Quirks

Smart. Neurotic. Devoted. Quirky.

This is my Twitter bio.

BMG and I have been talking about the definition of quirky. Does it imply a value judgment? Is it about personality characteristics, or could it simply be description of a mannerism or habit?

I cheated and looked at Dictionary.com and found this definition:

       a peculiarity of action, behavior, or personality;mannerism:

In calling myself "quirky," I'm primarily thinking about my:

• Zelig-like way of moving between different crowds of people, without actually being part of any particular human tribe, perhaps a function of my sun, moon, and ascendant all being in Gemini
• Habit of taking off my glasses nearly every time I use the toilet
• Routine of rocking myself when I'm having trouble sleeping, even as a nearly 50 year-old woman
• Precocious and life-long love of archeology, which includes an ability to almost conjure up the living, breathing human who lived in pre-historic and other ancient environments
• Spooky ability to remember people's names
• Extreme introversion, combined with an insatiable curiosity about other people which manifests itself as friendliness
• Particular brand of intelligence, which often causes me to see and interpret ideas and scenarios unlike most other people (and, conversely, causes me to be unmoved by circumstances that typically move others)

When I started my most recent job, the Chief Administrative Officer described me to my boss as "different." While I've long labeled myself as :quirky," nevertheless, the comment originally caused me to feel disconnected. Over time, I've come around to seeing the moniker as a recognition of the value I bring to my work, to the world. Why? Because in economic theory, the rare commodity is typically the more valuable one. 

Would you describe yourself as quirky? Which of your actions, behaviors, or mannerisms help set you apart from others? 

Not in My Wheelhouse

A wage earner since I was 11, I often describe myself as a Jane-of-All-Trades.

Skeptical?

Here's the list of jobs I've held over the last 35 years:
1. Newspaper delivery person
2. Babysitter/Mother's Helper/Live-in Nanny
3. Cashier and blue light special operator
4. Window shade and mini-blind cutter
5. Dining hall supervisor
6. Pizza joint/bar manager
7. Research assistant
8. Housekeeper
9. Gardener
10. Dorm front desk monitor
11. Cancer lab assistant
12, Women's health advocate
13. University administrator
14. Gas station attendant (and late night sub maker for drunk college students)
15. Prison administrator
16. Community organizer (multiple positions)
17. Community service learning coordinator
18. Membership association program manager
19. Sexuality educator
20. Grant writer (multiple positions)
21. Executive director (interim only)
22. Community health program manager
23. Public and community relations manager
24. Director of development

My last two positions have leveraged my work experience in the interest of developing and executing B2B corporate sales and marketing strategy.

I've worked all levels of government, and I've served on nonprofit boards of directors, twice.

I'm an accomplished professional.

And while I've had many different jobs working for many different types of organizations, I'm also aware there are some jobs I am exceptionally unsuited for. Jobs that are NOT in my wheelhouse include:

Air traffic controller
I have terrible eyesight.

Crime scene investigator
The gore wouldn't bother me, and I like the idea of helping to solve a puzzle. But, terrible eyesight coupled with my tendency to be five steps ahead of myself most of the time, which means sometimes details fall through the cracks.

Prison warden or parole officer 

My empathy is too deep to be hard enough to do this job well.

Snake handler 

I hate snakes so much I've googled "What's the point of snakes?" on more than one occasion.

Make-up artist 

I don't do make-up on me, let alone on someone else.

Waitress 

I don't manage divas very well. (I'm surprised I did as well as I did when I worked in community relations.) As a result, I KNOW I would throw food at the first diva who had a fit on my shift.

What jobs do you think you would be terrible at? Why?

An Even More Perfect Union

I leave work at 3:00 on Fridays, which means instead of being getting my evening news fix from my pal Robert Siegel on NPR's All Things Considered, I'm forced to listen to PRI's The World. 

Today, on my 25-minute commute, I heard global perspectives on the outcomes of yesterday's Brexit vote. 

During the drive, I stared out the front window of my station wagon thinking not about the predictable traffic and roadways between me and my home, but instead thinking about the 17 million Britons who decided yesterday to leave the EU. 

The reasons for this too complicated for me to understand and certainly too complicated for me to explain. If you don't understand the Brexit vote, I invite you to read coverage in the New York Times and The Economist for two among the thousands of media perspectives on this historic decision by the people, for the people of the United Kingdom. 

