punch drunk

this is what i wanted to be as a kid:

the fluid movements, the unstoppable energy, the unabashed confidence, the arms over the head abandon – girl can dance.

this is like a video essay of why everyone should put their pride aside and step out onto a dance floor every once in a while and let it all flow. we'd be happier people if we didn't judge each other and ourselves and limit our movements to the expected and normal parameters. i get little chills every time i see this video because she's not afraid to writhe on the floor and punch and jog in place if that's how she wants to interpret the song's progression. and she looks so damned good doing it.

yoga lessons

a great benefit of practicing yoga (vs. doing) is all the really great lessons it teaches you about Life. more on that later.

for now, an example of what i mean:
at the end of your yoga practice, it is extremely important to rest in Savasana.

lots of people don't fully understand/respect this last phase of their yoga practice, and skip out of class early to go about their hectic lives again. yoga is about savoring your body's capabilities, challenging it with effort and maximizing its potential, and then rewarding it with rest.

my current yoga teacher, who has become a Yoda-like mentor to me, is wonderful because she emphasizes the importance of all these aspects equally. yoga is really about slowing down to appreciate what we take for granted - our breath, our mobility, the gift of life, and being present in our bodies. Savasana is the most wonderful time to stop and reflect, to sink into the breath, and with each breath, to feel more deeply connected to the earth and your body.

this is a lesson we can all heed and apply to the rest of our lives, even off the mat. when i go to sleep each night, i try to breathe deep, stretch and spread my limbs wide, allow my head to sink into the pillow and allow my jaw and face to relax. it's the end of the day, you've done what you can with the time you were given, and now it's time to rest. i let that be my meditative prayer to my body and my spirit each night, and it's helped me (on the nights i can remember to do so with intention) to have a more restorative sleep.

and as with yoga, and with sleep, so it is with the work day. i've done all i can, now it's time to go home and rest! ;-)

peace be with all of you,
stephan!e

greening my life one small commitment at a time

so i mentioned in my last post how i've been reawakened to environmental issues and how that's been the focus of my volunteering and career aspirations. i don't know how it happened, this resurgence of Planeteerism that was latent until recently, but -- hot dang! -- i am so glad for it.

i watched Food Inc. again a few weeks ago, and if you haven't already, i highly recommend it. the film has lots of commendable qualities: a powerful message, eloquent and stirring testimonies from admirable people, impeccable graphic design, and Bruce Springsteen! plus, this documentary has the rare quality of being simultaneously entertaining, educational, and stimulating. i wish i had seen it in its entirety when i was teaching, because i think it would have been an invaluable text to use in my science class when we were doing a food and nutritional health unit.*

watching Food Inc. again made me really pumped about getting more involved in food justice work. but even before i rewatched the movie, i had been thinking a lot about issues of food safety and origins, GMOs, and corporate control of food supplies, false advertising, and government subsidies that contribute to our declining public health. again, i kinda have my current job to thank: i was drinking a package of Swiss Miss hot chocolate gleaned from my office break room, and i glanced at the ingredients (as i am wont to do). i noticed the package said "no sugar added" but that it was still incredibly sweet, so i wondered if i was imbibing an aspartame cancer cocktail. i was surprised to find it was aspartame-free, but i noticed another ingredient new to my ingredients knowledge: SUCRALOSE (read: Splenda). researching sucralose led me to read about saccharin, which then led me to read about Monsanto, genetically modified organisims (GMOs) and some really crazy court cases involving scientists who tried to publish their research regarding the potential harm GMOs can cause to organisms that eat them (long story short, those scientists were discredited and blacklisted for their work, due to some shady backroom dealings with corporations fearing their names being sullied in the eyes of consumers. it is really crazy stuff that boils my blood to think about. you should read about it: The Pusztai affair). since that day, i've been avoiding fruits and vegetables i suspect have been genetically modified (which is, let's be honest, hard to do in a market so saturated with weird and corporate-backed science, but this guide provides a starting point on how to read labels, and this one on how to avoid Monsanto in your diet). basically, i've been eating organic when i can afford to, and buying locally as much as possible, which, luckily for me, means once a week going to the farmer's market and stocking up on my fruit and veggies for the week.

Food Inc. also inspired me to make this commitment, which i posted to my facebook and twitter as a way of trying to get some dialog going among my friends, as well as being upfront about my commitment to changing my lifestyle to one that is environmentally-aware:
publicly promising myself (yes, on twitter, so you can hold me accountable years from now), when i have the means to do so, to start a container garden or community garden, to try to get at least a third of my food from local farmers or my own garden, to eat a mostly veggie diet, and if my partner and i ever reproduce, to educate our children about their food and their environment and the manipulative ways of the media, and to teach them how to help me calculate our annual household carbon footprint in order to reduce our environmental impact. yes!

and it actually worked: that small post got a lot of responses from my friends, and even helped me build stronger friendships with some people i didn't even know were my Planeteering sisters! i was happy to generate some conversation about food and health, and i also got some great reading suggestions.

but, the cool thing about that initial commitment is that it has easily budded into additional commitments; once you re-examine and change one aspect of your life, you start to look at the rest. and this, i feel, is how huge change can happen on a global level, if individuals do their part to make small commitments that over time can make significant impacts.

take, for example, plastic bag use: i was super excited when i found out California was going to pass the first-of-its-kind (in the States), ballsy law banning the use of plastic bags. but then, when i moved back, i wondered what happened to that bill. well, as i was angered and disappointed to find out, this happened: lawmakers decided they were too "concerned" about the consequences for consumers undergoing extra strain that such a ban would pose. read: they were worried about the fallback from the plastics industry and lobbyists. if they really worried and gave a prudent thought to consumers and the longterm environmental benefits of such a ban, there would be no doubt as to the right course of action. the frustrating thing, of course, is that it's not even a matter of convenience (we could easily replace plastic bags with biodegradable, recycled brown paper bags) or even revenue concerns (Ireland didn't do away with plastic bags, but posed a small tax - 15 cents - to plastic bag use. they saw a drop in use of 90% and millions of euros in revenue. doesn't that sound like the very definition of win-win?) - it is quite simply and clearly just a matter of lawmakers being too scared of their corporate backers coming down on them -- which leads me to a topic for another day: why we need to reform American politics, starting with campaign finance laws.

sorry, i get so sidetracked because all these issues are connected, from their root causes to the anecdotes i want to share about how i became so interested in them. the point of what i'm saying is that, even though lawmakers may be letting us and the environment down, we can still do things, very little things, to make a difference, and that we should not overlook the power of our individual actions. what follows is a list of the small ways i am trying to cut down on my own environmental impacts:

1. as far as plastic bags go, i have endeavored to refuse them. it took a long time to remember my tote bags (such is the danger of the American disposable culture that we become habitualized into accepting plastic out of convenience) but now i never go anywhere without my cloth bags AND glass tupperware in tow. and, i find that the more i am upfront and explicit about not using plastic bags whenever i go out, the people i'm with follow my example, and that is an important ripple effect.

