the good kind of angst

don't care about luggage

ribs / gold dress

giving conor his blanket

rachel and brice pizza and beer and sleepover

moe and peter

yoga with mom

so much time sitting on the couch next to my dad

hanging out with conor

beers with augie

naps

lunch with chito

msi

yoga with moe

hallmark movies with peter

lunch with jason

hallmark movies with dad

thrift store with mom

kids and johnny and tammy

making games

pizza

5:00 presents

irish breakfast

naps all around

facetime with CTD

apps and lamb

mandalas

ipad/coach

cards against humanity

breakfast with emily

papppy's lunch

tin cans

malory towers with eoin and nola

church

esquire lunch

andrew dinner

kasey and eric

bacaro and jess

grey's anatomy

mcdonald's breakfast / nap at annie's

tea with caroline and kye

tea with dr. p.

appeteaser crawl

jess' video, man books and makeup, pies in the face / houlihans

coffee with ron

hunting hitler

lorenzo

greg johnson: banality of evil

jamarrio

suzanne and katie

hunting hitler

andrew time -- cherished

breakfast with kasey

gift for anne

steve shoemaker

kasey/angi

amy

dr. dyson

kasey jess andrew tim sadie

andrew stayed - 50

grey's

crying

dunkin donuts

brainstorming

nap and pappys and facetime

emily

work

flight with drink coupons -- reflection time on new year's

Advent again.

How I hate waiting. But how I love Advent.

A couple of days after Jess and I move in together years ago, she told me that I was moving too fast all the time and it was freaking her out. She was speaking quite literally: I wash the dishes fast, get the chips out of the cabinet fast, walk to the bathroom fast.

Sometimes as a kid I would lay in bed in the morning planning out my route around my room, the bathroom, the kitchen from the time I stepped out of bed to the time I walked out the door for school. I liked figuring out the most efficient way to get it all done. A lot of times, I would even sleep in my uniform polo, tights, and boxer shorts, so that all I had to do in the morning to get dressed was step into my skirt and slip into clogs. Is that weird?

I love doing things fast. I come by it honestly. My mom and I once decorated my entire apartment within two days of moving in, wallpapering included. I woke up pre-dawn and couldn't go back to sleep, so visceral was my desire to finish painting my room.

trying

Under Drumpf’s administration, I have forgotten what I have to say. It’s like, he makes it too easy:

“Dumb fuck.”

There. Now I feel like I’ve adequately critiqued his foul ass.

I’m also feeling writerly paralyzation because so many other folks are already writing fantastic pieces about what’s going on, and I’ve been feeling like, the best contribution I can make is just to Like and Share.

So I’m sitting down tonight to come up with something because I like how I feel about myself when I’m writing. I like the feeling of trying to wrangle the right words onto the page.

At least a dozen people have told me that I should be writing about the work we’re doing at SQ, but it’s hard for me to get outside of it and see the threads of narratives available for the telling.

In the last year, I’ve edited books for two different friends. They make it look so easy. Five- or six-page Word document? Chapter. Ten chapters in a book. They just do it.

And I’m sitting here feeling like I’ve got nothing to say when I’m pretty sure do.

I’d like to start publishing some stuff online maybe.

There have been several instances in the last few months where I think I’ve smelt a tiny whiff of what it’s like to have my depression lifted off of me. For a long time I’ve been fine, but not able to get excited about anything. The first moment came when I was seeing Hamilton with my Mom in March. As I watched, I kept thinking about a clip from a PBS special about the show where you see Lin-Manuel Miranda bringing his draft to a two other guys, and they’re going through it to edit and build. And I’d get so excited and want to do that.

In no particular order, I want to write about

: How white people need to find a way out of their blind rage at reverse racism without losing face. White people need to figure out ways that help white people better understand historical context and systemic oppression without emasculating them. If that makes sense. White people can get so defensive, and then the conversation feels hopeless because they’re not going to back down because white supremacy intersects powerfully with misogyny and hypermasculinity! We gotta do something about our people for real.

: The implicit pedagogy of Creativity Explored. Our former director called it “non-confrontational advocacy.” We do what we can to bring attention to work created by artists with developmental disabilities and know that when folks experience the beauty of the artwork, they a teensy-bit unlearn ableist and patronizing ideas about folks with developmental disabilities. Sentence too long.

But I think it’s much more interesting to think about the pedagogy of the studio, the teachers’ approach to the artists they work with. The lack of curriculum. The variance between giving artists direct guidance, images to draw or paint, and giving artists the paint they need to create basically the exact same piece that they’ve been making for thirty years. Artists are encouraged as they develop their practice, and artists are supported if they decide not to “get better.” Teachers do what they can to make sure that artists can make informed choices and then follow the artists’ lead.  

Makes me think about how my Mom would always say that they needed to stop plotting to make Conor smarter in his annual IEP meetings. Like, he’s fine the way he is. Let’s just make sure he’s experiencing pleasure – delicious food, sunny days, loud music.

: I’m teaching a class at Mills, Introduction to the Humanities, and we just read Whiteness as Property and the first chapter of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. We’ve been talking about what it means to be human (and the students, graciously, are not rolling their eyes the way I kind of am at myself.) What struck me most this time around was the question of whether our humanity is innately individual or innately connected. I’m just now realizing that I think it’s the latter.

And for some silly reason, I’ve been thinking about how much I like the word “folks,” and how there’s not really such thing as a singular folk. Maybe there is, but it’s a horrible word.

Okay now, I’m going to go watch a few episodes of Insecure.

Republicans > Libertarians

I swear.

I can't deal with libertarianism.

Are there any libertarians who aren't white guys?

I was going to write about my exchange with my libertarian cousin on Facebook, but even just a few sentences in, I was so tired.

And there's no such thing as being fiscally conservative but socially progressive. Budgets are moral documents.

This is a real-life dystopian novel.

Instead of going to the Women's March, I went on a long hike with Jody, which feels like a more authentic choice for me. I very much value the protests and protestors and protesting going on, but I always feel kinda funny with the chanting and things like such as. Like a poser. A one-on-one prison abolition strategizing session is a more me kind of civic engagement.

I was telling Jody how I think education needs a public intellectual to come out with a New Jim Crow typa book that raises the level of the national conversation on education the way Michelle Alexander did criminal justice, and Jody said I should write it then.

That kind of writing sounds SO HARD, so I don't know about that, but I do have a lot to say about schools and prisons and the ways they operate together, and I really want to get into the habit of working out my thinking again.

So what you're likely to see here, Mom, in the coming weeks is lot of "Here's what I did today" drivel just so that I can get into the habit of writing regularly. I'm not so depressed at the moment, and when I'm depressed seems to be when the juices are really flowing.

For instance, here's something that happened today: Just now as I was arriving home from Bible study, I had to leave the car on the street because our landlord (and Andrew's new BFF) is charging his electric car in the driveway. And I thought to myself, "Well this is a funny place to be in life."

---

Lately, I'm really into engaging white people on Facebook.

I'm tired now, and going to pour another glass of wine, but what I'd like to write in the next couple of days is what I would like to say in response to my cousin's abrasive libertarian posts.

It takes a lot of practice, arguing with white people does, because they hit you with this "common sense" (read: status quo white supremacist thinking) that you have to unravel on the spot.