job to read the future or figure out who is the REALLY BEST candidate. Our job is just to buy into the process, to vote so we will remember that we bear responsibility for our government's actions, and then fight to put those actions right. No matter who gets voted in, our work keeps going.

Sundays

2008-01-27T12:29:00.000-08:00

I don't really have much to report except that I found a Gore Vidal novel under my bed, and I am reading it. If it is yours and you left it here by accident and now I'm stealing it from you, MY BAD. Let me know so I can return.

I spent Friday night with Mom and Dad eating tostadas and birthday cake and talking about teaching, and I spent Saturday sleeping. Now I am having my day of work interspersed with checking the political blogs' reactions to the SC primary. I'm going to head down to Upper-East-Side-land to deposit a check and work in a coffee shop for a while. My life is very simple. Come complicate things for me

Old Road

2008-01-07T19:30:00.001-08:00

I am tired as an old road, but still glad to be back to life. My students and I are roughing it out together, staking out our positions in the new year.

I want to show them a version of strength that they are not expecting from me. Right now I am nice, or mean, friendly, or condescending, a push-over, or strict. For all the time they have spent with me, they are not really sure yet. I need to show them a version of myself that they can rely on.

Year Again

2007-12-22T16:05:00.000-08:00

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Teaching. Car accident. Paying for a gym. Queens.

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions?
Well, I sure kept one of them.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Erica Renee, light of our lives!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Topper

5. What countries did you visit?
Hmm. Just this one, then.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you didn't have in 2007?
Balance.

7. What days from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory?
Seeing Inland Empire at the Paramount. Obama speaking on Town Lake in the rain. The day Franklin woke up. The first day of school.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Moving from Texas to New York during Tropical Storm Barry (don't laugh). Finding the most beautiful apartment in the beautiful neighborhood of Spanish Harlem. And 628.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I TOTALLY didn't write my UT thesis last spring, but it's okay. I'm a long way away from last spring.

10. Did you suffer any illness or injury?
No. This is a good survey for reminding me of my blessings. I'm UNBREAKABLE!!

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A bed!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Ms. Reyes! My parents. My collab. Kate.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Many of my elected officials'.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent, food, school supplies, work clothes.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The Grand Re-Opening of Pueblo's Chula. Really, though, I don't think you know how much joy they bring into me and my roommate's lives.

And also, THE TANTALIZING PROSPECT OF HOLIDAY BREAK.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
Hello, Umbrella.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. Happier or sadder?: There is not even any comparison.
ii. Thinner or fatter?: Thinner.
iii. Richer or poorer?: Well, I do have a job now.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Writing. Playing. Video. Phone calls.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Being scared.

20. How did you spend your end of the year holidays?
I am having a NEW YORK CHRISTMAS

22. Did you fall in love in 2007?
No

23. What was your favorite TV program?
Battlestar Galactica and Pushing Daisies

24. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Lift to Experience, Pink Martini

25. What did you want and get?
A lot of joy. A down comforter.

26. What did you want and not get?
Time management skills?

30. What were your favorite films of this year?
Oh shit, did I even see any movies this year. Let me think. Ok well I saw Suspiria for the first time, which is not exactly a new movie, but is definitely a favorite for the year. Also, Superbad. Ok, I have just looked at the Time 100 Best Movies of 2007, and I can definitely confirm that I did not see any movies this year.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I had coffee cake for breakfast with my cousin Janice and my parents, and then I went out to dinner for all you can eat sushi, where I actually fell asleep at the table. So I am pretty old.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Exploring the city

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Wide leg trousers
A-line wool skirts with patterned tights
Kicky winter outerwear
Hoops

34. What kept you sane?
Family, friends, students, my roommate, Bug, my conference group, my overpriced gym, tacos al pastor, ONTD. And oh my God how could I forget THE RISE OF INTERNET TELEVISION BROADCAST.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
All the Democratic candidates are looking pretty good to me right now.

37. Who did you miss?
bill and emily

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Laura, Andy, Kate, Ms. Sanchez, Jenny Fragale Martin Peacock Singleton Garry Winter O'Connor.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:
Trust your full humanness. If I didn't know life so well, I wouldn't have known what a merciful year this was.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

I can tell by your outfit that you're leaving town
I can tell by the way you look I can't bring you around
And it's hard to stay
But I'm going to stay anyway

When you leave heart on your sleeve
I'm awake so please don't fake it
All alone in San Antone
I will never, never follow you

I've been too long without you

2007-11-16T18:46:00.000-08:00

And sometimes it pierces me when I realize I can't go scrambling down into the Greenbelt outside my door, stuffing my hands in rosemary bushes and rubbing the smell on my face as I jog down Barton Skyway. To lie flat-backed on the limestone and all that. But the truth is I could never really believe it. It always felt like some strange extended vacation that I kept on waking up to, day after day for three years. Groundhog Dayesque.

And now I am very, very awake.

Moving Day

2007-05-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

7:30 AM
Listening to the news while I get dressed. Then off to the Post Office to ship my boxes and Jiffy Lube for an oil change and whatever else they think I'm due.

11:30 AM
My furniture is sold off, except for the mattress set which is being picked up at noon. My clothes are shipped, my car is serviced, and my books are in the trunk. I am ready to throw out everything else I own. Seriously. The only other things I care about are my pots and pans, my posters, my laptop, and maybe my spices.

12:07 pm
I was kind of kidding when I said I was going to throw out everything else I own, but now my car is full and I'm not kidding anymore. If you want a TV or VCR and are in Austin, TX, right now, let me know.

1:24 pm
I am now well into the throwing out phase of packing. Just said goodbye to Julia, who has been helping me for the past hour. The mattress person has pushed back her pick-up time to 3. By then I should be cleaning. Oh my God this day will never end.

1:36 PM
Wow. I just lost all energy. Maybe an iced latte would help.

3:40 PM
No sign of mattress lady. Back half of apartment is now clear. Time is getting tight.

5:36 pm
I am disgusting right now. But the apartment is empty. Except for the mattress. Carrie is coming to help me haul it. I signed off in the office and got an envelope for my key. I am in the process of cleaning.

It would be really wonderful to jump in the creek one more time before I leave. I wonder if I could? I've gone skinny-dipping there before, but only after dark. I am hoping to be on the road before then.

on being tri-coastal

2007-04-24T22:15:00.000-07:00

This, too, is work

2007-04-11T17:51:00.000-07:00

When I was a senior in college I used to check out a laptop from the front desk at McCabe, and then go off searching for the perfect corner to work in. Sometimes I wished I had a cord to lock myself to the desk with, just like I did my computer.

Now I'm older and once again in need of mooring. There are a few things in my life that I just REALLY want to lock down at the moment, and I REALLY can't. I have to wait, and work imperfectly.

I am reaching back in time for that 21 year old, somewhat twisted, tenacious version of myself. Although I'm older, and white, and somewhat more free. I didn't write that last sentence.

Person of the Day: Janice Lee Hua Staab

2007-03-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday my equinox cousin!

Perfect is the enemy of good

2007-03-05T21:27:00.000-08:00

Much like this crocidile is the enemy of us, because he wants to eat us.

Don't worry. He is well-guarded in his San Antonio Zoo habitat.

I am so in for it right now. Fear has pressed itself against my back and will not let me go. And, as always, you keep me steady.

sólo con una ardiente paciencia

2007-02-10T20:16:00.000-08:00

At last! I knew I read some statement from Tony Kushner that crystallized, or maybe catalyzed, the way I thought about electoral politics while I was living in DC. But at that point in my life I had like an IV connection to the news so it was hard to retrace my steps and pinpoint where I had read this passage when I found I wanted to reread it months and then years later.

But now, through the wonders of Google, I have found it. It's from a interview Kushner did with Mother Jones in 2003, when Angels in America was being produced for HBO and the country was gearing up for a presidential election year, much like we are now.

Listen, here's the thing about politics: It's not an expression of your moral purity and your ethics and your probity and your fond dreams of some utopian future. Progressive people constantly fail to get this...The system isn't about ideals. The country doesn't elect great leaders. It elects fucked-up people who for reasons of ego want to run the world. Then the citizenry makes them become great. FDR was a plutocrat. In a certain sense he wasn't so different from George W. Bush, and he could have easily been Herbert Hoover, Part II. But he was a smart man, and the working class of America told him that he had to be the person who saved this country. It happened with Lyndon Johnson, too, and it could have happened with Bill Clinton, but we were so relieved after 12 years of Reagan and Bush that we sat back and carped.

In a certain sense, Bush was right when he called the anti-war demonstrations a "focus group." We went out on the street and told him that we didn't like the war. But that was all we did: We expressed an opinion. There was no one in Congress to listen to us because we were clear about why they couldn't listen. Hillary Clinton was too compromised, or Chuck Schumer -- and God knows they are. But if people don't pressure them to do better, we're lost.

I cried a little when I watched this speech today from Senator Obama, but I am also keeping this in mind: A lot of Americans might like the idea of an Obama presidency because they feel like somehow his election would represent a redemption for this country, from recent wrong turns and ancient and current injustices. But no individual politician can sit on a pedestal, nor should she or he be expected to. Change does not just come from an election, it comes from the work of many, and a great leader is one who inspires citizens to do that work. If there aren't any great leaders to be had at a given moment, election, congressional session--the work remains. The work can have unexpected and inspiring consequences.

"There is a room beyond right or wrong. I go to it."--My Dad

2007-01-24T09:27:00.000-08:00

I went to Ikea for the first time yesterday, and wandered in awe through their maze of pre-fabricated rooms like museum exhibits of some version of the American dream, the dream where you can have matching furniture and shelves full of books in Swedish. I got a shadowbox frame that I'm really excited to play with, and also these spice jars. Four for $2.99. And a down comforter! For cheap. Slave labor, Dad asked? Probably, I said. What would Rumi say about Ikea, Dad asked? And then he wrote a poem.

مولانا جلال الدین محمد رو

Yesterday was my dad's 61st birthday, and to celebrate it he put copies of poems by the 13th century Sufi poet Rumi in his coworkers' mailboxes. Also some sonnets, he said. Well here is a poem for you:

Not Here

There's courage involved if you want
to become truth. There is a broken-

open place in a lover. Where are
those qualities of bravery and sharp

compassion in this group? What's the
use of old and frozen thought? I want

a howling hurt. This is not a treasury
where gold is stored; this is for copper.

