java jive

Starbucks has been my semi-quiet refuge between classes this term. Normally there is a slow stream of customers, usually quiet, well-mannered folk, generally blue and white collars. There is usually a student or two, and on a rare occasion, some idiot talking as loud as possible about a work issue on his or her cell phone, two feet from the table where I happen to be sitting. Day after day it pretty much goes like that. Until today...I was sitting, drinking my grande americano with milk and I noticed an older gentleman, of African heritage, I am assuming, he had a dashiki on and a very colorful hat. Anyway, that's beside the point. He sat outside(it was rather chilly), and coughed a lot, before coming inside. I was sitting by the entrance which on one side has all glass panels. As the guy started to walk in he rapped on the glass by my head a couple times. I looked up, startled, and saw he was pointing at my coffee with a smile and making a grabbing gesture with his hand for the cup. I smiled back and mouthed, no, you can't have this coffee! He came inside and proceeded to stand by where I was sitting, pretending to take my coffee and then slipped a $5 from between his fingers and gestured at me as if to say "I will pay you for it". He was still smiling and joking, and I told him "no, you can't have my coffee. That wouldn't be very nice to take a poor girl's coffee! Give the barista your money and I'm sure she'll make you some coffee!" He smiled and laughed and then moved on to another table. The woman occupying this next table was engrossed in a legal pad and some papers. She was not paying attention to Mr. Man as he motioned at her coffee so her proceeded to pick up her iPhone and started to walk with it to see if she would notice. Remember, his hand was less than 5 inches from her arm but she didn't look up once. So he, laughing, walked back to her, tapped her on the shoulder and motioned at her phone as if to say "hey, dummy, you let me jack your $500 phone!" She took it back with a puzzled look on her face and said, "oh, thank you", as if she had dropped it or something. I don't know. It was all very bizarre. Then he sat down at the table across from me and motioned to the poor unsuspecting barista to come over to the table. She did and and he started speaking in a language none of us knew, gesturing to the coffee at the front of the store. The only word I could pick up was cafe, which in many languages means coffee. So after trying to understand him, the poor girl gets him a vente coffee for free. He isn't satisfied, though. He gestures at the carafes of milk and shoos the girl off to get one for him. She comes back, he motions for her to pour the milk for him, which she does. And then after a few minutes of her checking his face to see if he was satisfied, the barista goes back to her work and he begins to noisily slurp his coffee, all the while throwing out little bits of unknown language and laughing to himself.
I think it's safe to say that there is just something about coffee, people can't resist!

spilling some guts all over the floor

Haven't listened to Radio Dept. in a while, so I thought I'd give them a whirl on Itunes. While I'm listening I'll do a little self-loathing. I can't seem to shake this funk. Most of it's self-induced, but damn it, some of it seems to be coming from every which way. Like a little dwarf pelting me with apples, it's just on the periphery, and he's just out of reach. I have dealt with depression, mild and debilitating, for most of my life. I have also struggled with anxiety and had a nice run in with PTSD in my early 20s. That's not to say I am in the midst of full blown depression right now, but I'm getting close. I feel like crap, mentally and physically. I haven't been to the gym in a couple months-not that I think I've gained any weight. My face is broken out like a 14 year old adolescent. I am not sleeping well. I have intrusive thoughts. And to top it all off, I am broke and not a good student. Wow! What keeps me from letting myself go completely? A number of things. Things I won't discuss now. But let's just say right now I want to sit on the pitty potty and shit shit shit. Hmmm, I almost smiled saying shit that many times-in a juvenile way, you know? Okay, this doesn't have to make sense to anyone. Catharsis doesn't have to be a navigable concept for the reader-just go with it. I just wish I knew why these things were happening. I don't believe there is some spiritual force condemning me for my previous actions, nor do I think there's a karmic boomerang out there smacking me on the back of the head. Just for once I wish there was some nice soothing answer someone could give me that would explain it all and make me feel better. Any takers? No? That's okay, dear readers. I, who should know myself better than any of you, don't have an intelligent reason for any of the things going on right now. I just wanted to get it out there in the blog-osphere so I can try to rest my mind a little before tackling biology homework.

when what hugs stopping earth than silent is
-a poem by ee cummings, check it out.

homeless

I saw three men today pushing a shopping cart with a couple plastic bags from Winco, a local supermarket. The warm autumn sun lit on them and I studied their movements from my car as I turned into the store parking lot. They were, I can only assume, homeless. But they were getting groceries and deciding who was going to push the cart and talking about the hotdogs they bought. They are just people-people without homes.


This is the time of year that thousands of ladybugs swarm around our windows and doors, looking for an in. They are, I suppose you could say, homeless. They want to come inside houses and other buildings because they don't like the cold. Simple enough-they just want what everyone else does-shelter.

If you've scanned any of today's headlines you would probalby have come across the news about Southern California and the fires burning there. So far "At least one person was killed in the fires, and dozens were injured. Nearly 130 homes had burned in one mountain town alone, and thousands of other buildings were threatened by more than a dozen blazes covering at least 310 square miles." Okay, so I know there are lots of people without homes, with any basic shelter at all. This being said, what is going to happen to all the 'richies' who have lost their homes? Sometimes I wish NPR would write a news piece, even an op/ed that pertained to these types of struggles. Even though these people have a multitudinous amount of money, they still deserve compassion and our thoughts and consideration. They, just like the homeless men and the ladybugs, deserve a safe place to call home. I hope they all find someplace safe from the fires this night; someplace they can rest and then start over in the morning.

when will we learn?

