The Girls' Dorm

On the back of the toilet, my mom kept a red wicker basket with a handle. Her name, "Julie Anne," was glued to the side. There were also pom poms around the rim. Inside was her eye lash curler and makeup and some hair pins and her brush - that sort of thing. She told me that she made the basket when she was in college and she used the basket to carry her things down the hall of her dormatory when she showered or brushed her teeth or whatever.

When I went to basketball camp and debate camp, we stayed in college dorms and used the community showers down the hall. I remembered the red wicker basket at that time, though it was long gone by that time.

Mary and I are sharing a dorm room at the University of Tennessee while we are at Global Finals. We are walking to events and eating in the cafeteria and walking down the hall to the shared bathroom. Like the Classic Bad Roommate, she is messy and invites friends over to hang out in our room without asking and asks me to do stuff like throw away her trash. Like the Classic Good Roommate, I accompany her to parties and make sure she is safe and gets home at a reasonable hour. I remind her to lock the door and bring her stuff with her to the bathroom.

Mary and her friend Cecelia were discussing where they would live when they came to the University of Tennessee as students. They picked out their apartment by the campus and giggled.

It's really not that far away and it's really not that inconceivable. Hannah graduates in a week and she will prepare for college dorms at Creighton. She will make herself the equivalent of the red wicker basket and use the bathroom at the end of the hall. It is just begining for me - this children leaving the home thing - and with each of them it will be different.

As an adult I recognize how important the dormitories are - a transition from child/parent to child. It allows you to adjust to living with others and share space and yet does not require major house cleaning or cooking. Mary was shocked by the sparseness - the package of saran wrapped sheets and cinderblock walls. I found it comforting - like the camps of my childhood.

We are part of a community these days that we are here. People talk to each other everywhere. Last night we went to a party down by the aquatics center where people were swimming, playing soccer, dancing to a DJ and trading pins. We wandered around until after 10, got on a crowded bus and headed back to our dorm.

On the bus on the way back we got some advice on how to pack our structure for next year, a pin trade offer, and an invitation by a woman wearing a panda hat to come to her dorm for a party. We thanked the group for the structure advice, we passed on the pin trade (though Megan later wished she had known that the guy had a green dragon with red eyes pin), and we declined the party invitation since it was after 10pm.

We came back to the dorm to walk down the hall with our plastic sacks of toiletries to take a shower.

And everytime I do that, I think about Julie Anne's red basket.

Destination Imagination

I think if I did not have a cold, the silliness would not annoy me. I am just going to say this here, silliness is not creativity. It can be part of it, but it is not in and of itself creative.

Mary and I are in Tennessee at Global Finals for DI. I did not imagine that I would be here when I signed the permission slip nine months ago. It seemed like a good activity for a kid that is not interested in doing many activities. Her team won Districts and then they won State and we found ourselves planning to come to Knoxville, TN.

The thing about kid activities is that they involve parents. And just as my kids told me, just because you're friends with the parent doesn't mean I want to be friends with the kid, the same applies in the reverse. Just because this is Mary's team doesn't mean that I want to hang out with the team parents, but the reality is, that is what happens. I am glad to say that I like hanging out with them and think they're pretty cool.

I feel fortunate that the team manager sets the tone for the rest of us. No light up hats and goofy stuff. I appreciate that. He genuinely embraces the true spirit of DI in my opinion, which is to encourage kids to problem solve and be creative. That doesn't mean that you have to dye your moustache a silly color.

That said, it just so happens that my hair is in part blue right now. I dyed the tips on a whim a week or so ago. It accomplished what I wanted - lifted my mood and made me feel edgy and fun even when I otherwise was frankly pretty depressed. It amuses me that my hair sort of blends in here and looks like I am just being wacky and creative. Not so much.

The kids do their instant challenge this morning. Tomorrow they perform and test their structure.

Wish us all well. :-)

Knight Vader

I took the kids to the Ren Faire this weekend and we had a great time. One of their favorite activities was looking at the armour that the SCA folks use for their battle reenactments.



My nephew Nick, who was not so sure about going somewhere with his Crazy Aunt Lea, was even less sure about the whole Ren Faire Thing, had an interesting experience. He's obsessed with Star Wars. Super, super, super obsessed. And he thinks he knows everything about Star Wars. He got to try on some armour at the Ren Faire and he observed that it was similar to Darth Vader's armour. He learned about the weight and awkwardness of armour and he made the connection between the armour and George Lucas' character. I could not help but wonder if George Lucas had the same sort of experience we had. It is one thing to look at pictures of a gauntlet. It is another experience to put it on.




So the connection between George Lucas and my nephew and the knights of long ago became clear to me that afternoon.



A little clearer than Mary could see out of this helmet.

Close Your Eyes and Picture "Library"

This is what I see when I close my eyes and say the word "library."

I would like a satisfactory answer as to why I can remember the exact lay out of the Denver Public Library on Montview Boulevard.

I remember the doors and check out desk and the tall wooden shelves and the padded seats all around the outside of the room.

