caught on tape

Dave makes me laugh every single day, especially when he tries to act irritated. I wish I had more of these, but a few of them mysteriously vanished from the camera. hmmm.

new town school

I had just graduated from college, living with Claude in Lake Zurich, searching for a job in Chicago. In the meantime, I started working for Manpower temp agency - putting in time at the local "KaVo for Dental Excellence." All day I sat in a windowless room in the back of a KaVo Clave repair warehouse, entering information from small cards, over and over. I was surrounded by metalheads who went to my high school and other KaVo lifers.

After about three months, Kit found a really strange ad in the Chicago Reader. It said something about "Music school searching for person knowledgeable in child development. No music experience necessary." Well. Ok.

It was March and I took a train downtown from the suburbs. The Old Town School of Folk Music. The school was located in a beautiful old building in Lincoln Park, nestled between fancy boutiques and grimy coffee shops. The lobby smelled like old wood and the floors creaked. I interviewed with a woman in a large room shared by three people - huge wooden desks fit into it like puzzle pieces next to the built in glass cabinets, guitars hanging from hooks on the wall. I got the job, but not an office of my own. My file cabinet was a box on the floor next to me and I used an ancient laptop set up on a table behind me.

Musicians were all around me...playing guitar in the front office, carrying fiddles under their arms as they looked for an available room, dragging drums into the corner space. Four people shared the room in the front of the school, two people shared a closet in the middle, another two in the tiny room next to me. Nailing down schedules of folk musicians was not easy...they are notoriously non-committal. But the space, the people, the feeling was amazing. I took guitar and fiddle...my teachers were flaky and gray and rumpled and without a plan. Sometimes they brought a paper with tab for us to play, sometimes they merely had an idea in their head. I have hours of cassettes with fiddle tunes and a dusty, broken fiddle in my closet.

Which brings me to the present. There is a music school called the Jalopy Theater in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I can walk there from my apartment in ten minutes. The guy at the front desk has a beard five inches past his chin and a huge, furry dog named Pirate that wanders around and leans against people. I signed up for a banjo class, walked there on the first night with a thermos full of hot tea, set up a rickety music stand and squeezed myself into a space next to a bunch of other Brooklynites. The teacher slid into his spot, hair like a sea of wild, native grass, and started plucking out a banjo tune. In an instant, I felt a familiar, old wood feeling. It's my new old town school.

deep dish pizza

Wow. It has been ages since I posted anything. Probably getting married, settling into a new york routine and teaching at an insanely rigorous school had something to do with it.

I spent last weekend with report cards and assessments and notes from parents spread out all over the kitchen table. I was glued to the chair for hours typing comments, cramming, doing research for this "paper" due in 48 hours. Which child is curious? Which one is kind? Which one is funny or sweet or thoughtful or insightful? Which one is quick thinking, has a huge vocabulary, is empathetic, knows how to spell?

I frequently think about children and how they develop...how these articulate, healthy children from wealth-filled Brooklyn change into proper adults. Are they more insightful and more developed than the charismatic, cherubic children from bilingual Chicago? Do they know more going into adulthood? Do they feel an advantage?

Life is filled with times when you put on the brakes. Wait, stop...your father and I are getting a divorce. Wait, we need to move. Wait, we don't have money for new school clothes. Wait, I can't stop and talk to you because I need to make dinner and get lunches ready and do the laundry and feed your sister. Wait.

I think that the children in Chicago might have to stop more often. Things might not be as consistent or smooth or predictable. They need to stop and wait...then start back up again and keep going. Each time you stop, it's harder to catch up.

Today I didn't have to do any report cards. I actually didn't have anything to do...which was weird. I opened up an old tin box of recipes and pulled out one from college...really from my mom, when I was a little kid. Deep dish spinach pizza, direct from Chicago. I spent almost three hours making deep dish pizza. It feels good to catch up.

five boroughs

Last night we picked Kit up at La Guardia airport in Queens...it was totally close and we were early, zipping along the BQE like nobody's business. Kit climbed into the Yaris and we were off - back home to eat dumplings. Dave needs glasses and can't see anything at night, so I was behind the wheel, reluctantly, driving amongst veering cabs and huge conversion vans on the expressway. My teeny black car squeezed between rows of much faster, rustier vehicles. While Dave was calling the dumpling place, he looked down and then suddenly I was on the Triboro Bridge, cruising into the Bronx. Did you know that you have to pay 5 bucks to get into Manhattan even if you didn't even want to go there? Yeah.

