tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36140430438420144392024-02-18T16:14:23.378-10:00JacksonesqueMarikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.comBlogger291125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-1108953029387947152015-02-26T21:22:00.001-10:002015-02-26T21:22:56.211-10:00Living in the Shadows<p>I see a lot of beauty in the darkness. Evening feels close and deep. Literature feeds on tragedy. Humor fawns on dark linings. </p> <p>I say to my students, “You don’t get to be bored by someone else’s tragedy.” I think I can add, “You don’t get to look away.” </p> <p>I’ve had a lot of sweet teenagers in my classes who look at me with great sad eyes and ask me why we can’t read stories with happy endings. Because, young ones, would we care? </p> <p>There are certainly great stories that end in marriage (Thank you, Shakespeare) and freed slaves (Thank you, Twain), but even then there are great, unhappy questions: What happens to Jacques? Is Tom really free? </p> <p>There’s a damaging side effect, of course—I’m sarcastic, cynical, critical. Sometimes I’ll be witness to others’ inspiration, some words that are the kind of catchy that’s quotable and immediately indexed on cat posters. My eyes arch and roll right over the crowd. I sometimes wish I could be easily inspired, rather than playing Negative Nancy.</p> <p>I’ve learned when to veil it, but it changes my sarcasm sensor. For my job I have to play nice often enough, and sometimes I have my super genuine, be receptive and interested in everything, and I mean, EVERYTHING someone has to say all day long. And then I’ll suddenly be too naïve to hear a sarcastic comment when it smacks me in the face. </p> <p>This week I was almost getting cavities from all the nice I had to play for the last three days. At one point someone said to me, “I’ve got a personal chef.” I said, “Oh really?” She said, “Yes, he works at Zippy’s.” </p> <p>My brain couldn’t take it in. I immediately said, “Whoa, that’s cool” in my most earnest voice. I got the whole table to laugh at me before I realized my idiocy. When I’m playing extra nice with my class, I get lax on the grading. When I turn off my critical sensor I end up watching dumb shows. </p> <p>So am I going to be smart and mean or sweet and dopey? Mr. Hyde is probably plotting the good doctor’s demise. </p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-83188779875805259132015-02-04T20:40:00.001-10:002015-02-04T20:40:24.064-10:00Do you have a minute?<p>Do you have a minute? </p> <p>Let me tell you, if I had a minute, I can think of about 10 other ways I’d rather spend this minute than fix whatever you did to your computer. </p> <p>I could scream into the ether, for one. To let off some of the steam that has been rising in my brain since I got here. </p> <p>For another, I could sit down and check off one thing on my own to do list. </p> <p>I’d much rather touch base with the kids who are sitting around my desk, who you just stepped around to let me know what you needed help with, during my lunch break. </p> <p>Oh, I could eat my lunch, rather than leave it in my thawed lunch sack, so I don’t get the shakes from low blood sugar, like I do most days I don’t have time to eat. </p> <p>But here, let me look at your computer, because you’re standing here and I have zero backbone. </p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-64533792448385148412015-01-13T22:48:00.001-10:002015-01-14T23:53:19.514-10:00Boring CatharsisMozely cried when church was over. “Home is boring!” he said. I figured if I outlined the benefits of home over church, he’d stop fighting his way to the car.<br />
<br />
“They have little pieces of bread!” when I told him there was nothing to eat. <br />
<br />
“You can watch movies on the wall!” when we said there was nothing to do. <br />
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There was no answer at all to the idea that I would not be there.<br />
<br />
It’s true. Most of what we do at home is keeping our lives together. We rarely break from business. I used to think my dad worked too much. But I certainly did not want to stay at church. Major insult. <br />
I work in a world where reading is boring, paying attention is boring, real life is boring. <br />
<br />
Truth in advertising: I fell asleep in my first workshop of the day on Monday. I don’t know how to live without deathbed repentance in one more episode procrastination. I’ve gotta check my phone, just one second. Oooo. Is that a cookie? Let me eat it in place of entertainment while I sit here.<br />
<br />
At school I think of myself as a paid entertainer. I do my song and dance (sometimes literally), I guilt trip, I joke, I kid, I tease, I talk faster and louder in case confusion is an antidote to boredom. <br />
And I become an overdramatized version of myself: The teacher who groans loudly and full-bodied when the student claims this poem sucks, the whiny and long lecturer of the value of work when complaints stack up about upcoming due dates, the one who adores and cheers the overwrought analysis of character faults over time, stopping and recreating each turning point. <br />
<br />
It’s not that I’m lying about what I believe: that interesting yourself is more important than being entertained, and there are a lot of reasons to interest yourself beyond just pure pleasure<br />
. <br />
But, I do find that teaching is a little like acting on a stage. Everything, from your look to your voice, when you overdo it, it’s just enough. I think that's true in parenting as well. Maybe it's just how you have to deal with the in-the-now dramatic little people I have around me all the time.<br />
Somehow, if I am the crazy, demanding, always version of myself, they’ll catch a sliver of the urgency in my character’s voice, and find that they are caught up in it. Too. Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-2762975411982601432015-01-08T20:50:00.001-10:002015-01-08T20:52:42.414-10:00Evening Shores<b id="docs-internal-guid-a7c8303e-cd64-a933-d7a7-216a7e4b4bfa" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Retreating tides leave a spacious shore. Twilight filters create evening shade. Somber blues tint my views.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every part of the setting is unassumingly present. Pressing into my consciousness. Absorbing all my attention.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can see the quiet textures spread out. Settle in.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We path from one topple rock to another in a dizzying, undiscerning pathway. Cool stones make whispery scuffs under our rubber soles. Their numbers are immensely visible, dotting and circling and lining the edge of the dry sand and flowing into the water. They are impossibly round, like they’ve each been roughed up by a gem tumbler. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Clouds peel their impressions off still pools that are lightly ruffled by wind. Their pink and orange light lines their scratchy, gauzy curves. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rushing air blends with flows of crushed styrofoaming water. Pulling up its blanket on the reef. Crust shelves sit sturdy over soft ocean. Their alligator teeth tear the horizon’s meet.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A spear diver runs by as if on errand, droplets of water clinging to his suit and then falling behind.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A girl playing ukulele stops nervously before we can hear her tune, but smoke from her cigarette makes it into my next deep breath.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A seal, belly sleeping. Its one eye open as we slink by is as judgmental and passing off as Alice in Wonderland’s hookah-wielding, blue Caterpillar. “Who… Are… You?” with a downward and sideglanced disregard.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sunlight left its shine behind at glamorous noon: squeals and splashes, squints and skin. Its allure fades quickly for me-- I’ll never know how to forget harsh light and desperate charm. </span></div>