I remember the sense of excitement as I crossed the doorway into the adult section to get my parents for something. And I remember the enormity of information available in the periodicals department in the basement. (I was just there once with my parents who were looking at old newspapers for something and I was awed by the history maintained in that room.)

I also could tell you where the Fiction separated from the NonFiction in the Cherry County Book Mobile.

I recall afternoons at the Fremont Library with the spiral staircase and the mysterious "listening rooms" (with actual turntables! I wonder if those are still there with digital listening of some sort?).

I can describe the Omaha Library where Anna got her first library card and the Grand Island Library where Mary got hers, and the Lincoln Library where Frank got his.

But none, not any of them, are as vivid visually and emotionally as that little public library in Denver that I have not seen in 30 years. Why is that?

--

Updated to add that this library and I are psychically linked or something. IT IS BEING RENOVATED! I have been dreaming about this library lately. It's freaking me out. :-) I went online to find a picture and found out that the library is temporarily closed.

Branch Library Closures
On February 16, 2009 the Decker, Hampden and Park Hill Branch Libraries will close for a period of approximately four months while Better Denver Bond funded technology upgrades, infrastructure improvements and renovations are completed. All three branch libraries are scheduled to reopen between June 23 and June 30, 2009.

Brown v. White People

Recently Anna and I were talking about The Litte Rock Nine. She expressed, as many who have never experienced legal segregation, surprise at the anger and biggotry which was so easily spewed. We talked about her own school and life experiences and she noted that she had been in the majority until she got to high school.

I rented a small house in a really wealthy neighborhood when I moved to Lincoln. I chose to keep the kids in that neighborhood's very privileged school with the reasoning that their siblings went there, I didn't want to disrupt them, and that it is hard to argue with the test results and the classrooms. In a school of high achievers with fewer behavior and learning disabilities, my kids would get the attention that they needed and have a healthy and happy educational experience. That was my reasoning. It also means that they went to a predominantly white school with very few children of other races. I've always found it ironic that the surrounding streets are pilgrim ships. I mean, you literally arrive on Mayflower Avenue. Mary and Frank are friends with a brother and sister who were adopted from Khasikstan and they have struggled a bit being "of color" in a white school. The sister is pretty nonchalant about how she is refered to as "black" and that she thinks it's stupid since she's not African American and also, as she puts it, "Who cares?"

So from a white elementary school my kids moved on to a predominantly white, but mixed, middle school. And then the city's most diverse high school. When I drop Anna off, there are kids of every race and culture standing outside. There are kids wearing every manner of mall clothes, thrift store clothes, and retro clothes. There are girls wearing hijab. "On the first day of school at the convocation, there were people speaking other languages," Anna told me. Her science partner speaks Spanish when he calls his parents on his cellphone from my house. Her gay friend notes that "nobody cares" about a boy on the dance team at their school. It's a school where diversity is the norm and white middle class stands out more.

It is our neighborhood. But it was a conscious choice for me to send my kid to this school. I feel good about the choice. I wonder if I should have desegregated her sooner. A part of me that I don't like to acknowledge, feels overly protective and recognizes at least the fear behind segregation and racism.

"Wow, so you're like from the ghetto?" a kid asked Anna once.

"Yeah," Anna laughed. (It's kind of a joke in our family.)

"So, do you live next to drug dealers and stuff?"

"Nah. I live next door to Myrna," Anna said.

When people have a name? When it's not just "someone who lives in the ghetto," when it is "Myrna?" You feel different about that person. That is why de-segregation works. It makes people into individuals who are your friends and not just "those people."

When even a liberal, educated woman like myself has to have oral arguments for Brown v. Board of Education in her head? It's scary. Racism as a concept and racism as practice are two different things. People may say, and even believe, one thing and yet behave differently - particularly when it comes to their kids. Parents are most conservative when it comes to issues that affect their children. The parents opposed to desegregation when The Little Rock Nine walked up the steps to high school both vocalized and practiced their racism. I think now there is no vocalization, but there is still a voluntary pratice of racism. I am guilty of it myself.

It's Like Mile High Stadium

The new name hasn't taken.

I was in Omaha today and as we cruised down Cass street, a street I am not usually on when I am in Omaha these days, I pointed out landmarks from my history in Omaha. The Playhouse, the back entrance to the Crossroads, and of course I started in on, "And there was a barbecue place here that your dad and Trevor and I used to go to dance at..." Anna idly paid attention.

"I can't believe they have the nerve to call it The Peony Park HyVee!" I suddenly exclaimed as I saw the sign.

"What's wrong with that? What's Peony Park?"

And that's when I start feeling like Uncle Remus.

"Come here youngun and I'll tell you about a magical amusement park with live music and rides and a pool with a sand beach..."

I told her about days at Peony Park with my cousin Maureen - riding the gondola through the trees and laying on the sand beach and riding the roller coaster and eating corn dogs. I told her about trips to Omaha in my friend Michele's VW Rabbit to go to Sprite Night and meet and dance with boys in the big city. I told her about the concerts I saw there - the Smithereens and the Replacements.

