kristinking

The latest Doctor Who episode, The Wedding of River Song, was great! Never would've thought I could stand the Doctor getting married, always thought of him as asexual, but I'm down. Though - is he really married? Rule 1: the Doctor lies.

No more episodes till Christmas. :(

These days, I'm posting over at kristinking.wordpress.com. These lj ads are getting so aggressive.  

Grownups can play on Christmas too. (Click the lj cut and then scroll down to see the full animated gif.)

( Eleven fights a life-and-death battle with gelt: ) .

So I have two kids in school now. This is HUGE.

I am, of course, not doing anything I meant to. The house is a mess, the gym membership is languishing, and I haven't been writing. I haven't even been doing the job of lazybones properly.

Oops. 

I have, though, been greatly enjoying the quiet house. I've been doing a lot of sitting on the couch drinking coffee. Good stuff.

I've been posting over at kristinking.wordpress.com. Haven't read any of the friends pages - but have been meaning to be in touch. 

It's hard to believe that I posted on July 26th about having had an overwhelmingly busy week. Since then I've purposely downkeyed it, and now I'm getting bored! Not exactly that, though - rather, I've been too much in the house. The trouble is that it's hard to get up the motivation to rally the kids. It's hard enough convincing them to eat breakfast, much less go potty and put on their clothes and shoes. And then, if I get childcare, what I want to do is stay home and write.

The computer has been a problem for me. Facebook! Google reader! Too distracting. It's alarming how easily these things have replaced books. I am a voracious reader, but reading online is just not the same as reading a book. There's something about sitting down with a physical book that is calming and helps me focus my mind - it's like meditation. With the computer, there's the lure of some elusive other thing that might be more important for me to read, and I rush through, anxious. It pushes the same buttons as gambling, I think.

I've about had it with livejournal. The ads are too invasive. So, I'm putting more content up on kristinking.wordpress.com. But not the personal stuff.

Finished reading Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote. In awe.

 Here's my past ten days:

Friday - pick up my mom from the airport, spend day packing for car trip to Oregon
Saturday - drive to Oregon to visit uncle, aunt, cousin
Sunday - drive back to Seattle
Monday - visit with mom, drive her to airport, clean house
Tuesday - visit from my dad's wife
Wednesday - visit from dad's wife
Thursday - shop for daughter's birthday
Friday - celebrate daughter's birthday
Saturday, prepare for daughter's birthday party, have party
Sunday - all day cleanup

All great stuff, but man, that was a lot all at once!

Now, back to:

being bored,
keeping kids from tearing the house apart and breaking their toys and losing their birthday presents,
agonizing over what to make for dinner,
and wilting in the sun.

One of the most broken aspects of contemporary society is the lack of community. People often give lip service to the word "community" without knowing what it was, and I did not know what it was until I had children and suddenly understood its lack. When I joined the co-op preschool system, I began to feel what community could be - people looking out for each other, people working together on a long-term common goal. At the same time, I saw its limitations: for one, it would be a community I would have to exit when my children entered kindergarten.

So where do we look for examples of community? Here is a perspective from bell hooks, from her time growing up in the fifties and sixties, where home was a place to develop critical consciousness and a foundation for black liberation struggle. She's talking about the nuclear family as well as the extended family, and linking what happened in the family space to what happened in the broader black community.


So, the first step to a liberatory strategy - for families of any color - would be to rebuild that politicized domestic space, that "homeplace." To bring critical consciousness back into the home through feminist struggle.

I'll agree with that but also say it's only a first step. One home with a critical consciousness, disconnected from the rest of the community, is not going to be effective. Critical consciousness has to be shared with the broader community. For that to happen, we have to strengthen community ties. And for that to happen, we need to know what community really means.

Well, what does it mean?

No, I don't have the answer. But I do know that to build community, you find a common goal, shared work. For me it was the shared work of our co-op preschool. For the community hooks spoke of, it was building a black liberation struggle. Regardless, it goes farther than cultural criticism, farther than standing in a circle holding hands and singing. It has to move into practical action and material change too.

Of what sort?

That's the question.

hooks, bell. Yearning: race, gender, and cultural politics. Boston: South End Press, 1990.

