But Mock... really... how could you have ADHD?

You were an honor student! You were the most easygoing kid!

All true. In fact, I think being smart got me by. Apparently, many girls with ADHD, instead of being hyperactive physically, express it verbally. In other words, via non-stop chatter. And their impulsivity and risk-taking looks like tree-climbing. And a big part of the disorder for many people actually includes something called "hyper-focus," an ability to completely lose oneself for hours in something they actually are interested in. So... there's 8 year old me, up a tree, reading a book. Also? The only thing I ever got in trouble for in elementary school was talking too much.

But what about high school? You graduated with honors! You were a National Merit Scholar finalist!

Little-known fact: I got thrown out of high school. Yes, I managed to turn it around eventually, but I had some rough going there.

But you're not, like, super-disorganized.

A note: this question would only come from someone who wasn't close to me. Someone who, for example, I would tidy up the house for if I knew they were coming over. My car is a mess. My purse and work bag are messes. My desk is a mess. Pretty much anything that isn't official shared household space is a mess. I am, in point of fact, totally and completely disorganized. My mom, husband, and former roommates would LAUGH if they heard someone ask this question.

But it doesn't, like, affect you negatively.

I guess unless you count all the time I have to spend going back to the grocery store for items I forgot, returning home for my phone or purse, going back to the restaurant to retrieve the purse I left draped on the back of the chair, downloading PDFs of forms I need for my taxes that I should have filed away in the first place and now can't find... I haven't suffered too many really bad consequences, like getting audited and not having the paperwork, or actually losing my purse, but it's pretty time-consuming.

But everybody focuses on things they like and avoids things they don't like. 

Yeah, but I'm beginning to realize that it's not to the extent that I do. Other people are like, "Yeah, I don't like folding laundry either, but I can't stand to have it sit there, so I just suck it up and do it right away." I'm more like, "I made pickles and jam and sewed a dress and wrote a poem and read a fascinating article on race relations, but I didn't fold laundry. I'm SO LAZY." And other people are like, "Dude, that's not lazy, you did five times as much as I did." But in my head, I really wanted to fold the laundry, but I just couldn't face it... I couldn't make myself. So since I wanted to do it felt like I needed to do it and still didn't actually do it, I feel lazy.

And you say you rely on lists and calendars. That's just life. Everyone does that.
I know, I know. But perhaps not to the extent that I do. For example, here's the kind of conversation that happens in our house:
Sweetie: Hey, did you get half and half?
Me: No. You didn't put it on the grocery list.
Sweetie: But... we've lived together for 8 1/2 years and I've needed it every week, ever.
Me: It wasn't on the list. You put Cheerios on the list, and I bought Cheerios. Half and half wasn't on the list.

Or...
Me: Where were you?
Sweetie: At the GE meeting. I told you I'd be late.
Me: Did you?

Or...
Me (on phone): Hi, this is Mockula. I'm so sorry, but I'm wondering if I can reschedule, because I didn't realize that I accidentally booked two appointments at once. I somehow had this one on the wrong calendar.

ALL. THE. TIME. I miss appointments, parties, don't bring things I told someone I'd bring... I put on the calendar things like "Get tape and put it in car. 5 pm. Alert 5 minutes before event." And if I didn't, that tape would not get into the car.

But... you do so much! Didn't you write, like, four novels during NaNoWriMo?

Ah yes. But an important thing to note is that although I've done National Novel Writing Month several times, I've never once even considered doing National Novel Editing Month. Because people with ADHD can complete the challenging, creative part of a task, but will stop when it gets to the tedious part. Like when I made caramels, but simply COULDN'T face wrapping them individually. Or made Zadie a dress but didn't put the straps down. Or painted Zadie's room but didn't re-hang the posters. Or, oh, a thousand other things in my adult life.

But speaking of your adult life... you have three college degrees and a good job.
Yep. I'm not saying it has ruined my life or anything. In fact, I think I've been rather successful and am proud of all my achievements. But as I reflect back over it all, I think of the hardest parts, the parts that sucked the most, and they all went like this. "ARGH! I hate this fucking class! I can't believe he sits and fucking GREETS everybody for the first forty minutes. What a waste of my time!" "You know, if I have to make nice with another goddamn sweater-wearing first grade teacher cutting out bears instead of getting right to the instruction, I am going to scream." "I couldn't believe it -- twenty minutes into the class, people were still LOGGING ON, for fuck's sake, so I went ahead and made a whole PowerPoint with animations and pictures of myself about how hungry I was." "I have infinite patience, but I cannot stand these meetings that waste my goddamn time." In one notable impulse-control moment, I remember being asked to "reveal something" about myself with an item in my purse, and I was so pissed off that my time was being wasted AGAIN that I got out my menstrual record chart and cheerfully intoned, "so you can see that here, I was spotting, and the H is for heavy flow days." So I'm thinking that the impatience, impulsivity and frustration with wasted time are perhaps, possibly, maybe just a little, something that is part of my professional life.

I think I have ADD...

and I couldn't be happier! That probably sounds weird. But here's why:

A: it explains a LOT. Like, my "organizational skills." My school performance when I was younger. My reliance on calendars and lists to get anything done. It doesn't make it better, exactly, but to know it's all a part of the same big disorder is actually a relief! I would have described myself as forgetful or scatterbrained, but it's a thing! A few weeks ago, I completely forgot to go to a family function that was important to me, simply because it wasn't on my calendar (well, it was a technology cock-up, actually). I felt awful, and it obviously doesn't make it up to the family members who were hurt that I didn't attend. But, you know... it helps me make sense of it! And that's something.

B: I am a successful-ass adult. So is my husband (who almost certainly has it, too). In fact, the two of us together pretty much have it made. We have a home, jobs, each other, a cool kid, a whole bunch of education... And since what brought this whole thing up is that my kid has it (more on that in another post), I'm kind of relieved! It's like, "Oh no, my kid has this horrible thing! How will she ever cope?" And then to hear that I have the horrible thing... well, it makes it less horrible. How will she cope? She'll make lists, she'll use her smartphone's calendar, she'll fidget... It'll be totally okay. Because like us (and I'm kind of bragging here, I know), she's extra-smart and creative. She'll need our support, but we've got this! We're the coping mechanism kings and queens of the world!

C: To realize it's a thing is to realize that there are treatments for the thing.  I don't think I'm going to jump on Adderal or whatever, but if there are time-management and organizational and meditational and nutritional ways I can address my own spazzy/forgetful/talkative/impatient stuff, I'm going to look into them. Heck, it might improve my life! I get really stressed out when I forget stuff, so it might be a blessing to find some ways to address it.

D: This is the weirdest one, I admit, but I almost feel like... we're all in this together. When it comes to the hyperactivity, that was just the two of them. I'm, like, slothful. But since the attention/distractability issues are all part of the whole shebang, I can join their club! We can all work on being mindful together. It's a family affair.

Anyway, I'm writing this very quickly before band practice, so I'll return to the subject more thoughtfully later.

P.S. Perhaps I should have suspected something before I turned 37. I mean, I *did* author a series of poems called "11 or so songs for a disorganized mind." Ahem.

"Down with the struggle" (a rambly education post)

It is my considered opinion that most of the so-called school reform agenda is based on falsehoods and designed to maximize profits for its corporate engineers by privatizing education. To do that, they have had to create a narrative that schools are failing, which is also largely false.

