Teaching through Trauma.

(My post title today is shamelessly stolen from Leanne Franson's excellent Liliane book, which you should all run out and purchase immediately.)

So let me tell you all about my first class tonight.

My babysitter cancelled (sick), my back-up babysitter was unavailable, and Mr. Plain(s)feminist was out of town, so I brought with me to class tonight a very special teaching assistant: Bean. While I'm attempting humor in calling him my "teaching assistant," he did in fact really assist my teaching, because part of the subject matter tonight was the issue of working women balancing career and family. As illustrative as he is, this is really the first time that I've had him with me for an entire class, and it was only made possible tonight because I was mostly showing film clips and because, being the first class, I knew it would end a bit early.

In preparation for class, I had a few very serious talks with Bean:

"Now, you know that you are coming to Mommy's class tonight, right? And Mommy needs you to be a cooperator? And you have to be very quiet and watch your DVDs? And you can't talk to Mommy while she's teaching?"

To which Bean's response was:

"Will I sit at a desk with the other students? What kind of chairs are there? I can't wait to see the chairs. Can I bring [my six stuffed animals] with me? Can they come to school if they stay in the car?"

I was understandably apprehensive.

I hit the video store to load up on appropriate DVDs. (Why does Blockbuster not have Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends on DVD?) The lack of Foster's caused Bean to have a mild breakdown, which did nothing to ease my apprehension, until I convinced him that Jimmy Neutron would be pretty good, too. And I managed to get him into the car with numerous stuffed animals, DVDs, portable DVD player, and all of my own stuff for class, via the promise of a Happy Meal.

We made it to campus with time to spare, but I had neglected to figure in the travel time from the parking lot to my office. When I walk it, it takes maybe 5 minutes to get from the car to my door. With a five-year-old, it takes longer. WIth a five-year-old carrying numerous stuffed animals, and with my own arms full, it took quite a bit longer. With only fifteen minutes until class, I arrived at my office, sorted through my materials, and got everything ready for class. I brought Bean to the bathroom, hoping to avoid having to take him during class. And, suddenly - I had to GO. And about two minutes after that, I suddenly had to GO AGAIN. Yes - one minute before class time found me heading back down the hallway to the bathroom, with Bean following me, loudly saying, "you have to go potty AGAIN, even though you just went?!" And class time found me searching for my classroom - because I'd used up my classroom-finding-time in the bathroom - and thinking I'd have to cancel the class altogether, because I couldn't trust my bowels not to erupt again.

The whole thing felt like the kind of nightmare one usually has the night before classes start - PLUS I had a five-year-old along for the ride.

I got there, I got Bean set up with his DVD, I made my excuses, and then, miraculously, I felt better. Made it through the first hour without incident, and then Bean broke his headphones. Luckily, there were no other classes on the hall, and there was a glass, full-length panel next to the door. I plopped him down in the hallway outside the door with the DVD player and positioned myself near the door, where I could see him, and kept on teaching.

(I'm glad no well-meaning person happened along to report an apparently unsupervised child. It did occur to me to worry about this, though of course, he was never unsupervised.)

Bean behaved wonderfully, by the way. And the class was awesome. But I am very, very glad that this happened to me as a seasoned teacher and not as a brand-new one.

"We don't have many problems with our blacks."

That's a quote from a white person in the town of Jena, LA. When I first read this in a MySpace bulletin, I thought it was a fake. But there have indeed been recent cases that are just as effed-up - and it turns out that this one is for real, as well:

In a small, still mostly segregated, section of rural Louisiana, an all white jury heard a series of white witnesses called by a white prosecutor testify in a courtroom overseen by a white judge in a trial of a fight at the local high school where a white student who had been making racial taunts was hit by black students. The fight was the culmination of a series of racial incidents starting when whites responded to black students sitting under the "white tree" at their school by hanging three nooses from the tree. The white jury and white prosecutor and all white supporters of the white victim were all on one side of the courtroom. The black defendant, 17-year-old Mychal Bell, and his supporters were on the other. The jury quickly convicted Mychal Bell of two felonies - aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. Bell, who was a 16-year-old sophomore football star at the time he was arrested, faces up to 22 years in prison. Five other black youths await similar trials on second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy charges.

