Sonography of the heart

Drumbeat day 2

2010-11-05T16:22:00.003-06:00

less exhausted and a bit less excited tonight - which is probably good, all things considered.

spent the bulk of the day with the digital storytellers. the goal was, head out into the raval and tell a story digitally. most people did admirable projects like documenting the immigrant experience, but i'm shy of that sort of thing in a context i don't know well - i don't even speak catalan! i don't know how to tell anti-gentrification rhetoric from anti-immigrant rhetoric! i wanted to find some way of getting at the gendered ways we walk through cities, and somehow my iphone's mic wasn't working, and i wanted to upload on the fly - so i made a quick tumblr, forgetting for a moment that tumblr is resolutely linear in time, so the whole thing is backwards.

here's my quick story: you can see how it serves as a stub for other possibilities. you could:

incorporate movement, find a way (video??) to capture the start-stop-loiter pace of this kind of walking
map these consumer forays
play this route (meander? derive?) off against a "proper" city map/recommended walking tour: i think of lines on google maps, against which these forays splay off in unruly ways
use images here like a database (caitlin's idea) and connect across city spaces - which is super interesting if you shop small local designers, as i like to, since you won't repeat chanel online etc.
add voices - audio - to reflect the many forms of consciousness you embody at the same time: i want this, i hate this, i hate myself for wanting it, but it's so beautiful, but shouldn't you be reading The Economist, etc
insert audio on a map: for instance, a happy chord for every store that thrills you and a dischord for every disappointment - the seeming indie that turns out to be a chain, shoes made of plastic, knock-off desigual, a leather shop w/o bags
QR-mark your preferred shops so as to make a secret society of underground shoppers, maybe across continents.

ok, enough on that. i had one hour; i did a tumblr!

good talk and great projects in that group: could not believe what people did in an hour. esp the guy from NY (ok, ok, a documentary producer for some 20 years now - obviously his stuff was going to be good!). lots of emphasis on video, although the he-said/she-said twitter story that @jacksondevious and @iamjessklein did was also interesting. a single hashtag would have made it cohere, but what was interesting was the interruptions from overseas and other friends saying things like, "show us a picture [of the market you're describing]." really opens up the narrative.

tried to hit the wikipedia event in the afternoon but it was clearly too late; that conversation was well along.

which brings me to a few overall comments:

love love love the facilitating. no audience Q&A, no long talks, no reading. here is some stuff on that.
agree with the critiques about how english it was. see jon beasley-murray's, for one. worse, although i was shocked when i first arrived (secret confession: i was worried EVERYTHING would be in spanish/catalan, and that i wouldn't understand a word of it), i'd grown used to it by day two. honestly don't know what you'd do otherwise, though: there were people here from germany, italy, hungary, spain, france - and that's just the linguistic groups i know of. is english the de facto language of the internet?
the academy is not totally broken. yesterday i was all about storming it; today i felt like, hey, look, we do a lot of nuanced critical thinking there and that's good. i was missing it by today. it was good to be around that again. (i swear i will remember that!)
don't understand the passion for badges. if you want accreditation, why reinvent the wheel: plenty of institutions accredit, it's one of the things they do really well. but why a badge? or, let me put it this way (which is a bit different from JBM): how do you know that you won't turn into the big bad evil other? how will your boutique practices not produce exactly the kind of mindless stamping you loathe in others, once these badges are operating at an economy of scale? if you're all P2PU and DIY-U, then be that. no halfsies.
HASTAC folks are brilliant.
hack ethic of working is inspirational. can't we write this way?
agree that it was hard to have the "move among plenty of options" and "bear down to work with folks" ethos (ethoses?) operating at once. also agree open-web and open-ed folks didn't work together enough. though thrilled to see anne balsamo's project taken up by mozilla!
i am not a 20-something coder/hacker/tech - which is why i am home blogging about the whole thing (uh, before i forget) and not at the party, which started, let's see, about half an hour ago.

it's midnight now and i'm to bed.

Mozilla drumbeat

2010-11-04T14:06:00.006-06:00

haven't blogged here in ages, what with the new one - and these notes are not really for public, but just so i will always have them in the cloud. i want to capture the weird and dizzying excitement of the day before it is gone completely.

mozilla drumbeat festival, barcelona, 2-5 nov 2010

not a conference, but a "festival." the morning starts with 8-min keynotes. we are sitting in a bifurcated room - the typical rows, but doubled, and facing each other, screens on left and right. such a startling change from the authority of the single expert.

mitchell baker from mozilla: we want an open web; mozilla is still a nonprofit and that's not easy; help us build the tools you want to have.

cathy davidson whipsmart: everything about our education system was designed in C19 industrial era - keeping time, long days, standard deviation, multiple choice tests (i wonder about structures of attention: what's that amstud guy's book again). in C21 this isn't going to work - we are the last generation to learn like this. be an "edge thinker."

then, selling the day's events. the "structure" of the conference is spatial and temporal. different orgs/presenters/builders have tents and time slots. one person from each of these stands up and gives a spiel in the opening session: "we are tagging videos in multiple languages. if you know a lang, esp a lang that isn't widely spoken here, come work with us." "we are hackbus." [think tie-dyed boogie van, outside MACBA getting a parking ticket as he spoke.] "we hack virtual and real spaces." among other things, human sculptures - slo-mo flash mobs? they drive around europe freeing the web from corporate interests. they all wear black t-shirts and many of them black hats. they look like anarchists, but brainy ones. they spend all morning sitting in the square under a big square black umbrella, these white european boys in their black tshirts, hacking away at ... something. everybody's laptop (no macs, btw) is festooned with stickers that say things like "mp3 is not a crime." hackbus invites people to come hang out with them.

HASTAC is "storming the academy," "storming the syllabus," "storming the gradebook." and at the end of each day, offering yoga.

local action = city tours.

video lab.

html5 and web development for OER (open ed resources).

P2P = peer to peer learning.

and so on. so much stuff i want to do, and everybody witty and short-spoken and clear. the room itself is fantastic (second floor of the contemp art gallery annex, clean white lines inside old stone walls). around me, people are texting, emailing, blogging, tweeting, microblogging. this is the beginning, for me, of feeling slightly disoriented: somebody's talking! you should listen! i am a product of industrial education and canadian politesse....

a "humble invitation to be totally present to this experience." oh, and: we are a half hour behind but the entire schedule has already been adjusted on the wiki. when we arrive we have badges, but no other materials. everything is online.

HASTAC, "storming the cloud." anne balsamo does an exercise that doesn't quite work, where we represent a tag cloud. she recovers amazingly - stunning facilitator, stunning teacher (when someone accuses mo of saying something anne is right there: "i probably said that") - and poses the question: "we know that the next generation is going to learn through tag clouds, that's how they'll learn -- "

[Sidebar: that's how they'll learn?? my students are learning through tag clouds?? we are lost, lost....]

" -- so given this, how can we train students to look for minority representations and not just at the big font in the bright colors?" big discussion. the whiteboard in the tent turns out to be a permanent board for post-its, so anne writes over the blue tags in red ink as people make suggestions about a better way of sorting data. i am thinking: but this is a problem of politics, which unfolds in time, and it is a problem of language, and i don't know how to solve that. but the time thing is interesting. someone - a Duke FutureClass kid - proposes the internet as a democratic space of unfettered mobility, the opposite of offline space. i say, 'but the problem with conceiving of the internet that way is that, if it's a democracy, it's a democracy that unfolds in a never ending present. you're tired of digg, you move to del.i.cious and start all over, as if digg never happened. i want a tag cloud that represents time, so you can see obsolescence begin and change start to happen." someone says, "yeah, colors greying out?" i'm thinking and listening and speaking, and therefore learning (learning b/c speaking, b/c listening, b/c taking a chance: i know sweet fuck all about tag clouds when you get right down to it, but i know we talk a lot at hook and eye about tagging well) and my brain feels stretched and it's not even 11am yet.

i watch the hackbus boys for a bit. still hacking.

lunch. caitlin talks about her AR lab. we talk about how hard 2010 has been. the food is only ok.

after lunch, walkshop. this is a recap of a city walking tour a group of 3 did with adam greenfield a while back. who's from the tech side? who's from the pedagogical side? i'm alone with a bunch of web developers from berlin. what kind of technology do we have for hacking the city? we all have iphones or android systems but there's an awkward silence til one of the berliner boys (there are three of them, each with his own company, sharing space in an old mannequin factory) says, "it's not about the technology, it's about the data plans." exactly. bring on the open web already!

the idea is to visit data rich sites in the city and both capture and upload meaningful urban data. a data rich site could be: a wifi hot spot, a place where city officials gather data (CCTV, e.g.), etc. still not totally clear on this. posterous is the gathering site. everything is done by QR. i download a QR app before we leave the building: thanks, guefi. then we all troop out to experience the city.

along the way i ask peter bihr about the upcoming conference cognitive cities.

the first stop is a QR code on the MACBA wall. our phones read it, translate it, and take us - to the wikipedia entry for MACBA. there's a small silence while we digest this slightly disappointing piece of news. then a guy named Dan from england asks, 'but what if you want different information about this place? what if you're drunk and want to know how to get home? what if you want to know opening hours?' the organizers say, yes, yes, maybe a list of links would be good. i say, "what if you want all of that information and more - what was here before this building, what it looks like inside, what has happened here in the past and what kinds of meaning it has for ppl? and what if you want to know all of that at once? why can't our technologies deliver thick meanings?" the guy standing next to me says, "why not think of a city like a playlist." "embed a memory stick in the space itself." ("that would never survive in barcelona," says one of our organizers." "or in rome," says imke.) somebody else says - i think the guy from sound cloud: what if every building had a tone and you could inhabit the city like a soundtrack. i thought, shit, yes. tone, color, sound: not just visual representations.

just then a man walked past us, looked, and started clapping a complicated rhythm. he stopped walking, kept staring at us and clapped the same rhythm again, then again. we stared back, until one of the berliner boys got it, and clapped a syncopation in return. they did this for 30 seconds and then our interlocutor walked on, apparently satisfied. i thought: that's it, exactly. city.

next stop was at a data rich corner: a TV screen in a bar, sponsored by edreams.com (you can't make this stuff up) projects images of barcelona into the street, in order to tempt passersby into drinking at their olde style taverna. on the opposite corner, a video camera guards a street which is already restricted entry. only official security and corporate minions have the key to unlock the bollard to drive down the street. all of this is the newest incarnation of low-tech control: the "entrada" and "salida" signs demarcate the one-way ins and outs of tiny passageways, and on the opposite corner is an apartment building that used to be guarded by a super with a pay-to-enter scheme - until the tenants used ("hacked") the payphones outside to bypass his draconianism. they would phone whoever they were visiting, hang up before the call was answered, and the visitee would throw down the keys. i wonder about the less formal invigilation of city space, but don't ask.

nick shows us his augmented reality streetmuseum app, which overlays historical images into present urban streetscapes - in real time. stunning.

when the tour is over, we dissipate. i go to a nearby bar with one of the organizers, the manchester guy, who's been living in barcelona since 1993 and can't get away, and his friend patrick the anarchist and their friend who speaks less english than i speak spanish, i order saffron gin, they order beers, and they tell me about how the euro has destroyed spain, how corrupt the spanish government is, and so on. it's fun - for a while, but i want to see what's up with hackbus ("i hate those fucking hippies," says patrick the anarchist) so i pay and leave.

the evening keynotes are similarly short and sweet: pay attention to arduino, which hacks *hardware.* see their lamps for artemide - swoon. question of how to manage/assure quality esp in context of formal ed = big ongoing question. the kid who invented wordpress was so young he couldn't buy a drink in his country. FML.

a big learning today = everybody, tech developers as well as intellectuals, wants what i want, but it's not possible to achieve just yet. this is part of why it's taken me so long to articulate it. the kind of multidimensionality i thought a tool could show me is something that is not only hard to think but also hard to build.

at the end of the day: who had fun? who learned something? who's coming back tomorrow? i wonder when i lost this feeling of excitement at the end of a conference, and promised i'd write this down before it gets lost. my brain needs glucose.

oh: fantastic fucking haircuts at this event. and the t-shirts ("you AUTOCOMPLETE me") are good too.

Academic fashion: an oxymoron?

2010-06-07T13:52:00.002-06:00

i haven't written for a long while, in part because i have been musing over a new style - needing one, wanting one. i love what blogging has taught me about writing, but i feel i understand the witty peroration and i want to try something new. and/or i might write a more focused, issue-specific blog (stay tuned).

but for those of you who might be interested, here's what i recently had to say on the topic of "academic fashion" (it's forthcoming in ESC: English Studies in Canada, later this year - remember, you read it here first!):

What to wear is always a loaded question, even in academic circles that pretend to be above such vulgarities. In fact, pretending to be above such vulgarities might be the quintessence of academic fashion, judging from the results of a quick google search on the phrase. Comments on the web range from the casual:

“As an academic, I see nothing wrong with jeans and tee-shirts. Anything more complex is more trouble than it’s worth.”

to the ardent:

“I wear a t-shirt and shorts (unless it’s too cold for shorts) to teach in. I wear that to conferences too. Call me crazy but I got into academia on the theory that it was my brains that mattered not my looks. I wear a tie for no man.”

to the downright polemical:

“I’m an academic. I spend most of my day sitting at my computer or working in the library. There is nobody looking over my shoulder. No one is going to fire me because there is a hole in the elbow of my pullover. Why shouldn’t I wear what I like? Why the fuck should I have to copy the dress code of ‘people over thirty who work in public relations’? GIVE ME MY FREEDOM! GIVE ME MY MOTHEATEN OLD PULLOVER!”

Well.

Mind over body: Descartes still rules the university, in an unholy alliance with Calvin and Weber. We are a sober people, we academics, suspicious of glitz and flash and self-promotion. We are socially positioned in a way that works against stylishness, too. We may be wealthy by global standards, but we earn the salaries of public employees. Since we work all the time, we have few opportunities for frivolities like shopping. And while we might have broken down the ivory-tower stereotype conceptually, for the most part our campuses still tend to be enclaved in the city: fashion is not something you can easily fall into, the way (I imagine) you could if you worked in a downtown office tower.

Mind over body, work before play, frugality above all: the antithesis of fashion.

But what if you’re embodied? Let me make an old-fashioned move here and assert that the stakes are different for women. Expectations are higher, exhortations are more urgent, and possibilities are more loaded. Men might get away with motheaten sweaters, but women generally don’t. Fashion is highly gendered, and gender normative – so when I refer to “women” in this context, you should hear white, middle-class, slender, gender-conforming women. Academics are not outside that interpellative address, no matter how much we might want to dismiss “couture” as a despicable ancien régime.

Too brainy for mass-culture girlishness but still interpellated as feminine by popular and academic culture, women are caught between the diabolical anxieties of being pretty enough and being smart enough. As a result, we get it coming (“It’s scary that you know a woman’s a social scientist when she’s wearing a certain type of dress or skirt and some awful-looking clay pendants”) and going (“She should spend as much time on her lectures as she does on her outfits”). And lest you think it’s only our students who police our fashion, remember the flak Elaine Showalter took for ‘coming out of the closet’ as a fashionista in the Dec 1997 Vogue? “I was once so desperate for a shopping fix at a Salzburg seminar on gender that I visited a dirndl factory,” she confesses. Condemnation was swift and brutal. Showalter’s irresponsibility – her betrayal of the sisterhood, her callous consumerism – was the talk of the academic gossip circuits, briefly. Warning taken: if you read Vogue and your teaching evaluations, keep it to yourself.

Fortunately, web 2.0 means that if we find ourselves confounded by our closets or confused about consumption, we can turn to the growing world of academic fashion bloggers for help. Threadbared, hautest of the academic couture blogs, discusses “the politics, aesthetics, histories, theories, cultures and subcultures that go by the names ‘fashion’ and ‘beauty.’” Others are more practical. AcademiChic is produced by “Three feminist PhD candidates at a Midwest university, on a crusade against the ill-fitting polyester suit of academic yore,” while The Glamourous Grad Student will tell you how to look good on fifty dollars a year (or, in her words, “share how I balance a grad student stipend with a desire for magic in my life and wardrobe”). My personal favourite is Fashion for Nerds, “Bringing Style to Science, One Outfit at a Time.” Characterized by the familiar generousity of the blogosphere as well as its DIY ethos, these blogs focus on how academic women can put together work-ready outfits by combining off-the-rack purchases from H&M or Banana Republic with vintage finds and the comfortable shoes you already own. They are not preachy – the bloggers use themselves as examples, focusing on what they like about the outfits they wear – but most posts include references to the origin of pieces just like a regular fashion magazine spread might. It suggests their followers find such advice necessary.

Do we know enough to steer between the Scylla of not-pretty-enough and the Charybdis of not-smart-enough? Let me distil our bloggers’ advice, along with observations from two decades in the academy, in a list of Do’s and Don’ts for the Professorial Woman:

Do shop locally. (Exception: Matt & Nat. A Matt & Nat bag could be driven around the world in a Hummer that runs on the blood of the spotted owl and it would still be sacrosanct. Ditto clothing from Mountain Equipment Co-op.) Don’t shop big box stores. (Except Winners is okay, and the aforementioned H&M, and Banana Republic, and Club Monaco, and Anthropologie, and HBC and Sears.)

Do look sharp, energetic, and youthful, but don’t look like your students. How? Search out the section of the mall not devoted to turning women into girls, while avoiding the stuff your elderly piano teacher used to wear. Hint: if you’re surrounded by cougars and MILFs you’re getting warmer.

Do dress in a way that commands respect. However, don’t appear too corporate: remember, you don’t want to look like you work in PR. A jacket is okay, a cardigan preferable. A suit is a no-no, unless you’re gunning for an administrative position, in which case you fail the “smart enough” test. Canadian academics prefer tights to hose, boots to pumps, and skirts or pants to dresses. Blacks, blues and browns are safest, although you don’t want to appear too monochromatic. And don’t wear too much black or you’ll be taken for an artiste.

Do cultivate a bluestocking look to prove you’re intelligent and appropriately gendered, i.e., neither head-turningly feminine nor inattentively androgynous. (If you’re intentionally butch, don’t worry, your students will discipline you on ratemyprofessor.) Don’t advertise your sexuality: no heels higher than two inches, no extreme makeup, no bling, no ink, no piercings, no cosmetic procedures. Do consider the academic bob, which will mark you as safely, permanently, numbingly middle-aged. Do wear funky glasses, the signature look for the brainy woman, but don’t wear funky hats (not white enough).

Got it?

If you’re able to walk that fine line, if you can strut your stuff on the academic runway without losing your balance in the face of blinding surveillance by students, colleagues, administrators and the general public, you might be tempted to make academic fashion the next feminist front. I’m tempted, regularly. But to what end? For the right to sit in fusty libraries wearing motheaten sweaters? Or to walk to meetings in Christian Louboutins? Don’t get me wrong: I want to work in a place with more kaftans and Pumas, nose rings and suits, and smart trousers on transmen. But let’s shuffle this up the priority line only after women start earning a hundred cents on the dollar.

Meanwhile, let’s agree that most days it’s enough to brush your hair.

Department of Penury

2010-04-28T15:52:00.007-06:00

so, we're building a new deck (the last one being so rotten that last year a roofer fell right through, with knock-on effects to our insurance rates), and it is somewhere between $$$$$ and $$$$$$. there's the need for a new structure. then there's the fact that we don't want composite, but real wood. as long as we're doing it, we may as well do it right, and make something that covers over a problem area in the yard. then, of course, we don't like the spindles you can buy off the rack at homo depot, and we prefer 6-inch decking to the narrower, commoner 2x4s, and we both like the modern look of stainless steel and glass. doing the deck also means taking care of that problem area at the north side of the house, and if the bobcat's going to be here digging concrete piles anyway, why not regrade? etc.

the whole thing is going to cost in the neighbourhood of $30K. we do not have $30K sitting around in ye olde bank account. (a quick peek suggests that we have $509.08.) but since shortage of money has never stopped us from spending, we have a plan. my mother rents the basement for her business, blue sky publishing. we plan to reproduce the following on glossy paper and send it to her in the mail:

Dear Blue Sky Publishing President,

We are making some exciting changes at Zengelwood! When you return to work, you will notice that we've replaced your virtual blue sky with The Real Thing!! That's right. For a limited time, see the sky from your underground workspace!

But that's not all! In the near term, we will be refurbishing the BSP entryway. Your corporate headquarters will be covered with premium Brazilian ipe supported by state-of-the-art concrete pilings. Because we spare no expense for you, our valued tenant, you will see stainless steel screws, fine-milled rim boards and custom glass railings.*

In celebration of your new improved workspace, and to thank you for your patience during this construction period, we would like to offer you, our valued tenant, one of the following options of your choice:
1) A one-time limited rent special of $1000/day for the month of May
2) A binding non-retirement agreement for 14 years.

Don't wait! Act now! Our agents are standing by to take your call. Remember: at Zengelwood, your livelihood is our life.

Heather Zwicker
Chief Financial Officer
Department of Penury

*You may in fact see some of these stainless steel screws down by your entryway. You may keep these as a souvenir of this exciting period in our growth.

*****
we're open to other offers, too.

Protest culture

2010-04-23T09:14:00.005-06:00

i've been thinking about the culture of protest. things at the university are bad, and people are understandably scared and upset. the story that caught on mediawise is that various departments might lose their telephones. meanwhile, on the south side of edmonton, a woman walking home with her friends in the early hours of the morning was jumped by a pack of guys calling her "a dyke." police response was... lackadaisical, to say the least.

particularly in regard to the second of these issues, the response on facebook has been swift, supportive, and fierce. within 24 hours, a "community response project" garnered over 400 members even though the group's organizers had no clear plan. the facebook description reads: "A group dedicated to crafting a queer, systemic response to the recent assault against Shannon Barry (and others). We would like to organize, give us ideas! Posters? Protest? Let's think grassroots."

i didn't join, even though i love and respect the group's founders. i didn't join even when i saw friend after friend after friend after friend become a member. and i've been wondering why. it's a holdover from church, i think. call it commitment issues, but i have a hard time becoming a member of something that will demand unforeseeable things of me, and i'm particularly leery of protests.

i've done a fair number of protests in my time. i've demonstrated for abortion rights and i've defended abortion clinics. i marched against the first gulf war and the second gulf war; i protested the mid-90s provincial budget cuts more times than i can remember; and just last january i stood next to my dear friend in churchill square reading the names of the children bombed by israeli security forces. i was briefly imprisoned after the rodney king uprising. as street credit goes, i've got a little.

i have to confess that the notion of responding to the shannon barry beating with an old-fashioned protest left me feeling weary and disaffected. in fact, i found myself siding with the do-gooder white guys who urged people to take this up with the edmonton police service's LGBT liaisons. similarly, i have not written to lambaste my faculty association, or the dean, or the provost, or the president or the premier or the prime minister. instead, i keep trying to point out that when the province of alberta incents funding expensive professorships on soft dollars, institutions are left vulnerable to exactly this kind of financial crisis. we could see this coming for years. in other words, it's a complex problem that can only be solved by understanding the big picture of how universities are funded and administered today -- which in turn would require grasping a medium-sized picture of how units beyond the humanities are affected by this budget crunch -- which might produce the necessary (if not sufficient) conditions for solving this problem.

what i often suspect about protest culture is that people are not in fact interested in "solving the problem." historically, of course, taking over the streets has been hugely effective. see french revolution, see civil rights, see the troubles in northern ireland. even now, occasionally, marches can bring tears to my eyes: think of the battle in seattle, 1999, or the worldwide -- worldwide! -- protests against the US invasion of iraq in 2003. or if you like, just think of how ian mcewan uses that as a touchstone in his novel saturday.

but me, i'm all about solving the problem. this is terrific when the issue at hand is keeping a dissertating student on task, or getting a deck built, or giving advice on some interpersonal conflict, or building a better graduate program, or fixing a logical lapse in something i'm trying to write. i don't mind fighting because in some profound way it's not personal: i believe that we can think our way through both process and desiderata, so that investment in any given position is inconsequential next to arriving at a better (if not ideal) solution.

but "solving the problem" is not always what's called for. life doesn't work like the OCD challenge of keeping a clean inbox. as i've been reminded at several points in personal relationships (ahem), sometimes people just want to bitch about a bad day at work without transitioning into a brand new career, or register disappointment with their families without launching the entire unit into intensive psychotherapy. when professionals lose their telephones, they worry that their jobs will be next. unrealistic fear? probably. unreal? obviously not. on a political level, sometimes people just want to stand up and say, clearly, unequivocally, and quickly (i.e., without making this their life's work): this is unacceptable. society is wrong. you cannot do these things in my name.

sometimes the most interesting stuff takes place when you're that simple and honest. over on the shannon barry community response project, a critique of the way hate crimes legislation bolsters surveillance and incarceration is shaping up. folks are not taking to the street, they are taking to their heads and their hearts, and the results are really moving.

i'd like to become member 423 -- if they'll still have me.

