When I was really, really sick, I would pick up my knitting, knit half a row of stockinette stitch -- which is the easiest thing in the world -- and have to put it down again. I couldn't concentrate. That's well behind me now, and while I still pick up and put down my knitting rather erratically (and am constantly misplacing my patterns), I can knit quite a bit at a sitting.

Except for today.

I'm knitting a sweater to the 10th Anniversary Knit for Kids pattern. It begins with eight rows of single rib -- purl one, knit one, purl one, knit one, then do the next row, knit one, purl one, and so forth. It's not that complicated, as long as I keep track of my stitches. I've been doing that, obsessively muttering, "Knit one, purl one," as I go.

It should be relatively easy.

It is not. I've had to rip the whole thing out four times. Four. On something a novice should be able to do. The current time around, I have two rows done, and I've made at least two mistakes in each row, forcing me to take out various numbers of stitches.

The one good thing about this is that I'm getting quite a bit of practice in casting on, which is nice. I can cast on, but getting the stitches closed when I do it sometimes defeats me. I'm getting a lot better at it.

I wish I could find my pattern book. The Knit for Kids pattern comes from the internet, but I have a nice woolen sweater that I've been working on forever, and I'm almost to a place where I'm going to have to know what to do next. I'd really rather work on the sweater, since I think I'm finally of a size where it will fit me. I'd like to get some wear out of it while I'm still the right size for it. But I'm semi-disassembling the house trying to find the pattern book and having no luck.

Ah, well. At least I can do the Knit for Kids pattern. If I get really desperate, I can seam all the pieces I have for other Knit for Kids sweaters and send them off. Or I could quilt P's quilt. Or pick apart T's baby quilt so that I can repair it. Or I could figure out where to hang my quilt bar so that I can go back to piecing T's full-sized quilt.

It's no wonder I'm restless.

I'm feeling better about the restlessness. I'm not doing anything more than I was -- that's going to take time -- but I'm feeling a lot more strong and capable about it than I was. A lot less helpless.

In the name of making sure I don't relax, however, B's job is at risk. I swear I wish we could live in an era that would allow him to be a blacksmith or some other relatively simple and very necessary job. Instead, it's corporations all the way (he's okay with that -- it's just me who isn't always happy with it).

Corporations these days are so intent on the bottom line that they act irrationally. B's company just announced that they made a huge amount of money last year, very productive, it's possible that bonuses will be over 100% of targe. But don't rush out to spend that bonus ... because they're planning layoffs to improve on their expenses. What?

Idiots. There seems to be a conviction among corporate upper management that threatening the drones with layoffs puts everyone on their toes and makes everybody work harder for fear they'll get downsized. But you know what? I've read formal studies, and B says that informally he's observed this, that say workers' actual reaction is to start slacking off -- they know that if they're targeted, there is nothing they can do about it, so why bust their butts for a company that has no loyalty?

Just to keep life entertaining, they didn't say how many people, and they didn't say when it would happen. So everyone is on edge, wondering when the axe will fall.

B is new there, so he has no tenure. FNGs (Fucking New Guys) are usually the first ones thrown overboard. Plus, he was hired to do a specific job, but can't do it because his boss insists on doing it herself. So even though he's being proactive and all that crap about showing initiative and finding projects to work on, he's way "under-utilized." Which is corporate-ese for "he's twiddling his thumbs." So he pretty much has a big ol' target painted on his forehead.

He's been looking for another job for a while anyway, because of not being allowed to do his job. He has some interviews going, and we're hopeful, but it's scaring the hell out of me, frankly. Part of the reason B is so hipped on corporate jobs is that it gives us a lot of financial stability, and he knows that I tend to flip if the finances are threatened. I understand where he's coming from, but on the other hand, corporations are totally attached to what Wall Street wants, usually, and layoffs always make the bottom line look better. Even if you're a crucial employee, you never know when the hangman will start eyeing you.

So we're having a little stress, here, yes we are. We have savings, and there would be a small amount of severance, so things wouldn't go to hell straight away. But it's scary (I think I already said that). It's not the kind of economy where I want the family breadwinner to be looking for work.

I made it out of bed and I made it to my skating lesson and I worked hard and I only lasted for forty-five minutes out of an hour. But I'm making some progress.

Then I came home and found an e-mail with a description of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, from two of B's old co-workers, and I cried. Their hump was four days of altitude sickness on the way up one of the most magnificent pieces of scenery in the world. Mine was achy feet after two minutes on an obscure ice rink that looks just like every other obscure ice rink in the country.

I am trying to remember that I've climbed some pretty tough "peaks" in my life. Just because they weren't romantic doesn't mean they weren't significant. Some of them were a hell of a lot harder than summitting a mountain.

I'm reading The Heroine's Journey. In a way, the pattern they describe doesn't apply, because I haven't been pursuing a traditionally masculine journey to "success." The part about reaching a place where I start to feel restless, and want to do something hugely meaningful and significant -- I think "saving the world" may have been the actual phrase used -- seems to ring some bells, though.

Where I am is not exactly where I was expected to go by the people in my life when I was a kid. I had the academic chops to do whatever I wanted, the ability to write which I think had my lit teachers expecting to one day read my brilliant novels. I knew that I wanted to have kids and stay home, but I would never have admitted it. It was uncool in the view of the adults who were setting goals for me. The one thing I *didn't* have the chops for was setting my own goals.

The result is that I'm doing exactly what I always wanted to do, and I'm happy with it, but I have a lot of guilt because I'm not "successful." Because I am technically dependent. (I could rant about that -- B couldn't get along without me and still have the kind of life he wants, either, but that's a different issue. Or maybe it isn't. But not now.)

