Spring Broke

Spring break is begun, and I'm not sure why, but I'm grumpy. Is it because I'm already missing my regular class routine that ended over a week ago before exam week started? The lectures, the rapt absorption of every fun fact in art history, the Olmec carved heads that make me want to sculpt big things, the smug satisfaction that I felt upon realizing I knew more skeletal bones' names than I thought and that wasn't going to be tough after all---basically, the last week wasn't fun as usual, today I feel seized with the pending home invasion of Homo habilis, (a handyman installing a window) and knowing I have weeks of unmade plans to catch-up on in this tiny shrinking little week of break. Fah! (I want to watch more Deadwood DVDs and eat ice cream, but the hours tick by relentlessly.) I already hear the jingling of H. habilis' toolbox coming up the walk. It's all for the greater good, I know. Make the effort, do the dishes, vacuum, deal with the pile of magazines. Iron. Fold and put away the clean laundry from Thursday. Grrr.

It's like Betty's coming to visit all over again, I think that's what is making me crabby about this. I resent it for no reason other than I'd rather be doing something else that's fun, not necessary. Like going to get a new laptop, or seeing a movie, find a couple orchid plants on sale at Fred Meyer's, starting a new knitting project, falling into some margaritas with friends. Bah humbug.

There's no one to blame but myself. Clearly, at some level I'm too in touch with my inner 13 year old and she and I are sulking upstairs in our room, waiting until we turn 18 and our lives will really start. Those were 5 long long years, as I recall. Let's fast forward, shall we?

Someone else over the weekend remarked that an anthropology degree was a gigantic waste of time and money, what were my real plans, and that may be the real catalyst for the slump today. Either I am a complete and indebted fool, or too many people in the world have no imagination and bigger vision about handling practical reality. You can buy a $40,000 SUV and make crazy payments on that for years and that's normal today, but racking up some bills on a college education and a degree or two for about the same price is foolish. Explain this to me.

Okay, I'm going to "get real" for a few hours anyway and do some hausfrau stuff, see my favorite dog a bit, and then maybe pick up some mint chip. Betty's not coming, stand down and relax, spring break is only a week and it will be school again in no time. A smart anthropologist can create her own dream job, mull that over while vacuuming.

Portland Needs Archaeology!

('Mars Needs Women!'--- I know, I thought it too)

Whilst all of Portland was returning to their work stations from lunch yesterday, they had no idea that a brain trust meeting was being held in an office at PSU that would be gathering steam to completely change the future of urban life on the Willamette as we know it!

No, not free Cirque du Soleil tickets to all.

Some students and members of the Anthropology Department were discussing a new class being offered for the Spring 2008 Term on Community Archaeology, and how this can be a great threshold for educating and encouraging the people who live in an area (Portland, for the sake of this idea) to get involved in preserving the cultural resources surrounding them. No mere coincidence that I was there, seeing as I wholeheartedly believe that this is just what Portland needs, as well as being encouraged that one of the organizers is Wendy Ann Wright, a volunteer in the office of Sam Adams. The focus of the class will be creating an annual hands-on event, that brings together local land history with ways to investigate and preserve it, and ideally get attendees interested to get involved at different levels. There can be fun things for kids and their parents to do, as well as some more involved things like foraging skills, tool-making, indigenous plants and how they were managed by native peoples, techniques of archaeological digs, the devastation of site looting, before and after depictions of how the Portland waterfront was developed---and as dedicated as we Portlanders are about our city's well-being, I think we can accomplish some good things by getting started with an event like this.

Looking out over the Portland skyline, I see all these mega-cranes, new towers under construction for new Portlanders, 4 foot trenches in the roadways exposing old brick, holes the size of a square city block 50' deep near the river, restored 19th century homes with abandoned urban lots behind them, and I see all this hidden history. No where do I feel that this developing of places should be made difficult, but there are all these lost chances to know more about our town and the brave people who wound up here long ago when this was the frontier, and the thousands of years before all that. There was a creek through there? Really? This family had an orchard there, that bend of the Willamette was an early refrigerated warehouse (no way!) that shipped fresh seafood to Denver, that site was where native peoples from all over the Pacific Northwest came and harvested obsidian. Sitting in that meeting yesterday, I knew that there are hundreds if not thousands of people here who would love to know this, especially if they're walking over it everyday or live in the neighborhood built on top of someplace so important back then. Back in my book retail days, we had one of the most heavily shopped local interest sections of any store I'd ever seen, and we had to put a display table up, so the big Photographs of Historic Portland coffee table book could be left out for browsing over, and the Portland Streetcar book, and the Portland Baseball teams book, and the Portland Gardens book, the Hill Walks of Portland, Underground Tunnels, Portland Jazz and Blues, Portland Confidential, end of the Oregon Trail. We sold hundreds of these books.

