spread some darkness so we can shine!

man, i love the holidays. i love the seasonal festivities and the excuse to be home with my family, i relish the occasional snowy blizzard that shuts everything down and makes you stay inside, and i love how dang happy and busy all the little animals seem to be. and dang-it, i love holiday food and getting all fat and happy and listening to smooth jazz at home with my parents as we are wont to do around this time of year.

what i do not love is the Holy Daze. the way people get around this time of year seriously freaks me the heck out. fighting in lines at the post office. ravenously consuming things at the mall at the Target at the Walmart at the whatever. the crazed looks on people's faces as they sit in traffic. the way people get all Animal Kingdom over a parking spot. it is INSANE. George Romero knew what he was doing. hungry zombies trapped inside a mall – does it get any scarier than that? emphatically no, and that's the same level of terror i experience whenever i am coerced to enter a mall around this time of year.

i think what makes the holy daze especially depressing is how obvious and conspicuous my/our suburban privilege becomes. and how even in the light of all this material excess, there's still a want for more. and how unachievable "more" can be. what i mean is, the kids and the adults in the suburbs are some of the saddest people you'll ever meet. and isn't that so spoiled, so excessive of them/us? like, gosh, they/we already have so much! and yet we're depressed in our warm houses, sadly crying into our chicken noodle soup or Starbucks coffee or whatever. we/they're living out our/their American Beauty tragedies. and yet, that is some real, non-neglectable sadness. serious stuff.

which is what makes this song so beautiful, so "exactly what i want to say," so... perfect. there is joy and an upbeat relentlessness to it, but what they're saying is really a cry for help and escape. they totally get what i'm trying to say about the Holy Daze. they're sad and feeling kinda weird about the whole situation but that doesn't mean they're not averse to dancing all those concerns to the side.

this is the one stand-out song on the Arcade Fire's new album that i just can't let go of*. i've been listening on repeat for practically the whole month and probably won't stop until i've escaped this suburban funk. this song makes me feel like it's possible.

keep dancing in the dark my friends,

stef

*but i still think their debut album Funeral was insurpassably their best work so far.

comfortably numb

at school, the wednesday before thanksgiving, 2 hrs after the kids have all gone home.

typing with one hand, eating a banana with the other.

the teacher next door to me is singing really loud to "Comfortably Numb" while, ostensibly, moving the furniture in his classroom. occasionally, he pauses to whistle the refrains.

a south central thanksgiving

i had my advisory students make "hand-turkeys" and write letters of thanks-giving to loved ones. they turned out really well. my student andrew gave me permission to share what he did:

dear dad,
im thankful for giving me a roof over my head. thank you for making money to leave food on the table and clothes on my back.

dear mom, i'm thankful for all the thing you do for me like doing your best to get us to move for a better life.

dear grandmah cristina,
i'm thankful for opening your doors to me because you know that south central is a bad area.

---

and other turkeys my students created:



find something to be thankful for,
and give thanks,
stef

ephemera

i spent the day slowly wrapping gifts. my lethargic fingers were miserable negotiating pesky scissors and tape.


it doesn't feel like christmas this year, and i wonder if/fear that my increasing inability to experience holidays with the excitement and anticipation of the g/olden days means i am getting old/ losing my childhood ways.

but, i think it's because i'm more grateful to be home than any other year, and that makes these entire 3 weeks feel like a gift, rather than just the one day.

with love,
stef

to do / to come

so you know, this is what i'm working on. expect something soon, before the holy daze kick in...

-video for Introduction, i thot it made a perfect bookend to my first semester as a teacher, as a grad student, as a child away from home for the first time, and those feelings that can only be expressed thru lyrics and free form dance (oh heck yes it will be exciting.)

-playing with new iMovie (which is far inferior to old iMovie. major downgrade! boo hiss!)

-fighting to get my health insurance back (those fuckers are fucking with me again, trying to bill me twice for zero annual physicals, or deny me any physicals at all. wtf?)

-reflections on past year? i dunno, i kinda lack the energy for this. 08 was kinda a major disappointment. then again, i'm not counting my blessings...

