Where Apples Fall

my son & his friend long before teenagedom; irradiated but still sweet

Yesterday I had the privilege of being the focus of a classic teenagerism, which – though luckily a fairly rare occurrence with my particular 15 year-old – literally made me laugh out loud.  (I also somewhat unethically shared it with a room full of co-workers, for their boisterous enjoyment.)  Upon inquiring what time said movie was that he and a group of friends were on their way to see, I received the response, “I dunno; not everyone plans everything out in advance like you, mom!” Note the line reading here of “mom;” the drawn-out, exaggerated tone of disgust is most crucial.  Muhaahmmm!

It’s true, not everyone plans things out in advance.  Actually, I feel I’ve done relatively little life planning at all; I seem to arrived at this juncture, of being the mortifyingly embarrassing muhaahmmm of a teenager, all too quickly.  What was it I was going to do with my life, exactly?  I can’t entirely recall.  But I do remember that the prevailing theme had something to do with the punk rock ethics of Challenging the Status Quo whenever possible, and Intentionally Living on the Peripheries of Polite Society.  Well, done and done, pretty much.

Punk rock moms and dads are all the rage these days. I see them everywhere, their piercings hanging a little heavier from the weight of sleep deprivation that comes with early parenthood, tattoos slowly fading from spending too much time in sun-drenched playgrounds. Last year’s documentary, The Other F Word, apparently chronicles the new challenge of punk – that of fatherhood – and though I am vaguely interested in what that film may have to illustrate …. really, do we need yet another expose on a variation of the white male experience? Am I going to learn anything new? I’m guessing it’s pretty much same shit, different day.  Punk takes on Society, yet somehow that ethos is most pertinent as seen through the eyes of a man. Oh, the irony!

You know what else is ironic?  Not rain on your wedding day or a black fly in your chardonnay – sorry, Alanis,

artist's approximation of The Man

those things are merely unfortunate.  What’s ironic is that raising a child to question the social and political status quo means that this challenge is ultimately directed at you, the parent.  Because, of course, from where your child’s sitting, YOU are the status quo.   No no no, wait, I’M not The Man!  The Man is all that other stuff – you know, the patriarchal corporatocracy, the military industrial complex, the knee-jerk hype mongers at Fox News!!  That’s what we’re really up against here!  The Man has nothing at all to do with me wanting to know what time your movie’s at – I just need to know what I can shove into my own Friday night plans before I have to pick your ass up from way the fuck out in the Richmond.

But, all muhaahmmms notwithstanding, they do eventually get it.  My son may prefer to load his iPod with Old Blue Eyes, the Ink Spots and whoever else is decidedly NOT the Dead Kennedys and X in my dusty CD bins, but at least Sinatra is no Justin Bieber.  The apple may have actually fallen somewhere within range of the tree.

 

I Love My Great Grammar

Grama Grammarian

Today I am letting one of my dirty little secrets out of the closet and dumping it into the raging river of the interweb, but only because I am desperate to save America.  Yes, you America.  I am coming clean in admitting that I am, at heart, a puritanically strict English grammarian.  I am outing myself with the hope that I can help you clean up your filthy grammar habits, America.  Your dangling participles and indecent misuse of apostrophes are simply disgraceful, and I can tolerate it no longer.

Like most people, I was more forgiving and compassionate in my youth. Sometimes people just make mistakes, right?    I even managed to go fairly easy on the undergrads whose papers I helped correct in grad school, juniors and seniors at San Francisco State  whose grammar usage and general writing skills could be excruciatingly bad.  I blamed it on a faulty education system …. or the fact that for many of the students, English was their second language. Kudos to me for lowering the bar!  It’s only college, after all.

But I’m tired of cutting grammatical slack, and that’s because it’s not just sullen college students or the random stalker-note writer who’s getting it wrong anymore.  This shit has become so pervasive, it seems – especially in the case of Vagary #1, below – that in some instances, the incorrect usage is usurping the place of the correct one.  Perhaps this is just the way of the world, the inevitable overthrow of the Old Guard for the New; though while I’m usually a champion of the underdog, in solidarity with revolutionaries around the world – this sloppy, dumbed-down tossing about of language is no way to go about things.

First it was the “Cheaper Then Cheap Cigarettes” signs that irked me.  A few years later, it was the letter we received from the new SF Unified School District Superintendent – an education professional, mind you – that was signed “Your’s truly, Arlene Ackerman” (yes, I’m calling you out, Arlene!).  Then I noticed grammatical mistakes popping up in PowerPoint presentations and various printed materials.  Last week, at a meeting attended and run primarily by educators of various types, a heading on one of the handouts we received read “Biography’s of Nominees.”  Rrrrrrrrrr!  This just bugs the living shit out of me!

