uncommon sense of adventure

reconstruction

2009-08-06T07:34:00.000-07:00

aside from putting my patio, my relationship with my parents re: religion and, well... my identity back together after finishing and or quitting pretty much everything I was consumed with for the last 2 years, I also made another major leap.

A few summers ago I went to this great garages sale and bought, among other things, a red pleather bag for 2 bucks (that I later found $12 in) and a Cold War Kids t-shirt. This Italian (I know) t-shirt has been my favorite, best fitting, most treasured article of clothing since. The problem is, it's crazy stained and wearing out. I've looked online and compared American Apparel and Alternative Apparel shirts to no avail. It's an orphan. So... I took the plunge.

Today I cut up the poor thing and used it as a pattern to deconstruct a few of Jesse's less than satisfactory shirts (y'know the ones from Target that have one arm longer than the other- things like that).

It was simultaneously horrifying to deal with the fact that I'd never wear my favorite shit, as such, again and deeply gratifying to see that I was right! It IS special! It's ever so slightly bias cut, the sleeves are asymmetrical the angle of the shoulder seams is of an elegance typically reserved for garment cut from much finer cloth that medium weight cotton jersey.

Pieces are cut, hems are out, now for gestation and...

dum, dum dum!......

the birth of the clone!

upheaval

2009-06-22T21:18:00.000-07:00

After a semi-stern reprimand from a woman wearing onion-cutting goggles and wielding a tom-honed knife, I am back at the blog. I hear the re-entry phase can be cruel, so I'll keep it short. I'm entering a summer of no dayjams, no school, no teaching-related projects, not being on call for the first time in years, and no tiny baby. I am trying to wrap my mind around the idea of gardening in actual dirt-clothes - with my phone lying neglected on the counter in the kitchen instead of cozied up to my twitchy behind ready to ring me into action at any moment - instead of grabbing a few handfulls of weeds on my way from the car to the house after work or class. S-man can help and do things like (seriously!) "Bud will you go into the kitchen and look in the napkin drawer and grab the old blue towel with the stain on it and the spray cleaner and bring it out to me in the car, ok? Oh, and could you ask dad if there's any coffee left?"
For the record; he came back in less than 2 minutes with the right cleaner, the right towel, and the answer to my question (which was, sadly, no.) and I was well into cleaning the last few weeks worth of spilled coffee out of the minivan cup holders before I realized that he's not really a grown up, and is in fact 3 and 3/4.
J-man dug a giant pit in our backyard which will one day soon - with the help of the mysterious "Charlie from sand and gravel" - be a lovely breezeway again.
The constant steam of dirt throught the house would bother me so much more if I weren't experiencing the oddest lightness of being. I would mind the sweeping and the laundry more if I wasn't moving so slowly in my mind. I think this must be what it's like for those kids who get medicated instead of being thansfered to a self-contained classroom.
Everything seems so slow.
and so clear.

saying yes, again

2009-01-07T12:45:00.000-08:00

Between christmas and newyear's I was priveledged to witness the birth of a VERY large baby. 11.8 to be exact. The heft of the infant, the ease of the birth, the proud Papa's crazy dance number and the family hoopla surrounding the whole event ( a house FULL of people, furniture and pizza showing up just about the time we thought she'd be delivering a baby) though bizarre, are probably not what I'll remember the most about the day.

I spend long months during the school year reading midwifery texts, studying journals, making paper perineal models, practicing stitches and stressing about NNR, just waiting for a chance to get to a birth, or even to prenatal appontments. So when I am on break, I'm usually totally gung-ho to drive through feet of snow, or leave parties or whatever if I have the chance to actually DO some midwif-y thing. When I got the call on the 27th, however, I was anything but excited. I felt tears welling up and my heart was racing the whole drive out. I spent a good part of the morning trying to ignore the voice in my head that was saying "What the hell are you doing?" "Why are you here?" "Just quit and go home."

When we eventually did leave for a bit, I struggled mightily with wanting to call my midwives and just tell them I wasn't going back. Or to any other births ever. I know. It's crazy sounding, but I just kept being hit by these waves of anxiety and dissappointment and tears (oh, the tears)and un-sureness.

I called A1 eventually and told her about my volatile emotional state. She, perplexed and kind, all but let me off the hook, but by the time she called back I had straightened something out - enough so that I could laeve family christmas number 76 or so to get lost twice and eventually make it to the house in time for the second stage of Mr. Giant Baby's birth.

Here's what I realized in the interim.
1) I was crazy stressed about the Mama and should have talked more openly about it with my preceptors. I hadn't been to any prenatals for this baby (just the little bro) and I think my feelings of disconnection didn't help with my aniety level at all.
2) I, the sworn enemy of hesitation, hesitate at births. I want so much to become skilled at this, and my opportunities to practice are so few and far between that I put a crazy amount of pressure on myself at every midwifery moment.
3) Being off call for long stretches of school tedium makes every re-entry into birth world like starting all over again. I like starting new things, but only because I like getting better at them. This is like some bizarre dating relationship: First date, second date. First date, third date, First date, fourth date, superlong vacation, who are you again? Second date, third date; and do I really want to be with you? Is this worth the trouble? AAAAGGGHHH!

The answer, of course, is Yes. Again.
I DID quit at least 8 times between 4 and 10 centimeters, but I started again 9 times, and I guess, if I'm honest, I can say that that's good enough for me.
Hopefully it's good enough for A1 and A2, and I'm not made to quit quitting by being fired!

wrecking ball

2008-12-04T21:47:00.000-08:00

I heard today, on the radio coming home, a song for two year olds and the adults who act like them.

"I make a fist but not a plan,

I break it just because I can."

Mother Mother, the Vansterdam group to create this jewel sounds like hoe-down with LL Cool J beats from mid '80's and the singers from the Pixies. What's not to like?

money is money and a car is a car

2008-12-03T18:42:00.000-08:00

yesterday I thought I left my wallet at school.
Getting home I realized that J left me with no keys.
I had a list of things to do and a stir crazy 3 year old and a rising feeling of dread when I made that annoying to receive but even more annoying to make phone call, "Honey... do you by any chance have 2 sets of keys in your pocket?
My far away husband's solution was - the pleasure van. excuse me, The Pleasure Van.
Our gracious neighbors have given us a set of keys to this 600 sqarefoot, crushed velvet beauty. It sways when you make a turn, rumbles, rattles and just generally draws attention to itself and it's (ironic?) bumperstickers about hippie festivals and ecological consciousness and hybrid cars while belching putrid smoke from it's suspect exhaust system. I've had to make use of it before, but never with S and freezing temperatures and the change jar. excuse me, The Change Jar.
J's solution to the no wallet situation was take the change to the bank. Not a bad idea, right?
So that's how I find myself rolling into TCF with S in the back of the gypsy wagon and a giant jar of change.

Even funnier was when we left the bank with $113.58 and went to sushi. And the sushi was half off. And we went to JoAnn fabulous for 1 spool of silver thread to finish the advent calendar that I was making to avoid reformatting my reference page. And when we went to CVS for some choclates to fill aforementioned advent calendar and ended up walking into Murrays. "MAMA! This is not a chocolate store! It's a greasy car stuff store!" whoops.
Little buddy laughed all the way home about that one.

We did finish the calendar (see photo). and I did finish my paper and J brought the keys home just as I found my wallet in my backpack.

free faling

2008-11-19T18:08:00.000-08:00

it's so hard to believe that as of 1 december I'll be done with my thesis project and one lame class away from graduation or matriculation or whatever the hell you want to call it. I am feeling the life returning to my life and actually recognizing myself when I look in the mirror. I could still use a good dose of the sedative J's always promising to formulate for me. We're thinking of calling them "Hermiones" aka shut-yer-big-yapper pills. I am getting to the point now, though where I would probably only need to take them in classes or clinical settings and maybe when meeting new people. This is a significant improvement currently being deeply appreciated by many of those who are, yapping notwithstanding, still -unbelievably- near and dear to my heart.

I have had many occasions to babble senselessly and so much to yap (or not to yap) about lately:

Grandma's deathbed and Union City wake and funeral
MANA conference, incl: hooters, (yes.) recording snafoos, identity crises and crying in a bathroom stall for half an hour while my partner in crime was driving in the dark doing the same thing.
CRF making huge strides in the strategic plan, and getting to use the Depot town Community room.
My last class meeting with my masters cohort
The Election resulting in me actually not wanting to move to Canada for the first time in my adult life,
A great victory/ birthday (mama and Obama according to S) party
Making christmas woodcuts and other artwork with my live-in sister
Bloodletting AND Suturing classes
Grade 4 composition projects a soaring success (kids actually geeked abut writing notation. I know!)

Looking back at this list, I am amused by how I have been enjoying what has seemed like such a slow pace these last few weeks... maybe I need to reevaluate my standard of slow...

I have found though, that I can do several key things that have come to indicate a sustainable level of craziness for me:

1) drink more than half of my cup of coffee before lunch
2) play with S right away when I get home from work and still have enought time to get the house and school stuff done after he goes to bed.
3) wash my face with soap every night
4) stay in the car listening to whatever great song is playing on CBC radio2 when I get to work, all the way to the end of the song.

Speaking of which, I heard John Mayer (don't scoff) singing the Tom Petty song that isn't really a Tom Petty song, that everyone associates with Tom Petty because he did for it what Jimi did for All Along the Watchtower; Free Falling. I know. A suspect song covered by a mainstream hunky crooner, and I -completely in spite of my best efforts not to - loved it. There were some truly lovely moments in which that thing that happens in really great ballads happened. A huge vista opened up in front of my tangled thoughts and everything straightened out ahead of me and I just knew that better things - liscenced direct entry midwifery and fat federal arts grants and more kids and dinner with my friends - lie inevitably, gloriously, ahead.

crone

2008-10-04T09:44:00.000-07:00

my grandmother has forgotten how to eat. I guess this is the expected progression of dementia. Soon, they say, her brain will unlearn how to swallow and that, they say, will be that.
Thinking about her tipping out of her wheel chair, or lashing out at her roommates; watching her say a series of unrelated words with the expectant look of someone who's just asked you a question they can't wait to hear the answer to, awakens the same primal impulse that propels me headlong down the stairs, instantly alert, when little S cries out in the night. I want to fold her in my arms and rock her into one last sleep just like the infant she's become.

