The Book Talk

So Riley loves this book series, The Ranger's Apprentice. It's well written, exciting and perfect for Riley. He's been devouring each book as it has come out.

Maybe I should explain that I have a lifelong habit of buying books that I like. It may be a bad habit, it depends on your perspective; some people disgustedly ask me why we don't use the local library more. I guess the fact is that I love having lots of books, I love being able to go back to them, I like re-reading them, many of them become old friends. I find a house full of books homey and comforting. It's like being surrounded by very intelligent friends with tons of cool ideas.

I have always encouraged my guys to like books too, to read a lot and they have a ton of their own books (to the point where their bedroom is overflowing with them). I have in the past frequently bought them books I thought they'd like, and even if they don't turn out to be interested right then, they usually rediscover them later and read them then.

It's been a common enough thing that if I were to say to one of them, "I got you something today", they'd ask, "is it a book?" first, (with varying degrees of enthusiasm). So they're very used to having their own books. They are probably too used to having lots of books, to the point where they don't realize that having lots of their own books is really a privilege. Riley at least is in the habit of hauling whatever book he's reading back and forth to school with him, we frequently read together at bedtime, books are always available.

In the past 6 months Fremont has lost all of its bookstores except Half Price Books, and there are no other bookstores within an easy reasonable distance, so buying books as a casual habit is being cut short. (This is probably a good thing in terms of saving money, at least.) So when I was out in Half Moon Bay a week or so ago and had a bit of time to spend I went book browsing in some of the bookstores there on Main Street. It's lucky that the independent bookstores there are still surviving, at least for now, though I was told business is difficult. I found the 10th book of Ranger's Apprentice and I had to get it for Riley. I gave it to him later and he was very happy, since he'd been waiting for this one. And he'd been carrying it to school while he's been reading it.

So the other day we were taking Casey to gymnastics and he gasped from the back seat "Riley, what have you done to your book?!!" It came out that Riley had written words in ink on the bottom (the cut edges of the pages) of his new Ranger's Apprentice book,  some obscenities. I couldn't believe it. After we dropped Casey off, I parked, took the book and looked at it and proceeded to completely lose my cool. "Why would you do something like this? What were you thinking??" And he had no good answer. There was no good answer for me, of course. He mumbled something rather incoherent (and this kid is very rarely incoherent) about wanting to mark it as his, nobody else's. When asked why he wouldn't just write his name in the book rather than writing stupid obscenities that any yob could have written, he admitted that he simply hadn't been thinking, he was irritated and bored at school and just did it without thinking. I shouted at him. I yelled mean things. I grounded him. I did not handle it well at all.

Next day, after needing considerable time to cool off as well as time to talk with Paul, find out what had been happening at school that might have affected him and time to think about it all, I sat him down after school and pulled out the abused Ranger's Apprentice book and a big black marker. I also had this book handy:

This book is The Anatomy and Construction Of the Human Figure, by Charles Earl Bradbury. (There's a new reprint of this book out from Dover Books now). It's a fantastic book for anyone wanting to learn how to draw humans. It's a great book. This particular book is one of my most prized books ever. So I sat him down and showed him this book, with its beaten up pink cloth cover, no spine, and the names on the frontispiece:

This book belonged to my dad, bought in Missouri when he was in art school in 1949. He gave this book to me in 1989, when I was in art school. He loved this book and he held onto it through all of his troubled life until he gifted it to me. I explained all of this to Riley as he looked through it with wide eyes. I asked him how old that made the book and without any hesitation he said, "Well, 62 years, but maybe older because who knows how long it was on the shelf for?" 62 years is forever to a 10 year old. I talked to him about how I loved books, they were like friends to me, and how when he'd scribbled bad words on his book, it was like a slap in the face to me, since I'd gotten him that book specially, I knew he wanted to have it and read it so much.

I picked up his Ranger's Apprentice book and said, "This is a really nice hardbound book, and I know you like these books. It could last at least as long as my dad's book. You might not have this in 62 years, but someone else might have found it and want to read it as much as you did. Do you want them to have this book with these words scribbled on it in 62 years?" He looked at me quickly and his eyes were big and full of tears (though he'd hate for anyone to know that). I showed him the flat side of the big black marker and showed him how to black out the words on the edge. He was really very nice the rest of the day. But he's still grounded.

Luckily he's got plenty of books to read while he's grounded, and a silly cat to keep him company.

California History

Last Friday was one of the boys' rites of passage through 4th grade in the California school system: a field trip to the local Mission. Fourth graders are required to do an extensive report on one of the California Missions. Riley reported on Mission Santa Ines (near Santa Barbara), Casey got Mission La Purisima Concepcion de Maria Santisima (down in Solvang). And their classes went on a field trip to Mission San Jose, which is just up the road from our house. I've been to the Mission before, but never had a tour and never got to go into the church and the attached graveyard, so I took lots of pictures (of course!).

