UnrulyMom.Com

Some high school acquaintances have started a Facebook group about their (I guess, our) high school experiences. It’s strange. When I think back to high school, I remember myself as someone who truly did not care what anyone thought of me. I had a few very strong friendships with friends from all around the Chicago area who I met at a teen dance club, even fewer close friends at school, and I had vague impressions of my classmates as people who existed in a totally different reality as mine, but not in a judging way. I wasn’t the sneering kind of punk rock kid. And for one who didn’t do drugs or drink, I spent most of my youth in such an ethereal, gauzy haze of confused yet convicted oblivion that I might as well have been stoned. In my yearbook, people I barely knew would tell me they admired me for “being myself.” I was always confused by that. Who else would I be?

I’m not even sure when I learned to be self-conscious. All I know is as I get older, I find myself feeling more and more pressured to be someone that I am not. I forget the lesson I was born knowing and have been taught to disbelieve. In my life, high school was a breeze. I didn’t feel any sense of pressure to be someone I wasn’t. That didn’t come until later. I put it off for a very long time. I’ve spent almost my entire life cultivating a lifestyle in which I feel completely at ease with myself in every situation I am in. Until very recently. I’m not even sure what knocked me off track. Is it the job? I love what I do for a living, but I’m currently responsible for a lot more than I ever thought I would be responsible for in terms of a career. To be honest, I never thought I would use the term “career” to describe how I make a living. Is it the kids? I never saw myself as a parent while I was growing up. Is it just me feeling anxious because I’m an anxious person? Perhaps. Whatever the reason, I find myself more and more having to consciously remind myself that I don’t have to give a fuck what people think of me. Steering myself back to center. Forcing myself to regain that sense of un-self-consciousness I once, unselfconsciously contained.

Reading posts from people I shared a parallel high school universe with is such a great blessing. It wasn’t necessarily a happier time…but it was a time of incredible clarity of simplicity for me. It’s good to be reminded of that.

I’m feeling really frustrated tonight. I wanted to go to an event being hosted by an organization whose cause I support. So I went. Made it all the way to the door of the hipster bar at which the event was supposed to take place. Saw the crowd of mostly young, mostly white, mostly (apparently) upper middle class, mostly males…and I just couldn’t deal with it. Not only did the venue drive me away, but it really pissed me off.

Stop. I know what you are about to say “But there were SOME wimminandminorities there! I don’t know what your problem is. You are just being too picky.” That might be the case…but you can bet that if I felt uncomfortable enough after going to the venue and actually walking in the doors to turn around and leave…I’m certain there are people who did not even go at all. I’m not trying to knock your cause. I still believe very strongly in your cause, in fact. But I do think you need some guidance here…if you care what I think. Which you might not. I mean, I’m having a difficult time believing that such smart people haven’t thought of this shit already, but…you know…it’s sometimes startling how unaware people are of their own privilege.

So, all that said, I’d like to offer a few suggestions for organizations that would like to be as inclusive as possible.

1. Be mindful of the location of the venue: think about things like parking (for those who might have disabilities), bus lines, and the socioeconomic region in which the venue is located.

2. Be mindful of the cost of the venue: Seriously…do I need to elaborate?

3. Uh, if you want women to participate in your event. Seriously. Don’t hold your event in a venue that is known for its hot chicks in knee socks waitstaff: Yes, I am sure there are women who don’t mind the hot chicks in knee socks. In certain contexts, I’m actually a huge fan. I also happen to know a guy who likes to have his balls twisted…that doesn’t mean all men (or all women) are up for it all of the time or in all contexts. Chances are you are excluding more than you are attracting.

4. Check the music: If you want to hold an inclusive event, mix it up. Don’t play only one artist or one style. This actually reminds me of a group of well-meaning parents at a local school I’m involved with who put on an old-school dance with soul music in hopes of getting more parents to the campus. The only problem is that the majority of parents at the school are Mexican. Not to say that there aren’t Mexicans who enjoy old-school soul, but, you know…mix it up!

5. Put up signage at the venue to illustrate where the event is being held, or at least ask if the staff at the venue will direct people to the proper location: Especially if one or many of the above are unavoidable – being welcomed and directed when you walk in can circumvent awkward frustration for someone who already feels out of place.

Look, I know it’s tempting, if you are a nerd, to want your organization to be associated with hip cool places where hip cool people hang out. I don’t mean to impose a “tyranny of the minority” on you or anything, and I don’t mean to be a chicks-in-knee-socks buzzkill…but if you are associated with a group of people who have a notoriously difficult time including wimminandminorities – if you don’t at least consider the comfort of wimminandminorities and, instead, choose venues that potentially make wimminandminorities uncomfortable – it’s going to look like you are INTENTIONALLY excluding wimminandminorities. In fact, if you don’t intentionally INCLUDE wimminandminorities, you will most likely end up excluding us.

