War Heroes

It's appropriate that my first posting after a week of observance of the third anniversary of my love Karen's death is about war heroes. Karen was intensely interested in potential seeds of conflicts which lay ahead and the schematics with which various agencies may have placed them. Randi Rhodes and Mike Malloy would have been good company for her.

So many people find themselves impressed with John McCain's war record. I want to take this moment to call upon the memory of two of my relatives: My grandmother, Sadie Greenberg Fisher and my great-uncle, Albert Greenberg. I never got to meet the latter because his plane was shot down in World War II.

John McCain:
As I understand it, John McCain graduated from the bottom of his class at Annapolis, but nevertheless was trained as a pilot. He had some difficulties and was shot down in action in Vietnam and brought to a prison in Hanoi where he claims he was tortured. In a story he wrote about his experience for US News and World Report in 1973, he actually admitted to being willing to give up State Secrets for Medical Care because he was afraid of dying.

Here's the selection:


"I think it was on the fourth day [after being shot down] that two guards camein, instead of one. One of them pulled back the blanket to show the other guardmy injury. I looked at my knee. It was about the size, shape and color of afootball. I remembered that when I was a flying instructor a fellow had ejectedfrom his plane and broken his thigh. He had gone into shock, the blood hadpooled in his leg, and he died, which came as quite a surprise to us - a mandying of a broken leg. Then I realized that a very similar thing was happeningto me. "When I saw it, I said to the guard, `O.K., get the officer.'" "An officer came in after a few minutes. It was the man that we came to knowvery well as "The Bug." He was a psychotic torturer, one of the worst fiendsthat we had to deal with. I said, `O.K., I'll give you military information ifyou will take me to the hospital

It turned out to be too late. They wouldn't make the deal.



I understand that in various publications, he has written about various kinds of torture he endured. At least one story -- the story about his having had his ropes losened by a guard on Christmas and the guard then making a sand in the cross -- was proven to be a lie. You can read about that here
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/the-dirt-in-the.html

But, let's grant that McCain was tortured. And, let's grant that McCain came home to write about it, get married several times, the last time to a beer heiress, have a career in the Senate and now run for president. He did all that without

1) Improving the quality of life for other veterans
2) Voting for better spending for veterans' issues/healthcare
3) Voting to increase spending to find POW/MIA's.


Sadie Greenberg-Fisher and Albert Greenberg

Grant me that I am putting this together from what my grandmother told me over years, what my mother told me and what I remember. But, the gist of the story is what matters.

Sadie Greenberg-Fischer came to the United States from a small town outside of Warsaw in the twenties, with the hopes of becoming a singer. Though she had a gorgeous soprano voice she was painfully shy and she couldn't break herself of this, so she resolved to work with her older sister, who had come to accompany her in her career, as milliners which they did until that industry died out. She was so beautiful that she also modeled hats -- she was fine in a line of other girls, so long as she didn't have to say anything and was on and off the stage quickly.
Albert Greenberg, slightly younger than Sarah, arrived to the United States during this period. A gifted mathematician and watchmaker, the family thought he could ply his talents somehow and also help his sisters. He found work quickly and did very well. Meanwhile, both girls got married. Sarah married her hometown sweetheart, Arthur Fischer who emigrated for that very purpose and because he was a friend of Al's. He, too, was a gifted mathematician and he hoped that he and Al could go into business together.

The group held together, even through the depression. Arthur worked by day behind the counter of the appetizer section of a supermarket and by night learned English and then Accounting. Al had a solid position in a Jewelry store and enough money to put into his side of business and was waiting for Arthur to catch up. His accounting was terrific, his English, slow moving. Arthur was getting closer and closer as the 40's started, but Al couldn't take the stories coming out of Europe about what was happening to the Jews and they knew from the letters from their family that they were suffering. Al was young and strong and he felt he owed a lot to the United States because he come a long way. So, they all talked it over and agreed that Al could enlist. Arthur couldn't because he was 4'11, flatfooted and had pneumonia the year before which had weakened his heart. Besides, he had two kids. I've never known if Al was married or not. My grandmother so loved him, it was hard to imagine that there was anyone else around him. Arthur didn't need the English lessons anymore, so he worked day and night, this time doing accounting work which paid better to save money for a store and the kids.

Al was selected by the Air Force and he flew many successful missions. He also spoke German, Polish, Russian, some French and, of course English. He was very handsome and charming and I'm sure could have been useful in many ways. He had black hair and blue eyes and an aquiline nose. From the pictures, he looks about 5'8" -5'10" and absolutely impossible to be mad at, ever. He had one of those faces and attitudes. His plane was shot down toward the end of the war and his body was never recovered. For his sake, I hope he was killed as soon as the plane was shot down because it happened in German territory, no place for a nice Jewish-American boy to be in 1944 or thereabouts.

My grandmother, Sadie Greenberg-Fisher, was broken by Al's death, the way John McCain says he was broken by his torturer's. She told me the story when I was 4. Some 30 years later, like it happened yesterday. About a year after Al died, her husband, Arthur, went out to play handball on a Saturday, like he usually did. He had a sudden heart attack and died right on the court. My grandmother and her sister were never the best of friends. She had just lost her only real connection on the planet and she had two kids to raise. She had agreed to give her brother to the war effort and her husband had perished in part trying to make up for what her brother could've contributed.

What's the difference among the three survivors?

John McCain survived and went on to a rich life.
Al Greenberg died as did most of his family in Europe. Out of 11 siblings, only 4 lived after World War Two and that was because three left before the war and ONE survived Aushwitz. The rest of the Greenbergs and the Champagnes (my grandmother's mother's family, responsible for the French) were all murdered. It was a huge family. I can't list them all. In dying, he left behind a family in America who also needed him.
Sadie Greenberg-Fisher raised two kids on her own, working most of the rest of her life as a Sales Manager for Kleins Department Store. They lived in the projects for a brief period -- the Nostrand Projects, created for the Veterans of World War Two by Democratic Administrations. Then, in 1970, my grandmother moved into a one bedroom apartment in a fancy building two blocks from the water in Sheepshead Bay.
Her body was riddled with arthritis and she never really had a person in her life she could confide in again. She preferred to be alone. She missed her family in Europe to the very end and she told me about them all the time.

WHO'S THE WAR HERO? IS JOHN McCAIN MORE OF A WAR HERO THAN MY GREAT UNCLE? THAN MY GRANDMOTHER?

As she used to say, "He lived. My brother died. And he wants ANOTHER MEDAL."

Life as I have known it

for Karen B. Hunter
Nov 23. 1951 - Sept. 2. 2005

A close friend said to me, "Life as I have known it, does not exist anymore."

I have understood that phrase since Sept. 2, 2005 at 9:15pm.

To be more precise, I got the call on Sept. 3. at 10am, that Karen's plane crashed. But, all night I had been wondering why the hell I hadn't been hearing from her and I had left a ton of messages on her machine. So, part of me knew something was wrong. I didn't sleep and neither did my cats. When I got the call, Larry just looked at me like, "It's THAT. THAT. I thought so." I went into automatic mode, was on the phone with all sorts of people, sorting through papers, and then more of her friends came over and they sorted through papers. The family wanted all of her records at the funeral. Nice people. At some point, I stopped doing anything and a friend's dog and I just communed. I wanted someone to mix me a drink and just go sit on the deck. But, I stayed in the middle -- I doled out some things to some of her friends before the beastly family got there. When I got back to my apartment -- Larry and I curled up, and Henry leaned on me. We were in shock -- what one of my friends calls "God's novacaine." Henry just knew something very very bad had happened, but not what. All he wanted to do was make me comfortable.

The next day, when I got to the apartment, the family was already there, arguing over who got which of her books. I was late because I had to buy a suit for the funeral. I wasn't showing up to her funeral looking like a mess, she wouldn't have it. They laughed at me. Clearly, they had come ready to bargain with me over a price tag. "What did I want?" All of Karen's girlfriends had taken her to the cleaners. I explained that I just wanted to help. Really. They were cynical. They pressed on about how the most important person was her daughter who SUFFERS IN SILENCE. My best friend, who was with me, looked at me as if to say, "Can I sock them in the face, NOW?" I told her not to. I was going to really suffer in silence because that's how I pretended I was raised. Or maybe I was. I don't remember. Somewhere between Hebrew School, a lot of Romantic and Existential literature, core philosophy classes and your standard Verdi repertoire, I'd developed a code of honor. These fools could say what they wanted. They weren't going to get to me. I didn't need their money or their pity. They would either learn who I was or not, but I was not going to fight with them as they were Karen's family and I wanted to be able to attend her funeral and I would accord them the respect necessary to do so.

And that's when life had started to really change. When I had started to sing private arias in silence in order to gain the smallest tokens of what were due to me. Of course I should have been able to go to Karen's funeral. But, I wasn't certain they would let me go. And I don't know what they did with her ashes to this day. I never saw her body, and in the back of my mind, there is always this part of me that wonders if they wisked her away alive and hid her from the world. I'll never know for certain. Nobody who knew Karen will believe that any government document, including a death certificate, cannot be forged. Of course, I accept what is standard common knowledge. But, when you have come into an apartment of a person you cared for, to find her brother and sister arguing over a copy of Freakanomics and later, her daughter and sister discussing a job interview as they are looking for clothes to dress her body in, you kind of wonder what's really going on.

