Occupy Wall Street: Much Needed Red Ink

The most telling sign of OWS's reach and potential came, for me, last weekend. At a reunion comprised of mostly conservative military and former military servicemembers, no one mocked it. When one person did bring it up, it was to share a recent development in the story. Others responded by sharing their knowledge of other recent developments, but their comments were equally devoid of tone, not a trace of irony or disdain. It seemed to me that no one felt comfortable throwing out a jab, lest someone in the group felt strongly about the movement.

In recent months, only a handful of friends have asked my feelings on OWS, and they've each done so with the same kind of cautious inquiry, careful not to reveal their own feelings on the movement upfront. I'm willing to guess that I'm not the only one who has observed this kind of discreet ambivalence in discussions about the protests, which is fairly remarkable in our South Park/Family Guy/Jon Stewart era in which few cultural developments garner enough of an aura to remain off the table of derision or commendation, a sign that OWS has much more potential than perhaps we realize just yet. If it were meaningless to people, they would throw out opinions on it right and left. Instead, it seems that they're waiting to make a judgment, watching it closely and considering it very seriously.

Slovenian scholar Slavoj Zizek spoke to the OWS crowd in early October, and his comments shed some light on perhaps why such a radical movement has attracted widespread attention/consideration (even support?) from the "mainstream" and thus become a topic that requires such discretion in discussion. He can explain it better than I, so see below:

"...They tell you we are dreamers. The true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers. We are the awakening from a dream that is turning into a nightmare...We all know the classic scene from cartoons. The cat reaches a precipice but it goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is nothing beneath this ground. Only when it looks down and notices it, it falls down. This is what we are doing here. We are telling the guys there on Wall Street, 'Hey, look down!'

...So what are we doing here? Let me tell you a wonderful, old joke from Communist times. A guy was sent from East Germany to work in Siberia. He knew his mail would be read by censors, so he told his friends: 'Let’s establish a code. If a letter you get from me is written in blue ink, it is true what I say. If it is written in red ink, it is false.' After a month, his friends get the first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: 'Everything is wonderful here. Stores are full of good food. Movie theatres show good films from the west. Apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot buy is red ink.' This is how we live. We have all the freedoms we want. But what we are missing is red ink: the language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom— war on terror and so on—falsifies freedom. And this is what you are doing here. You are giving all of us red ink."

Even in the midst of the housing boom, even as our portfolios grew and our homes gained equity, I think we all had a niggling sense of the wrongness, or, at the very least, the fleeting nature, of the whole thing. But most of us have felt flummoxed, for some time now, by the mathematics of trickle down economics and corporate tax rates and rising deficits, but we also knew, just as the cat did in the cartoon, that the precipice was rapidly disappearing even as we ignored that fact. OWS has shored up its support by articulating that amorphous feeling of uncertainty that most of us have felt for while. It's given us the red ink.

But what makes it different from all the other players at the political economics table is that unlike just about every other political organization out there, it hasn't told us to reject one thing in favor of another. It hasn't made promises or shown us complicated formulas or complex economic theories. By not making any demands or pushing forth any kind of structured leadership, it hasn't given us a plan or a theory or an equation for success. In short, it hasn't told us to think logically. Instead, it's asked us to think with our guts. OWS has allowed us to validate that sense of uneasiness that pervaded us even in the good times, that sense that, somehow, our good fortune couldn't last because it was just that: good fortune. Not any kind of calculated effect of any economic policy. A kind of "there but for the grace of God go I." The OWS movement is the red ink that, hopefully, we can use to start to write a new plan - or, more likely, new plans - that take into account all the math and all economic theories but that are driven by a sense of balance and moderation that comes from the moral gut of our country.

But I don't know that that's the role of OWS. I think that's our role, the public's role. It's our turn to get involved, and I don't necessarily mean by camping in Zucotti Park. We all need to do what we can reasonably do. Some people's role will be camping out and protesting and running classes and raising awareness, but I know that that isn't my role. I can't camp out in the park, much as I admire those who do - not only because I have a job that I can't afford to lose but also because it's just too damn cold for me! But I like to think that I can be involved. I like to think that I can read and research and write and take political action in the coming months and years. I want to believe that I'll think and theorize and act and collaborate with others in other ways. Of course, this kind of selective involvement always runs the risk of thinking too small and enabling complacency or, worse, self-satisfaction.

In his speech, Zizek commended the protesters for bringing the world's attention to the problem of economic inequity perpetuated by the capitalist system, and he encouraged the protesters to be careful not to become complacent in their fight. He told protesters, "[T]he reason we are here is that we have had enough of a world where, to recycle Coke cans, to give a couple of dollars for charity, or to buy a Starbucks cappuccino where 1% goes to third world starving children is enough to make us feel good."

I think part of the problem is that many of us "progressives" live exactly that kind of goodwill-here-and-there life. We DO think that we're doing our part my buying a few local veggies at the farmer's market, wearing TOMS shoes, growing a tomato plant or two on our back decks, buying  from local merchants. We've been told that every little bit helps, and so we've been pretty content to do just a little bit, here and there, when we can. I am certainly guilty of that kind of convenient participation. Of course, if we want to move forward with a truly different economic system, we'll need to reach beyond our own homes, beyond our own communities, perhaps. And that's the challenge.

Zizek finished his speech by noting the irony in the fact that, at this point in history, we can more easily imagine the end of the universe than the end of capitalism. He says, "In mid-April 2011, the Chinese government prohibited on TV, films, and novels all stories that contain alternate reality or time travel. This is a good sign for China. These people still dream about alternatives, so you have to prohibit this dreaming. Here, we don’t need a prohibition because the ruling system has even oppressed our capacity to dream. Look at the movies that we see all the time. It’s easy to imagine the end of the world. An asteroid destroying all life and so on. But you cannot imagine the end of capitalism." Isn't that something?

At the very least, I think the OWS movement has the power to make us question the capitalist system that we've all been raised to imagine as the only way. At most, it has the power to help us rewrite it. It's provided an invitation to our imaginations to think about alternatives. Of course, I think the reason that we're all so keen to see a list of demands or candidates come out of Zucotti Park is that we're not really sure what to do next - our economic imaginations are pretty rusty after all this time. But perhaps that red ink will prove useful in the coming months as we try to draft an idea.

*The full text of Zizek's speech can be found at the following link: Impose Magazine

I am...

The following piece came out of a project we've been working on at my school, called "We Are Chatham." This particular project aimed to demonstrate that our strength as a community is in our diversity, so we asked students, teachers, and administrators to write "I Am" statements. We asked that they write about aspects of their identities that the average person might not know. Mine is below, and you can check out the incredible responses from our school community at the following site:

We Are Chatham

I am a blogger. Although I’ve been blogging for years, I still feel a little strange saying that sentence out loud. To call myself “a blogger” suggests that I write posts everyday or at least with some degree of regularity. I don’t. It suggests that I have a wide audience that reads what I write. I don’t. And yet, here I am, a blogger nonetheless. I post when I can, and my readers are mainly close friends and family members, but I believe that being a writer isn’t necessarily about publishing and audience; I believe that it’s mostly about the individual tapping away at the keys.

Being a blogger has made me a more observant watcher of my world. I carry around a small pink notebook in my purse at all times. In its tattered pages (some of which are smeared with the remains of a leaky lip gloss), I write down what I notice. I never write down big things; I mostly write down snippets of conversations that sound interesting or particularly moving images that I see. For example, just last week, I wrote this down: “My neighbor was sitting out on his stoop in the rain wearing his crossing guard’s uniform, with its reflective yellow vest. An older woman turned the corner and took shelter under the tree next to his stoop. She looked up at him and said, ‘Don’t know why I’m hiding from a little rain. My mother used to say, ‘You’re sweet, but you won’t melt.’ The man laughed and told her a reciprocate story, ‘My grandmother used to say that getting caught in the rain was God washing your sins away.’”