Thanks.

P.S. Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments. 🙂

An old friend found this in a chapbook I sent to him…this is probably 1990ish? I’m guessing. I’m not sure what zine this was published in, but I’m pretty sure I said those words. It seems like a really long time ago. I keep looking at the stack of Lorri Jackson books on my bookshelves and thinking maybe it’s time to finally publish Scat. I was scared to publish it right after she died, because I didn’t like all of the bullshit controversy about her death. I wanted her words to stand on their own, and not be the words of a tragic dead poet. I don’t know, though. She might have liked that.

Regardless, I’m doing a lot of thinking about these little projects I used to do. At this stage in my life, I feel like I am overly focused on my career and not focused enough on anything else in my life that enriches me. I’m sure more compromise could be made to make room for more self-expression (and the aiding and abetting of others’ self-expression.)

Enjoy…

Saw this flick at the new Violet Crown Cinema. I thought the cinematography was lovely – both raw and beautiful. I loved that there were shots of the gorgeous landscapes of rural Mexico as well as the run down villages, and dusty roads. The family was engaging, honest, hilarious, and sad.

This was a different take on circus life from the Circus series on PBS. Rather than focusing on the social class hierarchy of a medium-sized circus, they focused on the familial struggles within a small, family-run circus. In my opinion, the director did a great job of portraying the struggles honestly and without judgment, forcing the viewer to decide what to feel/think about the various topics of child labor, poverty, education, the treatment of animals, and alternative lifestyle choices that were presented. I had a difficult time choosing sides in the struggle over the family. While the children seemed to work very hard, there were evident rewards of that work, as well as risks. I guess the reason these sorts of documentaries are so fascinating to me is they hyperbolize all of the different small choices we make on a daily basis that go with or against the grain of mainstream life. There are consequences either way. Both the circus and the life “en casa” are portrayed as cages by different people and at different times in the movie. In fact cages and chains seem to be a recurring theme throughout the film, with varying degrees of intensity.

This is the kind of film that forces you to laugh, simply because the interactions are universal, even though the context is specific. And, occasionally, that laughter quickly turns on you and forces you to consider what creates the context. Is the family in the circus business out of choice, or necessity? Are they really driven by the desire to create art, or the need to pay the creditors? And…are the children in this circus any more exploited than children in any region who are forced to work hard to help support the family? How does economic disparity play into the choices that are made?

I recommend it, but don’t count on feeling particularly uplifted at the end of it.

I am reading an old issue of a high school classmate’s zine, and I found an editorial I wrote that I didn’t recognize as mine (although I agreed with the content) until I got to the end of it. I am particularly relating to this now, as I battle yet again to explain the LIFESTYLE choice of homeschooling as a completely different educational model than public schooling (e.g. Homeschooling, even homeschooling with curricula and a degree of structure, is not meant to mirror the public, or even private, school system, but rather is meant to allow for flexibility, freedom, context and individualized assessment.) Anyway, I was probably 18 or 19 when I wrote this, and it was good to get a reminder of the roots of my educational philosophy) Here it is:

I see a lot of people in the underground who are angry with, and are constantly questioning where all of the apathy comes from. Well, I’ve pondered this and actually reached a few answers, which, of course, does not SOLVE the problem, but at least it may provide a little insight…

First of all, take a look at an institution that the majority of American children are forced to attend for 9 months out of the year EVERY year until they are 16 years old. Yes, school…think about it. From the moment you finish your carefree colouring [yes, I spelled coloring that way when I was younger. I listened to way too much British anarchopunk. hahaha] days in kindergarten until that final final exam and diploma/degree from whichever you select to be your exodus of education, you are force-fed ‘knowledge’ from self-proclaimed gods and experts. Not only are many truths left out of the public curriculum, but school tends to emphasize that oh, so capitalistic IDEAL called competition. From the moment you hear the words GPA and class rank, your skin tingles with the excitement of the hunt. I mean, even such a fun activity as softball or volleyball is mutated into some vile form of sport where the thrill goes to the victor and defeat is far more than losing a game. Think about the classroom atmosphere; we are taught, and quite gullibly believe that teachers don’t want us to help each other with homework, simply because we won’t learn as much if we rely on someone else, but come on! Wouldn’t it be far better if we were allowed to congregate and teach each other rather than sit like church members praising their deity of mathematics or US History?