Fountain in the Mediterranean-style garden

 The Mission is maintained and run by the local Catholic Parish Council, I believe, and the Mission itself was restored as accurately as possible in the '80's to its original state using period materials and methods. It's a lovely place, really. The church is very active and they still have Catholic services in the Mission Church every Sunday and on special occasions.

Inside the church it's dark and cool; the walls are made with adobe bricks built about 4 feet thick so it stays warm in winter and cool in summer.

 The walls are whitewashed and the inside of the walls are carefully painted. It's an impressive amount of work. Lots of gold and decorations up at the alter.

This Mission, of all the California Missions, is said to be the most carefully, lovingly restored to its original state, using period materials and methods. You can see it in things like the rafters in the church, where you can see the individual chisel marks in the beams.

Hand-hewn timbers form the roof rafters

So the kids were shown a movie about the history of the Missions, especially this one, and given a guided tour through the museum and the church and grounds. They were themselves, of course, rowdy, unthinking much of the time, but the history of the place did seem to catch a few of them; some of the historical pieces caused that sort of 'wow, somebody made this 200 years ago' sort of feeling for them. These were some of my favorites:

Saddle with wooden cantle, inlay work and leather tooling

Ohlone tribal style basket

The Museum did have some history of the native tribes in the area, but seemed to gloss over just what happened to them; there were some displays of Ohlone cultural bits, and a few pictures like this one:

Ohlone woman and abalone shell jewelry

She looks like a good person, doesn't she? I did a search for the Ohlone tribes, to see if there are any active tribes now; the internet shows efforts to trace back lineage from the original Mission baptismal records, but any descendants seem to come from only three or four families or individuals. Some of them have been trying to revive their original language and some of their customs, but the tribe as a cultural entity disappeared during the mission years and the secularization into rancheras that followed, and any remaining traces of the tribes were scattered in the later 1800's and early 1900's with the US Government's BLM and their brutal policies towards the tribes.

California has one of the very worst records in the US for the way Indian tribes were treated; even tribes who were given land grants later had them rescinded with no voice and no recourse. The available books tend to be very careful in their wording, like this line from one of the kids' books about the Missions: "It is probable that the civil rights of the Indians were violated." Yeah. Any Indians left after all the devastation of the diseases brought by the Europeans who could still be identified as Indian were left without land, homeless, with nowhere to go, and facing extensive discrimination. I tend to think that surviving individuals probably assimilated themselves into the prevailing culture and hid their Indian heritage for self preservation or to protect their children from further discrimination. Economically and legally speaking, it's clear that the tribes as cultural entities were literally wiped away.  Some of their original genes survive in some scattered families, and some of those few who have investigated their family histories have made some efforts to rediscover their heritage.

Reading some of the dry historical writing about what happened to them is appalling, horrifying when you realize what's really being said. The books for the kids try to make it all a bit gentler, but kids like Riley see through it. The Spanish came here to colonize with a two-pronged attack of military and religious forces. Mission complexes were first built with defensible quadrangles and the administration of the Missions was integrated with the military forces. The Missions were founded all along the length of California to colonize, establish firm holdings and take over the land from the natives. Really. And they certainly succeeded in that. The Indians lost their land, their culture, their heritage, everything.

Statue of Father Junipero Serra

I was taught as a kid in school here in California that the Missions were beautiful remnants of California's colorful past, that Father Junipero Serra was sort of the father of California; he is treated rather as some sort of peaceful hero, having gone all along California and established all these beautiful Missions. I found myself studying this statue of him in this quiet garden at Mission San Jose. It shows a rather small man, but he has a firm, stern look about him. I don't know how accurate the representation is, but Father Serra himself must have been driven, determined, and he probably believed with his entire being that he was doing God's work, civilizing the Indians and giving them the proper culture and showing them the one true way to God. I wonder if he ever doubted his path?

 The graveyard at the Mission is behind walls and the public isn't generally allowed entry. There are uncounted, unmarked graves of Indians, there are numerous fragile marked graves there as well, so we were told to stay on the path and not stray. One of the girls was holding her breath as she ventured out into the graveyard, then dashing back to the door of the church for new breaths. I asked her what she was doing, and she said her family had a tradition of holding your breath when you went into a graveyard. Odd, I thought. Do you expect that the dead will snatch your life away through your breath? Or is it that the dead don't breathe, and if you don't either, they won't know you're there? What would they think if they knew you were there?

