Eric Holder, Attorney General and also Mister Awesomely Right On (subtitle: how to kinda sorta talk about race in white suburbs)

I was worried for a minute there. I spent lots of time at my last job figuring out how to make a classroom talk about race in a safe, meaningful, real way. I stopped and processed every racially charged statement I heard (over many moans and groans). I didn't allow the n-word in my classroom (or its shortened "friendly" counterpart which ends in an "a" rather than an "er" and is just as much of a problem). My argument was that by using it amongst friends you are keeping the word in the lexicon of your enemies. Why not just eliminate it from the American vocabulary altogether? I did a lot of arguing, and listening. I didn't even know what the goal was, really, except to be able to bring it up in conversation when it came up, rather than avoid it (which is what I usually wanted to do, if you want the truth.)

Anyway, I was worried because I still think the hardest conversations to have are usually the most important and I wasn't sure how they were going to happen at my new school. At my last school, with statements like "I'm gonna put her Puerto Rican hood rat ass back where it belongs" floating around the hallways, there were plenty of opportunities to say..."Um...can we talk about what you just said?"

But rich white folks' kids don't usually say stuff like that. They do this:

Last week, in Literature class with the youngest students, we were reading a story. The story's narrator is born and raised in Harlem, and talks, thinks, and acts like a person few if any of these kids have ever met. He hangs out at a barber shop and has tense relations with the police and thinks 18,000 dollars is the most money he's ever even heard of, never mind actually possessed. After reading the story, I asked the kids to point out some things they noticed.

"They are in New York."
"They are weird."
"They talk weird."
"They are, well he is...you know, everyone in the story is Afr- Bl-"

This poor girl fell all over herself trying to figure out how to say that the characters in this story were black. She wanted to use whatever the most politically correct polite words she could, but she had a very hard time figuring out what those were.

As far as I am concerned, this kind of freaking out while trying to talk about a person whose skin color is different from your own warrants a conversation as desperately as shouting racial slurs in the hallway. This is the problem our amazingly awesome Attorney General was talking about last week. We can't get past this if we can't talk about it.

Of course, it's not always easy knowing what to say. So I said two things:

"Are you trying to say that the characters are black?"

She said that yes, she was trying to say that but "she felt bad."

So I asked her why she thought that made her feel bad.

She couldn't really figure that out. But that's okay, at least she started thinking about it. I also tried to get from the kid who said everyone was "weird" why he thought that, but he didn't really know what to say either.

I think maybe she felt bad because if we had been reading a story narrated by a white person we probably never would have said, "Well I noticed that the narrator is white." Because isn't that the norm that we measure against? When a Christian pro-life wacko shoots an abortion doctor, he isn't a Christian extremist, but when a Muslim shoots someone, what do you think he's called? When Sarah Palin talks to a crowd of all white hockey moms, she's just talkin' to regular Americans, but when Barack Obama talks to an all black church group in Chicago he's playing to a special interest, right?

All this to say, I'm no longer worried about having big, scary, important conversations at my new school. Like everyone else, these kids see the world from where they are standing. And like everyone else, it would probably do them some good to look at it from different shoes once and a while.

Camelot?

Plenty of we the graduates of master's programs in education have spent oodles of time picturing utopia: the school. We know what its teachers are like, what's on the walls, what the classes sound like, what the students feel like every day, and a million other things. I have spent time building this school in my mind in idle daydreams like many girls do their weddings. For two years, I have been trying to shape my school into this place. At every turn, I met resistance. In part, since I did have many victories, this made the job rather satisfying. In other ways, it made it exhausting. Exhausting in the way beating your head against a brick wall is exhausting - you bleed, the wall doesn't.

The students, though, I loved. I love things that are as tough as they are delicate. I don't think I'll ever meet a group of young people more resilient, who went through so much and still somehow figured out how to laugh and trust and learn.

This is why I feel an overwhelming sense of guilt, everyday, for taking my new job. It is an incredible place. So many parts of it are living models of my dreamed-up school. It's uncanny, at times. The art on the walls. The laughter in the classrooms. The passion of the staff. And, in so many other ways, it fulfills all of the selfish needs my other job did not. Money. Vacation. Health care. Better coffee. The list of perks, significant and otherwise, adds up to a situation marvelously sweeter than the last. But...but....

It's a private school. It is the exact racial and economic inverse of my last school.

Can this be utopia?! If a teacher wants to quit her night job, get decent benefits, and teach in a place where art and music aren't subjects of controversy but rather are central to the school itself...does she really, still, in 2009, have to teach only upper middle class white students?

I've been there one month. For the drama session, in which the entire school does nothing but put on a musical. For 2009: Camelot. I tell you, in spite of the magic of this place (and it is magical) neither side of segregation can be Camelot.

arne duncan: please go back to playing basketball

The real education progressives aren't thrilled about Duncan, and neither am I. For those of us who feel that schools can't be pro-business and pro-military while still being pro-child, this guy is cause for serious concern.
Good article here...

And, an excerpt:

Duncan leaves his position in Chicago with quite a legacy. He used the punitive aspects of No Child Left Behind to close underperforming schools, mandate curricula, and fire entire school staffs based on standardized test scores. Working with the Commercial Club of Chicago, a group representing the city's wealthy businesses, Duncan headed a program called "Renaissance 2010," designed to close the most "underperforming" schools based strictly on test scores and open new charter schools in the same neighborhoods - neighborhoods also primed for gentrification. Some of Duncan's plans have been foiled by community advocacy groups, the only force willing to stand up against the collusion of government officials and corporate interests.

Over the past seven years, Duncan helped the city of Chicago open over 100 new schools (at least 84 charters run by Renaissance 2010 with 31 more planned), including the city's second Disney-run elementary school, 5 military academies with more in planning stages, for-profit schools, non-profit organizations receiving financial backing from "educational venture funds," and charter schools funded by big business (Boeing, Citigroup, Bank of America, Washington Mutual, and the Gates Foundation among others - all given corporate tax breaks, buyouts, and tax deductions that take money from our public schools). There are, undoubtedly, a number of remarkable charter schools in Chicago offering a high-quality education, but they are a small minority. However, since the beginning of his tenure in 2001, Chicago schools have become more segregated (in fact, America's schools are more segregated now than during 1954's landmark Brown vs. Board legislation) in part because of expanded charter schools.

______

Do we really want to send our kids to "Boeing Elementary?" At least for me, the answer is a resounding "fuck no."

requisite "year in review" blog

Despite my lifelong battle with being quite ordinary, I'm going to do the banal, trite, ordinary "year in review" blog. Rather than the ever-tempting top 20 of 2008, though, I'm going to shoot for a stream-of-consciousness-brain-fart sort of thing. Let's see if you can make sense of it. It was a pretty crazy year.

