An interesting idea for a book: cockroaches plot to rid themselves of their unwilling hosts new more tidy girlfriend. I could really do without the countless racial stereotypes (not to mention the sizism). I'm really only finishing this book because I have this weird thing about finishing every book I start. I do not recommend it.

Edited to add: I'm a few more chapters in now, and I cringe every page. I've convinced myself that I'm going to burn this book after I read it, but I still can't stop.

Finding humor in the absurd

June 29, 2002

Cheney's going to be our president for a few hours tomorrow, so Bush can get anally probed.

"We'll have him ready. His colon will be ready," Tubbs said.

This time period in my life...1991

June 29, 2002

In 1991 I had purple hair and lived in Lubbock with my comic book artist boyfriend that it took me over a year to finally break up with even though we spent most of our relationship not really liking each other very much. During this time period, I was reflecting on my life in Chicago friends, events, and trauma.

You can read about it here, if you want.

Amazing Day...Amazing Women

June 28, 2002

What a great day, the better part of it spent with two inspiring mamas. We are plotting the revolution in my living room. There's just something magical about talking about fixing the ills of the world while children play and scream around you. And every five minutes, m came in to announce a fact from his Giant Book of Cross Sections. And c climbed up in my lap to be snuggled and climbed back down. And did this several times, just naturally flowing into and away from me whenever he needed to.

We have several things planned, some of which I will not discuss here. One of the things I can discuss is we are going to try to get a nationwide nurse-in going the week before the international nurse out which coincides with World Breasfeeding Week.

Here in Austin, Hooters restaurants have signs on them stating that KIDS EAT FREE on Saturdays. First of all - who the fuck brings their KID to hooters? And second...well...our idea is to get a bunch of nursing moms to have a nurse-in outside of hooters. We will be holding signs that say "My kid always eats free at my Hooters."

I think the reason behind this is primarily, Hooters is pretty notorious for being shitty about waitresses who are also nursing moms and need to pump (there are at least two court cases that I know of). And also...we just like to fuck with the idea that breasts are sex objects. Sure, they can be, but they do serve another, very important function. And much of the anti-breastfeeding bullshit comes from people (um, men) who desire to see breasts (and women) as their property. And that damn baby keeps getting in the way.

So, I'm sure I'll post more about this event in the future. We'd like to have this happen in as many cities as possible. I'm not sure if Hooters is strictly a US "phenomenon," but if they have them in other countries, we could make it nationwide. The only drawback for me is that it's extremely doubtful that c would actually nurse in public with all sorts of babies around. He RARELY nurses outside our home anymore. But I'm sure we'll find plenty of women with babies who are eager to nurse.

After the Nurse-out, I think we're going to focus on either child abuse (particularly spanking) or obstetrics. We're trying to think of fun and interesting ways to protest and inform...so if anyone has any ideas, let me know!

Captain Underpants by: Dav Pilkey

June 28, 2002

m loves this book, as do many many kids his age, I'm told. Lots of juvenile potty humor and revenge of the nerds type stuff. It's pretty fun to read, even for me.

World Leader Pretend

June 28, 2002

Do you ever have one of those days where you just want to visit all of the beautiful people you've ever known, just to tell them how much they influence(d) you? I'm finding myself wanting to visit the past selves of former and current friends, hug them, kiss them, and perhaps lay them to rest.

I'm feeling like it's absolutely revolutionary that I'm able to exist in my life as it is, feeling completely uncompromised by anything and anyone. I'm feeling so full of life, and yet so sad that so many of the wonderful people I've known through my life have had to compromise to get by. And perhaps I'm worried that, at some point, I'll be forced to compromise again.

But today I looked at each of my children separately, and I was just filled to overflowing with love and hope for them. I embraced each of them, tears welling in my eyes, and told them that I love them and am so happy to have them in my life. I hope they never have to compromise. I hope they grow up to be completely free.

REM - Green

June 28, 2002

I was listening to this last night, and it struck me very suddenly that this album is more than 10 years old. almost 15 years old. Is this really as timeless as I think it is, or is it a sign of my age that I find it so?

Of course, I will always associate REM with JS, who I blogged about in my reminiscing category this week. I remember he made a tape of REM and Big Country for me and I loved him dearly for it. I remember being at his work party, sitting on his car, and he was explaining to me that "The Finest Worksong" is not a love song. I know that's not on Green, but it's one of my favorite memories of J. In his working class clothes with his working class ideals, before he went to art school and well before he drowned himself in corporate america and lost (at least apparently) his artistic vision.

So maybe this is why REM is timeless to me. It represents a part of my youth that I choose not to forget, because if I forget it, JS and all of the others who shared our lifestyle will vanish. I'm keeping these memories alive to keep them alive, in hopes that they will return.

I love you, J. I always will. I just wish I could help you become who you should have been. Perhaps, one day, you will.

You are the Everything
"Sometimes I feel like I can't even sing (say, say, the light)
I'm very scared for this world
I'm very scared for me
Eviscerate your memory
Here's a scene
You're in the back seat laying down
The windows wrap around
To sound of the travel and the engine
All you hear is time stand still in travel
and feel such peace and absolute
The stillness still that doesn't end
But slowly drifts into sleep
The stars are the greatest thing you've ever seen
And they're there for you
For you alone you are the everything

I think about this world a lot and I cry
And I've seen the films and the eyes
But I'm in this kitchen
Everything is beautiful
And she is so beautiful
She is so young and old
I look at her and I see the beauty
Of the light of music
The voices talking somewhere in the house
Late spring and you're drifting off to sleep
With your teeth in your mouth
You are here with me
You are here with me
You have been here and you are everything"

m Wants to Say Something

June 28, 2002

A Poem About Mommy and Daddy and c and Twyla and Bela and Funnyface and Giusseppe and Kyra

I like to play checkers or chest
Then I really like to checkmate the other person's king on the chestboard
and I like to be king me when I am playing checkers
and now here comes the poem part

Well every time I play that stuff I dream of I'm really trying to play a lot at a time.
And I like to say "yeha" a lot.
And then I like to really be the best at mille bournes.
To Mommy and Daddy and c and Bela and Funnyface and Giusseppe and Kyra.

The. End.

Googled...

June 28, 2002

Someone came to my site yesterday via a google search for anarchist + diaper. Hahaha.

The best part is that I checked out the search (I was like 8 pages back, so I comment this person for their persistence!) and found this site.

Don't let this happen in your town...

June 28, 2002

While the number of deliveries at Brackenridge is growing rapidly, so is the crisis in providers for patients without private insurance. Not only are fewer ob/gyns delivering babies in public hospitals because of malpractice insurance rates, but more doctors are limiting the number of publicly insured patients they can afford to accept. Yet studies by the Centers for Disease Control and the National Center for Health Statistics show that deliveries by nurse-midwives result in fewer malpractice suits, as well as lower costs, lower infant mortality and caesarian rates, and higher birth-weights. Says Chamberlain, "It is a bad time to be discriminating against midwives."

June/July 1991

June 27, 2002

Reminiscing about reminiscing...I wish I had a scanner, because I have a great picture of my purple hair. I'll scan it at work on Saturday.

6/14/1991 1:51 AM Lubbock Bedroom
I met JS in the spring of 1988. There was a club in Palatine called Durty Nellies where, every Sunday, a bunch of punk rock bands would play. It was a nice environment where everyone was cool to everyone else & whether I liked the bands or not, I usually ended up having a good time.

There were so many people who I used to talk to but never knew their names. One such person was this one guy who used to wear a beret all the time. I'm not even sure what my connection to him was, and I never had a real conversation with him, but we spent a lot of time smiling at each other and saying "hi" & when things got rough in the pit he would protect me from the flying fists and booted feet.

I guess I met J by mistake. I thought his friend K was my silent friend and said hello to them at a couple of different shows. As a matter of fact, it wasn't until much later that I realized that K and my silent friend were two different people.

J thought I was cool because I had my own fanzine and was so "popular" with the punk rockers (all of my life, I have been accused of being popular, yet I've never really had more than 3 close Friends at any given time...) I remember that I was impressed because he smelled so clean. He smelled like freshly washed clothes. And he was very good-looking. After I met him for the first time, I spent a lot of time staring at him from across the room. He was very tall and very thin. He had a really strong jaw and these weird eyes that were sort of blue-grey. I fell into one of my typical crush things. I was totally absorbed in wanting to get to know this guy.

The day after I met him I went to work and talked with my Friend A 0 who I often went to shows with. A had this really strong personality and, although she was a couple of years younger than me, she liked to pretend that she was older and more experienced. She had seen me talking to J the night before and was all excited about the possibility of my getting "tight" with him. In order to scam on him, as she said, we'd have to come up with a plan. For some reason, I pretended to be really stupid and insecure about men and allowed A to instruct me as to what I should do.