I suppose I wrote down this scene because I liked that it reminded me that the people who are secondary characters in my life, like the crossing guard I see each afternoon, actually have whole separate lives in which they are the stars, and I am only a part of the chorus dancing behind them. I also wrote it down because the day before I had told my students that my own mother used to tell me that thunder was just the angels bowling. And that’s how a blog post develops. It starts with a little thing, which, because I’ve taken the time to notice it, makes me notice another similar little thing. Before you know it, I’ve got an idea for a post because I just learned another little something about the world.

Writing helps me to sort through the complexity that is life, and it helps me to give order and sense and meaning to my life and to the lives others live around me. Sometimes these odds and ends I record develop into a blog post. More often, they don’t. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t get something out of recording the simple dailyness of life. After all, I don’t think that many people have major revelations in which they suddenly understand the meaning of life; I think that most of us accumulate big understandings through a collection of small, seemingly insignificant, maybe even momentary, experiences.

If I weren’t a blogger, I probably won’t keep a collection of these small but powerful experiences, and then I just wouldn’t be the same me. Really, I’m a world watcher, and being a blogger is just an excuse to watch a little more closely.

"Song for Autumn" by Mary Oliver

In the deep fall
     don't you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
     the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
      freshets of wind? And don't you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
      warm caves, begin to think
of the birds that will come — six, a dozen — to sleep
       inside their bodies? And don't you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
       the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
       vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
        its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
        the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.



-- Mary Oliver

Preserving National Writing Project

As a teacher, I am required to complete 100 hours of "professional development" each year. For most teachers, this requirement largely consists of spending a lot of time listening to a teaching "expert" (who is likely to be something other than an actual classroom teacher) tell them how to do their jobs more effectively. As you can imagine, most teachers see right through this charade because, as any professional in any line of work knows, what works theoretically doesn't always work in reality. Many teachers feel that professional development time is so ineffective and so practically useless that it should simply be abolished, as I myself did only a few short years ago. 

Enter National Writing Project. NWP is comprised of a network of local sites that work to bring meaningful professional development to teachers -- by having teachers teach other teachers. While this concept may not seem revolutionary to those outside the field of public education, we teachers know that this kind of professional development is actually pretty revolutionary. While most teachers possess Masters degrees and other advanced education credentials, we are still too often seen as well-paid babysitters, and, I would argue, because our field is one that has traditionally been staffed by women, public perception is largely that we need oversight and guidance and regulation to show us the "right" ways to do our jobs. NWP rejects this idea outright and believes, instead, that it is classroom teachers who know what's what. And, perhaps even more impressively, NWP believes in paying teacher-experts for doing the work of sharing their knowledge with their colleagues. To the best of my knowledge, NWP is the only organization that hires full-time teachers to do all of the in-service workshops for which they are contracted, and this difference is what makes them so highly respected among those administrators who are savvy enough to hire them for professional development work in their districts.

Because NWP uses the teachers-teaching-teachers model, the work that NWP does in schools is powerful in a way I can only describe as transformative. I attended the San Diego Area Writing Project's Invitational Summer Institute (SI) in 2008, and I am not only a very different teacher, but also a very different person for it. When I entered the SI, I felt like a had some really good ideas as a teacher, but that I didn't quite know how to bring them together into a cohesive approach to teaching that would resonate with my students in ways that were really meaningful. I got feedback from students each year saying that they loved this or that writing assignment or lesson, but I could tell that the work that they did in my class was not something that would move forward with them and serve as a tool for them in future classes. Before the SI, I considered myself someone who could write. Now, after the SI, I call myself a writer. And this is the same experience my students seem to have before and after they take my class. They come in feeling they can write, but they don't see writing as a part of their identity, in spite of the fact that it is a necessity in almost every line of work and they use it every single day (every few minutes if we count texting!) for the purposes of communication and socialization. NWP taught me how to approach writing in my classroom so that students could understand its centrality in their lives and find the motivation to develop it as a skill. Years after I've had students in class, I get emails thanking me for showing them how to love writing and how to do it well.

As NWP plummets off the end of the federal budget's chopping block, I am deeply saddened by the loss of all those would-be incredible writing teachers who will never discover that they can be incredible writing teachers. I'm so sorry for all of the students who will not have the transformative experience of having an NWP teacher. Most of all, though, I'm desperately hoping that our politicians will take the time to consider NWP's record and restore its funding because the research speaks for itself. NWP has proven success in raising student achievement and building better teachers. In the meantime, I will always be an NWP teacher, whether NWP exists in its current form, in a new privately-funded form, or in no formal form at all because what I've learned through NWP is not only a set of teaching practices but a mentality about teaching that has become a part of every lesson I teach. That mentality is one that asserts that all students have knowledge to share, that all students can become better writers if we teach the right skills in clear and effective ways, and that all teachers can learn the skills necessary to be able to teach writing effectively within their disciplines if we invest in their training and provide them with on-going support. I invite our policy-makers and politicians to take an hour out of one of their days and visit an NWP teacher's classroom to see our work in action. I think they'd find what everyone who cares about education is currently searching for: teaching that consistently works for students and an approach that can be applied across grade-levels and academic disciplines to raise student achievement and engagement.

"Jersey Rain" by Robert Pinsky

Now near the end of the middle stretch of road
What have I learned? Some earthly wiles. An art.
That often I cannot tell good fortune from bad,
That once had seemed so easy to tell apart.
The source of art and woe aslant in wind
Dissolves or nourishes everything it touches.
What roadbank gullies and ruts it doesn't mend
It carves the deeper, boiling tawny in ditches.
It spends itself regardless into the ocean.
It stains and scours and makes things dark or bright:
Sweat of the moon, a shroud of benediction,
The chilly liquefaction of day to night,
The Jersey rain, my rain, soaks all as one:
It smites Metuchen, Rahway, Saddle River,
Fair Haven, Newark, Little Silver, Bayonne.
I feel it churning even in fair weather
To craze distinction, dry the same as wet.
In ripples of heat the August drought still feeds
Vapors in the sky that swell to drench my state-
The Jersey rain, my rain, in streams and beads
Of indissoluble grudge and aspiration:
Original milk, replenisher of grief,
Descending destroyer, arrowed source of passion,
Silver and black, executioner, source of life.              

Support Our Troops (for real): A Missed Opportunity by President Obama

My husband wrote this editorial to raise awareness about the recent changes to the Post-9/11 GI Bill. If you'd like to sign the petition to establish a "grandfather clause" for veterans currently enrolled in colleges and universities to continue to receive benefits at the rate initially promised, here's the link:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/gibill20/

As Americans, we are a patriotic people.  You can drive down any street in America and, more often than not, you will see storefronts and cars decorated with yellow ribbons that state, “Support Our Troops”.  Unfortunately, our government’s current actions don’t reflect the deep commitment that most Americans feel toward their military servicemembers. I listened to President Obama praise our servicemen and women during his State of the Union address last Tuesday night and talk about bringing our troops home, but what happens to the troops once we bring them home?  President Obama did not address this question on Tuesday night, though I assure you that our veterans are waiting for an answer.


I served my country as a junior officer in the United States Navy for 9 years, and I was faced with a tough decision as to whether or not to continue my military career this past July.  Ultimately, I decided to leave the service and take advantage of the Post-9/11 GI Bill.  The Post-9/11 GI Bill is the single most influential piece of legislation pertaining to educating our servicemen and women since Franklin Roosevelt approved the Montgomery GI Bill in 1944 to allow returning World War II veterans to receive education benefits.  In short, the Post-9/11 GI Bill is a renewed and revised version of the original GI Bill, as it provides financial assistance to veterans attending institutions of higher learning.  Each eligible member receives tuition and fees assistance, based on a rate that varies from state to state, as well as a housing allowance and a stipend to purchase books and supplies.  Not every veteran is eligible to receive 100% of the tuition benefits.  Serving 90 days of aggregate service after September 11, 2001 earns a veteran 40% of the tuition benefits while serving a minimum of 36 months allows a veteran to receive the full 100% of the benefits of the Post 9/11 GI Bill. This kind of legislation has the potential to change—maybe even save—veterans’ lives as they embark on the difficult task of re-integrating into society after their service commitment ends.