We alchemists look for talent that
can heat up and change. Lukewarm

won't do. Halfhearted holding back,
well-enough getting by? Not here.

If you want what visible reality
can give, you're an employee.
If you want the unseen world,
you're not living your truth.
Both wishes are foolish,
but you'll be forgiven for forgetting
that what you really want is
love's confusing joy.

Only one more Bush State of the Union to go, guys.

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master." --Abraham Lincoln

2007-01-16T23:13:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of speeches to keep you warm tonight...

Barbara Jordan's famous keynote address to the 1976 Democratic National Convention...

And, because we cannot all be members of Congress, let alone be Rep. Jordan, here's a speech for Equality Now from humble television producer Joss Whedon.

"A woman, neither old, nor young..." -my mom

2007-01-13T15:27:00.000-08:00

I walk at sunset, east along the road. There are no houses in that direction, except the abandoned one where the wild plums grow, white with bloom in springtime. Folks call the road lonely, because there is no human traffic and human stirring. Because I have walked it so many times, and seen such a tumult of life there, it seems to me one of the most populous highways of my acquaintance. I have walked it in ecstasy, and in joy it is beloved. Every pine, every gall berry bush, every passion vine, every joree rustling in the underbrush, is vibrant. I have walked it in trouble, and the wind in the trees beside me is easing. I have walked it in despair, and the red of the sunset is my own blood dissolving into the night’s darkness. For all such things were on earth before us, and will survive after us, and it is given to us to join ourselves with them and to be comforted.
-Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Do you ever reread something and find in it the long-forgotten origins of some aspect of yourself? If I am wondering why I have to do something, like get up in the morning or love people, the line that goes through my head is: that is what is given to us to do. I like the construction of the sentence because the giver is not specified. The nature or existence of a giver is not predetermined, and in fact may only exist in the sense that we find ourselves with some things given. I’ve always kind of thought I stole the line from somewhere, but I couldn’t remember where.

The first night I was at Linda and Topper’s new house in Port Clyde, I found that passage from Cross Creek. I knew Linda liked it so I had printed it out and illustrated it with pencil drawings for a Christmas present when I was 14; Linda has it hanging on the wall. And there it is—those words that I have been speaking to myself ever since.
I loooove alligators. Meghan and Lindsay met this one in Florida just a few weeks ago. Did you know alligators hiss if you throw things at them? Totally true.

Meet the new road, same as the old road

2007-01-12T16:30:00.000-08:00

What would you do if you could redraw the lines?

from one end of the continent to the other

2007-01-08T16:36:00.000-08:00

I love you everywhere I go

antes que anochezca

2006-12-24T23:20:00.000-08:00

I am in La Joya on Christmas Eve. There are candles in the window and presents under the tree, but it is outside, the moonlight on palm trees, that feels most like Christmas to me. I know that might not make any sense, but it has been that way since the first time I ever came here, and probably always will be.

sometimes the scariest thing in the world is what's going to come out in your next sentence

2006-12-18T00:08:00.000-08:00

At least I know I don't believe in ultimatums.

Things for which I am grateful this holiday finals week:
Perfume
Coke Zero
Hel's cooking and good advice
My students
The Green Muse cafe
John Dewey
Lying on the floor with Carrie and Julia
Mary and Michael are staying
The drive to La Joya
The future

The beloved community

2006-11-20T21:47:00.000-08:00

"Alright you see? This shocks you, it shocks you to see what's buried beneath you stupid motherfuckers...You see? You see, there's still those words, those words, those words."

Those may be the some of the last words Michael Richards (Kramer on Seinfeld) ever speaks on stage. Watching the video of his unhinging is a deeply troubling experience; it's a tragedy in three minutes. The virulence of his racism is both shocking and queasily familiar.

This video clip was recorded on the cell phone of an audience member at last Friday's Laugh Factory show in L.A. By the end of the clip, Richards seems completed defeated: a breakdown in 3 minutes. But he sure seems like he was haunted already. Despite all the creative license he is given to shock us out of our moral context, he cannot dislodge the power of the n-word, not for his audience, and certainly not for himself.

***

I can't wait for Thanksgiving. I am feeling stressed and behind in some of my work, but if I just think about school in terms of what I dreamed of getting out of it--then I and all of us are doing just fine. So, what are you doing tonight to build the beloved community?

Now I know what marigolds taste like

2006-09-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

I love you, Miss Em.

Happy 30th, J & K

2006-08-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

The Shoe

2006-08-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

P.S. "Live Rattlesnakes Released in Snakes on a Plane Theater." Aa-ah!!

Attention

2006-08-10T21:40:00.000-07:00

To the person in the big-ass truck behind me on Barton Skyway when we were coming to the crest of the hill, and I slowed down to 20 because I didn't have room to pass the bikers who were two abreast on our right, who felt the need flash his headlights at me and to LEAN on his HORN, in case he didn't get the message by my slowing to a halt, waving my arms around and giving him the finger:

CHECK YOURSELF.

Damn, just because you're in an F150 and I'm in a Corolla. I do NOT have all my Texas manners back yet.

JUMP-AH NYC Chicago Autsin

2006-08-06T18:35:00.000-07:00

On the plane ride home I was reading the SkyMall catalogue that sells personal oxygen masks and robotic whisker trimmers and things like that, and I came across a map of the world that comes with little pushpin flags so you can flag the places you've visited. (The sample map had 100 little flags popping out of the United States and Europe, and the rest of the world looked very empty and forlorn. If they're only selling the map to people who go to Europe, why not just sell a map of the U.S. and Europe?)

Anyway, it made me realize that I want a map of the world with a pushpin for each of my friends, kind of like Mrs. Weasley's clock that tells where each of her family members is at any given moment. A magic map!

There is probably already a program online that will do this for you, right? Here's one where you can enter your own travels. Witness my extremely regionally-bounded explorations. I had a layover in O'Hare yesterday but that doesn't count, right?

Create your own visited states map

I'm reading a book by Arjun Appadurai that a friend loaned me. He (my friend) is studying IR and I'm studying media and Appadurai is one of the places our syllabi overlap--there would be more if I were tackling media as a sphere of globablization instead of, you know, Veronica Mars and teaching Tupac in the classroom and things like that.

The first chapter made me think of this video for some reason. So here it is for you:

marfa and i have a date with destiny

2006-07-03T23:10:00.000-07:00

I saw The Devil Wears Prada over the weekend and I just want to say one thing.

Well first of all it's a very entertaining movie--although let me stop right there. Probably 50% of my pleasure in watching this movie was looking at the clothes, and that is not a universal pleasure. I love high fashion but I don't really have an explanation for that. It's some kind of genetic fluke. Anyway, be forewarned that part of the fun of the movie is the clothes, in case prolonged montages of one character walking down the street in many different outfits is not your idea of a good time.

Another, say, 10% of my enjoyment of the movie was witnessing other 20 somethings' post-graduate angst (and I would have squeezed in 5% for Anne Hathaway's bangs, but it got cancelled out by her -5% fire engine red lipstick in the denouement--no no not with her coloring).

That leaves a good 40% chunk for Meryl Streep's performance. In some roles I think she can come across as too mannered--I'm thinking of Clarissa in The Hours [which I think is just miscasting: you wouldn't cast Johnny Depp to play a mousy character who has a tendency to fade into the background, would you?], but here she practically underplays Miranda Priestly, it's awesome, the cerulean blue scene is awesome, she's compulsively watchable for every second she's on screen.

So with that, I have gotten to the one thing I want to say.

***Ahem. Spoilers Ahead.***

How many movies do I have to watch about women feeling guilty about their careers? HOW. MANY. There's supposed to be all this dramatic tension in the narrative about protagonist Andy (Anne Hathaway) sacrificing her relationship with her boyfriend, and her integrity, by working in a high-powered, demanding environment. Well, her boyfriend is kind of lame, you know--judgemental and whiney and passive aggressive--which most of us are at 22, and we have to learn how to be otherwise somehow, right? By getting dumped by our boy/girlfriend, for instance, or alternatively shaping up and realizing we will survive if our boy/girlfriend occasionally comes home late from the office. But in the movies, we never grow up because our boy/girl(read:girl)friend realizes the error of her ways and tosses her Blackberry into a fountain and apologizes to us all chastened over our morning coffee.

Also, Andy never sacrificed her integrity. In the last act she agrees to accompany her boss on an important business trip, taking the place of one of her superiors. This was supposedly a cut-throat move, for which she had to redeem herself. I call bull. If that superior were a friend, then there would have been an ethical dilemma, a conflict between her personal and professional life, in that decision. But her superior had always treated her like shit (in fantastically funny and endearing ways for us the viewers, since Emily Blunt is totally great). Andy got offered the trip because she was better at the job. Therefore, the conflict is between being a professional and being self-abnegating. That is no conflict.

The real conflict that a 22 year old woman working at Vogue would be subject to? Would be at least partly about class. About how worth is generated in the fashion/beauty industry by scarcity, and how that impacts us socially and culturally, and what it would feel like to be in the trenches of that machine. To me high fashion is a lot like, say, slasher movies--it's a hyper-real theatricalization of our society's anxieties and dysfunctions--but we don't really make movies about class in the US. So, yes, that is the thing I wanted to say.

P.S. The picture at the top of this post is of an art installation outside Valentine, Texas called "Prada Marfa." It is a replica of a Prada boutique in the middle of some ranch land. It must have been a trip to be one of those first people driving down that empty highway and then suddenly seeing that thing along the side of the road, huh? Here's an interesting Houston Press article about it.

new mexico

2006-07-02T09:50:00.000-07:00

The Wedding

We were at the gorge near sunset:

the river makes the road

2006-06-22T22:18:00.000-07:00

More photos and news from New Mexico soon.

In the meantime, breaking news:

Francis Capra (Eli/Weevil) on CW née UPN's Veronica Mars is Frank Capra's great grandson! Holy Smoke! He's no nepote though, this kid has paid his dues.

there's no place like

2006-06-09T03:13:00.000-07:00

This is straight out of my sister's livejournal:

let's take a look at the stack of books sitting next to me, shall we?

- the 4-day wonder diet
- mosses
- oswald's tale
- democracy without equity
- black children
- havana dreams
- the joy of mexican cooking
- love ruby lavender
- the cape cod diet & fitness program
- class struggle
- the simple living guide
- astronomy today

gotta love the staab house.

