The Reflections of a Wet Sewer Rat

Dear Readers and Self,

This is a freewrite so please do not be bothered by the lack of structure and/or relevancy.

I spent a very nice evening with a great friend discussing dreams, grad school, Napoleon, and whatever else came to mind. Beer and coffee, talk and turkey burgers with a truly great friend. My walk home was a mite less pleasant. Twenty minutes walking in a summer downpour! It’s ironic that one topic over coffee had been my desire to start swimming again. Blasted big mouth of mine. My sandaled feet splashed through disgusting NYC street run-off water and I had nothing to cover me. If I possessed ESP (like Vincent) then I might have heard passing (dry) drivers in their fast cars wonder if I was an oversized (albeit colorful) sewer rat. Thank Goddess that my tank top was blue and my skirt grey!

This is what my Pandora played for me while I swam:

• Mos Def – Do It Now
• Lil Wayne – Lollipop
• Jay-Z – Dirt Off Your Shoulder
• Heiruspecs – Heartsprings
• Alicia Keys – If I Ain’t Got You
• Kanye West – Get Em High

While part of my mind enjoyed the sounds, another part remembered the rain back home. Today I missed it terribly! Getting caught in the rain in Oregon is inexpressibly refreshing. It’s cooler than New York City and so much cleaner. The rain feels good to the touch. I can’t really describe it. Maybe it feels softer or kinder or friendly. Memories echo with familiar laughter while we run for cover. I remember the scent of wet pavement, damp soil and soaked wind. Can’t forget the pine trees! That’s the smell of home and it’s a blessed thing to breathe. The sky becomes grey and the spectrum of greens darkens a bit but it’s vibrant still! I do miss that rain.

Still, I won’t be ungrateful. I have felt burdened to write but blocked from doing it well. This brutish downpour emboldened me to just put something together. It is good to write even if it is not masterful.

I read this blog entry today that I intend to take to heart. She has vowed to reposition the hater in her head as not just against her but against all women:

“I’m going to consciously banish that creepy, self-hating voice from my head and ask myself each time I want to succumb to it’s[sic] lull if I would say to a fellow woman such awful things.”

I got to practice this idea moments after marveling over it.

My first reaction: “Wow, what a phenomenal way to think about it! How simple but true!”

Second: “Alia, you’re so stupid for not having considered it like this before! How could you be so small-minded!”

Third: “Wait a second here…”

I thank Shelby Knox. Pandora. My great friend. Rain. And the Goddess.

Chess-oaching, Crazpeories and Miss-Commune-ication

Chess-oaching

The Ultimate Chess Game. Gah!

Last night, I was struck by an analogy. Since I got the call about coaching upstate, I have been chewing on the situation that this Worlds debate team is in. It is very different from what I come from. A competitive situation. What is the best way to balance between a large, well established Policy team and a small, infantile Worlds team? Funding and coaching are both finite. Most of all, I worry about the attitudes that the existent imbalance has potentially bred. Certainly some of the Worlds debaters perceive that they have been slighted. This is the problem I’ve been mulling over. So far… mugwump.

Clearly, there are numerous ways to coach. Choosing the best one for a team depends on the specific needs of the members and the situation of the group (duh). Considering what I know (dear lord, there’s so much that I don’t!) I should be able to decipher the appropriate attitude. Play out in my mind how this could work and what that would look like. This fictitious situation, that made-up scene, posturing here and there in the future I can imagine. It’s like a chess game. By the time this thought hit me, my head was on the pillow and I was hoping that sleep would come soon to mollify all of the active questions in my head… even if only for the night. Fail! I hate chess. Mostly because I’m really bad at it in a family that’s largely gifted at such strategy games. Took me awhile to fall asleep.

I woke up unmollified. A Harry Potter scale chess game was probably featured in a dream or two. Additionally, I woke up at six in the morning with no reason to. SO… I picked up a new book that Steve gave me (in a batch of a bunch which I am excited about). I should have continued reading the book I started last night (The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros) but I felt ambitious. Now I feel confused. I read the first third of The Spirit of Terrorism by Baudrillard and am entirely lost.

Crazy People with Theories = Crazpeories

The man, the myth, the... what is he talking about?

Oh dear Jaime, who on Earth is this man and what in Hell is he talking about?

I don’t understand what a terroristic situational transfer is. He writes pretty but it seems like smoke and mirrors thinking. He is characterizing 9-11 as something unfamiliar to me and the American power as nothing human. All humans as nothing human. Are there persons in his world? Are there hearts and consciences? Can they decide not to imagine the same kind of destruction terrorists wrought? Not to secretly want it? Not to openly want it?

The part I like the best/am confused the most by so far:

“…what other way is there but a terroristic situational transfer? It was the system itself which created the objective conditions for this brutal retaliation. By seizing all the cards for itself, it forced the Other to change the rules. And the new rules are fierce ones, because the stakes are fierce. … This is terror against terror – there is no longer any ideology behind it…”

The parts I left out between are the parts that detail (I think) what the symbolism of the attacks did and how the system reacted in much the same (?).I’ll work chew on the rest of it after the festivities of graduation. A coffee date is sure to result. Bueno!

Mis-commune-ication in the family

The yellow one smiles. He doesn't even know.

The rest of my thoughts concern the family that is visiting my sister and me in New York for my graduation this Sunday. My parents and my paternal grandmother are loving but different from me. When we showed our parents our tiny apartment my sister was comforted that I was listening to a cursing rap song (Thanks, Korey!). It set a tone, she explained, that this is our lifestyle in our own home and, though it’s different, we would like it if you accepted us in it. After dinner, I talked up Em’s song Renegade to my dad last night (or tried to). What an uphill battle! And it’s really not worth it. Alana and I know that they will never understand the worlds we talk about, the ones we are fascinated by. The problem probably goes both ways. They will continue to voice the same opinions we’ve heard all this time:

The cursing means I don’t listen to it.

We set examples in the Church for young people and have to be careful.

I have nothing in common with that person, those people and/or that question you’re asking.

And we will each voice our own.

But something will change after this weekend. After today even! Today I will tour mom and dad around campus and reveal the physical world which housed/s the symbolic and spiritual world that transformed me. I will relay memories and excitement. Through the rain, my smile will persist because that building and this bench they are so much more than I can ever explain to you, Mom and Dad! This teacher you are meeting now, he asked me this question and opened that window. Don’t ask me about that bush or that wall because there is still residual memories there from the Love I had and gave up and it still hurts. Enjoy this cup of coffee instead and soak in the atmosphere that stimulated me. Know that the most exciting part of campus will not be the bookstore even though the St. John’s Dad Sweater looks great on you. This tour will not be about the school… for me. It will be an introductory course to your daughter.
And this is what saddens me most. The summers I spent in Hillsboro were frustrating but I thought that if only you could be in my world then you would understand. Today, you will see it but you will not feel it. There are limitations to my communication. I can’t transfer what I want to into your brains. I hope that you learn a little bit more today but I am prepared for the rift to be frustrating. We are permanently in different worlds. I don’t understand why that makes me so sad but it does.