I ask where he grew up. He says California. He says he'll leave as soon as he gets the chance. He looks about 19 years old. Maybe 20. Could be 17. When I ask where, he says anywhere that is not the United States. I ask what is wrong with the United States. He says there are too many laws, too much censorship. I ask him where else he has been, thinking he will justify his answer with his experience with foreign lands being less oppressive. He says Florida, Hawaii (twice), Cancun and... Mexico. He is answering with candid seriousness. I tell him that I travel a lot and there are parts of the United States that aren't so bad. I ask him what kind of laws are oppressive. He says California has cameras everywhere and that they take your picture when you run a red light. He says he has a device on his license plate that blurs the picture. He proceeds to explain that the guys who put up those cameras aren't even cops, that they put them there and then sit around all day waiting, watching. He clarifies that as soon as you run that red light, they snap a picture of you. My mind begins to drift. I decide that if this really were the case, if the cameras weren't just sensor-driven, these guys might be called something like Sensor-Breaker Detectors. Or SBD's for short. Then guys like the kid who's driving me to the airport in his blurry jeep would nickname them Son of a Bitch Dudes who watch over and me and make sure I don't run red lights. I begin to wonder if Blurry Jeep kid has sensors mixed up with censors. I wonder if the SBD's internally censure us after a while for our lack of respect for others' safety.
I ask him how he is censored. He says there are too many ways to explain. I ask for one. He thinks a minute and then admits that he cannot think of one at the moment. I change the subject because I begin to feel as if I am accusing him of something, even though I was really just curious where he grew up. I say I have never been this early to the airport. He asks what I am going to do with 4 hours. I begin to list things... read, write, stare into no where. I tell him I have a hard time getting bored, so I don't mind the waiting. He asks what I like to read. I tell him short stories, funny ones. I ask him what kind of books he likes to read. He says he's never finished a book. He says he never really got into it because in school, his teachers would always make him read things he didn't want to read. I tell him when I am an English teacher, I won't force kids to read things they won't like. He says that'd be cool.
When we get to the airport, he asks me what airline I am flying on. Of course, I don't know, because sometimes I am not completely primed with my travel information, so I pull out my laptop. Delta. I go up to the Delta counter and they are looking at me like a disoriented owl. They ask me what I want. I think to myself, isn't it pretty obvious? I tell them I'd like to check in. They tell me there are no more flights tonight. It hits me that maybe I am not flying out of Oakland. There are about eighty airports in the vicinity of San Francisco. I take out my laptop again and right above Delta, it tells me SFO. I guess it was a good thing I left 5 hours early.
Along my BART ride, I think about my ride to the airport. I wonder if this kid will ever give America a chance. I wonder if he'll ever feel the need to read a book, all the way through. I wonder if I judged him for the things he said, but realize I didn't really. I liked him. I liked how he had a tenacity, a passion in life, even if it was against something. I think having passion, even if misdirected, is better than being apathetic. I wonder at what moment in his life will that passion be challenged and he'll have to decide to deviate or alleviate it. I hope he just redirects it and doesn't let it dwindle into indifference. This may sound a bit extreme, but I wonder if he had only had a better english teacher . . .
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Friday, May 08, 2009
What do you do when you pull the X Q Z from the Scrabble bag?
Plans shift. It's been said to "Expect the Unexpected." To me, this is an apparent paradox, because if you expect the unexpected, then isn't it then expected? Well, what I gather from such a proverb is this advice: be open to shifts. Anyone who knows me knows my middle name should be shift. I PUT ON THE TEMPORARY CAPS LOCK EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE. and sometimes i never touch it. I live for the shift. I live in shift. But I'm not shifty - I am candid and frank. Just call me Candid Frank. Or I guess I'd be Candid Shift Frank, since Shift is my middle name.
... I digress - I was on my way to Chico, CA on Thursday to do some hiking, reading, writing, relaxing and catching up with my friend Malia. On my way, I gave her a call only to find she was in Sacramento with her friend from high school, Adelle. My route took me right through Sac, so I decided to take a pit stop. We ended up chatting on the back porch with wine and sunshine, going out for delicious deep dish pizza and playing a tenacious game of Scrabble before sleeps. Chico got put on hold.
