Author Archives: avr

Back In Black

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Clouds Over Corn, from somewhere in South Dakota, June, 2010

The dark, full clouds of doom have gathered and knit themselves into a suffocating, itchy sweater of despair and desperation that drapes itself over my shoulders and hangs from my neck, pulling me inextricably down into the peculiar abyss of chaos, greed, incompetence and clusterfuckery that is the public education system in my metropolis. That’s right – school is starting again.

I find the metaphor of the homicidal sweater particularly fitting; even as I feel my job is choking the life out of me, it is employment, which keeps me warm and shelters me from the harsh realities of life without a job, like 999.3 thousand people in my state, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, or, more specifically, like hundreds of thousands of teachers across the nation who are being sacrificed in massive reductions in force because of budget deficits. Education Secretary Arne Duncan estimates that approximately 300, 000 teacher positions will be imperiled in the 2010-2011 school year, and that is on top of the thousands of jobs, programs and schools that have already been cut, terminated or closed. When President Obama signed a bill this month that is designed to secure the jobs of 160,00 teachers, as well as save or create positions for fire fighters, nurses and police officers, he faced sharp criticism from Republican leaders who blasted the bill as “an irresponsible union giveaway.” I’m lucky to have a job, even if not everyone respects its value or sees it as a necessity.
There are parts of my work that I love. My students are terrific. They teach me things, make me smile, and shower me with kindnesses every day. Being a teacher gives me the opportunity to feel like I am helping, like I have added to the good in the world, and am pitching in to create happy, healthy futures. This satisfies me and makes me feel important and worthy. I respect and admire many of my colleagues, and am inspired by their compassion and willingness to toil against insurmountable odds, rather than give in to the inevitable tides of time, trends and circumstance.
But right now, I am in mourning. Soon my garden will dry up, fry or freeze, until the black stalks that once held treats and bounty have to be pulled up and cleared away. No more road trips, no more time to read or write or ride my bike around the lake. Showers will become mandatory. Instead of sunshine, wine and song, buzzing florescent lights and blaring bells, crappy essays, absurd, time-wasting directives, and Lunchables await. I’ll look forward to doctor’s appointments, just because they are a break in my routine. That’s right; sometimes peeing in a cup, having my breast folded, spindled, mashed and photographed, and repeatedly being jabbed by needles and speculums are the highlights of my day. School sucks.
Let’s pretend it isn’t happening. Oh, Denial, old friend, take my hand and whisk me away!
The next post will take us back to South Dakota – you didn’t think I was finished, did you? Don’t worry! There’s more, so much more! I haven’t even gotten to Deadwood yet, cocksucker!* Stay tuned!
*Fuck! I said it again! Sorry E.D.!

Bonus: This picture from 2009 was taken just as a storm was rolling in and the sun was setting. The whole sky turned bright orange; I guess you can see that, huh? It was scary, surreal, and beautiful. Yay, Nature! You’re so awesome!

McAdams Goes Mobile

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Before I continue with the South Dakota saga, a word or two – knowing me, it’s more likely to lean towards the two- about my travel companion, McAdams. We met several years ago when she came to my school, an enthusiastic and over-educated new teacher, excited to implement innovation, fling open the doors of opportunity, and make students’ dreams become realities. As this fresh-faced approach had already grown tiresome to me, I ignored her until she insinuated herself at the lunch table I share with my partner in gloom and defeatism, a man whose real identity I will obscure by making him Asian and giving him the name Chi Toh. Chi loved her instantly, as he is drawn to blonde women with open smiles and a nice rack. Or really any women who will sit at his table. Anyhoo, she came, she sat, she ate, and one day, a few months later, we discovered that we had both been chosen to go to Arizona with our principal and some other teachers for a boring educational conference. We decided to room together, and the rest is history.

Bell Rock, Sedona, Arizona. Painting by Steve Simon http://fineartamerica.com/featured/bell-rock–sedona-steve-simon.html
The Sedona trip became our first adventure together, and it was complete with unexpected drug trips (we got dosed by our principal), rampant nudity (it’s awful hot in Arizona), a precedent-setting hiking excursion that culminated in McAdams proving her willingness to carry me down scary, steep, rocky switchbacks, and an almost total disregard for the agendas of others. (It’s hard to focus on a boring educational conference when you are busy focusing on the way your thumb can be used to totally block someone’s head out of your field of vision. Did I mention that I did not intentionally ingest the drugs? Well, at least not the first time, anyway.)
Traveling with McAdams is great, unless she is hot or hungry. Then she’s cranky and bearish, like a grizz, not a Berenstain.