2. at work, i completed a carbon footprint report for the company. this got me thinking a lot about water and electricity use. i signed up to an online carbon footprint tool that helps individuals calculate their annual carbon footprint. i plan on tracking my footprint in order to make it smaller year after year - i figured this would be a fun teaching tool/activity if i ever have kids some day, too. imagine if everyone started doing this - they'd soon see how much electricity and water they use per year, which is staggering when viewed in sum. and, if everyone set reduction goals every year, we could cut down our total impact until finally, we're only consuming at levels that are sustainable to our one earth (did you know we're currently living at a rate that would require 2.5 Earths to sustain?) SO much more fun than calculating your taxes every year! though no less important, of course! ;-)

3. weekends are car-free days! i've been biking to the farmer's market and to pilates classes and starting this weekend, to my volunteering at the Historical Garden. if i must go further than my legs can take me, such as seeing my grandparents who live over 20 miles away, i carpool. how great would it be if everyone took at least one or two days out of their week to enjoy on a bike or walking with their family? my legs are stronger too, and without the use of an equally energy-wasting device: the treadmill/stairmaster/elliptical.

4. no more hairdryers! using a hairdryer to dry your hair is not only bad for the environment because of how much energy it uses, it's also really bad for your hair. i love how many cosmetics and beauty companies try to invent new and exciting chemical creams to help us reduce frizz, repair split ends, and restore color and vibrancy and shine to our hair, while also peddling straightening irons, curling irons, and hairdryers as standard tools for styling our hair. it's ludicrous, self-defeating, time-wasting and expensive! i've never had perfect hair, by any means, but one thing is true: my hair is really healthy (according to an LA stylist, i had some of the healthiest hair he'd ever seen. i was surprised, because at the time i was swimming at least once or twice a week, and going to the beach. and, i told him, "i never style my hair!" he smiled and told me that's totally why my hair was so healthy, i don't suffocate it with products and heat!) i use only three tools on my hair now: shampoo, conditioner, and a wide-toothed comb. i've put down the hairdryer and have taken to letting my hair dry naturally, and at first i was skeptical that my hair would still have the same volume as it used to, but i'm surprised and happy to report: it looks fine. and even better than before, actually, because it's healthy and not over-dried.

5. i've started a limited meat diet. this infographic brochure makes a pretty good case for going veggie if you're concerned about your carbon footprint. i still get the meat shakes from time to time, but i eat meat very rarely now, maybe twice or thrice a week (down from twice or thrice a day!) and i enjoy how energetic i feel when sticking to a mostly veggie/fruit and raw diet. the last time i got my period (sorry, TMI!) my cramps were virtually non-existent because the days leading up to it i'd been eating lots of leafy dark green veggies and fruit - getting lots of iron and water in my system that helped me feel great when i needed it most! my fave lunch lately: whole wheat pitas, tomato basil hummus, 2 cucumbers, one cup of spinach, carrot sticks and a handful of grape tomatoes, all from the farmers' market! i eat that and an apple and some plums and i feel full without getting post-lunch sleepy.

6. i've started reading Treehugger, Inhabitat, and Ecosalon. they're pretty good at offering green news that is intriguing, useful, inspiring, and always well-written! i always find something share-worthy when i peruse their sites. and it's so much more fulfilling to spend an hour of free time at work reading eco-friendly news pieces than trolling through tumblr or facebook.

the takeaway point of this post is: these are NOT extravagantly ambitious goals, by any means. i kept my green commitments realistic, because i wanted to be able to actually achieve them, while still feeling like i'm achieving something and not just making empty gestures. i hope something you read here will inspire you to go out and try your own mini-green-revolution!

Planeteers unite! :-)
-stephan!e



*i fell asleep thru most of it the first time i watched it with ben. i was teaching at the time and as i recall, that was not a good period for successfully finishing movies, tho we watched a lot of really good ones.

reboot

it is with great shame that i return to this neglected blog to post a half-weary update. in the final minutes before sleep each night, when i'm winding down and trying to clear my head of thoughts from the day, i often wander back to the blog and wonder if i'm unintentionally letting it die out of my life's compulsions, or if i've just been too busy to bother writing.

both possibilities make me sad. blogging started as my way of entering into the world of web2.0, instant publication, and let's be honest, the culture of oversharing that was so popular amongst my generation. part of me feels ok growing up and out of that compulsion to share the details of my daily average life with the entire internet (in fact, i'm thankful that blogging no longer serves that exhibitionist, cathartic need). but i also recognize that with blogging comes a certain kind of mental, intellectual and communicative productivity -- it's a practice that can, i believe, help in maintaining critical self-reflection, and self-accountability. it's also personal archaeology, laying things out so i can read things i've written from many years ago, a reward so satisfying i feel remiss for discontinuing (i still regret not keeping better blogging habits when i was a teacher in South Central).

anyway, all of this to say: i am going to try to be more consistent.

lately, i have been busy trying to figure my way through a bit of a quarter-life crisis. let's just say, corporate office life is not suited for me. i've had more frustrations than well-fought victories, but let's focus on the positive, shall we? the really exciting thing is that my current job has led me to two very important realizations:

1) i will never be satisfied to be a passive anonymous worker in a fluorescently lit cubicle, and 2) my need to be productive and creative, and my desire to feel like my work is actually meaningful in a tangible way are much greater than my need for a hefty paycheck.

those are good things to realize, and i feel it makes this job worth it, even though i spent the majority of the first 4 months unsure of why i felt so distraught and depressed every day. now that i know, i've been doing what i can to at least take care of #2.

