Book Purge

Moving is a great excuse to get rid of crap you don't really need, and most of it joyously: Goodbye misshapen umbrella, half-full bottles of shampoo and lotion, twin-sized Wal-mart comforter from Freshman year of college--you shan't be coming with me!

And then there is the crap which really should get retired, but you keep around move after move because you can't bear to get rid of it--which is why I'm still holding onto Things Fall Apart (appropriately, being held together with a rubber band) and a copy of The Blind Assassin that's been read umpteen times, lent to everyone I know, and chewed-on by an overexcited chihuahua.

In fact, most of my books fall into this "egregiously-used" category; that, plus the books I've "rescued" from other people's moves (!!) because they would have been thrown out. Surely I had good intentions at the time, but Guide to Texas Politics: you have been moved three times now and never once read.

This time around: Operation Show No Mercy.

Old Dog, New Tricks

M: "Baby, it's cold in here. I'm turning the fan down." [pulls fan chain once]
R: "No, see, this will be better...." [pulls chain twice]
M: "It was on medium! You just put it back on high! Why do you have to mess with everything I touch?"
R: [pulls fan chain three times]
M: "You didn't have to turn it OFF! I just wanted it on low!"
R: "Shhhh."
M: "Arrrgh."
R: "No, look." [Stops the fan with a finger, flips a switch, puts fan on medium.]
R: "See, now it will push the warm air down."
M: "No..."
R: "Yes. Feel it?"
M: "I don't believe you."
M: "You're making this up."
R: "No I'm not, you're supposed to reverse the fan in winter."
M: "Fans are reversible?"
R: "Yes!"
M: "No..."
R: "Yes."
M: "Explain the physics, please."
R: "See, the curved part of the blade can push air down if it goes this way, or up if it goes this way."
M: "I have never in my life reversed a fan."
R: "Well, you learn something new every day."
M: "Reversible fans. I'll be damned."

Nice Chatting with You... Not.

A wise person once advised me, in a break-up situation, not to speak or have contact with one's former beloved for at least a year.

I can understand the wisdom behind the idea: Out of sight, out of mind; time heals all wounds; absence makes the heart grow fond--err... nevermind the last one.

For me it's always been hard to stop communication, especially with the invention of cell phones and the resulting "drunk dial" or, more accurately, "drunk text" (even MORE dangerous). I'm a second-guesser and what-if?-er by nature, which does not lend itself to clean breakups. Plus I romanticize everything after the fact. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I really, really suck at being an ex-girlfriend.

After a certain spiraling climatic crash of self-induced ex-boyfriend mayhem this year (which none of you knew about, but I am now confessing), I grew sick of it; sick to my stomach, and out of rope with which to pull and be pulled around. I no longer craved the secret late-night phone calls and visits; nor did I desire affirmation from a past lover that I was still attractive and intelligent and lovable.

I had reached the absolute lowest point--that ground zero of dating where the only way to go is up; and the only way to get there is on your own. It was a slow and exhausting liberation.

And from there, it was easier to stop speaking than I thought it would be.

And much harder to start up again.

Love[seat]sick

This weekend I went to Austin with Richard so he could get more work done on his tattoo. Since dating Richard, whose "half-sleeve" is still a work in progress, I have learned that there are two distinct variations of tattoo pain: 1. the "feels like a cat is scratching you, HARD" fleshy pain, and 2. the elbow/ ankle/joint "bone rattling" pain. This weekend he experienced both, and I experienced neither.

In case anyone's concerned that I missed out on an opportunity to do something drastic, I did hit an important "adult" landmark: that of Purchasing Furniture Of Value (Not From IKEA). I'd love to say I was an excellent barterer, but anyone who knows me could have predicted that there was no way I'd leave the city without the fire-engine-red leather loveseat and matching chair and ottoman. (This is the closest approximation google images could come up with--but mine has cleaner lines and less puffiness. I hate puffy couches.)

I followed the important bargain-hunters advice of "don't worry how you're going to get it home" and we shoved half my purchase (chair and ottoman) in Richard's SUV. The couch is waiting until January 15, when I'll be in Austin again for work and we'll pick it up on the return trip.

"What's the big deal?" you say. "It's just a couch."

For all the apartments and rooms I've lived in, for all the mattresses I've slept on and dressers I've assembled (some with a little help from some wood glue and my friends), the tables and chairs I've salvaged from garage sales and consignment shops, I have never purchased any piece of furniture that:

1. I loved; or
2. I planned to keep around and in good condition for an extended period of time.

I'm trying to explain this landmark event and my newfound love for a shapely leather silhouette to my mother on the phone, and she says, "Does Kitty know not to scratch the leather?"
M: "She gets one free swipe and then I'm having her declawed."
Mom: "Ok."
M: "Cats don't like leather, do they?"
Mom: "Are you kidding? Cats LOVE leather."
M: "Mine won't."
Mom: "...Ok."
M: "I'll buy her a kitty condo. Three stories of carpet-covered amusement. I love this couch."
Mom: "I know."

In other landmark news, this is my first Texas Christmas.
Bring me glad tidings of good cheer.

Really and Truly?

The time is 6:09 pm. I am sitting in my office finishing up some meeting packets. Every night this week, I have left the office at 7 or 8 pm only to go home (or, more accurately, to the boy's house) and work more.

The phone rings. I consider letting it go, but answer on the off-chance that it's Ryan J. calling to invite me out for a drink (sadly, no can do, as I'm headed off for evening #3 of homework).

It is The President's brother!! On my phone!! We set up a time for him to meet with the executive director and he tells me he's sorry he called so late and I should go home and be with my family.

Really and truly, he told me to leave work. I sense a vast right-wing conspiracy. They want me to leave my work undone and go home and watch reality television that will rot my brain but I WILL NOT SUBMIT! I will work LONGER and HARDER! I will stay until 8! 9! 11! TOMORROW MORNING! TAKE THAT, PRESIDENT'S BROTHER!

I'm still riding my wave of righteousness when my departing co-worker says "Don't stay too late, Mary," and I tell her "Leaving now."

Death by Pepperoncini

I forgot why I enjoy Cafe Express, and it certainly isn't the overpriced salads and sandwiches. It isn't the buzzing "your food is ready" pagers, or the kamizake left turn across four lanes of traffic I had to make to get there from work.

I can sum up my love for Cafe Overpriced in two simple words: FIXINS' BAR. Kalimari olives, big juicy pickles, pepperoncinis bursting with tear-rendering goodness, roasted garlic, capers, banana peppers, chick peas, sun-dried tomatoes; all sizes and shapes of pickled marinaded toppings. For FREE! No joke! Any old joe could walk in from off the street, use the restroom, grab a breadstick and garnish himself silly.

...Although I guess he'd have to get past the four lanes of traffic first.

I h8 NY

Ok, not really.

But I am extremely happy to be home.
I mean, seriously.
Enough with the traveling.
Within hours of my arrival back in Houston--no, minutes!--I received 1. an invitation to lunch; 2. an invitation to be the voice of reason for apt hunting (my advice: look at at least three before you sign a lease); 3. An invitation to go bridesmaid dress shopping; 4. an invitation to bbq. Yes yes, yes, and definitely yes.

Prepping for a super furry busy week. Art crawl this weekend. Newton's law: an object in motion...

Voting, the epilogue, strikes back

An e-mail thread from earlier today:

From: David
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2005 10:47 AM
To: Jennifer
Subject: "It lacks any purpose other than to enshrine bigotry in the Texas Constitution."

Nice – this new amendment will allow companies to stop providing domestic partner benefits. Even for straight people. I hate Texas and George Bush. Let’s move somewhere!

http://blog.lgrl.org/archives/2005/09/houston_chronic.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jennifer
To: Ryan
Subject: FW: "It lacks any purpose other than to enshrine bigotry in the Texas Constitution."

Yuck

---------- message ----------
From: Ryan
To: Jennifer, Mary
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 11:04:10 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: FW: "It lacks any purpose other than to enshrine bigotry in the Texas Constitution."

i was really really upset about this yesterday.

i went and voted yesterday after work, and it was at the cute little elementary school off Fairview (im still registered in montrose).... it made me realize what a bubble i live in. Most of the fellow voters I saw at the school seemed like really cool sweet caring open minded folk. young and old.

and then N----- called me last night - he had been watching the polls come in.... he said 76% of texans voted FOR prop 2. i couldnt believe how high the numbers are. 76% are complete bigots. its really sad and frustrating. i feel like its the 1950's all over again. sucks to be gay. i feel like i am going to constantly going to have to prove myself for the rest of my life. to my family, strangers i meet, my work, my neighbors, my government. bullshit.

---------- message ----------
From: Mary
To: Ryan
Subject: Re: Re: FW: "It lacks any purpose other than to enshrine bigotry in the Texas Constitution."

I truly believe that 1. education and 2. gay/lesbian rights are our generation's civil rights issues.

It's not easy to live in Texas, but think of how important the work you do at the counseling center and IN YOUR LIFE is to what we can clearly see as an oppressed Texas minority (and by that, i mean the 20% who voted hell no). It would be fabulous to live in San Fran or any other smart liberal city in the country, just like I could have taught at suburban school with high parent involvement, but would I have been able to make as much of an educational impact to those people in that place?

Texas needs you. And me. And Montrose. And it needs people like us to BREED (Hahahaha) or adopt or whatever and bring smart little people into the world. Which is not to say that we can never move away, but I don't think we should feel like we have to.

Or should we all move to San Fran and cut it loose and live on a happy isolated island?