You should know that the white kid whom the Black students supposedly attempted to murder went to a "social event" later that day, after the fight. You should also know that the all-white jury who convicted Bell included "two people friendly with the district attorney, a relative of one of the witnesses and several others who were friends of prosecution witnesses."

Pissed off yet? Consider this:

"The prosecutor called 17 witnesses - 11 white students, three white teachers and two white nurses. Some said they saw Bell kick the victim, others said they did not see him do anything. The white victim testified that he did not know if Bell hit him or not.

The Chicago Tribune reported the public defender did not challenge the all-white jury pool, put on no evidence and called no witnesses. The public defender told the Alexandria Town Talk, after resting his case without calling any witnesses, he knew he would be second-guessed by many, but was confident that the jury would return a verdict of not guilty. 'I don't believe race is an issue in this trial. I think I have a fair and impartial jury.'

The jury deliberated for less than three hours and found Mychal Bell guilty on the maximum possible charges of second-degree aggravated battery and conspiracy. He faces up to a maximum of 22 years in prison.

The public defender told the press afterwards, "I feel I put on the best defense that I could." Responding to criticism of not putting on any witnesses, the attorney said 'why open the door for further accusations? I did the best I could for my client, Mychal Bell.'"

Now, according to Snopes.com (which assures us that this did, in fact, happen), the Black kids on trial pretty much beat the shit out of the white kid (who, nonetheless, made it to his social event, whatever that was). It's not that I don't take this seriously - I don't think it's ok to beat the shit out of anyone, even if they are a reprehensible asshole. But you should know, too, that in another case in this same town, a white man pulled a shotgun on Black men, who took the gun away from him. They were later charged with theft, while the white man was not charged. So, clearly, "attempted murder" is in the eye of the beholder in this town, yeah? Even the students who hung the nooses in the first place were never charged, though the principal wanted them expelled: "'Adolescents play pranks,' the superintendent told the Chicago Tribune, 'I don't think it was a threat against anybody.'" Riiiight. Hanging a noose from "the white tree," in the South, the land of "strange fruit," to protest Black students sitting under it, is not a threat. Pulling a shotgun on someone else is not an offense. Taking the shotgun away from someone who is threatening you with it is theft. With logic like this, with a stacked jury, with the numerous other examples of civil rights violations recorded in the news stories about this case, it is clear that calling the beating "attempted murder" has a very particular political meaning.


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Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter cry.

...???...

People, I don't have a clue what to write about these days. I don't write about my job, so that's out. And I've been so focused on my little world, as I've said, that I haven't been paying attention to the blogwars or much else.

At this point, I'm taking requests...

Coming in late.

I've been so busy with the move and the new job and getting the kid off to school that I haven't been able to weigh in on current events in a timely fashion. The Craig scandal? I'm sure it's been talked to death on everyone else's blog. (Which shouldn't stop you from reading this editorial on the subject, because it really raises the question of what the moral panic is all about, here).

Even on the best of days, I'm never the one commenting on the news of the day. I'm often barely aware of what is going on beyond the fog of what is happening in my immediate vicinity (with the exception of the abortion ban last year).

Today I was shocked out of my fog.

I remember hearing about Adrienne Shelly's murder last year. Shelly wrote and directed Waitress. When I read about it, it didn't register - I didn't recognize her name or picture, and while it was sad that she'd been killed, I didn't have a connection to her death because I didn't know who she was.

