it's the little things

Literally. We have a functional house by all intents and purposes. But we still need to finish the little things. The list is long and my patience and time seem to be running short. Little things that take forever.

Took a nice vacation at Martha's Vineyard. This vacation consisted mostly of sitting on the porch and reading Bossypants and Endgame: The Problem of Civilization: two great tastes that taste great together.

In all seriousness: reading Endgame reminds me so thoroughly of the horror that is to come. I don't hold out much hope that this can all change and we can turn this massive, unsustainable ship around. There are too few viable alternatives, too little will to do what it takes - whatever that is, and too much entrenched power and tacit belief that we are, indeed, at the end of history.

I am trying to read Jensen critically and I'm holding off on reading the book reviews so that I can assess how I feel and what I think about this work. I think that it's informed a number of activists' tactics and thinking. I can't see how it wouldn't. It's moving and it's a call to action steeped in urgency. Why wouldn't it cannonical?

The problem is, it makes me feel like my efforts are not enough* and the efforts around environmental sustainability (or whatever is appropriate to call it) are nothing if not insufficient. Frankly, it's all very scary and makes me want to hide under the covers rather than be more firmly committed to the work that I am doing.

*My friend Bryan would call this liberal bullshit or something. Who am *I* to take the weight of the world on my shoulders?

I probably was inappropriate

But I'm not sure it matters.

I was chatting with an old friend yesterday with whom I waited tables back in the day. We were discussing the fact that the owner wasn't a big fan of either of us. In part, he didn't like me because I brought my politics to work, which my friend conceded *was* inappropriate. And it probably was. I wasn't much fun in those days. I had a hard time seeing past my white-hot anger. If you haven't worked food service before, I can attest that servers bare witness to some petulant, spoiled behavior. In the face of people making a big deal over the fact that they don't get a second basket of chips and salsa for free (which cost a buck fifty and signified to me typical American bloat), I couldn't help but want to jolt some perspective into the assholes. Ordinarily I didn't take my anger out on my customers and most customers were a-ok. But I was in that newly radicalized phase of my politicization and, frankly, I would not want to be friends when then-me. I'm sure I was mildly unbearable.

THAT SAID - I'm not quite sure that it's a good idea not to be as white-hot angry as I was. In some ways, I was responding to the vast and overwhelming injustice that prevails to this day - that manifests itself in over-consumption and petty self-centeredness that makes "Americans" the butt of many jokes and the site of much global disdain.

Take this debt ceiling nonsense. I'm not a big fan of the state as an entity. However, the state is currently the place where resources are collectivized and distributed. The batshit crazy tea party conservatives have completely gutted any and all wealth redistribution allowing the uber rich to get richer, continue to buy the government and shape public opinion, and leave the ordinary person - most of us - adrift. This is a populist movement funded by very wealthy people (which makes the resource mobilization perspective in social movements compelling).

Is this country that conservative? Or apathetic? What is it?

I can't help but believe that the norm of not talking about your politics, the norm of "politeness," lends to overwhelming dearth of response to this madness. Of course, it's also a function of the corporate media and the distracted, busy nature of our lives. I just can't decide whether the anger is worth it. Do I let myself feel this injustice or do I just keep on doing what I do - teaching, organizing, reading, writing things that no one reads, complaining a little in the blogosphere and facebook? Probably.

like pieces of garbage

A few weeks ago, I was biking down Falls Road. I'm using the "bike lanes" these days which brings me right next to Baltimore Bicycle Works. As I was passing the shop, I noticed a small orange tabby (OT) cat hanging out near the not-yet-opened shop. As I often do, I stopped to say hi to the kitty. He immediately flopped over for belly and chest rubs. He was filthy, un-neutered and ridiculously sweet - all signs of an abandoned cat. When I got home, I emailed someone I knew from the shop and she said that though she'd been away, her co-workers had mentioned that the kitten had wandered into the shop a couple of days ago and she'd keep me posted about whether he returns. I was prepared to shoulder the expense of having him neutered (which is relatively inexpensive at Hampden Pet Health). A few days later, I stopped by the shop and asked the dude working about the cat. He said he'd brought food for the cat hoping to figure out what to do with the little guy but thus far, the cat hadn't returned. As far as I know, the cat's gone. I bike that path often and I have been keeping an eye out for the little guy. Not doing anything for him in the moment has been haunting me. I'm hoping that someone took him in and that he wasn't hit by a car or eaten by some of the predators that lurk around those parts.