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Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-39272996048237185982014-12-22T23:06:00.001-10:002014-12-22T23:16:32.087-10:00Words, Words, Words<p> <p>I am an e-hoarder. <p>Collecting indicates a bit of curation, a special trip to all 50 states for silver spoons with destinations engraved on their faces, some display of order, possible viewing cabinets. <p>Hoarding is everything collecting is not. It’s the collections that you’ve forgotten and simultaneously add to. There’s no art or order. If you were to get it all out you’d be shocked by it. Others would be shocked. They’d want to bulldoze your house just so they don’t have to deal with it all. It’s messy unquantifiable and reeks of indulgence--the kind that holds you up to scrutiny. Organizing and rummaging through would require people with latex gloves. Shovels. <p>I’m stuffing words in the crevices of my living e-space. I’ve got 847 pieces of last year’s subscriber mail, never opened. I have unique passwords to 9 separate email in-boxes. I’ve got summer homes in text that I never scrap and rebuild. Once I peered into the deep well of my 4th laptop; I couldn’t see the bottom. Then there are the curated words of my daily life, the posts of limited and unlimited character counts. <p>Deciding what to release and what to hold back is the difficulty. Now this is part of the world and we’re all living together, with no paper contracts to prove commitment. <p>When I stand back and hold the words out to view, I’m overwhelmed. The hoarding is brimming in my brain. When others see what I’ve let slip out of my control-- <p>Do they wonder what I’ve lost and what I’m afraid to lose that makes me hold on? <p>The physical: <p>I left a box of love letters at a friend’s house when I went to college. The boy who had written them scripted sincere, romantic prose with the awkwardness of first loves. I saw him turn completely to us, and he felt fragile in my grip. <p>I was sent a handwritten contract of long-distance friendship from a guy who wrote the most beautifully haphazard, meaningful nonsense. I lost it in the nomadic semesters of college life. One clause of the contract was that we will do whatever we have to to see each other if in close vicinity, which has resulted in steady streams of past midnight conversation in 4 different states and Japan. <p>A keeper found my entire writing portfolio in a zip disk, left in a library computer. I was the loser. It’s a lay theft that I wish I could undo. I’ve retraced those steps a thousand times in my memory. <p>My last high school boyfriend printed out every email that we wrote to each other, some of them unfit for polite company, and I wish I could burn their digital and concrete lives, now that they are repossessed and no longer my own. <p>The cloud: <p>The poems I’ve written in sleep and groggily put together while staring into the dark, trying to cement metaphors I’d cut from soft bits of dreams--I know they were real-- but a second sleep left them to future deja vu. <p>I have a stream of living dialogue I’d be loathe to lose. I consider it to be closest to consciousness that I could possibly get, and it unlocks a bit of my shared brain. Everything loops back to the way I communicate. My words there are as connected to reality as parallel lines. That is the writing that is solely mine. A secret stash. A daily milk delivery. A personal laugh track. <p>I live in the written--lasting, elusive, catching. It’s abstractions that only matter to me and concrete that explains me. I gather them up where they won’t be seen again, backed up by vault storage I pay yearly fees to keep. So I pile them up even if there is nowhere left to stack. <p>How do I know what I think if I haven’t written it yet? How will I know what I thought if I don’t hold on to it?</p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-49779509388098969992014-12-21T23:14:00.001-10:002014-12-21T23:14:42.054-10:00Elves on the Shelf<p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-3C--kc-Geb8/VJfg4nF0MDI/AAAAAAAAFfQ/F8UrHZjj7PU/s1600-h/2014%252520christmas003%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="2014 christmas003" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="2014 christmas003" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-oxZ4zOr3VII/VJfg5FXSuvI/AAAAAAAAFfY/XhhGm4kqMGI/2014%252520christmas003_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="550" height="436"></a><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-bI9eijHkzWE/VJfg5_Eg7XI/AAAAAAAAFfg/XEnps5QNsyE/s1600-h/2014%252520christmas024%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="2014 christmas024" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="2014 christmas024" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-nDtWf1HRwcU/VJfg6tS3ltI/AAAAAAAAFfo/SRwpeUGBv4g/2014%252520christmas024_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="550" height="736"></a></p> <p>I didn’t buy into the elf on the shelf stock. I should have. From what I’ve heard it’s pretty tight parenting stuff. Building memories, magic, and tradition, and teaching kids to follow the rules all in one setup. I can barely get myself to the post office before they close. Starting traditions that require contracts is beyond my level of dedication to anything that isn’t treading water. </p> <p>I can definitely thread successful kids who come through my classes to families with very stable homes with one parent dedicated to the kids’ lives. It has a history of evidence I can’t deny.</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-8FoYkNoJ_xA/VJfg7Dnkj7I/AAAAAAAAFfw/fl5QBqFm1fc/s1600-h/2014%252520christmas023%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="2014 christmas023" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="2014 christmas023" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvVXL08e3KP5c5GMBF5jyceaMsyy5Ct6_xvSPeBufWlyLOx58JOv2Cxc0CC1X9r84CzQZo6O3aeWrzDuagMKZLvGqJIH1DTrLseJRxVtawVJO2hT8Eq4rb9t9UIa5_HNlUuXk1emSzpgpV/?imgmax=800" width="550" height="751"></a></p> <p>And then, contrary to the norm, the kids who have some of the most unusual family situations I’ve encountered and hang out in my room every day are funny, sharp, fascinating, and insightful. They have a lot of drama, and plenty of challenges, but I really just love all of their hard edges.</p> <p>So what does that mean? How do you raise a good kid? I’ve got nothing sure here. Mine kinda get the short end of the stick between everything we have to do. We’re working, handing off, packing the kids with us on our journeys, rather than the other way around. </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-zUV-NyZq7aQ/VJfg8WVaBVI/AAAAAAAAFf8/tMrDK8FW7iI/s1600-h/2014%252520christmas034%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="2014 christmas034" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="2014 christmas034" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-B8OitiO8YT8/VJfg9HsqsQI/AAAAAAAAFgI/cj43WTPoB68/2014%252520christmas034_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="550" height="367"></a></p> <p>And if you heard Amaya saying yesterday that I ruin everything, well, I won’t disagree that some of that’s parenting and some of that’s mistake making. I guess figuring out the difference will mean I’ve arrived.</p> <p>For what it’s worth:</p> <p>I have two kids who look in pictures like they’re getting the kind of parenting I wish I was giving. I’ll take it. At least until I figure out what I’m doing. And I guess for now we’re doing ok.</p> <p>(Plus they do have magical powers. Like waking up before light almost every day.)