I was extremely proud of our government in its foresighted attempt to provide returning men and women that nobly served their country in Iraq and Afghanistan an opportunity for higher education, which would enable them to make the leap into important positions in American society. Servicemen and women gain an invaluable education during their time in the military.  Nowhere else can you get a master’s level education in responsibility, leadership,adaptability, compassion, and working under extreme pressure.  These brave men and women also bring an experience back to society that has been increasingly undervalued in the re-invigorated, Tea Party-esque American isolationist movement: they have actually set foot outside of the United States and have seen how people in the world live and how they view Americans.  I can tell you from first-hand experience that serving one’s country abroad brings a greater understanding of how important America’s role is to rest of the world.  This understanding, I believe, is an essential one required of tomorrow’s leaders, and the Post-9/11 GI Bill provides the kind of higher education that would enable returning veterans to transition into leadership roles in business and government after their service and put their unique skills and knowledge to use for the public good. The Post-9/11 GI Bill provides a pathway toward that end, but only if we make several important changes.


Currently, the Bill allows servicemembers to receive tuition assistance at a value based on a state-by-state tuition rate.  For example, New York’s tuition assistance rate is $1010 per credit hour while Oklahoma’s rate is $472, as the cost of education and living expenses in New York are significantly higher than they are in Oklahoma. However, Congress has recently drastically changed the Post-9/11 GI Bill after only one year in existence.  I applaud some of the changes that our elected leaders have made.  For example, Congress increased the types of programs covered by the GI Bill.  Previously, only veterans that were physically attending a college or university were eligible for a living allowance; the new change allows veterans enrolled in a distance-learning program to also be eligible for the same housing allowance.  However, legislators overlooked one key issue in “fixing” this legislation.  Congress has now capped tuition assistance to a national flat rate of $17,500 annually.


I am currently in my second semester at Columbia Business School.  This change has effectively reduced my tuition assistance by 50%.  While the drop is a dramatic one, as I made the decision to leave the military counting on a certain amount of benefits, I am fortunate to have a wife with a full-time job and some money in savings.  However, what about the 21-year-old veteran who earned admission to Harvard or Columbia as an undergraduate and is now facing the same problem?  The reduction in tuition assistance could force this young man or woman to have to leave an incredible institution and miss a once in a lifetime opportunity.  It is unconscionable for the federal government to renege on the commitment it made to fund that veteran’s education and hang him or her out to dry.

Too many politicians wave the“veteran” flag to say that they “support the troops” when, in fact, very few of them have ever served this country or have children or spouses who have served time in the military.  In fact, the reality is quite the opposite: many members of Congress were afforded the opportunities to attend the most premier educational institutions this country has to offer without having to worry about where their next tuition payment would come from.  Isn’t it time that we offered those men and women whose boots are on the ground carrying out the policies that Washington enacts the same kinds of advantages that their senators have had?  If a veteran is able to earn admission to a premier private institution, shouldn’t he or she be afforded the opportunity to take advantage of that opportunity?  Perhaps if that were the case, we’d have more veterans running for office and providing this country the benefits of their military experiences as policy-makers with first-hand knowledge of the daunting issues currently facing our legislators.


I urge the ladies and gentlemen of the 112^th Congress to make this mistake right.  First, immediately create a “grandfather” clause to allow the veterans already enrolled in school to finish their degrees at the current funding levels to avoid forcing veterans to leave school before the new changes are enacted on August 1, 2011.  Secondly, the tuition assistance amount needs to be readdressed.  We shouldn’t be “capping” our expectations on the types of institutions to which we think these men and women would be able to gain admission.  Setting the national tuition rate at $17,500 effectively limits the range of schools to which a veteran can apply and effectively eliminates top-tier private schools as an option for veterans. (Undergraduate tuition and fees at Harvard, for example, costs in excess of $47,000 a year.)


If the members of Congress really believe in the yellow ribbons and the American flags that they pin on their lapels, now is the time to show it. Symbols are cheap—a concrete pledge to the men and women risking their lives for our security at home is a rich source of investment for our nation’s future.

 

Je ne sais quoi...

As teachers, we're told early in our careers (and reminded several times each year thereafter) that we are not our students' friends -- we're they're teachers. The implication seems to be that these labels denote mutually exclusive categories of acquaintance, and to muddle them would be somehow beyond the boundaries of professionalism, if not decency. While there is certainly merit to be found within the notion of drawing a distinction between friendship and teaching, I can't help but to also find a few flaws in the logic (or at least in the words in which we express the idea) as well. 

Now, I don't really feel that "friend" is exactly the right word to describe how I feel about the students with whom I have taught and remain close, and it is definitely not the right word to describe how I feel about my current students, I also have to admit that it isn't all that far off either. By and large, encouraging meaningful relationships in the classroom has worked exceptionally well for me as a teacher. I feel connected to my students, and they feel connected to me, which I believe is the requisite solid ground on which a stable, sturdy, enduring program of study is built. Admitting that I do consider some students to be something like friends (friendish? friendesque?), I have to ask if that's such a sin after all.

As a writing teacher who believes in encouraging authenticity in writing tasks, I've read some deeply personal student writing on everything from divorce to to death to deployments to rehab to eating disorders to broken hearts to the ends of friendships and the list could go on and on. Likewise, in an attempt to model my expectations for my students and encourage and develop a sense of classroom community, I have shared my own deeply personal (age appropriate) writing with my students too. Even on days when we're not sharing anything one might consider "personal" in the traditional sense of the word, I feel like I'm always asking students to open themselves up to me and to our class. My courses are structured around questions like "How do human beings deal with atrocities?" and "How do race/gender/ ethnicity/class/sexuality/citizenship status impact one's experiences and beliefs?". If those kinds of questions aren't asking for pretty personal stuff, I don't really know what is. And beyond that, don't we tell students, beg them even sometimes, to come to us for help, to tell us when something isn't right at home, to report abuse or bullying? If we believe that we are worthy of that kind of trust, doesn't that make us something like friends? For that reason, I can't bring myself to nod knowingly when a colleague makes the old claim that "we're not their friends."

I guess I have to say that I'm ok with saying that we're not their "friends," but we're not "not their friends." It's really one of those cases where we lack a word to fully capture and describe a feeling; the feeling exists, but the word doesn't. I read a book once in which the narrator noted that Italians have a word - "campanilismo" - for which there is no English equivalent. "Campanilismo" literally translates as "for the love of one's bell tower," and it connotates a kind of patriotism for one's home village. As I read it, I thought to myself that we do have that feeling here too, even if we don't have a name for it. Maybe Italian teachers have a word for how they feel about their students, and maybe they'll let us in on it so we can put to rest that dreadful phrase "we're not their friends" and define our relationship in terms of what we are, instead of in terms of what we're not.

Mourning The Wire: I Love You, McNulty

The last time I can recall loving a show in the way that I loved The Wire was when I was a teenager watching My So-Called Life, with Claire Danes playing Angela -- the teenage girl we all felt we were. Angela was attractive in the way of most teenage girls, which is to say that if the camera caught her at just the right angle, and she wasn't in the process of actively trying to look good, and someone was actually paying attention, she was kind of pretty. My friends and I watched My So-Called Life with the fervent dedication normally reserved only for stealing vodka from our parents or searching out the perfect flannel from the local thift store. When the show was cancelled, we mourned our loss in huddled groups, exchanging bits about our favorite episodes and characters, discussing who, from our small, nondescript high school, was Rayanne, and why we didn't have a cool gay friend like Ricky to hang out with. I remember standing by our lockers, whispering in hushed tones that the only reason they cancelled My So-Called Life was because it was just "too real."

Looking back, of course, I have no idea who we though "they" were or why we thought these anonymous people would want to cancel a show based on its likeness to reality. In any case, I feel now, like I did then, that my life will never be the same if I can't ever see a new episode of this most wonderful of shows, another one that was "too real." To be fair, The Wire actually ended years ago, but I only discovered it after its final season and rented each season from the local library after it has already aired its final episode, so my sorrow at its end is really quite belated. This, of course, means that I have no one to speak to in conspiratorial tones about the injustice of its absence from my life, which means that facing the end of The Wire is even more painful than facing My So-Called Life's demise.