Shelly was murdered last November. Today in class, I showed a clip from Rosanna Arquette's documentary, Searching for Debra Winger, which is about being a woman in the film industry. What I like about this film is that it offers a rare chance to see my favorite stars talk openly and honestly about their experiences. I feel like I get to know them a little bit because they are being real people, not characters. Adrienne Shelly is interviewed in the film and has a memorable moment in which she tells a story about being turned down for a part because the producer "didn't like [her] tits." It's a very real story, and Shelly could be an acquaintance or friend, sharing this story from her life in an intimate way. And every time I've watched this documentary, I've felt, on some level, close to these women.

But until today, I never knew that Adrienne Shelly was the person who was murdered. I never put the woman in the documentary and the creator of Waitress together in my head. And so I found out today that she was gone, and it felt almost as if I had found out that a friend of mine had died.

Made it.

In case you were wondering, no, I didn't get lost - I made it, and I'm fine, but I'm still unpacking boxes a week later. I'm almost done, but that's only because I did an incredible amount of putting crap away tonight. The boxes are in their flattened state, in storage, for the time being. The apartment is wonderful. The downstairs neighbors are wonderful, and they even let me use their washer when mine turned out not to be able to receive any cold water. I found this out after doing two loads (luckily, they were sheets and towels and not my clothes!). I have a few things to talk to the landlord about (number one is the cold water for the washer), but in general, I can't complain.

Though I will say that the bathroom is so small that the toilet is crammed into a tiny corner between the sink and the radiator. This means that one must sit sort of at an angle rather than the proper way with one's back parallel to the toilet tank. This is taking a bit of getting used to, but it isn't horrible. It will be horrible if the radiator turns out to get scaldingly hot, but otherwise, we can deal.

In other news, it turns out that there is a Chico's in WALKING DISTANCE from my new place. And when I say "in walking distance," I mean that I could walk to Chico's, buy clothes that I would have to carry home, and then carry them home without my arms getting tired. I will be taking advantage of this soon, even though Chico's is, I think, a bit old for me. Fact is, though, I need a more professional wardrobe, and this is an easy fix. (If anyone would like to make suggestions, I'm all ears. I would prefer something funky like Torrid, but with clothes that I could actually wear to work. Don't say Ann Taylor Loft, because the clothes are a little too fitted for me.)

For those of you back home - I'm thinking of you! I miss you! I'm sending hugs! (Or hearty handshakes. Depending on who you are.)

My last post from South Dakota.

Friday is moving day. It's all boxes and cleaning products in here. I've heard from two people - one of whom is related to a Floyd Management employee - that Floyd Management does not give back security deposits. I wish I'd heard this before I spent an hour last night and another hour this morning cleaning the stovetop. Though, I must say, it does give me a little boost to see it gleam in the light, its new drip pans sparkling. It's really quite pretty. Anyway, I will no longer knock myself out cleaning the place, which means less work to do tomorrow.

I think we're in good shape. We're about at that phase where you think you're done, but you really have several more hours of labor ahead of you before you're actually done. For my last major move, this phase came at about midnight or 1am, and we pulled an all-nighter. Moving after staying up packing all night, and then having to clean the apartment, is not an experience I'd like to recreate. So, I think we're in pretty darn good shape, since I can go to bed tonight and still have plenty of time (I hope!) to finish up tomorrow.

One thing I learned about Mr. Plain(s) Feminist that surprised me is that he apparently packs boxes of books more quickly than I do. (Which is also lucky for him, as I've been packing my books all week and he's only just begun today to pack his.)

Bean has surprised me throughout by being very positive about the whole thing. I'm a little worried he'll have a meltdown when the place is actually empty and we leave. He is planning to hug the building goodbye. In truth, I feel a little like hugging it, myself. I've really loved living here, and I'm sad to go. This is by far the nicest apartment we've had, and it felt like home from the moment I walked in the door. We've all grown attached, and we've all been comfortable.

Plus, we've been spoiled by having the laundry just off the kitchen. I'm not looking forward to doing my laundry in a basement again!

