Leap Day!

I'm leaping along in my new job, and I managed to stay up till 9 pm last night!
I was on the phone for a long time in the evening with my former coworker/volunteer who did puzzles and games. She said the new person I chose to take over Book's is doing well--yay. I called that right.

She told me about some drama after I'd left—unrelated to me – –and it made me so glad that I wasn’t there.
She also said that Manageress ranted at her about how angry I'd made her by not staying for a going-away party. Manageress had told me the same thing on my last day. Curious, because I haven’t heard a word from her since I left, or anyone except a couple volunteers. Nor have I contacted them.
That's how it went at the thrift store--caring communication was rare.

Meanwhile at my new workplace, a couple other people besides me have birthdays next week, so on their weekly outing with the students, everybody’s going to walk down to a nearby ice cream shoppe. It’s during two periods when I have other classes, but they said, “We’ll sign you out—come with us!”

Now, I'm not romanticizing the place: I can already see little tension fractures there.
But I also feel I’m among my own, with teachers – people who care about education and were probably attracted to the job in the first place because it’s a caring service? 

I don’t know why I’m surprised I feel at home with these people – – my father was an educator, I worked in libraries and educational publishing, and even my thrift store job was all about WORDS – – it’s kind of a no-brainer, right?
Maybe it’s just that I’ve been away for so long? I forgot these people existed?

It’s such a relief to be with people who care about and practice communication skills. Literally teaching the skills: yesterday a class practiced how to start a conversation. 

I happened to have brought a girlette to show a student who had showed me their stuffed animal – – and spontaneously the stuffed animal and the doll started a conversation, which worked well. They talked about pizza!
I've stumbled onto a teaching method.

Kirsten had commented about the films of Romeo & Juliet, and in another class, we watched Act I of the 1968 Zeffirelli version, which I have never seen.
It's pretty good, but I felt bad for the young actors, knowing actors Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting are sueing for abuse.

Funny I'd worried about being away from books every day--besides reading Shakespeare in class, I can check things out of the school library.
A library! Of course there's a library. I'd forgotten there would be. It carries lots of YA books, but not only. There's the daily newspaper, for instance, that I could read on break... I've already chatted up the librarian, who gave me all sorts of useful tips and info.
And of course there are books all over the classrooms--and a teacher I met at lunch said there are extra copies I can borrow.

SHARING INFO with coworkers! omg. It's been a long time since that happened.
I have to say, though, there's a LOT OF LAYERS of bureaucracy, and it's kind of cumbersome. Coming from a place with NONE, I rather appreciate it.

I also appreciate that I get a moderate amount of exercise at work--I go up and down four flights of stairs, change classes every hour, get up and down during every class, and I even attend a gym class a couple times a week. We played running-around games, like Red Light, Green Light--it was fun.

AND... happy news, I'd said I like art, so now I go to a drawing class every day. (The way it works is, there are special ed classes, and also some sp-ed students are integrated into gen-ed classes, and aides go with them, if needed.)

Time to go to work!

To sleep, to dream...

Girlettes in my new school locker! ❤️❤️❤️

"I prioritize sleep", said a coworker who has so much going on, I'd commented that they must not get much sleep.
"I don't think well if I don't get enough sleep," they said.

I agreed wholeheartedly and told them I'd slept ten hours the night before, to process the overload of incoming new experiences.

I LOVE that some members of the younger generation consider it a colonizer/capitalist trick to emphasize #HardWork and #LackOfSleep as moral values.

ABOVE: Kehinde Wiley, The Death of Hyacinth (Ndey Buri Mboup), 2022, via Museum of Fine Art, Houston

The founder of the Nap Ministry movement, Tricia Hersey, for instance, says, Rest Is Resistance and wrote a book of that title. She says:

"We have been brainwashed by ... this violent culture that wants to see us working 24 hours a day, that... views our divine bodies as a machine.
We believe our bodies are portals. They are sites of liberation, knowledge, and invention that are waiting to be reclaimed and awakened by the beautiful interruptions of brutal systems that sleep and dreaming provide."

And--wow!--this:
"Our dream space has been stolen, and we want it back. We will reclaim it via rest."
--NPR, All Things Considered, interview with Tricia Hersey*, 12/27/22

OhMygod, yes. A central childhood memory:
My mother's mother (born 1900, indirectly from a slave-holding family) standing at the bottom of the stairs at 7 a.m. every morning of our visits, clapping and calling out, "Rise and shine, sleepyheads!"
Even when were visiting her on our holiday vacation time.

I always hated and resented that, but also felt the weight of my Grandmother's view of my "failure".
She's the one who said of me, "I can't understand her--she has no ambition." She's been dead almost forty years, but her dread judgment that has stayed with me.
What a legacy...

I still feel the need to prove that she was wrong, too:
that I always have had "ambition" to move (ambulate) toward things I love.
To her, those things had no value unless they were recognized and rewarded––socially, if not monetarily--like her gardening (and it was amazing!) leading to her becoming Chair Woman of the Lady's Gardening Club.

Anyway--I was thinking about that because of my lovely coworker (the one who took extra time to show me around)--and because I again slept ten hours last night--
And woke up with a good idea!

I'd been fretting about how to help a student read Romeo & Juliet, and something came to me while I was sleeping.