So let’s review some basics, shall we?  Maybe tighten our belts a notch, pull up our slacks a few inches and stop saggin’, grammatically speaking?  No one wants to see your dangling participle anyway.

The Top 5 Grammatical Vagaries

5. Cheaper; Then, Cheap Cigarettes.  OK, it’s minutely understandable why those two cute little words, “then” and “than,” might get mixed up – they sure do look awfully similar!  Like those weird Keno brothers, you know, the guys who go absolutely apeshit over antique furniture?  They’re identical twins, right, but you can kinda tell them apart, and besides, one specializes in Federal era dining chairs, and the other is all about Georgian sideboards, which are two totallydifferent things.  So if you ever find yourself unsure whether you need to use “then” or “than,”  just recite this ditty:  “T-H-E-N means ‘then,’ and T-H-A-N means ‘than.’”  That should sort you out.

My Invited what? Good job, AAA!

4. Their, They’re Little Fella, Your OK …… (my OK what?).  Here’s the deal:  Just because two words sound the same, that doesn’t mean they are the same!  Weird, huh?  “Their & they’re” and “your & you’re,”  though often mistaken for each other, are NOT like the Keno brothers at all.  Completely.  Different. Words.  Here’s a hint:  wherever there’s an apostrophe, a letter is missing.  What’s that, you say?  Well, for example:  if you wrote “their full of shit,” but what you really meant was “they arefull of shit,”  you got it wrong (the grammar part I mean; whomever you’re referring to could very well be full of shit).  You can think of it as the two words, “they” and “are” as being totally full-of-shit arseholes, who got in a terrible brawl, and the “a” in “are” got beaten down to the point where all that was left of it was an apostrophe.  Now you’ve got “they’re.”  Make sense?

3. Coulda Shoulda Woulda.  Granted, the rules allow us to splice words together into tasty contraction cocktails for the sake of verbal convenience, delicious little bites like “I’ve” and “doesn’t,” as well as a myriad of others, including the two very popular ones listed in #4.  But this convenience also makes us sloppy; sometimes it makes us plain dumb.  Go ahead and say “could of”  if you want to – that’s how it invariably comes out – but when you write it, dammit, grammar counts.  It’s NOT “could of” (or “should of” or “would of”)!!  Think about it – what the fuck that does that mean?  Nothing!  Why?  Because what you really mean is could have. “I could’ve fucked that girl if my sloppy grammar hadn’t been such a turnoff.”

2. Would you kindly “not smoke” in this area?  This particular infraction is almost exclusively limited to posted instructional or cautionary signs; that is, the “unnecessary use” of “quotation marks.”  The hilariously ironic result of which being a sign that, with a little wink & a nod, implies that you “please” actually do the opposite of what it says.  “No Smoking!”  (pssst, no, really, go ahead and smoke here, wink wink)

1. It’s plural, not possessive, people.  By far the #1 most common mistake, seen virtually everywhere, from Arlene Ackerman’s correspondence, to menus, to every vacuous email you ever got from your ex-girlfriend and the lengthy Xmas missives the Catholic side of your family insists on sending: using a fucking apostrophe s instead of the plural form of a noun.  Just what the F is so goddamn confusing about this?  Are people just afraid to put an s at the end of a word without sticking an apostrophe in there somewhere, like the s is some sort of STD that needs to be hygienically separated?

daisies, not daisy's, people

Try this little exercise for some clarification on the plural vs possessive conundrum: Maybe you and your friends are going to pick some daisies, or you’re going over to Daisy’s Bar for a drink; fine.  However if you’re going to pick “some daisy’s” …. well then, you’re a moron, unless you can be more specific: you are going to pick a daisy’s petals one by one, perhaps, or tie a daisy’s stem to some other daisies, and make a fragrant necklace for a stinky hippie.  Or, you’re going remove all of Daisy’s clothing after you get home from the bar.  You might want to utilize some hygienic separation in this particular situation, however.

So get it together, America!  Our Empire may be in decline, but that doesn’t mean our grammar has to be!

 

New Years’ Dissolutions

While my son and his father dutifully shook off their respective Holiday Comas this morning and returned to their usual weekday obligations of school and work, I met mine with only minimal enthusiasm.  Being currently unemployed, however, I need to garner enthusiasm for one minor obligation alone: that is, to rise at 7 am, throw on some semblance of clothing (bra negotiable)  and drive my son to school.  And that’s it.  From there on out, the day is a clean slate, an empty agenda, a virtual Horizon of Endless Possibilities.