But - a new adventure awaits. My next post will be from another, larger city a bit further north...stay tuned...

The sky, five minutes ago.

Why I love living in the midwest! Click for larger images.

My right foot.

In a minute, I'll be heading off to see a podiatrist about my - I hate the word; there's something embarrassing about it - bunion. In middle school, I had to cut short my dreams for a career as a prima ballerina and give up the toe shoes because I had weird feet. The chief concern appeared to be bunions, esp. on my right foot. The podiatrist gave me shoe inserts and essentially doomed me to a life of ugly shoes. I eventually was able to give up the inserts and to wear fun shoes and heels, but I always had to be very careful with what I put on my feet.

Some time later, I hurt my back and found that I couldn't wear heels of any kind. That's not really a huge sacrifice, except that there are some outfits that really don't look right without shoes with heels.

In more recent years, though, after I managed to mostly cure my back problems through yoga, I once again began wearing unsensible shoes. And it felt good for my self-esteem, if not for my feet. In fact, my feet were quite unhappy with the shoes, but I wore them anyway. Some of the worst offenders turned out to be - big surprise - Payless shoes, which are cheaply and poorly made. (Advice to all shoe-wearers: always pay more for your shoes. Pay less for everything else, but the shoes should be excellent quality.)

There was one pair dancing shoes, in particular, that I blame for my current predicament. They were gorgeous - velvety Mary Janes with a dancin' heel and a big flower on each toe. They were decadent, sexy, and they felt wonderful on my feet. Though...after a while, I did notice that my right big toe would be numb for a few days after I wore them out dancing. And after more time had passed, I noticed that the numb feeling never quite went away.

One night, the cab we'd called never showed up when the club closed, and we had to walk about a mile and a half. In the shoes. And my feet hurt so bad that I wanted to cry, but I was in so much pain that I didn't have the energy for tears.

Sometime after this, I realized that the shoes, once comfortable, no longer felt good on my feet. All the dancing, combined with the long march, had worn them out. So I tossed them. But it was too late - the damage had been done, and now, every pair of shoes I put on was uncomfortable. For the first time since middle school, the bunion was back - and this time, it hurt.

When I called my doctor for a recommendation yesterday, she said, "oh, so you're ready to have the surgery?" I told her I most certainly was not thinking along those lines at all, and she said, "there are two kinds of bunions: surgical and non-surgical." And she's sent me to a podiatrists that does this surgery, so I guess we'll see what he has to say.

Meanwhile, I'll be cleansing my shoe collection of my two pairs of Payless boots. I'll have to think long and hard about the clunky Nine West lace-ups and the three-inch ankle-wraps (SOB - it kills me to think about parting with these).

I'm heartbroken at the thought of Naturalizers for the rest of my life...

The days just go by...

I should be packing. In a minute, I will log off the computer, turn on the t.v., and plop down in front of it with some boxes that need assembly. But I have the lack of motivation and the overwhelmed feeling that come in pairs whenever there's a big job to do.

Also, I went to the gym this morning, did my full lifting program (yay!) and then wiped out after about 7 minutes on the bike. I don't know why. I suspect I set the level way too high. So I came home on wobbly legs, fully planning to go to the grocery store and buy some healthy food, and instead I ate the Dairy Queen cupcake that's been sitting in the freezer for Bean (who didn't know it was there, anyway, so don't look at me like that) and finished off the rest of yesterday's very sugary chocolate cream pie. So now I'm tired, wobbly, and feeling fat.

Oh, yeah, and every five minutes or so, some new thought occurs to me with a little panicky flutter about something else that needs to be done - like, just now, I realized that I haven't send my new address to the credit card companies yet.

You can see why it's infinitely pleasurable, in the face of putting all of our belongings into boxes, to do things like buy a new slipcover for the chair and shop for a new futon and plan what color throw pillows to buy. (Which is what I have been doing for the last two days instead of packing.)

Balancing...

