land of honeysuckle and ambrosia

Can we ever know?

I am surprised to find myself 25 years old. Lying in the warm grass at night in the heart of the National Mall. The Capitol lies lit up at my feet and the Washington Monument serves as headboard. The smithsonian castle presides at my right. A museum of something at my left. The smell of honeysuckle, grass, summer and clover rides the air.

Headphones around my neck play French indie music. Against all odds I am alone. Beautifully alone. Not part of a tourist group. Not a couple. Not a daughter here on holiday. Not crushed into a bar or asking for a lemon slice at a restaurant. Just me with me. Pledging some sort of loyalty to my dreams.

You see, I am exactly who I thought I'd be when I was 10. It was close - I almost didn't make it. With each unlikely detail... to my hairstyle and job.... I am happy and proud of who I am. At this moment, I feel exactly in the right place at the right time.

I couldn't have known, when I was 10, why I wanted this. And I didn't know last year how I'd get here - no idea what it would take. I'd almost given up. Almost.

Almost.

So two white women, a rabbi and an African walk into Baltimore..

Since moving to Baltimore, I've heard a lot about race. Racism, racial tension, racially defined neighborhoods, racially motivated assumptions and / or privilege. In fact, the longer I'm here the more I see. Baltimore seems to have a psychological corner on the racism market; it's more fixated on the pain of it. Even more than DC.

Now, I hail from Idaho, and I'll just assume you know it's a fairly homogonous culture. In the west / northwest, in fact, black Americans or African Americans in my experience were regarded as demi-celebrities. They were the coolest kids, exotic, interesting, funny and sought after. No one talked about poor neighborhoods in racial terms. There was no "poor black" phenomenon. No crime associated with race specifically or broadly. So to come out to Baltimore and hear people openly talking about where to live based on racial geography, or neighborhoods I couldn't / shouldn't go to, is bizarre. BIZARRE. Blacks vs. Jews vs. rich vs. poorer vs. white vs. Asian.... BIZARRE.

Given all that, what do my mom and I do? Move to Pikesville (WOW is Pikesville Jewish) and join an all-black evangelistic church. I mean joined. We're the only two pale people there, out of 700-1000 others. Which we didn't think was all that odd until everyone around us said "Wow, you're brave."

Know why we joined?

Because it's fun, uplifting, warm, welcoming, inspiring, demanding, and we felt instantly at home there. Why does that require bravery? I'm not ignorant to the very real, painful and difficult ways in which racial perception shapes experiences and opportunities in life. I've worked long and hard on diversity boards, in refugee resettling, and many other real-world efforts to change old and damaging ways of looking at the world and each other. But I'll be damned if I know why people think I'm somehow "brave." Or that a whole neighborhood's occupants should feel alien because they're a different color of human or have had different experiences. (And usually our experiences aren't that different anyway.)

So, dear Baltimore: what happened here?

International Women's Day - reversal of gender in images

Warning! This post is going to be more sexual than normal. This being International Women's Day though, I thought it'd be fun to post a pic from a blog I came across the other day. The blog is malesubmissionart.com, and features men in generally artistic (NSFW) submissive poses. The reason I think this is fitting for International Women's Day? We're so used to seeing these images with women in them that we'd not even glance twice.

As you look at these pics I've chosen, picture a woman with the same expressions and body posturing. We've seen it in Abercrombie & Fitch, Levis, Axe commercials, tequila commercials, that Charlize Theron movie... everywhere. We see it at Urban Outfitters and the halls of high schools. It's just that they're girls. Why is it so strange for us to see women in traditionally male genderized roles of control and gratification, and so shocking to see men in positions of vulnerability, comfort, or aroused fear?

We can do better to honor our women by realizing how ingrained our expectations of gender are.

A treehouse on the coast of West Africa

Today, I found out my uncle died. I know before his kids know - my aunt and uncle have been on a cruise in Mexico, and she's trying to come back into the country and having a hard time working through the legalities. As I'd hate to have to do, at a time like that. His kids don't know yet, because my aunt is waiting to get back into the country tonight and tell them in person.

He was pretty young. I remember a lot about him from when I was a kid. He made clocks; really pretty ones, with custom rings, and wrote letters to Santa with his kids. My mom hired him almost 30 years ago, and he married into the family shortly thereafter. I was mostly close to his two daughters. Who are mostly ok in their lives. But anway.

My mom and I met for lunch today, just to sit and remember him. We sat inside a coffee and ice cream parlor and hugged and looked out at the rain and read an article about adults building treehouses. So we just decided to buy property on the Ghanaian coast in Ada where she has close friends, and build a treehouse home to live in and come back to. The kicker? We're serious.

Love you Uncle Danny. Come see our treehouse when we're building it?

Fear of Homelessness

I'm sitting in Baltimore, in a corporate apartment, watching Extreme Home Makeover. The family lost their house, are broke and about to run about of funds entirely. The look in their face is heartbreaking. I wouldn't have recognized it two years ago, but now I do. Two years of near homelessness kind of readjusts the ol' empathy meter, you know?

What's screwy about it is, my whole family is extremely skilled. Happy, great workers, definitely priviledged. I grew up firmly expecting to be wealthy and taken care of. Never occured to me that I'd face economic hardship before. THEN.... My mom got really sick for three years, stopped working, racked up medical bills. Then my mom and step-dad got divorced - no more health insurance. She started working again, but not before we had to move out of the house and rent a little spot. My mom and I got laid off in the same month shortly thereafter, and I graduated into the worst economy. 