Sexual perverts, molesters, child predators, pedophiles; whatever title you put on them, they are still involved in the same thing-criminal behavior against a minor. And not only that, but a sexual crime usually in an institution held to be safe because of adult supervision, not a trap for illegal activity because of the adults! Please read this link about an article put out by the AP. If you have children, or even if you don't, please look into the policies of your state and your city on hiring and firing practices of teachers. We have an ethical responsibility to keep our children safe. Moreover, we have a collective responsibility to make sure all children of all families are safe by our practical application of justice in cases of sexual misconduct in schools.
"One report mandated by Congress estimated that as many as 4.5 million students, out of roughly 50 million in American schools, are subject to sexual misconduct by an employee of a school sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade. That figure includes verbal harassment that's sexual in nature."
How can these teachers be afforded a clean slate after abusing a child? How can they be shuffled around through a system that hands them a second chance- "Too often, problem teachers are allowed to leave quietly. That can mean future abuse for another student and another school district.
"They might deal with it internally, suspending the person or having the person move on. So their license is never investigated," says Charol Shakeshaft, a leading expert in teacher sex abuse who heads the educational leadership department at Virginia Commonwealth University.
It's a dynamic so common it has its own nicknames — "passing the trash" or the "mobile
molester."
I know of several cases in my own life, from friends or acquaintances, of sexual misconduct by a teacher or educator. Now that I have 2 children of my own, I worry about their safety in...school. I don't want to become a reactionary, basing my emotions and decisions solely on AP bulletins or the latest crap on 20/20, but I also know that there is a real issue out there. One that needs to be kept alive in our thoughts and in our vigilance towards keeping our children and the children of others safe.
Please check out the school your child is enrolled in. Become involved as much as you can, and stay involved for as long as you can. The education of our children is not the sole responsibility of the system. It falls on all our shoulders to watch on all levels, the micro, the mid and the macro, and make sure we are creating a safe environment for our kids.

censored

Oh yeah, and you thought that meant there would be porn or something on here, right? suckers!

No, I was only referring to the censored book list on my school's library webpage. It's a little disconcerting, and not only for the fact that I've read 85 % of those books listed. I see censorship as a way to keep people in the dark by coloring their choices as "bad" or "good". Sometimes it's not that easy, right? The web page makes the point that banning the books was done with "good intentions"-again with the "good". I think about how many times I've tried to shelter my daughters from something, applying rationale that I was only doing it for their own good, with good intentions. While they are young it is obviously necessary to shield them from certain things that may be potentially harmful. But as they grow and become wiser and hopefully more discerning, I hope that I will not feel it necessary to protect them so much. And I certainly hope with all my heart that my best intentions will not get in the way of their learning.

I think book censorship is a load of crap, and anyone who feels otherwise can argue it out, I'll listen.

The thing is, what good does it do to supposedly protect someone from something like, oh, I don't know, racism, or sexuality, or history? Isn't that what we are meant to do-to experience life through doing and reading?

And don't be fooled, gentle readers, into thinking this whole banning is something of the past. Nope, there are several books on that list from the 21st century. Censorship is alive and well, and permeating the places where freedom of speech and free thinking should be fostered-libraries, public and otherwise.

"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."—Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas," The One Un-American Act." Nieman Reports, vol. 7, no. 1 (Jan. 1953): p. 20.

If you are at all interested in learning more about what constitutes a banned book, how to challenge it, and for more info. on the Banned Book Week-check out the ALA website.

the sharks are circling

Update: After working like fiends on our 1900 two-story house here in lovely Portland, we've decided to take it off the market. It's only been up for two months, really, but the day we put up the sign was in the same week as the sub-prime market debacle. So we are re-evaluating to say the least! We have had some real interest, but nothing definite. While it was nice to think we may actually sell this albatross, it is even nicer to think we can sit back and enjoy the fruits of our very intensive labor! The girls are happy, I'm sure, to be able to walk and play downstairs and not have to run into piles of lumber, step on nails, or smear wet paint. I am happy to have the dust settled!
The thing I find the most entertaining to come out of this whole selling/waiting game is that the minute we officially took the house off the market(Sunday), I have had 5 phone calls from over-eager real estate agents looking to help us sell our house. The sharks have smelled our blood and their cruising in for some good ol' sales! Yesterday I had one guy call, pretty nice guy, and thought it was just a fluke. Then three more gentlemen called and I raised my eyebrows some. Now I laugh every time somebody calls! I don't like speaking to sales people in general. They tend to creep me out a little. I think it's the insincerity of their approach. Anyway, now when I see an unknown number on my phone come up, I just spit out the same little pitch I've told to the last couple guys, and they usually end up hanging up, a little chagrined, but no harm done.
Too bad they aren't calling with baited breath to tell me they have a buyer who wants my house more than a night of hot sex!
Oh well, at least Christmas is going to look amazing here this year!