update

Since I seem to be completely wasting my first day back to work and doing anything but work, I figure I may as well add a second post today and update my two or three readers on how I'm feeling about my haircut. It took more than an hour, but I have decided it isn't really all that bad, particularly if I put lots of product in it and kind of smush it around while it's drying.

Thoughts and links

Last night I read this NYT Magazine story--about what it would really take to leave no child behind--and can't stop thinking about its implications. The real innovators in educating highly disadvantaged children are, according to Paul Tough, not the public schools, nor the federal agencies mandating but not funding their improvement, but charter and privately-funded schools, in which non-union teachers regularly put in 15-hour days, and teach 11 months a year. The article's main thrust, though, wasn't that we must turn away from the public school system, but that we need, as a society, to recognize that it's indeed possible to close the education gap, but only if we choose to make it happen. Which means, not only implementing rigorous new pedagogical methods, but agreeing to pay for them. Which means, actually giving a shit about poor people. When's the last time you heard a politician really talking about poverty? (There was a brief moment there, after Katrina, but hardly any one seems to care about what has happened to all those displaced Ninth Ward residents now that they're on dry land.)

Then, this morning, I read this NYT story, which focuses on the recent trend among high-paid professionals (doctors, lawyers) who aren't satisfied with earning a mere $400,000/year, and are choosing to go for the truly big bucks on Wall Street. One doctor (or former doctor) explains that, as a multi-millionaire he can rest assured that his children, as adults, will be free to pursue careers “they have a hunger for . . . and not feel a need to do something just to pay the bills.” Heaven forbid his children should go hungry.

Just before turning away in disgust, I came across this plea (by my favorite columnist, Jon Carroll of the SF Chronicle) for support of a wonderful Bay Area project bringing used children's books together with children who need, but can't afford, books. Merely scratching the surface, yes, but Carroll reminded me, as he often reminds me, that there are people in this country who are able to think beyond their own immediate desires and interests.

Do you think it will take another Great Depression, though, for the problem of poverty to gain any real traction in our country?

Home again, home again

I'm back from our mostly enjoyable trip, and find myself unable to come up with an interesting focus for a post. I could write about my hard-earned perspective on the dos and don'ts of a visit to New York City with an almost-3 year old. But in retrospect it's all obvious. I'll just sum up by giving a parent's thumbs up to the Museum of Natural History, particularly the Ocean Life exhibit (the dinosaurs "scared" her), and recommending, if at all possible, that one dine chez friends rather than at supposedly child-friendly restaurants. Oh, and modes of transportation seem to be a big hit, with the subway and bus leading the way in our case, closely followed by elevators and escalators.

I could also write about our several days with my father-in-law, which as usual entailed subtle power struggles over sugary food and TV, both of which he compulsively pushes on our daughter, I suppose as an expression of his affection (though also, I can't help but think, because he's irritated with our, to him, holier-than-thou attitudes about TV and junk food). This time, I was mostly able to let it go, knowing no irreparable damage would result, and could thus focus more on the otherwise very lovely relationship developing between grandfather and granddaughter.

But my bloggy muse isn't inspiring me right now toward anything more than these scant personal musings, so I'll leave it at that.

Thanksgiving break

I'll be gone for a week or so, and decided not to bring my computer. We'll be a few days galavanting about the big city, and then off to do the very traditional Thanksgiving thing with my husband's family. I'm feeling very tired and not terribly sociable but I'm going to try to be a good sport and get into the spirit of things. I certainly have much to be thankful for. Hope you all have good weeks!

Bad hair day!

I just got a really. bad. haircut. Late 70s, "Eight is Enough" bad. Don't want to go out in public without a hat on bad. I always think my haircuts are bad for at least an hour after I get them, but this time I'm pretty sure the conviction will hold. I should have known better. This is the fourth haircut I've had with this particular person, and I've never been terribly impressed. She typically takes about 15 minutes, which at least at first was preferable to the hour-and-a-half, elegant cuts I got back home, it being very hard to sustain small talk for all that time. But 15 minutes really does not provide enough time, particularly with my dense mop of hair, to produce anything approaching that je ne sais quoi one hopes for in a haircut. Problem is, in this small small town, I'm kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do I want to offend someone I won't be able to hide from for the sake of cooler hair?

