Professional crisis of faith, in pictures.

I teach. Or at least, I have until recently, believed myself to be a teacher. Implied in this is the idea that I am also a student, dynamic conditions both.

Lately, what I have been learning has all but made me want to leave the building. Not quite like Elvis.

But kind of.

When I embarked upon my career I hoped to be like this:

Or even like this:

When I actually started working… way back in 1995… I actually thought I might be like this:

Not kidding.

Lately I have realized that I am really turning out to be more like this:
“‘C’, ‘D’, ‘F’. ‘F’. ‘F’. For three weeks we have been talking about the Platt Amendment. It was passed in nineteen-hundred and six.”

Although, it seems a lot of people really see me like this:

And I am really afraid I am heading toward this:
“The kids haven’t changed, Dick. You did.”

And frankly… I am just a little over it all because of this:

And this:

Everyone keeps telling me I just need a vacation – which I am fortunate to get. But It is not just that I need a break (I do.)

It is something much bigger than that.

Much.

Bigger.

This one time in Brooklyn.

One of the more interesting (and accidental) adventures R and I had while in the Big Apple was our day trip to Brooklyn. It started off innocently enough. We took the subway over to Brooklyn Heights and popped into Clark’s Restaurant for breakfast (it was dinerly divine – as was the Deluxe Lunchette on Broadway while we are on the subject…) Brooklyn Heights reminded me a lot of Noe Valley. I realize I have already openly admitted that this kind of comparative evaluating is of little value, but I can’t help myself. Anyhow, the area was cute and neighborhoody and it had nice shops. And it was freezing cold. But we persevered, and by that I mean we shopped. But only to get out of the cold.

We wandered around cute little streets and saw no famous people. Where was Anne Hathaway? Michelle Williams? No bother. We saw some other famous faces – if from afar.

And it was pretty, I could see why people would like this view, though we both contemplated how traumatic it would have been back in September of 2001. And the skyline is so very notably different from this vantage point. In an effort to get a “sense” of Brooklyn we decided to walk it out. Plus we were enjoying the idea of walking for miles, especially when not hitting up Equinox on the daily. So we started to walk, the general route being along the waterfront near the Brooklyn Bridge Park, then through Dumbo (is this is really a place? Yes this is really a place and the Heartwalk is there now) and then we were heading to the apparent place du jour – Williamsburg. Supposedly this place is really the shit in terms of shopping, food and general coolness, so checking it out seemed only right. The thing is, if you check out a map, while the walk itself was not too long, per se, it was a curious visual situation. We were basically following the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, a route certainly not intended to be entirely pedestrian. We saw some pretty bridges, and Dumbo was interesting, and we basically circumscribed the old Brooklyn Navy Yard, not part industrial park and part ruins – though, the crumbling edifices have potential… Expensive potential, but solid aesthetic foundations.

We basically took Flushing Avenue around until we hit Lee Avenue to take us north towards the more “Williamsburg-y” part of Williamsburg.

So, yeah.

Now, I have to preface this next part of the narrative by saying that I am very close with many Jewish people, some (especially in the Bay Area who I consider kind of conservative. I am in no way an anti-Semite, although I realize making this declaration will lead people to immediately assume that I am. I also have to admit that I am and have always been fascinated by closed off, exclusive communities, whether religious like the FLDS, the Amish, the Mennonites, or cultural ike the Romani, or even more extremist groups like the Branch Davidians, the Manson Family, the KKK, and others of similarly unfamiliar ilks. I am really curious about what kinds of belief structures can be in place that allow people to remove themselves so dramatically from what seems like a pervasive modern (and Western) cultural patina. Or I am shocked that there are groups who don’t want me to join. [I subscribe to the Zora Neale Hurston attitude more than the Groucho Marx persepctive.]

Considering all of the aforementioned facts, there are few words to describe how I made my way down Lee Avenue as we were trekking towards what I thought was going to be something altogether different. Perhaps agog. Or agape. Both. I simply could not wrap my head around what I was seeing, and I consider my self a person who has seen a lot of shit. I have never seen this kind of thing. We were smack in the middle of one of the most significant Satmar communities in America.

We were not dressed inappropriately or anything, but we were clearly foreign, and there was that weirdness, like walking in on a party that you were not exactly invited to and you are dressed way different from everyone else. You know, like this.

Anyhow, here we were.

The most obvious element was the clothing, obviously, and the hair, which I unfortunately called side locks, which lead to a short-lived moment of awkward synthesis a la Merchant of Venice. Barely worthy of Shakespearean comedy, but you know. [They are actually called payot - peyot? and are apparently a result of a line in the Torah which says "Do not cut off the hair on the sides of your head..." Vayikra 19:27.] And everyone was in a tremendous hurry, especially the men. Eye contact did not happen, cell phones were omnipresent.

But upon closer examination, other things started to stand out. It was not coincidence that all the women had the same hairstyle – they were wearing wigs. And they did not look healthy. At all. I am aware that not everyone tans, and that to be pale, especially among Central Euros as these people are descended from, could be totally normal. But these folks did not look normal. By and large they had hug dark circles under their eyes and a pallor that suggested perhaps anemia or maybe severe malnutrition.

For the duration of this part of our walk all of the signs were in Hebrew, or Yiddish and we heard very little spoken English, though conversations would weave in and out of the two languages. I was absolutely fascinated to see this community right here, juxtaposed with the rest of Brooklyn, or NYC. It was like walking through a David Lynch film. Totally surreal.