which brings me to the other half of what i wanted to talk about, which is what makes me super duper excited to try blogging again. in order to feel happy and fulfilled and feel like my life is actually producing meaning, i've taken up a bunch of hobbies. i guess it's nice that i have a job that allows me the freedom after work to do whatever i damn well please. teaching wasn't ever that luxurious, because i always had to take so much work home with me (grad school classes didn't help, either). and this has made me feel like i may actually be growing into the kind of person i want to be. i've taken to reading a lot more -- fiction, as well as news (The Atlantic, New Yorker, Slate, Newsweek, The NY Times, and funnily enough, Wikipedia*) -- and this has helped me feel a little more informed and connected with what's going on around me. this, in turn, has gotten me pretty fired up about policy issues, and helped motivate me and propel me towards looking at policy-related jobs and a graduate program for public policy and administration. i've also started volunteering with a local environmental advocacy group called the Tri-City Ecology Center. the people are really awesome (guerilla gardeners!), and i feel like maybe i've found something to pour my heart into and keep me happy and sleeping well at night. finally!

i want to write about all these things, and i'll try to write more. for now, i'm going to list things i want to write about in the future, so i can always come back and remember them if i get stuck.

personal green initiatives - hair, biking, gardening
travel blog - invincible cities
i got engaged to my true love!
corporate life revelations - on styrofoam cups and empty environmental promises and why we'll never progress as a people if we think this is an ideal job and lifestyle
yoga pedagogy - learning from my yoga teacher the values and qualities of an excellent teacher - emphasizing humor, humility, no competition, community, self-awareness and being content with/in your own body and enjoying the process as a way to an outcome

anyway, glad to hop back on this horse! now it's dinner time - i'm going to feast on some delicious veggies and hummus i got from the farmer's market and watch some Daily Shows.

-stephan!e

*i've taken to having day-long Wikipedia sessions to catch up on gaps in my knowledge. for example: today i learned about the British political system. mostly because i wanted to understand some of what was being written about the London riots and i realized i knew nothing about British politics. like, they still have Tories! the other day, i was reading about colony collapse disorder. so it really changes day to day.

"Mirrorings"

What does it mean to be a "me"? What is the "I" that speaks when I open my mouth and say things that "I" feel?

I am a baby in front of a mirror, watching the baby in front of me move her hands and feet when "my" brain tells hands and feet to move. Is this what it means to be a "me"? To know through observation what the self can do and observe its movements as if observing another person through a window? I learn what I look like by sitting in front of the mirror and tracing my movements through space and learning the way my face looks when it feels different ways.

=

I am a kid at my first sleepover. For the first time I observe the habits of other girls before they go to sleep. When you are alone in your "youness" for so long you take things for granted, assume they are that way for everyone. I wear nightgowns to bed and never brush my hair. Other girls wear long plaid shorts and spend a long time brushing their thick brown hair. They eat pancakes for breakfast with lots of syrup, and I'm used to eating rice cakes or porridge with my Mom and Dad and sneaking sips from their coffee. I start brushing my hair and wearing plaid shorts too. Later when all the girls start shaving their legs I ask my mom if I can start and she says she never shaved her legs a day of her life and why should I? I resent her at first but I think about my Mom and how beautiful she is and I used to look just like her, and she looked just like me when she was young, and I think I can wait and think about shaving. I grow out of it - 25 years old and I've never touched a razor to my body and I am glad I never will.

=

I ride in the car with my Aunt Peggy, who isn't related to me, but she's my Aunt's sister-in-law and I've been told to be nice. She looks me over, observes my tom boyish clothes, my sneakers and baggy t-shirt and my plain haircut and she's got a full face of makeup which seems strange to me because I've never seen my mother wear more than some perfume and blush even when she goes to a fancy restaurant. Aunt Peggy tells me I'm "white" because I grew up in Kentucky and my Chinese isn't great. I squirm in my seat a little and try not to let my face show how much I want to hate her right now.

=

In middle school, all the black kids in my general classes make fun of me and pull their eyelids tight and make horrible sounds at me. They throw trash at me when the teacher is turned around. In gym class we do fitness tests and I can run faster, longer and do more pushups than most of the boys, and my body fat index is only a 12%, and still the teachers and older white girls in class tell me it's only because I don't have any breasts and they make me feel small and powerless. In the locker room, I'm ashamed to change out of my gym clothes. I don't wear a bra yet because I don't need one and I feel ashamed. I wear my gym shirt under my uniform until the gym semester is over.

=

In high school some boy named Peter makes fun of me and calls me Su Ling, like he's so funny. I hate him in a way I can't articulate and can't do anything with because if I tried to do anything it would result in some kind of violence. So instead I bottle it up inside me and it hurts me more when it should be hurting him. He calls me Su Ling and pretends to speak Chinese at me. He asks me if I can shoot fireballs with my hands and when he finds out I am good at English, that I can write and read, he says I must be "half and half." I want to exact violence on him and think that if I knew how to shoot a fireball now would be the time to find out.

=

I have my mother's nose and my father's chin but my eyes are mine. I grow up thinking I am small and short and skinny and it isn't until I am an adult that I am told I'm pretty for the first time, that I'm "tall for a girl" that I'm "tall for an Asian" that I'm strong and fit and sexy. It's a new thing but I never get used to it, and never can get enough of it.

=

Some people say I look just like my father. Some people say I look like my mom when she was my age. Other people say I look like Anne Curry, or Mulan, or… I get mistaken for "someone I know" a lot. I wonder if there are only so many combinations of features and everyone's unique combination eventually gets repeated. It's inevitable.

=

I've been thinking about genetics a lot. I look at people and I wonder what pieces they got from their parents. I look at my parents and try to imagine if they knew when they got together what their babies would look like. I look at couples and wonder what the products of their coupling will look like.

=

I think back on childhood and adolescence and I think "I'm lucky I got out alive." So much self-hatred and uncertainty about who to be and how to be. So much judgment and scrutiny. When I was teaching middle school I observed my students with a certain level of curiosity. I never had an unattractive student. They all seemed perfect and cute and delightfully endearing. Do children realize how perfect they are, how needless of change? When I was a kid I sought to change everything about myself, the shape of my nose and eyes, the texture of my hair, my skin, my voice, the thickness of my eyebrows, the length of my arms, the size of my chest, the size of my lips. All I could see as a kid was flaws and how to change them. At some point that stopped and I grew into a confident woman who can see the individual beauty in each person, including herself. That is a remarkable thing. To look in the mirror and see flaws but embrace them, to observe them and know that they belong to you.