I can't wait for home.

commies*

2006-06-03T14:34:00.000-07:00

Laurel: If you divided up all the money in the world evenly, how much money would each person get?

Anna: How do you figure out how much money there is in the world? It's constantly fluctuating.

Laurel: Yes, but you could approximate.

Anna: How? What would it be called, the quantity you're looking for? Dollars in circulation? GNP? What quantity expresses the worth of all the money in the world at this moment?

Laurel: Google it!

Anna: I don't even know what to google!

Laurel: Someone else has to have thought about this already. I'm going to google "Approximately how much money is there in the world this second." (We wait .27 seconds.) Hmmm.

Anna: If you do dollars in circulation, does that include the value of the stock market? (Raising voice) What is the stock market exactly? Doesn't its worth change, like, every minute?

Laurel: Stop yelling!

Anna: I'm not yelling! (Anna stews in her complete inability to wrap her head around the most basic concepts of macro-economics. Laurel continues to fiddle with google.)

Laurel: Here it is! (Reading aloud) "Just for fun, I tried to calculate the wealth of the entire planet, and see how rich/poor each person would be if we simply divided the world's wealth by the world's population (six billion people)."

Anna: WHAT!?

Laurel (satisfied): I knew someone on the internet would have figured it out.

*Real commies would probably not have been so excited to go to Kohl's this morning for the Early Bird Sale.

In case you don't share my passion for badly sung standards and show tunes...

2006-05-25T22:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to the segment of the Idol finale last night were Clay Aiken does a surprise duet with his biggest fan, a hapless audition rejectee who can't sing but does anyway, bless his heart. Watching the elation register on this guy's face as he gets to sing with his idol is like mainlining human emotion, and it is the reason this show exists. You might think it exists to make fun of people like him, but I don't think that's exactly what's going on.

Now to paint my toe nails Fearless Fuschia.

Forget the Alamo

2006-05-24T18:12:00.000-07:00

Dispatch from the Valley:
Laurel and I had four days to shoot 25 movies with a cast and crew of 130 7th graders. (We went slightly over schedule because on the first day I lost my voice and got food poisoning. I, like, don't even know what to say about that. It's not even like anyone would have thought teaching middle school was a walk in the park, but seriously.)

We were working with two super-VHS cameras, editing with a VCR and remote control (a very blunt editing system, it must be said), with props provided by Wal-Mart and what the kids could make out of paper. Mainly, weapons. (Grulla MS prinicipal had valid concern about kids running around with fake guns, but a shame because most films involved a lot of death by shooting.)

What movies exactly were these kids making? Reenactments of important historical events. A lot of Alamo battles and, due to recent non-Texas colonial history unit, Boston Massacre/Tea Parties, as well as surprisingly dramatic renditions of the Townsend Act of 1767 and the Quartering Act of 1774. (Pivotal, but hard to dramatize. Students were up to the challenge.)

Highlights included:
* Miss Staab let the kids cut off a chunk of her hair on-camera for a Holocaust film. She and other concentration camp prisoners were then shot dead during an escape attempt. Definitely one of the grimmer offerings.
* Newly-discovered acting phenom Robert in 2nd period telling a village of colonists about the new Intolerable Acts:

Robert: King James put a tax on the tea!
7 Villagers speaking in unison, in style of Greek chorus: Nu-uh!
Robert: We have to do something about it!
7 Villagers: Okay!

* 8th period's 20 person, all-out Alamo battle, which included the death by torture of Davey Crockett (Miss Anna: Ok, just don't really hurt him), a triumphant Mexican soldier stabbing an already-dead Texas soldier in the heart (aka left armpit) with a Texas flag, and a final shot in which Santa Anna and his army crowded around a pile of fallen Texans and hollered together ¡Viva Mexico!

Lowlights:
* At one point while Santa Anna's army was setting up camp under the shade of a tree, I realized I was going to be visible in the background of the wide shot, and tried to make myself inconspicuous by turning my back on the camera. Did not really work. I kind of stand out as tall, confused/lost-looking White girl in neon pink t-shirt.
* During Columbus's discovery of the New World, we didn't have anything that looked like a ship so we tried to make one out of people. I laid down to be the deck, Orly raised his hands above his head to be the mast, Heather kneeled at the front to be the mermaid figurehead, etc. Upon review of dailies Miss Staab thought we were trying to act out an S&M scene.

Overall I think the project was a smashing success. We worked hard and had fun. And it made me want to teach. It looks hard: crazy hard. But Laurel is a little bit in love with her job, and it shines through.

A special prize to anyone who knows what movie the title of this entry is quoting.

the creek water is rising, at last

2006-05-10T01:24:00.000-07:00

I went to 7-11 last night to stock up on my last round of finals supplies, i.e. a pint of Ben&Jerry's and diet coke. I realize that's a little busted, I mean yes I can figure the irony out for myself, right?

So there's this young cop, chilling in the 7-11, like he doesn't have any denizens of Austin to protect. And he's all, hah hah, ice cream and diet coke. And I want to be like, bitch, you're not that cute. He's like my age. Is that all they let you do, rookie? Stand by the 7-11 counter and make comments on people's purchases? And then he says, all casual, you know, one of your headlights is out. And I genuinely didn't know that, and express surprise. He says yeah, better get it fixed so I don't have to pull you over. OOOOhh. You have so much power. The power to turn on your little flashy lights so you can get my attention to tell me one of my bulbs is burned out. I complete my transaction and polite conversation with the checkout guy and on my way out thank the cop. He says, get your headlight fixed. I say, yes sir, and he chuckles. And so I am stating here for the record: dude, I was not flirting with you. I was mocking you.

He was just jealous of my cherry garcia

the venezuelan coup is a subject of contention, the OC is gay (not in the bad way)

2006-05-02T21:05:00.000-07:00

If you were a set designer and you wanted to dress the set of a graduate student's room during finals week, you could use my apartment as a model, aka: there are stacks of paper layered across the entire surface area of the floor. You have to literally wade through paper to get from my desk to the bathroom, the only path I've had to walk lately, oh this is embarassing. Then there's the laundry, and the stack of dishes in the sink. I'm ashamed.

But, let me tell you. Ok, I presented one of my papers today, and that leaves one presentation and one paper to go. I presented on the gay OC one today. I was a little nervous about it--I wanted to make a strong argument but I also don't want to valorize the show too much--well I won't bore you here--ok ok you have to hear this though. I'm watching the OC with Spanish subtitles (I needed those DVDs. For research.) And here is the OC's title in Spanish: Orange: Vidas Ajenas which translates as: Orange: Other People's Lives. True, right? Anyway. If I could expand this paper, like if I had gone the TV route on my thesis, I would talk about the discourses of race and class on this show.

I know what you're thinking, you're like, the OC, it's the Whitest show on TV, right? But see, I would argue that Ryan and Seth are both marked as other within Newport Beach because of their racial hybridity. For Ryan I would have to completely rely on fan readings of his character as Latino, ie, in fanfic Ryan often speaks Spanish, cooks chimichangas, listens to reggaetón, etc., which actually makes sense in that the Chino version of the Cohens (Ryan's adopted family) are the Diazes, and if Ryan grew up with their family he would totally speak Spanish etc. For Seth, his position as half-Jewish is foregrounded. If Seth grew up in Scarsdale do you think he would have been an outcast? Because, you know what I think? No. I don't think the show thinks so. What would a television show that destabilized our understanding of the construction of race look like? Probably not the OC. So I would have to argue that fan readings of the show indicate that it does not go far enough, that readers are looking for texts that demonstrate the permeability of their ideas of "Whiteness" (and the romanticization of the non-white (ethnic? ghetto? what are people seeing here exactly?) White figure). Do you know what I hate? I hate when academics say, there are important racial dynamics at play in this text/medium but discussing them is not within the scope of this paper. Am I doing that, by writing about queering the OC, just because it's easy? What if no one else ever writes about race on the OC ever?

Sorry to ramble. I'm stopping now. And I'm taking a break until 9 am tomorrow, when it will be time to start working on Thursday's presentation. Gird yourselves against my feelings about the Hugo Chávez administration and, oh, I guess the nature of truth.

And in the meantime, I'm opening the next year of my life up to a vote. Should I proceed with my plan to research and write a thesis comparing media arts curricula in San Antonio vs. Austin public schools? Or should I write my thesis on the relationship between television producers and fans in the following TV shows: West Wing, Buffy, OC, maybe, like, Lost. The first is good for going straight into teaching at a primary/secondary level and the second if I want to apply to PhD programs.

Oh and finally since I'm talking about race on White TV shows, did you know Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia on Buffy) is half Mexican, half Cherokee? Now that I say it you totally see it, right? It's just that, I think there is still a value to pointing out that nothing is as all-White or as all-anything as its supposed to be. Racist systems are alot easier to combat when we can poke so many holes in these illusions of purity, I think. At least some of the "diversification" work we have to do is already done. It's the ways we think about race, the ways it functions, that have to change the most.

See? It's ok that I've never been skiing

2006-04-23T22:40:00.000-07:00

If God had wanted Texans to ski....
1 - He would have given them a mountain.
2 - He would have made BS white.

promise

2006-04-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

I did it today, with help from some new friends: dissolved the heat. I don't know quite what happened. Just now I sat out on the balcony and watched the thunderstorm for the time it would take me to smoke two cigarettes, if I smoked. I watered my plant, which is a year old now and completely refuses to die.

We had to move rooms in one of my classes today and so we sat in a room with windows, and I think it made me smarter. (Maybe it was the donuts?) Anyway I love staring out of windows.

shhh...I remember what I came here for

hot hot heat: an honest attempt

2006-04-17T19:20:00.000-07:00

Rolling blackouts today. We totally broke 100 degrees in April. Our planet is dying! And all I can do about it is wear short short skirts.

I am still banging away at this block of heat, trying to break it down into molecules.

I got the grant! I am going to be able to make a movie about the PoHo reunion. Please send suggestions/commands.

today's the day

2006-04-10T05:38:00.000-07:00

11 AM: Walk-out for immigrant rights. Meet at MLK building on east campus mall

4 PM: Rally at State Capitol

Read "The Iran Plans" by Seymour Hersh

heart like whoa, llama be love

2006-04-07T21:49:00.000-07:00

Do you watch vids? Do you, like, follow YouTube? This is an honest question: it has been brought to my attention that you might not. Well then this is a link for you.