It wasn't getting any better in Idaho so she and I pooled our collective egg into our collective basket and moved out east in the hopes of finding a job. So far doing ok. Still on the verge with a destroyed safety net though. 

So to see this family's face, it is touching to see a whole network come in and give them everything back that they lost. Heartbreaking how significant it is. We as a culture still largely view homelessness and an inability to manage finances as a severely negative thing (though this is def changing thanks to the sub prime debacle and job hemmorrhaging, Katrina and Gustav, etc). 

Here's hoping we all show each other miles more compassion than we have in the past. We really can't pull out of this by ourselves.

Writers, Blocked.

I've had a jonesing to write poetry and / or short stories using subject lines from spam emails for a long time. Today turned out to be the day I start making this dream a reality! So glad I'm getting on this now, as there are some very funny websites out there with spam headlines in mind: http://wiep.net/talk/other/viagra-headlines/, some cartoons inspired by same: http://www.spamusement.com/, and all around fun stuff to waste time looking at.

Right now I want the poems to be as sad as possible (considering they are spam subject lines, I doubt a truly somber mood will ever be achieved). Like missing a mediocre exgirlfriend, or being bummed out you didn't get invited to a party thrown by people you secretly don't like that much. Readers should be left with an emotional residue reminiscent of, say, their second year of middle school.

You're welcome.

Ad of the Day: Proxima UltraLight

I'm not sure if I'm asking too much from a projector ad, but this could have been so much better. Unoriginal photostock-esque camera angle, some loosely floating words (and too many of them), uncomfortable alignment of the actual product pitch next to a pic of the projector... I'm a little sad. They could have cut out 3/4 of this model's 'testimonial'. No shortening of words to 'gotta' is going make me forget she's selling something. Thankfully she's fresh enough to make us want to identify with her.

What they've done successfully is not what they wanted to - they've made this woman's face and suit all I want to look thanks to the text on the vertical and with the camera angle. Not sure if the textile looking lines across her image are intentional but I like them a lot. Makes her look like she's a projected image herself. Color scheme is fine, but not cohesive. First thing I'd do? Get rid of that little box of information just above the footer banner. Next thing: put some meaningful images in the footer banner.

Keeping the text minimal, the spacing clean, and maybe some unified kerning would solve a lot. 

60 Inches of Snow

The view from my window for the past month has been snow. Snow clinging to tree branches, neighbors looking for their cars under it, flakes drifting through the circle of light under the streetlamp. Snow. I want the kind of projectors that David Atkins had set up for the opening ceremonies - with this kind of a blank canvas, can you imagine what we could do?

Projected snowball fights; planes coming up out of the ground and flying away; those dragon birds from Avatar landing near the trees; kids playing kickball.We could project a stop motion spring - all the snow 'melting' and grass shooting up from underneath.

On my desktop, on my mind

I've been captivated by Nick Gentry's art this week. Mixed and recycled media, portraits sort of dripping emotion... This guy has nailed a feeling I've had for awhile. The floppy disks and VH1s he paints on make me nostalgic; the ages of the people he portrays places them as having grown up on his mediums. It's strange that our generation is so literally expressed through these types of canvasses. 20 years ago to today we've all acquired  a digital expression that, I think, is very much the same across the board. We're all a little lonely, a little pixelated. Challenging, maybe feeling panicked like we're spinning - connecting with each other in ways that are surprisingly moving and real despite feeling a little cold.

Dangerously Delirious Daydreaming

As I am applying for work in the DC metro area, I have been indulging my "What I'll Be Someday" gene. Really seeing what I want, what I like. The answer is somewhat surprising to me, as a child who always wanted to grow up to be a Supreme Court Justice or a genetic engineer. What flips my lid is that while I've always loved to read and have stared at the world acutely, I never thought there was a living in it. Never ever occurred to me at all. How's that for being smart?

More to the point: I love art. I stare at the world every day with an eye to the beauty that rings as truth, dissecting lines and colors and intent in everything. Even two years ago I would not have seen many potential connections between art, reading and observational insight as a career (and this is while I was the marketing director for a ballet company!)

Long story short, throw user generated content, graphic design, journalism into this mix and strip my childhood shyness away and what's left is stunning. The world is creative - more so than ever before - and we are actively forming this crazy frothing wave of Experience. No more Madison Avenue scenarios of what everyone's doing. Grabbing this life by the tail and making a balloon animal parade out of it? Now we're talking.

To go along with my newfound enthusiasm for all this Communications, SocMed & personal journalism I've fallen headlong for Rachel Maddow. It works. Really. Reflecting on my values of humor, matter of course bravery and wry wit and it's a no-brainer.

My goal: Get a nice car (below). Hit it big in the industry, as I know I will. Drive said car from apartment to nifty gathering of niftier people. Genuinely like talking to these people. Meet Rachel, chat, become friends. (really. Her partner seems sweet and fun.) Start a book exchange and start playing pinball with the possibilities!

What I Want:

Because I think it's important to know, and I don't keep a physical journal at the moment, I am listing my primary (and secondary, and tertiary...) desires. As I build up this new phase of life on the East coast it's good to have a blueprint.

Beautiful apartment, eventually maybe a loft or rowhouse.
A couch and a reading chair
Bookshelves
Lovely books
Herbs growing in my kitchen
Ride my blue bicycle to Eastern Market
Laugh while at my job, everyday
Fabulous pants. Wide leg cuffs, suit materials, dry clean only crisp shirts
Art. On my walls, in my office, all around me. Tickets to ballets, passes to exhibits
A car. small, classy. Navy blue. Clean lines.

Subscriptions to: The New Republic, Foreign Policy, The Economist, Good, Dwell, The Atlantic