One of the rationales given for the "leave" decision was the EU's demand that member nations comply with an open borders policy, making it possible for residents and workers to easily migrate between countries to live and work. And for older, less educated Britons who, like their American counterparts are suffering professional and economically, immigration became the easy scapegoat. One commentator on The World said a "leave the EU" campaign slogan was "Make Great Britain Great Again." 

This is a familiar refrain here in the U.S.

Which got me to thinking. 

What if we simply swapped voters? 

Think about it. The "Leave the EU" voters are kindred spirits of Donald Trump's base of support, while the "Remain in the EU" voters might be compared to Hillary Clinton supporters in their rational appreciation for the benefits that come with a nation state's investment in the collective whole. 

What if we invited the "Leave the EU" people to come live in America, hassle-free, and gave the Hillary supporters the same hassle-free option to move to the UK? 

Don't think about it. Just react. If you are a Hillary supporter, would you take the free pass to Europe? I know I would. 

Post your vote in the comments section. As with Brexit, we'll figure out the details later. 

Oomphasize

Ooomphasize
verb (used with object), oomphasized, oomphasizing
to add a little flair, or "oomph" to a person, idea or object


We will be oomphasizing that committee roster to give it some new life

15 literary influences

There is a meme circulating on Facebook right now. It invites people to list the first 15 literary influences in their lives - in under 15 minutes.

Because my husband, BMG, asked, here are mine, organized by the type of influence they had on me:

Stories I remember reading in my childhood:

• Carolyn Haywood - Hers were the first mindless serials I remember reading obsessively. To this day I still find an author I like and then inhale her/his books. The author du jour is Deborah Crombie. I continuously stalk the library shelves for books by Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child, and Jonathan and Faye Kellerman
• Ray Bradbury (ONLY because of the short story "All Summer In A Day," which I had to read in 4th grade. It horrified and fascinated me and I've never forgotten it.)

These two guys wrote the first "adult books" I ever read:

• Stephen King - "The Stand" was the first long form adult book I ever read. (My pal Erika gave me the Stephen King gateway drug, "Night Moves." Yup, I mean business when I read
• John Irving - My aunt loaned me her copy of "The Cider House Rules," which started a ridiculous love affair with his work and helped me become a feminist. "A Son of the Circus" was nothing but irritating to me, then I learned that John Irving has an elitist side IRL, and the love affair ended. 



These authors wrote books I read during my college years - some because I had to, others because I wanted to. All introduced me to new ideas and world views that had an impact on me:

• Margaret Atwood - "The Handmaid's Tale" was on the reading list the summer before my freshman year
• Aldous Huxley - "Brave New World"? Woah. 
• William Golding - "Lord of the Flies" is still a useful cultural reference today. Go banana.

Yep, I love to escape inside a good, all-consuming fantasy world, and these are the masters, IMHO:

• Johnny Gruelle - Boy did I get lost inside the Raggedy Ann and Andy books of my youth. Perhaps these books helped launch my love affair with gnomes? 
• William Goldman - "The Princess Bride" rocked my world. If you haven't read it, you need to because it is pure genius. 
• J.K. Rowling
• J.R.R. Tolkein - I read "The Hobbit" while camping and backpacking in Yosemite National Park. The redwood forests are a terrific place to to imagine the world of hobbits really exist.
• Gregory Maguire - "Wicked" was the first and best. All the others he has written are too derivative of the first and don't come close to capturing the magic of his reimagined "Wizard of Oz." 

And just a few that can only be categorized as being the authors of memorable books that help me see the world in different ways:

• Amy Tan - "The Joy Luck Club" because it and her other books, like those by Lisa See, opened my eyes to the cultural peculiarities of the mother/daughter relationship
• Mark Salzman - I truly and seriously love the book "The Laughing Sutra" for helping me appreciate the value of adventure for adventure's sake.
• David McCullough - Who knew history could be so engaging?!

Which authors are on your list? Why? 

Elf on the Shelf: Savvy Auntie Edition

My sister tells her kids, ages 8 and 6, that the family's semi-feral cat would eat the "Elf on the Shelf." Their cat is a renowned hunter, so the kids believe this is the reason why there is no elf wreaking havoc at their suburban Baltimore home, tattling on the kids to Santa and the elves.

But this does not mean they are off the hook when it comes to good behavior in the weeks leading up the Christmas.