Of course, this made the rest of Williamsburg completely uninteresting to me. As soon as we got to a place to sit down (after checking out a small selection of shops – kind of disappointing really, though I should have bought that one pari of shoes at Pema that I passed on… I never do that) I promptly got on my iPhone to read about the people who we had just been witness to. We chose Spike Hill (not bad, nice bartender, and really, beer and french fries? Done and done.) I am pretty sure I just kept saying I could not believe how strange the whole experience had been walking through the Hasidic community.

Unable to shake my curiosity about this whole experience, I just kept trying to figure out what it was that seemed so odd. Clearly the nature of fundamentalists is unfamiliar and really rather incomprehensible to me. I do not understand such a strong adherence – compulsion – to interpreting life though religious texts for one, and then of course there is the standard misogynist structures that seem to accompany most of these groups which definitely does not sit well with me. [You are NOT the boss of me, has been a life long mantra struggle for me.] The strangeness and the weird vibe (not to mention Ruth caught a man, side locks and all, perving on us from his car) were just too much for me to let go.

So I did what I do… I started to read about these folks.

I knew about the “unique” banking habits and beliefs – that they basically do not use regular banks and tend to travel with large amounts of cash and diamonds, which is hard to find fault with really. But that was sort of it, and I have to admit a lot of my info re: these habits had been gleaned from Guy Ritchie’s work, which seems a bit limited in terms of fact checking.

The population in this part of Brooklyn are Satmar Hasids. Their roots are primarily Hungarian and Romanian, and they are descendants of Holocaust survivors. There is somewhere around 130,000 people who identify as Satmar, and though the number is probably inaccurate because the community is so closed off, it is widely acknowledged that the population is rapidly increasing because of the very high birth rate (Satmar girls are intended for marriage in their teens and meant to start having children right away – aiming for six to eight according to many sources.)

As with most fundamental religious movements, there is much emphasis on total commitment as demonstrated through segregation, dress, and lifestyle. Interestingly, I had always thought the most orthodox of the Jewish community to be hyper-Zionist as well, but the Satmar community is rabidly anti-zionist. Still, they hold deeply to the religious symbolism in their dress, down to their hair styling, and of course… the ritual of Jewish circumcision.

And this is where I fell off the rails. I can get behind a belief that promotes and even requires modesty. spend one day at a public high school in the spring and you will see what I mean. In the same way that I understand that leanings toward the hijab (less, so the full burqa, but I do get the underlying belief) it makes sense that conservative practitioners of any faith would endorse modesty – I mean, it was not that long ago that Western men and women were not meant to be seen with their heads uncovered in public either. Further, I understand that clothing can take on a lot of specific and important meaning for the wearer. Just because I happen to subscribe to a more personal faith, based on really nice shoes does not prohibit me from understanding that there is significance behind a rope worn at the waist, specific colors (especially black), and while I think this is a bit more than I would choose to deal with, it is, as they say, a free country, right? [Freedom is slightly limited in Williamsburg where the Hasidic community has a "Modesty Patrol"...]

Let me return to the specific element of this story that threw me sideways. It is a free country. This is a country based on the principle that the freedom of religion shall not be abridged or restricted. Soooo… communities like the Mormons fundamentalists and the Branch Davidians, and the Satmar Hasids are given the freedom to exist. But what about when they break basic laws on the basis of religious practice? Then what? What is happening in New York (and it appears in several Hasidic communities) is that there is an emerging public health crisis surrounding their practice of circumcision and the spread of herpes simplex 1. This is not some standard kind of bris where a ceremonial cutting occurs. It is the practice of metzitzah b’peh: a religious practice that dates back to more than 5,000 where a direct-oral-contact technique to draw blood from the penis of an 8-day old infant at his bris milah perform the oral suction on an open wound.

As if I would make this up.

So in a nutshell (ummm… no pun intended?) what is happening is the practice can infect newborns with herpes simplex virus type 1, according to medical authorities. While not serious for adults, the virus can be fatal for infants, or cause permanent cognitive or physical harm.

And now it gets all cloudy. Who is withholding the information? Should this be something that practitioners of the faith should have the choice to do even if there is serious risk to the child because no one is talking about which rabbi’s are spreading the disease because, well, no one is talking. One of the first people to speak out about this was a well-known rabbi who claims the problem is far worse than people think, and he said his daughter explained that the hospitals do not report these cases because Hasidic clients would not return if they were made public. The current result is a growing risk (non-disclosure and rising birth rates only exacerbate problem) and the age-old conundrum of what to do with the grey area of religious freedom.

Frankly, the whole thing made me so uncomfortable I could barely keep reading the above news story that (re)broke the day after I left NYC. But I couldn’t stop either. And in spite of my best efforts to understand the unique interpretations of religion and whatever… I cannot get on board with male-to-infant oral-genital contact in any way. My comprehension stops about a million miles before that. If I am going to fight for religious freedom above the law it is going to be along very different lines.

How the Grammercy Tavern redeemed NYC: Springtime in New York City, pt. 2.

I have been thinking a lot about my New York minutes since I have returned home to the place that I call The City, with no other descriptors required. Part of this is because visiting NYC has made me see SF in a different (even more flattering, truth be told) light and also because my hostess, R, will be heading west to do her own comparison in less than a week. I keep looking for a nicer way to say that i think NYC is completely overrated, because that seems so generic and uninspired as criticism goes. But on the other hand, I doubt any New Yorker would give two shits about how their criticisms appear to anyone else, so, so be it.

