One of the great things about being male is that it's culturally acceptable for us to wear pants with pockets in them.
Every day for thirty years, I've had the same things in my pockets. Front right, keys. Front left, change. Back left, wallet. Back right, comb. Every morning, I touch all four pockets before I leave the house, making sure that my life equipment is present. (I know what you're thinking, that I probably have to count how many Cheetos are on the paper plate while I watch cartoons, too... you and Nora have been talking about me again, haven't you... I know you have...)
One of the things about moving into a new home is that it takes a while before you know naturally where things are. There are 55 light switches in the house (don't say anything... I know what you're thinking... how does he know that there are 55 light switches, 48 of which are standard toggle and seven of which are paddle-style... that doesn't include the three pull-cords or the four garage door openers, two for each door... I just do. And I keep my food separated on my plate, and I always have the current computer window maximized so that I don't see any of the desktop while I'm working. Leave me alone.) I know where all the light switches are, but I don't know what any of them do yet. It's like playing three-card monte; if I want to turn on the porch light, I have a one-third chance when I turn on one of the three switches in the mudroom, but I guess right about one out of twenty times.
Being that today is Saturday (265th day of 2012 [leap year], 101 days remaining...), we slept in a bit, only to be awakened by a call from the internet provider's field technician, letting us know that he was coming to the house to check on our complaint of slow service. Nora got up, performed ablutions, and came back into the bedroom to dress for the day. She opened a drawer. She opened another. She said, "Where are my underwear? I don't have any rituals that can help me find my underwear..."
Yes, she laughs at me, but she too needs rituals in order to find her underwear. (Mine are in the upper right drawer, folded into thirds, in stacks of no more than four pairs. My socks are in stacks by color, folds to the back and toes and ankles to the front. And my phone goes into the dashboard cubby by my left knee, I never put my cue case onto the table, and I always push the slits for the straw on the plastic top of the Dunkin Donuts iced tea cup open with my finger first because they're too tight and they crush the straw. Leave me alone.)
It takes a while to learn how to live with a house. Nora and our friends hung some pictures while I was away, and one of the hangers pulled out of the wall. So I put in a new, heavier gauge, hanger, which has a longer hook, so to keep that picture level, I had to put the nail in higher. But it still wasn't level, so I stretched the wire a little, but the wire was old, so it snapped and I had to get new wire from the tool box and tie that onto the eyelets on the frame, and I had to adjust that five or six times to get it the right length so that the picture would be level with the one next to it. And finally I got it level, and then I got down from the stepladder and stepped back and looked at it and it doesn't look level from the floor because the heavier gauge hanger holds the picture out a little further from the wall.
There are places on the lawn where the grass grows faster than other places. I don't know if there are dead bodies buried there and the soil is richer or what, but there are patches of grass that need to be mowed twice as often as the areas immediately adjacent. And when I drive the mower back and forth, I try to keep the grass cut level and the mowing lines straight, but between the terrain and the dense grass areas and the trees and shrubs and the property line angles you have to make some adjustments. Why aren't property lines straight, and aligned with the cardinal directions? That's what I would do.
I wrote checks for the gas bill and the Comcast bill last night, and I used the pen that Nora had left next to the computer. I can use any pen that's handy, but I prefer a uni-ball Vision
Elite rollerball, 0.5 mm, blue not black. And when I teach, I carry a
box that has one of each color of dry-erase markers and an eraser
because you never know what you're going to find in the classroom, and
if I have ten minutes allotted to make a presentation at a conference,
I've practiced half a dozen times with a watch and know that I can say
what I want to say in nine.
Nora sprayed bug spray at the porch lamp this morning, because the wasps started yesterday to build a nest up under the flange at the top of the chain. You can spray them in the morning, because it's cold and they haven't warmed up enough to be active yet. We had no idea how many wasps were up there, but the poison spray resulted in several minutes of dead and dying wasps falling from the light fixture. Nora looked at the carnage on the porch floor and said, "I can't believe how many there were up there. There's thirty of them!"