My sister does not need a successful commercial enterprise, masquerading as a Christmas tradition (in spite of being fewer than ten years old), to keep her kids in line during the holidays.

It used to be, before the age of the Internet and cell phones, merely humming a few bars of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" was enough to keep Christian children (and their non-secular counterparts) on their best behavior throughout the month of December. When I was a kid we KNEW that he knew if we'd been bad or good, so we had better be good, for goodness sake.

I think children are a little savvier than we were back in the 1970s. And my youngest sister KNOWS her kids are savvy consumers of parental legend.

So every year, right after Thanksgiving, she changes my contact name and photo in her cell phone from "Auntie Clownface" to "Santa Claus."

And then I start getting random text messages and cell phone calls, from my sister, ostensibly to Santa, asking for verification that I am in fact real, that I did in fact shake her son's hand at the local tree lighting ceremony, or I did receive her daughter's light mailed just a week ago. They always start with a "Hi Santa" greeting, so I know it is time to turn on the "ho ho ho." So I glibly reply, savvy auntie that I am, with a recapitulation of her message, affirming that the alleged incident (e.g. shaking Santa's hand at the local tree lighting, or an incident of mischievous behavior at school) did in fact occur, followed by a reminder to the kids to be good because I'm watching them carefully from the North Pole.

I love being able to do this for my sister because she lives 400 miles away, and I rarely have the opportunity to be hands-on in my support of her parenting. I love that this happens effortlessly. One day, maybe three years ago, I randomly received a text addressed to Santa and just picked it up and ran with it. We never rehearse, I never know when a message is coming, and I haven't dropped the ball on her yet.  And nearly 35 years after an early end to my belief in the physical manifestation of Santa, I am still delighted by my child's eye view of Santa and the magic that happens at the North Pole.

Are you a savvy aunts or uncle who celebrates Christmas? I invite you to share this post with the parents of the little ones in your life, and invite them to play along. It is a great way to get the effect of elf on the shelf, without kowtowing to the relentless pressure of developing new, hijinks-fillled tableaus to showcase the elf's worst behavior, and it is a wonderful way for you to be involved in your siblings' Christmas traditions beyond gift giving.

Let freedom ring

It was with tears in my eyes that I read my nephew's "What Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Means to Me" essay aloud to BMG a few moments ago:

"He fought with his voice and with his voice he heard Freedom! Freedom! And because of his voice me and my moms can live together. Oh! How thankful it makes me that my family lives together. Living in the same house, eating the same meal, drinking the same water and sharing the same love together. Thank you! Dr. King!"

Juxtaposed against the beauty of the inauguration - in which President Obama paid homage to the writers of the U.S. Constitution, President Lincoln and the men and women who advocated for the end of slavery in the U.S., Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the principled men and women who fought back in the Stonewall riots - my nephew's words strike a powerful chord this morning. 

*****

Blogger's note: Nathaniel is nearly 8 year-old young African American boy. He is adopted and lives with two Caucasian moms and his adopted older sister from another mother. Nathaniel is of above-average intelligence and he struggles with an emotional disability. He loves Pokemon and the color orange. 

When I First Believed in God

I first believed in god after my initial glimpse of Yoesemite Valley from the road to Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park.

I was struck by the clarity with which I could see the power of glaciers that sheared off Half Dome, carved the valley to Mirror Lake and Tuolumne Meadows, and created water ways from the Sierras to locations like Vernal and Bridal Veil Falls. I know the geological mechanisms that continue to shape the topology of this National Park. I also felt the presence of something much larger than myself as I entered the park for a six-day car camping trip in 1999.

The last 24 hours in the Park I went backcountry camping through the the Wawona region, in the less traveled southern part of this national treasure. At the start of strenuous 8.2 mile hike, through endless switchbacks to the curvy Chilnualna Falls, I fell in love with the gorgeous ingenuity of the manzanita shrubs that covered the mountain side. At the end of the first day of hiking, tent pitched in a dry creek bed, I had the privilege of seeing the Northern lights, confused at first for white fuel-induced visions. The beauty of the earth and the sky, along with my own triumph at having accomplished the hike, only reinforced my sense of a power greater than that of any single species.

*****

The blog post was written in response to call for stories about the National Parks. Share your story with the National Parks Conservation Association.

Photo credits to The Cachegetter.