If I were to attempt to synthesize my NYC experiences, I would have categories like food, interpersonal interactions, reflections… rather standard travel blog stuff. In a week I did do a lot, and ate a lot. And the whole time I was there I felt like I was looking. Looking for something, someone… I am not sure. Lots of folks had told me how I would see a lot of similarities to The City while I was in NYC. I did not. Brooklyn is so NOT like the Mission. I had been told that Williamsburg is so hip-hip-hipster. I just though it was odd. (More on that to come…) Frankly, I thought the East Village was more like the Mish than anywhere else I visited, and it was like my neighborhood in the way that makes me want to go to another neighborhood. Brooklyn Heights was nice – very Noe Valley. But cold. The parts of NYC that I like the best were the ones that seemed unlike any other place – quintessentially “New York” as people might say. And I suppose that is the point of going to New York City. I mean, the human habit of comparison, while helpful for building context certainly seems to do very little to enhance experience.

I loved the Upper East Side. Why? Mostly because the people I interacted with there were the nicest ones I ran into anywhere. But on telling New Yorkers this they seemed shocked so I guess I just got lucky. I thought Columbia was beautiful and it is totally unsurprising that I would find the academic acropolis inspiring and comfortable. I found Central Park to be depressing, but that could be seasonal – I know no other completely deciduous park and so things were very sparse and brown. The daffodils were coming up though and I related to their longing for nicer weather on a visceral level. I loved the mythology of New York that I could conjure up in my mind… but then things would happen that would bring me right back down to reality, and I would find myself saying, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Fortunately I was staying with a Brit, and like New Yorkers, the British have no problem being clear about how things should be done: all things, all the time. Unlike New Yorkers, the Brits can be rude in such a posh way, people seem to not realize what is happening until it is all over and there is nothing to be done about it. THat definitely helped in dealing with some outrageously hideous service in a city that is supposed to be so… I don’t know, serviceable I guess. Or maybe it is not. I am not sure. Either way, the examples that come to mind are R’s battle over the misto and the ridiculousness at Buvette. I will start with the story of the coffee, as is leads into nicely to trying to have a coffee at the aforementioned restaurant.

R likes her coffee strong. And ridiculously hot. As such, she feels that regular coffee (drip or french press I assume) is too weak, and so her chosen drink is an Americano. [Do not get her started on the notion of iced coffee, because she cannot even begin to conceive of why such a thing would ever exist. Of course she thinks the same of iced tea, "That is just cold tea. Why would anyone want cold tea?"] However, R does require a milk infusion in her Americano but, as previously mentioned, she likes her drinks to be scalding hot, so using cold milk in her Americano is not okay. Therefore, R orders her coffee as follows: “Could I please have an Americano with steamed milk?” This seems simple.

It is not.

“So you want a misto?”
“I want an Americano with steamed milk.”
“A misto.”
“Fine, a misto.”
“That is $4.00.”
“What?!”
“Four. Dollars.”
“An Americano is $2.50.”
“But you want a misto.”
“No. I want an Americano with steamed milk.”
“That is a misto“
“That is a made up word.”
“No, it is an Americano with steamed milk.”
“Where does it say this on the menu?”
“It doesn’t.”

You see how this will go. On principle, R is annoyed to be paying extra simply because she does not want cold milk in her coffee. And on principle the baristas are confused by this because apparently it is cool to pay more for coffee. R finally did get someone to admit that misto was a made up word. And in another instance she got an explanation that it was the amount of steamed milk that changed the name and therefor the price of the drink. Also, it turns out if you just tell people you want hot milk, this does not cost extra. Though there was much concern among the barista population surrounding the burning of said milk. I think we had coffee at maybe five different places in an effort to expose the fraud of the misto. We did find a place that steamed the milk and did not charge extra, nor did they ask a lot of strangely redundant clarifying questions. [We did enjoy some $4.00 cookies... though R had also initially taken issue with the price of the cookies, until she ate one - and I must concur: epic and worth way more than $4.] All the while I just drank my regular old coffee with cold half and half – after I let it cool a bit.

I think we won in the end.

On our sojourn through the West Village, we took a timeout at Buvette. Make no mistake, this place is completely cute and had we not had big plans for dinner, we might have had a more substantial stopover here, but we both wanted coffee and this place seemed perfect. In hindsight, it may have been a bit too French. Anyhow, we came in and sat down at the counter, but then realized that there was a better seat in the window. So we moved so that we were both sort of facing the front window, though, not sitting directly adjacent to each other. The waiter, who was clearly French, and looked exactly like this, walked over and got a really pained look on his face.

“Oh you are sitting there?”
“Yes, is that okay?”
“It is just so complicated.”
“This is a seat, right”
“Yes, but,”
“So we can sit here right?”

At which point the waiter who is decidedly not Christopher Abbott, let out an audible sigh and walked away. Are you fucking kidding me? Wile he went over and pimped the most expensive wines to a table across from us another server took our order. A third server brought the coffee. And one of those final two brough the bill while the other collected it. French Not Charlie never came back. I guess it was just really too complicated. And don’t even get me started about the guy with the headband hat at the main bar.

