nostalgia

A friend of mine from SF who is on tour with his band was in town a couple of days ago. Let's call him Waylan. It's somewhat strange to see him because we dated and I felt like he broke my heart into a million pieces in our short-lived "relationship." I put that word into quotation marks mostly because it was more like the thought that we might have a relationship than us actually having one. Things turned bad really fast. It was not entirely his fault. I was entering this really confusing - like 4 year - phase in my life where, and I feel like this sounds crazy, I was abandoning the person I was and figuring out how to be the person I now am. Let's be clear. I am not totally different. But I was undergoing this intense process of realigning my commitments and Waylan, being a career musician, felt to me like going backwards. I remember telling him, "I swore to myself I'd never date another musician." He said, "I swore I'd never date another non-musician." Hey, at least we were on the same page.

A lot of rock musicians live a pretty hard life - playing shows, going to shows, touring, drinking, partying after the shows, drinking more, flirting, doing drugs, drinking more. This is not to say that this is the standard formula. But it isn't uncommon either. And I was trying to define myself outside of my subcultural tastes and more in terms of what I do (rather than what I like that other people do). I really like music, don't get me wrong. But shows are kind of boring unless you're getting drunk or you might get laid. I was just kind of sick of watching other people fulfill their creative aspirations and being too tired or hungover to fulfill my own.

So, Waylan - all I could say to him was, "this won't work." And when he finally said, "maybe it won't," for some reason my heart shattered. What I think that signified to me was this last break from who I was. It kind of meant I was completely alone. I had not yet figured out how to commune with people who were more in line with who I wanted to become. The yoga folks in SF were pretty hardcore and defined themselves primarily along those lines. That wasn't for me. I didn't really know how to plug into the activist milieu, and really wasn't quite sure what being a "big time activist" entailed given I worked on dinky projects with like 3 people in Baltimore. Frankly, I was a little out of my league in SF. I moved there to not feel crazy. It did eventually work out that way, but it certainly took a while.

Being on the other side of all that feels really good. I still suffer from loneliness and self-doubt, but seeing Waylan reminded me of how far I've come, how confident I actually am compared to my 20s and it feels pretty good.

before and after again

Freddy appeared out of nowhere in my alley last winter. It was pretty cold and he'd developed a hefty coat of fur making him look much bigger and more nourished than he actually was. Of course I started feeding him. The gals downstairs told me they took him in, so I stopped leaving food out for him. One day, riding my bike down the alley I saw him again. They let him back out because he was stinky. If you look at his left ear in the 'before' photo, you can see it's crusty and pretty gross. He had a wicked ear infection that made him smell like he'd been rolling around in rat carcasses. He was so sweet when he was outside. He would wait on the deck at the house next door. I would call his name out the window and he'd come running up the fire escape for his breakfast. He was so sick that I thought he was much older than he actually was. One day, on a day when Gordon was scheduled for a vet visit, Freddy was waiting on the fire escape in really bad shape. He was covered in burrs, his ear was in worse shape than ever, and he had cuts all over his face from a fight. I knew I had to take him in. Vets here in Toronto aren't cheap and Chris is a fucking champ paying for vet bills for the random strays that I pick up. I got Freddy neutered, got his ear fixed up, and tried to find him a home. He stayed with the gal upstairs for a bit and had a few almost-new-homes, but he just kept finding his way back to us. I've never been much into tabby cats, but Freddy's really changed my tune. He's such a fun quirky (big) guy.

Before:

After:

Look how orange his little nose got!

before and after

I love "before" and "after" photos. I can't wait to post them of the house, once we actually live in the house. In the meantime, here are before and afters of my most recent family addition, Virgil. Something about his shelter photo told me that he was my cat. Goodness knows why. But he's been an amazing and fun addition to the family.

Virgil's shelter photo:

A contented Virgil:

When I sent that shelter picture to Chris, he said, "I love monkeys!"

Now I just need to post before and after photos of me after I turn in the first draft of my comp. Meow.

the general sense of things

I would there are three things that I'm pretty obsessed with:

1. The general state of the world and figuring out ways to change it.

2. Yoga.

3. Cats/animals in general.

This list is not in order of importance as one eclipses the others at different periods in my life. I've been tootling around the blogosphere lately. Reading blogs is something that's a little new to me. I generally do not follow political blogs. Rather, I have been following ashtanga blogs and cat rescue blogs. I got so obsessed with one cat rescue blog that I actually had to block blogger from my computer for stretches at a time so I could get some work done. I was so fascinated by the sheer volume of cats that this woman was rescuing. I couldn't tear myself away. She is also just likable and it was around the time that I was grading a bunch of incoherent tests, so I just enjoyed reading the tremendous backlog of blog posts just to feast my eyes on something that was easy to read, well written, and gave me the feel-goods.