OK. I've finally got Bean registered for school AND for aftercare. And I lined up a babysitter for the night I teach an evening class. I'm planning to bring him with me on the few occasions I have to be in the office on a weekend - I can set him up in the corner with a DVD and he'll be happy as pie. I hope. Whew! I don't mind telling you that I've been carrying around a lump of anxiety about this for the last several weeks, never sure that it was all going to work out. You see, Mr. Plain(s)feminist is going to be commuting for a while, so many of the things I usually take for granted, like another parent being around, are presenting challenges.

But for now, we're good. Unless Bean gets into the magnet school, in which case aftercare will be a problem. But I'm only going to worry about one thing at a time.

I am subsuming all my worry into moving details. Today I head over to UHaul and Target to pick up boxes and tape. And then I'm faced with the problem of, once packed, where to put the many boxes? The books alone will take at least 45-50 boxes. No joke. I think I'll have to dismantle the living room bookcase and put it in the garage so that there's room for the book boxes. And even so, that's a huge mountain o' boxes!

Actually, just the thought of that many boxes is making me queasy. I'm off to see what else we can bear to part with...

Tommy, Tommy, Tommy (and other tales of cable)...

...if it turns out that you drowned that baby, you won't recover from it. I don't mean you'll keep boozing and sleeping around and ruin your life - I mean, you'll lose your viewers. There's no way we're ready to watch a man drop a baby in the river and walk away. It's just not going to happen. I mean, I already barely watch you anymore. You and your buddies at the firehouse started out as flawed but redeemable characters. But now, you're just sexist, racist, homophobic, and more importantly - because you could've overcome those traits - you're just plain mean. Even Television Without Pity says, "TWoP readers didn't really take to the tale of a firefighter who was often drunk, irresponsible, sexist, racist, and homophobic, and therefore, it's time to turn the hose on Rescue Me."

And while we're on the topic, I don't really care that the gender "issues" brought to the fore on Mad Men are true to the era. They make me damn angry to watch. What is the point? Yes, television is supposed to make one think, but it's not supposed to make me pissed-off for no reason. I have enough sexism to deal with in daily life without needing to reach back into the sixties for a fix, thank you very much.

Now, Damages I'm enjoying. So far. But it strikes me that this is a show that will very quickly go the way of Lost. Too much intrigue, too many promised answers that lead to more cliffhangers, and I will stop watching. Damages writers, I hope you're approaching this show like Murder One and that all will become clear by the end of the season. I'm not prepared to give you longer than that. If I had the time for twisted plots that never ended, I'd go back to watching soap operas. I like my dramas tied up in a neat bow at the end of the season.

For this reason, my new favorite show is Survivorman. Drop him on top of a mountain, in the ocean, on a deserted island, and he survives. Alone. Without food. Without a film crew. He does it all himself. And I'm damn impressed, both at his skill and also at the Discovery Channel's ingenuity in thinking this one up. I will definitely keep watching.

Starting Kindergarten.

For the last couple of years, people have been asking me if Bean would be starting Kindergarten this fall or if I'd be keeping him back a year. In New York, this would be kind of an odd question, and it would imply that the asker thought that Bean had some deficiencies in social skills or that he wasn't intellectually ready for Kindergarten. One wouldn't ask such a question, generally, without cause.

But in South Dakota, this question is asked frequently, and I know many people who have opted to keep their kids home for an extra year. The reasons range from the parent feeling the child isn't ready for school, which, in my personal experience, seems to be more likely when the child hasn't been in daycare or preschool prior to Kindergarten, to the *parent* not being ready (and, again, in my personal experience, this seems to come along with fears of the child eventually graduating high school and heading off to college at the age of 17 rather than 18 (which is exactly what I did, so I confess to not really understanding this particular fear)). There is also the impact of sports on this decision: as I understand it, the age cutoff for sports is different from the age cutoff for school, so kids can begin Kindergarten but not be allowed to play rookie baseball (or whatever). So some parents keep the kids back so that they can play sports with their grade level (or even so that they can be physically larger and more skilled as compared to others in their grade level).