So there's a part of me that wants to be brilliant. Write the ultimate novel. Get a doctorate and become notable in some significant field. Work a job that pulls in six generous figures. (I don't know what I'd do with the money besides use it as a marker, but there it is.) Solve hunger. Become universally beloved.

Make a mark.

Except that it isn't really what I want to do, and I don't believe I could do it anyway.

And I'm starting to climb the walls because I don't know what to do about it.

Okay. I had a revelation last night about not needing to take into account what a bunch of snotty thirteen-year-old girls thought about me when I was thirteen. Maybe I need to decide that I don't need to take into account what my parents and teachers thought was right for me when I was fifteen and eighteen and twenty-one.

Tossing a bunch of "what I ought to do and be" that I know is expected of me as an educated woman might be a good idea, as well.

Picking apart why I want to be significant, and what parts of that I should go with and what I should jettison, might be useful.

Acquiring a dog that I can kick when I get frustrated is probably inappropriate ...

Figuring out what I want and how to get there. Goal-making is scary, but what the hell. Sometimes fear is a good indication that there is possibility there, if I am willing to take some risks.

I should be in insurance. I'm risk-averse! I could be such a tight-assed underwriter. I'd never give a policy to anybody.

I want to put my head down under the covers and escape; I want to put my head down and bull through the things that are making me so unhappy. I want to be strong, not constantly shrinking from the things I fear.

I want to stop saying, "I'm afraid," and do things, even if I'm terrified.

I'm thoroughly confused.

Crank. Y.

C'est moi.

And I don't know why.

I got things done yesterday and today, and had a visit from a friend today. Dinner happened relatively easily yesterday, it should happen easily tonight, and everybody seems poised to get to classes on time.

What's the problem?

It's partly that something was really bugging B yesterday, and he wouldn't talk about it. It's nothing I've done (he always makes sure to tell me that, because he knows I'm paranoid about upsetting him. This infuriates me, that I react like that, but at least he's aware and works with me.) Something at work. "A shitty day," he said, and then clammed up. Not like him at all.

It's partly hangover from having carefully constructed order go to hell during the influenza. I'm starting from scratch, and it's just as hard the second time around as it was the first. I have lessons tomorrow and I want so badly to quit.

Part of me says, "Go ahead and quit. It's not as though you're saving the world or doing anything else very significant in a damned skating lesson." The rest of me knows that I need to get moving physically, I need to be challenged somehow, I need not to shy away from this just because it's ridiculously hard for someone who used to be pretty nimble on skates.

Too many things are still too hard. Too many things make me want to stay in bed and just avoid. Something is scaring me to death, and I don't quite know what.

Maybe it's just that by choosing to step out of my comfort zone and relearn to do something I want to do I've threatened my safe little spherical world. Today a skating lesson, tomorrow who knows what insanity?

That's exactly it. Just writing about it is raising my pulse. Got it in one.

Why me? Why all this shattering fear when I'd finally learned how to trust myself and take risks?

At the risk of sounding like there's justice in the world, it's not fair.

A number of things are not fair; most of them are far more serious than my problems. But my problems are still problems.

Okay, enough. I haven't had any lunch, just crackers, and I always get worse when I'm hungry. Eat, and then reevaluate. Maybe the trick with the stupid lessons is to take them two days a week instead of one, in the hopes that I'll desensitize myself by improving faster. Or hitting a public session once a week to practice.

Hiding in the bed won't accomplish anything except to make the fear stronger. But I want so badly to give in.

I'm in a good mood because everybody is finally home and I've finally had a cuddle. When push comes to shove and I'm *really* honest with myself about what I need, there isn't much of it. Enough to eat. Not too much chaos. Cuddling from B, not just from the kids.

Of course the list is longer than that, but those are the survival items that came out this weekend. And "remembering to eat" would probably be more accurate.

For some reason I keep thinking that Valentine's Day is coming up. I rarely pay attention to it, so why does it matter that I missed it from being too sick to care? I still have B's Valentine card from two or three years back, because I liked it enough to keep it by my bed. Another one would just be something to recycle. So how come, every time I see something red and pink, I start anticipating, and then have to bring myself up short? It's ridiculous.

I think I'll start to plan a Pi Day party. If I want to do it, I have to get organized soon. I'll have to make sure that we make pies I can eat, too, since there's a good chance I won't be able to eat much of anybody else's. I can break training a bit, but it would be nice to have stuff that I can eat without thinking about it.

A friend has sent a link to a math program that might be good for V. Actually, it might be good for the other two, as well, but it's V I need innovative stuff for. P and F will do math in workbooks, but V needs a totally different approach (not to mention some major work on her multiplication tables, but that's a different issue). I think I'll download the program and see what we get.

I'm wondering if it might not be worth it to buy a couple of "age appropriate" -- such a funny term, really -- math textbooks and go through them for the odd stuff. Nothing where she sits and writes problems on paper. That we've had plenty of, and that she fights, because of the trouble with fractions. But the sort of half-bubble off plumb stuff. Maybe. I'll check out the Scratch program first.

Sometimes I think I'd just rather send the kids to school and be done with it. I know I'm doing the right thing. It's very good for them to be homeschooled. But every once in a while I feel like just throwing the whole thing up and quitting. I don't, because that feeling has nothing to do with homeschooling, and has everything to do with me being restless, and the kind of tired that comes with being restless. So I stick with it and try to figure out what is going on in my head and what might, maybe, possibly, should be going on in my life. Unfortunately, there's a lot of "why bother" in my head right now. I need some "because."