The first time J and I went out...

6/14/1991 4:51 PM Lubbock Bedroom
J came over to take me out for the first time. I was on the phone with my friend, P, and she was upset (as she usually was) about her painful breakup with D. J coming was the perfect excuse to get off of the phone. He drove me to a private beach in Winnetka. We sat in the sand and talked. There was a beached sailboat that must have broken loose from mooring miles down the beeach. It was just this huge boat laying on its side in the sand like a dead whale. We were piling rocks on top of each other and our topics of conversation jumped from publishing to art to punk rock - J spent a lot of time talking about Native Americans. He was the first person I'd ever met who didn't/wouldn't say "Indians." I guess we did talk about nature a lot. And how, there were certain tribes who intentionally make mistakes when creating weavings of bead work because all things natural are imperfect. I was surprised and impressed by his sensitivity. I went home feeling very good about my budding friendship

(non-flashback aside: I'm so mad that I didn't finish this character sketch. J is still someone I have in my life, but he is such a different person now...I wish I would have written more about him here.)

6/20/1991 Around 11 PM Kitchen Club, Lubbock
Waiting for Air Biscuit/Snufalupagus show to start. The DJ is playing really stupid obnoxious Thirwell-esque music. There are so many people here that it's almost impossible to have a good time...at least we got in for free. I just wih we could have sat a little closer to the stage. From here, I can't even see the stage. A bunch of peole just sat down at this table - the place is packed to overflowing. A just went home to get stuff to draw with/on.

I had a weird dream last night. About D/A (I'm not sure who it was & I think at different points of the dream it switched, but it started off that someone drove us to a store similar to Michael's, I believe and they left without us because D/A was taking his time about looking around the place. Anyway, next thing I remember is walking down a street with D (I'm pretty sure it was D at this point). We turned a corner and suddenly we were on Highland, less than a block away from my mom's house. When we turned the corner, D saw a girl he had a crush on so he told me and as we approached her, he began talking to her. I kept walking, assuming it was a private conversation. A few minutes later, D caught up with me and took my hand. He said he felt bad because she only wanted to be friends with him and he wanted to go out with her. He said he was so glad we were Friends and then the dream ended. Weird. If A saw this, I'm sure he would assume it was the typical L wanting to get back together with D thing. I just thought it was a weird dream.

Anyway - not much has been going on. There are just so many people here - I kind of just want to go home, but I know it'll piss A off. I kind of feel like he'd be having more fun if I wasn't here or maybe I would have more fun if I wasn't here!

6/26/1991 3:30 PM Welfare Office - Lubbock
Stare at an object so long/with so much intensity that it becomes something else...then changes back again.

Eyes fixed
Jaw clenched gripping pain beginning in tooth shooting upwards. It is a pen a dagger a pen again blood dripping where ink should flow. Think something - anything. Now take that thought and meditate on it and see how it makes you feel. The most ephemeral thought taken to the extreme always ends in life of death. NOw FEEL something and take that feeling to the same extreme. It will make you sick make you kick make you cry out in terror.

The feeling I got when I first realized that nothing was absolute. Not even love. I hung on to love with both hands. I needed something to be absolute to be everything to make everything worth living. Clutch. And one by one my fingers were pulled back one by one the valves snapped year by year to month by month to week to day to hour to minute to this very second. I am here I am alone and with nothing to cling to. I am hollow inside and with nothing that can fill me to eat would make me nauseious to live fills me - but now only with fear. What is life without love - what is love without EVERYTHING. I know love without sex and here I discover love without emotion love without any tie save loyalty and/or fear. It is nothing to me. All of this feels nothing. I feel everything but when the everything is nothing all I can do is clutch and cry because all of my fingers are severed.

6/27/1991 11:10 pm Lubbock bedroom
A's out riding my bike down to the railroad tracks. He doesn't want me around anymore. Love seems so useless. It always withers - never grows past a certain point but I'm too scared and uncertain to let it go. I'm scared that maybe love really doesn't exist and that the ideals I hold - the everything that I want love to be can never be. It's hard and it hurts so much. Oh, where is love? Where is understanding? The whole world feels so cold and hard and unfeeling. With D it was sleep. With A it is art. I sat in here and cried, hard, for a full fie minutes yesterday while he finished inking, cleaned his brush, and then methodically and dutifullly came over here to wipe away my tears. When I was sufficiently calm, he turned on the TV.

7/2/1991 12:37 AM Lubbock TX
East 70 to Shaky West 5

The dust, it seems, has coiled itself around the tires of the Greyhound bus - pulling us backwarks into the flat grey lands of Lubbock. Backwards, it does appear that we are travelling back and forth among the changeless plain. Somewhere I saw a bird whose wings would surely have spanned the bus back to front. I saw the bird as a vision - a vision that at first appeared as a fish, hanging in midair as if some unseen fisherman cast line from cloud to reel it in flapping yet silent from the red dust crowned gold by mid-afternoon solis. Then suddenly the image-vision changed. For certainly it was a bird all along. 6-foot span with ends tipped up and not even hanging but gliding circling. And surely it could have taken the bus up in its glorious talons lifting us ascending to meet the great firsherman above. And the nearer we came the bigger it became until so huge in fact that it swallowed the road, our road, the whole dusty road between Lubbock and Chicago in the belly of this great bird fish wing-tipped vision.

7/3/1991 12:30 AM Lubbock
The Air around the flame...

He must've been about 6'6" and only weighed about 130. Stunk like a 3-day corpse and musta had fleas or lice cause he was always itching. He would just sit there and scratch all night and we would watch, half-afraid, half empathic, but neither half strong enough to act.

In Chicago, they cleared all of the mentally disturbed folds out of the halfway houses - and they had no place to go, so they became a large percentage of the homeless population.

They all found their way into Kinko's Open 24 hours at some point - especially in the winter where a warm chair in front of a typewriter was far less hard than a cold concrete doorstep or alley way.

His name was Angel. "Older than a can of Spaghettios" He was, at times, Mr. Magoo - at other times the pilot of the spaceship we were all fling in. He wasn't allowed in most of the establishments in the neighborhood, as he had a habit of dropping his trousers and giving himself the good lovin' no on eelse would give him. Somehow we could never kick him out, though. Not even after the time he was hauled into the station for bashing some innocent guy over the head with a motorcycle helmet screaming "That's the man! That's the man who stole my paycheck." He came back 2 days later with hospital wristbands on both arms to crah and drool on himself in front of the first typewriter. We knew his name was Angel even though at certain points I know he didn't know himself. I was frightened and fascinated. I would stay in the store all night while he was there for fear that he would follow me home. And the one night he sat scratching and threw up all over his shirt. Midwinter he walks in shirtless and shivering. D offers him a nice flannel, but Angel refuses to wear it becaus he thinks it is dirty...

I came home from work early in the morning after a third shirt stint. Found a parking place right in front of 802 W. Buckingham - the complext that was my residence, if not my home. I heard the screams the minute I opened my car door. It was a clear morning early summer breeze off the lake - a beautiful day by any measure shattered by a scream becoming a wail becoming a plea. "No, don't hit me please!" Followed by the sound of skin hitting skin. Maybe I was hallucinating, I justified my lack of action with - opening the lobby door. I did not know where the sounds were coming from until I entered my apartment. K Stood there in her nightgown. Had I hear? Had I heard the sounds? Both of us hoping the other would say "No, I did not" so we could pass into sleep without guilt. Both of us knowing this could not be our imagination. It grew very cold very fast and the wails and pleas grew louder, now joined by a man's voice "Shut up, Bitch." followed by more violence skin on skin, wood scraping wood as furniture was moved. And K and I stood there. The noises were downstairs, but what could we do? Call the police? Wouldn't that make him more angry? Go down there ourselves? What could we do? Both of us were paralyzed with fear and disbelief. Both of us were gripped with fear and guilt and nausea. How could we be so selfish to not do anything while the girl downstairs screamed "Help, no please don't!" In the city, everyone can hear you scream - but no one can do anything about it because they are all screaming with you. The most selfish thing I've ever done was to stand there and listen to that yet - even upstairs locked in my own apartment - I feared that man - I feared that if I went down there it would be ME I'd find screaming for help.

there is no excuse for not helping that girl - none. No excuse. And even though not 12 hours later she was happily kissing him at the door of her apartment, black eye blazing, I still feel tremendous guilt for doing nothing.

