Description of What We Call Home

Thanks Steph for giving me something to write about that doesn't require much creativity.

When you walk in your front door, which room do you enter?
 The living room. Once the door is closed, to the left is a hall closet (I call it a hall closet even though it's not in a hall.)We've never had a hall closet before this place. Exciting.

Do you have a dishwasher? 
Yes. Thank god since neither of us really likes doing dishes. We only use it like once a week though to save on water.

Is your living room carpeted or does it have hardwood floors? 
 Neither. We have ceramic tile floors in the living room, kitchen and bathrooms. It's a Florida thing which is really nice in summer and incredibly easy to clean up after the dogs. The bedrooms have dingy carpet. I hate living in a house with carpet even though only a small part of it is carpeted, and even though Talia's parents bought us this kick-ass vacuum that has a hepa filter and gives dog hair the "what for."

Do you keep your kitchen knives on the counter or in a drawer?
 Both. We have a knife block that holds the majority of our knives, but our paring knives and some smaller ones are in the drawer. This is good information to know if you want to come murder us in our sleep.

House, apartment, duplex or trailer?
 A side-by-side duplex, so it feels more like a house.

How many bedrooms is it? Two.

Gas stove or electric?
 Electric.

Do you have a yard? Yup. A fenced side/back yard, and an unfenced front yard. There is also a concrete slab you could call a porch in front of our sliding glass door but it only has one plastic hand-me-down adirondack chair since the other one mysteriously disappeared in our move.

What size TV is in the living room?
 Our TV isn't in the living room. It's in the 2nd bedroom/den/office, and it's medium-sized. We got a great open-box deal on it at Best Buy when we moved here.

Are your plates in the same cupboard as your cups?
 No.

Is there a coffee maker sitting on your kitchen counter? 
No. I use a french press and it's usually either in the cabinet or in the drain rack.

What room is your computer in?
 We have a laptop that sits on a TV tray in the 2nd bedroom/den/office.

Are there pictures hanging in your living room?
 Whoever came up with these questions sure has a facination with living rooms. But to answer the question, yes. Talia bought me an awsome Tree of Life wall hanging from Ten Thousand Villages as a house-warming gift, and it's above the couch. We also have a really great framed black and white picture montage from our wedding. Talia has framed fairy women that are across from the couch (if I was at home I could put a link to this artist because they're beautiful, but I forgot the name). And then next to the bookshelf is my wood carving. I think that's all that is hanging.

Are there any themes found in your home? Um, right now the theme is dog hair, and what Talia terms "creative chaos." That basically means we haven't been home enough this past week to do the laundry or straighten up after ourselves.

What kind of laundry detergent do you use?
 This kind that we get in the big containers from Costco which has Eco in the title. It's free and clear.

Do you use dryer sheets?
 Yup, we used to use Method, but now they only sell them in boxes of 32, so we use Arm and Hammer which are biodegradable and come in a box of 150 for more than $1 less than Method. Is that enough information?

Curtains in your home? 
Yes, in the living room. We didn't have a choice because of the sliding glass door that looks out onto the street. Even if I didn't mind encouraging the neighbors' voyeurism, Rocky thinks he needs to bark at everything that goes by when the curtains are open. In the other rooms we haven't put up curtains yet. Mainly because our awsome brightly colored curtains which have hung in our last two places clash with the awful taupe of our current walls. We signed a lease saying we wouldn't change the walls, and we can't afford new curtains.

What color is your fridge?
Off-white to light tan.

Is your house clean? I'm assuming that based on my reference above to dog hair and creative chaos, the answer would have to be "no." But there are days that it is clean.

Are the dishes in your sink/dishwasher clean or dirty?
 Ummm I'm going to guess dirty.

How long have you lived in your home? 
August or September of 2007.

Where did you live before? A very small two bedroom bungalow that didn't have any closets.

Do you have one of those fluffy toilet lid covers on your toilet?
 Talia had a hot pink one at the first apartment in Berkeley, but after I realized that it caused mold to grow on the toilet lid, I forbade her to buy one ever again no matter how "awsome" it was.

