And Here's the Rub..

Warning: This is a rant containing mild explicatives, death threats, and voodoo spells.

A preface: While I am a teacher, I am spending my summer vacation working as a personal assistant, sales representative, and eye candy to the technicians at my parents. It is a true family endeavor. My father is the owner; my mother is accounts payable, and my 78-year-old grandmother pretends to be the receptionist, even though she can hardly hear anymore.

Walked back in from lunch today with my mother to find a copy of today's paper on my desk with an advertisement for a $500 a month apartment not-so-inconspicuously circled in red.

My grandmother sat at “her” desk, looking self-important, though she spends most of the day answering email and reading articles on holistic health care. She is one of those women who will get a forwarded email from a doctor, and believe whatever is in the email, simply because the person claims to be a real life MD. She opens the office at 8:30, leaves for coffee at 9:30, eats lunch at 11:30, and starts yawning at 1:30 that she is bored and she wants to go home. Her job: acting like a guard dog to anyone that might walk through the door. The copy shop next to ours just closed and she’s been complaining about how all the customers will come in and “bother” her.

“What’s this?” I ask. My parents and I have recently decided that I am giving up my apartment in order to move into their finished basement while I a.) save money and b.) complete my Master’s. It’s not a move I am particularly happy to make, but I am willing to swallow my pride to feel a little more financially secure. Note: it was my parents idea, and it took a long time for me to be okay with giving up my freedom.

“I was talking to your father, and I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to move in with them again,” she said, taking a deep breath as she stepped on her soap box. My mother came in from the other room.

“Why not?” She asked. Mom has little patience for her mother-in-law’s manipulation. To get a visual, think of the relationship between Debra and Marie in Everybody Loves Raymond.

“Well, Denise, she’s been on her own and she can’t just go home. Plus, think of all the extra work it’s going to be. And you have Tracey [my younger sister who is 20] to think about—you have your hands full with her. Your house is too small. And children need to grow up eventually.” I started laughing. My father and uncle lived with her till they both got married. My father was in his middle-2os, my uncle was in his 30s. My mother cut her off.

“We managed quite well for twenty years. She is coming home so she can go to grad school. Tracey is quite fine with it.”

“Well, you and Roger will need to sit down and really think about it. I think you’re making the wrong decision,” she said with a cynical laugh. I knew the ways of her manipulation quite well. She would say something like that, and as we ignored her and did what we thought was best, she would sit back, her arms crossed, pouting like a child denied the chance to lick the cookie dough batter from the spoon.

I lost it. After spending nearly every working day with her and her condescending attitude, I just can’t take it anymore. I started yelling asking her to stay out of our lives. I’m very sick of having to do things to please her, of not doing things to please her, and of having to listen to her trash talk everyone from my mother, my sister, and other family members. And somehow after I do all that, she is still not happy. And I stormed out of the office—not the most adult thing to do, but she treats me like I’m 5, so I’m going to act like I’m 5. My father followed me outside, trying to reason with me on why he now thinks it’s a bad idea for me to move in. I told him to grow a back bone. He answered, as usual, that we need to listen to her because she’s almost 80. Frankly, I don’t give a shit. Being in your late-70s does NOT give you the right to treat others like crap, especially those in your own family.

Here’s the rub: Last week, when I told my grandfather, her husband, that I was moving back in with my parents, he was delighted. I have no freaking clue why she is suddenly on the defense about me moving back in with them.

So, dear Reader, share your stories/rants of a manipulative relative? How do you handle them?

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Staying up All Night to Write A Love Song, To No One

The Date is tonight

It's been an intensely long time since I've been on a date that I knew wasn't predestined to end up in the bedroom. (IE: with Jay*, my Marine "ex"). I'm trying to make the best first impression I can. Scanning my closet this evening, I realized that all I really have are what I consider "bedroom"clothes-- the type that would cue the male that I'm with that I will be a willing participant in whatever midnight activity he is planning. Several of my best outfits caused Jay to order up "dessert" before dinner-- I am going to miss his freespirited approach.