Actually, maybe more, I was pondering how to help the teacher help the student.
There is an art to being an assistant that I need/want to learn:
How to mediate for the good of all?
How to practice "conflict transformation" (a term I just learned via Hersey)?

I ran my idea past my former coworker Abby, who has a Masters in Special Ed--Autism, and she thought it was a good one, and suggested some ways to phrase it effectively.
So helpful!

Sleep Spirituality

ABOVE: Photo by Charlie Watts from an ongoing photography project curated by Tricia Hersey. Photo and quote below from this article:
"Tricia Hersey, a testimony on liberation theology and rest as inheritance", by Tempestt Hazel.

Tricia Hershey comes out of the Black church. She says:

"The Nap Ministry ... came out of the fact that I’m a preacher’s kid who was raised in the Black church and has always seen the Black church as a place of liberation—I’m blessed in that way.

"Though a lot of people have seen the Black church as a place of oppression and abuse, for me it was a liberating place to see Black people take their own spirituality and relationship to God into their own hands and remix it through a lens that looks like liberation.

"When those [who were] teaching white Christianity were giving us their religion, we took it and remixed it into something for ourselves. I think it’s important to know that. A lot of people gloss over that.

"And while the Black church and Christianity, in general, have a lot to be critiqued, I think the Black church is unique in that it’s one of the only institutions outside of slavery that we’ve had autonomy around, that we’ve owned, and that is still here."

When (white) people condemn religion, they often are not hearing or acknowledging that religion plays roles in cultures and communities other than theirs (ours).
 
What I hear is condemnation of the modern Trump-style Christianity.
I share the concern! 

Have you see this:
"A former evangelical leader is sounding the alarm about the direction his religion is headed in. Christianity Today Editor: Evangelicals Call Jesus 'Liberal' and 'Weak'

"Moore told NPR [8/8/23]... that multiple pastors had told him they would quote the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the part that says to “turn the other cheek,” when preaching. Someone would come up after the service and ask, 'Where did you get those liberal talking points?'

“When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis."

When we condemn "religion", I think of something Marz told me:
that when she was a high school student in Japan (in the early 2000s), her fellow students didn't even know who Jesus was.

I love that reminder that when we speak as white, middle-class Americans of Christian heritage, what we consider "religion" isn't even recognized in much of the world--or accepted in the Americas.
What do we mean when we say "religion"?
Indigenous religions, for instance, are very different from the religion of European colonizers. 

Sleep Science

My body reminded me that when it's rested, it will let me know.
I went to bed at 6 p.m. last night, and woke up refreshed three hours later. I read for a couple hours, woke up again at 4:30 a.m. and thought--why not get up?
So I did.

I trust my sleep cycle will sort itself out. I know I'm lucky that way--a lot of people's sleep is all messed up. I wonder if that is a problem of the modern world, with our fake illumination...
_______________________

I've always processed ideas and emotions while asleep--and that's sound science.
From the NIH:
"The function of sleep within the realm of learning [1], memory [2], physical recovery [3], metabolism [4] and immunity [5] is well documented across species."

Hersey is also points out the CDC has named sleep deprivation a public health crisis:

"I talk a lot about my divinity degree, but I have a undergrad degree in public health and community health. So I know the beauty of looking at this message from the science of sleep.
. . . Three of the top diseases - high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes - can be linked back to sleep deprivation. "

The NIH says:

"Reduced sleep duration has been linked to 7 of the 15 leading causes of death in the U.S., including
cardiovascular [heart] disease, malignant neoplasm [cancer],
cerebrovascular disease [blood flow to brain],
accidents, diabetes,
septicemia [blood poisoning by bacteria],
and hypertension [high blood pressure]...."

 

Lanyards & Sonnets

Everything went well!
On my first morning, I was given a lanyard in school colors with keys to, among other things, the staff bathroom.
And a locker in the hall, like the kids. (Girlettes are chuffed--some are planning to go stay there overnight.)
Today I'm to be given a laptop--all teachers and students get one.
It's like I . . . WORK THERE.

I guess I do, and glad of it.
I hadn't been super worried about getting along with the students;
I was more worried about the Powers That Be--would they be okay?
They are! So far. Everyone was welcoming, and one young teacher's aide went out of her way to show me the ropes, saying she wished she'd had more guidance when she'd started.

Actually, I'm receiving more on-the-job training than I'd expected, for which I'm grateful. Maybe because they know I don't have experience?
At any rate, I am assigned to shadow other aides all this week.

The kids (young adults, some of them--but they are all young humans) were pretty great. I wish I could tell you stories about them, but they're not mine to share.
I'll have to figure out what's okay to share about work...

I can say that ninth grade English is reading Romeo & Juliet--which means I am too, and for the first time ever: I did Julius Caesar in high school, and Hamlet in college.
(This is a general-education "gen-ed" class that some special-ed students are taking--half the classes I'll help in are mixed like that.)

And they're writing sonnets! So, I am too.
I didn't get far, but I started one about girlette Jenny Baker's first day at school.
Useful to have a project for the one class, so far, that’s a blank.

At the end of yesterday, waiting to see the school buses load and depart, I asked one of my coworkers about how fast I should jump in and start to help.
"It's up to your comfort level, but you seem pretty comfortable already," he said with approval.
Nice to hear.

