Pirate Cafe

2003-12-12T07:39:00.000-08:00

A crick runs through it

I got the survey on the land I'm buying and the creek I thought was not on the land is actually on it. What a great surprise! I wanted to get a creek for D, who has a rather sweetly eccentric love of them. We'll be walking through town sometimes and pass the daylighted creek here, and he'll say "Hey, lets go look at the creek" and then he'll walk over and stop and just look at it. His expression is something like a dog pointing. One time he pulled out a newspaper clipping about a hidden creek in SF that daylights here and there around the city. He showed it to me and said "Wouldn't it be cool to go look at this creek?" (San Fransisco is 6 hours away)

I'm going to try to write more in the blog about D. I've been reluctant because I hate feeling like his bitch... Still all sappy over him after 4 years and numerous other boy and girl friends, after 4 years of living together and arguing over housework, bad habbits, morality, the meaning of existence, who to vote for for president, after mutual putting-up-with-moodiness and mental problems, yep, I'm still a sucker for him. His adorableness exceeds his difficulty by just the degree necessary to keep me that way.

2003-12-02T13:35:00.000-08:00

Land purchase in escrow
The following is a copy (specific locations omitted) of the email I sent out about the land I ended up deciding to buy!!! It's really happening.

Hello friends and family,

On my recent trip to look for land, I found a great property and made an offer on it. The offer has been accepted and providing the basic contingencies in the contract are met, I will own the land in a few weeks. There should be no reason why the deal doesnt go through. I am shocked something I have looked forward to for so long actually appears to be happening! I know most of the people getting this email would want to know about the offer even if the deal isnt finalized yet, but when it really is final I'll send out word at that point also.

The property is 5 acres, (although it feels much more private and remote than larger acrage I looked at) with a really nice diversity of kinds of trees and topography. Most of the land is flat or gently rolling, with steep slopes at the edge of the property on most sides. It is on the lip of a deep valley with a creek at the bottom, which isnt on the property, but which you can hear and sometimes see on the land. There are alder trees, maples, cedar, and fir, and the forest floor is covered with tall ferns. Many old trees with lots of character. There is a small orchard with about 10-15 sort of exotic varieties of fruit trees, apple, pear, plum, and asian pear are the ones I figured out so far. One of the trees is a red-flesh apple. I wonder if they are red on the inside?

There is a really cute and well-built studio cabin set far back from the small dirt road that leads to the property. It is in pretty great shape and has a wood stove, bathtub, and an on-demand hot-water heater. The property has a developed well and water storage tank, and the cabin is off the grid but wired for electricity. It has phone hooked up already. Much more civilized than the scenario I imagined for so long! I still plan to build several other buildings on the land, including the cottage of my dreams, but this will make it much easier to start. (Yes, there is enough room for several buildings and gardens, animals, etc.) The land also has a nice, covered woodshed and some partially cleared areas. The property is one of the last properties on a private, dead end road. No visiable neighbors.

The land was an obvious choice among the many properties I've looked at on my several searches in the area. Its kind of freaking me out to make such a huge decision, but the property is just so ideal it makes it easier.

2003-11-27T11:18:00.000-08:00

OK! Its been awhile since the last post and now I have only 3 minutes at this internet cafe. I didn't get the last land deal, someone else bought it. Now I am back in the area shopping more. I may make an offer on a cabin on a nice very private very beautiful parcel of land. Stay tuned! I may be a land owner soon! The land has a nice mix of slope and flat... Surrounded by steep slopes on two sides which give it a fortress on the edge of a cliff feeling, although it is more like forest and meadow at the lip of a valley. There is a creek in the bottom of the valley at the property line that echoes up around the land, the sound of burbling water. So peaceful and quiet. Trees: maples, alders, and fir. Also has orchard with rare fruit trees, even a red-flesh apple. Totally hidden from the road. Cute cabin, very charming and well-built with loft, bathtub, phone, hot water heater, porches, out-door cold boxes, covered woodpile in woodshed, cute kitchen and windows, cedar shingles on one side. Very dear. Very move-inable. Space for friends to come build little cabins. No visible neighbors. Should I make an offer right away? How do I make sure this is the right decision? I'm afraid if I don't move fast someone will buy it like the last one I wanted. Help!!! Yay!!! Oy!!! I'm going to go see it again now. I'll keep you appraised of the situation.

I hope everyone got to sleep in for the holiday, or at least get some good holiday pay if you do have to work. Hugs to all! mwah.

2003-10-26T23:02:00.000-08:00

Land update: I made an offer on the land and signed a contract and everything. The sellers accepted my offer AS THE BACK UP OFFER. Another buyer got them to sign a contract first. So now, if their deal falls through, I definately get the land. If I get it, I get it for the price I wanted. If I dont get it, I will move on to more searching. The earth is very large with lots of livable land afterall.

2003-10-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

Land Ho! Part 6

Show me the money!

I didn't even get around to telling you about my favorite piece of land I finally found on my last trip to Port Willamette. I didn't even get to tell you about Roxanne, Goddess Realtor, with her plastic Gaia sculpture a la Wal-Mart and her poster of one scantily clad male angel in skimpy loincloth and large white feathered wings. I didn't get around to telling you any of that and its already time for me to make up my mind as to weather to put down an offer on the land. Comrades! We have some catching up to do.

OK: First, Lets review.
I'm shopping for land on which to start my permaculture style sustainable living homestead intentional community type thing. I think all those labels are really new-age and ridiculous, so lets just say I am looking for a little land to call home, and who on this earth ever in history hasn't been doing that? I made several trips to my target areas to look at land. I experienced many annoying realtors and always a lot of negative and suspicious attitudes towards what I am doing. (Along the lines of "grow up and stop dreaming" which I have heard steadily since I was about 14 so that I have at this point become immune to the words. Almost.) I looked at a lot of property, maybe twenty properties, and went through different feelings about each of them. There were several pieces with potential.

Then I got lost going from one town to another, and drove past a sign for Harmon Realty. I had not seen any realtors in this particular area, so I dropped in. Although the office looked clean and modern, I was instantly treated with the same respect I felt I would normally get if I were a middle aged man in a business suit. "Let me get you Roxanne," said the receptionist, who then got me Roxanne.

Roxanne is about 60 years old with very fake-looking died red hair, a low smokers voice, and a lumpy, heavy body which is usually clad in something vaguely hippie-ish that looks like it was purchased at Ross. As I said, her office decor gave her away as kind of a blue-collar Wal-Mart-style hippie with a distinct gay-divorcee humor I love in older women such as herself that forward emails around among their friends with jokes about, and lewd pictures of, men. A sign on the wall announced "Everyone brings a little joy into this office, some when they arrive, and some when they leave."

She did not attempt to push me into looking only at properties their agency was listing, but instead immediately assumed the role of a buyer’s agent with me, looking at the mls listings for all the properties in the area. She didn't try to persuade me I wanted something different. She listened and helped me narrow my search. It was such a relief after having the other realtors act like I didn't really know what I wanted, (after several years thinking about it and obsessing over real estate how-to books.)

This weekend I got a call from Roxanne saying another buyer was interested in the land. I had to make up my mind fast as to whether or not to make an offer on the piece I liked so much- 10 acres with 4 cabins already on it, developed water and phone, old-growth trees, everything...