Gifts from Brisket

I wish my cat had the uncanny ability to bring me winning scratch tickets and Pringles.

Instead, Brisket, the more aggressive of the #meatcats, seems to have a sixth sense for finding and scavenging small mammal graveyards. He is also an excellent, stealthy and non-stop hunter. Just this week Brisket brought home:
1. Bunny rabbit, dead, and missing only one foot
2. One distraught duck, who was quacking non-stop because she was missing her chicks and upset about being chased around by a tiny grey cat
3. A live garter snake, which was ferried up the stairs and down the stairs, over and over again
4. The most raggedy and tiniest dead mouse I've ever seen.

This complements the 1 dead squirrel, two squirrel tails, and myriad moles and mice he has brought home over the course of his short kitty life.

Thank you Brisket, for sharing your gifts with me and BMG.

Love,
-CF-

PMS Cafe'

This is my new restaurant, open 24 hours, seven days a week and serving an all-you can eat buffet that includes:

On the sweet side:

• Chocolate bars


• Chocolate ice cream


• Cupcakes (all varieties)


• Boston cream pie

On the salty, greasy side:

• Chinese food


• Cheese (all varieties)


• Pepperoni pizza with extra cheese


• Crudite with french onion dip


• Potato and/or tortilla chips (all varieties except baked)


• Carnitas, hold the rice, hold the veggies, hold the beans, hold the tortillas


• Movie popcorn


• French fries - with cheese, gravy or ketchup


• Macaroni and cheese

On the salty, greasy, sweet side:

• Chocolate covered potato chips


• Peanut butter by the spoonful (side order of M&Ms optional)

All special orders honored upon request.

Private booth seating for one comes with complimentary headsets with affirmations that repeat, "Yes dear, you're right dear," "No, those shorts don't make you look fat," and "I didn't even notice that blemish on your cheek;" televisions exclusively tuned to Lifetime for Women, Wedding Central, Discovery Health, and the Oxygen Network (coming soon - the Oprah Network!); and collectors' editions of OK, Star, and US magazines featuring movie stars with the worst bikini bodies and botched plastic surgery procedures.

Forget the mint! All checks delivered with a complimentary pair of ibuprofen and your choice of diuretic.

Cynalytic

Are you one of those Facebook quiz junkies? I am. My Facebook profile is littered with the "answers" to questions like: "Who were you in a past life?" "What 80's television show are you," "What color are you," and "In what soap opera would your relationship star?" I also know my Myers Brigg type and my enneagram type, just to be on the safe side. I know my sun sign, moon sign and ascendant sign.

I am relentless in my pursuit of silly, unimportant, self-knowledge.

This fascination with all things quizzes has been aided and abetted by Facebook, but certainly didn't start there. I'm not a Cosmo girl, but I DID take the Cosmo quizzes. Does anyone else remember the game played by little girls wherein you draw a square and pick four types of houses and write them on one side of the square, four numbers that are written on another side of the square, four boys' names, and four cities? Add a spiral drawn in the middle and a complex counting system and voila! Future predicted? Yeah, I played that game. A lot.

Which is why, when my friend Alicia Staley posted a Facebook link to the "I Write Like" writing style analytic website, I sat down, cut and pasted a blog entry into the machine, and was compared to Margaret Atwood with one keystroke. In two more keystrokes I had revealed yet another nuance of my personality on Twitter and Facebook.

I KNOW human beings like you and me, bored at home, are making up Facebook quizzes. I know that I fall nearly in the middle of nearly every personality test I've ever taken, and I'm cynical that one analytic of one blog post can definitively say my writing style is like that of any other author, poet or journalist.

It is this cynicism about self-reflective analytic tools that led me to create a new compound word today - cynalytic. It is an adjective meaning cynical about the pursuit of personal understanding and improvement through the use of quizzes on Facebook, in Cosmopolitan magazine, or other places in print and on the Internet. Pronounced 'sin-a-lit-ick' you might use it like this, "I'm a little cynalytic about my results in the latest New Yorker magazine quiz. Did you take it, the one that allegedly determines the perfect New York home for you? My results show my ideal Manhattan home would be in Ossining."

I've made up lots of words before, only to find someone else has invented them before me. This new one, cynalytic, is nowhere to be found on the Internet. While it may not ever make the top ten list of made up words, I think it is going to catch on.