I'm sure they found me just as odd. I'm sure what they were doing was just a defense mechanism for the pain -- a result of God's Novocaine. I'm sure later, they broke down and that, like for me, only now are more memories, especially the best ones, beginning to really come back. I guess I just wish they had been a little more reserved like I wished they had dressed for the funeral. If not for Karen's sake, for the sake of her friends. Call me the boorish lower middle class. There are some places where tradition exists because it provides a certain amount of comfort. At least, it would have, for me. My apologies. I just couldn't handle the striped shirt and plaid jacket on her brother and the tight white shirt and cords on her nephew and the gold shoes on her daughter. It wasn't proper. I begged my uncle for money for a suit. You just don't do things like that. You just don't. I wore a suit, I tore the collar, as we do according to Jewish tradition. My friends came to support me and they dressed.

Since that day, I have fallen into a space where I am continually astonished by the capacity for humans to hurt one another. It's as if I fell into a zone in which
1) I can assume that I am allowed nothing
2) I can assume that people will not CONSIDER MY NEEDS AT ALL

Some of this is just the result of being thrown back into the economy without being part of a "we". I didn't depend on Karen, at all economically, but we did do things together and I had a kind of feeling that I wasn't alone, at least. I certainly depended on Karen emotionally and she did me and it was wonderful to have someone you could rely on. And we had love, that incredible thing that makes you more you than you ever knew.

This is an economy that kills love. That's why it was so important in 1984 for Winston Smith to be in a relationship and for that relationship to be broken by "Big Brother". In this economy, we are asked to be so brutal to each other -- to not understand when our own friends are in trouble because we can't afford to lose our jobs -- that we can't fully love. At least, we can't fully love everyone we want to. And love becomes a different thing. I know that people have looked at marriage as a business for centuries, but that doesn't exclude the possibility of love. With time shrinking and people singing more and more private arias, who has the prospect of loving, where?

Karen and I went to see Verdi's Otellotogether and she thought it was so important that the Iago had been given a motivation for what he had done -- it made what he had done so human. (I know, I know, she was a psychologist -- but it's still a brilliant point.)In it's simplest sense, Otello tells the story of a beautiful young Italian girl who falls in love with a War hero who happens to be a person of color. In the Shakespeare, Iago, his ensign drives him mad with jealousy, telling him that his wife is cheating on him with Cassio, and later providing him with false evidence, quite brilliantly and he kills Desdemona. The play is a test case in how a person can be slowly convinced by his own ability to be jealous to hurt the one person he loves most. In the opera, Iago does this because he was passed over for a promotion and because he is generally cynical about human nature -- he is a man full of bitterness, not unlike those in his contemperary audience, perhaps.

I remember how shocked she was by the simple brutality in the staging -- just Ben Heppner's (as Otello)throwing down of a paper on the floor in a harsh fashion with Desdemona in the room. She hated brutality and was really sensitive to it. She loved light and especially glass that picked up light. She had this big yellow glass plate that looked like a sun.

So, now we are a world of Iago's, Otello's and Desdemona's. And some of us are bystanders like those in the play or the opera. And in being so, there is the possibility for change. Life is no longer the way it was. Then it must become something else. It cannot be this. I know that I am no war hero. I have encouraged no one to murder. And I seem to be still breathing. Yeah, I've been nearly choked to death and so have some of my friends. We've survived some pretty hideous places and we're in some now. But, we're not dead. We can still get away, we just have to plot how. So, they and I are bystanders.
Or audience. They and I have a choice. For once, there's an advantage to having not been given the leading role.

I'll be shopping for a lot of pretty glass this fall and thinking.

Brooklyn Bridge View

Karen Hunter took this photo one day on her way home from work bicycling over the Brooklyn Bridge. She loved that Bridge and it had figured into her life in several ways. I've never forgotten how she looked, bounding down the street on her bicycle, past the bus, disappearing into the traffic as if she were just a part of the movement of the day itself. It scared me how quickly she did that. She beat me to Canal Street from 14 Street by train. I still don't understand how, but then again, I was taking the "N" train. It was just ONE STOP, but there was the wait and I've grown so accustomed to the latter I wouldn't even have noticed it. Still, I was totally shocked when I got out of the train, and there she was, off of her blue Montegue bike, helmet off, but ipod still in ears, giving me this really big wave, huge smile that was already slowly converting to a kiss and big hug, her whole body reeling the slow poke in. "Of course I beat you," she said.

Karen B. Hunter, Nov. 23. 1951 - Sept 2. 2005

Tie for best quote

"And I realized he has tapped into the oldest American belief of all: We don't have to accept a situation we cannot bear. We have the power to change it..." --Joe Biden about Barack Obama, although it is the
"belief" that is key here.

A First

A Hillary Clinton Quote Worth Preserving. From Last Night's Speech.

"We need a President who understands that the genius of America has always depended on the strength and vitality of the middle class."

Michelle Obama is Great

It just needed to be said. I'll get her speech later this week.

BEST QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"America is not a company. Nowhere does it say that the President shall make a profit for his friends."
-- Randi Rhodes

It was a beautiful afternoon on the waterfront

For Karen B. Hunter

The 69th Street Pier, to be precise, but the water crossed it's fingers and twined itself into what felt like WATERFRONT. The lifting of blues and greens like pie under the crust of the city. An explosion of apples turned blue, green and lilting and dissolving into rain. Touchable.

Tree rings gripped downward into green algae along the wall of the Pier. The brown and white, black, and grey birds paraded toward crusts of bread. And I felt comfortable talking about spiritual places and feelings.

My friend went off on her bicycle and I left immediately, feeling I'd been close to you and wanting to take you home.

Here it is: Text of Joe Biden's First VP Campaign Speech

As beautiful as it is roughshod, and perhaps beautiful because it is roughshod. I love the guy, though not all of his views, and apparently he is popular across the country according to polls in one article at the Huffington Post. You just have to take for what he is because that's the only way you can. He's figured out how this team is going to work. I hope Barack Obama can fit into the template he's set up. He can give his speech and then just nodd through Joe's speeches. Kind of like salesmen or preachers did in the early twentieth century. Barack and Elmer Gantry? But, seriously, he's going for it. So what that he knows John McCain better than Obama -- his job is to beat the crap out of McCain, for one and he'll do a good job of it. Anyway, here's the speech, in all it's glory.

