Aventures in Animism (picspam day.. um.. continued)

...Because I just finished Bunny's sweater.



Doesn't he look handsome?

And while I'm at it..

Fred and Albert over Christmas:


(Albert looked like something out of Dr. Seuss. I thought this was a romantic shot.)

Clearly, I have spent the last two days drinking tea on the sofa while knitting and watching the first couple seasons of Ballykissangel. It's the only explanation.


Important: tomorrow is international Pi day (get it? 3.14?) and also Albert Einstein's birthday (another reason I had to post Albert pics). Double-geek holiday! We are making pies (HA HA), and if I can manage to get Chris to suffer it, watching Young Einstein.

And Wednesday, of course, is St. Patrick's Day. I may omit the traditional recipe/music/something maudlin post, this year; please take it as read! I will be cooking, singing, and drinking well into the night.

LOVE!

Hair

This is my fifth attempt at writing this post. I hope this is the healthier, happier, more positive version:

Hair can be healthy.

Hair on a female body is not more unclean than hair on a male body; women who do not shave are not somehow unhygienic, and will not smell any worse than anyone else who does not shave. Hair on a female body does not grow longer than hair on a male body; left unchecked, it will not dangle several feet or turn into an underarm fright wig. Like male body hair, it will grow, stop being stubbly, soften, and stop getting longer, just like all the rest of the hair on every other part of every other body.

It is not somehow natural or inherently right to remove hair: women have not been shaving forever, and in the US, shaving underarms started with ad campaigns in the 1910's, and leg shaving sometime during WWII. Hair has served an evolutionary purpose in our history; before it thinned out, it served to warm us, and it still makes us more sensitive to our surroundings. Thicker patches help regulate temperature and carry pheromones out to other members of our species, which those of us prone to smelling one another can find to be a positive experience.

Women who do not shave are not messy or lazy; they have a variety of reasons for not shaving, aesthetic, political, social, or sensual. They are not by some strange commutative property overweight and unattractive. They are not unmatchable, as far as mates are concerned, whatever their gender of preference. There are plenty of people who don't care, who don't mind, who come to understand, who slightly prefer, who appreciate, or who adore body hair. They have a variety of reasons for that, too.

Hair is not the enemy. Hair can be fun; hair can be pretty; hair can be sexy. Hair can be soft, gentle, and comfortable. Hair can be confident and strong. Hair can be wild and feral; hair can be demure and tidy. It can be feminine; it can be feminist. It can be sweet and it can be stubborn. Hair can be anything we want it to be, and we do not have to hate it or be afraid of it. It is ours to do anything we like with. If that happens to be removing it, then happy hunting. And if not, it is ours to keep in peace and pleasure and thrift and comfort and anything else we like.

I FINISHED THE SHAWL!

Pic spam, I can't help it:



YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSS!

And then Arthur helpfully modeled the shawl:



...and so did Chris!




...And one more vamping it up, just for fun:



I started this damn thing in August and put it down (several times), but now it is finishéd, and I love it to pieces. I think I should wear it absolutely everywhere, for a while, and just preen. RAVELYMPIC GOOOOOLD!

Pic spam day, part one: Impossible Cuteness of a Cat Nature

I haven't shared photos in a long time.

I have a lot.

So easiest may be to do it in waves, and just link you to pics on photobucket. So round one:
The kitten album.

If you want to just ooh and awww at all the collected sweetness (or rather, the fraction of the collected sweetness I have uploaded over the years - they just had their second birthday, btw!), you can go there and peruse new and old at your leisure. But here are the new additions broken down:

Alex thinks Chris is a chair and a catbed. (Or maybe a jungle gym, s'hard to say.) Alex is also huge.

They are both impossibly snuggly, with one another and with us.

Talk about love, man.

But here's one pic of them being both impossibly snuggly and impossibly cute. HB (the stuffed Bunny) is in the pic with them.

One, two, three: Awwwwwww



Later today (possibly): a very Fred and Albert Christmas, a very monochrome Halloween, and at least one good picture of my enormous, FINISHED, Blocking-as-We-Speak shawl.

Man I'm behind.

LOVE to you all!

SWEETNESS!

Mom called to point this out to me.

This photo which I link is from the website of J.R. Celski, USA Olympic Speedskating Bronze Medalist and All-Around Cutie-Pie.

Three boys in this picture. Said Cutie-Pie is on the left. And the shaggy-haired delinquent on the right...

(Lakewood in the house!)

...is my baby* cousin!

Is it not a small world?

(Cousin has talked about his friend a number of times in recent memory, including mentioning the Olympics. It took me until about four days ago to put it together. Or rather, for my mom to call and remind me, and me then remember. Go me!)