Voting Epilogue

I was relatively uninformed going into the polls today, knowing only three things/people I wanted to (and was able to) support: 1. Yay Mayor White; 2. Down with Bigot Amendment #2; and 3. Yay Peter Brown.

All those other amendments, I was like: no, no, no, Smith and Upser counties? who cares? no, no... I mean, come on. We're talking about amending the state constitution here. Leave the constitution alone! Don't mess with Texas, right?

This evening I consulted the League of Women Voters "constitutional amendments for dummies" guide and was pleased with all my decisions. I'm not advocating for being an uninformed voter, but sometimes, even in the complicated world of politics, common sense prevails.

Dear Texans,

Please go vote tomorrow against Proposition 2, if for no reason than its grammatical unsound...liness.

(I'm not at all sure that the previous sentence IS grammatically sound, but I'm not trying to work it into the Texas constitution.)

"Dear diary, Stopped four blowers today..."

The thing about the Menil's Calder exhibit it has all these amazing detailed mobiles hanging from the ceiling and NO MOVEMENT. Unless I'm mistaken, this sculptor is the same one who designed the big mobile that hangs over the entrance of the NGA modern art wing--the one that's constantly in shifting around from people coming and going.

So, being the Smithsonian snob that I am, I wanted to see these mobiles MOVE, and decided to take matters into my own hands. Before I had emptied the last of the air in my lungs and while the metallic parts were starting to come alive, a guard stopped me mid-blow: "Ma'am--NO."

We sheepishly hurried through the rest of the exhibit, but not before I protested loudly to Ryan that they should at least have a fan on or something.

Clues

The Myers-Briggs personality profile I completed recently for work identified me as an "architect rational," a person in love with systems, grammar, and logic; stubborn when it comes to defending my values and ocassionally aloof (although not purposefully so).

When I started this job, I thought the parts I would most enjoy would be working with alumni and writing corps member stories. As it turns out, the alumni part often feels like a big pain in the ass, the writing part scares me, and what I REALLY love are the money management aspects: tracking, cross-referencing, grant-writing, pulling good queries to inform our fundraising efforts, and watching the dough roll in.

In the continuing 20-something battle of "what, exactly, am I going to DO with my life?" I find this information surprising and invaluable. This is exactly why I wanted to work before going to graduate school. Nobody expects to fall in love with systems management, but sometimes our career skills and interests, like our love lives, do not evolve as expected.

Clues everywhere, if you're smart enough to spot them.

Facial

After six layers of goo, she says, "And now this is the moisterizer," which strikes me as hilarious, since she's already given me five or six products to massage, pat, circle onto my face. Turns out all those layers were NOT moisterizers at all, but rather guardians, tonics, calmers, soothers, protectants, and/or plantidotes.

...But no one else is laughing, and they all have perfect skin, and I have a zit and wrinkles. I shut up and moisterize.

edit: I feel compelled to say that I also spent $50. Sooo worth it. In a month, I'm gonna look like a teenager. Only without the acne.

Ineffectiveness at its Finest

Or, how I learned to love copydotcom.

Here is my photo taking situation.

I have a very expensive digital camera full of pictures for work. I cannot download these pictures to my work laptop for two reasons:

1. The work laptop does not have WindowsXP, which comes with a built-in photo wizard.
2. The work laptop is set up not to execute any .exe files except the ones that have permission from our national office, meaning that I cannot download the photo software that came with the camera without a big hassle.

My solution to this dilemma used to be as such: I would download the pictures to my home laptop and either upload to fruitcakebrigade.com or burn them onto a disc in order to get the pics at work. This is before my home laptop LOST ITS MIND and turned into an Alzeheimer patient. Now, we have the following problems:

1. I cannot upload anything to fruitcakebrigade.com because the ftp program doesn't remember who I am and now wants to charge me to use it.
2. I cannot physically view pictures that I download from the camera because my laptop has lost the ability to digitally render them. Now I just get the "drawing failed" message.
3. Even though I can't SEE them, the pictures are still there. However, I can't burn a disc because the little plastic bit in the middle keeps popping off and as such, the drive refuses to burn. Not that I could make a music CD if I wanted to, because I-Tunes is also playing the "do I know you?" card.

So after fighting the little plastic bit for a good half hour, I find myself getting in my car and paying copydotcom $1.08 for three minutes of computer use.

Which leads me to wonder...what's the use of OWNING technology if its only purpose most days is to piss you off?

And at what point, dear readers, after purchasing one crazy laptop after another, does a person decide to just throw in the towel?

Goodbye, October, don't let the door hit you on your way out.

0.08

The best part about purchasing my Smart Home keychain breathalyzer is not the fact that it took a month before I realized that I was charged and it was never delivered. Nor was it the phone calls which made me realize that my purchase was potentially embarrassing ("Ma'am--for the third time--are you SURE you never received your, ahem, keychain breathalyzer?"), or trying to explain to my friends why I would spend $60 on such a device.

The BEST part was getting the catalogue full of fingerprint doorlocks, baby-sitter monitoring teddy bears with hidden cameras, toilet seats with remote-controlled bidets and other Jetsons-esque devices which led me to realize these Smart Home employees deal with people way sketchier than I.

After a second-battle with the Fed-Ex people, my package is being delivered on Monday to my work address, where I will blow with pride.

Same Old

"How's Austin?" I asked her.
"The same," she answered, with the unspoken understanding of "as here."

I have recently been fantasizing about running away and starting life in a new city, and her testimony hit home the fact that a new location won't erase problems. Until you work out all your stuff or simply let it go, it will hitchhike along with you.

Depressing, no?
I miss my friends.

Last night I watched the Scattered Pages play at Brasil's, two tables away from where I sat with Lana on one of our first outings in Houston. They were called "Good People" then, and looked and sounded different. They're every bit as charming as they were three years ago, but the city feels different to me: worn like a comfortable pair of jeans, raggedy hems and all. On those days where every familiar place feels like a landmine, I have to keep reminding myself that in a city of four million people, there are places and people yet to be discovered.

And in the meantime... gay boyfriends who will drag my ass off the computer on a Friday night to go to a sketchy club to see some band called The Pasty Skinny White Boys. SCORE!

Tracks

I've been wearing a suit to work for the past three days. And when I say "to work" I should really say "around the city" because that's where my TFA Week visits have taken me: extreme easts, souths, centrals, and west to this place called "Alief"... some of you Houstonians may have heard of it. In order to visit our corps members in their schools, I had to take my "never leave the loop" rule and throw it out the window.

In the process of outer-looping, I crossed a heck of a lot of railroad tracks. Trains everywhere, it seems, and construction to match. On my first visit to a high school in the Heights, our guest teacher was soon interrupted by metal clanging against metal from the renovation happening outside. I could listen to nothing else, but the students seemed immune. How long, I wondered, had they been living day to day with this constant noise pollution? (Before you chalk this up to an inner-city plague, I'm reminded of my freshman year in my suburban high school and the semester of seemingly constant fire alarms.)

From high school seniors to second grade... to seventh grade... to kindergarden... to third grade... to the Rice University mansion noshing on fois gras served by hot, hot wait staffers (who ARE those guys? are they students? YUM--and i don't mean the fois gras). If I were on Sex and the City, my evening would have ended differently; as it stands, I am the only one who gets to appreciate the fine craftsmanship of my suit... which the cat is now shedding on.

Each school had a different sense of community, different rules, different layouts, but every single classroom I visited had a sense of urgency present on the walls and in the air: We will reach our goals. We MUST reach our goals. Powerful testimony to an organization I am proud to be part of, one that I've crafted a living around for four years now.

I haven't been knitting or reading or doing much of anything extracurricular except coming home and collapsing, but I have been throwing my everything into this job. I am aware that I need balance to stay sane, but I also realize that the "balance" may not be 50/50 today. Somewhere along the way I lost myself to boys and unhealthy lifestyle choices, and I'm thinking that keeping this focus isn't such a bad thing for now.

Perhaps "Write EVERY DAY" is more than 10 percent. Let's aim for three times a week.

F*ck the suit. I'm going to change into jeans, grab a notebook, and go accept an invitation.

10 percent change

Towards creativity:
Post something every day. It doesn't have to be good. It doesn't have to be substantial. It doesn't have to make me feel better or impact anyone else, it just has to be new, and it has to keep coming. Also, guys, the comments have to go. Nothing personal. It's just gotta be all mine. Send me e-mails instead.

Towards family:
This one's tough. How to increase 10 percent when I'm already 50 percent in the hole? A card. A phone call. Say something I'm afraid to say. Yeah... start there.

Towards quality relationships:
Go somewhere completely new once a month. Alone if necessary. Instead of going to that place with the crowd full of emotional baggage, find a new place with new people. Not every time. Just once a month.

Two weeks ago I did "personal and professional alignment," which I shrugged off as bunk, but I was impressed by my manager's "10 percent changes" (ie. once a week, have lunch w/husband).

Last Friday, I engaged in "art therapy" with four relatively new people. Refreshing. We collaged, and I slept well.

Today was beautiful and cold. I wore my new jacket. I sat on a blanket in the sun and we had "work" outside while action planning for the week.

I saw a friend I don't see often enough.

I bought a new suit!

I went through the entire cycle of grief in one instant messenger conversation: shock, denial, anger, depression, acceptance, and finding a good listener. (I like to keep my small silly personal tragedies brief, concise, and fully documented.)

