11TH SUICIDE POEM IN NOVEMBER
The next child I won't father we will name
Nomathamba. We will call her Thembi for short
She will be exactly like Pharaoh drew her. She
Will smile several hours each day. Her teeth
Will come on like white Christmas. She will crawl
Into bed with us to see if we
Are fucking. She will never be scared. She will
Speak Xhosa. I will buy her a dog named Mardi Gras
And she will learn what it is to lose something
You love. She will grow up.
___________________________-John Ross
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Why does this electrical outlet not work? It worked just a minute ago but now it's not working. In the library. Working in the library, my new pseudo office, caused in part because my censored's censored in town for the last ten days, eleven nights in the beautiful Mission district who was really nice to have around, clean respectful a little female energy to cut the stale smell of passive aggression and dirty dishes delete delete delete edit internet skip ahead impending home stay in a low privacy one bedroom summer cottage three days before the eagle landed. Like the moon or Apollo 7. Ocean's 11 and 12. Crime capers starring attractive men who bankroll progressive social causes with Hollywood schlock.
Yep. It's really nice to work in the library. There is something about being amongst the homeless and those like me with homes who want to get out of them or can't be there that makes it easy to focus. A kind of bed of nails to keep my back straight. Last Thursday I sat down at one of these broad oak tables at 11AM and didn't get up until 7PM. Which was totally weird. No water. No bathroom break. No talking no running or spitting or playing ball. Nope. Just sitting there, doing research on Ph.D programs which lead into emails to program people explaining my situation leading into thinking about teaching and the little essay that appeared that evening. It was weird. Not like a demon had possessed me but I knew that if I got up I wouldn't finish, and after about three I stopped being hungry. Is this cruel and unusual?
At any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate it's the last week of the six week furlough from teaching. Back at it soon, meetings this week, prepping for the semester, finalizing the schedule, which is a word that I've just recently learned to spell: schedule. Not scheduale. But schedule. No a. This is proof that it's possible to learn stuff, that education does have value. Write your congress person. From this week's New Yorker article about Oprah Winfrey's new television channel, 24 hours a day of continuous programming. Oprah says:
Yep. It's really nice to work in the library. There is something about being amongst the homeless and those like me with homes who want to get out of them or can't be there that makes it easy to focus. A kind of bed of nails to keep my back straight. Last Thursday I sat down at one of these broad oak tables at 11AM and didn't get up until 7PM. Which was totally weird. No water. No bathroom break. No talking no running or spitting or playing ball. Nope. Just sitting there, doing research on Ph.D programs which lead into emails to program people explaining my situation leading into thinking about teaching and the little essay that appeared that evening. It was weird. Not like a demon had possessed me but I knew that if I got up I wouldn't finish, and after about three I stopped being hungry. Is this cruel and unusual?
At any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate at any rate it's the last week of the six week furlough from teaching. Back at it soon, meetings this week, prepping for the semester, finalizing the schedule, which is a word that I've just recently learned to spell: schedule. Not scheduale. But schedule. No a. This is proof that it's possible to learn stuff, that education does have value. Write your congress person. From this week's New Yorker article about Oprah Winfrey's new television channel, 24 hours a day of continuous programming. Oprah says:
I am very much aware of the energy that the television is transmitting all of the time. That's why I don't allow--up until now, I have never allowed it on in my house, unless there was something specific that I wanted to see, because I don't want all that energy coming into my space.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
One of the central questions that has come out of teaching non-traditional students has been how to make writing appeal to a group of people who have typically had little success with writing in the past. A group of people who generally are not strong readers, and generally did not do as well in high school as many of their peers. A group of people where the typical class will range in ages 18 to 35, and contain people from five different countries. They do not have very much in common with each other, much less anything academically in common, such as agreed upon standards or shared skills. Some have written ten page papers and some have trouble with basic grammar. Some read science fiction novels and keep blogs and some get all they need through their friends and television. Some are there to study advertising and some are there to study movie make up; the difference between a fashion designer and a fashion merchandiser or an industrial designer and an illustrator. "Commercial arts" is the banner all these different areas of study fall under, but they each require a particular knowledge and skill set. At the beginning of every course we could not be more different.