After wracking my brain all weekend and having serious phone calls with everyone important in my life on the matter, I decided to make an offer.

When I called in this morning the other buyer had already made an offer and the land was in the process of being sold!

I am making an offer anyway, in case that one doesn't go through.

Trying to remain detached and ready to move on to other land. Its out there I know, this one was just particularly good for my needs. In the mean time, I’m doing something I haven't done in some time and breaking out the Voodoo.

I'll update you on our progress soon.

2003-10-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

Am I getting old? Am I happy? Am I depressed?

According to studies, the issue may be I'm on the internet too much. Supposedly, this makes one depressed and despondent. I certainly am bored with living where I'm living. Why go out? More mediocre bands imitating mediocre bands imitating what was passé in the city 8 years ago. Why go out? More college bar scenes, or aging hippies having the same old cliché conversations over and over, or locals with whom I only have so much in common.

It’s inordinately difficult to have an original conversation here, where there is a cultural consensus that people have relocated here to partake in, and aren't about to deviate now. Patronizing smiles, too easy stoned-sounding laughter, and general flattery of the hippie male ego. (Envision wide-eyed nods from young girls who say "Yes!" and "totally! with great enthusiasm as if the stoned ramblings of said hippie boys were divine inspiration.) Everyone is busy agreeing with everyone about everything, except the things everyone agrees to protest.

Why must the hippie-ish culture around me be imbued with a sense of Christian charity towards everything, as if life itself needed a kind of constant patronizing affirmation? I swear life is not like a cause one can join. Or it is, but not of the sort people think. Is life not a cause one must commit to despite themselves, not out of a sense of obligation, but out of a resolve that is most deeply affirmed when one is in pain? To give life a standing ovation as an act of charity is an insult.

I like to stay home and clean my house and listen to the radio. I always did, but more so now. I exhibit symptoms of misanthropy and depression, but I feel happier than ever.

I can't seem to muster anxiety or drama for anything. The world feels like a place I already know. I’m not thrilled by participating in cliques, events, subcultures. Only personal projects and certain particularly wonderful people have any allure. I seem to have no storyline running about my identity. I don’t want to be a certain type of person or be part of anything going on. I used to fancy myself to be this or that. Now my identity feels as nebulous and nameless as my gender-identity does- a land unto itself with its own natural laws, separate from any place in the world and traveled to only by mysterious means. A world unto itself, overlaid on the world around me and touching the ground where the ocean inside me meets the ocean outside, both as cold and silent and salty as love.

Am I happy, am I depressed? I can't tell the difference. I just know I move with a sensual laziness these days that is half despondent, half lovesick. The world! A dream around my dream. I think this may be what therapists call "feelings of unreality." I call it existentialism. Part of my existentialist process: kind of slow, bitter, resigned, sadness about the nonsensical and meaningless nature of reality combined with utter acceptance of and wonder at life. Am I getting old? I don't try so hard. I work and feel and write and love.

2003-09-29T12:19:00.000-07:00

Land Ho! Part 6

After swashbuckling one must always drink something soothing, like sassafras tea or hard liquor. Jane and I, still clad in our hiking boots and wool sweaters stuck through with twigs and leaves, made our way to The Muse. Thursday night at The Muse Pub in Port Willamette was the best night I’ve had at any bar, ever. It was that night that made me feel all-the-way right about moving to the Olympic Peninsula.

There are four open-mic nights a week in Port Willamette, all at different venues. Far be it from me to attend the open mic nights in the town I live in now. Every melodramatic straight white college boy in town has to get up there and share his underdeveloped artistry with a room full of overly appreciative stoned hippy-girls. I am so nauseated by the layers of cliché in the work and in the room that I can scarcely stand to be a part of it, let alone share my writing. When I heard there were that many open mic nights a week in a town populated by only 7,000 or so persons, I envisioned a tiny town loaded with overly self-involved mediocre artists, writers, and musicians.

I was annoyed, but I also was not expecting to really relate to what ever community I live in. At this point my alienation is one of my prized possessions and I have little urge for “Community” with a capital C. (A word too often said with a snotty sense of virtuousness possessable only by the college-educated.) My intent has been to move somewhere more desirable in which to live out the rest of my alienated years in sweet freedom. Somewhere a little closer to a major metropolitan area than my current isolated province. Somewhere where I can go watch beautiful gay men walk up and down the streets. Somewhere where I can go to literary events now and then, as well as decent music and where I can get a steady supply of Asian ingredients for my kitchen. Somewhere close yet far away. I just want what everyone wants. I maintain there’s nothing radical about my lifestyle.

The Muse is an upstairs bar, with French doors that open onto a balcony overlooking the oft-moonlit Puget Sound. Despite the fact that the walls were beautifully painted, the lighting was subtle and warm, and the clam chowder was excellent, this was not a yuppie establishment. There were no identifiable tourists in the room and the locals are not known for their upward mobility. The crowd was not only exceptionally good looking on the whole, with a healthy and open look in their faces, but they had the grit and glory about them of the working class. When people must endure the blows of capitalism unshielded by privilege they often take on a certain lovely, heart-breaking bitterness, to which I relate, and by which I am very much moved, especially when drinking whisky.

A bluegrass band was playing. The lead was a tall, thin, clean shaven man with glasses and a black cowboy hat. Even though it was Thursday night at 11, the room was packed and people were tossing down drinks like they didn’t have to work in the morning. Since Port Willamette is not a college town, there was a refreshing absence of a college scene. The crowd was populated by people my age and older, not the other way around. How I love crows-feet and flecks of grey hair. How I love smile-lines and the dark shine in the eyes of mothers. The music seemed familiar yet foreign, and it came down through me while I looked at the living painting of the world before me. I then realized that the band was playing a bluegrass version of the Violent Femme’s “Add It Up.” My joy was for once complete and unreserved.

A curvaceous grey haired lady in a hippy-floral print skirt made her way over to the blue grass man’s table after he played. Next act was a smoky-voiced jazz singer, easily in her seventies, wearing a very tight sexy dress. She sang a few haunting and flirtatious standards while I watched the grey-haired woman Jane and I named “Our Favorite Woman” entwine her arms around the body of the bluegrass man, despite the obvious difference in their ages. I blushed and took a cigarette outside, where I immediately blushed again to see two beautiful young gay men in a tight embrace against the balcony railing. Their slow kissing was punctuated by long, loving looks into each other’s eyes. I tried to be causal and lit my cigarette, wondering how I could maneuver myself in such a way as to watch without making them uncomfortable. Could this really be a small, rural town? Ecstasy! The boys were on it, and I was in it.

The night was a victory for art, in our art-hating, art-commodifying world. As talent after talent took the stage, I felt I must be somewhere else in the world, maybe Central America or Europe, where I have never been but where I imagine local culture has not been so decimated by mass culture. The word community could almost be used to describe that night at the Muse without making me ill. I would rather avoid that all together, though, and simply say that here was a little untelevised, home-made beauty for the weary, tucked away in a small seam of the world, as private as a kiss.

2003-09-24T00:27:00.000-07:00

War

The injustice!
My words don’t make you cry
As songs do,
I am less potent
than two glasses of wine.