The little symbol over the door indicates a graveyard for those who cannot read

I wandered among the graves and took some pictures and reached for inner quiet, then felt outwards. Quiet, despite the kids' voices, yet with a feeling of multitudes of people having been there over the years, dead or alive. I found it all made me sad.

 I felt no spiritual lift when I was in the church, though it is pretty and very interesting. It has a feeling of age and reverence, but its history makes me mourn all that has been lost, and angry at the way humans keep treating each other. So many unmarked graves under the privileged, marked graves.

A grand day out.
No, we didn't build a spaceship and go to the moon looking for cheese. ;)

We did go to Santa Cruz for the day, and went to one of their local music shops, The Starving Musician, where we tried out various guitars, keyboards and drum sets and sticks and oh yeah, I found 2 more Lee Oskar Harmonicas that I haven't been able to find before: a Bb and an F, to help round out my collection of harmonicas in all different keys. The Bb in particular sounds really bright and fresh; Paul borrowed a capo and a dreadnought sized Taylor to play and we tried them all out. Casey meanwhile was trying out keyboards, playing some of his latest piano pieces, and he sounded pretty good. Riley tried out some guitars, including a resonator guitar which he loved, then some electronic drum kits as well as different sticks on a regular drum kit, and he came away with a set of 'stealth rods', which are like regular hot rod drumsticks but nylon with wood handles. Fun time for all of us. And then we went for a drive and bits of walking up on the cliffs above Santa Cruz.

From the Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz

Cold and windy, with alternating clouds and sun. It'll get hot enough plenty soon, so we were kind of enjoying the last of the cold and windy weather. We ended up over at the Boardwalk, which was running and active, but not nearly as crowded as it'll be this summer. The boys went on a number of thrill rides, the best being the Giant Dipper, of course. There was the Lazer Maze, where you run, roll and climb through a changing maze of laser lights to the theme music from Mission Impossible. (Casey was the best, and his gymnastics rolls between lasers was pretty impressive to watch. That kid is ready to be on the Impossible Missions Team.) All three of the boys ended up on the bumper cars.

Blurry with Too Much Bumper Action To Capture

After that we went and found some dinner at The Crepe Place over on Soquel, and finished off our dinner by sharing a bananarama crepe (Crepe, Nutella, bananas and other fruit and topped with Vanilla Bean ice cream- yummm...).

And eventually, far too sated, we drove home at sunset with spectacular clouds all pink with golden edges, and listened to Mich and Marilisa's album, Abseiling For Beginners. Riley commented that they were amazingly good singers, and he is so right.Just hearing their voices made me miss them terribly!

So, a grand day out for this mom.

Cormorants on Natural Bridges

Back into the groove
Last week was Spring Break. The quicker last week fades into memory the better as far as I am concerned; it consisted of a lot of barfing by various family members, lots of computer games and lots of episodes of Robin Hood on Netflix. Must say the Sheriff of Nottingham had a grand old time chewing up the scenery on that show. I found, though, that too much watching it made the boys tend to launch into battles of one sort or another and I ended up setting a moratorium on too much TV. There usually isn't much time to watch any shows on the tv, so it isn't usually a problem; getting to watch at all is a treat. Anyway, they had both said they just wanted to 'louse around' (Riley's term) during the break and take it easy, so we did, though there were still music lessons and track practices and gymnastics and... Well, not as much just lousing around as we might have liked. Anyway, this week the boys are back in school. 

Riley and Casey

Good start, too; Riley was awarded the Student of the Day in his class, which has NEVER happened to him before. He received a non-working Donkey watch as a prize, which he later discovered was a McDonald's Happy Meal toy. He then went off in a fit of revulsion and ran soapy water on it, since he believes that anything to do with McDonald's is Pure Unadulterated Evil. He came to this belief on his own, mind you, we did not try to instill such beliefs in him. Poor Donkey watch never stood a chance but has at least been relegated to the recycle bin. I would have been more appalled by this wanton destruction of toys if the prize had been a working watch or perhaps a little more worthy of some respect. The bald fact is that I would have eventually put the thing in the recycle bin myself and he saved me the later hassle. We had a talk about the attitude, though.

The final crazed school event before Spring Break was the big band concert for the end of the school year (though it's still a long way from the end of the school year). Riley has been playing percussion in the After School Band, which is a one hour a week band session run by one teacher. Yeah, about 30 kids, all different band instruments, one beleaguered teacher. One hour trying to get all those kids, all those instruments, pulled together enough to play a simple song or two. Just about as chaotic and crazed as it sounds, from what I've seen. It's a program solely funded by parents and volunteers and donations, and is in jeopardy of being cut due to lack of funds. (Who's surprised?)

