Why I shouldn't watch reality TV...

This weekend Coco and I went to Portland to gorge on good drinks and bad TV at my dad's house. I personally don't own a television and for whatever reason people have very strong responses to this...as if I am some elite anti-television guru who goes around shaming people for their guilty pleasure. Just to be clear my not having a TV is not some political statement or because I'm cheap or even because I loath and despise TV. Actually there is no real reason for it, I just don't. But I do watch TV, either online or at other people's houses, so don't worry my brain is just as rotten as the next person's.

And so it was on one of these TV watching binges, after Dad had gone to bed, that Coco and I came across "For the Love of Ray Jay". There is something both awful and addictive about reality TV. The awful part is self-evident. This show, starring "Ray Jay" who is at best a B grade celebrity whose major claim to fame is being Brandi's brother and having sung some mediocre r&b songs that make R Kelly's "Feeling on your booty" seem deep and meaningful. Coco and I came in on the season finale, where there were only 2 competitors left in the intense battle for "the love of Ray Jay". These two women, Unique and Cocktail....so named by Ray Jay himself, who at no time referred to them by their actual names, each took a different tact on wooing their prize. Unique was the classier of the two. She apparently took Ray Jay home to meet the fam...and then there was Cocktail who, after dinner, put on some special lingerie and actually did a pole dance on national television. I'm not sure if I was more disturbed by the fact that Ray Jay conveniently had a stripper pole located in the shower room of his bathroom or if I was just floored by the appalling objectifying premise of the show.

While I didn't have a real reason not to have a television before, I feel like watching even the small portion of this show (which is about as much as we could do before turning to Animal Planet)was more than enough reason to burn TVs in effigy. Yet still,like watching a car accident in slow motion...and knowing in advance the destruction about to ensue, I couldn't quite peel my eyes away so quickly. I became enthralled, both repulsed and morbidly curious to know what could possibly come next. While it didn't have quite the insane comic value of "Flavor of Love" (Public Enemy's Flavor Flav's bizarre reality show), there was something compelling about the tears welling up in both women's eyes as they waited for the verditct. Who would Ray Jay choose and why?

And that's when I had this scary thought that maybe there was something to this. I mean the power dynamics alone were kind of fascinating. Why did these women choose to enter this competition? For money? For fame? For the chance to be with someone they'd seen on TV? What makes someone willingly choose to compete? Though the show seemed totally cartoonishly fake and staged I had to wonder about its real world implications.In real life none of my girlfriends would ever degrade themselves so publicly for a man...or would they? Would I? It got me thinking about competition and the dating pool and the things we women put up with to get and keep a man.

It is a familiar situation to like someone and to want them to like you back, but at what cost? Ideally love is string free. You meet someone, you get a mutually good vibe and that perfect mix of fireworks and friendship build itself naturally into a relationship. But in the beginning there is always that precarious balance of wanting to maintain a good image in your new partner's eyes and wanting to be honest about who you really are. And this becomes even more complicated if one or both of you are also seeing other people. Then it becomes a competetion. How can you get that person to choose you and only you? Who do you have to be? What do you have to do? And how far are you willing to go without compromising your principals.Add to that the scarcity issue. In this beautiful emerald city there are theoretically 94 single men to every 100 single women...by my totally scientific calculation, you can knock off at least 30 single men from that figure on the basis of sexual orientation, whether or not they're in jail or if they are crazy, reclusive or totally socially awkward, so of those 64, if you are looking for a man of color in a specific age range...the numbers have just more than halved again.

So when I'm out and about and I see a good looking black man in my age group, who appears heterosexual, available and not scary, chances are there are about 50 other women in my immediate vicinity who would wrestle me to the ground if it meant dude would ask them out.

In the end Ray Jay chose Cocktail and in a bizarrely poignant speech, he let Unique know that while she was "all that" and he deeply cared for her, he was looking for someone who could meet him where he was at....someone who wouldn't ask him to change and could really fall for him and not just his potential. While clearly my first instinct was to make fun of his little speech, I couldn't because I was totally triggered, having heard that same speech first hand before. "I dig you, but you expect too much from me." "I could never be good enough to give you what you need"...but then here is this other girl who may or may not be as pretty, intelligent, or soulful, but who for better or worse just came and took your spot. Brutal. Maybe I shouldn't be watching TV. Or maybe I shouldn't think about it so hard...it is just reality after all.

