happy new year blogpost

Maneki-neko: good luck cat (origin Japanese)

The new year is coming. For some of you, it may already be here (as I write this, it is 31 December 2017, 10:07 AM PST, so not yet in this part of the world), and I hope it is treating you well. I hope it will treat all of us well.

Today, I would like to share this photo I carry around with me inside my phone. We have a local store (local to this part of the world) called Uwajimaya, and it is wonderful place, full of color --makes me happy anyway. I regularly take out my phone to take photos when I am there because it is so colorful and so happy. I also pick up groceries, but that's a bit of a tangent ...

This is/was a display they have there: maneki-neko. These cats are seen to be good luck for the owners. The raised left paw is meant to bring good fortune. The lovely thing about technology (such as phones and digital photos and blogs) is that I don't have to keep these cats all to myself --I can share them with you. You may be anywhere in the world, but through the magic that still exists, I can share them with you. There are more than enough to share.

The origin of the symbol is interesting and timely. In the original story, a shopkeeper with nothing used what little he had to feed a cat that came by looking for food one day. The cat --being clever as all cats are --came back, and continued coming back, and the shopkeeper did his best to keep the cat fed, sometimes going without food himself; this was the nature of his hospitality and generosity of spirit. Then a funny thing happened: the cat stayed, and customers followed. The customers enjoyed seeing the cat and they sensed that this was a kind and thoughtful man, and the shop began flourish.

That is the way the world should work. If you see kindness in the world, encourage it; if you have a chance to be kind, do it. I'm not going to spend too much time on bad things going on in the world because that's what the news is for. I'm not going to spend too much time on other people's choices, good or bad. Make your own choices in the new year. Make choices that leave the world in better shape than it was in yesterday when and where you can.

And may 2018 be a year that is kind to us all. Happy New Year.

two herons

two herons.

we watched the feathered pair go winging by,
their long-necked forms stretched forth with home in view.
we turned our heads and eyes up toward the sky
and watched the progress of those travelers two.

you said that herons live as lifetime mates,
like geese or swans or cranes or other birds
(I knew it was not true but hate debates,
and so, I stood and watched and held my words).

the pair flew off and past the grove of trees,
and we walked on and did not talk --
the only sounds: leaves crackling in the breeze,
the stilted silence of our lonely walk.

I envied them their flight and blessed wings
as they flew past and onto other things.

why poetry? (end of 2017 edition)

• Feelings still matter.
• Memories like to be taken out & dusted off.
• Our thoughts are still our own.
• That time we laughed with a friend about nothing in particular.
• The little mew of the neighbor cat means I'm not alone.
• When we read a poem, we watch acrobats tumble & fly.
• Bigger is not always better.
• Words can be a heartbeat, and a heartbeat is what keeps you alive.
• There's linear, but then there's the rest of us ...
• There is nothing so political as seeing beauty in the everyday.

in spite of/because

you are loved 

in spite of

your bad attitude --

I suppose I

could put up

with it, since

I love you.

you are loved

in spite of

your likes and

dislikes (they don't

match with mine,

and so you are

not very interesting).

you are loved

in spite of

the way you

won't hold still

and take the 

medicine --it's

meant to help.

you are loved

because of

your bad attitude --

it is part of
who you are,
the questioning, and
I love you.
you are loved
because of
your likes and
dislikes (they don't
match with mine,
and so you are
so very interesting).
you are loved
because of
the way you
won't hold still
and take the 
medicine --that
fierceness, and you
will decide for
yourself in your
own sweet time.

that face

"The face that launched ..."

• A thousand ships. In the opposite direction.
• A thousand bottles --directly at it.
• A thousand investigations (we'll go with Nixon for today because there's enough distance there).

• A thousand questions, beginning with, "Why did they use their face to launch? The launch button is clearly hand-sized."
• A thousand points of light.

• A thousand products. Go, capitalist face.
• A couple of sillies this morning. Have an excellent day today.

give your publication achievements priority

She sat up in her chair, straightened her notepad on the table in front of her, clicked her pen a couple of times, and then turned her attention back to the screen.