May 2

2010-04-04T13:49:00.004-06:00

found on a telephone pole, good friday 2010:

because
i need to express myself to stay sane i'm shy this is where i live i don't see my history written on the body of this city sometimes i am so sad sometimes i am so lonely seeing something i've made, outside, in my neighborhood helps and so this is where i am making my home i have responsibility for this place this city needs more color this city needs more vibrancy this city needs more creativity this city needs more spontaneity, this city needs less bureaucracy i sometimes can't sleep at night my heart hurts i can't just leave the past behind i can never finish things but i create all the time and can't throw them out i have lots of doodles around my house i taught myself to draw and think i mostly suck but some people like it i have things to say that i don't want my name attached to i love seeing other people's creations i am inspired by other people's creations i am inspired by art galleries art galleries too often only show Art art galleries make me sad this city is too gray this city needs histories written on its walls this city is a place this place has histories these histories are neither simple nor just i don't know them well enough i want people to tell me theirs i want to learn this place is not easy i don't want to be sad i don't want this city to be so cold it will be fun to...are all artists people say "we are all artists" but don't often enough ask what that means there is a lot of amazing stuff being created by you and me all of the time i want to experience it there doesn't have to be a "middle man" i have staples i have tape i have thumb tacks i have flour and water i have ideas i have dreams i have a future i find inspiration in so many things i would probably find inspiration in you lots of people would probably find inspiration in you if you wanted to let everyone else know what this place, this life is like for you. if you wanted to share.

may2may2may2may2maysmay2may2maysmay2may2may2may2may2may2may2may2may2

Miraculous things

2010-04-02T09:36:00.005-06:00

i woke up at 645 this morning, my right arm lying peacefully next to me.

there are at least three miracles embedded in that sentence: first, no sling; second, no pain; and third, to wake up presumes that i slept -- which is the greatest miracle of all. nights over the last five weeks have been their own special hell. for the first couple nights, i slept in the spare room (if you could call it sleeping, those long hours of narcotic drift). on the third night, paranoid and borderline delusional with the combination of percocet, pain, and sleep deprivation, i came crying back into our bed. which was better, to the extent that it's a more comfortable mattress to lie on for hours at a time.

there is no way to sleep comfortably while you're wearing a sling, and you are required to wear it all night every night. next time you can't sleep, fold one arm across your midriff and imagine keeping it there for eight hours. the first thing you realize is that you can only lie in your back, although after a couple of weeks you figure out how to lie on your unoperated side, as long as you bolster the damaged arm. (the logistics of this are just as complicated as you might imagine.) as for sleeping on your tummy, or the other side, as for snuggling, or sex, or even reading comfortably in bed -- forget it, sister. even that 45° turn, from good side to back, is a major night endeavour.

i'm sure it doesn't help that i'm normally a good sleeper -- a great sleeper, in fact. it's a major blessing of this lifetime, worth the knock knees and the TMJ. i go to bed when i'm tired, i fall into a deep sleep within minutes, and i wake up wholly and completely seven or so hours later. i am that irritating person who says to the chronically insomniac, "have you tried chamomile tea?" they must feel about me the way i feel about people who suggest taking an aspirin for a five-star migraine. my standards for sleep are high, and i have come nowhere close to meeting them these last five weeks.

but enough about that: it doesn't bear reliving. i slept! without a sling! and woke up pain-free!! on this weekend of all weekends, the credulous days when people believe all manner of things -- that jesus is the son of god, that lamb's blood can protect you from the state's functionaries, that a four-day weekend is long enough to do all of the spring yard cleanup, that failing to land a SSHRC means something about you as an academic -- i am prepared to call this my own spring miracle, and i will add to the list of miraculous things pretty bras, pullover shirts, pulling up socks two-handed, a good haircut, retrieving my own glass of water and shaving my pits.

Slow days

2010-03-31T19:57:00.006-06:00

it isn't all bad, of course. take yesterday morning: sun flooding the kitchen and mo gone to work, leaving me to my quinoa and david gray -- an actual CD played through speakers, not an earbud track: an unformed day brought to you by my new theme song, "life in slow-motion."

while I was watching, you did a slow dissolve...
life in slow motion, somehow it don't seem real

i do seem to be moving so slowly i might dissolve. it's hard to get used to. no one has ever accused me of being a dawdler. one of my graduate students refers to me as "a woman of instant execution." i am fatally attracted to a clean inbox; i honor fordist efficiency; and i always believe there is room to accomplish one more thing before the minute/hour/day/week is up. to take 15 minutes to unload the dishwasher, because every dish is a separate, left-handed trip, is deranging. the 90 minute shower is a new and alien experience. how it can take a person over 20 minutes to dress in the morning i can't fathom, but it does, every day.

for these reasons, i don't find my days long. even when I do nothing, they are full. but it's more than that. i am on good terms with solitude. watching sunshine move across hardwood floors, reading books, thinking, blogging, walking to the neighborhood flower shop -- all of these things make me deeply happy, particularly when they unfold at a junkie's easy pace, on a smooth percocet plane.

one of the unexpected pleasures of convalescing has been music. i walk a lot -- can't drive -- and when I do, i listen to a broad range of music. normally, my tunes are running-trail functional: the scissor sisters, lady gaga, new pornographers, and a Much Music dance album from the 90s keep me working out. when I walk, I listen to fanfarlo, vintage joni mitchell, the new gorillaz album, iTunes impulse buys like chile fuerza, new yorker darling esperanza spalding, eric clapton unplugged. stars, always. the shins, of montréal, conor oberst (all his projects), the mixed tape andrea made me with the BeeGees and fine young cannibals.

i see things when i walk, too.

i have seen odd little houses in my neighborhood:

and houses with cheerful trim:

and artworks' yellow and black display.

i have seen late afternoon sun turn industrial space soft and beautiful:

and i have seen the spring come in this year. it takes place so imperceptibly you can't believe anything is happening, yet winter has dissolved, and the world is different.

Feel better

2010-03-29T15:09:00.008-06:00

when i was a little girl, i thought your feelings were located in your armpit. i remember overhearing someone say, in mock distress, "you're hurting my feelings!," and thinking ah, so that's what sensation there is called. feelings.

one of the most mystifying aspects of recovery has been the emotional valence of healing. some things make sense: frustration, fear, anxiety all fall within the predictable emotional range. more difficult to understand has been melancholy. i've felt melancholic a lot over the last week, and I have tried to figure out why: i know that I tend to turn fatigue into sadness, for instance, and it stands to reason that once the shoulder is feeling a little better i would have room to process all the subsidiary effects of the surgery: the trauma to the body, the dependence, the assault on my self-esteem, the self-brutalizing blame for getting myself into this position in the first place, and so on. you don't have to be deeply freudian to figure that's all got to come out sometime.

still, i do expect some connection between what happens in the moment and how i respond. so to feel sad today, after a good weekend, and on my way out of physio, which came after a spell in the hot pool and a ride on a stationary bike with a good book, was surprising. i mean, what i just described -- a little exercise, a good book, some flirtation, my time my own -- is pretty much the ideal life. i couldn't understand why i felt so blue, like everything was dissolving. i wondered if it was dismay over how quickly time is passing while i measure my day in shoulder flexion. i wondered if it was about missing the river valley, wanting to see how all my running trails smell in the spring. i wondered if it was about my job, if i was starting to fret about going back. i wondered if i was doing the right thing with my life, whether i am on the right path. or maybe it's the gray day, or something hormonal, or plain old garden-variety physical pain sublated into an emotional register. i thought about all of these things as i cried my way up the 105th st hill.

my acupuncturist took one look at my tongue and said, "gotcha." she could see weakness in the heart meridian. the heart is the emperor of the body in chinese medicine, and the emperor was not on his throne. as a result, all of the other portfolios were scrambling around, not knowing how to do their business -- like canada under mackenzie king, perhaps. surgery can mix up the meridians themselves: a coup de corps. my acupuncturist said that typically when this happens, people question everything: their jobs, their partners, where they live, how they act, what they want -- everything. you feel lackluster about your work, you wonder about your destiny. i'm not saying it's necessarily like this for you, she said (i continued to say nothing), but you don't have to worry. the cause for how you are feeling is not coming from outside, but from inside. what we need to do, she said, is call the emperor back to his throne.

i was in.

the points were completely different from anything we've done before. she needled heart one, heart three, and heart seven. heart seven, down by the wrist, connects the heart and the head. it allows you to know what you want, and to do it. heart three, inside of the upper arm, is the destiny point. she said, "pay attention to the images that you see while this needle is in." (i have more thinking to do about these images: the green, the water, the books.)

heart one, first point on the heart meridian, is like sticking a needle into the center of your heart, down through the myocardium to the endocardium, between the atria and ventricles, to wake it up. this point will recall the emperor and make you feel like yourself again -- which it did. within a half-hour the melancholy had receded and i was back to myself: curious, competent, outward-looking and vital.

the point is located in your armpit.

How to know the body

2010-03-28T12:07:00.019-06:00

i keep thinking about the photos my surgeon showed me. they were circular images printed eight-up on a glossy 8.5 x 11 page, two across and four down. showing me these pictures was his answer to my question "what exactly did you do to my shoulder?" i thought he wasn't paying attention to my query, but within a few seconds of shuffling he produced this sheet of photos, stapled to a series of other, narrative documents about the surgery. to him, these pictures were the answer.

the images would have been taken by an autoclavable arthroscopic camera inserted through a small hole in my shoulder at the beginning of the operation, when the team was deciding how to proceed. they have the beautiful precision of a high-resolution digital camera, if the slight blurriness of an extreme close-up. the bones were luminous and white (so, this arthroscopic camera must have a light source?) and there was, oddly, no blood -- in fact, no red at all. flesh, it seems, is putty colored. to me the most startling thing in these photos was amount of space in the shoulder: i had thought it must be densely packed, like an electrical socket with its confusing capped wires, but it appears instead to be hollow, like a mouth. the joint was photographed against a murky and distant-looking background of puce tissue.

the beauty of these photographs to me was almost entirely abstract, like a mona hatoum installation. i could not even begin to orient the images i was seeing with the body i inhabit. the surgeon pointed to one photo after the other and i pretended to understand, but i didn't -- at least, not in the way he did.

my experience of my shoulder has nothing to do with reason or causality. some days it feels good; other days it hurts a lot. some days i make great progress on my exercises; other days I can barely move. i cannot directly connect one day's activities to the next day's sensations. there is only an uncertain connection between painkillers and pain. while i can see a definite improvement over the last four weeks, it is virtually impossible to parse that improvement into shorter periods. healing is an uneven, illogical, and intuitive affair, and i often find myself yearning for the certainties of science.

the certainties of science, expressed with a certain geekiness and large, gentle hands are part of what i fall for in my physiotherapist. (i have written before about my crush on "oliver.") you could call it transference, this belief that if i endow him with preturnatural healing powers, and if i put myself under his spell -- the spell represented by physiotherapy's advanced knowledge of bodily kinetics, together with its mystical language ("med load," "tenodesis," "suture") -- i will be healed, wholly and completely. my role in this transferential relationship is to believe, to adore, and to adhere: to be the best patient possible.

(quick aside: this terminology, borrowed from psychotherapy, is imperfect. i don't recall ever feeling exactly this way about my parents, which is typically taken to be the ur relationship reenacted in psychotherapeutic situations. i have never heard anyone else talk about the relationship between physiotherapists and clients. nonetheless, transference remains the most compelling explanatory framework i have.)

on wednesday, it was hard to play my part. the shoulder hurt a lot. i lay on my narrow PT bed and tried to do my exercises, without much success. oliver stood at the head of my cubicle for a moment. "quiet today, huh?" he watched me struggle with the sixth repetition, and he probably saw me start to cry. then he did the most astonishing thing: he came and sat in the chair next to my bed. he described the surgery for me in the fullest terms i had heard yet. he told me how my body was healing. he said "you have every reason to be in pain."

in the days following our wednesday appointment, i became more and more amazed by his kindness and intuition. on friday i asked him how he came to respect the body so. i told him i understood the seduction of science, the lure of diagnostics, prognoses, crisp pictures, big words -- but that his treatment on wednesday suggested something different, a patience and a gentleness they don't teach in university. so how did he come to possess it?

he smiled and said, "through the science."

A formal feeling?

2010-03-26T12:13:00.008-06:00

after a bad day, a sense of relief.

relief is undertheorized. it's good -- the pain has receded, you can think clearly again, moving is possible, life is possible -- but it's not simple. relief is not really the present; it's the fulcrum between a difficult past and a promising future. you could take the experience you've just had and use it to re-create yourself from the ground up. to feel relief is to bargain: i will drive more carefully, i won't drink red wine, i will stretch my muscles religiously. under the terms of relief, you could be anything. if everyday life rehearses st. augustine's plea 'lord, make me good, but not just yet,' relief puts us in the dizzying place where we are ready to be good, now: being better starts this instant, and lasts forever more.

but in addition to a sense of freedom, there is something else, something darker. relief is confusing, disorenting. i'm not surprised that people cry with relief; i'm one of them; i cry with relief. i weep because i can, because i am free enough from pain to focus on something other than the pain itself. i weep at how good it is to live without this pain, for now. pain is difficult; pain is unpleasant; pain is deranging and dismaying. it delimits your world. pain is infantilizing, offering the inchoate frustration of an infant, if also an infant's irresponsibility. pain is trying. and so to feel relief is to be through the trial, to have passed whatever kind of test the excruciation had in mind, to have made it to the next phase, but the complexity of relief has something to do with not knowing what that means, not knowing what the terms of the trial were, not knowing whether you "passed," and, if you did, what that means.

there is also, in relief, a sense of loss. i feel, "thank god that's over. i made it through." but i also feel, "something's missing, it's gone." think of the way you felt at the end of junior high, or when your child exits a difficult phase, or the moment you realize you are well and truly over someone. it's not that i want the pain back, not exactly, not even for the comforting way it grounds me in the moment. perhaps it's that every minor experience of relief puts us in touch with the ultimate sense of relief we know we're heading towards: freedom from these bodies, release from the tedium of human existence, the end of our own and others' suffering. in spite of the 'what's next' excitement, it's impossible to avoid suspecting that this, after all, was living, and there is no going back.

One month later

2010-03-25T15:04:00.006-06:00

now that I finally have my dragon taking dictation properly, i can fill in some of the gaps from the last long month.

the day of the surgery we watched a lot of curling. although the operation was scheduled for 130, I had to get to the grey nuns hospital by 1030 so they could clip on a hospital bracelet, get me changed into a gown, and... well, i'm not really sure what the rest of the time was for. mo was with me, of course, and we sat in the preop room with about five other patients and their partners watching olympic curling. those of us heading into surgery shared dehydration headaches. time passed quite slowly in that room, although as I think back on it it doesn't quite seem like three hours of curling (I did learn a lot about the game, however).

in a way, the surgical experience starts when they call your name. you give up the bathrobe and your eyeglassses, you get into the gurney, and they wheel you to the ER on the lower level. as the elevator descended, i said to the porter, "wow, it's all very symbolic." but he didn't understand what i meant. in the waiting bay, the surgeon stopped by to see me. i told him i had changed my mind about the surgery, that i was too scared to go through with it, that the shoulder hasn't hurt that much lately, and that i'd trade a little pain later for a drink of water now. he put a hand on the bedrail and said, nicely, "right. we want to do this surgery for your 70s."

they did five or six things. first, they sent in an arthroscopic camera and took pictures of the shoulder joint. at my first follow-up appointment, i got to see these pictures, which were stirringly beautiful. i had no idea what I was looking at, exactly, but the luminous white of bone against the milky backdrop of tissue made me understand, immediately, why someone would want to be a surgeon. they trimmed the labrum. at the follow-up appointment, the surgeon pointed to the photo of a fringe made of flesh, then to the after, all clean lines and absences, and said, "see? all tidied up." as I had known they would, they repaired the supra spinatus, which is to say they reattached that torn tendon to its bone. (i always think of chicken.) in addition, they shaved the bones and cartilage in my shoulder; they drained the bursa; and they repaired, repositioned, and stapled down the biceps tendon. i've been led to understand that this is rather a lot of work.

my first sensation back on the ward was in my elbow. i thought, distinctly, i cannot keep my elbow bent like this for 6 to 12 weeks. the second sensation was heat in the shoulder -- the inflammation. mo was there, which was enormously calming, and my parents too. there was a lot of morphine. morphine feels good, but not at first. the best hit is intramuscular, and it burns for the full 90 or so seconds it takes to empty the syringe. i was awake for most of the night, or at least I remember seeing nearly every hour on the clock, though it was difficult to connect those hands on the wall to anything meaningful. it's a strange way to spend time. you're aware of every hour passing, yet the experience has absolutely no narrative form.

everybody tells you to stay ahead of the pain, and this is excellent advice. for the first two or three days at home, I was taking 12 to 14 Percocet a day: an amount that astonishes me now, but which felt barely sufficient at the time.

when you dream about having time away from work, there is a lot of it: days stretch out voluptuously. in fact, i find the days quite short. partly this is because everyday life takes so much time. getting dressed takes the better part of 40 minutes; getting undressed and into bed a good half-hour; and then i have physio exercises that take about 25 minutes per set, and I do three sets a day. add in a walk, an iPhone game or two, and there's your day. i like being alone.

i have good days and bad days. on good days i feel jubilant, excited, triumphant: i am getting the better of this injury. on bad days i feel completely dismayed, convinced that it will never heal. the lesson is that i have good days and i have bad days, and i'm sure there's a wealth of wisdom in that.

there is a lot of frustration. simple things -- like pulling up yoga pants, or putting on a headset, or fixing a bowl of soup -- take astonishing amounts of time, and call on a patience that does not come naturally to me. bathing is extremely awkward and extremely painful. particularly before i got my stitches out, it felt almost impossible. i had to sit in 2 inches of water, and i washed my hair by bending over my knees. i cannot wash my left shoulder very well, i cannot dry my back, and things like hair product and eyeliner are out of the question. if -- heaven forfend -- something like this should happen to you, and you are my friend, here's what I will do for you: i will give you one hour a week in which you can ask me to do anything. i will clean your shower. i will drive you to the river valley and wait for you to walk. i will run errands. i will chop onions so that you can make soup. i will cull your e-mail if that's what you would like.

there is a lot of pain. before the operation we asked how the pain of shoulder surgery might compare to the pain of knee surgery. the guy we were talking to, the hospital's physiotherapist, fumbled for a few seconds and then gave up. "there is no comparison," he said. "it's super painful." i find the pain fatiguing, particularly at the end of the day, and four weeks later it is still hard to sleep.

there is a lot of abjection. i was not prepared for how abject this experience would be. for one thing, it is very dirty. i am clumsy with my left hand, and so routinely spill food -- on me, on the counter, on the floor -- none of which are easy to clean. for another thing, it is hard to feel pretty when you rotate two pairs of yoga pants and can't pluck your eyebrows. the emotional abjection is of course the most difficult. last saturday I had a work party. my responsibility was to bring a course of Spanish cheese; everything else was done by others. buying the cheese was the subject of a specific excursion on friday; indeed, it was last friday's organizing principle, since I can only really do one thing per day. saturday morning I pulled together a serving tray, serving utensils, and laboriously printed little cards to identify the cheeses. (they looked like they were written by a four-year-old.) i planned my shower with enough time for a rest afterwards. mo did the laundry, but together we worked out how to organize the loads so that my best yoga pants would be clean for the event. the party was lovely, but it involved a lot of standing and honestly it was hard to talk to people i work with when i'm not in fact working with them. after one hour I thought I might faint. when i realized i had forgotten the damn cheese, i just lost it: burst into tears and fled out the back door, humiliated.

naturally, i feel guilty. it's a difficult time at the university, with budget woes and layoffs in the offing. i am acutely aware that the work i am not doing is being picked up by others, who are already busy. at the same time, the university is full of workaholics, and the place is redolent with stories about Prof. X., who took no more than a week off, and Prof. Y., who was back at work the day after his operation. i am not immune to the sense of obligation these stories entail, even though my best self scorns them.

whatever difficulties i may have, being insufficiently loved is not among them. friends have been wonderful: solicitous, generous, thoughtful, and attentive. i marvel at my great good fortune.

now my computer battery is running low, and it's time for a nap. believe it or not, composing this post has taken the best part of the day.

The pleasure of being mo

2010-02-21T17:56:00.002-07:00

a sunny sunday afternoon, olympics all day, a black cat on the back of the recliner, laundry thumping away in the basement, and a montreal smoked meat sandwich on white bread for dinner - in front of the canada-US game on TV. i do love that girl.

(but i'm going out.)

How to fix things using money

2010-02-17T12:31:00.005-07:00

i like to think being a "committed materialist" means more than just an approach to interpreting literature. and so here is a list of things i've bought for my convalescence:

yoga pants. the pre-admission nurse said, "wear something loose and comfortable to the hospital that day." i said, "like a full skirt?" when she faltered i saw what i must do. wouldn't you know it, there's a new boutique in the 'hood offering fair-priced made-in-canada yoga togs that are not by lululemon, a company i have scorned ever since reading their tag: "these pants are perfect for hatha yoga - or just for walking to and from your yoga class!" puh-leeze.
a deep freeze. mo has wanted one for ages, but i have resisted, something about the 1972 christmas pudding my mother recently found in hers. (okay, by "recently" i mean the mid-80s, but still.) i didn't want a deep freeze, i didn't think we needed it, and yet i have already filled it. which is especially remarkable given that they won't actually deliver it until tomorrow afternoon.
a one-handed pepper mill. look, we all have our thing. some people require strong fresh coffee, some people need nice things to look at, some can't survive without sunshine, and some of us view freshly ground pepper as one of life's necessities. actually, i think everything i just listed here is essential. (note to self: lay in more coffee.)
a new mouse. truthfully this is one of those things you just slide in once you have a good justification going. i hate my mouse, but feel compelled to use it because it was a hand-me-down. now, though, i'm going to have a brand new spanky bright one that will never forget who it is or what it was designed to do. not that i'll be able to use it.
a kindle. yeah, yeah, the sony got better reviews and yeah, yeah, the iPad is coming soon - but not soon enough (mac) or cheap enough (sony). the kindle is ... well, it's surprisingly small, and super light, and people say they love it. i haven't spent hours and hours with it, but so far it doesn't read footnotes properly and i'm afraid there won't be enough material, and/or that i won't be able to afford to keep it stocked. i'll get back to you on this one.
from ever-thoughtful mo, an electric toothbrush! this gets an exclamation mark because it makes your mouth vibrate! it makes your hand vibrate! you can hear it from inside your head!
a new coat. my boucle spring-weight car coat from modcloth has a nice swing to it and should be able to accommodate a sling.

next up: cute PJs and one of those retro ice bags.

thank god i live in canada and don't have to pay for the surgery itself.

How we eat now

2010-02-15T16:49:00.006-07:00

for me, growing up in edmonton in the '70s and '80s, food was a source of aspiration - aspiration to adulthood, to wealth, to sophistication. my image of being a self-realized grown-up was precise. the city was toronto, the season was winter, and the partner was mark. i saw myself coming home from an exciting day as an academic (i had no idea what graduate school actually involved, how infrequently you'd actually leave the house, but never mind) to a 1920s apartment building with thick white paint peeling off the door, which opens to billows of steam: mark is making pasta. the sound of cello and the aroma of tomatoes, garlic and basil envelop me in a reassuring cloud of insulating cosmopolitanism.

while waiting for high school to end and this magical adult moment to arrive, i would visit the food floor at woodward's on breaks from selling men's shoes on main. the woodward's food floor is the first place i saw a delicatessen-style counter. they are commonplace now, whether genuine or merchandising tricks flogging saputo as local, repackaging maple leaf to look artisanal, but in 1983 the woodward's food floor was where white people learned to browse exotic cheeses. i embarrassed myself mightily by asking for "gorGONzola," but i forgot all about that when i cooked it with real mushrooms (real mushrooms!) in a four-cheese sauce. i served it over fresh pasta, another revelation (it was the '80s); the recipe came from the silver palate cookbook before julee rosso and sheila lukins, those indefatigable manhattan purveyors of whimsy and excess ('fly to another city for lunch!,' 'use a round of stilton for a striking centrepiece!,' 'for your next tailgate party, hire a hot air balloon!') parted ways. my mother's 40th birthday was that year, i believe, and we took her to avanti, a white-tile nouveau italian restaurant with crisp cobalt trim.

i thought i would eat like that forever. truth be told, i did pretty well in graduate school, something about living within walking distance of an organic grocery and downstairs from a landlord who liked to try out his recipes - croque en bouche, saffron-scented pilaf, four-course tuscan feasts - on a willing party. but cooking with a full-time job seemed beyond me. by the end of the 90s, mo and i had descended into a four-dish rotation with seasonal variations: lentil soup, stir-fried vegetables with tofu, shepherd's pie, beef stew in the winter; caesar salad, hamburgers, green salad with apples and cheese, steaks in the summer.

one day, i reached my limit. i simply couldn't face another lentil soup, so i set out to expand our range of foods. i learned my way through categories like root vegetables, pork chops, grains. turns out i do like butternut squash, don't like acorn squash, and now i know how to make a beet palatable, something i thought improbable. (best use of a beet: raw, in a salad with granny smith apples, mild feta and fresh mint under a lemony white balsamic vinaigrette.)

we've done well enough that a typical weekday meal here now involves 2 or 3 different vegetables alongside an interesting protein dish. turkey scallopini in mustard cream served over brown rice and sauteed spinach is a staple chez nous. we eat red peppers almost daily. last wednesday we had moroccan chicken (gourmet magazine cookbook), pomegranate-glazed carrots (fine cooking #101), asparagus spears in orange-tamari marinade sprinkled with candied ginger (something i made up) along with a simple nutted couscous. we also like to roast things, as in tuesday's dinner: portobello "chick'n" lumps (from the frozen food section), matchsticked parsnips and carrots with thyme butter, sweet potatoes with rosemary and garlic, tricolor peppers finished with feta and balsamic. it's a simple meal - it all goes in the oven - but thrills the eyes and mouth. it's more than i thought you could ask of a tuesday.

this is how you can live when you don't have children - and perhaps when you do, though i can't fathom how you'd manage it. i have become so habituated to this style of cooking and eating that i have forgotten how to do things differently. as a result, i feel quite panicky about not being able to cook post-surgery. i'm trying to store up some things ahead of time - chicken with pumpkin seeds, carrot ginger soup (good for nausea, i'm thinking), spinach bechamel lasagna, black bean soup, lentils - but with cookbooks tacitly subtitled either "make it tonight with what's just off the vine" or "how to devote 18 hours to a ganache," i'm finding it hard to think of things you'd make in advance and cook from ... the freezer.

i suppose i'll think of it as just another constraint - like cooking without leeks-onions-scallions-shallots, or figuring out how to use all the broccoli and bananas we get from our grocery delivery service each week. i enjoy the challenge of cooking-with-constraints and have long thought that a better version of iron chef would be teflon mama: "you have 45 minutes to feed four hungry people. the fridge/freezer contains two kinds of mustard, half a jar of pickles, a few sun-dried tomatoes, a cup of milk, two tablespoons of raspberry jam, three wizened carrots and a chicken breast. go!"

suggestions would be welcome.