We spent Easter Sunday in Harlem. There had been some discussion around attending a gospel church – for the music, but that ended up not panning out and on walking by the church wherein we saw many tourists coming and going from the church we felt glad to not be partaking. Unsure of where we might eat we considered this place, but there was a substantial wait and there was a decidedly theme park vibe with an entirely black staff in prohibition-era garb and an entirely white clientele. So we stepped outside to contemplate our options. While we stood there a young black man wearing headphones came bouncing up the sidewalk. He appeared to be rapping, like maybe along with whatever he was listening to. I looked at him while R continued checking out restaurant options in the area. The next thing I know, this young man is in front of us and I get the feeling that he is going to try to get us to take a flyer or a CD or something because he is approaching in that manner. But he never breaks stride with his diatribe – the initiation and context of which we had no idea – and the next thing I know he is fanning out a handful of twenty-dollar bills in his hands and getting in my face saying, “Yeah, I got my hundred dolla’ bills. You’re not used to seeing a black man who is not financially indisposed are you? Are you? Yeah, that’s what I thought, you ugly white bitch.” [Say it with me: Are you fucking kidding me?] As he moved on, I looked at R and we mentally recapped what had just happened, unsure if we had both simultaneously misconstrued the event. Nope. It happened. And, ugly? Brother, please. You do not know ugly.

Moving on, we decided to try Melba’s and it was an excellent choice in every way… except for the route we took to get there. In a nutshell, I would just say avoid 114th Street east of Frederick Douglass Street. You won’t be sad you did. We were seated at the bar, had excellent food, excellent service, and top shelf Bloody Mary’s – one round for free for an oversight on our order. It was good enough to put us in a dangerous food coma for much of the rest of the day. Somehow it seemed appropriate for a grey Easter Sunday in NYC and we did some churchin’ – we checked out the Cathedral of St. John: The Great Divine, disputably the largest cathedral and Anglican church, and fourth largest Christian church in the world. Plus we passed a beauty parlor/mortuary which seemed really apropos for anyone preparing for a resurrection.

We survived the day, the vodka, and the unending stream of R’s people who seem to have completely infiltrated and assimilated to NYC down to the iced coffee. [We ended up walking behind a pair who both reminded me of Colin Frissel, and surely came to America because they saw Love Actually, and were extolling the wonders of iced coffee from Dunkin' Donuts. "It is amazing, like the aftertaste is so much smoother." I feel fortunate that we were able to recover R's eyeballs from the great heights to which they rolled.]

We did go to Brooklyn, twice. Once was to check out Roberta’s on A’s advice (bearing in mind A is mildly obsessed with Girls and so, Brooklyn.) The thing about Roberta’s is that it is in a completely dodgy neighborhood (Bushwick is supposed to be up and coming. I’ll defer to “coming”) and after getting a great deal of press for the food as well as some haters and a naked waitress. We were also warned that even going at 8 pm on a Monday night, we could expect no less than an hour wait. For pizza. [Yes, you know it is coming: Are you fucking kidding me?] Everything about Roberta’s turned out to be true. The neighborhood is shite. The building is a hovel – though clearly intentionally so: “You realize we are essentially in a shack?” was R’s observation as we embarked upon our wait time. And the food was really, really good.

Our wait ended up being only 30 minutes, the service was great, the super-hipster servers were just all pretty happy to be there, or at least they could pretend to be happy way better than that tosser at Buvette. And if I did not say it already, the food was great. If you go, do not miss the olives or the brussels sprout salad.

               

               

And then we left Brooklyn. Which was a relief, because you know you’re out of place when after never EVER blending in Manhattan, I suddenly looked like I belonged in Manhattan.

Things were definitely looking better in my eyes, though granted, no New Yorker would ever give a crap about that.

The pièce de résistance though, save for seeing R and F.B. had to be the Gramercy Tavern. This was sort of a perfect day. We had gone to R’s new gym – the ever bougey Equinox, complete with Khiel’s products in the locker room – for spin class. This was new to me and seemed like a really NYC thing to do. And anyone who says yoga is cult-like, I will raise that claim with a spin class: Holy Rollers up in there. Then we met F.B. and saw his amazing new place. This reminded me that ALL city experiences are greatly enhanced by having shit loads of money. I had been generally feeling like the commensurate quality of life in NYC was way lower than in SF. Then I saw F.B.’s place and died. His doorman is called Igor and is for sure a Pre-Soviet Russian. It was lovely, and would inspire in me dreams of the possibilities for real estate, if I wanted real estate. We got to hang out all day and catch up and R and F.B. finally got to meet after having missed several opportunities in the UK and that was a stellar connection, which is always pleasing. We talked about the differences between the East Coast and the West Coast… and the only thing we could all agree on was that there were many. ["People in NY wear black because of fashion, in SF they wear black to match their moods." F.B. "People in NY think they are so important because everyone wants to move here: Are you fucking kidding me? And by the way, black is slimming." Me.]

And then for dinner, there was the Gramercy. We walked in and got the last table in the tavern, and things only got better form there. The food and service made us never want to leave. Even the couple – likely on a Match.com date who were practically mating two tables away, didn’t mess things up. I did not photograph the food, because, you know, look like you’ve been there and all that. But here is what I ate, along with a lovely cocktail and a bottle of wine:

Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Goat Cheese, Pecans and Pickled Onions
Celery Root Chowder, Clams, Mussels and Ham

Then was dessert. I let R choose. So the Chocolate Pudding, with Salted Caramel and Toffee Popcorn was a delicious surprise. However, not to be outdone by any Meg Ryan character, R wanted to try the Roasted Peanut Ice Cream. If you look at the menu you will see that her choice was not included in the Selection of Ice Creams (Vanilla Bean, Coffee and Butter Pecan). Nevermind. There was also conversation about the cheese plate. But upon hearing there was no appropriate fruit, R was aghast, the waiter improvised. He brought the pudding, the ice cream selection with roasted peanut added, AND the cheese plate (Chef’s Selection of Farmstead Cheeses: Kunik – goat and cow, Warrensburg, New York Landaff – raw cow, Landaff, New Hampshire Bayley Hazen – raw cow blue, Greensboro, Vermont).