Well, it's great to be here! On the steps of the old State House in the land of Lincoln. President Lincoln once instructed us to be sure to put your feet in the right place. Then stand firm. Today, Springfield, I know my feet are in the right place. And I am proud to stand firm for the next president of the United States of America, Barack Obama. Folks, Barack and I come from very different places, but we share a common story. An American story. He was the son of a single mom, a single mom who had to struggle to support her son and her kids. But she raised him. She raised him to believe in America. to believe that in this country there is no obstacle that could keep you from your dreams. If you are willing to work hard and fight for it. I was different. I was an Irish-Catholic kid from Scranton with a father who like many of yours in tough economic times fell on hard times, but my mom and dad raised me to believe, it's a saying Barack you heard me say before, my dad repeated it and repeated it. Said champ, it's not how many times you get knocked down, it's how quickly you get up. It's how quickly you get up. Ladies and gentlemen, that's your story. That's America's story. It's about if you get up, you can make it.
That's the America Barack Obama and I believe in. That's the American dream. And ladies and gentlemen, is there no ordinary times, and this is no ordinary election. Because the truth of the matter is, and you know it, that American dream under eight years of Bush and McCain, that American dream is slipping away. I don't have to tell you that. You feel it in your lives. You see it in your shrinking wages, and the cost of everything from groceries to health care to college to filling up your car at the gas station. It keeps going up and up and up, and the future keeps receding further and further and further away as you reach for your dreams. You know, ladies and gentlemen, it is not a mere political saying. I say with every fiber of my being I believe we cannot as a nation stand for four more years of this. We cannot afford to keep giving tax cuts after tax cuts to big corporations and the wealthiest Americans while the middle class America, middle class families are falling behind and their wages are actually shrinking. We can't afford four more years of a government that does nothing while they watch the housing market collapse. As you know, it's not just the millions of people facing foreclosure. It's the tens of millions of your neighbors who are seeing the values of their homes drop off a cliff along with their dreams.
Ladies and gentlemen, your kitchen table is like mine. You sit there at night before you put the kids -- after you put the kids to bed and you talk, you talk about what you need. You talk about how much you are worried about being able to pay the bills. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's not a worry John McCain has to worry about. It's a pretty hard experience. He'll have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at. Folks, again, it's not political sloganary when I say we literally can't afford four more years of this non-energy policy written by and for the oil companies, making us more and more dependent from hostile nations on our ability to run this country and literally, not figuratively, literally putting America's security at risk, we can't afford four more years of a foreign policy that has shredded our alliances and sacrificed our moral standing around the world.
Ladies and gentlemen, that's the bad news. But there is good news, America. We don't have to have four more years of George W. Bush. And John McCain. The next President of the United States is going to be delivered to the most significant moment in American history since Franklin Roosevelt. He will have such an incredible opportunity, incredible opportunity, not only to change the direction of America, but literally, literally to change the direction of the world. Barack Obama and I believe, we believe with every fiber in our being that our families, our communities as Americans, there's not a single solitary challenge we cannot face if we level with the American people. And I don't say that to say it; history, history has shown it. When have Americans ever, ever, ever, let their country down when they've had a leader to lead them?
--
Ladies and gentlemen, we believe that our tomorrows will be better than our yesterdays, and we believe we'll pass on to our children an even better life than the one we lived. That literally has been the American way, and it can be that way again. But there's a big, missing piece. The missing piece is leadership.
In all my time in the United States Senate, and I want you to know there's only four senators senior to me, but Barack, there's still 44 older than me. I want you to know that part. But all kidding aside, of all my years in the Senate, I have never in my life seen Washington so broken. I have never seen so many dreams denied and so many decisions deferred by politicians who are trying like the devil to escape their responsibility and accountability. But, ladies and gentlemen, the reckoning is now. And the reality, the reality is that we must answer the call or we will risk the harshest version and verdict of history. These times call for a total change in Washington's worldview. These times require more than a good soldier. They require a wise leader. A leader -- a leader who can deliver. A leader who can deliver the change we need.
I'll say straight up to you - John McCain and the press knows this, is genuinely a friend of mine. I've known John for 35 years. He served our country with extraordinary courage and I know he wants to do right by America. But the harsh truth is, ladies and gentlemen, you can't change America when you boast. And these are John's words, quote, the most important issues of our day, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush. Ladies and gentlemen, that's what he said. You can't change America when you supported George Bush's policies 95% of the time. You can't change America when you believe, and these are his own words, that in the Bush administration we've made great progress economically. You can't change America and make things better for our senior citizens when you signed on to Bush's scheme of privatizing social security. You can't change America and give our workers a fighting chance when after 3 million manufacturing jobs disappear, you continue to support tax breaks for companies who ship our jobs overseas. You can't change America and end this war in Iraq when you declare and, again, these are John's words, no one has supported President Bush in Iraq more than I have, end of quote. Ladies and gentlemen, you can't change America, you can't change America when you know your first four years as president will look exactly like the last eight years of George Bush's presidency.
My friends -- yes, we can. My friends, I don't have to tell you, this election year the choice is clear. One man stands ready to deliver change we desperately need. A man I'm proud to call my friend. A man who will be the next president of the United States, Barack Amer -
You know, you learn a lot of things being up close with a guy. Let me tell you about Obama. You learn a lot about a man when you campaign with him. When you debate him 12 or 13 times. When you hear him speak. When you see how he thinks. And you watch how he reacts under pressure. You learn a lot about his strength of his mind, and I think even more importantly, the quality of his heart. Ladies and gentlemen, no one knows better than I do that presidential campaigns are crucibles in which you're tested and challenged every single day. And over the past 18 months, I've watched Barack meet those challenges with judgment, intelligence, and steel in his spine. I've watched as he's inspired millions of Americans, millions of Americans to this new cause.
And during those 18 months, I must tell you, frankly, I've been disappointed in my friend, John McCain, who gave in to the right wing of his party and yielded to the very swiftboat politics that he so -- once so deplored. And folks, campaigns for presidents are a test of character and leadership. And in this campaign, one candidate, one candidate has passed that test.
Barack has the vision, and what you can't forget, you know his vision, but let me tell you something. He also has the courage, the courage to make this a better place, and let me tell you something else, this man is a clear eyed pragmatist who will get the job done. I watch with amazement as he came to the Senate. I watch with amazement. He made his mark literally from day one reaching across the aisle to pass legislation to secure the world's deadliest weapons, standing up to some of the most entrenched interests in Washington, risking the wrath of the old order to pass the most sweeping ethics reform in a generation. But I was proudest, I was proudest, when I watched him spontaneously focus the attention of the nation on the shameful neglect of America's wounded warriors at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Ladies and gentlemen, I know I'm told I talk too colloquially, but there's something about this guy. There's something about this guy. There's something about Barack Obama that allows him to bring people together like no one I have worked with and seen. There's something about Barack Obama that makes people understand if they make compromises they can make things better.
It's been amazing to watch him. But then again, that's been the story of his whole life. I end where I began. This is a man raised by a single mother who sometimes was on food stamps as she worked to put herself through school, by grandparents from the prairies of Kansas who loved him, a grandfather, a grandfather who marched in Paton's Army and then came home and went to college on the G.I. Bill, and a grandmother, a grandmother with just a high school education, started off working in a small bank in the secretarial pool and rose to be vice president of that bank. Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, these remarkable people gave Barack Obama the determination and drive, and, yes, the values to turn down that big job on Wall Street, to come to Chicago's south side, where he helped workers help themselves after the steel mills had been shut down and the jobs disappeared.
Ladies and gentlemen, my wife Jill, who you'll meet soon, is drop dead gorgeous. My wife Jill, who you'll meet soon, she also has her doctorate degree, which is a problem. But all kidding aside, my Jill, my Jill, my wife Jill and I are honored to join Barack and Michelle on this journey, because that's what it is. it's a journey. We share the same values, the values that we had passed on to us by our parents and the values Jill and I are passing on to our sons Beau and Hunter and Ashley.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here for their future. I'm here for the future of your kids. I'm here for everyone I - I'm here for everyone I grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, who's been forgotten and everybody in Claymont, Delaware, in Wilmington where I lived. I'm here for the cops and the fire fighters, the teachers and the line workers, the folks who live - the folks whose lives are the measure of whether the American dream endures.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is no ordinary time. This is no ordinary election. And this may be our last chance to reclaim the America we love, to restore America's soul. Ladies and gentlemen, America gave Jill and me our chance. It gave Barack and Michelle their chance to stand on this stage today. It's literally incredible. These values, this country gave us that chance. And now it's time for all of us, as Lincoln said, to put our feet in the right place and to stand firm. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to elect Barack Obama president. It's our time. It's America's time. God bless America, and may he protect our troops.

If I'm 64

When I get old, and lose all my hair,....

Actually, my hair began to thin years ago when I was just a little kid because of sebhorreic dermatitis which got really aggravated by the 1980's craze for permanents combined with my mother's crusade to get my god-given thin and fine hair to look thick and wavy like the actresses' on television she adored from the decade prior. It took decades to get it under control, which it pretty much is now, too late for me to perfect the Farah Fawcett look for my mother, who still wishes I could. Somewhere, in some small town in Wisconsin, I bet, is a girl about 8, who ice skates and still has that hair style and whose mother just smokes and drinks all day, and is dying for my mother to just take her to the salon. It's not a tragedy, but it's a Beth Henley movie that never got made.

It's okay. Odds are, the little girl will grow up and be a delightful friend to a very nice queer boy and they'll make good roommates. Thankfully, he'll get rid of that hair, so, it will have a happy ending, at least for her. Perhaps he runs for Senator as a Republican, gets in, has an exalted career then comes out and has an even better one. Okay, now it's a Harvey Fierstein movie that he could still make.
Harvey? I would like this so much better than seeing you play my grandfather in A Catered Affair. Not that I don't like seeing you get work. It's just jolting because I've been thinking of you as my sister and my mother for years. But, you're very handsome, so don't worry about it. I'll buy it. You're one of those beings that probably NO ONE would throw out of bed. I wouldn't and you're not usually in my field of vision.

Reaching for the diet soda and reading glasses and hearing myself breathe, this is as close to the "promised end" as I think I can feel comfortable being. My teeth already are just thin postules with nerves rigged right to the center of my skull that shatter every time extremes of temperature hit them. And I could tell you where my mother's hip was most disintegrated because the same pattern has begun on mine. The generation before me either buckled down and exercised and took vitamins, or, like my mother, resigned themselves to their fate, dug into the ground deeply and drove their bodies like cars on "The Flintstones" -- grinding those rock wheels down until they were nothing and collecting their pensions. My mother worked 35 years for the New York City Department of Health at a Dental Assistant. The woman speaks fluent French, is a term shy of a BA, can outwit me at Chess half asleep, and outsmarted my father's legal team after five years of litigation basically by herself. And she handed doctors their instruments, filled in patients' charts, calmed little kids down for their appointments, kept the clinic from coming apart, commuted for about two hours each way across Brooklyn neighborhoods that ranged from the suburban-like to the urban-rap-video-audition-like day-in, day-out. All that to reach 64. Then the magic 65. My mother actually retired at 55. Her mind and her body could not endure more. I believe she was able to collect her pension at 57, but I'm not sure, but 55, was a mutual agreement between her and the Department of Health. Either way, by that time, the damage was mostly done.

I'm 40, and the exercise videos do not look inviting. A friend begged me to join a gym, even arranged for me to get into one free and I still would not go. When I leave my house, I feel no fellow-feeling from the world outside me. My city hates teachers and I move like a spy. There is no one I recognize to stop and say hello to, my friends are all in the various continuums of their lives. There is too much pressure associated with every task, too and almost all of us want privacy in doing it; we are embarassed by the compromises we must make and by the fact that we cannot help each other swiftly, easily or smartly. Sometimes what I said yesterday was flat out wrong, I didn't hear the person right. I'm not as up on things as I used to be. I don't have the "rightness" of my youth. I can't explain what that was.
It wasn't just confidence. When you're young, you hear about what people are buying because your parents are buying stuff for you. When you're old, you're not buying stuff, so you're out of the loop.

So, I conserve my stone wheels. I am not my mother's daughter. I am even looking at replacing the hip sooner, before it gets too painful -- which doctors now encourage you to do. Why wait? You know what's coming and so do they? It's not going to get better. NOTHING is going to make it better. I might as well "slouch toward Bethlehem" comfortably".

Our parents, I think, had a certainty about being 64. Paul McCartney didn't sing, "If I'm 64." My generation isn't very sure about it. Just as it's jarring to see people from my childhood now playing grandparents, there is also no plan in our generation for where we are going to go when we retire. This is the generation that is going to have to fight for its Social Security checks and imagines itself possibly living with children or in shelters. Or just can't think about it. We are barely managing to make it from year-to-year.