As the course moves forward, through introductions, games, lectures and assignments, we begin to get to know each other. This happens through the structure of the class and our shared experiences, as well through all the little asides that come out of being together. I saw a movie last night. Oh me too. What'd you see? Nice shoes what are you eating it smells good and we begin to make friends. Meanwhile something else is happening. We are writing about our lives and what's important to us. Each student takes a risk: what if this isn't good? What if other students laugh at me? What if the instructor fails me? Some risk more and some risk less, but regardless, we are putting ourselves out there in a form that is as unmediated an expression of self as there is: what do you think?
For non-native speakers, this risk involves not just the risk of self expression but the risk of misspeaking.The question stands: what right do you have to be here if you do not even speak the language or understand the culture? While this question is illustrated clearly by the problems that come with mastering a second language (when does one become a master?), its existential root can be found everywhere. For the student who barely survived high school because they were more interested in drawing pictures than preparing for No Child Left Behind, the risk involves years of bad grades and all the memories that come with. What right do you have to be here if you do not even have the most basic of skills? For the student who came back to school after twenty years of office work, leaving stability and self-sufficiency behind for instructors with no time and Facebook obsessed twenty somethings, what right do you have to be here? For the minority student, often the lone representative of their ethnicity in the room, and all the cultural trappings that come with that fact, what right do you have to be with all of these people who don't look like you? For the wealthy who don't have to get jobs but all thier friends do, what right do you have to tell your story when its subsidized by your parents? And for the underpaid teacher who has no idea what he's doing, what right do you have to stand up and lecture? To pass judgment on the quality of work? It goes on and we go through it together.
To come back to the original question, how to make writing matter, is difficult. What motivations would a person have to put into writing when there is so much that surrounds the act of writing before one can begin? It's as if the work load for the non-traditional student is doubled when compared to those who do not have such keenly developed neurosis surrounding the work of writing. Then again, judging by the way professional writers talk about procrastination, it seems like anticipatory dread is part of the act of writing, even for those who have made writing a large part of who they are. Regardless, these students need to work twice as hard to reach their college ready peers. In a more general sense, if writing is an act of self realization, finding words for the thing, the act of naming, like Adam named the animals or parents name their child, this is this, this = this, translating what we feel into words, our most fundamental definition of what it means to be human; it is important work to me. Thus, from here we lift off in hopes that the energy these beliefs provide is enough to push through the doubt.
As the course moves forward, through introductions, games, lectures and assignments, we begin to get to know each other. This happens through the structure of the class and our shared experiences, as well through all the little asides that come out of being together. I saw a movie last night. Oh me too. What'd you see? Nice shoes what are you eating it smells good and we begin to make friends. Meanwhile something else is happening. We are writing about our lives and what's important to us. Each student takes a risk: what if this isn't good? What if other students laugh at me? What if the instructor fails me? Some risk more and some risk less, but regardless, we are putting ourselves out there in a form that is as unmediated an expression of self as there is: what do you think?
For non-native speakers, this risk involves not just the risk of self expression but the risk of misspeaking.The question stands: what right do you have to be here if you do not even speak the language or understand the culture? While this question is illustrated clearly by the problems that come with mastering a second language (when does one become a master?), its existential root can be found everywhere. For the student who barely survived high school because they were more interested in drawing pictures than preparing for No Child Left Behind, the risk involves years of bad grades and all the memories that come with. What right do you have to be here if you do not even have the most basic of skills? For the student who came back to school after twenty years of office work, leaving stability and self-sufficiency behind for instructors with no time and Facebook obsessed twenty somethings, what right do you have to be here? For the minority student, often the lone representative of their ethnicity in the room, and all the cultural trappings that come with that fact, what right do you have to be with all of these people who don't look like you? For the wealthy who don't have to get jobs but all thier friends do, what right do you have to tell your story when its subsidized by your parents? And for the underpaid teacher who has no idea what he's doing, what right do you have to stand up and lecture? To pass judgment on the quality of work? It goes on and we go through it together.
To come back to the original question, how to make writing matter, is difficult. What motivations would a person have to put into writing when there is so much that surrounds the act of writing before one can begin? It's as if the work load for the non-traditional student is doubled when compared to those who do not have such keenly developed neurosis surrounding the work of writing. Then again, judging by the way professional writers talk about procrastination, it seems like anticipatory dread is part of the act of writing, even for those who have made writing a large part of who they are. Regardless, these students need to work twice as hard to reach their college ready peers. In a more general sense, if writing is an act of self realization, finding words for the thing, the act of naming, like Adam named the animals or parents name their child, this is this, this = this, translating what we feel into words, our most fundamental definition of what it means to be human; it is important work to me. Thus, from here we lift off in hopes that the energy these beliefs provide is enough to push through the doubt.
