How cool is this?
Says the artist, “Reading a newspaper, I saw a picture of birds on the electric wires. I cut out the photo and decided to make a song, using the exact location of the birds as notes…” Click on the image of the birds above to hear the resulting song.
I like this; there’s something about it that feels so clean. Here’s to a fresh start this week…
Posted in Random Observations
In a particularly sullen moment of collegic angst, many years ago, I came up with this: In those times when when we are most unsure of ourselves, we come to realize that those are the truest moments, because only then do we know where we are. And we are nowhere. Nowhere.
Or something like that.
Compare that to my latest (woefully infrequent) Tweet: Those moments of discomfort, that’s when we grow. Comfort is boring and unproductive. Or at least, that’s what I keep telling myself.
I frequently say that my life would be completely different if I had a 2-second delay button. Some of the stuff that comes out of my mouth is pure genius, don’t get me wrong. That’s part of my charm. (Snort.) But other times, it’s like this weird slow-mo moment in an art film or something, where I can almost literally see the words coming out of my mouth, cartoon style, and I know it’s going to suck once they get out, but there’s nothing I can do to stop them.
Part of the problem is that I’m impatient. And frequently over-caffeinated. I get things quickly and get easily frustrated when people continue to slooooowly explain things to me. Or when people repeat themselves unnecessarily. A lot. That shit drives me crazy. I’m a cut-to-the-chase kind of gal, which is good … and bad. Good because I’m able to move things forward to get to where we’re all trying to go. Bad because I frequently mow over good people in the process.
So the first step is recognizing that you’ve got a problem, right? I mean, without that level of self-awareness, ain’t nothing going to happen. The key, though, is the second step: doing something about it. It’s all fine and good to just say, “Hey, doesn’t this suck about me?” But if you don’t do anything about it, well then you’re just a self-aware asshole. And nobody likes that.
Suffice to say, I stepped on a few toes earlier this week, and had to do a good amount of back pedaling, apologizing, explaining. And I think things are fine now. But I’m tired of having to do all this, just to undo something I shouldn’t have done in the first place. Think of all the time I’d save if I just didn’t do it to begin with…
If there was a 12-step program for people who frequently put their foots in their mouth, I’d be all over that. FSA – Foot Stuffers Anonymous?
I talked to a therapist who described an approach he had for working with dyslexics. Dyslexics, he explained, not only see things in a different order, but they process things differently, and a certain kind of dyslexic can often get to the conclusion faster than others. One of his clients, the therapist explained, had been pinned as the asshole by his professional peers because he was always impatiently gesturing in meetings, yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s get on with this. He recognized this in himself, but he couldn’t seem to manage it. This therapist fellow explained his behavior in terms of a mild case of dyslexia, and began a program to manage it.
Maybe I should look this guy up.
In any case, I had an uncomfortable day yesterday. It felt like crap. But even in the middle of all the crappiness, I recognized that there was something productive there. Because comfort is boring. You don’t change when you’re comfortable, do you?
image from: http://www.whippedcardgame.com/
My paternal grandmother, Arabella, was a gorgeously tragic woman, very Katharine Hepburn in appearances and spirit, if not circumstance. In the summer between 6th and 7th grade, I spent the summer, along with my younger cousin K, with my grandmother and grandfather in Tulare, California, just outside of Bakersfield. It was actually a remarkably cool experience, though I can only imagine how exhausting it must have been for my grandparents. We spent time tending to their modest walnut orchard, learned how to ride and care for their three Arabian horses, Bell, Star, and Roberta, and hit the road in their big yellow Ford truck, K and I riding in the bed of the truck watching the scenery wiz by backwards as we made our way to Disneyland.
Arabella had two favorite sayings. One was a simple, Tired of living, a-feard of dying: that’s me. Very poignant, and yet very country at the same time. The second one is a little more elegant, but it evokes the same feelings whenever I think of it. This is the one that popped into my head today, after an odd day of emotional ups and downs at work. It goes like this:
Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal.
Dust thou art and dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul.
It turns out that this is a piece from a Longfellow poem called A Psalm of Life. It always makes me a feel a twinge of melancholy when I think of Arabella sighing deeply and reciting these lines.
Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave really isn’t its goal… is it?
Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/casabelle/
Posted in Me
I’ve been through enough therapy to know this one thing: I can’t change anyone but myself.
The thing is, though, I’m in the running for a manager position at work, where I’d be directly responsible for the behavior and performance of between fifteen and twenty other individuals. And the question that has been posed to me, the question that I’ve been pondering for the last few days, is this: what could I possibly do to get someone to perform better at their job?
My mind is constantly drawing connections between all things, related or not, so naturally this question of how to manage people at work reminded me of the President’s speech to school children a few weeks ago. The gist of his message, the one nugget that I honed in on, anyway, was simply that even if someone could wave a magic wand and eliminate all external factors that impact the ability of our schools to function properly, none of that would matter if the kids themselves don’t take responsibility for their role in the job of educating themselves.
