Ariel Gore

BLUEBIRD—New book drops January 19

2009-12-14T17:25:00.000-08:00

Thoughtful, funny, and inspiring, Gore is a down-to-earth guide to the elusive human quest for happiness.

—Booklist

Ariel Gore is one of the best feminist writers of our times— perhaps the most eloquent and sensitive of all. In her latest book, she expertly filets the plastic bluebird of happiness to reveal its faintly beating heart.

—Susie Bright

You can pre-order Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness right now.

Bluebird is the eclectic, funny, and honest chronicle of this empowering feminist quest for bliss.

—Bust Magazine

Evidence that no one gets bullied into fake cheerfulness more than American women.

—Elle Magazine

Everybody, it seems, wants to know why women aren't happy. But Bluebird suggests that maybe that's the wrong question. In reframing the age-old, exasperated query of what women really want—from themselves, their partners, their jobs, and their families—Gore's exploration of happiness offers a probing, inspiring, and deeply humane alternative to the powerful positive-thinking industry. Bluebird is radical in the truest sense—and as a recovering pessimist, I'll be keeping it handy.

—Andi Ziesler, editorial director of Bitch Magazine

Confessions of a Lousy Yogi

2009-12-14T13:54:00.000-08:00

When I stared going to yoga classes, I figured my learning curve would be like it is with most things: I'd start out as the bumbling beginner in the back row and then, perhaps slowly, I'd get the hang of it.

I wasn't deluded. I knew I'd never be as agile as the teenager in the front row or as strong as the ex-Marine in the corner. But with time and practice, I figured I'd get competent. Pretty soon, I'd be one of the folks that newbies eye when they lose track of the pose flow. Maybe I'd even learn to do a headstand.

And so with these humble dreams, I joined the ranks of all the unemployed adults in my town, donned comfortable stretchy clothes, and bought my first punch card.

But, alas, after eight months of practicing three to six times a week, I have improved. . . not at all. I am perpetually the apple-shaped lady in the back row who falters in tree pose, who tips over in eagle pose, who cannot, for the life of me, when bent forward in downward dog, ever seem to be able to step or hop my feet between my hands. Or anywhere near my hands.

Even corpse pose eludes me. I broke my tailbone when I was pregnant with the little one, so lying flat on my back smarts.

My partner says I'm getting stronger. She assures me that, yes, there is some tactile benefit to all these "warrior twos" and sun salutations, but I think my well-defined biceps might just as easily be explained by the fact that the baby keeps getting heavier.

Yoga teachers are fond of reminding their students that yoga is not a competitive sport. "No judgment," they say. "Be where you are."

And I'm not really here to judge myself. Or be any place else. But it does seem curious that a girl can suck at something and continue to suck at it no matter how much of it she does.

No matter, I remind myself. As I learned from punk philosophy, it's OK to do things you're not good at. The journey is the destination, man.

It's kind of a relief, actually. I never have to worry that I'm going to be put on the spot and asked to "demonstrate" for the class. In fact, on several occasions I have been asked to move my mat so that some beginner will have a view of someone else--anyone else.

My first yoga teacher apparently didn't share my punk philosophy. He was encouraging enough at first, but pretty soon he was fed up. "Ariel!" he'd snap. "You're not paying attention!"

I was paying attention. But I've always had a really hard time remembering my right from my left-so if you say, "Ariel, lift your right leg," there's that moment's delay as I quickly check the tattoo I know is on my right forearm and then make the calculation that means I have to lift the opposite leg.

When the rest of the class was in sync, he'd yell, "Ariel, you're spacing out! The rest of my class is a flock of birds!"

What did that make me? The turd?

So I gathered up my comfy stretch pants and my yoga mat and I found a new studio where the teachers are so busy chanting OM that they either don't notice that I never seem to get better or they're at peace with the universe and therefore don't care.

It would be fun if practice made perfect.

Or even proficient.

But I guess sometimes practice just makes practice.

Namaste.

Papergirl flow

2009-11-25T07:41:00.000-08:00

I fold newspapers in the still dark morning. I fold them in three and snap a rubber band around the middle.

I am the first in our neighborhood to know that Mount St. Helens has erupted, that Ronald Reagan has won the presidency by a landslide, that John Lennon has been murdered.

My fingers black with ink, I pack the newspapers into the metal basket of my sparkly blue three-speed bicycle. I pedal fast. I spread the news...

Think Feminism Made Women Unhappy? Try Television

2009-11-06T13:17:00.001-08:00

"Commercialism is a vacuum," my mother warned me. "It will suck you in."