But there still is an achievement gap, and there are major problems in the public schools. I don't live in a bubble, and I am not myself a liar, so I won't deny that. I just don't think the corporate reform agenda is the way to fix anything.

Many of my students are several grade levels behind in reading, and their writing is atrocious. Not just the students in special ed., but many others as well.

My grandma asked me the other day what the problem was, and I answered simply: poverty.

She looked at me quizzically, probably thinking of the years she spent summers sleeping on a fruit crate outdoors while her parents picked fruit.

"Imagine," I started.

There is one book in a household per 300 children living in poverty.

Imagine working full time and figuring out how to get your kid to 3 hour a day preschool. Daycare is an easier option, so many kids in poverty start school with little literacy awareness at all.

Now that they're in school, though, what happens if they're sick? If they don't have insurance, they likely don't get treatment unless it's an emergency, so they either miss school or attend sick. Same thing if they have a toothache. Can you concentrate when you have a toothache? Imagine how much they are learning under those circumstances. Imagine not being able to afford your asthma medicine or allergy medicine.

Imagine that the two free meals we feed them at school are the only regular, nutritious food they can count on. And imagine they're five minutes late and miss breakfast. Can you concentrate when you're hungry?

How loud is your house? Your neighborhood? In my years of teaching, my kids report hearing arguments, sirens, gunfire... One kid slept in a room with his colicky infant brother, and was awake almost all night every night. Can you learn when you're tired?

And imagine how hard it is just to get to school! If your neighborhood school is across a freeway overpass, a busy thoroughfare, or a rough neighborhood, your parents may not allow you to walk, even if it's within a mile or so (and with the school closings happening so rampantly, it will often be more than a mile). So what if your parents didn't have money for gas? What if the car needs repair? What if the family has one car and Dad needed it to go to work?

Imagine that your dad lost his job, so you need to stay with someone for a while, but it's in a different district. You wear out your welcome there, so you stay with friends in another city. Your parents always enroll you in school, but it's in a different textbook, a different teaching style, and it takes the schools a while to transfer your records, so you don't get the services you need. Imagine trying to learn when by eleventh grade, you'd already attended four high schools.

Imagine that your little brother is sick, but Mom will lose her job if she takes even one more day off, so she asks you to stay home with him.

Imagine your mom doesn't speak English, so she needs you to translate at the welfare office, the doctor, the utility company, your little brother's school, most of which have to be scheduled during your school hours.

I don't even think that's an exhaustive list, but it'll do for now. And I know what some people will say: they shouldn't have all those kids, then. They should learn to speak English. They should get a job.

Whatever. You know what? I've been damn lucky, and I didn't have more kids than I could afford, I have a job, and I was born speaking the language. Some of those things I worked hard for, and others I didn't. Some of them were choices and some weren't.

If you think those are the right choices, though, you have to help people make them. Endorse sex education. Make birth control affordable and available. Keep abortion legal and accessible.

End corporate tax loopholes, end the Bush tax cuts, make it harder for companies to profit at the expense of U.S. citizens by making huge profits but using strategies to make it look like their money was made offshore. Incentivize small business, incentivize factories on American soil, support unions, buy products made in America, stimulate job growth, forgive student loan debt... Find ways to get jobs for those who want them. Raise the minimum wage so that it actually supports a minimum standard of living.

And for the love of God, stop cutting education funds. If you want people to learn English, which for the parents of some of my students is a third or fourth language, then don't kill adult education programs!

In the meantime, while public schools aren't perfect, and society isn't perfect, there is much being done that is an attempt to mitigate the effects of poverty. The free lunches and breakfasts we serve on campus help. The Affordable Care Act is going to help.

And there are things that hurt. Closing neighborhood schools hurts.

And the worst news is, Even if you don't give two shits about the poor, even if you see them as crack-headed derelicts sucking at the welfare teat, this will affect you. These kids will grow up and either they will get jobs, or they will commit crimes. They will contribute to their communities and society at large, or they won't. And if they don't-- if all of them get left behind-- what kind of world will this ultimately be? Of course there will always be the rich kids with their SAT tutors. Presumably there will be no shortage of doctors and lawyers and investment bankers. And middle class kids like mine will probably be fine. And then there will be the bootstraps kids, many of them my students, who will succeed regardless of their circumstances. But if we don't lend a hand to the ones who need the hand, we will have, at best, a generations of kids who are well-suited to work at Wal-Mart (incidentally, one of the corporate moneybags behind Ed reform). They will be low-skilled workers, and Wal-Mart will pay them minimum wage, and as many as 80% of Wal-Mart employees use food stamps. So if you're not into subsidizing people's lives via your taxes, you may at least want to make a decision as to on which end of their lives it is better spent.

By the way, Wal-Mart made $15 billion in pure profit last year. You think they could handle a minimum wage hike?


I think back to Grandma again. I know that as a married couple with five kids, she and my grandpa didn't have a lot of money. My dad tells, me, I think without exaggeration, of having debt collectors at the front door, the back door, and on the phone. But there were differences as well from the kind of poverty my students experience: my grandpa had a union job. My grandma worked. They were homeowners. Their neighborhood was solidly middle class, although it has slid somewhat downhill since. Their kids walked to school, but not through the ghetto. It's hard to consider yourself to have been poor, then to hear that other people's kids can't succeed because of poverty, when your own kids did succeed. They are literate, they have jobs, they own homes.

My students invented a new game the other day. It's called "You don't know about the struggle." They begin with that phrase, then add, "I'm so down with the struggle," and make a hyperbolic statement about suffering from poverty. "I'm so down with the struggle," one said, "we had to eat sandwiches that were just two pieces of bread with ice cubes in the middle." "You don't know about the struggle," the other replied." "I'm so down with the struggle, I didn't even have the bread!" A third kid chimed in, "I'm so down with the struggle, my whole apartment has cockroaches." We all laughed, because he didn't get it. The game isn't about telling the truth about the struggle. The truth is too sad.

Happy fifth birthday, Azadeh Finn!

Feels like the first time: on seeing Star Wars for the first time in three decades*

One of the most interesting things about Star Wars is the completeness of its place in the culture. If you proclaim yourself a movie buff but admit you haven't seen Goodfellas, people will be shocked. But Star Wars is different: you don't have to be a movie lover. People will be shocked to learn you haven't seen it if you are within three or four generations of age, grew up in a first-world country, and don't have some significant disability. It is referenced in songs, tv shows, other movies... I haven't been keeping track, but I'd be surprised to learn that a month of my life has gone by without hearing one of the following: "I am your father," "these are not the droids you are looking for," "use the force," "the force is strong in this one," "I find your lack of faith disturbing," and a few choice others.

I recognize popular costumes, debates, and almost all the characters. What I could not have done, before re-watching it, was tell you the plot. Honestly, I had no idea what the thing was about. And it was a revelation! There were many things I was pleased and surprised to discover.

First, and perhaps best of all the surprises, was Princess Leia. I assumed she was some damsel in distress they managed to run into and she tagged along. Quite the contrary! She was working for the rebel alliance while Luke was still a whiny teenager stuck at home with his uncle. She takes the lead several times, dismissing the macho rogue Han Solo as useless, and she actually endures some form of torture when pressed to give up the location of the rebel base. She's a badass, not a damsel in distress at all.