In which the oracle gives a tiger to a horse

2010-02-14T22:43:00.007-07:00

chinese new year's:

i like the tiger in the centre, of course - a strong start to a strong year - but as always the tiger also indicates conflict with authority. (who, me?) moving to the east, the quadrant at the bottom of the photo, and representing the self: the peacock, the mature lady looking into a mirror warns that success brings pride, which may lead to vanity. "overbearing self-confidence" is another way the oracle puts it. the insect in the third position is a surprise (i'm more of a jade girl, the endless hard work, the perfectionism) but i take it the insect refers, perhaps, to the scurry of post-op care? it's being watched over by the orchid guardian, pleasure to work, inversely represented in the south (right quadrant) where the woodcutter guardian (hard work) looks over the carp, card of sagacity, pleasure, longevity. interesting. what exactly is the oracle suggesting about the relationship between work and play, between refinement and rest, activity and consequence?

the inner me (position 2, back in the east) is the unicorn. the unicorn! i don't think i've ever pulled the unicorn before. the unicorn represents honesty and foreknowledge, possibly even clairvoyance. look for her again up in the west, where this "urgent need to see into the future" is obstructing me - along with the north (pain, privation, poverty, distress: who wouldn't be opposed?). the way through? (position 8): the knot, the most enigmatic of all the signs. something needs to be tied or untied; what that is, only the spread can tell. see tiger.

then there's the north, the mysterious long-term future (represented by the left quadrant). first the white card, the page waiting to be written, the document to be realized, the contract to be signed. second, the phoenix, a bird that exists only in the reign of a benign emperor and that promises joy and splendour. third, the enigmatic mushroom, signifying something "so wholly unexpected that the querent will be forced to recall the oracle's foreknowledge of a remarkable event."

should be an interesting year.

Full thickness partial tear

2010-02-10T23:04:00.008-07:00

that's what they call what's wrong with my rotator cuff, and they're fixing it on 25 feb. they open up the shoulder, send in a little camera, and make a to-do list for while they're in there. might as well shave that bone. could check the bursa. and is that tendon what's causing the impingement?

the operation is done with me sitting up - "but they strap you in," said the pre-admission nurse, helpfully. it takes about three hours and requires one overnight in the hospital. then i spend six to twelve weeks with my right arm in an immobilizing sling.

let me repeat that: six to twelve weeks.

immobilized.

the awesome news is, that means no shoveling, no dishwasher-unloading and no email. i'll be off work for a long time. i'll read on the kindle. the medium-awesome news is, no chef's knives. the anti-awesome news is, no driving and, if internet stories can be believed, no sleeping. also no texting, no bras, no tidying, no shoelaces, no river valley, no shaving, and no making mo's lunches, for a long time. it's actually pretty staggering, when you think about it.

and i have been thinking about it - mo's insisted i do, even though she doesn't know that's what she was saying. she said, "practice with your left!" i'm glad i have because it demonstrates that i have no idea what i'm capable of. not in that character-building way; in that complete-absence-of-judgment way. brushing my teeth is messy but doable; however, i almost took out my own eyeball with the hairbrush. i can make coffee, allah be praised - but feeding the cats? i anticipated that it would be hard to open a pull-tab can with one hand, and it was, but the real poser was how to dish out the food one-handed. you stick a spoon in a can and then more or less chase the can all around the counter. on the other hand, so to speak, i can flip an omelet left-handed. who knew?

more than anything, after an hour of practicing i was mentally tired. it was incredibly hard to actually think about every little thing you do. how do you pull up a knee sock one-handed? (slowly.) how do you get coffee and the newspaper back up to bed with you? (two trips.) how do you grind pepper? (you don't.) it gives you huge respect for what babies must feel like at the end of the day - at the end of every day: hours and hours of trying to figure out the simplest little things, in a body that won't behave the way your mind says it should, turns out to be exhausting.

but what i anticipate to be really really tiring is being tolerant. as i'm fond of saying, i can only be who i am, and who i am is ... particular. fastidious. fussy. (some people use unkinder words.) post-op, i am going to be ridiculously dependent on mo, who is going to be working ridiculously hard managing - well, everything. here is a likely scenario: she will come home after a full day at work and start fixing us dinner, based on whatever she's picked up on her way home. in the course of unloading the dishwasher so that she can reload it so that she has room to make dinner, and with the cats yelling at her for their supper, it could be that she puts the bowls, or the cups, or the glasses, or (god help us) the plastic containers away in the "wrong" order. i will see it. i might have to actually watch it happen. and i will have to live with it.

i mean, consider the alternatives for just a second.

right? surgery will make me a more tolerant person, or it will give me a stroke.

my only hope is the painkillers, which i hope are strong and plentiful. 'cause i have a feeling i might have to share.

AGA: that went well

2010-01-31T23:07:00.011-07:00

i'll admit that when my sister sent out an APB earlier this week begging for volunteers to staff the AGA's opening days, i put myself forward for the love of my sister rather than the love of standing around all day checking coats.

i was wrong. the reason to do it is just to be there.

i've rhapsodized about the space before - more than once - but let me say it again: the building is stunning. i love looking at it from the outside. i love looking at it from the inside. i love being in it. i love the way it feels and i love the way it makes me feel. i love the way it moves people, literally and figuratively. the looks on people's faces! edmontonians own it already, some of them because they built it. one guy said, as he made his way up the stairs, "i had something to do with this railing": wonder in his hands. another woman couldn't wait to tell me that her girlfriend was one of the metalworkers.

if you have to be stuck in the eternal present of standing and waiting (milton), then you'd want your here to be the AGA and the now to be its grand unveiling.

another thing to like about the gallery - and this riffs on jo-ann's comment to friday's post: the AGA takes its audience seriously. the first stop on the tour was the janet cardiff and george bures miller installation the murder of crows, a challenging piece in every sense. stereotypical middlebrow audiences probably do not expect to walk into an installation of 97 stereo speakers and one gramophone conveying a 30-minute soundscape lamenting the horrors of war and the terrifying seductiveness/seductive terror of dreams. but they were gamers, curious and open-minded, taking it all in. (the best part about working that gallery was seeing how the sound of a single human voice, even a sleepy slurry one, refocuses a room. the dream brought everybody back from the perimeter.)

and speaking of that - being part of something bigger than yourself - it's always cool to be part of the inner circle, and volunteers get treated well. for the day you're working, you're the heart and soul of the gallery, the without whom, fed and watered and thanked profusely, given access to the secret volunteers' entrance. even though the work itself is a lot like retail, the day is actually nothing like it, since you don't have to do this job, you're doing this job because you're a good person. ok, so it's not the grand dame of edmonton volunteer gigs - it's not folkfest - but it takes the edge off not being rich enough for friday night's gala and not being artsy enough for saturday's.

people dressed up! women wore skirts and suits and dresses, tall boots, heels. many men wore jackets, some ties, one, a tux. a precocious seven-year-old walked through the galleries with her notebook and pen at the ready. a suave long-haired high-school boy pronounced the AGA "sweet." churchy-looking people approved. in spite of the hurry-up-and-wait, nobody wanted to miss a thing, or at least that's what they told me when i offered to fast-track them past the line-up for the storm room directly into karsh.

i know where they're coming from: if you're really going to be here, you shouldn't miss a thing.

The entomologist is not my enemy

2010-01-29T21:43:00.011-07:00

i was at a meeting the other day about why it's so hard to tell media-friendly stories about research in arts. the president's speechwriter was there - she called the meeting - and it started with the declaration that she (and the president) want to brag about arts, but they don't have the material.

at first blush, it seemed easy to supply story ideas - what about the big CURA grant on the uses of theatre for sex education? why not talk about community-service learning? surely we haven't driven the $4 million triple-matched kule donation into the ground yet?

the more we talked, though, the more apparent the problem became: there is a profound misfit between the narrative parameters of communications and the work we value most. if "communications" is defined as an audience-driven medium based on an emotional connection (parents, for instance, want to hear stories about how their children will succeed; prospective international students want to be assured they should choose the UofA; donors and government officials want to hear how their investment is changing the world), and if "the work we value most" is defined as contemplative scholarship, there is a thought-provoking gap between them. why is that? in this post i begin to speculate.

the anti-superstar thesis: our breakthroughs are modest and historically specific. we uncover new information about a culture's child-rearing practices, or we write a new play, or we find a (slightly) new way to think about agency. none of these are in and of themselves world-changing, the way an insulin protocol for diabetes promises to revolutionize healthcare. related: our discoveries rarely look forward. related: we expect modesty from each other, look down on self-promotion.
the "we eat our young" thesis: in the sciences, if a biomechanical engineer is asked about the work of a theoretical physicist, he is likely to say, "well, it's not my area, but she 's a good scientist." asked about someone who works in an entirely different field from our own - say, an expert in nineteenth-century ukrainian gothic literature - i am likely to raise my eyebrows and refrain from answering at all. partly this is about the crisis of methodologies and disciplinary breakdowns, but partly it's a result of the way we code our work politically and therefore morally, and use those codes to police each other.
the reason vs emotion thesis: much of the work we value is highly abstract and very specific. well, lots of scientific work is specific, so let's put specificity aside and concentrate on the abstraction. this is different from the basic vs applied research question, too (though that is obviously at play in all of this: see below). what i'm after here is more the distinction between reason and feeling. put bluntly, it's hard to imagine an emotional connection to a new conception of sovereignty, or a theatrical technique, or demography.
the feedback loop: communications likes stories that reassure. look again at the examples i gave above, and you'll see what i mean: my kid's gonna be alright, i'm making the right decision, our investment was good. arts research frequently uncovers less comfortable truths. racism is alive and well in canada, women writers are still getting short shrift, arts grads don't always gets jobs right away - and we have a critique of the job market to boot. these stories might engender a strong emotional reaction, but not the one we're after.
the basic vs applied thesis: i've left this one for last because it is so obvious. our work rarely has direct application to policy. and yet my puzzlement is that the same is true for many sciences - hence the title of this blog post. the big distinction in the academy is not between arts and sciences, but between curiousity-driven research and applied research. there are fewer distinctions between an entomologist and a political scientist than there are between an entomologist and an engineer. who is the enemy of the humanities? not the physicist or the mathematician. so, do they have this problem? and if so, how do they address it?

maybe the problem lies in the generic conventions of communications, which might underestimate its audience (more thoughtful than we imagine?), or curtail ideas by focusing on singularities (why not a dialogue? is this why podcasts work?). i'm not done thinking this through yet, so your inklings, brilliant notions and crackpot theories are welcome.

SAD

2010-01-25T20:42:00.009-07:00

halfway through the afternoon, apropos of nothing at all, i felt my spirits lift. while i was sitting at my desk dutifully answering emails, something ... lightened. i paused mid-mail, startled. you couldn't call this feeling happiness, exactly, but it was the spiritual equivalent of switching a carry-on bag from one hand to the other.

of course, it wasn't apropos of nothing at all. at the exact moment i felt my spirits lighten, there was a thinning of the clouds such that you could believe that the sky, behind the dismal grey, really was blue. this isn't something i was aware of seeing. i was staring at my computer; i felt this strange sensation of lightening; and when i looked out the window i saw that, literally, the sky was lighter.

it only lasted for a moment, but it made me understand, for real, that i am suffering from seasonal affective disorder.

in one way, it's my own fault, the wages of never really believing in SAD. c'mon, i think, it's winter: of course you feel down. 'tis the season ... for hibernating. winter is why god invented hot tea, bourbon, cashmere. the idea is to get out into it - run, ski, skate, walk! - then come indoors for hot chocolate next to the fireplace. don't wish winter away; take it for what it is. love january for its long yellow light and blue sky against white, for the hissing sound of snow on leafless trees and ice fog on the river. that crispness you feel, that sting in your fingers, is how you know your urbanized body is still, somehow, natural. winter is for reading long novels. winter is for cooking with cinnamon. winter is for rallying.

this year i'm all out of rally.

what makes me think this is fullblown SAD? first, there's the bitchiness. at least, i think that's what you call picking approximately 473 fights since december 21st. then there's the sleep disorder. i head to bed early, unable to stay awake, only to lie in bed for hours, unable to fall asleep. exhibit three: migraines, at the rate of 2-3/week. i think a synomym for that is 'serotonin deficiency.' another symptom: i can't concentrate on anything, every day is an endless agony, yet i am obsessed by how many minutes of daylight we are (not) getting. i bought three iPhone apps for this, every one of which, worryingly, calculates sunrise and sunset differently. as for listlessness: yeah, i guess so. budget crisis: whatever. promotion: who cares. prorogued parliament: i'll post the protest on facebook but there never was a chance i'd go. my boss could come to work wearing socks and crocs and i wouldn't give a damn.

still, you can find most of that filed under winter blues. however, even i cannot make myself believe that normal people cry all winter long. it used to be daily, but lately i find myself crying more or less every waking hour, for no reason. i cry while i brush my teeth in the morning; i cry on the way to work; i turn around twice in my office and have to scrounge for the kleenex. i look out the window and cry; i don't look out the window and cry. could i paint a more pathetic picture?

i am doing everything the books say to do. i am exercising as much as i can, which is to say as much as i can force myself to do it. i am keeping regular hours. i am eating whole grains and spinach, taking vitamin D. i see people: resisting the sofa's lures, i go to dinner parties, watch plays, attend evening meetings. today i spent an hour at the muttart conservatory (mo's idea, for the record, not scott mckeen's!), just so i could see green things. it all helps, though never for very long. i was ok in the muttart, but i burst into tears again in the parking lot.

diagnosing yourself with a named disorder makes you feel at once more and less crazy. although i cry all the time, i don't actually feel sad; the emotion i feel is not what you would call unhappiness. what i feel is ... well, it's not really a feeling exactly, more like the absence of a feeling, unless you count bewilderment as an emotion. i feel lost in an endless grey, befuddled by the lack of (emotional) bearings. in this sense, i cry like a baby. disoriented, i grope around for precedent. do i always feel like this in winter? are all winters this bad? if this one is worse, why? how can it be, after two weeks in mexico? can i blame genetics? chemicals? environment? am i at some sort of age-related watershed - must i fashion a new, more equatorial, life?

or maybe i just need some fucking sun. in the name of all things holy, is that really too much to ask?

Cheaper'n a trip to vegas

2010-01-23T17:20:00.009-07:00

red glass tealights from the $1 bench

blue polish whisky glass, $5 at zocalo (polish whisky not included)

cherry tic tacs, $1.05 at the corner store. bonus if your g/f loves 'em.

hand-tied bouquet, $30 at zocalo

turquoise glass vase, $15; daffodils, $4; pool of water where the vase leaks, n/c

pungent basil, $6.99 at planet organic

metal water bottles, $6.74 each at london drugs

yellow and orange mugs, $6 each (zocalo); red and yellow flowers $3 a stem (zocalo); fruits from planet organic; dish from savannah, 2008; mexican talavere plates $2605, including airfare and two weeks' accommodation in cozumel

preserved lemons!

I am so starved for color that i....

2010-01-23T10:20:00.006-07:00

can't bring myself to discard the purple and white orchids, even though they are dead
bought an ochre dress, a multicolored boucle coat, cayenne tights, and yellow brocade shoes - online
plan to cook an acorn squash even though i basically hate the taste of acorn squash
changed my gmail theme to "turf"
wear a pink undershirt ... everyday
put on matchy matchy orange gloves, an orange scarf, and an orange bag - with my red and black dress
ordered the enchiladas tres colores, because they were called 'tres colores'
found my period exciting.

(don't worry, i won't keep the yellow background forever.)

January despair

2010-01-21T14:32:00.004-07:00

WILL THIS GODFORSAKEN MONTH NEVER END??? i am starved for sunshine, desperate for color, chilled to the bone, and it's not even that friggin' cold. my retinas can't take it anymore, this grey on white on grey, this wintry dim. my optic nerves have atrophied.

in addition:
january entices EVERY GROUCH IN THE WORLD out from the woodwork, and they all have my email address. apparently it is my job to assuage hurt egos, smooth over disagreements, and make nice with people i don't even like that much.

and:
i can't stop eating.
i can't stop sleeping.
i can't find a thing to write.

i have Routine Fatigue. each day is a monumental struggle as i think: no, i simply cannot [brush my teeth/check my email/make a meal/say hello] one more time. every morning i drag myself to the bathroom and wonder, "do i really have to wash my face again?" i mope down to the kitchen and bemoan the human addiction to food, to coffee. i am a january robot. sammy-juice-yogurt-fruit for mo: check! sammy-water-veggies-fruit for heather: check! diet food for madge. kitten food for fidget. shoes and boots and coats and keys and gloves. set the house alarm. open the garage door close the garage door. drive the same roads to the same job for the same meetings. monday tuesday wednesday thursday migraine. saturday errands. jo. sunday short. repeat.

i have been doing this for my whole life and it is STILL JANUARY. how is this possible? i'm getting older; time should be flying; i should be dragging my feet to slow these painted ponies down. have i fallen through a crack in the space-time continuum? has the earth itself got stuck? is this - the here, the now, the endless endless winter - all we've got and all we'll ever have?

january, you are not for the faint of heart. and you are not for me.

Best vacation?

2010-01-10T11:49:00.011-07:00

one of yesterday's questions - what's the best vacation you've ever had? - is still rolling around my otherwise empty head.

my first inclination was to say buenos aires, because i so love that city. but that answer ignores how dirty it was, and the fact that i was robbed, and how lost we were with porteno spanish, and how ready i was to go home when we did. the objective evidence suggests BA was not in fact our best vacation, if by that you mean a smooth period of carefree bliss where everything goes well and every moment brings new pleasures.

then again, if it's moments you're talking about, i'd have to name nevada 2006. in the last week of our trip, we both started to feel maudlin, and arriving at great basin national park only made it worse. "it looks like jasper," we agreed. we sat glumly in a campsite for a few minutes, then got back in the car and headed south for six more hours, ending here:

another great vacation: new york city, the year i got tenure. we stole five days around the november 11th holiday and visited deidre in manhattan and catherine in brooklyn. the city was so loud we couldn't sleep, and as i recall the weather sucked, but it was the trip we learned to vacation together. i was advocating for van gogh at MOMA and dance at the joyce, while mo's idea of heaven was a corn dog at coney island. (i wasn't aware until then that coney island was in new york.) going to NY with mo made my world bigger.

or maybe we learned to travel together the summer before, in waterton. each of us planned a day, free from debate by the other. on my day, i hiked carthew-alderson, an 18-km one-way trail, and on mo's day we tore around red rock canyon on rented scooters.

the northern alberta tour of atrocities (summer '99?) - to hythe, where wiebo ludwig had just been arrested for the first time, and to fairview, home of the cooper-snider murder case - was filled with calamity: the car failed to start at the end of a deserted dirt road well into the front ranges, and the french press coffee maker exploded, burning me quite badly, and we almost hit a deer. yet i think of it fondly. ditto the southern BC tour of atrocities the following summer. we saw TB sanitoria, WWII internment camps, and logging clear-cuts, but on april 28th we caught the first ferry of the season across lake revelstoke, under a bright full moon.

this spring's trip to utah would qualify as a bad vacation, given that we received troubling news about a dear friend early into it. i found it hard to completely relax while worrying what was up at home. yet that's also the trip we saw bryce and zion, cycled the colorado and hiked horseshoe canyon. so - a good vacation, no?

london, feb 2007, was terrific: imagine taking kids to the tate.

riding that little cesna to molokai (may 2003) was like taking a holiday to the 1950s. watching the planet produce itself at volcanoes national park was mind-blowing even in the sulfurous deep night heat.

we had fun in boston 2004 - remember taking the train back to NY with crazy phyllis? and what about the first season we had the tent trailer? lightning storms at big knife; the river boat tour of chicago; scottish glens and irish roundabouts; shell casings in the black rock desert; making it out of death valley alive. oh, our first ski trip together, when mo was so broke she wore brown corduroys, a fuscia headband, the purple skis we bought at play it again sports, and the yellow-red-turquoise OP jacket she had in high school! laughing ourselves silly at the KFC in red deer while we counted out our last thirteen cents. hope BC....

the word vacation comes from the latin vacatio, meaning freedom or respite, and it's been in use in english since at least 1386. vacation is frequently paired with leisure, also signifying freedom or opportunity. and this confluence points to why i think vacations are important: by definition, they make things possible. vacations release you from the habitual, take you away from your everyday preoccupations, and thereby put you in the way of the unexpected. you can have unexpected moments in the everyday - yesterday felt like a vacation - but these moments stand out when they're decontextualized.

by this definition, every vacation is a good one.

Urban saturday

2010-01-09T20:40:00.009-07:00

ever since listening to randall stout talk about the AGA, i've been jonesing to get inside the building. this morning, shannon set it up.

the AGA is as photogenic indoors as it is from outside, even on a dull day. i hadn't expected to see art, but two of the opening shows are mounted. the goya drawings were hard to focus on, given my excitement, but the karsh photographs blew me away. karsh canadians was the first art book i ever remember seeing in our house; karsh was the first photographer i knew by name. and here he was, along with everyone who mattered to the twentieth century. "who's that girl?," asked morgan (5). "that's queen elizabeth," i answered, "but it was taken when she was still a princess, nearly 60 years ago." "what about this girl?" "audrey hepburn. and look, morgan, that's pierre elliott trudeau, canada's most famous prime minister. here, let me show you this one." i knelt down and put my arm around her. "this is one of the most important people who's ever lived. he was in prison for 27 years, but when he got out, he ended racism in south africa." morgan's eyes widened in seriousness, and then she and her friend were off for another look at HRII's tiara.

as for me, i turned around the gallery slowly, gobsmacked. there was glenn gould, concentrating so hard you could hear him humming. fidel castro. helen keller. rene levesque. mies van der rohe. pablo casals, forever playing to that expectant stone yard. these images are so iconic you actually forget they're also somebody's photographs - that is alfred hitchcock, not a portrait of him. behind me someone said, "oh, man, i remember that one. that's levesque!" after a seeming lifetime of annie leibovitz's pictures of l'il kim and courtney love, it was really moving to stand face to face with nehru.

the building is complex enough that everybody could have their own favorite vantage point. "they should call this the eva peron balcony," said ted. mo wandered off to be alone with the northwest corner of the fourth floor. i like the juxtaposition of sharp angles with the whispery borealis. the scupture garden faces east, so unusual and interesting. i ran into people i've met through work, people i've met through shannon, people i've met through exposure. we got taken up to the fourth floor (not part of the official tour); we got to walk through the restaurant. the elevators are so new the stainless walls are still wrapped in plastic.

when we'd had our fill - who knows what time it was? - we repaired to the duchess bake shop for cappuccino and scones. (not mo, because a perfect saturday for mo always includes the laundry.) the sun was out, and it was nudging toward zero. ted and i got caught up at one table for two, while nat and susanne sat at another; when a table for four opened up, we reconvened there to talk about how to plan a good vacation. after ted left, the three of us headed across the street to thread hill, my favorite boutique. because today was a magical day, everything was 25-70% off. once nat and sus headed back to their puppy, i made my own way home, stopping at don antonio's for hot salsa and corn chips ("buenas tardes a usted," etc) and at hellas greek food for feta and olives, the sun still echoing gently off the 124th street walkups.

The jo report

2010-01-05T22:33:00.004-07:00

did i mention we were in mexico for a couple of weeks? and did i mention that for the two months before that, aunty jo was in hospital - at the grey nuns, a day trip from here?

i did?

well, i know i didn't tell you this bit.

the day we left for mexico, everything was going tickety-boo. ok, it was 54 degrees below zero, and my car broke down, and i had a migraine, but other than that, everything was going tickety-boo. i aimed to be home mid-afternoon, with one last task to accomplish, finalize my packing, run the dishwasher, and head to the airport.

when i walked in the door at 3:05, the phone was ringing. it was the head nurse at venta care, a northeast edmonton nursing home. "we have a bed for your aunt," she said, "do you want it?" i stammered and hemmed and hawed (furiously texting mo at the same time) until she said, curtly, "i can't save a bed for two weeks." and that was that.

but of course the second that's that, you worry you've made a big mistake. with mo AWOL (or in a two-hour meeting, whatever), i called the social worker at the hospital. "take the bed," she said, "there's a 5400-person waiting list."

i text this to mo.

when i called the head nurse back i got her voicemail. the facility's switchboard confirmed she was gone for the day. "that can't be!," i wailed. "i talked to her just five minutes ago!" but it was so. "well, can anybody else help me?" claire was kind enough to offer to stay late, if i could get there by 4PM. "i'm on my way."

i text this to mo.

remember, i have no car and it's 54 degrees below zero. meaning that i when i call for a cab, i'm on hold with dispatch for a looooooooooooooooooooong time. 3:19 turns into 3:26 turns into 3:31 and i'm starting to panic. i hold with the landline on ear 1 and use the cellphone at ear 2. call mo: still no answer. call my parents' place: busy. call my mom's cell. turns out she's actually with jo - at the grey nuns hospital, a day trip from here. yellow cab tells ear 1 that my call is being answered in the order it was received. at 3:34 i get through to my dad on ear 2: can he drive from southeast edmonton to northwest edmonton, pick me up and get me to northeast edmonton by 4PM? he can, he says, and he will!

three minutes later he calls back to say, oops, i forgot, your mother has the car and she's at grey nuns.

by this time my texts to mo contain language i'm actually hoping she doesn't receive.

long story long, i get to venta care, claire and i whirl through in about five minutes, and i say: we'll take it.

text mo.

the actual move happened while we were in mexico, and there were some ins and outs i'm still not clear about - the match was broken, the match was mended, there was a short stay somewhere interim - but she's definitely got a bed at venta care, so the last few days we've been catching up to the big move.

she hates it, of course. "a ROOM? you expect me to live in a ROOM? i had a whole apartment! you have a house!" well, we say, really the whole complex is your living space - think of it that way! "i like to cook for myself," she says, "i like to buy my own groceries." oh, jo: you mean that pound of hamburger with the best-before date in may? or are you referring to microwaving the frozen meals-on-wheels you leave on the counter for a day and a half? we ask, how's the food here? "oh, the food's okay," says jo. then, recalling herself, "i have such a sore mouth, though." ("hmm," said the nurse thoughtfully, "doesn't slow her down much at mealtime.") don't worry about your sore mouth, we crow, there's a dentist on staff! we'll put in the paperwork for a consult! she looks at us levelly, then changes the subject.