You know how in 1997 we were all like, well, at least we know there'll never be a Titanic sequel? I present to you: Titanic Two: The Surface, coming this summer. (If you don't have a fast enough internet connection to watch the preview, we'll look it up the next time you're at my place.)

I saw Inside Man tonight and loved it. No surprise there. There are few actors in Hollywood right now who are anywhere near as good at what they do as Denzel Washington is. And Spike Lee is one of the only US directors who, throughout his career, has consistently mattered. If you give me any credit for knowing anything about movies, accept these subjective statements of mine. One thing I really like in a movie is a good beginning, and the beginning of this movie is fly.

The kids I tutor get knock-knock jokes in their homework packets, and they like to read them to me. (They usually have to have me whisper the hard words to them first, V. cute.) I now present to you Jacob's favorite joke of the week:
Knock Knock!
Who's there?
Moose!
Moose who?
Moose be love!

It came on a page of moose and llama jokes, and sometimes he gets them mixed up, in which case the punchline of the joke is: Llama be love!

In honor of Jacob, here's a NYC knock knock joke from Overheard:
Teen girl #1: So I gave her her piece.
Teen girl #2: You gave her herpes?
Teen boy #1: No, she gave her her piece.
Teen girl #1: Of chocolate.
Teen girl #2: Ha, ha, ha! "Gave her herpes." Her piece.
Teen boy #1: Herpes chocolate!
Teen girl #2: Knock, knock.
Teen boy #1: Who's there?
Teen girl #2: Herpes.
Teen boy #1: Herpes who?
Teen girl #2: Her piece of chocolate!...Hey, Milton! Knock, knock!
Teen boy #2: Who's there?
Teen girl #2: Herpes!...Milton, you have to say, "herpes who?"!
Teen boy #2: No.
Teen girl #2: You suck, Milton!
Teen girl #1: No, you suck.
Old woman: That's true.

--1 train

April: So Far, Not a Complete Disaster

2006-04-04T18:33:00.000-07:00

I have totally failed at about half the things I've set out to accomplish in the past four days. I figure, .500 is a really good batting average in baseball. You can call me slugger.

longing

2006-03-27T22:25:00.000-08:00

I have a sudden, piercing desire to know how to skateboard.

Estimated year in which I will grow up: 2016

PS (Since I know not all of you get to Overheard every day):

In a New York State of Mind

Woman #1: Don't you hate taking the train so early in the morning? I take it every day.
Woman #2: Could you not talk to me?

--A train

God: There's a good way?

Teen boy #1: Hey mister, does this train go to Manhattan?
Man: I think it's supposed to, but the N's messed up right now.
Teen boy #2: Yeah, the N train's totally gay.
Man: Yeah, and not in the good way.

--Queensboro Plaza station

celebrity look-a-likes

2006-03-20T19:59:00.000-08:00

If you go to this website you can upload a photo of yourself, and it will use a digital feature matching thing to tell you what celebrity you most resemble. You are going to be really really entertained by my results. Are you ready?

1. Kate Beckinsale
2. Michelle Rodriguez
3. Imre Kertesz (77 year old Jewish novelist from Budapest, male)
4. Michael Jordan (yes, that's right)
5. J. Lo
6. Molly Ringwald
7. Shahrukh Khan (41 year old Indian movie star, male)
8. Sinead O'Connor
9. Monica Bellucci
10.Grace Kelly

Now. Ok, now of course I don't resemble any of these people any more than they look like each other [except they did get the Molly Ringwald thing, which I am going to concede to them may not be completely off base].

But I think it's really interesting that they don't base this on hair, or gender, or skin tone. If this is actually based on matching features it's kind of intriguing that all of these people might get grouped together by a computer. Because it's a group that definitely belies racial categorization. And, I have big lips, and big cheeks, and going face by face in this group I can see the matchiness. I may be pale as anything and one of the only WASPs from New Rochelle but one look at my hair and you know I'm not the whitest page in the book.

I think if we could all find out our racial heritage by magic anyone who thought they were part of one "race" would be in for a surprise.

spring break!!

2006-03-16T22:37:00.000-08:00

Vacations are amazing. I wish this one would never end.

Texas Film Hall of Fame news:
* Ann Richards, we are rooting for you so hard.
*Matthew McConnaughey, you gave the longest speech in the history of the world. Did you really need to start with your conception? (P.S. "One fertile night in Plano..." is not a story. "Christmas Eve, 1979. My parents are hosting a party." That's how a story starts.) I still love you, though. Your pops sounds cool.
*Lyle Lovett, when I was a little girl and I read about your marriage to Julia Roberts in People magazine I wondered to myself, now how did that man get her? Now that I am a grown woman I wonder, how did that woman get him.

I spent the past six days in La Jolla and it was awesome. We were all, what do you want to do today? Go to Walmart. Wash the car. Go to Barnes & Noble and get lattes at the Starbucks cafe (twice--and it's a half an hour drive--I am ashamed). Go to HEB. Get the oil changed. Grill some steak. Read our books for six hours straight.

We went to the Holy Spirit Catholic Parish's Peace and Justice Affirmation Night in McAllen to hear Sister Theresa Kane (from the Bronx! Yes!) speak about peace work and gender equality in the Catholic church. Later we got into a conversation with a woman from the parish and heard about the struggles they are going through. They have a blog, because they are down like that. I think you all are brave, and we are holding you in the light.

ABC is making a US version of Betty la fea? I'm not sure what to think, except that I love America Ferrera. But I'm not sure Ugly Betty really has as much of a ring to it.

What would the world be like if Paris Hilton were still a brown-eyed brunette? We may never know. Actually maybe you are really high-minded and never wonder about things like that, but I am not high-minded. Oh, and you're right Laur, she does have a chihuahua. I still love Ginger, aka Luv Bug, aka the flea machine who kept you up all night barking for eight months and peed on your car. I love you Ginger!!!

Iraq

2006-03-16T21:36:00.000-08:00

Langley Hill Friends Meeting
"Tom Fox dies on a 'fairly quiet day' in Baghdad"

Now I don't particularly want to be tortured and killed and neither did Tom Fox seem to want to and neither, I'm sure, do the 133,000 U.S. troops currently stationed in Iraq nor the 26,000,000 people living there. I am tired of death--I am tired of this war. When I first heard about this kidnapping I mostly thought--please let them not die.

But I understand his work and I know he was not going there to die, even though he has, and I believe in it. Dude, I'm proud to believe in it.

So here are some links to event listings this weekend. I honestly did not think this war would see year three. Was I really naive?

AFSC
United for Peace and Justice

cowboy love story

2006-03-08T23:08:00.000-08:00

Did you like Amores Perros? Do you care about Texas? Do you care about the border? Were you a little let down that, after all the cowboy hype, the guys in Brokeback were technically more like sheep hands?

I saw The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada last weekend and I really loved it. As it started I thought, ohh, it's a cowboy love story! Not gay, but definitely love. It's about two cowboys who are friends, and one of them is shot dead. One of them is Texan and the other is Mexican, but those are very fluid categories, huh. So the one who's left alive has to carry his friend's body back to Coahuila, Mexico, to be buried. And he kidnaps the murderer and brings him along.

I care about all of the things in the first paragraph [except the last one, because, ehh, semantics, right? When people say Brokeback is about gay cowboys, what they're really saying is it's about gay men] and also I've been thinking alot about grieving lately, and this is a pretty powerful portrait of grief. It's about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but it's cathartic as hell.

Maintaining borders is hard effing work, that's what it made me think.

some oscar notes

2006-03-07T19:48:00.000-08:00

Fashion First
I love everyone who didn't wear black or beige to the Oscars this year, including J Lo. I know, her dress was pea soup green, but it was not beige. That being said, I thought Felicity Huffman in black looked amazing and I am listing her here as my number one, top favorite. Salma Hayek was bold and drop-dead as always, Michelle Williams chose this offbeat, kind of deco mustard yellow gown which I am coming down in favor of, and Amy Adams, who didn't get nearly enough screen time, looked gorgeous. Her dress was brown and quirky, which elevates it right out of beige territory, and it had pockets. When I was little my Dad told me designers didn't put as many pockets in women's clothes because it disempowers them and strips them of mobility. I mean, I was like 6. It made an impression on me at the time. I love pockets in women's formalwear.

Is it a coincidence that all my favorite dresses were on my favorite actors? No, the people I like just have good taste.

Oscar Highlights
* Dolly Parton's "Traveling Thru" performance

* George Clooney's acceptance speech (ok Mr. Suave, thank you for your unapologetic politics)

* Tsotsi director Gavin Hood's call and response "Amandla! Ngawethu!" with his actors in the audience, and his general enthusiasm

* Jon's "Oh no, Westerns aren't gay" montage, very fan mash-up inspired, I'm sure

Lowlights
*The other two musical numbers. Oh my God. The people walking around in slow motion among burning cars on the Crash number nearly killed me. "It's hard out there for a pimp" was a little better if only because the dancers weren't moving in slow motion. It did spark an interesting conversation for Elizabeth and me about what prostitutes wear/how prostitution is denoted in DC/Nashville, and whether, perhaps, there was any place in real life where they wear satin minis and afro wigs.

*Whenever one production partner talked too long during his acceptance speech so the other partner didn't get to talk. That sucks. And if you're a guy and you do it to your female partner, it makes you look like a sexist tool.

*Crash beat Brokeback. I would love to do a study of popular press coverage and see how much either of these two films triggered in-depth discussion of race and sexuality. But I think Brokeback was a stronger, subtler film. Interesting that both were made by those in a position of power in relation to the minority voices purportedly being represented, white writer/director for Crash, straight male director for Brokeback--and though I believe Annie Proulx is gay, no gay males writing/producing Brokeback that I know of. Even though Larry McMurtry is one bad-ass Texan.

big rock

2006-03-04T18:04:00.000-08:00

Want to know what it looks like to be on top of a gigantic dome of pink granite in central Texas? From today's climb.

continuemos

2006-03-01T17:28:00.000-08:00

I just found out that AISD has the same spring break as UT! I have a whole week off from work and school. I am thrilled.

I struggled a lot with a student today. He was very distracted, couldn't stay in his seat, couldn't stop playing with classroom supplies that weren't his, wouldn't clean up his work station. He was standing on his chair, and I started walking towards him sternly telling him to get down. He absolutely cowered, saying "don't hit me don't hit me don't hit me." Oh, guys. He's in second grade, you know? I talked to my supervisor and wrote it up and all that. It doesn't fix it though, does it.

