Yom Kippur a Go-Go

Matthue Roth is an old friend of mine. We used to room together in the Mission and became pretty close. He wrote a great book called "Yom Kippur a Go-Go", and there are some fun references to our friendship in there and some characters that resemble me (and K). It was strange and nifty to read. He recently emailed me and it's crazy how friends can grow apart. I remember the last time I saw him, T and I were hanging out in the park with Shady and there was some crazy guy taking a cat-nap in the sun. It was months, maybe years after we had last seen eachother and we all used to hang out so much before Matthue had gone wandering around the universe and falling in love and me off into hippy communes and T off into skanky tranny rocker homesteading.

Speaking of strange e-encounters with long-lost pals, I recently heard from V., too, although it's weird to abbreviate her name as it is sans only one letter and no phonemes. I don't even remember the last time I saw her. I wonder what people in Tucson are like. There's an infoshop there and an MCC...

Tucson

98% sure we're moving to Tucson in July. Going to check it out in April to see about jobs and where we might like to live and stuff like that. Why Arizona? 4 of my 7 siblings have moved there, mostly to Phoenix. I miss my family and Airzona is warm. Phoenix is not really our "pace", so we're going to check out Tucson. Don't know a whole lot about it, though.

Off to emergency we go.

I wake at 3:30 AM to my alarm wailing, but when I hit it, it doesn't go off. 'Pato! It's not the alarm. It's Zapato. I groggily grab my glasses and try to coax my touch-lamp into turning on. "Zapato! It's alright, baby! It's alright!" I had only slept an hour and couldn't figure out what was going on or where he was.

Downstairs, he was wailing and throwing himself against the wall. "It's okay, Kitty!" I'm scared. He looks like Old Yeller. Does he have rabies? Can I touch him? "It's okay, baby!" I pet him and he relaxes into labored purrs and dozes a little.

I fall asleep there on the stairs, but am woken again with him howling and throwing himself against the other door. He wants outside for some reason. "It's okay! 'Pato, it's okay!" He tries to walk, but falls over. Tries to walk, but falls over. Tries to stand... He's wimpering. I cry.

I don't know where to take him; in my tears and grogginess and fear, I can't make sense of the phone book. I call my friend and he figures it out for me thank god. Off to emergency we go.

We've been in and out of doctor's offices today. He's hooked up to an IV and staying over the night. I'm worried sick. They think he might have an inner ear infection and have to do X-Rays and a culture in the morning. It could be something worse, but I'm hoping for the best. His symptoms are identical to last year and the doctors came to the same conclusions. The specialist has new ideas, though.

I miss my vet. We couldn't go to her.. too far away, and he needed a specialist. I felt so alone in that humongous, cold, busy veteranary's office. He must feel so alone tonight. I'm hoping for the best. I shouldn't have waited to take him to the vet.

Turkish sheep die in 'mass jump'

((...Group mentality is really interesting to me....))

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4665511.stm

Turkish shepherds watched in horror as hundreds of their sheep followed each other over a cliff, say Turkish newspaper reports.

First one sheep went over the cliff edge, only to be followed by the whole flock, according to the reports.

More than 400 sheep died in the 15-metre fall - their bodies cushioning the fall of 1,100 others who followed.

The sheep belonged to villagers in the eastern Van province. Papers say the sheep were worth around ?42,000 in all.

"Every family had an average of 20 sheep," one villager told the Aksam daily newspaper.

"But now only a few families have sheep left. It's going to be hard for us."

School Supervisors are like the Bishop

Today, the principal of my school told me of a clause in some fancy-schmancy education law book that basically allows a school district supervisor to fire or relocate on whim. He can make decisions based on "the smell of your breath, your body piercings, the fact that you're about to retire, or your sexuality" and fall within law.

I don't know why I thought of the Pope when my principal explained that to me. I went into teaching because I feel pain for the experiences all children suffer in their homes, communities and schools. It is self-serving. I feel I can offer something, maybe something to protect or soothe my own "inner child". There is nothing I can do within the public school system to change its purpose and operation, or the lives of the children I serve, other than to make the doling out of their daily capitalism-prep a little smoother on the soul. (If that’s possible.) I knew this when entering, but I did it anyhow.