I am sure anyone who finds interest in sitting around a square board made out of tan, salmon pink, baby blue and (the ultimate) red squares, placing a mixture of their 7 wooden squares in vertical or horizontal patterns, so as to maximize points, knows the importance of X Q & Z.
During this Sacramento game of Scrabble, I happened to pull all three of these letters throughout the game - two in the first scoop! And like any rusty scrabbler who hasn't practiced, played or read the dictionary lately, I whined and moaned that I wasn't getting the proper proportion of vowels to consonants. About 3/4's of the way through the game, I inquired about the score. Bookkeeper Malia informed me that I was in the lead- a hefty dozen points ahead of her (she grew up in Indiana... she's goood.) After the game was over, and I won, I thought about what it means to pull those three valuable yet vexatious letters.
It's really about luck of the draw in getting those letters. But I've seen people MacGyver their way to number one out of the scrabble pack with slim pickins of one-point letters (such persons go by the pseudonyms of 'Mom' and 'Maloeuia'). Life really is about taking what you are given and making the best out of it. When you reach into that Stygian Scrabble bag, you have no way of knowing what to expect. You, therefore, can truly expect the unexpected.
Although I did come out on top with the high-dollar letters I was given, it's not easy to place a Q without having a U.
Which reminds me of a poem I once read in a cartoon strip when I was little. I think it may be the only poem I've ever memorized. The cartoon was a little ant reading a poem about his favorite letter to a classroom full of other ants, who probably had other favorite letters. For instance, I found out last week that Rachel and I share the same favorite letter: g.
"If I could be a letter,
I would be a Q -
as letters go
it don't seem Q's
have all that much to do
Mostly they get used in words
for doctors and for ducks
(which may well be the only time
that Q's get any yucks.)
Q's are never all alone in anything they do
'cause everything you find a Q
it's followed by a U.
Privacy is not a thing
I've ever been too keen on.
I'd rather know
when I feel low
that I got U to lean on."
I don't know who wrote this brilliant masterpiece of a poem, but he obviously touched me. I'm in a lot of debt because of that ant's poem.
Anyway, do the best you can with whatever you grab outta' the Scrabble bag of life. Quit complaining about your vowel ratio.
Sidenote: all my hopes dreams and aspirations of my purpose in the Scrabble world were shattered that night when Adelle reminded me that I could never get a SCRABBLE with the word S-E-Q-U-O-I-A (7 letters and uses only ALL the vowels and an 'S'... only word lovers will really get why this would be so exciting for me) because Sequoia is a proper noun. No proper nouns allowed in Scrabble. How discriminatory. I am going to invent my own Scrabble game called Babble. The poets' version of Scrabble, where everything is allowed. All languages, slangs, nouns and names allowed. And maybe I won't use squares - I'll use triangles or something . . .
(One may notice how wonderfully fluid and easy to follow my brain has become since I stopped writing college essays. Right.)
Goodnight Oakland!
... I digress - I was on my way to Chico, CA on Thursday to do some hiking, reading, writing, relaxing and catching up with my friend Malia. On my way, I gave her a call only to find she was in Sacramento with her friend from high school, Adelle. My route took me right through Sac, so I decided to take a pit stop. We ended up chatting on the back porch with wine and sunshine, going out for delicious deep dish pizza and playing a tenacious game of Scrabble before sleeps. Chico got put on hold.
I am sure anyone who finds interest in sitting around a square board made out of tan, salmon pink, baby blue and (the ultimate) red squares, placing a mixture of their 7 wooden squares in vertical or horizontal patterns, so as to maximize points, knows the importance of X Q & Z.