Riley on big bass drum

Anyway, the Big Band Concert was in the evening at the local high school; it was a struggle to get Riley to even consider wearing his special band t-shirt, and then once we arrived we discovered that the kids were supposed to wear a white dress shirt and black pants. Oops. Last minute desperate phone call to dad, who brought a white shirt and saved face for Riley, who did not know or remember this little sartorial detail. But he made it in time and went and joined a bunch of other percussionists in the back of the big auditorium at the high school. So the band concert featured each level of band from beginners (who were really appallingly bad) up through the high school kids (who were surprisingly good). I really suspect that the kids that stick with it and are decent musicians by high school get additional lessons funded by parents; it seems unlikely that the kids who only ever get the After School Band lessons ever get very far, because honestly the teacher doesn't have enough time and resources to really teach all of those kids how to play their various instruments competently. Considering how little time and actual instruction they get, it's amazing the beginning kids performed as well as they did. 

After School Band is actually the only exposure to making music some of the kids have, aside from parent volunteers or some of the more musically inclined teachers, since no music of any sort is funded or covered in regular public school. The teachers try to do some singing, at least in the younger grades, but there are limits to what they can do. Paul goes in one day a week and does music with all of the fourth graders, and he has done this for each year the boys have been in school, so the kids in our boys' grade have all been getting some regular music each week, but that's rare in the schools. Paul has them learn and sing lots of songs, sing multiple parts on some, he's had them co-write songs and various other adventures in music. The latest project is to get all of the fourth graders to learn and sing 2 songs for the school's end-of-year Talent Show, with Casey accompanying one song on piano. Casey's having to learn the whole accompanying piano part and then learning to play it with the singers, which we all know is an entirely different can of worms from just playing the piano on your own. The whole endeavor is ambitious, with several solo singing parts for various kids. It should be fun.

Casey trying pianos back in 2008- He looks so little here!

It makes me glad that we can give our boys music lessons, actually. Casey's been taking piano lessons now for over 3 years, and Riley started guitar lessons this year and loves it so far. They have both been known to get frustrated with hard lessons, but overall they really do seem to enjoy making music and getting them to practice isn't a hardship. And one boy will ask me to listen to this one song he's learning because it's a really cool sounding sort of song, or the other will play a bunch of different chords and try putting them together in combinations and get into a groove and then ask me if his song made me feel the way it made him feel, sort of mournful but happy at the same time. And I get this odd little thrill of recognition that they really do get the essence of the music, with the feelings it causes. Hope that it just gets easier for them to slip into that space with music as they improve in their playing abilities. 

Art, money and children

sketch for The Pony Man

There always seems to be this distinction people make between 'true artists' and commercial artists or people who do it for money. There's always more respect and downright adulation for the true artists than the commercial hacks, though who gets to decide which ones are which seems to be a fuzzy area and sometimes the artist makes the shift across one way or the other. It seems to be agreed that the 'true artist' has a drive, a compelling need, to put their own unique vision out there for others to see with no consideration given to what others think, or for commercial viability. A need to create regardless of consequences.

When I was in art school, occasionally guest artists would be brought in to speak and show their work. Since I was in the Illustration department and at that time the Academy was considered more of a trade school, most of the guests were successful commercial illustrators. Their abilities and talents were amazing and awe-worthy. Some were in the process of making the transition from commercial illustrators over to fine artists doing more gallery-oriented work.

Acrylic sketch

It was rather hotly debated, the chasm between commercial illustration and gallery art. At least among the illustrators it was felt that in order to be commercially successful you needed to have excellent draftsmanship skills in drawing just about anything, you needed to paint or use some color medium well, and you had to be versatile and adaptable to flow with the changing demands of the commercial marketplace. Fine artists tended to be dismissed rather like one-trick ponies, artists who used gimmicks to get a 'look' that could be hot. Fine art was regarded as just selling out in another way, another approach to grasping at that brass ring. And people didn't talk at all about someone being a 'true artist'; there was the general feeling that every artist was using the 'fake it until you make it' approach.

Acrylic and prismacolor pencil

So there's been a discussion going on in the Utata group I participate in about what defines a 'true artist' versus a more commercially oriented artist who's just trying to put food on the table. And of course I'm finding that this pushes my buttons in any number of ways, considering my background. I think part of the notion being bandied about was that if you were a 'true artist' then you'd feel driven to create significant work no matter what your life circumstances were, and to hell with real life and the need to pay the bills and feed any spawn you happened to have hanging about. An example used was the photographer Diane Arbus and her husband Allan Arbus. Diane was defined as the 'true artist' and her husband was the technician with a camera who did the commercial work and paid the bills, feeding the kids and allowing Diane the means to follow her muse. All debates about Diane Arbus and whether she was a true artist aside, the fact is that she is the famous photographer of the pair and her husband is obscure and unremembered. But he paid the bills. History will remember her as the innovative, fearless, and very controversial, 'true artist'.