And tomorrow marks the first time since I stopped teaching and started working for an education non-profit that I get to go into a SCHOOL. First to a class of 12th graders, then to a 3rd grade class. Yep, in the suit.

And since I don't know how to end this, it will just end.

Forget the water cooler; triple espresso please

In the middle of a meeting with my boss today, when my action item list spilled off the legal pad onto a new sheet, I crawled under the table and refused to come out.

Luckily we have the type of professional relationship where this sort of behavior is acceptable. I hope.

Airborn

Benefit update: no tree haters at my table.
In fact, one of Houston's most influential liberal lawyers.
Which was great, 'cause I think trees are totally cool.
And they were all charming and welcoming.
And we possibly raised a lot of money, which is what I do now.
I did get reamed out by a guest early in the evening, but that's another story.
Tomorrow morning I fly out to DC for a national staff meeting and alumni summit.
I'm not ready, but at least I'm not alone.
Are these posts getting a little, "Today I did this and felt x way about it"?
Do you mind?
Do I care?
These days, it feels like Hurricane Katrina hit and has not stopped spinning.

When in Rome

So there's an awful lot going on in with my job. For starters, our Benefit Dinner tomorrow night, which we expect to generate 500+ mover-and-shaker attendees. I've formed a sort of crush on this woman I've been corresponding with--you know, a nonsexual "SHE'S SOOO COOL!" sort of crush--so I asked to be placed at her table. My wish was granted, and in addition to Ms. K (hint: think sexy American president; moon; unfortunate trip to Dallas), I'll be sitting with a number of other high-profile guests, including the president/CEO of a tree-logging company. To which I say: DOWN WITH TREES!

And that is why they pay me the big money.
(I'm so excited.)

Lame

Sums up my feeling about this whole, rotten city.

Mary, Cheer the fuck up.
WE LOVE LIFE!

Hey DC! I'm headed your way! Let the lovefest commence. I want to see you and you and you and you and you and you and you and all of you.

Twenty-four hours of driving

Ryan: "Did you blog your trip?"
Me: "Maybe if I'd had computer access while it was all happening. As of now, I wouldn't know where to begin. It will probably come out in spurts once the dust settles."

Dear Readers,

I have returned from Hurricane Rita evacuations and Austin City Limits 2005. Let's just say it was a really long weekend. I took a few pictures, but not many, available on flickr. I met some great people, became intimately acquainted with highway 290, rode out the 105 degree heat all weekend, and am very happy to return to normality. Well, as normal as things get around here.

Yours,
Mary

Huff and puff and...

Build your houses out of bricks, children, and board up the windows and stock up on water a week in advance.

Lots of big bad wolves around this year.

And for fck's sake: if ever offered the opportunity to move away from your family and community in what has been labelled one of the most highly-educated cities in the country where the policy and government jobs live in exchange for a hot and stinky swampland that doesn't have any place to put its water--JUST SAY NO.

Hotshots

On first glance, I thought the business card said, "Insured, uninformed drivers."

And my mind instantly spiraled to all the secret, deviant packages that people might need to transport in plain brown packaging. International secrets. Orphan trafficking. Sure, we could TELL YOU what's in the package, but then we'd have to kill you.

Really, it just says "uniformed."

Far less exciting.

Ambitious Goal

Ok, here's my ACL lineup, contingent of course on the people I'm going with:

Friday:
Kasabian
Mates of State
Lucinda Williams
Spoon
Lyle Lovett
Black Crowes

Saturday:
Tegan and Sarah
Built to Spill
Death Cab for Cutie
Walkmen
Jets
Bloc Party
Oasis

Sunday:
M83
The Doves (sorry Rilo Kiley...)
Arcade Fire
Decemberists
Wilco/Franz Ferdinand (could go either way)
Tortoise
Coldplay

Recommended by reliable sources:
Eisley
Kaiser Chiefs
Robert Randolph
Mike Doughty

Yes, I know it's early, but a girl needs something to look forward to. I open the floor for your comments.

GO HOME.

What does it mean when you've been working all day like a horse and it's 7pm and you're STILL NOT DONE?

Change your systems; change your life.

And you thought the 9-5 life would be breezy...

Aw, hell.

Every year, my amazing father asks for nothing more on his birthday than a card in the mail. That is all. Not once have I been able to manage a timely card, but I swore that this year would be different; I would act like an adult and stay on top of the mail. I am SO FIRED!

Anyway. Happy birthday dad. Check your inbox.

Love.

Short

Today felt like a week.
We're awfully busy at work, lately.
Here's why.
Plus, like eight million other things.
I can SEE again!
Interesting tidbit:
Me: "Doc, can you tell from the machines if my eyes actually change, or if I'm just being fickle? Because sometimes you ask me to choose 'A' or 'B' and it's a total coin toss."
Doc: "It really only matters when I'm consulting someone for Lasik. Then we do the test five or six different times to check for consistency."

Dear friends, I need a dose of you this weekend.
We can play with my new keychain breathalizer.
And go to museums, and swim in pools, and that other thing.. and.. and...
Mary, go to bed.

Weather's nice. Wish you were here.

It was a beautiful day in Houston today. Let me amend that: it's hot. It's always hot this time of year. But the sun was shining and we were spared our 15 minute afternoon thunderstorm that always seems to strike in-between going in the grocery store and coming out. And five hours to the east, a city is drowning.

I have nothing terribly original or thought-provoking to say on the matter. What strikes me, of course, is what always seems to strike me: how things could have been otherwise. Teach For America was a gamble in more ways than one: I didn't know where I was going, what age I'd be teaching, who I would meet there in the meantime, whether I would stay. I could have said no to Houston, but I had no reason not to. I would have said yes to almost anywhere. I would have said yes if they had given me my number four choice, New Orleans, instead of number three. I could have said yes to pre-K or high school or special education. It would have been a completely different experience.

And so I think about those new teachers, in their classrooms for only a week only to be suddenly and violently dislocated. And I think about their students and their students' families: the ones you see on the news reports, stranded and soaked with only a shoe to their names. I think about the schools that won't start up again until December, and wonder what a person does in the meantime, this localized Armageddon.

And all this while gazing at the pollen fuzz on my windshield, thinking "I should really run it through the wash."

from The People of Paper

They thought of nothing but flowers and frogs. And the times when they strayed, they quickly returned to dreams of carnations and dirt, or they ran into their lead houses and lowered the door. And when they were stranded deep in the fields, their feet steeped in mud, they bit their tongues until their minds went to bursts of pain and blood, scrambling thoughts into indecipherable throbs.

But there is more to El Monte than Frederico de la Fe and EMF. Not all is about gangs and a sad man who wets his bed. There is time and space for everything, to observe the thousands of tragedies of a single growing season. To watch the flower stalks burst through the soil, interweaving their roots with the neighboring plant, tangling their wires under the privacy of soil, tightly gripping, gradually pulling themselves to each other to feel the brush of leaves against their stems.

When the fertilizer is tossed and the sun beams down, the foliage wilts and the stems burn with an itch. The plant on the edge of the furrow cups the morning dew underneath its leaf and extends its arm to drip the moisture onto the scabs of bark of the neighboring plant. The bead of water falls and then a sudden flash of steel collapses the stalk, which is then tossed into a basket. Four weeks later the harvest is done and dirt is upturned by a tractor plow, exposing tightly braided roots still clutching each other.

-Salvador Plascencia

(On an unrelated note, the cat LOVES this book.)

If you thought $2.50 a gallon was shocking...

From a phone call earlier this weekend.

Debi: Hey, you called?
Me: Do you want to hear about my totally blonde moment?
D: Sure.
M: So I just pulled up to put gas in my car, and you know how some of the gas stations are requiring a zip code for a credit card?...I completely blanked. I tried two different numbers and neither of them worked.
D: You called me to ask me your zip code?
M: You know, I really did. And then as soon as I hit the "call" button I realized--IT'S ON MY DRIVER'S LICENSE.
M: I'm gonna be one of those girls who gets her own name tattooed on her body.

WWBD?

Let's explore this metaphor further:

You are in your field of zen, and you are breathing with the Buddha, letting all things seep in and holding the good and the bad precious in your hands, then letting them go. You are nearing an understanding that suffering and joy are parts of life, and they do not happen in an equal balance. Life, the Buddha tells you, is not fair nor just, nor should we expect it to be despite our invented systems of law. Attempts to manage the unmanagable. Justice is fabricated. Your child may grow up to do terrible things; you may never find love, but you can still delight in the daffodils.

Indeed. So--field of zen, daffodils, maybe some bread and olives thrown in for good measure, and you are concerned with what--a fence? The obtrusive electric fence? Whose field is this, anyway? Fuck the fence! you say, kicking it over.

Wait, the Buddha says operate with a spirit of generosity. Okay, so the fence did not just appear there--you built it, and you electrized it. It will always be there, but good fences make for good neighbors, yes?

When you get near the fence, your stomach hurts. A physical ache. Feel it and heal it.

And the Buddha, whom you assume is laughing at you (indeed, you feel foolish and humiliated, inflicting your pain on others), the Buddha is just smiling.

You are in the field of zen. The fence is in the field of zen. Rather than kicking (you're likely to get shocked), find a way around.

Hook, Line...

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye
A fish hook
An open eye

-Margaret Atwood, from "Power Politics"


"I followed the slow, pausing thread of his feet over a petrified landscape of immense blocks of stone, among which drifted and hovered shoals of fish. There were flat fish, silvered, aldermanic; slim, darting fish; palindromic fish that peered foully out of crevices; minute poised fish of electric blue, fluttering red-and-black fish, slinking azure-and-green fish. He showed me an underwater grotto, a light-shafted nave of pale-blue shadows, where the large wrasse floated as if in a trance. On the far side of the islet the rocks plunged precipitously away into a mesmeric blind indigo.