Announcement

My daughter, still preoccupied with Halloween and the question of what costume she will wear, has decided that next year she will go as a sippy cup.

Dreaming

As I was perusing Maira Kalman's remarkable "Paris" series in the NY Times this morning (Times Select, sorry), one of her drawings* suddenly brought last night's dream out of hiding, or at least a couple fragments of it. I so rarely remember my dreams that when I do, I get kind of excited about telling others about them, even though I know most people (like my husband) at best will feign interest. Feel free to skip the rest of this post.

Fragment 1: I was searching the hallways of the Humanities building at the university from which I'm taking a leave of absence, except that it wasn't the usual building, but something more like the underground shopping network in Montreal: crowded, colorful, and foreign. I was an outsider in my own building, in other words, and my discomfort was compounded by my utter inability to find a certain colleague's office, and more decidedly by my having decided to wear what I can only call platform boots, kind of like the ones Frankenstein wears. I had to work hard to keep my balance because they were both really high and really narrow. (I never wear heels, ever. And I've never bought a pair of boots that really fit well, including the pair I just bought last week, which, for the record, are flat heeled.) People were smirking at me, but I didn't really care what they thought. I just wanted to find my colleague. (I don't think I ever did.)

Fragment 2: We (my husband, daughter and I) were staying in a hotel in the village where we now live after some kind of village function. We thought it would be a treat to spend a night in a hotel, even though we lived 5 minutes away. But it ended up being a disaster, because the children in the adjoining room kept coming into our room, throughout the night, demanding attention. There were maybe three different ways into our room from theirs, and I'd block one entrance only to have them wriggle through another one. It was awful.

I'm not a big dream analyst, but these two scenes, together, seem to say something about my ambivalent feelings about both options that face our family as we decide whether to stay here permanently or return to the West coast. Do I fear that if I return to my university job I'll feel out of place and off balance? Do I fear that if I stay here . . . I'll continue to feel just like a visitor? like I'm giving up a career to be surrounded by needy children? I honestly don't know what was going on in that second scene.

*The drawing, in case you haven't figured it out, was the one of the woman "who could barely walk in her impossible shoes."

marriage and civil society

This most-emailed NY Times article, which turns the "save marriage" hysteria on its head, totally rings true for happily-married, socially-isolated me. Here's a snippet:

Three sociologists at the University of Arizona and Duke University found that from 1985 to 2004 Americans reported a marked decline in the number of people with whom they discussed meaningful matters. People reported fewer close relationships with co-workers, extended family members, neighbors and friends. The only close relationship where more people said they discussed important matters in 2004 than in 1985 was marriage.

In fact, the number of people who depended totally on a spouse for important conversations, with no other person to turn to, almost doubled, to 9.4 percent from 5 percent. Not surprisingly, the number of people saying they didn’t have anyone in whom they confided nearly tripled.

The solution to this isolation is not to ramp up our emotional dependence on marriage. Until 100 years ago, most societies agreed that it was dangerously antisocial, even pathologically self-absorbed, to elevate marital affection and nuclear-family ties above commitments to neighbors, extended kin, civic duty and religion.

My extra-marital "important conversations" mostly happen (or, rather, happened, before this extended leave of absence) in the classroom, with my students. But the community of the classroom is constantly changing, and so no real lasting networks are built.

Blogs count, of course, and the author (Stephanie Koontz) notes that blogging clearly signals a growing desire/impulse to "discuss meaningful matters" outside the nuclear family. But I'm thinking about face-to-face conversations that build somewhat stable networks in local communities. What about you? Who do you have important, face-to-face conversations with? And what counts as an "important conversation"?

Holding breath

I'm so glad I don't have a TV, because that means I don't have to stay up all night watching, with ever-increasing anxiety, whoever anchors the network news these days talk about exit polls and election results with 5% of the precincts reporting, etc. Instead, I'll just stress out in the company of my radio and computer.