</p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn5qjkTukM_mwMXUrLkE3MIwmq-XZ8XVI8VNBObQDUweVdeBCJbCODaMd5KwHBT2Iw6TiGSb5FvCPuDRhbZQkiXffHKSJvK6aN_3F8hgXB2rKio7l65Eg3-z7EYrlDmGwvwIdwBbHaF-qU/s1600-h/2014%252520christmas004%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="2014 christmas004" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="2014 christmas004" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-mFrjT0LazkE/VJfg-RGyQTI/AAAAAAAAFgY/W0d4Jslfxxk/2014%252520christmas004_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="550" height="629"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN3hCaNBOvMyf5zl7fXp6l0q1Ng-OLyfeLAcLUY5zEmbO1hqtU4XRvh5XsOL2rqXZ0Pfs9pv-JbpqFyECCNXnXzVZgIBOvIhmXrntEraHcygrv2FkzqsCt3Pz_MrSyy3tSHPLHpj1kai_a/s1600-h/2014%252520christmas006%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="2014 christmas006" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="2014 christmas006" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-K3iLy5YNVyM/VJfg_6fxRyI/AAAAAAAAFgo/rUqZnIZRJaM/2014%252520christmas006_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="550" height="825"></a></p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-68895019855983019892014-12-10T19:43:00.001-10:002014-12-10T22:03:13.353-10:00Life Refrain<p>Sometimes I imagine now, as “used to have been”, to <p>decide what I would miss most <p>I am currently reminiscing the buzz of carpenter bees <p>that seem to impossibly vibrate space <p>around lilikoi vines that choke <p>our rusted fence (the voice of its hinges like my children’s). <p> <p>The dialogue of razor scooters and skateboard wheels in the street <p>and trucks that run on diesel songs, <p>--the ocean’s textured tongue pressing in the background-- <p>All of it staying with us, a daily conversation in our living room. <p> <p>I think, wouldn’t I miss this <p>mumbly breeze through our louvres that only close <p>when we’re gone <p>these silent panes of glass, shut, between outside and in <p>then (the future and past the same distance from me, here) and now <p>Would be final. </p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-32567539142022391252014-11-29T09:09:00.001-10:002014-11-29T09:09:45.007-10:00Insult Prone<p>If you’re a kid, you don’t have to eat the bread crusts on your peanut butter sandwich because they’re ew. </p> <p>You can talk loudly in the grocery store about needing to go poop, emphasizing it with the doody dance.</p> <p>And you can insult adults without worrying about hurting their feelings. </p> <p>You will, actually, hurt their feelings. It’s just that you don’t <em>worry</em> about it. </p> <p>There is nothing in this world as critically reviewed as a teacher. It is the only profession, besides parenting, that people who have no training or experience in are allowed to have an opinion.</p> <p>Every student who can read the English language will tell you, no matter how many copies have sold, how many people have read and liked and alluded and remade it, that this book you’re teaching is complete trash. <em>Miss, I’ve read seven pages and it is sooooo boring. Can’t we read something good?</em></p> <p>On the edge of my grammar book someone in a previous year wrote “This class sucks.” Just this week I noticed that someone recently added, “alot".</p> <p>(Hopefully, said person will not be repeating my class, despite his/her grammar skillz.)</p> <p>Even if you have 34 students who just love, love, love every second of your class, and eat up your words like adoring face-licking puppies, that one student who yells, “YES! FINALLY!” when the bell rings can ruin the whole day. </p> <p>I like to make special projects out of students whose mission is to hate me. These are the kids that glare and roll their eyes when everyone else is laughing at my joke. They come see me about their grade and act like I am wasting their time if I try to talk to them. I like to kill ‘em with kindness, in my totally manipulative way. It helps me to remember to like them, too, so it’s not all about my entertainment. I give them extra attention. I laugh openly when they scowl. I work them into my jokes about what will be reported from class back to parents out of context that night. I super high five them while they reel from the shock because they don’t know what hit ‘em. These are students that just make it part of their persona to hate anything that someone else likes, so I get that. They’re me. I’ve won over more than a few of these guys this way, by the end, so I like to think it works.</p> <p>There’s a survey that asks students to rate the teacher on a scale of “Never” to “Always” according to about 100 statements. It’s part of the teacher evaluation system and is tied to teacher pay. One of the first ones is: </p> <p>“This class feels like a happy family.”</p> <p>Well, if you feel comfortable enough to insult your mother and expect to get a barrage of ruthless teasing in return while your siblings all laugh, I suspect I’ve got near perfect ratings.</p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-59763644358042921482014-11-28T15:16:00.001-10:002014-11-28T15:16:03.478-10:00Thanksgiving<p>My parents were pretty good about taking pictures of important days. There were a lot of of pictures of my dad eating. </p> <p>Most of them exhibited one of the many genetic traits I received from him. Eyelids drooped and mid-bite just as the picture is shot. To say the least, not very flattering. Thanksgiving pictures were reenactments of that look, with different traditional and non-traditional foods on the table. </p> <p>I didn’t grow up with many traditions. It didn’t feel dysfunctional to me. My mom clipped a new recipe from the newspaper and would try it out, we ate Japanese stew with konnyaku (not my favorite), friends invited us over for the real deal Stove Top dinner, we assembled turkey sandwiches in the parking lot of the ski lodge, we went out to the movies after a quick, early dinner. Every year was different. There were lots of memorable ones. I never once felt like we needed to revive what we had done the year before.</p> <p> For some of my childhood, I think my mom was trying to figure out what basic American families eat. She did, eventually, know how to make turkeys and stuffing and apple pie. I think that’s what made us feel like we had arrived, as Americans—our understanding of the stereotypical American Thanksgiving and that we could recreate it. But, we weren’t tied down by that feeling. We didn’t <em>have</em> to do things that way. </p> <p>It was a metaphor of growth for us. We could, if we wanted to have it, but there was no disappointment if we wanted a new adventure. I just spoke to my parents on the phone, and they went to a restaurant for Thanksgiving this year. I asked them what kind of food the restaurant specialized in and they said, “Creative.” I said, “No pumpkin pie?” My dad said, “Mom made a pumpkin roll cake.” Japanese sponge cake style. I know, some people just love Thanksgiving, exactly the way it is, and I’m not saying “Take it or leave it,” – I’m just saying I don’t have my heels dug in deep for how it should happen. </p> <p>The only thing that stayed the same for us was that we were together and that food is part of our expression of love, so there was always plenty of that. Now we’re strewn far apart. I didn’t even talk to my parents until the day after Thanksgiving. Kegan lives in Japan (he’s probably the most sentimental about the traditional foods, ironically), they’re in Oregon, and I’m in the middle with a big in-law extended family. I still feel the strings of family and loyalty over those long distances even when we’re missing important days together. </p> <p>I also don’t feel bad that this is our current