'I am going to fetch the boat. Stay here.'

I swam on. A shoal of hundred golden-grey fish followed me. I turned, they turned. I swam on, they followed, truly Greek in their obsessive curiosity. Then I lay over a great slab of rock which warmed the water almost to bath-heat. The shadow of the boat fell across it. Conchis led me a little way to a deep fissure between two boulders, and there suspended a piece of white cloth on the end of a line. I hung like a bird in the water overhead, watching for the octopus he was trying to entice. Soon a sinuous tentacle slipped out and groped the bait, then other swift tentacles, and he began skilfully to coax the octopus up. I had tried this myself and knew it was not nearly as simple as the village boys made it seem. The octopus came reluctantly but inevitably, slow-whirling, flesh of drowned sailors, its suckered arms stretching, reaching, searching. Conchis suddenly gaffed it into the boat, slashed its sac with a knife, turned it inside out in a moment. I levered myself aboard.

'I have caught a thousand in this place. Tonight another will move into that same hole. And let himself be caught as easily.'

'Poor thing.'

'You notice reality is not necessary. Even the octopus prefers the ideal.' A piece of white sheeting, from which he had torn his 'bait', lay beside him."

-from The Magus, by John Fowles

YOU Can Be My Champion!

(solicitation)
It's easy. All it'll take is a $1,000 contribution towards electing Teach For America as the most innovative non-profit in America, thereby helping to secure a matching $1 million grant from Amazon.com.

Interestingly/ironically enough... we are in second place for this contest, right behind an organization that was FOUNDED by three Teach For America alumni. Living proof of the second half of TFA's mission: to build a force of leaders who will be lifelong educational advocates.

One thousand dollars... not that I think any of y'all have that sort of money just lying around, but maybe we can combine our couch quarters. (And when I say "we" I mean "you" because I am not eligible.)

And I mean, how freaking cool will it be to be able to say, "I work for the most innovative non-profit in America." ?????

(/solicitation)

Book Booty!

Tonight's bounty:

The Magus, John Fowler
Part II of the Mary and JR book club. Weights in at a stunning 3 lbs and 600 pages. One of the "Modern Library 100" (of which I have read more or less 16). The beginning reads a bit like that movie Closer that just came out, and I'm told it involves a mystery. Looking forward to a nice, long read.

If The Buddha Dated, by Charlotte Kasl
Recommended by a co-worker who just got married and received If The Buddha Married (there's a whole series!) as a gift. A classy little book about the zen of dating and relationships, and so much healthier than The Rules. Worth the somewhat humiliating trip down the self-help section (which Kasl points out, like dating, we shouldn't take too seriously).

Milton's Teeth and Ovid's Umbrella: Curiouser and Curiouser Adventures in History, Michael Olmert
Oh, Professor Olmert, I love you. What are you doing in the Bargain section?

Disgrace

It's not an easy book to read. The beginning sequence of a South African professor who pursues an affair with a much younger and not-entirely consenting student will make you a little squeamish, but I had reached a point where he moves out to the country to live with his grown daughter (I am not ruining anything; this is all on the book jacket) and when I picked up the book again today at page 80, it was beginning to feel a little All Creatures Great and Small-ish. All signs pointed to redemption.

Thirty pages later, the story had suddenly taken another turn, again, difficult to read, but this time you feel for the main characters. So when my cell phone rang and the called ID said "Dad" (with little hearts around it that show up for anyone in the "family" caller group), it took me a second to get out of the book and back into my life.

I think it will wind up being one of my favorites. Not in a warm, fuzzy way. More in an "art is meant to disturb" sort of way.

It occurs to me that in the last J.M. Coetzee novel I read (In the Heart of the Country), the main character was not instantly lovable, either, and I left the book feeling a little, well, disturbed.

Squared

Don't get me wrong... I have no problem with the idea of Roman Candle Jousting in theory--but the reality of a mob of people spilling into a lightly-trafficked road with the sole purpose of knocking each other off of tricked-out bicycles using LIVE FIREARMS (which then go off in any inconvenient direction, aka into the crowd or into the nearby automobiles)... well, let's just say that if you've never seen Mary go from "I'm having fun" to "We need to leave IMMEDIATELY" in 3 seconds flat, you don't really know me.

I did enjoy the accordian player on stilts.

But not the beverage selection. Who drinks "jungle juice" past the age of 19? Why? Why would you do that to yourself?

Well anyway. Happy birthday, whoever that guy was.

What goes around...

"It'll be an adventure!"

This is what I said in response to the wary glance by our intern, after I asked him to please drive to the biggest, busiest, pointiest building in the middle of commerce heavy parking hell downtown Houston. I had permission to ask him to drop off the papers, and I felt a little bad about it, but then again I've DONE the intern thing and had my share of the pick-up drop-off game. It goes with the territory. I'm an associate now, and associates don't have to run silly errands--we get people to run them for us.

So. With the tiniest twinge of guilt, I printed out a map, wrote out directions, hooked him up with as much contact info for the drop off as I could, and sent him on his merry way. Meanwhile I giggled over instant messenger about how good it felt to NOT be the intern anymore and not have to run the "are you kidding me?" errands.

Thirty minutes later, intern calls. Intern is lost! Intern cannot find Louisiana (the street, not the state) and has wound up at a major university instead. I try to call back and cannot get through. Clever intern, I think... (for I, myself, have tried the "maybe if I can't find it they won't send me on any more wild goose chase errands" approach, to no avail.)

Intern arrives back at the office after accomplishing his other errands (I wasn't the only one with a "pick up drop off go here and go there" errand today) and tells me, quite sincerely, that he tried three times and just couldn't find the road and he'll be happy to try again in the 45 minutes before he has to meet with his advisor about making smart decisions for college (oh no! he mentioned college! you just _cannot_ argue with college... intern has played a trump card!).

So what do I say? "Intern--get back out there and EARN your minimum wage!!" No, of course not; I may be an associate, but I'm still kind of a softy. I apologize profusely for his trouble, and tell him that I'll do it myself, no worries.

Fifteen minutes, down the road, I realize that the DUMB ASSOCIATE gave really bad directions, and Louisiana does not, in fact, intersect with the road I am on. And sure enough, when I reach the big, busy, pointy building where Mr. Board Member agreed to meet me outside, Mr. Board Member is in a meeting. I park in the nearest parking garage (1-10 minutes: free. 11 minutes - 1 hour: ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!!), speedwalk to the building, take the elevator to the 23rd floor (my ears popped--seriously. how long has it been since i've been that high off the ground?), drop the papers off, and race back to my car. Having just slightly under the one million dollars required for anything over 10 minutes, I anxiously ask the cashier, "Did I make it?" and she smiles and says "Honey, you sure did. Right on the money."

It was, as foreseen by yours truly, an adventure.

The moral of the story is that one day, if I work really hard, I'll be a director...

*footnote: I love our intern and he's GREAT and if anything in this story implies otherwise, it is merely for dramatic effect.

Kinky Friedman!!!!

When I started my new job working for the acronym that brought me here to Texas, I had one goal in mind: I, Mary D., was going to bring Kinky Friedman to an HISD school during [acroynm] week, wherein Texas-based celebrities teach in corps members classrooms for a day. I've had a thing for Kinky ever since attending the National Book Festival with my dad, a Kinky fan, and meeting the guy. When I found out that 1. he was running for governor and 2. I'd be in charge of this particular event, it felt like the stars aligning.

So today my co-worker calls me into her office and says, "Hey Mary, guess who we got for [acroynm] week?" and I just about jump out of my skin. And then she tells me that he's also coming to our Sponsor-a-Teacher party, and I realize there's a very strong chance I will smoke a cigar with Mr. Friedman himself, and oh my god maybe he'll two-step with me, and I spontaneously combust.

For those of you who have not been exposed to "The Kinkster," a self-proclaimed Jewish Cowboy Poet, here's an excerpt from his most recent novel. Sure, it's not the most high-brow literature, but for what it is, it's terrific. And you should really check out his campaign website, ("How hard can it be?), because even if you don't agree with his politics (and really, how could you NOT), it's freaking funny.

Chapter 11, The Prisoner of Vandam Street

If you'd like to become a Friend of [Acroynm] for an annual $25 membership fee, which includes discount tickets to this party and others, as well as a fashionable acronym window decal, contact me and I'll set you up.

In personal hygiene news

This morning I shaved two armpits and a leg.

Next week: a real, actual haircut.
(The last haircut took place on the patio area of a bar after several beers were drunk and scissors were produced. It looked fantabulous.)

The Tipping Point

My friend Dan raved about The Tipping Point back in 2002, and I found the concept interesting but wound up abandoning that book for something fictional with plot and characterization.

The same author has a book out now, called Blink, which I chose for an ice-breaker exercise where we were asked to pick one of that week's best-selling books to sum up our summer experience thus far. I don't know why I chose "blink" and I explained as much to the group. Something about the title and description just felt right (much like the topic of the book itself).

The point is--and here's the leap--I've been thinking a lot about loss and grief lately, despite (and maybe because of) the wedding I attended this weekend. (Link is to my pictures, uploaded by Mindy. You can see where my camera crapped out in the middle of the uncaptioned gallery.)