I estimate they were maybe 14 in this picture, and are obviously a lot more grown up and (at least in cousin's case) significantly less shaggy. Ah, how the time flies...


*He is not really so much a baby, being something absurdly like 21, but I retain the right to label him in this way, because I remember his birth. It counts!


ETA: The more I look at this picture, the more I am certain I have met this boy at least once. Probably briefly, while said boys were transiting through (as teen boys do) from one door to the next during a family function. I could easily be making this up, though.

Memo to Meg:

Your priorities are (according to your ad spots that I cannot seem to escape) to create and keep jobs, cut government spending, and fix education...

And you say you're disappointed to see how far California has fallen, in the 'many years' you've been here, and that you want to bring us back to where we were...

But I gotta' help you out with your California history, here. Or else with your connective logic; I'm not sure where the problem is.

Do you know when California had the best educational system in the country, Meg? With incredible access to higher ed and successful K-12?

When we had higher property taxes. Before we decided we needed 2/3 of the legislature to approve any tax or fee or pass a budget, rather than a simple majority, but that a simple majority could cut a tax or fee, or write in corporate loopholes. Before we started giving corporate welfare to Wal-Mart.

Yes, on the surface, our business tax is very high, in CA. Much higher than other places. But the effective tax rate - after all of the gaping loopholes - is one of the lowest in the country.

Yes, we had very high property tax rates, in the '70s. But now, they're (again) one of the lowest in the country.

Our spending per pupil has also dropped to 49th. We were first in the nation, when our K-12 was dazzling. You know what property taxes paid for in California?

Education.

Our budget crisis is not a crisis of excessive spending; there is no public spending left. Our budget crisis is a crisis of inadequate inflow.

So the second point is a point of connections.

Education--all education in California--is critically, criminally underfunded. Access has been destroyed, as individual costs have skyrocketed and funding has crashed. Education is a large part of the public sector - a little over half of our general fund goes there (which makes sense; we have 6,259,972 students in public K-12 alone - add in 191,000 in UC, and 417,112 at CSU, and around 2,500,000 students in our community colleges; around 9.4 million students all told.)

"Education" is government spending. It cannot be cut any further. Even Schwarzenegger has accepted this point. It's been cut too far; we cut so far we screwed ourselves out of stimulus funding, if that's not the irony to beat all ironies. We've cut so far that we've failed to follow our own laws about how great a percentage of high school students we will accept into higher ed.

So I guess what I mean to say is this: You cannot both cut government spending and fix education. You cannot both cut government spending and take us back "to where we were." You certainly can't create a corporate capitalist version of tax utopia and fix the schools.

And I'm so, so disappointed that you have so much money that I'm seeing YOUR ads all over TV already, and have yet to see a spot for Jerry Brown.

(Brown, by the way, was governor when we DID have a functioning educational system, when we were rolling in the fucking milk and honey. If you want things back "the way they were," maybe you should throw some funding behind him, hm?)




Now. Back to my Olympics (and consequently, my Ravelympics: I'm participating in Event WIP Dancing, though if I get far enough ahead, I may take up some Event Sock Hockey or Hat Halfpipe - wish me luck!). Just needed to get that out, first.

JCS; Makala

TED FUCKING NEELEY - TONIGHT. In frickin' Modesto. Jesus Christ Superstar here we come!!!!!

Also: ukelele! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

This is my day. This is a good day.

PINK STAG W BLK BOA

Electric Moose Disco would be a great band name.

It doesn't fit the usual pattern; Chris and I remark on this often, but (three to four syllable adjective) + (one to two syllable noun) is reliable. Esp. in 3 + 1 format.

Viable Frog was the first, and was honestly and seriously considered as a name to use when we started recording the songs wrote (so was Rum and Peaches) before we decided on Paper Cats (which doesn't fit the rule but isn't excluded by it, either). But it always works; they don't even have to make sense, you can just start slinging them together. Here:

Harmonious Finks
Serpentine Pine
Volatile Mercy
Concentric Penguins
Dubious Shoes (that would have to be "The Dubious Shoes," I think)
Carnation Theory
Radical Albert
Windowpane Clams

(....I recognize that carnation and windowpane are nouns, but they do modify the following nouns, so I think that counts.)

Bombastic Bits (also a "The" here, I think)
Delicious Dish
Propagated Fog
Licentious Fig
Blasphemous Rumors (with nods to Depeche Mode)
Psionic Modes
Psychotic Pig
Triumphant Strumpet

I mean, seriously. And all this discovered because of an offhand comment in Zoology lab.