I was seven or eight years old and my mother was running a bath for me. I imagined being sucked down the drain into a wet underworld of nefarious Disney characters.

I was getting the lecture because I'd been caught watching television beyond my allotted hour and, even more horrifying to my mother, I'd been making my Christmas list during the commercials.

I figured I was multi-tasking.

My mother figured otherwise. "How do you think you can figure out what you want while the commercials are bombarding you with images of what they want you to want?" my mother asked me. To her eyes, I was a sitting duck.

Later that night, she picked up our television and lugged it out the garage, never to be seen again.

"Thanks a lot," my sister snarked...

Read more on my blog at Psychology Today

What would balloon boy do?

2009-10-23T18:15:00.000-07:00

Oh, balloon boy, I've been thinking about you. I've been imagining you in my memoir workshop 20 years from now, 30 years from now.

In the derby of fucked-up childhoods, you just might win.

Oh, balloon boy. I grew up among Californians who waited for aliens. Sometimes I thought they were so crazy, so blood-thirsty. But the reality-TV vampires wait for you with much more anger, much more zeal.

Balloon boy, I hope you didn't get in too much trouble for blurting the family secret to Wolf Blitzer. You were only six. And, you know what? They had it coming.

Someone had to stop the madness, stop the bullshit. You were only six, balloon boy, but you did it. You are my hero.

Speak truth to power, as the Quakers say. Speak it on CNN, kid.

You are my hero, balloon boy.

Whenever I think, Wow, it would be easier to lie right now, I will think of you.

What would balloon boy do?

Balloon boy would tell the truth.

I just heard a beautiful and fucked-up song about you, balloon boy. You might like it.

You can listen to it HERE.

But of course it isn't really a song about you. It's a song about the rest of us. It's a song about all the CNN-watchers and the CNN-reporters and the people who cannot deal with the pain of their own lives looking, watching, hoping for the worst.

But you are the best, balloon boy.

You are the very best.

Cancer doesn't really have a bright side

2009-10-20T12:49:00.000-07:00

Looking for that space between false cheeriness and existential depression

The idea for the happiness journal came from a little book called A Life of One's Own written by the British psychoanalyst Marion Milner and published under the pseudonym Joanna Field in the 1930s. Milner's idea was that if she recorded the best moments in her daily life, she might begin to trace patterns from those moments and discover the conditions for lasting happiness.

My own habit had always been to write about the things that ticked me off in a given day. If I kept a journal at all, I kept it to vent.

I had learned to analyze the darkness beautifully. Why not try the opposite?

It's time to register for the Winter writing class - CLASS FULL

2009-10-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

This is best writing class I have ever taken! Almost painlessly you got us to write, write, write. And for me got at some new great material.

--Kitty Torres

Eight-week class starts December 4th

ONLINE CLASS LIT STAR TRAINING

Taught by Ariel Gore

(December 4th - February 5th... so it's actually nine weeks, but we'll take the week of December 22nd - 28th off for a little winter break)

This class is the creative jolt we all need -- for writers wanting to work on either memoir or fiction -- we'll make time to write, create new material with weekly deadlines, and improve our craft with practice and critique. Appropriate for writers working on longer projects as well as those who want to write to assignments and produce short essays and stories. The pace is quick and energizing--you won't even have time to worry about creative blocks.

Class combines online discussion/critique, email, and telephone conference call. Class size is limited, so please sign up early. $275

$85 deposit saves your spot - balance due when class starts

gnash your terrible teeth

2009-10-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

Maurice Sendak is cracking me up.

from Amy Graff at sfgate:
Maurice Sendak tells parents to go to hell

This Friday, October 16, the movie adaptation of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are opens in theaters.

The poignant 10-sentence book about an angry boy who is sent to bed without supper and sails to a magical land overrun by wild creatures has been made into a full-length feature film with a script by director Spike Jonze (recently interviewed by the Chronicle) and local boy Dave Eggers.

Ever since the media got word of the film, reporters have hounded Sendak, Eggers, and Jonze. One of the main questions reporters are asking is, Will this film based on one of the best children's books of all-time be appropriate for children?

The creative minds behind this film have seemed to dance around this question in most interviews, but Sendak freely spoke his mind for a Newsweek story, appearing in the October 19 magazine. Sendak, Jonze, and Eggers were all interviewed for the story.

Reporter: "What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?"

Sendak: "I would tell them to go to hell. That's a question I will not tolerate."

Reporter: "Because kids can handle it?"