So how is this going to change life on the Willamette as we know it? I think it could, I really do, because we can create a source point for further work going forward, create a living history of a place, a block, a neighborhood, a building, a shore, a bridge, a house, a street, and ultimately, a community. It's fascinating to hear the story of a place you know, who doesn't like a good true story?

Serious Deja-vu

These moments keep happening to me, but I have learned to just roll with it, and not try to explain it anymore, the weird looks from people started to get to me.

Again today, standing talking to someone, great conversation, making meaningful connections with new people, and that almost-creepy wave came over me from behind my head and washed out past us to sweep up the entire roomful of people, to splash up along the walls then out the doorway. This has so already happened to me, right here right now, with this person, with that feeble light from the grown-over window, the mid-century furniture, I know what that person is going to say next---bang, there it is, the other person has to go, I say my line, we laugh...

When I get home, I write my best friend that a current of low resistance is happening right now, that a step in this certain direction is the right step for me, there's no fighting against anything, whatever "the Flow" is for an individual, I seem to be in mine. My friend has always been great at surfing that momentum in her own life, willing to work hard, but knowing when to ride a high tide. For many years, I was not knowing how to do that, although she's been a great friend who's always leading by example. And she's humble about it, too. The magnitude of the pure relief I experience when looking at today versus last year or last decade, flabbergasts me. She laughs when I tell her; "That's the pay-off for all that thrashing around back then girlfriend!" she cackles. Like a spooky reflection, I remember hanging out together by her fireplace at her old place in Florida, a few beers gone and more in the fridge, and we wove out our visions for the Good Life in our futures. She was going back West, New Mexico or Colorado, and she wanted horses and two kids, Sam Elliott in the saddle and the mountains on the edge of her acres. She was going to let her hair fly in the dry wind and get all that South Florida humidity out of her system and her books. Plant a million bulbs and some trees, and grow herbs on her front porch, and have about three dogs.

We were all so much more Florida then, though we fought against it. Not in the right element.

I wanted to have a funky artsy place in an old farmhouse or bungalow with a big porch, some cats, room for all my books yet walls for the artwork, ground to get some tomatoes, herbs and flowers going, windchimes and suncatchers, music and light, writing and school, no suburban ambitions or homeowners' associations, cool neighbors and be either in Provence or Northern California probably, somewhere with ocean, mountains, woods, and decent coffeehouses and art film theaters.

Our enchantments must have flown up that chimney and started the winds of change to blow. Other than the Sam Elliott part, she's pretty much right where she saw herself back then, including her nephew being her other kid in the house. Slick maneuvering, there. And it didn't even take her ten years to do it all. Or me, either, and I can still afford Portland.

So the Deja-vu thing is not too scary to me. It's usually always a good re-run. Foreshadowing or looking back, it's the same loop, I get it now.

Finals

My last week of classes for the Winter 2008 term have been this week---finished already. Crazy.
One more archaeology class Friday, then exams Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday.

Then let Spring Break begin!

Not that I need a break, I'm still all fired up and being a goof about it all. Still.
As the week went by, more and more of the syllabi were getting shortened, running out of term, less to have to cover for the finals. Then today, one prof said "I've decided the exam will not be cumulative, just cover what we've done since the mid-term." The class of 90-something students broke out into rowdy applause. She smiled in relief and her shoulders fell about a foot from around her ears. She doesn't have a TA this term---poor soul.

Next term looks bright, too. The last Intro Anthropology class, the last PSU-peculiar "university studies cluster course" requirement (I picked Medieval Studies), and Roman History. However, this class may or may not work out, the 10-minute break between classes to get from one building to the other won't be enough time to get 5 blocks and at least four stories up from the Engineering Building to central campus Cramer Hall. What's a history class doing at the Engineering Building? Is this class heavily chosen by engineering students or something? I'd need a golf cart to do that sprint, so I may have to change it out if they don't reassign it to a closer building. The Roman part of my art history class was my favorite section, so I want to know all about Rome now. Everything. This happens to me all the time. You should see all the books I have on Egypt...

It's fun to read the texts and go over the notes and feel like you know this stuff, no need to cram. The idea I heard about is that your short-term memory files things you learn straight into your mid-to-long-term memory if you study, then take a nap or call it a night and go to bed. So while I'm dreaming about Bruce Campbell as a trapeze artist like Errol Flynn in a technicolor movie in my brain theater complete with a glass harmonica orchestra playing circus tunes, all that biological anthropology and paleoanthropology material is becoming part of my mental office studio (this happened). There it will be, all that information, forever close to the tip of my tongue to horrify and bore my friends, "Hey, that reminds me of this group of hominids who walked across an ash field---wait, don't go, okay I'll stop."