But Electric Moose Disco, despite adding on the formula, is my favorite of the day.

And that one exists because, for two dollars at the Borders, from their Christmas Clearance bin, I bought what is labeled "STAG PINK W BLK BOA" on the back of the tag. ...I will let you just ponder on that a while.


EDIT to add: I recommend wasting a minute on the band name thing. <3

Perspective

I've been attached to CSU Stanislaus since autumn of 2001. I'm fast approaching a decade, although it looks like I won't quite make it, after all. But that's besides.

I have been here nine years, and I have learned a little perspective about this place. I have watched it change, for better and for worse, and I have watched it grow, and I have seen it cut back, and I have kept involved as intimately as I might. I mean to say that I have a depth of feeling about it and a breadth of knowledge about it, and given that, I just want to say this:

In my nine years here, I have met a lot of faculty, and I have met some of my favorite human beings among them--brilliant, humane, funny, kind, conscientious, beautiful, loving, committed, passionate people. And I knew my share of students when attending--of course--but it seems like the students I'm meeting these days are amazing human beings, people who are paying attention with care and wonder to the world around them, souls of peaceful, powerful principle, with energy and devotion and a fullness of love and spirit.

They are the best of this place. They are beautiful. I cherish these people. I know they are the best of us.

There are arguments to be had and fights to fight and slanders to be unwritten and misunderstandings to be reworked, but I have nothing productive to say for that, right now, and it's eating at me a little. I know I cannot by my useless and restless angst make anything better for these often maligned, much maltreated, roundly abused, often libeled, mistrusted, feared, and disdained. I cannot drag the community as a whole kicking and screaming and blinking into an understanding of what is happening here, certainly not by force or by derision or by woe.

All I can do is repeat this: this faculty, these students, they are the best of us. They are the hope of this community, of this state, of this country. They are thoughtful and they are precious, they are wise and they are righteous and they are humble, too. They are beautiful creatures and they deserve love. I love them, and I have loved them, and I will love them still and more and more.

-LOVE

Wonderful New Year

It's a time for introspection, I suppose.

(Wow, was that the most clichéd opening line to a New Year's Blog Post™ ever?)

I'm one of the few who liked 2009 moderately well--primarily because it wasn't 2008, I suppose, but that's me. It was like how in high school I got senioritis out of the way in 10th grade, free to move on to the hell of the final year with better spirits and on stronger footing.

Which is to say: after the disastrous shit fest of loss and death and anxiety and existential distress that 2008 was, 2009 didn't seem so bad, loss of promise of security and onslaught of up-in-the-airness besides. "2010 will be the year to deal with that," I promised myself, by way of making way for what joy and comfort could be had in 2009. I made it the eye of the storm, because if you don't take the time for that sort of thing while you can, it's just going to be that much worse when the easier bit is over. It's always best to take joy when you can get it.

But now 2010 is here and it's time to settle in, I suppose.

State of the household:

There have been, in case you haven't heard from us yet, no takers yet on any of the jobs Chris has applied for. No non-takers, either--no feedback at all. I'm hoping that, because it was the holidays, people were on hiatus and not really making decisions for a little while--or not acting on them if they did. I'm hoping that typing this will shame fate into making me a liar by getting us some responses. Hopefully the next week or two will bring some word, one way or another, so at least so we know where we stand.

I've been a busy bee writing and knitting and drawing and working variously, and generally existing in a holding pattern. Lee--bless his soul--has said that my job is here for me as long as I am, though we don't know how long that is. Part of me (the part that is working through the stages of grief about the thing in no particular order) is bargaining--with no one--about keeping the job even if we've moved. Most of my work, the argument goes, is virtual anyway. All of my work for Consulting is--and sometimes there's a lot of that. My job has grown! My work spans two states and three countries! And you know, most of my local work is (or can be) done online/by mail, as well.

But, says the counter argument, what does that leave? What would be leftover for a replacement to do? Only the physical errands. And a very, very small number of physical errands per month. Which is to say: not much of a job to advertise. While I would love to sit at a distance and do every bit of the database work I can, and maybe swing all of the petty cash by mail, and do all of the little assorted things that come to me online, and have all of my meetings by Skype... I can't imagine many people out there are looking for a few hours a month of bank and post office runs. (Although if they were mailing me receipts to process and hours to code &c...)

...No, probably not.

Not that I won't ask about it, though. I don't want to leave NESsT. Not one bit.