I admit poetry's defeat by music,
And announce my victory over television!

As long as I am young
I still have love
In my arsenal.

2003-09-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

Land Ho! Part 5
As we walked along the old logging road, it became heavily overgrown, first with alder trees, then with blackberry bramble too thick to cross. “Should we go back and find our old path?” I said aloud, hoping this would be gentle introduction of sense into Jill’s mind. Jill was heading off the logging road to the left, starting out on a narrow opening that wasn’t quite a trail. “No, the path goes this way.”

Why did we follow her? I think to be polite, or maybe because we didn't know how not to. As with the Bush administration, everything happened so quickly we had no time to organize a better solution amongst ourselves. There we were, so shocked about this sudden change in the course of our fate, that we were unable to act effectively as we struggled to fathom what had occurred.

I decided I would try it for a hundred feet or so and if it wasn’t right I would back track and find our old path. I knew we were going roughly parallel to it, but it was likely we were going at something of an angle. We would either collide with our former trail, if we angled left, or collide with the road we drove in on, if we angled right. In this respect, nothing felt dangerous. We would hit something useful in any direction. It seemed to me an obviously stupid thing to do to have abandoned a trail that had been so difficult to make to begin with. Just as I had my mind made up to turn around, hints of the path Jill was following appeared. Did she know where she was going, or didn’t she? It was confusing and my hunger added to my inability to make a decision as to weather or not to follow her further.

Later Jane and I would discuss what it was we didn’t like about Jill. She was just one of those people that’s pretty unlikable. We didn’t like her lack of consensus decision-making at critical junctions in the woods. Jane and I believe that when one is lost in the woods one should check-in with others to make sure they feel ok about the direction one is attempting. Jane and I believe that when we are hungry and want fish and chips for lunch that others should not assume we want to follow deer trails into obscurity. Ultimately, these are the same core-beliefs so frequently violated by George W. Bush, which have spurred in me the conviction that the entire left wing should register Democrat for the next election and line up behind a candidate who can actually win, and I don't mean Dennis Kucinich.

Just as Jane and I were about to go our own way whether Miss Goober came with us or not, I heard Jill’s raspy and irritating voice say “I can see the car! We’re there!” At which point I decided that Jill had some innate understanding of the woods that was simply beyond me, magnetic force field or no. I don't think George W. Bush has Jill Goober's prowess.

Next: Roxanne, my savior!

2003-09-20T20:31:00.000-07:00

Land Ho! will continue, but here is a poem.

Memory Of Being Female

Now they call it a path,
We knew all along it was the same old want.
What did you find?
I found nothing,
Did you like what you found?
I do.

For this I needed a new haircut and slid scissors
through my hair in the mirror
long Mrs. Robinson bangs falling from a loosened top knot.
Dressing for the occasion,
I undid the top
two buttons.

Remember when we tried at things
so hard? Do you now? I laugh.
I take up cigarettes
and am amused by children
There's no need for such a fuss.
Existentialism makes me act like a man.

The memory of being female
is like the memory of belief in God.
In September I clean my house and make turnip stew
Memories about me like wild seeds flying
A girl might have been a princess
A man's love looked like a fine fishing net
A woman was a little bit of the witch
and my fingers might have produced magic
instead of plain work.

People repeat themselves repeating television
Artists get degrees
Hippy boys get hippy girls and square girls too
There's nothing to do.
Now and then a good movie comes to town.
Writers and the religious
Attend conventions.

I care less and love more
sharply, The memory
of loving you as the girl
I am no longer, sharply
the laugh of the crow rises
Sharp the nostalgia for being female
Sharp the cries of the free,
and laughing the faces of women, no longer
so easily impressed.

2003-09-16T12:15:00.000-07:00

Land Ho! Part 4
My friend Nancy visited me from out of town this weekend and she said: “Where is Land-Ho! Part 4? When I watch TV, there’s always the next episode, I can’t wait another week! I need part 4!” And I was like, “Wow, my friends actually read this?” So, Ok, although work and my search for sexual gratification has once again kept me from my duties to you, beloved readers… No more excuses! Here is part 4.

The properties that Miss Goober showed me tended to be rough, raw, and exceptionally hard to develop. She did show me some of the larger, 20 acre parcels I saw. No one else had parcels so large, but so inexpensive. One had the feeling that Goober Realty was the preferred agent of locals who were trying to sell their former logging properties to tourists.

The first of these that I was shown, was a “view” property from which one could see the water in the canal. View parcels tend to be on steep slopes in this particular area, and there are many foothills with good views of water. As we drove up the winding washed out dirt road up the hill, several miles of which would have to be maintained solely by the new owner of the 20 acre view parcel, I observed the acres of steep, rocky land we passed and cold not imagine orchards or gardens doing very well there. Goats could probably handle the slope, but there were no cleared areas on the land besides the road going in and a rocky outcropping to build on.

“You could build some nice stone walls with those rocks!” said Jill as her four-wheel-drive truck came to a sudden stop before a huge wash out where a winter-creek crossed the road. Large rocks, too heavy for me to move, were deposited in the road. There must be quite a strong flow of water here in winter. “It needs dug out and a culvert put in. Does your husband drive a Cat?”

My boyfriend and I are intentionally not married and not getting married in the foreseeable future, but Jill had told me that she is a Seventh Day Adventist which I suspect was the cause of her not accepting that we weren’t married. Despite the fact that she herself was about six feet tall and two hundred pounds by the look of her, she also talked often about “my husband” doing this or that on the land, not understanding that I am the official tough-cookie in the relationship. My guy is probably a little stronger than me, although smaller, but the only axe he swings is a guitar. “No, my boyfriend doesn’t drive a Cat.”

“Well, it’s not that expensive to hire out for one.” She replied. “This would be a nice spot just to come up and camp on! There’s good hunting around here, and if you logged half the land you could pay for about half the price of it with the timber you got on it” Jill never failed to come up with new and creative uses for land she was showing me. If it wasn’t a “good investment” it could be “subdivided and sold off for a profit” or “rented out in the summers.”

When my friend Jane flew out for the second land search expedition, the one I went on most recently, we met with Jill again. She showed us a “top of the hill 20-acre parcel” which had been nearly clear-cut about 15 years ago, and had thick re-growth of brush, alder trees, and young maples sprouting up thick as grass. Until I met Roxanne, Angel Realtor Sent From Heaven, this property became my new favorite. Twenty acres is a large amount of land, by my standards, more than anyone really needs unless they are grazing lots of large animals or cutting timber for sale. It was flat and inviting for orchards and gardens, with lots of sunlight through the day, plenty of privacy, and some big trees in which I imagined a tree house with a nice view could be built. There was thick, low growth on the land, but the trees were small and easily cleared, and besides, good for firewood once chopped.

Jane and Jill and I returned to the land with a machete, “sticker-clippers” as Jill called the clippers, mocha’s in hand. We set off to pace the ten acres that was one side of the property. Jill said proudly that she knew how to pace out property lines, and got out her maps, compass, and machete. Calibrating her instruments, she soon announced that there must be a magnetic force-field in the area, because she couldn’t read the compass. I assumed she just didn’t know how to read it, but who knows, maybe there are such things as magnetic force fields. I wasn’t giving her the benefit of the doubt much at this point, what with her history of assault and inability to call my boyfriend my boyfriend.