I walked home from work at midnight. North on Clark. Just past Halsted, a car honked its horn at me. I turned, thinking it was a friend, but no one I knew. It did not occur to me that I was frightened, as I was always frightened. I forgot about it. When I reached Belmont, I turned left and continued west. Someone drove by in a car with the window rolled down and yelled something. I didn't hear what it was that they yelled. It did not occur to me that it was the same car but I walked faster anyway. I do not know if I could ever make a man understand what it is like to be followed because you are a woman and this scares me. I do not know how to explain the fear that grips me when a man drives by and says somethign to me because I am a woman. It is a feeling of complete powerlessness. It is always being on the defensive, but feeling like you probably can't defend yourself anyway. The real pain is in knowing that a man either cannot understand or refuses to admit that no matter what his intentions, his words will hurt me. No matter how nicely something is said, when it is from the mouth of a passerby it will scare me.

I'm at the corner of Clifton and Belmont when I see the car again. This time I realize it has been the same car all along. The car turns onto Clifton and stops. A man honks the horn and begins to roll down the window. I do not know this man. I am prepared for such things. I have formulated this plan during many walks home at night. I continue walking down Belmont, rather than turning down Clifton. The man sees me start to walk and drives down Clifton, stopping directly in front of my apartment. The fear encapsulates my entire body. This person knows where I live. I'm becoming hysterical with fear. I run the half block to the 7-11 and purchase a candy bar. I do not want to go back out there, but I can't stay in 7-11 all night. The pay phones are right outside. I am less than a block from my home, but I am too scare to run all the way there in this thick night. As I walk outside to the pay phone, I see the same car leaving the parking lot. Luckily, the driver does not see me. It is an insane game of cat and mouse where I am the hunted. I call my apartment, praying out loud that someone answers. J picks up the phone and I am crying, barely able to explain where I am. It takes them less than a minute to get to me, and I collapse into his arms crying loudly. We walk to the apartment silently. When we get home, I collapse into bed. Somehow I manage to sleep.

My other roommate gets home from work at eight this morning. I wake up as I hear him come into the door. I hear J tell him of what happened. D says "She ALWAYS thinks someone is following her." Then comes into the room where I lay half awake and half numb by his words..."I hear you almost got raped" - the rest of me goes numb and I sob loudly while he tries to apologize, but the damage has already been done and is impossible to repair.

In the sunlight
Your antiseptic smile
eclipsed my face

7/11/1991 8:02 PM Lubbock Bedroom
News report says that a Chicago man fell asleep on an inflatable raft and awoke in no sight of land. Five days later, he was sighted 17 miles from the Illinois shore. They rescued him by helicopter...he was severely dehydrated.

Yay!

June 27, 2002

I. Got. A. RAISE!

It wasn't much, but considering I wasn't even sure if I would have a job right now, it was certainly nice.

Currently singing

June 27, 2002

This is a lullabye I've been singing to c of late. It's on one of m's old Kindermusik CDs:

El Coquito
When Caw-Kee sings a sweet song at twilight
He is singing as sleep comes to me
When I wake all alone in the moonlight
Then Caw-Kee sings good night from the tree

Caw-Kee, Caw-Kee, Caw-kee-kee-kee-kee
Caw-Kee, Caw-Kee, Caw-kee-kee-kee-kee
(repeat until child drools, eyelids flutter, and sleep hits)

Pea Rocks

June 27, 2002

What is up with everyone lately?! You are all just rocking! Pea has some great words about our consumerist culture here.

A dream come true

June 27, 2002

I have taken the children with me on every vacation I have ever taken, and I have never had any significant amount of time to myself in this house. Even during mommy-time, I pretty much have to split and go somewhere else to be by myself b/c L hates bringing the kids out and never has any money and just never leaves the house in general.

So, last night, L informed me that next week he's going to take both kids and take a road trip to his home town to visit his family. "Finally!" he said "You have a chance to hang out here by yourself." he said "I'll even bring the dog!"

What do you suppose my response was?

The continuing saga

June 27, 2002

For those of you who haven't been privy, I'm somewhat suspicious that blueroses and I are actually the same person living a double life. We are even on the same cycle

Freaky!

veggies in paradise

June 26, 2002

My friend Christopher sent me a link to this site

Abbie the Cat Has a Posse

June 26, 2002

Chrissent me here.

I laughed. I cried. I hacked up a hairball.

You blog too much. You never shut up.

June 26, 2002

I think I've blogged like 8 or 9 entries per day for the last few days. Certainly someone will tell me to shut up at some point...right?

Wow!

June 26, 2002

I can't believe this judgment was issued during the current pro-patriotic regime. Perhaps there IS hope.

(link courtesy of Kat)

Rest in Peace, Grandma

June 26, 2002

I wish I had known you better...

Domenica
A funeral Mass for Domenica "Minnie" Duro 87, of A H, was celebrated June 17 at Our Lady of the Wayside Church, A H. Born Nov. 14, 1914, in Chicago, she died June 14 at her home.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Carmen; and a son, Vess.
Entombment was in St. Michael the Archangel Cemetery.

Overweight or Underweight - They'll get you either way

June 26, 2002

I hung out with my friend N today, and her two kids D and J. J just turned two, and N is all freaked out because he "only" weighs 21 pounds. She has been freaking out about this since he was a baby. Her pediatrician insists that she feed him that pediasure crap and hounds her about his (and her older son's) weight at every visit.

This is so common. And it is utter bullshit.

So I told her: "N, if the doctor gives you shit about J's weight, I want you to ask the doctor exactly what is MEDICALLY wrong with the child. Because being over or under weight in and of itself is not a medical condition. It's just not."

I asked her: "How often does he get sick?"
She answered: "I don't think he has ever been sick."
I asked her: "How active is he?"
She answered: "Very, VERY active."

Now, I'm not a doctor, but it seems suspicious when doctor wants to sell a product to a child who is not showing any symptoms of actual illness. As far as I know, BEING overweight or BEING underweight is not a symptom of illness. Perhaps abrupt weight gain or loss is, but general stature is not indicative of health. This child has ALWAYS been small. His father is small. His brother is small. It's a small family.

I told her: "I don't think you have anything to worry about. He has always seemed like a very healthy, vigorous child to me!"
And, of course, she said: "That's what everyone always tells me. And I know it's true..."

BUT the freaking money grubbing doctor has to put her two cents in and make a mama doubt her intuition.

Hate 'em. HATE 'EM. hateemhateemhateem.

(and if there are any doctors out there who can PROVE that most "diagnoses" like this are NOT motivated by greed, please say your piece. I would love to think better of the medical establishment)

Renaissance Girl...also rocks.

June 26, 2002

Are you getting tired of this yet? It's just that there are so many rocking rocking bloggers out there! Thanks for this, RG.

Wish Lists

June 26, 2002

I was thinking that somewhere there MUST BE a bulk foods wishlist...so I could link to it in hopes that anonymous people could buy me 50 pound bags of rice and beans.

Which I suppose is all I deserve, seeing as I'm not showing my boobies to anyone here.

Lorraine rocks.

June 26, 2002

For awhile she wasn't posting frequently, so going to her site this morning and finding TWO awesome posts by her was like opening up a present. Thanks, Lorraine!

Update on Racist Elementary

June 26, 2002

After inquiring about how I would go about joining the PTA as a homeschooler, I was informed by several that I would have better luck either running for or bending the ear of the school board.

I have no time or desire to kiss enough ass to be on the school board, but I happen to work with several people who do! So, I'm bending ears like mad. I talked with my nicey boss last night and told him about what I heard. When I told him that the principal of the school had been there for 20 years, he immediately said "She needs to get out and move around!" and then when I told him about the classful of "emotionally disturbed" kids he didn't even seem surprised, but he did seem angry. He said he would find out what he could about the school...so I'm waiting for his assessment and then I'll figure out what I can do from there.

Did I mention how much I love my job?

m Rocks

June 25, 2002

m is insisting that I read him Little Women, so we are alternating between that and Captain Underpants. Strange kid. Maybe now he'll let me read the Little House series (my mom handed me down first edition hard covers when I was too little to appreciate it - and I promptly scrawled my name in them...yikes!)

He's also learning about life by playing Sims (although I'm not sure if he's learning the really important stuff)...today I told him I was going to work, and he ALMOST tried to stop me, but then he said "You have to go to work, because...no work - no money. And no money - no food."

Um, ok, m...it's a little more complicated than that, but that's a start. I guess I won't be buying HOT DATE any time soon. Maybe I ought to find the money patch for the sims so m can learn that it's OK to be an anarchist squatter sim, too.

Bink Rocks.

June 25, 2002

Read Bink. Particularly this.

And...oh, yay!

June 25, 2002

I thought that my boobies had all done dried up, but today when c accidentally de-latched, I had a brief gusher.

Hooray!

I am so paranoid about "early" weaning. I mean, the kid is 20 months and eats several thousand square meals a day, but I'm clinging to these breastfeeding moments, man. I know I'm going to be so sad when he weans.

Someone remind me of this when he's like 7 and still hitting me up for nummies and I'm freaked out at the end of my rope, ok?

Am I evil?