In each season of the show, the action of The Wire doesn't bust out of the gate; it requires a certain kind of viewer, the kind that many of its fans call "literary," but I just call capable of enduring delayed gratification (a trait I find sorely lacking in my co-millenials, as much as I hate to acknowledge it). The story builds slowly but certainly to a tragic collision of various Americas - the one selling the drugs on the street, the one playing at the politics in the downtown offices, the one running the schools in the neighborhoods, the one hauling the loads on the docks, the one writing the news at their dated computers, and, of course, the one enforcing the law all over town. In a way that I will call literary, the writers position each of these Americas as though they are a series of concentric circles; each one mirrors the others as it simultaneously looks down on those circles below it. Each America looks down its nose at "The Game" that the drug dealers run, at the same time that they each engage in some kind of "Game" of their own: the police falsify the crime stats to make the politicians look good, the politicians extract all manner of favors from all manner of citizens, the schools shift around their numbers to garner funding from the state, the news reporters manufacture fake stories and ignore the real ones, the dockworkers' union bribes the cops and the politicians to save their line of work, and so on and so on.

In the end, the show turns on its protagonist: Detective Jimmy NcNulty, a (sometimes) high-functioning alcoholic who actually cares about his work and about other people in a way that goes beyond self-promotion or self-interest. He breaks every rule on the job, he ruins his marriage and probably his kids' chance at a life without major issues, he sabotages every friendship that comes his way, and he never apologizes for any of it. But he's a great cop, and a person who understands other people, which is what makes him so charismatic. A truly tragic figure he is, but you just can't help rooting for him in the face of all his many, many flaws. He's one of the few television or film characters that I can really say I love, unequivocally, as a character.  

And, so, in honor of Jimmy McNulty and David Simon for creating him, here's a prose poem in their honor.

I love "The Wire."

I love the gritty realism of a West Baltimore corner: its dilapidated storefronts advertising pay day loans and girls girls girls, its bodegas that are really stash-houses guarded with "muscle" carrying nine millimeters with scratched off serial numbers. I love its seven-year old boys -- who already curse and posture like men three times their age -- running from the teenage Lieutenant on the corner to the hidden stash around back and then to the scratching, shaking addict who needs a fix (because you can't get life without parole in "baby booking").  I love its bustling housing projects, which show us the worst kinds of tragedy and the best displays of human strength, where older brothers and sisters usher younger siblings out the door for school, handing them Capri Suns and Doritos for lunch, acting as mom as best they can before heading off to the corner to be lookouts or runners to earn the money that puts food in their families' mouths. I even love the rectangular ply-wood blockades in door frames that announce neglected rent payments and hide bodies that are nobodies to the Somebody who runs the city. I love the honesty.

I love the lack of bad guys: that the cops are good, and bad, and sad, and brutal, and kind, and incompetent, and brilliant. I love that Detective Jimmy McNulty gives his own wife syphilis from yet another late-night hook up in a bar, but that he also befriends Bubbles, a 40-year-old crack addict living on the street. I love that the drug dealers are smart, and mean, and noble, and heartless, and vengeful, and honorable, and sensitive. I love that Omar Little kills people with a sawed off shotgun, but that he takes his grandma to church each Sunday, so she can wear her "crown." I love that Avon Barksdale kills his best friend over money, but that he also pays "disability" to the families of his "soldiers" in "lock-up" and that he donates large portions of his massive drug profits to local after-school programs. I love that the teachers are broken, and brilliant, and neglectful, and caring, and overworked, and lazy, and brave. I love that Mr. Presboluski lets eighth-grade Dukie into the boys locker room each morning so that Dukie can shower, and that "Mr. Prezbo" does Dukie's laundry and brings him lunch each day because Dukie's mother's "on the pipe," but that that same "Mr. Prezbo" kills a man because of the color of his skin -- skin the same color as Dukie's.

I love the social commentary: the indictment that the dockworkers' union smuggles people and embezzles money and that the politicians launder money for the drug dealers in exchange for campaign contributions. I love that we see how the police are forced to make "low level street rips" to "juke the stats" in order to create the appearance of a falling crime rate. I love that we see how the schools' truant officers only force kids to come to school one day each month, because that's all the attendance the state requires in exchange for ADA. I love the indictment that the drug dealers claims of loyalty and family fall apart as soon as money becomes involved.

I love "The Wire" because it depicts Baltimore, and the contemporary American city, as fundamentally broken and irrepressibly great -- which it always is, all at once, all the time. 

Being New: What's in the Balance

When I started my new teaching job this fall, I told myself that it wouldn't be like being a new teacher again. Those six years of experience would provide a kind of lifejacket to keep me safely afloat above the treacherous waters of Being New. As it turns out, Being New is Being New -- experienced or not. Once again, grading and lesson planning are eating up all of my personal time, and my job extends well beyond the 40 hours per week allotted for it. I rarely spend meaningful time with my husband, and I squeeze in a quick visit with my parents once a week if I'm lucky, in spite of the fact that that they live only a few short miles from my new school. I know that next year will be easier, and the year after that will be easier still, but this year is very, very hard.

This year, I am Scrooge, locked away in my office, hard at work while the world is out to rejoice in the splendor of the Christmas season and the three feet of snow that have effectively shut down our normally busy city. So, as it has been for the previous 4+ years, my New Year's resolution is to create more balance in my life, to make more time. But, just when I thought that I might actually be coming close to making strides toward that end in my old life in San Diego, we decided to uproot our lives and start all over again in a new life that feels very far away. In other words, back to the energy-sucking chaos of Square One.

Like most dedicated teachers, I battle feelings of guilt and inadequacy even on my best of days, so on the days (weeks, months, years...) when I feel overwhelmed, those feelings become amplified. On these occasions, I seriously long for a new line of work, one that I can actually master. Sometimes I envy the administrative assistants with the perfectly organized files and the mail carriers with their down-pat systems for distributing their letters and packages. I don't mean to suggest that either of these positions are in any way easier than my own; I'm certain that they come with their own sets of challenges and frustrations, but I envy the way in which they lend themselves to systematizing. I will never have teaching "down cold;" I will never master it or learn it or develop it to the point that it becomes routine, and, thus, I will always be striving. Inherent within striving is a feeling of failure, or, at the very least, a feeling of being incomplete or unfinished. I think, sometimes, that I am just too Type A to be able to live in this kind of work with any degree of comfort.

Of course, I know from experience that my teaching life will get easier as I become more familiar with the curriculum, the standards, the expectations. But, becoming familiar with these things requires patience, and patience is just what I feel short on these days. Starting over is hard, and starting over in every aspect of one's life, as moving necessitates, is draining. The holidays inspire talk of slowing down, appreciating life's small blessings, and I feel like a Scrooge for not being able to put on the brakes and just rest and enjoy, especially since so many of those Scrooge-esque tales are about those silly fools who don't realize that work is less important than family. But what if your work is about caring for and building up children, giving them the best of yourself? How to put it in perspective then?

Balance, I know for sure, is the key. But it's so much easier to tell tales exalting its virtue than it is to create balance in the real world of so many worthy ways to spend one's time. And so I will strive, for yet another year, to locate that place where things are in equilibrium, where life swings pleasantly from side to side, allowing us enough time in each place to find at least a small bit of that ever-elusive thing called fulfillment.

Beanies and Babies: Re-post from Christmas 2009

Below is a writing assignment I've given my students for the previous two years, and below is the model I shared with my students last year. I invite you to consider your own holiday wish list and its significance...

Task: "Identity is often shaped by the things we long for." -- Bich Minh Nguyen

Choose one item that is on your holiday wish list (or one item that is not on your list) and reflect on what this item's presence on (or absence from) your list reveals about where you are in your life right now.

Questions to consider for inspiration: How does this item's presence/absence reveal...
-- a facet of your personality?
-- an emotional need or desire?
-- a fear or anxiety?
-- a regret? -- an accomplishment?
-- a change in your ideological outlook?
-- an image that you have of yourself?
-- a trait/talent/goal/idea that you wish to cultivate?
-- a change that you wish to enact in yourself or in your life circumstances?

See example below...