Generally speaking, on the potential move-front, though, I can already see myself making my traditional cutting-my-losses gestures. They've been fended off, 'til now--and maybe it's just the weather right now--but I've really never been good at being a social or material creature, however lonely or packratty I tend to be; my loyalties are few and carefully guarded, and the endangered ones are starting to slip, already, starting to be divided into piles. I'm feeling easily frustrated, easily discouraged, ready to stop going out, ready to sever or loosen ties, ready to give away or sell possessions, ready to consolidate plants into fewer pots, ready to use up or give up or put away--it's a kind of slow and cynical panic. Wouldn't that tree be happier in my mother's yard? Should I really go to knitting group? Maybe I should be popping in on that writing group instead, remind myself how to make new acquaintances. Or maybe I should take a class at the adult school with a finite time limit and little chance for attachments..... . .

Etc.

Maybe we'll start busking at the Borders. It might be a good investment, time-wise. Force us out of shyness, and maybe store a couple bucks for times ahead. Maybe I should start knitting my stash into things I could sell, and have the space, have one less bag to move.

...I feel like I should make resolutions. Like...

No more yarn?

Plot out crafts to use up or clean up debris and unwieldiness?

Focus writing efforts (not exclusively, but regularly) along productive lines. Try to actually finish things.

Vanity: lost ten pounds last year, try for ten more. Or at least five; want to fit in that choir dress comfortably again, in May, in case it's the last time I get to wear it.

Maybe more existential things should go on the list: Like embracing the wanderlust again, so when a move comes I'm not terrified of the leap. Like finding productive ways to divert tension, anxiety, and depression. Like not dwelling on arguments or tense situations in the first place, like not having arguments with imaginary (or at least imagined) opponents in my head. Like not feeling like I have to help fix everyone, or like I'm failing the world if I fail to argue or educate someone out of a perspectiveless vacuum they're existing in. Like letting go a little of the reins and embracing the helplessness. Like not being so afraid.

Get back to the yoga. And stop reading comments on news, politics, and video sites--at all. Seriously. I'm not sure how to get people to stop baiting me, or what the best way to deal with it is when it happens anyway, but I imagine it has to do with a balance between principles re: a topic and principles re: my behavior, and figuring out how much patience is the right amount of patience. I've never been good at that. No one has ever accused me of picking my battles correctly, even though sometimes I'm sure I'm doing exactly that. Not really any telling.

And remember to embrace joy and music and happiness wherever I may find it. Love and be loved and give love. Play with the cats more. Play with Chris more. Play the piano more. Sing more--yes, more. Bring on the wonder.

I hope--I am ever a creature of hope--for the best, for everyone. May you all have a 2010 full of joy and hope and wonder.

Here is a little to start with: Bring on the wonder. - LOVE

Inevitable back-from-holidays post! + appeal for good juju!

Holidays were busy! Basically good! Got to see/phone relatives and friends I haven't seen in a long time, which was really, really nice.

Helplessly reduced version

AV media:
Saw the Hangover, Dark Knight & Star Trek (thank you Carl!), and (for the second time) Hopscotch. Couldn't keep the slash goggles off, on those last two, I'm afraid (I know; I'm sorry. Yes, even Matthau). About ran out to see Sherlock Holmes; barely kept it in my pants. Will break down soon. Got to play my mom some fantastic music, incl. "Madam George" by Van Morrison, which I sometimes get obsessed with (and which she knew, btw, just not by title). Tried to show her some Kids in the Hall but don't think she was thrilled (alas!). Didn't get to show her Alice. Got to play/sings all those holiday songs Chris and I have been working on - we learned some non-depressed ones this year. (Last year or year before we learned "I'll Be Home For Christmas," "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)," and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," mostly to make me cry.) This year we've been working up the light and non-specific stuff: "No Place Like Home For the Holidays," "Let it Snow," "Santa Baby." Picked up last minute some "White Christmas," "Deck the Halls" and "What Child Is This?" because pretty.

Cards:
Learned Euchre! Fun! Played that, Hearts, Pinochle galore. Never did send out cards. :\

Readin', Writin' and 'rithma--well, arts an crafts:
Got to read more Sandman (THANK YOU CARL!). Spent the car ride home on digging into various unfinished chapters. Knit another Möbius (that's number four--third for my mom). Started some gloves with some graciously provided yarn from family friend! Drew random pages I'm not sure I'll be able to use, but would like to at some point. Productive car ride!

Acquisitions department:
Light, which is good. Inherited an old sweater of my dad's that no one's worn in.. well, twelve + years, now, and can't seem to take it off (mostly, it's cold). Thirteenth Christmas without my dad, this year. But my sixth Christmas with Chris. That's amazing to think about, too. Chris, who magically remembers everything I say in even vague "Oh, it might be nice to have a..." got someone a flock of chicks for me, through Heifer International, which I think is the most thoughtful and wonderful gift I've gotten in a long, long time.