Do you have a scale anywhere in your house?
 Nope.

How many mirrors are in your house? 
Like, a billion and I don't even know why. Each bathroom has a huge mirror above the sink and then another mirror on each of the medicine cabinets, and then there's a full-length mirror on the bedroom door, and Talia has her grandma's mirror above the dressor. So that's like 6.

Look up. What do you see?
 A weird piece of fringed notebook paper that's hanging from ther air conditioner vent in the United Way office where I'm at work wishing my shift was over.

Do you have a garage?
 Yes! The best part of our entire house!!! I love it! But you have to realize that we moved here from a house without any closets. And of course Florida doesn't have basements because of the whole sink-hole issue. In Florida garages are not for cars, they really function like basements. Most people don't ever use their garage for a car unless a hurricane or tropical storm is a brewing. At the other house our washer and dryer were on the back porch. Now they are in the garage. It's bliss.

Privilege

An exercise to remind me that maybe I don't have it all that bad...

You are supposed to highlight every sentence that is true for you. (This meme is from From What Privileges Do You Have?, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. They ask that you please acknowledge their copyright if you use the meme.)

1. Father went to college (and grad school)
2. Father finished college (and grad school)
3. Mother went to college (and grad school)
4. Mother finished college
(and grad school)
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor

6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers

7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home (does this mean at once? Then no, but if it means that we had more than 500 books in our house at some point, then yes...)
9. Were read children’s books by a parent.

10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.
(I was forced to take piano..and then I took trumpet lessons.)
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.
(Hmm, maybe the talk like me part...I don't regularly dress like the folk in the media.)
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.
(Definitely not.)
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs. (Scholarship, some parents, work study.)
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
16. Went to a private high school.
17. Went to summer camp. (Camp Mennoscah represent!)
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18.
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels. (Maybe once or twice. For us it was usually a tent or a borrowed tent camper.)
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18. (umm does hand-made from new fabric count???)
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child.
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.
25. You had your own room as a child. (Sometimes, but not always.)
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course.
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school.
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16. (It's not like we could drive back to the states from Africa...)
31. Went on a cruise with your family.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up. (Museums yes...I think EVERY family vacation had that historical/teaching moment. This is what happens when both parents are teachers.)
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family. ( I might not have known the exact amount, but I did know that curling up next to the wood stove was good, but sprawling on the floor in front of the electric/gas heater in the living room was wasteful.)

So does this mean I grew up 44% privileged? Ever since I became aware of the concept of money and stability, I have resided in the spectrum of financial struggle. My parents were always struggling, but we were also incredibly fortunate during my childhood. We lived in the country on a plot of land that provided us with the majority of our food during the summer months, and my parents were incredibly resourceful. My parents made by hand many of the things I now head to the store for - blankets, toys, clothing, home and car repairs, furniture, etc. Very little of our food actually came from a grocery store - my parents gardened, raised chickens and even cows, our milk and eggs came insanely cheap from the dairy next door, peanut butter, flour, oatmeal came at a discount from a food co-op my parents were working members of....and the list goes on.

On the flip side, I was very supported in my academic studies. I was not only encouraged, but expected to go to college, and my parents made it possible for me to go to a good college. Later I was able to also attend graduate school (never mind the fact that I'll be paying it off for the rest of my life.) I have also never been homeless, have only been unwillingly unemployed for about two months total, and I've never had to ask a charity organization for financial or food assistance. (On the other hand, we have been given food and financial help from two different churches in the last few years because we were known to be struggling financially.) Even though it often seems like we're never going to feel financially ahead, I do feel privileged in the sense that I do know where my next meal is coming from, I do have a very nice place to sleep each night, and I do have a very strong community of support surrounding us. I think this in and of itself is the biggest privilege of all...