"where's all my things?" "in storage, jo. everything's in storage." "what about my furniture? my double bed, 2 bedside tables and a dresser?" "your bedroom furniture is in storage." "in the living room i had a sofa and a chair, and two long tables - my TV sat on one of them - and my dining room table was round: where is all of that?" "that's all in storage too." "what about the things in the kitchen, my dishes and so on?" "storage." "eh?" she hasn't heard us. "STORAGE! IT'S ALL IN STORAGE!"

repeat.

what we didn't put in storage was her walker, so that we could bring it to her at the first opportunity. we were relieved to see that ventacare had given her a loaner so she could get by. we apologized profusely for her inconvenience, said we'd thank the ventacare people for the loaner and return it. she barely flits an eye in our direction. "no," she says, "this is my walker." i think she's misunderstood, so i try again. "they loaned you one when you moved in, but this one, here, this is your actual walker. remember, the one without the cushion?" "that's not my walker," she says. mo tries: "jo, hon, it is! i brought it from your apartment myself! look, it has your name on it." "well," she says, "that's strange. i don't know why my name would be on that walker when this is the one that belongs to me." we're slackjawed. "look," she says, "how mine has a little basket, and a cushion on the seat...." and bright black paint, we can see now, and shiny reflective decals, and unpebbled wheels.

she's got to be kidding. she spent years resisting the walker. and now she's a freakin' conoisseur?

ultimately, i think it bodes well for ventacare. i think the way to keep jo happy is to ensure she always has something new to despise. next week i'll sign her up for a perm at the in-house hair salon. nothing will make her love her tablemates more.

It's a dry cold

2010-01-01T08:28:00.006-07:00

i woke up in the middle of the night, puzzled as to why i couldn't sleep - god knows, the 16-hour trip home was tiring enough.

turns out it wasn't the middle of the night, it was 7:44 AM and still pitch-black. the wind was howling around the northeast corner of the house.

i wondered, not for the first time, whether we should have come home at all. it was minus 28 when we landed. our plane was the lucky one; the next two couldn't disembark right away because their doors were frozen shut. the head cold that was a mild annoyance in the tropics (the tropics!) is turning into something of an ordeal, what with all my mucus membranes having dried to wafers. i have already scratched off a full-body tan. how can your heels, knees and elbows turn to leather in under 9 hours?

i'm not whining. i'm from here, albertan enough to know that only people from ontario whine. YEG is full of true albertans. you know them by their hoodies and, when it gets super cold, the oilers jersey on top. these guys prepare for the cold by hunching their shoulders and shoving their hands deeper into their pockets. i see their can-do moms, too, stoic in sorels and ski jackets, their skin wrecked. i admire the spirit of these true albertans, if not their judgment. for they do not convince me that human beings are meant to live in a climate this inhospitable, a climate where you might, oh, die if your bus runs late.

we know all of this but, living here, we forget it sometimes. things get normalized - shoveling, chapped lips, cars you have to plug in, static electricity, socks in bed, danger pay for jobs like newspaper delivery - and we get on with it. i know i will adapt to that again, that sometime later this afternoon i'll shrug my shoulders and keep 'em up there until i'm back indoors again. but right now, before i have acclimatized, i want to offer the heretical opinion that we were not meant to live in such inhospitable circumstances.

or, to be more specific, i was not meant to live in such a place. mom, dad: start 'splaining!

Prospero ano nuevo

2009-12-31T09:00:00.001-07:00

those of you who know me know that i hate new year's eve. it's a set-up. no matter what you do, it's a given that someone else - someone you know - is at a better party, with better outfits, drinking fancier drinks, eating tastier food, with sweller swells and funner gossip.

on the other hand, there's nothing i love more than a list. and if the list can be somehow rule-bound and ceremonial, yet compellingly game-like, so much the better.

so, here, to mark the year's shift, are the questions we asked about 2009 (and my answers in parentheses):

what's the best thing you did for yourself this year? (return to acupuncture)
what's the best thing you did for someone else this year? (taking care of jo)
what's the best thing someone else did for you this year? (jo-ann, july)
what's the best gift you gave this year? (problematic answer, but: turning exposure over to jen)
what's the best gift you received this year? (iPhone)
what's the most stunning thing you saw? (bryce canyon)
the most amazing thing you heard? (one of our students' edm soundscapes)
most memorable sensory experience? (biking thunder mountain)
biggest surprise, pleasant? (oct 24th)
regret? (pass: too scary)
best new person in your life? (deidre's baby, elena)
best money spent? (hiring a housecleaner)
best thing you read? (anthropology of turquoise)
best new thing, complete or incomplete? (uh oh, no answer - unless empanadas count?)

well, it doesn't entirely deodorize 2009, but this list does remind me that the year wasn't all bad. there's always something new, something beautiful, right?

tell me your answers, or suggest more questions. for instance, i'd appreciate a question that allows me to say how grateful i am to have any readers, after being such a negligent blogger this year. but enough about me. what moves you, makes you feel alive? what makes your heart glad? what turns your senses on?

what made your year?

This part, right here

2009-12-30T07:10:00.004-07:00

i'm mostly ready to go home, yet i feel reluctant to leave. the pull of home includes our bed and the cats. ("the bed" is not metaphorical. i love that actual mattress, those specific sheets, the pillows, the bedside lighting.) i want to ramble around in my own kitchen. i need to be sure that everything in the house is shipshape - a quick peek would do, a tour through all the rooms to be sure our tchatchkas are still arranged the way i like them, the wireless is working, birds are still frequenting the backyard, nothing's happened in the spare room. i miss the intellectual stimulation of everyday life: reading the newspaper, talking to friends/colleagues, teaching. i want to live the heather-and-mo life again. i want to be dry.

on the other hand, there are many things i'll miss about being here. for one, the breakfast pastry run. i typically head out around 7:30 to walk the four blocks to zermatt's. some sellers are opening up, but most shops are still shuttered and sleepy. police officers lean on the town square's walls, chatting. locals hail each other on the street while their dogs check out the action. at this hour, you hear mexican radio as trucks unload wares at the back door and municipal streetsweepers prepare for the day.

another thing i'll miss is the magnificent frigate bird. you look up in the sky and there is the most incredible creature, elegant of wing and long of tail. when the frigate bird sees something intriguing, she forks her tail to hover in one spot until she's satisfied. on the windward beach the other day, i hoped and hoped and hoped - and feared - she was looking at me.

also, i'll miss her opposite, the stout workaday pelican. with their big waterbird wings they cruise just over the waves. when they see a fish they fancy, they divebomb with the force of a kid's cannonball, swallow, then sit on the waves quite proud of themselves.

i will miss bare feet that are never cold (as they are in edmonton, even in the summer). i will miss being able to walk out of the house at any hour of the day or night wearing...whatever you happen to be wearing. i will miss the sight of the ocean just two blocks down the road. i will miss the walkable city. i've thought a lot about scale, these last few days, what it means for a road to be a single lane, how great it is to live within five blocks of the mercado municipal, with its mounds of papayas, peppers of every kind, and beans. you don't have to shop like you live in the suburbs; you can just buy what you need that day. i realize this is a trite observation, but it really matters.

so: as the lovely jen has said: i hate this part, right here. i'm mentally prepared to move on, but it's not quite here yet. especially given certain recent (international) events, there will be a whole lot of agony between leaving and arriving. so for today, let the beach - sun, sand, fish, quiet - be enough.

How to eat in cozumel (for nat)

2009-12-28T19:40:00.007-07:00

go to del sur and order a couple of bacon, cheese and plum empanadas. the owner, rene, will cook them for you while you wait, and marvel. how many ways are there to crimp an empanada? at least 13. throw in a dulce de leche empanada for dessert.
don't lose heart when the rainstorm means you can't barbecue the steaks. redirect the pecans and pomegranate for the salad toward an ersatz persian chicken dish. no butter/oil in the kitchenette? good thing the coffee cream is so thick you have to serve it with a spoon.
cross the street from your hotel and give sabores a try. the owner serves lunch in her own living room from lunes to viernes. first, she brings you a big jug of jimaica juice. then, hot chips with a couple of hot salsas. soup is next - say, carrot cream. by the time your chicken tacos in mole sauce come, you wonder how you'll do them justice, but the mole's thick chocolate smoke makes it easy. no, really, you really can't have dessert.
buy gelato/helado in the middle of the afternoon. after all, you didn't have dessert with lunch.
go to kinta. order one of everything. mahi mahi in guajillo sauce? yes please. red snapper and cream cheese rolled in panko and deep fried? crunchy on the outside, dreamy on the inside. potatoes smashed with truffle oil and garlic, served under mayan pulled pork? scallops and prawns skewered with fresh local chilis and served with a cranberry-pineapple salsa? three-milk bread pudding with banana ice cream and mexican chocolate? well, you get the idea.
look for the biggest plate you've got. nope, that won't do. bigger than a dinner plate. a serving plate: yeah, that's the ticket. pile it high with shrimp, fish and conch steeped in lime juice and onion. fan a perfect avocado on top, serve it beachside, and call it an appetizer on the menu.
ask for guacamole with everything.
go back to del sur and try the chorizo and cheese combo. add a quince empanada for dessert. if you must, say they're for your housebound parents.
get up early enough that zermatt's bakery is not sold out of the buns con queso crema, or the damp whole wheat biscuits, or the cuernitos. have an espresso on the patio.
take a pineapple to the beach.

Playa del carmen

2009-12-28T16:53:00.015-07:00

the idea for our current trip to cozumel started back in april when i was visiting dear NY friends with a new baby. elena is a sweetheart of a girl. as is always the case with little babies, though, you might set out to do something first thing in the morning, but after the feeding and the napping and the bathing and the changing and the feeding and the napping and the changing, you generally leave the house at the crack of 4PM.

i'm not complaining. it was a wonderful trip for many, many reasons, the least of which is that elena's dad being from puerto rico and elena's mom being a former NACLA editor made me think, briefly, that we should spend christmas in playa del carmen.

boy did we dodge a bullet there, or so i feel after having spent the day across the water in playa. it's definitely the maya riviera, complete with too-good-for-you attitude. i felt like a slovenly dullard, the way i always do in such places - think laguna beach, pacific heights, chelsea (UK or US). if i can be permitted a cheap imitation of tolstoy, it would be that rich people are the same the world over, or so i learned years ago in dalkey. after the disorienting north-of-the-liffey train stations, where bruised, middle-aged women stared down beer-swigging irish louts, we landed in a completely different, yet completely recognizable milieu of bottled water, white walls, blue skies and sangfroid. for playa del carmen, add women with beautiful, sandy feet in platform flip flops and buff boys in everything quiksilver.

finding myself in the magical land where everything is organic, charming and chic unearths wealth-dripping fantasies and a delicious meanness. i look around and think: chanel sunglasses with the logo on the arm? did you really think we wouldn't know otherwise? i wonder why that woman doesn't hire a trainer - and, for that matter, a new esthetician. honey, just because lady gaga wears white spandex doesn't mean you can. as for that guy over there, does he think being rich gets him off the crocs hook? and OMG what were they thinking with that house? i know african slate costs a lot, but it is absolutely hideous in that quantity.

making fun of rich people is one of my favorite sports. if my moral centre quavers momentarily, i remind myself that owning a vehicle that runs on the blood of the spotted owl must take the edge off being mocked by the likes of me.

of course, what yearns behind this nasty little commentary is the conviction that i would make a better rich person. i really do believe i would make a fabulous dowager. i would be trim, generous, tasteful and carefree, not to mention truly stylish. i would throw fabulous parties. i would eat fabulous food. i would have a fabulous body, a carefully cultivated icon to exercising well, sleeping deeply, and medicating appropriately. if i were rich, i would make the world a more beautiful place, starting with me. i want the opportunity to be the folks i see, but improved. when you think about it, it's kind of a generous pedagogical impulse. right?

unfortunately, playa del carmen did not open this satisfying avenida to me. i wanted to be that principessa (but with a wrinkleless brow and a better handbag) - or, rather, i wanted to want to be her - but instead playa unleashed the sniffy inner cheapskate that i hate. what makes a bathing suit worth that many euros? even if it's directly from florence, at that price it should come with a gorgeous italian lady! and are they serious: a matching cover-up? puh-leeze. although it is true that nobody wears white linen like the rich (oh, the look of white linen against a caribbean sea!), it is also true that big bucks make for big mistakes, at least judging by senora frumpy's baubles.

why didn't playa let me play out my rich girl fantasies?: not rich enough. there's a certain number of galleries, sure, but there's also a few too many wholesale-priced yucatan souvenir stands and 50%-off-silver touts. who wants to eat at a white-tableclothed restaurant if your gaze lands on seven minimum-wagers hastily ironing boxes of textiles from guatemala? no. i like my rich places to be well and truly rich, so rich it hurts all the way down to the core where your self-esteem should live.

My newest self-improvement project

2009-12-27T21:30:00.001-07:00

yeah, yeah, lose ten pounds and get out of debt - but the real 2010 challenge is to be less misanthropic, more generous, less pissy, more forgiving, less impatient, and more indulgent.

and i'm going to start by liking cruise ship people.

i have a ways to go. cozumel, it turns out, is the second most popular cruise ship destination in the world. not that that came up in any of the research i did before coming here. "hotel people" and "cruise people" are separate species. we all use the www, but don't frequent the same sites. it's like the other side of facebook. (don't believe me? go explore hard christianity in fb.)

cruise ship people walk down the san miguel seafront wearing balloon animals on their heads. they give strip restaurants high reviews in trip advisor. they carry ginormous drinks in ginormous receptacles from places called "fat tuesdays." they use words like "ginormous." cruise people move like a swarm of goatfish from recommended activity to recommended activity. they like activities to be cheap and predictable, thrilling yet safe. cruise people like senor frog's and carlosncharlie's.

or so i grumble, mashing my way down avenida melgar after a big boat disgorges.

but that kind of misanthropy is easy. the harder task is to imagine why people would go on a cruise in the first place. and a good place to begin that project is with the unsettling admission that the largest concentration of locals we've seen has not been in the town square or on the windward coast or at a devotional meeting, but at mcdonald's.

money matters. cruises offer you 15 nights for $1800. you can't be an "independent traveler" for that.

then there's the family aspect. several of the families we've seen around the cruise ships are multi-generational. how else can you travel with built-in childcare?

then there's the ease factor. you get on the boat and for the next two weeks someone else makes all your decisions. you move from bed to buffet waylaid only by the pleasures of kingston, cozumel, miami beach. the older i become, the more attractive such not having to think about it sounds.

plus, people are different. not everybody is like me. some actively like disney, seek out casinos, prefer large groups, feel safer in herds. see cultural studies 101.

to appreciate people who are just like me is easy (not that i've accomplished that either). the real task is to throw my imagination across the widest cultural gulf i can imagine, and smile indulgently at the white folks with a three-hour jet-ski rental on my quiet playa.

i'll let you know how it goes.

Christmas with the Ps

2009-12-26T08:00:00.005-07:00

in this case, P stands for predator:

we ran into a shark while we were snorkeling. there is no photographic evidence, but i bet there's a trace of one kind or another out there in the water. sharks are big.

then, on the way out of parque punta sur, we saw these fine fellows:

one of the strangest aspects of being here is realizing just how mammal-centered i am. we've seen birds, dragonflies, iguanas, fish, butterflies, rays and slugs, but apart from one raccoon-like coatimundi on the side of the road, no mammals to speak of. there aren't even many cats or dogs on the island.

it's disorienting in general, but particularly rattling when it comes to possible dangers. i've read grizzly attacks: their causes and avoidance. i know how to respond t0 a black bear. i avoid rutting season in the mountains, and i know what to do if i run into a coyote in the river valley. but i have no concept how to navigate around a predator in its 360-degree aquatic comfort zone.

so today, i think we'll visit some mayan ruins instead.

Lizards laze

2009-12-24T09:42:00.003-07:00

our iguanas love the sun. they crave heat. they choose the top of the wall at the back of the property, where they can look down on the little deck lizards and, i suspect, on us. they look like rocks. they ignore the turkey vultures that make the little lizards scamper. they can move fast, but they'd rather not. periodically they do a series of fast lizard push-ups: the better to smell? to show off? to communicate? just because they can?

they taste the wind with their tongues. they loll their heads about sluggishly, then hold them high. every now and then one snags an insect, but not a dragonfly. too much trouble, you can hear them thinking. every now and then, an insect appears to snag them: gowdy, the iguana on the right, just scratched her head with a scaly toe, then circled around to face the other direction.

these iguanas don't sleep, exactly. these lizards laze.

23 Dec, Cozumel

2009-12-24T09:10:00.004-07:00

rosie's morning snorkeling tour really is all that: first el cielo, the heavens, where we drift over a sandy firmament dotted with star(fish). then the columbia shallows, with una tortuga - smaller than the honu in hawaii but every bit as moving: you simply have to believe in the future of the world when you see a turtle swim so fast with those ruddy little fins. finally we snorkeled the palancar reef, where we saw a porcupine fish the size of madge, with its bashful long eyelashes - and, to close off the event, a barracuda.

afternoon spent lounging by the pool, my new insight being: nobody really cares if you act the good girl and run the household errands, and nobody really cares if you're bad. barbara gowdy, the resident iguana and i lazed around the back yard with mo while the Ps slept.

dinner at kinta, an inventive mexican bistro with exquisite creations: shrimp-stuffed avocado, mahi mahi in guajillo sauce, and three-milk bread pudding with mexican chocolate and cajete. afterward the square was full of famillies - 23rd the last day of school, perhaps? everybody has their virgen spruced up with christmas lights, and some have santas too. one particularly exuberant display has inflatable santa visiting the inflatable creche. there are candles burning near the big shrine in the square, with photos of people's loved ones. bring health, prosperity, recovery...

on the way home we pass a small storefront packed with worshippers so numerous they added rows of chairs well into the street. a pinata hung goadingly over the devout, who were listening to what, a sermon? a peroration? a set of prayers? children retreated down the street to race paper airplanes.

you can feel the "feliz" in feliz navidad.

Sleepless

2009-12-24T08:32:00.006-07:00

hot already, but i run anyway, black dog at my heels. i wonder again when it will break, and this morning feel something shift.

please?

in two days i will believe that the slurry sentimentality is worse.

What they look like in the sunshine

2009-12-22T18:42:00.003-07:00

In which i come clean and describe my penance

2009-12-21T18:48:00.017-07:00

gentle reader,
i have not been entirely honest with you. though it is true that we are on a caribbean vacation, and though it is true that we are in a tropical paradise, it is decidedly not true that we are sunning ourselves silly. in fact, we have barely seen the sun since we arrived last wednesday. wednesday was a hot day. i know that because wednesday is the day we arrived, first in toronto, bleary from the red-eye, and finally in cancun, where it took 100 minutes to retrieve our luggage. after an hour-long drive to playa del carmen, our cabbie dropped us at a cobblestone maze with a vague "alli" and a toss of his head to indicate where the ferry terminal might be. at least, we hoped that's what he was indicating.

we bumped our suitcases over cobblestone cuartos looking hopefully past the senor frog'ses and the carlos'n'charlie'ses and by and by we found the terminal. around that time, so did an entire cruise ship. they filed by us in approximately 15 groups of approximately 24 passengers who were approximately inebriated, until the pier was chockablock with human beings. we looked at each other in dismay, but what to do? once the wind was in our faces and the sun - still up at 5pm - was in our eyes, we lost all sense of tribulation.

however, we found it again, forcibly, on the san miguel side, where we schlepped our bags several more blocks to the hotel. gentle reader, though it pains me to reveal my unworldliness, let me admit that the charms of cozumel were initially hard to discern through the rivers of sweat and the sleep-deprived shakes.

this is the context for the relief we felt at thursday's cloudiness. "we couldn't ask for better weather for acclimatizing," said brian. "no," agreed mo, "and it means my sun allergy isn't acting up either."

on friday's drab we putzed around town, shopping and eating. saturday we moved from the hotel to the villa and spent the rest of the day marveling. sunday we gave in and just moped. (you're wondering just how deep my dishonesty goes: the ray, you're thinking, didn't you see a manta ray yesterday? yes, gentle reader. from the car.)

today we summoned all of our canadian can-do and soldiered to the beach in spite of the wind and drizzle. you know those guys who break out the shorts on the first day in march that the temperature goes above minus 10? today, we were those guys. we packed snorkel gear, rashguards, fins, books and sunglasses and headed for chankanaab national park.

it was not the most auspicious outing. first, mom slipped on the weedy steps and fell ass over tea kettle into the drink. i sprinted over as fast as i could, knocking japanese tourists heedlessly out of my way and diving straight in, without a thought, to rescue brand new fin #2. (oh, and mother, of course.) hence we both started the day out cold. with great care, the four of us selected the single windiest palapa in all of chankanaab, where we shivered for a while, making a show of reading our books. but we were really there for the fish so we headed in.

i got immediately swept into a sea of plastic garbage and swallowed a pint of dirty seawater.

dad's equipment didn't work (again). neither did the backup equipment.

mo got separated from the herd and headed back to shore, getting well bashed on the way.

we broke for lunch, which we ate shivering under sun shirts and sarongs, and then we gamely headed back in for a somewhat shorter dip. how cold was it?: the frigid outdoor shower was a positive relief. we huddled back under the palapa to debate our next move - the botanical gardens? a little browsing in the tourist stands, perhaps? - when i looked up to the godless black heavens and said, "uh oh."

we barely made it to our little chevy four-banger when the deluge began. and by deluge, i mean hurricane-force rains and a cold brisk wind. storm sewers regurgitated. cyclists were up to their bottom pedal in it. shopkeepers had gone home for the day.

and speaking of home: when we arrived at our lovely villa, we discovered that the roof leaks. and the lanai doors leak. and the air conditioning units leak, sending water coursing down the kitchen walls. the pool has overflowed into the yard. as i key these words, we have 21 bath towels and 3 bathmats pressed into service - we soak 'em, wring 'em, put 'em back down - and still the water is trickling past my feet.

so this post is for those of you who have been thinking of me malevolently this week. edmonton, i'm lookin' at you. you too, new york/philadelphia, with your five-foot blizzard. and don't try to look innocent, ottawa, you know you've been muttering under your breath.

oh yeah: here's a taste of what we saw.

kinda makes you wonder what it's like in the sunshine.

Swim vs fly

2009-12-20T16:56:00.003-07:00

you know that old question: if you could fly like a bird or swim like a dolphin, which would you choose? today i saw the answer, a manta ray cruising the caribbean turquoise under a soft december sky.

Christmases

2009-12-19T18:43:00.003-07:00

i was a jesus girl for a while, but at heart i'm an aesthete, so what i love about christmas is good harmony. we're lying around our villa listening to christmas carols and it's causing me to remember all my favorite christmases:

christmas in vienna, 1977: we were so jet-lagged and cold we could hardly stay awake, but the singing at that cathedral, in the candlelight, was the reason i went to graduate school
christmas at zengelwood, 2004: never thought i'd buy a house, never thought i'd live with someone, never thought i'd be hosting my sister's clan on mo's brother's hand-me-down table, in the room we stripped (and stripped and stripped) of wallpaper, and painted
christmas on the beach, kauai, 2002: christmas without snow, without cold, without ceremony, without guilt. was that really seven years ago?
christmas at baden baden, 1976: "stille nacht" on the guitar in the crisp german air
christmas at shannon's, 2008 (not xmas day): somehow everything was just perfect, the food, the family, and darien actually eager to sit with us at the table with her half glass of wine
christmas at dan and tony's, 2008: great wine, easy camaraderie, interesting people, the love of chosen family, a diane von furstenberg dress
christmas at the zwickers', 1988: the last christmas before my sister married, she came over and spent christmas eve night with me in the spare room in mom and dad's basement. there were some painful conversations that night, but i still treasure it
christmas morning on 63rd street, 1974ish: i got a massive box of crayons and stubbed my toe on the metal box, but wes and bernie and phyllis and neal were there with us. (i saw neal's name on a doorplate at carleton many years later.) was that the year i got a pair of cross-country skis?
christmas at braemar circa 1987: they're reading the christmas story and shannon leans over to say, "just imagine: your own cousin is eight months pregnant and you have to hear about it from the angel gabriel!"

it's a cliche to say, but they really do seem to go faster and faster, these yearly demarcations. i am peering under the bottom of my glasses to write this post, and my father is napping for the second time today. i've been so focused on 2009's meannesses (the promotion debacle, the psychosis, the nursing home) that i have neglected to reflect sufficiently on the precious fact that everybody i love is on solid footing. if i could have one thing for christmas it would be to gather them all in my arms and protect them from ill health, doubt, loss.

it is so much harder to take life lightly.