The same thing is true at work. We could fix every technical challenge that impedes our ability to do our work well, eliminate all financial constraints to our operations, for example, and still none of that would matter if we, the people who do the work, don’t hold up our end of the bargain.
So, sure, as a manager there would be things that I could do to increase the odds that my team would be successful, but ultimately, it comes down, I think, to a matter of character. Do you, or do you not, care? Is there some fire inside of you, some internal drive, that motivates you to want to do well, to continue to want to do well? Because if it’s there, then we’re good. If not… well, then what? I can’t make you care, right? Then we’re all just clocking in and out each day going through the motions. And what can I, what can anyone, do with that?
image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicecupoftea/
—
edited a few days later to add:
Colin just informed me that the things that look like squiggles coming out of the monster’s mouth are actually “a”s. As in “ahhhhh!” So apparently this guy already has a voice. But still, I envision him using his might to convey a slightly more weighty message. Something like “Ahhhh! Use your brains people!” or “Ahhhhh! Why don’t you kids ever listen to me?” or even “Ahhhhh! The sun! It’s getting closer! The earth is getting hotter! This is not a drill!”
Posted in Kids/Family
I’m thirty-nine years old and I still vividly remember this one moment as a three year old camping with my parents when I got a splinter in my pinky and walked over to have my dad pry it out. There’s a snapshot of this in a photo album somewhere at my mom’s house in Vegas. But I remember that complete feeling of trust in that one moment: there was something wrong, something hurting me, and my dad was going to fix it. Simple as that.
My mom has been traveling quite a bit since she retired about ten years ago. The other day when we were talking on the phone, she mentioned that she was headed to New York City. “You’re leaving for New York?” I asked. “Huh. When? When will you be back?”
She sighed impatiently. “I emailed you my itinerary. Why can you never remember my travel plans?”
“Why?” I snapped. “Maybe it’s because I’ve got a gajillion other things rattling around in my brain. I’ve got my schedule. Charley’s, Colin’s, Kai’s. Don’t give me a hard time woman. My brain is full.”
I routinely forget where I put my keys. I still don’t know where my pool pass is.
All of which makes me wonder what determines what information is important enough to be remembered, to be tucked away safely in this finite brain of mine.
My dad once casually mentioned that he read an article somewhere that someone had done a study and found that the cleanest public toilets are usually the ones closest to the restroom entrance. To this day, that’s the stall that I choose. Why did that stick in my brain?
On the other hand, I have a hard time remembering my closest friends’ birthdays.
It just all seems so arbitrary. I picture my brain like a walk in closet, filled with all these shoe boxes full of memories arranged without rhyme or reason. I like to think of memories as physical things. I just wonder why I’ve made room for some and not others…
image from: http://z.hubpages.com
Posted in Me, Random Observations
It was an assignment from Colin’s kindergarten class last year that first got me to thinking about the general lack of tradition that we have in our family. And it was partly with this in mind that we started “The Threes” at Chez Baker.
Each night at dinner, we sit down and share our “threes” — one good thing that happened that day, one bad thing, and one new thing that we learned. I’m actually a bit surprised that it’s been as big a hit as it has been. Young people, it turns out, dig ritual. Who knew?
I did have other motives too when I dreamed this up. Yes, it’s great for structuring conversations at those oh-so-important family dinners, but I had also hoped that it would help the boys in recognizing that each day has good and bad, and each day is an opportunity to learn. If I had to generalize, I’d tag Charley with being the glass-is-half-empty guy, while I’m sure he’d pin me with the Pollyanna label. So the idea is to get the boys used to seeing things more completely… Nothing’s all good. But nothing’s all bad either.
Interestingly, I’ve found this to be a useful exercise for me too. Even Charley has gotten into it. The grooves in our brains, the ways that we’ve learned to look at life, are pretty engrained. So it can be a bit of an effort to see things from perspectives that are unfamiliar. And the whole “one new thing I learned today” thing is actually more difficult to identify than one might imagine. How sad is it, though, to imagine that a day goes by when we don’t learn at least one new thing…?
Each night at dinner, the boys work on defining the ways that they look at the world, and each night at dinner, their parents work on redefining the ways that they see their world too. It’s kind of cool.
Posted in Kids/Family
I’m as guilty as anyone — witness this blog — but for god’s sakes, when Madison Avenue jumps on board and starts making references to dingleberries and the like, I feel like I must draw the line. It ends here people.
Surely I can’t be the only one who objects…
Posted in Random Observations
* More old stuff. I ran across a collection of short writing exercises I put together for a great writing workshop I took back in 2001, back when Charley and I were newly married, still childless and living in the Mission in San Francisco. We had been searching for our first home — a home with a yard for our nutty reactive puppy — for about a year, and after five unsuccessful offers had finally gone into contract on a sweet 2 bedroom bungalow in a gentrifying neighborhood in North Oakland. This was one of the daily ten-minute free-writes that we did as part of the writing class I was taking at the Writing Salon, dated 28 July 2001.