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ben Kenobi are the same person. I did not know that.

Darth Vader is not the big boss man in that film. It's Grand Moff Tarking. (I enjoyed irritating my husband by pretending to think his name was Grandma Pftarkington.) Of course, by the end, Grandma is dead, so things will change for the next film.

Alec Guiness as Obi-wan is not the scene-chewer the Star Wars nerds would have you believe. I can't tell you how many times someone has quoted the Jedi Mind Trick scene ("these are not the droids you are looking for") and done a deep stare, a hypnotist-at-the-fair voice, and a big hand gesture. In the actual scene, it's very subtle. He looks relaxed and calm -- is even smiling a bit -- and says it very casually. It's much more effective, actually, as a scene, than people who over-act it when quoting.

[Side rant: now that I think about it, that's frequently true. Think of how people quote Bogart in Casablanca. They have to do this over-the-top Bogey impression, when most of those famous lines ("Here's looking at you, kid") are actually relatively understated.

Luke is a whiny kid when the movie starts. It makes sense, because the story is a total hero's journey (I'm actually been teaching that this week, so it's fresh in my mind), and it fits the profile of the reluctant hero, but you never see that bit in pop culture. You always see him flying some spaceship or having a light saber fight. In the beginning, though, he's all, "aw, man, I don't wanna do my chores! Gee whiz, uncle."

Darth Vader does stuff. Again, the few things you see of him in pop culture are usually him standing, breathing, and giving orders. But at one point in this film, he's jumped into his own fighter jet thing and is chasing down the rebels, shooting at them. And when he's done with everybody else, he's chasing down Luke, which adds a good deal of dramatic irony and tension, as everyone now knows he's Luke's father.

[Note: this kid didn't know, and I love this video.]

Anyway, since all I remember of Return of the Jedi is Ewoks and some sort of really fast bicycle-things they fly through the trees, and all I remember of The Empire Strikes Back is stormtroopers marching, and all I can think of pop-culture-wise are Leia in the gold bikini from the cantina scene, the actual light saber fight, and Yoda, I'm quite looking forward to watching the next two movies! I will probably never re-watch episodes 1, 2, and 3 (I think I may have only seen 1 and 2 anyway), because that damned racist kangaroo got on my nerves.


*Three decades and change, actually. I spoke to my mom tonight, and she says we went to the theater to see The Empire Strikes Back when I was four, and we all enjoyed it so much we found a showing of A New Hope (back then, we just called it Star Wars) shortly thereafter. That was 1980, and that was the last time I saw those two movies. I saw Return of the Jedi when it came out in 1983.

Shady dealings in SCUSD

Okay, here's the Cliff's Notes version of what is going on in our school district, and a little history. It's still pretty long, but there's a lot to cover. For the record, although I'm a high school teacher, we're not really affected by this move. And although I'm a parent, my neighborhood schools are unaffected. I basically don't have a horse in this race. But I'm not objective: this pisses me right off.

Eli Broad is a bajillionaire who wants his hands in education, so he created "The Broad Academy," which trains non-education business guys to be school superintendents.


They have this guide that outlines their policies for privatizing education (i.e. turning public schools into charter schools).

Their sort of signature method is this:
1.  Create "churn" or chaos and disruption in the district.
2. Cite budget problems and declining enrollment as a reason to close schools.
3. Turn the closed sites into charters.

There's some subtly evil stuff like creating that "churn," then telling parents "Aren't you tired of the churn? At least a charter school will allow some stability."

And there's a marked propensity for hanging the school closures on a flimsy reason, then changing the reason at a moment's notice if it's questioned. The numbers they use are almost always pulled from thin air.

They generally affect poor and minority neighborhoods because the parents in the other kinds of neighborhoods are more likely to make a stink.

In the meantime, they write laws that say things like "if a school site is closed and a charter wants to open there, you have to say yes," or how if a small group of parents wants to "take over" a school (i.e. have it closed down and given to a charter operator), they can, and then give the laws to some politician to get them passed.

And they put money into school board campaigns to elect their candidates.

And on a larger scale, they make movies about how charter schools and "parent trigger" laws are the only way to save education, which is a nightmare (according to their carefully selected information, which ignores a lot of data and appeals to "gut feeling").

So what happened in Sacramento?

Our Broad-Academy-trained superintendent has created chaos for the last few years (several fights with the union over furloughs, calendar, massive over-estimating pink slip numbers, creating "priority schools" which moves teachers around, etc.).

The last school board member was appointed, not elected.

A "chief" of the superintendent's goes on maternity leave. They make a temporary hire of a guy who ran a charter school.

The school board announced that they were closing 11 schools, almost all in low-income neighborhoods, and that they would vote to close them all as a block, not negotiate over individual schools. There would be several public meetings over a few weeks, and the final vote would be in February (five weeks after the announcement). They cited declining enrollment as the reason, and said that many buildings were "underutilized." (No "stakeholders" like parents or teachers were consulted.)

People questioned the numbers, particularly given a few glaring inconsistencies. For example, one school they said was "underutilized" had plans to get portables in order to have enough room for the kids they had. Other schools had been scrutinized for upgrades and in the district's own report were sized differently than in the closure report.

Parents made a stink about a few of the schools, and two were taken out of the initial vote.

Parents made a stink about three more, and they were taken out of the vote, leaving seven schools to be voted on for closure.

4 members of the school board, including the appointed one, voted to close the seven schools.

As you might imagine, charter school operators are already eyeing the sites, and parents are being assured that there will still be a neighborhood school to attend.

Of course, closing all seven schools is only estimated to save the district about $2.5 million, and if 450 students dis-enroll from the public schools to attend charters, the district's funding will go down by $2.5 million. So any savings will be completely lost.

Among other shady things, the local newspaper, which has been falling all over itself to praise the district's action, has financial ties to the "reform" movement which includes privatization.

This is a losing situation for families, mostly. Many will lose a neighborhood school that they were able to walk to, or that served as a community hub.

It's a losing proposition for teachers, too: the schools that the kids will be moved to are all "priority" schools, which in this district means that the teachers there are "skipped" for pink-slipping purposes. If a larger number of teachers are at those sites, a larger percentage of teachers at other sites are likely to be laid off. Last year, it went all the way to teachers with nine years' service to the district. This year it could go further. A former student of mine remarked that maybe this wasn't the time to go into teaching. Maybe she's right.

It's also idiotic, in many ways, for the district as a whole (although not for the superintendent, who is working in the best interests of privatization, not of the schools): they spent money on things like smart boards at the sites that will be closed, and they have no intention of having them moved to the new sites. It's a very expensive gift to the future charters.

But perhaps the real kicker is this: the district is not really facing a financial crisis. Governor Brown's proposal (not yet passed) would increase funding to our district by $12.1 million next year and $18.7 the year after.

Long story short, education stands to be very profitable via contracts with testing companies, construction of new buildings, contracts with software companies, etc. And as long as all these goddamn unions are in the way, that big pot of state and federal money is hard to get at. So the "reform movement" people have to change laws, train a cadre of superintendents to destabilize education from the inside, buy the media so they can spin the story their way, and then open charters to get the kids enrolled. It seems like a lot of work, but apparently it's worth it, because they're doing it in Chicago, they're doing it in New York, they're doing it in LA, and they're doing it here.