Which is completely untrue, of course.  While my real agenda is simple, it is most definitely not empty, populated by a single but very insistent line item: GET A JOB.  And that Horizon of Possibilities?  Pretty much unattainable without a steady income – one of the bitterest ironies of life, as we all know: having the time to do whatever you want and having the money to do whatever you want tend to be mutually exclusive properties.

So each day I slog through what I suppose is my one other regular obligation: engaging in the perpetual cycle of Search-Locate-Communicate that will presumably, at some point, end with me smiling, relieved, and duly employed.

The trouble is, though I am a good worker, I have a terrible work ethic.  On the job I will throw myself into my duties full throttle, yet while also simultaneously resenting, with every fiber of my being, the fact that I even have to work at all. That’s a heinously elitist attitude, I know, and I have no idea where it managed to seed itself in my modest middle class origins.  Oddly, however, this inner love/hate dynamic usually seems to work out OK -I’ve never been fired, generally get positive performance reviews, and on more than one occasion, have actually been begged not to leave a job.

maybe it’s better to just … lie down

In addition to a questionable work ethic, I also seem to be short the chromosome that makes people “take their work home with them,” psychologically speaking; a particular anomaly in the nonprofit milieu, where we’re all such martyrs for whatever the given cause may be.  But me?  Out of office, out of mind.

As my current job search trudges on, I’ve shifted into a lower gear, one that just skirts the outer edges of boredom, and have had time to grow concerned about the things that will invariably change when I finally do go back to work.  The following issues are of the greatest concern, and may soon push me to a serious reconsideration of whether I should go back to work at all.

Keep in mind that these have absolutely nothing to do with my self-professed poor work ethic.

• My dog will die of loneliness.  When all three of the people in my household were preoccupied with our daily out-of-house responsibilities, we convinced ourselves that the dog simply slept all day, waking when we arrived home with no understanding of how long we’d been gone.  “It’s just been 5 minutes as far as he knows,” we’d say, quelling our concerns about being neglectful dog owners.  Now that I spend considerably more time at home, however, I have had the opportunity to observe that while, yes, the dog does sleep all day, he seems to do so with an awareness that I am here with him as he does so.  I may even venture to suggest that he sleeps more soundly, more comfortably than he does when the house is empty.  Disrupting that new vibe for him could prove …. disruptive.
• There’s so much Important Stuff to write.  I’ve got close to a full dozen subscribers to my blog now, hanging on my every written word, that I don’t want to let down, and probably just as many book ideas on the verge of really coming together, you know?  I’m an artist in my prime! It would really be a shame to have to squelch all this talent, to cut into my writing time by getting another job just so we can “buy groceries” and “pay the mortgage.”
• The house is so damn clean.  Sure, we could hire someone to take care of it once I go back to work, I suppose, but do professionals really know what they’re doing?  Like do they know that you need to sweep the dust off the top of the molding as well as the floor?  And that the best way to scrub the edges of the bathroom fixtures is with a toothbrush?  Or that one shouldn’t wax linoleum?  These things are important.
• I spent, like, almost a full hour making that cash flow spreadsheet.  The one I set up to figure out just how the fuck Unemployment will cover my full spectrum of regular monthly expenses, and demonstrated just how clearly it won’t.  I spent, like, almost a full hour on that. Going back to work would be like kicking that hour right in its face.

These are only the top concerns that spring to mind, of course.  Be assured that the rest of the things I’m thinking about in regards to this employment business are equally weighty.  But I forgot what a lot of them were.  Out of office, out of mind.

a tough job but someone's gotta do it

 

Stinkeye of the Beholder

So last week we received a notice from the SF Dept of Public Works, rather shoddily masking-taped to our front stairs, chastising us for the presence of graffiti on our property.  We have 30 days to either “remove” the graffiti or request a “graffiti hardship hearing,” or those mean old DPW folks will be really, really mad.

Exhibit A: The Virtually Unnoticeable Tag

Now, I’m as displeased by excessive graffiti as the next gal, while simultaneously acknowledging the validity of the debate over whatconstitutes Crappy Eyesore Graffiti versus Graffiti of Artistic and/or Cultural Merit (a subject I will leave happily untouched at the moment), but this notice really pissed me the fuck off.  Said graffiti at issue, a roughly 2″ by 5″ tag in thin black marker writtenon the forest green trim around our gas meter, is hardly even visible from the street; my boyfriend had to literally walk over and point at it before I even noticed it. Actually, this miniscule, tidy little tag struck me as rather conservative and almost considerate, especially given that we have a corner house with giant, white wall running along a sidewalk that virtually screams “scrawl your graffiti HERE!”