"Ooh!" Anna said. And, "That sounds nice."

I told her that my grandparents met at a dance at the ballroom there. And that it would be hard to find someone who grew up in or around Omaha that didn't have special memories of the place.

"I knew that they tore it down. And I knew that they put up a grocery store and I have heard people call it the Peony Park Hy Vee, but I did not know that was its actual name. I can't believe that is its actual name," I ranted.

"It's ok, mom," Anna assured me.

Sigh.

I don't Usually Do These

Justin, one of my first Internet Friends, tagged me on his blog to answer these questions.

Rules to follow... if you're the kind who follows rules: Respond and rework. Answer the questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, add one more question of your own. Tag five other un-tagged people.

What is your current obsession?
Sewing and crafting costumes for myself and my kids. I organized the basement sewing room and have all kinds of boxes to store pieces in so that I can easily tackle a project. Last night I was able to make a hair flower for my sister in law's birthday present with very little fuss and mess.

What are you wearing now?
Red and black sheath dress with my strawberry sweater. Also my un-Sigil necklace, big earrings and two rings. Black flats. I am not having a great day and so I tried to boost myself with accessories.

Do you nap a lot?
I don't know about "a lot," but I do nap. I even have a couch in my office and I would say that about every other week I will close my door at lunchtime and lay down for a short nap.

What would you like to learn to do?
Dance flamenco.

What’s for dinner?
Curried red lentil salad. Theoretically it is just Bill and me for dinner tonight, but I know that the kids will come crashing in the door around 6:30 and open the frig and cupboards and moan about how hungry they are. They will curl their lip at the lentils, and then they will eat something they heat up in the microwave.

What was the last thing you bought?
A bottle of white wine on my way home from dance class last night.

What is your favorite weather?
I think my favorite weather is just insanely hot late July in Nebraska weather where the air seems heavy with heat and everyone complains about it. I like the feeling of baked bones - like I am a carcass in the Sandhills with bones bleached and dried from the sun.

What is on your bedside table?
My bedside table is an old fruit crate turned on its side. On the shelves it has books and my own unedited novel from a few years ago that I recently decided I am going to edit. On top is a candle, probably a pair of earrings I need to put away, and a water cup.

What is your most challenging goal right now?
It is a toss up between raising my husband's teenager and raising my teenager.

What would you like to have in your hands right now?
Cinnamon ice cream in a sugar cone

What would you like to get rid of?
The stress in my life. I am making myself sick with stress right now - not sleeping well, eating everything in sight, and not exercising. I know that I need to take better care of myself and I just can't because I am suffocated with stress.

What language(s) do you want to be able to speak?
I would like to be fluent in Spanish.

What's one thing you're looking forward to?
The James Arthur Ren Faire in a few weeks.

If you were to pick up a pen right now, what would be the first thing you'd write?
circles

Who was your childhood crush?
It was a tie between Ponch on CHIPS and Terrence Miles from my reading group.

What do you want to be... when you grow up?
I complain that I should have been a lawyer or teacher, but really I am happy being a lawyer who dances and writes.

What (and when) was the last book you read?
The Tale of Edgar Sawtelle

And the question I added -
Who is your favorite Internet Friend and why?
Justin and I became Internet Friends years ago when he was still in college. We have similar writing and reading interests. We seek spiritual meaning in our lives. But really, how else would a gay college student become friends with a divorced lawyer/mom? I love the Internet. We've never met in person, but talk to each other regularly online and send each other cards and small gifts. I sometimes think that Justin has a better idea about what is going on with me than my real life friends. So Justin tagged me to answer the questions in his post and I agreed. 'Cause he's my friend. :-) He's my favorite Internet Friend because he reminds me of how amazingly complex friendship can be and how nice it is to connect with someone that I would not otherwise know but for the wonders of the Internet.

Romeo and Juliet Were Idiots

The girls are in "As You Like It" at Lincoln High and the director went with a traditional set and costume theme this time (2 years ago they went with an 80s rock theme for a different Shakepearean comedy). The girls are both lovely in floor length gowns with big sleeves and flower garlands. Hannah did not get the role that she wanted, but got a nice big role for her final play. Anna got several good scenes and a small paragraph - impressive for a freshman.

Shakespeare is of course the classic and it is what allows directors to play with costume and time and place. In the program for the play all of the actors who are members of the Thespian Society have an asterix by their name. The director, who has a sense of humor, made sure to put an asterix by Shakepeare's name. I found that to be funny.

The drama at home continues and I have been thinking of a modern adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet" as told from the point of view of the parents. Hannah is Mercutio. Anna is Juliet. I am the Nurse. But this Nurse doesn't believe in star-crossed lover crap. She thinks that teenagers are dramatic and illogical and hormonal and that they need to get more sleep, be respectful of their parents, and eat healthy foods.

Juliet (texting): omg parents r so stooooooopid

Romeo (texting): i no!!!!!!!