Further reading:

Local journalist Cosmo Garvin does some good writing on the topic here and here.

This is Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post writing about why charters are good business.

This explains some things about how the exact same thing went down in Chicago.

Charter schools and "disaster capitalism."

This one explains how the Broad Academy got its hands on Chicago schools.

More on the Broad Foundation. 

Text "like!"

There's a radio station in town that I like. It plays a variety of music, most of it newer, that fits pretty squarely into the "alternative rock" format. It has no DJs, and promises short commercial breaks. I listen to it a lot.

One thing they do that I tend to roll my eyes at is play a little pre-recorded drop, probably at least every ten minutes, that asks listeners to send a text message indicating whether they like or dislike the song currently playing, or want to hear it more or less. In a quieter, speedier tone, someone adds "text and data rates my apply."

I ignore it, but one day my kid called from the backseat, "Text like!" I told her instead that I would put the song on her playlist. She was satisfied. But every once in a while, she'll ask me again to text the radio station.

I know marketing is invasive. I know we see and hear more ads than we ever take in consciously. But still, it bugged me that this particular bit of marketing had worked so well on my kid, precisely because she didn't realize it was advertising. You're not supposed to.

See, if you text the radio station, my old community college psychology professor would tell you, you feel loyal to them. You've made yourself a part of the station's identity. You feel as though you're being self-serving ("I can make them stop playing that Adele song!"), but in fact, you're creating brand loyalty. That station "belongs" to you (hint: it doesn't).

And of course, they'll tell you the same thing: This is your station. We play what you tell us to. Which is kind of Prong Two of this marketing attack. First, they make you feel loyal. Then they advertise to you, telling you that they're responsive.

And of course, data and messaging rates may apply, so to add insult to injury, they're making you pay for the privilege of their cheap psychological ploy.

BUT FINE. FINE. I'm not going to text them, and other people can, and I'll try to explain it to my kid, but it's all fine.

But then, the other day, they had a new drop. It went something like this: "Our marketing department wanted us to do some expensive market research project. But we told them no; we'd rather answer to you, our listeners." Or some horseshit like that.

So wait. You're telling me that you're advertising to me with the "text like" drops, tricking me* into brand loyalty, using my* input to do market research, and making me* pay for it, and then you have the temerity to use THAT as its own ad? "Hey, we're fucking you six ways from Sunday on this whole advertising and market research thing, but doesn't it make us sound homey and alternative and grass-roots? We're actually marketing to you by telling you how we market to you, and we're doing it right now. And rightnow. And... now. Hey, could we get you to pay $20 for a sweatshirt with our logo, too? Then you could walk around in public advertising for us at your own expense. Could you friend us on Facebook so we can market to you while you check your phone on the toilet?  When you text us, can we add you to a never-ending feed of announcements and reminders that are also advertisements?"

I'm not even sure they do that last thing, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised. And as to being homey and grassroots, everything is so corporate these days that I'd bet money this is just a new format they're trying in fifty markets across the country.

I am too lazy, so please read this as, "Yo Dawg, I heard you like advertisements, so I put an ad in your ad, so you can be marketed to while you're marketed to."

I realize I am uncharacteristically cranky about this, but advertising really does get on my tits, and although I can usually ignore it, it really seems like they're finding more, cleverer ways to force you to be advertised to. Want to watch a music video on YouTube? You have to sit through an ad first. Want to read the paper online? An ad swooshes over your text. Use a recipe? The audio of a commercial in the sidebar starts playing automatically. In the last week, I saw on Huffington Post the opportunity for readers to watch a "teaser" for a Superbowl commercial, but before it would play, you had to sit through an ad. Seriously? An ad to watch an ad for an ad? 

What is this world coming to!? (see also) Kids these days! (and) Get off my lawn!

*And by me, I mean not me.

I hate bike riding with my kid

There, I said it. I like doing almost everything else with her, as long as we don't have to be punctual, but bike riding sucks. Want to know why?

She prefers to ride on the sidewalk. But she is simply not capable of scooting over for pedestrians. And she can't go over curbs, so once per block, I have to get off my bike, walk to the curb, convince her to get about four feet closer to the curb so I can actually grab onto her bike, and walk both our bikes across the street and onto the other sidewalk. Did I mention that was once per block?

If I can get her to ride in the street, I cut a year off my life once per block. Why? Because no matter how many times or ways I say, "No, a little more to the right. RIGHTRIGHTRIGHT! Can you aim to be to the right of those letters? Follow the line of the gutter. We're going to be so far to the right that as we pass this parked car, we could reach out with our fingertips and touch it. Not that we're going to. RIGHT!" it doesn't matter. She drifts happily into the path of cars until I get off and drag her back towards the bike lane.

She doesn't appear to believe in momentum, either, so her pace is actually far, far slower than her walking pace. Sometimes she just gets right off and walks it, but not from the side, as you do sometimes. She straddles it and walks. But that means that with every step, the pedals run into her calves, which is awkward and slows her down more. She will not listen to reason about why this is not a good way to locomote.

Once in a while, she chooses to walk her bike across something like a driveway because it has like a 2% grade at either side. She'll walk it from the side, but she'll let her front wheel turn sideways so that instead of wheeling the damn thing, she has to drag it.

If she's on the sidewalk, there are no driveways, and she actually gets a little speed going, she's very likely to apply the brakes, put her feet on the ground, and speechify for a minute. "I was going really fast. I'm actually quite scared of going so fast. That's why I stopped. You remember that I want to go to the triangle park, not East Portal park? Why was East Portal park a quarry? Did a quarryosaurus come and eat all the rock?" Then I convince her to get going again, and she stops two houses down. "I can't believe that triangle park used to just be a patch of weeds, can you? I really like how it has the lion head fountain..."

We went 0.8 miles and it took 40 minutes. Bless her heart, but I wish I could hire a kid-rider the way you hire a dig walker. Just... take my kid out for a bike ride once in a while. It's probably good for her, but lord knows I don't want to do it.

Be amused by simple things

In high school and beyond, I had a friend who would chide us, "Don't be amused by simple things." If we rewound a funny scene, pressed a button on the new device too often, expressed too much fascination by a potato that looked like Roosevelt. Whatever. It was his way, I know now, of belittling us. To be amused by simple things, in his view, was to be simple.

This is my batter bowl. I just got it after having "won" it on eBay. It is Jadite, a type of kitchenware I've loved for many years, but I've never treated myself to a piece before. I'm thrilled with it. I couldn't wait to use it. As you can see, I'm actually making batter in it. We had waffles.

I think if you know me, if you hang out with me in real life or work with me, you'll see pretty quickly that I'm one of the happiest people you know. I am just generally satisfied, easygoing, and good-natured. Now, part of that is who I am by nature. I know people have a temperament, and I know there are neurotransmitters involved in this stuff. But part of it is a choice I make every day. I choose to be appreciative of what I have, and to not be too bothered by the other stuff. Obviously, I can rant with the best of them (ahem, see my last post), but even then I'm not usually unhappy, just venting.

I like my life. I like waffles. I like my stupid batter bowl. I'm 37 years old today, and I am appreciative of everything I have, particularly my family, my home, my friends, and my job. But I appreciate the way the ice had formed on a puddle outside, too. I appreciate way the clouds turned pink last night. I appreciate that my yogurt set overnight. I appreciate that I am healthy.