Falls Road is home to a variety of suspicious activity. My last visit, I was biking down it and noticed a trash bag in the middle of the road. This isn't completely unusual as many people think that the thick bush is a perfect dumping ground for their garbage. When I was biking back, it was clear that several people had run into/over the garbage bag. It was then that I noticed that the bag had a dirty litter box in it. Okay. The next time I biked by it, probably the next day, not only did I see the litter box but big tufts of grey fur. Yes, someone wrapped a cat in a big garbage bag with its filthy litter box and threw it into the middle of the road. I prayed that the cat was already dead before someone did that. It's unlikely. This breaks my heart.

In looking for OT yesterday, I spied with my little eye a black fuzzy cat (ala Gordon) lounging on the streetcar tracks outside the Baltimore Streetcar Museum. The cat noticed me right away and kept its eyes locked on me. I've seen a feral or two in that area and figured that I could count this kitty among them. Nope. Black kitty cat (BKC) got right up, came over, flopped on its back and let me pet its chin and belly while it purred and cooed and rubbed. BKC was mostly skin and bones and its longish fur was matted, as often happens with stray long hair cats. Recalling OT, I just couldn't ignore this cat. I made some frantic calls to no avail. I pet the kitty for a while and then noticed a long-haired calico, then a white and orange male tabby, then a tiger striped tabby, then a grey and white kitty who is clearly on death's door - drippy eyes, ears that go this way and that. All of them seemed to be waiting for food.

I biked home, grabbed a big tupperware container of food that my spoiled cats have rejected, and trekked back to the museum. When I got there, there was an older fella sitting on the bench outside the museum shop feeding the cats. He said he feeds them a few times a week, less so in the winter. They were clearly happy to see him and very hungry. He said he was unable to come to feed them on Fridays and Tuesdays. So, I guess that's my job now.

More on the commitment of maintaining a feral colony in another post.

Moral of the story: I just cannot fathom the way people treat animals. I am aware that I'm probably a bit overly sentimental about it. But it simply breaks my heart to see that kind of suffering.

what now?

Not really. Now, I paint the walls.

Nobody will be surprised to hear that since I've gotten back from Toronto, I've been pretty consumed with getting the house together. This inevitably means that the other things that ordinarily consume me have withered away a bit. Particularly, I have not been reading for my second comp at all. In fact, I haven't even finished compiling my list. That world seems to "other" to me right now. My friend in Toronto was recalling a recent tutorial that he'd had where students were asking the same question over and over again in different ways. He said, "Do you miss it?" And I have to say, definitively, no, I do not. At least not yet.

I've been teaching yoga as a way to make a living and it's been pretty good. I don't think I'd want to teach a whole lot. I'd say that teaching three classes is about my cap. More recently, I've been seriously considering teaching high school. But I am still firmly on the fence about that too. Frankly, I'm sick of teaching right now - mostly, I'm sick of evaluating and the ways in which those evaluations structure the learning experience. I'm definitely grateful to take a break from it.

So where does this leave me? I'm seriously considering applying for a job at the SPCA near my house. They need an animal care technician. The one thing about that job that gives me pause is that one of the expectations is to learn to euthanize. I think I'd really have a hard time with that. Yet, who better to do it than someone who cares to be there for the animals in their last moments? It's a part-time job. All the better. I'd like to have a couple of part time jobs. In fact, I'd be a-ok with not doing the same thing all the fucking time. Nothing deadens my soul more.

The way I can envision my life is as such. Work with animals a few days a week. Teach one or two academic classes (either at the college level or as a substitute teacher) and maybe two yoga classes. Do some political work in the area, perhaps working with 2640 or the Free School or the UWA - there's no shortage of amazing political projects in Baltimore. All I need is a health care plan. Frankly, this doesn't sound like a bad life to me. The question is: why does it feel like back peddling?

rushed

This post will be rushed, much like my current existence. I am still in house limbo. We just finished refinishing the floors. They are beautiful. I estimate that we will be doing work for the next week and then we can bring the cats in.