Sendak: "If they can't handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it's not a question that can be answered."

Jonze: "Dave, you want to field that one?"

Eggers: "The part about kids wetting their pants? Should kids wear diapers when they go to the movies? I think adults should wear diapers going to it, too. I think everyone should be prepared for any eventuality."

Sendak: "I think you're right. This concentration on kids being scared, as though we as adults can't be scared. Of course we're scared. I'm scared of watching a TV show about vampires. I can't fall asleep. It never stops. We're grown-ups; we know better, but we're afraid."

Reporter: "Why is that important in art?"

Sendak: "Because it's truth. You don't want to do something that's all terrifying. I saw the most horrendous movies that were unfit for child's eyes. So what? I managed to survive."

women & happiness blog

2009-10-06T11:53:00.000-07:00

Read my new blog at Psychology Today.

If you want.

Please don't bomb the moon

2009-09-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

from Comics & Serindipity

Dear NASA,

Are you INSANE?

You're rocket scientists. You're supposed to be smart. Bombing the moon is the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Yes, I know there are already craters on the moon and asteroids hit it and stuff, and we probably won't even SEE the 5-mile chasm that your 2-ton load is going to blow. But do you really have any idea what you are DOING?? Don't you know the moon controls our tides, our crops--all bodies of water? Don't you know that human bodies are like, MOSTLY water?

And I don't care Mr. rocket scientist that you don't bleed it out every month--don't go releasing your man-period energy by blowing up stellar bodies, okay?!?

And I'm not worried about the alien inhabitants like some internerds out there, but I'll tell you one thing I know--the GODDESS is going to be fucking PISSED. You don't just go and blow up the Goddess's son/lover like that. Are you crazy? Don't you know 2012 is coming up? Of course you do, you know everything. So you should know that it's probably not a good time to start fucking with planetary orbits and gravitational pulls. It all started with demoting Pluto the other year--you KNOW he was pissed. And though he may have sunk into a deep depression (or was that me), he's still here, (in retrograde, in Capricorn for the next 248 YEARS) and he's surely not fucking around. So my point is, you better not send that man-missile into space or else I'm gonna--What? It's ALREADY UP THERE?! You took advantage of the fact that the following week the entire world was in mourning over MJ to just slide it in under the radar, right? Well, I can say with conviction that the Moonwalker would NOT be happy about this.

NOT AT ALL.

You know what I'm really hoping? I hope I wake up tomorrow and find that this is all a big joke. People will laugh and tell me how gullible I am to believe such a thing. Bomb the Moon? Yeah, right. And I bleed from my crotch for 5 days every month and don't die. Give me a break.

Good Grease

2009-09-23T16:45:00.000-07:00

I am happy tonight because I am making some extremely high-fat vegan mashed potatoes.

And thinking of this poem by my old friend, Mary TallMountain...

Good Grease

The hunters went out with guns at dawn.

We had no meat in the village,

No food for the tribe and the dogs.

No caribou in the caches

All day we waited

At last!

As darkness hung at the river we children saw them far away.

Yes! They were carrying caribou!

We jumped and shouted

By the fires that night we feasted

The old ones clucked.

sucking and smacking, sopping the juices with sourdough bread.

The grease would warm us when the hungry winter howled.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX oozing, dripping and running down our chins,

brown hands shining with grease.

We talk of it when we see each other far from home.

Remember the marrow sweet in the bones?

We grabbed for them like candy.

Good Gooooood.

Good Grease

Thinking About Bonnie Tinker

2009-09-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

May 26, 1948- July 2, 2009

By Lisa Sinnett

There’s a kaleidoscope in the conservatory where I’ve stopped with my daughters. There’s a circular bed of sand with sticks and rocks, and above, the lenses and mirrors. We shift the sand around and look, and each time the picture is different. If you look deep inside a kaleidoscope, what you see is the ocean of patterns of light, surrounded by a rim of darkness, curving away like night falling.

Trying to write about Bonnie Tinker is kind of like this. The ways in which Bonnie touched people’s lives are complex, shifting and beautiful.

I first met Bonnie the Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Concerns talent show fundraiser at our Quaker Conference. She was standing on her head in between acts to raise money—we connected somewhere in between a twenty-dollar bill and a bright pair of socks.

I didn’t know she’d had such a far-reaching effect on the world back then—At the conference, I came to know her as an amazing workshop-leading, music-loving, peace-activist luminary, and I needed what Bonnie and others in this fellowship believed at their very core: “We are learning that radical inclusion and radical love bring further light… Our experience with oppression in our own lives leads us to seek ways to bring our witness to bear in the struggles of other oppressed peoples.”

