Thought for Thursday: Here’s Another One

I’m in it up to my eyeballs right now, you guys.  Fourth quarter progress reports are due tomorrow, and while I have gotten to the bottom of my grading piles, I haven’t written a single narrative yet.  Also?  I slept like crap last night, so I’m turning in early.

I’ll work on something original in a day or two.  Until then, I’m doing my part by posting another “calling out the bullshit” video.  I’m officially in love with these.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: All Hands On Deck!

We have a back deck!  Mr. Chili finished it last year, but we never got around to furnishing it.  I was damned and determined that I am going to enjoy it this year, though, so we took a personal day today and made a haj to IKEA where we bought these lovely things:

The table is much bigger than it seems, compared to the size of the picture of the chair.  With the leaves dropped, we can seat four at the table; with them up, we can seat 10 comfortably.

I believe that burgers and big glasses of iced tea are in my future!

Ten Things Tuesday

Ten things that have caught my attention this week:

1. 

2. 

I’m ashamed that shit like this is happening in my legislature.

3.There is SO much wrong out there….

4. I’m working on reminding myself of this.

5.  This was the card I received from Elizabeth for Mother’s Day.  She is no longer my “school daughter.”  She’s my chosen daughter.

6.  We’re coming around the final turn of the 2011-12 school year.  I’m both excited and overwhelmed.

7.  8.  My neighbor is actually really good at this.

9.I’m working on being more positive

10.  This makes me feel hopeful.

 

Happy Tuesday, Everyone.

Monday Meme

Again, from the indomitable Kwizgiver.  Seriously, you guys; if she ever stops publishing these things so regularly, I’m going to have to find a new schtick for Mondays.
1. Has there ever been anyone that now you regret meeting?   Meeting?  No.  Spending my energy on?  Absolutely.

2. What’s the last film you saw? Would you recommend it?   We saw The Avengers this weekend.  Since neither Mr. Chili nor I read comics as a kid (and the girls don’t read them now), I’m sure we missed out on a lot of the inside jokes, but the film was wonderfully accessible and a LOT of good fun.

3. Would you rather have roommates or live alone?   Given the choice of alone or with roommates, I’d rather live alone.  Having said that, however, I can’t imagine NOT sharing my life with my husband.

4. Do you like any of your friends a little more than just a friend?   Some of my friends are family (though it seems these are fewer than I’d thought/hoped).

5. What’s a rather current song that you like?  I heard this song on an insurance company commercial, and I kinda dig it.

7. If you found out that you were going to be a parent, what would you do? If you are one, tell us what the best parent of being a parent is.  There are too many “best” things to list here.  Right now, I’m really loving the evolving relationship I’m in with my maturing girls.  I love being able to relate to them on a more equal level.

8. Do you give money to homeless people when they ask?  No.  I am so rarely in possession of actual cash that I’m a terrible person to ask for on-the-spot donations (I can’t put money in the cans the kids hold out in front of the stores for the same reason).  If I lived somewhere with a significant homeless population, though, I’d do what Kizz does; every time she and her friends go out to eat, she boxes up everyone’s leftovers, even if they don’t want them.  On her way home, she distributes the food to the homeless people she encounters on her way back to her apartment.  I admire her for that.

9. A weekend in Las Vegas or Miami? Why?   Miami.  I’ve been to Vegas and I wasn’t impressed.

10. What was your reaction to the president supporting gay marriage?  I’m delighted.  It’s about time.

11. You are totally alone on a Saturday. What do you do?  Play on the computer (well, blog and read and facebook, but all that counts as “playing”), read, tidy.

12. You have 3 months left to live, what is your bucket list? I would spend every waking moment with the people I love.  I’d watch some movies.  I’d try to laugh as much as possible.

13. You’re having a bad day, what one thing can make your day better?  Mr. Chili being silly.  Baking.  Hugging my children, both biological and chosen.

14. Ever use a tanning bed? Never.  They never held any allure for me.  I literally never fell under the tanning spell.

15. Is there anything you would change about your body if you could?  Of course, but this question didn’t ask me to specify what that might be…

16. You wake up in an unfamiliar place, what is your first reaction?   I’m usually able to place myself while I’m in that hazy space between asleep and awake, so I’m never startled to find myself in a hotel room or our vacation spots.

17. Is there anything that you should be doing right now? there’s always something else I should be doing (this was Kwizgiver’s answer, but it’s mine, too).  Right now, I should be trying to get to the bottom of my classes’ drop boxes and writing narratives.  Progress report grades for quarter 4 are due on Friday.

18. At what age do you think that sex becomes less important? Why?   I don’t think sex EVER becomes unimportant, but then again, I’ve never thought that sex was overly important, either…

19. What is your favorite breakfast food?  That depends on my mood.  I’m not a big breakfast person to begin with, so I’m kind of the wrong person to ask about this.  When we go out to brunch, I like to see pastries, fresh fruit (especially melons and strawberries) and an omelet station

20. Your phone rings at 4am, who do you expect it to be? I have NO expectation at 4 am, though I would wonder who’s calling to tell me that someone is dead.