Exhibit B: the Scourge of 18th & Mission

OK, so back to being totally pissed off.  There are two possibilities here, both of which irk the shit out of me: 1) one of the many local passers-by who regularly stroll past our house reported it, even though the tag is, as I said, miniscule, and hadn’t even been there a week; or 2) the broke-ass City of San Francisco somehow manages to pay people to inspect every building in town in minutiae and cite all graffiti-hosting offenders, no matter how incredibly minor the visual offense.  As if there weren’t any bigger fish to fry around here. And by fish I of course mean crime, and if we’re just talking about the graffiti, I’d say the abandoned 99 Cent Storeat 18th & Mission has been by far the biggest of those particular fish for a couple of years now.

Still determined to avoid diverging into the gory but popular debate about what really constitutes “graffiti,” I will note here that I was further incensed, in scanning the details of the shoddily-taped notice, to discover that crucial to the City’s definition of graffiti is that the “inscription, word, figure, marking or design” was “affixed, marked, etched, scratched, drawn or painted” without the property owner’s consent.  So how in the hell do they know that I didn’t put it there myself?  Or ask a friend to etch it on there for me?  As I said, the tiny tag was almost sort of cute, a petite little “design,” if you will.

Having my father’s impulsive, anti-authority genes, my first thought was of course to call DPW and speak snidely and condescendingly to whomever was unfortunate enough to be working the phones that day.  But then I remembered my more conservative, considerably less impulsive co-owner of the domicile in question, and figured I should probably cool my jets, at least for a few days. We wereplanning to paint over it, after all (we just don’t happen to have the exact color of paint at the moment); probably he was going to suggest that that’s what we still should do. Surprisingly however, after brief discussion of the matter, I was given full reign to handle the matter as I saw fit (insert devilish smiley-face emoticon here).

Exhibit C: The Fix

So, voila, my resolution to the matter.

As one can readily see, my talents in the visual arts are limited; I imagined it looking much cooler than this.  Actually the main reason it didn’t come out that great is because I was really nervous while I was drawing it, thinking someone was going to try and stop me or something, though probably very few of my neighbors’ English skills are good enough to communicate that concern.  I did manage to follow most of the lines of the original tag, which was my main intent – just to pretty-fy it and turn it into a decoration of sorts.  It will probably still garner the stinkeye from pedestrians regardless … as for what the DPW has to say, well, stay tuned!

 

Traumatic Privileged Nightmare Headache

it's kinda like this

If anything can guarantee that a generally monthly-type blogger will go without uttering a single online word for nearly 9 months, it is the process of buying and selling a home.  FIRST, let me acknowledge, with no shortage of emphasis, that I understand that to even be allowed to endure the whole horrible ordeal is a luxury- a trauma of privilege, if you will.  THEN, let me proceed with a blow-by-blow of what makes it so incredibly horrendous, stressful, and shitty.  So bad I pretty much know for a fact that I am never fucking selling a house again.

The Rod Stewart of SF Real Estate

For starters, you have to find a realtor who isn’t such a greedy, narcissistic cheeseball, that his very existence makes you want to annihilate all of humanity.  Very few of these fuckers are in it for the altruism.  Early on, we made the mistake of admitting at an open house we impulsively stopped into one Sunday that we weren’t “working with anyone” yet.   I swear I heard a few heart rates accelerate as the realtors in the room feverishly licked their lips and descended upon us, desperate for new blood.  It is ugly and unpleasant, but if you think you can just go it alone in the San Francisco housing market, without a realtor, well – let me know how that works out for you.

After settling on a realtor with whom you can manage to spend an hour without throwing up,  Step Two in the process involves packing away 70% of your belongings, so when potential buyers come thru to look, your house appears to be owned by someone who actually lives somewhere else.  Or is merely a ghost who doesn’t impact the physical environment in any way.  Ever.  Fortunately, this particular ghost, her boyfriend and their teenaged son miraculously NEVER leave traces of their existence behind, because buyers don’t just come to scheduled open houses, oh no no!  In today’s Buyers‘ Market, they might just want to stop by, say, tomorrow at 11 a.m.!  Which is fine because they’re telling you this in plenty of time, it’s only 10:00 the night before, after all, and the presentation you have at work tomorrow isn’t that important anyway!  What IS really important?  Selling the goddamn house!