Thanksgiving:</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Cr6iYotLoF4/VHkeNnvTHUI/AAAAAAAAFZ8/EUSF2Gt34nI/s1600-h/Tanks14001%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="Tanks14001" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Tanks14001" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwcd_BxwVJ42jLsuIudkVvx9qn3DSv9HJoDHtFXBo3JJPAlFUoZhPAgU__R-su521cDvOVvxh2o4yu0Ks9o_XkpTI-unECZTh5Y614sVfBSAz0UVB3WQ6zWMP7d-rrZcjjfCQcHBYlgjjX/?imgmax=800" width="225" height="225"></a><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-EJLKmeAa_dU/VHkePVsTLDI/AAAAAAAAFaM/Btube4Y63Vc/s1600-h/Tanks14002%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Tanks14002" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Tanks14002" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipGuy0wYskDuwqGd2PcjbO8yauNUFqfLgjdt9YMACSN-D1kbaCj-3yor01xRrKYjiqnpgaqnQRoOWjBezLs4SxGPivcWeuSlnRDl5wVhhwRpVFR_PgocZGJE6X3jsDgvC8OlqUjMnIEAZ9/?imgmax=800" width="225" height="225"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje1MgORmJZDrnZembz5BAJxBc6VssKw3gK-EbiRcjPg7q4WPyaPsPOysP5GjVWPFjqCPw0F94nqEO8qZ3RmLfQKJQM_26v72aCeQeRcTRW5CwP8LbDCvjRuitT6aoz4AA6tfptj3UnnBsI/s1600-h/Tanks14003%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Tanks14003" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Tanks14003" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-yzr2NocbDlE/VHkeRNu9lCI/AAAAAAAAFak/tV2rQq3Ro3g/Tanks14003_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="225" height="225"></a><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-aA7jt8taOeM/VHkeRhWiE7I/AAAAAAAAFas/7GtPxO0PPu4/s1600-h/Tanks14004%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img title="Tanks14004" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Tanks14004" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-W2BxjdxmrdA/VHkeSJ9fNSI/AAAAAAAAFaw/HzUeDGxx6a4/Tanks14004_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="225" height="225"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqKLq1anFOPKYS2r2TUEPTNJ13Jw4FN2WBQAAVt9r2i5L7hgLlugePn15oa5OodLiickbN6tCLHvnOY4Un6jAz22aYKr2F1bI9jXj-6S7bNhVbbgjWQIIPV7mAtizXo0vl8ORSTVKDinrq/s1600-h/Tanks14006%25255B14%25255D.jpg"><img title="Tanks14006" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Tanks14006" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-S_MEmtXz4NI/VHkeTCckNtI/AAAAAAAAFbE/-p1h0dyjH9s/Tanks14006_thumb%25255B11%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="225" height="174"></a><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-lDkPsjBscP0/VHkeTlPOEBI/AAAAAAAAFbM/Ebu0YXZpWjk/s1600-h/Tanks14007%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Tanks14007" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Tanks14007" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUO-ccyLRYuRZLtpZPyW5E6Oix78HLmnpPBcrSW56IFrUnDGefFN2mMUvk2SmbNNXjBiF9fpMI3bxUlJGv0TNhk-6zmBkW52ei28HmtTYAY9dCDZauCGzM8ukLmY7Nx332fPZ5Wg25rJZw/?imgmax=800" width="225" height="225"></a></p> <p>I’ll take whatever we’ve got with the people I love. I think that’s about all the tradition that’s worth saving. </p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-62964342488810458722014-11-20T22:30:00.001-10:002014-11-20T22:30:33.523-10:00Recent Discomforts<p> <p>Waking up two hours earlier than your alarm because your husband is yelling loudly, wordlessly, in his sleep, sending adrenaline pumping through your body while you attempt to wake him. <p>Emailing the faculty that their computers do not have 739 viruses each and to not click to clear their computers of said viruses, because mentioning it is bound to make at least ten people vaguely remember something about this, and that they should maybe click on this because they’ve heard about it. <p>Having people who are much, much thinner than you compliment you on your weight loss, tell you that you don’t need to lose weight, and then pretend that weight is just a number while simultaneously mentioning something about eating carbohydrates on Wednesdays only, the exact tightness of their skinny jeans, and the precise number of ounces they have gained and lost since high school, charted like babies’ growth percentiles. <p>Asking the smartest kid in your class to repeat his mumbling in a more audible way, and having him refuse to tell you what he just said, and then asking the kid next to him to tell you, and that kid pretending to have forgotten what was just said. <p>Sitting in church and hearing the teacher say, “I did not prepare a lesson today because I want to give you guys a chance to talk.” <p>Hearing a large gaggle of drunk men outside laughing louder than the music you are playing in your own house, and wishing you had trained in judo, kickboxing, or at least joined the CIA. <p>Your husband asking you if you want him to start shaving his legs. and not laughing right away. <p>Texting/Saying/Emailing/Writing something you thought was funny, and waiting for a response, for far too long, and wishing that there was a text/speech/email/writing retrieving function.</p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-32465650124816989032014-11-16T20:22:00.001-10:002014-11-16T20:23:23.262-10:00Alone, Together<p> <p> <p>When we argue in the car <p> <p><font size="3">night air slips around our encased contention</font> <p><font size="3">the tunnel cuts the radio transmission</font> <p><font size="3">into a tune of electric chafe</font> <p><font size="3"></font> <p>the static <p>of silence <p>scratches <p>us. <p> <p>the wheels spinning over concrete <p>ridges of each slab connection <p>beat a hard rhythm <p>~ <p>~ <p>~ <p> <p>I’ve heard these pulses before: <p>~ We stood in a stiff wind <p>that pushed like tides against our rock faces <p>~ I was hiking ahead of you, heavy clouds hid <p>and escaped in my exhales <p>~ Your running soles scraped a lopsided thrum <p>against mine in the shadows between streetlamps <p> <p>Now I watch you watching the lines on the road <p>making their paths out of the dark <p>barely chasing ahead of our lights <p> <p>Being alone, together, crackles between us. Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-16023986733456933522014-11-10T06:02:00.000-10:002014-11-10T06:02:00.046-10:00Tech-spirationThis is about to sound like bragging, but wait around, the self-deprecation is on its way.<br />
<br />
I get a lot of people praising me for my competence. This is because I know how to:<br />
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<ul>
<li>internet</li>
<li>read on-line tech forums and use their solutions</li>
<li>turn computers off and then on again (90% of all tech problems)</li>
<li>tell the difference between Chrome and Internet Explorer</li>
<li>not click on pop ups telling me I have 4,233 viruses</li>
<li>take screenshots (wizardry!)</li>
<li>cancel print jobs</li>
<li>Pay attention to time zones for East Coast tech support and keep myself busy while being on hold for long periods of time</li>
<li>call the guy who actually knows how to fix stuff</li>
</ul>
<div>
Basically, because I dink around, people just assume I'm really good at things. This is like the greatest farce known to woman. The main tech and I laugh about this all the time, so it's not exactly a secret, but it is hilarious to me how often these "skills" come in handy. </div>
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<div>
Sometimes I come across skills that other people have easily picked up and I feel in awe of most other humans because I never did figure that out. Internet tutorials have not helped me much. </div>
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My incompetence includes:</div>
<div>
<br />
<ul>
<li>Proper eyeliner application and its accompanying terms </li>
<li>Getting to places on time.</li>
<li>Taking care of stuff that isn't on fire.</li>
<li>Avoiding long explanations where simple ones are sufficient.</li>
<li>Using a calendar and to-do list properly.</li>
</ul>
<div>
So I don't get how people who are able to do these things are so bad at telling me what model of printer they have over the phone. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Really, which one of these should be highly valued? Definitely the second list deserves praise. </div>
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So I applaud you, on-time and succinct, fine-eyed people. You're real American heroes. I am going to make little signs for you to help you through the rest of it.</div>
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<div>