One of us experienced a tipping point in the middle of the ceremony. My own tipping point came later, as it often does when I witness adults (defined in this instance as anyone older than me) crying. I am able to look back now somewhat objectively at how I reacted when Gloria died--suddenly and violently--as a slow spiral into complete lack of emotional range. Whereas normal functioning adults have a continuum of unhappy response (fine to peevish to irritated to pissed off to irate), I found myself jumping from "fine" to "screaming raging lunatic" in 10 seconds flat. My students at the time were, like me, completely unaware of when and how and why the change would occur. Later, when it crept out of school and into my personal life, I knew something was wrong and had to change. Eventually, and at the cost of a relationship, I got over it.

The point being... where was I going with this? I don't really remember. To speak in the broadest sense, loss makes us do uncharacteristic things, and reunions bring unexpected joys. I'm saying goodbye this week to two of my closest Houston friends, both of whom I would LIKE to write about in great detail but can't, at least not now, not without some time to process.

The next time I travel on an airplane, someone's gotta come with me. I'm done with flying alone.

;;;

I was just talking the other day about how I miss the deadlines and the structure of a writing workshop setting. This Rick Moody essay on writers and mentorship caught my attention.

"[John] Hawkes played favorites, which was bad; and he loved women a lot more than men, which was bad, too; and he allowed us to drink wine in class, which in my case was an incredibly bad idea, since I was developing a drinking problem. All these things were inadvisable, but what was not was the idea of emotional commitment to the process, a strong relationship between student and professor. These worked for me despite the difficulties."

...

"Now, once an audience begins to experience itself as a community with power, it begins to ask certain questions about stories. I'm sure that analogous questions are asked about poems and essays in workshops every day, but I have less expereince with those forms. Pardon me, then, if I confine myself to the kinds of questions that are a commonplace of the contemporary fiction workshop.

1. Does the story begin effectively?
2. Does the story end effectively?
3. Does the story have a conflict?
4. Does the story move from beginning to end?
5. Are the characters believable?
6. Are the characters likeable?
7. Is the story dramatic? Does drama help the story to move?
8. Who is narrating the story?
9. Is the language of the narrator effective?
10. Is the language in the way?
11. Does the story contain extraneous elements that can be removed?
12. If the story is told in the third person, should it be in the first, or vice versa?
13. Does the story have a theme?
14. Does it move effectively toward its theme?
15. Does the character experience an epiphany?
16. Are you moved?

This is just off the top of my head. Many other such questions can be imagined. To the extent that a student comes to expect these questions, or to the extent that he or she writes in expectation of them, the likely produce will be stories (or poems or essays) that reduce the chances of innovation, that ratify the workshop as a system, and that ratify the idea of the university but do little for the development of the form or for our language as a whole.

If I had to do it myself, I might instead ask questions like these:

1. Has the writer attempted to eliminate all adverbs?
2. Does this story prefer Anglo-Saxon words to Green and Latinate alternatives?
3. What's wrong with using a few more semicolons?
4. Does this story contain any sentences that you want to remember to your grave?
5. Would Samuel Beckett like this story? Would Gertrude Stein? Would Virginia Woolf?
6. How would this writer put paint on a canvas?
7. Is this writer using his or her eyes, or has he or she tried to use all the other senses--for example, the all-important literary sense of audition?
8. What would happen if you rearranged the sections of this piece at random?
9. Does this story like music?
10. Does this story answer the question "Why bother to write"?
11. Can this story save any lives?"

-Rick Moody, "Writers and Mentors" from the Atlantic Fiction Issue 2005

In other news,

Limeflower Pressé

Made by using fragrant English Limeflowers (from the Linden Tree) and pressed whole limes. The use of fresh limes provides a depth of flavor seldom found in a beverage. Blended with pure Canadian spring water and lightly carbonated, Limeflower Pressé provides a refreshing alternative beverage.



I want to bathe in a vat of this stuff.

Wonderfalls in a nutshell

Conversation outside Buck-E's on the way to Austin:

Me: In this TV show I've been watching, inanimate objects with faces talk to the main character and tell her to do things. I think about that now whenever I see animals on things, like that beaver.
R: So if we were in the show, that beaver would talk to you and say, "Buy Ryan a diet coke"?
M: No, it's much more abstract than that. It would say something like "Quench his thirst" and I would go buy you a coke which would trigger some meeting or chain of events that would lead to quenching an entirely different, abstract sort of thirst, like the thirst for knowledge or some shit.

Cat's Outa the Bag

Yesterday I took about 45 minutes to catalogue and organize my yarn stash. I put several balls in the open cardboard box they arrived in, neatly stacked on top of the larger storage unit.

Today: Box is tipped over, yarn is unravelled on floor, Lulu is in box, Zuleika is eating box.

They look at me like, "What?"
And I'm like, "Stop being so stereotypical!"

Dumb conformist cats.

Take me to the river...

...and stick me in a tube and slather me in sunscreen and pour LOTS of beer down my throat and by god, I will be one happy, happy camper.

Take away the frat boys and litter and occasional broken toes and the Guadalupe River is one small slice of Heaven.

I'm back, but I'm not really back.

Some of us are seriously overdue for a summer fling.

multipurpose/many hats

Random excerpts from the little orange notebook I've been carrying around:

1. 114 Elyse 713-555-5555

2. complacent compacient?

3. short stories / interactive reader

4. Query: templates. [star] assigned appeals = HOU Ind. 2006 -package = holiday cards 05 "run now"

5. A garamond - reg text. Dincond bold - headlines. veranda 8 for enews.

6. mtg w/Lisa

7. black heels, toothbrush

8. who writes adult oriented poetry about goblins?

9. Clopper -->rgh Seneca -->lft Middlebrook -->rght 118

10. Tu: 3:45-5:456:45

11. Waiting for Jamie's toes in the stairwell.

12. Same thing with a musician, I suppose, but can't quite make it work.

13. That speech Sally gave that knocked us--

14. and that's what runs through the heart. He almost cried.

15. Kevin--spitball--is talking. Not doing now.

16. You can get them to speak out by standing across the room.

17. When you model (ie Juliana example) model GOOD strategies

18. "get excited man"

19. if you eat it, you get a zero

20. Laura--

21. ?

22. time expenditures: know when to delegate

23. scheduling! first click on date --> then "actions" --> then "to" --> then "attendee availibility"

24. 3. follow-up emails w/pdf of response form w/supply list

25. sign for public recognition

26. nominating comm.board development committee

27. Ann's credit card

28. "Great stories"

29. Press releases/press

30. GET HELP with: -->media lists -->(me) press kits (meeting pkts/bios) -->coordinate w/offices (check "rules" for each guest) -->soft copy press kits

31. person B: Bag!: banner, thumbtacks, tape, camera, water, gift, press kits

32. Would it be easier to have one round of comm dinners and one round of cult dinners?

33. ask Nat'l about it

34. "elegant eating"

35. They connected "nasty" to a dead word--cool!

36. 11:20 task unclear

"Weddings bring us together"

And here is the part of the story where I bombard you with photographs because I'm too lazy to put them in an album.
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(dial-up-ers, go switch to cable modem now)
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Ready? Ok. This weekend my gorgeous friend Georgina (aka George) got hitched. I have no problem calling her gorgeous because I was, at one point, asked whether I was related to the bride. This is because we both have British accents and blonde hair. Yes, really.

Georgina is in no way, shape or form a bridezilla.

I took many many pictures, and here are my favorites.


Georgina looked like this throughout much of her bachelorette party.


The happy couple.


What wedding is complete without a juggling bridesmaid?






I out Christine and her tattoo. Haah!










Tom and Liz are getting married next month.



Many thanks to Georgina, Scott, the Darling family, my family, and Jamie for being such fabulous hosts throughout the weekend.

Happily ever after

So... three bears walk into a bar...

They spot a well-rounded, delicious-looking woman wearing a suit and holding a resume.

The Papa Bear approaches and bites a huge chunk out of her shoulder. "Blleeeuuurrgghh!" He says. "This candidate is TOO INEXPERIENCED!"

And the Mama Bear approaches and takes a big bite out of her torso and exclaims, "Pffffeeewwwkkk! This candidate is NOT GAY ENOUGH!"

And the Uncle Bear (I lied--there are four bears) suddenly gets a call on his cell phone and steps outside to answer it and never returns.

And the Baby Bear (what is a baby bear doing in a bar, you ask? He's 21 in bear years, ok?) has not yet grown his carnivorous fangs, but he licks her cheek something sloppy and says "Mmmmm! This candidate is JUST RIGHT!"

The moral of the story is that patience, luck, and networking pay off, and our heroine will soon be working full-time for a certain acronym we all know and love.

I'm so excited, I'm speaking in mixed metaphors!

I Have Been One Annoyed with The Night

It started, I think, after watching the newest version of the Phantom of the Opera.

You know--"nighttime sharpens, wakes imagination" "the power of the music of the night" blahbidiblah?

For the past three nights, I haven't been able to sleep more than five consecutive hours, and at very unfortunate intervals.

Could it be pity sleeplessness, knowing what the poor kiddos at Institute are going through? Am I THAT emphatic? 'Cause when you're the only one awake at 5 in the morning, the music of the night ain't THAT great.

Wee Small Hours: 3; Mary: 0

Make Way

It gives me warm fuzzies to know that the good people of Yahoo took time out of their day to rescue these duckies.

I'm still a google girl, but how freaking adorable is that?

