Reflections in Late May

 “I was raised by the military-industrial complex,” my mother would say.  It was an apology, in later years, for how long it had taken her politics to catch up to her morals.  I knew her as a righteous hippie: an artist, anti-colonizer, in favor of home rule and revolution; someone who threw rocks at tanks in occupied Northern Ireland and put her 5’3” body in the middle of fights and in between children and danger.  She taught art in the middle of South-Central Los Angeles in the end, loved by the neighborhood and the school and every dog for blocks.  She died shortly after organizing her fellow charter school faculty through hostile union-busting, and before she could see the fruits of a contract or retirement.

When I was a kid, she had been anti-union, inherited from her father who didn’t want to pay $15 an hour to machiners; she and my father worked for a defense contractor through the Cold War, fans of Reagan.  She blamed Clinton and his peace processes for taking her job.

“I was raised by the military-industrial complex.”

It was true.  Every man in my blood has gone to war for the United States for generations, until my own brother.  We’ve had bodies in every conflict; I can track it back 175 years.  My mother’s father manufactured specialized airplane screws, once he came home from the Navy and the Pacific in the second world war.  He brought back a hatred for Patton, and for an entire nation, which he fed to my mother through photographs of war crimes and narratives of inhumanity.  (She amassed a strange collection of books related to Japan during her life; ancient art, wartime atrocity, erotica, history, woodcuts.)

Her mother’s father had to do his service over multiple branches, never seeming to satisfy any but never quite reaching the point of dishonorable discharge.  The lore on him said he was sent to capture Pancho Villa and, being a sympathizer, declined to do so.  He maintained his disinterest in law after discharge, becoming a bootlegger, shacking up with a not-quite-divorcée who had slipped illegally into the country and fraudulently claimed a new birth year and birthplace.  Their curb was marked by the homeless during the Great Depression as a place to come for food and kindness; Alice couldn’t cook but kept chili or soup on the stove every day for years.  Her brothers trickled down from Canada after her to be drafted by the US for the Great War.

Generation after generation they enlisted or were drafted.  The bootlegger’s grandfather came from Germany with no wife and five children; Ohio sent him directly to the Civil War.

I was raised by the military-industrial complex, too.  Stories of my parents entangled with the three-letter agencies, of my mother working with satellite imagery fine enough to read the brand on the butt of the cigarette left in the footprint of a Russian boot in the snow, as far back as the early 80s.  She told us she had wanted to paint a giant red X on our roof for the Russians to aim at; the nuclear fallout at our distance from the Long Beach naval base would be torturous, she explained, full of sickness and rotting flesh, and she’d rather them take us out directly.  She laughed, baffled, when anyone was surprised about the NSA revelations of spying at home.  We grew up knowing any phone might be tapped at any time.  We knew security was an illusion, only a stacking up of layers of difficulty to make yourself harder to reach, to make other targets more attractive than yourself.  Our parents started a tiny self-defense supplies company from home, selling pepper spray and screamers I had to take with me to walk alone.  We kept big dogs; they don't stop burglars or murderers, but they do encourage them to try a different door.

My father came back from service with undiagnosed PTSD, a hatred for lamb and mutton, and a fear of rats.  And humanity.  His military activities were in special forces and by description certainly war crimes.  When I was about 8, he abruptly stopped a mysterious work activity that had had him flying back east regularly, which neither of our parents would explain, but he told my brother once he used to “pop people for the government.”  That night, he tearfully told us instead about what he had done in the Army, the people he had killed in their homes, in front of their children, in countries we were and were not at war with, while a soldier.  I learned a term for suicide I wouldn’t understand in specific for several more years, and was sworn to secrecy—eight years old and expected to carry the secret that could steal the pension from a desperate stranger’s widow and orphans.  He feared rats because he’d woken up with them eating his toes in the jungle.  He once strangled my mother in his sleep while she was 8 months pregnant with me, when she was coming back to bed from the bathroom; she managed to wake him from his flashback before he could kill us.  A closet at the end of the hall was filled with weapons of all descriptions; blades, firearms, ammunition.  Less deadly weapons decorated the walls.  His sister later told us she used to watch the Friday night news, “waiting to see if Bill would end up in a library tower.”  We mistook him for dead more than once, finding him unbreathing or passed out surrounded by blood and broken glass, before he died on the floor at 52.  