"Remember, a download of that Coupon Clip Toolbar is an evening of money saving bliss to a slow-boot morning of regret."</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
"You'll never get where you're going using that Internet Explorer icon."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"Keep Calm and Carry On and Never Click Those "WaRnInG! Your Files are Exposed!" Messages"</div>
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"You can do anything! Except update your Java version." *</div>
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<br /></div>
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"Dare to be an individual. Google that shtuff."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"Yes. Yes, you CAN (check to see if your power plug is actually connected to the wall)." </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right [that printers won't work with paper jammed inside there]." --Henry Ford</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*if you are not a teacher, this probably makes no sense, but our attendance program does not work on current versions of Java, so I spend 90% of my time telling people to ignore Java updates and uninstalling them.</span></div>
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Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-34627630228183944092014-11-06T22:58:00.000-10:002014-11-07T16:33:21.525-10:00NoIn general I would say that the Summer of Yes is followed up by the School Year of No. <br />
All day: <br />
No, you cannot <em>have</em> all of my writing utensils. <br />
No, you cannot draw your pseudo gang signs on my board. <br />
No, you cannot tell us about your aunt's vomiting dog.<br />
No, you cannot talk to your friend who is waiting outside the classroom about her drama.<br />
No, you cannot have all of my tape so you can tape together my expo pens into a gigantic bouquet.<br />
And then I get home and I’m just like:<br />
NO. <a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-h1jhdMeSRXI/VFnmcPbhuXI/AAAAAAAAFZc/VCTLDgAF8PE/s1600-h/no3.png"><img alt="no" border="0" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-pk7F88ZxG4U/VFnmc8TNI3I/AAAAAAAAFZk/DhqxsB8LR8g/no_thumb1.png?imgmax=800" height="216" style="background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="no" width="205" /></a><br />
It’s a bit shameful how little will I have to deal with my real kids and all of the stuff that makes life go ‘round in our home eco system. <br />
Seemingly simple to-do lists get thrown into the recycling bin of my mind’s desktop and I want to sit on the dang couch, eat some cookie butter, and check my social media. Something about being demanded all of the time by very insistent humans saps my ability to Yes. <br />
Luckily, Amaya and Mozely find that taking first, asking later, is the way of dealing with me. I’m raising real problem solvers. Complex thinkers. Future criminals, probably. Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-53282826360338145182014-11-04T17:18:00.000-10:002014-11-05T17:18:07.759-10:00Flipping Off<p>“Fuck This.”</p> <p>He says, and slams his pencil down on the table. </p> <p>His proverbial desk flipping is as harmless as finger flipping</p> <p>but he’s not a stick man meme with a turn down mouth</p> <p>he’s a 280 pound 15-year-old who was in 8th grade twice</p> <p>his Laie Boys East Side representin’ tattoo is stretched over his pillowy bicep</p> <p>I want to say, yeah, F this, because I spent last Saturday grading papers </p> <p>while you went to pounders, sifting in and out of foamy days</p> <p>I rifled through pages of the internet with click through fingers, trying to doctor a cure for your boredom</p> <p>while you fell asleep reading the page you were supposed to finish weeks ago</p> <p>and I worried about you, your weaknesses playing losing games of Life with my anxieties</p> <p>while you got slapped and filled your cup with obscene insults at home. </p> <p>You drink them up and talk yourself into a contortionist’s trick.</p> <p>I find him hiding in one corner of a cheeky smile</p> <p>which he gives me when I finally say, </p> <p>my breaths tight against my throat--</p> <p>after a long teenage audience of silence--</p> <p>“I’m not sure you’d enjoy that much.” </p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-50049770862627913332014-05-06T16:36:00.001-10:002014-05-06T16:36:59.563-10:00Internet-based Moral Systems<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
You’re just coming home from football practice and you need to shower, eat dinner, and do homework before
hopefully falling into bed before midnight. You’ve got a test tomorrow on <i>1984</i>. Crap. You’re on page 10. Nevermind
that the book started on page 7. Nevermind that you had two hours before
practice to do homework instead of playing dollar flip (you won $2, so that was
time well spent). Chances are, when you sit down and open up your book you’ll
find yourself falling asleep by page 11. But wait, there’s a savior for you: Sparknotes.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sparknotes
is a widely used resource for “too busy” students everywhere. Its fan base
alone is testament to its power and quality. The hard job of thinking is done
previously, by people who have time to do so, and all you need to do is use
your meme-filled, twitter-condensed mind to lap it up, from the comfort of your
own home. Surely, if it’s found on the internet and free, it must be
worthwhile!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Instead of spending the next three
hours reading a book you won’t enjoy for a test riddled with trick questions by
your conniving English teacher who hates you anyway, Mrs. Jackson, you could
spend two hours on Facebook and perhaps 20 minutes skimming through the chapter
summaries for this book. It hits all the important issues and is written,
probably, by underpaid expert English teachers who need to sell their souls for
rising costs of living, so it’s got all the answers. You could even spend ten
more minutes on Yahoo answers jotting down some of the more important quotes
which might be on that test, if you really want to impress someone. By that
time, you’d be in bed a half an hour early, and it’s widely known that students
need their beauty rest, because teenagers’ growth hormones need sleep to
generate (www.facebookfeednews.com). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Pesky
morals may haunt you. Students have moments of weakness when they think that using
Sparknotes might be dishonest, but in the long term you need to go to college.
You know you <i>could</i> do it, you know
you <i>would </i>do it, if you had to, if
you were in college, if you didn’t have to sleep/go on FB/read all these BOOKS
you don’t have time to read. That’s what matters. You just need to be able to
do it, and you are a completely capable person with a lot of skill. You got a B
on the last test and you only read the first chapter anyway. That shows you’re
doing something right. What’s dishonest is getting grades based on what you know
because you don't have time to show what you really know. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You are
important, and you are worth it. Your future is worth a little untruth. You still
clearly know the difference between right and wrong and when it matters, you
will make the decisions that matter. Just like you will know the answer when it
is important for you to know the answer. The only people that actually read the
book have no lives and are not well-rounded, so it’s completely fair that Johnny,
who you know read the book, got a B on the last test, too. He is obviously not as smart as you. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Reading books is not what makes you
smart. What makes you smart is getting passable grades without even trying. If
you really tried, you would get A’s. Talent and brains is what makes millions;
Bill Gates was so lazy he dropped out of college (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates).