Now that Garden Season is here, prepping the Garden anyway, it will serve as the great balancer of brain and body. Being in the dirt releases a trip-switch in my head, and I work out all kinds of things while weeding, planting, gathering marigold seeds, or ripping out last year's wintered-over stems and stalks. What could be wiser than reading textbooks while enjoying porch time and the tomato starts?

All is well.

Everyday Anthropology

Here's a perfect example of the essential usefulness of knowing some anthropology...

Setting: backyard hot tub at dusk, sneaking in while neighbor is out of town.

Cast: half-buzzed sneaky neighbor in hot tub; one resident of house of said hot tub;

Scene: Roaring hot tub jets, growing twilight, just as a chilly sprinkle starts, house resident tentatively approaches occupied hot tub, saying name of sneaky neighbor repeatedly so as not to startle her. Finally she hears him---

Sneak: He-e-e-y, neighbor! Wow, hope it's okay, I called---

Resident: I didn't want to scare you, it's cool, did it warm up yet?

S: Yeah, it's gettin' there, almost 100 now.

R: Mind if I join you? (climbs in, resets jets, louder roaring and churning)

S: Nope, just relaxing after a long week of classes, I brought a beer, TGIF! (they laugh)

S & R don't really know each other well, they each know the owner of the house pretty well, the one who isn't there. A few moments of loud but awkward silence. They discuss Portland, other places they each used to live, until suddenly---

R: Like that place in New England, where they found that ancient place with the rocks and the coins---

S: ---and the petroglyphs---

R: Right! Like before Columbus and the Vikings!

S: I saw that show on the National Geographic channel where they think it may have been the ancient Phoenicians or even post-ice age Europeans that followed the melting ice shield to North America---

R: Yeah, I saw that, and the native peoples had European DNA before North America was colonized---

S: Like Kenniwick Man had Altaic or Ainu DNA, not recent DNA from more recent peoples in the Pacific Northwest----

R: So what about the Nazca Lines? I took one of those classes where the teacher said none of any of it was true---

S: Yeah, 'The Pseudo-sciences' myth-busting thing, like 'NO, the Aliens did NOT build the pyramids!'

R: Exactly!

R & S go on, getting redder and redder in the face in the 106 degree water for another 30 minutes.

S: (feeling faint) I think I have to get out---I'm poached. (sloshes out, grabs towel)

R: Yeah, me too, right after you. (climbs out, covers hot tub)

They stand there steaming in the dim evening, bi-pedal lobsters:

S: Great chat!

R: Yeah, good soak, this is easy to get used to.

S: I owe _____ a case of beer, for all the kind lending of the hot tub goodness. (stops herself from launching into the brewing history of the Fertile Crescent peoples)

They each drip towards their respective front doors. S drinks a large glass of water, once again grateful for the ever-readiness of Anthropological knowledge to save the day and gloss-over faux pas of all kinds, remedy social situations, and claim common interests to make new friends. S frantically searches her freezer for an ice pack, to avoid the popping of the top of her head.

curtain

NOT Waiting to Exhale

After some comfort remedies of panang curry and strawberry Haagen Dazs last night, I bravely flipped back over to CNN at 10 and saw the happy almost-sweep Hillary made of Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island.

This grrrrrl starts YELLIN' at the television set----so happy, so happy, so happy. Hillary looked so happy delivering her speech, and as much as the pundits like to slam her for tearing up, she seemed truly humbled at the very very end of her speech. Her voice caught, that her supporters surged like almost a force of nature to keep her from going down in flames last night. Believe me, this woman may be a seasoned politician, but she was moved and understands that she can't do this all by her self-sufficient self. But I've been a fan for almost 20 years, she and I are both feminists of the second wave who don't apologize for it, and now in our middle age, girls grow up being able to almost take it for granted that they can run for office and not just be the "coffee girl".
This is a huge stride, just as huge as the civil rights stride that makes Barack Obama the other "this is so cool right now!!" candidate. My friend's 13 year old actually asked her mom to tell her about the 60's so she could understand better all the references to it culturally and politically, and she was truly astounded at what the status quo had been. These are the moments that humble me. 'Cause I was a little kid then and remember the snarling white faces live on black and white TV, and heard people say out loud the most horrible things when Martin Luther King was killed, and saw my friends' moms ostracized and belittled for going to work and being one of those "god-damned women's libbers". I used to tell my parents that I was born a liberated woman, and it pissed them off. But it's true, and makes me want to holler at my television today when I see these bitter nasty pseudo-preachers slam Hillary Clinton because they are still feeling insulted that she "didn't stay home and bake cookies" but became an attorney and worked on the Watergate hearings--didn't know her place was in the home and to stay there. And shut up.
That's why I want to see her as Madame President. Like Benazir Bhutto, or Chancellor Angela Merkel, even Thatcher or Meir or Indira Gandhi, it's not like Hillary would be the first and only one ever. Because I know she can do it. No one could have a better kitchen cabinet than hers. And that's not a lame joke, FDR had one, too.
I'm not anti-Obama. If it were he and anyone else running, that sticker on my car would say "Obama '08". It could yet, who can say today who clinches the nomination? The two people I was watching CNN with last night both said they wished Michelle Obama was running instead of her husband. That too may come to pass. She's a high-power attorney. She doesn't stay home and bake cookies all day. That is how far we've all come (thank god) in the last 40 years, that we can know that and it is not an attempt at humor. It is where we are today.