Our relationship has always been incredibly basic on the surface, and complex in my head. My first fumbling attempt at a short story (during the Flannery O'Connor obsession) was begun on the way home from visiting her in the late autumn after my Grandpa died, when my mom, my sisters and I traveled to her house in rural west michigan to put up the storm windows, rake the leaves and winterize the car. I recalled our most memorable interactions; the good ones where we made stuff together, and the other ones where she criticized and questioned anything I did that wasn't the way she had always done. The relentless, insistent offering of turkey every at every holiday meal in seven vegetarian years. "But it's delicious! Your mother cooked it perfectly! Not dry at all!" When my Grandmother would go home after staying with us for the weekend, I heard the resigned and rueful tone in my own mother's voice as she told us how Gram had pleaded with her as a kid, when my great grandmother would leave from a visit, "If I ever start to act like that, you have to set me straight." Of course, my mother never did. Despite our assurances to her that she was "in a different universe" than Gram, and that we'd never let her become so out of touch, she'd just smile and shake her head. Even at 14, I could tell that, even more than she wanted us to say those things, she wanted to believe that they were true.

Observing Gram's steep decline, I am unsettled by the rush of warmth I feel toward this woman I know I have only poorly understood. I wish that I had tried harder to see her for who she really is. Instead, I was so afraid that I would find my self suddenly at 60, unable or unwilling to do anything beyond decorate a parlor or comment authoritatively on the proper preparation of Salisbury steak that I couldn't - or wouldn't. Over the years since my Grandpa's death, stubbornness and a little bit of a disconnect have gradually given way to confusion and the relentless, painful, regression of dementia . And now she's forgotten how to eat.

So, why have I been such a lousy/ conflicted granddaughter? Why have I always been so afraid of being close to my own Grandmother? What's happening now? Do I finally feel a sense of compassion and the ability to really love her because the archetype has lost it's power as her autonomy is eroded by disease? Have I seen my self and my own mother grow and change enough as adults to finally believe that a worldview isn't necessarily hereditary, and we aren't fated irrevocably to become our parents? Am I finally able let go of my angsty, self-obsessed, figuring-out-who-I-want-to-be, long enough to just be, and just care for this woman as she is, at the end of her life?

I know that I should, and will, look back to the many lovely moments; surround her in my mind with the sun filtering through the trees onto her clothesline, the dusty smell of her mysterious stone basement, the perfect, perfect starched white curtains shifting in the breeze through the window of the little attic room where she sewed and I spent overnights. I suppose I could try to write another dumb short story. Probably I'll just drive out to be with her before it gets too cold.

back in the saddle

2008-09-18T18:13:00.000-07:00

3 weeks into the school year and I'm finally feeling like I have a handle on what's going on.
It's crazy how I can be simultaneously shocked to find myself a teacher again after almost forgetting over those blissful ten weeks, and so - SO - familiar with the setting and demands that I feel like I never left. As much as I feel (you'll never guess...) a little overwhelmed by this semester's workload, I am still feeling really good about the curriculum project.
I set up a Moodle class (online) for myself and a few brave colleagues to share lessons and pilot this curriculum mapping project I was crazy enough to initiate last year. It has been great! I knew that teaching was isolating, but I had no idea it had gotten so bad! I feel so connected by the semi-lame weekly updates and exchanges! It makes this job seem so much more manageable

P M #%&^ing S

2008-08-12T12:08:00.000-07:00

ingredients:

Desperate need to consume salty, greasy food
Inexplicable fatigue
Claustrophobia
Teeth grinding
Everyone else is suddenly insanely annoying
Inability to focus on one task long enough to finish it
Absolutely no ability to control what comes out of my mouth (speech-wise, you sicko!)

dear reader,
if you have any suggestions for addressing my torpor, please advise.
I'm sure I'll find your comments extremely helpful when I return to my right mind and can have a conversation without making myself and everyone else feel awful!

thank god a'mighty I'm free at last

2008-08-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

We got into town around 2pm yesterday after a long 5 days in Denver.
Walking to Sidetrack for some tiny burgers, J says,"it was more like a working vacation."
"Yeah." I reply, "Except for the vacation part."
J's dad opened a bookstore in Golden, which is lovely. He lives in a condo in BelMar which is also lovely, but a little like living in an art gallery. Nothing at all wrong with that... unless you're three! or - more to the point - the Mama of someone who's three. I felt like I spent the whole trip alternating between keeping S from killing himself in traffic on the shimmering streets of the desert of BelMar (the manufactured nightmare of what may eventually be an uber-hip planned community jammed with yuppies on the rise and second homers on vaca, but is now just a little bit too pricey and a little bit too empty and a little bit too cement-y for the likes of me and my little three. Perhaps the park are on their way, but we sure couldn't find any) and keeping him from destroying the lovely glass pieces or 1st editions around grandpa's house.
In order to avoid the guilt the comes from both paying for, and NOT paying for dinner out, I hit the ho foo (of course the only grocery in walking distance, and the size of my entire block!) and cooked great food all week. Yeah. all week. I also cleaned up, did laundry, and read books to little buddy. I went three days without talking to any women. That will fuck you up. I had no idea it was getting to me until we finally went to see a friend who's studying at Naropa. She was great and saw right away what needed to happen, and took us up to Boulder falls where we climbed and played in the cold cold water. It was stunningly beautiful and SO sanity-restoring. What was I thinking to not plan to get into the mountins everyday? Oh! I was thinking about renovating my kitchen. I put the last coat of tung oil on the counter at 5 am on Tuesday morning, right before we left to get on the plane. I swear by all that is holy, I will never NEVER go on another trip without asking myself, "what do YOU want to do do while your there?" I had prepared clean clothes for everyone, and 3oz bottles of everything, and a shopping list, and cash, and the phone charger, and plane snacks, and diapers, and books, and J's work stuff and S's play stuff and had not given one thought to what I would do or want to do beyond taking care of everyone else. Therefore I take complete blame for the fact that I was pretty miserable by day 2. I also plan nver to let it happen again!
After the falls, we spent the afternoon in a cute coffee shop with TOYS! Real puzzles, animals, trains and a kitchen set! I have never been so happy to see Fischer Price anything in my life! Stu couldn't believe his luck. The evening we hung out at the store enjoying the company of many lovely townies who are elated to have the bookstore; listening to live, acoustic, and completely charming bluegrass played by 5 old dudes who you know spend hours and hours practicing but are afraid to get gigs. The "crowd" loved them and they just about broke their faces smiling listening to everyone gush at the end of the night. Craig was so proud of himself - as he should be - and clearly very happy to show off his precocious grandson. To bad we had to wait till the last day to be social and adventurous, but 1 for 4 beats 0 for 4!
So - to wrap things up NPR style with a witty quip and a lesson learned... nothing's coming. I guess I'm just really happy to be back in my crazy house in my dusty kitchen with a saw in my hand and a mile long to-do list, within walking distance of a cluttered little food co-op and tiny sidetrack burgers and lots and lots of girls; and to be armed with the determination to - as my Mom says - "ask for what you want!"

bare necessity

2008-07-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

my head is naked.
i had the washtenaw ave furniture store impulse... everything must go!

s says, "mama, you feel like a puppy!"
I can drive with the windows down and take off my shirt without getting tangled in anything. I no longer have the giant hank of matted hair at the base of my sweaty neck after a day in the garden.

I feel a little exposed and I'm still not used to the reactions of people who see me for the first time, shorn. I keep mistaking their gasps for horror, and looking around for pools of blood or unfolded laundry or something.

not to seem over-drawn, but, y'know that michaelangelo qoute about how he didn't put david into the block of marble, but just chipped away all the marble that wasn't him? I kind of feel like I just shed a lot of excess baggage. almost like my long hair was a long-term costume.
silly? probably. but an incredibly liberating silly either way.

sprinkle

2008-06-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

so the soiree on sunday was a success - getting the girls together first proved a stroke of genius. our boys showed up with food and beer at just the right moment, and it had all the best elements of crazy community co-op functions without the culty undertones. I was so happy to be able to take a minute to celebrate B. I see her as being so brave... not just in this situation, but in general. She really doesn't hesitate for a moment to do whatever she sees as right. Listening to the girls, I'd say I'm not the only one who thinks so.

I'm more glad than ever, these days, that we decided to stay here in dear old Ypsi. And to think! in a few more days I'll actually BE in Ypsi. All day! I feel like the school year is whirling to a close, and after all of my yearning for it to be done, I'm overwhelmed with how fast the last week is rushing by. I never saw myself finishing five years in the classroom, but I can say that I feel pretty damn good about making it, intact, to this point without getting divorced, committed, or duct taping anyone to their chair!

row row row your (leader)ship

2008-06-03T17:23:00.000-07:00

I am really tired of people telling me how great of a leader Gandhi was and what style of a leader Martin Luther King Jr. was and selling me books about being successful when their success is predicated on my buying the damn book. I do not for a minute think that Gandhi was great because he had a Franklin Covey Planner or that MLK gave moments of his time to analyzing whether he was an affiliative or visionary or democratic leader. They were just guys with a lot of charisma and integrity who worked really, really hard at following what they believed in - and got followed as a result.
What is wrong with trusting introspection? Why can't we believe that the source of efficacy or efficiency lies within everyone and a little quiet time would reveal what we need to do what must be done? Why must everything be codified and analyzed and preached about and assessed and dissertated on? (is that a word?) Why am I spending moments that could be for real reflection and centering on reading this stupid over-drawn crap and financing the lifestyle of some narcissistic leader-of-leaders, flying around the world talking about his "Big-Picture?" Why do I never fit into any of the categories they describe? Perhaps because there's no book about getting your shit together that involves learning about yourself and what's important by reading like a maniac, working your teen-age ass off on a cultfarm, facing your demons in the guise of 800 mini musicians a year, and watching and watching and waiting and waiting in labor and labor and more more labor, and learning and learning again and again, that you can't lead and you can't teach, and you can't tell. You can only shut the hell up and think and pray and act and listen and when you do have to be in charge, ask really, really good questions. Then shut UP SHUT UP! and listen to the answers and think and pray about what they mean and act and think and listen some more.
Maybe I just think this because the end of the year is (as usual) making me hate the sound of my own voice. I can hardly finish this because I'm actually to the point where I don't even like the sound of my own type! I made my friend feel terrible yesterday because I took the most innocent comment completely the wrong way. I actually said to him, "oh. You didn't mean to be hurtful? ok. I'll just go ahead and feel better then." What is happening? Where is the sleep promised to the pure of heart? Maybe it's not "no rest for the wicked," but "no rest makes the wicked."
Oy Veh!