I have been so exhausted lately. Our days consist of working on the house. Our evenings are filled with planning what we'll eat, where we'll sleep, and how we'll lug our existences from one locale to the next. After long days of physical labor, that part's the hardest. We have been staying with my mom on occassion (as have the cats - still) and I'm sure that to the suburban elite, we look like crust punks. We are sweaty, covered in sawdust, carrying all the things we'll need on our backs, and wandering around the grocery store looking for food that requires no preparation but is cheap and nutritious.

Pretty soon we'll be able to move our bed back into the house and actually finish rooms. We have to trim out the baseboards and windows in all the rooms. Today, we are demolishing an ancient sewer pipe and carrying it from the house in 3 foot increments. We'll be happy to have that thing out of there given it cuts through the basement stairs.

The great thing is that I can begin to see this project crystalize. I'm excited to build a photo album because the progress, though slow, is really stark.

twin crises

I am back in Baltimore and it really does feel like home. I am eager to "begin" my life here - for it to take some semblance of the shape that it will. But I think I've spent most of my life waiting for my life to start. I've just completed my first comp and I'm now trying to think through the second one. However, moving back here makes that life seem so distant, even though it was only a week ago. This distance is what I feared - that school and its culture will seem hopelessly out of touch with my experiences.

The house still needs a ton of work. We are in the process of laying the floors. We anticipate that will take up all of this week and a bit of next. Then there is the detail work that comes after. This is all feeling very rushed by the fact that my cats are staying at my mom's place and there's definitely an expiration date on the sentiment. So what would perhaps otherwise feel like an enjoyable experience feels rushed and stressful. In frustration I keep crying. I haven't yet hung out with anyone in a relaxed way and my mind is single-tracked for sure.

Freddy, my tabby cat, is really struggling with this transition. I know I shouldn't feel guilty about putting him through this. Clearly his last person didn't care and just threw him into the alley. But I feel so bad for him. I spent the night at my mom's on Monday night and the poor little guy meowed all night. I can't wait for him to get here and watch the birds all day and get cuddles and love.

things i will not miss

More suitable to my temperament, I will now reflect on the things I just will not miss about this city.

1. Walking down the street. I don't know what it is about people in this city but they just don't get out of the fucking way. Seriously. Just go to my left (your right). Simple rules of traffic will suffice. This is something people to whom I mention it either can't see it at all or recognize it as a fundamental part of the Toronto experience. It's maddening.

2. Rudeness. Seriously. I have not experienced this level of rudeness anywhere else. I'm from what could be described as a gruff American city. I have been to New York - and lost in New York - many times. Never, ever have I experienced the blatant coldness that permeates this city. This manifests in a number of ways. For one thing, people just don't acknowledge one another (see above). People cut in front of you in line - A LOT. The tacit norm is that one is expected to be "polite" and not mention it. Mentioning rudeness is rude. There really is just no sense of community or cooperation here. Again, I don't think this is a function of it being a "big city." My experiences in New York have been so much more congenial than they have ever been here.

3. Grey skies and long winters. In other words, the weather. I does not agree with my constitution. I like warmth. One notable difference from Baltimore is that it's oddly a little dryer here, meaning it doesn't seem *as* cold as it is. But it's cold. And what Torontonians consider hot is as laughable to me as my being in a down coat when everyone else is in a t-shirt. I know that Toronto's climate is the mildest in Canada. It's still difficult for me.

4. For it being such a big city, everything closes really early. This one's self-explanatory.

5. Veterinary costs. They are seriously prohibitive. This means that people do not spay and neuter their animals which means that the feral cat population is astronomical. It's heartbreaking. One can "fix" their animal for under $50 in Baltimore. It made animal rescue much easier.

6. Cost of living. While we're at it, everything is more expensive here. I would happily pay more money for things if I thought it was because I was absorbing externalities. But that's not the case. I'm sure there's a reason that everything costs more, but I'm not into it.