Thirty six, actually.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
All In
When Nora and I go down to NYC through New Jersey, there's one particular stretch of highway that's elevated about forty feet above ground, is five lanes across, and has an entrance or exit every quarter mile, so that the right half of the road is a constant merge. Don't ask me which highway; I'm too busy avoiding buses and delivery trucks to know what the name of the road is.
Anyway, there's some furniture store along the side of this elevated highway, and its name is painted on the upper end of the six-story warehouse. But what I remember most is the sign hung next to the subsequent exit, which says "You've Just Missed the Exit for Williams Mattress Warehouse!"
Well, thanks for the news. I'm going 40 miles an hour wedged in between a Peter Pan bus, a produce truck, a taxi and a station wagon whose driver is texting and drinking a Big Gulp at the same time, and you're going to scold me for missing your exit?
I was reminded of this when I got a call from one of my colleagues this morning. We were talking about how the new curriculum satisfies no one fully; the design media instructors all want more design media content, my colleague in history and theory wants more courses in design history, the studio heads all want nothing but studio, the head of Practice feels like hands-on learning is marginalized, and I of course bemoan the lack of liberal education in a professional school context. I said that the only way we could really fulfill everyone's desires would be to make the curriculum five times as long, so that students would start when they were 18 and graduate when they were 35. He replied that he only wanted to teach students when they were between 21 and 22, and then again when they were between 30 and 32. "There's research to show that a lot of learning and growth takes place during those two periods."
Given that he and I have already gone past both of those exits, I said, "Do you think there's another one like that during your 50's?"
"I sure hope so."
I actually used both of those earlier exits at their appropriate times. At 21, I'd dropped out of college and was learning independence; at 31, I started a doctoral program. In both cases, I committed to something I had never done before and had no empirical evidence that I could do, and I left myself no alternatives. I didn't do them with one foot in and the other out; I was all in. I was stretched to do things I hadn't even imagined possible, and proved myself capable. And it was fun, both times.
I think that home in Vermont is the next exit. I now belong to a place in a way that I haven't ever allowed myself to belong anywhere else. Do I have the courage to go all in? It's worked twice before...
Anyway, there's some furniture store along the side of this elevated highway, and its name is painted on the upper end of the six-story warehouse. But what I remember most is the sign hung next to the subsequent exit, which says "You've Just Missed the Exit for Williams Mattress Warehouse!"
Well, thanks for the news. I'm going 40 miles an hour wedged in between a Peter Pan bus, a produce truck, a taxi and a station wagon whose driver is texting and drinking a Big Gulp at the same time, and you're going to scold me for missing your exit?
I was reminded of this when I got a call from one of my colleagues this morning. We were talking about how the new curriculum satisfies no one fully; the design media instructors all want more design media content, my colleague in history and theory wants more courses in design history, the studio heads all want nothing but studio, the head of Practice feels like hands-on learning is marginalized, and I of course bemoan the lack of liberal education in a professional school context. I said that the only way we could really fulfill everyone's desires would be to make the curriculum five times as long, so that students would start when they were 18 and graduate when they were 35. He replied that he only wanted to teach students when they were between 21 and 22, and then again when they were between 30 and 32. "There's research to show that a lot of learning and growth takes place during those two periods."
Given that he and I have already gone past both of those exits, I said, "Do you think there's another one like that during your 50's?"
"I sure hope so."
I actually used both of those earlier exits at their appropriate times. At 21, I'd dropped out of college and was learning independence; at 31, I started a doctoral program. In both cases, I committed to something I had never done before and had no empirical evidence that I could do, and I left myself no alternatives. I didn't do them with one foot in and the other out; I was all in. I was stretched to do things I hadn't even imagined possible, and proved myself capable. And it was fun, both times.
I think that home in Vermont is the next exit. I now belong to a place in a way that I haven't ever allowed myself to belong anywhere else. Do I have the courage to go all in? It's worked twice before...
Friday, September 7, 2012
Departure Board
Bad news comes fast.
In the past month, we've had six departures from work; five within the past week alone.