And so it was that we began our machete-swinging, sticker-clipping swashbuckle across the south ten acres of the property. Jill counted her steps and we notched trees at every 100 feet. The south ten acres was about 1230 feet or something, if I remember right. It took quite a long time to swash through head-high sharp-as-blades wetland grass, blackberry brambles, and to cut our way through tiny closely growing trees that were begging to be thinned. We stopped at about 1100 feet, feeling we understood what we were dealing with. We were surprised and excited by how big it was. There was so much land here. Heading back, we were hungry and ready for lunch, already being out there for over two hours. We hoped we could follow our trail back quickly and go get fried fish and clam chowder for lunch, without getting lost. Jill said, “Lets get off the trail this way, there’s an old logging road, it’s a short cut.” The road was open and a much easier hike than our way there. Hungry and fragile as we were, like two wide-eyed and trusting does we then followed Jill Goober, machete in hand, into the deep, dark woods.

2003-09-04T12:52:00.000-07:00

Land Ho! Part 3

I procrastinated writing the next part for a week, partly because my job resumed for the school year and I had to once again bear upon my shoulders the crisis the elites in power have thrust on children in the public schools. In addition to that I had, at my place of employment, to endure the incompetent yet condescending professionalism of my parent’s generation of school administrators and staff. My apologies to any baby-boom generation teachers who may be reading! I’m sure you still have your wits about you if you have managed to stumble upon my weblog.

In addition I procrastinated because the next section mentions experiences I do not enjoy recalling, involving a certain real estate agent with whom I swashbuckled through twenty acres of “prime investment real estate,” But let me take up where we left off…

There were only two real estate offices in my new focus-area of Troyburg. Having seen what there was to see at Windermere, I headed across the street to a family-owned business which, for the purposes of anonymity, shall be referred to here as “Goober Real Estate.” Jill Goober, daughter and sister in the family business, was in charge of the office the day I walked in. She was taller than myself, probably about six feet tall, stocky, with blonde hair pulled back in a jock-like pony tail, wearing T-shirt and jeans.

“Can I help you?” she asked in a voice that was surprisingly monotone, raspy, and stiff.

She was a little more receptive to me than the other realtors I’d met with so far. The office had glaring fluorescent lights and a 70’s-looking orange and green carpet. Imitation wood paneling lined the walls, and room dividers were set up as bulletin boards, with property listing sheets tacked on.

Writing this, I find I don’t even want to remember Jill. Initially I felt that because she came across as kind of provincial and uneducated that she would be easy to trick. I mean I thought I could get her to let me in on information like how low a seller would go. She seemed to give up information easily. She some how managed to work it into conversation that she was being charged by the county with assault. Some girl had exaggerated, she said.
This intrigued me and put me off. I realized I was dealing with a definite non-professional here. What would that mean for me financially? Could I outsmart her or take advantage of this in some way? Or would she double-cross me?

I set about chatting her up and forming sisterly bonds over issues like boyfriends, weight loss, and teaching careers. I was hoping she might begin to feel emotionally indebted to me to the extent she would confide in me not only about her pending assault charges, but about the sellers real "rock bottom" price. You see, their agency, like all the other agents I had talked to so far, only showed me properties in which they were representing the seller. I had not yet learned of the phenomena of the “buyers agent.” When I later met Roxanne the real estate goddess, the difference was immediate, but that’s later on in our adventure.

Next: swashbuckling.

2003-08-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

Land-Ho! Part 2

Let's just say there are some major differences between what I want and what everyone else wants, or think they want, when it comes to buying land.

What they want: 5 acres with a view of water or mountains, power, phone, and water on the land already, septic tank installed, private but close to town, in a “nice” neighborhood with other large, “attractive” houses already installed, on a paved road.

What I want: 10+ acres, more level land usable for gardening, orchards, building multiple small cabins for all my friends, having dairy goats, chickens, and an outdoor hot tub. View not necessary. Space to have unpermitted small cottages is, as is space for people to be naked at outdoor hot tub without being seen. Electricity means permitted buildings, which are too expensive. Permitted buildings mean 3-5,000 dollar each septic tanks required, and engineering done on houses, plans drawn up. Permitted buildings mean you cant build with the low-tech inexpensive natural materials, like earth, that I know how to use and that I wish to build with, without expensive engineering done on the plans. So what I need is place I can feel safe building unpermitted buildings. That means acreage around me to create LOTS of privacy, I need a neighborhood with tolerant neighbors who don’t call the county building department, who can “flag” your house and make you tear it down or move out. I need a place that won’t be developed soon, secluded, “undesirable” for one reason or another.

The subtext of my subsequent conversations went something like this:

“Hi, I would like some undesirable real estate, please.”

“We don’t sell undesirable real estate. We have some nice five acre view parcels, great for investment.”

“Do you have any 10+ acre parcels with no electricity in the area? Preferably in an impoverished neighborhood that rich people will never move into?”

“That doesn’t sound expensive enough for us to get a nice commission. Maybe you would be interested in getting mortgaged out to the fullest possible extent? Do you have credit cards?”

“I’m looking for a realtor who will listen to what I want and help me find it, not someone who will try to make me want something worthless but expensive.”

“I’m sorry, we don’t have any of those. We would go out of business. What you need is a hippie realtor, the kind who did nothing but smoke dope until they turned 50 and now needs a retirement account fast, and will work for anyone, even someone who doesn’t want a mortgage.”

It was through this process that I eventually found my Real Estate Goddess, “Roxanne”. But before I get to her, let me describe some of the realtors I met along the way.

First there was Rick, whom I met on my first investigative foray into the area. I walked into his office, managed to get past the receptionist, and described what I was looking for. “Good for you!” he said, “Back to basics! Stripping life down to the important things!”

“Right,” I said, hoping he would stop trying to create rapport and start looking up listings on the computer. He found a few things in my price range and directed me to an area in which he thought I would have better luck, about an hour drive south of there. He said he would stay in touch with me by email and search for listings weekly and email them to me.

“Now, there aren’t a lot of parcels of land that fit your description, and you can bet a lot of other people are looking for the same thing, so when I email you that I found something, If you really want to find this kind of land you’re going to have to be ready to move fast on it.”

(A line if I ever heard one.) He never emailed me any listings.

I drove to the area he described. Troyburg, we’ll call it. I went into a real estate office there, a franchise called Windermere, which seems to be selling the entire state of Washington. I figured they would be larger and more equipped to help me. I was referred a realtor named “Hal,” a scrawny, grey and wrinkled, prematurely ageing and wheezy man in his 50’s, with yellowy eyes made very large by thick glasses. He never said much. I always had the feeling he was putting up with me, but hated his job and just wanted to take a smoke break and get to the bar as quickly as possible. He showed me some properties in a binder, and we picked out a few to go look at. One of the things realtors do is drive you around in their cars, whether you buy from them or not. This makes them want you to buy from them, whether you want to or not. Some relationships are set up to fail from the beginning.

This section is getting long, I promise to tell you about realtors with a history of assault and realtors with machetes tomorrow.

2003-08-24T12:31:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my two week search for land. I will now report my findings through a highly suspenseful serial story.