Stats

(edit)
Number of jobs applied for: 4
Interviews: 4
Second Interviews: 2
Offers for jobs I did not interview for: 1
Rejections: 2
"We'll let you know next week" with a follow-up call "we'll let you know by the end of today" with a follow up call "sorry, just kidding, we'll let you know Monday": 1
Geographic span: Houston

It's still early...

In other news, I have begun my Teach for America (TFA) Summer Institute experience as a faculty advisor (FA) at my school for new corps members (CMs), and I'm working with a corps member advisor (CMA) who was in my Houston '02 corps group.

If you haven't picked up the hint from the acronyms, TFA prides itself on being EXTREMELY efficient and goal oriented, and as a result everyone in the organization is expected to work three times as hard in half the time.

To which I say: Bring it!

Nevertheless, it's a big adjustment from my two week vacation of bed/couch leisure learning, where the biggest goals I set for myself were, "Today I will go to Hollywood Video and rent the 5th season of The Sopranos, and then I will watch the entire season in twenty four hours."

And in related news, I have resumed my morning coffee consumption.

Ohhhh dear.

I know it's not a GOOD thing to eat an entire bag of potato chips in one sitting, but, you know, sometimes it happens; and so dear readers, if and when you find yourself in a situation so as to consume an entire bag of potato chips, I IMPLORE you, for the sake of your digestive system, do NOT eat the fat-free chips with Olestra.

In fact, stay away from them altogether.

Yet another area where Canada trumps the US. FDA, what the heck were you thinking?!?

Sobriety Test

"Sir, have you been drinking?"

"I had a beer with dinner four hours ago."

[questioning continues]

"Was Mighty Mouse a cat or a dog?"

Readers, I'll give you a minute to think about it.
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The answer, as my friend correctly identified, is NEITHER. MIGHTY MOUSE IS A FREAKING MOUSE. (And well before my time, I might add.)

This piece of information satisfied the officer, who let him continue on his way with a warning [tail-light].

Your tax dollers at work!

Southern Hospitality

I was asked this week about differences in living in The South and The North (try as I might to convince people that Maryland is actually "mid-Atlantic") and reluctantly agreed that, yes, people in Texas are friendlier--meaning that you're much more likely to strike up a conversation with a stranger in the grocery store. Depending on what you're buying (ex: enema), this is not always a great thing.

Yesterday at Marshall's, the attractive 40something woman ahead of me in line checks out my purchases and says, "Ooooh, I am so jealous of those itty-bitty bras."

I mean, what is the proper response here? "Thanks! But really, I'd kill for enormous hooters like yours."

Or, like, what?

Some things are inevitable

I'm volunteering for the HATCH prom tonight, and, appropriately, I have a zit.

I LOVE CABLE TV!!!

I do, I do.

I spent the evening babysitting Jen's evil lizard-killing cats, drinking her beer, eating her perishables, and keeping her Time Warner connection warm while she gallivants around in Boston.

Unfortunately, my reality tv choices tonight were limited to Blow Off (bad), Kevin and Britney (worse), or--the winner--a combination of "Whose Wedding is it Anyway" (Style) and "Bridezilla" (WE).

I am not making this up.

Conclusion: ELOPING. I, for one, do not want to shell out 50 grand to a high strung woman with big bangs who will boss around my friends and family, fuss over individual wedding cupcakes, and take it upon herself to adjust my décolleté.

(Who am I kidding... I totally want all that. Mom and dad, start saving.)

It is upon us!

Dude, my car insurance e-mailed me helpful hurricane season tips. Having been there before, I'm passing them on to you, new Texas residents:

•Prepare an emergency kit stocked with items that can help you get through a breakdown. Fill your vehicle with gasoline before the storm arrives.
for example: inflatable raft, eye patch (avast, matey!), oar, canned foods, and of course... digital camera

•If you're evacuating an area and are leaving a vehicle behind, be sure it's not left in a low-lying area prone to flooding. Rising water can seep in and damage your vehicle.
there is ONE HILL in Houston and it leads to The Heights. Set sail for Alice's Tall Texan, where you can mock the storm while sipping your $1.25 frosty goblet of beer and listening to Willie Nelson on the jukebox

•When you’re evacuating or returning following a storm, watch for standing water in parking lots or on streets.
look but don't touch--you don't want to know where that water's been

•Avoid driving through standing water. The average automobile can be swept off the road by as little as 12 inches of moving water. Find an alternate route.
know that all of Houston's ten major highways are already flooded and backed up for hours

•If you encounter a situation where you have no other reasonable alternative than to drive in standing water, do your best to first estimate the depth of the water. Know that the threat of the roadway collapsing under water is real.
and credible

•Drive slowly and steadily through the water.
and DON'T BRAKE if you can possibly avoid it

•If your vehicle stalls in the deep water, you may need to restart the engine to make it to safety (know, however, that restarting may cause irreparable damage to the engine).
is this even possible??

•If you can't restart your vehicle and you become trapped in rising water, IMMEDIATELY ABANDON IT FOR HIGHER GROUND. If you are unable to get out of the vehicle safely, call 911 or get the attention of a passerby or someone standing on higher ground.
your canned corn cannot help you now, but mixed into a nice black bean salad...

•Once you and your vehicle are out of deep water and are in a safe area, depress your brakes slowly several times to help dry them out.
on the contrary--PRAISE your brakes! tell them what a good job they did and how reliable and unsqueaky they are. positive reinforcement, people.

Look Ma!

Considering I didn't do anything that respectable knitters are supposed to do (knit a test patch, measure, block) and the fact that I started decreasing willy-nilly towards the top, fearing it would wind up TOO off-the-shoulder, I am rather pleased with how this sweater turned out:





NO I WON'T MAKE YOU ONE. This took four months of off-again, on-again knitting. I got a lot of it done in the last few weeks of school, when, like my newly aquired friend Jessica, I mentally checked out.

On that note, one more picture...

But first: I haven't said a lot about my last days of teaching, and I probably won't. I love teaching; I love children. I think all human beings are born inherently good, and I think all people, regardless of race or social class, have the right to the best possible education. BUT THERE IS A REASON WE SEGREGATE MIDDLE SCHOOLERS INTO THEIR OWN SCHOOL AND IT'S BECAUSE THEY SUCK--ALL OF THEM EQUALLY. It's true. I have accepted my own contribution once upon a time as a sucky middle schooler and for that, I apologize. End of disclaimer.

Now take a look at my darling thugs who thought it would be cute to flash gang signs for their teacher's sentimental class photo:



Aww.

p.s. This was a small class, comparatively.

I'm just not good at court

This morning I received a courtesy call reminding me of my follow-up court date from last February's left turn incident. Thanks, Municipal Court of Houston, but this time--unlike last time--I was prepared. (Let's file this phone call under "things that would have been useful three months ago.")

So I arrived at the courtroom early--but not too early--for my 4pm date, previous paperwork and car insurance (another thing that would have been useful three months ago) in hand, knitting away and hoping the hardened criminals around me wouldn't bug me. There were fewer of us than before: ten people tops. The nice court assistant called my name and I confirmed that yes, I was Mary Dickinson, whatever you want to call me, really, just don't put me in jail please.

So the judge went through the names, and I waited, and he made small talk with the nice assistant, and I waited, and he said "does anyone have any business to discuss that is NOT on the dockett, because I'm about to leave the bench" and I panicked! What about MY dockett!?

I approached the bench (this is not entirely true, because you see I live in Texas and that bench scares the hell outa me--so more accurately I got a little closer to the bench but still stood behind the firing line) and avoided eye contact with the judge, and motioned my distress to the nice assistant. "Your name was...?" she asked, and started rumaging through papers, while I'm thinking You called it! It's there!.

And the confused-looking judge (oh god, I confused him, he's gonna book me for sure) pulls out my record, stamped DISMISSED, and informs me that since I haven't gotten any additional tickets, I didn't have to come today.

(This despite the pink slip from last time that says I must obey the rules of traffic and show up in court on said day and time OR ELSE TAR AND FEATHERING / DISMEMEBERMENT / DEATH. I am not making this up.)

The whole trip cost me an hour and three dollars for parking. I did get three rows of knitting done on my sweater. Do you see where reckless left turns will leave you, children? You're better off taking the bus.

Advice

Looking for some, that is. Not giving it away.

I've been interviewing for jobs: a strange new world of suits ("is this *too* dressy for a non-profit?") and portfolios and trying to sell myself as a competant, ernest professional. This is weird for me, considering I really only felt comfortable in middle school within the last two weeks, when I finally let loose and sunk down to my students' level, sort of, zinging them back as hard as they've been zinging me, and joining in choruses of "baby mama" and "oh no she didn't..."

But, nevertheless, coming to peace with moving on and establishing a plan to do so.

The immediate future: I take two weeks off, begin work on June 15th with the TFA summer institute as a school faculty advisor, end on July 15th and get paid three thousand dollars to do so, along with my teacher salary. This part is non-negotiable.

The not-as-immediate future: Begin working at (God willing) one of three establishments on or about July 15th. All three would like some kind of verbal two or three year commitment. This is fine with me, I say, considering that I'll build up my resume and transferable skills; and while my Houston family is shrinking considerably, it's still very much alive and supportive.

The "change is good" future: I hoard up my money, take some time off, and participate in a "drive Mindy's car from California to DC" road trip with Kimberly, who will be returning from her Peace Corps stint in Burkina Faso and, sick of the US, moving just as quickly off to France. Arriving in DC, I look for programing/government jobs who are just dying for a qualified employee like me. Finding none, I mooch off my parents for a year while I wait for grad school acceptance letters.