7. The Beer Store. I simply cannot stare at a wall of labels and choose a beer. That shit makes no sense to my tactile little mind.

Seriously, how is anyone supposed to understand their booze given this display?

the way it should be

When moving, it is not unusual to reflect on how one is living her life and dream about the how one will live her life once the transition is complete. I am, in particular, reflecting on the over-bureaucratized nature of modern life.

In the past week, I have had the pleasure of tying up all the loose ends of my life in Toronto. This includes doing my taxes (yay refund!), going to the dentist, getting my eyeglass prescription updated, preparing to sell my shit, having quality time with friends and so on. It also involves dealing with the various bureaucratized entities that dominate modern life. Case in point - fucking cell phones. I'm a smart gal and I know that if I *really* put the effort into it, I could probably figure out my contract. But, jeez, it's a phone, why should it be so hard. As a result of my ignorance, I ended up with an astronomical phone bill, one that nearly took my breath away. Dealing with canceling the internet was similarly frustrating. For a moment (okay for about 24 hours), I felt so trapped by all this fine print. My shoulders ache and I just don't remember feeling so overwhelmed with dealing with the specifics of my life.

I remember when I "launched" out of my parents home. I was so worried about how to manage my bills. The extent of the bills was a landline-based phone, a BGE bill, my car payment, and my rent. None of them had inexplicable hidden fees that required I call the company and be put on hold forever and fight with customer service and so on. These companies rely on people being too busy to check their bills or too frustrated to make the endless necessary calls to figure out all the superfluous charges that they encounter on their internet, cell phone, hydro, and other itemized bills. It's a fucking scam. And it stresses me out to no end.

The thing is, with the internet and phone, much of this is in service of being in constant contact. I'm not entirely sure I like that. I am a pretty anxious person who is prone to being scattered. I don't think I have a diagnosable case of ADD, but I also think that the fractured, confusing nature of contemporary existence does not suit my temperament. Weirdly, I don't know how to stop it. I actually wonder how I used to spend my time before the internet. I want to rethink my connection to connection when I move home. I feel like my life could be so much fuller.

I was listening to a CBC show called "Ideas" about dogs. There was a 3 part series about how dogs think and how people think about their dogs. A growing "concern" among those who think a lot about dog behavior is the way in which people attach to their dogs and relate to them as proxy children. To some dog behaviorists, this is somewhat antithetical to what dogs "need" from their people. One author suggested that the tendency to treat pets like people and to develop serious emotional bonds to pets is somewhat a reflection of the fractured nature of modern resistance. Whereas people used to have community, religion, or extended family to meet their emotional needs, the fact that contemporary life makes many of us too busy to attend to those ways of being fulfilled, people now turn to their pets to gain that contact and intimacy. I see this very much in my relationship with my cats. This is not to say that I want to change the close relationship I have with the animals in my life. This is, however, a concern that I have in the sense that I know I rely on my cats to relieve the pressures of life. I wonder if it's a reflection of the fact that most humans are living their own over-busy lives and we don't connect as fully as we could. I want that to change.

things i like

There are a few things that I'll really miss about Toronto. This post is about the physical city, not any of its specific inhabitants.

1. Air conditioning. Actually, I love the restraint in its use. Nothing is more irritating to me than having to carry around a sweater all summer in the US because every retail outlet, from big box to mom and pop, thinks that it's a good idea for customers to have to see their breath inside because it's hot outside. Aside the environmentally unsound nature of blasting the AC, it's simply irritating. Don't get me wrong - on a super-hot and muggy day, I appreciate a cool space. But the extent to which Americans abuse the AC is actually offensive to me.

2. Kensington Market.

I like Kensington not because of its "weirdness" but because it's in walking distance and I can get an amazing array of fresh produce, dairy, bread, and tortillas several times a week. It's something that I'll miss a lot when I move to Baltimore. I'll especially miss the organic produce shop owned by the guy who often blasts Ethiopiques and other amazing music from the store.