Oh, AND finding a house  you want to buy, there’s also that part.  Which is particularly tricky given that your new loan is approved “contingent on sale,” which means you can’t really make much of an offer on anything until you sell your own house, but you’ve got to look around anyway just to be ready, though of course you won’t completely know your budget because you don’t know what your current place will ultimately sell for. Then when it finally does, suddenly now you have roughly a month to find, offer, counter-offer, settle, close escrow, and move into your new house. See?  Simple!

While looking at houses is basically fun -at least if you’re a nosy voyeur like me – it loses its charm when you have to spend every spare moment you have doing it.  Don’t make any plans for the next couple of month’s worth of Sundays, folks, lest you inadvertently miss finding your Dream Home!  One that you can afford. In a neighborhood you like. That is an easy bus ride from your son’s school and not too far from work.  That meets all of your and your co-purchaser’s various other requirements, oh, and yes; one that you both agree on.   And happens to be listed right at the exact moment your own home is sold.  Cake.

Accepting an offer from a buyer is only the beginning of the fun!  If you think it’s all coasting from now til the close of escrow, well then you’ve been eating the moldy, 5 year-old Seller’s Market cupcakes and you’re about to be sick, trust me.  Nowadays, the buyers get to demand ridiculous things – like giving them a $40,000 credit because they’re going to have to do a little work on this 100 year-old house!  Apparently it isn’t common knowledge that a house built a century ago generally requires a little work.  Like constantly.  Also your buyers may feel entitled to to swing by and take a look around at things, you know, just whenever; or decide on the day escrow closes that it might be a good idea to hold onto a coupla grand of the sale price to make sure you get cleared out to their satisfaction on moving day. 

But like everything, this too does pass, and hopefully, eventually, everything works out OK.  But don’t say I didn’t warn you.  

 

Terror & Tiaras

Nothing, it seems,  inspires more animated discourse at dinner parties than the subject of the great perverse horror show that is the child beauty pageant circuit.  It’s as if the over-the-top hairdos and outfits that populate said circuit infuse themselves into the very conversation itself, and people can barely contain themselves: “Omigod can you believe what those kids go through?  Oh, and the parents, jeeeez-ace! (shudder)” Exaggerated eye-rolling and aghast, slack-jawed expressions while discussing the topic is simply unavoidable.

commence eye-rolling

Weird how something that is almost universally regarded as Horrible To The Core seems to be embraced by so many people.  I can feel my jaw slackening now just trying to get my mind around that…… Since I don’t think I really can, though, instead of trying, I am going to move on to summarize what I see as the recurring themes within this frightening subculture, an insight garnered from viewing the immensely popular – in a stare at the accident sort of way, I think – TV show, Toddlers & Tiaras.  Full disclosure here: due to an overly sensitive gag reflex, I have not done extensive or even adequate research via this medium.  Unlike most of the pageant contestants, I’m basically just improvising.

1)  90% of the Stage Moms are morbidly obese.  What does this mean, exactly?  That they’ve given up on themselves already, so, oh well, let’s put it all into the kid?   Don’t got time to go to the gym cuz every free moment is pageant, pageant, pageant!?  To be fair, they haven’t given up on their own looks entirely, as there does seem to some general effort put into the SM’s hair.  The favored style is usually a variation of an A-Line bob, with some spikiness or a carefully hairsprayed windblow-ish effect – just for a little extra pizazz – and always, ALWAYS some really bad multi-colored highlights.

2) Apparently, none of the Stage Moms have noticed that their husbands are gay.  Or maybe they have, but this fact is so incredibly convenient, for so many reasons, better  to leave well-enough alone.  A daddy who will help design costumes, train the shih-tzu to wear a tiny tiara, and silently endure grueling hours of vapid dance routines and make-up application?  Where do I sign!?

Russian. Skaters. On Acid.

3) All the kids’ outfits and makeup are clearly designed by Russian ice skaters on acid.  The whole fucked-up pathology of dressing a 4 year-old up like an “adult” aside, the prevailing aesthetic is simply horrific.  If I saw an actual adult sporting a curly updo ringed with fake flowers and glitter, pastel eye shadow glaring above false eyelashes and heavy pancake, and a sequined dress anchored by a ridiculously ruffled tutu that barely covers the bum,  I would sincerely LOL!  Oh, and don’t forget the white patent leather shoes & bobby socks, which really tie the whole outfit together, and serve as a demure wink & a nod to the audience, reminding us that of course we all know she’s really just an innocent little girl.