Being treated by staff with appreciation and respect was sort of shocking, after six years of being treated as disposable.
Even things like getting keys to classrooms---I never got keys or codes to anything at the store, though it would've been handy. After six years, I could have been running the place, but was kept in the dark.
It was really, really nice to be treated as someone needing and deserving to be in the know.

I was exhausted after work--all the input to process! Different rooms, different people, EVERY HOUR.
When I got home--(nice walk)--bink came over for tea, and then I went to bed at 7 p.m. and slept soundly for ten hours.

I'm glad this first week is only four-days:
Friday, teachers have something that aides don't, so I'm off.
I see already how much work teachers have. What a hard job. So, yeah, I don't want to be too judgmental of any teacher (or student!)--maybe I could be of some help bridging gaps?

My comfort with a wide range of humans definitely comes from working at the thrift store. Definitely. It was a school in human variation and crisis management, with no leadership:
I remember difficult situations when I made a conscious decision to step up, to step in.
Just try something! Could I make it worse?
I could have. (People did escalate.)
But usually I was able to make a connection with an upset person (if they weren't gone on drugs), and connection is key.

The other aides all said that: form relationships.
And that's already happening--talking to students about their interests.

Which reminds me, I was going to look up this video game: Brawl Stars.
Okay... It's an action role-playing game by Finnish game developer Supercell.  Here's a brawler I heard mentioned: Fangirl Cony.

Morning Routine

It's 5:45 a.m., with a big setting moon outside my dark window, and I just got an email with my official work email and sign-in info.
How 'bout that? I guess I really am starting!

I'm up and showered, having my coffee... I'm used to leisurely mornings, with lots of time to blog. If I want that, I'll have to get up early.

What will I like for a morning routine?

I'll be leaving the house by 8 normally. (This morning I have to get there early, to get shown around.)
bink walked with me to my new workplace yesterday--walking leisurely, it took us 25 minutes.
It's a pleasant walk down residential streets--lots of little single-family houses with liberal yard signs and tended gardens. A few blocks out of my way, there's a busier street with coffee shops and  indie yoga studios.

It's quite a change from my trip to work in the other direction, which got more and more run-down.
I happened upon a list of most & least dangerous neighborhoods in the city--the most dangerous was Phillips, where the thrift store is.
That seems right.

The most safe is the neighborhood where my sister lives--not just because it's relatively wealthy, but because of its geography:
it's pocketed between lakes, and there's no big through-streets.
And where I live now is in-between.

I've got several messages wishing me a good First Day, and Marz offered to walk me to my first day of school, which all made me very happy.
And, Maura gave me a first-day-of-school present--a pencil case... with GEL PENS!!! and a little fidget toy.

Okay, I've got to go make lunch now, and make final decision about what to wear. Jeans, yes. I want to wear my new pink hoodie--partly because it's going to be warm today (maybe 60º!)––but––if only to show the teacher I've thought of it (kids' sensory issues)––I will wear a neutral color instead.
When I looked it up, some autistic people said their calming color was RED, so who knows?
And that's just it--I don't know, so I will start with neutral and go from there.

Tootle-oo, all!

P.S. Here's the documentary about Chris Packham and autism:
"Life with Asperger's Sydrome"--(the name "Asperger's" is (mostly) not used anymore, now called autism).
It's good, though not as good, I think, as his doc about four other autistic people, "Inside Our Autistic Minds"--but it's safe to watch on youtube.

Just Different/ Flo: "My husband is the only person..."

Thanks to GZ for recommending I look up Chris Packham, a naturalist and BBC presenter. (Packham's website.) He's my age, but as an American, I'd never heard of him. (We in the US can't watch all the BBC for free.)
He's also autistic--with a late diagnosis (in his forties)--and in 2023 made a BBC documentary, Inside Our Autistic Minds.

Chris Packham, below, with a European badger (so much sweeter looking than the American badger, which is the animal of my home state, Wisconsin):

Packham is a photographer and also designs T-shirts, including a Just Different line to celebrate neurodivergence:
"We are not wrong, we are not broken, we are just different."

Here are a couple of his Just Different designs:
I kind of want this one: "I think it's this [reverse direction] way up";
"I can see you without looking at you" (referring to the averted gaze of many autistic people):

Searching for the doc on autism in the US, I get the message: "This title is currently not available on any service", so I've only watched a few clips on utube so far.
Here's a 5-minute clip, featuring autistic stand-up comedian, Flo, who says her husband is the only person who's seen her unmasked:

Oh! Here, I can watch the whole thing on this doc channel. 

Eek--no! I had to erase that live link --it works on my laptop, but on my iPhone, it led to a porn site. 

If you want to search, I watched  the excellent Inside Our Autistic Minds  on my laptop at “i have no tv” documentary site. 

The Weekend Parade

I start my new job Monday, as a special-ed assistant, working with high-schoolers with autism.
Starting now, my weekends will be the standard Saturday & Sunday––and I expect I will do standard things like laundry & grocery shopping
... and TOY PARADES!

I. Parade!

I cut poster board in half, lengthwise, and yesterday bink and I started drawing the parade. (I especially like the balloon anchored with a rock.)

I want a parade on boards to go all the way around my walls. I will ask other people to help.
I invite YOU: the boards are 2 feet (.6 meters) high:
* * * send me a parade participant(s) drawing I can paste on!