My family doesn’t do a traditional gift exchange for Christmas; as our family has grown, shopping for everyone has become an unmanageable task, but we all like the idea of exchanging gifts for the holiday. So, we’ve opted for a “Secret Santa” gift exchange in which we each create a list of our favorite stores and suggestions for gifts and then choose one person’s list from a hat and purchase only for him/her. For the previous few years, my list has required little revision. I still wear basically the same sizes, and I still want basically the same things: clothes, handmade jewelry, books. However, this year, I had to change the stores that I listed as my favorites, and I was forced to acknowledge, in doing so, that I am at a different point in my life than I was at when I created the first version of this list three years ago.

At 25, when I made my list, my favorite store was listed as “Anthropologie,” and I still say this store when I am asked about my favorite place to shop. I realized, though, in revising my Christmas list last month, that I have not actually purchased an item of clothing from this store in almost four years. At 25, I could pull off funky-hippie-chic, but the closer I get to 30, the more ridiculous I feel in a mohair sweater with mismatched buttons, a ruffled lace peasant skirt, and a beanie. I feel like I used to look like a trendy fashionista, and now I just look like a half-drunk homeless woman in this sort of outfit.

I suppose what makes me most anxious in reviewing my 2009 Christmas list is that it is conspicuously bereft of all that redeems women from the trauma of turning 30, such as décor for one’s first house or baby paraphernalia for one’s first bundle of joy. (My only home is a too-small rental and my only bundle of joy has fur.) I realize that I am not where I thought I’d be at this age, and I am currently in the process of digesting what this means. It is not that I couldn’t buy a house if I wanted to, albeit in a less desirable neighborhood and without the stainless steel appliances and hardwood floors of my current apartment, but a house of my own nonetheless. It is also not as if I can’t have a baby, at least to the best of my knowledge. Up until now, I just haven’t wanted either of those things enough to make the necessary sacrifices to attain them (loss of sleep, loss of figure, restrictions on time and travel, depletion of savings account, etc.). Does this make me selfish? Stupid? Abnormal? I have always believed that it does not – it makes me self-aware, a person who strikes out on her own, who has A Life.

But now, I am no longer a fashionista – I shop, I admit, at Ann Taylor... and I like it! I wear cardigans in too-bright colors and button-down dress shirts….to bars. I refuse to wear “ultra low rise” jeans because I don’t like my lower back to show. (The other day, I almost purchased a pair of dangly Christmas earrings a la my mom circa1987. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that the earrings were $3.99, but I didn’t have cash and there was a $1.00 fee for credit card purchases under $10. Thank God for holiday price-gouging!)

So, here I am. I am in flux. A childless woman in what are dangerously close to mom-jeans who is, for the very first time, seriously contemplating the prospect of filling out that high rise waist with a baby belly. Does this mean that I must succumb to becoming old and hopelessly uncool? Must I carry a sensible purse and vow only to purchase shoes that are comfortable to walk in? Will I have to adopt the suburban mom bob haircut and start sporting seasonally appropriate holiday sweaters? Perhaps, but, for the first time, I think I’m willing to risk it.

And who knows, maybe I’ll break out that beanie on days when I’m too busy chasing kiddos to do my hair…

Imaginings: A "Book of Questions"-Inspired Poem

I'm currently teaching my students to use "mentor poems" to try out writing poetry. The idea is that you select a poem whose structure, style, and/ or approach you admire, and then you rewrite the content, mimicking the poet's style/structure/approach. It's an ideal approach to poetry for those of us who are a bit gun-shy about poetry-writing because it allows the writer the comfort of a tried and true form and just leaves the challenge of coming up with content. 

I chose Pablo Neruda's "The Book of Questions" for inspiration because I admire his ability to conjure completely unique images in his readers' minds with seemingly simple, yet really beautiful questions. One of my favorite lines from his poem is "Tell me, is the rose naked/or is that her only dress?"

Here's what I came up with...

When will apricots learn that it takes
                  more muscles to frown than it does to smile?

Do mopeds know that the world is
                 a wide and vast place?

If we forget to remember the clouds,
                 will they pout?

Is there anything more precious than tripping
                 on the uneven ground of a cobblestone street?

How often to bedbugs
                 bite off pieces of the moon?

Why are people always
                 unfaithful to daisies?

Why does the aspen tree wake up
                 so early in the morning?

Where should we store our broken hearts
                 if not from southern tree limbs?

Is there anything more tragic
                than a dancing catfish?

The Social Network: A Review and Some Thoughts

A friend and I took part of our Sunday to see the new film The Social Network, directed by David Fincher, written by Alan Sorkin and starring Jesse Eisenberg. It was two hours well-spent (partly because the film was entertaining and partly because we can now become part of the on-going conversations about the film, as it has become something of a social phenomenon itself). For anyone who has read anything about Facebook's contentious beginnings, the actual storyline doesn't contain any really new or shocking information, but the organization of the story--alternating between flashbacks at Harvard and a legal deposition in which the Zuckerberg character settles accounts with Harvard students who claim a stake in his company--allows the viewer to simultaneously get both the backstory and the contemporary controversy, which lends additional significance to both time periods.  I felt that the acting was all strong, but Jesse Eisenberg deserves commendation for his ability to present a character that is both entirely annoying and socially inept and yet also completely sympathetic and likeable. An impressive feat. (I knew he'd do great things when I saw him in Adventureland!). Andrew Garfield plays Eduardo Saverin (Zuckerberg's original business partner and his best friend), and he is pretty much the most adorable person ever. He just looks so perfectly and tragically heartbroken when Zuckerberg does him in that you just want to kiss him for his sweet naivete. Or at least I did.

For me, perhaps the most fascinating element of the film is the fact that Sorkin makes no claims of the screenplay's objective veracity in terms of his character depictions, but he does claim to have done extensive research to ensure that the story itself is as close to accurate as it could be. Interestingly, as I learned when I heard Justin Timberlake interviewed on NPR this week, Sorkin actually went so far as to forbid the actors from contacting their real-life counterparts to get additional information or perspective beyond what the screenplay offered them. Sorkin's decree sort of begs the question of whether or not one can get a story just right without getting the people just right, and it also asks whether a person is a reliable source of information on himself or whether he is, as Sorkin seems to think, the least reliable source of information on himself. Sorkin's approach certainly enters the film into the increasingly popular genre of "creative nonfiction" -- one of my absolute favorites right now due in large part to its use of narrative techniques to tell real-life stories. (I just read Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind, and he claims that the human brain is hardwired to remember information presented in story-form, which means that this type of writing has incredible potential for those of us who are educators.)

The other reason I loved the film may seem silly in comparison, but here goes: I loved that Zuckerberg wore hoodies and flip flops to meetings with high-powered attorneys and high-level executives. Recently I've been thinking a lot about the claim that we, as educators, make to our students about behaving in "professional" or "academic" ways; we tell them that they must dress a certain way to be taken seriously, that they must speak and write in a certain way to get ahead. We give this advice because we know that they have a better chance of finding success if they work within the established systems; we know that fighting the system is very hard work. While that advice is likely true 99% of the time, I love the idea that some people say, "Screw the system!" instead of "Work the system." Nothing brings me greater joy than small revolutions (even one-man revolutions will do), and so I loved Mark Zuckerberg for refusing to ditch that hoodie. The fact that he's a billionaire now gives each kid out there the hope that the way he speaks or the way he wears his jeans or the way he does his hair is actually just as ok as any other way, even if the world tries to convince him otherwise. Norms are only norms because we all agree on them--they aren't "natural" or "normal;" they're just pervasive, and Zuckerberg's attire implicitly points that out. I dig it.

I also love the fact that there's at least one CEO out there in the land of capitalism who believes in a higher standard than just making money. Art is not dead yet! The film doesn't completely explain Zuckerberg's reasons for rejecting advertisers as sources of income for Facebook (he just claims that Facebook will lose its "cool" factor if he allows advertising dollars to enter the picture), but in an interview I read with him, he states that he believes in Facebook as an idea, as an art, and he doesn't want to sell it to the highest bidder so that it can be destroyed or revised in ways that are beyond his control (also the reason he hasn't yet taken the company public). 

Below are links to Facebook-related articles and essays that I love, if you have an interest in checking them out...