So here we are...in the Bronx. The GPS voice is set to Kenneth...a nice man, I guess. I imagine him to be a well educated, salt and pepper, African-American guy sitting in my backseat. The problem is he keep saying "Turn left, turn left, now turn right, 300 yards ahead, turn right" and I haven't even moved yet. So I kinda hate Kenneth. I like maps. And knowing where I'm going. And not driving on New York highways.

So we end up at the new Yankee Stadium, which looks exactly like the old Yankee Stadium - still standing, right next door. Then we're in Harlem, then on the FDR, which runs along the east side of Manhattan - so I can see Brooklyn and I keep reaching my hand out the window expecting someone to grab hold and pull me over the river. Look, Kit, there's the Williamsburg Bridge and the Mahattan Bridge and somewhere in there is Times Square and (squint) the Empire State Building and over there in the distance is Staten Island and here (finally) is the Brooklyn Bridge. Over the bridge and onto dumplings.

i love bad pilates

Did I ever mention how much I loved my pilates instructor in Chicago? She was really apologetic for being late every single time, talked a lot and kept her itunes mixes on the entire time. Some of the classes took place in the gym at the Y...and while the ventilation system rumbled, she would shout out the instructions. The volume would be just right and then Hard Days Night would burst on, super loud and crackly. Every class was exactly the same and I went religiously for about a year.

The Y on Irving Park Blvd in Chicago was full of lead paint and residents in jeans doing the elliptical machines. There were never enough mats and the hand weights were covered in dingy rubber, bits peeling off exposing the metal inside. Kids would be playing basketball minutes before our class...their gross tennies rubbing all over the floor. But it was my routine and I kept going.

Then I moved to Brooklyn, walked around a lot, walked past bakeries, ate pastries, got a little soft. Finally decided to try out the pilates classes at the Y a few blocks away. How bad could it be?

The instructor looked like a lollipop. Like a head on a stick. She walked in wearing a skin tight tie-dye long sleeve half top and stretch pants. I was surrounded by a bunch of ripped, tattoo covered, woody-allen glasses wearing, rockabilly hipsters, pissed off that my mat was too close. On the other side of the room, women in expensive track suits exercised with ease. Special equipment, squishy mats, polished floors, no music. It totally kicked my ass.

inauguration

sweet relief

the blurry brown part in the back...that's people
the dc train system is totally star wars
the cute lori, girlfriend of jj
laura stein lindamood, the master organizer
Don't worry...there are 1.75 million people behind me and I got to walk through the car-less streets of the capital with all of them, surrounded by military police in fatigues, of course. Frozen toes, tons of layers, obama keychains, marching bands, blissfully happy. There were many highlights...too many to name. What a day.

Yes....a busy month. Here's a little blow by blow:

1. Mock food co-op in classroom with first graders. Created jobs, designed logo, made t-shirts, assembled all of the items that we sold (trail mix, cookies, play-doh, muffins), etc.) and invited parents to shop. Parents were wildly excited - and so were the kids - except for the kids working in 'produce', because "nobody wants to buy healthy food."

2. Got engaged! Dove quickly into the wedding insanity (of which I said I would never step foot) and experienced true family drama (not the first and not the last).

3. Went to Chicago for winter break. Saw 75% of the people that I wanted to see.....not 75% of their bodies....just 75% of the total people. Hard to really enjoy time with friends when I see them for two hours every six months, but I'm trying. I miss everybody.

4. Came back to New York and had an impromptu engagement-celebration, bar hopping adventure with Scotty and his girlfriend Sharon. Hemorrhaged money.

the infamous roman through a dirty cab window

5. Booked a location for the nuptuals. Hemorrhaged more money.

salvage one


6. Started school again and realize now that January is the true beginning of the school year. September is adjustment, October is sugared frenzy, November is too many days off to be consistent, and December is Santa Claus. January is normal, sweet, six year olds who are calm and focused and lovable. This is why I am a teacher. Thank god I remembered.