June 25, 2002

m keeps making this strange popping sound with his tongue. It's like an exaggerrated "T" sound & he walks around the house making this sound at various times throughout the day.

It drives me insane.

We'll be playing cards or just hanging out or I'll be reading to him, and he will commence popping and I try REALLY hard to not say anything because it feels so utterly bitchy and irrational that this bothers me so much, but inevitably I end up asking him to knock it off. This, of course, only encourages him to do it more, which pisses me off even more...

...and so goes our day.

Seriously, does anyone else have any weird aversions to sounds? Because m's always been into repetitive sounds/phrases and I wish I could just get over it, but I find it very difficult to deal with.

Diaper Butt

June 25, 2002

I just got some new diapers for c, and they are all clean and BRIGHT white and there is really nothing cuter than a glow in the dark baby butt pattering through the house.

Yes!

June 24, 2002

Can I hear a RIGHT. FUCKING. ON.?

Chris Woods

June 24, 2002

Dr. Mabuse pointed me in this direction...I thought his cover for Adbusters No. 32 was amazing...nice to see more work by him.

Eightball #6

June 24, 2002

I really love the black and white drawings and esoterical storylines. But my favorite feature has always been the random question/response from Duplex Planet.

Mothering May/June 2002

June 24, 2002

The racist editorial in the beginning (that I blogged about here) didn't get this issue off on the right foot, and really, it never recovered. I guess Mothering was great and inspirational when I was a new mom, and I hate to sound cynical or know-it-all-ish, but I've heard it all before. And I don't exactly like having to swallow it after the smarmy editorial.

A Question

June 24, 2002

What do you say when you are teaching a classroomful of students how to clean a mouse, and one of them asks, quite innocently:

"How do you know when your balls are dirty?"

Giusseppe, the cantaloupe eating cat

June 24, 2002

I haven't mentioned this, because I was hoping it wasn't true, but it appears that Giusseppe is gone. For awhile now, I was kind of thinking he had wandered into someone else's house and would be back once they ran out of cantaloupe, but now...I'm really sad because I don't think he's coming back. I've checked at the pound and I think I'm going to hang up flyers this week. But I really think someone took him home with them because he's cute and fluffy and very friendly. And I could never keep a collar on him.

The other day, cy and I were looking out the window in the bedroom and cy suddenly said "Hmmmmm....seppe? sehhhhhhpeeeee!?"

So, apparently c misses him, too. It's so so sad.

Not weaning

June 24, 2002

I was scared for awhile there that cy was trying to wean. I'm really not ready for that to happen because I know that when he weans, I'm going to want another baby...and I know L does not want one.

However, even though he's not ASKING for nummies as much as he used to, he is gradually starting to ACCEPT nummies when I offer. Mostly at bedtime or when there's nothing else exciting going on.

So...was that a nursing strike? Is that what happens?

business decisions/moral decisions

June 24, 2002

My impression of uberboss was uplifted a couple of notches this weekend when she initiated a conversation about the difference between business and moral decisions.

She used to work for Monsanto. Her job? Calling all of the dairy farmers on record to try to get one of them to say that BGH wasn't bad for humans. She had to quit that job because she just felt it was so damn unethical.

So we were talking about Monsanto and how evil they are. About studies that link increased breast size in adolescent girls to consumption of hormone laden milk. (I tried to find a link on this subject, and I was led to lots of sites describing animal experiments...and that pisses me off even more. In case you didn't know, there is a milk&beef surplus & really no need to increase the cow milk/beef supply...so not only are the fuckers jeopardizing our lives, and causing endless animals to suffer to "prove" their product is safe (or unsafe, depending on the sponsor of the study) but they are doing so completely unnecessarily)

...And about business ethics versus moral/social responsibility. I was pleased to hear that she knows the difference. She described a conversation she had with a friend where her friend refused to recognize that there existed such a thing as moral responsibility in the business world. Her friend kept claiming that he had a "fiduciary" responsibility to his investors. Never mind the social responsibility...because I guess money is far more important than people.

It's always, um, interesting to hear how people justify these "business" decisions. It seems as though a business person who feels that making outrageous amounts of money is necessary for survival would have to justify the means by which the money is made. Maybe it's a survival thing. A completely "evolved" worldview to support an addiction to lifestyle. I'm no different in many respects.

On the way home from work (I was driving!) I was listening to talk radio & someone was talking about human safety vs. convenience. They brought up the example of speed limits. If someone were to ask "at what speed could cars drive to ensure there were never any automobile accidents or fatalities" the answer would probably be 5 MPH. But that's too much of an inconvenience to your standard person. So we choose the risk of human (and animal, I might add) life over the inconvenience of not being able to transport ourselves quickly from one place to another.

Now, of course, this was AM Talk radio, so I was supposed to be led to believe that it would be ridiculous to even CONSIDER human safety over convenience. But I did consider it. It struck me as really freaking odd that we, collectively, have chosen to build our society so that cars are a near necessity for many people, in spite of the fact that they do cause people to die both directly through accidents and indirectly through pollution.

Anyway...this post is sort of meandering...perhaps it's too early for me to try to get a point across today. But I just thought it was interesting stuff.

And, there may be hope yet for uberboss...

Surfing on Sunday!

June 23, 2002

I've linked her before...this time I'm blogrolling her.

She led me here.

uMM...I hope I never have enough time on my hands to visit all of the sites linked here. But I was, um, bored enough to view a portion of the gummy dongs movie. (yes...it is a movie about, um, gummy dongs.)

I like the way she writes...

...also her

And this one has a neat layout...I like the mosaic at the top.

Suess has a blog now!

Because she's begging for people to read her blog...I figured I'd link her. hahaha.

I thought I'd linked here before...but just in case I haven't.

Nickel Creek

June 23, 2002

and, yes, I also listen to Prairie Home Companion. Hey, man...even punkrockers like to hear some righteous fiddle playing every once in awhile.

More of My Shit

June 23, 2002

If there is one thing I need to focus on erasing from my vocabulary, it's the word "crazy." I use it frequently and I use it lightly and I think it's bullshit for me to do so.

Today, while talking to my boss and co-worker about a client of ours who delivered to me probably the most negative feedback I have ever received, and who proceeded to complain about my co-worker when he took a class on her campus, I referred to him as crazy.

My boss asked "What's his name?" and when we answered...she looked sort of shocked. Then she revealed that he is, in fact, mentally ill. She knows this through a previous job working with mentally ill clients. In fact, she said, many many many of our clients are mentally ill and we don't even know it.

I was sort of shocked. And when I said out loud that I needed to be more conscientious about using words like crazy or insane or whatever about clients, both my boss and my co-worker just sort of laughed it off. I think they think I'm TOO sensitive or something. My boss said something to the effect of "To be honest, when you work with the mentally ill on a daily basis, you tend to become pretty cynical about it."

I don't want to be cynical. I don't want to shrug off my insensitive comments as being "a tool of the trade."

Obviously, there's another huge area of unlearning here that I need to work on.

A Saturday in my life

June 22, 2002

Read about it here

A Lovely Saturday in my life

June 22, 2002

7:30 AM
cy hits me over the head with a random toy that shares the bed with us. Is it morning already?

8:00 AM
cy eats a "cookie" (actually a graham cracker) while I try to figure out what to make of our empty fridge. The boys are eating so much lately. There is no fruit in the house...no potatoes...no raisin bran...no peanut butter...no leftovers. m is going to flip out when he wakes up.

8:30 AM
m is flipping out because there is enough to eat.

8:45 AM
A momentary lapse in sanity causes me to consider (out loud) the possibility of going to Taco Cabana. This gets m to calm down...but then I remember that the last time we were there they put BACON in our potato tacos. I remind m of this and cools on the idea of going...which is ok by me. I convince him that a can of garbanzos will suffice and promise that I will run by the grocery store on my way home from work.

9:00 AM
The children play while I get ready for work

9:30 AM
I leave for work. I have to be there early today for a curriculum meeting. My uberboss is already there, waiting in her car, when I arrive (she doesn't have keys). Have I mentioned how...tolerable...she has been since the 360 degree evals? I suppose that speaks a lot in her favor, in spite of the fact that she tried to weasel out of being held accountable by her boss. We talk while we're waiting for my co-worker to show up.

10:00 AM
Meet meet meet. Talk talk talk. Yadda yadda yadda.

2:00 PM
The meeting is over...the network is down...I make sure my management assistant knows what to do and go home. Stopping by the store on my way.

3:00 PM
I'm home. I walk in to find L laying on the couch watching PBS with c sleeping on his chest. When I'm done melting into a puddle on the floor, I gently grab the baby and carry him to the bedroom for his nap.