ETA: I found the instructions for my faux proposal *tm megh. Media coverage of the 2002 attempted Venezuelan coup? Sound good? I was thinking about comparing it with coverage of the whatever the fuck happened to Aristide two years ago, but you know, I don't know if there was enough coverage of that to even work with. Unless I did, say, a close reading/comparison of maybe The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and The Agronomist. Is it okay with you that I am still working out my paper topic the night before the proposal is due?
__ Yes, and I love you
__ No, you ho

in which we discuss satin vs. georgette

2006-02-26T20:49:00.000-08:00

I went on a recon mission to David's Bridal this weekend to scope out their bridesmaid dresses, since Jess is getting married and has a coupon and wants us to be able to pick out our own dresses since she is the best bride/friend ever. So the chosen color is red, a color all three of the bridesmaids in question have been known to get down with, so good start. At DB they call the color "apple." It is full on red. Not like fire station red, just a little deeper, like my car red.

I learned some important things, namely: on the question of separates. There aren't too many choices in "apple," and the pieces in different materials clash, i.e. one cannot wear a satin bodice with a taffeta skirt. The colors are slightly different in each material and it looks off. It's too bad because some of their tops are cute. I didn't see any satin skirts but perhaps they could be ordered? After all what's the point of making separates if they don't, like, match?

This is just for me personally, not the other girls: I don't think I can work the full, floor length dress. You know, like the kind with tulle under the skirt to make it poof out? I'm just, like, too tall. I'm 5'8" in flats and the swaths of red satin a dress of that length entails...Helcat thinks it is uncouth to wear a short dress as a bridesmaid but, then again, why am I taking notes on propriety from someone who goes by the name Helcat? That question is up to Jess and the other girls. I know we were planning on wearing different styles in the same color--should we stick to the same length?

Here are some of the dresses I liked, with their style numbers if you click on the images. All in all I would be perfectly content with DB as the source, since I felt like they had plenty of options. Once we get the dresses out of the way we can get to the really important part: SHOES.

Empire waist (with bow) tea length satin

Halter tea length satin

Halter foot length narrow skirt satin (if we go long)

immunity

2006-02-19T17:31:00.000-08:00

I need to work on my immune system cause I am sick for the second time in as many months. Gross.

I have to say, the trailer for Idlewild looks great, guys. That's August 25th. OutKast is releasing a soundtrack from it perhaps Aprilish.

Overheard in New York

2006-02-12T15:34:00.000-08:00

Too Good to Be True, Too Dumb to Be False
Chick #1: NYU is taking over the city. Soon they're gonna have to
start calling it "New York" City.
Chick #2: It's already called New York City!
--4th & Broadway
Overheard by: Kelly Raz
Love.

ETA:
Dick Cheney accidentally shoots Austin man.
You lose at life.

Block Party

2006-02-10T12:43:00.000-08:00

WOW. March 3rd, 100 minutes of guaranteed happiness. See trailer here.

a thousand thousand

2006-02-09T20:04:00.000-08:00

I have a new job tutoring at an elementary school in Northwest. The other day in the cafeteria Morgan, who's 6, ran up and wrapped her arms around me. "You're mine, you belong to me! I'm going to take you home with me!" I hugged her and said "I belong to a lot of people, Morgan." I was kneeling in front of Rodrigo at the time, and he asked, "How many people do you belong to?" So I held up my hands and started counting. "My parents, my sisters, my friends, my relatives..." at this point I just started rippling my fingers to count five after five after five, "...my teachers, my bosses, the other students I work with..." "A hundred, right? A thousand?" he asked. "A thousand thousand?"

I have been going to a bereavement group at the health center. It's good. We're unfolding each other's stories so gently. My mood is this really fierce, fragile thing I have to feed all the time. Do you want to know how lame depression is? I am going to show you. There is a list in my mind of things I want to do this weekend. Each one of these things is like a little bit of medicine, a small inoculation, but getting them done is hard. So I am going to list them in a quasi-public space, to build up some obligation. Depression is the ultimate banality. What if it were a matter of life and death whether you got your laundry done? Can you see my eyes rolling from here? This is what I put up with from myself.

* Pay this month's bills
* Go visit my friend in Waco
* Finish my grant application
* Call my friend in El Paso
* Start the Edward Said reading I am presenting on this week
* Sunday morning dim sum at Marco Polo

I almost want to pat it on the head, the sweet little life I’ve been restraining myself from. When I list it I can see it so plain—this is what I want.

Each of us inevitable

2006-01-19T01:03:00.000-08:00

You whoever you are!
You daughter or son of England!
You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! you Russ in Russia!
You dim-descended, black, divine-soul'd African, large, fine-headed,
nobly-form'd, superbly destin'd, on equal terms with me!
You Norwegian! Swede! Dane! Icelander! you Prussian!
You Spaniard of Spain! you Portuguese!
You Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France!
You Belge! you liberty-lover of the Netherlands! (you stock whence I
myself have descended;)
You sturdy Austrian! you Lombard! Hun! Bohemian! farmer of Styria!
You neighbor of the Danube!
You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weser! you working-woman too!
You Sardinian! you Bavarian! Swabian! Saxon! Wallachian! Bulgarian!
You Roman! Neapolitan! you Greek!
You lithe matador in the arena at Seville!
You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus!
You Bokh horse-herd watching your mares and stallions feeding!
You beautiful-bodied Persian at full speed in the saddle shooting
arrows to the mark!
You Chinaman and Chinawoman of China! you Tartar of Tartary!
You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks!
You Jew journeying in your old age through every risk to stand once
on Syrian ground!
You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah!
You thoughtful Armenian pondering by some stream of the Euphrates!
you peering amid the ruins of Nineveh! you ascending mount Ararat!
You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the minarets
of Mecca!
You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Bab-el-mandeb ruling your
families and tribes!
You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damascus,
or lake Tiberias!
You Thibet trader on the wide inland or bargaining in the shops of Lassa!
You Japanese man or woman! you liver in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo!
All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent
of place!
All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea!
And you of centuries hence when you listen to me!
And you each and everywhere whom I specify not, but include just the same!
Health to you! good will to you all, from me and America sent!

Each of us inevitable,
Each of us limitless--each of us with his or her right upon the earth,
Each of us allow'd the eternal purports of the earth,
Each of us here as divinely as any is here.

--From "Salut au Monde!", Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman, 1855. Just an excerpt, people. There's a lot more, and a lot more exclamation points, where that came from.

"You keep your phone on, and I'll keep mine on."

2006-01-14T22:38:00.000-08:00

Making ends meet and maintaining loyalty

I mailed in my rent money on the 5th, which is totally late, right, I recognize that, it's due on the first, you have to pay your rent, I just had a little cashflow problem waiting for my next student loan check to clear...and dude they put an eviction notice on my door on the 6th. That is harsh. Laurel and Tom found it when they stayed here last night and were like...um...Anna? Did you pay your rent? Are you evicted? Cause this letter says you are and you were supposed to be moved out by midnight three days ago.

But here I am tucked back into my apartment, against all odds, safe and sound. I flew into Austin this afternoon. It was raining and turbulent flying out of New York, bumpy enough that none of the passengers would make eye contact with each other for a few minutes, but in Texas, blue skies. The flight attendent said Hook'em Horns! at the end of each safety announcement. My property manager was lovely, as always. She did not really mean it about evicting me. We ate barbeque for dinner.

A ver, a ver, a ver.

Tengo algo para decirte, pero no se si quieras escucharlo.

2006-01-13T19:34:00.000-08:00

Someone wrote that to me on a post-it note in a dream I had last night, and I woke up really pleased that my brain had used the subjunctive.

I also dreamed about horses, cows, and chickens in the yards of my suburban neighborhood, a contest with a tricked out pickup truck as a prize, death on a highway, floods in back country roads: my cousins and I clung to trees so we wouldn't get swept away. I remember the feeling of being engulfed in the current. I remember the monsters swimming below the surface of John Josephs Pond.

The mist has been heavy all day, and now it is raining. I have packing to do and an airport to get to tomorrow. It is hard to leave New York, since my time here has felt really good--all work and energy and rest. Alix and I walked along Prospect Park late at night coming back from a movie and all I could smell was Christmas trees--it was the mulch. All of these weeks have smelled like Irish breakfast tea, grapefruit and Christmas trees, and they've tasted like dim sum and Guiness.

I do want to hear it, whatever you have to say. Let's have 2006.

convalescence

2005-12-18T15:25:00.000-08:00

I am in a diet coke and maraschino cherry fueled recovery from the end of my semester, complete with sleeping late and daily bubble bathing. I've been skimming a lot of online news sites and playing computer solitaire while I have Fear Factor going in the background. Last night I cleaned the apartment while ABC broadcast the entire, uncut Sound of Music for all of four hours. There were many scenes in which the dialogue made a lot more sense than it did with the highly-abridged taped-from-television version I grew up on. But, in movie musicals, much like in porn, the plot is not really at issue.

Tonight I have two pairs of slacks to mend (I am hard on my pants) and a good pile of laundry to do. I am much more relaxed than I was at this time last week, with 30 pages left to write. I still had a wonderful time visiting Liz & Matt that weekend. I didn't tell her this, but hugging Liz goodnight, to me, feels like stepping into a time machine. Isn't it crazy? It's been almost 10 years, but I still remember exactly what it feels like to hug this person, and it's still the same.

I have so much work to do here in Austin this coming Spring, and it's hard to think about doing it here when I really want to ground myself on the dirty streets of New York. I HAVE to make friends here. I think. I think I have to make friends here. Real blood and guts friends. For all my fearsome independence and loving schemes for the future I am helpless without them.

damn! a snow day.

2005-12-07T18:39:00.000-08:00

To write this next paper I need:
1) Chocolate covered cherries and red licorice and
2) More sources

But I can't get either because the University Library got shut down early this afternoon in anticipation of a freezing rain storm, and yo, guess what we got right now. No kidding, a freezing rain storm. My car is actually coated in real, Texas ice. And guess what I don't have. An ice scraper.

I sat in my Corolla with the heat on and I thought about braving the zero visibility and slippery streets, just to get to the grocery store. I thought, this would be a good night for chocolate. I had just found out about the death of another PoHo friend, an old acquintance I did not know well but whose loss I feel--maybe it just makes everything feel more fragile. I turned the ignition off and slid my way back inside.