— — —
Driving down the alley behind our apartment earlier today, I rolled by a twenty-something woman leaning against a building with a man huddled over her holding a hypodermic needle. As he flicked the needle, presumably to get rid of any potentially deadly air bubbles, I heard her mumble to her partner, Why you always staring at my pussy?
Such is life in the Mission.
I’m truly conflicted about living in the Mission. On the one hand, it’s an amazingly vibrant place, always bustling with activity. It’s one of the sunnier districts in San Francisco, and there are plenty of amazing restaurants, cafes, book stores and interesting boutique-ie shops around. But on the other hand, the scene back there in the alleyway isn’t all that uncommon.
There are tons of people who are just way down on their luck around here. My heart goes out to them, really it does, but I’m tired of having to step over human feces to get to my car in the morning. I’m tired of having to disrupt spontaneous love acts for money on my back stairs when I go to walk the dog. I’m tired of the dirt, the grime, the seediness… and maybe the sad fact is, I’m tired of having to confront such harsh levels of human degradation on a daily basis.
If I was a stronger person, maybe I would be able to see all this as a challenge to make a difference, and maybe I would be more determined to rise to that challenge. Sure, every year I make a couple hundred dollar donation to the Mission Housing Development Corporation to support the provision of more affordable housing in the neighborhood. And there was a time a while back when I was volunteering on a weekly basis, teaching English at the homeless shelter down the road. But none of that seems to have affected any immediate positive change that I can see. None of that makes it any easier for me to live here.
So it’s with my tail tucked in between my legs that I, once a vigilant, socially conscious activist, turn my back on all that that is too difficult for me to witness, and begin planning my impending move to the relative peace and quiet of North Oakland.
— — —
Man. What would 2001 me think about 2009 me retreating to Stepfordton, even further from the grit and the grime of true city living? As it turned out, the “relative peace and quiet of North Oakland,” was still pretty rough. And expensive. And firey. So now we’re out in Pleasantville, where, luckily, we don’t have anything like that. On the other hand, I’ve traded junkies for overachieving PTA moms, and while my kids don’t have to worry about witnessing toxic illegal back-alley behavior, well… there are a whole other set of land mines out here…
Image credit: ARMAND EMAMDJOMEH from http://missionlocal.org/category/photography/
Posted in Me, The Places We Live
I was just starting my commute to work on the morning of September 11, 2001, when I turned on the car radio and heard the news about the World Trade Center. I made the 45 minute or so drive from Oakland to San Mateo and listened in horror to the descriptions of the events as they rolled in. Slowly we learned the number of planes, the number of targets, the pentagon, the fate of the plane that was headed to the white house.
By the time I got to work, I was officially shaken up. I got on the phone and called Charley at home, where I thought he might still be in bed. (He had just been laid off the month before, literally the day before we closed on the purchase of our first home in North Oakland.) Eventually he answered the phone. His groggy voice confirmed that he had been asleep.
“Charley, terrorists have flown two airplanes into the world trade center twin towers in new york city.”
“What?”
I could picture him standing in the kitchen, in the tiny space that was billed as a “charming, well lit, breakfast nook,” but that must surely have been a closet or pantry at one point in time. I could almost hear him scratching the stubble on his chin, as he held the phone to his ear and looked out the back window into the yard, trying to process the big news I was telling him.
I started over. “Terrorists. Flew two commercial passenger planes. Into. The World Trade Center.”
There was a pause. and I waited as he took this in again. Eventually he spoke. “Jesus Christ…”
“I know, it’s horribl–,” I started.
“No, no. It’s Huxley.” Our mentally unbalanced pit bull-australian cattle dog mix. “She’s going crazy in the back yard. The sprinklers are on, and she’s attacking them.”
Wait. Is he talking really talking about the dog right now? I wondered.
“Holy shit. She just bit the head off of one of the sprinklers. There’s water everywhere. I’ve got to go.” And then the phone clicked off.
I got off the phone and turned to my friend L, who had been sitting in my office. “Huh. That was weird.” I described the conversation that I had had with Charley, and she shook her head, equally baffled.
“Maybe he was still kind of asleep?”
I shrugged. For the rest of the day, we spent most of our time in a weird state of disbelief, occasionally checking out the news broadcast that was being played in most of the conference rooms at city hall. The next day when I got back to work, L mentioned that she had told her boyfriend about Charley’s weird response to the whole thing.
“Maybe it’s a guy thing,” she said, “Because his first response was, ‘What the fuck is wrong with that dog?’.”
What the fuck is wrong with that dog, indeed.
image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brandonj74/
Posted in Other People
eleven bee 