As I learned about her life, I would understand her beliefs more deeply As the roots that nourished her work as the Executive Director of Love Makes A Family, Inc.—the racially diverse group of sexual minorities and their allies in Oregon and Southwest Washington that came together to oppose anti-gay ballot measures in Oregon, and to accompany others who are doing the same kind of activism across our country.

With her wife, Sara Graham, Bonnie raised three kids—Alex, Josh, and Connie. A member of Multnomah Friends Meeting in Portland, Oregon, and of Seriously P.O.’d Grannies, she developed the LARA method for non-violent conflict resolution based on Gandhi’s principles. The Founder and Executive Director of Love Makes A Family, Inc., she also founded the oldest domestic violence shelter on the West Coast--Portland's Bradley Angle House, which is still in operation. Her family was the victor in a well-known Supreme Court case that set the precedent for free speech in schools—Tinker vs. Des Moines School District ruled students could protest war in school.

Love Makes a Family “seeks to provide a public voice for all families, especially for those subjected to social, economic and legal discrimination due to sexual orientation or gender identity/expression.”

Feeling this acceptance through Bonnie’s presence and work helped me to set down a mask that I had been forced to wear my whole life without knowing why. My mother knew that she was gay when she was a high school student in her rural Michigan school, but growing up, we never knew.

She told me: “I was married in 1959. We were told to be loyal to God and country.” The thought of acting on her feelings with her girlfriends? “Dangerous.” I asked her about this, but she became silent. “There was a girl. Two girls. People suspected them of being gay.” She was silent for a long time. “I thought one of them committed suicide.”

That was the secret about our family—and it was like we were in the Witness Protection Program. Everything felt tentative, like we were playacting for a program about a family instead of being a family, but not knowing what we were upholding or why. We had activity, but no intimacy. How can there be intimacy when one person in the family has had to sacrifice her identity in order to survive? Everyone was deeply affected by this. We had the burden of being her unwitting jailers—yet we were her protectors, too. And we didn’t know any of it until mom came out to us when she was in her fifties.

I am thankful to Bonnie Tinker and to all the other activists who are opening spaces for families, and liberating people like my mother, who I am finally getting to know.

Many people have written or spoken about Bonnie and her wife Sara Graham’s journey facing discrimination and obstacles during their decades together. Bonnie worked for full inclusion for same sex unions, not only domestic partnerships. In Bonnie’s own words. “The M word matters. It confers social standing. It confers social acceptance. Marriage confers legitimacy. Our children will be declared legitimate. Marriage is about families taking our place in society with full respect.”

But there is still work to be done.

If you ever met Bonnie in person, you would see how much she sought to understand other people’s perspectives, and promote the common ground that we share. If you could hear her calling on the Spirit of Tinkerbell to impeach George Bush, or if you could see her getting arrested with the Seriously Pissed Off Grannies, you’d know what a surprising, memorable, and creative human being she was.

She was killed in early July in Virginia, where she was attending a Quaker conference, when a Mack truck turned in front of the bicycle she was riding and ran her over.

I think of Bonnie’s way of being in the world now and I remember something that her younger brother Paul said once. He said, “I want to have eyes like bees, and see the world from all the different facets.” Bees see the world complete, one perspective at a time. Bees see colors we don’t see. They see sunbursts of blue and red where we see only white.

Thank you, Bonnie, for helping us to open our eyes and see the world a little bigger. We’ll miss you.

With Love,
Lisa Anne Sinnett
Detroit, Michigan

Check out Love Makes a Family of Oregon

Bonnie Tinker: Clap if You Believe

Two!

2009-08-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

Maximilian turned two & started owning his "nope!" real good, and flinging himself toward certain danger at every chance, and howling when parental hands pull him back.

I remember this stage from my last kid--but back then I cried that I must be a bad mama when my friends sighed "kids today," and waiters sneered, and acquaintances hummed "no child of mine would ever..."

Now I just wish them and their imaginary well-behaved children well.

I know there are probably a hundred and one ways to be a better mama than me, but I have been thinking about it for a long time and haven't come up with many of them.

So I guess I'm just going to be me.

Thinking about my Gammie Evelyn...

2009-08-25T21:02:00.000-07:00

How cute is she?! - I just came across this clipping from the LA Times - January 13, 1939... The weird thing is that she looks roughly the same in the photo below - 70 years later - right? - We imagine we change so much - and what changes, really?