During this Sacramento game of Scrabble, I happened to pull all three of these letters throughout the game - two in the first scoop! And like any rusty scrabbler who hasn't practiced, played or read the dictionary lately, I whined and moaned that I wasn't getting the proper proportion of vowels to consonants. About 3/4's of the way through the game, I inquired about the score. Bookkeeper Malia informed me that I was in the lead- a hefty dozen points ahead of her (she grew up in Indiana... she's goood.) After the game was over, and I won, I thought about what it means to pull those three valuable yet vexatious letters.
It's really about luck of the draw in getting those letters. But I've seen people MacGyver their way to number one out of the scrabble pack with slim pickins of one-point letters (such persons go by the pseudonyms of 'Mom' and 'Maloeuia'). Life really is about taking what you are given and making the best out of it. When you reach into that Stygian Scrabble bag, you have no way of knowing what to expect. You, therefore, can truly expect the unexpected.
Although I did come out on top with the high-dollar letters I was given, it's not easy to place a Q without having a U.
Which reminds me of a poem I once read in a cartoon strip when I was little. I think it may be the only poem I've ever memorized. The cartoon was a little ant reading a poem about his favorite letter to a classroom full of other ants, who probably had other favorite letters. For instance, I found out last week that Rachel and I share the same favorite letter: g.
"If I could be a letter,
I would be a Q -
as letters go
it don't seem Q's
have all that much to do
Mostly they get used in words
for doctors and for ducks
(which may well be the only time
that Q's get any yucks.)
Q's are never all alone in anything they do
'cause everything you find a Q
it's followed by a U.
Privacy is not a thing
I've ever been too keen on.
I'd rather know
when I feel low
that I got U to lean on."
I don't know who wrote this brilliant masterpiece of a poem, but he obviously touched me. I'm in a lot of debt because of that ant's poem.
Anyway, do the best you can with whatever you grab outta' the Scrabble bag of life. Quit complaining about your vowel ratio.
Sidenote: all my hopes dreams and aspirations of my purpose in the Scrabble world were shattered that night when Adelle reminded me that I could never get a SCRABBLE with the word S-E-Q-U-O-I-A (7 letters and uses only ALL the vowels and an 'S'... only word lovers will really get why this would be so exciting for me) because Sequoia is a proper noun. No proper nouns allowed in Scrabble. How discriminatory. I am going to invent my own Scrabble game called Babble. The poets' version of Scrabble, where everything is allowed. All languages, slangs, nouns and names allowed. And maybe I won't use squares - I'll use triangles or something . . .
(One may notice how wonderfully fluid and easy to follow my brain has become since I stopped writing college essays. Right.)
Goodnight Oakland!
Thursday, May 07, 2009
inter-coastal
Last week, while Rachel and I were wandering around San Francisco, Autumn called me to talk about the next leg of my trip. She gave me a few options: bum around the west coast for a week, then up to Portland. Or fly to NYC for the Yoga Journal Conference, then back to Portland and be all 'inter-coastal' about it.
When weighing these decisions in my head, I think of two things: What will be best for ATD? and How will it benefit me? Generally, whenever I am given these choices or asked if I can be here there then somewhere else, I just abide. The dude abides.
And I'd like to say it's because I am easy going or make the best of all situations ... while it may be a bit of these two, I think, in all honesty, it is more about my curiosity. I make the decision that will provide more adventure, more dislocation, more uncertainty. My curiosity overrides my apprehension like an overweight bully on the elementary school see-saw. As much as my mind wants to catch up with itself from time to time, it still wants to be stimulated and overwhelmed with the unfamiliar and what beauty that the not-yet-revealed has to unravel. Like Proust decided to do with Remembrance of Things Past, live first, then write. The writer is the arrangeur, but first, the manger, french for arrange and to eat, respectively. We arrange matters after we feed off of the world.
. . .
As I said, I do consider the company I work for first, because they are the wonderful women that provide me with the opportunity to travel around with beautiful flowing clothes and help women embrace loving the skin they live in. That's how I see what I do - and I am thankful every day that I am afforded the opportunity.
When weighing these decisions in my head, I think of two things: What will be best for ATD? and How will it benefit me? Generally, whenever I am given these choices or asked if I can be here there then somewhere else, I just abide. The dude abides.