It was ridiculously indulgent. So of course we had champagne as well. And never an eye was batted at a single request. It was the kind of night that could make a person fall in love with New York.

Of course, I mean only a person who did not live in San Francisco….

Teachers.

“They” say that everyone we meet in life is a teacher. This may have some degree of validity beyond the new age-y feel, but as a teacher, I sometimes, (like right now)prefer to actually acknowledge that there are real, actual specific Teachers in our lives that deserve to be recognized as such. To this end, I am thinking on my teachers today, and one in particular who many will have the chance to bid a formal farewell to this afternoon, though I will not be able to do this. I have experienced a range of emotions surrounding the reality that I cannot be there to participate somehow in this memorial, and I have come to the (necessary?) conclusion that it might not be that important because maybe I do not need to be physically there to acknowledge the tremendous impact that Gary Hausladen had on my life. Maybe I can just take a moment to be in my own little space with this knowing that privacy in no way diminishes the magnitude with which I would like to scream from the tops of the Sierra that I took the road to the UNR Department of Geography as a result of all of Gary’s subtle (and not really so subtle) encouragement, and that truly has made all the difference. He changed the game for me.

I met Gary through another one of my mentors who left us too soon, Kendyl Depaoli. Thinking back on the completely serendipitous occurrences that led to our meeting makes me smile. In short, it goes a little like this: I moved to Tahoe to be with a boy and had no job and one year of teaching experience under my belt. I had no real idea about applying for jobs and appropriate timelines and such and I saw an opening for a social studies teacher at Procter Hug High School in Reno. I got dressed and drove to the school. I had no appointment, and no real plan. I met Kendyl who was one of the VPs there. And I got a job. Over the next year, Kendyl guided me through the politics of the WCSD and gently shepherded me towards her goal – a geography curriculum in the WCSD. She sent me to a summer institute where I encountered the potential of geographic education, and the illustrious Dr. Hausladen.

And so it began.

A result of simply being in a particular place at a particular time – a geographic coincidence – made a formal geographer out of me.

I have lots and lots of stories about Gary. I am sure everybody does. They all make me smile, and that is not hyperbole. I really cannot recall a time – even when I thought I was crying, or dying – that Gary did not make me smile. He encouraged my tenacity when I needed it. He encouraged my confidence when it was flagging. He encouraged my debauchery at times mostly appropriate. He encouraged my curiosity always, and most significantly as I have come to appreciate, he encouraged me to see connections among ideas, and to acknowledge my intellect in a world where that is not always popular. I loved that Gary thought he was brilliant – he was – and that he thought that of me as well. Maybe I am, too. Time will tell.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Gary, along with his lovely wife Marilyn, and a spry young waiter named Neil. I took this photo on our summer institute trip to Alaska at one of our formal dinners. For whatever reason, Gary had taken such a shine to Neil – and had a way of pointing out Neil’s characteristics in a way that allowed for truly compassionate hysterics. Neil was, errr, quite the character. Completely over the top in every way, and how he ended up serving us aboard the Semester at Sea boat, I will never know. But I know that he had big dreams of a life off the boat, and I only know this because Gary got him talking. And talking and talking and talking. Eventually, and I have no way to say if this was a result of Gary’s encouragement, though I would hardly doubt it, Neil went AWOL from the ship. Literally tossed his bag over board at port and made a run for it. I still don’t know why this story makes me laugh so hard – but I reckon it has much to do with Gary’s suggested input and beautifully off-color commentary on the entire proceedings. I have no idea whatever became of Neil.

Another of my favorite Gary days was the day of my thesis defense. I was not excited about my defense and was positively put out that I had to actually put up flyers and promote this “public defense.” I was completely irked at the idea of strangers coming to see this production. No matter, Gary (and Paul as well, to give full credit all around) took particular joy in my discomfort surrounding this event. They may deny this, but I know it to be true. They were correct in their assertion that my thesis had a larger public appeal than most, but still. Really? Public? Whatever.

Anyhow, it was fine in the end, as I imagine they – the puppet masters, knew it would be. Following the defense, I went to lunch with Steve, someone I do hope will be in Reno this afternoon, and proceeded to start drinking margaritas. As the second pitcher came, my phone rang. It was Gary. I had to get to the Break Away right away. Yes, that is correct, the Break Away. But, we had just ordered drinks… what to do? In a moment of true Jedi brilliance, I asked the server if we could get the margaritas to go. To go? He said. How can I give you the margaritas to go? You could bring us big soup containers, I said. He looked at me and said, You are right, I could do that. And Steve and I drove to the Break Away with two liter containers of margaritas, complete with straws.

On arrival, Gary and Paul were at the bar with a man who claimed to have worked at Area 51 (my thesis topic) on several assignments. Get over here you have to meet this guy! He said. The guy did seem to know some stuff, but in hindsight, I think he might have been full of crap, he just seemed to be trying a bit too hard, challenging what I said, posturing a bit. No matter, Gary was so excited… Then, What is that? He asked about the giant styrofoam containers we were carrying. We got margaritas to go, I explained. You what? To go, I said. And suddenly Gary made me the star. As he so often did, just when I needed it.