Big Red

2009-08-19T23:09:00.000-07:00

I am sad this morning because my Gammie Evelyn died. Here's a picture from when she came to Portland last month for her 91st birthday. (with Maria, Shannon Wheeler, my mom & lil' tuxedo Max)... And an incomplete story I wrote a few months ago...

Big Red

My Gammie Evelyn drives a big red Cadillac. She calls it Big Red and it smells like Coco Chanel.

We speed all over Orange County because Big Red can handle the speed bumps and the police never stop my Gammie when she’s driving Big Red. It’s summertime, of course. It’s always summertime in Orange County because I’m on break from school and the sun is shining. It might be summer break or Thanksgiving break or winter break or spring break. It doesn’t matter. It’s summertime when she picks me up at John Wayne Airport and my Gammie says, “You’re beautiful, Ariel, but you’ve got to be kidding with that hair. Can’t you put it up? I mean, honestly.”

“You’re marvelous of course,” she says. "Do you have a beau?”

“No,” I tell my Gammie. I don’t have a beau.

And she says, “Well, not now, but soon the fellows will want to take you out and just remember, you don’t pay. When a fellow takes you out, he pays the bill."

I am 12 years old and I listen intently because my Gammie is beautiful and she wears red lipstick and she paints her long fingernails red and she wears her hair in a bun tied with a bright red scarf as she speeds down the Pacific Coast Highway in Big Red.

My Gammie Evelyn's house is painted coral orange.

Inside, there is soft, plush coral carpet, and in the guest bedroom soft, plush yellow monogrammed towels.

How are her towels always so soft?

On the low black coffee table in the living room there's a big crystal bowl full of mint and chocolate candy.

How is the candy never stale?

I sit on the plush carpet in front of the coffee table and I eat and I eat and I wonder how my grandmother keeps the bowl full, how she keeps herself from eating it all when she gets up in the middle of the night to pour herself a glass of milk and bourbon.

Gammie Evelyn's advice

2009-08-19T17:43:00.000-07:00

Evelyn Mae Lewis
1918 - 2009

Here is Gammie Evelyn's advice to Leslie (and everyone...)

"No one will ever be pretty enough, but anyone can have style."

"Turned on women can't afford to look cheap!"

"Marry a man you know will cheat so he can't say anything when you do."

"Keep it even. This is more important than communication."

Gratitude and thank-you notes to grandmas everywhere.

I Am Your Healthcare Reform

2009-08-18T17:31:00.000-07:00

(Letter from an old-school hip mama mama)

I'm writing this today not because I'm out to change anyone's mind, or because I see myself as a political activist, but because our daughter lives with an on-going, critical need for healthcare, and because I want everyone to be able to put a face to the idea of healthcare reform. And what better face than our goofy, gorgeous, brave baby girl's?

Most of you know Sophie, and my guess is that if you know her, you love her. She's just about the most lovable and kind person ever born. But many of you probably don't know about the struggles that Sophie has faced, nor those that we have faced as a family because of her chronic condition. We're pretty private about a lot of this stuff, because, well, it isn't really anyone's business but our own, but I feel like this is an important time for honesty.

We moved from Colorado to Tulsa in Spring, 2003. At that time Sophie was two years old, and was the healthiest kid that you had ever met. In the two years she lived in Colorado, she had one stomach virus and two colds. Within a month of moving to Tulsa, Sophie developed pneumonia. And then weeks after that, she had it again. And then weeks after that, she had it again. This was a frustrating time, but we weren't too worried yet. We just kept going back to the doctor and getting more antibiotics and more steroids.

In fall of 2005, we decided to switch from our private, self-employment insurance that we had used for years to Blue Cross. There was a week long gap between the policies--something that we didn't think anything of, because we simply did not know better. Just as our Blue Cross plan was set to start, we received a notice from them stating that they considered Sophie to have a pre-existing pulmonary problem (due to the amount of doctor's visits for pneumonia), and that while they would cover her in general, they wouldn't cover any pulmonary/respiratory issues until she had gone two years without needing medication or problems.

Our reaction: OMG. Actually I believe it was OMFG.

All of a sudden, Sophie was without coverage for pulmonary problems. This was absolutely terrifying. What if she got sick?! What if she needed to be hospitalized?! We spent the next couple of months researching every insurance company that we could, begging them to take Sophie.

It wasn't going to happen.