Fist for punching

"The Office: Scott's Tots (#6.11)" (2009)
Dwight Schrute: In an ideal world I would have all ten fingers on my left hand so my right hand could just be a fist for punching.

*****

I've experienced work as very stressful lately. During supervision with my boss, a fantastic boss, today he commented on how fried everyone in the office is.

In my traditionally female, empathic way, I said, "Yeah, I'm so exhausted that I've been on the verge of tears for about a week."

My traditionally male boss stopped, turned, narrowed his eyes, and looked closely at me. "Don't cry. If you cry my respect for you will go down by a significant percent."

"What about punching? Is punching allowed?"

"Yes, punching is allowed."

The perfect gift for your favorite paranoiac!

Does your mother sleep with a knife under her pillow to attack bad guys who might sneak into her home while she's sleeping?

Is your brother-in-law actively preparing his family to fight back in the event of a zombie apocalypse?

Does your partner maintain a list of things to worry about online?

If so your family is JUST like mine. And that's why I recommend that you consider purchasing the Zombie Table. This solid and attractive table features a small, circular table top almost impossibly cantilevered on a center leg resting on a reflective pedestal. The Danish modern style table will add to the decor in any home. And...when bad guy, zombies and bees strike, the table can be converted in two quick moves into a solid wooden shield and a bat that you can use to defend yourself and wound your enemies.

Consider buying one to give it to your mother to use as a bedside table so she can put away the knife and immediately reduce her risk of stabbing herself in the brain by 100%!

How about buying two for your brother-in-law to put by the front and back door to his home so he is ready should zombies ring the bell before they break in?

And increase the peace at home by buying one for your partner to strap to his scooter so he is ready for whatever perils the world has in store for him.

Tables are ready to be shipped immediately. Some assembly required, and the table comes with a helpful zombie fighting training video.

Search for "zombie table" online and get yours today.

Kids say the darndest things

I had the privilege of reading to a group a second graders today, as part of a local celebration of "National Library Week." I was reading an interpretation of the classic Hans Christan Anderson tale The Ugly Duckling. You know the story - where a swan is accidentally born into a family of ducks. Until the swan grows up he feels ugly and unloved because he looks different.

Early on in the story I paused and asked the question "Has anyone here ever felt like they were being made fun of? Raise your hands if you have ever been made fun of in your life." My goal was to have a brief conversation about how everyone has felt like they didn't belong at some point in their life.

Of course, all of the adults, being good role models who were familiar with the lessons embedded in the story story, raised their hands. About 2/3rd of the children raised their hands too.

One of the little people sitting in the front row declared loudly, "I've never been made fun of."

"Well you are a lucky boy," I replied emphatically.

"Yeah!" he said. "Sometimes my cousin and I play this game where he hits my head like a bongo. That's a really fun game!"

I'm thinking, "Well that's apropos of nothing."

The little buddy on his right spun his head around and accusingly said, "You told me you didn't like that at all!"

I looked at Mr. Bongo Head with my eyebrows slightly raised.

"Well, sometimes I don't like it when my cousin hits me," Bongo Boy conceded.

"Yes," I said, my own head spinning, "Sometimes life is confusing."

How will you celebrate National Cheese Fondue Day?

Thanks to the magic of Twitter I learned that today is National Cheese Fondue Day. Now accepting facts in one's Twitter stream as the gospel truth is like believing everything in Wikipedia is true, so I went to the Web to verify.

And I got distracted by the first web page I found, titled "American Food Holidays." While it also had no references, I became entranced by the more than 600 alleged food holidays. Things like "Lobster Thermidor Day" (January 24), "Crab Stuffed Flounder Day" (February 18), "National Turkey Neck Soup Day" (March 30), "Lima Bean Respect Day" (April 20), "National Spumoni Day" (August 22), "Biscuit and Gray Week" (second week in September - which apparently and not without some philosophical conflict is also "National Vegetarian Awareness Week), "Eat a Cranberry Day (just one, really?) (November 23), and of course, "National Chocolate Covered Anything Day" (December 16). Every day of every year there is food that calls out to be eaten in celebration.

Of course I checked my birthday to make sure the acclaimed foods were good ones; cheese, frozen yogurt and cognac are all honored along with me on the fourth of June. En route to June 4 I noticed that May 28th is National Brisket Day. I have a cat named Brisket. "Awesome!" I thought. We can make May 28th his special day. Now I also have a cat named Ducky. So I searched for celebrations of duck too. I found Peking Duck Day (January 18). "Perfect!" I thought, "There is balance in the food and cat universe."