I've been struggling (again) with the chapter I'm currently working on. It's a heavy topic and one that I know I need to take breaks from. Yesterday, dd had a birthday party at her neighbor's and so I spent most of the afternoon in front of the computer, looking things up that I couldn't do on my co-worker's computer the day before and trying to flesh out the chapter.

You know how much I wrote after 5 hours?

81 words.

I think it's time to move on to another chapter and come back to this later.

Perhaps it didn't help that I started the morning reading Angela Davis's "Are Prisons Obsolete?" and came across this quote: "As important as some reforms may be--the elimination of sexual abuse and medical neglect in women's prisons, for example--frameworks that rely exclusively on reforms help to product the stultifying idea that nothing lies beyond the prison."

It made me question my book. Is the focus of my book reformist? Is it basically going to make people think that they should advocate for *better* prison conditions instead of alternatives to prison or examine why we have over 2 million people in prisons and jails these days when crime rates are going down?

dd had another birthday party today. This one was not so easy; it required commuting by train to (eek!) Brooklyn. While waiting for the train on the way back, dd asked what I was reading.

"A book about prisons," I answered.

"Let me see the cover," she demanded.

I did. "Are prisons..." and here she paused and stumbled over the word "obsolete" several times, insisting on calling it "obsolet" (since the final "e" is silent).

"What's OBSOLETE?"

No longer needed.

"Of course, they're needed!" she exclaimed. "what do you do with a thief?"

Well, I said, does putting a thief in jail really make this person stop stealing? Does it get to the cause of why this person steals? Maybe this person has something wrong with his head (I didn't want to go into drug addiction, mental illness, stuff like that) and does putting him in prison help him with the problems in his head? Or what if he steals because he doesn't have any money and he needs to feed his kids? Does putting him in prison feed his kids? Or does it leave them still hungry and now parent-less as well? Does it help him figure out how to feed his kids without stealing?

She thought about it a little. then she said that people should go to Food Not Bombs if they don't have any food to eat.

I could have argued more with her then. I could have pointed out that not every place has a Food Not Bombs. LIke Brooklyn doesn't. Queens doesn't. Chinatown doesn't. Lots of other cities/countries don't. and Food Not Bombs doesn't serve every day, just once a week (at least in NYC) and so isn't a reliable source for meals. We could have engaged in more dialogue about hunger and food availability. But it had been a long day and I was tired and I still had to sort through a 3-foot box of random possessions that a prisoner had, for some inexplicable reason, sent to a books to prisoners group I volunteer with and then drag whatever I had deemed usable to our new hq in Brooklyn. So I let the conversation go at that. Since dd starts volunteering at Food Not Bombs next week (and I told her that she was on her own with that. I already did my cooking, slopping out food, cleaning up, every Sunday for 5 years), she'll have plenty of time to learn about food, hunger, poverty, distribution, etc. I don't know how much this crew is going to talk with her about these issues, but they're willing to take her on as a volunteer and look out for her and I'm sure she'll come back with lots of questions about what she sees and experiences and we can take it from there.

I told her taht she could start volunteering next week and she did a happy dance at the top of the stairs. I could do a happy dance too because that means that I get a few hours to sit and write while she chops vegetables and chatters with the punks.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

Well, I was going to grouse about how this weekend's big birthday party (B's Dad is turning 75) was likely to put me in contact with B's completely evil older sister. But now I don't have to.

Unfortunately.

F started with a double ear infection some time last week, and we didn't catch it until Monday night. That meant antibiotics started Tuesday, and have had only two days to work their will. Forty-eight hours is pretty much the minimum before you get symptom relief. From everything I've heard, homeopathic remedies are no quicker.

The thing is, I started asking myself, Is it good enough for her just to be pain-free, or should she have a couple of days after that in case there's residual liquid and swelling? And what heppens if we fly with her when we shouldn't? I'm sure she'd be in a lot of pain, which is bad enough, but what would happen to her hearing?

Once that kind of mama thoughts have crawled their way into my head, they have to be dealt with. Because they're good mama thoughts to have. So I called the doctor.

No, she absolutely cannot fly on Thursday. No question. And she shouldn't fly on Friday, either.

Damnit, damnit, damnit. It's too late to drive, and in any case, spending twelve-plus hours in the car, each way, for forty-eight hours with the family is a little ridiculous. But it also doesn't make sense to wait until Saturday morning, fly in just in time for the party, then turn right around and fly back out Sunday. I know some people treat the Chicago-Philadelphia run as a commuter hop, but that's a lot of money for us. We want to make it count.

I could hear the frustration in B's voice when we talked about it. He's been planning this with his other, non-evil sister for a while, and he's really been looking forward to it. I felt terrible giving him the news, even though I'm just the messenger.

After I'd hung up, I had a brain wave. Sure, F can't go, and someone would have to stay with her, but there's nothing to say the rest of the family can't grab their already packed bags and scram out of here. F will hate it -- she's been crying and unhappy about missing her Bubbie and Zaydeh ever since she heard the news -- and I won't like it, but B and P and V can still go.

I hope they go. B is a little reluctant to split the family, but I think we'd survive it. And it would really make his Dad's day for them to show up.

I will freely admit to being a selfish person on this one. If I can't go, I want everybody to stay home so that I don't get lonely and bored and frustrated by having only a child for a companion.