So the good thing of today was little S singing playground chants he learned from my students.
He looks right up at me as I buckle him into his car seat:

"Little Sally Walker, walkin' down th street.
Di'n't know what to do, so she stops in front of me, singin'
Hey, girl, do your thing, do your thing, do your thing
Hey, girl, do your thing, do your thing, now STOP!"

Finally, a refreshing thought from Lucille Clifton, whose poetry I recently re-encountered to my great delight and benefit. I've even been making some small paintings to accompany transcriptions. (see above)

female

there is an amazon in us
she is the secret we do not
need to learn.
the strength that opens us
beyond ourselves
birth is our birthright
we smile our mysterious smile.

inch by inch, row by row

2008-05-12T16:57:00.000-07:00

we have been spending a lot of time in the garden.
Some friends who were going to community-plot it this summer, decided to bring their poo to my yard instead. And so it is that I have the miraculous help my mum assured me I would get if only I asked for it.
Mary Lu loaned me her gigantic truck for a compost run and my garden is looking as fertile as my many motherly friends. (I have - SO BAD - the baby itch)

Inspired by the lush greenery, I want to edge the beds. I've always liked the look of cobbles for edging, and the Thompson block has two brimming dumpsters begging for a midnight raid. The bricks are calling my name but, fortunately for J, I have developed -in my old age- another voice. It's singing a counter melody to the tune of "If you start this project will you kill yourself finishing it?" Unfortunately, it's the voice of Nick Drake and "Do it! Do it!" is Mahalia Jackson.

forgiveness

2008-04-09T05:39:00.000-07:00

In honor of the Dalai Lama'a visit to our fair county, the wonderful protesters of the Chinese crackdown on Tibet following the torch; a film about forgiveness that really gets at the heart of a major issue of contemporary American society. The Power of Forgiveness is surprisingly engaging and moving. I'm thinking about organizing a screening for all of my sorely abused family and friends when I finally finish grad school... too heavy handed?

funny little grad student sittin' on a fence, tryin' to make a paper out of 49 cent(ence)s; or:bumbling through another day

2008-04-03T18:54:00.000-07:00

The Contents of my Brain: A brief overview.

1. Songs about mud written by second graders
2. Likely causes and potential effects of hypertension in labor for a woman who is consistently hypotensive
3. How the hell do I make a rubric for a 30 second improvisation by a first grader in the first month of school and why is my prof making me? why am I letting him make me? why am I submitting to this patriarchal, hierarchical, money-grab anyway?
4. The outline of a k-5 curriculum map that aligns the essential questions in music with the art curriculum and classroom curricula and allows for unified assessments by music teachers and how I'm going to present it to my boss on Thursday and my colleagues after that in a way that everybody feels like it was their idea and is motivated to go make it work.
5. Why is there not a midwifery class offered in Washtenaw county? Everybody is talking about these distance learning things... we have so many resources here! Why is someone not teaching it?
[I would so do it if I didn't need to learn everything first! In fact, I've been realizing lately that I'm reading my text books like a teacher (imagine that!). i.e. I try to see each topic in context and make the kind of connections I would need in order to explain it to someone else. In fact, as embarrassing as it is to admit, I usually fall asleep at night doing something vaguely like lecturing myself on whatever wisdom Anne Frye has just imparted via the big purple book.]
6. The application of Critical Pedagogy to Music Education, or why a Brazilian radical named Paulo and his thoughts about cultural reproduction and social hegemony are profoundly relevant to a guitar slinging ypsilantian midwife wannabe and her kids and their songs about mud.

Today was my first day of prenatals at "the office." I didn't feel any more awkward or inadequate than I anticipated (which was plenty). I think the main point sometimes, is to just do things so that they're done. It really is hard for me to believe that It's almost three years since I was the pregnant person struggling to get up from the broken blue chairs, and I was anxious about being on the other side of the room.
I did, however, have a sweet little conversation with the German high school exchange student who was there to observe the midwives. She was talking about how different maternity care is here in the US, and I told her how I was hoping - for everyone's sake - that some change was on its way. She replied with earnest, wide eyed, 11th grade confidence, "Oh, but it is! And you are a part of it." And, awkward and inadequate and overwhelmed as I felt (feel), I believed her.

my boys

2008-03-21T10:45:00.001-07:00

It is 8:00 am Friday morning, I am home and hooking S up with the Backyardigans (or "backyard begins," as he calls them) so I can shower. J is still in bed trying to recover from the EMU cd marathon combined with 5 gigs in one week and finishing up his first session of after-school songwriting at Willow Run.

The cartoon starts (begins) and S says, "I don't really like the dancing."
"Really?" I ask, "I think it's kind of cute."
"No," he says, shaking his head, "but, " (waving his hand dismissively in the air around his right ear) "whatever."
WHATEVER? Holy Mother of God. I've just been whatever-ed by my two-year-old.

Secretly, I was proud to see that he could tell it was a dumb argument and was willing to drop it even though I didn't say he was right. Also, I think it shows that he knows it's pointless to try to get me to change my mind. Also, this may be an indication that he's more like his Dad, and won't follow any stupid line of thought relentlessly to its ultimate, usually pointless, conclusion.

So I showered, we watched the rest of the show - which is actually hilarious and charming, with surprisingly good music - played pirates, ate sandwiches, got dressed, and began to wonder about Papa. S took his flashlight (which, incidentally, is now his constant companion. This can be especially frustrating at 6 am, when he comes hulking up the stairs with a hoodie over one arm and the giant flashlight in the other, like some kind of midget Dragnet guy, to rip me brutally from sleep by jumping on me and shining it directly in my eyes. "Why are you hiding Mama? That hurt you heart?" No, buddy, just my eyes.) upstairs to interrogate my, still-sleeping, partner in crime.

"Why you sleeping, Papa?"
"Mrghphnmrr."
"What you said? You are awake now? Let's go paint."
"I can't."
"Why? What happened to you? Are you stuck?"
"I did the hokey-pokey and I put my whole self in. Now I can't get it out."

giggles

"I can help you, Papa. I'm really brave and strong."

over and done

2008-03-14T05:01:00.000-07:00

finally sent my research paper off last night,
several pots of coffee and a tin of rescue remedy later,
and in my triumphal haze I am realizing that I was - as usual - obsessing a bit too much.

As a freshman and sophomre in undergrad, I was a music therapy student. My prof was on the certification reveiw board, and a founding editor of one of the major US journals in the feild. He expected all of us to write like we were going to be published. Today. One paper every day (plus rewrites) in APA. He was a facist dictator disguised as a professor and I still hear his voice as I'm trying to organize my thoughts into compatibility with the requirements of the 6th edition.

Having sent the paper, I can now look back and see that I was writing it as though the authors of the articles I was reveiwing were going to read and critique my work, rather than an over-worked professor who has probably not a clue about music education to begin with.

Oh well. I faced down my demons and overcame the urge to move away or shave my head or drink myself silly; and I got it done.
Now I can go be ridiculous...

visions of ypsi

2008-03-11T18:52:00.000-07:00

The consultants have spoken. Ypsilanti is less of a shit hole than it used to be!
We're still raggedy enough to be identified as an at-risk city by the generous state govt, but now we can call it "interesting, real, and edgy!" (Check out Mark Maynard for more info on the visioning meeting).

I never thought I'd come back to Ypsi after undergrad, but here we are, 2 degrees, 7 jobs, a mortgage, and a baby later; singing her praises to anyone who will listen, walking to the co-op, going to visioning meetings, and feeling pretty damn good about how far we've come.

Yep, we. When Peter asked about J's plans for finding a space for CR, I heard my self tell him that J is determined to find one, and we're not moving, so "it's just going to have to be in town!" and I realized that I really feel attached to a place as a home for the first time in my life. I know store owners and community organizers and at least half the population of the corner brew on any given night. When I drive through still-sleeping depot town with my cafe-au-lait ala Bombadill's, the scene (and the caffeine) makes me so happy I almost don't mind going to work.

I think things really are getting better. Ypsi people are actually seeing themselves as capable of advocating for positive change. Perhaps it is a blessing that the pavers on the corner of Michigan and Washington are messed up by truck traffic, and Water Street is stalled, and the Vu is not, and EMU doesn't pay taxes and we're all just struggling a little bit to keep it all together; maybe it's just that that keeps us from becoming self-satisfied and complacent and ignorant of the needs of others in our community. So the parking lots need to be resurfaced, and we could use some better signs. We have great music and art and vegetables and beer, lots of lesbians, the most phallic building in the world, and one happy music teacher avoiding a research paper by baking chocolate chip cookies for the recording engineers of the first full length Community Records studio album. Things are looking up.

cozy me up

2008-02-19T19:13:00.000-08:00

Back to work after a great string of births (not that they aren't work too!) I am hurting. I can say absolutely and without hesitation that I categorically hate APA. I spent a few years as an undergraduate music therapy student beleaguered by a nasty, controlling prof and a paper a day in APA (plus rewrites). Now, weighty with my diploma, tenure, and sundry other meaningless evidences of my ability to comply successfully with systems I detest, I feel completely confident that I was right all along; just like your home's previous owner's faux-Victorian wallpaper, APA is a tool of the devil to make us doubt the risen Christ.