Offering myself to alternatives to the public education system really only boils down to offering myself to white middle-class students whose families have the opportunities (and often cultural values, and sometimes awareness, especially where language is concerned) to partake in those alternatives. I think alternatives to the public school system serve the values of white middle-class students much as the public school system does, just somehow less covertly. Or in blanketed terms.

Teachers are sometimes radical people, in their thoughts, it seems. My teachers talk about things I would expect to hear "on the streets" or with my fellow anarchists. I asked why teachers don't strike, don't walk off the job, or whatnot. Another teacher explained that teachers are mostly women, mostly disempowered. That the assumption is that teachers are part of families or units where there is a second, higher income provided by their husbands.

Were there a "revolution" or something like it, Teachers would be more concerned with the "well being" of their students in the moment than how the opportunity might effect them next month or in five years. This translates to "being there" for their students, because really, what would the parents do if we weren't there to babysit their children? There is concern of pissing off the parents. But aren't parents already pissed off? If Teachers walk out on work, it would only mean that parents would have to walk off the job, too.

With the incorporating of women into the work force, a family now requires two adult incomes to survive. Where a company used to employ a single adult at an income that would serve his family, now both a man AND a woman must be employed. I would guesstimate that men make 85% of what they might have before the incorporation of women into the work force, and that women make about 50% of what a man might have made (figuring for inflation) before women became part of the work force. So you get two adult workers for just a few bucks more than what once was dished out for one.

This is why there are teachers. I mean, there are many reasons why there are teachers. But this is the foundation. When you have one teacher babysitting 25 children, that equals 50 adult workers freed to work in the industry. When parents and teachers fight for class size reduction, corporations will end up having to dish out that much more money for babysitters - and it starts to look like an icky deal. But say you can get that classroom size up to 30 students, as some of ours are, you've increased the adult workforce permitted for one babysitter by 5%.

I'm getting paid about a dollar per hour per kid to babysit. Or, if you take into consideration average family size, a corporation is doling out roughly $3 per day per adult member of its workforce for each employee they receive services from due to a teacher babysitting their children. Of course, this takes into no consideration corporate welfare, so who knows exactly how many pennies they’re paying me to free up their adult workforce.

Sex.

This time of year sex is in the air. I mean, not just sex. But the buzz. You know what I mean.

I think queers rely on romance, sex, and intimacy in a way that's a little different than in the straight community. It isn't as typical for us to fold into a family, or kids, or to visit sisters and brothers. Our friends ARE our sisters and brothers, most of us have had to migrate away from our families of origin. Our community at large doesn't do the "marriage and kids" thing with the same urgency or in the same ways that straights do. We have eachother - our romances and friendships.

Friendship and sex are important to queers and this time of year I can really feel it. It starts with spring. It's like gaydar. We have "springdar". The event calendars start filling up, more people leave their apartments more frequently. But it culminates and explodes in June. No matter where we stand on the whole "pride" thing, June is a crazy and exciting month for us. It's OUR month, with a million events to bring us together and the shared knowledge that our "family" will be out there to meet us. And it's sunny, who can beat that.

I am sometimes sappy but I just painted my toenails, so you know it's a lust-thing, too.

Called Dad for Father's Day

I love my Dad. He's quirky. I don't look a thing like him, which makes me wonder sometimes (sorry Mom - it's true, you have to admit), but I'm a complete "chip off the ol' block". I'm the short, squat, booby-totin' version of my father.

He's biking fifty miles to my brother's today for family dinner. Our family in Ohio has family dinner once a month. They rotate between homes. My family is huge - a lot of them are in town for my brother's Dog Party (great dane lovers in my family), and the Golf Tournament to benefit the mother of one of my brother's murdered friends. At the family dinner today, they'll celebrate my nephew's and brother's birthday, the dog party, father's day, and my other nephew's graduation from high school. That's how things are in my family. Always something to celebrate.

Dad tells me he went to Sister 'Stelle's 75th Jubillee. She's been a nun for 75 years, since she was 15. She used to bring us sugared fruit candies when we were little, and taught us how to crochet. I still remember the stitches. A lot of the old 'skis were there, doing their 'ski thing. Pouting, and grumping, and snitching things. My grandma snitched the silverware, my great uncle took the center pieces. That side of my family is extremely musical - lots of professional musicians and music teachers. They're also really moody, tend to be drunks, and don't mind hitting their kids. I haven't seen Sister 'Stelle in a long time.