Land-Ho! Part 1.

What were my criteria again? Did I originally want 40 acres or 10? View or flat? Was a pond optional or required? In retrospect it’s hard to remember what I wanted originally, being so overwhelmed by what each individual piece of real estate had to offer. As Jane, my land-partner-to-be said, after we found a nearly ideal piece of land, “Its like getting married. You always know there are other people out there that might be better in one way or another, but you know they’re not perfect either and you just decide you love what you have enough to stick with it.”

The difference between people and real estate is that its impossible for people to be perfect, but it may be that there is perfect real estate. That makes buying land slightly more difficult than finding a life partner, but this is balanced by the fact that there is no social stigma about trading in one piece of real estate for another. In fact that is seen as kind of adult and responsible, a normal progression of moving up from starter home, to home, to retirement home. Just like the progression in women’s clothing from Juniors to Misses to Women’s sizes.

Speaking of womens clothing, I would like to take a moment to say that I think a really good name for a pop song would be “She Shops In Juniors!” When I go to Ross to get clothes for work I never fail to end up over to the Juniors aisle. This is part of my effort not to look stuffy or frumpy at my job, for which I unfortunately must wear “professional” clothing. In Juniors I’m always one of a few women shopping surreptitiously amongst Middle School girls, sorting through tight baby-doll neo-seventies T-shirts embossed with glittering slogans like “Look out, I’m driving!” “I hate math!” “Daddy’s little princess!” or simply “Whore!” There you will find me, looking for the rare brown silk cable knit sweater that happens to be form-fitting, sassy, and acceptable at work, feeling like everyone is looking at me thinking “What makes her think she can still fit into this stuff anyway?” Someone, please write an indie-pop song about this. Its an experience begging for tribute.

Real estate is not so different. The market purports to know where you should be at in each phase in your life. Its all very convenient for the market, adding up to a lot of trading in of real estate over the years, a new commission given at each state, a new mortgage three times during your life. Did you know that if you take out a mortgage, by the time you pay it back over 15-30 years, you end up paying 2-3 times the original cost of the loan? Its such a rip off. You can end up paying 200 thousand dollars for a 100 thousand dollar house. The whole time working your ass off and being chained to your job to make payments. Those banks are involved in hell of a racket. One almost gets the impression that in life everything that is socially expected of you screws you over while turning a fine profit for someone else. One would almost think our culture itself was engineered by business interests. My solution is not to have a house. I want a cabin in the woods that I dont need a mortgage for. I want to build it myself. Pow! Pow! Capitalists, take that. There will be no hundred thousand in interest here!

The fact that I have money in the bank made real estate agents give me their time, even though I had been camping in the back of my station wagon and walked into their office not only young, female, and wanting to build my own house, but unshowered, oily, and unbrushed. Usually the conversation went something like this:

“Hi, is a realtor available?”

“What are you looking for?”

“Ten to twenty acres of raw land”

“Well, we do have some larger parcels available, what’s you’re price range?”

At which point I felt I needed more serious attention so I would break down and say.

“I have _____ thousand dollars, cash.”

At which point they would say, “I'll get you a realtor.”

And I would be ushered into an air conditioned cubicle where someone would talk to me besides a receptionist.

Next: Alcoholic realtors, realtors with a history of assault, 7th Day-Adventist realtors, realtors with machetes, and realtors that buy me lunch.

2003-08-13T14:28:00.000-07:00

quick update from expensive internet cafe.

The commitment realtors desire is a bond exceeding that which is desired by the most needy and demanding lover. Only when you are shopping are you so attractive to others. I am managing to find a few decent pieces of land despite their efforts to persuade me to get "investment" real estate with ugly houses next to busy roads.

more soon

2003-08-07T09:26:00.000-07:00

On the road.....

I will return from my road trip sometime around Aug. 23. Untill then the blog is yours, yes yours, to have your way with. Email your submissions to piratetron@hotmail.com, and I will post them for you! If you are my friend already, I'll post anything you send. If you are a complete stranger, I'll post anything unless it goes against the grain of the usual stuff on the blog. If you want something posted, tell me if you want your email adress, blog, or other website link attached in the post.

Friends, on this road trip I am doing my biggest land-search yet. I may finally find the land Ive been dreaming of to build my little house and garden on!!! So exciting! I'll let you know how it turns out. I am looking in the Portland Or. area and also on the Olympic Peninsula in Washingtion.

Mwah Mwah

2003-08-01T07:39:00.000-07:00

Alert! Feminine Straight Boys Unite Against Defamation And Niche Marketing!

Since I seem to be some kind of fag-hag for men who seem like they might be gay, but are unfortunately all too straight, I thought I should help disseminate some information that concerns you gentlemen intimately. It has to do with that thing in your pants. Yep, look out, they're after your wallet. Hands off I say!

I learned all about it in this article. I call you femme-straight boy, but they call you "metrosexual," a niche market-cum-identity. The future of masculinity has already been mapped out and it leads down the road of financial excess, as one would expect, with low self-esteem and high credit-card debt as the destination. Don't go there.

"Curiosity about metrosexuals climbed considerably in June when Euro RSCG Worldwide, a marketing communications agency based in New York City and more than 200 other cities, explored the changing face of American males in a report titled The Future of Men: USA." According to the article in MSN linked here.

"The Future of Men report noted, "One of the telltale signs of metrosexuals is their willingness to indulge themselves, whether by springing for a Prada suit or spending a couple of hours at a spa to get a massage and facial." They might devote an afternoon to choosing their ultrafashionable attire for the night. They may don an apron and prepare a mean and meatless pasta dish for friends."

Admittedly, my group of femme straight boy friends is not so Gucci. (A word my spell-check surprisingly knows how to spell...) I can't see any of you springing for a Prada suit. The point is, you've been discovered and now you're being marketed to. Beware the fate of Punk, which is available now on discount at Ross in a number of ensembles perfect for day-to-evening casual office wear. If you go to the Juniors aisle in girls fashion, you will see clothes that belong to every subculture I've ever been part of mass-produced in china and being sold to your local seventh grader. (Trust me I've been there.) No need to comb through Salvation Army racks for leopard print and pink fake fur. Its all been done for you.

Me: "Is nothing sacred?"

Ross: "Compare at:"

"Metrosexual men "are very secure in their sexuality," says Brown. "They're comfortable getting a facial or a pedicure. It doesn't make them feel any less masculine or any less heterosexual." (This quoted from the same MSN article.)

No, to my great disappointment, the only dick they suck is that of the capitalist ruling class. Metrosexuals, you're getting fucked in the ass.

Friends, don't let this sorry fate befall you. If facials are what you like come over to my house and we can do something natural and inexpensive with yogurt and green clay. You know you would rather hang around and gossip with me while sewing our own clothes than blow your wad on some ridiculous Prada suit. And forget the spa, I'll give you a much more therapeutic massage.

You look great, don't change.

2003-07-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

Last Wish

How deluxe
your body below
your t-shirt as my thought of dying
again changes you
to gold under my hands.

At the moment
of my death
will it be the same death
that made me love water,
the same that brought such desperation
for all sensuality,
such bravery to feel,
such dearness to roadside,
grasses, to cows at pasture,
such reveling in smallness
and happiness in the possession of words?
Will it be the same
death that salted
my thousand numbered suppers
the same for which I shook my head
to see your body
sliding through my arms
the same which made you possible
and to which you are owed?