Monday, January 17, 2011
What is the connection between cats and dogs? People? No, I mean what's the connection between writing whatever and avoiding the question? People? No, I mean what's the connection between writing on a computer and writing in real life like a reality television show or during a war? People? No, I mean what's the connection between being relatively content and the quality of artistic work? Merit? No, I mean cake. Delicious. Like chocolate but not the kind I helped make the other night. Frosting that turned out badly postscript: don't beat whip cream after it has whipped it turns into cheese or butter or chunky liquid. Like toast, how does something change so dramatically with air or temperature or tickets to the circus. Nope. Not really. Trying to write something down but letting the chatter box rule. Not trying too hard to stop it. Where does it come from? Radio in your mind. Legs like dead weight no longer able to swim my lower half bent like the blade of a pocket knife. Jack knife as they say, jack knifed across the highway. Highway to Heaven. Necessary Angel. Okay, back to the mean topic, what's the relationship between contentedness and artistic output? Seems to me that when I'm happy my work gets sloppier, not so worried about quality control. Fine how it is like a poetry student always the idea that it's fine how it is. Original sentiment but the sentiment isn't original. "Pedestrian" was what it was called. Question: Problem: what exactly do I have to show for ten years of working on poetry asides from a few publications? No joy but in the work itself not the world it's for. Double negative stopped to pick my nose. Coherant thought forget it back to work my cat is cute I'm moving out of this apartment at the end of February this is crazy fog is gone whew no to work I go.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
San Francisco is no longer warm or beautiful. But if I turn the lamp on the light bulb gets hot and a little heat comes off. The cats figured this out not me. Three weeks until school starts and I have a list of things I'm working on. I'll spare you. Hard earned time to work on projects. And to stay out of trouble. Plan to see many a movie in the coming weeks. Last night I saw Hadewijch at the Roxy. Six Fifty Monday special. Matinees are also a good idea. I really enjoyed that movie. Here, please enjoy these selected clippings:
60 First Graders, 4 Teachers, One Suspect’s Odd Behavior Born or Made?
“Ewww,” squealed a boy named Ethan when he was told that the class would plant a banana tree later that day. Other children began mimicking the sound, which they had been making earlier. “Ethan, stop it,” said his teacher, Pepe Gutierrez. “I don’t know why you are screaming.”
*
Mr. Ali, 26, continued: “He presented a poem to the class that he’d written called ‘Meathead’ that was mostly just about him going to the gym to work out. But it included a line about touching himself in the shower while thinking about girls. He was very enthusiastic when he read the poem out loud.”
*
Dr. Burt found that, among 289 pairs of male twins, all born in the ’70s, those who exhibited lower levels of antisocial behavior at ages 17 and 20 were more likely to be married by age 29. This she sees as evidence of a selection process, in which well-behaved men were winnowed off while their antisocial buddies were left to the bachelor pad.
Monday, December 20, 2010
My focus group has just been canceled. Seriously. They were going to pay me to talk about cigarettes. Say what you mean to say. Super Ego ID Ego Etc. Cat sits on desk while authentic blues play on record player. Monday morning still need to finish grades. Going to see Tron this afternoon will be stoned by Disney. Today's Chautauqua is about this blog. Is that boring? Feedback. Authentic blues. Scratched record repeating on unintelligible fragment. Simply: if there is no risk involved in the project forget it. Do something else that is more interesting. Watch a movie. Make out. This semester the project has been a simple one: consistency. To stick to a schedule. In the past there have been more interesting projects, memoir projects or projects where the posts themselves I was not sure of. There have been plenty of those in the last four months: things that I'm not sure I should put up for all to see. This fear of saying too much, something stupid or embarrassing; the presence of this feeling tells me I'm doing something right. Fear equals risk imagined or real who cares nobody will remember anyway. East Saint Louis. But one poor lousy dime. What an imagined reader might think of anything is impossible to know or predict. Following one's own sense. Hard to know what one's own sense is, what direction attention leans. Requires health. Quiet. Some space. Two weekends ago Steven told me about a dream he had: sitting on some jagged rocks and it suddenly it occurred to him that the secret to sitting on the rocks was "balance and triangulation." His waking self didn't know what this meant but was amazed by its specificity. Be specific. As if our dreams can be kept secret. Make me a pallet on your floor.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Monday, December 13, 2010
Sorry about all the political stuffs as of late but wait a minute one more thing: an interesting little editorial from Sunday's paper about the Obama tax cuts. Instead of politics, Ishmael Reed uses sociology and race to explain Obama's compromise. "What Progressives Don't Understand About Obama." Psychology and class are useful ways to talk about politics, don't you think?