A few perfect days

Just when the constant rain and cold and the craziness of little children was about to make me insane, I got the ultimate reprieve in the form of 2 weeks of SPRING BREAK! My break began with a lovely party at the home of a high school friend, where I drank a little too much and danced holes through my stockings and it was lovely and perfect and a great reminder that I am still on the right side of 30. Or more to the point that even when I reach the left side of 30 I might still have it in me to party like a rock star...(a classy rock star). The next day I leasurely gathered up my travel gear and caught a flight to San Fran to bestow belated b-day wishes on my girl Rexi.

Rexi and I have a unique friendship. We met in Spanish class in summer quarter right before we made the trip to Spain that changed both our lives. I was working the night shift for the box loaders and could barely keep my eyes open in that class, but still we managed to meet on break while running through the quad to get rice crispy treats. And from then on, though we are very different people, we forged a friendship that saw us through various adventures in Europe, back in the states and later through two years of being JETs in Japan. So I couldn't help but feel a special sense of rightness that we should reunite to party during yet another stage of our life.

Our first stop was her apartment which is at the top of a hill and up several narrow flights of stairs (like seemingly everywhere else I would go to in San Fran). We paused to catch up for a bit, then got dolled up and headed out for champagne and an 80s b-day party for one of her friends. It was a fun night, and funny because I ran into several of my Seattle friends out escaping the rain as well.

The next day I was set to meet up with Benji, another friend from a past life. We led a fabulous trip to Hokkaido together about 3 years ago and hadn't managed to see each other since. We decided to meet in Chrissy Fields by the water...but first Rexi and I hit up China Town for dimsun, then we hiked through the north shore stopping for Italian coffee and amaretto cookies. As we made out way down the marina, Benji called to say he was lost and would be an hour late, so we decided to hop an old fishing boat and take crusie in the bay. While we were waiting for the Captain to fill the boat, he regaled us with stories about living in San Fran and then pointed out the bush man.

At first I didn't see him. I only say what looked like a large fake plant, then I realized there was a man hidden behind the branches. We watched him curiously.

"He's a real son of a #%$*&," explained Captain Moore. "Watch him, he just stands over there and waits for people to walk by so he can scare the $#%& out of them. He gets paid too. You tourist give him money for that. He makes about 40 grand a year."
Captain Moore continued on to tell us that once the bush man had scared a man so badly that he bumped into his wife, who fell over and broke her arm. They sued him, but the jury decided he was innocent and so the scaring has continued and there are more than one bush man now, though every one claims to be the original.

As we made our way out into the water, the sun shining down on us, flanked by the Bay Bridge on one side and the Golden Gate Bridge on the other side, I had this moment of deep gratitude. It was a perfect day, warm and breezy and filled with wonder. As per usual Rexi had a attracted an admirer, so I ended up sitting next to her new friend's cousin, a gentleman stamped with gang tattooes, who kept a running comentary on every boat we passed citing how he would like a boat someday and how he would like to do this and that someday, someday, always someday. And I couldn't help think about the bushmen and the someday men and how we are all complicit in these systems of self denial. Either we are busy allowing the unknown to scare us, or lurking in the shadows trying to get the drop on someone else, or maybe we're just someday people...always too focused on the future to really live and enjoy the present. But in that moment I felt grounded, as though everything had been leading me to the singular revelation that I was very content to just sit in the sun with a good friend watching the seals and knowing that my highest good was infact unfolding in the right here and now and stretching infinitely outward towards the unknown.

I did get to meet up with Benji and it was lovely, as were my visits with SJ, a friend from grad school and the Chef, my long lost cousin who I hadn't seen in literally 20 years. I ate my way through the city, not feeling guilty for second given all the hills I walked and I did even get to go salsa dancing at Cocomo, and while I could (an have) gone on an on about the details, the point is that every moment was perfect. I didn't feel rushed or distressed. Even when I got lost and met crazy people, the sun was still shining and nothing seemed to be able to piss me off. I wish this weren't just a vacation though...what if I could be this way everyday all day? Then when I looked back on my life I could describe it as a series of perfect years. I'll work on that. My vacation continues...next stop...the cherry blossom festival in DC.

The Essential Question

Today is Global Studies Day at my little school. Each year we choose a continent on which we base our thematic studies and the whole school then agrees on an essential question, which we attempt to answer throughout the year in ways that are age appropriate and interesting to our students. This year our continent is Europe and our question is "How does where you live affect how you live?".