Complications:
Among others... Albert.

So we were gone several days, but it was really cold and frosty, and I didn't get a chance to acclimatize Albert to going back outside, and frankly, got selfish and wanted to not have to take down the festive before xmas - and wanted a chance to camp out by the tree with the lights on one night (this will be tonight). So I watered him really well and left him inside.

Our best pals and neighbors house-sat for us, and (totally appropriately) cranked up the heat for the two nights they stayed here from the starvation rations we keep it at, and turned it back down when they left. And the two weeks or so that Albert's been inside is way longer than is suggested. But everything I saw only mentioned the trouble with getting dried out, and I gave him plenty of water, and he seemed springy and healthy.

Apparently the other problem with being inside too long is that a pine tree will start to think it is spring, and break dormancy.

I came home to find Albert covered in beautiful, precious, fluffy sprigs of pale chartreuse all over. He looks impossibly bushy and bright.

How could that be wrong?

Unfortunately, everything I can find now says, "Never let them break dormancy, or they will die when"--mark WILL and WHEN--"you put them outdoors." (Why would you put them outdoors to die if it's inevitable they'd die out there? And how about an "If this happens, you can do x," please?!)

Like a desperate mother, I search for alternative treatments for my doomed and written off and still apparently very happy and healthy (at the moment) baby.

I finally--after pages and pages--found something saying that, if dormancy were to be broken (it was still a cautionary tale), you would have to keep them indoors until chance of frost was over. (Eureka! This, I can do!) ...But that this, too, would cause inevitable death, because surviving an in-home winter and spring is not likely, what with heat and dryness. And that pines tend to need a long wintery rest, which will now have been cut short.

So.

Everybody on the internets is talking doom at my tree.

Everybody on the internets refuses to troubleshoot, and instead, too late, offers me warnings of evil spirits and inevitable death.

So I put it to you that we need to have, on the internets, good juju, and assurances that an Aleppo pine accidentally propelled into an early Spring inside a home that goes really light on the heat and keeps the humidity up and where, in fact, he will get water and be gentled, will not only survive winter but survive Spring, make a peaceful transition back into outdoor life when the temps. aren't so shocking, and, though tired by next winter, will transition into next year's dormancy for a good long rest without much comment beside that. ("Albert will rock the casbah!" in a comment would do very nicely, for instance. Or even just some good wishes generally.)

Or if you have had any experience evading doom or know you some indoorable pine info, please share!

Now, I have spent way too much of my evening online, and need to get to a little gentling-into-sleep-mode and have my (apparently very dangerous) night out by my sweet little Albert. I hope all of y'all have had a wonderful (or at least not-too-stressful) week, whatever you did or did not do with it.

Music and Arts demonstration; student rally

Bless our students at CSU Stanislaus. The arts know how to put on a fucking protest.

This carol came after about an hour of gorgeous, mournful, and sometimes seasonal music from the Chamber Singers (slated to be cut next year) and the Wind Ensemble (slated to be cut next year). Wore all black. Marching in and out, and in between songs, they were silent.

Chris said: "They're holding their own wake."

There is hardly a more beautiful sound in the world than this ensemble singing, and next year, if our cuts roll on, it won't be.



Definitely encourage you to listen/watch. Earlier on in their performance, lyrics included "Fare thee well, my own true love..." and "I am tired, I am weak, I am worn... Take my hand... lead me home," and other sounds of loss and homesickness - music is these students' lives, this school and these programs are their home. I wept like a baby.



Less heart-breaking and amazingly optimistic, here, is Chris (the eternal pessimist). The day before the arts demonstration, there was a huge walkout, rally, and march (couple hundred students), most of the speakers for which are posted online, too. So if you want to see my hot honey being a rabble-rouser, you can here, starting at 3:56. (He is also wearing the first thing I ever knit, that rainbowy scarf.)



(At 6:54, you he's moved just off screen, but you can see three of his students running through to blindside group hug him, which made my day. <3)

...And I'm replying to more innocuous email.

I just received an email from the Office of Alumni Affairs & Annual Giving, asking me to give them money.

The email begins this way:

Your gifts to the CSU Stanislaus Stan Fund directly benefit students in many ways:
1. By recruiting highly qualified faculty who excel as scholars and teachers and work closely with students in the context of a caring community...
(emphasis in original text)


...

...


...So I wrote back.