This has always seemed weird to me, as a product of a very different culture with re. to schooling. So, when I was in my soon-to-be-new-city in Minnesota last month getting Bean registered for Kindergarten, I was shocked (happily so) to see that many (all?) of the public elementary schools in the city had an option for Pre-Kindergarten for qualifying four-year-olds that was part of the public school curriculum. Four-year-olds who were deemed ready (and how this readiness was ascertained, I'm not exactly sure, but I think it meant that they knew their alphabet and were basically reading to learn to read and could recognize numbers) could begin to go to Pre-K programs in the schools.

I was so struck by the enormous difference between these two states that lie right next to each other that I couldn't help but to expound upon it to anyone who would listen - and the MN public school employees were fairly shocked to hear of my experiences in SD.

It seems to me that if we are really going to be serious about education, then we need to make sure that children are better prepared to start school than they appear to be in SD. This means that sports should not be preventing kids from starting Kindergarten on time (or early). Sports programs need to get in sync with the school district age cutoffs. Pre-K should be available at every public school. And, while there are certainly some children who benefit from starting school later, parents should be better educated - and the school district should be involved in this process - so that parents have more information upon which to base these decisions.

(I've also posted this entry on Dakota Women - see link at right.)

On pants-wearing (not).

(I actually wrote this in July, shortly before I left on my long summer trip, which is nearly over, and I planned to post it long before now. However, spotty internet access and vacation-induced stupidity made me forget about it. So here it is.)

I was just reading over at Friday Playdate about kids not wearing pants, and it reminded me that I'd also been reading some musings on the same theme at Dooce. And so that, then, made me consciously realize that I, too, often don't put on pants in the house after awakening. Eventually, I'll throw on a pair of shorts, or if it's chilly, sweats, but the early morning will find me sitting at the computer, checking my email in my undies, right by the front door, which Mr. Plainsfeminist seems to like to open, without warning, while I'm sitting there. (And then he gets irritated when I yell at him about it, for some reason.)

Bean is also going through that brutally honest phase that kids go through, which is one reason I suspect that certain people (you know the ones) don't like kids. You know what I mean - "look at that fat lady" or "why does that man gots no hair?" kind of statements, the comments kids made that make you want to curl up and die. So what this means for me is that I have to hear about my bad breath and "poky" legs all the time. It's giving me a complex. Adults do not have sweet, flower-smelling breath the way some kids do (they really do, sometimes, though not Bean after a garlic spinach pocket - I can practically smell him in the next room). But all of a sudden, Bean keeps complaining that I have bad breath, and I am starting to think that maybe I'm not eating the right foods or something and am having a ketosis problem since he never complained before. It's making me very self-conscious, and I find myself sucking on breath mints and keeping my hand over my mouth a lot.

The "poky" legs thing is simply that Bean does not care to sit on my lap when I am wearing shorts and my legs are not freshly shaven. I get frequent orders to "put on long pants!" because he objects to the pokiness of even the slightest amount of stubble.

Basically, I feel like a sasquatch with bad breath these days.

But I'm thinking that my prediliction for pants-lessness might partly explain why Bean emerged from his room this afternoon, while we had company, with his underpants on his head, and bare nekkid from the waist down. I, myself, am not much into hats, so I can't really explain the headgear. However, given these options, I think I much prefer smelly sasquatch-ness to this young Frank Barone behavior. (Incidentally, this link will take you to one of the more poorly-written Wikipedia entries I've come across so far.)

So, I've finished the new Harry Potter.

And I have no one to talk about it with, as no one in my family is reading the series. Sigh.

I'll just say that it was good, it did everything I wanted it to in terms of tying up the loose ends and providing a resolution, and there were a few things that I turned out to be right about.