Flying sardines?
__________________________________

II. Ask!

KG lent me this book, Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity (2022), by social psychologist Devon Price. Price is Autistic, and he addresses other Autistic people in the book.
That's how he styles it, in caps, "Autistic people" = identity-first,
vs. "people with autism" = person-first.

Language preferences vary--here's an article about those terms: "Writing Respectfully: Person-First and Identity-First Language".

The article's recommendations basically boil down to Ask people. Don't assume what anything is for other people. This is a pet peeve of mine: Want or need to know something about me? ASK ME!

(When I asked the teacher interviewing me what she wanted most in an assistant, she said flexibility.)

Price's book is what I've wanted: an understanding from inside Autism. I've watched videos from Autistic people too, but this goes deeper. The main subject is masking = Autistic people adopting strategies to appear less "weird", to try to match neurotypical social norms, and how costly that is.

Price asks, what does unmasking look like, and what are its costs?

Price was diagnosed in his twenties, after he already had a PhD, and he writes to other adults.
I wonder what I'll see in high school...
Will some students be disability justice & inclusion rights activists?
I'll find out.
___________________________

III. Move!

This weekend, I'm going to go outside!
Since I quit the thrift store two weeks ago, I've mostly been a pudding, which has been great.
But this is my biggest concern about my new job:
the loss of built-in exercise.

It's easy enough to see the solution--exercise on purpose.
But I have not in my life been great at doing that. Maybe I'll be more motivated now, since I can tell it matters more as my body ages. Maybe.
That's my intention anyway.

I think the hack that will work best is if I WALK to work. It's only a mile, so biking there is almost no exercise, but a brisk walk there and back would be great--energizing, exercise + stress relief. Walk it off!

IV. Hack!

What I like for my own self in Price's book was the permission/ideas to do life hacks to avoid overwhelm.

Some neurotypical (NT) people say, "Everybody's a little bit autistic". That's simply not true--autism is a specific (if highly variable) neurological difference.
Like, everybody is not a little bit pregnant.

But a true thing that NT people mean is that Modern Life Is Too Much for the neurotypical brain, too. The expectations of Be More, Do More, Faster can be obliterating, draining, soul sucking.
I feel that!

Accommodations for disabilities often help everyone--that's the curb-cut effect: "the phenomenon of disability-friendly features being used and appreciated by a larger group than the people they were designed for. For example, many hearing people use closed captioning."

My favorite hack:
YOU DON'T HAVE TO FOLD YOUR LAUNDRY!
I am going to put up more clothes hooks to hang stuff.

This hack, below, is for kids but addresses something I feel--panic or paralysis in the face of Many Things to Do. It helps me (but sometimes I forget!) to break tasks into smaller steps--like this "First, Then" board:

Here's one list (there are many):
Autism Life Hacks, some of which I already do, like read to sleep.

It also includes, Take up crochet. (A friend who did four years in prison said crochet saved her.) Like fidget toys, but also, you're making something.

I wonder if high school students can crochet or knit in class...
I'd like that–– for myself! especially if I'm sitting in Gen-Ed classes listening to lectures on history or whatever. (I don’t know how much I’ll do this – – but part of the job might be attending these classes with the autistic students.)

The spring I was turning twelve, my father taught for a semester in Copenhagen, Denmark, and I went to a public grade school there, taught in Danish.
Come to think of it, I wonder if this was a little like an experience of being autistic? I often didn't know what the social rules were. (I didn’t even speak the same language.)

I guess my parents thought this Immersion experience would be good, but they did nothing to help with it, such as arrange for Danish lessons!

(Also at that same time, my mother was deeply depressed, and I spent hours after school sitting with her in a darkened room. She would lie on the couch, and I would rub her head, read to her, bring her cups of tea...)

Luckily, Danish children are taught to be inclusive (or were, this was the 1970s, and the society was mostly homogenous), and they and the teachers were very kind to me, this awkward foreigner.
But I was frightened or uncomfortable all the time, and mostly I held myself still and tried to be invisible.
I couldn't even pretend to "mask", not being able to speak Danish.

The children shocked me, but in a positive direction. At recess, for instance, the girls went out of their way to include the weirdest girl in their games.
At home, girls like her were called names, mocked, and actively excluded--"Don't invite her".

Anyway, I thought of this because it was normal for Danish girls to knit in class. So great! 

A trickier hack: saying no when you feel you should say yes. 

I just told my sister I didn’t want to see her for my birthday because my new job is going to be so involving and possibly overwhelming (even if it all goes perfectly beautifully).

My sister is not someone who reliably leaves me feeling good/cared for/seen. (For instance, she has asked me nothing about my job change.) I don’t know how much she means to upset me, but in she often feels to me like Lucy who delights in holding the football for Charlie Brown, only to endlessly pull it away.

So I don’t want to —and don’t feel it’d be smart for me to—take the risk of another interaction with her that leaves me feeling abraded.

The hack here is easy: Don’t.

Okay--going outside now. I hope you have good weekend, everyone!

Totally Beautiful, My Love

Day Out with bink & Penny Cooper: To See & Be Seen

. . . At the Art Institute

ABOVE: Earthenware Zodiac Figures, China, Tang Dynasty (7th-10th cent.)
________

BELOW: The man is saying in Latin:
"You are totally beautiful, my love."