3:15 PM
m emerges from his room, and we talk for a bit...read for a bit...and start making our pizza. I tell him it's going to be punk rock pizza, and he declares that he hates punk rock...I turn on THE STRIKE anyway...and notice he is visibly enjoying the music. "Do you like this music, m?" I ask. "Yes!" says m. "It's punk rock, dude..." I say. "Oh, then I HATE IT!" says m. Thinking quick, I recover "awww...actually, this is ska." "Oh, OK..." says m, "That's a funny name for a type of music. I gather ingredients with his help. He runs outside for a sprig of rosemary and 4 leaves of basil.

4:00 PM
There's something about chopping vegetables while listening to someone sing "She's kicking ass for the working class." I'm not sure what it is, but some young upstart who claims to not like punk rock is not going to stand in the way of my enjoyment of it, damnit! I make the sauce for the pizza, and m helps me pour the ingredients for the crust into the bread machine

4:30 PM
cy is awake, and I'm rolling the dough into a cookie sheet. c sees me doing this, runs to the hallway where the playdoh is stored high on a shelf, points up to it and says "DOUGH! DOUGH!" I pull the play-doh down...happy to oblige! By the way, cy seems to like The Strike, as well.

4:45 PM
c brings me a round pat of play-doh and says "Cake! Cake!" and, as I start to pretend to eat it he says "Bwow! bwow!" So, apparently, he has made a birthday cake for me and I'm to blow out the candles. Pretty cool, considering there has only been one birthday party that c has attended in the last 6 months. It's kind of neat that he's starting to use his imagination now. This is a new thing. It is very very cool

5:30 PM
m is asking me to read Little Women to him. I oblige...but there is a very caustic odor emanating from the oven. I open the oven door and am rewarded with puffs of plasticine smelling smoke. Yick. I think c threw a piece of plastic in the over or something at some point and it's melted to the bottom rim. I take the pizza out and cool the oven down so I can safely remove the offending item.

6:00 PM
More play-doh play ensues. c keeps putting it in his mouth, and I keep putting it up as soon as he does so. then he runs to the hallway and screams that he wants "pay-oh? pay-oh?" So I keep giving him another chance. By now the floor is covered with chunks of play-doh anyway...and the playdoh is probably not nearly as toxic as the melted plastic air that we're breathing.

6:30 PM
I decide to relocate the playtime outside. We throw balls around, and check out the garden. Zucchini are growing, watermelon is vining. My garden resembles a small jungle...the tomato plants are growing all over the place and the fruit is heavy on the branches. I don't have enough cages, so it's all lush and bushy and beautiful.

7:00 PM
Pizza is done. Yum! It's very very tasty. We all chow down. L wakes up.

7:30 PM
m is taking forever to eat. I'm playing playdoh with c again...

8:00 PM
L whisks cy up so I can install House Party on the computer. m plays with his fire truck.

8:15 PM
c finds m's stuffed frog and exclaims "Fuck! Fuck!" (which is c-ease for Frog) L and I look at each other and laugh.

8:30 PM
I read some more Little Women to m...finish installing House Party, play more play-doh with c...and then play with pattern blocks with c. He hands me a triangle and says "ty-ankle?" and then he hands me the diamond and says "taco? taco?" and then he hands me the hexagon and says "chip? chip?"

9:30 PM
The living room is trashed, and it's time for c to go to bed. I get m set up to play Sims while I nurse c down.

10:00 PM
m tires of sims, so I brush his teeth and send him to bed early.

And here I am, writing, cleaning, surfing, and eating some yummy tropical source chocolate and watching the day draw to a close.

This is not my child

June 22, 2002

Me: Awright! Tonight we're going to make some PUNK ROCK PIZZA!!

m: What's punk rock pizza?

Me: It's pizza that you make while you listen to punk rock.

m: Awwwww...I HATE punk rock...it's my LEAST FAVORITE!

Me: *sigh*

41 years later...

June 22, 2002

"The limited education America has granted her ex-slaves has even already produced great unrest...no man with education equal to your own will serve you. The only way you can continue to rule us is with superior knowledge by continuing to withhold equal education from our people. America has not given us equal education, but she has given us enough to make us want more and to make us demand equality of opportunity."
Malcolm X
Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 24, 1961

Everyday Mysteries by: Jerome Waxler

June 21, 2002

What a cool book! This book has all sorts of pictures of various every day objects greatly magnified, and you have to guess what they are. Answers are included for impatient dweebs like me.

Clothespins for the Revolution

June 21, 2002

I'm in the process of inviting people to participate in the blog portion of Clothespins for the Revolution. It's about time we get it going, eh? If you don't get an invitation from me, and you are interested in contributing anti-consumerist, pro-mindfulness content (links, ideas, quotes, images, and articles) please let me know, and I will invite you. We are currently powered by blogger, but Cecily is becoming a queen of MT, so I'm hoping we can switch over soon (I'm supposed to be helping her, but I just have a FEELING she will be doing most of the important work...go look at how beautiful her blog is and you will understand why.)

An argument for shaving one's pits...

June 21, 2002

...because, after staying up embarrassingly late playing Sims, it is exceedingly unpleasant to be awoken by a small child who insists on yanking on one's armpit hairs.

(sheerly hypothetical, of course...everyone knows *I* wouldn't stay up late playing a computer game, and my darling little angel would NEVER do something painful to me upon waking)

Ack! I left stuff out!

June 20, 2002

I left out some of my favorite cy things that happened today (which is quickly turning into yesterday)

-sitting on the floor with cy and coloring for about an hour. He kept giving me crayons and I would tell him what color they were, and then he would say the name of the color and I would make a squiggle or a line in his little book. This is how he is forcing me to teach him the names of colors. Of course, the phone rang in the middle of this whole event, and when I came back, he had a blue mouth. Freaking crayon-eater. You know they know they're doing something wrong when they wait until you turn your back to do it. Goofy kid.

-Laying on the bed and watching cy dig around in his toy bin and hand me various small toys. At one point he found a foamy letter 2, and handed it to me. I said "That's a TWO!" and he did a happy little jig around the room that I called the "2 dance" and from then on, whenever I said "TWO DANCE!" he would stop whatever he was doing and do his dance.

A Good Day

June 20, 2002

Today was a particularly good day. We woke up without any trace of grumpiness, had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast (the kids are being extra super finicky about food lately, and some days I just do not even want to attempt to play the "guess what I want to eat today" game, so I fell back on the old standard.)

Then for awhile there...a pretty long while...I had the kids running around wearing silk scarves pretending they were butterflies. cy and I danced and sang along with a Kindermusik CD while m read a Richard Scarry book, and then I read the Richard Scarry book to m while c danced about the room saying "fwy fwy" (his word for butterfly) with his scarf tied around his neck, billowing out behind him. He always cracks himself up when he does this.

We had an incident where cy was climbing all over the couch and right as I was about to enforce the "no climbing on the couch because you could potentially fall on your head" rule, he fell...on his head. But the kid's head is made either of rubber or of concrete because he cried a bit and nursed a bit and then popped back up and started bopping around the house.

m, who was reintroduced last week to his long lost SIM THEME PARK game, has now been introduced for the first time to THE SIMS. Thanks, L. I have to say that Sim Theme Park caused m to think about and say the strangest things. For instance, when we went to Wheatsville for breakfast the other day, m looked at the menu board and said "Mom! They're not making any money here!" and later that day he told me that I was really great and he was promoting me to marketing director. I bet I'm the first person in the world who started out as an entry-level mom and ended up as marketing director on the whim of the Chief Executive Officer himself. hahaha.

Anyway, so I let m play Sims while I went to lay cy down for his nap. Only cy didn't want to lay down for his nap right away. He kept popping up and saying "FIVE? FIVE?" Which means he wants me to give him five. I'm not sure what this has to do with naptime, but I'm becoming concerned about the fact that he avoids nursing as much as possible. I'm starting to think that maybe he's weaning himself. He shuns the booby as much as he accepts it lately and it's difficult to tell if it's just a nursing strike or phase or if he's actually weaning. Meanwhile I'm like the booby pusherwoman...constantly trying to get him hooked on the goods, man.

So, finally I got cy to sleep, and shortly thereafter K came over. She had art class this morning, so we only got to hang out with her for a couple of hours. She and m played in his room for awhile, and then they dragged some toys to the back room to play after I asked them to please relocate the noisy play so as to not wake up c. They are such good playmates! I love listening to them together because they both seem to bring out the best in each other.

I did some blogging while they were occupied, and then I got up to make some hummus. I plucked 8 very ripe cherry tomatoes from the garden to put on the hummus plates. Yum!

m got a little antsy after K left. He just loves being the center of attention, and once he is not, he does whatever it takes to get the attention. Eventually, he will learn that it pays to kind of blend into the background every once in awhile. Until then, L and I just have to constantly remind him about appropriate ways to get attention.