I keep trying to perk up, but it's FEBRUARY! This is seriously the most godforsaken month. My plates expire, everything is frozen, all the kids have cabin fever, and the giant puddles on the playground will ensure at least another week of indoor recess. I have a shit-ton of work to do and everyone else is in a bad mood too.

That said, I'd like to dedicate this post to my favorite phrase, a balm against all the worlds ills. Use it freely, it's powers are vast!

CO.ZY .ME. .UP. /ko-ze me uhp/ imperative
- Phrase commonly uttered by frozen-footed grad students, occupying chronically underheated houses, upon clambering frantically into bed with their friendly, furry, toasty husbands after a crazy long day of unthinkable torture at the hands of maniacal primary students. "Hug me until I stop shaking and start smiling. Administer chocolate as necessary. I really like you"

One of the things I like the very best about helping at a home birth is the sense of satisfaction I get leaving a brand-new, exhausted, and somewhat shell-shocked family in a sorted house, laundry and dishes running; everybody stitched-up, cleaned-up, well-fed, and tucked-in to a fresh bed for a long rest. All cozied up

and this is why we can't have nice things

2008-02-07T19:40:00.000-08:00

I have this problem that when I decide to do something, I just do it. I'm talking about projects here. You know, ripping up the bathroom tile, repainting the kitchen, making a new woodcut or a pair of pants... The main issue with this is that I usually get to this kind of stuff at 8:30 on a week night; dinner's over, little man's in bed, I'm still wearing whatever raggedy-ass excuse for a teacher outfit I put on in the morning, and I NEVER! stop to change my clothes.

I always wonder why everyone else's clothes seem so nice.
Hmmm, maybe the don't change tires in them.
Or re-caulk the upstairs shower.
Or, like tonight for example, fix the dryer.

Yep.

When's the last time you pulled out your dryer? Thought so. Imagine 2 inches of lint covering the only square of basement floor that never got painted when we moved in because, who wants to move the dryer? Now imagine that you've borrowed your parents' crazy catholic family van to bring an old, rusty, but free!, gas dryer to your house; only to realize - after you've moved the dryer into the basement - that your dryer is electric. Now imagine the two useless dryers sitting side by side, chatting it up with the totally functional washer full of mildewing clothes that you can't even dry outside because it's not just cold, it's raining. Now, if you're still with me, imagine the deep sense of satisfaction you'd feel buying a 2 year old electric dryer from the reuse center for 25 bucks, and the belt to fix it for $16.

Dinner's over, boy's in bed, DRYER TIME!

I rushed down stairs, introduced non-functional dryer number 3 to the other appliances and proceeded to take it apart. Thanks to some very brief directions (in French) and the subtle help of my very calm husband, I got the thing working on the second try. HALLELUJAH! As I was closing it up, I dropped the last screw down inside and had to take the front back off (of course!) Amidst much mumbled cursing and unladylike grunting, closing it up, I looked down at my clothes and realized I was wearing a floor length, wrap around, dry clean only, lint magnet. What idiot fixes a dryer in Banana Republic wool everything?
Oh. That'd be me.
But here's the thing. I'm so proud of my cheap self for getting and fixing a cast-off appliance, that my home-repair related euphoria profoundly overshadows any kind of fashion remorse, and any kind of guilt over my clothes just doesn't ever really stick. Besides, since I fixed the dryer, I can just wash some Target jeans and a concert t-shirt - tomorrow's Friday anyway!

one down

2008-01-31T12:29:00.000-08:00

Monday, we finally had a client give birth at home - the first one since the start of my apprenticeship this summer. It was beautiful and the 5-6 hour pushing stage was only moderately scary and, except for shaking so hard that I dropped the bulb syringe 3 times right after the head was born, I managed to not radically screw anything up.

The mama was amazing. Like I said, pushing was crazy long and she never once lost faith in her ability to do what needed to be done. She was even really mellow about being stiched up - something that really pisses alot of people off, and rightly so!

My favorite moment was during the posrpartum bath -

Imagine everyone crowded into the tiny bathroom, standing around the tub as Mama cradles her teensy boy in the fragrant water.

She asks, "Was I ever really out of it?"

Papa: "Well, once when you were pushing, A told you to make your self into the letter C. You pushed through the next contraction then asked foggily, 'What letter am I again?'"

Mama smiles, totally exhausted and blissed out, looking down at her boy;

she sighs, "Brought to you by the letter C."

working hard

2008-01-15T09:50:00.000-08:00

its amazing to me how much can fit into one day.
J says our life is like waking up by being shot out of a cannon
and going to sleep when we hit the ground again.
earlier this year I thought everything was going great with parenting and grad school and teaching and midwifey stuff and then I got crazy sick. for like 10 weeks.
back from a nice long rest, I am committed to not doing that again. I have my sense of self and sense of humor back and I am determined not to loose it.
(professors be damned)
at least not untill the end of the semester.

I was spending a lot of energy bemoaning how much time I'm at work and focused on just the basics of getting shit done. I want to be more political and more generous and more interesting and spend hours and hours studying and playing music for fun and talking to my husband and planning nice things to do for other people and....
I have given up. I have an end date for school (december 2008) and until then I have decided to not feel guilty shopping at trader joe's, recycling lessons, mopping with swiffers, not getting pregnant, or reading to little man till 8:30 or 9 every night. we need to hang out more than he needs to be in bed by 7:30, and he'll be fine as a four years older brother.

The other thing I won't do is continually justify my choices to the people around me - whether or not they give two beans about them - so, hang on to yr ass, this blog should get more interesting again really soon!

christmas survivor tells her tale

2007-12-27T10:34:00.000-08:00

did:
write haiku, make prints, deliver cards, play 2 shows, cook insane amount of food, buy, wrap, and deliver 5 sets of gifts, finish S's fridge, fill it with wooden and cardboard food, overdraw the checking account, get paid, make un-returned phone calls to elusive father in law, play masses, fill stockings, eat food, clean up, sort toys, clothes and books to make room for the new stuff, make more food, have the usual guilt attack that comes along with the post-christmas lull ("Isn't there something I should be doing right now?"), realize I have not posted for WEEKS...

did not:
piss of my in-laws, poison anyone with underdone turkey, forget to get anyone from the airport, get called away to a birth, fold the laundry (it is in a pile in the basement closet. AHA! That's what I should be doing!) make too big a deal about Santa, prohibit my poor child from eating any sweets, edit my profoundly lame book review which will probably be going to print any day now with my unfortunate name right on it.

what's up:
J and I are in the process of watching the pirates of the caribbean movies (I don't know why so don't ask), I am reading Middlesex- an unexpected gift from my mother-in-law - and listening to a weird mix from a friend at work, we're contemplating getting a real bed for our son. (J is convinced that it's vaguely neglectful to let him sleep on a futon. ) We're working on the five year plan for community records - which, by the by, is taking off like crazy. So crazy that J is thinking seriously about quitting his only other remaining job.
Perhaps as a result of all of the above, I have been having wild and very involved dreams. They play out like full-on action movies. I wake up with the entire plot fresh in my mind. I can even remember my costumes, the set (it's always a set), and - oddly - the view from the audience. Clearly, I have some sorting to do that has nothing to do with my jammed-up closets. I think that part of my uneasy post-holiday lull is brought on by the fact that I put off dealing with stuff by staying really busy. When I finally come to a full stop, it all rushes at me with sickening force. Plus, I'm always preoccupied with death at Christmas (isn't everyone?) At almost every yearly milestone (birthdays and christmas and anniversaries) I think about the one where I'll be dead. Nice, hunh. And when I'm done with that I worry about the fact that this year seems warmer than the last and will my grandkids get to sled at all, and....
Somebody needs a little fresh air.
Or a birth. Nothing like the beginning of life to put things into perspective, restore my faith in humanity and revive hope.
Hey! Christmas...
the baby...
I GET IT!

pushed

2007-12-20T04:49:00.000-08:00

haikus!

2007-12-18T09:43:00.000-08:00

below are some responses to the christmas haiku challenge.
if you feel the urge, don't hold back!
I got a fever! and the only perscription is more christmas haiku!

Abbie:
(waxing loquacious)

Amy (Amy Morgan)
in your youthful innocence
you forget the truth:

you must admit that
there is no such thing as a
boring, trite haiku!

Haikus bring pleasure
and in-trest to otherwise
uneventful days.

Merry Christmas to
all whom I lovingly call
my nerdiest friends

(we are brainiacs
on the nerd patrol and we
delight in that fact)

Thanks for your friendship
this Christmas season and past,
and future, and now.

My love and thanks to
you, Jesse, Stu for all that
you are, were, will be.

Thanks also for this
joy-filled opportunity
to think. Abbie Lee

Justin:

run very fast for
fun friends are soon here, spirit
comes warm this new year

Diane:

when the ball lights up
a new year is beginning
it's two thousand and eight!

Joe:
(a spartan at heart)

snowflakes in her hair
glistening in the moonlight
newborn left to die

Carly:
(christmas/ new year's a true holiday haiku)

christmas and newyear's
we drink champagne through the night
it's two thousand eight!

Kristin:
(at our new year's eve party)

It's new year's eve
time to start another year
a resolution?

it's starting to snow
pregnant woman on the couch
guys are playing games

Paul:

reindeer of despair
floats, strapped to his jet pack of
haunted memories

Amanda:
(nothing like a christmas cold to exacerbate all that's hellish about the holidays)

my nose is snotty
i'm not prepared for christmas
i just want a beer

Dan and Bets:
(my DIY holiday buds are having rough go of it)

making christmas gifts
fun but stressful too, you see
will they really care?

kitchen-aid mixer
broke. not so many cookies
will be had this year

Jesse:
(apparently slightly dismayed by a percieved superabundance of seasonal plush toys)

These holiday bears
Needles and gingerbread smells
I drank too much beer

snow

2007-12-05T07:46:00.000-08:00

I can't help it...I love this!
I know it makes driving hellish and I have to scrape my car and whatever other grown-up blah blah blah blah, but I am so so happy when I wake up to see snow coming down.