And then our biggest fear came true: Sophie got very, very sick. And I'm ashamed to say that although we knew that she was incredibly ill, we actually considered keeping her home from the doctor's office, as we knew that this would be yet another strike against her getting insurance. Luckily we pulled our heads out of our asses and took her to the doctor anyway, and it's good that we did, because Sophie was so critically ill that she was sent straight from the doctor's office to ICU. She was so sick that we couldn't even wait for an ambulance; they helped me throw our limp, blue daughter into our car, and I drove like hell to get her to the hospital next door.

Let me state that very clearly one more time: we almost didn't take our baby girl, who was in severe respiratory distress, to the doctor because we knew that it would hurt her chances of getting insurance.

I realize that your reality of living in the U.S. and of health insurance is likely very different than this. But I'm going to ask you to sit for a moment and imagine being in our shoes in that situation. Imagine the shame and guilt of almost keeping your child home from the hospital until it was too late, and then imagine the horror of seeing your child naked in ICU, hooked to many different machines. There is no way to describe how this felt.

One night in ICU? $10,000, not covered by insurance.

After this hospitalization, we were approached by a hospital social worker, who suggested we apply for SoonerCare. SoonerCare is Oklahoma's Medicaid program for kids. Luckily I'm a social worker who was working for a non-profit at the time, so we had no problems meeting financial criteria. SoonerCare does NOT exclude kids for pre-existing conditions, and it covers Sophie's medications and treatment 100%.

Since that horrible October in 2005, Sophie has needed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of treatments, hospitalizations, surgeries, medications, testing, and interventions in order to stay strong and healthy, and in some instances, to stay alive.

Since SoonerCare is the only insurance that will accept Sophie, we have to meet their financial criteria, which means living at or below the poverty level. I have had to quit wonderful jobs because I made too much money to qualify for SoonerCare. At this point I can only work either part-time, or for a very small salary, because we CANNOT afford to lose Sophie's healthcare coverage. It's the most important thing in our lives. We structure every single financial and professional decision we make around staying eligible for SoonerCare.

And while we'll gladly continue to live at the poverty level in order to provide our daughter with the healthcare that keeps her alive, we SHOULDN'T HAVE TO. We would happily pay outrageous premiums and co-pays, and do whatever else it took to get Sophie covered by regular health insurance. But you know what they all tell us?
She has to go two years with no pulmonary medications and no doctor's visits because of respiratory problems before anyone will accept her. Sophie can't go two DAYS without her medications, let alone two years.

As I mentioned earlier, I am not out to change anyone's opinion on what the government should do with healthcare. I simply want people to stop for a moment and realize that this issue strongly affects a little girl that they may love, a little girl who didn't ask for any of this, who didn't "bring it on herself", and who would give anything to get to live like a normal, healthy kid.
This problem is not going away for our family, or for the other families who are struggling terribly. It is only going to get more complicated.

Mt. Hood Haiku

2009-08-09T17:58:00.000-07:00

Maria and I made these for a Bark project,

But I think we missed the deadline.

Hell-yeah!

2009-08-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

Check it out--recent college graduate Trina Thompson is suing her alma mater for $72,000--the full cost of her tuition and then some--because she can't find a job.

I'm sure this sounds nutty to anyone who hasn't been to college recently, and I've never been pitched by this specific college (Munroe College in New York where Thompson got a degree in business administration), but I visited plenty of colleges with my daughter and, for real--every school we went promised work.

I still owe nearly $100,000 for my own higher education, but the colleges I went to--Mills and U.C. Berkeley--never promised me work. They touted education for education's sake. They suggested that degrees would help me find meaningful work, but the admissions folks didn't come anywhere near promising it.

That was more than 15 years ago.

Now, tuitions are off the map.

And every school I visited with my daughter (who started college two years ago) all but promised her a job upon graduation. They even specified salaries. THEY SPECIFIED SALARIES. And that's how they justified their $25,000+ annual tuitions.

And my kid was looking at art schools.

I can only imagine the pitch you get from business schools.

It's about time someone bring it back home. Yep. Sue them. Where is the job, o-expensive-alma-mater?

If education is valuable in its own right, which I think it is, let's start advertising it as such. And let's start charging the amount of money that it's worth (something relative to a professor's salaries, say?)

It's repulsive that schools charge a $25,000+ tuition, pay their professors the equivalent of one or two students' tuition, lie to kids about their futures, and then shrug it all off.

In the mean time, go Trina Thompson. Folks are going to give you a hard time. But I totally feel you.

Time to Register for Fall Writing Classes - CLASS FULL

2009-07-28T13:42:00.000-07:00

This is best writing class I have ever taken! Almost painlessly you got us to write, write, write. And for me got at some new great material.