2008 begins and I'm having an allergic reaction right next to the stack of espresso pods and people are expecting more champagne and dessert but fuck them and fuck their dessert and while I'm at it fuck waitressing I have a master's degree how could this happen well it seems like it isn't turning respiratory so I guess the pills are working and at least there's a cute boy waiting for me somewhere ok he's not waiting for me but I'm going there anyway the drunk drivers aren't too bad this year and his blankets are scratchy but warm January: month of total chaos last state of the union by that miserable war criminal prick I'll just read the blogs I can't stand to hear him talk Richard Rothstein says NCLB is dead in the water mild rejoicing at edaction February: stupid god damn giants ruin everything and my mother doesn't understand the concept of time zones nayad meets a man and goes to church which makes us all quite suspicious SUPER TUESDAY no dennis but barack okay and the NSA gets away with a bunch of bullshit spying state of the police state? March: Peace out Huckabee and your crazy Jesus horse! I go to an Ambassador's mansion and eat caviar with people who frighten me terribly hatred of the wealthy reaffirmed I still live in their neighborhood in a house full of crazy and also wonderful friends California sends word that my old love is heading back home, some unconscious gate cracks open April: I'm a fool, for sure, but the girls at edaction and I keep trying to save public education how ridiculous meanwhile we're starting to ignore the newscasters when they tell us people are dying in Iraq people die in Iraq everyday and so it musn't be news... May: things fall apart and come together at the same time my community organizer job sends me to a terrible conference lots of talking and very little doing but none of it matters much when I walk the same little circle out in Boston Common and fall stupid in love with the same guy I always fall stupid in love with over and over June: BABYPROOFED victory sweet victory I stay in bed for many hours afterward and feel a kind of relief that defies description, then I eat sushi and watch tennis on tv July: Venus, Serena, offshore oil drilling, impeach (go Dennis!) but it's the summer of BIKES I take my newly acquired ability to the streets and knock on wood don't get hit by any cars, move my stuff, again August: Obsessively watch the DNC coverage, China decides air pollution is worth fixing for photo ops, back to school but not before a camping trip, canoes on a pond and wonderfully terrible cups of coffee the smell of trees and dying fires, far away Georgia and Russia reopen wounds and Mark David Chapman still in jail John Lennon still dead September: Move my stuff, again, to our new place we're finally home, together, only took like 9 years, Sarah Palin shocks the world with just how dumb she is, my first ever Hub on Wheels and then school school school October: DEBATES, American taxpayers dole out 700 billion dollars so that wall street big wigs can still go on vacation and housing prices continue to fall people are forced from their homes, meanwhile we go to Maine easternmost point in the US take pictures of boats drink strong coffee long drive back grading papers in the passenger's seat Jean home from Korea, briefly November: day before the election students say they'll "kill themselves" if barack doesn't win, but weeks of knotty stomachs worth every second our 44th president wins and everybody feels alright, for a minute, about being American, I turn 28 and Bill makes everyone jealous with his roses December: Snow, finally snow sweaters ice scrapers school cancelled three straight days Bill turns 30 skis down mountains but I prefer the fireplace and old, crappy movies family family family and finally a chance to take a nap 2008 the year I got my way good bye idiot president hello handsome brilliant awesome president (we hope) and hello hello hello baby proofed body and the body it sleeps next to every night and misses all day long.

formatting

If anyone knows how to make the formatting NOT look like shit go ahead and let me know. Sorry about the last blog's quote looking so weird...blogger is dumb. (The question of whether I am referring to myself the blogger or blogger.com is yours to enjoy.)

snowed

The best thing about being a teacher in New England is not the proximity to so many great institutions of higher learning where you may build your content knowledge and wear tweed. Nor is it the apple picking field trip, the general lack of environmental disasters, the ability to spew left wing rhetoric at your students without a single complaint.... no no. It is your governor on the radio, a full evening ahead of you, telling you to sit back, have a glass of wine, and just forget about going to work tomorrow.

The bliss ends there.

I hate to break this to all of you who are currently enjoying your reproductive rights, but the Bush administration has dealt a final blow to gender equality, human rights, etc. He hates that stuff!

I got this in the mail from my buddy Cecile Richards:

Minutes ago, President Bush's rule limiting the rights of patients to receive complete and accurate reproductive health information when they visit a federally funded health care provider was made official. And, unfortunately, it will take a great deal of work to reverse it — starting today. Please help.

We knew this was coming, of course. With your help, we've been fighting it for months. The rule is clearly a parting gift from Bush to the anti-choice fringe that supported him all these years.

Now, anti-choice medical staff can withhold information about abortion, birth control, and sex education from their patients. Facilities that receive family planning funding, like Planned Parenthood, will have to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control. For example, a doctor who opposes pre-marital sex could refuse to provide a prescription or even information about emergency contraception to an unmarried woman.

This is the most frightening thing I've heard in a long time. As if unwanted pregnancies weren't enough of a problem, it's going to get a hell of a lot harder for women to prevent them. Nay, it's going to get a hell of a lot harder to even get INFORMATION about BIRTH CONTROL. What?! Beyond that, this will disproportionately affect women with limited access to information (poor women, English language learners, you know, the vulnerable people who Bush loves to shit on.)

I debate this issue with my students all the time. Many of these girls have been, as it were, totally snowed. They learned to believe, at some point very early in their lives, that getting pregnant is a sacred gift from god and...well I'll put this in their words:

"If you open your legs, you have to pay the price."

Three things:

1. How sad to be the child whose entire life is payment for something the mother eternally regrets.

2. How much sadder to be the girl who has been so beaten down by society that she actually believes not only that she is powerless, but that she should be.

3. Okay, so you believe "life is sacred" - but should you really advocate for those beliefs to be legislated? Because the people who are stirring this pot you're in don't give a flying poop about life being sacred (or at least not military prisoners or Iraqi citizens or death row inmates...those lives aren't sacred). They want to keep power in the hands of men, and taking decision making power out of the hands of women is the quickest way to do that. The life is sacred thing is just a convenient slogan these power mongers capitalize on to advance their anti-woman, anti-parenting, anti-medical ethics, anti-American agenda.

What a great trick you've pulled, you murdering sexist bigot war criminal. I wish that shoe hit you right in the fucking smirk.

"what do you mean 'we?'"

Well it finally happened. It was the weirdest thing. I knew, eventually, this would happen. I spent a lot of time thinking about how I would react, how I would deal with it, whether it should be the type of thing one "reacted" to. But how could I not?

For the past two years, I have been the only white person in my classroom (except during staff meetings). We talk about race all the time in my class. And I've taken quite a few light-hearted jokes directed at white people, which thus far have been part of a healthy conversation. I have been very careful in my pursuit of a space in which talking about race is safe, appropriate, and expected. I never purport to know what I'm doing in this regard, and my students are always very helpful when it comes to telling me what to do.

This month, I welcomed a new student into my class. He is

The. White. Kid.

in the inner city alternative school.

And all the shit I was afraid to deal with has already started to happen. Case in point:

We're studying the American Revolution. One of my personal favorite things to teach. It is a sensitive subject, what with the tendency of old lame-ass text books to glorify the brave colonists and paint them as champions of liberty who fought for their freedom and secured us all a Great American Future. Fortunately, my school can't afford text books so it's up to me to put together my own photocopied collections of readings.

All this being beyond the point. The point is, we were having a conversation, as a class, regarding why the English, rather than the Spanish or the French, ended up putting the "winning" group of colonizers on North America. This usually sparks a conversation regarding why it is ANY European colonizing bastard felt he had the right to be there in the first place.

But here's what happened. The new kid says, "We had more independence from our crown in the first place, so it was easier for us to break away and really make the new colony our own."

And I, without thinking, engage this conversation, the entire time using the pronoun "we."

And after three minutes of engaging this kid in conversation I look around, and I had lost everyone else. So I try to back up.

"Let me just check in here, what do WE mean when we say 'we?'"