I’ve read countless articles in underground publications about how anarchy is so misunderstood AND I WONDER WHY. Not only is anarchy a seemingly forbidden topic in the public school system, but Webster’s second definition of the word is “utter confusion.” Not to mention that MANY high school students that I encountered in my turbulent 3.5 years there seemed to think that the prime definition of communism was “those damn russkies”–and, in fact, I was the target of many a hurled “commmie pig” which, personally, I find much more appealing of a nickname than “greedy capitalist pig.” Face it, anarchy, communism — they simply are unheard of at the high school level. Is it because we are too immature at that level, or perhaps because that is the level on which most of us form our life-lasting opinions and they want to be sure to drive that “democracy is king” [today me would define “democracy” as “capitalist democracy”] bullshit home before we do something unpatriotic like research another, perhaps even a BETTER form of existence or interaction.

I even had a teacher in high school who forbade me to use underground publications as a source of reading material…you know the kind of assignment: you take one of those fluff courses like Advanced Reading, and the teacher tells you to read and crituque a magazine article every week, assigning a specific topic for each week. That week, it was health, so I chose an article from a pub’n that was in some kind of section called censored news articles or something. The article was about AIDs. The teacher took one look at the magazine, called me up to her desk, and told me she wouldn’t accept the critique because this wasn’t a “class” magazine…she said that she would allow me to hand in an alternate article the next day. The next day, I handed in a two-page essay on the underground and the literature produced there. She was miffed, QUITE. [If I remember right, I actually was forced to sit in the hall for the remainder of the class…which was the most severe punishment I ever faced as a goody two-shoes student.] So, the next week, when we had to hand in a sports article, I pored over every single issue of Sports Illustrated in my brother’s room and finally found the perfect burn. That week, I used an article on rhinoceros hunting. It was, of course, acceptable because it was from SI. Nyeesh.

It’s scary, but true, that those dumbfucks in my sociology class who answered “strongly agree” to the statement “‘my country right or wrong’ is always a good motto” are the MAJORITY. These are the people who, if we don’t get off our rears and offer alternative sources of knowledge, literature, whatever, will go on being so blind and elect our future leaders…become our future business owners…RUN OUR FUTURE SCHOOL SYSTEMS…the paradox continues.

“United we will stand and divided we will fall. Unless we work together, no change will come at all…” -Flux of Pink Indians

Still thinking, still questioning, still LIVING life,

Lainie (the oyster)

December 4 – Wonder.

How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?

While I dislike being reliant on a big hulking piece of metal that consumes gasoline and belches pollutants into the environment, the fact is that -whether it’s my fault or not- my lifestyle does not allow for me to be carfree. For the past 10 years, I have been driving around a rapidly degrading minivan. Rapidly degrading meaning, basically, rapidly becoming undriveable if not completely mechanically broken down. In other words, yes, the car started every day, but without air conditioning, speedometer, gas gauge, and functioning side door…driving became an unfun proposition.

Road trips, which were the impetus behind the purchase of the minivan in the first place, had become completely out of the question in the past few years. It was uncomfortable enough getting from point a in north austin to point b in south austin, let alone dragging two children with a high stink-potential out on the road.

I’ve missed road trips. When I close my eyes on the thought of road trips, my life opens up like a road, from childhood to now. Every year a new destination, some years – several. Road trips like the ones my family would take, piling all 7 of us in the big blue van to head to Wisconsin or Arkansas or Colorado. With my mother on the CB and my brother as the co-pilot. Breaker 1-9, this is snow white. Go ahead, breaker. And truck stops in the rain, and smoky diners and country and western music. The good kind. The Waylon and Willie and Hank Williams, SENIOR kind.

And road trips like the madcap adventures to Michigan to visit friends in cars that were not cut out for those kinds of missions. And meandering explorations up and down the Indiana/Illinois border looking for fireworks and that time I pulled the Celica over after toomuchdriving o’clock had struck, and we laid the seats back and put our jackets over our heads and slept and slept and slept until the sound of hard, bare knuckly on cold windowglass jarred us awake, bringing the seat upright at the same time unrolling the window “Is there a problem officer?” Officer says “Did you know you are parked outside of a prison? You need to move!” and he leaves and we look at each other and laugh and laugh and continue driving on to nowhere in particular.

Roadtrips that shaped my own children. Like the time we drove to Chicago for the first time to visit with Mamaw after all the time flying. The first time I actually observed my son unfolding himself to the awesomeness of distance in observing the amount of time it took to transport ourselves from Austin to Chicago by vehicle, rather than magically entering one airport in the warm Austin weather and magically emerging from a different airport in Chilly Chicago. Like an amusement park ride. Instead, on the road, humming steadily from south to north. Lulled by swishing road signs and passing fellow travelers. Marking our journey by observing landmarks and noticing subtle shifts in landscape, as well as climate.

