Last Friday

May 29^th, 2017

On Friday night, we went out to dinner.  Folks who know me know what that means: our regular Family Dinner Night tradition.  Years ago, when the kids’ dad and I divorced, I instituted Friday Family Dinner Nights for a couple of reasons.  First of all, by Friday nights, this then-single mama was TIRED.  After taking care of the kids all week, and running them to all of the various clubs, lessons, and sports practices after school AND working full-time, by Friday night I couldn’t wrap my brain around thinking of one more meal to plan, prep, cook, and clean up after.  I decided we’d let restaurants take care of all that for us at the end of the week.  The other reason—the more important reason, actually, was that I really wanted to establish some new traditions for our new household.  We had some traditions and rituals that we maintained from our previous life, but I felt it was important to create some new ones as well—continuity plus transition.  It’s a tricky balance, but one I felt was important as we forged a new beginning.

Friday Family Dinner Night wasn’t just for Friday nights though, contrary to the name.  Each week, we would take turns picking out the restaurant, in descending age order.  For the first couple of years, that meant that I would take us to a family friendly sit-down restaurant as fancy as, say Applebee’s or Chili’s, and Brianna was likely to choose one of those too.  On Nicholas’ nights we almost always went to Taco Bell, and Danielle’s choice wavered between McDonald’s and Burger King.  A couple of the rules were that no one was allowed to complain about the restaurant when it was someone else’s choice, and whoever got to choose that week was responsible for the “Question of the Day” for each dinner that week, both at home and at the restaurant on Friday night.  The Question of the Day had to be an open-ended one that invited story-telling or a conversation starter, and it had to be a different question each night.  Whoever was responsible for the evening’s Question of the Day had to answer first, and then each person in subsequent age order had to answer the same question—no passing.  We got to talk about pretty regular events, such as explaining something we had learned that day, and fantastical questions, like who would we cast to play ourselves in a movie, or what super powers we wished we had and what we’d do with them.  Danielle’s favorite kind of question early on was “What’s your favorite…” (Carebear?, cartoon character?, fruit?, sport?).  As the kids got older, the questions got better, as did the restaurant choices.  We tried to branch out and check out new restaurants as they opened or as we heard about them from friends.  As Doug came into our lives, he too became part of the Friday night ritual and rotation.  Also as the kids grew older, it became harder to sit down every night during the week for a meal due to increased demands of the kids’ activities, but that Friday night was sacred for more than a dozen years.  Even in lean times, when money was scarce, I clung doggedly to that tradition.  

So back to this past Friday night.  Brianna still participates when she’s in town visiting, and we automatically bump it up to her choice when she’s there.  Both Nicholas and Danielle have had to miss on occasion, and sometimes we move it to Thursday night to accommodate schedules.  It’s become trickier, though.  As a 20 year old, Nicholas has a work schedule that often includes a Friday night shift, and that was true this past week.  He comes when he can, but he’s growing up and moving on, and this last Friday found Danielle, Doug, and me at Chili’s, just the three of us.  It was a bit of a nostalgic sort of evening, since we are nearing graduation for Danielle.  I don’t know really how it had never occurred to me, but I suddenly realized that Family Dinner Nights, which have been such an important part of our family traditions over the years, is nearing its end.  Nicholas will still be in Fresno with us, and when we can we’ll still go out to dinner on Friday nights, but Danielle is going away to school, as her sister did.  She has two more months at home, and then there will be no more regular dinners at home—or out.  She’s branching out into a new beginning, as we all did together more than a dozen years ago.  She’ll be forming her own new traditions and rituals as she traverses this new path, and I’m excited to see what those will be.  But for me, that truly does mean the end of an era here.  She is my last, and there are things that I am just now realizing, truly, will ‘graduate’ with her when she goes.  There will be exciting things about the ways in which our lives—all of our lives—will change moving forward, but I am sure that this is only one of a great many things I haven’t even realized yet how much I will miss when they’re gone.  I have always known I would miss my kids when they weren’t part of my every day routine; I am only just now beginning to realize how much of my routine is about my kids.  We’re going to have to figure out new traditions to forge together, apart.  I’m going to have to find new beginnings out of my endings. 

This Was My Day Today

April 24, 2017

Quite a few of my freshmen have been slacking on getting assignments completed, so I decided we needed to back up, slow down, and have a "make-up" day.  I gave my kids who are all up-to-date an extension activity, and told the students I'd be running down a list of which students were missing big assignments they could still work on for credit.

Me:
I'm missing journals from Allison, Marcos, Julie, and Richard.
I'm missing the Romeo and Juliet essay from Brook, Ed, Marcos, and Richard.