I flaked on m's eye appointment today, and was worried that they would charge me. Thankfully I have the world's best doctor, and I would have to miss FOUR APPOINTMENTS IN A ROW for them to charge me for a missed appointment. That, my friends, is unheard of! Unfortunately, I had to reschedule for a couple of weeks down the road, and I'm nervous about m's vision still. His eyes still seem to be focusing improperly. I guess it won't kill anyone to wait. I honestly thought the appointment was for tomorrow.

Oh well. Right now I'm at work, and I've decided to "let" my management assistant teach today's class for me. He does a great job with Internet Explorer, and the students are currently doing a web scavenger hunt. In a little while, they will be heading into the server closet for a very basic explanation of networking.

It's Thursday, which is my Friday. And tomorrow, Friday, is the day that I get my mommy time. So, yay! Tonight I will clean the bathroom and take a nice, relaxing bath. ahhhhhh...

360 degree update...

June 20, 2002

My co-worker called yesterday to tell me something that she thought would make me laugh. She said that she heard from another manager in our organization that our boss, along with the other (a third) manager have been BEGGING the executive director to not take the 360 degree evaluations into account for their performance appraisals.

I'm not surprised about this, but I am surprised that my co-worker thought it was funny. Unethical behavior is not really very funny to me. I mean, I thought it was funny ironic funny, but she was expecting me to bust out in a big gut laugh and I just couldn't even muster a fake one.

The fact is that the MANAGERS were the ones who pushed for the stupid evaluations without consulting the other employees. They are the ones who mandated it. They are the ones who did not listen to us when we said we thought it was bullshit and stupid (and believe me, my co-workers and I did not hold back...but by the time we were informed, it was "too late" to change the procedure.)

In fact, it's this very unwillingness to listen to the front line members of the organization that caused them to be scored harshly on their evaluations. Yes, that is funny. I'm not laughing, though.

Workers Have No Rights

June 20, 2002

G came to class last night, visibly upset. She's one of my favorite students...she is only able to come to class two nights a week because she's taking another class the other two days, but she manages to stay caught up.

I asked her what was up, and she told me that she needed to ask me a favor. Her boss did not believe she was in school at night. Actually, what she told me was that her boss said she was too old to be going to school(!!!!!) and that she needed a note from us confirming that she was indeed enrolled because G has been missing weekly meetings (which are mandatory, and 2 hours long, but for which G does not get paid).

This is such bullshit, but I don't even have time to be appalled, because I'm too busy listening to all my other clients talk about how they are being required to put their DATES OF BIRTH on job applications, along with MAKE AND MODEL AND LICENSE PLATE NUMBERS of their cars (even for jobs that don't require driving.)

I guess employers don't give a shit about potential lawsuits or complaints now that people are desperate for work. Fucking fuckity fuck fuck fuk (I honestly was trying to write a post without using the word fuck, but I just can't - these fuckers make me so angry!) We have done some research on this and it's unclear whether these questions (which are even printed on applications for STATE JOBS) are illegal, but they are unquestionably unethical. There is no reason at all that an employer would need to know the exact age of a potential employee. The ONLY reason that an employer would need to know whether or not a potential employee owns a car would be if they employee will be required to use their car for work purposes.

Asking these questions on job applications is UNQUESTIONABLY discriminatory. Unfortunately, the people I work with aren't in a position to protest. Jobs are scarce, and no one has ever gotten a job on the basis of being a rabble rouser.

Anyone want to start a new freaking country with me?

My Zit

June 19, 2002

Not to detract from the lively political discussions going on here and elsewhere, but I have a zit that is large enough to have its own central nervous system smack in the middle of my forehead. It's driving me crazy. I rarely get zits, but when I do, they seem to be huge tumorous entities.

Not only that, but L can't resist poking me on the zit whenever he walks past me. He's been begging me to let him pop it since it first appeared, but I'm afraid that I would lose a dangerous amount of plasma if he did.

OK. That's all. Carry on with your day.

Is it any wonder...

June 18, 2002

...that ERASE is such a powerful organization? It was founded by Applied Research Center, which brings us ColorLines Magazine.

Institutionalized

June 18, 2002

PREFACE: I do NOT have the answers to the questions I'm going to raise here. There are plenty of people with so-called "higher" degrees of education (essay on the bogus "knowledge monopoly" of colleges and universities forthcoming) who get paid a lot more money than I do to solve these problems. I feel it's my job to point out the fucking problems. Perhaps some of you can tell me I'm full of shit and should stop worrying about this stuff, or even maybe some of you can propose solutions. Either way, I'm determined to join the PTA this year in spite of the fact that I am NOT enrolling my son in school.

My most horrific suspicions about the neighborhood school were confirmed yesterday. I met a woman on the playground who knows a great deal about the inner workings of the school and we had a long conversation.

The first thing I learned was that there is a large group of emotionally disturbed foster children, 95% of whom are of color, who are bussed to that specific school. She said that they are all in one class because the teachers are not equipped to handle their "problems" in addition to the needs of the other 25+ students in their classes.

WHAT THE FUCK?! This made me want to fucking barf right then and there. Here's what I'm seeing. A school that is 75% white (I don't know the exact numbers, but it's predominantly white)...you bus in some people of color...then you segregate them into their own class because they have emotional problems...and you expect the white children to draw WHAT conclusions about race? Does this FUCKING make sense to anyone?

Not only that, but what does it do to the children in the "emotionally disturbed" class? "Look, I'm sorry that your life is fucked up through no fault of your own, but we don't trust you around those other (white) children because you might 'disrupt their learning' or 'create a hostile environment.' So we're going to shove you all in one class so you can, you know, get used to being segregated and invalidated on your one-track journey through the many varieties of institutions in which you will no doubt be incarcerated."

Oh. my. fucking. backflipping. holy. freaking. maude! This pisses me off! And these foster children...who is on their side? Because I have met them on the playground. I have blogged about J (not the J at work, this J is a 1st or 2nd grade kid), who is so so sweet to c in spite of the fact that his horribly inept teacher (and I can't BELIEVE this insensitive PRICK is in charge of the emotionally disturbed children! It is he who has his back turned while the other children in the class punch, trip, hit and tease J.) constantly berates him in front of me while I try to tell him that he's a nice kid. And because our fucking school system wants to...what? Preserve the integrity of their alfuckingmighty standardized test scores? Prevent teacher burnout? Avoid potential lawsuits? What? Tell me, what is it that is more important than the future of these children who've already been dealt a raw fucking deal by life? What is it?

I'm so pissed off about this, I can't even fucking see straight. Not only is this segment of the school population segregated off, but also all of the spanish speaking kids are in their own class. Which I can understand might be important to the children who are just learning english and cannot be thrown into the "mainstream" english-speaking population, but isn't there a more radical approach to this? Isn't there a way to infuse the Spanish-speaking population into the english-speaking population without compromising either demographic? Shouldn't both languages be celebrated? Particularly here in Texas, where, god, it's a fucking life skill to learn Spanish (one that I damn sure wish I had).

What is the freaking deal? I really really understand why certain segments of the population would voluntarily opt for segregation. I totally believe that is the perogative of a group that could potentially be marginalized. However, this sort of enforced, institutionalized segregation stinks like horse shit to me.

Like I said before, I don't have the solution to this problem. I suspect the solution lies in a complete deconstruction of the public school system as it stands. Because a child should not have to be subjected to these labels and categorization. Because a child should not be doomed to fail before they even have a chance to fully understand what failure is. And because children should not be systemically trained to view other children (or themselves) as problems (and not just problems, but SOMEONE ELSE'S problems).

And if I hear one more fucking parent of a publically schooled kid tell me that my kids are somehow missing out on cultural diversity, I'm going to tell them to shove it up their ass. Because, seriously, if this is institutionalized learning's idea of cultural diversity...there really is no wonder that we are in such a fucked up place about race issues in this country.

I thought I would easily find a bunch of sites about systemic racism in our public schools. A quick search netted only ONE.

Thanks, "Jim"

June 18, 2002

This link comes courtesy of fertile_jim. And it's somewhat ironic b/c I spend my bus ride today writing an essay on race and institutional education in my head.

thanks, "jim."

No More Prisons

June 18, 2002

It occurred to me today that if I am opposed to the death penalty because of the inherent injustice of our racist system, then I certainly must also oppose imprisonment of any kind.

OK, so maybe I'm a little slow, but I'm slowly starting to understand some things other people have been telling me for a long time.

Why L Rocks

June 18, 2002

Last night I came home and there was one slice left. Just for me. He made pizza. I don't know how he did it...there's not a freaking scrap of cheese (not even soy cheeze!) in the house, but he managed to throw together the yummiest vegan pizza, homemade crust and all. I'm glad they at least saved me a piece. I mean...this stuff was TASTY.