Also, I think I finished it in record time, considering that I only started reading yesterday afternoon.

I'm disappointed, now, that the stories are finished.

Boom chicka wakka wakka wow...

Yesterday, I was in the grocery store, and I passed by a young man who had shaped sideburns that were...how should I say...reminiscent of the '70s in a way that isn't exactly decent. In other words, there was a nearly audible soundtrack that followed him as he pushed his cart down the aisle, and I desperately wanted to burst forth with a "wakka wakka boom chicka boom" as per the infamous Axe commercial. If I had been a braver person, and one able to refrain from laughing hysterically (how many takes do you think they had to do for that commercial?), I might have done so. Because, seriously, one should not be allowed to have bad '70s porn sideburns and walk the streets without hearing a few "wakka wakka wows."

As it was, I bit my lip (hard), fought back the tears in my eyes, turned my laughter into a cough, and went off in search of the sauerkraut.

Support the Lesbian Seven.

I hadn't followed this story because I naively assumed that it was such a ludicrous case that of course the court would find in favor of the defendants. (And, also, I refuse to watch sensationalistic news much anymore, so you can imagine what that leaves me with.)

Sometimes I wonder what planet I think I'm living on.

Anyway, if you haven't kept up with this story, please go to Heart's blog and read about it. And then consider helping.

Specifically, what is needed is:
*Pro-bono legal support for the appeal.
*Media contacts and writers.
*Pen pals for the women who are in prison.
*Money for legal fees, collect calls from prison, transportation costs upstate for prison visits, paying for prison commissary.
*Diverse organizational support: Building a public campaign requires support from all
corners. If you think the sentences these women are receiving are too harsh, there is a place for your support.

For more information about how to get involved, please contact:
Bran Fenner [bran@fiercenyc.org], Jessica Robertson [jessonia@gmail.com], or Jessica Stern [sternj@hrw.org].

Eight things.

I'm so tired that I'm wired. Can't sleep. Eyes are shutting but my body is twitching. In a minute I'm going to flop on the couch with a movie. But first:

(I neglected to post that I was tagged by Jessica Dreadful! Sorry!)

* We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.* Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

* People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

* At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

* Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Sadly for you, all eight of my things are moving-related. Sorry.

1) Stucco houses make me depressed. When I was a kid, we knew someone who had a huge problem with a leak in their stucco house - one whole wall was a mess - and ever since then, I see stucco and think "damp, mildew, water damage."

2) I am moving into a stucco house that thankfully does not conform to this expectation. (Yes, that means I did find a place!)

3) I have printed out all the photos that I took of the new place and have been busily writing things like "my dresser here" and "Bean's workspace here" on the walls in the photos. I can't tell if this means I am super-organized or super-OCD.

4) I just went through my huge, four-drawer filing cabinet, and I still can't bear to part with my college papers. Not because they are useful or well-written, you understand, but because they give me a brief whiff of what it felt like to be me in college, and in that way, they're kind of like diaries. Diaries, I keep.

5) We are getting rid of our record albums. Mr. Plainsfeminist is, as I type this, burning them all onto cds. This is a very freeing prospect! I am giddy with the thought of having the space that their absence will leave. I haven't felt this liberated since I smashed most of my record collection in 1989. (Don't ask. But it meant I didn't have to haul those heavy milk cartons of records around to new apartments anymore, and it was awesome.)

6) While sorting out the crap to keep and the crap to toss, I found some photos (yes, I wasted about an hour this afternoon sorting photos, because the fifty or so doubles that I threw away will save SO much room on the truck) taken of the apartment we used to live in in NY when the people who moved in after us were living there. The photos reminded me that either I need some serious decorating help or else we need to get some stuff that is less "graduate student." I mean, I like that my stuff doesn't match. I think it's "funky and eclectic." But when I have to put all the funky and eclectic stuff close together, so that Great Aunt's big cherry secretary is next to the seven-foot unfinished bookcase my dad built...let's just say the next tenants had a bit more flair. And I need some flair. I need something to pull all my crap together into a "look." (That something might be a huge house, the space of which would allow my mismatched stuff the room it needs to become funky.)

