Domestic Psychology

Saturday in New York

// October 30th, 2011 // No Comments » // flickr, travel

Falling Apart

// October 30th, 2011 // No Comments » // health, me, travel

I have a trick knee. Sometimes, without warning, it just stops doing what I want it to do, as though a loose wire inside has disconnected the power. As quickly as it stops working, it starts back up again. Most of the time, the power returns in time to correct and instead of a fall, I do a funny skip-hop that the children always notice. Every so often, the correction fails me and I fall down… on my trick knee.

My first day in New York, my knee decided to play a trick on me as I walked up one of the city’s trillions of staircases. I corrected poorly and fell down. “How do you fall UP a flight of stairs, mom?”

I went to bed that night sore, but awoke to a knee that screamed at me with every step I took. Just to be extra tricky, my knee completely refused to walk down steps, while awkwardly cooperating with going uphill.

With my knee giggling as it performed some kind of comedy routine that I did not find funny, I went on a grueling walk until you drop tour of New York. The blisters that I could feel on my feet thoughtfully distracted me from my knee. Eventually, girl teen made me trade shoes with her. She marched all over the city in my tiny soled Converse while her super soft New Balance sneakers felt so good that I didn’t even notice the blisters forming between my toes.

The shoe change was helpful, but it didn’t make my knee any happier. I developed my own Ratso Rizzo limp-walk to avoid the worst knee movements. Girl teen stared blank faced as I tried to explain the cultural significance of Ratso Rizzo while we stood in the middle of a traffic jam of yellow, beeping cars and shiny, silent limos. My soul was bruised at the thought of her eventual assimilation by the city and loss of delight at the beauty in the everyday.

The limp made fresh new blisters on my feet in places I didn’t know that feet could get blisters. Lifting and throwing my trick knee out of a window I was climbing out of caused my weight to shift on a metal window frame resulting in technicolor bruises on my thigh and ample posterior. On the last day of my New York visit, I went from one place to sit and people watch to another place to sit and people watch. When my abused by five children bladder forced me to seek out one of the city’s elusive bathrooms, I seriously considered remaining seated in the tiny stall and doing a photo essay of bathroom graffiti.

My first two days home in Knoxville, I wore my house cleaning clothes and slippers, although there was almost no cleaning done. I know that the correct response to my aches would have been to continue walking several miles daily. Instead, I chose to avoid additional pain and slump back to my normal, amorphic blobbiness. If I ever get to visit New York again, I will be buying whatever shoes our outdoor outfitters sell to long distance marathon athletes and mountain climbers

or I could simply act my age.

Occupy Wall Street

// October 26th, 2011 // No Comments » // flickr, politics

A day alone in New York

// October 25th, 2011 // No Comments » // me, people

I sat on a bench in the park. The cool breeze gently fanned the sweet smell of peanuts roasting nearby. To my right, a woman who looked too frail to stand tenderly stroked peaceful chords from a large, gold harp. My left side was being serenaded by A Capella street performers whose deep voices were perfectly spun and resonated by the arched bridge over their heads. In front of me, a fountain with a bird covered sculpture was the backdrop for both a high fashion photo shoot and a bride in an enormously puffy white wedding dress.

I sat on the museum steps and watched people. Hordes of uniformed school girls in pleated blue gingham skirts skipped and hopped toward the museum entrance while half a dozen Hasidic teen boys had an animated conversation about something on a piece of paper they seemed to be sharing. Two women in burkas scurried down the sidewalk silently while three Puerto Rican nannies had what sounded like three concurrent monologues as their stroller restrained charges slept. Across the street, two men in dark suits stood silently, waiting for something or someone. A woman walked down the street, screaming nonsense at each person she passed while everyone around her avoided the eye contact that would make them the long term target of whatever demon was upsetting her so much.

New York is breathtaking in its’ simultaneous sensory overload and perfect calmness.

Whaddya think about OWS?

// October 23rd, 2011 // No Comments » // me, people

Every person I have met the past five days has asked me almost immediately what my opinion is about Occupy Wall Street. Based on the sheer amount of discussion it has inspired, Occupy Wall Street has already made a difference. It feels like the test question of the year. How you answer it determines if you are economically illiterate, a socialist hippie or some other umbrella category. I feel slightly restrained from being able to say exactly how I feel about this movement, where it is now and where I see it going. This is what I am willing to say.

Whenever something happens that causes people to take sides, you consciously pick a side or you remain silent and support the side that is loudest. It works the same with voting. If you don’t vote, you are supporting the candidate or issue with the most votes.

When Occupy Wall Street began, they were working all the social media angles while mainstream media went out of their way to ignore the movement. So, I amplified their social media noise until they finally got press. In doing so, I chose a side. I chose to agree with the people who want their voices to matter more than corporations (whose employees are primarily overseas). I do think politicians have become representatives of their corporate overlords. Those same corporate donors are orchestrating control of public education. I do not think the education reform movement is currently moving in the best interest of all children. I believe it is instead being used by the wealthy and powerful to destroy public education.