**
Tomorrow morning will be the end of the digital photography class where there were three students who needed my help. Five actually, but by the three quarter point two of them mysteriously disappeared. Like Batman. Feedback and critique is mostly what will take place on the last class, but like a lot of critiques, it's mostly the teacher who does the talking. In my experience with writing workshops, a helpful critique depends mostly on if the other people in the room are interested in each other, and by extension, each others work. In a studio class (as opposed to a seminar) where everybody is just trying to keep up, it doesn't leave much time for developing group dynamics. Then again, like the current incarnation of my creative writing class, even though we've had plenty of time to 'bond' the workshop hasn't exactly gelled. There are too many variables to possibly understand why some groups work and some don't. Maybe it's a time issue or an effort issue or a homework issue or a confidence issue or a scheduling issue or an economic issue or a personal issue or a teacher issue or an attendance issue or a classroom issue or not. I'd be lying if I said I didn't take it personally, and there lies the problem. And the solution.
One of the students that I've been supporting in the digital photography class has been having trouble with the instructor's critiques, not exactly satisfied with the idea of talking about possible interpretations rather than hard line direction as to what she should or should not include in the photograph. The idea that our creative decisions are our own rather than the jurisdiction of larger governing aesthetic bodies; idea of classics, and canons, and way that things should be. Rather, with this instructors critique, the road to justified creative decisions begins with the awareness of possible interpretations. That you can't control something if you don't know it exists. An approach I tend to favor but for many students coming from East Asia, this is strange way to go about education. "It's the American style!" Freedom to figure things out on our own. And the freedom to fail if we don't have enough time and/or money to do so.
Whew. Back to normal a gray day in San Francisco it's the last week of the semester. Today I'll go to my story boarding support class and watch final projects. I probably will not be needed to reiterate whatever feedback comes up from American English into International English but it will be fun to see the culmination of the students' work this semester, short films shot with a Super 8 camera. Come home and do laundry. Finish reading the Sunday paper. Tuesday afternoon I'll finish the pronunciation classes I've been running, and on Thursday and Friday I'll finish in the writing lab. As the main even,on Thursday and Friday I'll finish my creative writing and rhetoric classes. Mucho change coming very soon. "Preparing for the dive is always a tense time." samples the Boards of Canada. It's been a pretty good semester. I'll be sad to see it go.
**
Tomorrow morning will be the end of the digital photography class where there were three students who needed my help. Five actually, but by the three quarter point two of them mysteriously disappeared. Like Batman. Feedback and critique is mostly what will take place on the last class, but like a lot of critiques, it's mostly the teacher who does the talking. In my experience with writing workshops, a helpful critique depends mostly on if the other people in the room are interested in each other, and by extension, each others work. In a studio class (as opposed to a seminar) where everybody is just trying to keep up, it doesn't leave much time for developing group dynamics. Then again, like the current incarnation of my creative writing class, even though we've had plenty of time to 'bond' the workshop hasn't exactly gelled. There are too many variables to possibly understand why some groups work and some don't. Maybe it's a time issue or an effort issue or a homework issue or a confidence issue or a scheduling issue or an economic issue or a personal issue or a teacher issue or an attendance issue or a classroom issue or not. I'd be lying if I said I didn't take it personally, and there lies the problem. And the solution.
One of the students that I've been supporting in the digital photography class has been having trouble with the instructor's critiques, not exactly satisfied with the idea of talking about possible interpretations rather than hard line direction as to what she should or should not include in the photograph. The idea that our creative decisions are our own rather than the jurisdiction of larger governing aesthetic bodies; idea of classics, and canons, and way that things should be. Rather, with this instructors critique, the road to justified creative decisions begins with the awareness of possible interpretations. That you can't control something if you don't know it exists. An approach I tend to favor but for many students coming from East Asia, this is strange way to go about education. "It's the American style!" Freedom to figure things out on our own. And the freedom to fail if we don't have enough time and/or money to do so.