---

i am so tired and i don't know why. i thot the time change was supposed to make me stay up later, not go to bed before everyone else in my house.

the extreme cold here is making my legs cramp from tensing up so much. i need warmer shoes maybe. funny, and the only thing i asked my parents for for christmas was a new swimsuit.

got my dad a new camera for christmas. i'm really hoping he likes it. it took me 1.5 years to find the right one at the right price and i just hope he doesn't think his daughter is too poor to afford it.

to bed! (but some Orwell first...)
-stef

happy thanksgiving!

this year, i am especially grateful for my beautiful family and friends, the incredible love i feel so lucky to have experienced, my job (yes, warts and all), and my (relatively speaking) good health.

it is my first thanksgiving away from my family and my home, and i miss my mom and her wonderful cooking, and the warmth that exudes throughout the whole house from our kitchen. i called her last night and could hear her clanging pots and pans in preparation for today, and it made me smile and want to hug her, and then i felt very alone. i imagine my family sitting around the table to have dinner together, and want so much to be there, heaping comfort foods onto my plate and laughing thru mouthfuls of sweet potato casserole at my mom's mannerisms, or my dad's talkshow radio jokes.

i miss the look of my home and my hometown at this time of year. California experiences the winter holidays very differently. somehow, walking around LMU's campus and seeing the sudden appearance of Christmas decorations – illuminated yard ornaments, the huge Christmas bow they tied onto the chapel steeple, the ball ornaments hanging on the magnolia trees – made me feel surprisingly upset, like they were mocking my homesickness with exaggerated props, trying to compensate for not being home by engaging in tasteless caricature. i thought of the way Christmas lights look when you're driving home at night over rolling hills and through howling winter wind and snow. or the way uptown looked in Oxford when you'd be walking to the coffee shop and seeing the snow fall lightly through lamplight.

today is very bittersweet, because while i am sad to be missing these things, i am so happy and grateful to have them in my life at all, and to know that i grew up with such wonderful ppl and experiences, and that i have such wonderful memories of my life.

and so, happy thanksgiving. i am coming home soon...

love,
stef

elfed self

weird.

ho ho ho?
-stef

(i'd say yes, "ho ho ho" indeed. those are some naughty dance moves those robot elf selves are making...)

let's give peace a chance!

if you're reading this, you are probably sitting in the comfort of your home, having just eaten a warm meal with your loved ones, might have just finished watching a movie, might even be well on your way to getting completely drunk to welcome the new year.

outside, there's probably fireworks and people screaming and cheering. somewhere near you people are dancing, having fun, forgetting that somewhere else in the world, there is complete darkness, save for the flash of bombs and missile fire.

it is so easy for us to forget, in our nests of warmth and comfort, that there are other people dying from disease, starvation, cold, heat, neglect, melancholy. have we forgotten them? just because we cannot see them, does not mean we cannot feel their sadness creeping up to us when we become still in the night.

have we forgotten to love our fellow man/woman/child? were we really put on this earth to hate one another and destroy our precious environment?

giving your old unwanted clothes during the Christmas season is not enough to keep the billions of homeless people in the world warm, and eating organic will not change the fact that many millions of other people will never even see a piece of your unwanted food that day. buying RED is not going to change the fact that america remains the most wasteful nation in the world, and corporate social responsibility still remains the exceptionality, when it should be the rule.

indeed, as RED reminds us, we have the POWER to make a difference. (by buying their product...?) but do we, as they want us to believe, have a choice?

surely not. otherwise, why would millions of children and elderly be dying of malnutrition all over the world? why else would the millions in Africa in dire need of AIDS medication require US consumers to buy additional amounts of Gap jeans they don't need, while giving them false cause to pat themselves on the back for their consumer-based philanthropy?

if we really wanted to make a difference, surely we would find the resources and energy and good will to do it? (after all, we are spending so much money on an admittedly useless war, one that is costing the lives of thousands of innocent civilians' and American soldiers' lives.

and as the RED ad reminds us, "we don't want them to die."

do we really believe that? if we were really so kind-hearted, would we allow this to happen? take a look at the things we are easily allowing ourselves to accept.



then tell me this does not make you sick:

and what are your expensive designer tees gonna do to change that?

---

as you sip your champagne tonight and then crawl into your warm bed, try to remember that all over the world there are countless untracked landmines, children who will never live to early adolescence because of disease and lack of food, young men and women (merely children themselves) in the military, generations of people who will never know a world of peace, who will be the victims of ceaseless, unnecessary war -- and for what?! because we can close our eyes, turn away, can slip into our material comforts and forsake the suffering of those we've never met. how easily we forget our brethren on the other side of the world. how easily we forget!

---

we can do better. now let's actually try.

to a better 2007. (may this be the beginning of the future...)
-stephanie


how you can help:
donate to UNICEF.
tell George to Save Darfur.
help The Global Fund directly, rather than buy from RED.