The Boundaries of a Breakup

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

The Face of Facebook

Books I've Recently Loved: "What is the What" by Dave Eggers

I recently posted this piece to my new school's "book forum," so I thought I'd share...

Through a first-person narrative, Dave Eggers takes on the persona of Valentino Achak Deng, a “Lost Boy” from Sudan’s southern region who is forced to flee his village after an Arab militia’s violent attack during the Sudanese civil war in the 1980s.  Uncertain of his family’s fate, Achak, along with thousands of other “Lost Boys,” is forced to make the harrowing journey on foot to a refugee camp in Ethopia.  The boys face incomprehensible tragedies along the way, within the borders of the camp, and even in the US once they arrive as refugees, but their journey speaks to the human capacity to survive and to the strength of the human spirit.  Eggers and Deng both assert that the story is a “true life novel,” raising interesting questions about the nature of truth and fiction and about the future of the novel as a literary genre.  Alternating between present and past/Africa and the US, the narrative technique offers readers a sense of the disconnect that Deng must have felt as he made his way so far from his home.

As a young boy, Deng’s father tells him a story, cautioning him against choosing “the What” — or the mystery choice — and instead choosing the known.  Deng, however, does not always have the luxury of that choice.  For this reason, his story is an important one as we contemplate what it means to live in a globalized world, a world in which we are all connected in what are often far from mutually equitable ways.  The novel raises questions about the boundaries and benefits of nation-states, the impact of imperialism in Africa, and the roles and responsibilities of the developed world and of individual citizens in reaching out to our human family around the world.  I would have to say that I found some of the most engaging parts of the novel to be the ones in which Deng encounters life in a so-called “First World” country for the first time in his life.  His confusion, horror, and wonder in response to life in the US can teach us a great deal about our own society and its social issues.  I would recommend this novel to anyone who wants to be both entertained and educated or who is looking for a way to gain a better understanding of the myriad ways there are to experience both the best and the worst of our globalized world.

Labors of Love

In honor of Labor Day and "Back to School" workdays ahead, I'm posting this poem by Marge Piercy. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do.

To Be Of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

--Marge Piercy

A Scolding from Our Mother of Exiles

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
                    --Martin Niemoller, 1946

For my new work commute, I get to drive right by the Statue of Liberty every day. Each time I make the drive, I marvel at Our Lady of the Harbor, standing majestically, arm upstretched, and I feel so lucky to be just where I am. In recent weeks, though, it wouldn't surprise me if she turned around, sternly placed her hands on her hips, and shook her head disapprovingly at the land she represents and the city she overlooks. As Americans all over the country debate the building of an Islamic mosque and community center in Lower Manhattan, she must wonder at our hypocrisy.

Time magazine is asking this week if America is "Islamophobic" (in short, yes), and every news pundit from NYC to Kabul is asking viewers to weigh in on the Lower Manhattan controversy. Those respondents who are opposed to the construction near Ground Zero seem mostly to argue that because it is so close to the site of the Twin Towers, the center would be an affront to the families and friends who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. There are two main points of concern for me with regard to this sentiment. The first is simply that Muslims, as a group, are not responsible for the actions of a few fanatics, just as Christians, as a group, are not responsible for Jim Jones, David Koresh, or Timothy McVeigh. Most frighteningly, though, it is not only in Manhattan that American citizens seem to oppose the construction of mosques. A protest took place in Murfreesboro, Tennessee last month against the construction of a mosque in that city (which is approximately 900 hundred miles from Ground Zero). Protesters offered the following insights, which I found courtesy of ABC News online:

Stan Whiteway (apparently aptly named) stated, "They seem to be against everything I believe in, and so I don't want them necessarily in my neighborhood."

Mark Walker claimed, "We are fighting these people, for crying out loud, we should not be promoting this."

From the Associated Press, I found that Bob Shelton said, "They are not a religion. They are a political, militaristic group."

Really?? REALLY?? Yes. Really. People think and say these sorts of things in 2010. Yikes.

So, how far is far enough, Manhattan? Two block is too close to Ground Zero, but is four blocks ok? What about 10 blocks? Will Tennessee be ok? What if Murfreesboro says that if Manhattan can block the construction of a mosque, so can they? What if every town says they don't want a mosque within their city limits? What if they decide that synagogues are equally problematic? What if they decide that Catholic churches are undesirable as well? Martin Niemoller's words could easily be frighteningly prophetic. Although the mainstream news media seemed mostly to focus on the portion of Time's recent poll that revealed that 24% of Americans believe that President Obama is a Muslim, the more concerning numbers were the ones that revealed that 28% of respondents said they believe that Muslims should not be permitted to serve on the Supreme Court, and nearly one-third said that they don't believe that Muslims should be permitted to run for president. Nazi Germany, anyone? As someone who just wrote a thesis arguing that nation-states' first step in perpetrating genocide is depriving a certain group of citizenship status, these stats terrify me.

Perhaps the most interesting contradiction within this whole controversy is that of the 61% of Americans who oppose the Lower Manhattan mosque's construction, I'm willing to bet that a good many of them identify themselves as patriotic Americans, yet their very opposition to this project makes life so much harder for the men and women serving overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. These men and women in uniform work every single day on the mission of counterinsurgency, and a large part of completing that mission means both winning hearts and minds AND meeting with radical factions to attempt to bring them to the table of democracy. When Al-Jazeera broadcasts reports on the mosque in Manhattan and the staunch opposition to it that many Americans feel, how on earth will our servicemembers be able to convince the people of these regions that Americans are not there to destroy Islam or to discredit their faith? Furthermore, it seems to me that if our servicemembers can bring themselves to sit across the diplomatic table from radical fundamentalists in the name of bringing peace to the regions in which they serve, those of us back in the U.S. can find it in our hearts to accommodate a moderate Islamic cultural center whose goals are outreach and education. In other words, we have a responsibility to honor the service of these men and women and their willingness to put their lives on the line to bridge the gap between the U.S. and the Middle East. To do otherwise would be unpatriotic.

In short, these men and women could really use some help from us in mounting an ideological offense. The U.S. government and military both recognize our inability to physically prevent every attack. It only takes one person to bring havoc, grief, and pain into the lives of thousands, and we already know that our defense mechanisms will fall short in certain situations. Which is why we must use our offense effectively. We need to show the world -- particularly the Muslim world -- that we practice what we preach and that we truly do welcome diversity of thought and experience. That diversity is what has formed the core of our American identity. If we want to preserve our reputation as the "land of the free," we can't be thinking in the terms of "us" and "them" -- we're all "we."

The most insightful comments I heard on the Lower Manhattan mosque debate came from a caller to WNYC/NPR. The caller identified himself as Yasser, and he said that he is a proponent of building the mosque at the initial site in Lower Manhattan because, as a resident of Lower Manhattan and as a father, he wants his children to grow up with the understanding that there is no contradiction between being a New Yorker, being a Muslim, and being an American. When the interviewer asked him if the mosque could represent the unity of those identity markers if it were just a bit further from Ground Zero, Yasser added that telling Muslims that they could build the mosque further away would be a lot like telling African-Americans during the civil rights era that if they just sat in the middle of the bus, it would make things a whole lot easier. I tend to think that our Mother of Exiles, standing her watch in the harbor, waiting to welcome those huddled masses, would feel similarly.

Filling Up My Plate

"If you aren't certain about things, if your mind is still open enough to question what you are seeing, you tend to look at the world with great care, and out of that watchfulness comes the possibility of seeing something that no one else has seen before."

-- Paul Auster

When I initially thought about moving back to my hometown, I worried that I'd have too much on my plate because I'd have so many family members and friends so close by. I never actually thought about my literal plate, though.

Prior to moving back to New Jersey, I hadn't eaten meat in over two years, but I've recently discovered that being a vegetarian is a lot more difficult in New Jersey than it is in California. Being a vegetarian in California is as common as, say, being an Italian in New Jersey -- many people are; it's just part of the demographic. Hence, in California, people always seem to ask dinner guests if they eat meat, restaurants always offer multiple vegetarian options, and there are even many specialty stores and restaurants that cater to the dietary preferences of vegetarian eaters. Here, not so much. The last time I visited New Jersey, my dad asked if chicken on the grill was good for dinner. When I reminded him that I didn't eat meat, he replied, exasperated, "For Christsake. Chicken's not meat." (I'm fairly certain that he does actually believe that.) Restaurants seem to be similarly confounded -- yesterday I had to order a proscuitto sandwich without the proscuitto, and the deli staff seemed to need multiple verbal confirmations that my order had been correctly recorded.