My Daemon

I just finished reading the Golden Compass. I think Daemons are a kick-ass idea. Best part of Philip Pullman's Book I of His Dark Materials trilogy. At first I was bummed with Valthera, because she is a monkey of sorts, Gibbon to be exact. For those of you who've read The Golden Compass, you know that one of the "villains" has a monkey as a daemon. But in actuality I love the primate family, and a Gibbon is perfect.

Steph's Interview

Thanks Steph, for the interview questions! Very well done - they gave me a lot to think about.

1. What are the best and worst things about living in your relatively new home of Orlando, Florida?

Let me begin the answer to this question by stating that there were two places that I thought I’d never live. The first was California, and the second was Florida. It wasn’t something I dwelt on, or something I would have necessarily verbalized, but as a mid-westerner, California and Florida were too different. One is the west coast, the other way south, neither have seasons, and both can grow tropical fruit. I ventured to California because of school and after 4 years of dark, cold and brutal Minnesota winters, I was glad for the milder climate. Meeting the love of my life (awe shucks) changed my perspective, and knowing that Talia has a better chance of being healthy in a climate like Florida (not to mention that it offered her a great job) makes being here worth it. Orlando is somewhat of a disappointment after Minneapolis, and then Berkeley. It’s conservative, but in a different way than the mid-west. It’s transient, not deeply-rooted. Much of the population was not born here (although most of the lower-income folk I work with as a case worker were born and raised in Orlando). It’s a youngish city – in that not that many years ago it was orange groves. It has Disney, it’s tourist-ville, it’s still 1-2 hours away from the beach going either east or west.

So, I would say….Best – by far the weather. It gets hot, yes, but I can do hot easier than cold. When it rains, it pours, and then it’s done raining unlike Berkeley when it can drizzle consistently for days on end. Worst – we haven’t found our community yet. The church is great, but it’s also Talia’s work. We haven’t been able to find a group of friends our age that we click with. It’s been a struggle.

2. Insofar as it's not too personal, what kind of spiritual practices do you do?

In Minnesota I did martial arts. Here, I can’t afford the $90/month fee it would cost to continue that practice. Unlike some other physical practices, you can’t do martial arts solo…In seminary I had a community that did dance as a spiritual practice. I loved this as well – I do spirituality best with physical action. Also, during seminary I did writing as a spiritual practice. That became too expensive as well because my best writing came out of being part of a group (which you paid to be a part of), and I have a really hard time willing myself in the …space…for lack of a better word, that I need to be in, in order to create. I tried pottery for a few months, but it was a bit too stressful for me to be considered spiritual.

These days I lack in the spiritual department. It’s a catch 22 – I get too overwhelmed/depressed to form a spiritual practice. I am overwhelmed/depressed in part because I do not have a regular spiritual practice. I have been going to church regularly. Mainly because Talia is a minister, but also because I enjoy the church. I enjoy the music, I enjoy the sermons, I enjoy the people for the most part. I don’t know if I would consider church a spiritual practice though.

I also enjoy rote tasks – soon after moving here I stripped and refinished a dresser and a vanity. It was incredibly rewarding – physically, aesthetically and spirituality. I enjoy wood-working. I make art out of wood periodically as well.

3. You have the funding to create the retreat center of your dreams. What do you do?

Yay! First I would quit my jobs. Then Talia and I would design a space, with the input of the people who would benefit from it. My vision would be that it would be accessible – in terms of location, and in terms of cost. The population would be focused on youth, (but not exclusively) the goal would be creativity. There would be visual arts, dance, theater, digital art, pottery, wood, stone, etc. art, creative writing, music, whatever. It would be a place where expressing oneself uniquely would be ok. It would have a spiritual basis, it would be a place of self-empowerment. I am all about self-empowerment through creativity. It would always be in process.