Of course, I'm never allowed to compliment him because he always looks at me like I'm being a dork if I say anything nice to him. So I just sort of gave him a moonyswoony look. I'm sure I'll find a way to reward him later. I still owe him for the southern fried breast of tofu...even though he has not fixed my computer yet.

m's Quote of the Day

June 17, 2002

Today m accidentally left the water running in the bathroom after he washed his hands. Our bathroom sink is draining slowly, so when I finally noticed the water was on, the bathroom floor was completely flooded with water. I called m in, and showed him what had happened, and we both set about cleaning up the mess.

When we had finished, I told m he needed to be more careful about turning off the faucet because it wasn't a good idea to waste water. He said "I'm sorry." and I said "Don't apologize to me..." to which he replied "I'm not apologizing to you, mom...I'm apologizing to the sink. And the ocean."

randomWalks

June 17, 2002

I have to say that there seems to be a sudden influx of really good links on randomWalks. Not that they don't normally rule, but today they rule supreme.

Digital Empowerment

June 17, 2002

This is one of the lobbying groups that was much discussed at last weekends CTCNet conference. There is lots of information on their site about providing digital access/digital equality.

George W. Bush and his administration are walking around saying that the digital divide has already been bridged, and organizations like mine are merely equivocating about quality rather than access. I think the quote that's been bantered about is that they feel that it's an Mercedes divide rather than a digital divide. Meaning, we're complaining that those who are at an economic disadvantage are being given Yugos rather than Mercedes...the idea behind which is supposedly the vehicle is there and we're bitching about comfort.

As any of you who are remotely digitally savvy probably know, this is bullshit. There is a vast degree of difference between the digital equivalent of a Yugo and the digital equivalent of a Mercedes. Not to mention that neither vehicle is worth shit if no one helps you learn how to put the freaking thing in gear.

If you are interested in writing to your elected officials about the urgency of this issue, the digital empowerment site is a great resource of information about who to write to and even what to say. CTCs are a relatively new public service, and our piece of the pie is being eaten away by defense budgets. The advantage of CTCs over other public/social service programs is that we are really helping to improve the futures of people who are at an economic disadvantage. By reaching out to parents and children and providing them with access to technology and helping them learn how to utilize that technology, we are really helping to narrow the information and knowledge gap.

Freedom

June 17, 2002

I keep thinking about freedom and doing the things that I enjoy doing in life. Really, at this very moment in my life the only real restrictions I have are time and money. The paradox is that in order to have more of one, it means I would have even less of the other.

What am I willing to sacrifice for more time? I feel like I've already rearranged things to optimize my time, and the only thing I could do to generate more time would be to somehow become all-powerful and actually change the way time is measured...

What am I willing to sacrifice for more money? Not a whole fucking hell of a lot. I'm in a hole right now, financially. If I think about it too hard, I might freak out. So I don't think about it! In general, though...I'm enjoying my freedom. I'm enjoying being out of the rat race. I'm enjoying having a spouse who is out of the rat race, too. I've chosen to live this way, and I'm pretty damn happy about it, even if I do sometimes wonder how we are going to make ends meet.

I feel very lucky. I have lots of time to spend with my beautiful children. I have a partner who is supportive of my needs and desires (for the most part) and one whose needs and desires I can support (for the most part). I have a wonderful (free! Thanks kd!) outlet for communicating my thoughts and feelings (not to mention a pretty cool "audience" to add to and expound on and refocus them). I have a great job that enables/forces me to exist in a role of support and encouragement to others, not to mention the support and encouragement I receive from my clients on a daily basis. I have a roof over my head. Food in my stomach. I even bought a new backpack the other day (you can tell it's been a long time since I've spent any money on material items when I get totally excited about buying a backpack...and I HAD to buy it because my old one was literally falling apart!)

I have to say, there isn't much I can complain about right now. I wish I could thank everyone who has helped me to come to this place. I wish everyone could have a period in their lives where they could feel this free.

Silly Baby Tricks

June 17, 2002

Apparently, cy is also becoming aware of his nether regions. Another new trick of his is to balance on his head with feet on the ground and his bottom waving around in the air. He then pats himself and declares "BUTT! BUTT! BUTT!"

What can I say? The kid knows his body parts!

Oh, cY!

June 17, 2002

I've been running around all day cleaning up after and having various degrees of panic about the misadventures of cy.

This kid is all action. There are toys strewn all about the house. Random toys of random origin that cy grabs from random places, carries around for a random amount of time, and then randomly discards. Today has been a moody day for me, so I've been cursing under my breath about this all day.

Then there are the books. His favorite hobby these days is to pull the books off of the various bookshelves one by one and either throw them to the ground or bring them to me. There are books all over the bedroom floor that I can't ever put away because if I try to put them away while he is awake, he just pulls them back down immediately (I find that I can put them away SLIGHTLY faster than he can pull them down, but it feels totally frustrating to do so). If I wanted to put them away, I would have to do it during one of his naps, or after bedtime and...well...I don't want to wake him.

And, while I'm sorta bitching WHAT IS IT with his uncanny ability to scan the area in a microsecond and ALWAYS grab THE ONE THING in his reach that could potentially maim him. Somehow he managed to grab a pair of scissors in the car yesterday that I didn't even know were there. And, of course, it is a horrible injustice if I should try to remove these things from his grasp! The NERVE of me!

And MUST HE REALLY have to climb into the fridge EVERY TIME someone opens the door?

As the day builds, these things all start to build in me until my shoulders are hunched and I"m starting to gripe at everyone and everything. I don't want to hear any whining. I don't want to hear any freaking crying or screaming because I'm not responding with lightning speed to every freaking request or demand. I DON'T want to be touched, climbed on, or messed with. I AM NOT A FREAKING JUNGLE GYM.

And then, when it's finally bedtime, we lay down together. He refuses to nurse because he knows it makes him sleepy. He starts banging his head against the wall (not to mention ME) in an effort to stay awake. He wiggles. He giggles. He runs from the bed...

And then he does something completely new. He unfurls his tongue from his mouth, pants like a dog, and licks me. My pinched face unpinches. He licks me again. I smile...trying not to laugh. Again. I chortle. Again. I bust out laughing. I laugh and I laugh and I laugh and I laugh so hard I start to cough. He laughs too.

And then he snuggles up next to me and nurses himself to sleep.

Sunday Surfing...

June 16, 2002

Wiley Wiggins has a blog.

Pea has redecorated...and dangerous beans looks fantastic!

I'd like to come back here and read more when I have time

Talking about penises...with grandma? (I don't think I would know the protocol, either)

Cool! I found a site with cool pavement stones through this site.
(too bad I don't have any money...these would make really cool path stones...

Punk Rock Aerobics? He led me to it (although I'm pretty sure he doesn't "get" it.)

This site is simple and straightforward. I like it a lot.

She used to work at Kinko's. Are there any other Kinko's refugees out there? We're thinking of forming a support group.

And on a much more positive note...

June 16, 2002

I came home from my little mini-outing (cut short today because, well, it IS Father's Day) and asked m if he missed me. He replied:

"Yes! I thought you would never come back...I always miss you when you go away. And you are always beautifuller when you come back, even when you are just coming back from work."

Awwwwww!

Religious intolerance...Gotta Love It.

June 16, 2002

A child climbs all over a large statue of the Buddha in the lobby of a Chinese restaurant.

One of the parents turns to the other and says:
"You wouldn't let him climb all over a cross if you were at church."

The other parent responds:
"Yes....but that's GOD!"

(and, yes, this conversation was loud enough for all of the patrons and restaurant workers to easily overhear)

My Midwife...

June 16, 2002

My Midwife has a bumper sticker that says:

"Midwives help people out."

(I realize I'm not pregnant, but I still call her My midwife)...

The Strike - A Conscience Left to Struggle With Pocketfuls of Rust

June 16, 2002

There's something about blasting "She's Kicking Ass For The Working Class" while making breakfast for the children. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's one of those wonderful advantages of motherhood.

The Strike sound a LOT like Stiff Little Fingers, but, hey...there is always room for more than one raspy rock&roll band, right? This CD kicks ass, alright.

Train to Chicago/Van to MN

June 15, 2002

Bonus points to anyone who manages to read the whole thing. This is a really long "this time period on my life."

Mid-Late June, 1999

June 15, 2002

6/14/1999
The night began and ended with a yo-yo

As I ventured out of the house for a few hours of that alien concept freedom I thought "I don't really want to go to a coffee shop, but what else to do? Stuart's band is playing at Emo's, but I don't know if I feel like finding a parking space and meandering around 6th street by myself. I made a deal with myself, as I tend to do in these situations. There was no coin to flip, so I decided that if Toy Joy was open & I could buy a yo-yo, I would go to the show. A yo-yo was a good social pacifier & doubles as a mighty fine weapon as well if need be.