"Venerable Miguel Geronimo Carmelo",
painting by Francisco de Zubaran, 1628, Spain.
Carmelo has a vision of a doll-sized Mary. He is saying,
Tota pulchra es(t) amica mea = You are totally beautiful, my love
--a phrase from the Song of Songs 4:7.

_____________________________

BELOW: At the seal & sea lion pool at Como Zoo

Make art here.

I made this invitation early this morning--it's light at 6:45 now--to invite Emmler Bemmler over to make art at my place. (I'll invite other people too.)
I've only ever gone to Em's place before.

I want to make art here.

 
I. Cleared to Start

I got an official "you are hired" email this week, after I finished all the bureaucratic HR steps--and was cc'd on the email to my new workplace with the subject heading "Cleared to Start".
I love that!

I'm a little angry at myself--again--but in an energizing way-- for having given so much to my workplace. Though mostly that was good, in fact, now I'm over and done there (so done), I'm ready to bring it HOME.

(Of course the girlettes and I created stuff--four years of calendar's worth, and much more. It's not like I gave all my creative juice to the store. But, still...)

I don't know how possible it will be, especially at first because a new job takes a ton of energy, and a job with people will always require a lot of you,
but I want my new job to be a job, not a life-blood art project.

I had brought three poster boards home for Marz--turns out she doesn't need them, so they will be my starting point.
Collage collabs with other people?

I want to draw these flying figures, (below) across one of the poster boards--they are women Sumo wrestlers. (I found them while I was looking for Murderbot images.)
I like images of airbound humans, I guess--I'd used one for the collage collab art with Em (& Ass't Man).
I love their feet!

Penny Cooper suggests they be Parade Balloons, floating above a parade of dolls and bears along the bottom of the poster-board.

II. BOOKS

Remember I was going to write a thank you to the fire chief down the street, whose recent book, Trauma Sponges, is partly about being called too late to the scene of the police murder of George Floyd?

I'd written an actual paper note, mailed it––and got one mailed back! (around Xmas)
"That Vinnyd" he refers to is the thrift store--my former place of employment.

Reading his book meant a lot to me: it was one of the events/actions, like unhooking a hook from a fish's mouth, that made me ready to leave the store. The main coworkers with whom I'd gone through the murdertime had left, and I felt alone.
To have this book saying THIS HAPPENED..., and then the handwritten note, that sealed the deal.

It was one of several things that signaled,
YOU ARE FREE TO GO NOW.
_______________

Yesterday I cleared out a lot of stuff I'd brought home from my former workplace (I like saying that --"former"), including books, sort of as insurance: I'd worries that I would miss all the STUFF I saw every day, but actually, I don't.
I put some books in Little Free Libraries, and I also sold a bike bag to M&G Books (for $27 in credit), where I saw displayed this new novel--A Council of Dolls, by Mona Susan Power.

After my big disappointment with the movie Barbie, which wasn't about dolls (it was all about humans (boo!)), I am wary, but this seems to include dolls of power:

"Council weaves a... portrait of three generations irrevocably altered by the “re-education” of Native American children at U.S. government-run boarding schools — and bound together by the various dolls that bring them comfort and companionship.
...She chose to present this through the lens of dolls, which are a really important part of the culture of Native life,” said the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Louise Erdrich.

. . . The book brings them to life in ways that sometimes spill over into the supernatural...."
--NYT Review

I put it on hold at the library.

Re-covering

Candidates for the Rewriting Public Prose Project (RPPP), inspired by Michael's series How to Improve Writing, "dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose". [His most recent post in the series.]

1. ALDI Door Sign

Simple rewrite: change "impersonating" to "misrepresenting”:

Misrepresenting an animal as a service animal…

2. Directions from HR

Arriving at X Center: There is parking available on the south side of the building off of X Ave.  Check in with the south side of the building security desk, let them know you have an appointment with me and they will contact us to let us know that you have arrived for your schedule new hire appointment and they will then be able to direct you to the HR suite.

Adapted:

Arriving at X Center: Park on the south side of the building, off Z Ave. Check in at the security desk inside. You will be directed to HR.

BONUS for adding bus stop information:

The bus will let you off in front of the building. Walk around to the back entrance, off Z Ave. Check in at the security desk, and you will be directed to my office.

EXTRA BONUS for mentioning bike racks!
(Though I am too lazy to bike--it's a ways away.)

__________________

I've re-covered three Murderbot novels so far.
The original covers' art didn't deviate much from the 1969 'Astronauts of Apollo 11'* puzzle, below. (I got it at a thrift store).

The visual association––which I expect most Americans & other readers would make, maybe subconsciously––doesn't help us visualize Murderbot as not-necessarily-white and absolutely non-gendered and non-sexed.

I tell ya, even with all the re-visioning I've done, even though I've reread the books a couple few times, and even though the character is explicit about how it was designed with and wants! no sex parts or gender identity, I still default to picturing the inhumanly strong Murderbot as male.

I continue to collect images of strong humans to help replace my brain’s Neil Armstrong model.

BELOW: athletes Claressa Shields and Amanda Bingson

______________________________

NEW TEENS

I wonder what I'll encounter, re gender, working with teenagers, and maybe especially teens on the spectrum.
Studies suggest people with autism are possibly more likely to NOT relate to gender, to be non-binary or trans.

