Category Archives: Sustainable Chaos

Something I (Seriously) Don’t Have Any More Time For

Posted on May 10, 2013 | 4 comments

Worrying about whether or not people are making fun of me behind my back and I just don’t hear them.

“Pictures of People Who Mock Me” is provocative. It’s a much-read article from Salon.com, a daring idea for a series of photos, and it stuck in my imagination, so I would say it met at least some of the author’s/photographer’s goals. It bothered me, though, in two ways I’m not sure she intended.

My first GENIUS and BRILLIANT and INCREDIBLY WISE response was to think, “OH MY GOD. People probably make fun of me for being fat and I just don’t notice because I am a.)oblivious and b.)not just fat but also hard of hearing.”

That surely wasn’t the intent. That first response didn’t last very long. I just don’t have time to wonder, at least not for very long, if anyone’s response to me has anything to do with how much I weigh.

It occurs to me, of course. Today in the pool, I got there early enough to snag the lane I wanted. Another woman got there just a little later. Typically, people waiting on a lane sit on a bench by the pool. She sat on the side, straddling a lane marker, kicking her legs gently. She wasn’t right next to me, but close by. It occurred to me she might be trying to get those of us in the pool to hurry it up. It occurred to me she might look at me and think she deserved the lane more than me because she was in better shape. It then occurred to me that maybe she just wanted to make sure she was first in line because she really, really wanted to get her laps in. Whatever she was doing probably had absolutely nothing to do with my size, my fitness level, with me at all.

But I swam one more lap than I had planned just to make sure I wasn’t ceding my place in the pool out of insecurity on my part. (And on the off chance she was trying to be intimidating.)

Second, I’m doing lots and lots of difficult, ongoing, hard work in my own head about shame. Did I mention it’s difficult? Everything Brene Brown ever wrote helps me. The people who did indeed mock Haley Morris-Cafeiro were wrong to do it. Mean to do it. If they saw themselves as shaming her in order to motivate her, they were mean and wrong and totally not up on the research that shows shame is not a good motivator for change (cf: everything Brene Brown ever wrote).

But since shame makes everything worse, not better, it made me uncomfortable to watch the photographer shame the shamers.

And then also, I had a whole train of thought about weight and body image and how we stake our place on the planet:

Engine of this train thought: it’s all about attitude. If you believe you’re beautiful and if you’re confident, you pull yourself past anyone who is making fun of you IF they bother to make fun of the Big-Ass Engine Who Could.

Coal car for the Big-Ass Engine Who Could: it’s all about energy. If you’re busy and you got places to go and things to do, people will have a hard time catching up to you to make faces behind your back. And you really don’t have time to spend on people who can’t be bothered to criticize you to your face. Probably don’t have time for people who CAN be bothered to make fun of you to your face.

Freight Car for the Big-Ass Engine Who Could: people who walk around mocking others have a bigger problem that whomever they are mocking. We all have issues. Baggage. Freight. Mocking others is one really ineffective way to deal with our own stuff.

Caboose: Beyonce.

Queen Latifah. Adele. I mean, seriously. It’s not about the pounds.

I know fat-shaming is real. I know it’s a problem. I also know someone who wants to shame has only one part of the equation. If I refuse to be shamed, all the fat-shaming in the world will fall flat. (Not that I’m resilient enough to resist all of it, in all the world. But don’t try to get me out the pool before I’m ready.)

I’m larger than I’d like to be. I’m working on it. I’m not sure reading/looking at “Pictures of People Who Mock Me” helped me, but it’s not her job to help me. It’s mine, and I’m doing it, and in regard to this article, I’ve done it.

And now I’m done.

Besides. Why would I spend any more moments at all on any of the above when I could be hanging out with our new kitten?

Vanessa Quivertail

Vanessa Quivertail

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Posted in Body Image, Daring Greatly, Healthy Health, Sustainable Chaos, Uncategorized

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Bread to the Wise

Posted on May 10, 2013 | Leave a comment

for a friend whose battles are more private than mine

I know it’s not the same.
I’m not saying it’s the same.
It’s just I wear my shame.

It’s a fat suit I can’t take off.
Can’t seem to take off.
Have put back on, after taking off.

And oh, my house–it’s a mess.
In some ways glorious, in all ways,
or almost always, still a mess.

Skinny women with clean houses
are not (necessarily) full up on bliss.
In my head, I know this.

And a woman round as me
who is also a clutter-monkey
might not be a mess like me

inside her head.
She might not dread
the things I dread.

I know what you’re going through is different.
But if it helps, please take this offering
of what I couldn’t if I wanted to keep private.

_____
Ecclesiastes 9:11 “Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favour to the skilful; but time and chance happen to them all.”

Being as I am not particularly swift, not lifting weights regularly at the moment, not as wise as I’d like, not using my intelligence every time I ought, not using the skill-set I do have, lacking the skill-set I need…well then, by golly–this verse sounds like terrific news today.