There is so much that I could list in a random collection of my appreciations of Gary, but there is no need. I feel lucky that I get to have them at all. Today that is enough. It must be enough.

Gary was, as I said, a game changer for me, and those are few and far between in a single lifetime. He told me to write. He acknowledged my talents. He pushed me way, way out of my comfort zone. He offered all variety of support for what I did and what I do. He introduced me to “all the right people”. He showed me how everything – absolutely everything – is geographical, a challenge I offer my students every year, and they have yet to find something that is absent some element of geographic influence. He told me, repeatedly and with the appropriate amount of irony, that repetition is the heart of education. And he was right. He was a bright and shining personality, with all of the good bits and challenges that comes with such traits, and he lived. Boy, he knew how to live. I am grateful for the privilege of having been one of his students of geography, pedagogy, and life.

Tonight I’ll raise a glass to you, Dr. Hausladen. You rule.

It’s really just too complicated: Or, springtime in NYC.

I spent spring break in New York City this year. I had not been to the BIg Apple since 2004 and in terms of relative time, that was really another lifetime that barely seems like it was my own. That was before I really got in touch with my love of cities… at that point I sort of knew I loved cities but… being stuck in Reno one can’t really focus on what one loves, one must focus on more basic things like not killing yourself or random people around you. Why New York? Well, I have been dying to take a trip for more than a year, and it turned out that a dear friend of mine had Jedi mind tricked her employers (located in Madrid) to not only facilitate, but fund her wish to work from Manhattan for three months. [If you would like to schedule an appointment with her for some handy tips on how to make your employers do insanely rad things for you without having to sell your soul, just let me know, I will see what I can do.] Further, it seemed like it was one of possibly two times of year that I might be able to tolerate the climate. And I was going to get a chance to see Fun Bobby for this first time since I left Hong Kong, which frankly, has been an unacceptable situation. So, it seemed like kind of the right time to go. Plus, I was thinking it was gonna be all like this. I gotta be honest though, it started out a whole lot more like this though. And really when one is on vacation, ain’t nobody got time for that. New York is supposed to be so very, you know. I’ve come to my own conclusions, but we will get to those presently. Suffice it to say that New York is (as Jerry Garcia said long ago about The Grateful Dead), like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice, REALLY like licorice.

Anyhow, here it is. New York City Chapter One: In which we determine that everyone really does want to be in the cast of Girls, the East Village has a sidewalk cafe that smells like ass, as well as another one that serves tequila slushees, and Gangstagrass might actually be a thing.

It started this way. A morning flight to O’Hare. Crowded. Middle seat. The best part about this middle seat? I was between two people who were traveling together but hated the middle seat so much they booked the window and the aisle on a sold out flight. I understand hating the middle seat thing, but seriously? These two talked over me for four and a half hours. That takes true dedication and stamina. Who does that?

Then I landed in Chicago. (Previous question answered.) I had some nostalgia as I thought back to my last trip to Chicago wherein there was Lollapalooza and Alinea and museums and such. Mostly I love Chicago because there is no where on earth I have visited where I feel so tall and thin as I do when I am in Chicago. It is like an instant ego boost. Therefore, I do like the Midwest. But – on to the next one, please.

Seeing a friend you haven’t seen in nearly four years is pretty amazing. In every sense of the word. If it is true that the measure of a (hu)man is in their friends, it appears I am awesome. And I am grateful for this. Arriving was simultaneously exciting and expected, which is cool. There was much catching up to do and Brooklyn Lager to drink and take out to order. It was past midnight my time, but hey – there are better times to sleep. And however it happened, I woke up the next morning ready to go. Who knew I still had it in me?

It was sunny and clear and R’s apartment, directly adjacent to the Manhattan School of Music was deceptively cozy. It was cold outside. Really. Cold. I think one of my issues with New York has to do with the cold and the dilemma of outerwear.* One must have a plethora of coats and jackets to get by out there and for travel this is mightily inconvenient. Having brought my warmest coat that does not belong on a ski mountain was smart, but totally limiting. I mean a full length cashmere and wool coat *only* looks good at night. Any other time it looks totally stupid. But since all domestic airlines charge for luggage now (except my favorite… you know who you are Southwest!) it is neither feasible, nor economical for the solo traveler to bring the requisite “plethora of outerwear.” Sigh.

With a series of not entirely ideal layers we headed out. It was fun to see the city and get a sense of the neighborhoods. From Morningside Heights down through the Upper West, through Lincoln Square to the Theater District where I could take the awkward tourist photos and later forward them to my non-tourist Brit. Through Midtown to the East Village… I figure we logged ten miles or so. I have been hearing all about how Brooklyn is the hipster paradise, but was overwhelmed by odd facial hair, late-90s fashion choices with a splash of American Apparel for that contemporary edge and muchos fixies. (R calls them onesies which really makes me laugh because I just picture the hipsters riding around in rompers with attached feet… but then I had to stop laughing as it dawned on me that with little encouragement that could really be a thing and then I would be sorry to have ever conjured the thought.) There was much to see and admittedly it was quintessentially “New York”. And even a San Francisco kid can appreciate that. I didn’t see many of the hawkers selling the fake bags and such out on this day [Prada? Gucci? Louis? What you want? You tell me, I put on the label...] though I did see my pashmina men, and since I can no longer hustle down to the lanes in Hong Kong, and my cat eats textiles, I was in need. “How many do I buy to get some for free?” (The answer is ten, btw.) As R noted, apparently you can take the girl out of HK…. Hey, he understood, and I got something free, even though I couldn’t find eleven colors I liked, R picked out a leopard print and we were good to go. We were all happy.