Or, wait, should I say it the other way round? (What's the difference?)
"People who are transgender or nonbinary are more likely to be autistic. One large study found that it's three to six times more common."
www.npr.org/2023/01/15/1149318664/transgender-and-non-binary-people-are-up-to-six-times-more-likely-to-have-autism

Most of my former coworkers were old and entirely set in their thinking and even actively hostile to rethinking gender expectations.

The 23-yo cashier was an exception. She had a boyfriend who was AFAB (assigned female at birth) and had made no chemical or surgical changes to his body, so he looked and sounded to me entirely female. 

I had no problem calling him "he", and I really love that.
We are adaptable. EVEN THE OLDS!

AFAB reminds me—I saw a great book bag recently, playing on the common graffiti ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards):

A Always

C Carry

A a

B Book

__________

* Apollo 11 launched from Cape Kennedy on July 16, 1969, carrying Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin.

New Profile

Time for a new profile picture for this newish blog and for my upcoming new job...
The old one was from 2018, when I was new in BOOK's.
This one feels very me in action, as I am now:
I'm talking to Maura in Santa Fe, where she and bink were house sitting in 2023.

 

"I think some sort of small, enspirited, human-like figures
have always been part of culture, don't you?"

Only Connect (w/ your clothes (& calendar))

This TED Talk (7.5 min.) was recommended to me by a friend in education but is a good watch for most anyone involved with people. 

 

Rita Pierson, "Every Kid Needs a Champion", TED Talk, 2013, 15,498,317 views

My friend says there's a lot of talk in education about making connections, getting to know students: "This will all be obvious stuff to you."

Yes, it wouldn't occur to me that making connections with students wouldn't be top priority for teachers, though I recall that from being a student that it isn't necessarily. And it should be every manager's priority too, which, again, manifestly it is not. This friend told me she knows teachers who went back to being assistants because they found that working with the students is only half a teacher's job---the other half is dealing with parents, administrators, committees, paperwork, and BS.   That's what Abby says too--she loved being a special-ed teacher for 30+ years but relishes the freedom of being an assistant. I start in one week, and I've decided to stop trying to cram in preparation. I had a little panic last night about clothes, and Marz said, "You don't have to change what you wear." Ohthankgod, that's right. She's right! I like some of what I've bought, but I'll feel more confident if I wear something familiar at first. I don't have to change what I wear, and I can't change who I am anyway.  It might be helpful, but I can't import years of experience I don't have. I'll draw on experience with adults and memories of BEING a young person. I said in the job interview, "I remember how hard it was just to navigate the hallways in high school," and the interviewers nodded. Turns out one of my duties will be walking students to their next classroom. Perfect! I can feel good about doing that, and I have the clothes for it. And now, a new 2024 weekly calendar too--the one I had was too small. There weren't many to choose from this late in the year, so I chose the right size and Moominified the front cover. P.S. Speaking of connecting, I'm happy that it's being no problem to spend little time on Facebook: there's not much happening there, even less than before, so far as I can see. But I'm glad to see posts from my new workplace and things like that.

Penny Cooper Goes Shopping

 "Clearly this contains no cupcakes." [frowns]

"This one contains happy. We need this one."

Déjà vu?

I've been having so much fun this first week free from the store, meeting friends out and about.
I keep being surprised at how springy-sproingy I feel. Definitely my spirits were waaay more squashed at the store than I'd realized.
I think I'd gone into Survival Mode––like we do in hard circumstances when we don't feel feelings until we're free.

And to match my mood, we have bright sparkly snow! The first since an early snowfall in October, which soon melted. This has been the weirdest, warmest, driest winter ever.

Yesterday evening I met my new friend/former coworker, Abby, for beer and Brussels sprouts.
We talked a lot about my upcoming job. Though she has two MAs in education (one in Special Ed–Autism), she said success in the job mostly comes from classroom experience--and personality. She's said all along I'm a natural, and that's encouraging. I dare to hope she's right, and I'm genuinely excited to start.

Abby also gave me the happy news that BB has hired the young woman I'd suggested as my replacement for BOOK's, and she starts today! I'll call her Amina.
I'd told BB I could help train her. Afterwards I felt reluctant, not wanting to go back to that place. But, no worries:
he didn't even let me know he'd hired her.
(God, I'm so, so glad I don't have to work with him anymore.)

I'd showed Amina around a little, and I just texted her asking if she'd like me to email her a How To.
She replied yes, she'd like that, but she thinks she's got the gist of the place.
I love her confidence! She'll do fine.

In the morning, I'd met writer friend John at the café in the new-ish (2022) Four Seasons hotel downtown.
We both like sitting in the comfy chairs by the potted tree, which John took a photo of. I looked it up, and it's a preserved olive tree.

There's a restaurant in the hotel too--Mara. (Their menu--though the café is reasonably priced, I probably won't be bothering with the restaurant).

Curious what it looks like, I googled the restaurant as well:

* * * Does this ^ remind you of any place?

TO people of a certain age (mine). . .

It may remind you of . . .

Howard Johnson's!

When Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine's Day

No problem, everybody's on the same team here.

I made this. (Of course, right?)