7) In my haste to get rid of stuff, I've become addicted to Freecycle. (If you haven't Freecycled, you really need to check this shit out.)

8) I am beginning to hate Bean's teacher. She keeps having the class do these tremendous art projects, and then she sends the kids home with the pieces. We have one four-foot-tall purple space alien, one three-foot-long fish, and one life-size painting of Bean, among other things. I am expected to keep all of these, of course, as Bean loves them all dearly. Where the heck am I supposed to put them? Why couldn't these projects be smaller in scale? Now I have to pack this stuff!!! I am considering an installation in the back hallway of the new place...

I'm supposed to tag people now. I know this is a cop-out, but please consider yourself tagged. If you don't have a blog, feel free to post your eight things as a comment.

Looking for a place to live really sucks.

And the thing is, I always forget this. I always think that it's going to be fun and that I'll get to look at lovely places and pick the one I like the best. I don't know from whom I've gotten this naive gene, but I definitely could not have been more wrong. I think maybe I had one experience in Hartford in the early '90s where I got to see some really nice places, and I keep remembering that and blocking out all the rest of the awful ones, like the place with no stove or refrigerator (just a sink in the kitchen, and a line of people ahead of me who were nevertheless filling out applications), or the little claustrophobic crawl-space (I am not exaggerating or kidding), or the places that were obviously infested.

I always forget that looking at places to rent means looking at utter crap. I don't understand why it is that people would even show a place that is filthy. One Craigslist ad boasted about the jacuzzi in the bathroom, but by the time I made it through the stained-carpeted, dirty, bug-infested apartment that I was too polite to leave immediately, the thought of actually bathing in that tub made me nauseous.

The first house that I looked at wasn't bad - it was very nicely decorated and maintained. The rooms were too small for our furniture, though, so I couldn't even consider it. I was surprised to find that the homeowner had chosen to fill the master bedroom - which was quite small - with an enormous bed that made it difficult to move around the room. Whatever. It was nice, but not in a great neighborhood, and the "basement" was, in fact, a painted cellar. Not a place where I would want to spend much time. I don't like basements, and I especially do not like cellars.

Most of the rest of the places I saw were obviously intended for student housing, meaning that the landlords hadn't bothered to clean the place up (or get the tenants to clean it up), nor had they bothered to fix anything so that the place was in obvious disrepair.

Landlords: Treat your renters with some respect! Fix things. Pay attention to the outside of the home, as well. Make the house look nice. Don't assume that the renters won't notice. And please, don't bring me into a home if you haven't notified the tenants. It was really embarrassing to stand there while the tenant yelled at you for coming in without calling first (or even knocking!). And don't, in that case, tell the tenant that you disagree with his interpretation of the law. Just do the decent thing and apologize. You didn't impress me as a landlord when you surprised your tenant that way, and when you then chose to argue with him, you certainly did not make me want to rent from you.

Renters: Why is it necessary, when moving, to take all of your clothes out of the drawers and leave them in piles around the apartment? I don't need to see your underwear, nor would I want you, if you were coming through my apartment, to see mine. And never, in any of my moves, have I needed to put all of my clothes into little piles along the floor in order to pack them.

To that one very nice landlord who put up with Bean rampaging around the apartment: I am so, so sorry. He was supposed to stay in the car with my mom precisely so that that wouldn't happen, but he got out and followed me, and it was a busy street, and I was really stuck. You, sir, are a prince among men, and again, I apologize.

More proof that "you guys" is gender neutral.

Allison Bechdel says so. Which is good enough for me.

Off to the big city...

...to find a place to live. Comment moderation is on, as I won't have internet access for about a week. See you when I get back - hopefully, I'll have a new address!