The Moment

i've been watching the aftermath of the news of Osama bin Laden's death unfold on the internet, feeling really disjointed and weird. i feel like this should be one of those momentous moments that ppl remember, like when 9/11 was happening – i remember being in my sophomore AP Psychology class and remember my teacher saying to us while we watched things unfolding on the tv "you're going to tell your kids one day that you remember exactly where you were, who you were with, and how you felt the day those towers fell." and i knew then he was totally right. i remember going to AP English after that, and seeing everyone completely devastated, collapsed on their desks, sobbing and clutching onto their friends. one boy in particular caught my eye, my friend David, who sat underneath the tv, ashen-faced but silent, and unemotional. it was his birthday. his father was murdered when he was younger. somehow that last point is relevant because it made me think he was experiencing this in a way none of us could understand. i wanted to experience his Moment, the way he was feeling things. i wanted to know what strength or understanding or strange disjointedness he was experiencing that made it possible for him not to cry. i remember thinking that it takes a strange kind of strength or self-knowing not to cry just because everyone else felt obliged to cry together. i wonder now if he could foresee the aftermath of this very public grieving, the impending, unavoidable result of such a moment. already, not even before the end of the day, i'd heard classmates, even friends, wish aloud for Osama to die. not long after, and we were propelled into a war that has lasted almost half my life.

and now this. i just got back from visiting my grandparents, opened up my laptop and went to facebook, and saw my friend's post:

when i read that, i was excited, because i read "got" as "captured and took into custody," not "have his dead body in possession." i checked twitter next.

perhaps there is something to be said about the places in which we experience these Moments. when 9/11 happened i was surrounded by people, just as perplexed and distraught as i was. there was comfort and also escalation to that. there was a sense of acceptability, of belonging, to a shared sense of sorrow. you couldn't buy an american flag for weeks. everyone's tree had a yellow ribbon on it. neighborhoods never felt more united. and isn't that weird? i felt weird about it, how strange a Moment could make your world, and never knowing when it would return to normal again. that is how 9/11 and the days after felt. or maybe it was high school (although, one could argue That Moment lingers still, even nearly ten years after it happened).

this time around, i am alone, in my room i lease from an old lady i barely know, where i just moved about a month ago to start a job i didn't feel particularly strongly about but took out of desperation because my unemployment was running out and i got laid off from my school district last year. there was no one around me when i heard the news, i watched it happening from my laptop screen, one page refresh after another, a stream of posts on twitter, facebook and tumblr. i'm not sure if my physical alienation can take full credit for my sense of detachment in this Moment, but perhaps it plays a part in the experience.

my feelings on This Moment, as i'm experiencing it thru my lens of the internet, are that it feels totally alienating and weird and definitely sickening.

like, i'm really disturbed to see how many people are coming out en masse to celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden. and what's more, to do it with such camaraderie. reports were saying people in NY were honking their cars, screaming jubilantly, people in LA were going to the bars to have drinks with one another, chants of "USA" reverberating down every street. what?? the very public performances of celebration (who can be the most excited, the most patriotic) coupled with the unquestioning acceptance of such are making me feel very uneasy. everyone delighting so publicly in the USA successfully exacting revenge on ONE individual is really, really weird. i can understand a feeling of relief or closure, feeling like we can finally end the war and bring all our troops home, but screaming and hugging random "fellow Americans" in the street and feeling like America is super awesome? i just don't feel like this is one of our prouder moments. in fact, it makes me really sad, because what we are celebrating is not Justice, but Vengeance. it is the eruptive self-acknowledgment of a society and culture of violence, one that does not end with this death, but continues onward from it. Obama has already said that the "work" in the middle east will continue, and Homeland Security is already predicting "retaliation" attacks from the aftermath. it reminds me of the end of the movie Memento, in which *SPOILER ALERT* Lenny crumples up and burns the polaroid of the murder he committed, in order to perpetuate a narrative that gives him a sense of purpose but ultimately necessitates further murders.

what i would like from This Moment is some reflection. i would like public officials and leaders and the media and celebrities and my friends and everyone to rethink our narratives. if our world would find it just as easy and acceptable to celebrate peace, as we do revenge, we would have an entirely different world.

i feel like i've had several of these Moments in my life already. 9/11, The Day Obama was Elected President, and now The Day Osama bin Laden Was Killed. i'm still waiting on The Day The War Was Declared Over.

oh and also, because of This Moment, this happened...?

[source]

and this:

text reads: "PARTY IN THE USA! let's be honest... it's what we were all thinking." oh? i guess i never got the memo...

[shakes head]

are you there Jesus? it's me, Ricky...

some emails i found in the copier this week:

Hi Ricky:
Would you mind help Jesus this issue?

Thx...Jesus
----
Hi Jesus:
Talked with Ricky,he already took action...
----
Thank you Jesus! Hang in there. It will get better soon.

looks like Jesus and Ricky worked things out.

uncommonly misinformed

today, as i was preparing for a lunch-time interview with a charter school in New York, i discovered that said charter school organization is currently mis-appropriating the name of Horace Mann to perpetuate an idea of education he would have fundamentally opposed.

the charter organization says on their website (in their history section, no less!):

Playing on Horace Mann's notion of the "common school," and born of the fact that too many of today's educational institutions steer toward mediocrity, Uncommon was founded to create more uncommon schools - uncommonly good, extraordinary, autonomous, and distinctive.

Mann's idea of the common school was not common in the sense of "mediocre," but in the sense of community. Mann believed, and i agree, that the school should be a public space, that the school is central to community life and longevity. furthermore, and this is key, Mann maintained that the most important purpose of the school, the great purpose underlying the establishment of a public education system, was to strive for social harmony, through acting as "the great equalizer" of social inequalities and injustices. what makes this so ironic is that Mann believed, in order for schools to achieve this great social purpose, that schools should be sponsored and participated in by an interested public, and that this public interest in the education of its citizens would profoundly benefit both the educational system and society. this meant, in Mann's time, that the school system should be sustained, paid for and controlled by an interested public. Mann was, after all, known as the "father of American public education." this, however, is contrary to the practices of charter schools, who take public funds away from public school systems, put them toward schools where the teachers are not allowed to unionize, and students are plucked from the masses to constitute a "lucky" elite that will now have the chance to try for college educations.* all this in addition to undermining the public school systems, minimizing the problems of education to one of "mismanagement" and offering an alternative that supplants a longterm solution.