And one kid pipes up and says, rather pointedly, "Yeah, what DO you mean we?"

What did I mean? Am I the teacher I read about in all those articles in grad school? The one who, regardless of all her efforts, engaged the student of her own race in conversation more readily than those of a different race? The one who used words carelessly without considering the points of view of all her students?

All of this, of course, calls into question all the work I've done so far. Did I really create a safe space for tough conversations...or did I create a precariously safe space that's easily thrown by a change in group dynamics?

Jeez. Teaching is hard. They should pay us more. Goodnight.

Baby Bling

I read an article a while back about wealthy suburban couples competing with their wealthy suburban friends through a new wildly popular status symbol. Not huge cars, not elaborate vacations. Babies. Lots and lots of babies. Apparently (and one need not look further than the latest Pitt-Jolie headline in the checkout line mags) babies are the new bling.

Needless to say, this is distressing on several levels. Firstly, even to a heartless wench like me, using children to prove to one's friends (or the media) that one is a superstar with immense wealth seems an unjust use of children. Secondly, and more distressing, it's hard not to think of the wee little planet on which we pile all these grubby little water drinking plastic dependent cherubs. Do we really want to make it "cool" to have gigantic families?

I can say this: it's cool in school. There hasn't been a single month, in the entire time that I have been teaching, that hasn't brought news of at least one more pregnant student. Many of them have children already. And the news is always greeted with "awwws" from the other students, who rush over to the latest big belly and rub it, give the mom to be lots of attention, and totally freak me the fuck out.

How do we compete with cool?!

Our school has counselors on staff, and we all sit down once a week to chat about the students' states of mind, hash out strategies to deal with difficult situations, and, inevitably, lament the list of newly pregnant teenagers.

These girls, for all their lives, have been under mountains of shit beyond my ability to imagine. Abuse, homelessness, crumbling, segregated, violent schools, gang violence, hunger, lack of health care...not exactly the recipe for self-love and self-respect. So when they get the chance to be loved and needed, they take it. When they get the chance to be in control of something, they take it. And in so doing, they become part of a rapidly expanding group of their peers, and are accepted. This is just as damaging to young girls' futures as gangs are to boys' - and both behaviors are unfortunate responses to the same set of shitty realities.

I recognize that the lack of mandated, funded, comprehensive sex education in public schools is partly at fault for the rising number of teen parents. But this isn't just a sex education crisis. It's a self-esteem crisis. Hopelessness crisis.

I assure you, the last possible thing we need is for this to become cooler than it already is.

...I've sat here staring at a blinking cursor for quite a while now. I have no answers. I have no clue what to do. I'm throwing my hands up in the air, in the middle of a crisis, and saying: "What. The. Fuck."

"unmanned firehose"

I'm watching MSNBC and I thought that I'd like to do that "live blogging" thing I've so enjoyed reading from other bloggers during and after other debates and major political events.

But I can't think about anything pundit-ty because it's the Keith Olbermann show. And there are two things I know in this world.

1. The number of women currently getting tubal ligation surgery should be quadrupled for the good of the world and the women themselves.

2. Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are totally fucking.

It's HILARIOUS!! They are dropping little innuendos. Rachel Maddow actually just engaged in a conversation about manned and unmanned firehoses. And she's blushing. Giggling.

This is too much for me.

Okay. Now on to super serious live blogging. Full disclosure: I have company; we're drinking wine and playing PalinBingo. Feta cheese is involved. This will be wildly unintellectual.


8:44 pm
Sarah Palin has arrived at Wash. U. Per Olbermann "none were injured."

8:45 pm
The merlot is really nice. It's from Chile.

8:56
Every week thousands of Americans file for bankruptcy because of medical bills. Thanks AARP commercial. In related news, Sarah Palin can't read.

8:56
It's still 8:56.

9:00
Sarah Palin asks, "Can I call you Joe?" She seems real nice.

9:01
Bailout bill...was this the worst or best?

Biden: Bam. One against Bush. One point Biden. Points out fundamental disagreement between Obama and McCain, he and Palin.

Palin: Soccer mom. First "Betchya." I'm winning bingo. She's come up with an example of McCain's record!

9:07
Biden brings up Violence against Women Act. Ding. Paints himself as able to reach across the aisle. "Fundamentals of the economy are strong" line. "Out of touch." Attacking McCain.

Palin: "McCain was talking about the American workforce." Ummmm...they don't have jobs.

Gwen points out that neither of them answered the question...

9:09
Who was at fault for the sub-prime mortgage crisis?

Palin: "Darn right it was the predator lenders."

I'm just going to go ahead right now and say [sic] and apply it to all her quotes...

Republicans love strict oversight...new from Sarah Palin.

Biden attacks deregulation and accuses McCain of voting for it more than 20 times. And then connects it to McCain's plan to 'deregulate' health care. The middle class needs relief. Ding. Two points.

Palin: "Darn right we need tax relief." Darn right number two. Cuteness points: two.

Biden: "That is absolutely not true. John McCain voted the same way." "John has voted 477 times to raise taxes."

9:10
Palin's sparkly pin is distracting me.

Palin: Talks about all the taxes she cut in Alaska. Biden smiles widely.

Biden: "Where I come from it's called fairness. The middle class is struggling...they got not a single tax break [from McCain.] He brings up the old 95% people under Obama's plan will have lower or same taxes. "We have a different value set."

I agree. We have them. They don't. Values, I mean.

Palin: Appeals to small business who fit into the 250,000+ range...will cost jobs...says government is the problem, not the solution.

To her, the definition of patriotism is the near absence of government. Hmm.

9:19
5,000 tax credit...health care plan...it's shitty.

"With one hand you give it, with another you take it."
-Biden on McCain plan. I love it.

Bridge to nowhere joke! Zing!

100 Billion dollar tax dodge is unpatriotic! Ha!

Palin: Calls Biden/Obama two-faced. She says that Obama voted for the tax cuts for the oil companies. She says "the oil companies, bless their hearts, don't like me too much..." She took on the big guys. One point Palin.

9:24
Sarah's dumbness gets into the airspace...

Small government = "MASSIVE OVERSIGHT"
Palin. Maker of sense.

9:28
"There has been so much revelation made aware to Americans these past weeks...rear the head of abuse...it's a toxic mess on Main St. that's affecting Wall Street."
And. I. Quote.

9:29
Biden says homeowners should be able to adjust mortgage principles when they are near bankruptcy.

Palin doesn't engage it. She goes back to energy. She says we have energy all over the U.S. but East Coast politicians won't let us have it!

9:30
The climate change question. What is true Palin...?

"Alaska feels and sees climate change more so than other states...I'm not one to attribute it all to man...there are cyclical changes in the climate...I don't want to argue about the causes...we gotta reduce emissions[even though that's not what's causing it according to her]....we're allowing other countries to pollute more than America would ever stand for [WHAT?!!]"

From Biden:
"I think it is man made. I think it's clearly man made...if you don't know the cause you can't solve the problem...John voted 20 times against...clean energy sources...we can create jobs in wind and solar...John thinks the answer is drill drill drill."

Palin:
"The chant is drill baby drill"

Way to correct him, Sarah Barracuda. Brilliant.

Biden 10 points.

9:35
They both support carbon emission caps.

9:36
Ooooh same sex question.

Biden
"In our administration there will be no distinction between same sex and opposite sex couples in the constitution or anywhere else" (slightly paraphrased because I got excited.)