Yeah. I have issues with all of that. Most of the famous artists throughout history, who managed to spend the majority of their lives creating an impressive body of work, had a support structure holding them up. Famous husbands had wives who took care of the more mundane details of life, the few famous women usually were either single and mainly supported by their families, like Mary Cassat, or they had supportive husbands (much more rare in earlier times). There are far fewer famous women artists in history than men, and most of the ones who can be named were single, without children. I think it's pretty evident that being a mom and taking care of kids and holding a household together makes it pretty damned hard to continue with any aspirations of being a 'true artist' who has an inextinguishable drive to create a significant body of work for posterity. The drive may be there, but it gets subsumed in the need to feed and clothe the kids. Let's be honest; for almost any woman who has children, taking care of the kids becomes the main, the most important job that she has. She will do anything and give up most everything, to keep the kids alive and as happy as she can manage. And lord knows if she doesn't, she gets vilified as a bad mother, the most heinous crime for a woman. Diane Arbus may be considered a 'true artist' but few even know she was a mother, much less what kind of mother she was. She ended up committing suicide. Not something that generally goes with the label of 'good mother'. Apparently women can sometimes be considered 'true artists' but not usually good mothers at the same time.

I can think of several examples of women that I regard as true artists who are also good mothers. But it seems like most have a supportive partner who supplies the majority of the income and the stability to allow them to pursue their art in addition to being a mom. I can't claim to be a 'true artist' by any stretch of the imagination, but Paul provides me with that sort of support structure. I have my own issues with that and a weird sort of shame about admitting it; I want to think of myself as a self sufficient working artist who doesn't need support. But let's get honest here; it'd be pretty damned impossible to take care of the kids, keep the household functioning as a home, make enough money to support us all, as well as create lots of wonderful art with no regard for its commercial value. If anyone can point to real, actual examples of women who have done all of this and get regarded as 'true artists', I'd like to hear about them. But kids and family come first for me. My choice.

Acrylic and prismacolor pencil

So what is the big deal? When it comes right down to it, I chose right from the beginning to be a commercial artist, working for money. I wanted to draw, but I needed to make money to support myself. I knew I didn't want to work at a soul-sucking day job and then just do my art at night, but I wasn't driven enough with an inextinguishable drive to create my own vision, my own unique art and be remembered forever. Heck, I've never really believed that anybody gets remembered forever anyway, even if deep inside there was a tiny part of me that wished it were so. So I've been a 'hired wrist' for most of my working life so far. Resigned to be a lower-tier artist who doesn't grab the limelight and become a big name. Never been good about the limelight anyway, being a shy person in general. But the truth is that the pieces I've made that I like the best after considerable time has elapsed aren't usually the pieces done for commercial purposes, but the pieces I've created for myself. You know, real art.

Is it enough just to raise the kids? To manage to fit in some art now and then? Isn't that what women have been doing forever? It's a matter of priorities, after all, isn't it? I think we mom-artists get easily dismissed as dilettantes because of our priorities. It doesn't really matter, perhaps, if it's fair; the truth is that I'll still pick the kids first, but I'll still also have that craving to make cool art that I like. That is just a part of me that isn't going to go away even though I don't have much time to make much art for now. Hopefully I will somewhat later.

And lest I sound too self-pitying, let me add that this mom gig is about the best yet hardest job I've ever had. Fame is a fleeting, fickle beast that usually only happens for 'true artists' after they're dead and their work increases in value due to the limited availability due to their being dead. Screw that noise. I'm going to live now, enjoy my kids and my partner and the good life I have now. If I don't end up making a body of art work worthy of being considered as 'true art' by some unknown future critics, I can really live with that.

NinjaGo: A Real Lifetm Game and Toy Review

NinjaGo in action

So Riley was given this little Lego game set called NinjaGo for his birthday a while back.Yesterday since they had the day off, Riley dredged it out of the toy shelves (after going to the doctor for a sore arm and the excitement of getting x-rays made of the arm) and he actually asked me to play it with him, since Casey had already immersed himself deep into a computer game of Heroes of Might and Magic. I dragged myself away from all of my Important Things I Was Supposed To Be Doing (but wasn't really doing) and sat down with him so he could explain all of the Rules and Regulations of Play.

The game comes with a set of cards, a minimal set of directions for rules and such, and all the parts to put your guys together. There are little Lego Ninja dudes that you put together and then you put them on a little Lego spinner top type of base, and the notion is that you set them spinning and they do battle and try to knock each other off of their spinners. Riley had read all the rules and set it all up and so we launched into a game. Well, the cards looked pretty impressive, with leetle teeny 6 point type on them explaining the moves each card allowed and how to play them.