Redeemed

2009-12-19T10:55:00.008-07:00

seven years ago, i booked a two-week trip in kauai for mom, dad, mo and me. we didn't know then that it would become a triennial tradition, of which cozumel is the latest iteration. it tends to go the same way every time: i get antsy about booking something and spend the month of may scouring the internet for independent places that offer something the average tourist never gets to see. i corral my travelling companions, lay out options a to j and ask for their opinions. "they all look lovely, heather," my mother will say. mo knows better, but sometimes picks the wrong one or two. my dad will typically ask something like, "are we going to mexico?" result: heather gets in a huff and books exactly what she wants. everybody is happy.

for the kauai trip, i thought it would be swell to spend one week on the touristy coast and one week in the rain forest. "they all look lovely, heather," said mom. "i like this place," said mo. i gave her the stink eye and she stopped opining. dad said, "kauai: is that the big island?"

the rain forest cottage might have been just as advertised, but it was not at all what we had expected. for one thing, it really rains in the rain forest. every day. nothing ever dries. ever. as for "charming": mo and i slept in a loft six feet above the kitchen and two feet below the thatched ceiling, while mom and dad slept on the sofa bed which extended into the same kitchen. there was a hammock; the moment mom sat on it, it collapsed. there were geckos; they seemed particularly fond of our little loft. (candor compels me to admit that, to comfort mo, i told her geckos had tiny little pads on their feet - true - that meant they would never walk on bedding - not so true.) we took advantage of jim's homemade trails. imagine slippery red mud through ravines overgrown with kudzu and other relentless greenery. add the rain trickling down your neck. add bright white ked's (mom's). miserable, right? now add the twist: wild boars chasing us back to home base.

the week on the coast was a little better, though i learned that "isolated" is not always synonymous with "desirable." mo and i walked in and laid immediate claim to the only double bed in the property, leaving my parents the twin beds across the hall. everything in the coastal house advertised the "jerry jones discount," which was the same everywhere: a measly five percent if it was recognized at all. the beach was across the street, as advertised; what was not so clear from the internet is that this was the beach where the american navy boys drink.

oahu/maui three years ago was better.

but cozumel this year is definitely the best.

we started at las anclas, a chic boutique hotel run by the kindly pedro and his gay son ayal. if you have time, click through that link and look at the photos. perfectly located, it's close to everything you'd want nearby (markets, restaurants, beach promenade, ferries to the mainland, taxis) and far enough away from undesirables like the cruise ship terminals and the air-conditioned mall. you can't help feeling cosmopolitan and superior at las anclas.

this morning we relocated to casa tropicale, which is further from the downtown core, closer to the airport, would require us to do our own cooking, and might not match the description on the internet, which among other things refers to the property as a "villa." i was relieved by las anclas (we return there next week) and a bit apprehensive about casa tropicale.

i needn't have worried.

i am writing this post from the kitchen;s breakfast bar, which is four feet by eight feet of bright white tile. this gives onto a dining room table set for eight but that could easily accommodate ten or twelve. beyond that is the living room, which gives onto the courtyard with fountain and pool. out the side door - sorry, one of the side doors - is a carport, a screened sitting room, a sand sink, an outdoor shower and a gear room. over near the maid's entrance is a laundry room and a powder room done, like all the bathrooms are, in mexican tile. there are two principal bedrooms here, each of them the size of a typical hong kong apartment. each bedroom has its own terrace. there is a kids' bedroom we are not using, but if you want to use it, please know that it comes with its own giant bathroom and its own giant lanai. there is another common lanai on the second floor, making a total of three on that level alone. the entire third floor is a rooftop terrace with areas for lounging, areas for eating, areas for sunning, areas for reading, areas for drinking, areas for getting away from each other should more than one of you be on a given level at any given time. did i mention the (non-collapsing) hammocks? the six-burner stove? purified water on every level? the fridge stocked with beer and soft drinks?

i am hereby redeemed.

Dancers in the square

2009-12-18T21:30:00.004-07:00

of all the things i've seen today --

a pink plaid store
mayan women making tortillas
the panaderia cozumelania, lost for two days but appearing suddenly right where the guidebook said it would be (though, regrettably, not until early afternoon)
the peacock blue of hotel las anclas's walls in the slant afternoon sun
lunch in someone's living room

-- none was as beautiful as the couple dancing alone in the square tonight. the band was from merida and excellent, playing latin standards with such energy and skill that they warmed everybody against the wind storm. our couple, she in slim dark trousers tapered to the ankle, he in a long white cardigan buttoned at the bottom and proper men's dress shoes, danced the steps they learned in the '40s. they were light on their feet, precise and nimble, if a little less showy now than then. you could see the frailty, but you could also see the joy, the tribulations, the blessings, the losses, the daughter living in america, the redecorated living room, the shrine to the virgen de guadeloupe (shabby now), the ninos who don't speak spanish, the comforting sufficiency that comes from decades of living in this place, and the things they don't admit, each one promising instead: fear not, my love, i will always dance with you.

Incremental

2009-12-09T19:57:00.018-07:00

each year professors are required to submit an annual report detailing how we've spent our time. we list the courses we teach, the students we supervise, the research we've published, the work we have in progress, the service we undertake, supplementary professional activities, honors and awards. it's an electronic form so you don't really know how long it is until you print out the 4 or so pages at the end of june.

once you've done this, your department chair provides a summary assessment. you report, she evaluates, putting an increment recommendation (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 or 2.5) next to your file. an increment is worth a certain amount of money, keyed to the salary scale, which in turn is keyed to rank. the chair sends the entire department's assessments "upstairs." in the case of a department like english and film studies, this involves literally moving papers from the third floor to the sixth, but in most cases it's metaphorical.

upstairs in the dean's office, an associate dean reads all the annual reports and summary assessments for a group of departments; in my case, five (about 140 files). i advise the chair if things seem unclear or if i think someone is being undervalued or overvalued. we meet, and chairs talk about the agony they go through weighing an assistant professor's apples against an endowed researcher's oranges.

even at this point, none of this is binding, because the faculty evaluation committee makes the ultimate decision. the faculty evaluation committee, FEC, is comprised of chairs plus an equal number of elected representatives from across the faculty of arts. associate deans have to be there too, but we are non-voting observers slash resource people. FEC reads every file - the binders by this point are unluggable - and arrives at the final decision of how many increments each case merits, in a scarcity context: increments are limited to 120% of the number of faculty members in arts.

that's the process, in a (five-month) nutshell.

people tell you FEC will be exhausting, but you don't really know what it's like until you've been there. the big confab takes place during the first week of december starting at 8:30 every morning. the multi-day meeting is highly confidential. by friday afternoon, we emerge with an increment recommendation for all 400-some academic staff members.

people who have been through the experience typically say the following about FEC: "it's time-consuming, it's expensive, it's difficult, and it's exhausting - but it's ultimately worthwhile, because it's fair."

i have been thinking about this all week, as i sit mute and unvoting in the same seat at the same table in the same room, day after day. that it's time-consuming and expensive can't be denied. yes, yes, biennial or triennial evaluations of tenured faculty - great idea (and you should vote for that faculty association any time now). but how is it exhausting? and is it ultimately fair? these are the questions i've been turning over this week.

i find FEC exhausting emotionally. i feel a wide range of hard emotions in sometimes quick succession: fear, rage, frustration, incredulity, envy, irritation, trepidation, resentment. people who've been around a while also find humor - which i admire, but can't get to. i feel that too, my rawness. i am not inured. there are things i don't want to know, things i don't want to witness. i feel uncomfortably complicit and want to be back outside. it reminds me of how i used to feel about doctoral candidacy exams. a PhD exam used to be all i could do in a day, would come home stunned and needing to have a good cry before heading to bed at 9. i felt for the students, that was part of it, but mostly i cried with dismay at our inability to imagine things differently. what kind of anti-creativity turns an opportunity to engage with student work into a brute instance of institutional humiliation? students never fail, but they never have to, as long as they know they could.

(these days, i take candidacy exams as given: not my favorite part of the job, but a necessary evil. eh, what are you going to do? i register that as a loss.)

as for fairness: well, it depends what you mean by fair. if you mean procedural justice, which most people do, then FEC is absolutely fair: astonishingly so. cases are evaluated, not individuals; it's not personal; the year's work is under review, not your past, not your prospects, not your personality. most of the people in the room have their own files in the mix (chairs' are done by the dean), so there is a weird and radical democracy at work. i understand what colleagues mean by saying it's a fair process.

but if by justice you mean something other than a liberal process based on individualism - distributive justice, perhaps, or restorative justice, even retributive justice (which i am sadly not above); if you want the university to be a place that actively makes the world better; if you yearn for external markers to match your internal sense of what's fair; if you believe meaning is only made in complicated contexts, dissensual communities and vexed histories: if these are the things you value, then you would probably want something other than FEC.

i suppose at the end of the day - at the end of this day - i don't know where to find what's captured in this fragment of poetry, written about the changing light in long june days but relevant to december's dark as well:

because of course we all must try
and do our best to buoy one another
to know remember and hold dear
what it means to work by increments

And then again...

2009-12-08T23:51:00.002-07:00

from that same file, called "great email," and from that same period, 3 months before i started my job, this dot-matrix fragment:

... raft of management strategies going on now, largely because the traditional english areas are - get this - claiming minority status. they feel marginalized by the interest in the "new" (read feminism and postcolonialism), and so the grad committee has reorganized so that we provide "balanced" coverage at the grad course level. which means fewer poco courses, mandatory sign-ups for the early stuff. in other words, it's not about us, and the real problem they are worrying over is Whither English over the next quarter century? .... the department needs to hear more about rigorous models approaching cultural difference (not blanding it out into pop theories of "difference") that don't buy into simple national boundary issues, and that means we have some work ahead of us. daphne read, you, and i will do some summit work on this, and OBVIOUSLY we are not in competition with one another, no matter what SB would hope or think.

i've been going crazy lately but heather it's great to hear from you. write write write. have a wonderful break in ireland. XO stephen

A message from the sister(hood)

2009-12-08T23:35:00.004-07:00

to: heatherz@leland.stanford.edu
from: shannon zwicker, mcconnell fellow
subject: connections
date: fri 5 mar 93

i am entirely disillusioned today about the university and its role in society (as opposed to most days when i am merely disillusioned with my job).

i have determined the function of a penis. in addition to acting as most men's primary cerebral organ, it is essentially a handle to make "manager shopping" easier. it works like this: an organization enters the management supermarket, filled with aspiring young managers, many of them (and most of the women) well qualified. the shelves are stocked with these managers, and the organizations take the easy way out. they grab the ones with the convenient handle, ignoring the ingredient labels entirely. after all, it's easier that way - no one will question their choice. the penised model is, after all, the most popular model in use.

i have determined this after observing men in positions of power in the university. ...

do i sound a little bitter? this has been a weird few months. i have given up my search for a mentor entirely - i am now in search of a half decent manager. can't find one anywhere and am not tempted to stick around and continue to look.

(shannon left the university for the private sector shortly after this.)

And now, a word from hothead paisan

2009-12-08T21:06:00.012-07:00

so two days after the 20th anniversary of the montreal massacre, we get a story in the globe and mail fretting that women outnumber men at university. the implications for family life are particularly scary: "faced with a dwindling number of potential mates who are their education equals, ... more women may take a pass on the traditional family, or be more willing to leave it when things don't work," worries elizabeth church. what's worse, "more men may find themselves tending to hearth and home."

this is followed by an editorial in the same newspaper -- an editorial, by the way, based on its own story -- called "the male minority" that comes down hard on the side of indira samarasekera's inflammatory october comments about the "demographic time bomb." specifically, her fear is that "we'll wake up in 20 years and we will not have the benefit of enough male talent at the heads of companies and elsewhere." what's that you say? - you thought at the current rate it would take 260 years to move from 4.5% to 50%? silly girl! you never were any good with numbers. in addition to coming down hard on samarasekera's side, the editorial comes down hard on the undergraduates who produced clever posters satirizing the comments: the samarasekera response team was "soon collared by campus security, but were not disciplined." insert disapproval here.

and that editorial gem sits right next to a new piece of idiocy from margaret wente blathering on about the absence of systemic misogyny in canadian culture. stop me if you've heard this line of argument before, but mark lepine was a random homicidal lunatic and not a garden variety misogynist. dec 6, pace wente, "has been an annual excuse for fevered breast-beating over the moral failings of society and the persistent inequality of women – as if the glass ceiling or the lack of universal daycare existed on the same moral continuum as homicidal misogyny."

what world are these people living in?

admittedly not mine, which this week involves supersecret meetings evaluating faculty members' performance over the year. i cannot talk about these meetings - what happens in room 5.20 stays in room 5.20 - but i will assure you that the academy intervenes before our classroom presence translates into actual material success.

all of this begs the question of exactly how few women students we should be aiming for (pun intended). what would be the ideal ratio for preserving heteronormative family structures and the current wage inequity between men and women? i ask so i can start advising my smart, hardworking women undergraduates to drop out.

Freedom 45, where are you?

2009-11-16T16:55:00.004-07:00

it being 14 above today and me not working well anyway, i went for a run in the river valley. at 2:15 the only people about were the blue-rinse crowd. they tend to be friendly but i am not. i am angry and resentful. i fantasize about retirement all the time, even though i live in a world where no one wants to retire. my people, the academic tribe, boast about never wanting to go. this suggests that most academics have a better worklife than i do, or a higher pain threshold.

but i digress. when i get there, to freedom 55 (okay, 60: i really don't think i can make it to 65), what will i think of this moment in my life? will i remember what it's like to be buried under unanswered emails and unfulfilled expectations? will i recall lying in bed all night fretting about the work to come? will i feel the panic about teaching, the panic about grading, the panic about missed deadlines and eleventh-hour demands? will i remember feeling pissed on by all the dinks in the world?

or will i think: she ran so fast, then, and missed it all.

Architecture

2009-09-19T17:37:00.004-06:00

this afternoon i spent an hour and a half with 799 other people at the winspear centre listening to randall stout describe the philosophy, technology, materials, intention and process behind the new AGA.

architects, it turns out, are pretty knowledgeable. where did stout start his talk? with freud. freud! (the affective vs the symbolic.) then he showed us pictures of the tobacco sheds he played in as a kid in tennessee: drying racks like monkey bars and light streaming through the ventilation gaps. you understood immediately how he grew up wanting to bend light through buildings and turn space into place.

the big ribbon on the AGA is called the borealis, but it also translates the river. stout talked movingly about the north saskatchewan, the way we protect the river's wildness from the urban grid with a band of green. he showed us aerial pictures that prove it, and he referenced american rivers, cemented in by the army corps of engineers, or commercially developed, or plain dried up. (he's from los angeles.) he said he went for a walk this morning down by the river, and then he described the feeling i've had a million times when you came up the 100th street stairs: a sense of surprise and loss and anticipation that lasts the 100 metres while you leave behind the river and enter the urban core.

stout walked us through the design process, showing paper models ("we're about the biggest consumers of scotch tape in southern california") being translated to computer models ("no," said mo, "you can't have one," referring to the wand that that reads along x, y and z axes to translate three dimensions to two) being realized in the kansas factory ("yeah," in his tennessee twang, "they're pretty big") and finally shipped to edmonton. he paid homage to the steelworkers who worked through the cold winter to assemble the borealis, and he was kind enough not to mention the snowfall was actually in april. he showed us artists' conceptions of the gallery in summer and winter, during the day (the zinc exterior goes from orangey-green to gray-blue as the sun moves from east to west) and during the night (when its brilliance will be irresistible). he mentioned the key-controlled service elevators for catering. he showed us the slatted fir ceilings and the fir veneer walls. he promised that the building would surprise us in the snow.

we fell in love with randall stout, all of us, because of the way he loves his building ("mine for four more months," he said, "and then it's yours") and the way he let us love our city. nobody used the term "world-class." nobody compared us to new york. nobody mentioned potholes. stout talked easily about churchill square, chancery hall, the winspear and the LRT, deftly omitting the library and subtly complimenting gene dub's work. he didn't ever mistake calgary for edmonton. he talked about this one place, this single downtown corner and what you could do by reflecting the sky and quoting the river and making a wall of glass. and in the human figurines that populated the artist's model -- the tiny people walking by, going in, coming out, loitering in churchill square, wearing jason wu, air kissing, doing lunch, speaking french, parkouring, meandering, trysting -- we saw ourselves.

one last thing: half of the folks at this talk were under 30.

Virginia made me

2009-09-13T22:37:00.007-06:00

reading three guineas at an impressionable age left me with a deep distrust of ritual. i couldn't go to convocations. funeral rites creeped me out. i still have a hard time chanting at protest marches. i can't even do the soccer cheer before a game: "3-2-1-snipers!," i mouth. but of all of these, nothing was so suspicion-inducing as marriage.

well, today's news is that after decades of principled objections to marriage as a hetero/sexist institution, and years of scorning gay marriage, i have put down my bow of burning gold. i've decided i am in favour of gay weddings. the way i see it -- now -- life's too short to dismiss other people's happiness. people want to marry. they want a wedding. for reasons passing my understanding, they want to organize flowers and families so they can stand in front of a crowd of people and say aloud the kinds of things i've always thought best whispered in someone's ear, or uttered to end an argument, or stumbled over in a home depot aisle.

gay weddings show culture morphing and changing. we'll take this aspect of the tradition, but no thanks, not the 'wife' bit. we'll say what we think the basis of a strong relationship is (in connie and val's case, the integrity of individuality and a commitment to sympathetic engagement with each other, which is about as good a definition as i've heard) -- and then we'll make the state sanction it. it's bold and creative, when you think about it. does it solve the issue of disproportionate state goods going to coupled people? does marriage, reworked, shed its baggage of dispossessing women of their personhood? does it undo monogamy's dyadic structuring of desire? of course not. but it turns out you never get tired of hearing the line "by the power vested in me by the province of alberta." it's all i can do not to throw my fist in the air and say, 'take that, fascist fucks!'

more profoundly, i think we can thank gay weddings, along with drag king culture, for a revitalization of butch fashion. people dress for a wedding. the girls looked good, of course (and val was resplendent), but the real treat of last night's soiree was the dudes. there were turquoise shirts with suspenders. there were tight dark vests over proper white shirts. there were cuff links. there were suits. there were funky glasses and short haircuts and brogues. there were ties. there were stripes: thin white stripes and thick white stripes and oxford stripes and pinstripes. there were boots, and there was leather, and there were hats -- so many hats! -- and exquisite manners everywhere. there were dudes with dudes, and there were dudes on their own, and some of them danced with their ladies and some of them danced with the family, and none of them danced with the buxom rugby player from connie's team, which was just fine since it turned out she and her equally zaftig husband could cut quite a rug when the hiphop was playing.

to tell you the truth, it was all very queer.

Stop clamouring, audience of one!

2009-09-12T13:44:00.002-06:00

ok. i'll write again.

but first take a peek at the tenured radical's excellent post on workload, its mystifications and inequities (thanks, nat!).

Two other ways of looking at it

2009-08-06T10:23:00.007-06:00

from daniel coleman's in bed with the word:

hard-hearted, cynical audiences are usually smart. you can't tell them anything they haven't thought about before. critique, clever interventions, intriguing arguments, and brilliant analyses are the bread and butter hard-hearted people chew up and spit out without stopping to breathe. the chink in the armour of cynics, however, is sorrow. (p. 101)

from frank donoghue's the last professors:

... professions do not prepare their members to deal with layoffs, chronic unemployment, or underemployment. ... when professors get fired, they cry. moreover, no profession more fervently believes in the myth of meritocracy than academics. the conviction that somehow one's talent alone ultimately determines one's place in the hierarchy of academic labor gives rise to a constellation of fantasties: my charisma as a teacher will be properly valued; my completed dissertation or published book will confirm my rare intelligence. in short, someone will discover me and celebrate my intellectual powers. since these epiphanies almost never happen, meritocracies have the effect of making everyone feel insufficiently appreciated. (p. 63)

What not to do (part 4)

2009-08-03T09:00:00.008-06:00

from up here on the plateau, a partial list of things to avoid if you hope to be promoted in the university:

good teaching. in particular, do not attempt pedagogical experiments. do not move into a new area. do not team-teach. do not teach extra-to-load. do not pick up teaching from colleagues who fall ill. do not assist colleagues' teaching. do not use new technologies. do not concern yourself with the relevance of your material to the students in your class. do not co-publish. do not teach graduate students to teach.
responsible supervision. every time you are about to answer an email from a graduate student, ask yourself, "will this get me promoted?" you already know the answer. do what most people do, and leave that chapter sitting on your desk. eventually even the most talented doctoral students give up and drop out.
mentoring. it's supposed to be hard for other people.
publishing where people might actually read you. obviously, this makes your colleagues look bad.
arts and culture festivals, extra-academic boards, or other demonstrations that you take seriously the concept of community engagement. "sweetheart, we didn't mean it!"

above all, if you imagine change and work for it, you might as well pull the trigger yourself.

Not bitter part 3

2009-08-02T19:00:00.004-06:00

the OED defines bitter as "one of the elementary sensations of taste proper: obnoxious, irritating, or unfavourably stimulating to the gustatory nerve; disagreeable to the palate; having the characteristic taste of wormwood, gentian, quinine, bitter aloes, soot: the opposite of sweet; causing ‘the proper pain of taste’ (Bain)."

so maybe i'm a little bitter. but also:

morose: "sullen, gloomy, sour-tempered, unsocial."
humiliated: i have thought a lot about humiliation this month, not just my own, you'll be glad to hear, but the routine humiliations of everyday life. i think about GB and what it must have been like to struggle with recalcitrant despondency, particularly in a world that takes chipper as a prerequisite for lovable. i look around and wonder how humiliating it feels to be chronically obese in the new 21st-century moral order: those hungers must mortify you. i think about the endless humiliations of poverty, being 50-something years old and standing in line after line after line. humiliation, it seems to me, accretes and compounds until the night you find yourself texting from the west side of the high level bridge.
angry: the chinese say anger is a function of liver imbalance, as are resentment, frustration, irritability and bitterness. the job of the liver meridian is to keep energy flowing smoothly throughout the body. when it doesn't: migraine. (huh.) in this case, though, it's hard to say exactly what i'm angry at. an anonymous reviewer? a poor chair? a corrupt process? "the system"? this is me, punching fog.
dismayed, disgraced, discouraged, disconcerted, disheartened and, perhaps most of all, and most inarticulately, disappointed.

taste of soot.

New knife

2009-07-30T20:30:00.007-06:00

i need a new knife. my old knives have been sharpened too often to hold an edge for long. they tire, dull.

i know who could advise me on a knife. and if she were sitting here now, i would ask: do you feel your knife's well balanced? are you familiar with its edge? did it feel heavy at first? unbecoming? what about the action, the hard thrust upward: did you have to get used to that? did your palms sweat or did the knife's handle warm with your caress?

i said, "less obedience, more boldness. less talking, more listening."
she said, "pass me my whetstone."

I'm not bitter part 1

2009-07-27T21:19:00.004-06:00

98% of all publications (articles and monographs) in the arts and humanities are never cited.* professors don't even check each other's precious monographs out of the library.

i'm just saying.

* Deborah C. Rohde, In Pursuit of Knowledge: Scholars, Status, and Academic Culture. Stanford UP, 2006.

Miss joyce regrets to say

2009-07-02T22:18:00.002-06:00

mo and i head over after work to change the sheets and swap clean-for-dirty laundry and check in on the food situation, make sure she has her pills and so on....

... but when we arrive, jo's on her way to the bank, so says: "i'm terribly sorry, but i just can't accommodate you today."

Going without

2009-07-01T20:54:00.001-06:00

i'm going public because i can't believe i'm the only one in my predicament. which is, in a word, underpants.

here i am, a fully realized adult woman about to start a new job, and i haven't got a decent pair of gaunch. i'm not asking for the moon here, just a reliable brand: cotton, comfortable, and sold by the half dozen. i don't want to think about my panties, at least not most weekday mornings; i want them to fit. and by "fit," i mean that they should cover my ass -- ideally, my entire ass -- while staying below the waistline of whatever i'm wearing on top. i want them not to ride up (or, at the risk of being indelicate, "in"). i'd like something a little more up-to-date than my jockey french cut standbys (oh, 80s, i miss your pleat-front pants) yet not quite as trendy as little boy shorts (which, unless you have the thighs of a little boy...). i don't want control top, shape-enhancing, butt-lifting technology, just label-free, soft-elastic, no-polyester everyday undies. why am i forced to choose between gaunch that sit low on my hips yet strangle my legs and something seamless that goes to the rib cage? i know it's a global recession, hanes, but did you lay off all your good ideas? and i'm sorry, but bamboo?

like i say, i can't believe i'm the only one making do with four-year-old rags. so if you have suggestions, gentle reader, bring 'em. until them, i'm going commando.

Running goat creek

2009-06-27T08:39:00.014-06:00

the only lasting effects appear to be the blister on the bottom of my right foot and a bruise in the middle of my back. otherwise, running 19km is a lot like running any other distance, only it takes longer.

i set out like the kid in a brain bucket at the playground, with a litre of water, snacks, a rain shell, fleece and my iphone in a backpack, a garmin on my right wrist and a canister of bear spray in my left. at the goat creek trailhead, the wind persuaded me to add a windproof vest and change to yoga pants. (i changed back to the original outfit within 750m.) mo kissed me goodbye, i turned kate's garmin on, and within seconds -- stepped into a deep mud puddle. hence the blister.

the first 7 km were good and strong, with a perfect downhill grade. it was all sunshine and mountains, good tunes and no bears. the next 6 were tougher. at km 14-15 i thought the garmin must be broken. 16-17 were easy, and the last 2km were physically hard (i was astonished at how tired i felt) but mentally easy (no question of quitting now).

i used the running room's 10-and-1 system, loosely -- which probably means i didn't use it at all?: i find it hard to stop when things are going well, and i make any number of excuses to avoid starting again in the middle of an uphill grunt, my favorite excuse being that my sports physician last year cautioned me to "avoid hills." (i'm pretty sure he meant downhills.) anyway, i didn't have a goal beyond the curiosity as to whether i could do this run or not, and i didn't exactly train for it. i went in prepared to walk as much as i had to. i would estimate honestly that i walked 1.5 minutes for every 10 minutes that i ran, which is okay for a first run at that long a distance. i was slow (3 hours to run 19km, at 6.5 km/h on average, or a pace of 9:11) - but i guess that does include changing my clothes, digging around for a powerbar at km 8, eating a fruit bar 2km later, texting mo around km 13, and running with a pack.

at the end, i felt strangely flat. i thought i would feel elated, depleted, proud, amazed, high or ... something. i was definitely tired, nauseated, and migrainous, but emotionally blank. i shuffled through the banff springs parking lot and stretched my calves while i waited for kate and mo to take me to the hot springs.