Palin
"Not if it goes to redefining marriage as anything other than between a man and a woman...I am tolerant...we won't prohibit visitation rights in hospital...my non-support for anything other than traditional marriage.

Biden, do you support gay marriage?

Biden: "No."

Okay he's an asshole. Ten points for me for being a better citizen than both these people.

Did he really say that?! What an ass hole.

9:41
On to Iraq...

Palin: "It would be a travesty if we quit now in Iraq...etc etc" No mention of a clear plan. She did mention "grow our military." So I guess that's the plan.

Biden: Lays out a clear plan. Mentions the 10 billion dollar per month bill for Iraq. Ding.

"We will end this war."

Palin
"Your plan is a white flag of surrender. That is sure not what our troops need to hear right now....The surge worked..." Blames Obama for cutting off money for the troops.

Biden
John McCain voted to cut off money for the troops...because the bill had a provision in it to end the war and he didn't like that.

Ding.

John McCain has been dead wrong. Obama has been right.

Ding.

9:45
Tough question about Pakistan vs. Iran in terms of dangerousness...

Biden: Says a lot of smart stuff. Believes Al Qaeda attack will come from Pak. or Afg. not Iran and they are more of a worry, which contrasts with McCain's view that, in terms of an attack on us, central war on terror is in Iraq.

Palin: More worried about Iran because they are a threat to Israel...brings up Obama's willingness to meet with world leaders without pre-conditions.

"Those who try to destroy what we stand for should not be met with." -Palin

Basically she hates diplomacy.

Biden: "I'm surprised John doesn't realize that Ahmadinejad doesn't control the nuclear capabilities in that country."

Ding!

"John McCain said he wouldn't sit down with the government of SPAIN. Our NATO ally...I find that incredible."

Double ding!

Palin
Reasserts that she and McCain are friends of Israel. Claims she's preventing another Holocaust. Because that's what Iran is threatening...a Holocaust.

Minus 10 points.

Biden
"No one has been a better friend to Israel in the Senate than Joe Biden."

Talking about yourself in the third person? Kelly hates it. Minus 1 point.

"These last 8 years have been an abject failure."

Palin
Accuses the dems of being incapable of making change when all they do is talk about how bad the past is.

I guess one point.

Biden
The past is a prologue! I still haven't heard how your ticket will be different from bush's! But how are you going to be different from george bush??? The same policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Iran...it will lead down the same road we're on now!

Crickets.

127 points Biden.

9:58
I got up to get more wine. They were talking about Afghanistan. No points awarded in the interest of fairness.

10:00

Biden lets out a heavy sigh.

10:01
Darfur? Do we have the stomach for it?

Biden
We have the stomach for success. Look at Bosnia. We took Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians and we have a relatively stable government there now. McCain disagreed at first, and then he agreed. "I don't have the stomach for genocide." Ding. Several million points. "We should rally the world..."

Palin
"You voted for the war and now you're against it...Americans are craving that straight talk...you supported McCain's war strategies adamantly...as for Darfur we can agree on that making sure all the options are on the table there also...as governor of a resource rich state...[they had business with Sudan] we called for divestment to make sure we weren't seen as doing anything in support...that legislation hasn't passed yet but it needs to."

3 points.

Biden
"I never supported John McCain's strategy on the war."

Palin
John McCain knows what Evil is....he knows how to win a war.

10 points.

What would you do if you became president?

Biden
I would carry out Obama's policies...all stuff taking care of middle class. Awesome. "I agree with everything Barack Obama says." 37 points.

Ha ha. He mentions Bush Doctrine!!

ZING!

Palin
I don't agree with McCain on everything. I would push him on the ANWAR thing. I will put government back on the side of the people. I will put Wasilla in the white house and show Washington how we feel about all this bureaucracy.

10 points, people will like this one.

Biden
Ask any regular American whether or not the last 8 years has been kind to them. They'll say no.

15 points.

Palin
We're not the bush administration.

3 points.

Palin came from a house full of school teachers. How is that possible.

"we need flexibility in NCLB..."

We need to get RID OF IT!!! Minus 9 zillion points. (Oh and FUND whatever goes in its place!)

Biden
We need to get back to education.

I can't blog this part because I'm having an orgasm. Go Joe GO!

Funding for ECE...Funding for NCLB...etc etc all awesome. Plus 900 points.

10:16
Am I watching Fargo?

10:17
Palin wants all the powers (in two branches of government...) that cheney seems to think the VP gets. Biden thinks cheney is dangerous and has read the constitution recently. 10 points Biden.

10:18
On experience...

Palin
She resents the experience accusation. As an executive in my big state, being a mom, my connection to heartland in America, going through no health insurance periods in life, sending kids to college...etc I understand what it's like to be an average American.

Oh here she goes about the exceptionalism as Americans. Fuck that. We don't want to be exceptionally good or exceptionally kind or exceptionally fair. We just want to be exceptionally hypocritical. We can point fingers at other nations for extremism, but be incredibly extremist in our policies at home. We can say global warming is a problem, but we won't change any of our own behaviors at the risk of offending a few fat wallets. We say other nations are dangerous, but we invade countries that didn't do a damn thing to provoke us. We say democracy means peace, but we are in the middle of two wars. She means exceptional in that we don't give a shit about anyone other than Americans, and even IN America we don't treat the majority of our citizens with respect.

10:23
Biden proves the Maverick title is bullshit. 700 billion points!

"So, Maverick he is not." Bam.

Oh man that was awesome.

10:30 pm

Well, she didn't totally fuck up. I'm slightly disappointed. BUT, she did go totally off topic a lot, doesn't know what the Holocaust was about, can't reconcile McCain's love for deregulation with his "reform of wall street" crap of late, wants to be even more powerful than cheney, and she did a heck of a lot of winking.

Biden was awesome. Except for the gay marriage thing. What a dick.

In other news McCain has pulled his people out of Michigan. Ha! We're gonna win. Ohhh please let us win.

10:40
Rachel Maddow has sex hair. High five Keith. I'm going to bed.

peace out

Of the approximately 200 million Americans with more foreign policy experience than Sarah Palin, one of my personal favorites has left the building. Permanently.

In an attempt to sleep with a handsome young man in grad school, who happened to be a fan of some writer called David Foster Wallace, I read some of this guy's books. 3,768 pages later I can go ahead and assert that the work of DFW outsmarts, outfunnies, and outcrazies any other writer out there. His work is the best I've read, and I haven't looked at writing the same way again. I would kill to see the world through whatever hyper-aware ultra-smart lens he's got.

Unfortunately, Mr. Wallace hanged himself on Friday night.

The peculiar emotion that comes with the loss of someone important to you but whom you do not actually know is something I really wish DFW had stayed around long enough to write about, because it is both right up his alley and way beyond my capacity. I woke up this morning at the crack of 11, a bit hungover, and I stumbled to the kitchen table and opened my computer, as I do first-thing every morning. The pre-coffee news was shocking, of course. I gave a shout and my better half, who was also doing his pre-coffee computer opening news-checking ritual, did his best to be comforting.

But I am not upset about the loss of a person, am I? I'm not going to miss David Foster Wallace's great back rubs. Or his awesome eggplant casserole. Or his terrible singing voice. I am upset in a very selfish manner. I am upset that I was saving two of the stories in Oblivion, so that I would have some unread DFW material at all times, while I waited for his next book to come out. I was rather terrified of having read all of his work, and having nothing at all to which I could look forward. Now I am two stories away from having no more Wallace to read. I am sorry for the literary world. I made sure to post my grief on Facebook.