Going back to a work I studied in college -  Yearning: race, gender, and cultural politics by bell hooks - I found this:


There's a ton to pull out of this. The whole concept of yearning and longing resonated with me. And then there's this: "Particularly the realm of fantasy is often seen as completely separate from politics." I agree. Since I'm a science fiction / fantasy writer, I especially like the word "fantasy." Because to me it means, "what if?" Radical politics try to transform society, but without the "what if," where exactly, do you want society to go? There's important visioning work to be done, and fantasy and science fiction certainly does it. But my critique of fantasy and science fiction is that it does visioning work and then stops there - there may be no explicit connection between the world a F/SF writer or reader wants to see and the change it takes to actually get there.

This resonated with questions of privilege and oppression. I'm white. I don't like racial oppression. I don't want it. Nonetheless, I have white privilege. What can I do, other than wallowing in guilt? So this - "Then, on the flip side, there are many individuals with race, gender, and class privilege who are longing to see the kind of revolutionary change that will end domination and oppression even though their lives would be completely and utterly transformed. The shared space and feeling of 'yearning' opens up this possibility of common ground . . ."

I like that possibility. Good. Possibility is better than closed options. But I think that a lot of radical texts point to possibility and stop there. But if we really do want to transform society, we can't step there. We have to take the next step. Which means, I think, finding out what the next step actually is.

 One of the blogs in my reader had a post that got some wheels spinning in my head. There are some number of people living with mobility issues, who would benefit from a house designed specifically for them. Like this:

- level entry
- clear access to entry
- wider corridors
- toilet on entry level
- reinforced bathroom wall to allow future railing
- step-free shower

So wouldn't it be cool if new house construction incorporated these elements? 

Now, let's suppose that ten percent of households have someone with a mobility issue. Or whatever percent. Ideally, what percent of houses should incorporate an accessible design?

(BTW, this is a trick question.)

Spoilers for all of Doctor Who Season Five

For those who are not up on all the Doctor Who speculation - the Season Five finale airs in the UK tomorrow, Saturday. The whole season has been an enormous puzzle put together by Hugo award-winning author Stephen Moffat.

I've been reading gobs of speculation, watching and rewatching, and now I'm ready to try to match wits with Moffat. Am I red smokin' hot (rather like the Doctor's bow tie) or am I gonna crash and burn (rather like the TARDIS)?


( Here is my list of the major puzzle pieces: )


( And here is my theory, which is a six-part mathematical equation BECAUSE I AM JUST GEEKY THAT WAY )

The series finale for Doctor Who is coming up on Saturday - that means I have only two days left for rampant speculation! Stephen Moffat, the current showrunner, has woven an extremely intricate puzzle, which will be solved then. It's the most gorgeous puzzly gorgeousness I have ever seen.

If you're not watching Doctor Who (or if you're not up to "The Pandorica Opens") then this post is just not for you. But if you are, here are links to my various speculations. Check back, I'll likely make more. Plus formulate a couple theories. Can I out-guess Stephen Moffat?

Bow tie speculation (with help from spouse): http://community.livejournal.com/doctorwho/6335614.html#cutid1

Ups and downs speculation: http://community.livejournal.com/doctorwho/6345180.html#cutid1

This was my collection of speculation gleaned from the lj community after episode 5: community.livejournal.com/doctorwho/5999320.html

Now all this is only the tip of the iceburg. There's also a great master-list of speculation and theories, here: whoisthedoctor.co.uk/Doctor_Who_Series_Fnarg/Five_Arc_Watch_%28BBC_America%29

Here is my calendar's Rumi this month. It is a riddle. Anyone care to try to guess it? I have my own guess, which I'll post in a few days to a week.

You had better
run from me.
My words are fire.

I have nothing to do
with being famous,
or making grand
judgments, or
feeling full
of shame.

I borrow nothing.
I don't want
anything
from anybody.

I flow through
human beings.

Love is my only companion.

After spending the better part of an hour sitting on my front steps, watching my daughter meticulously covering the same small area with sidewalk chalk, again and again, I suddenly deduced the origins of fire.

Adult: Quit that kid, you're getting on my nerves!
Kid (putting sticks down): Okay.

(Later)
Adult: If I've told you once, I've told you a million times. Don't play with the sticks!
Kid (putting sticks down): Okay.

(Later)
Adult: Can you pleaase stop that awful squeaking noise? It's been a hot day and I'm very thirsty and you're really getting on my nerves!
Kid: What?
Adult: Put. The sticks. Down.
Kid (putting sticks down): Okay.

(Later)
Adult: This is the last time I'm going to tell you --
(Stick bursts into flame)
Kid (waving stick about): Lookit my new toy!



Image from shoreacres.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/sprinklers-and-sparklers-and-mayo-o-my/trackback/

We had our last day of co-op preschool on Thursday. That's the end of five years in the classroom for me . . . I feel heartbroken not to be sitting in the circle and singing those songs with those kids.