As a Spanish teacher, one of the things I've been trying to show my students is how language and culture are never mutually exclusive. The way people express themselves through language is often very revealing in terms of how that person's culture has taught them to conceptualize life. For example, while talking with the other Spanish teacher, who is from Colombia, we both struggled to find a fitting translation for the word "nursing home". For the last two years, I have been watching my grandmother slowly fall apart. It started with some dizziness and some feelings of being over tired and has culminated in two major falls, a broken and then later re-fractured hip, a "small" heart attack, renal failure, and most recently a "minor" stroke. And while I was able to talk about the surgery she needs and how she's feeling and what happened, I couldn't figure out a right sounding word for nursing home. Then it occurred to me that in other countries people live with their families. It isn't expected that you move away at 18, never to return. People actually live in inter-generational family communities, where grandparents are around to help care for newborns, just as parents are around to take care of their elders.

I live in Seattle. My mom lives in Arizona, my dad lives in Oregon. I have two aunts and a grandma in Wisconsin, an aunt, an uncle, a grandma and some cousins who live in Iowa and a wealth of my dad's extended family, some of whom I've never met, scattered throughout Georgia and Tennessee. I see my dad once a month, and my mom once every 3 months or so, my aunt and grandmothers maybe once or twice a year...and this is my family. Because we are all so far apart geographically, it has been crazy trying to negotiate care for my grandmother, especially now that she has been immobilized by the fractured hip that no one seems to want to do surgery on.

As I think of that essential question: how does where you live affect how you live, today I'm thinking about this country and what happens to the old and the sick. In this country we live with the constant fear of either getting old or getting sick or both. I didn't have to see Sicko to know what happens when you don't have health insurance. I've had my own first hand experience at walking a mile and a half to the nearest free clinic, only to wait four hours to be treatment, all because the insurance I had at the time didn't provide me with out of state coverage. Or them there was time time I got a huge bill because apparently my insurance didn't cover one of the tests my doctor wanted to run on me. At first I was really angry that the doctor hadn't told me it would cost so much, but when I really thought about it, I was pissed because I thought having insurance meant something.

When you have insurance, you're supposed to have at least a modicum of assurance that if you get sick, you will be able to get the care you need without having to sell off your furniture to pay for it. That is the point of paying monthly premiums right? And I know that I am privileged in that I even have insurance. There are so many people who don't, but what kills me is that it is always someone who does have insurance who gets to make the laws about who gets care and who doesn't. Here in the U.S., we live in a warped capitalist meritocracy, where if you can't afford something, then you don't deserve it. We live in a country where only the strong and the rich have the right to survive and it makes me ill.

I live in a country where, though my grandma was a public school teacher for her entire life and has dutifully paid her taxes and social security, now that she is ill and stuck in a nursing home, medicare won't pay her expenses because the doctor has refused to treat her. So there she sits, in a wheelchair, with a hip she fractured over a month ago, that still isn't healed because the doctor is afraid to do the surgery...but now what. There is no life plan. Maybe we're not the Hiltons and don't have that platinum care package that pays for you to stay at a luxury resort spa and have daily rehabilitation and massage therapy, but the way the nursing home is designed, it's less about helping someone to live to their potential and more about keeping them somewhat sedated while they wait to die.

If how we live, is a bi-product of where we live, I don't want to live here anymore. I don't care if you call me a communist or a socialist, I want to live in a country where we all have access to the medical care we need. I want to live in a country where people are treated with respect, regardless of their age or ability, where people who are ill are cared for and treated with kindness and regard for how terrifying it can be to feel that vulnerable. I just wish that place were here.

Dating and the Admissions Process

Today on this first day of Spring (also Coco's b-day...HAPPY B-Day!), I find myself somewhat exhausted from completing the latest big Admission and Marketing project. In addition to teaching, being chief lice checker, office extra girl, Suzy-makes-a-lotta-name tags, and my various other strangely titled positions, I am also the Assistant Director of Admission and Marketing. This means I spend a lot of time talking to perspective families, helping out with school tours, repping my digs at Independent school fairs, plugging inquiries into the database, and so much more.

As I grew up attending public school a lot of this process is somewhat foreign to me. Not only do perspective families visit our school multiple times for the grill and schmooze...which is that special balance of asking smart questions, but also sucking up and trying to be on best behavior...but the kids also come and visit. There are two Saturdays devoted to screening of perspective Kindergarten applicants and those in upper grades show up for a half day during regular school time. It was interesting, hanging out with the pre-K kids and evaluating everything from whether or not they knew how to grip a pencil to if they might be insane. The child ranking and background checking and long, long conversations, all culminated in a list of the students we'll be offering spots to for the 2009/10 academic year.

In the meantime, I have been working on this whole dating thing. Like the admissions process at my school, I have been collecting a pool of candidates for the position of "my man" and the interviews have begun. Unlike my school I haven't yet come up with a standardized process and I'm beginning to think that I should. So here is my first shot:

Expectations/ Pre-requestites:
Candidates applying for this position should be male, heterosexual, brown-black (anywhere on the spectrum is good), single, honest, attractive, spiritual, employed, intelligent, well read, and in general about something. Preference will be given to feminist and social justices minded men or applicants who demonstrate kindness, empathy, and a good sense of humor, or have any special talents like knowing how to do math well, fix or build things, speak languages besides (meaning in addition to) English, cook, and/or give good massages.