(Looking up)  Hey--if I'm reading your name, make sure you are making a note of the missing assignment. Write it down so you know what all you need to work on.

I'm missing Collection Test Five from Ed.

(Looking up again) Ed--did you make a note of that? Yes? How is that possible, since you don't have anything out on your desk!

I'm missing...(four more assignments missing from various students).

Okay.  Each of those assignment directions are still up on my website, so you can look them up there as a reference if you're not sure how to get started.

Six students (yes, SIX) at my desk, just after I finished going through the lists:
Um..can you tell us which assignments we're missing? We weren't paying attention.

Me:
You're kidding, right?  Even after I just reminded you twice to write down the assignments?

Apparent Student Slacker Spokesperson:
Yeah, we don't know what to do now. So...can you just tell us again?

Also, part of the student follow up:  I don't know how to do the assignment.  I can't find your website. I can't find the assignment on your website. (This last one from the kid who was actually on my website--looking at the actual assignment that he "couldn't find".)  And my favorite: Even though I'm missing a 90 point assignment and a 50 point assignment, I'd rather work on this missing 5 point assignment. Is that okay?

I'm sure you can imagine the conversations that ensued.
As often happens,  3rd period passed on to 7th period what to expect for the day.  Their assessment, according to my 7th period students?  "Watch out. She seems to be in a bad mood for some reason today."

End of the year. Freshmen. Often a charming combination.  Today, not so much.
    

I Like My Dystopia in Fictional Form, Thank You

April 17^, 2017

My favorite genre of literature is dystopian fiction.  Authors create worlds that could be, cautionary tales to warn us away from pitfalls in our present that are driving us forward on a perilous trajectory.  We have not listened, my friends, and now we find our fictional futures colliding frighteningly with our unstable present.  In the words of the prescient authors past and present:

THE NEW STATE OF THINGS

“Sound bytes. Catch phrases. Sales pitches. Words. All lexical legitimizing. ‘A rose by any other name…’ he said. In the end it’s all propaganda.” –J.A. Willoughby, The Promised Land

“…dead to all things but greed and a desire to rule over others.” –Arun D. Ellis, Corpalism

This is a game show to Trump, and has been from the beginning.  He thrives on catch phrases, lives in generalities.  He has eschewed daily briefings because they don’t interest him; he has announced his bafflement at the complex issues he is responsible for when he is made to sit down and listen to the minutiae of the policies he must address.  (Who knew healthcare was so complex?  Everybody. Literally everybody except you.)  He couldn’t even be bothered to be sure about which country he bombed, as a matter of fact, in a show of power.  Did he think about potential consequences? Did he consider the complex political landscape he was walking into? (Not to mention the fact that he had recently declared that Syria needed to attend to their own problems without our interference.)  I mean, who could guess that foreign policy and diplomacy and acts of war could be so complex? Literally everybody, save one, apparently.  Honestly, it’s much more fun to just think about how impressive that giant explosion will be, and damn the consequences!  Desire to rule over others here means a show of force and might, but no real desire for governance for and with the people.

“That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction.” ― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

There have already been little bends and fissures in the laws in place, including healthcare, LGBT rights, and immigration, not to mention some pretty major reversals of previously hard-won policies.  We’ve lost all semblance of “checks and balances” with a Republican president, and a Republican majority in the House and Senate, as well as a conservative majority sitting on the Supreme Court. (Gorsuch, by the way, was confirmed after the rules were changed to go “nuclear” so that only a majority vote was necessary.  This, just shortly after a highly contentious confirmation hearing for the Education Secretary, DeVos, narrowly passed with a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Pence.)  So despite dragging their feet for months on a confirmation hearing for Obama’s Supreme Court pick, all it took to get the Republican nominee in was changing the rules to suit their plan.  Those in power are making changes to keep themselves in power indefinitely, closing up avenues to challenge that power.  This should be very frightening indeed.  If we continue to sit back and watch it unfold without raising our voices, soon there will be no place at all for our voices.  Once power is lost, it becomes that much more difficult to regain.

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”— George Orwell, 1984

            Trump’s heightened paranoia of his media coverage has become slightly ominous and threatening.  If he gets to ultimately decide which media is “real” (Fox News, Breitbart) and which media is “fake” (every other media outlet), he is effectively proclaiming that his truth, his reality, is the only one that matters. One of the hallmarks of our democracy is our multiplicity of viewpoints and our access to free press—that is, press that is not forcibly controlled by our government in order to narrowly define and disseminate state approved sound-bytes and propaganda.  Continuing to foster a hostile stance against free press and using the office of the president to attack any news source that dares to question or hold him accountable for his actions or his words is merely laying the groundwork for the hostile takeover of public information.