You can almost hear Mrs. Jackson lecturing <i>“It’s
the thinking that’s important, not just knowing what the answer is!” </i>or similar
silliness about education being more important than grades. You can’t go about
life worrying about what other people think.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Isn’t that what she taught you?<o:p></o:p></div>
Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-77136941532141632832013-10-23T23:22:00.001-10:002013-10-23T23:22:49.071-10:00Unpopular TruthLast Sunday I was in church during an uncomfortable political discussion. I wrestled with whether speaking up would be fruitful. I don't believe that standing up for your beliefs is always liberating, helpful, or admirable, even if it is true. Truth isn't perceived as true by all your audiences.<br />
<br />
Sometimes people think that you're only courageous if you're willing to martyr yourself for a principle that you believe in. This justifies all kinds of ugly talk, political or not. They think, "Well, if you can't handle the truth, I don't care that I'm insulting you."<br />
<br />
I've had a hard road in learning this. I don't always stay quiet when I should, and it's not so much that I've learned my lesson, because some topics make me see fire first, but I've been in enough arguments that the reassuring thought of "Well, I'm right," isn't really comforting enough.<br />
<br />
I'm a political liberal in a largely politically conservative religion. I see this as a difference of opinion rather than religion. I don't understand how others find devastating ends to this difference of opinion. Too many people I care about and love believe that We, the liberals, are sending this country to Hell in a hand-basket. It's shocking to me that ideals that I care about in the way society should run can be seen as morally wrong rather than just plain old political difference.<br />
<br />
Because REALLY, it is political difference of opinion. I do think that politicians are extremely good at their jobs and at emotional skewing. This ends up making us all little sound byte clips of who is right and who is wrong and fear mongerers. Yes, there are political issues that directly oppose LDS values, but there is <i>no party that aligns perfectly with LDS values. </i>So my choosing a political affiliation based on alignment to religious values is a false notion, as even most left wing and right wing politicians are much closer in agreeing with each other morally than with any LDS member. You may champion a specific issue as more important than others. It's still your opinion which is more morally important.<br />
<br />
If this country <i>is</i> going to Hell in a hand-basket, it's because we let politics mask our beliefs in how we should be dealing with each other if we do have a disagreement, not because we disagree on who should have access to government subsidies for healthcare. Rumors of government plots and conspiracies outnumber the possibilities that people are trying to make decisions based on actual ideals.<br />
<br />
Choice lies with an individual, within certain laws and bounds. We shouldn't think that this freedom is what is going to ruin us. That's the exact thing we believe makes us divine beings. Having truth does not mean we can say hateful or isolating words, even in moral disagreements.<br />
<br />
I get that it is difficult, sometimes, to reconcile truth and showing your commitment to it. It confuses how we speak and deal with others, and even how we want others to respect that commitment.<br />
<br />
Jake told me about how Ethan said he likes growing bananas because it's easy to share with everyone that way.<br />
<br />
Fred said, "You are such a socialist."<br />
<br />
Ethan answered, "You mean you don't want any?"<br />
<br />
Fred decided that he did.<br />
<br />
I'm voting Ethan for President, even if he is a socialist.<br />
<br />
<br />Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-3744397720857490692013-06-05T10:51:00.001-10:002013-06-05T10:53:29.347-10:00Pronunciation is a Matter of Opinion<p>Did you know that there are three ways to pronounce the letter A? </p> <p>Ah, uh, and A. </p> <p>The three possible pronunciations of the letter A, along with every other vowel, and the number of sound changes that letters make when combined with other letters are all painfully clear to you when you are still trying to teach your almost 7 year old to read after two years of Kindergarten. On a good day she pronounces the letters F, T, and other random letters like the letter H. There are lots of “huh” sounds when we read. </p> <p>Part of me wishes that the word “with” really was pronounced “wuh, eye, tuh, huh”. Then maybe we could move on wuh-eye-tuh-huh our lives. It might take a little longer to get there, but at least we’d be swinging in the hammock, running after chickens, and living up the summer like we’re supposed to be, and not mad at each other for an hour because that’s how long it takes to go through every possible pronunciation of a vowel in ten words. </p> <p>If there is an alternate sound, she’ll find it first. </p> <p>She’s testing it out to see what alien languages we’re trying to teach her. </p> <p>It also takes so long to get to the end of the word that most of the time she can’t remember what sounds existed at the beginning of the word if the word is longer than four letters, so she has to sound it out again. If she looks up once while reading a word, she has to start over with the word. If she finishes figuring out what a word is, and then looks up, she’ll forget that she already read that word and start reading it again. </p> <p>I said, “Amaya, what does ‘t-h-e’ spell?” It took a year to teach her this word, and she can remember it orally, although when she sees it she still sounds out ‘tuh-huh-eee’.</p> <p>“The,” she said, grateful to know an answer. </p> <p>“Ok, so the letters t-h sound like ‘th’. Just put that at the end of the word. The sound ‘th’,” I said, with emphasis. “Like, this word is, wuh, ih, th.”</p> <p>“Wuh, eye, tuh, huh, ‘the’. Why-tuh-huhhhhh-the. Whytuhhuhthe. WHAT?! I don’t know that word! That makes no sense! This word is so complicated! I can’t do this!” </p> <p>We know that her brain works differently than other kids’. Even different from Mozely. It’s like we’re sitting down every day with an almost totally erased brain slate when it comes to reading. Yet her memory for anything that is not letters, numbers, when to be quiet, or what I sent her into the other room to put away is amazing and her ability to notice small details is beyond her age. </p> <p>There are three pronunciations of the letter A. </p> <p>Ah, uh, and A. </p> <p>There’s also AAAAAHHHHHHH! as you run away screaming from yet another failed reading lesson. </p> <p>But who’s counting.</p> <p>That’s the next hour. </p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-51765515077467255532012-12-18T10:53:00.001-10:002012-12-18T10:53:35.843-10:00Introspection<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS65vmgE3v51kZhV_Ctz4vFL29H_KQXTXWtn9yua1ynF3Jxo78CIRXf-_65WT93ouPv8LVzcy8tm4-ejVXXh7EI24nyd6HL85bmPgJKUyhv7IFqKFSeTmXBpMg1enO9eZLvfF23NzQI93R/s1600-h/amayaboots16%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="amayaboots16" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-bottom: 0px" height="550" alt="amayaboots16" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-C7r3dpmjBSU/UNDXw5TPZhI/AAAAAAAAELU/7IVHFD4L_SU/amayaboots16_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="550" border="0"></a> </p> <p>Amaya had the flu two weeks ago, and then she admitted she had swallowed a quarter in an unrelated medical emergency. </p> <p>As a side effect of these events, Amaya briefly became very introspective. She faced her imminent death. She compared her misery to better moments, asking me if I could recall times when quarters were not in danger of being removed from one’s intestines. We reassured her over and over again that she would feel better eventually. When she woke up on the third day, she cried because she knew she was still sick and she knew it was unfair. She hugged and cuddled and spoke quietly for about five days. She didn’t enjoy eating and mealtimes were made of tears. I let her watch Phineas and Ferb for longer than anyone should. </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-XQ-XMRM9AU8/UNDXxZiNoWI/AAAAAAAAELc/Phfxbr3mhgw/s1600-h/amayaboots15%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="amayaboots15" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-bottom: 0px" height="550" alt="amayaboots15" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/--KWB78BzyJ0/UNDXyMmZgVI/AAAAAAAAELk/snni3yshOVQ/amayaboots15_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="550" border="0"></a> Jake and I remembered how endearing she could be. Even her tantrums had good reason. She slept with our picture under her pillow so she “could always remember us.” </p> <p>Then she got better. We washed the vomit off the car. The quarter was not present at the xray. Her tantrums started making us shake our heads and send her to time out again. She lost a tooth and the tooth fairy remembered to visit, this time. The hole in her smile is hopefully as momentary as her new inability to smile naturally. </p> <p>Temporary and fleeting hardship is the sweetness of childhood. Recent tragedies make me so amazed and grateful at the constant change and impermanence that exists in my life. Children deserve that.