Whew. Back to normal a gray day in San Francisco it's the last week of the semester. Today I'll go to my story boarding support class and watch final projects. I probably will not be needed to reiterate whatever feedback comes up from American English into International English but it will be fun to see the culmination of the students' work this semester, short films shot with a Super 8 camera. Come home and do laundry. Finish reading the Sunday paper. Tuesday afternoon I'll finish the pronunciation classes I've been running, and on Thursday and Friday I'll finish in the writing lab. As the main even,on Thursday and Friday I'll finish my creative writing and rhetoric classes. Mucho change coming very soon. "Preparing for the dive is always a tense time." samples the Boards of Canada. It's been a pretty good semester. I'll be sad to see it go.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
How disappointing Obama's presidency has been. For a while, compromises on bailouts, health care, wars, etc. were like, "okay, the benefit of the doubt for you Mr. community organizer Chicago pragmatic first African-American academic liberal sympathizer President" but the extension of the Bush tax cuts is kind of 'it', as far as my faith in the guy. It must be difficult to be in charge of running the entire world! Bombarded by one thing after another I don't know how anybody could possibly keep up with all that, much less keep in touch with their own beliefs. Jon Stewart made the observation that since the World Trade Center attacks the media has been on a 24 hour breaking news cycle, and we've been collectively stuck in that gear ever since. This makes sense to me. And though it doesn't excuse the president's misguided decisions, it gives them cause.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Another collaborative poem as written by my current section of Creative Writing. This one is an exquisite corpse, lightly edited.
Sugar Skulls
Old grapes are sour but sweet.
____"Hella deep man." The cold cat said
smoking his own brain.
Meanwhile another weed tends the garden
____until its hands are bloody. Its glass eye
rolls lazily around its skull.
People tend to like sugar skulls but why?
____Too many questions and not enough answers
that don't always lead back
to the questions of life, a stream of endless heartaches
____cured with pills, for its better to taste mud
than to get it in your eye, a
deep dark hole into the soul where love or hate
____can be found at its most desperate
state and religion will both burn when the volcano
________erupts.
Sunday, December 05, 2010
Two Dreams I Had While Playing Fallout: New Vegas
I am somewhere but at the end of its path, standing in a corner in front of a pair of window frames that extend from the height of my waist to a couple feet above my head. There is no glass in the window frames and I can see outside: a tree, some hedges, and a bird feeder. What feels like a mid-western backyard. Instead of stepping through the window I have to retrace my steps. These are the rules. But even before I can do this, I have to finish the conversation I am having with the person on the other side of the window. There are dialogue options. What I am about to say is yellow. What I could say is orange, and I'm moving quickly through the conversation, trying to finish so I can get out of here.
*
I am walking down a hallway and there are doors on either side like an apartment building. I open each door and talk to people. I do not know who these people are, but cannot move forward until I talk to all of them. One person in each room, standing just inside the room to receive me as the doors swing inward. At the end of the hallway there is another hallway, bending almost 180 degrees so that the next wing is almost parallel with the first one. Same deal, doors on either side and I have to talk to everybody before I can leave.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Yesterday after work S and I wandered through the MOMA partly because we wanted to, and partly because with our school IDs we get in free. Downtown was cold and dark and its much more fun to go into a museum when there's no pressure to make the most of your money. As if I have to justify going to a museum. Who am I talking to? Anyway, up on the fifth floor there was a little shop set up by the Miranda July exhibit selling little art stuffs, and on one little shelf was a cat drawing. "This reminds me of something I heard on the radio," S said, about cats falling from buildings, that they can survive falling five stories and higher than eight stories, but in-between five and eight the extra time and wind resistance screws up their landing gear and they tend to not survive. Meow. Kitty Girl (KG) one of my cats I was told fell out of her old owners apartment, three stories, to the ground below and seems to be fine. Jinx, the other one, walks around like he's made out of old sticks, creeky and stiff. It looks painful for him to hop down off the bed or descend steps.