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

“He hadn’t realized that the ordinary little things that happened, the ones that took place between the big events while waiting for something more exciting to happen – they were the most important, after all.” ― Helen Smith, The Miracle Inspector

“There was protest...There were those who knew. Who saw what was coming. But their voices were mere whispers in a crowd of roaring discontent. The surrender of freedom came in subtle stages, not with an explosive arrival.” –Bard Constantine, Silent Empire

We have spent years languishing in complacency as a society.  We have the most abysmal voter turnout in democratic nations.  We do not seek out active roles in our own governance; we do not educate ourselves about the issues that regulate our world.  We give over—we have given over—our power to others who seem more invested and interested, and we go on about our lives, confident that things will work out.  And mostly, until now, they have.  There were some small things, and even some slightly bigger things, in the running of our country, that I might have disagreed with here and there.  On the whole, though, I was satisfied, and my life didn’t alter significantly when a new law was passed or a new representative hung his name plate on his office in the House.  And we got too comfortable.  I got too comfortable.  By the time I realized it was time to call the fire department, the whole house was engulfed.  In hindsight, I smelled the smoke; I felt a little warm.  I didn’t, however, gather the neighbors and sound the alarm before it got out of control.  Hindsight does not help us—and here we are.  (Months after the election, Trump himself is the one who can’t seem to let it go.  He also seems to think any protest is “paid for” by…who knows? How is it possible that he can’t fathom people coming together of their own volition to express dissatisfaction? His narcissism makes it impossible for him to see dissent, and the people with whom he surrounds himself provide a protective bubble to engender that viewpoint.)

CONSEQUENCES

 “When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.”—Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“I never thought it would get this bad. I never thought the Reestablishment would take things so far. They're incinerating culture, the beauty of diversity. The new citizens of our world will be reduced to nothing but numbers, easily interchangeable, easily removable, easily destroyed for disobedience. We have lost our humanity.” ―Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

 

We have lost funding to Planned Parenthood, and the government continues to dismantle healthcare that will deny coverage to millions if they are successful.  Funding for schools, arts, and social programs are all on the chopping block in favor of funneling unimaginable dollars into an already massive military budget, because that’s what Trump believes equates to power—force and might, not humanity and culture.  This is the path he has chosen for us, but I refuse to be reduced to a number.  I will continue to fight for the beauty of diversity and the humanity that is in us all. This is what I choose.

“For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.” –George Orwell, 1984

My bias may be showing here, but this is where the importance of education comes in, both formal and informal.  We have to ensure that the populace has the security of a humane life and has access to education to become critical thinkers and consumers of information in our world, so that we are not beholden only to the information the Man Behind the Curtain wants to show us, but rather that we are all able to discern and evaluate and assess on our own.  We need to right the ship of power once again so that the people are the captain and the president is the one following their commands, rather than the other way around.  Our President and our elected officials are our crew; we cannot abdicate our responsibility in telling him how we want to sail the ship.  As of now, we have a mutiny afoot, and we have to wrest control back before we lose it altogether.  An ignorant populace breeds fear, contempt, and hostility; an educated one recognizes that gain for each is a gain for all and seeks to uplift and help one another for the greater good.  A “leader” who is more interested in maintaining power than in his constituents will do all in his power to foster the former and not the latter.

WHAT DO WE DO NOW?

“Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.”—Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“There’s a big difference between being numb to something and being immune to it.”
― Michael Monroe, Afterlife

“Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change.”—H.G. Wells, The Time Machine

It’s tough in today’s world to be disaffected, to be ignorant, but some people still work at it.  We simply can’t afford it.  Being numb to what is going on doesn’t mean we won’t feel the consequences, and they are likely to get much, much worse before they get better.  It’s now several months in, and some are weary of the continued calls to contact your representatives, or to get out for the mid-year elections, or to continue to write and speak your mind.  They’re counting on that.  They want us to become accustomed to the new normal, to sink into acceptance.  We’ve done that for too long, and that stakes are far too high.  The battle will be won with perseverance and persistence, not force.

“We can't be confined to one way of thinking, and that terrifies our leaders. It means we can't be controlled. And it means that no matter what they do, we will always cause trouble for them.” –Veronica Roth, Divergent

“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”—Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed

 “There has to be beauty left in the world, Julia," said Kiyu. "Otherwise we have nothing.”
― Erica Lindquist, Whisperworld

We can’t be controlled.  We can’t wait for the revolution and the resistance to come from somewhere else.  It has to begin with us; it must continue with us.  That, after all, is the beauty left in the world—us.  The individual.  The humanity in us all.