3. Walking/biking/public transit culture. Like when I lived in San Francisco, it's perfectly acceptable, if not perfectly normal, not to have a car. In fact, having a ride somewhere just seems odd. I am hoping to carry that feeling of "it's normal to walk, bike or take the bus/light rail" in Baltimore. There is definitely *something* about the structure of feeling that guides wanting or not wanting a car. Here, I have no desire whatsoever for a car. Of course, this is largely contingent on access to resources. I am praying someone opens an amazing grocery store where the Hampden Food Market used to be.

4. Downward Dog Yoga and Delia Triolo Yoga - I am so blessed to have such amazing practice spaces. While these spaces are called "mysore" classes, they are actually mostly "open" practice spaces that aren't reserved for Ashtanga only. This inspires much controversy in the blog-o-sphere. But I have to say, I have learned so much in the nearly three years I've been practicing in Toronto. I feel like I've built the foundation for a practice that will sustain me for the rest of my life. I am hoping I can replicate that kind of space in Baltimore - one in which I don't have to teach the yoga but also take advantage of the wealth of knowledge that my Baltimore family of yoginis have.

5. Health care. I am a broken record about this. It's *that* important.

transitions part 2

Despite moving into a better neighborhood and apartment in Toronto, something about this city just didn't resonate with Chris. He wanted to move back to Baltimore. He was miserable here. So I got it in my head that we needed a project and we decided to buy a house. It was really the last year that we would have been able to buy one. Chris made a "grown-up" salary the prior year which made him able to procure a loan. There's no way in hell he'd have been able to get a loan the next year. We found a dinky little weird house in Hampden for under 100k and Chris moved back almost exactly a year ago today.

The house was clearly in need of work, but I don't think either of us anticipated just how hard it would be to get the house together. It wound up being a complete gut/renovate and the burden has certainly fallen primarily on Chris's shoulders - both emotionally and financially. He's fully funding this life we will have together and that brings about some complicated feelings for me.

First, the liberal feminist in me is all - Get out of grad school and get a real job bozo. You shouldn't rely on a man to pay your bills! I am feeling very guilty about not paying my fair "share" of the expenses or shouldering my fair share of the burden. I have contributed to the house in a number of ways, of course. My father is living on peanuts to help us with this house. My friend has been instrumental in guiding us through this process and is planning on building us our staircase for free. My networks allowed us to do this, for sure. But that's not my actual labor or my "real" resources. At the same time, the anarchist/socialist in me bristles at hearing myself measure resources in such blatant monetary terms. Chris recognizes the joint efforts required for getting this project off the ground and creating our dream home. But mainstream financial ideologies get in. I can't help it.

Second, I worry a lot (I could end the sentence there really) about how to make enough money when I get back while at the same time getting my academic work done in a timely fashion. All this for a "career path" that could well be a dead end and that I'm quite frankly ambivalent about in the first place. I know that it's a bad idea to make major life decisions in such a state of flux. So I live in this purgatory. I know, however, that I'll have to sit down and make some major choices and have some pretty intense conversations with Chris (once we actually have a couch again).

Ah, first world problems.

transitions part 1

I turned in the second draft of my comp. Now it's time to make piles - what to keep, what to sell, what to give away. It's also time to reflect, as most transitions result in taking stock.

My time here in Toronto started out kind of rocky. The city is heavily populated by students and the apartment stock gets pretty competitive around the beginning of each semester - which is of course right when we were trying to find an apartment. Chris was definitely not a fan of Toronto and nothing I could do could convince him to like it. Despite that, he chose York over CUNY (thank goodness) and we decided to pick up and move here. Trying to find a place was ridiculous. There was a huge line for most apartments, they were pretty pricey, and the level of ass-kissing and personal scrutiny was, well, humiliating. Of course, Chris and I don't play nice in that way. Not that we were dismissive, but we both have a hard time engaging if it's not genuine. It's the reason we both don't do well in crowds of strangers. Inane small talk eludes us.