granted, i applaud the efforts of the charter school movements to create upward mobility among impoverished communities by giving them a track towards college educations, but i have to ask myself, when i read things like this, if 1) they are perhaps placing too much credo in the difference a college education will make. after all, more college graduates are finishing their degrees only to find themselves just as jobless as before, and higher education is increasingly undervalued and over-expected. 2) this reflects a problem i detect with lots of these education reform movements (cf. TFA): they seem to think that a lack of quality educational opportunities is the only problem plaguing an impoverished community (or, is it that it's the easiest problem to get recent college grads to commit to?) but everyone knows that poverty and lack of education and crime and etc. are SOCIETAL problems that need sweeping societal reforms in order to address. in a way, these problems are worsened when we delude ourselves into thinking that they are simple problems a few good teachers working in isolation can make go away. and certainly the process of devaluing and demonizing the public school system as a failed trap doesn't help matters, because how are we ever going to invest any care, attention and money into reforming our schools if we keep building new charter schools?

needless to say, i probably won't be working for them. because i don't have much confidence in our educational philosophies being aligned, for one, but also because they might find this before i have the chance to interview, in which case i think they'll know how i feel.


*is it just me, or is there something extremely weird and disturbing about randomly selecting a few students from a community to participate in a better education while others in the community get left behind. Blue Eyes versus Brown Eyes, anyone?

funny or die

lately i have been having dreams that wake me up doing funny things. the other day i fell asleep on a plane and woke up whacking my hands against my leg, like i was clubbing an animal or something. the other night i woke up laughing at something i found hysterical.

last night i woke up from a dream in which i was getting ready to write a blog post ostensibly so hilarious, i found it necessary to pry open my laptop and, half-asleep, without my glasses, and in the dark, type myself this reminder for myself in the morning:

"by the end of his career, Rodney Dangerfield was as sophisticated as Lao Tzu himself"

in my dream, the blog post was going to look like this:

my reasoning, in the dream, was that the juxtaposition of the images would be so hilarious, it would be a hit on the interwebs. so, there you go.

bad teachers

i saw this conversation on my facebook feed the other day, when high school students around the country were planning walk-outs in support of teachers and workers in Wisconsin.

a little context first, before i completely tear this apart:

1. Karen is one of my oldest friends. we've been friends since middle school (14 years!) and were best friends in middle school. then, starting in high school, we kinda drifted apart, and now we barely keep in touch. though in some respects i lament our weakened friendship (she was one of my closest confidants), in other respects i am grateful we grew apart, and can totally understand why and how it happened.
2. Karen has always wanted, from as long ago as i can remember, to be an English teacher when she grew up. and now she is one. in our old school district. she, though, took the traditional student-teaching route (unlike my trial-by-fire, teaching in the trenches, going to night-school, TFA version) and has only recently started teaching her own students full-time in her own classroom (i think this is her second year of full-time teaching).
3. i don't know any of these other people. but, i do know that they all live in Kentucky.

OK! begin rant:

this kind of mentality makes me SO ANGRY. first off, that a walkout in support of teachers would be considered an inconvenience and for that reason must be shut-down, demonized, and demeaned. and then, that others would be cheering on this authoritative disregard for students' voices and actions, as if teachers need to win some kind of battle against their students, as if succeeding in enforcing (and forcibly teaching) a deflationist, irrelevant, separatist curriculum is the best thing a teacher could do all day with their students. it's so teacher-centric and irrelevant and so MIND-NUMBINGLY BACKWARDS that it makes me want to raze a magnet school.

the mentality that guides these teachers' practice is one of simple-minded obeisance to "performance standards" and status quo and daily planners written in stone. these are terrible teachers. these are teachers who got into the profession to lord over children and manipulate them into performing daily meaningless rituals so they can feel better about themselves. these are the kinds of teachers who use "because i said so" as legitimate reasons to believe or do anything. these are teachers who see their students' natural curiosity as an annoyance to be quelled and stifled rather than nourished. these are the kinds of teachers i HATED in school and made me want to go into ed policy and teacher training.

it makes me so mad! it is a horrible time to be a teacher, what with all the public scrutiny that teachers have come under lately in light of the bill in Wisconsin, and with the cuts to government funding threatening to take away their jobs, their pensions, their benefits and their pay, and with increasing lack of appreciation for what teachers do, it's a wonder ANYONE still endeavors to undertake this difficult job. it is quite possibly the MOST difficult career AND the most necessary to our society. so, it greatly disheartens me, with all the sh*t that is already happening to the teachers from forces outside the profession, to see that some teachers would voluntarily (and self-congratulatorily!) demean and dismiss the importance of recent political activism. LADIES! if you're not going to join the revolution, at least stand aside and let it happen without you!

[ shakes head ]

WORKERS UNITE!!!

I STAND WITH WISCONSIN. and MI and FL and OH and ALL THE WORKERS ACROSS THE WORLD. give 'em hell today in Madison! we're all watching and hoping for a victory! may the revolutionary dams burst!!! the ppl united!

fatalism friday

sometimes other ppl have a way of reading my mind and putting it into better words than i possess. some snippets:

"Two years ago when [boyfriend] first moved in, there was something exciting about getting up in the morning. You would rise, dress, and, knowing your lover was asleep in your bed, drive out into the early morning office and factory traffic, feeling that you possessed all things, Your Man, like a Patsy Cline song, at home beneath your covers, pumping blood through your day like a heart."

"Someday, like everybody, this man you truly love like no other is going to die. No matter how much you love him, you cannot save him. No matter how much you love: nothing, no one, lasts."

"You want to help him, rescue him, build houses and magnificent lawns around him."

-from the short story "Amahl and the Night Visitors: A Guide to the Tenor of Love" by Lorrie Moore, from her book Self-Help (1985)

#McLobster

first, some context: twitter is currently trending #McLobster.

for me, "McLobster" inspires a flood of love. and shortly after, the singe of regret.