Something that I'm noticing, however, is the crossover in my interests on these blogs. More specifically, all the yogis who are doing animal rescue or are obsessed with the fucked up state of the world. I mean, who isn't noticing the overall feeling that things are falling apart. This is particularly reflective in the posts from people in the US. One yoga-blog post actually said something like, "Things are so messed up, I can't understand why people aren't taking to the streets!" And here's the problem. I can't either. And it ain't as if there have been no protests to go to. But I can't help but feel kind of, well, bored by them. They're sort of ceremonial and rote, like perfectly usual sex that feels kind of good but you could be just as satisfied by a yummy slice of banana cream pie.

What is that? The world is exploding and there is no shortage of things to get pissed off about. Yet, I'm still kind of uninspired by the resistance here in Canada (and maybe the US but I can't say for sure because I haven't lived there for almost three years).* Maybe it's because I'm not actually organizing any of these protests. That probably has a lot to do with it. But I can't help but think about Katsiaficas's 'eros effect'. This is likely because I just wrote a section in my comp yesterday on The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life. In The Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of 1968, Katsiaficas defines the eros effect as:

"the eros effect [is] the massive awakening of the instinctual human need for justice and freedom. When the eros effect occurs, it becomes clear that the status quo has been torn, and the forms of social control have been ruptured. This rupture becomes clear when established patterns of interaction are negated, and new and better ones are created."

Katsiaficas recently published an article about Egypt, framing it in terms of the eros effect. And while a structure of feeling cannot be measured, I believe in its power. What I've been noticing in the blogosphere and in facebook posts is that there is a sense that things in the US are profoundly disturbing and infuriating. I hear more and more a collective sense that we have to do something. While the happenings in Wisconsin signal, um, something, I'm not sure we're there yet in terms of the massive, necessary uprisings that will push this current administration into not caving to the neocons.

Long story short, the sentiments are there, but the action isn't. What will it take to build a sustained movement that will rouse those who, for the most part, are outraged? When will "the forms of social control" be ruptured? When will we (we being those who think things are in the shitter) actually think better things are not only necessary, but possible?

*Please do not take this to mean that the very real and amazing campaigns like OCAP and NOII etc. are "uninspiring." I'm not really talking about the grassroots campaigns that do important and radical and effective work. I'm talking about that feeling of being swept up in resistance so that people who might not define themselves as 'activists' might be compelled to participate in uprisings.

My biggest fear

I am really excited to move back to Baltimore. There are three things I'll really really miss in Toronto:

1. My friends (but that doesn't mean I live in a community and that's a biggie for me)

2. My yoga studio. I mean that with everything in me. I'm really gonna miss that place.

3. My health insurance. THIS IS HUGE.

1. My friends. I've made some wonderful friends here. But the thing about them is is that they're all kind of separate. My relationships with them are sort of singular. One of the things that I like about Baltimore is the community thing I got going on. I used to hate that I knew everyone. It felt suffocating. But now. Now I'm so happy to go to the coffee shop and run into people and chat. And this doesn't just mean I go to M***c here in Toronto and listen to a bunch of university students (grad or otherwise) talk about school. I'm talking about having chats with all kinds of people, old, young, business folks, crust punks, hippies, dippies, grad students, musicians, whoever, that you just run into on any given day. It's nice. I know that there are communities here in Toronto. It's obvious in Kensington Market that there is that kind of community. But, I just don't have access to it. So I never cultivated it here. I cultivated it in San Francisco. That's the benefit of doing food service work. But here, not so much.

2. Yoga. Oy. My yoga studio is so unique that I couldn't have learned nearly as much as I have anywhere else. It got me through a somewhat debilitating injury and helped me learn how to practice so that I can practice for a long time. It's wonderful and I'm going to miss it.

3. Here's the biggie. I'm terrified of not having health care. Having a shitty, somewhat affordable health insurance package is not the same as having guaranteed health care. Those are two entirely different things. I mean, we've all heard the horror stories about people getting rejected and bankrupted and left to die. I just cannot understand a system that ties a fundamental right - the right to health care - to employment. All you read and hear about is that employers can't afford to insure their employees, especially small employers, or that people are chronically unemployed or underemployed. In a system where full-time, steady employment with good health care benefits is more fiction than fact, I cannot for the life of me understand why people think that basic access to care is somehow "socialist," i.e., evil.* I've chosen a field where there is no guarantee that I'll get a job. In fact, I've chosen several fields where health insurance has not been attached to my employment. Some would say, "choose better jobs." But, even if I was going to be a waitress or a yoga teacher for the rest of my life, does that not guarantee me access to health care. It really boils my blood and terrifies me at the same time.