I have to keep my wheels comfortable because I may have to use them for as long as I am on the planet -- whatever age that is. For a good part of my free time, I did research on the best sneakers I could find to support my feet through my job. They also had to be "shoe-like" enough to be worn to school. That was my big investment of the summer.

Last night, I got into a tear-ridden conflict with someone over what computer to buy with the issue being weight over function, with the former being a major issue because the person has to carry the machine everywhere. Again, the issue of keeping the stone wheels and chassis as in-tact as we can raises its ugly head. We'd all love to go to the gym and some of us do and some of us will. The trouble for all of us is time. Our jobs get more and more labor-intensive every year. What Bloomberg and other business-driven managers do when they re-design systems is they put more work on fewer individuals and in so doing, give us all longer work days. Since schools do not generally have gyms open to faculty the way businesses have gyms, teachers can't work out in the course of a 12 hour day -- and it is completely inappropriate for teachers and students to work out together for obvious reasons. On weekends we have papers to grade, our families to see, errands to run, etc. You may find this hard to believe, but many teachers actually have to take their own children places on weekends and that then takes their own time and then they have little personal time of their own. So, teachers often become out of shape. Carrying around a 2 pound laptop vs. a 6 pound laptop can make a huge difference in a long day. Anyone who has carried around a baby, a set of books, groceries, etc. knows what this can be like.

So, I can't fathom it. 64. I just can't.

Statistics and ELL courtesy of ED in the Apple

for ED in the Apple go to http://mets2006.wordpress.com/

Why Are We Failing English Language Learners? The Children of Immigrants Deserve to Be At the Top of Department Agenda, Not Ignored.
August 18, 2008 ·

“betraying a whole generation of immigrant kids who are struggling to succeed”

The New York State Education Department, pointing out the “pluses” and “minuses,” released the High School Graduation data from the 2003 cohort (students graduating in June/August 2007). The SED reports that 25.2 % of ELL students enrolling in 2003 graduated, 29.4% dropped out, and 40% are still enrolled. The percentage of ELL students who are graduating is declining.

The percentage of ELL students graduating declined by 5% between the 2001 and 2003 cohorts.

The NYC Department of Education, in a gloating power point, report a rise in the graduation rate for ELL students.

The graduation rate among English Language Learners rose 3.1 points to 23.5 in 2007, after falling from 26.5 percent in 2005 to 20.4 percent in 2006.

The disparity in the State and the City numbers is distressing, especially since 76% of ELL students are in New York City.

The Immigrant Coalition slammed the low ELL graduation rates in an article in Gotham Gazette.

Who are English Language Learners (ELL)?

* The U.S. Department of Education defines the term limited English proficient child as an individual

(A) who is aged 3 through 21;

(B) who is enrolled or preparing to enroll in an elementary school or secondary school;

(C) (i) who was not born in the United States or whose native language is a language other than English; (ii) (I) who is a Native American or Alaska Native, or a native resident of the outlying areas; and (II) who comes from an environment where a language other than English has had a significant impact on the individual’s level of English language proficiency; or (iii) who is migratory, whose native language is a language other than English, and who comes from an environment where a language other than English is dominant; and

(D) whose difficulties in speaking, reading, writing, or understanding the English language may be sufficient to deny the individual– (i) the ability to meet the state’s proficient level of achievement on state assessments described in section 1111(b)(3); (ii) the ability to successfully achieve in classrooms where the language of instruction is English; or (iii) the opportunity to participate fully in society.

Source: Federal PL 107-110, The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Title IX, General Provisions, Part A Definitions, Section 9101(25)

Looking at the same data the City applauds themselves while the State sees serious inequities.

An acquaintance was visiting the City for the first time in over a decade; staying in, believe it or not, a bed and breakfast in Brooklyn. She strolled through a South Asian neighborhood along Coney Island Avenue to an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood along Avenue J to a Caribbean neighborhood through a Chinese neighborhood. Ethnic diversity is at the core of this wonderful City. Families from around the world, hardworking, conscientious, seeking what is best for their children; repeating the experiences of our ancestors who fled the bigotry and poverty of the old world.

What is so troubling is that we know what works. For example, the International High Schools, a network of nine public high schools serving 2700 ELL students around the City, has an outstanding record of serving the immigrant community.

Under the current organization principals are measured solely by the Progress Report grade, and, unfortunately, too many schools have no idea how to provide appropriate instruction for ELL students. No one monitors anything, and pushing aside ELL kids is not uncommon.

The 140,000 (13.4%) ELL students in the NYC school system are entitled

Some straight talk about health care from a candidate I wish I could vote for, but I can't

From the Wall Street Journal

February 25, 2008, 12:38 pm
Nader on Health Care: Single Payer is the Way to Go
Posted by Sarah Rubenstein
For all of their talk about universal health care, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton look pretty conservative on the issue, compared with yes-he’s-running-again-for-president Ralph Nader.

In announcing his 2008 bid for the White House on “Meet the Press” yesterday, Nader said: “All, all the candidates — McCain, Obama and Clinton — are against single-payer health insurance, full Medicare for all. I’m for it, as well as millions of Americans and 59% of physicians in a forthcoming poll this April.”

Nader’s campaign Web site is scant on details so far, but he’s talked plenty about the issue. In an interview with “Democracy Now!” last July, for instance, Nader said if he had it his way, health care in the U.S. would “look like full Medicare for everybody, whereby the government is the payer.”

He added, “In Western countries, the outcomes in terms of infant mortality, in terms of life expectancy, in terms of lower levels of anxiety — they don’t have to worry about losing their life savings for a tragic illness — are all better than the United States system.” His single-payer idea contrasts with Clinton’s and Obama’s plans, which wouldn’t be funded solely by the government.

Here’s Nader’s relevant press release from his 2000 run for the White House, in which he says “massive savings” from creating a single-payer, government-funded system would pay for universal coverage. “Under the current system, hundreds of billions of dollars a year go into insurance company overhead, unnecessary and fraudulent billing and administrative costs for health-care providers, and huge profits and high salaries at large HMOs and other health-care companies.”

In this video, Nader receives lots of cheers from a crowd as he talks about universal health care. In case more money is needed to fund such a program, he says, it could come from “the fat cats on Wall Street who buy millions of shares and hundreds of thousands of options every day, and trillions of dollars of transcations every week — they don’t pay any sales tax.”

Students in Need

This past week I went on an interview with an organization that targets students who don't do well on standardized tests. In the age of high stakes testing, this is especially important. Think back to your days in school and imagine, if not yourself, a kid in your class who was always making good comments or helping out with activities, or was really fantastic at building sets for the shows but somehow always got a C or a D on exams. Now take that kid and imagine he or she is in a school without regular activities to keep him or her interested and that he or she has a lot of family and/or personal responsibilities. So, he or she is barely passing school. But, you and I know that's a kid who has so much to give and who really understands the work. For some reason, the tests just don't reflect what we've seen in REAL LIFE ACTION.

Those kids are slipping through the cracks more now than ever -- the kids who just don't -- and won't ever test well. It's not that they can't be taught to do better. They can. But, they already are excellent at applying their skills and knowledge differently and its unfair to deny them the opportunity for alternative assessment just because they have an alternative learning style.

And college, as we all know is a much more "project based" learning environment. You do papers as often as you do tests and you are expected to present information with the kind of mastery that is required in leading in activity. Even the exams require more critical thinking and there is more room to prepare for them in larger chunks. I'll never forget the first time I learned that my professor kept old exams on file. I sat with my TA and went over my answers to all the old exams beforehand. I studied for exams in units -- I know that high school curricula are taught in units, but as a student, things go too fast for you to be conscious of them. They did for me, but I was absent a lot. Then again, so are these kids.

I know, believe me, that we all have bigger problems. I'm pointing these kids out so that, as we go back into the mayhem, we have something else to focus on during the pain. It's awful to say, but I am now beginning to feel like a person with a chronic condition whose best off focusing on other people's needs because nothing can be done that hasn't been with her own.

Lou at the Office

for my father, Louis Kay

Lou left the office with a folder pushed against the cardboard belt that cracked along his waistline. He wore no coat though the temperature was near freezing and his cigarette would barely light. Smoke hit his windshield as he seated himself behind the wheel and the folder splattered onto the passenger seat. "Forward," he thought. He put the cigarette out against the top of a window that is permanently open about an inch.

But first he ripped the crummy belt off, tearing it to bits so that the fake leather covering separated from the cardboard. He laughed uncontrollably. "Bullshit," he said out loud.

A rancid and boney cough finished out his laughter and he shook it out with his fingers and pressed them against his thighs and felt rapidly along his pockets. Then he hit his chest and got his car keys out. With the other hand, he whipped out a cigarette and chewed. "Yellow." The key with the yellow top was put in the ignition and the car purred. "Yallow, Yellow."

"How many damn times do I have to come by this car and find you talking to yourself, Lou? I told you, the only way to keep from being a crazy old motherfucker is to chase beautiful things--with your camera, that is," said Ying a senior Math professor from the college nearby whose taxes Lou did for about twenty years now. Ying's voice projected onto Lou's windshield, but he appeared almost invisible to Lou as he weighed maybe 70 pounds and stood no taller than 4 foot 5. But, every time he talked, Lou thought god himself came down and held a recording session inside his car. He did not turn around. For about five seconds, he shut his eyes.