If I need sweetness, I have bread and marmalade and wildflower honey on the shelf. I am safe and warm and I have a paper to write by Friday. If I need more books I can get them from the library tomorrow. Tonight I am working with what I have.

Tom Fox

2005-12-02T21:32:00.000-08:00

One of the Christian Peacemaker Team members who was kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents a few days ago is a Quaker from McLean VA. His name is Tom Fox. He used to be an assistant manager at a Whole Foods, and he plays the clarinet. He kept a blog about his work in Iraq which you can see here. There's a Washington Post article about him here.

It sounds like he has also swum in Crum Creek.

My news: I got two final papers done this week. Three to go. 18 days till I fly non-stop into JFK. I am overly excited about not having a layover. My guy's article about spoilers got on the front page over at FLOW--yes! Actually now that I think about it I wonder if that's just because I was the first one to get an article posted. Hunh. How blonde am I. Well I will have to be extra-quick about posting his stuff from now on, if for no other reason than because I want academics to be thinking about spoilers.

eyes on the prize

2005-11-27T14:09:00.000-08:00

Bayard Rustin and A. Phillip Randolph

After ten years of licensing limbo Eyes On The Prize may be
broadcast on PBS and released to educators on DVD in Fall 2006. It is one of the most important films made in our lifetime and it was almost lost. Don't let this happen again! Tivo it! Save it on your external hard drives! You will probably want to show this to your kids.

Clodia and Juventius

2005-11-21T22:36:00.000-08:00

I sat for a while in a bookstore today reading some translations of Catullus. He was my favorite person to translate when I took Latin in high school because he was raw and sex-obsessed and funny as hell--really none of the other guys writing about how many Roman centurions it took to invade Gaul could even touch that.

And we didn't even get to see the half of it. Many of his poems were obscene by the standards of his day and have remained obscene by all standards for 2000 years since then. This boy was unstoppable. He was hell-bent in love with a woman historians think was probably Clodia, the wife of a Roman consul named Metellus. He calls her Lesbia in his poems, after Lesbos, home of Sappho, a 7th century BC Greek lyricist whom he admired greatly and whose work he translated. (Not many of Sappho's poems have survived but some come through Catullus's translations. She is one of the first known poets to write from the first person.) He also wrote love poems to a guy he called Juventius. He was pretty crazy about Juventius, but not QUITE as crazy as he was about Lesbia. He died, probably, not long after he turned 30.

Some of my favorite of his poems, though, are ones he wrote to his friends. Here is one:

Yesterday, Licinius, we made holiday
and played many a game with my tablets,
as we had agreed to take our pleasure.
Each of us pleased his fancy in writing verses,
now in one metre, now in another,
answering each other, as we laughed and drank our wine.
I came away from this so fired
by your wit and fun, Licinius,
that food did not ease my pain,
nor sleep spread rest over my eyes,
but restless and fevered I tossed about all over my bed,
longing to see the dawn,
that I might talk to you and be with you.
But when my limbs were worn out with fatigue
and lay half dead on my couch,
I made this poem for you, my sweet friend,
that from it you might learn my suffering.
Now be not too proud, and do not, I pray you,
apple of my eye, do not reject my prayers,
lest Nemesis demand penalties from you in turn.
She is an imperious goddess–beware of offending her.

2005-11-19T18:29:00.000-08:00

Ok, let's have it. I'm flummoxed. I have never quite been in the position in which I currently find myself. I am: constantly distracted, and completely divided.

I have been in Austin for nearly a year and a half now and life here has been dramatically inconsistent and unpredictable in spite of the monotony of some of my work. Those are some of the benefits of being a foreigner, I guess. Even if I'm standing in one place for eight hours scanning groceries, my brain is always buzzing with the strangeness of my surroundings. It never got un-strange. I really value this challenge.

Now I am in a graduate program where I get to read and think and talk about things that I am passionate about for my full time job. Three weeks into the program, Emily died. In order to process this at all and chart out any kind of recovery--God I want to do right by her so bad--I have given myself over to the love and connection that I feel with people back home. I hardly feel like I am here, in glorious Texas, at all.

How much do I need to be here? How important is it to be in the place that you're at? What about the fact that I have stubbornly refused to become close to anyone here? I feel so frustrated and clueless right now I could kick in a wall.

P.S. Pandacam of Butterstick very cute.

14th street

2005-11-17T17:07:00.000-08:00

Kicking up leaves
Love too big for one Fall

weather

2005-11-02T16:08:00.000-08:00

Last night I sat in Spiderhouse's light-strung yard for hours. My reading companion and I exchanged articles across the table. Her hand was sometimes tapping a cigarette on the ash tray ledge, mine was sometimes trying to balance hummus on a chip, without eyes looking up from our pages. Sometimes one of us would take a deep breath and look around. Sometimes we would talk. It got cold and we went inside, and sat on the big couch in the front living room. Now that sundown is coming earlier, the dark, when it comes, seems darker. And more like a world of its own, where the important parts of your day will end up happening.

I am weathering the days until I am with you. That is all, at the moment, for the time being, I am managing to do. But some times, during those days, I am so very happy.

ghosts welcome

2005-10-31T21:08:00.000-08:00

If you ever get a chance to see "C'était un rendez-vous," see it, see it, see it, see it.

"The complacency of fools will destroy them. Proverbs."
"Get out of my house! Exodus!"
I love King of the Hill.

Every major newspaper in Texas has called for a no vote on Proposition 2. Do you know what would be sweet? If it got rejected. How proud would you be of Texas? There's one thing you really have to understand about me. I love to dream. I really really love to dream.

My bed is a valley and I am nestled in tight. My room is cold from wide open windows and this afternoon's cold front. A few nights ago I had a dream that changed the way I thought about everything.

2005-10-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

As for Mr. Cheney: He will be remembered as the vice president who campaigned for torture.--Washington Post, 10/26/05 A18

I love early voting

"Moonbats Frothing Over Quaker Death Parties": That is an actual, actual blog headline. On Monday it made me laugh out loud! during blogging class. But now, it makes me kind of sad, because the death party is tonight, and I don't think I am up to it. I may just...stay home and drink mulled apple cider and watch baseball and wait to see if Rove and Libby's indictments get announced.

Man I have been missing you this week, everybody.

dawn

2005-10-13T22:24:00.000-07:00

I put up some more pictures of and with Emily. I am really sleepy but kind of feel like staying up all night, anyway. I have been getting up really early lately. I like to go out to the bus stop at 7:30 with the light all pale so I can sit and wait with the girl who sings along to her headphones. I like to pretend she is Emily singing to me. But this morning, I slept in, and my friend went across the street to get us breakfast tacos, and we sat at my new table and ate them and talked about where we want to live when we grow up. That was nice, too.

week continues

2005-09-30T07:42:00.000-07:00

At last, I am the person of the day at my sister's blog. I have been waiting for this moment since she first instituted the person of the day, oh, last week. Not only that, once she made our other sister person of the day I specifically asked when it was going to be my turn, not having noticed that she had already noted on her blog that my turn would be the next day, because that is how well she knows me.

Emily

2005-09-28T13:55:00.000-07:00

spin

2005-09-11T13:17:00.000-07:00

The Administration's political damage control plan has been to shift blame for failed the Katrina response from the federal to the state and local level, as described in the following New York Times article:
White House Enacts a Plan to Ease Political Damage

Salon has edited together a little montage of politicos and talking heads taking up this line here:
The Blame Game

Today on This American Life Ira Glass spoke with federal emergency and homeland security policy expert William Nicholson about this question of authority in the face of an officially declared disaster. Here is a transcript of part of this discussion. The full radio show (which is stunning) will be available on their website within the next week.

It really comes down to a couple of basic facts. The Governor of Louisiana declares a state of emergency the Friday before the storm hits, right, calls on the federal government to step in. Then President Bush officially declares a state of emergency in Louisiana the next day, the Saturday before the storm, and authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency to act. You can read the paper where he does this on the White House website. Basically, that should have settled who was in charge.

"After that happened, there was plenty of authority. There was all the authority in the world." We checked out this idea -- that from that point the federal government was in fact in charge -- we checked that out with several different experts and consultants on these issues this week and they all agreed that the law is unambiguous. This particular guy is William Nicholson, author of the books Emergency Response and Emergency Management Law and Homeland Security Law and Policy. And if you’re in homeland security policy you might want to check those out. He says that once the governor asks for help and the President declares a state of emergency the Feds basically have the broad powers to do what’s necessary. And he says, even if the President hadn’t declared a state of emergency, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Chertoff, could have acted. There’s this whole, newfangled way for him to take emergency powers under something called the National Response Plan. [Mr. Nicholson and Ira discuss federal authority to act without state authorization.]

Remember, you heard it here first. Remember you heard it at all.

mr. qt

2005-09-10T14:30:00.000-07:00

I am getting ready to go work at the second night of the quentin tarantino film festival. Tonight is all night 80's horror night, which I am celebrating with teal eye shadow.

I spent most of the afternoon in Book People doing my media education reading. I have the feeling that this class is one of those classes that change the way you think. I can't believe I am in one of those classes again. I can't believe my good luck at being so happy with life right now.

Edward R. Murrow

2005-09-03T15:25:00.000-07:00

Here's a good article on the news coverage of the Katrina aftermath in Slate. And I really liked this little P.S. at the bottom:

"Get this: Rush Limbaugh called me a liberal on his show yesterday for my Wednesday column about the news broadcasters' general neglect of race and class. Said Limbaugh, 'The whole purpose of this story for Mr. Shafer and these stories on these lower level websites that hopefully they think will percolate to the mainstream press is to eventually indict the American way of life, to indict the American culture, to indict the American society as inherently unfair and racist.'"
Yup.

"I guess we could root for the Texans and and the Cowboys. They're not in the same conference, so it wouldn't be a problem unless they both went to the Superbowl. [pause] An all-Texas superbowl [other pause] His will be done." --Hank, King of the Hill

gulf coast

2005-09-01T22:08:00.000-07:00

I feel like rioting. This week: I get up, get dressed, begins the day's projects of introducing myself at classes, mastering the city bus system so I won't have to drive my car anymore, going to work, signing kids up for afterschool filmmaking classes, signing up to volunteer at film festivals and to edit film journals--you know, my dream life. I come home exhausted at night and look at the day's news on the internet. And I sink into despair.