The Frivolity Factor

In my many years, I have figured out two things to wear:
jeans, and cashmere sweaters.
Which is pretty good, so far as they go.
But beyond that, I am a child. Please dress me.

bink is my stalwart support in most things in life, and today she helped me choose shirts for my upcoming new job--along with the young woman who was stocking clothes who said to me, "Get some basic Ts and wear long-sleeved shirts on top".

This is exactly the basic level of instruction I need.
bink helped choose good colors, and now I have some things I can put on my body that I have not worn at the thrift store for six years.
Yay!

Also yay, my doctor said the improvements in my blood tests mean I don't need further diagnostic tests. "Let's just monitor them", and she put me down for more blood work in three months.
I intend to stick with healthy eating, and I hope that will be enough.

None of this is life-threatening, btw--it's just the normal up (or down) ticks of an aging body.

But of course there's no "just" about it when it's your body!
I've been so lucky, most of my life I've barely had to pay any attention to it.
Now it's giving me gentle nudges:
"This old car will not run forever, but if you rotate the tires and keep the fluids topped up, it might should run good a while longer. And clean your spark plugs."

I'm just grateful the nudges are gentle, not the engine boiling over.

I took bink out for lunch after errands to a fancy-schmancy kinda place--the kind with curated baskets in the corners.
This is me in the hallway outside their bathrooms:

"Let's order everything," I said. "We can spend a hundred dollars." (because new job)

We got mocktails––festive, bink's had a twig of thyme, mine a slim slice of lemon. (JesusMary&Jospeph, though, they were $13 each--and with no spirits in them!)

We each got a different salmon entrée (hers with quinoa, mine with linguini), and I was happy they were American-sized portions, leaving us with enough for lunch tomorrow. This place is in an expensive shopping mall, and caters to Midwestern tastes. We are not light eaters. You want more than three artfully arranged strands of linguine with a suggestion of salmon, right? I do.

For dessert, we split poached pears and raspberry sorbet with a sprig of mint on top like a flag on a summit, resting on a swirl of pomegranate molasses and a sprinkle of arils.

And, ta-da, just like that, the bill came to ninety-eight dollars.

It was so fun to splurge--to purge the unpleasant penny-pinching, unattractive ways of the boss at the place I last worked. (I don't even remember who or where that was now...)
No frivolous sprigs there, oh no.
Did I mention? I think I didn't, that the last thing I said in my performance review--my contribution to the cause--was that I really, really think the front window with the big bullet hole in it should be replaced.
"It's been more than a year, and it's not a good look."

I predict if I go back in a few months, it will still be there.
I don't care.

I surprise myself, but I really don't care.
I am proud, proud, proud of the work I did with BOOK's, and even proud in a miniature way of Toys. I know that, except for that one time, I was kind to people, and sometimes that took some doing. I'm proud that I got better at that, too.
And I impress myself, looking back, at how I stayed upright through the teeter-tottering of landmarks that had previously seemed stable.
Good on me.
Truly.

Now, I have left the building. With a fillip of frivolity.
And I feel fine.

Happy All the Days!

It’s both Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday!

Meanwhile the Girlettes continue to celebrate the new year of the Dragon – – I think the last day is the 25th, and there’s a lantern festival at that time. Not sure we will do that, but here’s Noodle blondie in a costume made out of copper wire pot scrubbies and metal bits.          “I’m Dragon-adjacent,” she says.

In Process

 Good news—this morning’s test showed my blood levels much improved – – I’m waiting to hear from the doctor what she thinks. 

For now, I’m taking this as a sign that changing my diet is effective, for sure, and I should keep doing that —

and more of it.

I got a great reminder that the thrift store is not the only source of scrappy art materials when I went to the grocery store attached to the Mexican bakery I’d mentioned, and I found 4 copper-wire pot scrubbers in a pack. At home I unraveled them, and started making Lunar new year Dragon costumes for Girlettes – – the two noodles arrived and were eager to jump right into costume day.

Below, a dragon in process—She’s going to have copper netting wings. This is not a girlette, of course, it’s a broken doll from the store—old, she was made in Hong Kong. 

Her dragon head is the toe of a metal shoe tree. 

I also signed up for Facebook again today – – for the first time in… I think three years? One reason I got off was that I was unhappy doing the store’s social media, and my own got caught up in that. So it’s not entirely incidental that I’m getting on again now that I’m gone from the store. Also, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve been feeling a little too isolated – – and there are a couple people who I only saw on Facebook because they live out of town and that’s their main way of staying in touch. If I find I get obsessive about it and can’t handle it, I will get off again.

I do not feel lonelier having left the store though – – I think I felt lonelier at the store, actually. 

I’m looking forward to meeting my new coworkers – – one of the people who interviewed me responded to a question I asked in such a thoughtful and thorough way, obviously genuinely interested in the matter, I felt less lonely in the world right then and there.

Fly on, little dragons!

Sorting

 I’m going through the odds and ends that I brought home from work – – a lot of the stuff that I had stashed away in my work desk and haven’t looked at for ages. Like these US Postal Service stamps from – – I’m not sure—1971?

Nope, I just did a Google image search and they’re from 1973. Cool, eh?

First class postage is now $.68 per stamp.

I’m at the Mexican bakery—Marissa’s Panadería, with its wonderful mural of seashell bread rolls— having coffee (mediocre), across the street from the doctors where I just had my blood work done. Hopefully will get results today. I’m really curious—will this be Something To Deal With, or just a passing blip?

Noo Day!