Sure enough, Toy Joy was open. I deliberated for a very long time before choosing what I thought was the appropriate yo of the job - a silver Yomega X-wing. I brought it to the counter & was informed by cutie boy cashier that the Millenium was the exact same yo-yo only it cost 7 bux less. I told him I was sorta wondering, but since I couldn't test them, I went with the brand I trusted. He scoffed at my reticence to ask for assistance "you should learn to ask for help!" he told me, pulling out a bucket full of yo-yo's of all shapes and sizes. I tested out the Millenium & found it to my liking + bonus, they had it in Lime Green. I told him I was worried the "auto return" meant that it wouldn't sleep & he again guffawed "You didn't know the brain was auto-return? That's the whole reason for the clutch system, girl. ASK QUESTIONS! It's the only way to get answers."

He said he figured I owed him one...about 7 dollars wortha one & I told him I'd catch him next time. Asked if I could "wear it out" & he laughed and discarded the box for me. I flung merrily all the way to the car, keeping that string around my finger even while driving.

"Alright" I told myself. "A deal is a deal...now you gotta go see that show." So I drove by Kinko's first to see if anyone I knew was working & no one was so I drove down Red river. I must've circled Emo's 6 times looking for a parking place that seemed suitable. Granted, Austin is not crime-ridden, but I wasn't feeling much like taking a risk for a last-minute thought. I actually had the car parked at one point, but noticed a drug deal going down across the street & felt it was prudent to move on. I dunno why Austin seemed so seedy that night. Maybe it's that it has been awhile since I was last on 6th street...or maybe the streets are more deserted/scary w/all of the students gone. But I broke my deal with myself & headed back up to the drag.

I still wasn't in the mood for coffee, but I was in the mood for pinball. I parked my car and walked to Le Fun - yo-ing all the way. A homeless person stopped me to talk about my new treasure (it occurs to me now that I could/should have given the yo-yo to him...that would have been nice.) I did some tricks for him and walked on. I played 2 bux worth of Pinball in an hour. Played Junkyard, Whodunit & Southpark - thinking all the while about how much I miss Creature From the Black Lagoon & Dracula & the Addams Family. I sucked pretty hard, although I did win 2 free games on Junkyard. On by skill and one by match.

When my quarters were gone & it was time to go home I pulled out the yo-yo only to discover it only to discover it was tangled. I pulled it apart & fiddled with the sting until it came untangled, but then the string broke. I had to improvise by guessing how to put the new string on & was proud of my seeming success walking down the street all cocky and upright. There was a cute punkrock boy (chain walled & everything) leaning against a building as I walked by. I figured I'd capture his heart by performing miraculous feats of yo-yo dexterity. I did around-the-world and *pop* the string came loose & the newly liberated yo-yo flew arcing through the air, landed in the gutter & rolled several feet between two bicycles & under a car before it laid itself to rest in front of my car.

Punk rock boy & I looked at each other and said, simultaneously "Well, that was a neat trick." I picked up the yo-yo, hopped in the car and, since proper punctuation had been added to the evening, drove home.

6/16/1999 12:07 AM
Feeling bad because so many computer problems...I busied myself teaching m all my favorite swears. m held fast though. He knew it was the computer I was venting at - not him. He busied himself with cooking mushrooms and onions crafted from Play-Doh and saying stuff like "Empty is full is empty is full."

R- called this evening right before I was to step out to the gym. Good old sweet R. He's going to see about picking me up from the train station and driving me to my mom's house next week. Says he has a pickup truck now. He sounds sweet and kind and disillusioned but still like my Friend and I love him dearly. It will be good to see him when I get to town & for him to be the first that I see & to spend time with him alone with m seems nice. Yes. My longtime friend. Twelve years. Almost half my life I have known R. Sweet heart of hearts. I am curious about his problems w/J, but do not want to pry. I'm sure we will have lots to talk about.

Ugh. It is late & I am to be at work early tomorrow. I would shower now, but will need the pick-me-up in the AM. Must sleep.

6/16/1999 9 AM - Taco Cabana, San Antonio
Thinking of D after side one of Social Distortion's Prison Bound left me in tears - the kind that stream down my face. I'm not missing him like I want him back in my life teh way he was long, long ago. Just missing his sillysweetsarcastic self and feeling complete and total heart and soul love for him - feeling somewhat insane that I don't know where he is. all these years I have always known exactly how to get in touch with him.

FOR CHICAGO -
What I NEED & Where to pack it
bandana
sm. pkg diapers (my backpack, front pocket)
Wipes("")
waterless soap("")

FOOD:
water bottle (fit in canteen)
juice boxes/rice dream/soy boxes
granola
just veggies
dried fruit
chocolate
crackers

CLOTHES:
me:
7 pr. underwear
3 pr. socks
new pants
3-4 t-shirts
sweats
wedding outfit
bike shorts

m:
wedding outfit
4 pr. socks
7 shorts & 7 shirts
hat/jacket

BRING:
Duffel Bag
Kelty
Sesame street backpack
my backpack
carseat

OTHER STUFF:
toiletries
book for me
tapes.

6/18/1999 4:30 PM Austin Kitchen
Gathering things for my journey I get a letter from my father ex-communicating me. I'm tired of the whole charade & how he feels he needs to get one last dig in. For once in my life, I'm going to refrain from trying to get the last word. I'll just let it slide. I do, however, need to get info on how to contact grandma. It'd be nice for m to know at least one member of the Duro clan & it's cool that his great grandma is still around. It's one of the many things I will need to do before I leave for Chicago.

6/20/1999 5:25 PM Austin Living Rooom
The Moral of the Story: It's Neat. You're not going to know devil devil heavy banging floor aneuryism oh yeah door weak world asking door lover man.

Glance askance this is the thing the deal is this and deadlocked on a horizon untainted everything murder low low. Pray for this prey on this dread pyre dread lover lips locked locked askance glance do dreadful living with this crawling. Bleak blinking a flash a flurry and

Nothing.

Crawling longer lame sick holding an atrophied in his hand silent in the corner a spy surveilling. A silent stranger scoping from sinister shadows - scoping sex in a sensual light - seeking scented sickness - scraping @ the still behind w/twisted claw hands but eyes are scoping scoping waiting scoping waiting.

Is this devil or angel and how to know? Something doesn't sit well in this scenario. Something evil resides here in this space of knowing too much and not enough too much not enough too too too much and not not never enough.

Feigned innocence or intentional ignorance. Searched special days out of place morning. Brought head around into confused stay. Eyes doubled tripled quadrupled you

out of focus in a nutshell fly-eye multiplying the image 4, 8, 16, 32, 64....

Deception broken pay in a tear-filled rendition of same. From beginning to end I am brimming I am brimming I am

Spilling forth foreward into retro babble sinister. Can it continue in heroic licentiousness? Can it continue onward over everlasting. Numb to this. Dread a dopamine highway and forever sleep sleep sleep fly sleep.

6/22/1999 10:30 in Amtrak Sleeper Car
m is listening to Sesame Street ont he headset & looking at pictures with the Viewmaster. Our porter's name is Charlie & he brought m a Tootsie Pop. He seems expansive and nice. A 6-year old boy stares into the window. His mom snips "Jeffrey" & Jeffrey says "What?" The train rolls from side to side. We approach storm clouds. It has been raining, so it is verdant contrast. My favorite kind of scenery.

m says "there's some DINOSAURS! See them?" He's looking at the dinosaur reel on the ViewMaster. He's talking loud because he has the headset on. I feel comfortable. Like maybe I might need to beg borrow steal an upgrade to 1st class for the way home, too.

Rains outside - Streams of water spattering diagonally against the window. I didn't get to kiss L goodbye. It was really sudden. Mr. Polyamory asked me where my room was. Maybe I'll get inducted.

To explain:
There was what appeared to be a polyamorous couple (?) (trio!) in the waiting area before we boarded. We ran into them when m gave his ViewMaster to their son. I had given m the toy to distract him & he proceeded to waltz up to the 1st available child and said "Here!" to which the child responded "Look, mom, look dad, look what that boy gave me!" Of course, I was right there saying "ummmmm...you can look at that...er..." Dad gave it back, saying "I wouldn't want him to forget to give it back." I felt like shit for being so possessive when m was being generous, but it's one of our only forms of entertainment on this journey.

Anyway, the family consisted of one man, who looked fairly average by my standards (how come polyamorous men are never drop-dead gorgeous or studly looking?) and two women. One plump, attractively wholesome looking woman with a beautiful plump daughter and two plump, wholesome looking sons. The other wife was equally wholesome and visibly pregnant. Her son was the one to whom m proffered the ViewMaster. She had another son who was perhaps 18 months or maybe younger. The other woman's children were aged around 14/8 (boys) and 10 or 11 (girl). the females were all