Do you think that if the Republicans can pull it off one more time, there might be mass riots across the country? Because if they do manage to hold onto their control of all branches of government and there is no ensuing taking-to-the-streets, public outburst of frustration/grief/anger by the majority of the country who oppose them, I'm outta here.

Getting out the vote

So I finally did more than read my MoveOn email messages, and attended a phone-banking house party this weekend. I didn't know what we'd be asked to do until I got there, and was somewhat disappointed that we were calling people in another state about their senate race, rather than focusing on our local congressional races, which are also tight. Mainly, I was apprehensive about promoting a candidate whose platform I barely knew. Once inside the house, though, I couldn't back out without shaming myself, so I swallowed my fears and braved the task.

I have to say that, even though I spoke to only around 12 people out of the 54 I phoned, and fumbled through my "script" more often than not, it was an inspiring experience. Most were already planning to vote for the Democratic candidate, but a couple seemed roused out of a kind of apathy, or uncertainty about voting at all, to at least state a commitment to me that they would go to the polls on Tuesday after all. Of course, I don't know that they actually will, but still, I might have made a difference there.

One woman quite adamantly, though with a note of anxiety in her voice, proclaimed herself and her husband "values" voters whose commitment to the "family" would entail their voting for the Republican. I asked her if she realized the Democrat was, ahem, "pro-life" and she muttered something about their having done a lot of research, their being concerned about other "values" too, and their not really trusting his pro-life stance. (She spoke of her and her husband as a seamless voting unit.) I then felt very tired, and a little panicked, and ended the call quickly.

What I wish I'd done, though, is ask her to talk to me more about what these other values were, and why she's so convinced Democrats somehow lack values. And I wish I'd then articulated what my values, as a Democrat, are, and how I, too, am pro-family. I actually think she might have engaged in this conversation. While I'm sure I wouldn't have changed her mind, there's a chance I might at least have created a wedge in her thinking.

This was the first time I'd ever talked directly with someone of her persuasion about politics, which says a lot about the "political divide" in our country. Next time, I'll be more likely to try to keep the conversation going.

My time is, ahem, too valuable for that

OK, not only am I cranky and cynical, I think I'm a little bit depressed. Or maybe on the way to becoming depressed if I don't take preventive measures immediately.

What decidedly does NOT qualify as a preventive measure is doing online sudoku puzzles. And if I ever find myself thinking that sudoku is a way to get my creative writerly juices flowing, this little note on the LA Times Sudoku page should convince me otherwise: Click "Again" if you want to print out this puzzle for a friend or solve it again yourself!

I may not have the wording exactly right because I can't access the message without completing the puzzle, which I've already done and clicked away from, and like hell am I doing the exact same puzzle AGAIN. Because, you know, I want each sudoku experience to be unique and original.

The revolution will not be televised

I can barely stand to listen to/read the news anymore. Not having TV, we've already cut down a lot on news consumption, but I'm finding even the half hour of NPR in the morning, and quick peeks at the NY Times headlines throughout the day, more than I can take. The whole Kerry flap of the last few days has particularly depressed me. Yes, he shouldn't have said what he did, intended or no, but mon dieu, it's eff-ing unbelievable to me how coordinated the right-wing press/Bushies are in their unrelenting and utterly hypocritical attacks. If they can sway people that Kerry's gaffe should be the basis of peoples' general mistrust of Democrats and support for their own so obviously and tragically failing "war on terror" then I give up.

My father, whose radical politics were always the focus of dinner-table conversation in our house, instilled in me a compulsion to remain optimistic. If we don't believe we can improve the world, we're doomed. But even with the prospect of a Democratic win next week, and of an Obama '08 campaign, I simply can't think myself into any kind of genuine optimism.

It terrifies me to find myself becoming so cynical. My father died before Bush was re-elected, right around the beginning of the Iraq war. While I'd long rolled my eyes at his continued insistence that people were fundamentally good, and that revolution was possible, I came to depend on his faith to bolster my own. I'm really missing him right now.