" Ying. I had an old fashioned. Fold up kind, like in the movies. Amazing thing. Like you can only see in museums. Takes all day just to set it up, but the...most..wondrously ingratiating thing. Took a picture of my family, they looked like a cloud floated in and around them. My mother and father and brothers and sisters. A.J. has it. I think."

"So, get it out"

"Gone with my ex-wife and riddance, too, please. No negotiation."

" That's too bad, but Lou they make--"

"Not. Not. Just wouldn't."

"Abstract mathematics?"

"Ying, honest..."

"Just take care of yourself, Lou. You're the only one who knows how to lie with the face of St. Peter for me. You get home safely." And Ying walked away, measuring his footsteps against each other, not really knowing why he had watched Lou or said what he did, and hoping to return to some habit of the night that would take him out of this sudden, contemplative mood.

"Nonsense," spat Lou. "NONNNNNNNNNSENSE." He pounds the flat of his hands on the wheel, then presses his forehead on it for ten seconds. "Drive on. Got to drive on."

"He wishes he had SOMETHING for me to lie for." "He don't know. Fucking lifetime it takes. The whole thing. SOMETHING."
Lou lit his cigarette and the car went forward as the smokering bathed the avenue behind him.

Eight year old fashionista

My close friend of nearly 25 years told her daughter, casually, while she was on the phone with me, "pack your suitcase within reason." The child is 8.

Within reason. That would have had no meaning to me at 8. My mother would have had to have given me an amount. The concept of what was reasonable in contemporary society, or by adult standards, would have been alien to me. That there was such a thing as "reasonable concepts" about how big your suitcase should be would have floored me. I think I might have started to realize, way too early, that society was judging me much more than I knew and I would have hidden underneath the bed while I was still thin enough to do so. Good thing that we didn't really go on vacations back then, and, if we did (I can't remember when the fatal day was that we began those awful bus pilgrimages to Loch Sheldrake), my mother did all the packing. Had she left it up to me, I'd've packed three t-shirts, two pairs of jeans, a book, my baseball glove, my softball, my baseball, a couple of pairs of underwear, an entire drawer of baseball cards and my sneakers. No shorts. I hated my shorts.

But, while I was reminiscing about a younger, more American-goofy me, apparently my friend's daughter was divining outfits for breakfast, lunch and dinner to go in said luggage. Something about scarves or some other -- I don't know the word. I don't use the word. Those things that go with your clothes. I don't carry one. I don't wear one around my neck. I generally have nothing hanging from my ears and what I have on my hands are the ring I gave Karen and a ring resembling the one a director friend and mentor named Tom Neumiller wore all the time that I wear in his memory.
Accessories. I'm much better with that word when it relates to people who've assisted in crimes.

My friend's daughter spends her entire schoolday in silence. It's called "Selective Mutism". She whispers to one teacher and one highly educated paraprofessional with intense sympathy that fate was lucky to have them meet. Otherwise, nothing. She does her work. But, she's beautifully invisible. A brightly coordinated Bartleby the Scrivener. She will not talk directly to most of her fellow students. She will whisper to the paraprofessional who will pass the words along. But she is adamant. Her mother tells me that she has plans to make friends with select students. She whispers to some of them. Slowly she hopes that as she whispers to them, she will become comfortable with them and they her. And eventually, they will become friends. That's the plan. All within a reasonable amount of time.

I spent the second grade in total silence and I loved it. But I had talked in years before. (I don't remember if I talked to my friends at recess and at lunch. I just didn't participate in class. I wrote everything to the teacher in my homework and classwork. I remember the delighted look on her face when she got my work.) This was a choice to save my energies for my writing. I felt ashamed somehow by the previous years. As I get older, I find myself longing more and more for silence. There seems to be less judgement in it and more opportunities to reflect and actually say what I mean. One long-time friend actually told me that I don't really say anything when I speak, which is why she always talks over me, and another friend texts me almost exclusively because she says that I don't really listen otherwise and that I don't really focus. Maybe the writing for me is like packing that bag, I can work and work it through on my own until it is "reasonable," plucking through the words myself until they are just right. I take between 20 minutes to an hour to send off emails because I revise and revise them, from long explanations with jokes and stories I had hoped to tell the person, each time, asking myself if the person
really needs to know that piece of information, will he or she really find that amusing, relevant, important. What was once a page is usually four or five lines by the time I'm done. Some of my friends require that the email just be the subject line and one line more and that's tough, but I can do it. Who am I to demand more than this, if that their necessary limit? It's reasonable. It's just work and I'm not afraid of work and neither is my friend's 8 year old daughter.

What I'm afraid of is finding myself unprepared because there is no exit or back-up strategy if you fail -- she knows this, too. No one can translate what you didn't whisper to the one person you trusted and if you don't do your homework then you have no proof that you understood anything. You're dependent on very few people and that makes school a kind of burden. Fashion just involves you and your clothes which is quite a relief.

It's all the things you can't control that lead to mushy answers that I think are probably what make us both clam up. So many questions people ask not only have no one answer and no right answer, but absolutely no measurable or reasonable answer. A principal asked me how I prepare for my classes. The truth is, it depends on 1) if I know what I'll be teaching because sometimes I don't know. 2) What he means by prepare? I do some of it all the time. I buy books as I see them and I start preparing as I get my books. Sometimes I have no idea what I'm teaching until I walk into the building. Sometimes it becomes clear to me that everything I prepared should be thrown out. And I always re-do everything anyway. I am always re-doing. Re-touching. Adding. I collect materials all the time. I keep going and going. Nothing has stayed exactly the same. I have a mainstay of materials, but I keep adding. Mulch. It's not a simple answer. And I don't have one answer.

I can see why my friend's daughter focuses on what to wear. Clothing can be a comfort and a decision that is a matter of one's own taste. There need be no shame in it.

Disappearing

Just

a minute or a day or a week or something ago, right? Ago. What does "ago" mean? I'm sitting here, enfolded in the closing day. The dustiness of it, but without chalkiness - just the greyness, the quiet. Like "taking tea". My windows are spotty and it might be drizzling outside, but it's too humid to open them. Stray chirpings and a child's wild scream keep me from feeling completely cozy or quiet.

So many people have gone away. On vacation, into new habits, into different work schedules and into that thing that happens. The disappearing. It's not always permanent. The ritual between summer and fall when some of the friends you have made shed away the lives that brought them to you. For some, it is a very good thing. There is an arc of healing the person is beginning that you're simply not on yet, or they're moving to a new city or something. Or, you have nothing in common but some part of the part of the abysmal part of the experience of your job and that is all you talk about so you wont talk to each other until September or never if you will never work together again.

Or something happens like someone realizes something about you, you thought they either knew or hoped they would never know, or worse, hoped wasn't true anymore, or just plain didn't know about yourself. Like you caught yourself making a stupid choice, or worse, a horrific, mostrously costly choice after you'd already made it -- it was too late. Well, they caught it. They thought they could handle it, but then, and how could you blame them, they just...disappeared. What was there to say?

They didn't want to know how you were because you were horrifyingly wrong. You hadn't protected them from getting badly hurt, either. You were...vacant of everything previously interesting. The one thing about you -- your seeming intelligence -- had proved useless. You were hollow. So, what was there to know.

And so the person just doesn't answer your calls anymore. Doesn't read your emails or send you any. He or She just disappears. And if you see that person, he or she will just run away. There will be no explanation because "you know." And you do. You failed in the most basic way a friend can fail and so he or she just walks away. It's like a code. And it always seems to happen in the summer. At least, to me.

I'm so sorry. To all those who have waved or are walking away.
I know it's feeble to say that I didn't want any of it to happen, but I didn't. Your disappearing has made me much more aware of my own failings and now, as I write this, perhaps, of the fact that I should stop seeking so much comfort and joy when I have brought so little and I have made so much disappear.

Cassie-Licious

Cassie

Sweet, sweet, sweet cassie, catnip, cassie-licious, cassie, calligraphy

of clouds and cotton newly woven.

Cassie.

Right here. She is, she is.

Cassie, the miracle cat who leaped up from the snow and followed Michael home and whom Sharon snarfed away to be especially safe and warm with her and the Queequeg, of all people, whom she kind of adored from her haunts up above him on bookshelves, in closets and even right alongside his nose sometimes. One magical Christmas Mary came to visit and she and the Wigster went to Chicago for the holiday, but Cassie got to stay there after New Years where she and Mary can look out the window at the flowers and play and she can make her VERY OWN MESSES of the very special candy dishes and NOT sit on the couch and get brushed and pet and hog ALL the attention all these things that Cassie doesn't very much mind, those she is very broken about the not having the Wigster, as it turns out and she's all torn without Sharon, but she used to see both of them on holidays and she still sees Sharon. She still sees the Wigster, but she doesn't tell too many people. He always comes to visit her and they fight and talk about why they fight and how they secretly loved each other all along. She just wishes he were always there and not just in spirit -- but she'll never tell. Neither will he.

But, Cassie's a smiling girl, especially when the family is all together like today when Sharon is in Chicago. But she loves being Mary's cat and they are just right together. They always knew that. Two very particular and pretty women who know what they want before they even think it and followed their hearts and their minds which lead their feet and bodies to each other. They knew they were on the right path. They just had to believe in themselves and keep going. The right place wasn't far away. Love was everywhere, and it just kept getting better.

Oh--incidentally, I heard, that one time, Ms. Cassie was sitting up in her perch at Sharon's apartment and she was given some catnip and she was kind of rolling in it and she attained the knickname, "the catnip bird". That's a famous nickname of hers.