It has been more than one hour since I started to poke around on this website. My mind is reeling with the possibilities. Do I pick the weirdest ones and put them in my calendar to celebrate? How about I strategically select my favorites from the list of celebrated foods and plan parties that feature them? Do I go all "Julie and Julia" and plan a year of eating the foods and write an blog about my adventures? Who would play me in the movie when my blog attracts the attention of Hollywood and they option the rights to my year-long, albeit derivative, laudatory feasting? I've been craving a hobby lately - maybe this is it?

In the short term, I was planning on making a nice dinner tonight. Cheese fondue as part of the repast in the Tiny Bungalow is an inevitable part of our menu. If you will be in our picturesque seaside suburb give a holler; we'll be eating cheese fondue later.

If you aren't tooling around our town, I invite you to check out the list of unsubstantiated American Food Holidays online, and share your favorites with me.

Which way do you blow?

It is allergy time for me - either Fall or the new kittens are leading to torrents of messy sneezes here in the Tiny Bungalow. While in a snotty crisis in the kitchen this morning, I grabbed a paper towel to empty my nose. While blowing into the rough surface I wondered, "Am I wasting paper towel with these actions? Should I have dashed into the bathroom, nose covered, to do this, rather than grabbing the nearest disposable surface and having at it?"

So, I ran the numbers to see which is less expensive per sheet - paper towels or facial tissues. The results, I decided, would determine all future nose blowing actions for me for now until the end of time.

Here are the caveats. We're a tiny family in the Low Rent District of the beautiful seaside suburb. This means we buy the smallest packages and cheapest brand paper towels and facial tissues. I'm sure the numbers would be different if we were buying facial tissues with age defying exfoliants embedded in the paper fiber, or paper towels that could be used at least 100 times before needing to be tossed.

With that out of the way, this is what I found:
Paper towels cost $0.013 per sheet.
Facial tissues cost $0.012 per sheet.
This makes facial tissues the more economical choice for blowing your nose. UNLESS, as BMG points out, you have a big mess on your face, or maybe a nose bleed, and need more than one tissue. If this is the case, then head into the kitchen and grab a paper towel because they are more absorbent and it is likely you will still need only one to contain the body fluids.

I also ran the numbers on toilet tissue (again, the brand and size we use) and found that, if one were to use 15 squares of toilet paper for a single nose blow, the price would be IDENTICAL to the price of one facial tissue. So, in the interest of efficiency, I may stop buying Kleenex knock-offs and just place rolls of toilet paper in strategic locations around the house during allergy season.

PS: I give credit to this blog for the awesome photo which accompanies this post. Thank you!

Generation Google

There is some confusion about the generational name of children born in the 2000s. I've seen "Generation Y", "Echo Boomers", and the "Millenials". My favorite so far is "Generation Google". Let me tell you why.

My sister and her two kids, CMR and The Divine Miss M, were visiting just last week. As the five-year old "M" walked into the tiny bungalow I share with BMG she spied an olde tyme typewriter in our entry hall. You know what they look like:
What do you imagine The Divine Miss M said when her eyes lit upon this piece of nostalgic office equipment? That's right. She said, "What's that Aunt Clownface?"

She had never before seen a typewriter. NEVER BEFORE SEEN A TYPEWRITER! I typed my college applications on a typewriter only 20 years ago. Boy did I feel old.

But it got worse. A few moments later I grabbed my keys on the way out the door with the kids en route to a nearby playground. The Divine Miss M noticed my key chain.
"Why do you have a 'g' on your keychain?" she asked of her aunt (whose name actually begins with the letter 'g').

"Good question. Why do you think I have a 'g' on my keychain?"

"Hmmm." She thought. "Is it because you love to Google?"

Generation Google. I rest my case.

Art and artifacts

If you were to conduct an archaeological dig into the far recesses of your personal files what would you find?