Author biography.

Write about yourself in the third person.

"I can do that," she told herself silently, wanting to keep the thought in her head. Libraries are meant to be quiet places; and besides, she didn't want to attract the attention of the large man at the next terminal over, whom she was convinced was watching pornography. She should probably tell one of the librarians --later. The computer was hers for only a short time, and she didn't want to waste that time on the pervert next to her.

Be sure to list the titles of your publications and books. Be selective.

"But what if I haven't been published anywhere? It's hard to be selective when there's nothing to select from." 

Mention awards you've received.

"If I haven't been published, how do I mention awards I've received? I did win a Good Citizen Award back in high school ..."

List any professional writing organizations to which you belong.

"Can't afford the annual dues, can I?"

Don't disclose too much personal information. You may want to use unusual or interesting things you've done, however, to add interest to your biography.

"We come to the library because we can't afford the Internet. I won't disclose that. We all come here when we're out running errands, and we all get books to read while we're here because we love books in our house. That's why I write, why I try to write after the kids go to bed, although Jack never wants to go down, does he? Got married young, had kids young. I won't disclose that, either. Interesting or unusual? Maybe I should use that thing about the Good Citizen Award? What I should do is probably tell the librarian about this guy next to me ..."

You should consider using a picture that has been professionally taken to go with your biography.

"Professionally taken? How much would that go for then? 'Should consider' means it's not mandatory. Can't. I should go check on the kids ..."

She looked down at the notepad. Her author biography was blank.  

________________

  

a bunch of old bs

Heads up: everything in the next section I am about to write is bullshit. Don't know why you'd read after that glowing endorsement, but maybe a few of you have a little Pandora in you and want to know what's in that box labeled 'Bullshit' ...

________

The world is for the young. If you're of a certain age and you haven't already established your reputation, you didn't really want it enough, did you? If you're of a certain age and you need or want to start over, you're only embarrassing yourself. You're set in your ways. You can't learn anything new. What could you possibly have to say that's interesting? You're old.

_________

If you are young (we'll define 'young' for our purposes as under the age of 27 --sounds like a nice even number) and think any of the above, then you are setting yourself up for a great big load of disappointment in your later life, guaranteed. You think you know, but you have no idea.

If you are old (28 and up) and think any of that, then stop it. Seriously. Stop. I'm talking as much to myself here as to any of you. 

The world (another term we need to define --I'm in the US, and as everyone knows, we're the center of the universe in our own minds, so what the hell, we'll go with that) prefers the young. We love the precocious. We love prodigies. We loved Coreys Haim & Feldman until they grew up. We do not love messes or baggage or anything other than unbridled enthusiasm on shining faces. If there is a mess, it had better be young and hot and cute because ew.

That doesn't mean the world is right. It means the world likes things wrapped up in neat little packages.

__________

Fuck neat little packages --seriously, fuck them. They're just fancy boxes, aren't they? And fuck the world if it can't handle a mess without calling for it to be taken away.

___________

Despite the angry tone to all of that, I am actually feeling pretty hopeful. 

I've written before about coming late to art and expressing myself. Extensively. Seriously, that sums up about 1/3 of my blog posts, you're welcome --no need to read now. In my explorations into what to do with what I've figured out about my creativity, I've looked up "okay, now what?" and have been greeted with a gaggle of young faces (or faces that may look like mine, but with a long list of credits tattooed on them). It can get discouraging. Baggage weighs me down.

I can't put the baggage down. It's like a scar --I've earned it. It's my baggage. I can carry it smarter, though. I'm all about ergonomic solutions at this stage.