It is this exact kind of crap that he wrote about. The detached people of the modern world, their helpless pathetic searching for a cure for loneliness. The empty entertainment to which we cling. The odd places we find comfort. I think he would find it just fitting that people asserted their status as mourners on a social networking website.

And now here I am blogging about it.

At this point in America, with the ever-growing population offering no cure for an increasingly isolated, lonely collective existence (not to mention the growing popularity of extremism and the demonization of intelligence) any person as in tune to it, as able to characterize it so crisply as he was would be bound to suffer terribly. So I guess he ended that suffering. Or some other sort of suffering that he didn't write about. I have no idea; I didn't really know him.

run dnc

After suffering through the dull parade of people throwing their bodies around in the air for little trinkets and the chance to hear their national anthem one more god damned time, we finally got to the best show of the summer. Bill Clinton's teary-eyed "God I love her." Dennis Kucinich's insane arm-waving shouts to "wake up America." The apparent love child of Chris Farley and George W. Bush, Governor Schweitzer of Montana, delivering an SNL-worthy performance. Ted Kennedy passing the torch. The beloved crowds of protestors all over the city. There is no event I more enjoy watching on television...actually, I'll rephrase. There is nothing I more enjoy watching on television, event or otherwise, than the Democratic National Convention. Normally, if I am in front of the boob tube I can stand about five minutes, ten if it's a Seinfeld rerun, and I'm up out of the seat looking for something else to do. I find the thing terrifically boring. However, the giant blue circus that is the DNC held my attention for nearly seven hours straight yesterday.

It's basically the nerd's Kentucky Derby:

Thanks to CSPAN I got to watch the whole thing uninterrupted and without any of those pesky news channel morons blathering on about strategy, wardrobe choices, and who knows what else. So I got to the see the B-listers like Cecile Richards (my hero), the Congressional Black Caucus, the Women of the Senate, and my forever favorite B-lister Dennis Kucinich.

The B-listers are my favorites because with a lesser spotlight you get more personality, and they tend to really let it all hang out. Kucinich of course does this all the time, regardless of the position he's in, which is why I love him so much. But, sadly, the awesomeness ended there this year. Cecile Richards was what every Planned Parenthood executive is: poised, spotless, strong but careful. The Congressional Black Caucus didn't mention race. (In fact, nobody has mentioned race at all. They've mentioned gender about 67,000 times, though. Hillary's introductory montage was all about women's rights...Michelle Obama's speech commemorated women's suffrage (she did mention it, remember, right in the middle of her suzie homemaker speech that everyone but me seemed to love.))

This brings me to the women of the Senate. I am frickin' pissed off at you ladies!!!! The touchiest issue they brought up was equal pay for equal work. And they should bring it up, what with this 77 cents on the man's dollar bullshit. And they brought out the lady the Supreme Court told she was paid less and would just have to deal with it. Fine, fine, fine.

But where oh where, I ask you, was the discussion about reproductive rights?! Remember those, the ones that are in grave danger as we speak? They just left it all to Cecile Richards. Women of the Senate, shame on you all.

So in case you happen to be speaking at the dnc tonight, let me break it down for you.

Stuff you CAN talk about:

The Economy

Energy

The War

Equal Pay for Equal Work

Health Care

Stuff you CAN'T talk about:

Race

Reproductive rights

So don't fuck it up, because we wouldn't want anyone getting uncomfortable.

Crap! Is it August?!

Besides being a reminder that I’m one of the several hundred thousand Bostonians about to move on good ole September 1^st, the arrival of August is always moderately depressing. One begins to reevaluate one’s summer. There have been exactly zero trips to the beach, days off, picnics, one nasty tan line from a day of biking but otherwise still Scottishly pale… And of course every new month delivers the sinking, cold realization that I have criminally neglected my blog yet again.

I’ll go ahead and sum up all that I missed in…

Top Five Things I Totally Meant to Blog About Last Month

Or

My Summer Thus Far

#5 PROOF that my asshole coworker actually is an asshole

Oh most desired gift at last you’ve arrived. For the entirety of my employment I have known that this woman (referred to in previous blogs as Jabba the Hut) is an asshole. Like the worst kind of asshole, she manages somehow to evade what should be a companywide intervention based on the universal consensus that she is so egregiously awful that it is a violation of state safety regulations to force other employees to work anywhere near her. Rather, she manages to win the favor of certain administrators who, uh, clearly find their asses and elbows indistinguishable from one another.

What she does is the following:

We’re in community meeting, a weekly gathering of all students and staff wherein all may make announcements to the entire school and student leadership may put various things to a vote and blah blah blah. At this particular meeting one student, who had not attended the graduation ceremony, was receiving an award that came with a small scholarship. She was sitting with her case manager (our school has counselors assigned to each student) and both ladies were jokingly grabbing the scholarship check back and forth from one another during the rest of the meeting. Jabba the Hut notices this playful act and bellows, to a roomful of people who HADN’T necessarily noticed what was going on, “Whoops! Hang on to that check, you gotta watch these Puerto Ricans every second!”

Pause. Digest.

Now, if a student had yelled some racially charged statement like that in the middle of a meeting, I would stop everything and process the statement with everyone. I am constantly doing the work of getting the students to reflect on their own racialized statements and beliefs so that, someday, we might be in a place where those kinds of statements aren’t even thought, let alone screamed at the top of one’s lungs.

But what was I to do when a staff member did it?

Apparently I was to drop the dry erase marker I had in my hand, and say, “I can’t believe you just said that.”

Everyone tittered awkwardly and things moved right along. How the hell are we going to get the kids to start reevaluating their beliefs about race if the teachers make these kinds of statements?!

Silver lining: now everyone knows she’s an asshole.

#4 Culture Clash: Bikes v. Cars

I’ll admit right away that I used to loathe bikers. Those idiots weaving in and out of lanes wearing pants three sizes too small and flipping everyone off. But now having seen Boston drivers from behind the handle bars, I would flip everyone off too if I wasn’t so scared of riding without holding on… Car drivers’ sense of superiority and imagined entitlement to the entire road is at worst dangerous and at best really fucking irritating.

I had a run-in with just such a gas guzzling enemy of the planet mid-July while on a leisurely bike ride through Watertown. I don’t know how many of my several thousand dedicated readers are familiar with Watertown, but it’s a pretty mellow place with many residential areas. My boyfriend and I were taking a left off one residential street onto another, waiting in the middle of the road for oncoming cars to pass, just as a motor vehicle would have done. The car behind us begins laying on horn, yelling, “Get out of the road!”

This poor soul thought that only cars had the right to use the roads that all we taxpayers pay for. As I often do, I responded to potential conflict with grace and respect for another point of view…

OR

I screamed a string of obscenities in the direction of the speeding car as it headed toward a red light one hundred feet away. My better half responded the way a person as level headed as I never would, and chased after the car. The following interaction ensued:

My better half (MBH): Hey you really didn’t need to yell at us

Patty Petroleum (chewing French fries): Get out of the road

MBH: You get out of the road; I have just as much right to be on it as you do

PP: You have the sidewalk

MBH: Sidewalks indicate their purpose in their name and bikes aren’t allowed on the sidewalks anyway

PP: Whatever

MBH: So it’s okay for you to scream at people, but it’s not okay for me to-

Light turns green. Petroleum Patty wields her enormous arm to form a familiar gesture with its sausage fingers and yells the following brilliant statement out the window:

PP: GET A CAR!!!!!