His brother came back from Vietnam just as gentle as he had gone, with medals for bravery for his willingness to be airdropped over enemy lines to cook for combat soldiers.  I knew him as someone who kept chickens and doves.  Some time after his return, at a baseball game (he lived for the Dodgers), the band played the “1812 Overture.”  When the canon fired he disappeared and wasn’t found until hours later when the stadium had emptied, hidden beneath the stands, sheltering from the shelling.

Their father survived Europe in WWII, but not without three false notices sent to their mother that he had—or that he likely had—died.  She hated the wistful Christmas songs from the 40s, “I’ll Be Home For Christmas.”  I wonder sometimes how long she lived with his false death each time, and whether after that many notices she could ever really believe he was alive when he came back to her.

All of my ancestors are dead.  They survived the wars they went to, after a fashion.

The righteous sleep worse than the wicked

I think about that moment when someone asks the bad guy, "How do you sleep at night?"  The person who is exploiting other human beings or outright endangering them for some gain or another; "How do you sleep?" the outraged dissident asks them.

How well?

Probably pretty well, is my guess.  Poor sleep is a sign of guilt or worry or that nagging voice in the back of your mind, or that upsetting confrontation replaying itself over and over; if you've made the decision to behave in a way that disregards human dignity, and to continue to behave that way, you've probably decided that (a) it's worth it, (b) they deserve it, or (c) that's just the way the world works.  You're satisfied with that answer and have abdicated any responsibility you might feel for it.  There will be nothing to trouble your sleep until something worms its way past the surface.  If anything ever does.

I think about the ethical repercussions of everything I do; my purchases, my causes, my behavior.  I have an idea of the world I want to live in, a few clear principles I value, and I make my decisions based on those values, on making that world come to be.  I behave as rationally and compassionately as I can.  I apply this as broadly as I can.  I try to respect my fellow human beings and take responsibility for my actions as they extend out beyond me to touch those fellow human beings.  And when I play out the repercussions of policies I think are destructive or inhumane, I also try to find a way to not paint someone who supports that policy with that color, try to give them the benefit of the doubt in considering what aims they might have or what different theories of behavior, of government, and so on they might ascribe to.  Or if that fails outright, try to believe they're still a good person--just one with some gaping holes in their understanding.

I'm the one who doesn't sleep at night.

I believe I'm right; I don't believe everyone who disagrees with me is evil; I satisfy myself that I am doing my part to make a better world and living up to my own standards, while still allowing myself enough slack to not go insane.  But I lie awake having imaginary arguments with people I believe are good people, trying to get them to understand a point of view I think is righteous.  I replay moments of people I know expressing some sentiment I think is abhorrent, and of me being too struck dumb to say anything to propose an alternative--and then imagine alternate endings, standing up to their ignorance or unkindness either destructively, by indulging my insult and taking them apart, or constructively, by starting a conversation, sharing information.  But I lie awake when I think I have managed to do that, too, dissecting the conversation, wondering about the fallout, wondering if I've done any good, and wondering whether I have lost a friend or failed a cause or both.  I look forward in fear to the next conversation, the next confrontation, the next election.

I wonder whether I have done any good at all.

I'm the one who doesn't sleep at night.

Surrounded by community and lonely

I feel pretty lonely, right now. I've been struggling with this for a while, and with whether to even write anything about it, but here goes.

 I finally feel like I've built some community, here - that I have made some friends, that there are people here that I love. But I always have this aching feeling that in a lot of those cases, that love will never come back to me. Some of it I hope is just ungrounded fear, a symptom of depression and anxiety and insecurity. And sometimes I think it has to do with a a personality defect I suspect I have (maybe a topic for another post). But lately it has been a more existential loneliness.

 I live, now, in the church capital of the country. Almost everyone I meet here is a person of faith--of strong faith that plays a large role in their lives. I understand and appreciate that - it can give community and wholeness to a heart, and direction. It makes the existential terror of death livable, and there is no reason to live your life in terror and insecurity if you have something to believe in. And faith can sometimes bring out the very best in people, propel them to great acts of good, give them the strength for kindness, and I deeply respect and admire that. I am not willing to dismiss the importance of someone's faith in their life.