McLobster image from here.

the image of a moist, creamy, curious McLobster, my mother ordering one at a McD's in Canada circa 1995 – curious about its flavor, always willing to try new things, unafraid of strangeness and conventional wisdom telling her otherwise, her love of finer things (lobster) combining with her thriftiness (for $4.99 Canadian) – she comes back with my father to the motel room where my brother and i lie exhausted on opposite beds, on top of the shiny slick duvets, our feet dangling over the edges, shoes still tied

conjures the thought of my mother, the agency of ordering this sandwich from Atlantic Canadians, her biting into it, in a purple motel room with dark wood panelling, clutching the McLobster in her tiny hands, her subsequent surprise and relish, how my brother and i, interest piqued, rose from our beds, crawled on hands and knees to kneel next to her on the edge of the bed, to take timid nibbles at the edge of her sandwich, as she held it out to us with her tiny hands

how her approval could inspire our curiosity and interest and lead us to devour not just one but multiple sandwiches stuffed with artificial shellfish

how our mother's curiosity and fearlessness i inherited as far as it came to food but regrettably little else

how this action provided a window into understanding my mother, allowed me to imagine her young and new and unsure but willing, making a life for herself with my father, wishing to raise children who would have opportunities she didn't have, slowly carving out a path and a life through small, brave decisions – how will this taste? will it be bitter? is the meat real? can we trust it? – and these little decisions form little steps into futures we hope will be better than yesterday – where do i go from here? what do i do? who do i want to be?

- - -

inspired by Lorrie Moore's "How To Talk To Your Mother (Notes)" from Self-Help (1985).

back when "Walkman" meant something

5 Seconds of Every #1 Billboard Hot 100 Hit From 1993-2011 [takes you to another webpage]

my friend Kathee pointed this out to me and it was just too good not to share.

this compendium of pop music is really super fantastic. i mean, you know, it might not be everyone’s bag, but for me, well, let’s just say i’m a sucker for all things nostalgic (that should be the name of a blog...) it reminds me of middle school bus rides, field trips, and track practice. really awkward middle school dances and driving in the car with my mom when she still listened to “adult contemporary” (Kiss FM and Delilah anyone!?) and hadn’t discovered NPR yet. it reminds me of playing in the orchestra in my ghetto middle school and playing the piano part in “All My Life” – the only recognizable section of the song in a really poorly arranged transcription. and it reminds me of joking around in the dorm with my college roommates, playing all the “hits” and making up dance moves like we were in an endless sleepover party, when we should have been writing term papers. *sigh* good times. it reminds me that once, popular music was a way to connect to a wider scene and to have things in common to jam to. as middle schoolers, we never intellectualized stuff ("man, the bump in that part was greeeaat." "shit, phenomenal use of autotune! cheeky!") but it was just about what was catchy, what got stuck in yr head, what was worth sitting by the radio, cassette player in hand, in order to record and keep. back when we didn't have ipods and digital music and the internet and music was made precious by the radio – back when some songs were worth sitting thru the commercial breaks for! and, i’ll admit, i still secretly jam to at least 80% of this list when i’m alone and in need of some cheer.

another really great thing about this is how easy it makes it to realize how absolutely super shitty popular music has gotten. right around 08:00-09:00 (that minute represents a mix of good and bad) things start taking a turn for the worse. but then at about 09:07, when Britney Spears comes into the mix, things are derailed completely and can never be righted again (“Wild Wild West”, “Genie in a Bottle”, “Baillamos”??!!!! these are songs i couldn’t stand even when they were “hits." oh good lord.) until right around where Outkast and Eminem emerge, things are dark and bleak and i think that maybe i should stop listening, but after a while it becomes acceptable again (eventually it gets to Lady Gaga).

i can see why i turned to indie/alt. music and never went back.

life imitates art

“But maybe all art is about just trying to live on for a bit. I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.”

– Banksy

i feel lost. like in the last few months my spirit has cleaved in two, the rotten depressed and dark parts remaining here while the other bits floated away, too light and airy and dreamy to be bound to these desolate remains. "O... these fragments I have shored against my ruins." sometimes i feel like i can see the other half of me off in a distance, or i feel like i am that distant self looking back at the miserable remains and pitying her. it becomes hard to recognize myself in a mirror. how do i get those lost parts of me back?

as a kid i would lie awake in bed at night, imagining death and the unrelenting continuance of time without being able to participate in it, of lives without my presence. of being forgotten. i didn't want fame, but i didn't want to get lost in time and forgotten. i think this is the fear that underlies the pursuit of fame – a desire to never die.

the other night i lay in bed, sobbing because i could feel that sense of dying, could feel my loosening grip on my dreams, ambitions and aspirations from when i was a kid. i used to want to be something unusual, to be earth-shattering. i wanted to be destined for extraordinary things. and i felt, as i examined my life, considered the turn of recent events, and the availability of options before me, that my life had become rather extra ordinary. and as i thought of an image of myself as a child and the image of myself now, i began to cry. i never thought it would come to this, to being another unhappy adult stuck in a monotonous lifestyle with dreary rituals and nothing beautiful to celebrate. is this what happens? we grow old and comfortable and stuck in daily procedures and stop imagining different possibilities? i'm 25 and yet i feel old, weary, life-deprived, sick of the limited options (watch a movie, take a walk, read a book, work / be a mother, teacher, accountant, secretary). i don't want to be just another anything.

when i was young i wanted to be a writer, a dancer, a storybook illustrator. i wanted to be a wild animal. i wanted to make everlasting art.

and now all i make is dollar bills.

back to the future

have i mentioned, i love time travel!

i found this wonderful photography project by a woman in Brazil by the name of Irina Werning, who has been collecting old photos from her friends in Buenos Ares and having them "go back in time" to re-enact moments from their past.

at first i thought she had just found old photos and then procured models who could be dressed up and posed in a way resembling the photographs, but about halfway thru the gallery it occurred to me that these past and future people are actually the same people. once you realize the photos are actually juxtaposing real past with real present, with decades in between, you're humbled by the human ability to transcend change. or to put it another way, humans wear change very well. babies become adults, brunettes become blondes, sprinkles of chest hair grow, trees grow, crooked teeth straighten, beards are grown, laugh lines appear – there are acute superficial differences, but the characters beneath the surface (one can imagine) are still relatively the same, albeit with some insane tattoos accrued along the way.

it's been quieting to look at these photographs and feel reassured of the constancy with which time grips us all. lately i have been perceiving myself as a stranger, so different from who i was yesterday, the year before, and ten years ago. to think of an image of myself when i was eleven and contrast it to how i feel now feels alienating and weird, like wearing the wrong shoe on the wrong foot. but i am reminded that perhaps life moves more in ripples than seismic waves. most of the time, anyway.

transhumanism? thoughts on our robot futures.