I appreciate the necessity of giving.  I am afraid I cannot give right now, as my husband is one of these highly qualified faculty, and is being eliminated for the next year--along with all other lecturers at Stanislaus and very likely some of our tenure-track faculty--so we cannot really spare any money at all, right now.

By the way: suggesting any money I gave could in any way go toward RECRUITING faculty any year soon, when the only movement in faculty is going to be outward, is disingenuous, if not an outright lie, and I would suggest you reword in future.

Thank you,
(name)
(major/grad date)



Also in the process of editing my earlier screed for mailing to my state reps, the board of trustees, and the chancellor. (Editing to add context, and, um, specific recommendations and information re: our campus president.) I'll post it (behind a cut, I suppose) when I have it in order and have sent it. I may look into sending a cleaned up version of the original to papers or... something?



UPDATE: I was sent a very nice note back in response by the head of that office, which was much appreciated. I know it's really hard for the staff in these offices, right now, too, and they're doing the best they can to try to raise money for CSUS in hard times - it was good to hear back.

NaNo est finis!

Okay, so not only did I finish 50k within the month, but...

I finished the 50k by last night, with more than 24 hours to spare.

AND, I finished the novel itself today, with some 9 and a quarter hours to go (last year's was not finished until an hour before the deadline for the free copy in June or July or whenever). Maybe this one will be edited in time for the free copy to be a second draft, instead of a first! CRAZY.


Anyway. Love to you all - hope you're all well. I'd like to drop into a little mini coma, now, but instead I have to eat and go to choir to prep for concert Friday/Saturday (after lots of rehearsal this week). Wish us luck!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! May your day be full of joy and love and delight!

I know it can be hard, but chin up, right?

So much love to you all. <3

Plan for the day:

Morning:

√ *Spend (waste) NO MORE than 10 minutes doing this

√ *Spend (waste) NO MORE than 10 minutes crafting a reply to the vapid, slandering, chock-full-of-utter-bullshit replies left on the story about Stanislaus faculty OVERWHELMINGLY voting no-confidence in Pres. Shirvani, so my brain can rest and let the thing alone. (EDIT: DONE! 1k characters is not much. o.O My mini-essay is now 2 comments and so much leftover. Pasted what it *would* have looked like, below.)

__*Do my work inbox

__*Sort and start ONE load of laundry.

__*Write an absurd amount on my NaNo, in preparation for Thanksgiving hiatus - lets arbitrarily set a goal at 6k, so I don't go, "Oh, 2500, good enough" if I get there. Write as much as possible by the time Chris gets home!


Afternoon:

__*Eat, snuggle, do maybe one more load o' wash

Evening:

__*Choir (two weeks until concert, aaieeee!)

Back home:

__*Collapse








Text of original modbee response:

Case in point: honestfaculty/truefaculty/retiredfaculty is behaving in exactly the way Shirvani does when a legitimate, valid process does not go his way: attempt to subvert it illegitimately.

When the results are so solid, there is no avenue left but simple, outright lying about the process.

Shirvani and his have relied heavily on the concept that angry and concerned faculty are simply a vocal minority on the campus, going so far as to draw up what look a lot like hit lists (cross referencing people who are in both governance and union leadership and put themselves out to take the brunt of his disdain) and trying to subvert the legitimacy of faculty, but this vote clearly proves the rest of the faculty are not behind him. 90.9% of the 88% who voted voted no confidence, and that cannot, in any way, be spun in his favor. Even if every non-voter and non-valid balloter would have come out and voted 'confidence,' 'confidence' votes would have been outnumbered by 'no confidence' votes by four times. How's that for a number? In a country where only about half of eligible voters turn out even for major elections, this is a stunning show of democracy.

So when the question of faculty support can no longer be effectively questioned, now some find the need to lie.

So here is the process:

Votes were counted in full view of reporters. Ballots are NOT open; they are NOT identifiable in any way, and they are individually sealed inside of envelopes which are ALSO not identifiable in any way. The only mark a person has to give of their identity is on a second envelope, just to prove that they are the ones turning in an envelope with a ballot inside (equivalent to giving your name at a polling place and being marked off), and as soon as they are marked off, that envelope is discarded, leaving only unmarked envelopes with private ballots inside, and no way to tell who made which vote. (We can probably guess that some of the 23 "confidence" votes included Shirvani and some of the other academic administrators who were eligible to vote, but even that can't be confirmed.)

They even made the wise decision to not include ANY potentially biasing literature with the ballot, or any of the myriad reasons one might have voted "no confidence" on the president--for instance, the ways in which he tries daily to subvert campus governance (i.e. democracy), to dismantle any protections faculty have in place for the well being of the campus, its students, and programs (including Shirvani recently creating out of thin air a policy for "elimination of programs due to budget exigency," because the "program discontinuation" policy in place would have forced him to make sure students got graduated out of their programs before they were pulled out from under them).