S and I made christmas cookies over the weekend. He was so excited he could hardly contain himself. He stood on a chair at the kitchen counter and at each new step, he'd look at me with huge eyes, and gasp, "I can help, mama?!?" I'd look right at him and nod solemnly, and every time he'd jump up and down on the chair yelling, "OK!!! Let's DO it!" By the time we were done mixing and rolling and cutting out and baking and cooling and frosting and sprinkling several dozen chistmas-y shapes, the entire house was covered in a fine layer of sugar and I was ready for a drink. (or 4)

I remember my mom making cookies with us. I was always mystified when, near the end of hour two, she'd try to sneak the last fist sized ball of dough scraps into the trash, saying it'd been rolled out too many times and wouldn't taste right. Sunday, when my back was killing from hunching over to kid level, my nerves shot from rescuing child and cookies from six million near disasters, and even my contacts coated with sugar, I so got it. I opened the cupboard under the sink when he wasn't looking, tossed in the wax-paper wraped hunk of unfulfilled cookie potential and flashed back to being eight years old. However, rather than the usual desparation and helplessness that is brought on by realizing that I am becoming my parents afterall; I felt kind of ok. I am juggling a marriage, a house, a family, a job and grad school and studying fetal anatomy and still making crazy lopsided sugary cookies and greeting new snow with a smile on my face.
There is a God. And, apparently, she's on my side.

it's out

2007-11-30T13:06:00.000-08:00

(8 days later!)
the size, shape and texture of a wasabi pea.
for the record,
J says childbirth is way worse.

romancing the stone

2007-11-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

I was racing to school 1 to print my final project for diversity class when J called me Tuesday with a shaky voice. The pain he'd been feeling that morning had grown to active labor proportions. (he couldn't speak during contractions...) He was dropping S off at a friend's house and going straight to the ER on the orders of his PCP. After hanging up the phone I laughed at myself in baby mode, probing questions, calming voice, earnest reassurance followed by mad speed and frantic tying of loose ends the second I hung up. A trip to the hospital in my recent experience has lasted consistently upwards of 24 hours and with my busy life these preparations have become an ingrained behavior. As have the mental prep in the car. Quick call to child care person (who, incidentally, seemed quite well versed in the baby routine herself), a few deep breaths to drop everything in the hands of the universe followed by a quick scan of events leading up to this point, possible outcomes, and my role in what's ahead.

events leading up to this point:
J feels abdominal and CVA tenderness in the am,
ruled out UTI, (no fever or burning with urination)
ruled out appendicitis (wrong side)
wondered about amazon massage of previous day
(she couldn't have bruised a kidney?)
checked for tenderness or rigidity attributable to abdominal bleeding
decided to see PCP if pain worsened or changed

the poor man drove all the way to Ann Arbor to see our PA who said yes, he should go to the ER (in Ypsi).
J is on his way there when he calls me, shaking, twitching and moaning with the pain of it.

possible outcomes:
another blocked ureter (had one at four and at six years of age)
bruised kidney and abdominal bleeding
rupture of some other internal organ
gall stones
kidney stones

By the time I met him at the ER it was 4 pm.
He'd been there for an hour. There were no rooms, but a condescending PA took his vitals (kind of), called a tech to run a saline IV and sent us back to the waiting room. Apparently there was some sort of rule about administering pain medication to people who are not in rooms, but some kind nurse (he actually called her an angel of mercy) came out to him with a syringe of delodid. Here begins the romantic portion of our night.

With a much better PA on the case, an almost diagnosis of kidney stones (not too scary, just painful) and the benefits of modern medicine coursing through his veins, my J started to look downright happy. I was relieved and so glad to see him feeling better that we became almost giddy. We spend a good deal of time together, but it's almost always working on stuff or planning how we're going to fit in all the working on stuff that we have to do. If we do get a sitter it's usually because one of us has a show or we're hanging out with other people. Trapped in the ER waiting room, we realized that this was the most time we'd spent just talking to each other in months. The people watching was great, we'd just come through a minor crisis together, our babysitter was gracious, and our PPO footed the bill.

We ended the evening with Sidetrack takeout and Talladega Nights.
J's pain was all but gone by the time we got home, we can only assume that he passed the stone in the hospital urinal. All those lovely strainers gone to waste...

oh, the humanity

2007-11-15T19:59:00.000-08:00

3 years ago, my friend (and former housemate) Keri went off to be a Mother-Teresa nun. I've always admired her for having the balls to actually do it. To commit the unknown rest of her life to a community of women (and priests) and totally give herself over to the service of the poor.
She came back to town this week, as much of an event on legs as she has ever been; but, as B says, "She has always been herself."
Here's the scene:
B and I drive with our wee men to the "party."
We've been invited by and are greeted by another old housemate who apparently still hates me.
Five seconds into the night and I already feel like I've been plunged into a bath of ice water. Trying to make a joke on the way up the stairs into the condo, I receive a heaping helping of that cold, compressed anger that no one but a frustrated, celibate Catholic woman can deliver.
The first twenty five minutes or so, I spend holding a shell shocked "babito" in relative silence. After being accosted in Spanglish by the just-post-Mexico postulant, I am regaled with stories of prayer outside of abortion clinics, an "exact digital replica!"of the image of our Lady of Guadalupe, people feeling her heart beat, flower petals and tears shooting out of her eyes, etc... by hater-roommate (Maybe I am missing something, but "exact digital replica" could be read "photo," right?) Our Lady is invoked countless times; the "devils" of poverty, impurity, divorce, and ignorance in "Our Lady's Land" (Mexico?) deplored; and our young sons' pockets pronounced suitable for "rosarios!"
The following twenty five minutes were marked by me opening my mouth and falling right back into my old role of uncomfortably "earthy" roommate, exhibiting such behaviors as calling body parts by their anatomical names, referring to activities not once mentioned in the Baltimore Catechism, and declining to respond certain pointed inquiries; aided by one speedily ingested Corona. (you can picture me, I'm sure, wide eyed and a little embarrassed, declining the proffered lime with a shake of my head, bottle in the air, as the first swig emptied half of the watery beer into my queasy, grateful, unholy stomach.)

Really, I should have expected most of what happened. But two things were genuinely surprising about the whole evening:
1) I knew that I had changed since university (and certainly since being at home as a kid on cultfarm) but I was really shocked by how deeply distanced I felt from the vocabulary and preoccupations of these people I'd once lived with. I've spent a lot of time since trying to deal with the fact that I really think that most of what I heard was superficial, and, in many ways could easily act as a distraction from what I'd consider to be true enlightenment, or "sanctification."
2) I have much more in common with B than I would ever have noticed or believed without being thrown into this particular situation.

Even more than I am surprised, I find myself relieved. I am no better or worse than my friends or anyone else, and I had every reason and opportunity to get caught up in the other-pitying, self-congratulating, pietistic escapism of "Catha-holic-ism" (as my sister calls it).
Instead, I find myself a fiscally poor, wildly liberal, car-pooling, semi-urban gardener, musician and student midwife; married to a heathen, teaching my two year old to meditate, and guzzling cheap beer in the presence of a Missionary of Charity.

I'd like to note here that I have no idea what is actually taking place in the hearts of these girls, and I fully admit to projecting my own internal analysis onto them, thereby creating for myself that false sense of "otherness" that I claim to so despise.

If I did pray the rosary to put myself to sleep, I would probably spend far fewer nights staring at the ceiling awash in anxiety about climate change, the relative unavailability of quality health care in the US, broadening racial disparity in birth outcomes, and the long term effects of genetically engineered produce; but I am so deeply satisfied to feel a part of this crazy, bleeding mess that it makes up for losing the veneer of sanctity and safety that accompany the superstitious adherence to the dictates of faith. I much prefer the idea that faith (if I even have any) is what keeps me from walking out of grad school classes or losing my shit with a kid tantrum; what makes laboring women able to push past the feeling that pushing is literally tearing them apart; what makes my husband believe that a good song can change the world, and that people really want it to. I guess what I'm trying to say is that any faith that denies the sacredness of each moment and each person in favor of an elaborately constructed and painstakingly maintained system of do's and don'ts and us's and them's just ain't happenin for this "chica."

school song misfortune

2007-11-13T08:38:00.000-08:00

in case you've ever wondered what it sounds like inside the head of a primary school music teacher.
ALBUM: Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy
LABEL: Fat Cat
COMPOSER: Orvar Poreyjarson Smarson
COMPOSER: Gunnar Orn Tynes
POP GROUP: Mum

pro bono publico

2007-11-09T08:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a standard issue Thursday,

get up, shower, make the beds,
drink a lot of coffee and procrastinate leaving for school as long as possible.

Sneak in the custodial entrance,
Super-cheerful "Hey, Buddy!" from Mr. Mike as I wrestle my guitar, cello and giant music teacher bag past the tractor and up to my room.
Teach all day, sneak out the minute I'm done.

Get home, straighten the kitchen, feed the boys,
take two accordions to the basement, throw in a load of laundry,
welcome adolescent boy piano student number one,
make tea for his mom,
welcome the recording engineer,
here to set up to lay down cello tracks for the tai-chi video,
see off student one and mom,
welcome adolescent boy piano student number two and his dad the cellist,
put S to bed to the strains of electronica and killer cello licks.
see off cellist and son.

Open a bottle of wine, go upstairs to study fetal skull anatomy
(structure and function of the major sutures and primary fontanelles - in case you were wondering) to the sound of organ and keyboard tracks against afaorementioned electronica / cello

Crazy, but standard EXCEPT that in between dinner and kid A, Our lawyer friend called to say that he'd set up a board to do probono legal consultation for community records.

Pro bono publico (often shortened to pro bono) is a phrase derived from Latin meaning "for the public good." The term is sometimes used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment, as a public service. It is common in the legal profession and is increasingly seen in marketing, technology and strategy consulting firms. Unlike traditional volunteerism, pro bono service leverages the specific skills of professionals to provide services to those who are unable to afford them.

In the UK, "pro bono publico" is sometimes used to describe the central motivation of large organizations such as the BBC, the National Health Service and various NGOs, which exist "for the public good" rather than for shareholder profit as well as legal or professional work.[1]

The lovely people are not only going to secure us 501c3 status (several thousand dollars worth of work) but will also act as the legal advisory board for setting up all of the recording and liscencing and copyright stuff that a record company needs.