There's no good place in any organization to do the basic work of grieving. But workplaces take up more time in our lives than family, and regardless of job title or institutional effectiveness, I now have six friends who no longer work with me, and that's hard. The rest of us have quiet conversations in the hall, we sit in one anothers' offices and share our thoughts, but what we need is an old Irish wake, where we laugh and drink and tell stories and curse at the sky.
Beannacht, a chairde. Feicfidh mé chailleann tú.
In the past month, we've had six departures from work; five within the past week alone.
There's no good place in any organization to do the basic work of grieving. But workplaces take up more time in our lives than family, and regardless of job title or institutional effectiveness, I now have six friends who no longer work with me, and that's hard. The rest of us have quiet conversations in the hall, we sit in one anothers' offices and share our thoughts, but what we need is an old Irish wake, where we laugh and drink and tell stories and curse at the sky.
Beannacht, a chairde. Feicfidh mé chailleann tú.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Rural Decathlon
It's Labor Day weekend, and as I was driving to VT yesterday, I came through Rutland. It was busier than normal, with a large motorcycle rally and the opening night of the Vermont State Fair.
I used to go to the Humboldt County Fair, which was full of household crafts competitions — best pickles, best eggs, best quilt — and hundreds of earnest FFA kids (Future Farmers of America) showing their cows and sheep and rabbits.
Nora and I were thinking this morning about the kinds of things that are shown at the fair. In most cases, it's the pros and semi-pros who win the awards — the best-in-show photo comes from a professional photographer, the best-in-show woodwork comes from a pro woodworker. It seems counter to the spirit of the old-school state fair judging, in which a farmer's butter or beer or pie wasn't competing with some commercial outfit.
So we devised a decathlon of rural skills, and the winner would need to do strong work in each of the ten categories in order to be competitive. It would be open to whole households, so that it wouldn't be divided into traditional men's and women's fields. So, ready? Here goes.
Event 1 — Heat the House. Four cords of firewood, self-felled, self-split, and stacked for drying. Judging based on uniformity of size, evenness of stacking, and number of remaining fingers among all team members.
Event 2 — Feed the Guests. A dinner for eight consisting of nothing that was not grown or raised directly by the household. Extra points for having built the table and chairs or woven the cloth for the table.
Event 3 — Start the Tractor. A 1971 John Deere 7020 diesel tractor will be disabled in unknown ways by a professional mechanic, and the contestant must diagnose and repair the problems without the use of off-site parts. However, unlimited amounts of wire and welding gas will be allowed.
Event 4 — Breakfast Treats. Each team must produce fifty gallons of maple syrup, two hundred pound of honey, and three cases of quart-jars of wild berry jam, all from lands owned by their neighbors. Extra points for having negotiated harvesting rights with more than ten landowners.
Event 5 — The Whole Shebang. Three deer and ten brook trout will be field-weighed, and prizes awarded to the teams making productive use of the greatest percentage of total weight. Extra points for taking the deer during bow or muzzle-load seasons.
Event 6 — Shroom Lab. Each participant will be presented with a bushel of assorted wild mushrooms, and must successfully identify which are edible. Participants will then make and eat a mushroom risotto from their selections (accompanied by a glass of red wine), and will be observed carefully for ill effects over the two subsequent days.
Event 7 — This Old House. Teams will be assigned a house built prior to 1825, and must successfully install code-compliant heating, electrical, water and septic systems for less than $10 per square foot.
Event 8 — Off-Road Driving. Teams will show skills at lawn mowing, driveway plowing, backing utility trailers between barrels up narrow paths, and driving a volunteer fire truck up the ridgeline to some flatlander's vacation house.
Event 9 — Kit and Kaboodle. Participants will raise and shear a fiber animal (goat, sheep, llama, alpaca, or rabbit allowed); clean and separate the fleece; dye the wool using only home-concentrated natural dyes; spin and ply 500 yards of triple-strand yarn; and a) weave an 8' x 10' kitchen rug, b) knit two sweaters, two pairs of socks and a union suit (flap optional), and c) make Christmas presents of their choice for at least ten family members. Extra points for knitting Lambie Jammies for an animal that the fleece was originally from.