A first date, however, is not the time to bring out that "bedroom" outfit; I don't want to give the wrong idea.



Ideally, I want an outfit that:

1. makes me appear mature


2. is sexy without being skanky


3. makes me look a few pounds lighter

I think I have the perfect outfit, but I'm going to have to run out to purchase a new set of black heels. My old sexy standbys have seen better days.

The date tonight is dinner and drinks at Sakura Tokyo, a hibachi Japanese restaurant in Worcester.

I feel a little more confident now that I've spoken with several friends about it.

Twinsie: "Age is just a number."

Jaime: "Nothing wrong with trying older."

Megan: "Hahaha."

Two out of three ain't bad, right?

In other news, I got my period. again. for the third time in a month. I took my pill just a few hours later than normal and I get my period. ugh.

Here's to you Miss. Robinson

Does age matter?

This is a question I've been contemplating in the days following my most recent "break up" (we weren't in an offical relationship, but nevertheless we are broken, much to my dismay) followed by an equally disatorous stint at dating my best friend (neither one of us is ready to try that). Encouraged by my drinking buddy Scumbag* (aptly named for his treatment of the cast of women he dates), I cast the proverbial line into the dating pool at http://www.plentyoffish.com/.

I met plenty of jerks who were more interested in the size of my breasts than my personality, or, in one rather memorable case, the size of my bank account. From all of these replies it became quite clear that they hadn't read the profile I spent several drunken hours creating.

Then a guy named Jake* emailed me asking me to explain my username (ArabianMagic--> I own an Arabian horse named Magic). From that conversation, he asked about the specifics of the equestrian sport I prefer (dressage). The emails quickly snowballed into sharing phone numbers. During our conversation, he said that he never expected me contact him, given his age.

Wait, what?

A closer glance revealed that he was older. much older. 41. While it's not as old as Strom Thurman or my father, it's definitley older than the guys I've dated in the past. My highest has only been 5 years older. 18 years older is definitley uncharted territory for me.

Society has long glorified relationships (often purely sexual) between younger men and older women: Mrs. Robinson & Benjamin, Demi & Ashton, Smith and Samantha from Sex and the City. Scumbag himself highly extolls the virtues of dating a "Cougar," though his particular breed of Cougar often include women wearing wedding bands and avoiding their husbands. Dr. Tina B. Tessina explains the column "What's Behind the Trend with Women Dating Younger Men?" that "Socially, there's a role reversal of sorts going on, women are more powerful now than ever before and may want men who are younger, and perhaps, more flexible; men who can handle it if the woman's career and lifestyle takes priority over their own. Media portrayals in "Sex and the City" (like movie characters Smith Jerrod and Samantha Jones) and "Desperate Housewives" are also showing women that dates don't have to be older. Women who have high-powered careers -- or a well-developed self-image -- are exercising more choice. Women who have been divorced and are established single moms may enjoy having a playmate, someone to have fun with; who doesn't try to control her."

A Google search of older men- younger women turned up images of Hugh Heffner and his playmates, and websites advising that such realtionships do not work. Still others declared the only possible reason that a younger woman and an older man would get together must be that she is looking for financial security, and he is looking for sex.

Does that always have to be the case?

In this instance, I'm mentally attracted to Jake* because he is mature, easy to converse with, and hasn't once asked me what color my nipples are unlike some of his younger counterparts on http://www.plentyoffish.com/. He has complimented my beauty without being oversexual, rather refreshing these days. I've dated men younger than me (my ex-fiance was 3 years my junior) and about my age and found them to be mentally about ten years younger than me. I'm a 23-year old with a BA, a career, and working on my Master's degree. Most guys my age have difficulty commiting to what color boxers they are wearing tomorrow let alone an actual career or Godforbid, a wife.

We're going out to a restaurant on Friday.

Wish me luck, dear Reader.