 But I have no belief of my own. I am something like an agnostic in the original Greek sense, because I know that there cannot be an absolute proof of one faith or another or none, that any one may be right or may be wrong; I know that I cannot know. And in the face of that I cannot dismiss anyone's beliefs, but I can't make myself have a belief in any one thread of millions, either, be it a belief in a god, an afterlife, or the absolute absence of either. It isn't part of me.

 Which is a lonely place to be, especially here.

 I don't talk to people of faith about my lack of it--it's my general policy to leave it be; no one would gain from it. But in a culture of faith, it's probably no surprise that strong believers do talk about their beliefs about the faithless; it's part of their lives and worldviews. It does mean they're telling me what they think of me as part of this nebulous class of people, though.

 For instance, last week I was told about a couple who were terrible to each other, didn't love each other and wouldn't care for each other in their times of need--and that they couldn't, because they hadn't built their marriage on Christ. And I realized that this person I know and am friendly with believes that I wouldn't change a colostomy bag for the love of my life, that I am incapable of care and devotion. I build my life on a love and respect for life, and cherish my loved ones, and believe that people on any path are capable of that, but that doesn't enter into it for her. I didn't know what to say. I was quiet.

 I also hear stories of fear, that loved ones who haven't seen the light will be lost and condemned; and stories of hope and peace, that those who have should not be missed or grieved, for they are in paradise. And I am so grateful for the comfort they can take from that, and that they can feel free to express it, to share fear and love and comfort, to have rich community in times of sorrow. But part of me is reminded in those times of my own losses--and that I never feel that comfort. And part of me is reminded that many of the people I know and love, friends and family, believe I will burn in eternal damnation; that regardless of my kindness or my love or any other goodness they might see in me, I cannot be part of their universe.

 And I wonder which of them know that I am one of those, and which ones don't; which ones suspect it, and whether or how our relationship would change if they knew, and whether some of them will never be close to me because of it.

 At those times I feel just how apart I am from so many of the people I love, and it's hard not to feel lonely.

 I don't know that there's anything to be done about it. I'm just hoping if I can talk about it somewhere it'll ease the feeling a little.

Whiplash update

The brief disjointed semi-clinical version because it's difficult to appropriately react to the good things and the bad things in the same confined space in any kind of meaningful way and can't work out writing four separate whiplash entries:

MSO concerts (performing Verdi's Requiem) were this weekend, fantastic - Friday night was amazing. Chris said best MSO concert he's ever seen. Other MSO folk thought Saturday was somehow even better; I felt like I wasn't as good, and am persisting let down, but that may be the lack of St. John's Wort talking.

Still haven't heard back about the second ultrasound, yet (plan to ask about going back on the St. John's Wort then). Would really like to know soon.

Allergies are death.

Hands/wrists/forearms have stopped working; awful persistent pain with.. well.. any use. Limiting typing and computer work as much as possible. Also can't knit, crochet, wind yarn, hold needles for sewing, hold pencils for any length, play guitar or ukulele, or hold a book - can't grip anything for any length - not sure what options this leaves me for any activity at all. (What doesn't use your hands?) Hours on end of point-and-click computer work and knitting bingeing appear to have been the proximate triggers. Keep testing to see if I can start again and inevitably fail in flames. Then had to hold the heavy Verdi score in untenable hand position for the 4 hour Thurs. rehearsal, the 2 hr Fri dress, the 2 hr Fri concert, and the 2 hr Sat concert. Yesterday had trouble holding a water glass without spilling it on myself, or holding my fork long enough to eat my dinner. Yes: having to take breaks while eating. Had to get a brace for the score-holding, but am indeed going to the doctor to see how to deal with/fix/cope with this. Absolutely miserable.

Considering going out and buying a hard back, to see if I can kind of pin it open with a cookbook holder to read. REALLY don't want to spend the next week of my life with TV and cleaning* as my only solo activities. (*Failed at the attempt at dusting/scrubbing, too; broke a favorite old ceramic I'd made.) Plus, will have to work, not many options to not. Can't really work without aggravating, though. May still risk knitting night because I'm going crazy, but we'll see.