--Kitty Torres

Eight-week class starts Sept. 15
ONLINE CLASS
LIT STAR TRAINING
Taught by Ariel Gore

The creative jolt we all need -- for writers wanting to work on either memoir or fiction -- we'll make time to write, create new material with weekly deadlines, and improve our craft with practice and critique. Appropriate for writers working on longer projects as well as those who want to write to assignments and produce short essays and stories. The pace is quick and energizing--you won't even have time to worry about creative blocks. Class combines online discussion/critique, email, and telephone coaching. Class size is limited, so please sign up early.

$275
$85 deposit saves your spot - balance due when class starts

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the privilege of traveling

2009-07-24T12:50:00.000-07:00

I loved this post from from Ma'ia at guerrillamamamedicine

because I've been thinking about this a lot lately--about the way that sometimes when people point out your privilege it's helpful and real--helps you to open your eyes and see the things in your life you are taking for granted. And how sometimes people are just trying to silence you and make excuses for their own lack of courage:

i have been thinking about writing this post for a while. in part i have not done so because i do have lots of privilege and have been able to travel. and i felt awkward, felt like i was making myself vulnerable to criticism if i wrote this. but then i figured, fuck it.

i had one of those conversations that i seem to have every few months with someone new about how i do not take into account how privileged i am to be able to travel and live abroad. and how privileged i was to be partnered. when i talk about my experience of being a mother.

privilege. privilege. privilege.

1. i do take how much privileged i am into account. actually in some ways i am more aware of certain types of privilege because i travel. for instance, the power of my US citizenship comes into stark relief when i am abroad.

2. and i know that it is a privilege to be in a happy partnership, both of us dedicated to loving aza and each other.

3. but i also know that traveling and being partnered is not in and of itself simply privileged.

MOTHERS TRAVELING

let me see if i can put it this way:

through out history. as long as there have been wars. mothers have traveled with their children. they have to survive. they become refugees. they become slaves. they travel to find a safe place to live and create a life with their families. they leave home to flee abusive husbands, or advancing troops, to find doctors, to find lost family, to take care of sick family, to find work, to find food, to find peace.

yes it can be a privilege to travel.

but it can also be a privilege to stay home.

it can be a privilege to feel that where you are is probably safer than where you are not.

it is a privilege to have a place that you call home.

it should be a right, but for now it is a privilege.

PARTNERED

and my life has shown me intimately that being partnered can be a blessing or a curse. some mothers are happily partnered and some are terrorized and abused and forced to stay partnered. sometimes being a single mother is a privilege and being married is an oppression.

once upon a time in an empire far far away i gave up nearly everything i had just to get out of a relationship. and im glad we didnt have children together because if we had had them i pretty certain that he wouldnt have let me leave alive.

and i couldnt just leave the city. or the state. because he followed me. state to state.

i left the continent.

i left because i realized that i deserved to be happy. and for years i had been with him in a small southern town. still segregated. really trying to build community through artistic expression and space. really convinced that this was the important work. and that it didnt matter that i felt stifled. stay local. stay local. just nurture your garden. and if everyone did that then the world would be a better place. and all that.

and dont get me wrong. i believe in community building locally. i do. some of the most amazing community leaders i have known have not traveled more than 30 miles away from their home for their entire life.

CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

but what i realized was that i dont believe in the kantian categorical imperative nature of the stay local ideology. i dont believe that something is ethical or moral if it fits into the formula of: if everyone did action a, the world would be a more peaceful place, and thus everyone *should* do action a.

its like in a wrinkle in time (do you remember that book?) and the kids get to the planet where all the houses are the same and all the kids are all bouncing their balls to the same exact rhythm, and then all the mothers come out of the houses at the same exact time and bring the kids inside. and they all are acting like robots?

that is what i think of when someone throws a kantian categorical imperative at me. if everyone did it…the world would be a better place.

REFUGEES

ok. you ever think of refugees as privileged? no? really? cause they are. in comparison to the folks who they left behind in that war zone. the sudanese refugees here in cairo are really privileged. let me put it in perspective: the capital of south sudan, jemba. has three paved roads. three. so what if the sudanese refugees can barely access decent health care are barred from enrolling in egyptian schools, live in ghettos, are harrassed constantly by the police, are suffering from ptsd, seperated from their families- that is the members of their families that are still alive-are ex sex slaves and child soldiers…

but they are privileged…and it was when i realized that that i thought: wtf does privilege mean?

and once i realize they are privileged…then what?