Because the west side of Toronto is coveted, we moved to Leslieville - a "dangerous" east side neighborhood. Chris liked its pre-overrunbyhipsters Brooklyn-ish feel. And our rent was cheap. But when we got there, the apartment wasn't ready and it looked nothing like the landlord said it would (he just bought the house and was planning renovations). The place was dark, dank, and cold. The upstairs neighbor smoked like a chimney and the smoke would come through the vents. It was gross. Given all these variables, plus the fact that it took me a good hour and a half on a good day to get to campus, I was in no place to produce anything approximating good academic work.

The "drama" of Toronto was exacerbated by the fact that our union, CUPE 3903 went on strike about two months into my first semester of my PhD. I was *just* getting a groove and BAM! we were out on the pavement - literally. About a week before the strike, my chain-smoking 24-year old upstairs neighbor was killed by a stray bullet while smoking outside a local bar. Oh, and the entire economy collapsed. The world felt like it was shifting under my feet and I couldn't hold on.

One of the great things about the strike - trust me on this one, it was very difficult for me to glean good things from this debacle - was that I met a lot of people who I wouldn't have ordinarily met. That part I liked. But, the strike itself was a fucking joke. The strategizing was all wrong. Frankly, a lot of grad students are really good at deconstructing but are too rooted in ideology to intervene effectively. It just wasn't clear what the union - and the membership - was trying to do with this moment. Furthermore, it wasn't clear that the strategy team could fully account for our ridiculous demands at a time where people were losing their jobs to a frightening degree. In short, we played it all wrong and we were a joke, even in left circles. It was really disheartening and it colonized my energies and destabilized my commitment to left politics in Toronto. In that way, I really felt like I was alone.

Right around the time the strike ended, our new upstairs neighbors informed us that our house had bedbugs. Fucking bedbugs. That was that for me and we decided to move. I just couldn't handle another thing to have to handle, if you know what I mean. So about the time that we were wrapping up our first semester after remediation, Chris and I had to pack up and move across the city. We found a lovely apartment on the cusp of Little Italy and Little Portugal - near Kensington Market. It's bright and pretty - and I am still living here. Sadly, the building, a beautiful 1920s apartment building, was bought by a new company and is being turned into condos. I got out just in time, actually. Ah, the wheels of "progress" just keep turning.

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.

new direction?

The primary reason I decided to go back to school was because I wanted to teach and make a living at it. For some reason, this year of teaching kicked my ass and I'm really looking forward to not teaching sociology next year. I don't know if it's the structure of the university, the increasing illiteracy of the students, my not wanting to be here, the lack of chemistry with my students, or whatever other reasons I can think of, but this year of teaching left me uninspired and utterly frustrated. This will inevitably sound cruel, but I got so little from my students. They were such lumps. Ordinarily, I get hugs from students at the end of the year. This year, I'll be lucky if I don't get punched in the face. They hate me and I kind of hate them. When I think of most of them individually, I don't really hate them. But there was no chemistry, no fun, no engagement in the classrooms this year. It was maddening.

It used to be that the political nature of my courses is made some students have a distaste for me. But this year, it's just us. We don't like one another very much. I am probably harder on them than I should be but, please - in university one should know the difference between their, they're, and there and that a lot is two words. One should be able to structure a coherent sentence and engage in more than basic regurgitation.

Yet, I can't help but wonder if I am punishing people who are forced to engage in a failed system. The more I teach, and the longer I teach, I'm noticing the decline of students' ability to translate the ideas in their heads to the page. I'm noticing their inability or unwillingness to move beyond description into analysis. I think this is a function of a failing school system and their performance has been determined well before I get ahold of them.

But I also think (and here's where I become the asshole who sounds old) that the internet is ruining the classroom experience. Nothing irritates me more than 25% of the class checking their email, texting, chatting, looking at pictures on facebook, and watching fucking TV while in the classroom. It's a new-ish phenomenon and it sucks. It sucks that I have to be the disciplinarian jerk telling other adults to knock it the fuck off. It sucks that their attention is so scattered that the most basic things that I said a gagillion times in class show up on their papers and tests in the form of omission or flagrant rule-breaking. I feel like a failure when I see it.