Well we hadn’t thought of that! Thanks, Patty Petroleum! I mean, it’s really hard to eat all my meals out of a Styrofoam box while riding my bike! I could just GET A CAR! It’s been such a drag being able to park right next to my destination rather than patronize my friendly neighborhood garage three blocks away! I should buy a CAR! I really hate fitting into the same jeans I’ve worn since my early twenties, I need to gain weight so I can rationalize buying new clothes. I’ll get a CAR!

….of course, I do own a car. But I’m nice about it. Eat me, Petroleum Patty!!!

#3 JUST IN CASE YOU STILL DON’T THINK MY COWORKER IS AN ASSHOLE

Oh boy is this one priceless. We are in a staff meeting, headed by our boss who is African American. Jabba the Hut is taking the notes, and says…

“How do you spell your name again?”

Our boss, who has worked with us for three months now, replies.

Jabba says, “Oh that must be one of those made up black names.”

… … …

I’m just going to leave that hanging…but trust that it did not make it into the meeting minutes.

#2 Dante’s Sixth Circle of Hell

Otherwise known as the Boston Children’s Museum. A cesspool of diapers, whining, snotty sleeves, untied shoelaces, frantic parents, disobedient little persons darting around with no regard for passers by. When I face my ultimate comeuppance, it will be there I am sent.

During summer school we take the students on field trips every Friday. Since most of our students have children themselves, we take one trip on which students may bring their families. The amount of hatred I harbor for this annual event cannot be properly expressed in words. See, a group of teenagers gathered together, regardless of whether they are playing the role of parent or student, behaves like a group of teenagers. So when you combine a group of teenagers with a group of sub-3 year olds plus cell phones plus all the social pressures and conflicts and norms of school you get:

“Oh hell no she won’t. I am not playin’ with that ho- ”

“Don’t say ho in front of my kid.”

“Why hasn’t he met his momma?”

“Bitch I am not PLAYING with you.”

“Baby get out of the ROAD get out of the fucking road get the fuck out of the road.”

“Yo your baby is mad cute!”

“I’m at school. I don’t know a museum. I told you don’t be chirpin’ me at school….hello? Motherfucker I KNOW you didn’t hang up on me.”

“Hello? Did you just-”

“HellOOOO?”

“Where the bathrooms at?!”

“Where’d Miss Kelly go?”

Miss Kelly went straight to the museum shop, where she sat and read a book for the entire day.*

*Conscience alert: If I were a different blogger, I might have talked about observing my students in their roles as parents and how a palpable sense of community made the chaperons smile as the students encouraged their kids to play together. And I might have also mentioned the moments of unguarded, unselfconscious curiosity and wonder while they learned with their kids at various exhibits…but we can’t have that messing up my reputation.

#1 Unprotected Sex

Second only to the Children’s Museum as a reaffirmation of my decision to barricade these baby tubes with two coils of steel, this delightful endeavor is ill-advised for most of you poor saps but gee golly if it isn’t making fine and dandy my vacationless summer vacation. High five!

Retreat! Retreat!

According to the dictionary, retreat means: 1 a (1): an act or process of withdrawing especially from what is difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable

According to my boss it means disguising a team building marathon as a mini work vacation. The main mode of disguise is location. Meetings aren't meetings when they happen in some OTHER conference room!

Thus, the gaggle of overweight pale grouchy non-profit employees in second hand clothes and comfortable shoes gathered in the early morning sun at a dock in the Boston Harbor, bound for trust falls and ice breakers. The teaching staff was especially attractive, the ancients in their sun hats, I in the same skort and sneakers I wear every day all summer long, and the bipolar chain smoking bad poetry writing weird ass new girl in some kind of hemp outfit. Our boss waddled up to the dock dead last, laden with the giant Post-it easel pad and a copy of The Complete Idiots Guide to Team Building.

As we motored through the harbor, flanked by rows of rusting freight cars and floating plastic bottles, I leaned over the railing and stared at the water. There is a certain mindless peace that comes only on a boat. I had my own twenty minute retreat, which was interrupted by the question, "Hey which Gilligan's Island characters would we all be?!"

I. Would. Rather. Drown.

The new girl was mystified by her nomination to the Gilligan role, proof of a casting job well done. My role was decided as follows:

"Kelly's the professor."

"No she's Ginger."

"Ginger??"

A glance in my direction.

"The movie star? The one that dresses up all the time?"

"Yeah, but wasn't Ginger really self absorbed?"

"Oh, yeah. Okay Kelly's Ginger, so who's the professor?"

And the team building just kept on rolling, all day long.

Post Game Wrap-Up

I would love to tell you all about my surgery, but thanks to my friend anesthesia, I don't have much to report.  I can assure you that I entered the hospital with a sense of somber reverence, deeply thoughtful about my decision...

And, of course, I spent the following two days off of work resting quietly, allowing my body to heal...I certainly didn't use it to play tennis or ride my bike or put a new composter in the back yard or walk around town in the sunshine.  I mean I just had SURGERY for heaven's sake.

My doctor came to talk to me in the recovery room, and he mentioned that I was his third sterilization of the day - perhaps more women are realizing the children path is one only SOME people should take...?  If you are considering it, let me ease any worries you may have: As it stands, the most difficult recovery period of my life was right after the 2004 election, and the most painful surgery I've yet to have involved three very wise teeth.  The most difficult part of the surgery was abstaining from food or drink all day, and of course dealing with the antiquated sexist breeder-brained world which, I hope, is changing.  

My Final Fertile Weekend

Ah, the final days of fertility. The condom collection is down to the dregs, resorting at this point to the rain-slicker-thick ones tossed to me from a pick up truck filled with transvestites at the gay pride parade. The mandated pre-op blood work is evidenced by a nasty bluish junkie mark near the unlucky vein. The Depo shot to cover the risky post-op you-still-might-get-pregnant period has made of me a bi-polar Dolly Parton in heat. Between the migraines, back aches, weight gain, ear aches, weird fucking shaking attacks, and general psychoticry, I am reminded of exactly why I hate birth control.

All the more reason to go party in NYC all weekend with one of my favorite childless couples in celebration of a huge kiss goodbye to all of the above. Thus, I give to you the Final Fertile Weekend Recap:

1. The Bus
You know the bus. It was what you took in college. I am not in college. When you take the bus and you aren't in college you basically take a little trip into loserland. But you also don't put a whole lotta extra carbon into the air, so this counteracts the loserness of the whole escapade. Also it's an excuse, at least for me, to count gummy bears as a meal.

The driver on the way down must have wanted some sensitive national security information from one of the passengers, because we were basically in a traveling guantanamo. This rattletrap ramshackle poor excuse for a bus sounded like a collection of New Year's Eve party favors every time we: turned, accelerated, braked....etc. This was "auditory torture." The constant fear that we were going to tumble into a collection of bolts and seats flung wildly all over the highway was not enough. Oh no. There was also the traditional "olfactory torture," guaranteed to shock and awe even the toughest conscience. And it wasn't just the bathroom (which was egregious) but the air in the bus seemed thick with a potpourri of industrial cleaning agents and urine. On top of these add "climate torture." Our tyrannical driver turned the temperature dial to "Tundra" and rejoiced in our collective shivering. Then, just when we were about to fall unconscious, he spun the dial entirely around, selecting "Ethiopia." I actually extracted clothing from my bag (tank tops, underwear, a tee shirt) and fashioned leg warmers for the Tundra setting, which I had to periodically remove when we entered the Dallol Depression, and so on. It was as if he was waiting for the entire bus to scream "Uncle!"