If you want to be happy, you could do worse than being amused by simple things.

Some brief notes I'd like to dash off.

Dear union meeting people,

 I'm sure there are some people who find you fucking charming, but we're 15 minutes over time already, my kid and husband are starving, and my Crock Pot is on hour eleven of the high setting. So could you save your goddamn witticisms and asides for the people who like you?

 Thanks,
 CM


 Dear person who invited me to a poetry event via Facebook,

 Who the fuck do you think I am? You've sent me THIRTEEN messages regarding one single measly-ass poetry reading, including a notification every time you upload one of your shitty pixellated flyers, and several messages that, quite honestly, seem to be aimed more at the readers than at the audience. Like, why do I need to know that readers at this series won't be the kind who run to their car in the middle of the reading to get something? I don't EXPECT them to do that. That's like a special note on the restaurant menu saying, "This isn't the kind of place where waiters scratch their balls at your table." And why specifically point out the kind of erotic poetry that these readers won't do? I didn't need your creepy visual, and I'm still kind of mad at you for planting it in my head. And you know what? If this is a venue for people who love words, learn some goddamned grammar and don't spell stuff wrong to be cute. In closing, next time you do an event like this, I would suggest no more than three emails, going something like this: 1, Hey, there's an event! 2, Don't forget about the event in a week. 3, That event is tonight. Hope to see you there.

 Thanks,
 CM

Dear people of the internet,

For the love of god, onions aren't toxic. Planned Parenthood is not full of eugenicists. You can't cure cancer with pineapple. Just because you share a revolting picture of a mutilated dog doesn't mean any good will come of it. In fact, all that will happen is several more people will feel revolted, and several more dumb-asses will click "share." I feel like you've mostly gotten the hang of the Nigerian scam, now bookmark Snopes.com and take a deep breath and put on your critical thinking hat before you do anything else online. Do feel free to post pictures of Tartar Sauce the grumpy cat, though; he's hilarious.

Thanks,
CM

Growing up in Santa Cruz

Which I obviously didn't. But going back there, it sometimes feels like I did. The first time I visited I was only eighteen. My high school friend Greg had moved down there, and I stayed at the little house he was living in. He had moved there to be closer to a girl, and if I remember right, had quickly met another girl. She was just a friend, but he always meant that in the Biz Markie sense. In fact, by the time I got there (on the Greyhound -- my first long trip by myself), she was regularly sleeping in his room in the house she shared with another guy. Awkward!

Anyway, Catherine had a magnetic personality and knew lots of things I didn't, like about Lindt truffles and dessert wine, and I liked being there and learning those things, too. We went (all of us, including the left-out boyfriend, Brad) to comic shops and watched Japanese animation and ate sushi. I went to a retreat house with saunas, hot tubs, and massage rooms, and I went naked!

I actually was there for a week right around this time, New Year's, when I got a call from my employer at the time, calling me back early from my vacation for a mandatory meeting. Said meeting was to tell us that the business was going non-profit, and they were laying us all off. I was mad that I returned from vacation early for that, and I acted somewhat less than honorably the night before my last day. Let's leave it at this: hung over is not a good way to come to work.

I visited once or twice more before Catherine moved away -- Greg had already done so. But she moved back, lived in a big house which was on the outskirts of the town proper and was within walking distance of the beach. We only went to that beach a couple times together -- maybe even just once -- but I sort of fell in love with it. I'm not a leader, but I'm not a follower, exactly, either. I'm sort of independent. So the things that annoyed me about the people in the house on Grandview street, like that it took FOREVER to get ready to go anywhere, turned into opportunities for me to explore more on my own. I started walking down to the beach, Natural Bridges, on my own in the morning, as I knew that if I woke at seven, I'd have a good three hours to kill while others woke, showered, got ready, and decided on a breakfast place -- back then, usually Scotty's Cafe at the Sash Mill (afterwards, we'd get cookies on the honor system at the Pacific Cookie Company factory). I'd go down and kick the surf, sit on the sand or the rocks, and just be alone.

During all this, I went to college, got married, got divorced, my grandpa died. There was a lot going on in Sacramento. But there were things going on in Santa Cruz, too. I was deciding who I was. Catherine believed in everything -- past lives, karma, witches -- and Kevin, her new beau, believed in nothing that wasn't proven. He said he was a skeptic, and she said he was a cynic, and I decided I was a skeptic, too. We went to dinner and they were picky -- there could be no onions in the dish. She'd want a side of the spinach instead of the gratin. And could we just have the whole pitcher of water? I tried not to let it bother me, but I knew it was rude, and I decided to be agreeable, instead.

They took me to Bonny Doon vineyards, just down the Coast Highway, and I did a wine tasting for the first time. I bought bay rum-scented soap, a smell I still love. Their weird roommate was a minimalist: he removed everything from his room but for an object d'art he made with Christmas ornaments. He moved his collection of Jem and the Holograms VHS tapes to the living room. I used to borrow books from their vast sci-fi/fantasy collection. I had saganaki, flaming cheese, at the Greek restaurant. We played games galore: The Great Dalmudi, mah jong, Curses, Fluxx, Cranium, Guillotine, Bohnanza.

I attended Catherine and Kevin's wedding. Actually, I officiated it. I stayed in a hostel there for the first time, down by the Boardwalk. The morning after the wedding, the maid of honor and I took the leftover apricots, nutella, and bread to Kiva and had a picnic in the sunshine.

It wasn't really much after that when Catherine moved to the Caribbean. Without Kevin. It's a long story, but as you might imagine, it was the beginning of the end for them. I never went back to Santa Cruz to visit them. But I did go back.

Sweetie and I took our first-ever road trip there. I think it was in September of the year we met. I had reservations about traveling with a boyfriend. Although I'd made the trip with other friends, including Monkeygirl, there always seems to be stress involved in going places with a lover. There certainly was with my first husband, anyway, and the history goes rather deeper than that. Vacations, as wonderful as they sounded, tended to be fraught with tension. But Sweetie and I travelled easily together. We stayed at the motel near the old house on Grandview, and we ate at the restaurants I loved -- namely Saturn Cafe. We walked Pacific Avenue, and we visited the beach. In one toy store, long ago replaced by an Urban Outfitters, we saw one lonely skinny plush cat, and I told him, "He's creepy! And I love him!" That was all we said on the matter, but the little cat was on the motel pillow that evening. The end of that trip was sad, because we'd had such a lovely time, but it brought a huge sense of relief, too: we could travel together! Without fighting!

And we've been going back ever since. When I was seven months pregnant and my sciatic nerve was crippling me, we parked way too far from the beach and walked there, stopping at every bench along the way to rest. But it was worth it, because on the walk back, we saw dolphins in the ocean. I felt almost like the child inside me had been blessed by their appearance. (I'm still a skeptic, but being a parent makes certain shit seem pretty magical.)

And when Zadie was barely six weeks old, Sweetie had a work conference there. I came along, the baby wrapped in her Moby, and our car full of new luggage, like the Pack and Play we couldn't get her to sleep in. We dipped her tiny toes in the pool, and we nursed absolutely everywhere.