It quickly became apparent that the card part of the game was completely ridiculous, with cards like these: "Magnetize: Opponent spins from it until a player wins, then remove." Um, whaa? Or: "Wall Of Fire: Stand up card. Opponent loses if spinner knocks it down, then remove." There was no explanation in the instructions of when to play the cards, in relation to when to spin the characters, whether you put the card in the middle of the spinning characters as they're spinning ("HEY! No fair! You just stuck that stupid card right in front of my guy and made him knock it down!") or before actual spinning of Ninjas commenced ("HEY! You can't put it right in front of my guy before he spins!").

So we gamely tried the game part. The basic idea we took from it was Last Man Standing, so that's what we did, and we quickly abandoned the cards completely and improvised.

"I flee sensibly from your Mallet Of Death, oh red doofus dude!"

"I am Skellington Guy! I am awesome, though I have severely truncated legs! Observe my mighty femur of Death, and be afeared!"

"I am NOT Red Doofus Dude! I am Awesome Flaming Master of...um, um,  something! We shall do mighty battle! Come closer, you unholy holey dude!

"AHAH! I have knocked you off your spinner, you incompetent red lout! Come back and I shall smite you with my dog bone of Death!"

"Help me, I've fallen and I can't get up."

"Avast! Aaarrgghhh! Come and I shall cleave your bony head in two! Oh, wait, I'm like, a Ninja. Um, why do I have a giant mace in my hand, then? Oh, wait, HAIIIYAH!!"

"Run awaaaaay!! He's chasing me!!! He's going to kill meeee! Oh wait, I'm a skeleton. I'm already dead, aren't I?"

"Happy friendly Skellington Dude wins the day! Only not really, since he doesn't balance or stay on his spinner as well as the other dude."

We ended up laughing like loons with Riley literally rolling on the floor laughing. I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes. Really. It's been a long time since we laughed so hard at something so silly and funny.

So there you have it, a Real Life Game/Toy review. Probably not what the toy manufacturers would like to hear, but this is real life toys in action. ;)

Athletic Endeavors and Parental Support

So it turns out I have athletic boys. I'm always surprised by this. I've been taking Riley to his track meets the last few weeks, at least partly because I was asked to take photos for the team, both group, buddy and running shots. And my camera, trusty friend that it always proves to be, has worked its usual magic and allowed me to relax a bit in this crowd of fit, active, involved parents, and take pictures and more or less be myself, despite my perpetually chunky state of physical being.

Be strong!

This is a difficult post to write. They say that kids push you out of your comfort zones and I know I've talked about all that before; it's still very true for me, especially with the boys' sports teams and the high degree of parental involvement expected. I've never been athletic, I am so obviously not a runner and never will be. And the stuff I'm talking about in this post usually gets viewed as too silly, too petty, too... trivial, at least between adults, to really get talked about. But.

I've been thinking about it all and decided to face it and be open about it: I have felt judged by my appearance and been found... fat...(gasp!)  by a few people. Nothing too overt, just slight avoidance, sidelong looks at my girth, things like that. The 'how did she let herself get that way' sort of looks. Which cause those thoughts that maybe it's all in my head, maybe I'm just paranoid, the 'did I just imagine that look there?' sort of things. You know, where either you end up wondering if that really was what you think it might have been or maybe you're just being oversensitive and insecure (which of course I am) or maybe you're just going crazy. That sort of subtle stuff that in the end really isn't that subtle. It ends up making a person feel unwelcome, excluded and judged, regardless of whether it was conscious and intended or not. I don't believe anybody in the group intended anything like this consciously, after all. We're all trained not to be cruel, not to make faces or gestures or say questionable things. Kids do them, because they're kids and haven't yet learned better, but even then they usually get corrected by parents quickly. I hang onto the belief that most adults don't mean to be judgmental and probably aren't even aware that they may be coming across that way.

Possibly I'm over-sensitized, or maybe I just haven't been hanging around in situations where everyone around me is fit and athletic and has been all of their lives; it makes me feel even fatter by comparison. I keep telling myself they can't know what sort of history I have, they don't know all of my various physical ailments over the years. It all helps remind me to watch how I'm thinking of others and to watch for judgmental crap in my own head. You never know what someone else's story is until you give them a chance to actually tell you.

Running the 400 meter

Anyway, I'd been feeling some of that icky sort of stuff with some of the track team people from the beginning, and I just wasn't breaking through that barrier to get to know people better, for a couple of years now. And I admit that was due to my own avoidance, my own resistance and discomfort with the whole thing. I tried to be supportive for Riley's sake, and ignore the way I was feeling every time we went to a meet or get-together or whatnot for the track team. I kept thinking that as long as everyone treated Riley fairly, I could just suck it up and handle the other stuff.