So many variables and unknowns. But as I realized today on the phone, there's not really much left for me in Houston anymore except for work. Do I really want to commit myself to another number of years away from my family in a city I often despise, just because it's easy? (Let us not overlook the fact that jobs are hard to come by these days, and any one of these three that have fallen in my lap is desirable.)

I mean, what would Robert Frost do?

And that was all she wrote.

It feels good to know that I may never be the butt of another middle schooler's joke again.

There's more to be said, but I'll leave it at that for now.

NO DRAGONFLIES

Dear online shoppers,

A few years ago I bought some colored bobby pins from Sally Beauty Supply. There were about 50 in assorted colors: red, blue, green, purple, gold. They looked exactly like ordinary bobby pins (and held just as well), only they were colored. You can sort of see them here. Needless to say, they are all gone, and I haven't managed to find anything similar in Sally's or drug stores. Internet to the rescue? WRONG.

The only bobby pins I can find online are hair-colored (boring), bridal accessories (rhinestones... cool, but not what I'm looking for), or embellished with stupid ladybugs, hearts, turtles, dragonflies, etc. I do not want dragonflies!! I just want plain, shiny, primary-colored bobby pins. You know. For people with very primary-colored hair.

Can anyone help me here before I break out the nail polish and do it myself? (Tried it before--nail polish peels.)

Folks, it's true...

My governor is a Jewish cowboy.

Kinky Friedman was in Houston last week, grand marshall-ing the art car parade (sorry, no pictures this year). His website lists five reasons why he chose Houston as the first official campaign stop:

1. It’s home to his favorite book store, Murder By Numbers.
2. His favorite restaurant, Maggiano’s Little Italy, is located there.
3. Friedman’s longtime friend and one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the state, Richard “Racehorse” Haynes, works in Houston.
4. The city is named after Texas’ greatest Independent, Sam Houston.
5. He “just likes the darn cars.”

This is like, the best thing since President Bartlett.

User Error

Dear Readers,

I've been neglecting you because I've been BUSY. I compose bloggettes in my head on the way to work or lying in bed at night, but they are soon replaced by a million other concerns which demand my IMMEDIATE attention. It's a good sort of busy: a five days left of school sort of busy; an interviews to be scheduled, travel plans to be made, theater to be viewed, music to be heard, beers to be drunk sort of busy.

And it isn't ending anytime soon.

Here's a list of things I need to do before next Friday:

1. Find/put together a writing portfolio (damn you, printer!!!)
2. RSVP to various wedding showers and festivities and buy plane tickets
3. Pack up my classroom while preparing to be an advisor this summer
4. Finish preparing school documents and submit to appropriate personel
5. Finish observation notes on my sample lesson; view and critique a first year teacher's sample lesson
6. Interview with three potential employeers
7. CLEAN MY ROOM

There's probably more. All I really want to do is finish knitting my first sweater, because I'm so close I can feeeeel it.

I was proactive in keeping a writing portfolio so that this sort of thing wouldn't happen last minute; but lax in keeping track of it. Maybe if I didn't move three times a year, I'd know where to find it. Maybe if I had inhereted my dad's organization gene and not my mom's packrat gene, I'd be able to easily access USEFUL documents rather than those old letters from camp (don't get me wrong, I love those letters) and random Houston phamplets.

Anyway.

Take Back the Walls!

Epilogue to yesterday's post:

Today I got over it, found some stickers and used them to reclaim my non-suckage status.

Now, the wall reads:

"Ms. D-----"

(and the sticker says: "Todo esta bien! It's ok!")

For some reason, this makes me giggle uncontrollably every time I pass by.
The bathroom bucket has been plastered with frogs.
The gang graffiti now reads, "Ready Freddy!"
I forgot that I have valuable resources, mainly the fact that I am no longer twelve.

Ms. Lesbow

(From an email I wrote earlier today... I'm waiting to be observed in my classroom for a potential job, but I've omitted names and organization details.)

I'm waiting to hear when this --- woman is going to observe me so that I can pack up my classroom. I feel I've developed a pretty thick skin in my three years here, but lately (and especially with the sub last week) there's been an epidemic of "Ms. D------ sucks" graffiti, and I'm getting sick of it. They wrote it on the walls. They wrote it on the Midsummer Night's Dream books. They crossed out "D------" on the bathroom bucket (yes we have a bathroom bucket) and wrote "Ms. Lesbow" instead. They wrote it on the personal white boards that I sometimes use for group work. They wrote it in the dictionaries and in the dust on my computer monitor. Just yesterday I was using the giant yellow pad to make posters displaying student work (in anticipation of this woman's observation for potential job) and sometime between the time I put it down and picked it back up again, some kid wrote "D------ SUCKS" on the top sheet.

Every time I find a new love letter, I chuckle and remark "cute" or "real creative, guys" to whoever might be observing me, but there's an exponentially expanding part of me that wants to stand up and scream I GET IT. I SUCK. YOU WIN. NOW LEAVE ME ALONE.

You know?

It's just not how I wanted to end my teaching experience.

Six excerpts from six books: part 1

from On Love, by Alain de Botton:

8. Medical history tells us of the case of a man living under the peculiar delusion that he was a fried egg. Quite how or when this idea had entered his head, no one knew, but he now refused to sit down anywhere for fear that he would "break himself" and "spill the yolk." His doctors tried sedatives and other drugs to appease his fears, but nothing seemed to work. Finally, one of them made the effort to enter the mind of the deluded patient and suggested he should carry a piece of toast with him at all times, which he could place on any chair he wished to sit on, and hence protect himself from spillage. From then on, the deluded man was never seen without a piece of toast handy and was able to continue a more or less normal existance.

9. What is the point of this story? It merely shows that though one may be living under a delusion [love, the belief that one is an egg], if one finds a complementary part for it [another lover like Chloe under a similar delusion, a piece of toast] then all may be well. Delusions are not harmful in themselves, they only hurt when one is alone in believing in them, when one cannot create an environment in which they can be sustained. So long as both Chloe and I could maintain a belief in the infinitely precarious soap bubble of love, what did it matter whether or not the bus was really red?

'Ding Ding Ding Goes the Trolley...'

Pictures and narrative from the reading convention available here.

Too sick to write much else.

Mo Willems drew me a bunny!!!

I was a kid in a candy store at this week's reading convention. A very, very large, primary colored candy store:



Imagine that you're a nerdy kid, like I was, who at the tender age of ten (or so) swallows entire shelves of local library's young adult fiction selections. Now imagine being all "grown up" and everywhere you turn your earliest heroes are sitting behind a booth eager to autograph your brand new $10 copy of their book (and of course you're going to buy it because OMG IT'S FRANCINE PASCAL, SWEET VALLEY HIGH!!!! or JERRY SPINELLI!!! I F-CKING LOVED MANIAC MAGEE!!! etc etc.)

Highlights included Dave Barry,



Mr. Walter Dean Myers and his son Christopher, who is totally a catch,



and, not to disapoint, Ms. Julie Andrews (who looks a little irritated in this picture but was very graceful and lovely, really),



.

"But Mary, did you have any fun?"

Not to worry. Our room was honeymoon-worthy,



even though I nearly drowned myself in the jacuzzi tub (note to self: do not mix bubble bath with water jets)



and the overarching theme of the week was:



That's right. Young adult literature and beer.

Full photos to follow. And I'm serious about the bunny thing. That man's going to father my children one day.

Me and Julie Andrews Down by the Riverwalk...

I'm headed to San Antonio for the International Reading Association's Annual Convention (IRAAC). Odds of blogging: slim to none. Odds of meeting Julie Andrews and taking her out for tea: hopeful!

Ha. ha.

In searching for an appropriate writing sample today ("Does the Director of Communications really want to read my ten page paper on Venus and Adonis? Probably not."), I found this pre-blog-entry from before I had a blog. Probably written as a temporary mental vacation during the wee hours as I struggled through page seven, eight, nine...

Lessons Learned from Venus; or How to Get a Guy to Sleep with You:

The God of War wanted me and couldn’t get me, you should be honored:
“I have been wooed as I entreat thee now, / Even by the stern and direful god of war” (53).
“Yet was he servile to my coy disdain. / O, be not proud, nor brag not of thy might, / For mast’ring her that foiled the god of fight!”

Carpe Diem:
“Make use of time, let not advantage slip; / Beauty within itself should not be wasted.”

I’m not ugly!
“Thou canst not see one wrinkle in my brow…My flesh is soft and plump, my marrow burning; / My smooth moist hand, were it with thy hand felt, / Would in thy palm dissolve, or seem to melt.”

Don’t be like Narcissus:
“Is thine own heart to thine own face affected?”

It’s your DUTY!
“By law of nature thou art bound to breed, / That thine may live when thou thyself art dead.”

Why NOT?
“What were thy lips the worse for one poor kiss?

You’re not a REAL man:
“Thou art no man, though of a man’s complexion, / For men will kiss even by their own direction.”

When all else fails, faint.

Snip snip snip SNIPPY!

"Caesar's wife, Calpurnia, is very psychic."

Is it possible for someone to be VERY psychic? Isn't it just, you are or you're not?

*

Today in class, C----- pointed out, "Miss, you're chewing gum."

(In any other circumstance, this would not seem out-of-the-ordinary; however, any of my students can tell you that NO ONE is allowed to chew gum in the classroom, and as a general rule I HATE GUM. HATE IT WITH THE PASSION OF A THOUSAND FIERY SUNS. This goes back to my first year "gum in the hood" incident.)