This past week in New Orleans has been like watching the September 11th attacks happen in slow motion--oh how terrible a plane crashed into one of the towers--oh NO another one that means this was no accident--wait, what do you mean they're falling?--how many people are going to die? And then the images hit and you are suddenly living in a country you no longer recognize as your own, and the horror is surreal. Except that took place in a matter of minutes, and this, hurricane is coming, city is evacuating, hurricane hits not as bad as feared, next morning levee breaks, city floods, and people begin dying before our eyes--all of this happened over days. At every step there were things that could have mitigated the disaster. Why weren't buses sent in to the city on Sunday to evacuate people who didn't have cars? Why weren't buses sent in to the city on Sunday to evacuate people who didn't have cars?

Race, poverty, environmental degradation, diverting first responders across seas to fight a devastating, ill-conceived war--we can all do all that math. But then, when the storm that everybody knew was coming hit, to just, leave people--and then what the fuck are we doing bringing them to the Astrodome? A football stadium is a sensible place to take cover for a few hours during a hurricane. It is NOT a fucking refugee camp. It's not a place you can house people in. Not in a country with so many houses.

come to me, september

2005-09-01T00:11:00.000-07:00

Classes began with great promise.

Some of the highways Laurel and I drove on a month ago are gone.

I went to every one of those big massive anti-war protests before the Iraq invasion started, but since I left DC I can hardly bear to have anything to do with Iraq. It is hard to remember how hard everyone worked. It's painful to remember how people made themselves keep hoping the war could be prevented, just so we could keep doing the work. When I went to those rallies with hundreds of thousands of people I would feel hopeful again, and I would go back in to the office and work as if there was still a chance. Now, peace rallies are memorials for people who died because we couldn't stop it. It makes me feel hollow. I am letting other people pick up the hope-stoking for me for a while. There were no Crawford trips for me.

But I did go see Cindy Sheehan and her compañeros today when they got to Austin. One soldier who came back from Iraq said "At Camp Casey I found the America I thought I had lost." Loving community/right to be heard=these things are capable of incredible feats of healing, I think. I don't love all of Ms. Sheehan's rhetoric and I am not optimistic about future prospects for democracy or stability in Iraq or a U.S. military withdrawal but like I said, that's why I'm leaving the hoping to other people for a little while.

the empire state

2005-07-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

So many of the conversations I have had in the past few weeks have been ones I have been fantasizing about for months: sitting down with people I have known for various lengths of time whose opinions and feelings I value highly, and trying to tell the story of this year. Drinking coffee during a rainstorm, eating onion soup in a french bistro on Bastille Day while someone in the background played "Brown Eyed Girl" on the accordion, straddling the rim of the wall in Washington Square Park imagining what the arch looks like at dawn on your way to the farmers market--such better conversations than I could have imagined on my own. What have I been feeling? Why did I break the continuity of my life so drastically this year--what was I trying to dislodge? Now I have wiser people's stories about themselves to stand in for answers. And so many reunions in familiar places to buoy my sense of self.

One more week! And then me, Laurel and trusty DC will be heading south.

Ok, here's an idea that we talked about at the Staab-Kelly barbeque that I've been kicking around for a while--does anyone have a mental list of their favorite contemporary--mmm, thinkers and visionaries and, you know, rabble rousers and comedians and culture jammers and statesman and whatever, people who express this historical moment for you or give you future-hope--a person who makes you feel like there's someone speaking for you in whatever layer of the public sphere they happen to be in? We should write them down! Who are your favorite people? Here's a very small start:

Jon Stewart
Arundhati Roy
Tony Kushner
Ira Glass
David Chappelle
Margaret Cho
*Molly Ivins* (go texas)

northeast corridor

2005-07-03T08:51:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in my yellow childhood bedroom--Laurel and I drove in Friday night at 9 pm and I could not fall asleep until 4 that morning. My mind was buzzing with being in this place that was so familiar that I had been so long away from. I sat up and read my high school yearbook and when I did fall asleep I dreamt about people I have not seen in years, who are now just around the corner from me, reachable. It felt like everything that has happened in the past seven years was happening at once.

austin austin

2005-06-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

I am sitting at lucky computer station #13 at the library and I wanted to let you know that #12 is a special unfiltered Internet station in its own black cubicle so no one else can see the screen from the sides, and you have to be 18 to log on to it. Which says to me, it's, like, the computer that you can use to look at porn at the library. And all the other things that get filtered out by bad-thing-and-idea blockers. That's awesome.

Il est plus honteux de se defier de sus amis, que d'en etre trompe.

2005-06-10T16:28:00.000-07:00

I don't know what this means. French drives me crazy. It is a romance language, it should not be so hard to get the basic, ballpark gist of one little sentence. I can plug this into babelfish and still all I get is that defying your friends is in some way being compared to a horn, which I could have gotten on my own, except for the tromp part, which I would have guessed meant trick, not horn. Isn't something like tromp de'leil trick of the eye art? All those vowels! And xes! I get so thrown off.

Ah hah. Trompe l'Oei. So, we're assuming, tromp is a completely different word. I don't know. I'm tired and hungry and ready to go home. My first weekend in ten months. There are all kinds of crazy self-punishing and self-indulgent habits I have gotten myself into this year that I am going to have to break.

retired

2005-06-09T16:24:00.000-07:00

That's right, I quit my cashiering job. At 8:59 last night I looked up into the eyes of a middle aged Latino man gently placing a couple of six packs on the counter and realized, this is my last customer. I smiled at him and was glad.

I'm going to work more hours at the evangelical Christian real estate agency, drink margaritas on the lake with Karla who is in town for the summer clerking at the Texas Civil Rights Project [no cracks on what a daunting project that is, please], and then go home for a month and figure out what the heck I am doing with my life. So much anticipation! So much suspense!

I can't believe I had one puny task to do today besides sitting here answering the phones in an empty office staring at the internet until my eyes bled, and it is 4:21, and I have not done it yet. I am an extraordinary girl.

The Indy 500

2005-05-29T13:44:00.000-07:00

...had an anticlimactic end.

I think I might quit my job. Speaking of anticlimaxes. But this is very costly insurance I'm paying against the possibility that I won't find something better.

come meet your life

2005-05-19T11:47:00.000-07:00

[Right now I am culling real estate broker contact information from a pile of property advertisements in order to send those brokers unsolicited business propositions, that is, spam. I am a spammer. True, it is a small-time operation. But I'm an ambitious girl.]

That is my real time report. What is really going on? Today is the last day of my internship at AFS. The things that are on my mind are Fanny and Alexander, which I am in the middle of watching, the judicial filibuster fight in Congress, and you.

I am in the process of reopening myself, in little incremental steps. Right now I just have my eyes on those steps, not in the actual feeling of change. And I can't see very far ahead of me. I am very, very awkward at life right now.

The ballad of anna, marlowe and abbey

2005-01-13T12:02:00.000-08:00

The puppies are fighting in their usual playful, bloodthirsty way. When Abbey gets in a bitey mood she looks like a little great white shark with ears pushed back--she doesn't snap her jaws, she comes straight at you and anything else in her way with mouth wide open. We all miss Morgan and Kristin, who are on a boat off the coast of Belize with no phones or internet connections and I hope Morgan isn't worried about us because all things considered I think we've come through the week in pretty good shape....oh good lord I just had to go extract Zilpha from a cat fight. Someone's going to be sleeping inside tonight. Really, Zilpha.

I'm reading The Paradox of Choice at the Borders next to Central Market. It's really good, and I hope Barry does not mind that I have not payed him the royalties he deserves by buying my own copy, but he was very supportive during our leg of the living wage campaign at swat and I'm sure he'd be sympathetic to girl living on one. Anyway one of the basic ideas is that the more options you explore the more opportunity cost accumulates for any one option, since once you go with any one you're missing out on all the other options you've already considered. So if you're window shopping restaurant menus, the first restaurant you go to can look perfect, but if you decide to compare it to a few more they may all look good in different ways and you end up losing the desire to go to any one restaurant in particular. When I read that example I realized I totally use that when I go shopping in order to keep myself from buying things. If I give myself plenty of time to peruse whatever store I'm in and imagine what it would be like to own lots of different things, in the end I lose the desire to buy any one of them in particular but I come away with the feeling that I've still been able to enjoy them, that they can be a part of me somehow, kind of like the paintings you visit in your favorite museum or the places you travel too. So there's my oblique strategy for surviving capitalism for today.

I'm tired and it's totally time for bed. I wonder if the puppies think so. Tomorrow is the kick-off at Travis High School for this semester's afterschool film program. I'm excited to see Christian in action. John, who was his apprentice this past semester, says he's really good, has a natural rapport with the kids, and is just an all-around cool guy who has written screenplays and has an encyclopedic knowledge of horror movies. Score. And speaking of bosses, I am the recipient of a leaked memo which indicates that Bridget is going to work for Oxfam for the next seven months on Darfur. I'm going to write her a letter.

2005-01-07T10:27:00.000-08:00

Carolyn Goodman is in the Washington Post today because someone finally got indicted for killing her son Andrew. Laur if you read this we have to remember to tell Mom. Also, we should make sure Hel knows because the other boy from NY, Michael Schwerner, went to New Rochelle HS. I feel like they should make an annoucement or something.

and now, for 2005

2005-01-06T13:43:00.000-08:00

The Tom, Laur, and Helcat Visit of 2004:

Number of full days off Anna had: 2 (woHOOOO!!!)
Number of rooms which housed 4 people for a week: 1
Number of trips to HEB during the week: 10
Number of trips to HEB if you count the times Anna went to work: 14
Liters of Dr. Pepper consumed: 6
Meals Tom cooked for us: 5 (breakfast tacos twice, tacos, quesadillas, and fried chicken)
Amount of broccoli purchased for one week: 1 pound
Amount of broccoli consumed: None. Nada. Zilch. As in, I have a pound of broccoli in my fridge.
Number of channels my previously lifeless television now receives thanks to Tom sticking a paper clip in the antenna hole: 5 (Do you see a MVP of the week emerging here?)

I had such a good time with you guys, like, poetry. Let's go climb trees in Zilker Park at midnight again soon.