I support the original ideas and concepts of Occupy Wall Street. I sincerely hope that while they are digging in roots, they are also sprouting wings.

Questions I heard people ask the NYPD:

// October 23rd, 2011 // No Comments » // people

“Where’s the nearest bathroom?”
“Where can I buy a drink?”
“What’s that statue called?”
“Why is it so crowded here?”
*”Which direction is the subway?”
“What are they protesting?”
“Can I get my picture made with you?”

Highly skilled and trained police officers are treated like tourist information kiosks in New York.

*That one was me.

Leaving, on a jet plane

// October 20th, 2011 // No Comments » // me

Maybe it’s not a jet as much as a tiny plane that is given the minimal maintenance required to remain in use. Still, for the first time since January, tonight I will sleep in a bed that isn’t mine.

I began my journey in the sleepy Knoxville airport with a silly body scan. If we had universal healthcare, airport security screenings could team up with lab techs to make the scans and gropings something more than security theater. As it is, the scan is quick enough that I can keep my belly roll sucked in for the cameras.

Since this is approximately my sixth plane trip, I am still a white knuckle flyer. Starbucks in airports should sell ‘adult’ coffees for nervous travelers. Flight attendants don’t act like moms, so there was no reminder to visit the restroom before I boarded the plane. I will not make that mistake again.

I like the snowy blanket of clouds over Knoxville, but I love the patchwork quilt of recognizable farms that reminds me I am only temporarily leaving my home. Contrasted to the clumps of clouds over DC, Knoxville is sleepy and calm. While we fuss about the little things in our city, we all know that underneath, we are good people who love our families and communities. DC is a breathtakingly beautiful city, but the fuss isn’t anything superficial. The work here is serious and today’s mood is conflicted. Neither celebratory nor somber, but conscious of the historical significance and consequence of human choices.

The PA in DCA keeps making an announcement about the USO lounge here. In my mind, there is a big band playing swing music and smartly dressed people in uniforms sitting calmly while their minds drift elsewhere. I like that fantasy and will steer far away from the USO lounge to avoid reality shattering the dream.

Speaking of quirky

// October 12th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // kid quotes, parenting

“Why is mommy’s phone in the fridge?”
“So Amy can’t find it.”

“No fair! You got to bury the dead bird, so I should get to bury the mole.”

“Why aren’t you wearing underpants?”
“They take too long to put on.”

“What happened to your library book?”
“Somebody ate it.”

“Don’t make me sell you to the gypsies.”
“Yaaay! I love the gypsies.”

“After T and N remove the porch, Amy and Evan can take turns burying whatever corpses the cat was keeping under the porch.”
“Hooray!”

6:30 a.m. Monday – Friday “It’s too early to get up.”
5 a.m. Saturday “What’s for breakfast?”

I certainly am glad that I refused to even take Tylenol when I was pregnant with these guys. It really made a difference.

What you can have is what you should want

// October 11th, 2011 // No Comments » // me

If you want to be a happy shopper, walk into the store or pull up the storefront and choose from the options before you. I want to be happy, but I don’t shop that way. I am a self destructive shopper. I get ideas about what would be a great gift for someone without considering what actually exists. I have a mental idea of the type of shirt I want before looking to see what my choices are for a new or new to me shirt.

Because I do it wrong, shopping is frustrating to me. It is a chore instead of the fun that the rest of the world seems to experience when shopping. I deliberately avoid professional shopping holidays like the day after Thanksgiving. It’s just not my thing.

Part of me feels like I am broken. My operating system is lacking the shopping app. Another part of me feels like advertising agencies are not doing their job to program my subconscious to want what they are selling. More than either of those feelings, I feel like, regardless of the mountains of petroleum based, made everywhere but America products in the marketplace, there are still limitless quantities of innovation and creativity that are waiting to be developed.

“planning” in public

// October 9th, 2011 // No Comments » // people

I spent a LOT of time as a member or chair of various committees and coalitions. In between the serious conversations, number crunching and careful planning, there was the ‘other’ stuff. For the privacy of all involved in that stuff, I will give a completely ridiculous, partially reality based, fictional example of that stuff.

Let’s say we wanted to work during lunch. Something as meaningless as the pizza we were ordering would turn into a three ring circus. One person would request that the wheat for the crust be blessed by a shaman. Someone else in the group would feel the need to offer a long lecture about free range pepperoni. The vegan might burst into tears at the thought of someone eating cheese. After a long healing session and smudging the bad karma from the room, everyone would agree to a lunch of organic wheatgrass that was locally grown by homeschoolers.

All of that is a long and silly way of saying that regardless of your group’s mission or event, the ‘stuff’ is a distraction that doesn’t need to be included in your notes for the next committee. It is as relevant to the process as how many times someone in the group needed a potty break.

If you are going to do your planning on Facebook or any other public venue, you do not want the distractions making more noise than the actions that matter. Plan in a private group instead of on everyone and their cousin’s wall. There are detractors who would like your group’s audience and budget and they will happily tell the world that only communists don’t eat pizza. Don’t walk into a PR war about junk food. Order pizza in private.