Perhaps, though, the most uncomfortable experience is being served meat as a dinner guest in someone else's home. My husband and I had dinner at his grandmother's house last year, and I politely declined her pot roast on account of the fact that I don't eat meat.  Her response: "But it's so tender!" After 10 minutes of attempting to explain (in as dinner-table appropriate terms as possible) that my decision not to eat meat did not hinge on its tenderness, I gave up and finally accepted that grandmothers -- particularly those who cook for Italian families -- do not speak vegetarian. When my host is a non-family member, though, I can't even muster the nerve to tell him or her that I don't eat meat. I take some, push it around on my plate, bury it with my side dishes, and then bring my own plate to the sink when we're done eating. This routine is stressful, and it often leaves me quite hungry (and drunk if there's alcohol served, as I can't hold my liquor on an empty stomach).

I've recently wondered whether life would be easier if I just ate meat every now and again, so I tried it. As a dinner guest a few weeks ago, I ate a friend's baked ziti with meat sauce. All seemed to be going well until my stomach started gurgling and churning and generally urging me to hurry on up to the bathroom ASAP. As it turns out, when your body hasn't eaten something like meat in years, it forgets just how to digest it without incident.

So it seems to me that the best course of action would be to eat meat with some regularity, so as to avoid what would henceforth be known to my husband as The Baked Ziti Incident. Doing so, however, requires some sacrifice of what I see as My Principles. There are several somewhat vague reasons that I gave up meat, the usual suspects, really: environmental reasons involving the destruction of forestland to accommodate grazing land, ethical reasons related to the fact that we could feed the world if we used grazing land to grow grains instead, ethical reasons involving the ways in which animals are raised and slaughtered, health reasons related to hormones and antibiodics in food. (Notice that none of these reasons actually involves disliking meat -- I do like it, which makes it extra tempting to eat it when it magically appears on my dinner plate!) I should confess here that I'm not even really a vegetarian because I've never quite been able to give up seafood, which technically makes me a pescetarian. I tend not to identify myself as such to other people, though, because no one knows what it means, and then I feel like I sound even more pretentious.

So, here I am. I'm trying to negotiate a balance between my desire to honor my principles, my desire to avoid being a giant pain in the ass to those I love, and my desire to eat meat just because it tastes good. I think the solution is simply to be less anal -- eat meat when you feel like eating it and attempt to do so every so often. The problem with that solution, though, is that it means learning to be comfortable in the gray area. For me, absolutes, ironically, tend to be easier to live by. For some people, myself included, being OCD about certain things is actually easier than not being that way. It's harder to live in the middle than on either end because when you're on the ends, you know right where you are. In the middle, you have to make a kind of peace with your own amorphousness; you have to become comfortable in constant state of mild uncertainty. But, in the end, I think I choose uncertainty. It's harder, but it also leaves room for change and adaptation, things I feel are almost always good for me. We'll see how I do...

Move Over, Gutenberg

Today I'm thinking about technology; I'm considering the ways in which technology both links and divides us. I'm not thinking specifically about social networking sites (though I am sure that many a psych Ph.D. dissertation has been written on just that topic in recent years), but instead I'm thinking simply of access to (or lack of access to) information and what that access or lack thereof means for human society.

This afternoon, my sister and I met her husband in mid-town Manhattan for lunch and then decided to enjoy some ridiculously delicious cupcakes in Bryant Park. As we sat at a table chatting and enjoying our indulgence, a gaggle of teenagers paraded by us, cell phone cameras a-flashing in the direction of one teenager in particular who seemed to be being crushed by his throngs of adoring fans. My sister's husband asked one star-struck fan who she and her crowd were following, and she responded (with obvious annoyance at our lack of celebrity knowledge) that they were following Timothy Delaghetto -- just like that, all one word. Hmmm, we thought. Are we in the presence of some wildly famous person that we are too uncool to know about? Immediately, my sister's husband used his Blackberry to google this Timothy Delaghetto, and we discovered that he is an up-and-coming "Asian hip hop artist." Ok then.

While it would be difficult to argue that having instantaneous access to this sort of basically useless information is going to give us some kind of leg up on the rest of human society, I think that having access to information of any sort does, at the very least, separate people into categories: those who can be in the know and those who can't. I am wholly convinced that 90% of the apps available on the iphone basically give useless information -- where the nearest Starbucks is located, the title of the song currently playing on the radio (Shezam!), who the best-selling Asian hip hop artist is (ok, I don't know if they have an app for that, but I'm willing to bet it's out there or soon-to be, judging by the apparent popularity of Mr. Delaghetto). However, it's that 10% of useful information that iphone/Blackberry/Droid users can access immediately that does give them that leg up, such as when the next train leaves Port Authority or which way is west -- I needed both of those pieces of info today, and, as I am smartphone-less, I was forced to do the old-fashioned thing and Figure It Out. So, one way that technology separates us now is into People Who Can Find Out Faster and Easier and People Who Can Find Out Still Within a Reasonable Stretch of Time and With Only Slightly More Effort -- not such an enormous difference, in my view.

But, while smartphones may still be luxuries that not every human must have to survive, I think that internet access at some point in the day is a mandatory requirement for full and successful participation in our society today. After our cupcakes in the park, my sister and I headed over to the mid-town branch of the New York Public Library this afternoon (the place where Carrie and Big were supposed to wed in the first Sex and the City movie! Ahem....I mean, the place where one can find access to 15 million books and visual media and witness stunning architectural design and feel intellectual power pulsing through the air). Here, we got to see one of the 48 surviving Gutenberg Bibles, which was on display with a plaque noting that scholars generally agree that Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in 1440 was "the greatest achievement of the second millenium." If the printing press was revolutionary because it allowed wider access to information, how do we even begin to understand the impact of the worldwide web?

I just finished reading Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, her account of an undercover assignment as a low-wage worker in America's restaurants, hotels, and Big Box stores. She paints a moving portrait of what it means to live hand-to-mouth and work 70+ hours per week, but because she did her investigative reporting in the late 90s before internet access was a staple in every middle-class household, her book doesn't touch on what it means to be without internet access. I'd love to see an revised edition in which she comments on this huge difference that separates 1998 from 2010. The other day, as my husband spent hours comparing NJ car insurance quotes online, and I spent hours researching my choices for a primary care doctor, I wondered how on earth someone would one go about finding affordable car insurance or setting up one's healthcare plan without the internet? I realize that the telephone still works for these tasks, but the hours on hold alone would be enough to drive even the most bargain-conscious shopper or the most health-conscious individual to just sign up with one of the first two or three organizations found. So, technology also divides us into Those Who Have Options and Those Who Take What They Can Get With the Time They Have to Get It.

I think the coolest thing about the New York Public Library is that any library card-holder can borrow a laptop for several hours at a time and get free internet access within the library. While borrowing a laptop to use within the confines of the library is not as convenient as owning one and having internet access in the home, at least it's a start. It's a recognition by a well-respected public institution that the division between Those Who Have Options and Those Who Take What They Can Get With the Time They Have to Get It is one that is just too big to accept if we want to continue to call ourselves a democratic society. There are certainly civil rights issues at stake within the issues surrounding access to technology, and I can only hope that more schools, city halls, courthouses, and other tax-payer funded institutions follow the Library's lead.

I'm going to end this post by recounting, to the best of my ability, one side of a conversation that I overheard on the bus today, which amused me greatly, but also made me a little sad. I sat behind a guy of about my age, obviously coming home from a long day of work who was talking on his cell phone:

Guy: Yeah, Ma. I'm here.

Guy: Alright, it's on? Good. Ok. Now click on Firefox.

Guy: It looks like...a fire fox. Like a fox on fire.

Guy: No. It's orange. Maybe blue too.