</p> <p>Enjoy now. Merry Christmas. <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-RfsjSFlksxU/UNDXyxrMk3I/AAAAAAAAELs/30ml-3qMMps/s1600-h/amaya%252520boots%25252012%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="amaya boots 12" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-bottom: 0px" height="550" alt="amaya boots 12" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-e2Gppirtn9k/UNDXzr-sQcI/AAAAAAAAEL0/I8eU_FWhgwE/amaya%252520boots%25252012_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="550" border="0"></a></p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-49515399494583786652012-12-06T09:17:00.001-10:002012-12-06T09:17:47.623-10:00Imaginary Numbers<p>Amaya is probably the only person who truly considers positive integers to be as abstract as metaphors. </p> <p>When she started Kindergarten last year she couldn’t count to ten. When she finished Kindergarten she could sometimes count to twenty. Now half way through the second time around she can count to 39, and then she says “twenty”. </p> <p>I’ve tried to explain how this works to her. Four comes after three, and therefore, forty. If I help her get past 39, she gets stuck at 49 (back to twenty) and so on. </p> <p>Today we were counting and she said, “I don’t think anyone can count to 100.” </p> <p>I said, “Lots of people can count to 100. I can count to 100.” </p> <p>“WHAT?! I thought it was almost impossible!” </p> <p>I said, “Once you learn how to count it’s like a pattern, and you can count as high as you want.”</p> <p>“But no one can count to a million. It’s a sploder!” </p> <p>“A ‘sploder’? What’s a ‘sploder’?”</p> <p>“It’s like 33,000. Or a really long car ride.”</p> <p>Only Amaya can create a simile about a number with an imaginary word compared to a number, and it still makes some kind of strange sense.</p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-78292217875679005062012-11-27T18:36:00.001-10:002012-11-27T18:36:46.272-10:00Words<p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-zJS-qSEVhs4/ULWUwgd4IaI/AAAAAAAAEFI/LiRlRtIfbcM/s1600-h/2012-10-31_1351648169%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="2012-10-31_1351648169" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="275" alt="2012-10-31_1351648169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_xd1oQ9PnF6ieYSTGztqMUcM0bOr9-bCHY3ynXAZsZSwROUkUdt87jywfVTwTsGS9zkeAJUH9WrNdpI0xqOl5SV7YtXsOO_3KfL9DMAXh-cnjLhprMAxmquXOaDFF9cYsqVnhuOS1XiQG/?imgmax=800" width="275" border="0"></a> <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-zk1H_SmoR6s/ULWUyKnD8fI/AAAAAAAAEFY/POV3BT87XCA/s1600-h/2012-10-31_1351664547%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img title="2012-10-31_1351664547" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="275" alt="2012-10-31_1351664547" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-wTSr-0d2tmw/ULWUzCvOOMI/AAAAAAAAEFg/vwSwPR1y_Cw/2012-10-31_1351664547_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="275" border="0"></a> </p> <p>When I talk to Amaya I can actually see my words spilling off her ear lobes.</p> <p>“Amaya, don’t go in your room. Mozely’s sleeping in there.”</p> <p>“Ok,” she’ll nod, and then turn around and walk down the hallway to her room. </p> <p>Usually my words are full of “don’t”. I think she has trouble keeping tabs on negatives. </p> <p>She has the best self esteem. It makes her so articulate. </p> <p>“Mom, would my tush look good in that uniform?” she said as we drove past some construction workers. </p> <p>“What are you talking about, Amaya?” I laughed. </p> <p>“I’m TALKING about my TUSH!” She thinks I am so daft sometimes. </p> <p>“Well, you do not have a fat tush, so I’m sure it would.”</p> <p>“<em>Everyone </em>has a fat tush, Mom.” </p> <p>Where did this girl learn the word ‘tush’? And why did I see her shaking her bare tush at a neighbor friend through the fence yesterday? </p> <p>After school I was sweeping the floor and she flew in the back door. “MOM! Do you know what a pre-hunting rally is? That’s what wolves do!”</p> <p>While I was considering what to do with this information, she ran out the front door, back to her friend’s house. </p> <p>Just now she asked me if I would take her outside to the car, because it’s dark, so she can claim her goggles. “Because I want to pretend to be a scientist. Please, please, pretty hugs and kisses please.”</p> <p>She lies about anything, prefers green vegetables above any other color, loves hard enough to hurt people, and dreams during group assignments in kindergarten. She always forgets what comes after 29 and still won’t look at the letters long enough to learn to read, but she’s figured out that pretending to pause makes it seem like she’s considering what the word is before she just makes something up. </p> <p>If she isn’t good at something, she acts like she doesn’t care at all about it. She has no desire to do anything that doesn’t come to her naturally. </p> <p>After she fell once while learning to ride her bike she didn’t want to practice any more. We backed off for a year, because people told us that she would want to again, on her own. Any time we asked her if she wanted to ride her bike, she didn’t, and would say that she was just fine with only riding her scooter and she wanted us to sell her bike. We finally forced her to practice, last week, under threat of no t.v. During the very first ride I wasn’t even touching the seat, just pretended. She turned all the way around the culdesac on her own. After five more rides I made it obvious that I wasn’t holding on and she stopped immediately and threw her head back and cried. She couldn’t hear any of my words above her wailing. </p> <p>She told me that “Glum” means ‘sad’ and ‘unhappy’, which she learned on “Word Girl”, a favorite show. “Redundant means you talk to yourself and you put your finger on your nose,” she said. She has more vocabulary than any kid who reads books. </p> <p>I run after her, trying to gather up my words so they won’t get lost in her costume drawer. I hold on to them while she’s jabbering, but there’s no pause in her conversation. I try to organize what I’m going to say first so that she won’t forget what she has to do next. </p> <p>I guess she figures she has enough words for the both of us. </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-gYK2GKuN-fw/ULWUzhSPH3I/AAAAAAAAEFo/hyTEcnaJzoI/s1600-h/2012-07-16_1342464499%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img title="2012-07-16_1342464499" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="200" alt="2012-07-16_1342464499" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-G-_KSnleV7M/ULWU0dJaYGI/AAAAAAAAEFw/87JM6Hr-le8/2012-07-16_1342464499_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="200" border="0"></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8v6Fea0jTQ6MFdWKOysZGaRop6y7dYX0HXKWZVhzlN5zdZusf-4ze0BG3yx_vdjMwrz_d_WNXWzOe66VPHmI_MEQTv1aMAjMyYWTXSKrcDIbKb3eTkZ6lO9E4GMSf9P-_VXxnAKC7wni7/s1600-h/2012-06-18_1339985031%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img title="2012-06-18_1339985031" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="200" alt="2012-06-18_1339985031" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqhHKL7gfgtFLXHK1bMu2dvKMh-384SWpaX0QuLz2qacfJr7qM_e6_qs_kNa3V-uLK7U892nLQiJF8-gB3PVAKdiUC1rl7HqNE-h9-gL3Ipu1RsuG9UA30fBlRkE3456WR0xYc63ETa8Uv/?imgmax=800" width="200" border="0"></a><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-MC6OwLcjn6E/ULWU2RF_0bI/AAAAAAAAEGI/6VjVzLrciXE/s1600-h/2012-11-24_1353784121%25255B9%25255D.jpg"><img title="2012-11-24_1353784121" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="200" alt="2012-11-24_1353784121" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-qStdHBpWw7E/ULWU3HyYSEI/AAAAAAAAEGQ/fITuOh4dCDU/2012-11-24_1353784121_thumb%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="200" border="0"></a></p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-91365837703231870732012-11-20T18:34:00.001-10:002012-11-20T18:34:10.837-10:00Much Thanks.<p>So today,<br>wake up frickin' early<br>Insanity with Shaun T<br>green smoothie (delicious, hungry 5 minutes later)<br>get Amaya off to school, late<br>teenagers teenagers (super healthy and not enough lunch) teenagers teenagers<br>ONO YO with babies<br>babysit my babies. Barely. Mostly when they cry.