It's not just about my kids growing up - I'm so happy to see them reach new milestones, and enjoy them more now than when they were younger. It's about the loss of community, which has been huge. I cannot imagine how I would have coped with two small children without this community. Sure, I'll be in touch with some of the parents, but not all, and of course not in the same way.

And I have a special fondness for this age group. After I graduated high school, I thought to myself, "I want to work in a preschool!" I felt absolutely driven to do it, and this desire came completely out of nowhere. So I got out the phone book and called up a day care and got the job. I don't want to stop working with this age group. That, at least, I can do something about. Not sure what, but I'll figure something out.

And the singing. I love to sing in a group. I was fortunate that our teacher knew fabulous, wonderful songs, had musical talent, and got all the kids and grownups singing. As a parting gift, she gave us a CD of the kids & parents singing at circle, and my daughter and I have spent some happy time listening to that. I won't have to forget those songs.

My husband's car broke for the last time and is now sitting out in front of our house. He's had that car for twenty years - as long as I've known him. I'm going to miss it. 

Do we buy another car? That was the plan. But now, with the oil spill, I can't bear to even think about it. We'll be a one-car family at least for a time. So I've spent this week puzzling over bus routes. To my dismay, I discovered that one of the routes that used to serve our neighborhood no longer does. Is that a sign?

Insult to injury, he has to go in to work tomorrow and Monday. Yeah. That's when the bus is on a holiday schedule.

I haven't posted about the oil spill yet because I've been too upset. This week I finally brought myself to look at maps and yes, it's as bad as I thought. Worse in some ways.

Humans aren't equipped to understand the magnitude of a disaster like this. We have to focus in on something small. For me, it's the Everglades. We went there on our honeymoon, after I fell in love with it after reading a novel by Janet Kauffman. And the Kemp's Ridley turtle, an endangered species. So, I've been in mourning - for those who have already died, including the eleven humans in the original explosion, and the deaths yet to come. The species extinctions.

And I'm scared, too. I've looked into it as much as I can stand to, and the cleanup effort may be worse in some ways than the original disaster - they're using a chemical dispersant with some unknown properties and sending tar balls to the ocean floor, where they will have some unknown effect on marine life.

Even more scary is the knowledge that this is not the last ecological disaster we will be seeing in the near future.

I have kids. Four years old and six years old. What will the world be like for them in ten years?

I feel a pressing need to do something, but I don't have confidence in the options that usually present themselves - writing congressmen and urging them to do something. Because. People worked really hard to elect Obama, and do you know what he did? Expanded offshore drilling.

Something interesting I noticed on my calendar: Saturday, June 5th is World Environment Day. I wonder if people will be doing stuff.

So, everyone who's reading this - what are your thoughts and feelings? How do you cope? Are you doing something? What?

Speaking of my calendar, the Rumi quote for the month didn't have much meaning for me until just now. And now it's a small thing that gives me some solace:

Birdsong,
wind,
the water's face.

Each flower,
remembering
the smell.

I know
you're
close by.

Here are a couple highlights from my week.

* Celebrated ten-year anniversary!!!

* Demonstrated the game of Go at our preschool. 

* Read Logicomix, a graphic novel about mathematician Bertrand Russell.

* Helped finish up my son's giant cockatoo mask, then marched with him in kindergarten parade.

* Got virus off my computer.

* Put vegetable garden in the dirt, weed-whacked half the back yard, and pruned elderberry bush.

* Mother's Day!

Only two more weeks of co-op preschool left - after five years of working in the classroom - am sad.

 

We had a four-year-old over yesterday, and when she got tired I started singing Mary Poppins songs out of our Walt Disney songbook.

Four-year-old: Mary Poppins is not silly.
Me: Not silly?
Four: Right.
Me: How about when she floats down from the sky with her umbrella? Is that silly?
Four: No.
Me: What about when she pulls a hat stand out of her purse. Is that silly?
Four: No.
Me: Maybe she'll be sillier when you get older.

I'm chatting with another mom on the playground. A kid runs up to me.

Kid: Red apple.
Me: Red apple . . . ?
Kid: Green apple
Me: Green apple . . . ?
Kid: Green watermelon.
Me: Green watermelon.
Kid: Purple dinosaur.
Me: Purple dinosaur.
Kid: Purple nail polish.
Me: Purple nail polish.

With a look of triumph, kid runs off.

That kid will lead a fascinating life.