Did have a good Modesto/Turlock experience Fri/Sat - hit three different farmers markets and kinda' was able to pretend these are walking cities, rather than commuter cities. Felt a little better. Saw an absurd number of people I recognize, for this area, felt a little less disconnected from it.

SF went well; got there and back w/out a hitch, events were awesome, had some good San Francisco Experiences and good walking and wandering, even if some of it was in dispiriting pursuit of wifi or after taking the absolutely wrong BART stop for my frivolity. Loved the trip; hate traveling without Chris. The two bettas I got the Saturday before leaving died the Wednesday I left. They didn't have names yet. Think their demise is my fault.

One of mom's cats--a sweetie goof named Biscuit--has gone missing, been gone for two weeks.

Albert is dead. Tried tree guy at nursery, emergency surgery, emergency repot, but failed utterly. I'm so sorry.

Love--

Scattered showers.

So my earthquake prediction was superfluous at best. According to the US Geological Survey's site, there were 32 quakes notable (3.5 or above) in the SoCal region between Jan 1 and April 3 (i.e. before the big Easter quake).

From April 4th to now, there have been 157. (And at least 14 of those first 32 were probably foreshocks.)

So, uh. Yeah. Quakes in SoCal--check. So far nothing big on the San Andreas proper, though, which is to tell the whole truth what I had in mind.

(Decided to look it up because the cats were acting powerful weird, today. But I think in retrospect they've just caught my cold. Which brings me to: )

Gotta cold. :( I got sick once a year, when I was a kid. And I've been sick five times in as many months, now. And I think I gave it to the cats, which is awful, they're being completely pathetic mama'spoorbabiesmama'ssososorry.

And of course, as is foretold in the scriptures, if I am sick, I will be busy. And if I am busy--especially if I am in some way essential to someone else's being able to get things done--I will get sick. Hélas.

I am busier tomorrow, which is nice. Tomorrow, they try to echolocate my uterus for fun and profit to see if it's been secretly replaced with a kitchen appliance or crocheted facsimile thereof to look for fibroids, which were the bane of my mother's existence before she went nuclear on them. She was 42, but I'm precocious.

Is it weird/terrible that I want it to look awful? Does that make any sense? I want there to be an excuse. I will feel pretty hopeless if there's not a ready culprit to blame for the last fifteen years of fun with questionable reproductive health.

Also tomorrow, we're going to the Stanislaus 50 Year Golden Gala - not the main school event this summer that will celebrate the 50 year anniversary of our founding that you .. um.. may have heard about, depending on how closely you follow .. . oh.. LA Times, CNN, Fox, Reuters/AP.. Yahoo news feeds.. . but a Music department fundraiser commemorating the same that should be fabulous (please let me not sneeze through it or be.. like.. virulent and infect everyone around me).

...And if you are outside central California and have caught wind of these things, and wondered where you'd heard the name "Stanislaus" before, well--you probably heard it here. That's us: we're so, so proud.

Please, Leland--and please, Mr. Brown--save us from ourselves. Or rather, save us from our fucking foundation board. - Hugs and kisses, Lauren.



P.S. I require bendy straws.

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

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)

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?

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?

Emotional coaster a bit.

Loved Julie&Julia. Apart from the frustrations that come from true stories (when people sometimes don't behave quite how you want them to), it was delightful. I love the idea. The food was gorgeous. Meryl Streep was unsurprisingly brilliant. It makes me want to cook--it's making me want to have a project. And I want the roast duck recipe. (Though I may actually take Barbara Kafka, queen of roasting all things, over Julia in this matter, if we've got hers. If you ever want to know how to roast anything, and have it come out better than anyone's you've ever had? Go to Kafka.)

I spent the movie in and out of tears, basically unrelatedly. I started crying on the way out of the get-together this morning (had to beat a hasty retreat), and just... it's been drop of a hat, since then. I'd guess at least a dozen times, during the flick? And mostly inappropriately. However, I definitely needed the joy and delight and giggling, and I got a lot of that, too, so that's good.