When I cease
this long swoon,
promise me you
will take my place
and love it all
for me, as I did,
with wet eyes and shaking head,
promise me you will not deny
the world its jewel
the one it mines
with rough and clever hands
promise me you will
no longer reserve your heart.

2003-07-28T22:38:00.000-07:00

Beauty Mark

What were you
before you were deformed
I would not
have recognized you anywhere.

Now we are very glad
of our twisting smiles and doing nothing
knowing we keep
everything they pay for.

2003-07-27T13:33:00.000-07:00

This is what community looks like: my investigative report into a big sex party in a small town.
I wasn't sure that I wanted to go to "Club Erotique" as it will be called in this article. That's how serious it is to go to a sex party in a small town, I can't even feel comfortable calling the event by its name, let alone people. But, part of that's because of my job, working with kids. More on that later. Anyway, I wasn't sure I wanted to go. Not because I was scared, but because I thought it would be lame.

I recalled another sex party I had been to a few years ago, where about 200 people showed up and no one was brave enough to have sex, despite the fabulous set-up by the party organizers. Parties are boring and neurotic enough as it is, without everyone nervous as hell about getting laid or avoiding being hit on. Neurosis will ruin any outfit and also causes blemishes, in my vast personal experience.

I still hadn't called my friend Lola to tell her I wanted to cancel on her the day of the event, so I felt like I owed it to her to go, especially 'cause she might be counting on me for moral support while stalking her latest prey: one of our finest local baby-dyke debutantes. While one is trying to get together with others at a sex party, or anywhere else, it helps to have someone else to talk to so as not to appear too desperate. It being too late to cancel, I went to pick up my 25 dollar ticket at one of two brave local stores that agreed to sell them. The ticket came in an envelope with the phone number to call a few hours before the event to find out the secret location of the party, a lengthy explanation of the party with a detailed waiver I had to sign with my drivers license number attached. Waivers being a sign there was going to be something dangerous going on, I began to get more enthusiastic about things.

The paper in the envelope said that the party would facilitate a space to reduce erotiphobia and enhance sexual freedom. It was to be a safe space, where personal limits were respected while taboos were broken. The organizers couldn't have been more professional if they had Masters Degrees in sex-party facilitation. When I walked in to the beautifully decorated hall, the costumed staff took my ID and waiver, and ushered me in with flattering and playful compliments. One side of the hall was lined with gourmet delicacies and cases and cases of bottled water. I drank 5 bottles of water while I was there, partly to balance out the brandy I had in my purse and also because I didn't drink enough water all day and I was beginning to get a headache.

There was a cage in the middle of the room that had two scantily clad members of opposite sexes doing all kinds of acrobatic sexual undulations to the records everyone's favorite local DJ was spinning. On the large dance floor, folks of all (adult) ages and in every imaginable state of dress and undress were getting their freak on. The girl in the cage had on leather panties and bra, which looked especially cute on her 5 foot tall and slightly chubby body. Almost no one looked like a porn star and at least 85 percent of the people there actually looked sexy.

The most surprising thing to me was the age group. In this small, rural college town, everyone seems to be under 24 or over 45. People who have anything going for them at all seem to leave by the time they are in their late twenties, perhaps wishing they could stay for the beautiful coast or the village culture of this place, but feeling their personal ambitions take precedence. But here my peer group of people in their late twenties and mid thirties held court. It was refreshing to see sexy girls that actually looked like they were my age. Hotties of all genders had at the very least faint lines on their faces, round bottoms, a little jiggle in their thighs, and eyes that looked like they had seen life outside of the college campus. The party was working. They looked free, happy, not nervous, and very alive. It made them beautiful. I saw a room full of people I wanted to get to know better.

If I had several days with some of these people, I would probably want to get sexual with at least a few of them. At this point in my life, my sexuality is so psychological and complicated that usually I'm just not turned on by people I don't know. Even though I had full permission from my partner to enjoy myself freely at Club Erotique, I was only interested in light voyeurism, which was stimulating more intellectually than sexually. I saw one couple have intercourse on a massage table while another couple sat next to them not watching, having a conversation about something else. I saw a woman's head bobbing up and down across the room in what could only have been a blow job. I saw many breasts. About 20 of the hundred or so people that were there, were people I knew from around town. I recognized two coffee shop clerks, three friends, one woman from tai chi class, several college office staff, one woman from a support group I went to once, a couple cashiers from the co-op, and many other familiar faces. It was as if I was having some kind of erotic dream where all the people I normally see at the co-op or at farmers market were suddenly dressed in corsets, high heals, and hot pants, with nipples showing.

At 11pm there was an on-stage performance of about 11 different acts, including stripteases, erotic poetry, comedy, acrobatics, and a very intense BDSM scene involving over 25 clothes pins, to my count. It was wonderful to see such genuinely erotic performances appreciated by such a large and diverse audience, when none of the men or women were stereotypical in their beauty. A subtle tribal-hippie vibe was apparent, adding to the shows rather endearing atmosphere of being a local creation, not purely an imitation of what goes on in the city. It reflected the essence of other major local events, such as the annual Valentine's day performance of The Vagina Monologues, and our local love of Middle Eastern dance. The audience responded immediately with hisses and ululations during a bellydance-flavored strip show. One act had a lovely man in black hot pants and blonde dreadlocks doing the most erotic contact-juggling I've ever seen. (That's what David Bowie does in the movie Labyrinth with the glass globes...)

In the bathroom as I re-applied lipstick and took sips of brandy, I talked with a woman who warned me about a creepy guy. It was one of her employees at the university. He had pushed himself on her, she said. Outside the bathroom I ran into Roxy, a normally rather sexless and frumpy woman I know who had somehow transformed herself into some kind of very adorable vixen for the night. She warned me about two men the staff had identified as potentially disrespectful of the space. She was one of the "vibes-watchers" a crew of event volunteers who could be identified easily by headband-antennae with blinking lights on top, hovering about the crowd like lightening bugs. Earlier I had gone to lay down in the "blue room" a non-sexual space, to ease my headache, and a full-bosomed blinky-headed staff member had promptly attended to me and asked me if everything was alright. It was clear they were following up on everything. In the case of the two potentially creepy guys, they were followed by the vibes-watchers wherever they went, until it could be determined if they needed to be asked to leave or not. I can think of no better solution to the social problem of creepy, pushy, men than to have them be followed by people in strange costumes with blinking antennae.

My headache did not get better, so I decided it was time to leave. I think it was partially that I was on my period and partly that there was little oxygen in the room due to so many people respiring so heavily. Plus, I had to get back so my partner could use the car to go to work for his night job. I assume it got even more sexual as the night went on after I left at 2 am.

When I returned home and climbed into bed, he was just waking up and we talked in sleepy voices about the event. He had envisioned something kind of sleazy and desperate, and was glad to hear it was more wholesome. Despite my initial skepticism, I admit that Club Erotique succeeded in being the safe, supportive, and sexy event it wanted to be. The club has held sexy parties about 6 times in two years. Slowly, I think they are reducing erotiphobia here in our isolated province. I also think they are doing wonders to counteract the stifling, fearful culture the right wing inflicts particularly in small towns. Sexual freedom has a way of reaffirming other basic freedoms that feel threatened since the Bush administration declared a repressive new global status-quo.