And she got bigger, and we took her to the beach, to Saturn Cafe, to the bookstore... One toystore we loved was on an alley two years ago, on the main drag last year, and was having its final closeout sale this year. Some of the funky game stores and record stores and bookstores are still there. And some places have been replaced by the Gap and Forever 21 and Peet's and Starbucks. I'll miss Badass coffee. I probably won't miss the oxygen bar.

At risk of providing too much information, I went all those years ago with Catherine to a store called Camouflage, which sells lingerie. I couldn't afford much back in the college years, so I would sometimes get one small thing from the panty bin. I went in on this visit, and the young lady who greeted me asked whether I'd been there before. I said, "Oh, I've been coming here for..." and I hesitated, trying to remember just how long. Probably almost 18 years. She prompted, "We've been here for thirty," which made me think she thought I was making something up, trying to come up with a number that sounded plausible. But I was just trying to figure out how old I was!

In the time I've been visiting that little city, I got married twice (and divorced once), got three college degrees, owned three cars, held all the jobs of my adult life, owned two houses, and had a baby. A lot of the ideas I have about culture, relationships, and who I wanted to be were formed there. I've lost touch with almost everyone I ever knew there, sometimes intentionally, and the ones that I occasionally speak with have moved away from there.

Aside from Sacramento, there's no other city where I feel so at home. Eugene is comfortable, because it has family in it. I love San Francisco, but I never feel like I know it. Santa Cruz, in many ways, feels like my second home. Even when it sticks a Gap in the middle of Pacific Avenue.

Feliz Ano Nuevo!

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Last year.

Two years ago.

Santa Cruz trip!

Perfect weather: a little cold, but it only rained at night, so we enjoyed clear skies. We started with some shopping on Pacific, and we had dinner at a place called Malabar. It was sort of Indian fusion, and I had lovely stuffed peppers. Zadie's dish was noodles, and when an older woman came to check on us, Zadie complained that it was spicy. We tried vehemently to assure her that it was fine, but she was back in about two minutes with some plain noodles, so that was really nice. Z and I went in the hot tub before bed. It was a rotten night's sleep, as Z woke up at 1 and didn't go back to sleep until some time after 3:30.

Friday, I took Z to the hotel's restaurant for breakfast while Sweetie showered. We had vouchers, because I booked the hotel through Travelzoo. It was called Hotel Paradox, and we have actually stayed there before, but when it was a crappy place. It's since been bought and re-done, and it's beautiful. We really liked it. The theme is sort of nature-meets-modern, so there's a lot of white, but the big front desk is a giant log, and there are little plaster squirrels everywhere. The restaurant was lovely, too -- more on that later.

Then we went to Cafe Brasil, where Sweetie and I had gallo pinto, which is eggs, a rice pilaf with black beans, tortillas, fried plantains, and a vinegary sauce called lizano. YUM! We were just in time to get to Seymour Marine Research Center, which is a small aquarium we've been to before. We took the tour, which is free, and we got to see the dolphins getting their teeth brushed. Next on the docket was our favorite beach, Natural Bridges. I sat and looked at the ocean a lot while Sweetie and Z made a canal through a little sand island, got soaking wet and cold, and made sand castles. So it was back to the hotel for dry clothes, a more focused shopping excursion that included Bookshop Santa Cruz (one of my favorite bookstores on earth, though I can't explain why), and dinner at Saturn Cafe. I had gotten us some cookies at Pacific Cookie Company, so we had those for dessert and all three of us played in the hot tub for a while before bed.

Sunday morning we had a lighter breakfast -- pastries and coffee at Verve. Then, because we couldn't quite decide what to do, I just started driving down the Coast Highway. I thought I'd go all the way to the Pigeon Point Lighthouse (and the beach nearby that is excellent for finding seaglass and exploring tidepools), but instead, we pulled into Ano Nuevo. There used to be a lighthouse there, but it also used to be Ano Nuevo Point, not Island -- so you can imagine how much the sea has eroded there over the years. My favorite display is of part of the burned hull of a ship: it had crashed, and they burned it so it didn't look so bad to have a shipwreck in front of the lighthouse! They were doing a walking tour and a seal census, but we decided just to lone-wolf it. Sweetie was a little disappointed that we couldn't go into the protected area where the tour was going to see the elephant seals, but I didn't know that until later. We looked around the visitor center, bought a long-tailed weasel toy, and browsed the books and things (my favorite was a scat-identification guide which asked, on each page, "Who shat that?"). Then we took a couple long walking loops. It was muddy, but not awful. We certainly did see a lot of scat, actually, as well as some unidentified intestines that were no longer attached to anybody. We made it to the end of the walking loop and decided to take one more walk. I stopped to pee and said I'd catch up. When I did, they were at the end of the path by a beach. Zadie was refusing to go further, and Sweetie was splashing a little in the tide. As I walked up, another guy walking from the other direction approached Sweetie, spoke briefly, and pointed. I tried to follow, but couldn't see. Shortly, Sweetie walked back up and told me there was an elephant seal right there on the beach! I got a little closer so I could see, and sure enough, he raised his head and looked around, then went back to napping. Zadie was NOT PLEASED with this sequence of events, and we couldn't convince her to go look. I think she believes they eat kids or something. Oh well. It was cool for us!

We stopped at Donelly chocolates, where Sweetie bought me some of their amazing treats (my favorite is the ginger chocolate -- I got two of those). Then we went to the falafel place for a late lunch, then back to the hotel. Sweetie gave me some time to shop without the Z-ster, so I got a few items of clothing, and then he gave me even MORE time to go do a wine tasting at Bonny Doon. She had been a bit of a pill, but I don't look a gift horse in the mouth! I didn't ask questions; I just went! It was lovely, too. I ended up buying three bottles, one of which is a sparkling Albarinho that maybe I'll open for NYE.

For dinner, we really couldn't decide, so we opted to try the hotel restaurant. I'm glad we did! Zadie said her vegetable soup was the best, and I loved my risotto with artichoke hearts. We also had good service. Heck, I think when they get a liquor license, that place is going to be hard to get into. It was called Cafe Solaire.

This morning we went to Cafe Brasil again. I can't believe that for such a small town, Santa Cruz has two Brazilian breakfast joints and Sacramento doesn't have even one. We popped into New Leaf market for some road snacks, then made our last stop: Natural Bridges. The tide was pretty high, and their canal and the island were gone. Zadie often expresses fear of the ocean, and today she didn't want anything to do with the water's edge either, but I finally walked her over and promised I'd keep her safe. We were within a few feet of where the foam was washing up the beach, while little sandpipers followed it out, looking for food. I told her that I loved watching the waves break, and I liked when they crashed on the rocks and the white foam crashed high in the air. Just then, a big one did just that, and Zadie agreed that she liked that. Baby steps.

Z at the new candy store, It'sugar. (I know.)

At Seymour.

 Seymour again.

 The dolphins are named Primo and Puka. I don't know which this is.

Exploring at Natural Bridges.

The little island.

Skulls at Ano Nuevo.

Ano Nuevo.

Elephant seal. We heard he had just lost a bro-fight.

Last morning.