"Yes." I said. "I'm going to be chewing gum for the next couple of days. If you want, you can chew it, too. But I don't want to see it or hear it."

In the midst of the resulting excitement ("YESSSSSS! We can chew gum!"), no one asked why. I was prepared. I was going to say, "I am trying to get over a highly addictive habit by developing new habits," and leave it at that. If they asked, I would have told the truth. As it turned out, they were too busy passing around sticks of newly legalised juicy fruit, their minds distracted by the brittle bars dissolving into sweet rubbery pulp, chomp chomp mmmmmmmm...

Cinderella Complex

How I spent my standardized test day

The new rules for proctoring say: No internet, no walking around, no reading, no knitting (unfair!!); just sitting and staring at test-takers.

Ok, I said. If they can test for five hours, I can surely manage sitting.

Hour one started off HORRIBLY. No further comment except that I love my job and I especially love my co-workers. So hour one consisted of staring at my unsigned contract and working up the courage to sign "declined," thus forcing myself to find a new job.

Hour two I started writing. I decided, rather than dwell in the negative, to document my favorite/most memorable experiences teaching. I wrote on white legal paper using a Chase bank pen (whoops). I will share later.

Hour three I asked to be relieved for a minute to go get more coffee. I ate two snickers bars and a pack of animal crackers. I collected trash. I moved J---- because he kept hitting A---- in the back of the head.

Hour four I tossed an apple back and forth and shined it on my jeans. Shiniest apple ever. For the second half of hour four, I built a log cabin out of the popsicle sticks I gave them as bathroom passes.

Hour five (post-lunch) I glared at the students who were starting to get restless, transmitting via ESP "Don't you dare even THINK about talking I will hold you in detention for the rest of your life oh and by the way I know where you live."

The students came up with their own means of entertainment. My favorite was "drink all the water and then knock the water bottle over to produce that satisfying hollow sound as it rolls across the room." And so for the second half of hour five, I collected all the water bottles.

More tomorrow.

Love Letters from the Internet

I asked Googlism to write me a poem. You can, too! Mine was in need of editing, so I kept my favorite lines and cut the rest...

mary is thinking
mary is busy
mary is committed
mary is a devil
mary is hot
mary is the last thing i own
mary is the girl i love
mary is a gem
mary is no wonder woman
mary is a bonny lassie
mary is arrested for giving brownies to suffering patients
mary is smiling
mary is a chicken
mary is still there after all these years?
mary is the first creature to enjoy eternal life
mary is no hoax
mary is weeping
mary is 100 years young
mary is coming
mary is clever
mary is rich and positive
mary is contrary
mary is for everyone
mary is extemely likable
mary is barely even mentioned in the bible
mary is driving to work; so mary is driving
mary is not the whole story.

Teaching Shakespeare

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Helena chases after her former love Demetrius, who wooed her and won her heart before turning his attention to Hermia instead. Helena cannot accept this. She chases after him for a good three acts, long after her charm has faded, professing love to the point where it becomes humiliating. She offers to be his "spaniel": "Spurn me, strike me, use me, neglect me," she implores, only let me stay by your side.

At this point, half my class sighs, "Poor Helena!"
"Poor Demetrius!" the other half argues.

We talk about love vs. obsession and the necessity of conflict in fiction; we make predictions about what might happen; and, God help us, we make real-life connections. Theirs are excusable; they are twelve. Mine are darker, buried, deeply embarrassing.

Because this is fiction, and because the conflict must be resolved, Demetrius eventually, unknowingly, submits to a magical enchantment whereby he's made to dote strongly, madly on Helena. The two couples (Helena and her brainwashed man, Hermia and hers) celebrate a joint wedding. How long will the enchantment last? Why not forever? No matter. This story has a happy ending, and that is why we call it a "comedy."

Icicle

You know the school is wasting money on air conditioning when, on April 12th, a student hijacked my scarf.

Yes, you read that right--I was wearing a scarf--WAS!--until it disapeared. The first one I ever knit. I am saddened by its loss and chilled by both the heinousness of the crime and the arctic air.

I'd be wearing gloves, too, if I had them with me.

Brrr.

On Advocacy

The premise: Children need an non-judgemental, "safe," adult figure they can turn to in order to talk about problems or life issues. Therefore, each teacher will be assigned 15-17 "advocacy" cases and meet with them thirty minutes a week.

The teacher next to me says: "I am not the person for this job. I am not warm and fuzzy enough. I don't care about their problems."

I say: "You do care about them."

She says: "I care about their math, and that is all."

She's right. I'm not that warm and fuzzy teacher, either. Nor do I want to be. Why don't we give them all kittens, instead?

Lessons Learned from the Cats

1. Any door that you witness being closed becomes instantly appealing, even if you were lounging happily on the couch before. It's the, "Wait, what's happening over THERE?" reflex.

2. It's ok to fight with your friends, but do it with your claws retracted. Catnip can cause errors of judgement in this case.

3. If you sit on someone's lap and purr, she'll be your friend forever; however, if you get overexcited and drool on her, she'll think you're gross.

Sometimes You Gotta Gobble

Spring heralds the coming of many things: Lovely warm breezes, budding flowers, longer days, rosy sunburned cheeks, flirtations, and, in my classroom, the animal noises start up again.

This year, the popular sounds are unidentified croaking frog noises ("grrruuuup"), bird whistles (this one will never go out of style), and "quack." (Periods of uncontrollable giggles, while not technically animal sounds, are popular as well.)

This morning: I am at my wit's end. One boy makes the frog noise. "Jonathan!" I hollar. "Hallway!"

He saunters outside and I accompany him, foot holding the door, one eye on the classroom. "Ok. You need to make animal noises? Now's your chance. Right now you have my permission to make whatever noises you want and get it out of your system."

He is silent.

"What, cat got your tongue? Go for it: quack, moo, bark, whatever."

Silence. After a hesitation, he lets out a small smirk, and a quick hiccuped "Gobble."

My class cracks up.

"Now can we please leave the noises in the hallway?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

Act Natural

In a recent "what your daughter should do with her life" conversation with my dad (his choice of topic, not mine), he mentioned that he thinks some of my digital photos are better than the ones he's seen in museums. "You need to put them in a book," he suggested. "I'd buy it."

Yes, but you're my dad, I responded. That's his job. I really think my parents would buy my junk mail if I stuck it in a frame and signed my name. (Sidenote: one UH studio art masters candidate recently exhibited a few junk-mail themed sculptures. One friend thought they were a little too "pollution is bad" preachy. I thought they were pretty. There's no pleasing everyone.)

Which is not to say that I'm not proud of some of the pictures I've taken. Digital photography makes it easy for someone with minimal training to take good photos. Andrew Brown of the Guardian Unlimited agrees (via Mom.)

I started taking pictures after I graduated college, when I realized that entire years had passed and I had no proof of their existence. The pictures, like these blog entries, follow no clear narrative or artistic vision. Last night in an exercise of poetic futility ("I'll never be as good as her; why try?") I read Louise Gluck's Ararat--a series of poems dealing with the death of her father. What struck me was how well her collections work as books: looping around and inside each other, each poem adding something new.

I have to assume that sort of clarity and focus comes with age and experience. Most twenty-somethings I know are trying in vain to find that one perfect career, failing, and then winding up frustrated and unhappy. Andrea, who is wise beyond her years, put it this way: Out of so many possibilities, you just have to pick one and say to yourself, "I'm going to TRY this for now."

Or, as we say in the teaching biz, fake it 'til you make it.

Weep More Deeply

I took a spontaneous spring break outing to Galveston today with my friend Matt, to celebrate the beautiful weather and our corresponding days off. Along the way we spotted a tag that looked like it said "Argos" (but alas, probably not). How funny, I thought, watching the small dog play behind it. It reminded me of this Michael Collier poem that, like The Odyssey, I have grown to love:

Argos

If you think Odysseus too strong and brave to cry,
that the god-loved, god-protected hero
when he returned to Ithaka disguised,
intent to check up on his wife

and candidly apprize the condition of his kingdom,
steeled himself resolutely against surprise
and came into his land cold-hearted, clear-eyed,
ready for revenge--then you read Homer as I did,

too fast, knowing you'd be tested for plot
and major happenings, skimming forward to the massacre,
the shambles engineered with Telemakhos
by turning beggar and taking up the challenge of the bow.

Reading this way you probably missed the tear
Odysseus shed for his decrepit dog, Argos,
who's nothing but a bag of bones asleep atop
a refuse pile outside the palace gates. The dog is not

a god in earthly clothes, but in its own disguise
of death and destitution is more like Ithaka itself.
And if you returned home after twenty years
you might weep for the hunting dog

you long ago abandoned, rising from the garbage
of its bed, its instinct of recognition still intact,
enough will to wag its tail, lift its head, but little more.
Years ago you had the chance to read that page more closely

but instead you raced ahead, like Odysseus, cocksure
with your plan. Now the past is what you study,
where guile and speed give over to grief so you might stop,
and desiring to weep, weep more deeply.

-Michael Collier

He's right, of course. I raced through my first reading of The Odyssey. But through coincidence, I did notice the tears upon second reading, when I took a semester course devoted to variations on the story. In fact, I wrote a paper on the role of tears in several authors' adaptations. So here, dear readers, is the line:

"But still he wept for his native country, trailing down the shore
where the wash of sea on shingle ebbs and flows,
his homesick heart in turmoil."

And this is what I was thinking about as I ate my ice cream and sat unprotected in the sun.