Down by the River

Read the lyrics. Then go on.

Neil Young - Down by The River Lyrics
Be on my side,
I'll be on your side, baby
There is no reason for you to hide
It's so hard for me staying here all alone
When you could be taking me for a ride.
Yeah, she could drag me over the rainbow, send me away
Down by the river I shot my baby
Down by the river,Dead, oh, shot her dead.
You take my hand, I'll take your hand
Together we may get away
This much madness is too much sorrow
It's impossible to make it today.
Yeah, she could drag me over the rainbow, send me away
Down by the river I shot my baby
Down by the river,Dead, oh, shot her dead.
Be on my side, I'll be on your side, baby
There is no reason for you to hide
It's so hard for me staying here all alone
When you could be taking me for a ride.
Yeah, she could drag me over the rainbow, send me away
Down by the river I shot my baby
Down by the river,Dead, oh, shot her dead.

Now, this was playing in Starbucks. I have heard the song lots of times, but I've never listened to it closely -- I just knew something agonizing happened by a river. My best friend loves Neil Young. I heard the song a lot in my early 20's. I knew -- Neil Young, sincere, ex-addict (Needle and damage done...) Later, Reaganite, god knows why. Didn't know exactly where he stood now. Son has autism.

I SHOT MY BABY?

Over and over again over my Vanilla Soy Latte. Now, I have written elsewhere about the collisions of the homeless people and the lattes and how the sensibility is more than steel-toe ironic.

Maybe it's heroine.

Maybe it's the voice of a young criminal he's imagining.

HOW THE FRIG DO WE KEEP TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING WHEN THERE'S JUST BEEN A SONG WITH SO MUCH BLOOD IN IT, EITHER WAY. Even if the next song is HAPPY TALK! You know? From "South Pacific"? Sounds like Dr. Norman Vincent Peale on Heroine:

Happy talk, keep talking happy talk
Talk about things you like to do
You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?
Talk about the moon floating in the sky
Looking at a lily on the lake
Talk about a bird learning how to fly
Making all the music he can make!
etc......

I WANT TO GET ON THE TABLE. "People, the gentleman on the SOUND SYSTEM has declared that either he has killed a lover, his innocence or that he used to use heroine and is in such a dynamic state of fear that HE IS RIGHT IN THAT MOMENT AGAIN. I THINK WE SHOULD JUST STOP. I REALLY THINK WE SHOULD:
Cut the b.s.
Put the coffee down.
Stop talking about jobs and parents.
And just look at each other.
And then someone should go get some washcloths and we should just.
Wash our faces.
And start talking about
Do we have what we NEED?
Do our friends?
Does everyone we talk to -- everyone -- the neighbor, the guy at the next carrell at work, the people in our family. What could we do so that they had what they NEED.
What about other people we know of -- the people we read about -- google Naomi Klein and Jeffrey Sachs when we get home and send them ten dollars toward what they do, if we can REALLY afford that. Some can, some can't. Don't do more than that. Pick a number you can do often. Without thinking. So that it's like breathing or washing your face.

I'm sorry, you can't play "Down by the River" in a Starbucks and not declare an emergency. Maybe you should. And the day that about 150 people hear "I shot my baby" and just sip their coffee is a day that we are
1) just a few months from voting for two candidates for president, neither of whom should be trusted with a litterbox
2) we are walking into an election year with no plan to save the planet or the world
3) we have grown to hate our children so much that all we think about in terms of education is cutting spending and designing tests

oops.

I shall be taking my latte in the park.

Accursing

The English is Italic, The Hebrew transliteration is bold, and the translation of the Hebrew is in plain text. I wanted to know how something becomes accursed -- from the way the Hebrew word defines it, the objects are accursed because of what happened to them -- they were used by a culture that did not obey the Old Testament god. And in taking them, the Israelites would become accursed. The objects, however, did not do anything. They were part of a culture which did. The actions of that culture made them accursed. Those actions were deemed accursed by the culture -- Joshua's -- which was victorious. No one will ever know what the People of Ai had to say for themselves about it. We have to take Joshua's word and the way it was transcribed in the most popular version of the Old Testament story. I've always found him fair, but that may purely be because he came after the ever-popular Moses, and after two grades of a man I ridiculously imagined in the shape of a Protestant from Northfield, Illinois who now runs the NRA, I was ready for someone I could picture as a conventional teenager with an open mind and new ideas. I mean, young "let my people go" Charleton was ok for fourth grade me. By sixth grade, I was ready for someone who could write Supreme Court amendments, especially as we were reading Brown v. Board of Ed in Secular Studies. Sadly, I don't remember much about him beyond occasional stories, but this was a very important one. The accursed things were certainly accursed, but by what was done, not by birth.

Something becomes accursed when it is badly used. Someone becomes accursed, if people do, in a similar fashion. In an age when we no longer have the benefits of splitting oceans and must rely on science and negotiations and poetry, perhaps we can un-accurse things by re-using them well. We don't have endless supplies of things the way we used to -- no children of gods come down and multiply fishes. We've run out of favors from all manner of gods and goddesses, or they've decided it's time for us to grow up. Isn't that why we were given the abilities to write poetry, music, theater, do science, negotiate, create minor energies, etc.? So that they could go on and travel and do other things and not expend their energies, much needed to sustain us, so we could sustain ourselves?

So let us stop accursing -- and start re-claiming. The trick is how to cleanse someone who has been so badly used, or something, etc. But, certainly there are enough of us to solve this. My cats would say, by golly, just start washing!

Translation:
http://scripturetext.com/joshua/6-18.htm

Joshua 6:18


And ye in any wise raq (rak)leanness, i.e. (figuratively) limitation; only adverbial, merely, or conjunctional, although
keep yourselves from shamar (shaw-mar')to hedge about (as with thorns), i.e. guard; generally, to protect, attend to, etc. yourselves from
the accursed thing cherem (khay'-rem)physical (as shutting in) a net (either literally or figuratively); usually a doomed object; abstr. Extermination

lest ye make yourselves accursed charam (khaw-ram')to seclude; specifically (by a ban) to devote to religious uses (especially destruction); physical and reflexive, to be blunt as to the nose
when ye take laqach (law-kakh')to take (in the widest variety of applications)

of the accursed thing cherem (khay'-rem)physical (as shutting in) a net (either literally or figuratively); usually a doomed object; abstr. Extermination

and make suwm (soom)to put (used in a great variety of applications, literal, figurative, inferentially, and elliptically)wholly, work.

the camp machaneh (makh-an-eh')an encampment (of travellers or troops); hence, an army, whether literal (of soldiers) or figurative (of dancers, angels, cattle, locusts, stars; or even the sacred courts)
of Israel

Henry

leaning on larry, leaning on henry, leaning on larry, leaning on henry, etc. henry in white...

An amazing story

Roll back seven years ago. My first bonding experience with Henry came when the radiator cap came off our heater and, being a nice Jewish girl and not knowing how to put it back on, I called the fire department as the steam filled my bedroom, then my apartment. I shut the door on the bedroom and had to chase Henry out of there. The fire dept came and left, not at all surprised by my call (my neighborhood is right next door to Hasidic Jewish Boro Park) and I saw Larry, but no Henry. Frantic, I raced around the apt and I thought he left. Finally, I noticed Larry's nose had been pointed toward the bottom of the refrigerator the entire time. I looked down to find Henry's little white butt stuck at the bottom. He got under, but couldn't get out. I reached down and gently pulled him out and from that moment and onward had a purring Henry in my arms.

Flash forward to this morning. I wake up and I see Larry, but no Bernie. I ask Larry, where's Bernie and he won't move. I'm like, "You know, Bernie? BERRRRRRNIE?" I race around the house, calling and calling and no Bernie. A little sooner than seven years ago, I realize Larry has been pointing his nose toward under the bed the entire time. I look under and there is my 19 month old tub of fur, stuck, it seems. So, I pull off the futon, and grab him by the scruff of his neck through the one part of the frame wide enough to pull him through, and with a lift, I have a cooing, purring little 14 pounder in my arms. I run him to the actual bedroom (the futon couch lives in the living room), close the door and see if his back legs work by throwing the catnip carrot and they do. As usual, Larry is already behind the door and Bernie is sniffing for him ("It's going to be okay, little buddy.") So, I let Larry in to feed them both a celebratory extra breakfast and Bernie races out the door, runs under the futon and then right out. He was perfectly capable of getting out.

They re-enacted the Henry story for me. (And found a way to get a second breakfast.) Bernie could never fit under the refrigerator, not even at eight months, so this was the closest they could come.

Larry's been sitting in Henry's chair for week's now and he hadn't for months. Bernie, too.
After they ate, the two of them curled up in the sun for a few hours.
They did well and they did me a lot of good. They really did. I'm very lucky.

We celebrate Henry this week and always

Henry Aloisius Snoopy Fergus Kay

February 4 (observed birthday) 2001 - July 16 - 2007

Larry, Bernie and me and everyone who loved him which is everyone know he's still here.

Larry still keeps looking for you. He's been reminding me every minute about this week and about Wednesday. He's always watching for you and he knows you're here and so does Bernie.

Enter

I went on an interview on Tuesday to which I was eight minutes late because my subway line was unexpectedly re-routed over a local line. It didn't occur to me that the local line was THAT much slower until I realized that I should've been in Manhattan at a time I had not yet reached the express stop two stops from my stop.

Eight minutes is not a long time. At a previous interview, the principal made me wait 45 minutes.