Ooff--I didn't like even blogging just now about my last day at the thrift store--even though the day itself went beautifully. I felt loved and seen--but I also felt DONE. Done, done, done.

I'd thought I'd feel all reflective about the past six years and want to blog about Lessons Learned and that sort of thing, but I don't. Not at all, not at this point.

Shake it off,
I am BEGINNING anew!

This morning I completed the (I think) final bureaucratic steps for my new job: I sent in a photo for my ID badge, and I got a transcript from the U.
In my early twenties, I went to college part-time, off and on, and paid tuition myself (my mother had no money, and my father and I were estranged.) I could afford it though, even working as a janitor at the Uptown movie theater, and later as a fry cook, and then as a student library worker.

Funny to be reminded of classes I took. I was interested in Japanese culture, having being entirely baffled by Kawabata's Snow Country.
"What is this human experience of which I know nought?"
And I took that Postwar Polish Culture class after going to see Man of Iron about the Polish Solidarity labor movement (1981, Andrzej Wajda) at the Uptown and being entirely baffled by that too. Taught by a Polish professor of comparative lit., it was the best class I ever took.
Bafflement can be a good guide.

 

After a break of several (six?) years from formal education (I studied lots of things outside of college, like in paper- and book making), I went back to college at thirty-one.
I was working at the art-college library by then--part-time, but they paid okay and had a college reimbursement scheme. My father and I had reconciled, and he helped pay tuition at that point too.
I got my BA in Religious Studies in the Classical and Near Eastern Dept. when I was thirty-five.
I did take out some small loans. I graduated with a debt of, was it $3,000? Minimal, anyway.

College has kept getting more expensive, but starting this fall (2024), MN state schools will be free for eligible (not rich) students. Which is terrific!

And NOW...
I am job-free for two weeks!
I'd said in passing that I'd help train my successor, if they hire someone soon. I also said I was going to take a vacation. If they ask for my help, I may conveniently be out of town. I will write up instructions online.

Today I'm going downtown to bank, library, post office, and Target for cleaning supplies. (Fresh starts require clean floors.) I like tending to this sort of thing.

Tomorrow I'm getting blood drawn--will the slightly wonky readings have righted themselves? Fingers crossed.
Even if they're normal, I've felt better and will continue not-eating red meat, not-drinking cow milk, and, if drinking any alcohol at all, only an occasional glass of wine.  

Forward!

Going Off-Planet

 
BELOW: left, first days in BOOK's, six years ago;
right, on my last day, two days ago

            . . . Will BOOK's fall down without me?

They shouldn't: I found the perfect replacement--godwilling, Big Boss will hire her:
a young Somali American woman, a first-year college student who lives in the neighborhood and has been coming to BOOK's since she was a girl.

She was the first person I'd thought of, in fact, to replace me, but I only knew her first name and had no way to contact her.
Luckily, as I'd hoped she might, she came in on Saturday--my last day.

"Do you want my job?" I asked.

She totally did want it! Minimum wage is no problem for her--that's what her college pays for work-study jobs, for which she was currently applying--but she'd prefer BOOK's.

I texted Big Boss (BB) to recommend her, and he said he'd call her this week. Manageress knows and approves of her too.

My last day was lovely, all-around. I didn't do any work--I hung out and talked to lots of regulars--many were sad but supportive of me leaving. And I was really touched: several friends came by to see me out--Rebecca, Julia, w/Derek, Michael. (Emmler was home with toothache, but invited me for celebration lunch next week. )
bink came at the end and drove me home, with several big bags of stuff. (Now spread all over the floor.) 

Manageress was angry when I told her it was my last day.
Turns out she was especially mad because she'd wanted to give me a going-away lunch:
"We were going to buy pizza!"
Funny that after all this time, she doesn't know I hate the stingy pizza they always get--and it's not like I made a secret of it.

But at any rate, I didn't want a staff send-off. I like my coworkers, but they're mostly new and we don't have strong ties. The ones I worked with in First Covid & when George Floyd was murdered have left--mostly because of poor pay and management. Even the ones I had problems with, like Ass't Man, I'd felt connected to, because of what we'd lived through together.

More than I hate Domino pizza, I hate that BB doesn't care about (keeping) people.

(I take heart that the Sp-Ed teacher who interviewed me has been at the school for nine years, and she said a lot of the team have been there a long time too. That's a good sign.)

By the end of the day, all was well with Manageress & me, and I'm glad of that.

I texted BB that it was my last day. "The next time I see you, I'll be a customer". Unsaid: But I won't see you if I can help it.
Since he's never in on Saturdays, that'll be easy.

He texted back, "Blessings on this next chapter in life. You'll do great!"
He didn't seen sad either to skip the pizza party.

I'm a little surprised that the main thing I feel is RELIEF.
I'm not surprised that I'm also angry, because I was all along--but I guess I'd been holding it together more than I knew, since Ass't Man left four months ago, my work husband/nemesis. And before that too. Letting it go is such a relief.

I am grateful to myself for getting myself out--and for cutting my leaving short. Good going, Self!

Oh--one final side-by-side.
I didn't have enough books for a Black History Month display, but the illustration of this modern LOL doll makes a good side-by-side with photo of educator and grassroots activist Septima Poinsette Clark (1898–1987).

More photos of Black women by Brian Lanker.