<br>GRANOLA GRANOLA GRANOLA<br>make dinner with loads of BUTTER because. It's over.<br>put babies to bed<br>fall asleep immediately afterwards during the first ten minutes of a show </p> <p>Thankful for Ono Yo, handfuls of homemade granola, and butter. <p>Because that's what's keeping me from biting heads off today. </p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-75423226277081884092012-10-24T21:35:00.001-10:002012-10-24T21:35:09.743-10:00Flat Kermit<p>This morning as I was juggling my million things I have to carry in one trip from the house to the car, because we are always late getting off to school, Mozely says, “What is this?” and picks up a dead frog. </p> <p>Let me say that again. He picks up a DEAD. FROG. Peels it right off the road. </p> <p>I immediately quit juggling my million things and say, “Ew! Ew! Gross! Don’t touch that! Drop it drop it drop it drop it!” while flapping my arms in the international hand sign for “drop that nasty thing right this instant,” emphasized by the dance of the feet named “I’m freaking out because you are touching a dead frog” but he just stands there, and in all truth I do not want to touch him (dead frog germs!) and I don’t want to grab the frog away from him (dead frog germs!). </p> <p>He looks at me in alarm and says, “What is it? Ew? Is it poop? Is it poop? Ewwww, poop!” </p> <p>After he finally drops it, I wipe his hands. He asks me again, “Was it poop, Mommy? Ew, gross. Don’t touch that.”</p> <p>Blessed be the name of the person who invented the wet wipe. Amen and hallelujah.</p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-18330566183025763832012-10-20T10:35:00.001-10:002012-10-20T10:35:54.649-10:00The Clutter of 32<p>I used to think that at some early adult point in my life, my ability to grasp both sides of my plate, firmly, would develop. </p> <p>In my view of the future world, homemade eggplant parmagiana would be a weeknight dinner, my dishes would be washed and put away, the beds would be made (without any protruding sheet corners), my children would have a bed time routine that included cuddling and stories and nightlights, and my writing career would develop late into blissful nights of inspired words like “feathering.” </p> <p>The to-do lists of my mind are horribly cluttered and put me in a frenzy. The immense number of things that have to be done for living in this moment makes future moments feel heavy. </p> <p>Spending an hour cleaning reminds me that there is dust under the couches, books in disarray, and a bathroom mirror to wipe. Grading 4 essays an hour calculates out to more hours than I have in a weekend. Knowing I only have a few minutes until Mozely wakes up from his nap before he is hanging on my legs, crying, makes me want to avoid dinner altogether. I am constantly counting my moments, until my eyelids collapse while I try to get one post written or even one paragraph. Then I count the number of hours I have until I have to wake up and start it again. </p> <p>I don’t think I’ll ever be caught up. I’m running the treadmill and it’s just about to trip me up. </p> <p>I have two goals for 32. And maybe I’ll feel like I’m moving forward instead of in the same place. </p> <p>*I will exercise, every day, except Sunday.</p> <p>*I will begin writing. Something.</p> <p>When I hang out with people with clean houses, calm kids, and dinners on tables, I think, </p> <p>When was I supposed to learn how to do this? These people have sewing projects, and family game nights, and yoga in the mornings. They have Halloween decorations up and manicures and dress well. They also have kitchen towels without stains that actually add a decorative touch to the place. They return their library books back on time. They go to dance class, soccer games, and even buy the shoes their kids need for these. Their kids wear actual pajamas instead of just randomly assorted stained cotton clothing. I am seriously impressed with these people. </p> <p>I’m not sure I need all of that. But maybe I need a maid. </p> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-64789943262354166092012-10-12T19:46:00.001-10:002012-10-12T19:46:11.977-10:00Getting a Brainful<p>Lately my brain feels a little like it’s got a few leaky spots. Right in the back, against the nape of my neck, some future dentist appointments are slipping out in steady drops. </p> <p>I don’t like planners and never look at them so I prefer to just run through, constantly, the list of things I have to do that day, that week, that month, in my head. I have a very good memory. It used to be that if I said I forgot something I had to do, I was probably lying. These days it’s true. It’s very disconcerting.</p> <p>Things I’ve said “yes” to, only to get you off my back, whizzed out of my ear like a balloon losing air. It was noisy enough to wake me up last night, and left me wondering where those excuses I’d already made up were supposed to land.</p> <p>The to-do list for work has gotten lost under the mess of papers that spread like whitewash over my desk. I find that while you’re looking for one paper you were supposed to fill out by the 15th and put in someone’s box, you find three more notes with numbers of people you were supposed to call back. While you’re checking your email for the information you need to call those people back with, you see that the flags you created on your messages as priority are long past. All of this reminds you of that data chart you started three days ago and promised to your Principal by today, which will take more hours than you have that day. Your phone rings and it’s someone who needs you to do something. While you’re talking to that person your phone rings on the second line. All of those things I’ve forgotten are really just temporarily displaced. </p> <p>Just yesterday I had an award winning short story in my head. Now I can’t remember if I was dreaming that I had the story, or if I really had it, because the unnamed character died in the fog, and I can’t even bury him properly or notify his next of kin. I’d like to have something to lay him to rest, but I am only assuming he’s a he, because I’m sexist about my main characters wanting to be men, unless they’re me, and I don’t think I would like to be in a short story. </p> <p>It makes me feel even more frantic, not knowing where I am forgetting to go, or what I was supposed to be avoiding, or thinking I’ve lost something I’m not sure I had. </p> <p>Sometimes I’m arguing with Devon after school about his homework that he has not yet done and I say, “We’ve had this conversation before” because it seems very familiar but I’m wondering if there’s a detail I’m missing, like, maybe it was Lesson 3-2 on page 143 we were talking about, and not Lesson 3-7 on page 156. Or maybe we were talking about Art. Or last year entirely. </p> <p>When you’re a teenager you’re sure that you’ll remember everything, but if you don’t it’s because you have waves under your board and friends to meet at the bus stop and nights to stay up late in and ipods with new music. </p> <p>When you’re an adult you need to remember everything, but you can’t because you have children who talk while you’re checking your bank accounts and eyelids that can’t stay open past 9:30 and a pile of papers that whisper to you when you’re trying to wash the dishes that have been giving you stink eye for three days. </p> <p>My head is so full of students’ names, lesson plans, data that proves nothing, students’ mean words, Amaya’s last shoe drop, Mozely’s tantrums, minutes until Jake gets home, and my next meal, </p> <p>that it’s amazing anything else fits. </p> <p><em>I’m fixing a hole, where the rain gets in, and stops my mind from wandering…. where it will go…. </em></p> <blockquote> <p><em>----Paul McCartney</em></p></blockquote> Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3614043043842014439.post-69530071704069185422012-03-22T17:51:00.000-10:002012-03-22T17:51:17.040-10:00Ju$tificationWhen I realize that my books are past due, I say,<br />
"Oh, whatever. I'm just donating my money to the library."<br />
<br />
When I have to pay a fee to buy my movie tickets on-line, I say,<br />"Cool, I don't mind paying for convenience."<br />
<br />
When I have to pay more at Tamura's for bananas, I say,<br />
"No problem. I want to help the local businesses."<br />
<br />
When I get charged huge amounts for some specialty product, I say,<br />"Yeah. I am totally supporting the economy."<br />
<br />
When my groupon expires before I use it I say,<br />
"Well, I would've paid that price anyway."<br />
<br />
This is probably why I never am mad about paying taxes,<br />
<br />
why I never clip coupons,<br />
<br />
why I would never eat anything disgusting on tv for money,<br />
<br />
why I will never be rich.Marikohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110357429393082121noreply@blogger.com2