Food for comment: Have you dated anyone older than you? How did it turn out?




*name changed to protect the innocent

Reflection on Nancy G. Patterson and Renee Speed’s

“Urban Education: Moving Past the Myth of Structure”

Written on the back of a photocopied copy of Patterson and Speed's article

As I read the Patterson article, I was struck by how different Renee’s experiences were as a child. She went from a middle class school which was, as she said, “preparing me to be somebody” to an urban school that was focused on “finishing” stories and lessons, not learning them (32). When Renee somehow found her way to college, she was struck that other students “could look for ways to disagree, or listen for ideas that they could connect to another idea” (33). Renee did not know this type of literacy, having only been previously taught to “fill out a worksheet, but there were no worksheets to do” (33).

In the margin, I noted that Renee, like the other students in her class in the urban district, was never expected to go to college. Thus the experiences that they were given, the way that they were taught, was explicitly done in order to prepare them for the structures their teachers expected they would find in their lives. Those worksheets and formulaic responses that fit into neat bubbles and boxes on a form are preparation for the stereotypical adulthood of an inner-city child. What “practical” skills do they have to know? Is it enough to know how to fill out forms (DMV, Welfare, tax forms), and write well enough to get a job?

Along the same vein, why is there a myth that urban students “’need more structure’”? (31). Why in middle class schools are untraditional classroom arrangements (circles, project based, student-created schedules) encouraged and valued? Patterson and Speed cite research by Jean Anyon which argues that “schools where serve children in this stratum provide lessons and assignments that are designed more to control students and prepare them for their jobs where they have to follow directions and carry out directives from those who hold supervisory positions” (qtd. in Patterson 32).

I argue that is slightly more diabolical than that, a theory that was inspired by Podis’s discussion of Foucault’s insights into the unequal power relations within institutions: “Foucault did in fact theorize the existence of connections between prisons conditions and everyday life situations, particularly with respect to institutionalized behaviors” (Podis 128). Are we teaching urban students to be ready for prison with that sort of emphasis on structure and establishment of schedule and authority?

I think it important to note that the unspoken antecedent in my use of the pronoun “we” is meant to be all educators—regardless of district, race, age, theoretical alliances, and socioeconomic class.

Think about it. What two places in society are our lives minutely scheduled and ruled by the bell? Jail and school. Where do you threaten to send an unruly student? The office where they are put in in-class suspension. Isn’t that similar to (in a minor way) solitary confinement in jail. With our emphasis on structure, are we preparing –either consciously or subconsciously– our urban students for the structure they will encounter in jail? Do we, somewhere in our darkest regions, believe that our urban students are destined for a life of crime?
It calls to mind an anecdote Regan relayed this morning during our discussion. She had been carjacked in Manchester. When the cop arrived, he had asked her “Approximately how old was this African American male?” He was floored when Regan negated his unspoken assumption that it was in fact an African American by saying that she actually was carjacked by a middle-aged Caucasian male.

Putting this aside, why are urban students not taught to be critical thinkers? Is there more to it than just the fact that we presume that these students will not need these skills in their destined professions? Renee’s experiences in her high school and college classroom has a strong point on this, which is validated by Lisa Delpitt’s book Other People’s Children: “Let there be no doubt: a ‘skilled’ minority person is not also capable of critical analysis becomes the trainable, low-level functionary of the dominant society, simply the grease that keeps the institutions orchestrate his or her oppression running smoothly (Delpitt 19). Through our focus on structure and skills are we passively depriving urban students of the critical thinking processes that would make them, to continue Delpitt’s metaphor, a squeaky cog in the machine of the dominant culture? In a diabolical-political theory, do we as a society ruled by the middle-class want to hold our political place in the world? Is this why institutions refuse to teaching these higher-order skills and instead argue that “a critical thinker who lacks the skills demanded by employers and institutions of higher learning can aspire to financial and social status only within the disenfranchised underworld” (Delpitt 19).