Now we're listening to some Maurice Chevalier (spent some time with Charles Trenet, earlier), and the utter sweetness promises to help. So does Chris's cooking (if you aren't well aware of this by now, Chris is the Philosopher Chef, Saucier Than Thou - a whiz at French cooking - all cooking, reared on Julia Child's show as a kid, and born on her birthday). I've successfully campaigned for some Pommes de Terre à la Maitre'd'hotel to go along with the lamp loin chops sautéed in butter and dressed in pan sauce, and a Child recipe for green beans. Cap it off with a little cognitive dissonance in the form of a Chilean Cabernet, and I think we'll be able to stave off the demons a little longer.

Show; campus

It's weird to think of it this way, but I was having a similar reaction to opening night of Crazy For You to the one I had at the end of doing Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Giddy tears and trembling excitement, and a whole lot of greedy, basking love for the audience and its standing ovation. Even if I was down in the pit. I could still crane 'round and see them.

(Btw, they moved us from backstage to down in the pit with the orchestra, mic'd. Which is a great thing. Besides, I like calling myself a "pit singer" more than a "backstage singer." I'm also defaulting to Backup Girl.)

The show was fantastic. It was a blast. A whirling, frantic putting-together, and a beautiful opening night. The theater has more than its fair share of technical difficulties, and some things blew up at the last minute--missing actors, breaking props--but they still got it off in great order. Everybody stepped up and were brilliant. I've said this before, but I've never really been much for dance shows (I can take a lot of Fosse, but chorus lines and follies have never thrilled), but I sat in awe of this group. These girls are professional quality dancers (there's a 15 y.o. teaching dance classes already, and a girl who just got accepted into the Rockettes, for instance), and they're stunning. The choreography and acrobatics were gorgeous, huge, clever, funny, delightful. There's a bit where the girls are bells, if that makes any sense, and a pinwheel, and and and...

I love it. I'm in love. I'm giddy. I even got over enough of my crisis-level shyness to go with my carpool mates to the cast party, and chat and be silly and play games in the pool. The acting was great, the comedy was spot on (even the cheesy parts - and the physical comedy was PERFECT), the music was grand, and, if I do say so myself, the singing went well. Giddy giddy giddy!

...

Well, be fair; I was giddy. The budget crisis has taken its toll. Chris is a union rep for our campus, for contingent lecturers (think: the college faculty equivalent of highly vulnerable wage slaves, with next to no protections, who make up the majority and do most of the work; the adage is that every lecturer is fifteen seconds from utter humiliation). There's been a slash-and-burn going on, and a lot of people are up in the air, and we spent the morning with a handful of lecturers who've been on tenterhooks and probably let go from the university-but-not-necessarily-completely, trying to hash out their rights and contracts and potential outcomes--the culmination of which was a last minute email (received by one of them by iPhone) with the nail in the coffin for all of them. Their small hope was a false one; they have no work, and no rehiring rights, and no continued affiliation with the university or the committees they man, this Fall. Which is to say, in a week and a half. They have no health insurance, they will not be getting a check this month. They're not even at the top of the rehire-if-we-get-some-money list. They have to give back their keys, and clear out their offices. This week.

These are people we know. Our campus, with its 400 faculty, has lost 187--no, wait.. now it's 192, after this morning, isn't it?--of its faculty. Cut in half. Everyone the university could cut without declaring an official layoff, they cut. Fellow lecturer reps from other campuses are working with the union through the summer, even though their teaching jobs are no longer waiting for them in Fall. These are dedicated, passionate teachers, and most of the people we were with today graduated from this campus, went through the very programs they're teaching in, worked most intensively with the most vulnerable students, in the most fundamental classes.

And they're just... gone, now.

(This doesn't even get into the issue of the hundreds of classes cut on our campus alone--classes that were full, and whose students have not even been informed of the cuts and schedule changes and who will most likely get to campus on day one with no idea their classes and teachers are gone and that several of their class days will be furloughed &c, but who have been pulled for an extra $500 for this semester, or $1000 for the year, already. Or all the students who just aren't going to be accepted at all, come Spring and next year, despite state law dictating that this system accept all eligible students. And all the basic remedial classes the bulk of new students will need to complete in their first year to be kept on at the university, but which will be unavailable to them, since they've been cut. And--)

...Sorry for the whiplash. That kinda' where we're at, right now.

I think we're going to spend some of my blood on Julie&Julia (...I can get comp movie tickets, with all the blood donations I've racked up), try to get something a little joyful going.

Love, all.