But I absolutely will not, under any circumstances, tell that to B. I'm a grown-up, and I'm a parent, and I have, at various times, spent up to two weeks with three kids and no co-parent. I didn't like it, but you know what? Sometimes you protest, and other times you shut your mouth and suck it up.

This is one of those times.

B got me some good coffee. Possibly I should brew some up and decide whether I really want to read The Witches of Eastwick or not. So far, the beginning portrait of women who find their "independence" to mean "power-hungry succubus" is not doing anything for me. I might bring down the book on censorship I'm trying to read. Some of that is absolutely absurd. The things that have been done in the name of protecting the children -- oy!

I am so over the up-coming trip. I don't hate to fly, but I do hate to travel by airplane. Too much noise, too many people, too much stimulation, too much stress.

Of course, I'm also having a mild tizzy over *not* going, which is a possibility that's back in the hat. F has a double ear infection, and if it hasn't eased off by Thursday, we're not going. I'm not optimistic.

But then, that leaves me with no time off. No chance to look at the inside of someone else's walls.

So I finally sat myself down and e-mailed Sti. So stupid. We're friends, but we rarely communicate, and it's been a long time since we've spent a weekend together. Mostly that's been because she's been living in the mountains in New York State, where I either have to find my way out of New York City (which is an idea I admit fills me with horror) or drive over two hours from Albany.

Which I can do, but don't much care for. It takes a lot of the juice out of a weekend with that hanging over me.

But I have no more excuses. She's moved back to Minneapolis, and somehow the six-hour drive through Wisconsin is less intimidating than getting on a plane and flying to Albany.

So I wrote my e-mail and pushed "send."

Pushing "send" on e-mails is something I do with a certain amount of trepidation. Some of them, no problem, write what I need to write, push the button, send it off into the ether and give thanks that I don't have to pick up the phone.

Others, not so easy. One of the things I despise about bipolar disorder is that it has left me broken in areas where I'd begun to develop some serious muscle. I have to start all over again, and it's hard.

One of those things is not giving a shit what people will think of me. I'd be a liar if I said there has ever been a time in my life when it hasn't mattered that someone, usually a set of specific someones, approve of what I do.

That set of someones might not be a traditional group, might be a bunch of friends with activist roots, or with wild tastes in music, whatever. But there's always someone. And sometimes it was someone who really should not have had that kind of influence over me.

I was starting to get good at saying, "So they might disapprove. So what? I think this is the right thing to do, so get out of my way and let me do it."

I was starting to say, "Hey, guess what, it's really, really good for me to spend a whole bunch of weeks with the kids away from B, seeing him only on weekends. It's good for me."

I was starting to say that I liked science, that I wanted, finally, to study science.

I was starting to say that I wanted to develop the self-discipline I needed to create some art.

Then everything came crashing down on my head. Ironically, it was accompanied by an explosion of me doing several of the things I'd been building muscle for. That part, at least, I try to remember, because it was good.

Now I sit around the house and I'm scared to figure out the Chicago public transportation system so that I can get around the city. I went to Mamagathering 2004 and nearly cried at the picnic, because I couldn't figure out how to talk to people.

Honestly.

I hate this.

B is sympathetic, but he's also not going to enable me. In some cases because he knows it's not good for me, and in other cases because he doesn't want to do it, either, so he's not bailing me out.

I'm starting to get very tired of this. I'm in a cage with the door open and I'm mostly too afraid to go through it. I'm so sick of being scared of things. I try to think of how I was, to motivate myself to work back toward that as a goal, but just the idea of doing some of the things I have done is overwhelming.

I would be gentler with someone else who is struggling with this, but I am not gentle with myself. Partly that's because there is no one to push me on this but me. Partly that's because spending time intensively examining the things I don't like about myself gives me the illusion of productivity, and I make it through another day without picking up the challenge of the door.

This weekend will be a challenge to the door, if we go. In one way, I'll be sheltered, because we'll be going everywhere as a family, but in another, getting out of my safe space is a challenge all by itself.

I've been sitting here, cruising the net, with the small, nagging feeling that there is something I should be doing. I finally stopped and thought about it, because it was getting to be annoying, and I should be updating and balancing the checkbook. As always, I am reluctant to the point of being almost actively averse. I wish that made sense.

Flu has pretty much had its way with the family this past week. B didn't catch it first, but he caught it worst, and spent three days in bed. For B, that is like taking a two-week convalescence. And he's been miserable. Also unusual. Sometimes he's miserable for a little while, half a day, but he's usually over it pretty quickly.

The kids all had it, and seem to be mostly over it except for F. Every time we think she's over it, she gets droopy and runs a low fever. I wish I knew what the hell was going on there. Sometimes she has said her ears hurt; if she says it again tomorrow (and rest assured, I will make a point of asking) it's into the doctor's with her.

I was pretty sick for two days, but not as sick as B. Things did get interesting yesterday, when I switched from liquid chest decongestant to extended-release pills. I don't know what happened -- it's supposed to be the same active ingredient -- but I spent the day with the world spinning around me. When I fell asleep for a nap, I had some very wild dreams, and all day I would think that I was holding things or wearing things, like hats, when I wasn't. I'll do without, thanks. Fortunately, I'm pretty much past needing it -- the reason I switched is that the liquid tasted like concentrated awful.

We're going east next weekend. B's dad is turning 75, so we're celebrating. B is organizing a lot of the festivities, so I hope he's feeling better by the time we go. It will be a rough trip for him if he's still feeling as wrung out as he is now.