I'm sorting old files today, as I set up my new home office. I've found my Grade 4 report on the nation of Egypt, a series of "reports" I wrote in Grade 1 on fall clothes, fall activities, and fall animals, and what I imagine is a representative sample of the more than 2,000 illicit notes passed between me and my closest friends are among the files of personal artifacts I have saved over the course of my nearly 40 year life on this planet. My boarding pass from a high school trip to Mexico taken in 1987, a family photo album created for school which includes a section called "BMPS" (Before My Parents' Separation" and another section called "AMPS", napkins from the party at church that followed my confirmation, my grade report from Drivers' Ed (a score of 86 - not my best class ever), and a letter written to me on the eve of my 16th birthday from a woman who was sort of like a godmother to me.

I kept scrapbooks from middle through high school. And my mom gave every one of us kids a scrapbook for our high school graduation - complete with every drawing, birthday card, or "Let me tell you why I hate you mom" note we had ever written. I've gradually deconstructed these scrapbooks, and every time I go through the remaining pile of ragged edged papers, I winnow the stack down just a little further. Okay, Egyptology was really important to me as a kid, so I'll keep the Egypt report. And I live in Massachusetts now, so I NEED to save the report on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. But maybe it is time to recycle the report on the "Tar Heel State." And all of those hazy and unfocused photos from Disney World, Mexico, and the general carousing of high school life? They don't hold meaning for me anymore. Or maybe the meaning is so firmly etched in my heart and mind that I don't need the objects to remember.

And then I wonder if, at the age of 85, if I'll remember that night in Michelle Carisse's bedroom at her grandmother's house, when all of us girls teased our hair to its biggest best before heading out for a night of underage activity. Do I need that photo to help me remember what I was like as a teenager in the event that I become an 85 year-old who wants recall the full story of her life?

And here is the curious thing. Do these artifacts actually help me remember the full story of my life? The other day an old high school friend was reflecting on the people in her life and she commented that I was always the friend in our crew who kept a level head. "Really?" I thought to myself, realizing that I have NO idea how other people know me. I only know how I know myself.

So, as I work on this round of culling the archaeological finds of my life, I'm doing it with an eye towards telling my story as I know it, and hoping to get glimpses of how other people know me.

Boredinary

Extraordinary things are happening in America. And my life, today, feels boring and ordinary. Boredinary.

(So boredinary in fact that my clever self did not even coin this fantastic word. Some genius already posted it on Urbandictionary.com. Twice - with an "e" and without. Sigh. I really am boredinary.)

Polemical

When I was in graduate school I wrote a brilliant research paper on the evolution of the health insurance crisis. And, apparently I laid the blame squarely on physicians, evil scourge that they are. And my professor, himself a physician, gave me a low B citing the paper as well reasoned but too polemic.

One of the things I learned in graduate school was the word polemic, which I think of as meaning simplistically controversial.

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day I'm reading the "Gone With the Wind" chapter in the book Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Lowewen. The book allegedly debunks myths of American history by telling the "real story" behind such American institutions as the first Thanksgiving and the "discovery of America". This chapter is about the sugar coating, and even glamorization, of slavery in American history. As I'm reading the chapter and reflecting on the roots of racism I find myself distracted by Lowewen's polemic argument. Like this one: Very few textbooks clearly state that Thomas Jefferson was a profitable slave owner. Must be a conspiracy to keep blacks down.

Maybe so. Or maybe the rationale for what to include in a history book is far more nuanced than this. Maybe history textbooks written for kids were edited by smart people who understood that Jefferson's ethical and moral ambiguity about being a slave owner was too complicated for young children to understand - too complicated in fact for many grown adults to understand. Maybe the writers of history textbooks chose to focus on the evils of slavery rather than the hypocrisy of the time because they wanted to exclusively focus on the slavery = bad message.

Myriad psychosocial development theorists would posit that many young children - and again many adults - aren't evolved enough to really grasp a conversation about actions we take that benefit one but hurt others. How can this be done responsibly with school children, without compromising respect for our nation's leaders? How do you take a subtle analysis of human nature and transfer it to a component of a 60-minute lesson that can be absorbed by individuals at different stages in their own moral reasoning. Would you say, "Thomas Jefferson was a great man, but he was also a bad man?" You could say the same thing about MLK Jr. if the stories of his womanizing and power plays are to be believed. But to what end? What if the lesson is not to present our historic figures as full human beings, but instead to focus on the good things they did - to give children a sense that they can do good things too?

I don't believe my American history teachers lied to me, and I also believe that American history is far more complicated than a recitation of facts and a presentation of black versus white arguments. Now, I am off to honor Dr. King for the good work he did. Because he did good work, in spite of the flaws in his character.