People here in Canada cannot fathom such a system. While the "perks" of health care are tied to employment contracts, nobody is left to die of or be bankrupted by cancer or a car accident or a fall down the stairs. It's fucking absurd and I'm really worried that when (not if) I get cancer (hey, we live in a toxic, chemical, radiation-filled world), bye bye my house, bye bye my savings or any cushion I have to maybe save for retirement. And that mentality will keep me a fucking wage slave for the rest of my life. Fuck this system.

* I think socialism is kind of awesome, by the way.

Hardness

I have been told that I am "hard." This has recently been said to me by several people in several different contexts which leads me to assume that it's something that people see in me as a defining trait. Even people I would define as "hard" see me this way.

What do I mean by hard? I think there are several ways that this manifests. The first is that I'm hard on myself. I've heard that I don't give myself a break. I don't let myself make mistakes. I have very high standards for myself. As a result, I'm hard on other people. I have similarly high standards for them. And because I am in the business of evaluating people, this makes me seem unrealistic, harsh, unapproachable, and not warm.

Let me be more specific. I went out a few weeks ago with some friends. I drank more than I usually do (which means more than two drinks) and stayed out a little later than I usually do (which means past 10). I was told that, as I got drunker, I got warmer, less "hard." This came from someone who might be considered one of the more rigid people I know. Someone who is notorious for (their) insensitivity and rigidity. I was kind of floored.

To piggy-back on my last post, this has also manifested, of course, in teaching. My evaluations tend towards these adjectives: knowledgeable, organized, harsh. "Harsh" comes up a lot. I think I'm harsh in two ways. First, I am a "harsh" grader. Second, I have a "harsh" demeanor. Perhaps I see the ever-diminishing standards of higher education as a trend to buck rather than give in to. Of course, if I perceive that a student really is in trouble, I am more than willing to accommodate her. But, I'm very suspicious of excuses and, frankly, some students are manipulative. In my opinion, if I allow them to get away with pulling fast ones, it shows that that kind of behavior pays off. I think a lot of TAs and professors give students the benefit of the doubt because 1. it's the compassionate thing to do and, 2. it's easier than fighting. I'll admit to tending toward just saying, "okay fine..." and letting the student do xyz just because I don't feel like fighting. But most times, I don't bite. That said, I can kind of tell when a student is really worn down and struggling. In those cases, it's usually a student who put in the time and effort and all of a sudden, their tendencies change - they stop coming to class, the quality of their work drops suddenly. In these cases, of course, compassion is the way to go.

I know that a huge part of my 'hardness' in school is because I started teaching when I was 25, I looked like a teenager, and when I tried to be buddy buddy with everyone, people walked all over me. No way. So I start off hard and lighten up, so that they know there is a side to me that they just don't want to see. I am not sure if it's great pedagogy, but it works, for the most part. Hey, we live in a misogynistic world. I can't be that great dude who won't be called a 'bitch' for having standards.

While I am aware that I cultivate a certain tough exterior in the classroom, it makes me sad to hear that this is how I am perceived in other areas of my life. Chris has even noted it. In fact, he once said the very words, "You are so hard." What is it? Is it that I've developed a particular exterior so that I can live in a world that breaks my heart? Is it that I've struggled, somewhat, in my life and I didn't 'give into it' and now don't tolerate 'softness'? I'm not sure. And I'm not sure what to change about myself so that I come off as warmer or something. Or if I want to change.

Warning: yoga analogy coming up. I was in a yoga workshop last week with this dude who was super strong and doing a ton of handstands and arm balances, etc. Stuff that requires strength. Strength as always been my forte in yoga. Flexibility has always been my struggle. I've been told over and over again that I over-work in poses. I was chatting with a woman before the workshop started and she's super flexible but has a real difficulty with strength-based poses - pretty much the 'opposite' of me. She said people who are strong physically often have strong/willed personalities to match. She said that she was not very strong willed and that showed in her body.

Anyway, this rambly note is to say that people have noticed a hardness in me either lately or always and have been commenting on it. I can't help but think that this is the 'universe' (or whatever) telling me something.