There are no comfortable answers to these questions. It involves looking critically at underlying currents of education that very few people are comfortable acknowledging exist. The implications of changing this system are far reaching and puts the stability of the dominant culture in a shaky position. It also involves critically looking at our own values and stereotypes and what we implicitly assume and propagate through our teaching styles. This is no easy task because much of it is unspoken. Harvard University professor and noted contemporary American scholar Stanley Cavell calls “hidden literality,” words (and actions) which “strew obscurities across our path and seem willfully to thwart comprehension; and then time after time we discover that their meaning has been missed only because it was so utterly bare—totally, therefore unnoticeably, in view” (119). In other words, society is so used has become so used to these expectations and permissions that we fail to recognize its political and educational implications.

Works Cited

Cavell, Stanley. “Ending the Waiting Game: A Reading of Beckett’s Endgame.” Must We Mean
What We Say? A book of essays. New York: Scribner, 1969. 115-162.

The Economics of McDonalds

Written on the back of a placemat from Golden Greek Restaurant in Webster, MA.

I love to shop.

I love the experience of losing hours amongst rows of clothes, books, horse equipment–whatever my particular fancy at the moment–dreaming about the perfect outfit, books I wish to write, or how my barn will look some day.

Cue dreamy Cinderella “Some day my Prince Will Come” theme music.

The enemy aforementioned retail therapy: the Salesperson. The types that will pester you about cell phones, manicure kits, insta elbow grease.

Instrumental music fades into annoying infomercials…….ONLY 9.99 !!!(plus40dollarsshippingandhandling).

The worst is those that offer free products. Talking to one of them sets me off on a guilt trip larger than my grandmother’s “Will I live to see my great-grandchildren?”

Bon Voyage.

I feel like if I don’t buy something, I’m somehow stealing the “free” sample, and robbing them of their valuable time, energy, and product commission. Or, still worse, I fear I’ll end up like Juliette Lewis’s character in The Other Sister– running through the mall distraught because counter make up artist only made up half her face. It’s no surprise that my favorite stores are the helpful,but not pushy independently owned shops where customer satisfaction is the bottom line, not meeting quarterly objectives.

I enjoy going to the Post Office for that reason. It is one of the only things left from our more simpler beginnings. When I was five years old, the mail–and the post office– were magical places. It motivated my active imagination to discover that something I wrote here could arrive somehow–I was unclear as to exactly how-anywhere around the world. To me at the ripe old age of 23 (still on the good side of 25), there is something romantic about writing and sending a letter. There is something more personal in the time it takes to write out and post a letter–rather than just clicking “Send”in an e-mail program. I still get the same butterflies of excitement when I open my mail box that I did when I was five, even though bills outnumber romantic love letters these days.

Today, when it came time to mail my graduate school applications, I chose to sojurn to the local Post Office for the precise postage, rather than haphazardly estimating the weight and number of stamps necessary.

The local post office was an air conditioned haven from the mugginess of a late-July heat wave. I handed the proudly handed the post master my envelopes.

“Would you like this Priority mail?”

“No. First class is fine,” I replied, smiling.

“Insurance?”

“No.”

“Tracking Number?”

“No.”

“Delivery Confirmation?”

“No.”

“Signature Confirmation?”

“No. I think good ol’ first class will do it for me,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Do you need anything else today? Stamps? Framed Collectible Stamps? a Passport?”

In answer, I swiped my card and punched in my pin number.

“Do you need cash back?”

Habitat for Humanity has its “economics of Jesus”; I’m calling this the “economics of McDonalds.” It was the same type of at the register sale McDonalds introduced with its “Would you like fries with that?” mantra. I half expected her to ask me if I wanted to “Super Size” my mail.

Trust me, I fully understand we are in a recession–but, in my honest, humble opinion, companies should be courting their customers, not aggravating them with high-pressure sales tactics. Many moan about the death of chivalry, I’m mourning the death of customer care.

What’s next? the Department of Motor Vehicles selling cars?