I have to admit I'm dreading the trip a little bit. We're traveling by air, which is always a pain. Airports and the constant noise in the airplanes overstimulate me and put me on edge. I'd much rather be "trapped in a car" for twelve hours. In the car, I can stop and get out if I start feeling a little crazed. And for some reason, the noise in the car does not bother me as much as the noise in the airport and on the plane.

I suppose I should stop whining. We decided to fly because it really will take less time, and since we don't have much time off, we want to make it count. My problem is that what I really want is to live as far from the East Coast as I do, so that I don't have to deal with the family too often, but be able to get to them as easily as we could from the PA house when I do want to see them. I'd like to be able to tesser at will. Give me a steak and I'm whining for caviar.

Being with the family will also be a challenge. Fortunately, B's oldest sister will be there. I get along well with her -- she's very sensible. I haven't seen his younger sister in years, but it's nothing bad; we've just been living far apart and neither she nor Brian is good about keeping in touch. I think I'll be fine with her, just a little careful at first.

Of course, the middle sister wasn't even invited. She's toxic as hell, and isn't speaking to several members of the family. That may currently include B's parents, but I'm not sure. There was a contremps about a wedding, and I think she took herself off in a huff. I'm okay with that. She's willing to talk with B, but he isn't interested in talking to her.

I never fought with her, but that's because my strategy for dealing with her was simple: listen to everything she had to say without challenging it, never EVER offer an opinion of my own or try to correct her, and immediately forget everything she said when she's done talking. Definitely don't repeat anything she says to anyone else; as near as I could tell, she never told the same story twice, and I don't think the truth had much acquaintance with what she said. As far as she knows, I have no problem with her. She can go ahead and think that, just as long as she doesn't call, wanting to talk.

Truthfully, there's nothing much to fear, even when the extended family gets together for the party. I know how to handle the ridiculous uncles, and I actively like Aunt F. The cousins we haven't seen in years will probably be neat; new cousins have usually been a pleasant acquisition in the past. It's just that I'm going to be dealing with people I don't know well, and I'd rather stay home and be a barnacle. I'm really being a little ridiculous, because I'll be tense as hell, but I'll enjoy myself anyway.

It's a pity it isn't Mom S's birthday; her sister S is a super lady, and I really, really like the cousins on that side.

a couple of weeks ago, a mama friend sent me an essay on the topic of involving your children in your politics. I think it might have been from Mothering magazine; she had mentioned that there was some article along those lines there, but I don't read Mothering Magazine and so am not 100% positive that it's from there and not some other journal that I would never read.

The basic gist of the article seems to be that we should let kids be kids. That we shouldn't expose them to the injustices of the world. That's all well and good if your kids live in a bubble (well, actually, no I don't believe it is. I think it's elitist because if you're privileged enough to not be a skin color/ethnicity that is going to be discriminated against by the powers-that-be AND you have a high enough income that you need never worry about the rent or your neighborhood or the state of your assigned public school AND your sexual orientation is such that you will not be harassed or discriminated against because of whom you sleep with AND...if you are privileged enough to put your child in a bubble and do so, you're going to be raising one of those kids that is going to, knowingly or unknowingly, oppress other people)...

Well, going with the idea that if your kids live in a bubble and you can keep them in that bubble and choose to do so...but is that really the case with most parents? Can they really keep their children from having to deal with life's injustices?

Last week, the mayor, in all his wisdom as a businessman, decreed that all (public)schools need to cut 1.75% of their budget. And another 3.5% for next year. For dd's school, that means that the dance program that they were going to start for pre-k/k isn't going to happen. It also means that no new books will be bought for the 2nd and 3rd grades. And that there is no money to pay teachers to write curriculum. Or to replace broken furniture and computers. And this is a school where parents are actively involved, the PTA fundraises like hell all year to pay for things like the arts and music programs because the government, in all its pennypinching wisdom, has been cutting such frivolous subjects left and right (can you test on art and music with those multiple-choice bubble tests?). I can only imagine how a school like my former high school is getting hit with that kind of cut. (What *does* that kind of cut mean there? Okay, the furniture didn't seem to get replaced that much anyway. There weren't any computers when I was there, but maybe it's because I was in that couple of years pre-computer and not because they were afraid to have computers not under lock & key so that students wouldn't steal them)

But taking the premise of that article, do I really have the right to shield my kid from that reality? When that reality impacts her and her future? Don't I have the responsibility to talk with her about these cuts, what they mean, and then take it one step further and take her to the rallies outside the Dept of Education building to show her that it is not only her right, but her responsibility, to raise her voice and say NO! when these things happen?

"Why are we here?" she asked when we were standing outside on the sidewalk.

I explained that we were here because we are against the mayor mandating these cuts. (Okay, I did not use the word "mandate.") That when he does these kinds of things that hurt people, it is up to the people to respond, to SHOW their disapproval. If they don't, if he makes these cuts and no one takes to the streets (or sidewalks), he assumes no one is against it. He has the public's approval. When people gather to rally against these cuts, these decisions, their lack of say in the matters that affect them and their families, then it forces him to have to consider his actions (although with this mayor, it seems like not very much forces him to consider his actions. Perhaps his daughters should be put in the public school system and he should *not* be allowed to supplement their education with private horseback riding lessons or anything else. They should learn what the average kid learns in a regular public school (what school zone is Gracie Mansion in? Harlem? Probably the Upper East Side, although I think most parents there send their kids to private school, so maybe the public school system there is meh) and perhaps then he'll realize that it's not just a business where you can cut corners and people. And that it's far better to have $80 million in the school system going towards teachers, trainings, programs, than to award $80 million to McGraw Hill to give prep tests to kids (No Child Left Behind is really NO Child Moves Forward, agreed a woman who teaches high school during the day and works to free political prisoners at night) and another $80 million to IBM to develop a test-tracking system even though New York State has already gotten a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to do the exact same thing. Perhaps if his daughters were only able to get a public school education, he would think twice about such bullshit.)