4) True pageant winners have the most awe-inspiring names!  The circuit is flooded with unique monikers like Seylee, Cealy, Claiborne, Keailah, Brenna, Bree-Anna,  Briley (say what?), plus of course the traditional favorites like Savannah (which I actually quite like), Dakota, and the long-running Britney/Brittany/Britinee/Britony etc.  Clearly, mom had pageanting on the agenda from day one, probably pre-coitus even, in choosing to bestow her newborn with one of these trophy-winning names.

ouch.

5) Everyone seems to have forgotten that “crowning” is what they call it when the baby’s head finally starts to emerge from the mommy’s v-hole, usually after many hours of great discomfort.  It’s not really something that at least one mom I know, Yours Truly, cares to be reminded about, repeatedly, by another mom with a bad haircut who can’t stop obsessing about what will happen when we get to The Crowning.

But it is all about The Crowning!  Silly me! Why else would you want, excuse me, your child want to participate in such a stressful, whiny, hairspray-allergy-induced haze of chaos?  It’s all about the glory of winning!  Capturing the crown, doing whatever it takes – which, in 8 yr-old Cealy’s case, means consuming a minimum of 10 pixie sticks on pageant day – to bring home the dream!

 

All I Know is I Dunno

Still riding the bummer induced by the documentary I saw last night, Race to Nowhere, I’ve cheered myself somewhat by reminiscing about how gosh-dern easy I managed to have it in school.  The film – an expose on the emotional and physical toll that the “achievement culture” takes on kids, the embarrassing stain of a legacy that No Child Left Behind promises to leave behind, and, perhaps even more concerning, the long-term societal effects of turning our children into robots – left me spittin’ mad.

RIP Old Shoe Tree

Just to clarify: spittin’ mad means I’m livid but essentially can’t do a frickin thing about the source of my ire, so I just spit.  Like when I dare to dwell on the fact that there’s a whole army of fucktards out there who think Glenn Beck is for real, or when I recently learned that some a-hole thought it’d be a laugh riot to chop down the Nevada Shoe Tree on Hwy 50. When I’m spittin’ mad, I do what every red-blooded American does when faced with inconvenient facts: I think about something else.

runnin' free & up to no good

(cue transitional music) Ahhhh, remember the carefree educational days of the 70′s?  “Discover your desks, people!”  All the way through to junior high, “homework” was but a whimsical notion of the uptight past, desks were arranged in conversational clusters, group projects abounded, and individual assignments were completed at a student’s own pace.  Despite the ominous trifecta of a new decade, a new President, and a new town that threatened to ruin the good vibes forever as I began high school, I somehow managed to skate through regardless, the Just Say No hysteria close at my heels.  Minimal homework,  the occasional academic challenge, and an 11th-hour 3-day expulsion “on my permanent record,” then BAM! Directly-home-pass-go, and ….. UCLA it is.  Cake, people!  And I think I actually learned a few things along the way.

(jump ahead to the recent past)  Fact:  my son’s 7th grade Algebra teacher was a dick.  A teacher friend of mind told me to leave an anonymous note on the dick’s desk that said “your engagement strategies aren’t working!“  Engagement or no, the guy was simply a tried-and-true jerkwad. The only consolation I could offer my son was to tell him “sometimes you just have teachers who suck,” and  give him repeated free passes on the numbing piles of repetitious homework.  When the STAR test results arrived the following summer, which reported my son’s math score at 100% – despite the Algebra teacher’s insistence that my son was having trouble “getting it” – I wanted to run it over to that asshole’s house, shove it in his face and yell “Ha!  Whaddya think now, eh!  Ha!” like the mortifyingly embarrassing mom that I am.

In the midst of my own hippie dream-world of an education, I did periodically  encounter equally f-ed up teachers, of course.  There was the old hag who indiscriminately forced kids to wash their mouths out with soap, and the frighteningly cruel Mr. Duval, tyrannical despot of 8th grade History.  And let’s not forget the Born Again choir director who repeatedly pressured my best friends and I to “confess” to our evil misdeeds (beer + boys) while on tour.  But at the end of the day, none of them really got under my skin; or, perhaps more importantly, invaded my life beyond the boundaries of school.

That, I think, is the primary difference between then & now. The intense homework load that threatened to break my son’s spirit, and hijacked the usual lighthearted, laissez-faire atmosphere of our household, was, quite literally, an intruder.  Or maybe more like an extremely rude, high-maintenance guest. Said guest has thankfully since been discharged, and we’ve returned to a more relaxed atmosphere at home, but it saddens me to think that the days of actually enjoying learning may be numbered, perhaps are already gone entirely.

they dig, dig?