Looking around lots of things kept coming into my mind. I thought about the Maurice Sendak/Carole King Really Rosie collaboration a lot. Rosie always seemed so cool in her eight year old New York way, and she was really Rosie, but I am pretty sure she was from way don in Brooklyn and I had yet to check that out. Still… I thought about movies like… well none really in particular, it is just that a lot of New York feels like a movie set. I thought about how lame I find the today show as I looked at all the people mooning outside their windows. Is that show even on on Saturday? I thought about how Matt Lauer has fallen from grace. I didn’t really care that much about it though, because I was getting hungry. So much so that I missed my chance to see ScarJo walking by. And some other guy who is famous apparently, but I still don’t know who he is. Fortunately, as in the city where I live, the biggest issue when one gets hungry in NYC is choosing where to eat.*

For a minute it got warm enough to unlayer and so we celebrated with champagne cocktails. It seemed like the right thing to do. This was my first experience of shockingly bad table service in NYC (and also my first table service.) Granted, I can appreciate that I am approaching middle age, and this fact may be exacerbated when I hang around with my “younger” friends, which R certainly is, so I may not look as cool as the other customers, but logic seems like it would dictate that older people have more money for say, tips. Regardless, this waiter was either suffering from some sort of facial palsy, wearing a dirty diaper, or just really that sour. He even made us switch tables. Saved money on the tip in the end. (Tipping was a fairly constant topic of conversation on this trip though as the Brits are definitely not on board with tipping the way that we are, and they believe we are “ruining it for the rest of the people” with our tipping practices. I am still thinking about this.)

After this interlude, we headed further into the East Village because we were after tickets for a show at the Mercury Lounge that evening. This fairly lengthy hike warranted another reward and so we had pink lemonade margaritas at another sidewalk cafe. They were slushees with booze. We also ordered nachos, which was a mistake, particularly for a girl from the Mission. Regardless, R, it turns out, has a little love for bluegrass, and in her search for some local bluegrass, she came across Gangstagrass. Yes, they are a thing. Had either of us ever watched the show Justified, we would have been apprised of this band, but we had not. And since they were playing in town we had decided to go. In our effort to purchase the tickets (it did not work – the girl at the booth was locked out of the computer) R saw that another band, The Stone Foxes was playing later in the week. Should we get tickets? She thought she liked them, she had them on her iTunes… We got those tickets with instructions to get the Gangstagrass ones prior to the show at the door. Interestingly, the band on her iTunes turned out to be the Fleet Foxes, but no bother.

Tickets in hand, we opted to cab it back up town, to get ready to come back downtown… It was a treat to be back in a city wherein the biggest issue in getting a cab is that they nearly crash trying to simultaneously get your fare.

We turned it around in record time and headed to the show. The opening band was Kamara Thomas and the Ghost Gamblers. Her eye make up was troubling, but it turned out to be more troubling for her than us as she accidentally smudged it pretty bad and none of her peeps told her about it. That should be in the band code: tell your frontman when they smudge their Robin-styled eyemask make-up. At least, if I were in a band I would make that a rule. Then came Gangstagrass. And I gotta say, totally not disappointing. I might even watch Justified now.

One day, nine or so neighborhoods, eleven pashminas, three bars, two wanky servers, myriad hipsters, three outfits, one train, two cabs, bad eye make-up, fusion music, late night pizza; all in a city that is not my own.

And that made all the difference.

*First world problems.

Semantics. It means perspective.

The difference is perspective. This is not new information. This morning as I was walking through the neighborhood to go to the bank, the coffee shop, the bakery, I was thinking about the coffee in Southeast Asia. I was thinking about how the Vietnamese coffee is roasted with sugar and butter and you have to use a special t up to brew it. Noah and Trinh taught me how. And I thought about the sweetened condensed milk and how it always seems like the coffee was an afterthought if you did not say “no milk!” Walking around in cool morning air on a day that would probably be warm, but was strangely chemically overcast for San Francisco considering these details reminded me so much of Ubud, Saigon, Hanoi, Xian, Shanghai, Bangkok, Kota Kinabalu, sipadan, Vientiane, Luang Prabang. Bad coffee.

Sometimes bad is good.

I had gotten on the subject because we saw someone wring by with a McDonald’s bag and I joked and said, we could go to McDonald’s. He answered back saying he would like to say that he would never again have coffee from McDonald’s. Or 7-11. Then he rethought it and said, well you never know I guess. I knew what he meant though. I told him about how I used to have to take the 5:30 am ferry to get to my yoga class in Hong Kong that started at 7:00 because the next ferry would get me there too late. And so I always had this strange 45 minutes of very quiet early morning time in Happy Valley where nothing was open except for McDonald’s, and so I would go to the McCafe and get coffee. How was it, he wanted to know. I don’t know, I answered. You know, like I don’t totally remember. I mostly remember just having this little bit of totally quiet time where the light was coming up and there were just a few people around. Sometimes I would go sit near the park outside the race track and watch people do tai chi. It seemed like it was always sweeter than it should have been. The coffee I mean. Even though I never put sugar in it. But then, so much in Asia was always sweeter than it should have been, especially the coffee.