Still, I knew the job was gone. I felt as though I'd put myself on the breadline in one fell swoop.

Should I continue walking toward the school?

I called 411 to get the school's number -- to tell them I was walking on the way -- the number was dialed directly. No one picked up. When I got there, I learned the principal was on a long interview by phone with someone else.

I didn't stop to see what I looked like. I signed in and ran to the door. I don't know if the front bangs on my hair were fallen onto my forehead or eyebrows. I think not. I think I would've felt them, but I don't know. I ran right through traffic to make it by eight minutes.

I got out of the train, see, at the time of my interview.

Do I continue walking? This principal is known for her efficiency.

Shouldn't I just go home? Why waste everyone's time? Why give her a reason to remember my name?

I chatted with the guard as she flipped back my ID. She said the principal was nice but strict and as I went through the door, I said that I knew and eight minutes meant I was in deep trouble. I walked in and the lady on the phone waved at me and asked me to go wait in the room with the Gestetner machine where all the noise was and the people came through and when they saw me they went "Oh." This must be where she puts the dunce caps, I thought.

Then we met and I apologized and I meant it. There was nothing I could do. She seemed like it didn't matter. She also seemed like she didn't know who I was. This has happened before, but I won't know why it happened here because I was late. Anyway, she didn't know anything about me and mostly there wasn't a lot to say and I disintegrated, as I often do when people don't know me and I've already made a bad impression, into "Um" and "Oh" and "Well" and, as always, I tell the absolute truth. So, when, angrily, she asked me how long I had been working at my school (trying I could see to figure out my years of experience/age) I said, "8 years, and before that 4 years at the other school and then before that..." "I'm older than I look." She kind of nodded sort of, and the conversation just floated on our mutual loss of what to say to each other because neither of us really knew why we were there.

She tried to end encouragingly, so much so that it didn't hit me until I left how absurd what she had said was and anyway her body language was basically the equivalent of throwing me out.

Next time I can see that I'm going to be late, as I did back at that express stop, I get out of the train and re-schedule. I don't know if it would've gone that way either way, but those eight minutes mean I'll never know.

Amnesiac Interviews?

I feel as if I've been dropped into a twillight zone. I arrive dressed very well, having read as much as possible about the school whose doors I enter, having read as much as I can in the days that have elapsed between the email and the day of the interview about sometimes entirely new subjects for me, files on computer of material to reference, and notebook when I don't need the machine, packet of student essays and, as of this week, corporate haircut. I'm as polite as Garrison Keillor. Patient as his audience and, for that matter, a grandparent with a child who is learning to say "Grandpa". You don't force it, you wait, and you hope and you never more than pray for it. I sit in offices as long as asked, no matter how many noises roll past or above me. Even when no one seems to know I'm there. None of that bothers me. I'm just confused by the latest strategy of some of the principals and I am wondering if anyone has experienced it and how they handle it.

I've been called for several interviews now at which:

1) The interviewer has not seemed to know why he/she called me.

2) The interviewer has taken notes on the answers to a prescribed list of questions dispassionately, occasionally nodding to my answers and then almost physically stopping himself.

3) I've been asked almost no questions while the person thumbs through my CV trying to remember why she called me. This is before having enough time to be bored with me.

4) I've been talked with in the lobby, while the interviewer describes the position to me as if it were neurosurgery, hoping I'll walk away. When I greet it with pleasure, the person seems dumbfounded, so I suggest we proceed to the office.

My only guess is that I was originally called because I seemed interesting in some way and then someone dropped a ball. I often wonder if the "some way" was that I just turned 40 -- I'm class of 1990 so it's a good chance I'm 40 if you can do math, or if you add my years of the DOE to 22 or 23 the years people usually start teaching. Anyway, if you're looking to round out your search with a few veterans so that you make sure you don't seem to be unbalanced, I fit a certain niche. Or, if you like people with interesting and long CV's I also fit that niche. If you like people with interesting degrees, I fit that niche. But, I digress.

For whatever quick reason the person put me in a pile, they stopped there. The person did NO MORE homework. OR SEEMS not to have.

What is this about and am I the only one going through it?

If you've been to one of these amnesiac interviews, can you let me know?

Where do closed schools go?

So, it's official. Brooklyn Comprehensive is no more.

The last graduation ceremony was a little over a week ago, at which a graduate from over ten years ago praised one of our finest teachers for making him the lawyer he is today.

In kitchens, bedrooms, cars, on couches and maybe even in someone's dreams this early afternoon, someone is mentioning, "oh yeah, I heard about that," that their high school closed. I can guarantee to a student he/she isn't happy. But, they feel, as they felt before they walked through our doors, powerless and completely accustomed to disappointment. It took a long time to break them of that feeling and I'm sure not very long for it to be re-instilled by a government agency, a disturbing and unfeeling neighbor, boss, relative, spouse or side of themselves. It's inevitable. The trick was for us to teach them how to re-instill in themselves the flame of hope. I know several of my colleagues were excellent at this.

As I don't know how they feel about appearing on the great white way of the blogosphere, I'll just describe the ways they did --
--a vivacious, youthful history teacher, with the eternal sex appeal of a knowing Jewish mother
pushed the kids to say what they meant and to realize that they could understand history because it just meant paying attention to what was happening around them and why it happened and TAKING NOTES in class.
--a furiously bright and stone cold vixen of an English Teacher told them she would not believe one stereotype or let them stereotype her and that they worked from a clean hard-nosed slate together to make themselves better -- both of them. Not a question in the world she couldn't make as clear as a tree branch and she taught them to carve their essays upward from sentence to paragraph to connected paragraphs to completed essay. Kids came back after school to make their work better and better.
--a handsome musician with words asked the kinds of questions anyone could take hours answering and then taught the students to listen to language as is if it were music. They learned to read hard books by listening to them read. And they liked them

There were more, and yes, those were my friends, but I could sit here and type for days.

There were endless frustrations. Kids came to school one day and disappeared for weeks. The brighter the kid, the less consistent and the more problems. The weaker, the more consistent, but the more in need of services that we often didn't have -- but, at least, you could work with th student and improvise. You could work with memory. I have to admit that there were certain kids I longed to see more than the kids I did see, but I was lucky because I worked in a place where it was rare that I really didn't want to see someone, though sure there were a few. More people didn't want to see me, I think.

The school will only really be closed to those people -- the ones who never want to see or think of any of us anymore.

Living in the Real World

A colleague and I were talking last night and a familiar refrain came up. Now we, as teachers are "living in the real world" where we can be fired at whim like everyone else. Once upon a time, as he said, "you became a teacher, you died a teacher." I remember the resentment of my friends and relatives about this -- what right did I have to the job security I had.

I have a bold question to ask all of you -- the one person and cat who read this blog. Who comprises the economies we speak of? Are we discussing economies which are built by people and which function or are we discussing ones in which other beings exist? I don't know how an all cat economy would exist. I suspect that cats would really fight hard for tenure, but Larry and Bernie are immersed in aviary discussions at the moment, and I don't want to disturb them. Improving their woodpecker imitations, I think, is the goal of the day, so that they might get a better view of the very languid birds who sit on our fire escape between their tree nibbles. It's all about the view, as there is no conquest happening here, thanks to the human peacekeeping squad.

That's how those woodpeckers stay alive, by the way, as Bernie would undoubtedly fly right at them, left on th street. Larry, on the other hand, doesn't have any killer instinct in him now. If he had been left untouched by me -- the Larry I met years ago would certainly have taken out whatever birds remained and he and Bernie would've been a team as they are now, and as he and Henry were on the streets, and a nearly dead pair, too. I got them just in time. Bernie, too was on his last legs, feisty though he was. Cats don't live very long, left to fend on the streets. So, I suspect all those who become pets know that it's better living the way things are now, than in the "real world," artificial as it might be. Bernie looks like a pasha and Larry like a prince. They beam love at me as they breathe.

I don't know many humans who can truly survive an economy as harsh as what they call, the "real world." Most businesses have systems for firing people -- they, at least, give you a warning, a chance to improve, an "action plan" -- I've heard of this at Verizon, and I'm sure it exists in other places. I am sure there are businesses that just fire you without warning, and this is inhumane. When thousands of people are let go immediately, it hurts our economy, and it literally destroys lives. It is akin to killing those people and there should be laws against it and jail punishment for it. You cannot enter into a contract with someone where you will provide them with sustenance if they complete a service and then terminate that contract without warning. You must give people REASONABLE notice. Two weeks is not it. Who are we as human beings that we let other human beings just waste in front of us? What gives us the right to put the death sentence to people because they have failed us? So they failed us? So what? We failed them, to in that we didn't properly prepare them for what was ahead of them. And we didn't select a good fit for the position. So, let's set things up so they can leave in a humane way and so we don't make the same mistake again.

There are also some professions that require stability. One reason it was useful for a teacher to know he or she was coming back the following year was so that she or he could plan ahead for the following year. Also, the teacher could develop skills in a grade level/set of grade levels and become a part of a school. I went to a private school in which some of the teachers had been teaching a certain grade for many years and they really knew their material. At the public school I went to, also, there were some teachers famous for the electives they taught for many years and I couldn't wait to take them. I guess that's not something we want to pass on to our grandchildren.

It takes a long time to develop a course into something worth waiting for -- you can put together a course quickly. But, you won't have the connections between the lessons, the intricate details, the thorough research, the anecdotes, the incidental notes, the amazing ideas, the pictures from your visits to museums that are related -- the life experience that will fill the course and make it great -- that takes time. And frankly, you won't be that great a teacher until you've been teaching for five years or so. Sure, you'll be pretty good. Check back in with yourself in your fifth year. You'll feel the difference.