And I'd like to say it's because I am easy going or make the best of all situations ... while it may be a bit of these two, I think, in all honesty, it is more about my curiosity. I make the decision that will provide more adventure, more dislocation, more uncertainty. My curiosity overrides my apprehension like an overweight bully on the elementary school see-saw. As much as my mind wants to catch up with itself from time to time, it still wants to be stimulated and overwhelmed with the unfamiliar and what beauty that the not-yet-revealed has to unravel. Like Proust decided to do with Remembrance of Things Past, live first, then write. The writer is the arrangeur, but first, the manger, french for arrange and to eat, respectively. We arrange matters after we feed off of the world.
. . .
As I said, I do consider the company I work for first, because they are the wonderful women that provide me with the opportunity to travel around with beautiful flowing clothes and help women embrace loving the skin they live in. That's how I see what I do - and I am thankful every day that I am afforded the opportunity.
without the rules
Besides Arcata/Eureka's kick-ass radio station KHUM 'radio without the rules', (which made me want to stay at Patrick's Point in Trinidad, just so we could listen) Humboldt County has too much to offer for a mere 3 day trip.
Gigantic conifers with more tourist attractions than Disney World. Brown bears that amble down the road in front of my clearly audible, crappy rental car. Snail colonies. Lost rocks. Big Rivers. The Immense Pacific Ocean. Onomatopoetic waves. Sprawling, scrawling succulent communities. Banananut slug climbers. Rainforest hike/slides. Grey granular sand. Ampersand-shaped petrified wood. Wholly evil petrified wood. Dismantled skeleton petrified wood. Bullfrogs behind the beach campfire. And of course... buddies to hang in the rain with.
Rachel, Rachel and Luke decided about as last minute as possible that weather should never impede on a trip. The plan began as a shifty "Meet ya' in NorCal around Sunday night." Well, give three Alaksans a '70 VW van, shoddy directions and a negligible map of Portland, OR and they will easily double their travel time. They will also own the most Zach Morris, pre-historic of cellular technology.
But give a road warrior another night and morning alone and she'll easily meet a bear, see a few slugs, visit a hidden beach, hike for four hours in the Redwoods, drive under a tree and finally run across Marvin (said '70 VW bus above) in a Diner parking lot in Klamath California.
It was my first time meeting Rachel's friends Luke and Rachel. One of the first things Luke said out loud near me was something like "I think it is impossible to get bored." I wanted to walk up to his face and exclaim "Finally! Someone who thinks straight!" Here's a photo-slideshow of how Springtime weather in a Rain Forest doesn't have to ruin anyone's fun
Gigantic conifers with more tourist attractions than Disney World. Brown bears that amble down the road in front of my clearly audible, crappy rental car. Snail colonies. Lost rocks. Big Rivers. The Immense Pacific Ocean. Onomatopoetic waves. Sprawling, scrawling succulent communities. Banananut slug climbers. Rainforest hike/slides. Grey granular sand. Ampersand-shaped petrified wood. Wholly evil petrified wood. Dismantled skeleton petrified wood. Bullfrogs behind the beach campfire. And of course... buddies to hang in the rain with.
Rachel, Rachel and Luke decided about as last minute as possible that weather should never impede on a trip. The plan began as a shifty "Meet ya' in NorCal around Sunday night." Well, give three Alaksans a '70 VW van, shoddy directions and a negligible map of Portland, OR and they will easily double their travel time. They will also own the most Zach Morris, pre-historic of cellular technology.
But give a road warrior another night and morning alone and she'll easily meet a bear, see a few slugs, visit a hidden beach, hike for four hours in the Redwoods, drive under a tree and finally run across Marvin (said '70 VW bus above) in a Diner parking lot in Klamath California.
It was my first time meeting Rachel's friends Luke and Rachel. One of the first things Luke said out loud near me was something like "I think it is impossible to get bored." I wanted to walk up to his face and exclaim "Finally! Someone who thinks straight!" Here's a photo-slideshow of how Springtime weather in a Rain Forest doesn't have to ruin anyone's fun
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