____________

What people aged 28-108 can contribute to the world and to the arts:

• Breadth --life experience is, in fact, experience, and we have more of it
• Perseverance --think Keith Richards (we are all Keith Richards)
• Leadership --a lot of us have had kids, so we've had to learn to lead
• Patience --again, we've had kids
• The Ability to Spot and Call Bullshit --speaks for itself
• Resources --we get jobs while trying to figure stuff out, and we're cantankerous enough to work and create (yes, at the same time)

________________

Do not preemptively assume that you have nothing to contribute to the arts. You have a lot to contribute --what that is may remain to be seen, but you have a lot to contribute. Use your well-earned patience. Persevere, because you know you can do that (Keith Richards lives!). Spot the bullshit, both what the world lays on you and what you lay on yourself. Now is the time. It wasn't before, and that's okay, because you were learning to get to where you are now.

Don't buy the old bullshit. You're not old, you're mature. Now go make whatever the hell you want.

And Happy 2018, when it comes.

saying no to sisyphus

Everyone knows the story of Sisyphus, sort of. He was the guy in Greek mythology with the boulder, right? He rolled the boulder up the hill, and it rolled back down, and then he rolled it up, and it rolled back down, ad infinitum. That's him, right?

Along comes the 20th Century and Sisyphus is celebrated as an absurd everyman. We're all Sisyphus now, rolling our metaphorical boulders up metaphorical hills and down they come again and up we push them again, over and over again, until we die.

Except ...

1. Sisyphus was a bit of an entitled jerk, and the boulder rolling was a punishment. I mean, the guy was a king who didn't like to honor his contracts, thought he was smarter than everyone else, and was disloyal to everyone but himself. The boulder rolling occurred in the Underworld, not in this one.

2. We tend to overapply the term to mean anything repetitive (or I do anyway). Sometimes, doing things repetitively is a means of meditation, and is not meant to be a source of frustration. Think of knitting or prayer beads or deep breathing. 

3. We tend to feel something is Sisyphean when it doesn't come to immediate fruition, in some cases within our lifetime. That doesn't mean it's not meaningful. He was rolling a boulder. For what purpose? For no purpose. But what if that boulder were something like, say, advancing educational opportunities for more people or civil rights? You're not just pushing for yourself.

4. With a growth mindset, failures or setbacks --think of that stone rolling down --are a learning opportunity. If we start again, it may not be the same boulder --maybe we modify it before we start rolling it again, or perhaps we don't tackle that hill the same way, or maybe we modify the hill, or develop new tools, or maybe we ask for help. Or maybe that boulder was one we tried to tackle many different ways and it didn't end up being one we could successfully roll. That happens. Sisyphus couldn't leave --we can, after we give it a try.

So Sisyphus is simplistic. We're not Sisyphus --we don't have to be.  We may roll some heavy stones, but we try to be conscious of which stones we roll, and how. Oh, and if you feel tired from pushing that rock? It's understandable. Sisyphus wasn't allowed to take breaks, but you are. 

Happy end of 2017.

  

unintended consequences

In the space of about five minutes this morning, I've come across two references to unintended consequences, so let's go there this morning ...

The first thing I came across was a movie from this year that I hadn't heard about prior to today because I live under a rock, I think. The name of the film is Roman J. Israel, Esq., which stars Denzel Washington. Reading a summary of the film, it sounds as though a "good" man gives up and goes for the money, but then, there are unintended benefits and he may be finding himself again. Or something. I haven't seen the film, but it looks interesting.

The second thing I came across was a tweet thread (a thread is a Twitter thing --you might not understand) by Dr. Andrew Thaler. It spoke about how the porgs in the new Star Wars film The Last Jedi were actually puffins that couldn't be erased from footage shot at Skellig Michael, an island off the coast of western Ireland, and the unintended consequence of including the porg/puffins may actually be good for conservation efforts indirectly. (Unfortunately, another possible unintended consequence I just read about was possible loss of Skellig Michael's UNESCO World Heritage status because it's getting too many visitors following the Star Wars exposure).