Roughing it at lake o'hara

2009-06-25T13:40:00.000-06:00

by the third night i could stick my feet all the way down to the bottom of the sleeping bag without flinching.

what can i say: it's a phobia. i can't put my hand or foot anywhere i can't see. when most people lose something under the driver's seat, they reach down and retrieve it. me, i go to therapy.

so it was no small accomplishment, getting used to the sleeping bag. and it did make the rest of our rough life seem easy by comparison: pulling water from a stream, sleeping in common quarters, using the stinkiest outhouse in tarnation, cooking for a dozen, going without electricity, without showers, without email, facebook, twitter, wikipedia or blogging.

from 21-24 june we stayed at the ACC's elizabeth parker hut up in lake o'hara. although EPH's popularity means that most people enter a lottery for a chance to stay there, we have an in through family friend al hunter, who's been going there regularly since 1959. every year he puts together a ragtag group of campers including, for the last four years, my folks. also along: al's son craig and two of his colleagues from BC social services, al's daughter jody and her 23-year-old son sam, and our friend katherine. it was a shockingly good group, generous and fun and easy to be around, with the right combination of together and alone -- and fantanstic food: blueberry pancakes and ham for breakfast, fresh chili for dinner, dried meats and hummous for lunches, along with organic vegetables and penticton fruit, single-malt and st andre cheese at 5. most importantly, the ear plugs worked.

what people love about camping at lake o'hara is that you start at such high elevation that it's easy to get to the wiwaxy gap, or the yukness ledge, or up to abbot pass. even with the weather pissing rain, or blowing snow or, on wednesday night, hailing, we had some great hiking. and mo's pictures can make anything look beautiful:

nothing like chilly hiking to make even a sleeping bag feel cozy.

Heart healing

2009-06-16T22:47:00.005-06:00

at first i didn't think i would like her at all. i like my clinics clinical. so when she said, "it's just you and me for now, so i thought we'd keep it casual, you know?," i almost fled. but as mo has pointed out to me, i am always better when i get acupuncture regularly, and so i stapled my butt to the chair and filled out all the forms.

it turns out, she's the most intuitive healer i've ever met. she listened to my pulse with her eyes closed for a long long time and then she said to me: "the reason you find it hard to make decisions isn't because you can't make a plan or execute it. that's the reason most people find it hard, but that isn't it for you. what's hard for you is that you don't know what you want. you don't know how to listen to your heart. or maybe you forget. it makes for very good dreams, do you dream a lot? your pulse also tells me that you are sweet and generous, and you do a lot for other people, and you worry for them. but the last thing you want is for them to see inside the garage. the allergies are there too, i can feel them, but they are insignificant. your heart is blocking the connection between what happens here [she touched my belly] and your head. the pain must be enormous. well, i can feel it. i know it is. we should work on this."

work we did, and more shocking talk, and i have been walking around in a heavy daze since.

From 12A

2009-06-16T21:49:00.002-06:00

What I felt at geek camp

2009-06-14T21:13:00.005-06:00

it's sunday night and i'm already forgetting what the week was like, which i do not want to do, because i felt some things last week at geek camp that i have not felt in a very long time, good things, things i do not want to forget.

excitement: by the end of the week i was seeing possibilities for creativity and partnerships and interactivity and scope for the imagination (thanks anne) that i have never seen before in an academic context. this edmonton course is going to be great, and i can see now how it might turn into something really vital and living, a kind of citizens' treasure trove. a whole new way of thinking collectivities and narratives is starting to take shape, and although i can't yet be cogent about it, i get a thrill when i think about what we might make. but it wasn't like this all week; first, there was --

agony: on monday i felt i belonged. for sure, there was all kinds of technical vocabulary i hadn't mastered, but susan brown is emphatic that tools can't be solely in the hands of the developers: tell them what you need, she insists, and hold their feet to the fire until they make it. ah, bossy. i can do bossy. monday's good feeling lasted into wednesday morning, by which point i was also feeling impatient with a lot of the tools we were looking at: how many ways can there be to build a concordance? something turned on wednesday afternoon, when i started to understand just how enormous this world is, how hard it is to build a single tool for textual analysis, how elusive a good interface can be. i have a notion of what i want, which is better than the inkling i started with, but it's nowhere near an idea. and so while everybody else started beavering away on this project or that, i walked around in a fog, so lost i didn't even know what the questions were, let alone how to answer them. i was trying to have an idea -- anything, please, i'll take a frog in a paper bag, a cheese rind, a cliche -- but nothing doing. i was in the bad place. i know that place is also called "thinking," but it does not seem like it at the time. it's a space of total incoherence and despair. you feel so stupid you figure you must be the stupidest person in the history of stupidity. you are legendarily dumb. cretin doesn't even come close. and then you do something really idiotic (in my case, locking myself out of my dorm room in the middle of the night, so that i had to pad over to housing services in my nightgown and nightguard, barefoot and squinting), which just goes to show.

of course it's not stupidity, but its opposite. maybe not exactly the opposite -- which would presumably be coherent verbal brilliance -- but rather a mysterious process of working things out that go deeper than your words can reach. it's virginia woolf's elusive fish (something about the body?), it's winston churchill's afternoon naps. it's thinking, and it is so agonizing that it makes me wish i worked in a t-shirt factory.

so, what got me over?:

generosity: there are lots of stories to tell about my conversion (so it feels) to digital media, and the most common one is how i bought a mac and it changed my life. true enough. but i have also been blown away by the generousity of online communities. design blogs, for instance, or etsy, or any of the other blogs i follow (see the scroll bar at right) are filled with people who put their stuff out there and then genuinely encourage you to do the same. it was the same in victoria. i met this guy from seattle -- an advanced PhD student, brilliant, named jentery sayers -- who has basically taught the course mo and i are trying to see our way through for the first time. he sat down and walked me through his classes, showed me some of his students' (public) work, confessed to the pitfalls and offered to send material. the whole vibe of the camp is like this. people were genuinely curious and really open-minded, which is what i always hoped to find in an academic community, but so rarely have.it's as though digital humanists, having had to learn their material from the group up, took the opportunity to rethink what "work" might be. and so we actually spent a few days more or less hackfesting, working together in a room on solo projects punctuated by sidebar conversations with whoever might find the topic interesting.

i've come away feeling humbled and excited, grateful and anticipatory. and i learned a lot, even though none of it was actually on the syllabus.

Bragable

2009-06-11T16:31:00.007-06:00

watching graduate students i've supervised ... fledge ... is an unanticipated joy of academic life. i spent a wonderful evening last night with nicole. her victoria house is very, well, nicole: clean, colourful, restful and exciting to the eye at once. even though we're not great about keeping in touch, the catching up comes fulsomely and easy. she was wonderful as a student and makes an enviable colleague now. we talked some shop, and we talked about how her son is over six feet tall, and i got to meet one of the doctoral students she's supervising, and we were still talking strong by the time we finished the scenic drive back to my residence room.

this morning, facebook told me that linda is a tenured associate professor at southern arkansas university. i never had any doubts, of course -- she's the best thing to happen at SAU since civil rights -- but it's gratifying to know that everybody sees that now. she still keeps a wild and tender menagerie of lucky cats, dogs, horses, all in the plural, all in clover. she is big on the paint horse circuit, and her students all adore her.

on day 1 of geek camp, aimee introduced the multi-media course she's teaching. all i could think while she was talking was what a thrill it would be to be her student! she is as smart and stylish and spunky as she's ever been ("just because we're smart doesn't mean we have to make ugly things," she mock admonished the group of 150), and wiser. her daughter's third birthday was the day before she flew to victoria, and she missed her husband's yesterday -- which is to say, she knows something about what her passions cost.

they are just great, these women, and so are shazia (tenured and living in macomb, pulling together a big pakistan-based research trip for her sabbatical -- her sabbatical!) and maisaa (living and working in beirut with the UN). sometimes i can't believe the things i get to do for the sake of a paycheque.

Learning by design

2009-06-10T15:29:00.001-06:00

or, to view my post on geek camp as a wordle:

http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations/learning-by-design

What i learned at geek camp

2009-06-10T09:06:00.009-06:00

so i'm at the week-long digital humanities summer institute in victoria, trying to figure out how to realize the edmonton project that keeps banging around in my mind - a citizens' site for grafting urban narratives into digital cartographies. i'm learning a ton, obviously, though thankfully i learned long ago how to smile and nod and follow along even when i do not have the first clue what's being talked about.

i'm also learning about myself as a learner.

to back up, a second: i believe that it's bad for a person to always be in the position of teacher, to be the one who knows everything, or feels she has to. i think it's bad for the ego and i think it's bad for the spirit. it's too easy to grow conceited, and exhausted, and you stand to lose the magic of unknowing, the productive agony of learning. there's nothing like being a student to remind you, as a teacher, of what it's like out there in the other half of the room. you miss one simple instruction, a turn in the discussion, and suddenly you're in the bad place, lost, confused, sullen and feeling stupid. so -- call it part of the great self-improvement project otherwise known as my life -- i try to seek out studenthood when i can.

turns out, i am a model student. every day i sit directly in the instructors' line of vision. deliberate? nope. but unwavering. i follow their demos with an intelligent look on my face. i smile and nod and look quizzical at just the right moments. again, let me stress, none of this is deliberate. faithfully i raise my hand and ask questions at exactly the right moments. i am very comfortable with this mode of instruction. i like them to show me everything about a program -- and by everything, i mean everything. let's do a title search. then, a subject search. i know you said author searches work the same way, but perhaps we could try one out just to be sure? after that, i like to be left alone to try all of this again, on my own. "reinforce the object lesson," is how they put it in ed theory. i am a painfully structural, top-down, linear thinker.

meanwhile, since it's geek camp, the guy on my left is double-tasking on, it seems, a shakespeare paper. i disapprove of double-tasking, and turn my body away from him, slightly, to convey this to the instructors. the whiz kid on my right has immediately grasped the implications of zotero and has been constructing a resource-sharing circle for modernists at the university of washington for the last 15 minutes, even though the rest of us (i.e., the instructors and i) have moved on to a JiTR demo. "dude!," i want to say, "that's not on the syllabus!"

is this the kind of learner i want to be? not at all. i want to be all web 2.0, freeform exploratory and shit. i want the labile mind of a born-digital 22-year-old, not the behavioral spine of a middle-aged schoolmarm struggling with the DH limbo. so, i'm writing this blog -- firefox tab 10 of 12 -- even though the rest of the class is looking at timeline demos. where i'm coming from, that makes me pretty much a bad ass.

but i gotta go; i think they're moving on to monk ("metadata offer new knowledge") and i don't want to miss anything.

Why I hate gardening

2009-05-24T17:09:00.005-06:00

first let me clarify. it's not the idea of gardening i hate. i love the idea of gardening, the elemental notion of oneness with nature, coaxing life itself from the earth, watching, literally, for the fruits of your toil. i can see the attraction of playing in the dirt, getting muddy, remembering what it was like to be a jobless, worry-free, unmortgaged kid again (though let's be real: i was never that kid). i get that it's sensual: the warmth of the sun, the hose livening in your hands, the gorgeous ache in your muscles at the end of what must be the most honest day's work. i love being out in nature, and i love nature itself, as rendered in a yard, love having tomatoes, herbs, lilacs, trees, and flowers.

but as for gardening itself? i detest it with a passion rare. my hatred is visceral, emotional, and unequivocal. i loathe it with every fibre in my being -- and that's saying something, since when i garden i actually feel every fibre in my being. my knees hurt. my feet cramp. my back aches. my neck hurts from the inevitable sunburn. sweat runs into pools at the bottom of my glasses, which then slide down my nose so i can't see anything. dead branches macerate my legs and splinter my hands, usually right on top of the raking blisters. mosquitos torment me, so add welts the size of a quarter and dirty smears all over to this pretty picture.

but it's not just the physical misery that does me in. gardening is soul-shatteringly dull. i would rather watch golf on TV. in slow motion. sure, you can thrill to the idea of gardening for a little while ("look at me, making things grow!") but when that smug four seconds is over, it's man against the intellectual void. the only thing to keep the mind alive is pure antagonism: to caragana, to crabgrass, to suckers, to ants, to tools that won't stay sharp, to the cultural ethos that says it's "wrong" to spray the whole damn mess with industrial-strength pesticide and head indoors to read a book, antagonism to chicory (chicory? is that what it is? the rhizomatic weed i hate the most?), antagonism to the very activity you're wasting a precious sunday on -- time you can never have back, time you know you will regret on your deathbed because you already regret it now. oh, it's mentally tough, gardening.

and then there's the endlessness of it. you weed and weed and weed and weed and weed and weed and weed and weed and weed -- and then you think, well, that's a job well done, good for me, time for a break: and only three minutes will have passed. no matter how hard you work, the yard is never finished. crabgrass and weeds, apparently fueled by some mysterious antagonism of their own, just keep growing back. ants triumph over doktor doom. plants need fertilizing, or separating, or augmenting, or watering, or composting, or banking, or deadheading, or mulching, or cutting back, or staking, or shaping, or something. the yard never achieves the serenity of a clean room.

year after year i subject myself to the agony of gardening. why? because i believe that gardeners are a higher class of being, and i want to be a better person. homo plantarum is patient, forgiving, and way, way less anal than me. i want to be improved. i want to be zen enough to view weeding as an opportunity for the mind to play. i want to experience childlikeness. i want to welcome the wild, live a life shaped by elemental principles, take lessons from an earthworm.

and i really want a yardboy.

Saturday perfection

2009-05-23T21:58:00.006-06:00

it's the very best if you can start your saturday on the night before, playing soccer in the sudden, sodden spring. this means you'll sleep a sleep so untroubled that the only dream you'll remember in the morning is that you started a new tube of toothpaste. you won't even remember that dream until you go to brush your teeth and think: that's odd.

take your coffee back to bed. say good morning to that sleepy person lying next to you. snuggle the cats. leaf through the globe and mail, saving some for sunday. when you get up, tell yourself you have to drive to the farmers' market rather than ride your bike because they'll have bedding plants. then buy a huge hydrangea with eight blue globes: there, you had to drive. run into jen, smiling in the sunshine. run into carmen, who tells you todd is still in the hospital but doing better. carmen herself is doing better, you note. load up the car with hydrangea and go back for an herb garden.

at 11:45 you realize you're going to be late for your lunch date. at the exact moment you text ted to say "i'm running ten minutes late," he texts you to say "i'm running ten minutes late." over vancouver rice bowls at the ARTery, mutual friends trickle in. karen's taking her dog to hip hop in the park. amy's maybe going to check out the office show: me too! the vue writers are staying for the live music, a girl named jill and her ukelele, but we sneak out.

hey, do you want to just park at your place and walk down? i do. the show is ... well, i like blair brennan's shrink-wrapped tools. gerry morita dances. someone sings. alice major reads. it's the office as figured by people on artists' grants. as you walk back out into the sunshine on 124th street, you think how this is ultimately what you'd want, artists on grants thinking about an office rather than artists in offices dreaming about grants.

ted says he'll walk you a bit. then amy runs after. we meander until we're at our place. does anybody want a drink? better: a fudgsicle. we haul mo away from her yard work, sit on the deck drinking ice water in glasses with green palm trees. our grass is greening too.

after ted and amy leave, you do a little solidarity yard work: put the amazing hydrangea into a pot, clear a couple of beds. just when the heat is starting to feel oppressive, you hail your new neighbours in the back alley: lovely liliane, 8 months pregant, and 3-year-old julia, who has a new bike. romanian, edmontonian, downtown dwellers, friends of david and susan's: me too! julia is determined to get herself up on the swingset, then the rings. we women watch her, our chat sweetly empty. the afternoon melts away.

what could make this day better? you grill your food: no cleanup. you get a message from dear friends saying that all is well, meaning they are well, meaning all is well. you put on the etsy dress you bought on impulse, which of course fits perfectly. you walk to the roxy to see darrin's new play buddy. you hold hands.

walking home you catch the scent of night blossom. you can't tell what it is, exactly, and you can't tell where it comes from, but you can't get enough of it. you would lose yourself here if you could. too soon, it evanesces, and you are home.

Starting from the bottom up

2009-05-22T21:49:00.003-06:00

it was about a year ago that jo was in the hospital and we didn't know what would become of her. she's settled into the new normal now. she uses her walker, we change her sheets, she concedes to a bath, the druggist blisterpacks her multivitamins and her estrogen (there are some wars we stopped fighting).

yesterday when i stopped by she admired my shoes. "you're such a one for the shoes!," she said. "oh jo," i demurred, thrilled to bits. five minutes later she said, "you don't really bother much with your hair, do you?"

i guess when i'm an old lady, i really will wear a purple hat.

Funk city

2009-05-19T08:42:00.003-06:00

all of edmonton is in a funk. friends won't return calls. my parents don't want to leave the house. colleagues are absent. nobody knows what to do with all this snow -- and cold! -- in may. while we've often got snow in may, usually it's a literal out-of-the-blue thing, a blip in an otherwise lovely month. this year, it's like winter hasn't ended. as a result, everything is out of kilter. stores are filled with the kind of food you'd normally seek out at this time of year: corn on the cob (such as it is in may), fat portobello mushrooms, cold salads, steaks, and burgers. but my thoughts are tending to roasted squash soup, hearty risotto, spaghetti and meat balls with garlic bread (comin' to your place tonight, jen!). so i wandered around the grocery store yesterday with a cart of ginger, garlic and toilet paper.

it can't last forever. right??

Jiggedy jig

2009-05-17T21:11:00.005-06:00

after we've been away in "the little house," so dubbed by darien and laura four years ago, i'm always struck by how very big our "big house" is. it has a room entirely devoted to my computer, for instance. there's another room for sleeping, a choice of indoor bathrooms, a kitchen you can stand up in, and several different reading lairs. how can this place seem so small by february of every endless winter?

so we are back, and it is cold and rainy here, but greening up. we have not missed a thing: not the daffodils, not the tulips, not the crabapple blossoms. all of that is yet to love, and loving it will take all my attention, and i will forget about many of the things that seemed, just hours ago, unforgettable. so in between putting away the camping gear and putting in the laundry and putting out affection for princess and the hen, i want to spend a few minutes putting down some wonders and oddities, the kind of jumble you have in the back of your car and the back of your head at the end of a road trip.

under the heading remarkable campground sights: two blue-rinse ladies in matching mauve sweatsuits walking matching white bichons at 6 AM.

under the heading sounds that make you wonder: the campground that played XM radio "love songs" constantly ... in the bathroom. i shaved to "the first cut is the deepest." billy joel crooned "i love you just the way you are," but i showered anyway. modesty compels me to stop there, but you can imagine other odd pairings.

startling things: all the US national park bumph uses the phrase "geologists say..." to introduce FACTS -- FACTS, people!!! -- concerning natural phenomena. also: the lingua franca of bryce canyon is in fact french. and: nanton alberta is totally gay.

under the heading freeway signs that cause you to wonder:

Young Family Living Farm, next exit
Action Wood Waterbeds
BJ Services, Ltd.
Dirty Jo Punsters in Spanish Fork, "spicing things up since 1990"
Pot Roast to DRIVE for, 17 miles ahead

things that made my heart glad: the fields of purple crocuses in the blackfeet indian reservation. being buzzed by a black-chinned hummingbird in zion. highway 287. learning that the california condor, having been declining in number since prehistoric times, is making a go of it in monument valley. seeing my favorite alpine flower with the excellent new name "revel paintbrush." mo's Authentic Western Style.

things to covet: trailers by safari condo.

and a random prediction: iceberg lettuce will make a comeback.

there. really home now.

Old lady road trip

2009-05-17T06:40:00.008-06:00

i notice my advancing years most starkly when traveling. for one thing, i can't drive like i used to 20 years ago. back then, i would do a 38-hour drive (san francisco to edmonton, for instance) in about 43 hours, stopping on the side of a nevada two-lane for a wee nap or two. now, if i was so foolish as to "nap" on the side of the road, i would fall immediately into a deep yet fitful state complete with snoring and drooling. the state trooper would find it hard to so hard to wake me he'd just leave me there for the next shift to rouse. then, i would spend all day griping about how my back hurts, and my neck is kinked, and i slept funny on my arm.

so when we don't camp, we stay in motels.

but not just any motels. i used to be of "the chaper the better" view where motels are concerned: why overpay? and then there was the kitsch aesthetic. i would thrill to the bedspreads you can slide right off of, the plastic-wrapped plastic cup. now, i think of things like the quality of the mattress. hampton inn is a good chain, we've discovered -- a chain! -- because of their special serta bed. (don't worry, we're not quite going to order one for home yet, though if you want to....)

and what about noise? used to be, i could sleep through anything. now: well, one morning in moab i shushed the frat party next door with a single teacher-look. old lady! back in yakima two years ago, i reached in through the truck window where a younger version of myself was napping and switched the radio right off. we're in room 214 now, but we were first checked into 208. i had us moved somewhere quieter.

the finickiness of old age extends to road food. no longer for me the big greasy spoon breakfast. i will burp all the way to the next town. also, it makes me sleepy. and the last thing i need is an order of hash browns on my hips ... forever.

driving itself is more tiring now, and more stressful. it takes more effort to keep my eyes on the road. my eyes tire faster. my neck cricks and my back aches. i know more than i did two decades ago, know that i make mistakes and that others make mistakes, and that mistakes are always worse at 60 miles an hour. saddest of all -- i will admit this here, once, and then go back to pinning our routes on mo -- i understand the attraction of the interstate.

of course, there are compensating virtues. for one thing, i've woken up at 6am this fine sunday morning, without an alarm. even after blogging i should be able to make it to smitty's for the senior breakfast special.

Bryce

2009-05-15T21:44:00.006-06:00

Ellen Meloy, on Utah desert:

"I am not that presumptuous to think I could speak or paint or write the natural history of my home colors. I know only that they are to blame for intent and motion, for an asymmetrical journey of wonder and of trouble. ... An aesthetic sense, an intuitive link between a chromatic band and emotion can grow as strong as a fingerprint, defying logic and inviting the helpless surrender of a love affair. Intoxication with color, sometimes subliminal, often fierce, may express itself as a profound attachment to landscape. It has been rightly said: color is the first principle of Place."
-- "The Deeds and Sufferings of Light,"
The Anthropology of Turquoise

Biking thunder mountain

2009-05-14T17:35:00.023-06:00

mountain biking is, in a word, fucking awesome. it's fast, it's aggressive, it's technical, it's demanding, and it's dangerous. in other words, perfect.

i wrote those lines before biking thunder mountain. if you don't want to read through the whole story that follows, here's a video of the ride that i made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knReQUMSqdA. make sure you don't miss the 3-minute mark.

oh, wait. that's right. i didn't make that video, some 19-year-old boy did. which should have been my first clue. but it wasn't my first clue; my first clue was the witless ranger at red rock canyon visitors' centre. mo and i walked in the other day all eagerness and cute, saying, "tell us everything! we want to mountain bike, and we hear it's good here. 'zat true?" even at the time i didn't think the fat sheriff behind the counter was terribly convincing as a ranger, but he pulled out a trail map and said, "thunder mountain trail's nice." it was clear that that was the end of the conversation. his impassive face left no doubt that i'd have to take up my why-is-the-river-in-zion-so-grey question somewhere else.

even after hiking 10 miles of bryce yesterday, i was curious to see this trail. in fact, i was curious to see a few of them. i figured i'd bike thunder mountain first, then toodle around up in butch cassidy country. losee canyon was supposed to be good, though i noted it was rated "strenuous." something to keep in mind. i double checked the trail guide, which describes the thunder mountain trail, in its entirety, as follows: "The upper section of the trail travels through a ponderosa pine forest, while the lower section features spectacular red rock scenery. Moderate to strenuous."

here's one thing the trail guide might have indicated: the 6-mile, 1200-foot uphill to get to the trailhead is in addition to the 9 miles of single track. but no matter. there's a paved bike trail next to highway 12 for much of it, and i fell into conversation with a guy named dave who's riding across the USA. we talked mileage and muscle groups, regular snacking and the ups and downs of nevada, and the ratio of money to miles ("i can't spend more than one dollar per every two miles," he said, "all in," suggesting that he'd been alone too much of late). why is he riding now? "timing's pretty good," he said, "i just got out of the navy and i'm heading to college in the fall." his business card, which advertises his blog, reads: "we will all die but very few of us live."

we parted ways at the fremont ATV track, and i headed up to the trailhead. by the time i arrived i was feeling limber if a little tired. it had been 65 minutes of uphill since i left the car.

and what's in the trailhead parking lot? a silver lexus. and getting out of it, That Guy: early 60s, short grey moustache, super nice bike, nice wife, and a full kit of high-end, matching gear. his tight black shirt was bulging a little over the too-much-good-living pot belly. he looked like the kind of guy who'd buttonhole you to explain how the economic downturn is actually good. meaning, good for him. meaning, he didn't mind that he'd lost his job as an investment banker because his quality of life was so much better now.

i pedalled on.

and almost straight into a threesome of horses. "afternoon ma'am," said the leader. "hi there!," i said, "party of three?" "yep," said the wrangler, "you a party of one? how'd you manage that?" i smiled. "long ride up from the visitors' centre. turns out that part isn't figured in the 9-mile trail distance." "no ma'am," he said soberly, "it's not."

i pedalled on. this must be the ponderosa pine forest described so fulsomely in the trail guide. the trail is really narrow, maybe a third of a typical hiking trail. i'm wondering how horses can manage such a narrow trail, and i'm wondering how there can be yet more uphill -- when all of a sudden the trail disappears into a sweet moment of downhill relief followed by a sharp turn. somewhere in the middle of that first hairpin turn i discovered what it meant to share a trail with horses.

let me put it this way: if you careen downhill on a narrow path barrelling toward a hairpin turn, and if there is a pile of wet horseshit right at the crucial spot, you will wipe out. and it will not be pretty.

and what's this? more horses. 20 of them, in fact. i pull off the path as i'm told and report that there's one more biker coming. the women in the group are agog. "how often do you do this?," asks one. "oh, every day," i joke. "actually, i'm from canada. if i'd had any idea what this trail was like, i'd never think of trying it." "oh, well, then. that makes more sense," says one rider. the rest of them laugh in agreement. what is that supposed to mean? "are you really doing this alone?" "sure," i say. "isn't it a great day for a ride?" "well, you just go for it!," says a third woman. am i imagining that she shoots a meaningful glance at the rest of the riders?