Sometimes when I look around my neighborhood, especially on Mission Street in the morning, I can get that feeling I used to feel who I was walking around cities in far away places early in the morning. My neighborhood can be very “developing nation” in aesthetic, if you know what I mean. And I have always had a penchant for the seemingly unplanned juxtaposition of old/new, rich/poor, clean/dirty. Your basic urban experience. [Excluding SNG, of course.]

This morning I grasped more urgently at the familiar feeling: early morning, city, far away, edgy, dirty, perhaps. I was almost there, walking along Sukhumvit, looking for a coffee shop or a street stall to get some fresh fruit. But then it was gone. I was in San Francisco after all, in my own neighborhood, knowing exactly where I was going and what I would be doing this fine ombre day in my city by the bay.

Sometimes good is bad.

This frustrates me, sometimes even depresses me. Here is me chasing my dragon. In the midst of considering how the sidewalk between 23rd and 24th on Mission could be a sidewalk in so many other places, it hit me. The difference was not in the observations of what is certainly one thing or another. The difference is the mindset of being far afield. No matter where I have traveled, or how much I have planned on said travels, there is a permanent sense of the unknown as I walk down those distant streets. It is the simple notion that anything could happen and that I could literally do anything I want. Truthfully, that is a load of horse shit, but the feeling is always there. When I was traveling and I would be running out of money it was fun, like an adventure or a puzzle… What would I, or maybe we, do next. When that happens here, I just feel like a loser. I am confused as to what leads to this difference. There when scheduling or transport snafus happened, it was all part of the experience. Here, when stuff goes awry it is a total shitshow. And stressful.

And that is it. That is the entire grass is greener thing I was trying to get at a few weeks back. It is the completely voluntary choice to believe that right now, right this very minute, I could do whatever I want to do – and that anything could happen. This reality remains constant in both scenarios, particularly the anything could happen element. It is hilarious when one takes a moment to consider it; that we eliminate the possibility that anything could happen because we think we know exactly what is going to go down only because we are in a more familiar place. Here I have to… do all these things, meet all these people, take care of all this shit. Just like what my friends would say to me from here while I was there. And there… I have all these things I can do, all these people I can see, and all these things I can manage because I am experienced. Just like I hear all my friends who are there say, when I am here.

Wow. Semantics.

Sometimes good is good. Or maybe it just is.

 

*written a few weeks back, if that matters.

Fear of expertise. Or Vaginas.

It has been clear for sometime that education has been under attack in our country and that it has even been used as a way to insult people (especially politicians, it seems that being an educated human makes you elitist, and ironically, unintelligent.) Today I had the most hilarious* exchange on Facebook with someone (who I do not even know) through a friend’s post. First of all the unknown, who thankfully did not pepper his ad hom vitriol with spelling errors – only formatting ones – credits his educational background to the smoking section at the high school I attended, and said his primary activity was drinking Budweiser. (Here is me desperately trying to not be a beer snob. Oh. Whoops.) I am fairly certain I have acknowledged the mediocrity of my high school, so imagine the potential of the smoking section. Anyhow….

This person began to quote, with intermittent success, all sorts of interesting “facts” from the Founding Fathers about how they supported the unrestricted ownership of any and all firearms. I am sure you can now see where this is going. This followed him trying to tell me that when the Founders used the word ‘state’ they meant the 50 states.

Seriously.

After I explained how state (especially how it is used in the Second Amendment) refers to what he would likely call a ‘country’ today, defined by a single national government. I suggested that this common mistake was akin to people who mistakenly think the word nation means ‘country’. Again, as Alex Trebec would say, “No, I’m sorry, the correct response is ‘What is a specific group of people.’” I also reminded him/them that the Founding Fathers didn’t want the majority of people to even vote… they sure as shit did not want them armed.

This went back and forth for longer than it should have. And the more I got to thinking that the levels of idiocy we are facing in this country are infinite, the more acutely aware I became of the fact that in my efforts to try to actually have this conversation, I am the idiot.

It gave me a headache. And really, this whole position that gun regulation somehow equates to a loss of access to firearms is just so… lame. [Bring on Bill Maher and Jon Stewart please.] A second participant in the “discussion” asked me if I would be okay with forced registration of my vagina, since prostitution was a crime. In speaking about having to register his gun he said: “The implication is that because someone else will commit a crime with it [a gun], I should be treated as a criminal. Are these methods acceptable for all potential crimes? Rape? I would happily register my penis, but mostly just cuz I like to show it off. Prostitution? Wanna get a vagina license?”

I could not make this shit up. The gun-to-penis connection took two sentences. And yes, I think even though he lives in Nevada (clue number one that this was a futile endeavor) he might be unaware that prostitutes do basically register their vaginas. I refrained from asking him about the last time a vagina was responsible for the violent deaths of myriad human beings a la Newtown.

It went back and forth, and to every challenge on either side there was a come back… to varying degrees of success on all sides I would say. When I tried to explain that not only were we talking about my field of study in college, this was also something I studied and taught on a professional level, I got  mocked outright. [A possibly more salient question is what is scarier... an education or a vagina? Answer: An educated vagina.] I countered by saying if we were discussing drywall and I offered my opinion, and said I was a professional drywall installer, would it seem like something to make fun of? And then I got this question: what in the world could make anyone an expert on the Constitution. (Prefaced by, “Not to be an ass but…”)

And I believe he was serious. Or at least, I assume.

*Eupemism. One of many herein.