Sex parties of this type are nothing new or radical in the city. In the city, they are practically cliche, while here they are still a tremendous new development. From my experience living most of my life in provincial, rural areas, it seems to take at minimum ten years for cultural change to seep from the city to the country. Often the change never arrives, creating an ever-widening gap between city and country culture. Anonymity advances every personal freedom in urban areas and right wing pressure focuses on rural small towns where anonymity is not there to protect risk-takers. Non-comformists are forced to choose their battles. The lack of personal freedom is one more reason why youth with mobility get the hell out.

Being a member of any minority, including sexual minorities, can feel very vulnerable in a small town. You can't escape having a public image. When I was in teacher-school, one of my professors spoke passionately about how living and teaching in a small town forces you to have integrity. You have to be willing to be known for who you are, you can't hide and you have to stand behind what you do because you will be remembered for it. Her example was that if she was going to put a campaign sign for a democrat on her lawn, she would have to live that down at a school board meeting. I thought to myself, "So, if I have two boyfriends and a girlfriend, are you suggesting I live that down at the school board meeting too?" Choosing my battles, I stopped going to the sex store in town to rent videos, chose only one person to hold hands with in public, and didn't smoke cigarettes out side of my house any more. Now that my official teacher-days are over, I am re-learning to be a little more comfortable. My job still restricts me, but not like it used to.

I left the small town I grew up in partly for these reasons, only to find myself in the same intolerable situation in another small town in my twenties. My mom was scared for her professional reputation as a teacher when I started dating girls in my own hometown at 16. I chose the Bay Area as my route of escape as soon as high school was over, in part for the sexual freedom it is unique in offering. I needed a place where I could be myself. My whole self, with no shame and no hiding. But, in the city there were other ways I couldn't be myself. Anonymity allows one kind of freedom at the expense of another.

I believe now that it is a community that allows you to be yourself and have that mean something. You can go around being yourself all day long in places where you don't know people, but as soon as you know them, you have the same lack of anonymity you would have anywhere else. I think what people really desire, rather than the total freedom from accountability to others that anonymity allows, is the freedom to be themselves in a community: to be accepted by a community in which one is actually known. I'm not talking about a self-created community of people you hand-pick. Not an intentional community in which it is easier to guarantee your acceptance. The group at this event, while certainly not reflecting the population of the whole town, did attract a fairly diverse group of people that genuinely represent much of my every-day reality in this town. The big thrill in Club Erotique was not the sex, not the scandal, but the lack of scandal. I would say this is an instance in which the word "healing" could be used genuinely, to describe an unlikely occurrence of freedom and acceptance combined with authentic community.

My only complaint was that there weren't more of those sexy gay-boys, my favorite sexual minority. When Club Erotique offers that, headache be damned, you'll find me in the fray.

2003-07-26T14:06:00.000-07:00

Stay tuned... Next: Investigative reports from my journalistic forays into a small town kinky sex party...

2003-07-22T23:53:00.000-07:00

Something really good for breakfast…
Curry Scramble wrap
This is kind of a veggie-egg-curry-scramble wrapped up in a flour tortilla with a little cheese. Egg burrito, Indian-food style.

A little onion of whatever kind
2 cloves garlic, chopped
greens (kale or spinach, etc.)
zucchini
grated carrot
1 egg
1 tsp curry powder
½ tsp turmeric powder
¼ tsp salt
a little broccoli or tomato or any other veggie you like.

Chop up all veggies and throw them in a skillet. Sautee them in oil with a pinch of salt until they are cooked to taste. Hopefully they still have some life left in them.

Meanwhile, beat the egg together with the curry, turmeric, and salt. A dash of milk or cream is optional, beaten into the egg.

Scramble the egg, then toss it in with the vegetables when both are done.

Heat up the tortilla in a pan, sprinkle grated cheese on top, and then fill it with the egg/veggie mixture. Wrap it up! Salsa optional. Yum. The egg, when cooked this way, seems to kind of make you feel like you're eating chicken. In a good way.

2003-07-21T22:55:00.000-07:00

What if I stopped being so nice?

It was a tempting thought, today, as my co-worker gave me twenty-year-old-blonde-dyed-streaked-hair attitude for the billionth time in two weeks. If I believed in Karma I would think it was some kind of payback for my own bad behavior as a worker in the past.

In this job, for the first time, I am in something of a management position, although I, of course, prefer to view myself as coordinator, rather than leader. I’m supposed to coordinate 3 other workers to coordinate about 50 kids or so, depending on the day. Only one of the three is hard to coordinate. At 20 years old, she’s the youngest. The other two are gracious and responsible and easy going. But this one, (we’ll call her Stephanie, my least favorite name, out of spite,) makes it obvious that many basic things expected of her are some kind of major imposition. I guess I have less of a problem with people slacking at their jobs if kids aren’t involved. When I slacked in the past, it was my boss who suffered. Now, that’s a little more appropriate. In this case, we are always trying to do a lot with too little time, so, any slacking really impacts the kids’ experience there.

“I’ll stop helping in the cafeteria if it’s going to be A PROBLEM” Stephanie said bitingly today, after I had asked her to come out of the empty cafeteria and supervise on the playground so that I could go in and get art supplies ready. Helping in the cafeteria is one of a few different jobs she has made for her self to avoid working with the kids, which is a more challenging task. Other people are paid to work in the cafeteria, but they love her for offering her help.

“OK” I said, coolly, and left to go set up the classroom for the day.

“I think it’s higher priority to have your help getting our filthy classroom, currently in shambles, ready for the kids who arrive tomorrow” I said the day before the program began when I found her reading National Geographic Magazines in the staff break room.

“Oh, I thought you would need these magazines for collages.” Stephanie said innocently, “I’m sorting through them, because so many are cut up, there’s no pictures left.”

On her left side was a pile of 3 magazines, on the right a stack of 50. She had been there half an hour, while I rushed around trying to prepare 3 different classrooms.

“Well, I think we only need 4 magazines, why don’t you finish up and join me.” I said in my most under-control voice.

“Ok.”

I came back 15 minutes later and she was still looking for magazine number 4.

“Oh, I'm sorry, here I am spacing out and you probably need my help!” She said, smiling in false apology.

“Yes, you’re right” I said and left for the classroom as she walked down the hall after me slow as a worm.

So, I wasn’t that nice really, but I didn’t come out and say: “Excuse me? This is pathetic. What the hell is going on?” She had me out-bitched in that incident.

I don't think it was much of a challenge, I get taken advantage in life because I don’t know how to be a bitch. I always feel like I’m kind of this genderless spiritual person, who maybe doesn’t believe in God, but tries to be serious about things like creating peace in small immediate ways in my life through kindness, and compassionate communication with others. Bitchyness is not only too feminine for me, but not helpful or interesting spiritually. In Stephanie’s case, I felt that I shouldn’t take out my frustration by being mean, but try to use communication, if I was going to confront her, to help her understand me so that she would become willing to work with me, for the right reasons, not out of fear or coercion.