Discover your desks, people!

 

Do Ask, DO Tell!

case in point

In an age when most forty-somethings essentially dress, act and sometimes even look like twenty-somethings, people of all ages seem equally susceptible to the lure of Harry Potter, and many of my generation’s parents are lifelong potheads,  it seems that the dusty old term “Generation Gap” is doomed to a future confined to the pages of a sociology textbook.  The one-time media darling and scapegoat of modern society’s growing pains, “Generation Gap” has almost completely dropped off the landscape, replaced, perhaps by “Culture War,” the epic struggle of Red-versus-Blue.

Here where I live, smack in the middle of what many would consider to be Ground Zero of the darkest shade of Blue, I have to continually remind myself that the rest of the country is our reality check.  Other Americans may very well have different opinions than San Franciscans about whether transgender youth have the right to attend public school naked, or dogs should be granted the vote, or if the national sport should be officially changed to yoga.

from slapupsidethehead.com

Hence it was with a certain resignation that I listened to the recent spate of discussions regarding the fate of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.  Of course they’re not going to repeal it, I thought, the military is full of predominantly conservative types, and most of the country is homophobic.  The bulk of public conversation I’d heard thus far had concentrated on issues like whether or not you want to know that you’re showering next to a gay guy, or how this would somehow affect troop morale, and other senseless arguments of this ilk.  And you know, if the shower thing is what’s really bugging you, maybe you DO want to know who’s gay, so you can take your shampoo and your  insecurities over to the other side of the latrine, thank you.

But lo and behold, the polls done proved me wrong!  It looks like it just may be repealed after all, with the majority of the general civilian population as well as those in the military indicating that they essentially don’t give a shit who’s gay and who’s not.  Let ‘em serve, say the masses!  So, what’s going on here, America?  Have all those over-the-top homophiles in TV-land, the folks who gave us Ellen and Ru Paul and Glee, finally pushed the nation’s acceptance levels up into the gay-positive, or at least gay-tolerant range?  Well if so – kudos!  A little neutral ground in the Culture War established …. so that more bodies can be free to fight actual wars, I suppose (but that’s another topic for another day).

Wait, what’s that now?  Some old school tight ass white guys are saying No-No-No to a repeal, you say?  General George Casey, a few other military higher ups, and old “Jumpy” John McCain are against it?  Huh.  I guess they don’t watch Glee.  Wait a minute, I see what’s going on here!  Sounds like we can take that old “Generation Gap” out of storage after all, put it on display on the mantel maybe, at least through the holidays.  Nice to see it has a little life left in it, if only for sentimentality’s sake.  But the novelty will wear off soon, no doubt.

Let’s hope so.

 

how Black is your Friday?

Every year, round about this time, I am re-reminded how many people – close friends, even – go absolutely apeshit over this Black Friday business.  Since I manage to spend a good deal of the year deluded by the naive faith that most folks are hip to the fact that The Man is out to keep them down via a blind devotion to consumerism at all costs, I am always sincerely astonished when Thanksgiving rolls around. It’s then that I again realize, oh yeah, I am deluded.

must ... have ... it

How ironic that Black Friday immediately follows one of the humblest of holidays.  A lovely day to spend with family & friends,reflect on how most of us Americans have it fairly good, despite recent financial debacles, and hopefully have a nice meal.  I’ve also heard told that there’s a tradition among some to watch and/or participate in something called “football,” which is reportedly especially bonding among male family members who would otherwise have nothing to share with each other.  Anyway, it can’t help be noted that the boring congeniality of Thanksgiving must always give way to the sheer excitement of shopping hysteria on a national scale.

Black Friday indeed. Sounds like the name of a Sisters of Mercy song.  It seems to me that the titular ominous blackness of this celebrated day does not really refer so much to the experience of the vendors, who will have total chaos ensue within their stores, or even the hapless shoppers, who not only get sucked into a spirit of mass panic, but  have been known to be stampeded, punched, and inappropriately manhandled in various ways on this special day.   No, I think the darkness inferred in the name, Black Friday, is more rightly directed at our consumer culture in general.  There is something inherently disturbed about a society that validates, in fact codifies massive over-consumption as a treasured national tradition.