By the time I climbed out of Port Authority and hit 42nd Street I had Dysentery and PTSD.

2. Indulgence
Luckily, my friends knew to inject me with Sangria and Tapas. In a Hell's Kitchen restaurant by a name I've already forgotten, I devoured marinated artichokes and portobello and manchego and octopus and prosciutto and aioli covered potatoes with shameless abandon. Like any good evening in new york, it was three am before we even thought to check our watches.

The next day we walked through the world, as microcosmed by Queens. India, Mexico, Korea (and, later, a quick cab ride to Greece for dinner). It got hot, so we stopped for what ended up being an inordinate number of frozen margaritas and a soccer match. The bartenders were very pretty and very dumb.

The streets are covered with a layer of grit in New York, and no matter the flow of sanitation workers there are just too many packages and papers and discarded pieces of gum to keep up. If you are ever looking for a visual to back up your personal worries about overpopulation, go hang out in New York.

After our impressive midday margarita pit stop we required naps and then showers. By the time we finished dinner it was nine thirty. We stopped at a local bar for a night cap at ten, and ended up unlocking the fifteen bolts on the front door right around three am again. Whoops.

3. Back home
On the bus ride home (considerably less reminiscent of abu gharib) I had plenty of time to reflect, over gummy bears, on my last day of fertility. After leaving dirty, crowded New York, I'm first reminded of my genuine belief that we should be pumping contraceptives into the water before we send the human race to follow the dinosaurs, because I'd actually like my species to stick around despite how annoying I find most of its representatives. I think of the little girl on the E train, packed between other passengers, whose mother kept trying unsuccessfully to keep the child from grabbing everyone's hair and how decisively uncute I found this to be. Mostly, I think of my relationship. There are thousands of late-night groggy conversations where we crystal ball our way through a wedding, through new careers, through cities and languages we've yet to see or speak, through a future that we only half plan and have pictured and repictured, both with and without each other, since we first knew how to think. Distinctly and consistently absent are: babies and voting republican. If I change my mind on the former, send me to an adoption agency. If I change my mind on the latter, send me off a cliff. Either way, tomorrow, I'm sending myself off to surgery. Au revoir, condoms. Ciao, depo provera. Adios, fertility. It's been a long strange trip. I'm glad to get off that bus.

the best thing i have done as a science teacher

I rearranged my room the other day, and moved my model of the solar system to a new location. Now, it sits atop a tall file cabinet, right over the oft-visited pencil sharpener, which also got moved. So now, I've gotten to have the following interaction approximately sixteen times:

Student: Hey, where's the sharpener?
Kelly: It's right under Uranus.

It's definitely June.

Memorial Day

A few years ago I had to sit through the funeral of a kid my age. This guy was kind of an asshole, in the way that most high school boys are assholes. He was on the wrestling team, very cute, obnoxious, got away with terrible breath. I was two grades behind him, and had trouble breathing normally when, after the break up of some awful cops-chasing-us-through-the-woods kind of party, his hands came at me in the dark northerly portions of a friend's barn. He was most assuredly cheating on some pretty girl or another. And there's nothing particularly fabulous about the coming of age shit that happens in the northerly parts of barns amidst handled bottles of brown liquor and red plastic cups. However, on every Memorial Day, I think of him. I'm really not sure how this 26 year old kid falling from a blown up helicopter thousands of miles from home helps America. So, this is me, remembering our fallen, in my journal that is NOT on the internet, which I feel like putting up here now:

The church is so white your eyes hurt. At noon the sun is right above it, and the steeple is constructed so that the shadow cast is a long cross, falling over everyone who passes under it. It is late fall; the trees are mostly dead. The leaves on the ground are mustard and the now only occasional brilliant red maple leaf. I’m wearing borrowed shoes, with toilet paper stuffed up into the toe. My heel keeps slipping and I’m holding onto a boyfriend’s hand. We join the line three yards from the church, watching the cross spread out over the mourners. The governor is there, shaking hands solemnly. I pass under the shadow, and refuse his hand, as he gracefully rolls away to another hand. He says anyway, “I’m sorry.”

Travis’s casket passes through the aisle, preceded and followed by incense and prayer. The hymn books are straight in their pockets on the pew backs. The wood is making me sit too straight. I don’t look at anyone. My feet are hurting and I can see the back of Travis’s mother’s head. Her lines are soft and slouched. The governor sits with the family.

The family speaks. The clergy speak. The governor talks about honor and country and freedom and love of one’s family and nation and fellow men. I roll spit around in my mouth. The boyfriend squeezes my hand. I say, “Bastard” and start to cry in the quiet way you cry at funerals.

At the close of the whole thing they play Bob Dylan. We all walk out behind him, his mother holding the folded flag in her fingers like a dirty sock. The squeal of the harmonica bounces around the rafters. And I can see Travis in his flannel shirt and ripped jeans with a guitar across a campfire. His face blurry and warm through the heat. It smells like the woods, like pine and thick, dark, meaty soil.

eating wasabi peas in rapid succession

Depending on your goals, this could be either a good or bad thing. Since I had no blocked nasal passages to clear, it's not really helping me out much.

I am what the kids call "freaking out." Not the immediate kind of "holy shit I just got hit by a bus" freaking out. Rather this is a slow, painful build up to freaking out crescendo.

You see, for many years I longed to live alone. For anyone who has endured years of roommatedom, as I have, the reasons for this are clear. There are the roommates who eat your food. The roommates who constantly remark that your living habits belie an upbringing "in a barn." The roommates who actually WERE raised in a barn. The sex party throwers. The suicide attempters. The non payers back of loaned cable bill money when you never watch the goddamned ass box in the first place. The fuckers of your ex boyfriends. I've shared mail slots with them all.

Thus, when both of my roommates left last week, and my house was to be my own for nearly two months, I believed myself embarked upon a journey of peace and joy!

As Howard Dean would say: "That turned out not to be true."

Due to overwhelming popularity, this is actually the first day I've had zero social engagements and zero people waiting for me at the house when I arrived home from work. Thus, today was the first day in the life of a person who lives alone.

Already, I blog.

I walked in the door, put down my stuff, and kind of just stood there. There was no Nayad running down the stairs at high speeds, telling me why it would be so great if we all had cocks, just for one day. Or Gina, offering me a nice big slice of salami without looking up from her computer. There was no food cooking and no crisis to deal with. I could do whatever I wanted, as loudly as I deemed necessary. I could make a mess. I could play with myself on the kitchen counter. I could...

Actually, hang on a sec...

...

Or I could eat whatever was in the fridge without worrying who it belonged to. I only had two responsibilities: clean the bathroom upstairs and put out the recycling.

When you have eight hours to complete two tasks that will take about 45 minutes, something terrible happens. They become impossible. I have often wondered why I keep my life so busy, but I think it is because that if I had too much free time I would never get anything done.