We could never in a million years have come up with the money to pay these guys what the work would cost, but
we don't have to.
God bless Trent.

I was so excited that - during the cello recording, but after S was asleep -
I called my mom.
Who dropped another bomb.
It went something like this.

explain lawyer stuff...
"Oh, honey! That's so wonderful! Praise God!
I'm actually really glad you called. There's something I've been wanting to talk to you about."

stomach drops to my ankles as I silently panic and review what I could possibly have done to offend the pope within the last six months...

"It's about your sister."

wave of relief that it's not me...

"Your Dad and I were wondering what you'd think about her coming to live with you."

sphygmomanometer

2007-11-05T05:06:00.000-08:00

My usual birthday reflection (what have I done this year to make the world a better place?) has made me really happy today. I don't know that I've necessarily done a god damned thing to improve life around me, but I do know for sure that I could never have done nor will I do anything good enough to deserve the kind of happiness I feel looking at my life.
I have a wonderful marriage to a beautiful man (who'd have believed that the crazy stressed out cynical overachiever could manage to not screw that up?) I have a healthy son who is absolutely delightful. I have healthy relationships with interesting, engaged, creative and passionate people (some of whom I happen to be related to). I live in a house I like in a town I like, I have a job I don't hate and the prospect of one that I love. I have an apprenticeship with a sane and lovely midwife who just happens to live down the street. I have a world class cello teacher who teaches me for free and a place to make art in my basement. I get to play music everyday and read books and drink beer and blog and now - thanks to J and my Mom and my sisters - I can also take people's blood pressure and listen to lungs and heartbeats with out embarassment because I have a beautiful! german stehoscope and a blood pressue cuff with a valve that doesn't stick!
See? I told you I could never have earned this kind of good fortune -
I guess I am going to take this to mean that I'm off the hook and I should just spend my energy appreciating it all!
Ok?

bye bye briarwood

2007-11-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

For the last four years or so, my J has had an on again off again thing with the mall. Not because he likes to shop (hates it)Not becuse he likes the sound or the smell or the stuff or the starbucks, but because Von Maur is the only department store in the midwest still stuffy enough to hire a live pianist.

I have great memories of sitting on the stiff upholstered couches after a long day of teaching sipping my chai and listening to piano solo versions of everthing from Chopin to Led Zepplin to Keith Jarret to gut-bucket blues. Then later, when I was pregnant I used to go there and listen and knit. I always wondered what the high-heeled make-up counter ladies thought about the huge hippie girl and her snacks and projects so at home on that ridiculous uncomfortable couch. I'm sure it was clear that we were together. He was certainly the only bearded employee, and if that didn't give us away, the handmade binder covers or the faint hint of nag champa surely did. Now it's the two year old riding the escalator and shouting "I see my papa down there, mama!"

J has quit and been rehired a few times, but I really think this one's for good. He has enough gigs and lessons to make up the difference and just way to much other good stuff going on to put in 15 hours a week at consumer central. I love seeing the mediocre pushed out by the overwhelmingly great. Beyond that I am relieved to have some pressure taken off the calendar which was in danger of spontaneous combustion. It's kind of like lancing a really good abcess.
(sorry. to me its a fair comparison...
I know...It's a sickness.)

yes, red shoes really can make me a better person

2007-10-30T08:43:00.000-07:00

S was up most of the night with whatever horrible cold he caught from me.
Trying to steam him was like wrestling a baby tiger. How did he get so strong? It was kind of reassuring, though. No one at death's door could muster up that kind of wild, enraged, flipping determination to absolutely NOT do whatever I was proposing.
If it wasn't for J I would have been at a total loss by 4. How do you explain to a two-year-old that the feeling that someone has just ripped a piece of duct tape off the entire surface of their lungs every time they cough is not going to kill them or last forever? And that the only way to make it feel better is to sit in a stuffy bathroom then go outside on the porch in our jammies, or sit with a towel over their head and a bowl of steaming menthol-y tea? Everything (except the antimonium tart. which might as well have been candy) was just tourture on top of torture. I was really starting to freak out for a while, and it wasn't until we were propped up on pillows under my down blankets with the lights back off and our bellies full of tea that little man lost the look of confused outrage, cuddled up next to me and said "this a good plan, mama."

Shoes? One might well wonder at the title of this post. I am not, despite the plegm vigil, delerious from sleep deprivation. Nor am I snapping at my students, binging on Kate's delicious pumpkin bread, viciously attacking any sign of dirt or disorder, reevaluating to no good effect my worth as a human being or engaging in any other tried-and-true over-tired-mama-type activities.
I am, however, gazing down occasionally to see; peeking out from under the hem of my six year old skirt; the toes of some truly beautiful, red-brown danskos -
and smiling that smile found only on the un-made-up face of a chronically underdressed possessor of some
fabulous
new
(red)
shoes.

multiculturalism in the classroom

2007-10-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

Three kindergarten students from Japan in one class.
One of them also speaks some English.
Since I am teaching about tempo, I decide it's the right thing to do to learn the Japanese words for fast and slow. She helps me translate, everyone thinks it's great.
("Hi-i!" was a big hit, by the way, much more convincing than "fast.")

I'm telling an African folk tale, not unlike the Tortoise and the Hare, called Toad and Donkey. Toad and Donkey are in a race, at each mile marker, Donkey calls out "Ha, ha, ha, me more than toad!"
Toad calls back, "Jin-ko-ro-kok-kok!"

The Japanese kids look at me with eyes like saucers. The second time toad calls out they fall over laughing and keep repeating "Jin-ko-ro!" to each other and bouncing around hyterically. Finally, the tiny girl with the best english and a very red face points to her crotch, then to the boys and says, "Jinkoro is that place!" and collapses into giggles.

Moral of the story: that old penis toad is a tricky fella.

road trip

2007-10-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

excepting the crazy christmas where we took our THREE MONTH OLD to visit every person we're related to within a 600 mile radius (not kidding) we have not traveled farther than Grandpa's farm since our honeymoon. Either this means that our life is so fraught with meaning and purpose that we don't need travel for fulfillment, Washtenaw county contains within its borders everything we could ever want to do or see, or we're just really boring.
I'll just have to puzzle that all out later beacuse just now I am getting directions and packing and sorting and changing the oil and checking the tires.
the trip may be, in and of itself, mildly uninteresting, but I don't care.
We're playing three Beatles songs at the wedding of my former principal's daughter. They're putting us up in a decent hotel and paying us fairly well. None of this matters as much to me as the fact that I will be somewhere where I don't know the scenery like the back of my hand and won't run into anyone I know or be able to stress about all of the things I should be doing around the house beacuse I will be physically unable to do them beacause I will be OUT OF TOWN.
That magical phrase... I've used it on my MIL twice already.
Each one sent endorphins rushing down up my spine.
"gross dinner at bad restaurant for another birthday? Oh, I'm so sorry! we'll be OUT OF TOWN."
hee hee...
"oh, that sounds like fun but, we'll be OUT OF TOWN, remember?"
and at work...
"You need more volunteers for Pizza Pumpkin night? With the screaming sugar-high kids and their distracted parents and the Dominoes pizza and all of our classrooms turned into haunted houses by overzealous PTO moms on crack? I'm so sorry! No I completely forgot about it and we'll be...
(drumroll please)
OUT OF TOWN."
Yes. It's gone to my head.

friday at the jewel

2007-10-11T05:42:00.000-07:00

4 sets 4 songs

amycarlyholly...
I'll fly away
Train song
Nobody knows me at all

mikeamy
?
?

jessemattkurt
blues....

jessemutualkumquat
?
?
?

jesseamy
littleboxes
spanishdance (duet)
powderfinger
costoffreedom (with everybody)

2007-10-05T19:12:00.000-07:00

we did it

2007-09-29T20:33:00.001-07:00

not only am I of course thrilled that we made twleve hundred dollars for SOS, but I am so relieved for Jesse that it actually happened and worked. (Not to mention being glad to have not burned or otherwise wrecked all that donated food!) Everyone who played wants to do it again next year, the food was great, the beer was great, and everyone had a great time.
I have to admit that it freaked me out a litte to be down in Depot town with the streets closed down and the crazy ypsi crowd wandering around, and to hear these musicians whom I love, telling everyone how great this thing is that Jesse and Amy Morgan are doing and to hear Ypsi - tiki bar, restaraunt patios and loveable-freak-filled-street - roar back. It felt like dream. a good one.

for the love of god, lighten up woman!

2007-09-27T09:41:00.000-07:00

ok,
I just read back at the long string of typical beginning of the school year angst and realized that

it's not that bad.

as much as I may not be thrilled about teaching, at least I seem to be doing an ok job and am appreciated (if mildly) by my colleagues and I can pay the house payment. I get to play guitar and jump around everyday, I am within 2 minutes of great pad thai (yep, just finished lunch) and the funfest is going to happen. We are healthy and safe and involved in what's going on around us, and in spite of global warming,the trees are turning colors.

confessions

2007-09-26T13:24:00.001-07:00

bless me father for...

I am a tenured teacher.
(Mr. Gold says "you are the institution.")
I was telling everyone because I wanted it to mean more than that I have put off midwifery for five years out of college.
I wanted dinner or something.
Instead, on my way to grad school (see eponymous post)
I ate Wendys for dinner. Fries and a frosty.
And snickers for breakfast today.

I haven't seen S till eight o'clock once this week.
I'm not drinking enough water.
I don't know if I can handle having another kid.
The toilet is still leaking.
I have not vaccuumed under the bed in like 6 months.
I have no idea how much money is in my checking account, what food is in the fridge, which -if any- clothes are clean, what I'm going to do to my room for open-house tomorrow, how I am going to finish this lesson plan for the Michigan Department of Education, and whether I will look like an idiot if they decide to tape me.
Scratch that, I know I'll look like an idiot if I'm chosen to be on the video. My singing voice is not good. I don't look people in the eyes when I get tired. My car has cracker crumbs all over the seat, and there is lint in my big toenails. I don't practice enough piano, I talk too much, drink too much, think too much, and I definitely make stuff up on my homework.