But, ahem. Please let me clarify that I am as turned on by buying shit (or more rightly, the possibility of buying shit, since my unemployment checks aren’t doing much to facilitate actual buying right now)  as the next American. iPhones and personalized steak branders and Fluevog shoes (especially Fluevogs) are hella cool.  I also like to have an occasional glass of wine, too, but I sure as hell ain’t setting my alarm at 4 a.m. to go on a 14-hour Chardonnay binge.  Let’s just take it down a few notches, people.

Actually, why not take it all the way down?  The BEST way to save money on the official first day of the holiday shopping season?  Don’t fucking buy anything.  Omigod, omigod  …. deep breath and …. ahhhhhhh.  Now doesn’t that feel better?

Happy Thanksgivin’, and Keep on Disgruntlin’!

 

Women of a Certain Age

Lo and behold, Cougarin’ has gone mainstream!  Apparently the appropriate Cougar demographics have been identified as viewers of History Channel International, because that’s where I saw it, in full glorious color: an advertisement  for CougarLife.com.  My interest was, to say the least, quite piqued: it seems that , much in the same way that the gay community commandeered the former pejorative “queer” for their own empowerment, the older-women-who-love-younger-men crowd are taking public pride in their cradle-robbing ways.  Hmmm.  So many angles from which to examine this phenomenon, I don’t really know where to start.

First off, the personal:  Am I a Woman of a Certain Age?  Most definitely.  Am I anywhere near as hot as the supposed Cougars featured in the TV ad?  Certainly not.  Actually, on first glance it seemed unlikely that said hotties in the commercial were much over 30, but what with the plastic surgery, expensive makeup , and enhanced nutritional supplements the modern age has to offer, it can be quite hard to tell the 20-somethings from the 40-somethings these days.  Yet if you can’t necessarily tell them apart, aesthetically speaking, then what would compel a younger man to proactively pursue us smoldering oldies?

Oh, duh – money.  It’s the same deal as with the Trophy Bride scenario, just in reverse.  Silly me, for a minute there I was considering a feminist, sexual empowerment slant to the story.  Well, I guess to some degree there is one:  in examining the CougarLife website (which aims to pair “women in their prime with younger men, and end the double standard!”), it is immediately clear that in the Cougar community, the balance of power is solidly weighted in women’s favor.  But somehow I doubt that the Freedom to Cougar was at the top of the agenda for the early leaders of the women’s movement.  We still haven’t had a ball-less American in the White House, but goddammit, who needs that when a woman of 50 can bed any hot young man she chooses?

CougarLife.com is essentially a dating service, geared to both Cougars and their “Cubs” (which, by the way, is the same term used for hairy young men pursued by older, presumably even hairier men within the Bear community, so the Cougars might want to consider a more original and less gay pet name for their arm candy).  While I felt compelled to search beyond the site’s homepage, primarily to see if there were any women listed there who didn’t just look like digitally aged versions of unnaturally blonde starlets, a vague sense of paranoia prevented me.  I didn’t want to taint my laptop with trace evidence of recent trawling though the annals of CougarLife.com.  I mean what if I was murdered tomorrow and the police needed to search through my stuff in solving the crime?  Not only would their discovery posthumously embarrass me to no end, it would lead them way off track and the perp might never be found.

However I readily admit to ogling the hot young Cubs on the homepage, if only momentarily.  Somehow I don’t think that the 26 year-old Capricorn from Toronto, with the ” Body Type: Athletic” and multiple photos of biceps featured  in his profile would sustain much long-term interest for me.  Oh, but wait, he does have a Bachelor’s Degree.  Though I think I can safely assume that stimulating conversation probably isn’t what most of these women are looking for  (” To snare a true Cougar a man needs to be youthful, fit, unintimidated and of course sexually driven!”).  Such a desire is predicated on the questionable assumption that hot young guys are tops in the sack.  How did this rumor ever get started?  While in some cases it may prove true, I posit that stamina doesn’t necessarily make up for experience.  Do you want a long, boring plane ride or a go-round on a roller coaster?  I’m just sayin’.

And I don’t know about you, sister, but as I recall, all the male contemporaries I dated in my 20′s turned out to be royal pains in the ass.  If they’re not obsessively tripping out over your past boyfriends or sponging off of you while they take their time finding themselves, then they’re hitting on your friends – sometimes those of both genders – and complaining that The Man is keeping them down.  My Cougar friends, do you really want to go there again?  Take a look at the choice stock of  salt-and-pepper man-pals around you.  Sure, many of them still ride skateboards to work and are just as hot for PlayStation as they are for the ladies, but they’ve got time in their favor, like a fine wine.  And they know a lot of stuff, if you get my drift.

Rowr.