My mom is not a bitch either, which probably explains my lacking in this area. My mom is embarrassed to assert herself. My mom is a woman with little pride, except when it comes to high standards for her own actions. One of my worst fears is being someone with too little pride this way. Bitchyness is a kind of power, one that works, in its way.

I wonder how much sprititual satisfaction I get from being kind. I don’t feel satisfied, I feel taken advantage of. I wonder how it would be different if I didn’t have these expectations of myself. I’m curious. I think Stephanie is the perfect person to experiment on, don’t you?

2003-07-20T12:42:00.000-07:00

Bush Fosters Unity

Thank you, George Bush, for helping me and my outcast buddies make a few new friends. As you alienate more and more people, I feel less and less alienated. For once the CIA and I are on the same side of an issue! My friend Ryan, a Teamster and a Communist, defends the CIA in his blog. Maybe now the CIA will show left activists a little respect? Who's watching your back now, kids!

I joined the Democratic Party for the first time ever so that I could vote for Howard Dean instead of Nader. (This is a "closed election" so your vote only counts if you vote for candidates in the party you registered with. Click here to change your voter registration to Democrat. When I go to the Howard Dean Meetups, the crowd there looks like no other I've worked with politically. They are far more diverse in age, social class, and political affiliation. That's a good sign. George, George, George! Even common thugs know there are two forces in the world not to be messed with: other people's mamas and the CIA. Pity the fool that does both.

2003-07-19T00:57:00.000-07:00

The Ever-Present Threat Of Spying:

"Should I connect the journal writing project to the read-aloud book or not?" I pondered on my non-break break at school the other day. The book I am reading to the kids for about 15 minutes every day is Harriet The Spy. In the book, Harriet, an 11 year old tomboyish girl, spies on everyone and writes about it. This is her own eccentric process of trying to understand life. The things Harriet sees and writes about are not the sweetened and dumbed-down version of reality kids are often presented with in school, where everything is ostensibly organized around the goal of postive improvements in children. In Harriet's world, there are family fights, rich people and poor people, dysfunctional parents, artists, adults with stressful jobs, ugly people, and dreaded dance lessons. As usual, interest is created by a combination of emotional honesty, conflict, and a generally fresh, unexpected approach.

"You can make your own spy book, like Harriet" my co-worker Lea announces to the group during their 20 minute journal time later that day. Even though I had been wondering if I should say that exact thing, it had me worried. I could imagine the whole group writing mean things about each other and all the worst details of their family lives. Then there would be numerous fights on the playground as they found ways to show each other the insults they had written. I imagined they would write about bad things that were happening to them and then I would have to make suspected abuse reports en masse. (I would rather know about abuse if it is happening, mind you, but the thought of the potential for so many personal revelations was daunting!) Luckily, the kids didn't really pick up on what she said, so making spy journals didn't take on a life of it's own. Instead, they wrote about what I had suggested: a recollection of a favorite memory, with as much detail as possible.

I chose the book because I think it is interesting and valuable, partly because of its edgy nature, and also because I thought it could win their attention for 20 minutes at a time. Harriet is about as scandalous as a children's book gets. Harriet is not a nice little girl. She's a serious person, curious about the world, determined to understand it, and full of strong opinions. Everyone and everything is up for examination and criticism. What would I be unleashing If I got the kids to write seriously this way? It is quite threatening. I believe that schools are usually, to some degree, afraid of thinking, afraid of kids, and afraid of learning. Schools are under constant threat that the promise of education will be fulfilled.

Even here, as I write my little spy journal, I hold back, as I would expect the kids to. One must respect the consequences of revealing one's mind to others. As a brief example, if I were Harriet I would write this about my day:

JOSH WAS ACTING WEIRD TONIGHT. BOYS ACT DISTAINFUL WHEN THEY ARE SHY OR DEPRESSED OFTEN. GIRLS JUST ACT SHY. I WOULD NEVER WANT TO BE A BOY BECAUSE THEN I COULDN'T JUST ACT SHY WHEN I'M SHY. WE ALL SAW A MOVIE AND TALKED ABOUT IT IN THE CAR. I HAD SOME IDEAS ABOUT IT, AND SO DID JOSH AND ROBERT. LATER I READ A REVIEW ABOUT THE MOVIE IN A SNOBBY FILM MAGAZINE. THE REVIEWER THOUGHT THE SAME THING I DID, BUT DISAGREED WITH WHAT JOSH SAID. I REMEMBERED THAT JOSH SEEMED MUCH MORE CONFIDENT WITH HIS OPINION THAN I WAS, EVEN THOUGH AS IT TURNS OUT I APEARANTLY KNEW WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT MORE, ACCORDING TO THE SNOBS. ARE BOYS WORSE SPIES BECAUSE THEY THINK THEY KNOW THINGS WHEN THEY DON'T? THINK ABOUT THIS.

I mean, what if Josh saw this? He probably wouldn't fantasise about sleeping with me anymore, for one thing. Josh, If youre reading this, I'm sorry, I needed an example and besides, I can tell from the net-stats that you only visited the blog once anyway, so you were kind of a vulnerable target. If you're thinking of beating me up on the playground, you can forget it. See what happens to people who don't visit the blog? But anyway...

"Please don't cover Anna in wood chips" I asked Juanita on the playground, "they could get in her eyes. No flipping on the swings, Arnold"

As it turns out, everything they want to do is too dangerous. If I had a child, and we were at home and not at school, I would let them take a lot more risks. He or she could lie buried in woodchips all day and spy journals would be highly encouraged. In school, restrictions are drawn at the most conservative point, to avoid trouble. The trouble suppressed is not only physical danger, but also the danger of having controversial opinions or feelings that don't make things easy for those in charge.

What if all the kids wrote things in their spy journals like:

MS. SCOTT WOULDN'T LET US SWING ON THE SWINGS IN ANY OTHER WAY BESIDES THE BORING WAY, AND WE CAN ONLY WATCH G-RATED MOVIES THAT ARE LESS VIOLENT THAN VIDEO GAMES OR EVEN COMMERCIALS. WE HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL ALL SUMMER MOSTLY BECAUSE IT'S FREE AND OUR PARENTS NEED TO WORK. TEACHERS WON'T LET YOU DO AS MUCH AS PARENTS, BUT THEY NEVER GET TOO MEAN EITHER. WHEN WE WALK DOWN THE HALL, SHE WANTS US TO GET IN A LINE AND NOT TO JUMP UP TO TOUCH THE CELING OR CLIMB UP THE POLES, BUT I DON'T THINK SHE REALLY CARES. SHE JUST DOESN'T WANT TO LOOK LIKE SHE HAS NO CONTROL OVER US. WE MADE WORD SEARCHES BUT SHE FORGOT TO LET US DO THEM IN CLASS. TEACHERS HAVE A LOT ON THEIR MINDS. WHAT EVER IT IS IT MAKES THEM BORING. DONT BE LIKE THIS WHEN YOU GROW UP. I BET IF WE ALL JUMPED UP AND TOUCHED THE CELING AT ONCE SHE COULDN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

So there you go. Spying leads to all kinds of things. My hope is still to teach kids how to spy, or at least get out of the way of their natural spy tendencies. I'll keep you posted on my progress.