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Posted in Bloem or Pog, Daring Greatly, God Stuff, Healthy Health, Poetry, Searching, Sustainable Chaos, Uncategorized

Minnie the MOOC

Posted on April 6, 2013 | Leave a comment

Folks here’s a story ’bout Minnie the MOOC;
she was a red hot edu-kook.
She was the best-funded epic fail,
but Minnie had enrollment big as a whale.

Edu edu edu boo
P.d . P.d. PhD
hee hee hee hee hee hee hee
oh whoa whoa whoa

She messed around with a Superprofessor
She loved him though he was a great big messer.
He put her up online and showed her
how to spread the content around.

Edu-edu-edu-boo
oh-no-whoa-whoa
P.d. p.d. PhD
Oh-no-oh-no

She had a dream about real deep learning;
what she and her students were yearning.
Her institution gave her lots of press,
high hopes and her own web address.

Edu-edu-edu-edu-edu-edu-boo
p.d.p.d.p.d.p.d.PhD
Forgettabouta bookie-dookie oodles-n-oodles a links!
A-clickety clickety clickety hey!

He gave her citations with links for sources.
He gave her the goods from his most popular courses.
She had a million students every new semester
but 90 percent would eventually ditch her

Edu-edu-edu-boo
P.d.peeeeeeee.d.PhD
Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee

Poor MOOC, Poor MOOC, Poor MOOC

(With apologies to the songwriters of “Minnie the Moocher,” Irving Mills, Cab Calloway, Clarence Gaskill.)

_____
Here’s what the Digital Humanities are like for me so far:

When I started graduate school, I asked to be assigned in the smoker’s office.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” said the nice lady in charge of T.A. office assignments.

“I don’t,” I said.

But I wanted to be with the cool kids. All my friends, most of them anyway, were in the smoking office. Beckie (no longer smokes), Aron, Neil, Craig, and more whose names I’m blanking on.

This was in 1987, when smoking was allowed inside college offices. And classrooms–the first time I walked into Rodney Jones’s poetry workshop, I could barely see across the room, it was so smoky, and it took me a solid ten minutes to figure out who the teacher was, because there were three guys involved in an intense conversation, puffing away (none of whom looked like what I was used to professors looking like).

The smoking friends I now shared an office with were ones I’d met at the On-the-Island Pub, where I hung out and spent all the money I thought would last me a year after getting my bachelor’s degree. (It lasted almost six months, which actually, given my level of cluelessness and the fact that I didn’t have a credit card at the time, is pretty impressive.) So of course they all smoked.

I’m not saying that listening to all the cool kids talk about the Digital Humanities is putting me at risk for cancer.

I’m just saying that I’m not a full participant yet, just an observer.

Learning by osmosis.

So far, the cool kids seem to be saying MOOCs are

  • typically touted the most by people who understand them the least,
  • not actually good at what people want them to be good at,
  • potentially really exciting, if created by someone who understands pedagogy, cares about learning, and has experience teaching online.

Hence, I’m not willing to dismiss them as possibilities, but I’m awfully skepti-epti-epti-eptical.

I will, at some point, post something a little more substantive on this here topic. In the meantime, one of the non-smoking cool DH kids references the Hanson Bros.

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Posted in Bloem or Pog, Daring Greatly, Poetry, Searching, Teaching, Uncategorized

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Red, red wine.

Posted on April 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

What I long for is the Welcome Table,
people singing hymns and drinking beer.
Apparently this isn’t possible.

If Jesus really was born in a stable,
It has to be o.k. I like it rougher.
What I long for is a welcome sort of table,

where, seriously, everyone can mingle
And hang out, peacefully, together.
Apparently this isn’t possible,

but I keep hoping. Church is more like hell
for me sometimes. Totally my fault, I’m sure.
What I long for is the Welcome Table

where the music’s hot. Nearly potable.
The Lord’s first miracle was wine (more, more).
Apparently it isn’t possible

to worship without being totally structural.
I just really want to toast the Lord.
What I long for is the Welcome Table.
Apparently this isn’t possible.

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Posted in Bloem or Pog, God Stuff, Poetry, Searching, Uncategorized

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After Fools Day

Posted on April 2, 2013 | 2 comments

I’m a bigger fool than I can say.
I’m so sorely, wretchedly exhausted
I almost need another holiday

to celebrate my foolishness, my way
of stopping just when I’ve gotten started.
I’m a bigger fool than I can say,

but that won’t stop me trying every day
to pin down my soul, to parse it.
I already need another holiday

and we’re not that far past spring break.
Adrenaline drove that car and crashed it.
I’m a bigger fool than I can say.