I had to explain a lot of things. A lot of times and in a lot of different ways. This is, I think, a much more complex issue than war, which is black-and-white really. To kill or not to kill? To slaughter or not to slaughter? But budget cuts--and what they mean and the fact that it's not really because there's not money but because money is being misallocated (although she got in on some levels. She asked why there was money to have the cops standing around policing the rally and penning the students & parents in, but not money for schools)--and concepts too, like budgets and cuts and mayoral control, those are a lot harder for a 7-year-old to grasp.

So she asked and I explained. She asked again and I explained in a different way. She said she still didn't understand and I explained again. I think I finally hit home (and don't ask me what I said cuz hell if I can tell you now) when she took a sign (denouncing the budget cuts) that another parent, who was leaving, offered to her and held it up high over her head.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

I've done alot of wierd things in my life but last night is high up on the list of more bizarre. I had to teach an immigration workshop at a public school dressed as the statue of liberty. I had to teach a pop up book workshop. What do pop up books have to do with immigration? I'm not sure- I didn't write the grant- I just had to teach the program. And am I a pop up book expert? No- it took me hours and hours to engineer a pop up statue of liberty. But I did my best and did a whole spiel about how I stood in the harbor to welcome everyone and how ny was made up of immigrants, and we all had something to offer, blah blah. I told the kids that I got bored standing in the harbor for 122 years and decided to go out and do something fun. What? Make pop up books of course! Anyway, it was kinda wacky. The pop up books went well. I had about 70 people there- kids and families- and everyone did one and they all worked. They turned out cute. But it is not a workshop for a large group of people really. I thought I would have a small group. Instead, I was in an auditorium with a microphone running around like a crazy person- a crazy green lady to be exact- alternating between giving general directions on the microphone and having to put the stupid thing down and shouting while I demonstrated with pencils and scissors because I couldn't hold it while demonstrating. It was challenging.
But everyone made a book. And they popped up. And I think most people had a good time. Thank goodness- it really could have been disastrous if none of the pop ups popped up.

I think of sending my publisher the following progress report:

My office got flooded. The computer with all of my reading notes and drafts got fried. The lack of a computer means no on-line goofing or research during the day. Without messageboards and e-mails to distract me, I whipped 2 chapters into much better shape. I also wrote to every one of my subjects about being in the book.

I got the flu. Didn't write for a week. Read a book about women in a Massachusetts prison and let my correspondence pile up.

Finally felt better. Came back and stumbled my way through radically revising a problematic chapter. Asked a co-founder of an immigrant rights group if she would read it and give feedback, point out inconsistencies, updates or errors since immigration is not my strong point. She said yes and so I set myself a week to get the chapter to her.

My office got flooded again. All of my letters got wet. All of the articles that I had set aside and meant to read got drenched. I tossed the articles and spend the entire day setting out letters to dry. I do not revise anything; I do not read anything. My entire day is spent peeling soggy page off of soggy page and trying to find surface areas to dry them. I also tried to salvage old photos--of dd as a toddler, of places in the neighborhood long gone. I peel negatives off each other, wondering how much the water has damaged them. (Are color negatives that different than b&W negatives in that regard?) I peel photos off each other, tossing those in which dd has her eyes closed.

However, I did manage to get that chapter into a form that isn't too embarassing and, this morning, gave it to my organizer friend. If and when I ever have a dry place to sit in the office, I will also add the experience of a trans Mexican detainee that I heard about at a panel discussion the other night. I had been hoping to do incorporate that yesterday, but came in to find a swamp in the office needing my immediate attention instead.

I also managed to slip onto a co-worker's computer and ask the wonderful librarians at Radical REference about an incident in the 1980s. (My source has been released from prison and is no longer in touch with me) I received a response this morning and will incorporate this into another of my chapters (again, this does depend on my finding a dry place to sit and work for a bit).

Right now, every conceivable surface of my office is covered with drying pages. Two newsletters from the women's facility are drenched through and through, but the newsletter is no longer running and the woman sent me all her copies. So it's either dry those out or not have them at all. I have laid them out on garbage bags to dry, each individual page. And her book--her sole copy of a book that she made in a class that is no longer allowed in her prison--got drenched in the flood and is still not dry after a day.

Guess I should see if I need to throw out all the master copies of my zines.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

Well, now I can say I've been to the dragon parade. It was fun, although I woke up in the middle of the night having post traumatic anxiety dreams about my son being stampeded and squashed by the crowds. Aye.
H thought it was all great. We got a spot in the front row and held tight while people from behind tried to mash us against the barricades. H got to pet the dragons and was dazzled by the streamers exploding into the sky.
But thanks, no- I won't be going to another parade anytime soon. Just too many people in too little space.
We have to go upstate later this week to tackle the opposite problem. We have a cabin in the woods and the town wants to abandon our road. We are the only inhabitants on a road that is a mile and half long and the town doesn't want to maintain it anymore. Local people do use it, and even though we aren't living there full time, we won't have any access to our property without the road. If the road gets abandoned, then the creek will swallow it up. So we have to go to the community meeting and fight for our road. We'll see how many neighbors show up. We know some, but not all of them.
Today was my first day 'performing' a lesson for 32 kindergartners. I say performing because I have to teach a social studies lesson about life at sea in the 1800's and ny harbor etc; and I have to act out a story with the kids about life on the boat. It went well. The more I hammed it up the more the little kids squealed with delight. They were cute. My weak spot is the singing. I need to work on that. Trying to get 32 kids to sing a chantey with me was harder than I thought it would be. Cape Cod Girls. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that one day I would sing anything, much less THAT in front of real live people. Small people, but still, people.
On Wednesday, I have to be the Statue of Liberty. Fortunately, I don't have to sing.