KG on the other hand is just as old but still pretty spry. She's a 'ragdoll'
KG on the other hand is just as old but still pretty spry. She's a 'ragdoll'
***
DO DO DOOT - DO DOO DOO DOOT
***
***
I have to interrupt this regularly scheduled blog posting about my cats to talk about all the recent Wikileaks stuff. After typing in the word 'ragdoll' I went to Google images to confirm that KG was in fact a 'ragdoll' (yep) and then clicked on the wikipedia link for 'ragdoll' and then clicked on the message "Please read: A personal appeal from the author Joan Goma" (?) which lead me to this page where I donated thirty five dollars to Wikipedia because after using it for as long as it's been around, for personal reasons as well as work, I thought maybe now that I have a little extra money from working tirelessly and heroically this semester I would donate to them, seeing as even places like NPR are getting attacked in the media and having their funding threatened maybe I'll donate. Sorry about that last sentence. Anyway. That lead me to check my bank account which reminded me that rent was due so I wrote a check to my roommate and handed it to him, sat back down and then, with all these Wikipedia thoughts wondered if Wikileaks was part of Wikipedia (it's not) and wondered if Wikileaks would come up as the first hit on Google and it does, once you get past the news. Which brings me to the present moment, sort of, and the question, well, what's the news?
The news about Wikileaks is this: Julian Assange, the guy who runs it is being followed by the British secret police, the site has been censored in China, Hillary Clinton says the U.S. is taking 'aggressive steps against' Wikileaks, Assange has been accused of rape, thier site is being bombarded with by cyber attacks, Amazon 'ousted' their servers, and most interesting to me, Wikileaks is about to release a bunch of classified information about The Bank of America. All that is to say that the powers that be really don't like what Wikileaks is doing, i.e. the fact that they are releasing all kinds of information that is supposed to be kept secret. I don't know about you, but the fact that banks have been making records profits in the last two year, the U.S. is engaged in two insanely stupid wars, our economy is shit, out politics is so screwed up Obama has been rendered a wet noodle, our corrupt politicians have assured us that nothing important is going to get done for at least another two years (like, say, environmental issues), and locally, teacher layoffs, tuition, general malise and hopelessness that...you know what I'm saying. Anyway, an organization devoted to transparency is under attack from the most powerful governments in the world and the corporations that benefit from things continuing as they are. Please read more about about Wikileaks, their mission, and continue to observe the corporate and governmental reaction to this organization. Have a nice day. I'll finish my cat story later.
The news about Wikileaks is this: Julian Assange, the guy who runs it is being followed by the British secret police, the site has been censored in China, Hillary Clinton says the U.S. is taking 'aggressive steps against' Wikileaks, Assange has been accused of rape, thier site is being bombarded with by cyber attacks, Amazon 'ousted' their servers, and most interesting to me, Wikileaks is about to release a bunch of classified information about The Bank of America. All that is to say that the powers that be really don't like what Wikileaks is doing, i.e. the fact that they are releasing all kinds of information that is supposed to be kept secret. I don't know about you, but the fact that banks have been making records profits in the last two year, the U.S. is engaged in two insanely stupid wars, our economy is shit, out politics is so screwed up Obama has been rendered a wet noodle, our corrupt politicians have assured us that nothing important is going to get done for at least another two years (like, say, environmental issues), and locally, teacher layoffs, tuition, general malise and hopelessness that...you know what I'm saying. Anyway, an organization devoted to transparency is under attack from the most powerful governments in the world and the corporations that benefit from things continuing as they are. Please read more about about Wikileaks, their mission, and continue to observe the corporate and governmental reaction to this organization. Have a nice day. I'll finish my cat story later.
Monday, November 29, 2010
hi nice to see you sun's out but it's brisk not cold but cool wear gloves and a scarf gives me an excuse not to reach into my pocket to pull out change was sick the whole weekend not uncomfortably so not dying of flu but mild discomfort a sore throat and congestion, a fogginess that didn't lift for five days but now its gone i'm back to health full health asides from a little cough and a little congestion which will be good proof of my illness in case anybody asks what i did over the break i can just say i was sick and that will be the end of it but it wasn't i consumed eighteen cups of tea i accomplished two things over the break the first was to catch up on school work and i did that graded evaluation arguments, read and commented on work for the creative writing class then calculated progress grades and that was that one night played cribbage with Q lost again goddamn its strange to consistently lose at a game that i've been consistently competitive in and the next night played chess with S and lost again played videogame basketball with B on thanksgiving evening and come to think of it lost that too hmm a weekend of losing maybe but more like a weekend of playing anyway when i wasn't playing games or school work it was reading and the music machine though its hard to compose when my head is full of sand. IT WAS NICE AND RELAXING. that goddamn videogame had taken over my life for a little while but i had made a decision to lay off it for the TG break and that's exactly what happened feels good to be free feels free to be good without periods like erma from a sit com that got canceled i've officially decided that Fallout: New Vegas is evil no doubt about it something that consuming should be encased in concrete and buried underground or shot into the sun i think my mom said to me five years ago i forget the context "we shouldn't of let you play so many videogames when you were growing up" and i didn't think much about that statement until recently playing Fallout when i thought to myself "i shouldn't let myself play so many videogames"
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
I've taken on a mild cold and went home early from work yesterday. Which is something that I didn't used to do. Instead, if I was feeling sick I would make huge efforts to be 'at' work. At some point in the last couple years I realized that 1) It's not actually that important for me to be there 2) My system gets better much faster if I make a serious effort to take it easy and 3) Sick pay. Sick pay might be the deciding factor. What a concept. Before teaching I always had to be there to get paid. If I didn't get paid, then I was in some kind of trouble in my mind. Sitting around at home being sick produces a weird, existential "what am I doing with my life" kind of feeling, and sometimes it's easier to be at work to avoid this feeling. Kind of the like the dilemma of the upcoming winter break: a month and a half off (unpaid but I collect unemployment) is a ton of time. Enough time to run out of 'things to do', get knocked unhappy, moan, get a hold of myself, plan, do, acclimate to the new schedule, get busy, and by that time school starts again and the whole cycle starts again.