Calling myself a fool is such canker,
the Bible says not to even say it.
I totally need another holiday,

and although it’s foolish to pray
for time off, I can’t stop doing it.
I’m a bigger fool than even I can say
repeatedly, next time I get a holiday.

____

I told my son this morning that I had an idea for a new holiday–“After Fools Day,” where you say something that’s true, but follow it up with “After Fools Day!” and thus make people wonder if it is true. He was quiet for a moment then said, “Mama I don’t think I’ll be doing that.”

I told him that was o.k. That one of my greatest joys in life was coming up with new ideas, and I had so many, I didn’t worry if most of them crashed and burned. And then my day pretty much crashed and burned. But as days do, this one is ending. Whew.

red shoes make any day better

red shoes make any day better

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Posted in Bloem or Pog, Burnout, Daring Greatly, Poetry, Procrastination, Searching, Sustainable Chaos, Uncategorized

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Prayer for Midterm: Holy Saturday

Posted on March 30, 2013 | 2 comments

I try to assure my son that Easter always comes
(he’s worried they’ll cancel it because of snow),
but honestly, I have my doubts this time.
There’s still so much iron-ice that just won’t go

away. So gray. The only bright spot is the rain.
Officially not winter. Officially no drought.
Still can’t lift my mood this Holy Saturday,
shivering in my little cave of time, bound

tight by my to do list, behind in everything.
So many of my students have the same
time-panic in their eyes. What we need
is grace and strength and energy, not time.

Just faith that we could ever get caught up
would feel like Easter. A miracle, momentum.

______

My son with a peace lantern. Because it was summer. And it's peace.

My son with a peace lantern. Because it was summer. And it’s peace.

(Image of my son taken by my husband, nath, who can be found online at Nightjar Records.)

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Posted in Bloem or Pog, Burnout, Poetry, Procrastination, Sustainable Chaos, Teaching, Uncategorized

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Either that, or spring training has started

Posted on March 6, 2013 | Leave a comment

Question #1:
“Things are gonna slide, slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold
And it’s overturned the order of the soul”
Leonard Cohen, “The Future”

This describes
a. my mood
b. the weather
c. pop culture
d. the sequester
d. none of the above

Oh, we’re mighty tired of winter up north here in Wisconsin. Mighty tired.

But I’ve heard a rumor that, in Florida, the Cardinals have gathered, not to select the next pope, but to work their magic which will put all the gears in motion to move spring northward. I’m pretty sure that’s how it works.

Question #2:
“You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.”

This quote is
a. from Bull Durham
b. spoken by Nuke La Loosh
c. spoken by Skip
d. a nice counter-balance to Leonard Cohen
e. all of the above

from the photographer: "It must be Spring Training. Motorcycle parked in the batting cages at Royals/Rangers Spring Training Stadium"

from the photographer: “It must be Spring Training. Motorcycle parked in the batting cages at Royals/Rangers Spring Training Stadium”

And this image, of course, reminds me of another baseball movie, which breaks my heart too much to watch most times my husband wants to watch it–Bang the Drum Slowly. Perhaps I should re-watch it, write about it, and have yet one more post for Bradley Cooper (on account of DeNiro being in the movie).

But for now, I’ll just mutter to myself all day, “We must never have another motorcycle in camp.”

_____

(Photo from flickr, Creative Commons, by Charles Sollars)

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Posted in Baseball, Searching, Uncategorized

Leviticus Tattooing Lent

Posted on March 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

What I want to say this Easter, a.k.a. “the end of Lent,” is “what a long, strange trip it’s been.”

The snow feels like some sort of collective meteorological flagellation (another storm tomorrow). Meanwhile, I’m trying to give up comparison for Lent.

But this Lent does feel like a journey (more than usual, I mean, you know, compared to other Lents, oops) thanks to one of my online guides, Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran minister and founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver. (Where they have had, among other events, “Beer and Hymns” and “Beer and Carols.”)

I like to imagine how fun it would be IF Paul’s bellicose advice in Ephesians 6 had said, in addition to,

“Therefore take up the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

Also this, “Fashion sleeves of armour which are the holy images of God.”

Of course it didn’t say that, because if it did we might begin to think the Bible contradicted itself in the matter of tattooing. After all, if you were considering, for example, tattooing a verse from Leviticus that condemns homosexuality, you might want to consider the verse in Leviticus that forbids tattooing.

There will eventually be leaves on the trees, right?

There will eventually be leaves on the trees, right?

Or you could just go to Leviticus Tattoo in Minneapolis and get some sleeves in the fashion of Reverend Bolz-Weber who blogs and tweets as The Sarcastic Lutheran.

Or you could just thank the Lord for her and continue to make your way as a Zen Baptist in this world. (By which “you” I mean “I.”)

I started going back to church in the 90s (I suppose I could say Gay 90s but I honestly don’t think we were quite there yet), among other reasons, because I wanted my week and my year to be structured on something other than the work-week and the academic calendar.