Roadtrips like my epic journey from Austin to Portland Oregon and back. My first real assertion of my confidence in myself as a single parent. The sojourn that gave me a much-needed sense of strength, even invincibility. A sense I would need and feed on for years to come. The small details of that journey are unimportant. No photos exist. One essay was written about the difficulty of finding decent places to urinate and defecate while traveling with small children. It wasn’t the details that made this one so important, but the fact that I did it. With only marginal planning, and a horrific sense of direction, I managed the drive up through colorado, wyoming, into Montana, through Idaho to Portland, and down down down the black-sanded shores of Northern Californa, Redwoods, Los Angeles…across deserts and deserts and deserts and Grand Canyon and Carlsbad and brown and yellow and green and home.

So, yes. Road trips, which have been sadly absent from my life, have always boosted my sense of wonder. And while I have modern hippie guilt for gaining a sense of wonder from a wholly selfish pursuit, I am looking forward to much more wonder-making roadtripping in the near future, as Phat Mama’s Minivan was retired and replaced by Phat Mama’s Nerdmobile. 🙂

December 3 – Moment.

Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

Just about an hour or so ago, actually, I was out on a walk. It’s crisp and grey with bouts of golden and occasional yellow. I wasn’t wearing my headphones, and instead was hearing what my normally overly-stimulated ears never get a chance to hear above the earbuds. A cacophony of birds. Not the usual doves, but cawing birds. Maybe crows, but I never could find where the sounds originated, and crows just aren’t that common around here. There was that and the rattlescrape whisper of the few leaves clinging to the last bit of brittle life, and those who preceded them to the ground along the asphalt. And chimes and chimes and chimes, reminding me to appreciate people and their desire for beauty in spite of it all.

And I heard these things loudly and pervasively until my mind got lost in them and then some more abstract, inner noise distracted me from focusing on those sounds, and soon I realized there was no more call-and-response of man-made vs. natural beauty, but just the whooshing of cars the whooshing of cars the whooshing of cars and my own thoughts, whooshing, drowning out that which I should have been directly experiencing. And I wondered if the sounds truly didn’t exist…or if I just wasn’t hearing them anymore.

Three songs I heard driving home from Kate’s house today:

Yaz – Winter Kills

Someone once put this song on a mix tape for me, and I’m so glad for it, because I never ever ever liked Yaz, and I would have never heard this song had it not been smooshed between other, more familiar songs. Which is really what a mix tape is all about, isn’t it?

The Smiths – Well I Wonder

Makes me think about an old high school friend who recently emailed me because he was listening to the first Smiths record and it reminded him of me sitting behind him in math class. Or him sitting in front of me in math class. Or whatever.

Kate Bush – Hounds of Love

I always hated Kate Bush because she seemed so affectedly waif-like. But something about the Decemberists’ live cover of Wuthering Heights (which is arguably just awful, but still somehow catches the essence of the song and the book) made me listen to her again with different ears.

December 2 – Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it? (Author: Leo Babauta)

I don’t know that there is anything that doesn’t contribute to my writing. I guess I could say television, but even that serves as an inspiration at times. I have started to cut back on television viewing, randomly declaring “no television days” a couple of times a week. But, really, my writing (when it happens) is about life, and life is all around me and cannot be eliminated.

December 1 – One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

 

Stability.

I’m so thankful to have attained a degree of stability for myself and my family in 2010. Partially due to my hard work, partially due to luck, partially due to my community.

The last 10 years of my life have been pretty difficult. I never wanted to be a single parent. I never wanted to have a regular job – a career. I never wanted to have to worry about all of those things that adults worry about: mortgages, saving for college, mouths to feed, etc.

Having children really shifted my priorities, and just as I was adjusting to that shift – getting a divorce shifted them even further. These past 10 years have been difficult because I have been faced with the fact that even though I always felt like The Responsible One before – now I actually am forced to BE The Responsible One. With real people relying on me. Little people who can’t be expected to take responsibility for themselves. This realization coincided with me, for the first time ever in my life, being faced with immense difficulty providing for myself, much less these little people I brought into this world.

Thanks to family and friends and a fuck of a lot of very good fortune (not to mention a whole lot of unearned privileges…but that is an entirely other post altogether), 2010 is the year in which everything started to come together, and rather than losing ground or running to stand still, I have finally begun to really STABILIZE.

Who knew stability was desirable? I have always been an avid fan of chaos, but I’m finding there is a great deal to appreciate about knowing that I can pay my bills and feed my children and have some money and time left over to help a friend or start to pay forward all of the kindness that has been shown to me over my most difficult years. I am as thankful for the privilege of sharing as I am for the privilege of having. In the coming year, I look forward to sharing more.