Then there could be a whole written application. And each date would be an interview where candidates would be evaluated on various categories from whether or not they offered to pay to check to if the conversation was interesting.

I mean really isn't that kind of what we do anyway. We have this idea in mind of what we want. Then we meet these people and try to match them up with what we have in our head and when inevitably, they aren't exactly what we thought we wanted, we try to decide if we can work it out anyway. But I guess that's the hard part. It's all a gamble. As in the admissions process, sometimes you make offers and then the family chooses to go elsewhere. Or if the family decides to say yes, there is still no real guarantee that their child isn't the unibomber waiting to happen, no matter if they had high test scores and good reviews from their preschool. The hardest part in both dating and admissions is the waiting. First you're waiting to see if there is mutual agreement, and then you're waiting to see if the person lives up to the potential you first saw in him.

The people I work with...

Lately life has been kind of difficult between complicated friend issues and family health complications. I have found myself staring out the window a lot and wondering what the hell am I supposed to do to make it all better. I still don't have any real answers, but I did get a wonderful gift. I spent all of last week in AZ visiting my grandma who is not doing too well right now. I arrived back in town just in time to attend my school's annual fundraiser. Coco accompanied me there and got to meet my co-workers for the first time. We drank a lot of sangria, drooled over some of the auction items, and ever few minutes another co-worker approached me to inquire about the health of my grandma. At first I was a little annoyed because though it has been the big thing on my mind, I haven't really wanted to think about it. But then Coco made the comment how nice it was to be surrounded by people who care. And I guess that sums up where I work. I am so blessed to be surrounded by people who care. The other teachers I work with are genuinely beautiful people, and we are led by a head of school who daily teaches me something new about what it really means to be compassionate, to act always out of kindness and genuine concern for others.

Today instead of having a Spanish lesson, my class got kind of derailed. The students came in very upset by what was happening with two of their classmates. One person was physically picking on another and to retaliate the other began sending that student hateful emails. As a result, the entire fifth grade has become polarized. There are those who are taking sides, and those who refuse to take sides, and a whole flurry of rumors based on some truth or dare secrets that got leaked. Though some would say it's just kids stuff, the more I work with the littles, the more I realize that what happens to them on a daily basis is an exact replica of "the real world", they are just newer to the game that us adults and haven't yet figured out of how to cope or what role to play. What was so amazing to me was that I was the adult they trusted enough to talk to...from there, with their permission, I called in my boss, the head of school, who then facilitated a class discussion where every voice was heard, where every opinion was listened to. My students got to express themselves and brainstorm solutions, and I was blessed not only with the privilege of really getting to see what's going on in their world, but also to once again see my boss in action. He really loves his job and he is great at it. I feel so lucky to be able to learn from him.

A public daughter and her Madame Presidents

I always thought Chelsea Clinton and I would be good friends. We had a lot in common: strong minded parents, crazy hair, and we are both what Frances Foster has termed public daughters. I didn't grow up with the whole world looking on, but rather in the midst of a world of academics, with a unique circle of interdisciplinary other-mothers, who some would call the power houses of the black academy. These women are historians, social scientists, writers, literature buffs, political scientist, and feminist scholars by trade, who have collectively published works or in general done the work that has revolutionized the fields of women studies, African and African American studies, History, English, and so much more. They are the Nellie McKays (editor of the Norton Anthology of African American literature....if you don't know her you should look her up she is AMAZING) of the world, who have defied convention and struggled not simply to make names for themselves in the academy, but to move the narrative of black women's stories from the margin to the center.

Growing up, I knew I was lucky. I knew not everyone got to watch their mother braid bell hook's hair, or to share a meal with Toni Morrison. But this weekend I was reminded not only of how incredibly valuable it has been to know these women personally, but how much the work they have done has had tangible impacts on "learned societies" across the board. I joined my mother at ASU for the conference she put together called: "Madame President: summit on women of color, leadership, and the learned societies."

The conference included: Patricia Hill Collins- American Sociological Association, Beverly Guy Sheftal- National Women's Studies Association, Darlene Clark Hine - Organization of American Historians and Southern Historical Association, Nell Irvin Painter- also from OAH and SHA, Diane Pinderhughes - American Political Science Association, Pearl Robinson- African Studies Association, Loriene Robinson - American Library Association, Vicki Ruiz - American Studies Association, and Frances Smith Foster.