Or maybe not. Maybe this has all been an illusion. Maybe some doctors are amazing from the start and nothing changes with time. No actor grows. No child develops.

I've always felt that teachers ought to be mentored the first five years and not work alone. But, what do I know.

But, here's another thought about the real world.

There are all kinds of professions in the real world and all kinds of people. And some of the people in the real world CANNOT survive in a survival of the fittest kind of profession and teaching was supposed to be one of the places in which such people could thrive. It was supposed to be a place in which a person could develop skills which involved training others and not a lot of back-biting and social skills related to climbing a ladder of any kind. To suddenly throw veteran teachers who have years of experience DOING THE JOB WELL into a snake pit is an act of the purest evil. The kind of person who becomes a teacher is not the kind of person who works on Wall Street. It has nothing to do with intellect, it has to do with temperament. These are not people who want to fight for their jobs. They have already done this by controlling classes of difficult students for 10 to 25 years in some cases. These are people who prove themselves by doing. They come in, go to work, work hard and go unnoticed. They are not showmen. They are very proud, very honest and very frightened. They didn't have time to go to the gym. They wrote tons of courses and they graduated so many success stories that they could talk about but they don't like to brag and they won't. They never wanted to have to ask for another job again. They thought they already earned their job and they can't imagine what they did wrong and somehow they feel they must have done something, no matter how many times you tell them otherwise. And the papers keep hinting that they did something.
They don't know how to speak up for themselves and they never did. That's part of the reason they became teachers because one thing they did know how to do was speak on behalf of others who did not know how to speak up for themselves. It's a great irony of the profession.

I just can't talk about raises

I just wish I wasn't being discriminated against for my salary in the DOE, okay. I can't talk about the raise, anymore. I don't blame anyone. Please, please, please. It's hard to look for a job within the Dept. of Education of NYC and know that the very raise they gave you is now working against you. There's just something insane about it. But, I don't want anyone to hate me. I've been very lucky. Everyone has been very kind. You can just see why it can get to you, after a while, going to interviews with principals of schools who work for the DOE, knowing that they are going to have a hard time affording you, when the DOE set your salary. So, the DOE thought you were worth that money, but they won't help you find a school within which to earn it. This is true for everyone, even my friend who has something like eighteen years of remarkable service with tons of honors. All of the teachers from schools which have been closed, from the one with the orneriest record to the one with the shiniest are being told that there are no permanent places for them -- not officially, but they do not often get interviews, and when they do, they are quickly rejected for cheaper options. They will become long-term substitutes known as Assigned Teacher Reserves, who will continue to be demonized in the press, and then they will -- I WILL -- be fired. The contract expires in October 2009.

The UFT promises they will not allow this to happen. They will put up a fight.

My fear is that New York City will roll right over them.

Here's the UFT story about it
http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/top/job_barriers_atr/

The Audacity of Audacity: In Praise of Elections

I write this piece in the hopes that all of us who have come to think of as the word, "change" itself as an advertising synonym for "new and improved" will wake up and realize that the whole idea of an election is an opportunity for a mini-revolution. In countries which share this twenty-first century with us and also drive cars, have universities and accept the idea of global warming, as, at least, something worth considering, elections do offer the opportunity to elect leaders who will bring something entirely new to their governments. Even in counties where said leaders go back and forth on how much they want to take in public opinion, like Venezuela, their leaders can make strong choices about the economy, education and take them into new directions which actually bring both change and hope. For those of you not so keen on Chavez, you can even look at the Israeli government and, whatever you think of their politics, their elections do reflect changes in poltical mood and, at one time, so much hope it threatened those who were scared to see it, in the form of the late Yitchak Rabin.
Of course, we all know from our elementary school history classes how much our founders fought for the right to free elections and how long it took for everyone in this country to get their respective rights to vote. In practical terms, we still do not all have the rights to vote, and perhaps that should be the biggest election issue of all. There aren't proper voting machines in every county in this country -- perhaps the most revolutionary and practical thing the Democrats or Republicans could do would be to simply BUY ENOUGH VOTING MACHINES so that EVERYONE COULD PROPERLY VOTE. They could save money on all the ads and just get some equipment. Then do some grassroots work informing people how to use the machines and, oh, by the way informing them about the wonderful party and candidate that cared enough about the election to do this. See if the other party wants to cross the dirt roads to get there. There are people in this country who have probably never voted in their lives. Is that how we want to keep it?
People in this country don't vote for a lot of reasons. Some don't vote because they don't think it matters. Maybe they get that impression from the candidates who don't reach out to that many people. They just go on television. That's not reaching out, that's doing what's convenient. I know John Edwards reached out and didn't win. I also know the media didn't want him to win. But, these two candidates have the media on their side. They can make this happen. And in doing so they can really create change. They can create a real American election, for one.

In case you're wondering about our new standards here in NYC....

Check this out
http://avoicecriesout.com/2008/05/30/joel-kleins-brilliant-credit-recovery-program-teaches-kids-a-life-lesson/

Now, I'm a bleeding heart, but I'd go make the kid read a couple of books, do some journals, write some essays, talk to me....Fun, but simulated semester conditions.

Roger Manning, NYC - vintage video 1988

This was and still is honesty to me which is probably why I can talk less and less.

The Second Grade

The show I watched every day was Lost in Space in re-runs. I watched a parade of re-runs. Family Affair, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, The Addams Family, The Munsters, The Partridge Family, That Girl, Bewitched, I Dream of Genie, Green Acres. I had very little connection to the time in which I was in. That was okay because I hardly talked to anyone so I very rarely needed to make conversation or understand what anyone was talking about. It turned out that much of my generation was watching these programs too, as many of our recent movies have proven. In fact, the whole retro feeling that pervaded the 90's was very much the mid 60's and early 70's and had the goofyness of some of these shows. Some of what I was doing in my quiet was percolating. Thinking. Getting close to my own aesthetic.

I was also making my first trips to the Museum of Modern Art and talking to my mother about Marc Chagall and where poverty figured into his paintings.

Maybe everyone needs a period of silence. Maybe I am going back again because I have to re-discover my aesthetic. My ability to use my own is being run over by an administration that feels my job is expendible, the school at which I worked was not worth sustaining, and that I now much make the argument to principals for why I am valuable. Again and again. That's always very hard to me as I can see why many people are useful. I see myself as one of many choices and not the best of the lot. I am working because I am the right person for the kind of school at which I have worked for the past eight years. And now it is closing.

Danger, Will Robinson!

On a nice day when I should be cleaning the windows

and maybe I will, yet.

I was tempted to write a short story this morning about a woman who mostly communicates with an imagined community. She spends most of the day focused on what to say, how to say it and in anticipation of the responses of people with names that sound like they were meant for CB Radios-- "Bingo1," "FrenchFryeater25," "DRoberts9898" etc. That's what email addresses look like to me. Of course, it was very much autobiography. That is what I've become. I'm haunted by the possibility of reaching some mythical character behind the pseudonym. Often these folks were once, or are still people I see in flesh and blood. However, the internet communication is a thing in itself. It's like whispering in someone's ear or passing a note. It's several steps backwards for me, in a way. In the second grade, I didn't talk to anyone outside of my neighborhood. I just wrote. My writing was very good for my age. All of my verbal energy was focused on it. All of my shyness was indulged, which may or may not have been a good thing for a six year old. Both of my teachers --one for Hebrew studies and one for Secular -- learned to look for my written work and they always wrote back and we had a terrific correspondence. I was very lucky they were so attentive.

The folks out trucking in internet land are a mix of compulsions. Some stay away for days, some check every few minutes, some just don't know what to say even when they read your emails, so they just talk to you when they see you, whenever that might be. Some get back to you right away and engage in tennis volleys with you of email after email until you both tire. You feel like you've told them a lot and that they've told you a lot, and you have. Sometimes I've written as beautifully as I ever could about the most important things to me or to them. And then I don't see them, though they live just forty minutes away or so. The intimacy of the email becomes an excuse never to get together. It affords me a reason to remain shy and isolated like in the second grade.

I wasn't unhappy in the second grade. Actually, I was fairly thin, for me. I had steady routines -- programs I watched on TV, things I regularly talked about with my grandmother when I got home, a time I did my homework and I even limited what I ate. I'd spent a lot of time before this roaming around Israel trying out different places to live with my mother, both of us agreeing that none quite fit. So maybe I was desperate to lock in what I thought did fit and leave it there. There was no conscious decision, however. First grade had felt very noisy and muddled. Too much of everything and too public. So my personality became part of the ether for a year. In third grade it popped right out with a vengeance. I had a wonderfully warm teacher who just made silence seem stifling and made me want to be part of everything.

I'm back in the ether again. It's not painful or anything. I've lost the connection with what makes me want to be part of the everything outside -- and everything outside is shrinking. My school is closing. Randi Rhodes is on Nova M Radio and Air America seems strange to me now, though I still listen sometimes. I hardly see my friends as they are in all different directions. I have long conversations with cab drivers and the lady who takes my orders at the pet food store because they are the people I regularly have contact with. I've become chatty at the grocery store, too. We're all still anonymous with each other, but we share stories of our days just to let the tension out and it feels better. You don't get that on email or from a blog. Emails and blogs are about craft and information. There's hardly any emotion to them, except in the stories I write, I think.

I hope, like in the second grade, I begin to write like a demon.