Advent and Lent help me mark progress through each year in ways other than “grades turned in yet?” even now, when I’m not part of an official faith community.

(Let me just say, as an aside here, that Minneapolis is a happening place. Not only do they have a tattoo parlor called Leviticus Tattoo, they have a gay bar called the Gay Nineties.)

I’m too contrary to have followed each suggestion in this “House for All Sinners and Saints’ 40 Ideas for Keeping a Holy Lent,” plus I haven’t quite remembered to look each day, plus on the day it suggested donating to Goodwill I wasn’t in a town where there is one when it was open, BUT, it has been one of my checkpoints this Lent.

Today’s suggestion is “forgive someone.” Tomorrow’s is “internet diet.” I’m on it for tomorrow, as long as diet isn’t interpreted as “fast.” This semester already I’ve avoided Facebook (which I dearly love) on several Sunday-through-Thursday stretches, just because I was feeling over-socialized. And this week is one of those weeks.

As for forgiveness, we’ll see. It’s not something I’m particularly good at. Perhaps I could work on forgiving myself for that. Or for something else. It is, of course, a point of pride for me that I am worse at forgiving myself than I am at forgiving anyone else.

I’m a mess.

On a morning after a night full of dreams when I went into buildings and couldn’t get back out the way I came in, or left buildings and couldn’t go back in at all, I think I will simply meditate on the path of forgiveness. Where does it start? How might I start?

And if you landed here looking for ways to condemn homosexuality and you’ve realized I’m ONE OF THOSE who love Jesus and support equality for all, or you want to condemn homosexuality AND tattoos and you’ve realized I think they’re both terrific, well–I forgive you. Do you forgive me?

(And by “I forgive you,” obviously I mean I will work on it. Seriously.)

But if we are in the business of taking the Bible literally (by which “we” I mean “you,” since I’m not in that business), we can agree that one is allowed, on the 491st visit to this site, NOT to forgive me, since Jesus said to forgive not just seven times, but seventy times seven. (491! We’re talking serious blog traffic there.)

In benediction I will say I am finding my Crocs good footwear this a.m. for proclaiming the gospel of peace.

_____

(photo from flickr, Creative Commons, by Lime Spiked)

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On the Enduring Appeal of Bureaucracy

Posted on February 27, 2013 | Leave a comment

A roller coaster isn’t scary because
The car’s attached to the rail (you hope it is),
However high you loop, you’re certain you will
End up right where you started. A reliable thrill.
A blanket. Mowed trails. Molded cafeteria tray.
We do it this way because we’ve always done it this way.
And if you want to make a radical change,
We’ll say no. Quickly. Firmly. Again and again.
“So rather than shift to what it needed to do,
The Army would continue doing what it knew
How to do, which is how bureaucracies act
When they lack strong leadership.” Thomas E. Ricks.
Of course it worked so well in Vietnam.
So we do what we do and thus stay safe and warm.

_____

Cafeteria trays at the Googleplex

Cafeteria trays at the Googleplex

The cafeteria tray I had in mind was the kind that has spaces for your food–elementary school tray, of course. But aren’t these Googleplex trays pretty? Gosh. Might make you think it was possible to have a mix of the creative and the tried-and-true.

Also:  The Generals is just an amazing book. I applaud Tom Ricks once again.

_____

(Picture from Creative Commons on flickr, taken by John “Pathfinder” Lester)

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Posted in Bloem or Pog, Car Sonnets, Creativity, Daring Greatly, Poetry, Politics, Searching, Teaching, Uncategorized, Work Life

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Longing for the Sh*tty Barn

Posted on February 26, 2013 | Leave a comment

All those blizzard letters snaking across
the yard spelling “shiver,” spelling “cold,”
and one whole sentence, “spring will never come,”
they piss me off. An icicle of frozen piss
hangs down from a neighbor’s house, gold
in direct sunlight, briefly. Nope. Now it’s gone.

How I long for a warm night in May at the Barn,
Chastity Brown singing “oh la oh la” and then drums,
those drums…when I listen in the car, I pound
the steering wheel, I thump it, I hit it hard,
I sing along. Winter’s stalled. The doldrums
(“a belt of calms and light baffling winds”)
sound utterly lovely compared to this.
This snow. This mood. This lack of beer. This ice.

_____

Fortunately, the lack of beer can be remedied. Were I at the Sh*tty Barn, it would be a Fatty Boombalatty I’d be drinking. So I will hoist one, this evening perhaps, and trust that someday soon, I’ll be at the barn.

And if you haven’t listened to Chastity Brown, you oughta. The song where she’s singing “oh la oh la” (and I’m not at all sure how to spell that) is called “After You.”

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Posted in Drinking, Folks I Loves, Spring Green, Sustainable Chaos, Uncategorized