Humans cannot see the future. All the tea leaves in all the world cannot tell you what may happen later today, let alone a year from now, five years from now, a decade from now. We can use what we have --past experience, data --but it's all ultimately guessing because we exist in a complex system. There may be unintended benefits, unintended drawbacks, or perverse results (meaning the opposite result of what was intended occurs --think the Western concept of bad karma). The point is, they will happen, regardless of all of our planning and most definitely because of our lack of planning or ignorance.

Do I have any answers? Nope. Not a one. Just thinking about this stuff, and I'm left with more questions than answers. If you have any answers about predicting the future accurately (besides self-fulfilling prophecies --can't stand those things!), please let me know.

shaking it

Experimenting tonight since today was a heavy day. I'm going to write a poem using random words and phrases from music I'm listening to tonight. This technique is apparently called found poetry. Just call me Lady Dada. 

Nothing heavy allowed, of course, because I don't feel like it. Only  songs that encourage movement and pleasant feelings. I'll try not to violate anyone's copyright --in fact, I'll list the songs and encourage you to seek out the originals from the artists! Here we go ...

I gotta live it down.
It bears repeating --
Lots of work to be done.
I get my kicks 
(Shake it shake it)
Standing up against the wall.
Quelle vibration!
All I know, 
I was hit by something last night --
So indelicate.
(Poor little greenie,
Take me by the hand.)
Out of control!
I don't mind 'cause I'm that kind of
Leute.


Lonely Boy -Black Keys
Fell In Love With A Girl -The White Stripes
Whip It -Devo
Electric Avenue -Eddy Grant
One Night In Bangkok -Murray Head
Ça Plane Pour Moi -Plastic Bertrand
You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) -Dead Or Alive
Hey Ya! -OutKast
That's Not My Name -The Ting Tings
Dead Man's Party -Oingo Boingo
Why Can't I be You? -The Cure
The Jean Genie -David Bowie
Mickey -Toni Basil
Private Idaho -The B-52s
Sweatshop -DeStaat
99 Luftballons -Nena

someone

I have been reading the excellent Know Your Place: Essays on the Working Class By The Working Class (Dead Ink Press) and finished reading it tonight. Why would a middle-class American (is that still a thing?) be reading essays about being working class in Great Britain? Many reasons, not least of which is that it is excellent --pretty sure I mentioned that.

One of the essays, a piece called "Glass Windows and Glass Ceilings" by a writer called Wally Jiagoo, struck me. All of the essays struck me, but Mr. Jiagoo's essay struck me on a personal level and ended on a note that spoke very powerfully about the way things are going in the world -- and miracle of miracles, offers a solution.

Mr. Jiagoo has worked as a Housing Benefit Officer in South London and also as a screenwriter, and his essay captures both worlds well with spot-on dialogue and insight. As a screenwriter from a working class background, he experiences the frustration of being someone who has "quite the knack for writing orrrdinary people" (code for someone who has difficulty networking and finding work because everyone else in that world seems to already know everyone else through family or school connections). As a Housing Benefit Officer, he is responsible for delivering benefit caps to frustrated people from behind a glass window "for [his] protection".

The world Mr. Jiagoo writes about --and the world we live in --is full of gatekeepers. You can come in, but you can't. We can help you, but you, we can't.

At some point, we gatekeepers (and I include myself in this group) need to realize that the gates are there. They are very real, and they are built of strong stuff. Why are they there? Tradition? Legal mumbo jumbo? Our own comfort? Fear? Who knows? But they are most definitely there, and we keep them tightly shut.

Mr. Jiagoo's solution: "It's not within our remit that we help ..., so we've just accepted that we can't ...but we can."

It is incumbent on all of us to remember: sometimes, we are that someone who should do something. We can grumble about how unfair things are, or we can begin to do something about it --one person at a time, one situation at a time, one day at a time. It might not be in our remit, but those of us who understand how the gate works need to guide and support those who don't as they navigate its complexities. It is a very lonely place to be, on the outside of a gate looking in.

"See," Mr. Jiagoo says, "in the world I'm trying to enter, I'm waiting on someone to let me pass. But in this world ...I'm that someone." 