This year though, this season with the track team, has been better. Part of making it better was really facing myself and admitting what was going on with my own attitudes as well as finally seriously considering that maybe it wasn't all in my own head, and actually talking about it with some trusted friends. That helped a lot; it took away some of the sting and helped me see which parts were my own personal insecurities. Maybe more importantly, though, it let me realize that despite my wishing to give other people the benefit of the doubt, my wanting to think I was just imagining some odd behaviors, there was some real prejudice going on there. And it wasn't my fault. It helped me a lot, because it also meant that it wasn't all in my head, and it wasn't all my junk to deal with; I could actually lay it aside as their issues to deal with. And being able to lay it aside made it more okay to just relax and be me, actually.

Leaping out.

 It's been an ongoing process, of course. Some of it was helped by getting to know some of the parents and coaches a bit better through just being around over time, and having them come to realize I was a real person, not just a caricature cut-out. And some of it was due to getting more involved through photography. If you ask enough people to pose for you they really start recognizing you. It can be pretty startling when it first happens. It also helped quite a lot when the shots I'd been taking were made available to the other adults and people were favorably impressed. It's been similar to the positive reaction from people when they find out I can actually draw, oddly enough. I believe it helps people see past their early preconceptions of you, to realize that you have interesting skills and are worthy of more respect than they might have accorded you otherwise.

Maybe that sounds unnecessarily harsh, but discrimination and bigotry based solely on appearance can be pretty insidious and overweight people get treated to a lot of it, usually unintentionally by people who've never had serious problems with weight themselves and thus are less tolerant or understanding. Overweight people get that attitude even from folks who wouldn't dream of being bigots, who pride themselves on their enlightened attitudes towards others who are different. But being weighty tends to bring with it a whole set of judgments about being lazy, slovenly, greedy, with the accompanying song and dance about how overweight people just need to exercise, diet, get control of themselves and show a little self-restraint, a little self respect... People who are intolerant of fatness can really surprise you, but they may have no common reference points and probably haven't had really serious struggles with it themselves and thus they really don't 'get' how anyone can allow themselves to be that way.

Of course it's never a comfortable subject to bring up, and certainly not one openly talked about or easily confronted, despite the fact that weight is one of the most common, pernicious and pervasive prejudices; discrimination based on size is openly practiced and tolerated in most every sphere of our society. Nobody wants to think that they're being cruel or insensitive, whether it's towards fat people or people of different ethnicity or disabilities or educational levels or what-have-you. I believe that everyone has biases and prejudices, while at the same time I also believe that most people mean well; they don't realize or really intend to be discriminatory, but they don't see their own faces when caught looking or really hear the way their words sound to the person they say them to. I realize that's contradictory, but I stubbornly hang onto the notion that people want to be basically good, even when from my own perspective they may be so far off kilter it's amazing they don't just fall right off the planet.

And of course there are ways to help everyone become more aware, but let's face it, everybody has busy lives and most people are pretty comfortable with where they are attitude-wise. Demanding that people face up to and admit their prejudices isn't generally popular except perhaps among people who work very diligently on being tolerant and unprejudiced, and I'm going to be blunt: they can also get self-congratulatory and be irritatingly holier-than-thou towards the rest of us uncultured slobs. Some of them are actually the worst offenders about overweight intolerance, when combined with their very conscientious efforts to eat only healthy, organic foods and get proper exercise and their intolerance for people who obviously don't manage to do all that.Yes, it's harsh of me to say that. Obviously the whole issue needs a better approach.

Stink-eye.

 It's always hard to be the odd person out. My way around it has always been to sidestep it by being relentlessly artistic, I guess. It may not be the best way to deal with it, but it's worked for me in a lot of situations where I was the outsider, the new kid, the big kid, the weird kid. Most people think being able to draw is cool, and I discovered early that if you show a new crowd early on that you can draw, then you're quickly accepted as 'the artist' and people lay off of you. Some people do it with their music, or their sense of style, or being good at a sport people can admire, or various other skills. Survival 101 for kids who move a lot: find your own unique thing you're good at in order to survive in a group. And god help you if you can't easily display an admirable skill or ability, because if you're weird or fat or ugly or just don't fit in you'll get teased and bullied. We've all been hearing lots of horror stories about bullying, and most all of us have been bullied in one way or another in our lives, usually as kids, because kids are cruel and pack-like and haven't learned to conceal what they really think as well as most adults.