And that was pretty much our trip, with one exception. We stopped in Walnut Creek for water, gas, and a bathroom. I put the gas nozzle in, and Z had gotten out of the car with me so she could go to the bathroom. Sweetie pointed towards the kiosk thing, and I was looking over there when a spray of liquid filled my vision. Zadie had taken the nozzle out of the car, and gasoline was spraying all over! The three of us all got some on our clothing, and Z got sprayed in the eye (we washed it out). The car smelled AWFUL, so I kept the air vents open so we didn't end up with brain damage or something. But  that was exciting.



I didn't get a picture of it, but it was pretty much like this;




Maybe without the explosion.



GIFSoup

"What hath night to do with sleep?"

--John Milton.

Parenting Zadie is... difficult. I mean, she's always been brilliant and creative and funny and curious and all the things you hope your kid will be. But she's also -- difficult. She's passionate, emotional, mean, kinetic, energetic, and so active. Oh, so active. I have frequently pushed aside the nagging thought that she could be hyperactive, clinically speaking, not hyperbolically. In toddler song-time, twenty kids would sit in their parents' laps, and one would do laps around the Clunie center. In library lap-sit story time, fifteen kids would listen to the story and one would run for the stairs. In baby-signs, toddler Spanish class, ballet, soccer, hip-hop, and pre-school, if you wanted to find my kid, the easiest way would be to look for the blur running away. She would want to do things like ballet, but she just couldn't sit still, so she would wiggle and run and change places and roll around and poke and hug and grab the other kids. It was exhausting.

And the exhaustion has always been exacerbated by the fact that we don't sleep very well in this house. She has had a few two-week phases in her lifetime where she didn't wake up at night, but it was rare. She kicks and turns and throws off the covers and yells "EMM! OH! EMM!" at 1am and 2am and 3 am, and sometimes by 4:30 we'd give up. Getting her to sleep at night often included taking the things away that she had gotten out to play with, reminding her to lie down and close her eyes, reminding her to stop singing and talking to herself, and assuring her that she didn't need another glass of water.

And then we would go places and she'd run for the hills and I'd stop my conversation with some kindly old gentleman so that I could run after her, bags and coats trailing after me, and they would always say with some sympathy, "Well, at least she'll be tired tonight!" And I'd smile my thanks, but it wasn't true. She never was.

We had a soothing bedtime routine, blackout curtains, a white noise machine. And the articles I read for advice always started by assuming we were the Honey Boo Boo family. "Maybe you should consider," they'd helpfully say, "not giving them caffeine in the evening." Oh, gee, maybe I should stop putting Red Bull in her dinner glass. For fuck's sake.

And besides the hyperactivity, she was really just a pain in the ass sometimes. She would hit. She would whine or grunt instead of asking for what she needed. She would say how much she hated everything. She called us names. She spat. She would accuse us of Doing Things Wrong. Again, the articles would advise things like, "Consider talking to your child about how she is feeling. If you use physical punishment, try time-outs." I read books: Setting Limits with your Strong-Willed Child. Positive Discipline. Positive Discipline for Pre-schoolers.

Finally my mom, who spends nine hours a day with her, said that she thought Zadie wasn't getting enough sleep. I wasn't entirely convinced -- after all, if she was tired, wouldn't she just sleep more? And we had done nearly everything in our power to help her sleep and it hadn't worked.

I tried one more thing. She's afraid of monsters and the dark, so she generally sleeps with a lamp on. I was convinced it was partly to blame for her staying awake when she woke in the night, so we convinced her to try sleeping without the light. We said it would be a seven-day test, and then we could re-evaluate. It would be like SCIENCE. She loves science, so she agreed. We tried it for two nights, and she did get more sleep and was in a bit better mood, but on Friday morning, Mom mentioned the sleep issue again, saying that kids Zadie's age are supposed to get 11 hours a night. Zadie typically got 9 or less.

I emailed the doctor. She recommended all the things we'd already tried, plus one: melatonin. I had run across that suggestion, too, but mostly for autistic kids. And when I looked it up, the first several reports were of that hysterical "ARE PARENTS DRUGGING THEIR KIDS?!" variety. But I found some good scientific articles that said it wasn't really a drug, just a hormone that some people don't make enough of, that there are no side effects, and that all it does is regulate your sleep cycle.

We bought some and tried it Friday night. She NEVER says she's tired. Never. But she did that night. She went to sleep easily and slept all night long, eleven hours. That morning, we went to get my car serviced and waited at a Starbucks. She sat on my lap for nearly the whole 90 minutes without complaining once. Both (the lap snuggles and the pleasant attitude) were unusual. I really enjoyed the snuggles. All the rest of the day she used pleasant speaking tones, she listened, she readily agreed to my suggestions. She even made me lunch. Wait, let me say that again: she made me lunch.

It was such a perfect day that at the end of it, I was a little sad. I know that's hard to explain, but those days are so rare that I thought it was going to be a long time before I saw another. That night, she fell asleep early, while Sweetie was still reading to her. She slept for only 10 1/4 hours, and we had a good day. Not the perfect listener, but she tried hard, was sweet and pleasant, and really seemed like she wanted to do well. If I had to ask her something twice, I might say "Oh darn, I know you can be a listener. Don't you want to be today?" And she would try.

We've had two more days now, and today at Grandma's, she apparently told them she loves them and that they're the best grandparents ever. Mom said she wanted to rest her eyes, so Zadie did several things quietly so as not to disturb her, then covered her with blankets and patted her. I teared up when I heard that, because her usual reaction would be to scream in Mom's ear, jump up and down on the bed, and take a flying leap onto her abdomen. Well, I'm extrapolating based on what she usually does to me and her dad.

The funny thing is, in the evening, she now wants to cuddle and she complains of feeling tired starting at about 6:45. She's so much more calm, body-wise, and so much more gentle and cuddly. One study I read said that kids who are sleep-deprived sometimes make up for the fact that they're so tired by trying to move their bodies constantly. It sounds counter-intuitive, but what do I do when I'm driving and feeling over-tired? Shake my head around, stretch my shoulders, wiggle my jaw... I guess it makes sense.

It's going to sound bad when I say this, but Zadie, for the last four days, has been acting a lot more like a normal child. One who gets a little fussy for a while after lunch, and who gets emotional at bedtime. And she's not any less brilliant and creative. But she's a lot more sweet and loving. Tonight as I kissed her goodnight, she said, "I love you ALL the numbers plus a googolplex plus infinity." And then she conked out.

If we were drugging her to make her change her personality, I would feel bad about it. If we were suppressing some essential part of her character to make our lives easier, this would weigh heavily on my conscience. But the little chick just doesn't make enough melatonin on her own. She needs this naturally-occuring hormone to help her sleep, so we're going to give it to her, just as we'd give her insulin if she didn't make enough of that. And the best part of all of it is that SHE seems a lot happier. It's almost like all the extra hugs and love and sweet words are her way of saying thank you.

I Guess I Was Punk Once

That is what the bumper sticker on my car says. I saw it in Eugene, Oregon, and I had to go online to get myself one. It perfectly encapsulates both my nostalgia and ambivalence.

But in a way, it's not true. In fact, in a way (and hear me out), I think I'm more punk now than when I actually sported blue-green hair, a lip ring, and my 8-hole Docs.