We have honest faculty and an honest process; I'm ashamed to see so much blatant disdain from our community.

A break in NaNo hiatus, because I haven't had the heart to write anything else but this, today.

How dare they?
A reflection on the likelihood we will have to leave our home after this year, if we want to eat.

How dare they?

This administration does not care about California. They do not care about the CSU, and they do not care about this school. This is a stepping stone, from the lower positions they held before to the higher positions or more prestigious universities they hope to join soon. Administrations come and go in three or four or five years; the faculty, the staff, the community, we are the ones who stay for ten, twenty, thirty years, as long as we are able, as long as we are allowed.

I am a third generation Californian, on both sides. My great grand-parents came from Ontario, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Beruit, many places far and wide, and set down roots deep in this promise land, and two of my grandparents were born here, and all of their children, and all of their children, and even most of theirs, after them. I'm the first on my mother's side to even leave spitting distance of the counties my grandmothers were born in before me, since they got here. I was born in this state, raised here, and wish to die here, when it comes to it. This is an amazing and precious place, a resource and a garden, fierce and beautiful.

The CSU is a treasure, too, that belongs to us, here, in California--a proud and lovely creation of our proud and lovely state, to be defended at all costs. Myself and my cousins, my mother and my aunts who were first generation college students, come down from farmers and sailors and soldiers who valued the educations they didn't get, and strove to learn, and impressed upon us all the value of learning, of schooling, we are all products of the CSU when we couldn't have afforded anything else and couldn't have hoped for anything as wonderful.

How dare they push me out of my home? How dare they push my family out of the CSU? We, who had California and the CSU in our blood and our bones before we could read, and who know in our blood and our bones what a treasure we have?

And more important than blood ties are the ties of choosing. My partner adopted California and the CSU, and now has come to love them, now that he has been here 11 years--twice as long as the President of the university, and well over ten times as long as the interim Provost, and three times as long as the Provost before him. Those who have settled here--have meant to make their lives, here--have learned the best of it, have learned the pride and wonder, have taken it up as surely as those of us who knew it all along. And those of us with California in our veins and in the sweet earth of our flesh who have chosen to stay, have learned such awe-filled love, cannot be uprooted. If my body goes, the best of me is still here, longing for the paradise that is this place.

We want to stay. We want to be let to cherish this state, this system, to feed it and better it and make it stronger, ever stronger, ever safer from assaults from the short-sighted and far-reaching. We want to guard it and let it bloom ever brighter.

How dare they push us out, these come-latelies and leave-soons? How dare they take that wicked sword and cleave us from our homes, maim and dismember our universities as if they were nothing more than paper accounts and spools of ugly numbers? How dare they attempt to destroy what has taken us so many generations and so many hearts and so many commitments to build, as if it was theirs to crush? How dare they not lay down their bodies and their swords and their money to defend this?

How dare they?

When they take the CSU--when they cut away the teachers, the programs, the connections we cling to--and force us out, cast us to the wind, tetherless, they destroy more than a tradition, more than some quaint way of doing things, outdated or perverse. They destroy wonders. They destroy monuments and lives and blood oaths and sacred connections to a precious thing far grander than they. When we find a new place to live and work, I will still be homeless, because I will have been cut from my home, the home of my blood and the home of my choosing, the home where my heart and my head and my body have found perfect place, my home of ages. And when they are gone, tired of their broken toy, eager to find new systems to "restructure" and "improve," their damage will lay bloody and mangled and glaring behind them in the sun, for California and her lost, scattered children, blood and adopted alike, to mourn.

How dare they?

So freaking domestic. Also: a fount of trivia.

In the last couple days: knit a hat for a friend, a cowl for myself. Worked on a shawl I'm making. Started an adorable knitted wig, in a sort of violet/lilac color. Baked snickerdoodles, and improvised a delish' spiced chocolate almond bark.

Carved a pumpkin into an owl as per a VERY cute picture a friend shared (he came out SO CUTE!!) and cut my thumb open pretty well, during the process. Alas. I may try to post a picture of him tomorrow! (But not of my thumb.) Maybe I can get one of him alongside the adorable ratty face pumpkin best friend did (and which included dried spaghetti noodles for whiskers).

Random observation: I think the name my mother called me more than any other throughout my growing up (including my given name) was Pumpkin. (Followed closely or equalled by Sweetpea.)

We did campus things, including big big politics, talks on faculty shared governance, and senate meetings. I did work things (although there are a few I have to do tomorrow morning, because I completely missed them, today).