I co-TAed this term - splitting a set of tutorials with another TA. They love her and didn't really like me. My course director said, "***** has all the same complaints that you have. But you put it out there." I can't help it. I see this thing that was so important to me flushed further and down the toilet. I think I need to take a break, regroup, and think through if and how to be committed to teaching in this increasingly irritating context.

walls and walls and walls

Like it always does, life goes on. The sting of losing Gordon has subsided. I hate that it has because all the Gordon-ness is absent from my life. The sting at least made it feel like he was with me a little.

I am speeding up my reading progress, which is great. I know I can probably get away with doing a lot less than I am. I do want to make the process worthwhile. My biggest problem is concentrating. I'm struggling with staying on task. The internet, the cats, my toenails, the litter box, the laundry, grocery shopping, tooth brushing. Any and everything deserves my attention other than the task at hand. I'm sure I'm describing almost everyone's life here and saying nothing particularly special.

Part of the reason I feel like this is the floaty-ness of my current existence. My house is coming together. Chris is in Baltimore. I am homesick. Uprisings are happening everywhere. Here I am in a city I don't particularly care for reading somewhat obscure books theorizing the real things that are actually happening and struggling to write a document that three people will read. At least I am grading papers that nobody wanted to write and I certainly don't want to read. It all feels so useless and like a grand waste of time.

My angst is real but it's so boring, I swear to g-d. I read a study that Facebook makes people kind of depressed because it looks like other people are having a great time and here you are, lonely, in this virtual reality, looking at peoples' weddings and parties and fabulous vacations thinking, "my life is so boring." I feel like that nonetheless. I just want to go home. I know I am wrongly thinking of going home as a panacea and I fear I will always be waiting for my life to start. Shit, I'm probably half way through it (knock on wood), shouldn't I realize that this is it?

A lot of this rambly bullshit post is to say that I don't think I'll really ever feel comfortable in a world like this. I am coming to accept it. I have strongly internalized the pain of injustice and the magnitude of wrong-living. I don't think I'll be able to shake it off, especially if I've made it my job to hole myself in my house and read about it. I envy those that are conscious but still able to find the beauty and joy in the world. I am praying that my Baltimore community will do just that.

Crying

I think I've mentioned in another post somewhere that I am not a crier. I'll cry out of frustration on occasion and out of grief on occasion. My relationship to crying is really weird. Because it is a physical manifestation of emotion, or at least the most obvious one, I feel like it's what I should do to express the sadness I feel. So when I'm crying about Gordon, I feel like I'm doing the right thing, though I wish I could stop crying. When I'm not crying about Gordon, I feel like I'm not honoring him or that I'm somehow "getting over" him or that I'm once again learning how to obscure my emotions - putting the emptiness and grief wherever I put all the other sources of emptiness and grief so that I can get-on-with-my-life. Busy busy. There are things to be done, books to be read, forms to be filled, papers to be written, emails to be answered.

My dreams betray me. I think I've mentioned that in another blog post too. Last night I dreamt about Gordon. In the dream, he'd died, just as in life. But I kept seeing him in the dream and I kept saying in the dream, I still see him and I miss him and I was crying and crying. I didn't cry as much yesterday and lo and behold, my dreams did the crying for me. Of course, I woke up and cried and it felt terrible and wonderful. I know the grief will subside and that loss will go somewhere in my body, where all the other grief and loss lives. I will bury it so completely that I will only be able to access it in the depths of my subconscious where I will cry in the dream or scream in anger in the dream so that I can keep it together in the real-life.

The Love of a Cat

I have been crying and crying about the loss of my dear Gordon. A strange thought occurred to me - would he mourn my passing? But that's not why I'm writing. I'm writing to remember him and to think about what this grief is; this grief that feels unbearable. I have been given books that philosophically and theoretically expound on the human/animal connection. I've not wanted to read them. My relationship with animals is one that gets me out of my head. This is a great comfort for someone who is already in her head. But this love, this palpable, consuming love that I felt for him. He was such an entity in the most profound way possible to me.