So how is that, you ask? Well, it's like this: I feel that the punk rock ethos is all about living by your own rules, creating the world the way you want it to be, and owning (in a metaphorical sense) the things you "shouldn't" be allowed to own. Punk rock, first and foremost, was about working-class kids who didn't have the money for guitar lessons just picking up a guitar, doing whatever they did to it, and playing something with a raunchy voice and just a few chords. "You thought I couldn't do it, and you wouldn't let me into your club. But here I am, doing it." It's why Sid Vicious covering Sinatra's "My Way" is so perfect.

But I know you're not convinced, because I'm not doing a damn thing that looks punk rock these days. I'm your average soccer mom with a house and a well-paying job with benefits. I make cheese for fun. At the very least, I was more punk when I was actually making punk music.

I know that "subvert the dominant paradigm" is kind of a bumper sticker-y thing to say, but it also strikes me as a punk idea. And the dominant paradigm is consumerism. It's a disposable society. It's having a ticky-tacky house in a neighborhood with CC&Rs. And within that paradigm, making cheese can be pretty damn subversive.

Why? Well, cheese-making is certainly a bit of a trend right now. Sunset Magazine will surely tell you how to do it. But if you are making cheese to avoid buying cheese, you are opting out of the culture at large. If you are making yogurt, growing your own fruits and vegetables, making your own jam, baking your own bread, crafting your own Christmas gifts, buying used clothes from the consignment shops... Well, that shit starts to add up. And what it adds up to, in our case at least, is a conscious shift away from the consumer culture. By participating in Buy Nothing Day instead of Black Friday, we were being subversive.

I follow a blog called Punk Domestics, which is part of what got me thinking about this. That, along with a book I read called Radical Homemaking, struck me as odd pairings. Since when, after all, is being domestic punk? Since when is homemaking radical? But if a big part of punk is saying no to the paradigm, saying you'll do things your way and on your terms, then I think you can approach almost anything with a punk ethos.

Years ago, a kid in a punk band used to hang around with us and come to our parties. He was railing on one night about anarchy -- he wanted to build a little anarchist community, and they would live all by themselves, and if they wanted food or something, they'd just go to a little nearby town and steal what they needed. The inherent problem in his plan, of course, (one of the problems, anyway) is that his version of anarchy still relied on there being a big old capitalist system nearby to leech from.

I participate in that capitalist system. I buy groceries, new clothes sometimes, kitchen goodies -- hell, I interrupted writing this blog post to go add a silicone spoon to my Amazon wish list -- and I am materialistic in certain ways. I love my stuff. But the more we opt out of the capitalist culture, the more we can opt into it in ways that we feel good about: we can go to local restaurants with minimal staff turnover. We can buy directly from the farmers' market. We can support locally-owned small businesses.

Have we sold out a little? Oh sure. We got an education. We have retirement plans. My biggest involvement in the Occupy movement was to take them some water and bananas. But we're also raising a kid who, with any luck, will see that we create our lives in the way we want them to be. We question the way things are done and choose what works for us. We encourage critical thinking in our kid, in our students. And we are making marriage, home ownership, parenting, and our lives work for us, making it all up as we go along.

So maybe once I listened to music real loud, looked more intimidating, wore band patches safety-pinned to my backpack, and spent less time at the playground or in the kitchen. But I don't think a punk mindset will ever be entirely behind me. Well, maybe if I didn't start every morning with The Clash...

Fit or fat... or both?

We were having a conversation at the lunch table about what time people got up in the morning, and what they did with the time. I said that I'm still getting up at 5 every day to work out at the gym.

"Oh yes!" my colleague clapped with enthusiasm. "You've been doing that for...?"
"About two years now."
"Fantastic! And how are you feeling? What has it done for you? Do you have more energy?"

I didn't want to disappoint my raw-food enthusiast friend, or the math teacher who's also a runner, or the health coordinator, or any of the other friends I share a salad with once a week, but the gods' honest truth is this: I'm not sure it's done a damn thing but rob me of an hour of sleep.

I mean, maybe I do have more energy, but I also rarely get as much as seven hours' sleep a night. So they kind of, you know, cancel each other out.

I'm not saying going to the gym has done nothing for me. I feel more muscle definition, particularly in my arms. And I haven't gained weight, despite the fact that I haven't been watching my food intake as carefully lately. But, well... I'm feeling pretty goddamn ambivalent about the whole thing lately.

See, sometimes I see my neighbors, who are bikers and runners and rowers, and I'd love to be athletic.

And sometimes I look at Michelle Obama, and I think, I just want to be toned.

And then I run across a lingerie ad and think, fuck athleticism and toning, I just want to be skinny and sexy.

And then I think, oh my god, what unhealthy, disordered thinking! Skinny doesn't mean sexy. I'm gorgeous and sexy as-is.

And then I see myself in a photo and I feel like an ugly lump. Like, I ran across this picture of me and Sweetie from his high school reunion, and I thought I looked super-hot that night, but it turns out that I looked like the Michelin man in gold lamé.

And then I think, I've got a kid. A daughter. It's my job to teach her to love herself, to love her body. To see that health and fitness are more important than body shape.

And my health is good. I'm fit.

But fat.

Are fit and fat even opposites? I mean, I work out, I ride my bike, I can hike and walk long distances, I can lift weights. I can hold my own in Zumba class*. My cholesterol and blood pressure are both very good. I'm overweight, but I don't suffer from any weight-related health issues.  But would I someday?

My Facebook feed has links to blog posts from moms who say out loud that they themselves are beautiful, just as they are. And links to articles about how anyone could lose weight if they really wanted to and tried hard enough.

I unsubscribed from Livestrong's newsletter after about the fifth article in a week that said if you were fat, you were making excuses and not trying hard enough.

I want my body to be able to do cool stuff, like karate or capoeira or dance. I feel great when I dance. I wish I had the time and money to go back to ballet.

And I could probably lose the extra weight, and I know exactly how. It involves Weight Watchers. My metabolism has changed a lot since I used to drop weight easily on the WW, but I could still do it. What it would mean, though, is skipping desserts except on days when I had carefully planned for them. It would mean skipping the cocktails at poker night. It would mean having a salad when we go out to dinner, dressing on the side. It would mean being hungry a fair amount, and craving things that I could not have. It would mean planning every last detail, paying attention to every last bite, and often going without things that I like. And I really like food. Honestly, cheese? Man, cheese makes me happy. It would make me unhappy to skip the cheese. So is it worth being unhappy to lose weight?

I know people who are that careful with their diet. My mom is probably a perfect example. She knows when she's invited to a birthday party that there will be cake, so she has extra-light other meals that day. I envy her self-discipline. I don't even think she's unhappy. And I don't think she likes cheese less than me. I think she just wants it more than me -- wants not to be fat. I think I like cheese more than I like thinness. But I don't know. Because thinness looks pretty good, too.

And it's all complicated by the fact that we may, someday soon, think about actually giving Z that little brother or sister she keeps begging for, and why would I lose 40 pounds just to gain 40 pounds again? Even though starting a pregnancy fat is riskier than starting a pregnancy at normal weight.

You see? It's complicated. I want to model healthy attitudes and healthy eating. I want to model joy and self-love and self-esteem. I do not want to model obsessiveness and calorie-counting, or indulgence and sloth, and I do not want to model self-hatred. I think a fine line exists in there somewhere, but I'm having a hard time finding it, and I suspect it will be a hard one to walk, too.





*This is modesty. I straight-up ROCK at Zumba.