Investment Man is now beside me. "so!," he says. "yeah," i say. "you been riding this area long?" "oh, not really," i say. "we did a little up in moab, but -- " "yeah, it's hard to find good single track," he says. "if you like sliprock, you should try gooseberry mesa. it's great. it's pretty level, not even an uphill as long as this, but there's a whole bunch of trails up there, about half sliprock. yeah, and i've ridden some moab trails too." there's a minute pause before, "you know, i'm only wearing this safety gear [elbow pads, knee pads] because i spent more time on my elbows and knees than i wanted to, there on gooseberry mesa. that rock isn't too forgiving! so, that's what that's about. where you riding next?," he presses. i tell him we're going home, then, to be polite, ask "you ride solo, mostly?" "yeah," he says. "the wife has a comfort bike, but..." he shrugs. "...but she drops you off at the trailhead in the lexus," i finish, in my mind. i indicate that i'm going to have my lunch, and he should go ahead. "oh okay!," he says eagerly, "that way you can pick up the pieces of me later. heh heh heh."

"single-track," i ponder, "comfort bike."

when i remount i can feel my legs -- the hiking, the uphill -- and start to wonder whether i really will do those other trails today. but no need to decide yet. i still have the best part of an hour on this trail.

make that the best part of three hours. 'cause here's what they don't tell you in the trail guide. the path doesn't just "travel through ponderosa forest," it goes up, and i mean up, the outside of a ravine to a sharp left turn so it can rush downhill into the cleft of the next, hairpin right turn to climb out of that ravine -- and so on.

it does this roughly 142 times over 2 miles.

that's the ponderosa forest bit. so you can imagine my relief to hit the transition to the red rock canyon bit. "this must be the moderate part," i thought.

hah.

for one thing, the trail is mostly sand and scree.

for another, it noses precipitously near the edge.

for a third, the uphills and the downhills are really really steep. the hairpins are really really sharp. and the horses, it turns out, aren't bothered by kicking large rocks into the middle of a six-inch "single track." they do just fine. but look closely at these pictures and you'll see that mountain bikers routinely pitch over the edge.

also, the trail is long. like, really really long. way longer than it's supposed to be. way longer than i was expecting. when i saw how far the trail stretched out in front of me i was so gobsmacked i stopped dead -- just stopped pedalling so that i wouldn't run over my own jaw lying slack on the scree. which means that i immediately went ass over tea kettle sideways downslope, until the abrupt and thorough penetration of a petrified branch into my left heel brought me to a halt.

by this point i am walking, dragging, cursing my bike more than i am riding it. i would give anything for a conversation with Investment Man. i wonder whether navy dave has made it to escalante. i can only remember the first part of his motto.

did i mention that the wind howls across the ridges until it's all you can do to keep your balance?

if i'd had any idea what this trail was like, i'd never think of trying it.

walking down a hairpin turn, i lose my footing, lose my bike, and then lose the skin over my knee. i learn another thing: dust helps blood clot.

i round another corner and OH MY GOD IT'S INVESTMENT MAN'S TORSO!

or, wait, maybe it's just a big lump of red rock.

i skip the side trip to inspiration point, since the only thing i would find remotely inspiring at this point is the sight of the jeep.

cross my heart and hope to die, if i make it out of this alive i will never mount a bicycle again as long as i live.

it is pretty, though.

well, i'm keying this blog so you know how the story ends. ever so gingerly i make my way out of the canyon. when it seems that the path is well and truly level, i stop under a tree for a granola bar. two agile 40-somethings happen by. "hey," they ask, "are you okay?" "oh, yeah, sure," i say, "it's just a flesh wound." one of them peers at me more closely. "you're not wearing removable clip shoes, are you?" "nope," i agree, "i'm remarkably ill-equipped for a ride like this." "how was it?," asks the other guy.

"fucking awesome."

Cycling the desert

2009-05-14T09:45:00.010-06:00

i'll admit, when mo got the notion we should get a bike rack to carry our bikes down to the desert, i didn't pay much attention. knock yourself out, i thought, it don't matter a whole helluva lot.

boy was i wrong.

having our bikes down here has transformed the trip. you know how it is, you get tired of walking day after day. it's slow, the pack is heavy, your thighs chafe and your feet hurt. you're always hot. if the hike isn't great, the misery is all you can think about after a while. but mix in a little cycling, and it's a whole new experience. there's always a breeze, it's easy to carry extra water, and you use different muscles. best of all, the world unfolds at 15 km/hour. driving has its pleasures, but they are transitory. as soon as you see something you like, it's gone. cycling, on the other hand, is the perfect pace for seeing a canyon wind or watching a river wend.

we rode ten miles up the colorado from moab:

we did some off-road riding at dead horse point:

best of all, we bicycled zion. brilliantly, zion canyon is closed to private vehicle traffic. closed, to private cars. in america! its 1950s two-lane road had become a virtual parking lot by the millennium, so they implemented a free shuttle that goes up and down the canyon every ten minutes and into the village beyond, stopping at each trailhead and leaving the roads of zion free for cyclists.

i'd rave some more, only i have to hop on mister bike right now, to get us some provisions.

Hiking horseshoe canyon

2009-05-14T08:23:00.014-06:00

to get to horseshoe canyon from moab, you head back north up the 191. hang a left onto I-70, but before you hit the san rafael swell (say, 30 miles or so), turn south down 24. a couple dozen miles down that two-lane asphalt you'll see a dirt road leading east to hans flat ranger station. now you need the topo maps. after about 30 miles on increasingly rough roads, you hit the five-mile access to horseshoe canyon. wonder whether you should have a vehicle on this road at all. persevere. and park in the overview parking lot that gives nothing away.

the hike is marked with cairns over slickrock, and it goes down down down for 750 feet. you're not surprised to see dinosaur tracks on the path. every step down gets a little bit hotter, until you're down on the breezeless canyon floor. by early afternoon it's about 32 degrees down there, with the sun glinting off desert-varnished rock.

you walk the wash for a few miles, looking at various petroglyphs and pictograms along the way.

finally, you get to the great gallery, with some of the finest rock art in the world. it's a pilgrimmage for many anthropologists, a mecca for art historians. you sit, awed, in the blessed shade, and you're right: you will never forget this feeling.

on the way home, even though it's in the opposite direction, stop at goblin state park. why not?

Desert tripping

2009-05-13T20:23:00.000-06:00

it's been hard to write, since mostly we've been too busy hiking

and cycling

and mountain biking

to do any blogging.

we've seen some amazing stuff in our two weeks away: peregrines shrieking over red-rock hoodoos, familiar montane landscape giving way to badlands i couldn't have imagined, natural bridges, trestle bridges, arches and petroglyphs, an entire national park closed to private vehicles, queen victoria figured in sandstone, marriages ending in an RV park (mostly because of the parking), a japanese lady hiking with parasol and kitten heels, a lizard eating a grasshopper. there are things we've felt that can't be captured in words or photographs: the miracle of an apple in desert heat, the coolth of rock that's been in the shade, the feeling you get in front of pictographs painted over 10,000 years ago.

i'm writing this post, and the next few, just outside bryce canyon. it's high desert, 7777 feet, which means it goes down to freezing at night and up to a perfect 24 during the day. there's a big fat robin perched on the tent trailer while its mate scours the ground around my feet. a stellar's jay is sitting in the tree ahead of me. it's just like being in jasper .... until you remember what's down the road.

An unusual sight

2009-05-03T20:55:00.005-06:00

of all the remarkable things we saw today -- a vee of white pelicans drifting onto a lake, a wet beaver snuffling through the deep montana snow, billboards for bankruptcy help, billboards for mortgages, rain lashing the great salt lake -- none was more unexpected than the vision of 14 humans falling from the sky outside ogden. it was one of those endless industrial strips next to 4 lanes of the I-15, all billboards and big box stores, except that just off to the right was a baker's dozen of x-shaped human beings, drifting lazily to earth under multi-colored parachutes.

Riding with everything but rilke

2009-05-02T22:18:00.005-06:00

a few years ago my friend and colleague ted bishop published a great book called riding with rilke. the book is about a lot of things, especially reading and writing, but at its centre is a solo motorcycle ride from edmonton alberta to austin texas. ted's been on my mind today because we're driving some of the same roads, some of my favorite in the world, and i'm powerfully reminded of his descriptions of two-lane blacktop, esso diners and the freedom of the road.

i am amazed how powerful that idea is -- the freedom of the road -- given the reality. okay, maybe in ted's case there's something to it: the wind in your face, the bugs on your faring, a single pair of jeans. he did the trip in something like a week, as i recall, in two saddlebags. he brought a map, a blank journal, a rainsuit and a credit card.

we, on the other hand, are not traveling quite so light. what gives it away, i wonder: the 6-cylinder jeep or the 2000-pound trailer behind it? each of us has a giant plastic bin for our clothes, not including shoes. 7 pairs. (each.) we are also carrying a big box of food, 4 iPods and the donut player, heather's iphone, mo's smartphone, a solar charging unit, 2 laptops, 2 bikes and associated paraphernalia, an extra memory-foam mattress for the king-sized trailer bed, a portable powerpack, several gallons of water, assorted coffee rigs and a pound of beans (you know we're roughing it 'cause the beans are ground), our new yorker backlog, two lawnchairs complete with sunshades, a range of camera options, and at least 22 books: our own books on utah, my parents' books on utah, dianne and katherine's books on utah, novels for heather, novels for mo, the audubon bird book, the trailer journal, hikes in the canadian rockies (oops), the rand mcnally atlas, the national geographic atlas, and bed gadd. don't even ask what's in the actual trailer.

now consider: synthroid for mo, a topical non-steroidal anti-inflammatory cream for heather, a giant bottle of advil for the both of us, in consideration of a week of cycling, pepto bismol, cal-mag supplements, glucosamine chondroitin, surgical tubing so i can keep up on my physio, waterproof sunscreen for heather, PABA-free sunscreen for mo, the clinique three-part face-cleansing system, intensive eye serum, regular glasses, reading glasses, prescription sunglasses, nonprescription sunglasses and contact lenses, and it's less rebel without a cause than stop that bus!.

i swear to god, though: you crank the tunes, haul the liberty into 5th, and it's all freedom all the time.

Edmonton archive

2009-04-29T12:18:00.007-06:00

the last question on my engl 380 final asked: what would you put in an archive of edmonton?

and this is what they said:

the sign from the garneau theatre; a soccer ball and a muddy boot; my bike; the key to my first apartment; a chunk of asphalt from the 23rd avenue interchange; a lump of coal; the steamer trunk my uncles brought from ireland; the guitar pick i caught at the starlite room; a library card; a bus pass; something i grew in my backyard; the space between the business building and tory; the ticket stub to the first fringe play i ever saw; linda goyette's book; the edmonton grads' basketball; a jar of black gold; my family's porcelain sink; my lister hall identity pass (which i was technically supposed to return); the chuck taylors i'm wearing right now, which look ten years old from all the walking i've done even though i only bought them in the fall; the eagle feather that fell in front of me one day; a copy of treaty six; the suffragists' signs; a bloody truncheon from the hunger march; my human skeleton; an ad for a 99-cent peep show; the first sweater i wore when i moved here from the philippines; several oilers jerseys, "to remind me of watching hockey with my dad"; a metis sash; the board game i used to play with my roommates; my mother's recipe book; my 1994 pontiac grand am; a toy car -- the kind with the doors glued shut; a piece of birch bark; my daughter's pink blanket, "full of mythic power"; a uhaul trailer; anybody's spare car key; a jackrabbit and a magpie; a skate; a casino chip; a snowsuit because it proves we survive our winters; a program from the pantages theatre; a vial of water from the WEM water park; my signed copy of the edmonton queen; a paintbrush; an antique saw; the wreath that adorns the misericordia hospital every christmas in spite of the death and disease inside; a picture of the river valley from the LRT bridge, from the high level bridge, from macdougall hill, from the humanities centre; a poem i haven't written yet; a passport and a return ticket.

Assault

2009-04-26T19:00:00.000-06:00

coming home from our soccer practice today, mo and i witnessed an assault: two guys hitting and kicking a third guy, punching him in the gut, kicking him in the kidneys, kicking him in the face -- the face! -- once he'd fallen to the ground, right on 124th street. it's the grossest thing i've ever seen in real life, though even now i have to say that witnessing the assault itself, through the vehicle's window frame, seems like something i saw on TV, it's so far beyond my normal experience of the world.

i still don't know what i feel. i don't know what the word is for that kind of shock (why us? why then? what if we'd left two minutes earlier, half an hour later?) and horror (two on one, the kidneys, the face) and relief (that it didn't last longer, that there were two cops a block down the road) and fear (that's our neighbourhood). distress, perhaps. dismay?

the assailants ran into an apartment building when we turned around, and the cops pulled up, and another car slowed. the police officers went after the assailants so for a while it was just the weird april snow falling on this thin middle-aged man lying crunched up and completely quiet in a driveway. other people stopped. a taurus-driving white guy, scrawny, with a big cowboy hat and a cellphone holder on his leather belt got to the victim first. then a middle-class woman in a minivan -- you know the one: well-kempt, solid, pleasant -- hurried over; she too had a cellphone, but when she realized emergency services were on the way she went back to the van for a fleece jacket which she laid over the victim. she wanted especially to find a way to use the arm of the jacket to cradle his head, which was bleeding. i was really touched by that. it was a good fleece jacket and you know she's not going to see it again, but she did not hesitate. a church lady, that one whose garden you'd never let your dog wander into, hung back a little way. she wanted to be sure the cops would "catch the creeps."

we stood around until more police cars came, and then the fire engines with paramedics and finally the ambulance. once the victim had been loaded into the ambulance another paramedic sprayed something onto the small pool of blood left behind on the sidewalk; it foamed like seafoam, but pink. then just the snow, and a long drive six blocks home.

In decision

2009-04-26T15:59:00.000-06:00

say, hypothetically, that you're a mid-career professional trying to weigh a job you already know you love (teaching, research, summers to plot as you see fit, a manageable level of known frustrations) against a position -- let's say, since we're speaking hypothetically, an administrative position that would give you a chance to make a difference in the institution, collaborate with good people in an atmosphere on the brink of change, and potentially set you up for other possibilities down the line. how do you make a decision?

first there's the gut reaction, which in my case is contradictory.
heart: i love teaching, don't make me panic like that!
head: oh, wow, that's so tantalizing, tell me just a tiny bit more...
stomach: what'll that get me?
back: bring it.
supraspinatus: oh no you don't.
feet: shoes! shoes!

then there's the pro/con list, a useful heuristic that ultimately tells you what you already know: there are pros and cons to both sides.

so then you ask people. mo knows me better than anybody in the world and i seek out her advice and listen to it. but mo is also the one who talked me into investing in a pyramid scheme back in 1997.

my father? no help. "you had to know this is coming," he said; when i whined "yeah, but not so soon...," he laughed and said something about how life is what happens while you're making other plans.

friends and colleagues are great, but cursed with a thoughtfulness that is guaranteed to complicate everything. i don't need new ways of thinking through the issue; i need crisp direction.

i need cosmic guidance.

horoscope 1 points out that "someone might not even realize what they are saying or asking. the end result might be a lot of confusion. ultimately it will be your choice which way to go." thanks. horoscope 2 is equally helpful: "a new moon in your sign makes this a weekend full of potential. whatever dreams you have and whatever plans you have made, now is the time to do something about them. believe in yourself and you will triumph, no matter what the odds against you are." which is nice, but hardly full of direction, and that bit about the odds against me is unnerving.

happily, the oracle has an internet connection. over at eclecticenergies.com, the oracle divined hexagram 35, "progress," changing to 61, "inner trust." in the oracle's own words: "35. the marquis of kang made use of given horses. they multiplied to a great number. every day they mated three times during the daytime. progress by making effective use of opportunities." that hexagram transmogrifies to "61. inner trust of piglets and fishes. good fortune. it is beneficial to cross the big river. it is beneficial to persist. have confidence like the piglets and fishes have. things go well. this is a good moment for big undertakings. keep going on."

at onlineclarity.co (the oracle apparently has a couple of online sites), astonishingly, i also draw 35, the progress hexagram primary, and 51, shock, as the secondary: "shock brings success. ... the superior man examines himself and sets his life in order." indeed.

i cast three runes, which said:
- make up your mind
- it is a beautiful gift, but every gift has strings attached
- follow your heart.

i did a mah jongg reading.

i napped on it, and when i woke up i realized: the stars are right, the oracle knows what he's talking about, the runes point the way forward. the reason it's such a hard decision is that there is no bad choice. i can't say exactly when or how i came to a decision; it's not a mere function of logic yet it's more complicated than following your heart. through suspending both possibilities for a time, one of them has shaped itself as the future. and so -- i know what to do.

Triste

2009-04-23T11:28:00.004-06:00

i suppose it's a good thing they finished their finals one by one, or i really would have burst into tears. as it was, just a constant trickle as each 380 student walked out the door of tory 1-107 and on into their own lives. those students were so smart, so fun, so inventive and brave that if i live to be 100 years old i'll never see the likes of them again.

so i figured i'd better try to see as much as possible today, take 'em all in. that's what i do while they write their final exams, i look at them surreptitiously and extrapolate twenty years into their future.

take kate (not her real name): accomplished, professional, well married and set, she will look back on her "college years" with a good sense of humour and will never understand how amazing it was to have done all 5 courses in the honors program while founding a new students' association. elise's marriage fell apart this semester. she's lost about 15 pounds and taken up smoking, but she also found ways to make the course material speak to her. for obvious if unspoken reasons she had to abandon the project that involved transcribing her mother-in-law's story, but her final paper was a goodbye to the house she's being forced to give up. she's going to hide the obituary in a closet before she walks away for the last time. i'd love to be a fly on the wall when she starts dating again.

the class clown, in turns out, has ambitions to study romantic literature at leeds; he wants to be just like jim mulvihill. i would never have pegged obedient-looking fern for a race radical, but she is. will her relationship last? and will she like being a public librarian? oh, she doesn't know that yet, hasn't even applied to library school. and what about jeremy: will he stay here with his family, or will he take his beer-drinkin' truck-drivin' poem-writin' tattooed self up north? could go either way. that big filipino guy is the real thing. i wonder if he knows it. he does too much salvia for now, and i suspect he's battling a bunch of other demons too, but he has the quirkiest mind i've seen in a decade. i hope he follows up with marshall. oh, and what about those two in the back: i never did figure them out. they look so different in summer clothes.

and another one walks out, and another one, and another ... and by 11:10 when i've called the exam it's just me wondering: really, could i really walk away from this fulltime?

I heart my physio

2009-04-22T22:02:00.002-06:00

it's a good day when i get to see oliver. that's not his real name, that's just what i call him. we have that kind of relationship, the kind where i give him pet names and he laughs at all my jokes. it's my shoulder that brought us together, my supraspinatus to be exact, but our relationship has gone beyond that now. oliver would do anything to heal me, and i would let him. do anything.

why do i always develop such a crush on my PTs? i do not know. i am smart enough to recognize transference when it pulls back the cubicle curtain to say hello, but i've never developed adequate transference in psychotherapy sessions. with counsellors i feel nervousness and shame. with my GP, performance anxiety. i'm neutral with my dentist. but check me into a physiotherapy session and i turn into a daddy's girl.

that's right: this does not happen with physios who are women. with them, i am a co-conspirator, a professional ally, tackling together this ruptured tendon or that torn hamstring. i do not wear my best bra or thrill to the prospect of ultrasound gel. we compare notes dispassionately on range of movement, avenues of treatment, prognoses and cautions. i want their respect. and when i earn it, sure, i think of baking them banana bread, but i don't spend long hours wondering whether their wives would mind me sending postcards from hawaii.

oliver knows everything. he speaks in latin phrases: swoon! his office is full of dangerous technical equipment -- stationary bikes, exercise balls, floor mats, you name it -- and he is the master of them all. "have we had you on the arm bike?," he asks. the arm bike! "no," i say, "but i sure would like to." he picks up a piece of surgical tubing and i feel my heart race: is that for me? he tells me to do three sets of exercises. i do four. i can tell by the furrow in his brow that my shoulder is a puzzle, but i can also tell, by the tender seriousness in his gaze, that oliver is not afraid of a rotator cuff injury. when i'm in pain, he's in pain. we share every triumph.

sometimes it's hard to be oliver's favorite. today, for instance, the girl in the next cubicle said, "okay, well, i'll call you tomorrow after that appointment." what? i retracted my scapula extra hard while i chewed on this. the thing is, though, our relationship just won't work if i get territorial. i can be generous. right? can i? i test out "generous," and it comes out magnanimous. little miss pre-op next door can't touch what oliver and i have.

when he comes in next to check on me i say, "i took the plane back from new york yesterday with a group that had just run the boston marathon." meaning: we should train for a marathon together, oliver. he says, "oh, i missed watching it this year." meaning: i missed you too, heather.

sigh.

i bet he can't wait for tuesday at 9:30.

Not the only one who thinks my students rock

2009-04-11T09:32:00.003-06:00

see todd babiak, edmonton journal, saturday 11 april 2009.

Rant: stop kicking my students around

2009-04-07T20:00:00.026-06:00

my usual post-course tristesse was derailed by two distressing media stories: from msnbc, the claim that university students are less prepared than they used to be, and from the globe and mail, margaret wente's alarmism about how much university costs. put this together with heather mallick's recent column, "time to shrink the university,"and you have the makings of -- well, sit back and get comfy, 'cause i feel a rant coming on.

let's start with the first one: students have inferior writing and numeric skills, say ontario professors. moreover, they're immature, they rely too heavily on the internet, and they believe they are entitled to good grades with minimal effort.

this latest hand-wringing variation on the "kids today" lament has about as much originality as a britney spears cover. (britney spears, if you didn't catch the reference, is a pop star.) such facile idiocy is unbecoming in people with advanced degrees -- "colleagues," i'm ashamed to admit -- though one also has to wonder how the questions were put to them.

take the complaint about writing. bullshit! the students i teach are prolific texters. while this means they don't necessarily know the ins and outs of the formal essay, they certainly understand that different mediums carry their own conventions. they tend to be brilliant with repartee and they understand the value of brevity. true, they don't read a newspaper, but in cruising multiple news sources online, they have learned how to synthesize different perspectives on a single topic. this, i presume, is part of their "over-reliance" on the internet (a series of tubes, right?) -- as opposed to what, i wonder: the olden days when students would go to the library to identify a poetic allusion? right.

i'm going to leave aside here the dig at high school teachers, post-secondary's favorite whipping post, though i will say for the record that the high school teachers i know work very hard, often (and especially in post-klein alberta) in conditions not of their choosing.

defending high school teachers is not my mission here, but i won't hear my students insulted this way. do they know everything? of course not. the students i taught this year -- incidentally, in english 123, 224, 380, sociology 492 and english 567: in other words, at every undergraduate and graduate level -- struggle to analyze literary texts, and they find it hard to sustain an evidence-based argument at the length of 1500 words.

and yet, i've just graded a stack of the most remarkable essays.

how did we get here from there? by dint of what we in the biz call "teaching" and "learning." and yes, margaret wente, it's expensive! it involves things like thinking, hard, sometimes for years, before i walk into a class. it means standing in front of a room trying to think of a new way to explain something i feel i've said a hundred times already, but clearly not effectively enough yet, because they don't understand. sometimes, after class, it means going back to my office, or down the hall to my colleagues, or to the dreaded internet to figure out how other people have done what i'm trying to do. it means knowing more than my students, and keeping up in the field: "research," we call that.

on my students' part, learning involves the agony of staring at a blank computer screen trying to think of something to write -- then writing it poorly -- and then figuring out how to improve it. it means making use of time on the bus to do your reading. it means taking a chance every time you open your mouth in a discussion, in a room full of strangers.

or it involves a student and me sitting down at a desk together to solve the problem of how to limit a huge topic -- say, interracial relationships between chinese men and white women in 1920s edmonton, to name just one of the fascinating topics my students came up with -- so that it can fit into 8 pages. it means schlepping to the archives, getting ethics clearance, reading beyond the course material, all of which my students did this term. of course it means piles and piles of marking (on my part) and a whole lot of suckin' it up (on theirs) in the necessary awfulness of grading. do you know that a student who got -- who earned -- an F on her major paper last semester came back to take another class with me this term? either she's completely unclear on the concept of grade-grubbing entitlement, or her interest is actually (say it ain't so!) in learning. you know what else? she's pulling a solid B this term.

these are my students. yeah, they're online all the time. yeah, they're more comfortable talking about what makes a text "relatable" than they are with what makes it work. does the word "relatable" make my skin crawl? you bet it does. would i rather wear my eyelids inside out than say, yet again, "liking or not liking a novel is a great place to begin literary analysis, but it's not the end result"? yes, oh, god, yes.

but then i sit down to a stack of papers and read what it's like when someone gets it -- finds his voice, takes a stand, solves a theoretical problem or just frames it enticingly -- and all of that falls away in the shadow of what really matters. we read, we think, we teach, we learn. we evince frailty and courage, and evoke compassion and care. we excite each other, even though we also sometimes disappoint each other. we demonstrate our human capacity for change and growth and creativity. we assert that the world can be different, better.

tell me again how this is too costly?

heather mallick, who normally has the breadth of vision to look beyond her own backyard, says, "when I look at higher education, it seems that everyone — from professors to teaching assistants to students — is unhappy with his or her lot."

not me. and, if i've done my job right, not my students.