Should I take you down like Christmas lights at the end of December--
It was cold last week, and now it's warm again, and the season of my grief for you is over.
My lungs and my palms and the arches of my feet were howling at me, but they've quieted down:
ENOUGH! Enough. enough, enough.
There was a strange spell on this past year:
Anything you think you lost will come back to you again.

mmmm

2004-12-25T21:39:00.000-08:00

What a good day. There's someone loving you in Texas.
Merry Christmas, Anna

down to the quick

2004-12-19T01:00:00.000-08:00

I am alive and in the tidal wave, my friend. You know how it is when you haven't slept for a few nights and in your tiredness you can actually hear the ocean roaring in your ears? I have an essay to write, and I have the worst case of writer's block I can remember in my whole life, so at this moment there must be something I really, really don't want to say. What is it. What is it. When I look into the future what is it that I see that has stopped me in my tracks.

surfeit...quaff...truculent...and all of middle school math

2004-11-30T11:00:00.000-08:00

These are the things I am attempting to learn today in preparation for my 3:30 GRE appointment. Did you know quaff means to drink deeply? I did not. That is wonderful. And worth the price of admission.

I've talked to my professors about recommendations. That ups the ante on this test, because now there are other people who are counting on me to go through this application process, whose hearts are in it. That's what makes a risk worth taking, isn't it? I didn't understand that in high school. I was just bitter against the incredibly lucrative but largely pointless (and completely class biased) standardized test infrastructure. I still am. It's stupid that some random company in New Jersey can decide that in order to even apply for a Ph.D. in the humanities I need to demonstrate my skill at quadratic equations. But, but. It's like a game, isn't it? A championship basketball game, and your classmates are rooting for you, and sure it's only a game but it counts for something, because your hearts are all in it together and if you win, you'll all feel good together. That's worth the risk of disappointing people.

tan lejos de dios

2004-11-25T18:54:00.000-08:00

tan cerca de los estados unidos

I am not actually in Mexico, but I am close. It was an amazing drive, a straight highway with sky all the way around me and plains full of sage in both directions. I have never gotten to drive that fast before. I got to La Joya just in time for Thanksgiving dinner.

Laurel on Boston: I don't hate it. I just don't like it. There are all these college kids. It's too white. And the roads suck.

Laurel on Connor Oberst: He's just a self-centered Mid-Westerner with no sense of humor.

Laurel and Tom are making fun of me furiously from the futon. That's OK, I'm going to find the link to Tom's blog and post it. Then we'll see what he has to say for himself, with his secret blog. I love these kids. But I'm going to need to find myself a new family in 1 (one) month as I am too poor to go home for Christmas and my parents are too poor to come here, and Laurel is abandoning Texas for the week. We are going to watch a movie now, either Tommy Boy, Punch Drunk Love, or...Lilo and Stitch. Tom has lots of great horror movies but Laurel doesn't want to watch any of them. No Evil Dead II for Anna...

moved.

2004-11-09T10:45:00.000-08:00

I did it.
* Miles between old house and new apartment: 1.5
* Trips between old house and new apartment: 5
* Garbage cans lost to rented Home Depot pick-up truck which was the aproximate size of my new apartment: 0, because although I ran squarely over the garbage can while backing into the driveway once I kicked it out from under the truck it sprang back into shape like the champion garbage can that it is.

I love my new place beyond all reason. I am still exhausted and anxiety-ridden after trauma that was last week i.e. nasty confrontations with now ex-roommate and much, much worse state of the world in general i.e. Fallujah offensive, Ivory Coast explosion, Palestinian government turmoil due to Arafat's failing health (possible opening for new peace process partners?) and the election of a president who is not equipped to deal with any of these things but is all set to privatize social security, continue rollback of all environmental protections, reverse Roe v. Wade, etc.

In the end my roommates were just not very nice people.

It feels like I just moved to Austin all over again, except this time, with jobs.

Gah

2004-10-27T06:57:00.000-07:00

I am a malleable kind of metal. If I work for eight days straight I get banged into a completely different shape of human. By Monday I did not know any longer what I was doing here or where my place on this earth was. What if the best part of my day is a fifteen minute break at sunset where I sit outside a grocery store and watch a few hundred birds fly in a circle over my head? Is that somehow lacking, or would that be the best part of anybody's day? Do I have the main components of a life here?

The things I have accomplished this week, though, are:
* Going for a midnight swim at barton creek
* Registering to take the GREs on Nov. 30 (gah)
* Getting a certificate for a free meal (yes) from the cafe by subbing as base operator at CM when Monica had to leave sick
* Not falling victim to the corporate mind control of CM's point-based performance rating scale which I have completely thrown out of whack by a) thinking that my Saturday shift started at 1:30 pm and being wrong and b) giving a guy the wrong change yesterday, which I do not know for sure I did but am almost positive of.
* Seeing Team America [and let's talk about the pussies dicks and assholes thing, ok? put it on the list]
* Watching the last innings of every glorious Red Sox game as soon as I got off work and getting customers to call friends on their cell phones to tell me the score during really key moments otherwise.

In two and a half short hours I will have my afternoon off. I am going to: edit the video that is due at 4; vote; take a nap; go watch The Office dvds and eat pumpkin pie with a girl I met at a party who I have been trying to make friends with, so this should be a good start.

power

2004-10-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

Electricity did get shut off due to lack of bill-paying, and I stayed with Morgan and Kristin for a week, but it's back on now and I'm back in the house.

I don't know where Tonja is but she took her internet-connected computer with her, and also all my cds (by accident). She left me a message to tell me she had them, but she's been gone for a week now and I'm a little nervous. I may already know what I'll be asking for for Christmas.

I got a new apartment, and it will be mine in the first week of November. I am SO excited to live in this place. It backs up to the greenbelt so it feels like it's in the woods, but it's just a block off South Lamar, with Sonic on one corner and Kerbey Lane on the other, and Maria's across the street.

Alex is moving all his stuff into storage and going to visit friends in DC of all places, where he may see my doppleganger on the street, because so much of my heart and head is still there, and that's OK. Moves take time. I may miss him, kind of. Or I may not miss anything about that house.

Morgan and Kristin have a new puppy named Abbey, and she is the greatest. Marlo has met his match.

Becca if you are reading this I need your mailing address because I have your birthday present.

My jobs still feel like an adventure, and they are where I am putting most of my time and energy. So far it feels like time well-spent. It's kind of cool to have built into everything I do so much room for the unexpected.

the devil I know

2004-10-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

My living situation has devolved dramatically. I am going to miss living in a beautiful house where people paint murals on the wall on a Tuesday morning and come to sleep if they need a place to crash among an ever-changing cast of d.j.s and body piercers and strippers and drifters and me, the 9 to 9 grocery store cashier.

There is nothing wrong with living communally, being a marginalized member of society and bringing down local property rates if you know how to take care of each other properly. But in the past week this house has seen angry exes banging on the doors and stealing shit, disputes over utility bills and drug deals, and fist fights outside my door at four in the morning. Also, Tonja talks trash about people behind their backs to me even when I ask her not to, and the other day when I came home at lunch she was using my pot as a bucket to mop the kitchen floor.

I have an appointment with an apartment locator tomorrow morning. I feel good about finding a place on my own. I've never lived on my own before. It may be the easiest non-decision I've ever made, but I come from a loving little dysfunctional family and it's hard for me to walk away from new dysfunctional potential families. Like so much of the past two months, hard but good.

In other ways the past week was awesome. I got to see Liz McGrew! and her fiance Matt at a belly-dancing show downtown, and Laurel and Tom came for the weekend and we went out for Mexican food and went swimming in Barton Springs, where they claim they were bitten by fish. I don't believe it for a second. Fish can't bite! Nibble, maybe. But, they have no teeth! How could they even get any purchase on your flesh with their soft, small little fishy mouths? And I went to see a Chantal Akerman documentary that was screening at the Cinematexas festival, and it was very good and she was very imposing and French. Alex and I had a talk about Life. Kerry seems to have won last night's debate. I had a nice time watching Star Wars DVDs with Charles during one of my refugee nights. I got some free lipstick that was misshipped to Central Market that is actually a pretty good color on me. What more could you ask.

mimesis. mimosas.

2004-09-20T23:45:00.000-07:00

That's what I want. To play with m words, enjoy the flattery of imitation, have champagne at brunch. The reality of my new schedule is sinking in. It's no joke. And I need a back rub. I wrote $60,000 worth of checks this morning, and I think I actually strained a check-writing muscle in my neck. I got kind of into it, actually. Here I am distributing hard earned money to people's pension plans in $100 chunks. I can get passionate about anything though if I set my mind to it. I was even inspired by the HEB company orientation program. On a Saturday morning. Sad but true.

I kind of like scanning groceries. I get to have some good conversations. It's a much more imprecise science than I would have guessed, grocery scanning.

Annie Lamott is writing her column again, just in the nick of time. I can't wait till this election is over, can't wait, can't wait.

All I think about anymore is sex and death. This is what happens when I don't have Buffy and office gossip to think about all the time.

perestroika

2004-09-16T13:13:00.000-07:00

I have a recurring dream about returning to high school. I'm still 20 or 23 or whatever age I am when I'm having it, but NRHS has discovered I never fulfilled all my science requirements and they make me come back. And I sit there in 4th period English, trying to remember if I'm supposed to go to pre-calc or chorus after this, looking around at all the teenagers around me, with a funny feeling that there's a class I've completely forgotten to go to all semester. And then I start to think--wait--am I really supposed to be here? Didn't I finish this already--and go to college even--and then graduate from that? And then go out into the world? No matter how far I've gotten some part of my brain thinks I still owe something to the high school gods, that I didn't do everything I was supposed to there.

I got to find out what it would be like to go back. My cashier training started tonight, in a classroom with desk-arm chairs and flourescent lights and 15 high school students, all of whom knew they were supposed to wear their uniforms to training (I did not). The teacher, at the front of the room, asking me to tell everyone my name since I was the only one without a name tag, calling out questions while people raised their hands, grading our pop quiz with a red pen. It was so surreal, you guys. I spent a lot of time thinking about who I was in high school. I also hopefully learned how to scan grocery items.

I wish I could post this whole essay since it changed my life, when I first read it on a train when I was 19. New Jersey Transit, not, like, a romantic train. I read it again today and I'm just going to give you the last three sentences because if I read them on their own, I'd probably disagree and maybe even get mad--isn't that great?

"Marx was right: The smallest divisble human unit is two people, not one; one is fiction. From such nets of souls societies, the social world, human life springs. And also plays."
--Tony Kushner, November 15, 1993