Mother’s Day

I have made no secret here that I was not born to a very good mother.  A lot of the experiences I had as this woman’s child, in fact, have informed much more of what kind of person I DON’T want to be, and though I rarely think of her in the course of my everyday life, I do pause to remember her on Mother’s Day.

As I grow and change as the mother of my beautiful daughters (and as the de facto mother to a number of my students, as well), I come more and more to understand that “mother” is a verb far more than it is a noun.  Mothering is a particular brand of loving-kindness that anyone, male or female, young or old, parent or not, can give.  Mothering involves attentive nurture; it is a kind of care and concern that blends gentle compassion with the stern insistence that the recipients of this care strive ever toward autonomy.  It is that particular kind of energy that I work so hard to channel every day; a kind of love that tells my “babies” that I am their greatest support and their greatest cheerleader, but that I expect and insist that they work toward the goal of no longer needing the care that I give them.

I have been fortunate to have been loved by a number of mothers.  I have been cared for and nurtured and kicked in the ass by a few very special people, and it’s those people whom I credit with teaching me how to be a good mother myself; without them, I’m not certain I would have been able, given my primary example, to find my way to the kind of mothering that I really needed to be able to do.  Some of those mothers have been lost to me, but some are still around, and I am grateful, every day, for their care.  Because of them, I am able to be a good mother to a lot of people who need the care that I offer.  Because they loved me well – and taught me how to love well – I am able to offer those gifts.  That nurturing loving kindness ripples out far beyond any of us.  Nothing could matter more.

Six Word Saturday

I love chaperoning prom every spring!

Quick Hit: Just a Stumbling Block.

image credit

Quick Hit: We Have an Obligation…

Thought for Thursday: I Need More Time

Yesterday was rough for me, you guys.

I went to bed on Tuesday night knowing that the North Carolina dumbfuckery was not going to go away.  I woke in the morning to have that horror confirmed, and as I drove into work listening to what CV Rick so eloquently described as “hate mongering redneck retards” spouting their nonsense about how much God cares about marriage and about how happy they are to be enshrining hate and bigotry into their constitution, I started to feel pretty awful.

What I’m seeing – and I’m actually seeing it; this isn’t just me being reactionary or overly sensitive – is a concerted effort on the part of some very powerful people to infringe, limit, or outright destroy the rights of whole huge swaths of people.  Women.  Queer folk (not just gays and lesbians, but transgender people, too).  Immigrants.  Students.  Poor people.  Unionized workers.  Honestly; the only people who aren’t under fire are rich, white people.

If someone asked me to identify myself, the first labels I would reach for to convey to you who I am are “wife, mother, and teacher.”  All of those things are central to my being, and all of those things inform the ways I approach issues of policy (and, not for nothing, basic human dignity).  I am very wrapped up in my role as a caregiver and a teacher; nurture and guidance are both ever-present activities for me, and I understand that my ability to do those things mindfully and generously really do affect the people in my sphere.  I care about how well I do my job because I know my job has an impact on how well my babies (both biological and academic) will be prepared to survive in the world on their own.

Yesterday, though?  Yesterday was too much for me.  At about 10:30, I completely lost my already tenuous hold on my proverbial cookies, and I found myself weeping in my boss’s office.  I wasn’t able to regain sufficient control of myself to stay at school, and I was fortunate that my teaching responsibilities ended at about 11:00, so my boss was able to send me home.

I cried in the car all the way home.  My husband came home for lunch with flowers and chocolate, and I wept on his shoulder for 15 minutes.  When my girls came home at 2:30, they found me on the couch and the sight of them starting me crying again.  I ended up on my neighbor’s porch at about 3:00, finally able to articulate where all this raw and painful and frightened was coming from.

I am sending all of my children into a world that tells them, to varying degrees, that they are unworthy, unlovable, and undeserving of basic human dignity.  In the short time I have with them, I have to give them the tools they need to become thoughtful critical analysts so they can think through all the pernicious lies and malignant bullshit being fed to them as “fact.”  In the short time I have with them, I need to build up their self-esteem so that they’ll question when someone in positions of power tells them that they’re not capable of making their own choices, that they don’t deserve a vote, or that their neighbors pose a clear and present danger to them.  In the short time I have with them, I need to instill a sense of both agency and responsibility that motivates them to participate actively in a system that seems hell-bent on keeping them uninformed and disenfranchised.  In the short time I have with them, I need to make them believe that they are good people; capable, wonderful, loving, and compassionate people who are agents for good in the world.

I don’t have enough time, and that thought is what paralyzed me yesterday.  I need more time, because it seems pretty clear to me that the world isn’t getting any less hateful.

Quick Hit: North Carolina

Image credit

Someone Remind Me of This in December, Please