If I get any more restless I'm going to fidget a hole through the chair. We had thought about going to the New Year celebration in Chicago, but the weather was scheduled to be around fifteen degrees. We figured that was too cold. As it turned out, it's one degree. Ouch. So no field trip. We could have planned something else in an indoor venue, but the kids got invited to do a martial arts demo in the afternoon. No field trip.

So I'm restless. I can't even entertain myself by going along to the demo. It's a pity, as I like to watch, but P woke up with a splitting headache, and instead of going along and wowing 'em with his weapons proficiency he's going to stay home on the couch. He's going to stay home on the couch and be miserable, to be specific.

I did finally manage to get some aceteminophen down him, which should help. We're always careful about giving him meds when he has a bad headache. If we aggravate his stomach, the poor kid gets brutally nauseated. That means I get to clean up. Yippee. So nothing to ameliorate the pain until enough of it has gone away that we're sure he can keep it down.

I asked him if he wanted me to stay home with him. He's almost fifteen, and more than capable of staying home by himself, but when you're sick, it's always nice to know that there is someone there to take care of you. So I'm staying home. I can't even ask B if I can switch places with him, as B is a student and will be demo-ing himself.

I did make it out very briefly to the local hardware/building supply/variety store. My father wanted to pick up some of the nice L-brackets that I use for my raised beds. He can't seem to find them at home in PA. I asked to go along because I was climbing out of my skin.

It occurred to me when we got there that they might have paperwhite bulbs, and that if they did, my big turkey platter was just the thing to force bulbs. I never use it for anything anyway. So I looked around for bulbs, but couldn't find them. An employee finally told us they were located in the outside section, and offered to show us, but I hated to force him to put on a jacket and go out into the cold on a whim of mine. So I came home with no bulbs.

That might have been a mistake. I need a project. I can't start dinner. It's barely 1:30, and everybody just ate lunch. I can't work on my knitting. I found a dropped stitch yesterday, and I can't pick it up without a crochet hook. My crochet hook, which I had just a few days ago, is AWOL. I'd ask my mother if it was okay for her to keep an eye on P and go get coffee with B, but he's going to be out. When everybody gets back, I may go out on my own. If I'm this restless tomorrow, it bodes ill for the rest of the visit.

I do need to rope in F and get her to figure out what she wants to present for The Horse and His Boy. Literature club is tomorrow. I talked to her a couple of days ago, but basically got, "Well, I'll think about it." No movement since then. She's only eight. I should keep on top of these things.

It looks as though I'll have all three kids home with me. V can't demo because there is no other judo person for her to work with. She could work with F, but F refuses to go for either judo or kyuki-do. It's a pity, as her sensei likes having younger kids for demos as well as older kids and higher ranks.

B is practicing his form in the family room. He has to do it at slow speed and less than full extension, because there isn't enough room in here for him to do it at full speed and full extension. This will be his first demo. He seems to be looking forward to it. I wish I could go and watch him. I like supporting him in the stuff he does. Of course, he's rarely around to watch what I do, but that's the risk of doing stuff on weekdays. Work is work, y'know.

I've reminded F she needs to figure out her presentation, but she's giving me a blank look. As she says, we've already done cookies. (We did multi-colored fish cookies as pavenders from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.) Maybe we could do some foods that they might have eaten in Calormen.

Honestly? There is snow scheduled, and I'm hoping we get snowed out. But that's just me being restless and unhappy.

New Moon, New Year. I am praying to the Kitchen God that we get a kitchen sometime this year. Well, we do sort of have a makeshift one which is serving us ok, but I will be so happy when we have a stove.
I spent an interesting afternoon in the grocery store the other day trying to find as many local products as possible. Which I did find quite a few. But trying to find local, organic products that I can cook without an oven or a stove is tricky. I'm limited to the outdoor grill or the crockpot or the electric wok. Which, mostly, I can cook anything in. I just have to be a little more creative. Actually, it's good because it limits me to unprocessed food. Can't bbq a frozen dinner or mac and cheese. The only thing that really stumps me is not being able to boil water. I suppose I should go out and buy a hotplate.
I bought a breadmaker today at the thrift store. They had 5 in there and only one that seemed like it worked and had all its parts. So I went home and found the manual for it online and found out that it is an expensive machine- not that that matters so much, it's just that I wanted to make sure I could get the manual. So I went back and bought it for $14. Now we can make bread! One of the things I can get at the local supermarket is a nice whole wheat flour from Vermont. Which is not that local, but even searching on the internet it seems like it is the closest grainmill around. I also bought a non electric yogurt maker on ebay the other day. I hope it works. It's basically a thermos that keeps the bacteria warm enough to do its thing. I wonder who figured out yeast? I can understand how yogurt and cheese might have been discovered- "oh, i left out the milk too long and look what happened!" Wine too. I've actually made wine myself leaving a juicebox in the car for too many months. But figuring out how to add bacteria to flour to make it rise? I think aliens from outer space must have dropped a hint about that somewhere along the lines of history. Hmm.
Our charter school is starting to be born. We have committees now and I am on the curriculum committee. I am supposed to be working on the art curriculum but I found all this information out about farm to school programs and I worked up this whole outline for science and social studies lessons based around a school garden. I'm so excited about the prospect. The dept of defense (go figure?) also has a farm to school program in which they will supply schools with food from local farms for the school lunch program.
I just got my seeds in the mail. I went a little overboard on the order- there is no way I will be able to grow all those different vegetables- I don't have the space if nothing else. But, it makes me happy just to hold the packages. I shake them to see what size seeds are inside, organize and rearrange them according to planting schedule, pat, gaze and just generally fondle the little rectangular paper bags.
I cleared out a space for myself to have a studio and I'm working on a sculpture. I have an 8 ft ladder in the house, which is currently leaning against the wall in my bedroom mostly because it was the last place I used it and then I never put it away. It has my name written across it in big letters. My son asked me this morning why the ladder had my name on it and I told him it was because sometimes I used that ladder to install sculptures at different places and I put my name on it so that other people would know it was mine. So he says to me, "oh, just like you are installing sculpture in the basement now." Yeah, honey, it's my latest and greatest exhibition space- the basement. Oh well, it is a space- I claimed it and the boys actually helped me clean it out. It makes me feel better to have a space, any space, no matter how humble it is. I am making something- which makes me feel a thousand times better. It definitely feels like a new year.