litmus test: is this frightening? Y/N

remember when people used to worry that the future would be bleak because we'd be captured and enslaved by a superior robot race? remember how ridiculous that sounds? now, remember how simple life was when everyone used landlines (actual pre-planned play dates! if you wanted to have a date you actually had to plan and keep your promises!) and dial-up internet was new wave? remember when Cyber Monday didn't exist? remember when calling an office line or a toll-free number meant waiting on the line to speak to an operator, before interfacing with voice-recognition software and keypad menus (to then be put on hold to speak to someone) became commonplace to modern existence? even i remember those days.

as technology advances, computers become faster, more efficient, more accurate and (more significantly) cheaper at performing the jobs formerly held by humans. imagine a DMV line made expedient and seamless by a wall of computers instead of bulky attendants and clerks. how sleek an LCD screen can be compared to the bulbous inconsistency of humankind!

technological advancements occur at increasingly rapid paces. perhaps out-pacing evolution and the rate of human biological development. it's no wonder a consistently frightening convention of fiction and fantasy is the image of an inanimate object coming to life and possessing the ability to move, change, and destroy. [Cf. Poltergeist, Chuckie, kids' cartoons(?)]

what with technology being (and becoming) what it is, it's expected that machines and computers will come to replace (and out-perform) human employees in many current jobs. while it may come as no surprise that toll takers, for example, have been replaced, the machines are coming for YOUR job next. librarians, postal workers, Blockbuster staff recommenders, watch out! it might seem impossible for computers to perform the jobs of doctors, lawyers, poets and teachers, those jobs that require a unique human brain with the capacity for judgement, critical thinking, creativity, and insight. but consider this: travel agents no longer exist because you can Wiki-travel any destination for yourself. who's to say WebMD won't come to replace professional medical advice in the future? i've already witnessed a robot performing the jobs of a lab assistant in a hospital, couriering blood tests from one medical wing to the other:

and while it takes a special grasp of language, its lyricism and rhythm, to compose the most compelling poetry and prose, randomized text generators can create a free association of words reminiscent of poetics. podcasts of lectures and language lessons can provide an educational experience without the hallowed walls of an educational institution.

before i get too Glen Beck on you all, i guess what i'm trying to say is "no kidding the job market sucks right now." i may have sparkling credentials and an imperturbable work ethic, but so do hundreds of thousands of other jobless applicants. and still, computers will never unionize for health insurance and better pay and better working conditions.

as long as we keep finding ways to replace human workers with computers, and as long as the human population keeps rapidly growing, the gap between job availability and job need will be ever-expanding. kids will continue working on the illusion that they can go to school and work hard and accrue millions of dollars of debt and emerge gainfully employed in the end. only to find a life of depressing retail work and fast-food service await them. back to adolescence, back to where you started. no wonder people are turning to television and Chatroulette and endless escapism. endless, vicious cycle of technology-dependence. and yet, all of us were quaking in our homes on the eve of Y2K, clutching our piles of firewood for strength, hoping the computers would survive the wipeout. shucks, we missed an opportunity.

goodbye to an old friend

BBC News - Redwall author Brian Jacques dies aged 71

this is devastating. i spent a good part of my childhood reading the Redwall books, and i credit them with not only developing my literacy, but fostering in me an appreciation for nature and animals and good, hearty stories. my first ever email address (that i continued to use until probably the junior year of college) was named after my favorite character, Pikkle, a spritely mannered hare with a voracious appetite in the Salamandastron book (probably my favorite of the series).

when Twilight first started generating buzz and i got wind of its content, i lamented the lack of attention paid to writers such as Jacques and the heartiness of his story-telling. and i wondered why we could no longer live in a society where complex stories about virtuous characters undergoing harrowing journeys and epic battles to protect their home/ unravel ancient mysteries/ discover their identities/ defeat sinister adversaries all while singing songs and writing poems and eating decadent woodsy feasts could be appreciated.

i felt a twinge of sadness, something akin to guilt, when i stopped reading the books every year they came out (the last one i made any effort with was Marlfox). i felt horrible, like i had outgrown them or something, and i felt bad for losing interest in those characters and their stories. the way you feel bad about losing touch with your best friends from elementary school or high school.

anyway, this is doubly weird because not too long ago i was checking Wikipedia and reading his page and wondering if he was still writing books, found myself worrying about his age and hoping he'd live a long life and that one day i'd be able to write him a letter and thank him for writing. i guess this will have to do.

RIP, Mr. Jacques. and thank you for your stories. i hope my kids will one day enjoy reading your books as much as i did.

also:

what i love most about this gif is how it says so much about the absurdity that is "Oprah," without me having to, so i can just sit back, be appalled, and giggle a little.

(seriously, she must enjoy turning ppl into weepy pathetic maniacs. the sheer delight in her face! she is basking in the glory of emotional wreckage. Oprah being a homicidal maniac is a droll turn on extant reality.)

true story

Groundhog Day could be viewed as a commentary on the nature of modern celebrity. A cute, hairy creature has become famous for doing something with minimal accuracy because he is surrounded by men in funny hats. Subtract two legs and a tail and that's the Justin Bieber narrative all over.

-from here.

welcome to the future

so commences the first day of the second decade of the 21st century. look at that date! 1/1/11! just wait til 11/11/11. nut-so.

my hopes for this year are that i will find happiness in every day, remember to love the goodness in people, find more time to read, and that i will be more intentional in making things happen for myself.

i also hope the new year brings me a Bruce Springsteen concert and a really awesome job and the miracle of time travel. (because what is a new year and a new decade without some extravagant wishing.)

happy future, my friends!

the rising

who wants to form a Bruce cover band with me? name ideas:

1) Springscenesters...

2) Spring(steen) It On...

3) Full Springsteen Ahead

more to come.

am i taking this too far? probably.

take the initiative

i dreamt last night that i discovered an old forgotten live session of Bruce Springsteen's, in which he plays a set of 11-13 songs, with lots of soaring violin and a video of someone hang-gliding or flying an open top plane. lots of blue, yellow and green. and the music, though beautiful and folksy, was less like Bruce and more like The Frames. but it was beautiful and the first song was called "Take The Initiative" and i coveted it as part of my growing Bruce collection.

in the dream i was Bruce's tour assistant, but in the form of Portia de Rossi. the Boss was playing a set and i had to stop him to tell him there was someone trying to bomb his tour bus. the Bruce came right off the stage and tackled the terrorist and beat him with his own (the terrorist's) golf clubs. end of story! Bruce for President!

i then woke up at 8:40, which is kinda early for me, feeling like it was really late and i must be dreaming still, because i felt so well-rested.