But to get (very) belatedly back to my original train of thought, I think part of this shift in overall friendliness for me with the track team is due directly to Riley; he's settled in more and follows his coaches' directions better, he's been around a few years now and he's transitioning well from being one of the little, more rowdy kids to becoming one of the steadier, more reliable older kids. He likes striking up real conversations with his coaches, and he likes getting their advice on how to get better. If he sticks with it, he'll eventually become one of their team leaders, guiding the littler kids in how to do things. Which could only be a good thing for him, honestly. He's really coming into his own in the skills involved too, though; this season he's set a good number of new team records, especially in long jump and running, like the 200 and 400 meter races. That lanky, lean build of his is really good for a runner and jumper, and he is a motivated kid; he wants to run faster and jump further. He's a lucky kid in a lot of ways; he has cool abilities not only as a smart kid, a social kid, but also athletically. I know he and Casey get teased at school occasionally, but I also know they have the confidence that comes from being accepted in several ways by several different groups; it seems to give them not only self confidence but the ability to recognize group social dynamics and the skills to handle cruelty in order to defuse it or stand up for themselves and their friends. My hope of course, is that they'll extend their definition of friend to include others who are different, who may not have anyone to stand up for them, who need a strong person on their side.

Riley

Death and Taxes
Oh, that old saying. Nothing is inevitable but... you know. I am deep in the midst of procrastinating on pulling more numbers together for our taxes, which are due in less than a week. Yes, I know.

busy bee.

I associate tax season with the passing of my dad, honestly. He was the one I learned that old saying from; though god knows he wasn't the one who actually pulled the taxes together and paid them; the sensible, responsible one was Mom. He was one of the least financially savvy people I know, which is saying a lot with my family. But he liked that saying. How ironic that he died just before taxes were due a number of years ago. He stubbornly managed to avoid them after all.

I'm not sure why but this past few weeks have been hard. You'd think that I'd be all happy and relieved; we've managed to get our house refinanced and it allows us to pay off all of our debts that we've been carrying around since two years ago when Paul was unemployed for an extended period. Well, we're all paid off except for that brand spanking new house mortgage, which is painful since we were fairly close to paying off the old one. But all the rest of the debt is being consolidated into that new mortgage and will reduce our outgoing costs considerably. It's all good news, yet I find myself feeling like a raw nerve. I have no good reasons for feeling like a basket case; the boys are doing very well in school; both made the gold honor roll this semester and got a B+ and an A- on their Science Fair projects, their sports have been going very well, Paul still has a job, I'm still waaaay too busy trying to do too many things at once. It's not like the regular crazy routine has changed.

California Poppies in our next-door neighbor's yard.

Dealing with our debts has forced me to look at money and how we've been using it more carefully, though. I'm coming to the belated realization that I have a rather adversarial relationship with money. It can spill over into how I view other people, I suspect. I know a lot of that comes from old family attitudes that would be better off abandoned. I find myself quite ashamed of some of those voices I hear in my head, talking badly about other people and their financial situations, rich and poor. Some of them sound just like my dad, complaining bitterly or blaming others instead of taking responsibility and taking care of a mess myself. I have no place to be judging anybody else for their money-managing abilities or lack thereof since I'm no prize in that department myself.

But damn, it made me lividly, screamingly angry when the credit card company, who have been completely paid off for about two weeks now, went ahead and took a huge payment out of my checking account to make a payment on non-existent debt to them; my understanding had been that if there was no debt by the time the payment was due they wouldn't take it out. It was a misunderstanding on both sides, really, and thank god Paul stepped in for me and straightened it all out with them because I was incoherent with rage. What made the whole thing worse was they didn't notify me in any way, and my checking account suddenly went waaay underwater and various bill payments bounced, with all the various check charges that happen then. To add insult to it, that credit card company took the money out in an instantaneous electronic transfer of money, and they claim they cannot refund it the same way, they must cut a check and send it by mail and it will take 10 to 15 days to even be processed, let alone get to us. During which time they, of course, get all the interest to be earned from that big chunk of money. It just set off all of those angry resentful views in my head about the giant corporations and their sneaky ways to make money from little folk and all of that crazy-making stuff for me. Lord, I hate those big greedy corporations and their complete lack of humanity.

But.

They gave me a credit card. They in effect loaned me money to buy my kids shoes, jeans with knees to put holes in, all when we had little income for necessities, let alone clothes for growing kids.

pants get well used around here...

 I'm the one who used that damned card, so it really is my own fault. Sometimes I hate having to admit I was the doofus in the first place, even if they do operate in a soul-less fashion. Money is so frustrating to deal with. I thought by the time I was this blasted old I would have worked it all out and made my peace with the money demons. But noooo...

I hate doing taxes. And I still miss my curmudgeonly, grumpy Dad, even with all of his faults.

James Gladney