Change is difficult. Which is why I like to go away as soon as the semester gets out. Being ramped up, especially as the semester climaxes, and then suddenly having nothing to put all that energy into is a weird let down. So as, dislocation and confusion pops me out of my schedule. This year, school lets out on the 18th of December and I don't leave for Wisconsin for Christmas until the 23rd. There's a little extra time, but not too much. Thus I try to regulate my emotions but controlling the situations I find myself in. It's like controlling a character in a video game. Speaking of which, I have been playing a video game pretty steadily for the last three weeks. The game machine tells me I've logged 48 hours playing the game. That's a long time to be in a fantasy world. After about three hours I begin to feel parts of my brain beginning to atrophy. Parts of my body. I successfully stop sometimes. Sometimes not.
On Sunday in the newspaper there was this article about the effects of technology on young people and their education/future. That fact that technology is addictive is not exactly news, nor is the idea that people have shorter attention spans these days. What is news is that now we have some data to prove it. For example, studies have shown that video games destroy your vocabulary and sleep patterns. I can attest both of these. Both my roommate, who has been watching me play, and I, have been having weird and terrible dreams. In one of my dreams, while talking to a real (dream) person I had 'dialogue options', choosing what to say from a list of options like I was in the game. Ugh. Anyway, I have some errands to run before I go off to work today so I'm going to go. Happy Thanksgiving. Hopefully you get to spend it with family, or if your family makes you feel weird, hopefully you get to spend it with friends. Thank you for reading.
Change is difficult. Which is why I like to go away as soon as the semester gets out. Being ramped up, especially as the semester climaxes, and then suddenly having nothing to put all that energy into is a weird let down. So as, dislocation and confusion pops me out of my schedule. This year, school lets out on the 18th of December and I don't leave for Wisconsin for Christmas until the 23rd. There's a little extra time, but not too much. Thus I try to regulate my emotions but controlling the situations I find myself in. It's like controlling a character in a video game. Speaking of which, I have been playing a video game pretty steadily for the last three weeks. The game machine tells me I've logged 48 hours playing the game. That's a long time to be in a fantasy world. After about three hours I begin to feel parts of my brain beginning to atrophy. Parts of my body. I successfully stop sometimes. Sometimes not.
On Sunday in the newspaper there was this article about the effects of technology on young people and their education/future. That fact that technology is addictive is not exactly news, nor is the idea that people have shorter attention spans these days. What is news is that now we have some data to prove it. For example, studies have shown that video games destroy your vocabulary and sleep patterns. I can attest both of these. Both my roommate, who has been watching me play, and I, have been having weird and terrible dreams. In one of my dreams, while talking to a real (dream) person I had 'dialogue options', choosing what to say from a list of options like I was in the game. Ugh. Anyway, I have some errands to run before I go off to work today so I'm going to go. Happy Thanksgiving. Hopefully you get to spend it with family, or if your family makes you feel weird, hopefully you get to spend it with friends. Thank you for reading.