So so happy about that.

You'd Think It's November

Can a person hold their breath for an entire day in primary season?

All the way home on the bus today, I'm thinking, "Turn on CNN and see how the voting is going," and then the trap door drops out and I hear, "Don't put yourself through this, it seems even Democrats want to be preached to, he'll hire all her best wonks to do what he doesn't know how to anyway, start moving on."

I'm watching Wolf Blitzer with the sound on really low.

This summer, when McCain wasn't doing so well, I thought of how I had told my co-workers 2 years ago that McCain would win in 2008, really not much doubt about it in my mind. I was amazed his campaign seemed to be on life-support and Romney was doing his best SNL Reagan impersonation and actually being taken fairly seriously. I knew Giuliani was way too New York for everyone but South Floridians and their kids who still live in New York and New Jersey.

So I was really wrong about Barack Obama. Man oh man, was I ever. He's hip, he's cool, he can do the hanging loose with everybody thing, he's never said anything while his wife was running for president that is still being bitterly held against him over 20 years later (the staying home and making cookies thing) and he can even admit to doing drugs and not be held to an executive office standard. Wow, who'd have thought it? The right wingers hate him less because he's a guy, and he hasn't done anything yet that they can nail him about.

So even though I was right that McCain is the Republican nominee, and the least of all Republican evils, he just may loose to Obama. And it hit me the other night seeing Barack on TV, that he seems kind of familiar, and I don't mean the MLK oratory style. When he's standing there just talking, and walking back and forth on a stage, it finally hit me who it was: Bill Clinton.
And then I realized that's why he might win, McCain will seem like the first George Bush, and Obama will seem like the younger, new generation, hipper (the ladies like 'im) fresh from state government Bill Clinton. 'Cause we all know that if Bill and Hillary ran against each other for office, who would win.

It's so great that we are having such an unusually exciting election season, and one of those rare changing of the guard thresholds we see about every 20 years or so, but this week I'm experiencing that weird anxiety of this suspense. My hopes were riding so high, she was the front-runner all this time, and it's hard to see her so desperately hanging in there. I had already thoroughly started imagining her first term in office, maybe Barack could be Attorney General or something juicy like that. Now...I'm just feeling so uneasy about it all. He is being naive about global protocol, and will hire on a slew of Bill's crew to help him get on his feet, but if anyone should be leading Bill's crew, it should be Hillary who helped put it together in the first place. It reminds me of the female executive who trains the young male hotshot, who then replaces her in the corner office. The middle-aged woman issue is this--- She isn't a woman most men want to have sex with, and she reminds men under 40 of their moms and who wants your mom for president, right? But if she's too sexy, that's not good, either. Geena Davis had good presidential charisma.

This is nuts. I'm going to shut it off until at least 8pm, another 4 hours away. With all of my term paper absorption over the weekend, there is all that housework I didn't do. Someone remind me to never change paper topics a mere 10 days before the due date ever again.

I'm Stalling

Or rather, I'm getting warmed up for the composing of the term paper.

sigh

Chicago Manual of Style, I detest thee. Already, I'm thinking, "Isn't there software for this crap?" I want to spend time on the meat and potatoes of this project, not the alignment of the grains of salt. There is software for this, and all the nagging ninny voices warn the slacking paperer not to rely on them to be accurate or appropriate for their project. Details. Hate them.

And I did put it off until the last three days, didn't I? The research and sourcing was done, the creating of the illustration page was done, and somehow Friday and Saturday got away from me. So now it's today and tomorrow (and tomorrow night) and that's it. Lesson learned. Dumb-ass.

So, what about a 30 minute hot tub to relax? (no)
What about taking the bassett hound on a afternoon walk before her people arrive home? (later)
Watering plants? (no)
Washing a few dishes? A load of laundry? (no)
Okay, a hot shower and a fresh pot of coffee? (hmmm, alright)

Cue up classical 89.9, unwrap that block of French shea butter soap from New Seasons, hit the 'brew' button----then get to work.

Great, now the sun is coming out....