We each have places in our lives where we can be that someone. Look for those gates.

theirs not to reason why

Having a flashback this morning. No, not drug-induced. Not really trauma-induced (although more on that throughout) ...

I'm having a flashback to 2012. That was the year everyone seemed to be going through the angry stage of grieving, or perhaps every stage of grief that occurs pre-acceptance.

You see, I work with children. I may have mentioned that once or twice before. Because I work with children, I also work with families --parents, grandparents, etc. The children I work with have disabilities. Family members have a variety of feelings about that which they work through over time.

In 2012, it wasn't going too well. Several families were struggling to come to terms with who their children are. All at the same time. With lawyers involved.

We had reached a point with one family where the relationship between the parents and the school parts of the educational team had broken down entirely. In these educational teams, all of the members have something to contribute and we are all supposed to work together for the education of the student, keeping the student's needs first in our minds at all times. This was not happening in 2012.

These parents did not trust us to do our jobs, for whatever reason, and that spilled over into everything. It was not a joyful time. It was not even a tolerable time. What it was, I can say on reflection, was a time in which nothing we could do or say would ever be good enough because they were grieving. We knew that at the time, because it happens a lot, but it's hard to remember that the anger and words sometimes are more about the person saying them than the person they are directed at.

I find myself thinking about one particular event during this time. There is a valuable lesson in it, which is why I am writing this down and sharing it.

One of the parents had done an observation in the classroom. As we always do, we were thoughtful in coming up with an activity and materials that are appropriate for all students and allow them to participate. Furthermore, we try to make the activities engaging so all of the students want to participate. The parent had a lot of questions about the activity, as happens, and we had an after school meeting scheduled to discuss that and other issues since school teams can't really meet during school hours (because that's when we teach kids).

At the after school meeting, the parent asked many questions that required thoughtful explanations, which we provided. School teams sometimes come up with a form of shorthand thinking needed to be efficient (there are a lot of kids!), but we should be able to explain everything that we are doing when we are asked, and we did that.

Then the parent brought up the student's seating.

The student had been seated at a table with another student. It was not in the center of the room. Were we trying to exclude him? Why wasn't he seated more centrally? The parent wanted him seated centrally.

No one gets into special education to make kids feel excluded. We set about coming up with a way to seat him centrally. How would we do this? How would we do that? We all looked at each other with panic while we were discussing what would be needed, knowing the amount of time that would be required to make that happen --time that couldn't go towards the activity.

Our lawyer stopped our panicked troubleshooting.

"Why?"

The parent had no answer.

The fact was, the student was seated closer to instruction than the other students in the classroom. All of the groupings in the classroom were in groups of 2-3 students; he was paired with an appropriate peer. His participation was encouraged throughout. Had we tried to reconfigure the room (essentially what the parent was asking for), it would have discouraged his participation in his daily activities and would have taken time away from instruction for the lesson the parent observed, a lesson that would only occur once.

Why?

There are times when we want to do the right thing, and someone will tell us what they believe that right thing to be. We get very busy sometimes, and we are so used to making things happen, that we don't stop to ask if what we are doing is the right thing to do or necessary. People want what they want, and that's fine. 

But it is not wrong to stop and ask why (or for what purpose). Sometimes, the answer to "why?" is no answer at all, except that it's the way it's always been done or it's the way someone wants it because they just do or there are larger issues that no amount of scrambling can compensate for. 

It is okay to ask why, and sometimes, it's our responsibility to ask.

birthday eve reflections

Birthday tomorrow. Yup yup yup ...

Ordinarily, I am a fan of birthdays. Today, however, I am feeling rather tired --winter is hitting me extra hard this year. Am I getting old?

The answer is yes. And that's a good thing. The answer is no, also a good thing. The answer is yes and no, because it's complicated.

Yes, I am getting old. Until one of us invents a time machine (won't be me --I have trouble updating my operating system), time moves in a forward direction. Every once in a while, we might have a memory, but time goes that away. 