4. What's your relationship to gender pronouns?

Gender pronouns make me on edge. I hear them. How do I explain it? Go back to when you were in Jr. High and think of an unrequited crush you had. Think of how you honed into any conversation happening anywhere in the room when that person’s name was mentioned. That’s how I am with gender pronouns. I somehow don’t have the capacity to let them go. They are confrontational, annoying and unevolved. I wrote a brilliant paper I never had the guts to try and publish, calling the feminist movement into account for not allowing gender to evolve by keeping it in a binary system. Our society doesn’t allow for a binary anything any more. It’s clear on so many levels. Why should gender be exempt?

5. Again, insofar as it's not too personal, do you have any new perspectives on testosterone to share since you started having more of it?

I am not sure, yet, how to answer this. Instead of holding off until I can come up with a good answer, I am posting this now a week after initially writing it...

Gade is Weird

Tagged by Suze:

Before beginning (again) I want to rant about my work computer which freezes every single day. And freezes to the point that you have to manually reset it, because even hitting ctl-alt-delete or the off button is not an option. Anyway, today it chose to freeze on me after I had surprised myself with my wit answering 1-3, but before I had saved it....bollocks.

Six Weird Things About Me:

1. I have a mortal fear of being stopped in a car on railroad tracks. Unfortunately, crossing multiple railroad tracks is a necessity between our house and my work, our house and Talia's work, my work and Talia's work, and going just about anywhere else. Last week as I was approaching the intersection (which, even though it falls a good 1/4 mile from the railroad tracks usually has cars backed up to, and beyond the tracks), I did my normal check to see if the light was green, and if I could make it across the tracks without having to stop on them. Confident that the cars were moving, I proceeded to drive over the tracks, but just as I was smack in the center of the tracks, the traffic movement stopped. I was caught there for at least 30 looong seconds, but had mapped out an escape route within 2 seconds in the event that a train would come barreling down the tracks toward me. That 30 seconds on the tracks was not a good way to start my day...

2. Every time I go to Kansas to visit, I get an insatiable urge to be naked in the fields surrounding my parent's house. I think it is directly linked to my Bethel years when it was not uncommon to find naked people on the soccer field by night. I remember quite vividly doing naked Sun Salutations, and Steph (and perhaps Suze) I do believe your husband was a part, if not the genius instigator, of this. Let me just say that lack of clothing while laying face down in course grass does not lead to future pleasantness. But I must say, that there is nothing quite like the Kansas wind blowing across your naked skin added to the thrill of being able to see the Kansas countryside in all directions. (The con to this is that you, too, can be seen from miles away in all directions...not that there ever is anyone within miles to see you out in Goessel, Ks...)

3. Onions of all types make me high, and not a good kind of high. Cooked, raw, whatever, eating onions gives me a feeling not unlike the nasty medicine-head you get from over-the-counter cold medicine. First, my head feels disconnected from my body. Next, I get dry-mouth and can't get enough water, then I get uncontrollably sleepy. No matter where I am, I'll fall into a dead sleep that lasts a minute or two if I'm in class or at work, or can last up to a 1/2 hour if I'm at home. Nothing, not even copious amounts of caffeine can stave off onion sleep.

4. When I get really anxious about things in my life it directly translates into my dreaming. I know that this also happens to a large part of the population, but I tend to have two different types of dreams. The most common is being in a bathroom, but being unable to pee. As a sufferer of pee-shyness this causes me great anxiety both in the states of awakeness and sleep. This dream can travel from bathroom to bathroom during the night, or can loop around in the same bathroom. The second type of dream oscillates between forgetting my uniform or shoes for a HS basketball game, or forgetting to go to class/forgetting to do class-work, also in HS. Small-town HS does haunt you...maybe that's why Kansas makes me want to rip off my clothes.