My god I am heartily sorry for all my inadequacies.
May my gratitude for all the goodness in the world
cause me to be less of a whiny jerk,
and not shoot myself in the face.

costumes

2007-09-24T18:27:00.001-07:00

As a pregnant person, I was so good about food and rest and water and exercise. I was pretty happy go-lucky even in the end of August huge and fat. I didn't binge on anything or treat my family poorly, but I did have a problem with wintergreen Altoids. I was like a smoker who knows where they're cheaper, and plans around getting them on the way to and from. I'd always have a box in reserve, hid the tins in the trunk, admitted the problem and just kept right on crunching (yes crunching) those curiously strong mints. My son seems fine, doesn't smell wierd or twitch, knows his letters etc... So I'd been feeling like I was home free on the birth defects from Altoids front.
Then,
I explained Halloween (kind of) to S last night. After telling him how he gets to wear a costume and be anyone he wants, I was expecting Buzz Light Year, or Ernie, or a toad. However, when asked what he wanted to dress up as this year, he said,
"An Altoid."
Yep.
Clear as day. "Like in mama's purse."

There you have it.
Call the APA.

How to be Born

2007-09-23T13:08:00.000-07:00

BORN IN THE USA
How a Broken Maternity System Must Be
Fixed to Put Women and Childen First.
By Marsden Wagner M.D.. M.S.
295pp. University of Calfornia Press.

Scientists, in order for their research to have any kind of statistical validity, need to be dispassionate and totally unbiased. Doctors are not scientists. We hire them for their opinions.

Surgeons, in order to be able to make that cut and sew it up right, need to be cool and decisive, even detached. In fact, many hospitals will not allow surgeons to operate on close friends or relatives. Yet it is continuity of care and a trusting relationship with the care provider that most consistently increases positive outcomes and experiences for women in labor and birth. Obstetricians are surgeons

Obstetricians, like all doctors, are trained in pathology (disease.) Their experience and expectations of labor are that it is risky, painful and needs medical intervention to happen successfully. Healthy laboring women need, more than anything, to be trusted, monitored, protected, supported and left alone.

Who can blame doctors who only see what happens in the hospital; who are expected to manage every possible reproductive health issue, ward off litigation, keep clinic hours for prenatals, post partum visits and non-pregnant women, AND go to births; if they try to make their lives a little easier by scheduling more cesarean sections, speeding up or inducing labor with medication, and cutting routine episiotomies to help move things along?

Marsden Wagner, for one. In his new book he offers a clear picture of how and why American obstetrics is basically out of control.

Throughout the world healthy pregnant women are attended primarily by midwives and give birth in out-of-hospital settings. Among industrialized nations, the rate of women reporting satisfaction with their birth experiences and positive outcomes increases with the rate of midwifery care. Although the US spends more per capita on obstetric technology and has a higher rate of medical interventions than any other industrialized nation, our rates of infant morbidity and mortality are among the highest and continue to rise. Many obstetric practices in the united states do not conform to world health organization (WHO) guidelines, or even the recommendations of the FDA. Womens' labors are often induced for no medical reason, putting mothers and children at unnecessary risk. This is often done using Cytotech, a drug that is known to cause uterine hyperstimulation, amniotic fluid embolism and uterine rupture. Not only is thie drug used "off-label" (for a different purpose than the one for which the FDA originally approved it) but it is actually contraindicated for use in pregnant women. The rate of cesarean section, which the WHO says should not exceed 15% is above 30% in the US (and higher than 50% in many hospitals) Many women are not informed that the drugs they are being given are being used experimentally, or educated about other, non-medical options in labor and birth.

Wagner describes the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) as a "tribe" with all the unspoken rules and hierarchy you'd expect. He tells many stories of doctors refusing to make official statements that would lead to negative consequences for another obstetrician; of midwives losing their practices because they couldn't get physician back-up, of oversight committees and peer review boards who take turns justifying one anothers' actions rather than forthrightly grieving loss, learning a lesson and moving toward evidence based practice.

This book would be a heavy handed condemnation, were it not for the vision of what could be. In Dr. Wagner's perfect world, healthy women are attended by midwives at home or in free-standing birth centers. Obsetricians attend high risk births in hospital settings.
Perinatologists (scientists) get the funding they need to do substantive research that begins to shape the scope and direction of maternity care.
Women form neighborhood self-education groups and care for eachother during pregnancy with the supervision of a local midwife. They become educated about and intimiately involved with their own health care while forging the invaluable relationships that will aid them throughout parenthood.
Midwives and doctors are equals. They collaborate and value eachother's insight and experience.
A singlepayer, or socialized medical system provides quality care for all pregnant and laboring women; making it possible for midwives to make a reasonable living, while reducing patient cost.
All health care practitioners are accountable to their clients and to oversight within the system.
All kinds of people all over the country know about, have experience with, and trust the process of labor and birth.
Women becoming pregant have a clear idea of what their care will look like. They go into labor for the first time having seen their mothers, aunts, cousins and friends do the same thing; sensing their connection to the millions of mothers who have made thier lives possible, and with the determination to instill in their daughters the same trust and strength that will sustain them through one of the most profound experiences of their lives.

I find it truly inspiring that, for all his familiarity with very frightening statistics, the author really seems to believe that profound change is not only possible, but that it's coming. And that women - that's us, ladies -
will be the ones to bring it.

frenzy plunges into conflict

2007-09-23T12:28:00.000-07:00

1.develop composition inservice for monday morning
2.put cds in raffle baskets and design tickets to be printed
3.create signage for concert, henna tattoos and raffles
4.pick up food donations and
5.cook food for 60 hungry musicians and their signifs
6.finish book review for the birthproject
7.pick up nostril ring from pangea (more on that later)
8.find and fix bathroom leak
9.prune the tops of spirea and forsythia
10.put up fence
11.move impossibly large pile of stinking compost
12.do grad school homework (see #11)
13. get, wrap, and make card for step-dad-in-law birthday present
14. deliver to Tecumseh
15. eat gross food from bad restaurant
16.lose five pounds
17.become a nicer person
18. practice cello everyday
woops.... little carried away

ok, #7. - I actually got a message from the piercing place (the silver nose hoop that I made for myself is starting to turn me green, so I ordered one in surgical steel) saying "Come to Pangea and pick up your fucking nosering." click.
WHAT?!?!?!
Seriously, I get the hard-core routine, but come on! Pardon my inconveniencing you by ordering something from your store; thanks a shitload for taking 4 weeks to get it in, and leaving-once it's finally arrived- an obscene message on my phone, with no store hours, price or contact info. To top it off, apparently they accidentally sold my nose ring to someone else, so now they want me to order it again.

I'd just like to say, to every disorganized, demanding, well-meaning or malicious, rude, needy, or just plain curious person who sees my busy-ness as a beacon or some kind of responsibility magnet; drawing them inexorably toward me with the intent to unload, delegate, or ask for a favor; as I pick up my "one more cup" of coffee, take a deep ragged breath, settle into my desk chair, and turn my back on the soft, warm, wonderful call of my too-long empty bed...

I'll get right on that.

morning in detroit

2007-09-22T12:09:00.000-07:00

instead of breakfast today, we made the trek to eastern market. I love the city this time of year. I guess anything looks good against a September sky, but Downtown was so beautiful, and there is no place like Detroit for some quality people watching.
umm......
I can't believe how tired I am.

scans

2007-09-21T15:55:00.000-07:00

from a series of kids' songs lyrics. old style illuminations they are not. but one of the woodcuts is going to be the cover art for the next birthproject. www.thebirthproject.com

grad school

2007-09-16T08:20:00.000-07:00

My mother (a nurse) and her sister (a dental hygenist) are the only two people in either of my parents families to graduate from college. My Dad, although he's now a liscensed builder and engineer, was in a religious studies program, but dropped out for trade school, like many of my uncles; one or two mechanics, a foreman in a sheetmetal shop, a glazer. One aunt works for the city of Detroit, one at a daycare, a few clean houses and one is a stylist. Their parents worked at similar trades. This said, every single one of my generation is either graduated, in school, or planning on college. Our parents insisted and made it possible for us to pursue higher learning. However, not having a whole lot of experience or background in the system, most of us ended up at state schools, doing fine, but with an eye for getting out and getting on with "real life."

In undergrad I - the bookiest, most school oriented of the bunch - was shocked and apalled by my experiences in class. Having been homeschooled, in high school I had wasted no time in getting what seemed to be essential out of whatever I was assigned and moving on to whatever I was currently obsessed with (soapmaking, sewing, backpacking, piano, goat cheese, writing, reading philosophy) or whatever needed done around the farm (roofing, gardening, mucking, riding, milking, haying). I was so excited for college; to just focus on learning a lot and having the uber-wise professors on hand to answer my pressing questions. I finished my first semester with extra credit beyond a 4. in every single class. My mind totally blown by how easy everything was, I kept thinking I must be missing something. I went up to the UP camping after Christmas and stayed two weeks into the next semester. Back at Eastern, I quickly figured out how to navigate the system, got a few jobs, moved out and prioritzed so that I could work full time, be in a band, and graduate with honors without really studying much beyond completeing the requisite papers and theory assignments. Dissillusioned as I was, I couldn't wait to get out of school and never go back. I will never understand why, just before graduation and blessed escape, I decided to choose the one profession that not only requires continual addional schooling, but also refuses to pay for it. Fucking teaching. This is why - after a long and desperate period of avoidance - I find myself in.........

grad school.

Even Eastern's music program offered more than this sick bullshit. I sit in a class with some very lovely people who apparently have nothing better to do than to hang out in a middle school media center talking about what we already know. I have a few very lovely professors -good people! - who are sent to tell us the startling truth that, although people are different in many ways, really - at our core - we are all valuable, and no culture or ethnicity should be seen as superior, no individual as more important than another. I know, it's a shocker. Take a minute and try to digest it. I'm sure it's going to take years for me to bring this one to bear on my classroom policies. AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHH!