Monday, November 22, 2010
It's gotten cold and rainy in San Francisco. Which is in stark contrast to the warm border line hotness that we were experiencing a couple weeks ago. It's a little bit of a relief that November isn't going to feel like August, which would make August feel like May, May would have to switch places with December and June might have to get its weather imported from Vietnam or wherever the oversees weather shipping rates are low, which is hard to predict. But a cold rain has been visiting on and off since Friday, for example five minutes ago it was raining but now the sun is shining. One of my co-workers who lived in Ireland for a long time told me that the Irish, when greeting each other, often complain about the weather, but it doesn't come off as whiny. More like small talk. Whereas here, somebody who always complains about the weather might come off as a bummer. So as, "I love the cold moist air in my lungs." I've missed it.
I had a busier than usual weekend. On Friday was the Encyclopedia reading, which, though I was increasingly nervous for for a couple weeks, was really fun. About sixteen people read/performed/played a video/showed drawings, which initially I was dreading as long readings can be not much fun, but the diversity of projects and quality of work/entertainment was really high, and it was a totally energizing two and a half hours. Totee. There were a lot of people there, co-workers and writing friends and even some students came out. It was cool to be out. It had been a while. Saturday afternoon I went to see some friends stage a reading of a co-workers play, and on the way home got caught in Saturday evening's rain. I have a good rain jacket but nothing for my bottom half. It was kind of fun to get miserably wet but only because a warm shower was waiting.
Saturday night I played poker with my politician friends. Elections being over people have more time. Doc helped Malia win district 10. Q is on a paid furlough. Ranked choice voting is not all that great when there are twenty candidates to choose from. Apple and the Beatles are making a lot of money. People from Marin have better manners than people from San Francisco. But the best part of the weekend in a long term sense is that I finally figured out the latency issues that I had been having with my music machine, where because of the sound system that Windows uses, all the music/sound that I've been playing with for the last couple years has been without steady tones and resonance because I didn't realize switching to an ASIO sound driver was really really easy. For example, this song. Please note the steady and warm tones. That's new. Plus, my sister and brother pitched in to help me update my version of Ableton Live, so as, I'm no longer limited to eight tracks and four effects. Right? You know what I'm saying? My throat is feeling a little scratchy I'm going to go swallow some zinc.
I had a busier than usual weekend. On Friday was the Encyclopedia reading, which, though I was increasingly nervous for for a couple weeks, was really fun. About sixteen people read/performed/played a video/showed drawings, which initially I was dreading as long readings can be not much fun, but the diversity of projects and quality of work/entertainment was really high, and it was a totally energizing two and a half hours. Totee. There were a lot of people there, co-workers and writing friends and even some students came out. It was cool to be out. It had been a while. Saturday afternoon I went to see some friends stage a reading of a co-workers play, and on the way home got caught in Saturday evening's rain. I have a good rain jacket but nothing for my bottom half. It was kind of fun to get miserably wet but only because a warm shower was waiting.
Saturday night I played poker with my politician friends. Elections being over people have more time. Doc helped Malia win district 10. Q is on a paid furlough. Ranked choice voting is not all that great when there are twenty candidates to choose from. Apple and the Beatles are making a lot of money. People from Marin have better manners than people from San Francisco. But the best part of the weekend in a long term sense is that I finally figured out the latency issues that I had been having with my music machine, where because of the sound system that Windows uses, all the music/sound that I've been playing with for the last couple years has been without steady tones and resonance because I didn't realize switching to an ASIO sound driver was really really easy. For example, this song. Please note the steady and warm tones. That's new. Plus, my sister and brother pitched in to help me update my version of Ableton Live, so as, I'm no longer limited to eight tracks and four effects. Right? You know what I'm saying? My throat is feeling a little scratchy I'm going to go swallow some zinc.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Lately there has been a little ripple about the term 'hipster' because of this book or more concisely, this essay about what the term actually means, and its oddly derogatory use. The essay is pretty helpful for putting the phenomenon into a context beyond who is and who isn't a hipster. In reference to all of the above, I can't help but think the rootless desire for space is related to whatever desires I have to be cool. And that the desire to be cool has a lot to do with not having a firm idea of what I actually want to be. The more I identify with being a teacher, with being something based in my own experience, the less I care about what I'm not. A quote from the book Laura Warholic by Alexander Theroux, that I've been trying to find a context for for years:
I decided at one point in my life that I never wanted to be anything that would not allow me to be anything else I wanted to be…I ended up being nothing that I can currently identify, which I suppose means I got my wish.In other news, this Friday I am reading, with 14 other people, as part of the Encyclopedia Volume 2 release. If you're in the big city, here's the flyer. It's the first time I've read anything in public (not including student readings) for four years. Wow.
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