5. My primary way of getting around in Berkeley (besides walking) was on a Razor Scooter. I got a silver and green one when my red one broke in half while I was on it. Not the safest choice when everything is steeply down-hill, but damn it was fast. I could make it to the BART in 5 min flat, when it took a good 15-20 min walking. That was if all went well and I didn't wipe out. One memorable morning I got going down Arch St (which is very steep), and I suddenly realized that it had rained the night before making the street slick, and my brake inoperable. I had to make a split-second choice of barreling through the morning traffic at the Hearst St./Arch St/LaConte St intersection (Hearst is a very busy street running along UC Berkeley), or throw myself off the scooter in hopes that I could save my lap-top I was carrying in my backpack. I threw myself off to the side and ended up with two huge holes in my new jeans, not to mention what I did to my knees and hands. My lap-top did come out unscathed, as did my scooter...You should have seen what happened to me the first time I took my skateboard down Arch...ouch. Somehow all the training you get around how to fall doesn't apply when on a scooter is involved.

6. Not many people can claim to legally be both male and female.

Tagged

Tagged by Steph:

1. Find the nearest book.
2. Name the book & the author.
3. Turn to page 123.
4. Go to the fifth sentence on the page. Copy out the next three sentences and post to your blog.
5. Tag three more folks.

Book: The Source of Magic by Piers Anthony. This is the second novel in his Xanth series that I dug out of the donation box at work. I'm not sold on him...the first one was OK, this one is still keeping my attention even though it is annoyingly sexist. I was just reading it.

Sentences: "No, no!" Trolla cried dispairingly behind them. "It is death you seek! Are you civilized males or are you mindless things?"

As for #5, I'm only able to tag one person, Suze because all the other bloggers I know have already done this.

Well, now I guess I'll have to keep reading this book to find out if they really are mindless males...

Are We The Waiting - Thoughts on Advent

O come, O come, Immanuel, And ransom captive Israel That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear. Refrain: Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel! O come, Thou Wisdom from on high, And order all things, far and nigh; To us the path of knowledge show, And cause us in her ways to go. Refrain: Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel! O come, Desire of nations, bind All peoples in one heart and mind; Bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease; Fill the whole world with heaven's peace. Refrain: Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel! The church I attend sang a verse from this song each advent Sunday after the candle was lit. It is one of my favorite songs of this time of the year because of the power of the words to speak to the political climate even today: It gives us hope - longing and crying out for freedom, and wisdom, and peace.

So I started writing this soon after the first Sunday in Advent, and now Christmas has come and gone. I wanted to write about the beauty I am finding in Advent this year. The beauty of words written thousands of years ago that still have so much power today: Isaiah 2:4 God shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Isaiah 11: 1-9 A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

It is times like this, that even a small part of the bible, the Hebrew scriptures, can point to why I still attend church, why I spent three years studying this stuff. I can even move around the He language and the few verses of violence, when coming to the overall message of a time here and now when God's kin-dom will come on earth - a time of peace and justice. We can wait actively in hope holding on to those moments of possibility; the times when we do experience the power of justice, of friendship, of unity, of love, of light shining through the darkness. I find a special power in these passages of Isaiah that I included above because I was part of PSR's community dancers last year during advent and we moved to these verses during a chapel service. I think using movement to express the words of scripture is incredibly powerful - it moves the words to a cellular level - you embody the message. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain...and a child shall lead them....neither shall they learn war no more...

I wish all of you could see, and feel, the movements to these passages. I am at loss for words to explain how deeply I was moved during advent this year. This was a new experience for me: this want to be a part of a church community pausing and waiting for the coming of justice and peace embodied in our Christian symbol: the child Jesus.

And the newer, punk version of O Come Emmanuel:
Starry nights city lights coming down over me Skyscrapers and stargazers in my head Are we we are, are we we are the waiting unknown This dirty town was burning down in my dreams Lost and found city bound in my dreams And screaming Are we we are, are we we are the waiting And screaming Are we we are, are we we are the waiting Forget me nots and second thoughts live in isolation Heads or tails and fairytales in my mind Are we we are, are we we are the waiting unknown The rage and love, the story of my life The Jesus of suburbia is a lie And screaming Are we we are, are we we are the waiting And screaming Are we we are, are we we are the waiting unknown Are we we are, are we we are the waiting And screaming Are we we are, are we we are the waiting unknown Are we we are, are we we are the waiting unknown - GreenDay.