Itinerary: Day One Without Roommates

5pm: stare at the entry way
5:15 pm: enter the house
5:23 pm: walk upstairs
5:27 pm: put stuff down
5:28 pm: sit down
5:28 pm: look out the window, breathing
5:39 pm: check email
5:40 pm: check email
5:47 pm: turn on public radio
...proceed to spend two hours getting overinformed...
7:47 pm: realize you are starving
7:48 pm: frantically run around the kitchen assembling a dinner that could feed four
8:15 pm: wrap up leftovers
8:25 pm: think about putting out that recycling, and the upstairs bathroom
8:32 pm: check email
8:33 pm: listen to the counting crows for an hour
9:33 pm: think about the recycling, mentally table the bathroom issue for another day
9:41 pm: feel guilty about neglecting your blog
9:42 pm: procrastinate blogging by putting out the recycling
9:53 pm: put on pajamas
10:00 pm: blog with a sad face, eating wasabi peas in rapid succession

Sigh. I miss my little overeating, dirty talking, mess making, food stealing, loud screwing, leg humping, shoe borrowing, endless trips to the grocery store buddies. Ohhh the sorrow.

Dear Bobby Breeder

I feel compelled to deal with the comment left anonymously (read: huge pussy) on my last post. The text of the comment is:

So, I was vagging out on the couch reading your entry from my laptop. Congrats on your va j j day victory! Like, it's totally tubular! Nothing quite like increasing the cost of insurance for others by electing some expensive, thoroughly unnecessary elective surgery. Oh yeah, let's hope that you don't encounter any of the many complications (thus making our insurance more expensive): hot flashes, heavier periods, mood swings, depression, anxiety, insomnia, vaginal dryness, mental confusion, fatigue, bladder infections, bowel infections, hemmorage . . . you know, the basics. You should know that doctors have reasons for putting young women through the ringer when they request tubal tying. Many, whoops!, change their mind. Insurance won't be covering that change. And, of course, let's not forget about the joys of malpractice suits when things go wrong. The fact is that more men who decide to end the jizz biz remain comfortable with their decision than their female counterparts.

Again, congrats!

Bobby BreederMarketing Director, Trojan Corp.

Where oh where to begin. First, let's heave a sigh of dismay for the planet because these people are the ones who reproduce. Then let's ask...what the heck is "vagging out" exactly? Anyone?

Okay, let's break this down issue by issue.

Bobby Breeder's first issue: increasing the cost of insurance.

I find it hard to feel guilty about increasing the cost of insurance on this one. It would seem that Mr. Breeder's brilliant editorializing would be better directed at all of the people out there who, say, smoke during pregnancy and produce little hospital-residents-for-life. Or women who never want children but just remain on birth control their whole fertile lives, messing with their hormones in ways that might be more harmful than we currently realize, thus becoming at risk later in life and "medically expensive" (not to mention visiting the doctor over and over again to try new types that don't make them feel insane/get migraines/gain weight/etc etc etc and therefore driving up the cost of insurance, if one must look at it like that.)

Besides all that, it seems insane that we accept a system that pits patients against one another, debating the term "necessary" for medical procedures, when most developed countries don't make citizens pay for health care anyway. Again, I feel Mr. Breeder could redirect his ire for the better of us all in this instance.

Bobby Breeder's second issue: Complications

First off, thank you for your concern for my safety. I feel warm and fuzzy. The fact is, over 10 million women have had tubal ligations and most of them are just fine. The complication rate is about 1-3% - and that includes the gamut of complications from "being irritable" to ectopic pregnancy. And concerning the latter, that happens far less than 1 percent of the time. The chances of anesthesia issues are the same as when I had my wisdom teeth out, and I'm willing to accept that five of every ONE MILLION anesthesia procedures result in death. Really, Bobby Breeder, do you think odds like these should alter behavior? Because if you did, you would certainly never ride in a car, which is statistically like seven billion times more dangerous.

As per your worries about depression, anxiety, and insomnia I'm hoping this will cure those, not cause them.

Bobby Breeder's third issue: Defensive of Doctors

"Doctors have reasons for putting young women through the ringer..."

Yes, I agree. The primary reason is plain jane sexism. There are programs in nearly every state that offer vasectomies to men FOR FREE (that comes out of your tax dollars big guy). The man need only be 21 and have a valid ID. Women are "put through the ringer." If this isn't treating people differently based on gender, I don't know what is. Saying, "Women change their minds more" is a bunch of sexist bullshit. Examine, in your little brain, why women might be more likely to change their minds. Perhaps part of the reason women change their minds is the social pressure to have children, and the cultural assumption that a woman is incomplete without children. Perhaps it is a need to be loved unconditionally in a world that treats women like a different species (that does something to one's self esteem, see, and then the need for love comes after that.) Men remain comfortable because society is, by design, more comfortable for men. They are allowed to be comfortable in their decisions because they have designed society; it looks like a pretty sweet deal from here. I'm going to go ahead and give you the satisfaction of a "fuck you" on that one.

Bottom line, tubal ligation is a valid form of birth control, and the one that is the most effective. It is cost-effective over the course of a person's fertile years. Again, you're welcome for choosing not to produce another costly water drinking air breathing co2 emitting human in this already overpopulated world. Talk about increasing costs for others! Your idiotic arguments and egregious offences to the laws of grammar and spelling aside, Bobby Breeder, I appreciate the fan mail.

Fallopian Tubes: 1 Sexist Bastards: ZERO!!

Victory, she is mine!

In October 2004 I was standing in a crowded bar, having just watched Foulke throw that last pitch, ending 86 years of near-victory blue balls all over New England. Most of us, watching them win that series, just stood there for a second and stared at the TV and said, in our heads, "Um...what do we do?"

That's kind of how I felt when I encountered Dr. S., who popped his head into the examining room yesterday and, before introducing himself, said, "Hi I'm Dr. S--- and I don't have a problem with it."

Then he went on to say that he knew I had probably been through a lot of bullshit, and he had a strong allergy to bullshit, and would perform the surgery whenthefuckever I could get the day off work.

I just kind of sat there for a second. Wait...we won?!

Unfortunately, I didn't get to crowd-surf across Government Center afterwards, but it was still pretty sweet. I called my best friend, and my dad, and a few others, and we all kept saying, "Finally finally finally." No one thanked me for refusing to continue overpopulating the planet, but I'm sure they meant to. You're welcome.

So let the countdown begin! 61 days of fertility left, and liberation here I come. As Dr. S. put it, "You can say goodbye to messing with your hormones, and all the crap that comes with birth control. You can say goodbye to smelly, I-can't-feel-anything, mood-killing, expensive condoms."

I love this doctor! (That being said, this is the internet and I feel compelled to go ahead and put in a plug for condoms since STI's are just as horrible as babies.)


All of the resentment and frustration I have been feeling just melted away, and I was even nice to a child today without an onrush of nausea! I took my students to an Earth Day festival at MIT, and several of them brought their kids. I was photographed holding a 10 month old child, and I must say, I felt significantly less like dropping it and running in the other direction. There is something so liberating about this part of my identity being respected, and validated, and acted upon. I mean, I still think all you breeders are totally insane, and that my world view makes a whole lot more sense, but I think having this surgery might lessen the instances of me wanting to push strollers into traffic. (She says smiling sweetly.)

Look forward, vast readership, to a full surgery report and how to throw a fabulous "NO Baby Shower." Hooray!!!