Guy: Yes. That's it. Now click on it.

Guy: Are you double clicking?

Guy: Like, click-click -- real fast. With your index finger.

Guy: No -- the other one. The index finger that's on the mouse. Click-click.

Guy: Try it again.

Guy: Ok. Now click on the link on the homepage. It's in blue.  It has a lot of funny letters and numbers at the end...like a long line of funny letters and numbers.

Guy: You gotta work with me, Ma. Tell me what you see.

Guy: I'm not getting mad. I'm not...

Guy: (exhales deeply) My voice isn't annoyed, Ma.

Guy: No, it's not. I'm just....Don't get frustrated now, Ma. Why do you sound all frantic?

Guy: I'm not! I'm being completely calm,Ma!

Guy: Ok. Try it again.

Guy: Ma, listen to me. It might take a minute. It has to download.

Guy: What, 'download'? It's like retrieving information from another site.

Guy:  A site is a webpage. Like one page of the worldwide web. The Internet.

Guy: Well, not exactly like a book. But maybe kind of. Anyway, you don't need to know that now, Ma. Did it download?

Guy: Christ.

Guy: I'm not mad, Ma. I'm not mad. It's just that these are like the basics. Like stuff everyone knows.

Guy: I know! That's why I'm helping you!

Guy: Hello? Ma? Hello?

Guy: Damnit.(hangs up)

So, technology also divides us into Those Who Know How and Those Who Need to Know How. Unfortunately, this divide seems to fall along age lines, which is sad. This guy and his mom could be sending each other funny forwards or Youtube videos, sharing pictures and music, and generally connecting in more ways, but they aren't. Instead, they're fighting. Maybe I should have told him that the New York Public Library also offers free weekly technology-related courses, such as "Email I" and "The Internet I: The Basics!"

Teachers, like me, are constantly bombarded with pressure to "use technology in the classroom," and we are given so many instructions as to how and when we should use various sorts of technology with our students. The one question that never seems to be addressed, though, is why. I think there's sort of this circuitous logic at work that people are afraid to question: we should use technology because people use technology. For most people, though, this argument is not terribly compelling. Talk to us, however, about equal access, civil rights, generation gaps, and saving time, and we'll be all ears.

If You Can Make It There...

...you must have very few personal possessions and truly enjoy laundromats.  You should also enjoy walking up five flights of stairs to reach your home, and you probably shouldn't mind paying 8 dollars for a Miller Lite. After a week of apartment hunting in Manhattan, I told my husband on Sunday that I quit NYC. I wanted so much to believe that I was cool enough and low-maintenance enough to pare down my life to fit into 600 square feet, but, alas, I am just not.

When I thought about renting a tiny apartment in the city, I felt excited because I saw it as an opportunity to really simplify -- to rid ourselves of all of the unnecessary commodities we've acquired over the years and return to just the basics, just the absolute essentials. The problem, however, is that I seem to have a lot of essentials! In college, if I had contact solution and a toothbrush, I could pretty much crash anywhere (and I'm not even sure that I really felt that the toothbrush qualified as an essential -- more of a convenience). Now, to spend the night outside of my own home, I pack a bag that includes the following: make-up remover, night face cream, facial lotion with sunscreen for daytime, my Sonicare, dental floss, a pair of pajamas, slippers or flip-flops, a change of clothes for the morning, and two different hairbrushes (I'll even bring my blowdryer if I feel that the one in my host's home/hotel is not equal to my own). And it's not just in the way of personal toiletries that I've become high maintenance -- I also seem to have become irreversibly accustomed to having a washer and dryer and a dishwasher within the confines of my living space (how un-green, how uncool!).

I keep trying to justify my high maintenance by telling myself that as a woman of almost 30, I will only spend more and more time at home. NYC has a fantastic nightlife with awesome bars that stay open until 4 am, but these days, nine times out of ten, I'm asleep before midnight on the average Saturday night. This realization among women of my age, I am convinced, is what keeps Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, and Williams-Sonoma financially afloat. We women need a creative outlet, a way to expend energy. Once karaoke contests and drinking games lose their novelty -- somewhere in one's late 20s -- it seems that we turn our sights to coordinating throw pillows and redecorating our master baths. It's almost like we feel like if we aren't going to be out, in needs to get a lot more enticing. I'm not sure that this sort of hobby -- if home improvement/decorating can even be classified as such -- is really a good thing. In a lot of ways, it means buying into the kind of consumerism that I love to hate, but that I also can't seem to resist.

I'd like to believe that I'm not the kind of person who covets stainless steel appliances and granite countertops above the more practical conveniences of apartment living (like being near transportation and having enough closet space), but because I haven't been happy yet with an apartment that lacks these aesthetic accoutrements, I'm going to blame my materialism on my fear that moving home means that I am right back at the beginning again, completing a circle as opposed to moving forward. Perhaps I'm seeing a nice apartment and all of its trappings as some kind of indicator that I am, in fact, making progress, moving up and going forward. Hey look, everyone! I went from carpet to hardwood and from tile to granite! See -- I am making progress after all!

For now, I'm not going to beat myself up too much for being a little too attached to the material world. Leaving San Diego was tough, so if having some nicer features gets me excited about our new residence, so be it. So, in an effort to be able to afford those creature comforts (and have space enough for them), we're refocusing our apartment search efforts across the Hudson in Jersey City and Hoboken, where things are a lot more affordable. I may not get to become a New Yorker, but at least I won't be hand-washing dishes. Maybe I am more practical than I give myself credit for after all...

Every 'Drunk Man' Has a Family

Some people are daredevils. While I am certainly not one of them, I appreciate the spirit of adventure that drives them, and so I have collected a few as friends over the years who have greatly enriched my life with their commitment to fun and their love of excitement. These kinds of people are always a blast to be around, and they provide much of the fodder for the stories that we most often recount and laugh over. Of course, daredevil friends are also always an emotional risk as a result of their antics as well.

We lost a daredevil last week after he jumped off the Venice Beach pier at 2 am on the 4th of July, and the loss has left a huge hole in his family and friends' universe. While every loss of life is tragic, losing a daredevil is a special kind of loss for those who knew him or her. Because daredevils seem more full of life than the average joe, when their lives are cut short, it feels like a great force of passion and vivacity has been sucked from the world, and the world is a considerably duller and plainer place for it. 

Unfortunately, when a daredevil dies, some people seem to lose sight of the fact that a precious human life has been lost and choose simply to lambast his carelessness or irresponsibility without regard for his grieving family. The LA Times ran the following headline for our daredevil's story on July 5th: "Drunk Man Jumps from Venice Pier, Search Underway." Well, yes, he was drunk, but referring to him as 'drunk man' seems to me to suggest that his death is somehow amusing or otherwise entertaining. For his family and friends, this loss is anything but humorous, and while they sat up for days waiting for news of their loved one from the Coast Guard, they had to read that story. The headline demonstrates the power of the nuances of language; 'intoxicated man' is not the same thing as 'drunk man,' and I believe that the journalist could have made a better choice in terms of wording. 

The headline also brought to mind many memories of reading shocking headlines about unusual deaths -- "Man Eaten by Pet Iguana" or "Woman Dies of a Broken Heart." Of course, the news media has a responsibility to keep the public informed of unusual events, but there's certainly a line between information and literary rubbernecking. I think another reason that papers run these stories of unusual or sudden deaths is in an attempt to offer some sort of didactic lesson to their readership. While there are lessons to be taken from any accident, in the end, an accident is, by definition, something one can't always prevent. Jumping off the pier was not a good idea, but I can't help but feel that we have all taken unnecessary risks and done stupid things (particularly when drinking). The only difference between our mistakes and our daredevil's is that he had bad luck: the rip currents were strong, the night was dark, etc. His death is a reminder of the preciousness of our delicate human lives, and it is also a reminder of our own vulnerability. In the end,  every 'drunk man' has a family who loves him and misses him and whose world is irrevocably changed by his death, and our words should reflect our understanding of the sensitivity of grieving loved ones' hearts and demonstrate our empathy for them, instead of compounding their suffering to sell a few extra papers or to get a laugh in the midst of their pain.