---

as part of my new year's resolutions and my birthday-initiated self-reform, i am making a conscious effort to make tv and internet less of a daily habit. i think i've grown too accustomed to frittering away my days with these technological distractions and have grown tired of reaching the end of my day realizing i haven't done anything productive, haven't created anything or bettered myself. the worst and most embarrassing time-suck is Facebook. yesterday, i decided i was going to do it, i was finally going to just delete my account and be done with it. it's super annoying, omnipresent, ever-controlling, and a constant source of anxiety (what are people on the net seeing of me? who is looking at it? is there something that could prove deterrent for future employers?) and yet so many of my friends use it that to delete it makes me worry i'll be left out. gah, the trials and tribulations of our modern existence!

so, as of today (and last night too) i have been limiting my Facebook time to ONCE a day. that means i only get to check it once, and after that i can't until the next day. and, i only get to check my notifications, and i only get to approve friend requests, not go seeking them out on the internet. it probably seems silly and trivial, but i think it will help wean me off of this artificial community and start creating real relationships with people again. and, my hope is that after doing this for weeks, i can get it down to just checking Facebook on fridays, and then after that, maybe i'll get down to just once a month, and then, inşallah, maybe i'll be able to delete it altogether from my life.

i'm also trying to limit my use of the internet and tv to about 5 hours combined, which is actually a LOT of time spent on these machines when you say it out loud, but that should say something about my prior habits. the average american spends 5 hours of the day just watching tv and roughly 250 billion hours per year with the idiot box. i'm trying to shave off a little of that time and make it more meaningful. i guess we'll see how it goes but i'm hoping it makes for a happier and less aimless 2011.

welp, my hour's almost up so i should get going!

-stephan!e

oh, and if you're wondering how much time the average american spends watching tv, these nifty scientific reports proved illuminating:

American Time Use Survey Summary

Television & Health

dramatic reading of a real breakup letter

OMG THIS IS HILARIOUS.

my favorite is when the reader (the voice is so familiar, anyone know who it is?) starts cracking up at the sheer absurdity of the prose.

i want my phd in Springsteenology

i wanna go on a Springsteen-themed road trip, listening to Bruce the whole way and visiting all the seedy little towns in Jersey. i want to see all the towns and streets mentioned in all his songs, i want to grow a beard and wear a denim jacket over a muscle shirt and drive in an open top convertible down the Jersey turnpike screaming "NO RETREAT, BABY, NO SUUURRENDEEEEEER!" man, how awesome would that be?

but for now i'll settle for listening to a ton of Bruce songs, dancing in my bedroom and learning how to play my favorites on the cheap little guitar i got a few summers ago when i decided i needed something to go with my harmonica. today i churned this puppy out, along with a cover of "Fire," which i'm too embarrassed to expose to public scrutiny. but this one is alright so i'll share:

my favorite lyric? "is a dream a lie if it don't come true, or is it something worse?"

hm, i'm not sure when my blog and all my writing became about Bruce Springsteen, but i hope nobody minds. i mean, he sings about broken dreams and broken promises and looking for love and redemption and he fills me with SO much joy that i can't hardly help myself from sharing it. sorry if that's not yr bag. (unfettered joy, that is).

Bruce fills me with so much joy! i just want to listen to this and dance thru the night and scream and shimmy and clap until i get too old to shake it any more (and even then i'll be doing it in my head).

don't call me chicken

i had a dream last night where me and my boyfriend were driving around late at night looking for a place to eat before driving a long way home. we were in some dark and desolate country-looking town. my bf made us stop at a gas station so he could get cigars. i filled up gas. then he saw this chicken and biscuits place and wanted to stop there for food. he got out and talked with ppl in line while i waited in the car. i watched a man that looked like Mickey Rourke but smaller wearing a jean jacket and some bleached hair drive a big semi past my car and pull up to the side of the chicken place. he got out and fumbled with something in the ground, and i realized he was digging for a gun. two people appeared in the dark alley and asked him what he was doing, told him to stop, and he shot them. then an old man with a long beard who looked like a Hassidic Jew version of Paulo Freire walked up minding his own business on the other side of the chain link fence at the end of the alley and Mickey shot him too. then he ran away. i went inside to get ben. the sign at the chicken place said it was $36 dollars for a chicken and biscuit sandwich, $56 if we ordered two. we could also donate chicken and biscuits to charity. there was a really skinny woman there with big glasses who said they were so good she came every night. an asian man in a metallic puffy jacket came with a big canvas bag to collect his donations for the night. ben decided he didn't want chicken and biscuits after all and decided to leave. we walked to the car and i started yelling, 'why don't you want to eat there? why can't you decide what you want?' i started the car and it made a strange fast sound like gunshots. i looked over at ben and asked, 'did that sound weird?' he gave me a look and we sat in the car a bit to let the car warm up. i felt strange and was about to lock the doors, when a strange fat middle-aged man with stubble all over his face and wearing a haiwaiian shirt came up to the car, opened the back door on the driver's side and asked what we were doing. i told him to shut the door. he laughed. 'driving around at night with two twenty-somethings, sure seems safe.' i freaked out and slammed down the gas and did zig zags in the parking lot and thru somebody's lawn and into the street where i kept swerving around, even though i saw a sign posted that said no swerving (a swervy black arrow with a red line thru it). i was swerving mostly to try to shut the open door in the back of the car. i looked to ben and told him to close the door. he sat very still and said no. i asked him if the fat guy managed to get in the car and ben said no. 'why won't you shut the damned door!??' i started thinking something was extremely wrong with him. and then ben looked at me and said 'there's someone else in the car.' and then i woke up.

whoa scary right? and i still had chick-fil-a a few hours later.

across the sea

last night i dreamt my partner and i were floating on a couch on an icy vast ocean. it was pristine blue but opaque. i jumped in and took a swim around and then it occured to me there might be sharks. ben me and my dad set afloat in a large glass tupper ware container and a spoon and tried to drift across to the gas station across the sea. sharks circled us everywhere. a tall man in our camp was eaten because he couldn't fit into the shoe they were trying to use as a boat. we went on a tv show at the end of the dream to tell people all about it.

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.

geez, NPR, calm the eff down!

you're going to make us think the world is a dark, unfortunate and violent place.