Still a bit drunk

2009-04-02T22:31:00.007-06:00

good friends over for dinner, and cancer-free. the last week of classes. linda goyette, todd babiak, alice major and marshall watson came to this morning's english class. sweet ted writes to say the collages i admired "what seems like a lifetime ago" have just been picked up by the douglas udell gallery. mark's band is playing an iraq benefit on saturday night. adam's made a breakthrough in his writing. eria is crawling. mo and i are heading to the desert.

it took me three decades to commit to the project of being alive, and now it all flies so fast, so final. i feel a wild and impotent despair: how sweet life is.

Dude, il bop

2009-03-31T21:24:00.009-06:00

for christmas mo and i prefer to buy my sister's kids experiences rather than things by getting tickets to an art event of some sort. last year darien caught the sierra leone refugee all-stars, for instance, and we took laura to a (tepid, it turns out) production of robin hood. this year we took the older girls to stomp.

tonight, it was morgan's turn, as the doodlebops rocked the winspear.

i wasn't sure what to expect, but it was ... well ... it was a rock show for the under-fives. remember your first rock show: supertramp's breakfast in america, maybe, or loverboy? stacey's stashed a joint in her bra and you're packing a mickey of southern comfort. you're wearing your rainbow jeans with the big fat comb in the ass pocket so you can feather your hair as the night goes on. it's totally awesome but also kinda scary as the contact high hits you at the door.

well, morgan's peer group just does it all a little earlier, sans the drugs. the crowd -- hundreds of children in thirty dollar seats (recession, what recession?) -- was crazy for deedee, rooney and moe. they screamed "doo-dul-bops! doo-dul-bops! doo-dul-bops!" for a full five minutes before the colorful trio took the stage, saying "hello, edmonton! are you havin' a good night, edmonton?" there was a backdrop video, and lasers. there was signature merchandise (t-shirts and glow sticks and cell phones and guitars) for sale in the lobby. there were bouncers, grandmotherly ushers reassigned to keep the mosh pit of kindergarteners off the stage. the kids knew all the words -- forget the kids, the parents knew all the words. a weary-looking mother of toddlers heaved herself into the seat next to us and said, "i'm warning you right now, i know all the lyrics and i intend to sing along. i've earned this night."

as for the kids, they absolutely loved it. even when the three-year-old in front of us got so wrapped up in her airplane arms that she propelled herself right off her seat, she just did some bum-dancing there in the aisle until she could pick herself back up again.

it was like eating fettuccine alfredo: all those carbs go down so smoothly, and while it's not exactly wholesome, it's not the worst thing you could eat, either. it's full of real cheese.

Better

2009-03-22T16:08:00.008-06:00

working again this year has brought several moments of concern. whenever i have a bad spell, i worry that i am sliding back toward madness and despair. i scrutinize every thought, fret over every action, put the sharp knives and bourbon away.

i thought i'd return from my long time off with profound thoughts and insightful Rules for Living, but it's not like that. wasn't it gertrude stein who said, "knowledge is what you know"? knowing runs deep, like an orientation or a sensibility, and not like a list -- which means it's not always on the surface, available for a casual check-in.

still, every once in a while i get a glimpse into the before and after. today, in the middle of pulling together a presentation for tuesday, i went into my amazon.ca file. i know there are better ways to organize ideas and keep track of books, but i use the amazon shopping cart to store things that intrigue me, but not enough to shell out money for. i decided i was ready to move the following from "save for later" to "delete":

julie jensen, i don't know what i want but it's not this
barbara winter, making a living without a job
nicholas lore, the pathfinder: how to choose or change your career for a lifetime of satisfaction and success
barbara sher, i could do anything ... if only i knew what it was

i'm not quite ready to delete every day's a weekend: an insider's guide to early retirement and exotic travel by newton hockey, or bob clyatt's work less, live more: the way to semi-retirement -- but it's a start.

Food love

2009-03-21T23:15:00.006-06:00

i've had a lovely saturday night puttering around the kitchen. it probably started this morning when i made us a breakfast of steel cut oats with tart cherries and almonds, but my endeavours picked up steam after i made a to-do list that went onto page 4. i looked at all the work i have to do in the next three weeks and walked right out of my study and into the kitchen, where i stewed some cranberries for turkey sandwiches during the week, made applesauce with cinnamon sticks and cloves, whipped up a batch of granola for my friend olga, whose kitchen is being renovated, and baked a batch of carrot-nut muffins for mo.

my friend lisa's lovely new blog, threshold of greatness, says that food is love. i agree, though it hasn't always served me well. since christmas, mo and i have been trying to eat better. we don't use the "diet" word, but we have been watching portion sizes and trying to stay away from the cheese popcorn, and the junior mints, and the licorice, and the trail mix, and the late-night bowl of cereal, and the melty-toasties, and the granola bars, and the halloween candy, and the row(s) of cookies, and the one-kilo bag of dried mangoes, and the treacherous members of the cracker family, forever luring you in with their multigrain healthiness, only to hit you with a sandbag of sat fat once you're committed.

we're each down about ten pounds since the beginning of january, and feeling healthier. it's fun to go clothes shopping in our own closets. just as the nutritionists promised, i feel empowered to make good choices: peckish after working out today, i bypassed the Big Cupboard o' Carbs and went straight to the fridge for a trio of organic carrots. i have more energy when breakfast is an egg-white omelet with spinach instead of a bowl of raisin bran. everything i cooked today was healthy.

it's nice to be reminded that food isn't love, that there are nonfat ways of demonstrating care, but sometimes i miss the illicit thrill of hot buttered toast.

Teaching and learning

2009-03-17T22:40:00.007-06:00

i sit on this teaching committee peopled by smart, well-meaning people, but the meetings are powerfully dull. soon as i walk into the room i feel a toxic sleepiness descend, and it doesn't go away for the next 90 minutes.

the highlight of the meetings, if meetings like this can be said to have "highlights," is talking about teaching practices across campus. it's always interesting (in principle) to talk with people who work in really different disciplines: what is kinesiology, i wonder, and what exactly do you teach in the faculty of phys ed, and what do nurses do when they're not giving practice shots to an orange?

today's topic was problem-based learning, currently the hot approach in health education. the presentation (yeah: put a group of dynamic teachers in a room and they give presentations to each other...) plodded on, reviewing the literature, listing the pros and cons of PBL, rehearsing common issues and their solutions, etc. i got up to get myself another cup of tea.

we had arrived at the handout, a sample PBL case, which goes something like this:

jennifer, a 16-year old girl, and her mother have come to your office because they are concerned that jennifer hasn't started menstruating yet. once a month her breasts get tender and she becomes 'moody,' according to her mother, but she has not experienced menses. when the mother leaves the room, jennifer confesses that there's a boy in her class that she likes, and she's wondering about birth control. looking uncomfortable, she adds that she's tried to use a tampon, but can't.

i consider another cup of tea. the presenter says, "... by wednesday, the learning groups are required to complete their research on the subject, so that on thursday ..."

i turn the page of the handout, and sweet jesus, i'm looking at a photograph of somebody's vulva. i peered a little closer, since i couldn't believe my eyes: this girl had no vagina. dude! i wanted to say, there's your problem. no wonder you were having trouble with the tampax.

nobody else appeared even slightly fazed by the illustration. the presenter was explaining how to address dysfunction in a small group. i stole another glance at the handout. there were sample ultrasound and MRI reports. the ultrasound was -- am i reading this right? -- unable to locate a left kidney and -- my eyes bugged right out -- the MRI concluded, definitively, "the left kidney is absent."

absent? the left kidney is absent? is anybody else catching this? i wanted to wave my arms, stomp my feet, whistle. hello, this girl has NO vagina, NO uterus, and she's down one kidney! did she step right out of an episode of house? i wanted to elbow the prof sitting next to me and ask, sideways, "and didja catch the picture, too? intense!" i was imagining the diagnostic conversation with this girl, imagining her mother, wondering whether they'd recommend surgery, what would surgery be like, what if she didn't want it, how can you have ovaries without a uterus, would i miss having a vagina, could she conceive babies and just not carry them to term, what if her good kidney failed, is everybody else in her family like this?

but it was 5:00, "so if nobody has any questions, i guess we'll see you in april."

Art love

2009-03-16T07:51:00.003-06:00

two photographers i'm loving:
robyn cumming
miru kim.

Livin' ... in vancouver?

2009-03-15T23:18:00.008-06:00

it used to be that my favorite thing about traveling was -- and here let me issue a warning to stalwart comrades: you can still exit this post with your sense of me intact -- shopping. it's the main way i orient myself into a place. i figure out where the funky shops are and it gives me a bead on the place. chain store after chain store: ok, i know you. a little side street with secondhand record stores and some hopeful clothing designer who's just hung out her shingle? we can be friends.

this time in vancouver it wasn't like that, and i'm not totally sure why. partly it's because vancouver, like everywhere else, is inundated with chains. granville, for instance, is like a linear version of south edmonton common: urban barn next to restoration hardware across the street from chapters and EQ3, and every one of 'em has its own starbucks. you know how people are talking these days about companies that are "too big to fail": why does that apply to pottery barn?

that's not the only reason shopping is different these days, though. even though we could have strolled some of the littler shops along main -- smoking lily specialists, say, or sunja link's flagship (ha!) or that new little design shop in deep cove -- i just wasn't motivated to do it. eh, it was drizzling, i was tired, and i came up with quite a litany of other excuses.

the real reason? i think we shop bigger now. so in fact what we did on the first night we were in vancouver -- seriously, friends, you can still leave! -- is troll MLS for the kinds of places we'd like to own. we think we could be happy with a second home in the low 700s, the burning question being west end or kits. we have become those lesbians, the ones who attend open houses in yaletown instead of going to the rally on commercial drive.

as i probably don't need to say, mo and i can no more afford a second home in vancouver in the low 700s than you can, and possibly even less, given that we are saving up to buy a new sleeping pad for the ole tent trailer (memory foam at superstore: $175). but it is telling that this is the line our fantasies take. while the acquisitiveness of this fantasy life makes me uneasy -- what happened to tread lightly, think globally, keep on rockin' in the free world? -- it also suggests tenderer things. specifically: that we are getting older. we talk about where we want to live when we retire, for example. what is charming about my fantasies of retirement is that i see my life as being essentially the same as it is now, only with more money: we're both in good health, our parents are all alive and independent, our friends are all vital and mobile. no strings, just possibilities. in my fantasy, we could just pick up and move wherever we wanted, and our perfect life would blossom in a new place.

and so i'm not going to challenge this fantasy. there is time enough to come to terms with grimness; life has a way of bringing grimness to you. buying a second home in a city like vancouver is a marker of gobsmacking privilege, especially if you think globally. but the real privilege? projecting the life you actually live as a fantasy for the future.

Livin' it up in vancouver

2009-03-13T16:43:00.004-06:00

what with the endless winter, the new course, and the flagging energy, i have felt stuck in perpetual january. it's a shock to realize it's already the middle of march. having coffee with a friend the other day, i remembered all those heart tests i went through a year ago, and the excitement of writing. i'll revisit the origins of this blog, i promised myself, and write an anniversary post. that was three weeks ago.

i'm now in vancouver. when our plans to visit canmore over reading week fell through, mo and i came up with the idea of a weekend getaway to vancouver. it's what grown-ups in edmonton do. i pushed us into it. i bought the plane tickets and booked the friday off work and got mo to do the same. the last two weeks i have been slaving to clear my schedule enough to be here without worrying about work. i got one phd student through his exams, another through the proposal stage, a third through her first chapter. i read ahead for my grad class. i gave my undergraduate english class an extension. i prepped the new sociology course. i cleared the exposure decks and rearranged honors tutorial meetings and visited with the visiting speaker and chaired conference panels and wrote next thursday's ISMSS presentation. i even took three hours off last saturday to clean the house, knowing i'd be away this weekend.

i did it all gladly, so that when we pulled out of the humanities centre parking lot at 4:45 yesterday, it would be with a clear conscience and a happy heart.

it's a good plan, and by the time we hit the departures lounge i was as high as i've ever been: competent, satisfied, ahead of the game. but so far, i have spent most of our time in vancouver napping.

No good deed....

2009-02-04T09:16:00.000-07:00

kinda makes you wonder what you get if you lose, doesn't it?

An odd occurrence

2009-02-03T16:33:00.004-07:00

i was waiting for my turn at the save-on-foods deli counter when a fellow shopper struck up a conversation. "do you mind my asking: how do you tie your scarf so that it hangs like that?" i was startled and pleased. it's what i think of as the sydney look, though everybody does it now. i studied other scarf-wearers in australia, 2002, until i learned the loop-it-doubled-around-your head-and-poke-the-ends-through trick. i was pleased she'd asked and happy to demonstrate, there in front of the cold cuts. "oh!," she said, "you double it up." she pondered for a second. "i wonder if my scarf is long enough?" i said i thought it was. it was a very pretty scarf, red with flowers embroidered on it, and i asked whether she'd done the needlework herself. she laughed, sounding embarassed. "no, heavens no, it came that way. from india." i said it was lovely.

(the woman behind the counter asked if 296g was close enough to 300g. yes.)

my fellow customer pulled her scarf off and said she'd try it! i coached her through the motions, she worrying all the while that the scarf wouldn't be long enough, but of course it was. "bravo!," i said, "it looks perfect."

(i ordered a couple sticks of chorizo: no, not german sausage, the mexican one. bright red. yes. right. two please.)

my new friend seemed quite pleased with her look but confessed that she was a dunce where these matters were concerned. i said, "oh, i know what you mean! i bought a shirt recently that came with an online instructional video detailing all the ways you could wear it. the sales clerk talked me into trying it on, and the second i did, i realized that i really wanted to be the kind of person who could wear a shirt like that -- bold, whimsical, playful and so on -- but the second i got home i realized the shirt was smarter than me." "an instructional video!," she said. "i think it would be a long time before i bought a shirt that came with an instructional video." "i know," i agreed, "right?"

i picked up my sliced turkey, smiled, and turned away.

a few minutes later, she came after me.

"you," she said, and leaned in for emphasis, "you are a treasure. never forget that!" she slid something into my cart and scuttled away.

between the clamshell spinach and the snap peas was a hand-lettered red envelope saying "Just For You." inside, a card, generic enough, the kind you buy in packages of eight or ten. the picture is a hanging flower basket. inside she has written, "Your bright cheerful attitude is such a blessing to everyone around you. Jesus loves you with a never ending unconditional love." behind the card is a pamphlet called "Steps to Peace with God," and inside that, a ten-dollar bill.

of all these things, it's the ten bucks i find most discomfiting. the card is sweet and although i find the sentiment a bit creepy, i can see that it comes from a good place. it's pretty cool to walk around a grocery store handing out cards to strangers, and you can bet i filed that one away for future use. but ten dollars? ten christian dollars? i still think of ten bucks as a lot of money -- more than you'd give to a stranger. she stuck a post-it note to the bill saying, "relax and treat yourself to a special coffee break." does special coffee cost ten dollars? i guess so.... but do i look like i can't afford my own special coffee? do i look like i need the money? i don't think i need it. i'm bad with finances, no doubt, but honestly i make a good living. no, i definitely don't need ten dollars from this woman. in fact, i'm pretty sure i'm better off than she is: after all, didn't i learn how to tie my scarf six or seven years ago on a whole other continent? i wondered if i should go after her and say excuse me, sorry, that's really sweet and i see where you're coming from, but aren't there tons of other people that could really, really use ten dollars?

what am i going to do with it?

i'm lying a little here. the really discomfiting part, though for all the same reasons, is the line, "I'll be praying for you."

25 things

2009-01-31T15:53:00.004-07:00

i'm loving the new facebook fad where people post 25 random facts about themselves. it's an interesting autobiographical exercise and an opportunity to learn more about your friends, and some of the lists coming out are really, really good.

and i kind of resent them.

the thing is, once you've published your list, you're done. and since all of this stuff circulates publicly, what you've said is necessarily being read next to what everybody else said. which i find -- this belongs on my list -- horrific.

my friends' lists remind me of the things i forgot -- yes yes yes, jerry, you're totally right about people who ride their bikes on the sidewalks! i hate that too! their lists reveal a cleverness i suspect i don't have. why didn't i at the very least number my list backwards, like nat did? they impress upon me how narrow my life has been, or at least how limited my imagination is: i can't honestly start a sentence with "in order to be a clarinet player in the armed forces, i became a canadian citizen ..."; i've never been grabbed by an orangutan (mari); and it has never even occurred to me to long for a velvety lioness-like tail (susanne).

there's no gentle way to put this: my friends' lists make me look bad. it's not just that caitlin is a good knife thrower, it's that i'm not. ever since i read her list i've been pouting and resentful. i want to be good at everything! i want to know everything that everybody else knows! i want to be as clever as they are! i want to do the things they've done! and then i want to condense all of that cleverness and ingenuity into The Best List Ever.

what's that you say? it's not about me?

right.

year-end catch up

2008-12-30T07:49:00.004-07:00

it's been so long since i've blogged -- over a month -- that i'm not sure i remember how to do it anymore. and i'm not sure what to write about, so many ideas have come and gone.

i was going to write about post-course tristesse, that sense of loss and desire i still experience when i watch my students write their final exam. i look at each serious head, bent to the ruled booklet, and wonder exactly what will become of katie the nurse, or johnny the class clown (what's he hiding? when he does finally take himself seriously, how painful will it be?). i look at hac, who's spoken english for under ten years yet wants to write like the BBC commentators he reads online: could i have spent just a bit more time with him in my office, talking writing? over in the theory class, i'm still marveling at the single mom who brought her 8-year-old to exposure's trans day of remembrance, thrilled at the varsity hockey player whose world was blown wide open by eli clare's gender ambiguity -- gender wealth? -- and curious as to what motivates alex, the quiet military guy who didn't miss a trick all year. i watch them write and i think, hard, about who they seem to be now and who they might become, and hope that what i've been able to offer these past few months is enough. in this way, teaching is painful, and it only becomes more poignant by realizing, as i have this year, that so much of what's just happened will be forgot -- by them, by me....

i was also going to write about more generally about what it was like to be back in the classroom after so many years away -- i loved it, obviously -- but also what a mysterious thing it is to learn something, by which i mean: i know that i am different from two or three years ago, but the difference is so evanescent that i can't really pin it down. i think differently, something like that. and so, yeah, i get tired, but i don't (can't?) work beyond my limits any longer. i was savaged on the dep't listserv, and just moved on. i was flattered, no doubt, to be nominated by my students for a teaching award, but it didn't serve as a measure of my sense of worth. a therapist might say i make better decisions now, but as usual the decision-making process is so habitual and, well, quick that it never feels like you're sitting at the table saying no to the day's special in favour of the tried and true.

christmas has been really good, one of the best ever, in both edmonton and ottawa, and i was going to write all about that: my sister's life-changing brussels sprouts, how my uncle got up at 5 in the morning to purchase a wii fit, the conviviality around dan and tony's dinner table, what it's like to spend evening after evening just visiting with good friends and family. among other things, we've seen a ton of children this christmas, and i really enjoy my relationship with them: laura's diva style, morgan's love for shoes, maggie's ballet and daisy's made-up song, eria's cuteosity, stella's blue pjs, harriet's brute intelligence, the other morgan's shy, sardonic and dangerously passionate approach to the world -- i feel lucky, on an almost daily basis, to have exactly the relationship with children that i want to have.

i was going to write about how aunty jo told everybody at boston pizza that yes, heather and maureen are going to ottawa this year but she just didn't feel up to it. i was going to rave about how many new design blogs i've found (though i suppose you can see them in the blogroll) and how keen i am to rearrange everything on the main floor of the house. i was going to talk up the exposure board for anyone interested in arts and culture and event planning and hard work and fun. i was going to mention that my first column in unlimited magazine will be posted here after 1 jan.

but now here we are, 2008 is on its last curtain call, its brave bow turned bored and its glance to the techs in the rafters more and more worried: any second now the curtain comes down for good, and there will be no time left to write any of that.

Exposing my self

2008-11-23T15:40:00.011-07:00

i've been wandering around all day in a fog. over the last hour or so it's occurred to me that it's because i'm tired. my feet hurt. my knees hurt. my hips hurt. okay, all of that can be traced to dancing in ridiculous heels last night -- but the outside of my forearms? my neck? i guess it's like this when tension leaves the body.

what i've realized during the last hour of slow consciousness (see slow food, slow growth) is that although i am tired, i am also really and truly better than i was a year ago or two. it's not just that i didn't pass out in the middle of the night and rip my forehead open, as i did at the end of exposure '07. and it's not that i find this easy: although i wrote breezily a few days back that i had lost track of my identity as dr zwicker, that kind of emotional dislocation is profound, for me. this week of supreme highs (bathhouse) and fears (will people come to the festival? will they like it? will our small board survive it?) and frustrations (which aren't worth rehearsing) and fragmentation (from 9-9:30 i'm schlepper, from 9:30-11:00 i'm teacher, from 11:00-1:00 i'm hzwicker@ualberta and zwickerhzwicker@gmail, then dr zee, then doctoral supervisor, then, starting at 4:00, professional lesbian, then sombre audience member) and neglect (does walking to the car count as exercise? how many nights a week is it ok to eat trail mix for dinner?): this kind of disaggregation is precisely what the doctor didn't order.

but i'm ok. i'm not great. in particular, i'm still bothered by that perennial sense that i should have done more; it grieved and guilted me to leave the party last night, for instance, knowing how much work it would be to take it down, and i can't believe i forgot, literally forgot, to go to play on friday night after the amy fung event at the ARTery. i feel uneasy, unsettled, uncertain -- all those "un"s suggesting that i don't feel any identifiable thing, just the opposite of many things. my sensitivities are dialed up, so i still don't know whether i'm right to be upset about the unlimited business, and i am spending way too much time fretting about people who are, really, tangential to my life (but did KW seem out of sorts to anyone else this week?). i don't know what i'll do with all this unclaimed time on my hands, nor how i'll survive without sending and receiving a hundred exposure-related emails a day. i worry, what if my sense of self really is predicated on being indispensable to others?

as i pause and read the paragraph i just wrote -- slow consciousness, remember? -- i'm struck by the repetition of "not knowing." apparently, i find it emotionally dangerous not to know. (my name is heather, and i'm a control freak....). but it's puzzling, nonetheless. isn't the unknown one of the main things to love about art? and isn't risk built into dealing with people? i'm all about grooving on folks who are unlike me, and i love seeing a painting or a photograph or a performance or a room -- the starlite lounge last night comes to mind -- that startles or intrigues or comforts or moves me into a different mental and emotional space.

it's odd, then, homeopathically odd, that the things that scare me the most are the things i seek to do. i probably should have been a bank teller, not a teacher who falls in love with her classes right before they end. i should work on safe events like the olympics rather than start-up queer arts and culture fests. i should make friends with the old and settled, not the up-and-comers who regularly leave this city.

"expose yourself" was the slogan of this year's festival. it's only now, as i spend a day musing and loitering, that i really understand that challenge. i'm pleased to discover that i'm well enough to meet it.

Bathhouse

2008-11-19T23:07:00.003-07:00

in a word: incredible.

we planned for 100, hoped for 125, and we were past that number in the first hour. all in all, we had close to 400 people at the bathhouse over the evening.

everybody was there: swarthy men and bright-eyed graduate students, groups of curious girls, swishy boys, pretty boys, grown-up women, transfolk, drag queens in street clothes, dykes -- friends, strangers... i wish we'd had a tape recorder at the front door, just to capture people's first reactions on walking into the dark red maze. some were anxious and wanted direction: "which way should we go? what should we not miss?" others were just excited: "OMG i can't believe i'm here!" yet others came through the door and you could actually see them adjust their facial expression from nervous to cruisy to cool.

we had art pieces in a dozen rooms and along the halls. marshall set up spotlights to augment the dim and highlight the art, and we provided flashlights for people to use if they chose. norman omar's painting of half a dozen men in towels leaning up against one another covered one hallway, for instance; we installed shane golby's rabbit hutch along one wall and put CW carson's terrifying clown images into three rooms on the opposite wall. one of my personal favorites was dolan badger's installation about fucking the indian (again).... really powerful, and beautiful, understated and bold, at once. anthea black silkscreened a gayle rubin room, a patrick califia room and a cynthia plaster room that you could only view through glory holes. the TVs throughout the bathhouse are all wired together. on one, we screened tom kalin and gran fury's AIDS has not left the building, on the second, sandi somers' whimsical the panty portal and on the third, a buck angel porn called buckback mountain (confession: it was hard not to go with v for vagina). seeing these three together, as you could in the movie room, worked surprisingly well.

we printed e.g. crichton's dirty soap prints on waterproof paper and hung them around the shower and on the floor. we had paige gratland's celebrity lesbian fists, silicon, displayed on black slate. josee aubin oullette took over the steam rooom and filled it with simple ink drawings of the everyday objects that get transformed by being in a bathhouse -- towels, lockers, pillows, beds, keys. it was a little treasure hunt of a maze, illuminated with sexy blacklights.

upstairs, four performance artists held court. antonio bavaro was dr glockensprockensphree (?sp), dispensing advice for the sex addicted. put a coin in her slot and kristine nutting opened the door to her confessional. todd janes's tearoom allowed for anything -- anything -- and was really moving, a space for intimacy in the place you generally come to avoid it, while julianna barabas, wearing a full-length white greek dress, washed, massaged and oiled your hands while singing to you. many people commented that hers felt like the dirtiest piece of all.

anyway, it was a marvelous evening, way beyond our wildest dreams. more than any of the art in particular, the night itself was the event: wandering halls, getting lost in the dark, bumping into strangers, imagining yourself in the sling next to the chainlink fence.... the crowd was perhaps the best art installation of all.

for pictures, program and rowan bayne's exquisite blog on the event, go here. for todd janes's take on his own art, go here. jackson's photos are all over, esp at the exposure fb page.

tonight? i sat on the sofa for five hours, catching up on design blogs and without a trace reruns. that's bliss of another sort.