Gordon, unlike my other cats, always felt precarious to me. He was the cat that escaped out the window weeks after getting him from the Humane Society. Still fresh from my grief over the cat that used to get out but I could count on coming home - until that cat came home with Feline Leukemia and got really sick - I worried about Gordon's not coming home or coming home sick. That night, I went to the Kinkos, made hundreds of Missing Cat posters procured for free given my wellspring of tears, and proceeded to plaster the neighborhood. Gordon came back that morning no worse for the wear.

He got out again a day or two before I was to turn in my master's thesis. He exploited a tiny crack in the window and slithered his way out. I again canvassed the neighborhood, hiring a little girl who lived across the alley, and stared out the window through my tears all day until his little head emerged from under the steps in a neighbor's back yard. I called to the little girl to grab him and we were once again reunited.

He almost got out once again when I lived in a basement apartment in Bolton Hill. I remember I was sleeping and I heard Tilly going mad jumping up to the window and down again - Tilly, unlike her brother, does NOT enjoy even having access to the outdoors, nervous as she is. I look up at the window over my bed, saw Gordon give me a double-take, and grabbed him back inside. Strangely, that's the day Pinkerton was the one who actually made the escape only to be found a couple doors down waiting to be let back into the wrong basement.

My last scare came in the house on, oddly enough, Gordon St. It was there he surely had his most harrowing escape. We had a series of break-ins at that house and had a new alarm system to remember to trip when going in and out of the house. My roommate Jeff, remembering to put the alarm on while halfway out the door, kept the door open while he was doing this and missed the little black cat escape. Again, I stayed up all night waiting for him, first with Neale and then with Mike. He returned about 3 am, shit stained and definitely frightened. He'd encountered something in the woods that surrounded our house though that really did not quench his thirst for escape.

All of this is to say that I've always worried about losing him somehow. I began to let him explore the outdoors when we lived in San Francisco. He would wander around the yard, eating grass and sniffing, and it was my job to make sure he didn't go under the house or slide through the cracks of the neighbors' fences. When we lived on Powers St., he would sit for hours on his leash and enjoy the backyard. I could never let him loose though. Too much traffic and too many feral cats.

But what I really remember about him, what I really held onto, was our bond. I swear that cat could see into my soul. I would call him into the bedroom to read with me and he'd perk up, make a little Gordon sound, and run into the bedroom. He'd trounce on my reading materials with that purr (that beautiful purr). After he'd settle down, he'd hold my hand - I swear to god - and we'd hang out. I would look into his face and there was nothing but perfection.

Gordon liked any excuse for an outing so we'd do laundry together and he, with his crooked little back legs and his meow that would squeak at the end (I wish I had that on tape), would run down the hall with me. Going back up the stairs, he'd dart to the landing and flop over and I'd rub his belly.

Gordon would sleep right on top of me at night. He wouldn't do this every night but he is the only of my cats that would sleep on me or sit on my lap. He wouldn't always do it and he wasn't an annoyingly clingy cat, but it was so wonderful to be around him. We felt like a team.

Gordon LOVED to steal my gloves, though he didn't do this later in his life. I would buy him his own gloves to play with but he liked the ones that were worn, the ones that smelled like his people. He also loved to chase earplugs. EARPLUGS. He remained active and playful until three weeks before he died. His demeanor was so goddam affable that it was only in his fainting and weight loss rather than in his energy levels and blood stream, that the disease could be found. In looking back, it took a long time for the cancer to take him, as he began showing symptoms in May. Nobody could figure out what was wrong with him. I knew he was dying and everyone told me I was paranoid. Not in a mean way but in a you-love-your-cat-too-much way.

Colon cancer is the said to be the worst nightmare of a pet owner as it is difficult to detect until it is too late. Further, his cancer was called adenocarcinoma, the most aggressive of the malignancies. Despite expensive and painful surgery, Gordon was gone less than 3 months after his diagnosis.

The thing about the relationship with a cat is in its dailiness, its in the momentness. That means it's not the memories I will miss. For me, this isn't a relationship with memories. Rather, it's a relationship that I cherished in its structure of feeling and pure joy. Gordon filled a house with Gordon-ness. There will never be a relationship like that particular relationship in my life again and that is a pain that is very difficult to endure, at least in its early sting.