The conference began with two panels in which the women talked about their careers and what they had accomplished in general and then more specifically during the tenure of their presidencies. They spoke about the process and path that brought them to leadership, some more intentionally and willingly than others. There were those women who systematically positioned themselves to be in power and others who refused to be president of the organization several times before finally choosing to take up the mantle, not necessarily because they wanted to, but because they were committed to having the job done right, even at their own personal expense.

After the panels, the ladies met with graduate students and professors from their respective disciplines. I accompanied Pearl Robinson to African and African American Studies with my mom (who chairs the department). Unfortunately most of the students had class, but Dr. Robinson was able to meet with the faculty and share about one of the projects she's been working on...a study trip on the topic of gold in Ghana. Dr. Robinson has taken students to Ghana twice to teach a short seminar on the topic of gold and its impact on the Ghanaian economy. I, of course, was fascinated by the logistics of the trip and how she was able to develop a viable business plan and ingeniously use the final project (a video made by participants about what they had learned) to help market and recruit future program participants. But more than this, the professors at AAAS were able to discuss what kinds of curriculum and program they would like to develop in the future. After a short break, we reconvened for dinner at the faculty club and a key note address from Frances Foster.

The next morning, at one of those lush hotels Phoenix is known for, we had brunch with the ASU Faculty Women's Association (of which my mom is the president). This was a much less formal conversation. After the whole thing was over, I sat in the sun and sipped peach bellinis with my mom, Frances, and Beverly. They are working on a project (more about this in future blogs) and took advantage of their downtime to meet, but afterwards we talked about the conference and what each of us had gotten out of it. Everyone seemed particularly interested in what I learned so here are my final thoughts:

What I learned isn't easily articulated or quantified. I was able to bear witness to the experiences of these amazing women. They gave advice and strategies for not only how to do what they did, but what they would have done to do it better. But they also talked about the tolls its take.

I have known this for a long time, but I am still kind of coming to terms with it: I don't want to be an academic. While I am in awe of and inspired by these wonderful, brilliant women who are revolutionizing the academy everyday, I don't have the calling, nor the patience and discipline that are pre-requisite to join the perpetual struggle to reform organizations that are often resistant and unappreciative. The cost is high. I've seen how the job has taken a toll on my mother and on all these women as well, and when measuring the price against their rich and diverse accomplishments and successes, I think it is easy to see that it was worth it....for them.

When I look at my own wants and hopes and dreams, I don't think it would be for me. What I realized also, is that by growing up as a "public daughter" I have inadvertently absorbed not only the high standards of the women around me, but also their framework for defining success. I understand now why it was so difficult for me to give up the crappy job that sucked my soul...it wasn't that I wanted to stay there, it's that from the outside looking in, that job was a respectable position in higher ed in which I was, at times, able to continue the work of promoting academic programs that gave voice to the experiences of people of color. It's good work, and work that I will probably always be involved in, but not that way. By learning more about the path of others, I am beginning to understand that I must find my own way. At least I am lucky enough to have some amazing people in my life helping to guide my journey.

A year without Sue

Last Monday marked the end of our first year without Sue VanSchoonhoven. As with all anniversaries, it gave me the opportunity to reflect on all that has happened since our trip to Cove to say goodbye. We have a new president, I live in a new home, I'm settled in my new job, life has gone on. Shoshana moved to DC, so this time there was no one around who knew Sue the way we did to share in the short walk to the lake where we said our goodbyes to the water the way we did before. It was a lonely day, despite being surrounded by children and people laughing and smiling and living their lives. More than sad though, I was surprised to feel angry still a the unfairness of it all. Sue was so young. She was only 6 years older than me...and though I am not a fortune teller I know that it will take much more than 6 more years to do everything I was put on this earth to do...and too I feel that had Sue lived there would have been so much more. She was such an amazing person, the ripples of who she was and how she chose to live still echo in our hearts and in the lives of her friends and family.

I spent the weekend with my mom and grandma. My grandma has aged considerably since the last time I saw her just 2 months ago, though it doesn't show so in her face or in new wrinkles the way all those Loreal commercials selling anti-age cream would suggest, but rather in the fact that she is literally falling apart. Her kidneys, her heart, her hip...none of them are doing what they are supposed to do and what they have done previously everyday of her 82 years. It's somewhat terrfifying to think that one day your body will just betray you that way, that it won't always do what you tell it to. It is in talking to her that I realize there is no good time to die. We get what we get and our job is to simply do the best we can with it. If nothing else, I can say this much for Sue. She lived well, she loved well, and she is still well loved...