Event 10 — The Community Member. Participants must show involvement in each of the following areas of service: help with planting and/or a harvest, help with a barn raising, help with a funeral and/or wedding, a minimum of eight potluck dishes and six bake-sale contributions, run for town office, play a musical instrument at a town fair or similar event (and being invited back to play that instrument the following year), march or drive in the Memorial Day parade, and provide a minimum of four meals for a family experiencing significant illness.
Nora and I know more households than we might have imagined who could actually qualify by doing decent work in all ten of these areas. It seems like a competition more suited to rural life than just making a really nice apple pie.
I used to go to the Humboldt County Fair, which was full of household crafts competitions — best pickles, best eggs, best quilt — and hundreds of earnest FFA kids (Future Farmers of America) showing their cows and sheep and rabbits.
 |
| Lambie Jammies, the FFA equivalent of a car cover before the show-ring judging. |
So we devised a decathlon of rural skills, and the winner would need to do strong work in each of the ten categories in order to be competitive. It would be open to whole households, so that it wouldn't be divided into traditional men's and women's fields. So, ready? Here goes.
Event 1 — Heat the House. Four cords of firewood, self-felled, self-split, and stacked for drying. Judging based on uniformity of size, evenness of stacking, and number of remaining fingers among all team members.
Event 2 — Feed the Guests. A dinner for eight consisting of nothing that was not grown or raised directly by the household. Extra points for having built the table and chairs or woven the cloth for the table.
Event 3 — Start the Tractor. A 1971 John Deere 7020 diesel tractor will be disabled in unknown ways by a professional mechanic, and the contestant must diagnose and repair the problems without the use of off-site parts. However, unlimited amounts of wire and welding gas will be allowed.
Event 4 — Breakfast Treats. Each team must produce fifty gallons of maple syrup, two hundred pound of honey, and three cases of quart-jars of wild berry jam, all from lands owned by their neighbors. Extra points for having negotiated harvesting rights with more than ten landowners.
Event 5 — The Whole Shebang. Three deer and ten brook trout will be field-weighed, and prizes awarded to the teams making productive use of the greatest percentage of total weight. Extra points for taking the deer during bow or muzzle-load seasons.
Event 6 — Shroom Lab. Each participant will be presented with a bushel of assorted wild mushrooms, and must successfully identify which are edible. Participants will then make and eat a mushroom risotto from their selections (accompanied by a glass of red wine), and will be observed carefully for ill effects over the two subsequent days.
Event 7 — This Old House. Teams will be assigned a house built prior to 1825, and must successfully install code-compliant heating, electrical, water and septic systems for less than $10 per square foot.
Event 8 — Off-Road Driving. Teams will show skills at lawn mowing, driveway plowing, backing utility trailers between barrels up narrow paths, and driving a volunteer fire truck up the ridgeline to some flatlander's vacation house.
Event 9 — Kit and Kaboodle. Participants will raise and shear a fiber animal (goat, sheep, llama, alpaca, or rabbit allowed); clean and separate the fleece; dye the wool using only home-concentrated natural dyes; spin and ply 500 yards of triple-strand yarn; and a) weave an 8' x 10' kitchen rug, b) knit two sweaters, two pairs of socks and a union suit (flap optional), and c) make Christmas presents of their choice for at least ten family members. Extra points for knitting Lambie Jammies for an animal that the fleece was originally from.
Event 10 — The Community Member. Participants must show involvement in each of the following areas of service: help with planting and/or a harvest, help with a barn raising, help with a funeral and/or wedding, a minimum of eight potluck dishes and six bake-sale contributions, run for town office, play a musical instrument at a town fair or similar event (and being invited back to play that instrument the following year), march or drive in the Memorial Day parade, and provide a minimum of four meals for a family experiencing significant illness.
Nora and I know more households than we might have imagined who could actually qualify by doing decent work in all ten of these areas. It seems like a competition more suited to rural life than just making a really nice apple pie.
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