I feel like I am paying the university (or Sallie Mae is paying the University) to allow me to sit in a room twice a week and explain what I already do and currently think, get approval from a credentialed official, document my thoughts and lessonplans, get a stamp on a paper at the end so that I can pay the state some more money for another paper that says I can continue to do what I already am. If this is confusing and obfuscated, blame it on the influence of the stupid system that I am trapped in and valiantly trying to inhabit without absorbing its inadequacies.
(all statements in my homework to the contrary notwithstanding)

type therapy

2007-09-16T08:07:00.000-07:00

Today I'm remembering when S was three months old and my massive identity crisis had me seeing a therapist for the first time in my life. The thing about it that really helped the most was just knowing that there was sometime in the week when I would be able to, in fact have to, talk about myself - without feeling like I was putting anybody out - for forty five straight minutes. She (the psychologist) was not all that helpfull really. Although, when she said that if I didn't dust anything and we ate off of paper plates for the next year, I would still be a good person and my family most likely would not crumble around me, I could've kissed her. Of course, I did dust. And sweep and garden. We ate on the fiestaware, and the food was usually healthy and or tasty, but saying what I felt and getting that kind of permission was so great. Later, not long before I quit going, I would get annoyed with just about everything she said (which, incidentally, wasn't much) and she seemed sort of passive agressive. I guess that's a common feeling at the end of a stint of counselling in people who don't usually ask for emotional help, but all I really wanted was a chance to lay out my thoughts and get some pespective.
Blogging is so much cheaper!

nigella, that brittish tart, and my saturday breakfast fiends

2007-09-09T09:54:00.000-07:00

Our little neighborhood breakfasty saturdays are getting to be sick.
Seriously sick.

I mean the joereillybreakfast was a thing of beauty:

Crepes filled with
Mango Mousse
Kiwi, cocunut, and Valrhona, or
(local) rhubarb, strawberry compote with cardamom and cloves

and little rose-bud potatoes in halves with a bit of bacon, sour cream and a scallion on each.
The later ones got messy (we decided they were the easier version; from Martha's little sister Tina's cookbook)

Always coffee, and usually danishes

After that, S's birthday breakfast with the Blueberries and granola with vanilla yougurt parfaits in champagne flutes and roasted potato/egg/bacon/cheddar bake was not so shabby either, but of course, this Saturday
Tom had to go and quiche his way into breakfast history (such a competitive guy) and send us all over the edge with some crazy nut and pumpkin bundt (yes, bundt) - the insanely georgeous weather helped, but it was breakfast of the gods

Next week we'll just have to blow it all up and start over at the bottom, like um...well...
See, that's the thing with breakfast. there is no bottom. (GrapeNuts, maybe)
But bacon and eggs and toast? Happy food. Real oatmeal with dried fruit? Yes! Pancakes? Pick me! Hash, uuunh hunh.
Toast and tea, leftover pie, cold pizza and warm beer...

Breakfast is beautiful
and a joy forever.

have a baby already

2007-09-09T09:27:00.001-07:00

As long as I have been conscious of birth, I have been irked by the waiting of it. I rember waiting for the birth of my now 18 year old sister; my young brain unable to comprehend why it should take an entire school year to cook a baby who would be born unable to talk, read, chew, move independantly, or even sleep longer than two hours at a time.

As a doula the waiting was narrowed down to the 2-6 weeks of sleeping with my phone by the bed, and then 24-65 hours at the hospital.

As a mama, I cherished the pregnant time, awkward as it was, I learned so many things and, for probably the first time in my life, felt at home in the pace of something beyond me, and truly comfortable with slow. The hard waiting was really the last three or four days before S was born, and especially the last 2 hours!

Now, assisting at homebirths, the waiting is big again. I have the on-call periods, and add to that the desire (now that I've finally decided that I am really going to be a homebirth midwife) to get the fuck on with it! I want the birth of each individual child, and I want them to start adding up into the great pile I need to complete the portfolio process and, more than anything else, to give my intuitions the weight of experience and my hopes the reassurance that I am suited to this and will be able to be of competent service, rather than a menace to society.

There was a time when I could have dropped everything, and made faster inroads into the massive heap of work that's facing me, but full-time teaching, financial obligations, and a family (aside from their making life worth living etc...) are a serious logistical issue.

I get it that time and patience are important teachers, and it's not about just getting info and experience, but I need to grow into the person that I want to be and I'll be ready when I'm ready and no sooner no matter how I try to push it, but this primip is 1 or 2 or 4 weeks out and 0 station and all squishy and efface-y and the summer's over and the weekend's almost and still not a single contraction; I am just now really tired of waiting!

Proof, of course, that it's a good thing for everyone that I still am.

first full day

2007-09-05T18:27:00.000-07:00

It always suprises me when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window, or the glass of the stereo cabinet as I'm passionately explaining the concept of Home Tone or running to grab xylophone mallets, hot it the center of an emerging orff arrangement of such classics as, "Senor Don Gato was a Cat," or showing Tariq the underhand turn in a Circassian Circle mixer. It's all I can do to not stop dead in my tracks.

Of all things, how on earth did I become an elementary school music teacher?

I feel like I muse endlessly about teaching and the effect it's had on my life. How I've learned so many things about myself, how the kids are like a mirror - their innocent faces relecting back my deepest insecurities, blahblahblah. Over the summer, or at meetings I always seem to have such great perspective on how to relate to/ understand kids in order to love them. To love them by teaching them the right stuff. And, somehow, as I'm talking/writing about this I am creating for myself the subconscious assurance that when I go back there, I'll get them, and they'll love me, and they'll be interested in what's going on, and I'll pay close attention to what their actions are saying and
we will make beautiful music together.

And then I see them. After all the smiles and hugs I realize that they have not a clue what it does to me when I've been offering a brilliant first-class-of-the-year treatise at the second grade level about empathy and respect and being peaceful and I ask who's got a question or a suggestion about how we can make this happen in our room and thirteen hands shoot up and I call on them each by the names I've worked so hard to remember only to realize that all they've been thinking about the entire time was who's going to be first to try out the bathroom.

I see each child (there are almost 800 of them) for 45 minues a week(including set-up and clean-up and tuning etc..), 42 weeks a year That is, if they're not on a field trip or at an assembly (gag) or off on vacation, or absent, or I'm not at a meeting talking about reaching them - you get the idea. In this time am supposed to instill in EVERY CHILD not only the ability to play on the beat and sing in tune, and read notation, and listen critically, and respond creatively, experience the music of other cultures and their own, and integrate the arts into their other academic subjects, and improvise and compose and hear functional tertian harmony; but ALSO to love music.

I can't. No one could. The only kids who really get the music part, are kids who have it outside of class. But- and here's the real issue - everyone who is in my classroom (including myself) gets the experience. This is why I think I've had it backward. I can't love them by teaching them the right stuff if teaching them the right stuff means turning them all into skilled and creative musicians. I just can't do that. But if I just love them. Right away. Not via a plan or curricular delivery, but in the flawed yet powerful way that I love my family, or music itself, then maybe our experience of my pathetic attempts to instill social conscience and just intonation will have the desired effect, and maybe they won't. Whatever happens, I'll actually be doing what I'm trying to teach them about. Trusting in the idea that if you really let go of control, really listen, really love the people around you it makes the world a better place.

I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow after 4 first grades in a row!

my bathroom renovation as feminist battleground

2007-09-03T20:50:00.000-07:00

I sort of hate bad linoleum. A lot. That, combined with the fact that the closet flange was leaking and rotting the sub floor around my toilet, was enough to cause an (admittedly ill-timed) emergency overhaul of the downstairs bathroom, the last bastion of 70's tacky in our otherwise pretty ok little ypsibungalow. Feeling the crunch of the approaching school year, I usually turn a critical eye on my summer self and embark on a mid-August quick-have-to-do-something-to-feel-poductive-about project that takes over our lives for a few days and nights and leaves me dusty and swearing and covered in adhesive compound; and J shaking his head and escaping to the Corner or his office at the first opportunity.

This brings me to my point. Kind of. In the process of attacking my bathroom, I removed the castiron tub, the sink, and the toilet; tore out aformentioned nasty linoleum; replced some subfloor; put down underlayment and new ceramic tile; replaced my closet flange (shit tube); installed a new sink and resized the door. And, though I do say so myself, it looks good.

J, my husband, is a great guy. The best. Compassionate, insightful, musical genius, generous to a fault, thoughtful, supportive, etc... But I swear to God as long as we've been together I can not remember once, NOT ONCE, seeing him pick up a hammer, except maybe to move it off a pile of books I left it lying on. I, on the other hand, while perhaps not so highly evolved, am pretty damn handy. So why does my Dad - for example - a self proclaimed "woodbutcher" who taught me most of what I know about fixing (and wrecking) just about anything, insist on suggesting that J get the powertools for Christmas? Why does my two year old call it "papa's hammer?" Most importantly: Why do I care?

Ever since I was a kid on a co-op farm being told to get off the roof and into the garden, I have had this burning need to assert that I can do whatever the hell I want. (And WELL, gdmmit!) As a teenager I saw it as a quest for gender equality, but as I get older I wonder.

I am deeply satisfied as a wife, mother, musician, teacher (all things I didn't like -or didn't get- as a kid ) and so honored to assist women at birth (not much is more female that that, folks!) So why is it that when I'm feeling frustrated or inadequate I jump into something like plumbing to get me out of my funk? Could be just the sense of accomplishment that comes from completeing a finite task (something I don't get a lot of these days). Could be subtle gender-role rebellion. Could be Martha-style "pride in my home" :-) Could be seeking approval from my Dad/men. Could be my unrefined response to the creative impulse. Maybe addiction to adhesive compound.
Maybe I am trying, through amatuer plumbing and masonry, to assert that the balance of yin and yang (or whatever the hell you want to call it) that makes us who we are, is a fluid continuum. Maybe I am trying to remind myself and the people in my life to look at each other without the usual expectations/ projections, but as ever-changing miraculous interconnections of desire, hope, experience and determination. Reminding myself to allow for free improv (J's favorite) and open-endedness in my definition of myself and my understanding of the world.

Maybe I just sort of hate bad linoleum.