Forward would lead to older, not old, you say? True, but eventually older is old. That's fine. Old isn't dead --it's just old. Old means adjusting your way of living slightly to accommodate changes that go with age. Need longer? Take longer. Can't do back flips anymore? Make pancakes & flip them backwards. Adjust.

No, I am not getting old. The whole age is a state of mind thing is partially true. There has to be something in life you are excited about, and if you have that, then you're fine, regardless of age. It's been hard lately to feel excited in a way I felt pre-November 2016. You know what I'm saying. The world is what it is, and we've all been experiencing the equivalent of existential dread on steroids. 

To that, I say, I do not give anyone permission to mess up my birthday. Come to think of it, I do not give anyone permission to mess up any other day, either, but my birthday? No. F*** off. It's mine, and you can't have it, so there. 

Unless you'd like to share it --I'm always happy to share.

Am I getting old? Hell yeah --eventually. And there will be cake, so it's all good.

i understand the luddites

Preparing to do my daily writing on a computer that took a while to update ... *insert writerly grumbling*

Deep breaths. Patience is a virtue. And now, for a little writing warmup --a villanelle.

i understand the luddites: a villanelle

we throw our phones against the wall --

efficiency's a poor excuse.

technology must surely fall!

you make us feel weak & small,

& we recoil from the abuse --

we throw our phones against the wall.

so we begin our vicious brawl.

it tried but failed to seduce --

technology will surely fall!

...

we lack sufficient wherewithal --

destruction now seems half-obtuse.

we threw the phone against the wall.

we can't return the agent's call,

& violence constitutes misuse --

our anger came before the fall.

we'll bathe our wounds in alcohol.

we're slow but eager to produce?

we threw our phones against the wall,

& so, we brought about our fall.

friday

There's something about Friday.

I know not everyone works Monday to Friday, so if you don't, substitute any approaching break. That feeling when the struggle lets up for a little bit --it's a feeling that we all have in common. Relief. Even if it's only for a little bit, relief is a necessary thing.

Enjoy your Friday or whatever it is that brings you relief for a little bit. In this world where people talk about "deserving" and "earning", we all deserve and have all earned those small moments in which we recuperate.

Happy Friday.

file under 'will never be published' (no. 13)

File under 'Will never be published' (no. 13): Dolores Ipsum

Background: Lorem Ipsum is well-known text used by people who do print and web layout. I came across it over a decade ago when I took a computer course, filed it away in the back of my mind, and moved on with my life without doing any print or web layout. 

The thinking behind using the text is that words are needed to know what print will look like, but it needs to be print that doesn't necessarily mean anything. 

This is what is used. It's based on Cicero:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

The actual Cicero text means something along the lines of, "No one desires to obtain pain for its own sake, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which pain can bring great pleasure."

A couple of years ago, I wrote a series of poems about women based on historical writings. I thought about the Cicero and thought it was a very feminine thing, changing shape to be whatever a man needed. I changed 'dolorem ipsum' to Dolores Ipsum and off I went, with the result below.

Why it will never be published: Do you really need to ask? It's a bit obscure and requires a lot of explanation. Poetry shouldn't need this much explanation. 

Why I wrote this blog post today: Open Culture tweeted about it and I had a flashback. What are the odds that someone else would be interested in the origins of nonsense text?

Dolores Ipsum.

   I’m waiting patiently.

   Cicero wants me to wait,

   So here I sit, holding my shape,

   Just as he told me.

   He said, “Lean your head a bit to the left”:

Like so.

   He said, “No, perhaps to the right”:

                                                            Yes, sir.

   My aim is to please with my pain

   Because it is my duty and because I am good.

   I know I am silly with my nonsensical Latin

   That does nothing but take up space 
   Until he can fill it with his words
   Full of meaning and wisdom.

   I take pleasure in the words of Cicero.

   I reject my own meaning for his

   Because his words are better,

Whether right

Or left.

   It’s just as Cicero explained:

   “Dolores, no one likes pain.”

   He needs me to wait here,

   And so, I wait with my ache.