PRIVILEGE

once i realize i am privileged. that being able to leave a dangerous situation by any means necessary was a privileged act. then what?

and now years later, happily a mama, partnered, beloved, and living abroad. happy to live in a place where i feel safer. happy to create love. where does privilege fit into this? is privilege the reason that i am happy or is privilege contributing to my happiness? am i happy despite my privilege?

is living in a place where i feel reasonably safe a privilege? hell fucking yes it is.

is living in a place where it is safe to be loved and being able to love a privilege? yes.

do i have the privilege to determine for myself what is safe for me? yes.

do i have the privilege to determine that for me and mine it is safer for me to live in the west bank than in chicago? yes.

am i about to give up any of those ‘privileges’? nope.

am i a refugee? absolutely not.

am i a working class black mama with ’some college’, a us citizen able bodied with access to social class privilege who lives in cairo, egypt on scale with a middle class egyptian family?

RIDICULOUS FUCKING CONVERSATION

this is what i dont get. why every couple of months do i get in one of these fucking ridiculous conversations about single motherhood vs. partnered motherhood or working locally vs. globally?

can folks even tell why these fucking conversations are ridiculous?

how do you know the content of my life? how do you know that my husband isnt abusive? (he isnt but still…) how do you know the content of my marriage to the extent that you can determine that my partnership is obviously so much more privileged than your singlehood?

and how do you know that me traveling is more privileged than you staying home?

is there a way we can have a conversation about privilege and oppression that makes sense?

it was contemplating this. that i realized that i need to find a more accurate paradigm for figuring out who i center in my organizing…

Jim Crow-ly?

2009-07-23T13:07:00.000-07:00

Wait, is the cop kidding with that name?

(CNN) -- A Cambridge, Massachusetts, police officer said Thursday he will "never apologize" about how he handled the arrest of prominent black Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

"That apology will never come from me as Jim Crowley, it won't come from me as sergeant in the Cambridge Police Department," Sgt. James Crowley told Boston radio station WEEI. "Whatever anybody else chooses to do in the name of the city of Cambridge or the Cambridge Police Department which are beyond my control, I don't worry about that. I know what I did was right. I have nothing to apologize for."

Crowley also said he was exercising caution and is clearly not a racist based on his previous actions.

thinking about Revolutionary Letter #19

2009-07-21T14:50:00.000-07:00

by Diane di Prima

(for the Poor People's Campaign)

if what you want is jobs
for everyone, you are still the enemy,
you have not thought thru, clearly what that means.

if what you want is housing, Industry
(G.E. on the Navaho reservation)
a car for everyone, garage, refrigerator,
TV, more plumbing, scientific
freeways, you are still
the enemy, you have chosen
to sacrifice the planet for a few years
of some science fiction utopia, if what you want

still is, or can be, schools
where all our kids are pushed into one shape, are taught
it's better to be "American" than black
or Indian, or Jap, or Puerto Rican, where Dick
and Jane become and are the dream, do you
look like Dick's father, don't you think your kid
secretly wishes you did

if what you want
is clinics where the AMA
can feed you pills to keep you weak, or sterile,
shoot germs into your kids, while Merck & Co. grows richer

if you want
free psychiatric help for everyone
so that the shrinks,
pimps for this decadence, can make
it flowers for us,

if you still want a piece
a small piece of suburbia, green lawn
laid down by the square foot
color TV, whose radiant energy
kills brain cells, whose subliminal ads
brainwash your children, have taken over
your dreams

degrees from universities which are nothing
more than slum landlords festering sinks of lies,
so you can go forth and lie to others
on some greeny campus

THEN YOU ARE STILL
THE ENEMY, you are selling
yourself short, remember
you can have what you ask for, ask for
everything

assignment

2009-07-10T17:35:00.000-07:00

the assignment was to walk my neighborhood

and take 5 pictures. just 5.

this is my girlfriend's bike. her last bike got

crushed on the summer solstice, along with

the baby seat, while it was locked to another

'no parking' sign outside our house. coming

home to see the bike mangled under someone's

minivan, and the baby seat too, made me think

we should leave town.

i walk under this underpass every day,

but i've never noticed this sign before.

what does it mean?

i love the way you can be in any little podunk corner

of town and a train track makes the space instantly

urban. the kids honor it as urban with their paint.

if we leave town, i will miss the co-op, and the little

juice stand in front of it, even if it takes a while to

get your juice sometimes because the girl walks away

and picks the ingredients from a garden down the

street to make your juice.

i think if we leave i will miss the ease

with which things grow here.

first haircut

2009-07-05T18:51:00.000-07:00