the sun is out, and high, and quite bright yet it is literally deluging-i mean the rain is pouring down and big chunks of snow and ice are whooshing off the tin roof like drunken toboganners crashing onto the rain barrels and chunks of frozenness go flying in every direction. everything-and i mean all things-outside are covered in a magical layer of ice it's just glowing. silvery boughs of trees still leafless of course are bent way way down to the frozen ground and i fear that the weaker ones will just snap right off. which would improve the gardens light flow but devastate the fruit trees i just lovingly pruned during the brief january thaw. the chickens have decided to run for cover and squat together on the front stoop preening and pecking at things, occasionally they fall asleep or knock at the front door with their beaks. this knock does confuse the dog, who doesn't understand that noone is coming to visit today cause god bless 'em if they make it up the hilly road and into the driveway without crashing and burning it would take the balance of a tightrope walker and the patience of a mom of 3 to make it up the long slippery walkway and into the door. where they would find me wrapped in the colorful blanket of imagining spring, enjoying the last few weeks of not-too-much work before i plunge headfirst into the delightful world of midwifing my gardens again.

It's snowing, or at least it was last time I looked. Wet, sloppy snow that is making slippery slush all over the place. Traffic getting home from gymnastics was, um. Entertaining. I called the kids and told them not to bother preparing for judo, because we weren't going to make it.

I'm trying not to stress over it. My parents are flying into O'Hare tomorrow, and the snow is scheduled to continue through about 6:00 PM. Or, in other words, they're going to be flying through some of the worst of it. Given how hard it is to fly in and out of O'Hare in good weather, the chances that they'll be substantially delayed are high. I'm hoping for no winds. The airport can cope with snow, but high winds do them in. And of course, they don't call us the Windy City for nothing.

At least they're not trying to drive in. Getting around Chicago is a nightmare at the best of times; I shudder to think what it's like in the snow.

Dinner is in the oven, even though I struggled with piecrust. White flour piecrust is a lot more forgiving than whole wheat. And after all that, I realized I needed bread crumbs. Whole wheat bread crumbs, if they exist in a can, certainly don't grace the shelves of any of the supermarkets around here; usually I make my own. But I was already knee-deep, and the idea of fussing around with toast and a blender made me want to throw the lot into the garbage and quit. So I used white. It's not the end of the world. I tasted the spinach filling, and it's good.

Maybe I need to put a whole loaf of wheat bread out to dry, and make up a whole big bunch of crumbs, so that I have them around when I need them. And now I am going to kick myself, because I have just remembered that I had extra crumbs after making the mushrooms on Sunday. Probably not enough, but I could have gone 50/50. Time to make up some bread crumbs. One day it will save my composure.

I got a call from a "wellness nurse" from the insurance company today. I wouldn't mind some help with wellness, but she's mostly oriented toward helping me with medical issues. I educate the hell out of myself when there's a medical issue, so I don't really need help there. Where I need help is with lifestyle. For that, I got directed to a page on the company website.

*sigh* I don't know why I bothered. It's all extremely general information, and I haven't learned anything new. Nor have I had any luck in figuring out how to change what I want to change. I don't need to know why it's good to get exercise. I need help getting off my butt and doing it.

I don't know why I would expect to find that on an insurance company website. It's like expecting good whole wheat bread from the Wonder Baking Company. It just isn't in the same world.

Okay, okay. I've ranted about that elsewhere, more than once, and it's time to think about something more positive. If I'm going to do anything, I'm going to follow a friend's recommendation and try stumptuous.com's stuff. It seems to have a simple workout to get started, but that still leaves me with no discipline and no motivation. Well, some motivation. I need more.

B is playing an RPG with the kids. The W kids are over; SW had hip replacement surgery today, and it was no big deal to have her kids over. P is more than capable of keeping everyone in line while I do all the running around, and heaven knows my kids and the W kids get along well. AW is staying the night. MW can stay if he wants, but unless his dad gets stuck on the way here, he wants to go home. Either way works for us.

I have been forgetting to notice the things that happen around me that delight me. They do happen, but they get swamped by negativity so often. Every once in a while, I drag my attention back to them, and spend a couple of days making a point of noticing things. I need to notice some things.