I picked the NaNo I'm going to write, this year (from amidst WAY too many choices). Mostly (but not entirely) unrelated to that, I did way more random internet research than is strictly reasonable, and often by whim or by popping link to link (and then wondering what path, exactly, I took to go from Rastafarian English to false etymology surrounding Caesarean sections to harime laws among the Romani to laws regulating name changes in Germany).

Before I start wondering too hard, I'm going to go to bed. But it's been a fairly bustling week!

Hope you all have a lovely Halloween! (And any and everything else you may celebrate this time of year!) LOVE!!

At least we know.

So there are still plans in the works. But as things stand, Chris has no work for Fall. He's out of a job.

Which means, if he finds a new one, we have to go to it. Which would mean I would be out of my beautiful, wonderful, beloved (but definitely-won't-sustain-us) job.

I'd finally put some roots down in this backward fucking little town, and it was growing on me, backward and fucked up though it is. I have a knitting group. I'm in a choir. I love my job. My best friend is staggering distance from my front door. The area's finally nurturing the arts, a little. My garden is growing me flowers.

And the alternative: him NOT finding a job? is a hell of a lot worse than losing/leaving all of those things.

I've been feeling pretty fucking low, I gotta' admit.

It's been a few days, now, since we found out, and the worst of the depression (aided by a bout of gloom, rain, wind, and general storminess and lack of sun and my subsequent plummeting energy and instinct for hibernation) is easing up. I let myself have my beaten, dejected few days, let myself binge on comfort food and neglect work and mope and cry, and the worst of it, at least, seems to be out of my system.

The sun came out, and I went out to sit in it. I did my work, I got shit done, I didn't kidnap leftover chicken and dumplings from Best Friend's fridge (seriously something I was considering). I'm not feeling quite so resentful when people remind me this could work out for the better, in the end - because, of course, it could.


...I had a lot more written below, about prospects and rationalizing about the worst case scenarios. But suffice it to say, I know that whatever happens, we'll roll with it. We'll hit the ground running, because it's what we do. Shitty times have always brought out the optimist in me.

We've got a lot to be grateful for.

Love to you all, and as much joy as you can hold.

Things Is Tough All Over

"But Chris is secure, right?"

I don't know how many times I've heard this, now. All summer, all through the start of the choir season, people have asked this or something similar; they've asked how we're doing, and I've told them a little about the budget crisis and the terror this inspires and the carnage already wreaked across our campus and how it doesn't make for peace of mind, or else they've heard some about it already and want to know where we fall in it. And then they want to be reassured that Chris is safe. "But he's all right, isn't he? He's pretty protected? Chris is still secure, right?"

"....No," I say, like I'm apologizing. "He's not."

Chris is a lecturer--contingent. Some systems call this "adjunct." Non-tenure-line. Not even probationary. We call it "visiting" on our campus--he's been "visiting" for 11 years, now, full time (some people call lecturers "part timers," too--often tenure-line people teaching significantly fewer courses per year than a full-time lecturer does, but I digress).

In short: no tenure. No expectation of tenure. No way to get tenure.

He does have three year contracts (the grail in the CFA collective bargaining agreements): if they've kept you for six years, when they could have simply failed to rehire you without penalty beforehand, and there are no "serious conduct issues" or records of bad performance, you're automatically rolled over into three year contracts, which have, themselves, a similar expectation of being rolled over. If you're between three year contracts, you've got a lot less protection--if there's just not work, they can essentially give you a contract for no work and no pay, without actually laying you off--but there is still some protection. There's also a layoff order, and an order of preference for work, and a lot of good structure in place to make sure the contract means something, when people start getting bumped off the ranks.

But when you've already gone through the order by department--say, this department--and have dumped absolutely everyone in the first couple of groups? When the only person left with less "preference for work" than Chris has already been reduced to part time (and he was only protected by two tenure-track profs being off on sabbatical, anyway, who are going to be back next year), and there are more cuts to come...?

(As in, apparently, SEVERE cuts to come, despite the absence of a concrete budget for the next year, in what is probably a punitive, tyrannical, never-let-a-good-crisis-go-to-waste move by people with more power than the rest of us?)

Then, no. Chris is not secure.

The BEST we can hope for, at this point, is that he only get reduced to part time, next year. But for all we know, there could be nothing, as soon as Spring. 30% (...for instance) out of 10 tenure-line and 2 and a half lecturers (or 6 tenure-line and 1 and a half lecturers, depending on what we're counting as this department for these purposes) is pretty bad odds, either way, isn't it?