Most of the time she’s pleasant, easy-going, and willing, which is perhaps my favorite attribute about anybody, ever. She wakes up in the morning, does her thing, and makes me coffee. She tunes in to the Today show, because she likes to watch Kathy Lee Gifford get drunk in the a.m., and then it’s off to whatever the day has in store. She’s game for just about anything, unless it involves people – not much of a fan of humans, that one – but once we have a plan, she likes to stick to it. She will accept almost any challenge, and is STUB-BORN once she makes up her mind to do something. Whereas I like to consider myself “adaptable to alternate and less demanding options,” she is not what she would term “a quitter.” She sees beauty everywhere, but hates being duped by hype, like when we saw the Space Needle in Seattle. “That’s it?” she cried, dismayed. “It’s tiny; nowhere near space!”
Oh yeah, and she’s hilarious.
Lots of time she doesn’t speak, so I obligingly fill in any gaps with an almost constant and never-ending commentary on anything of import; what we are looking at, how I feel about modern geopolitical theory as it relates to post WWII literature, TV shows I’ve seen, songs that have the word “moon” in them, the fullness of my belly or bladder, how I slept the night before, how I think I may be falling out of love with Paul Rudd and more in love with Jason Bateman, and how one time I thought I was in love with Justine Bateman, back when she was Mallory Keating…you know, things like that. Every once in awhile, McAdams breaks in, and when she does, often she cracks me up. The following is a sampler of things she said during our recent South Dakota journey:
On packing: “All I need is this fishing shirt, some underwear, this bag of chips, and some green hummus. That’s it. Priority. And this salad dressing.”
On liberty: “If you’re not free, man…bummer.” (Deep, right? Sometimes, and for several reasons, travelling with McAdams is like traveling* with Matthew McConaughey. Alright, alright, alright.)
On being entertained in the car: “We went through a drive-through wildlife park once. There was a lot of screaming, crying, and flooring the gas. Man, those emus get pissed!”
On passing a sign for Round Up Weed and Grass Killer: “Mmmmmm, weed.”
Going past large rock formations in Custer State Park: “Those rocks look like dicks. Our forefathers’ dicks. Our forefathers’ foreskins.There’s Jefferson’s dick…”
“Oh, deceiving blue sky!” This was sorrowfully whispered to the windshield during a brief rainstorm.
“Remember that move? ‘Foggy Chimp Mountain’? Oh yeah, right. It was ‘Gorillas in the Mist’.”
On being stalked by a mountain lion: “What can you do, but laugh and walk a little bit faster?” (I suggested we not walk at dinner, Northern Mountain Lion Time)
And finally, the last word on a decade of American music classics: “Ooh, Fifties music! I hate it! So scary and creepy, right? Let’s get outta here!”
I just love McAdams. She is a true friend. I hope we road trip together forever.

* I hereby exert my right to spell travelling with either one or two L’s! Who’s gonna stop me, huh?

QUIZ: Who do you think would win in a fight to the death for my affections, McAdams or Mallory? McAdams is big and relentless, but Mallory is a scrappy little badass….

BONUS: New words! When you blog incessantly and narcissistically about yourself, just to hear yourself blog, it’s bloggerbation. Reading bloggerbation can lead to blogravation. Conversely, when you have nothing to blog about, you are suffering from blogstipation.
You’re welcome for the free of cost vocabulary increase.

Three wows

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Here are two things that made me say “Wow” when I read them:

2. http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/johnson_10_09/

The first is an article from The Sun Magazine by a retired teacher in New York named John Taylor Gatto. He is anti-school and pro-learning, and this is his acceptance speech upon being named New York’s Teacher of the Year in 1989. You can also check him out on YouTube.
If you are unfamiliar to The Sun, as I was until my sister turned me on to it a couple of years ago, check it out. I love it. It has essays, interviews, poetry, short stories and unique, interesting sections, like one that’s made of quotes from famous and non-famous thinkers, and another called “Readers Write”, where the magazine puts out a topic and readers respond with their personal stories. So cool! Other facts about The Sun: it’s been around for 30 years and Lily Tomlin’s a fan. Buy a copy. Enough said.

The second is a short story my friend CHM sent me. Clarkesworld Magazine is a monthly science fiction and fantasy magazine. Personally, I’m not so into that stuff. I enjoyed Stranger In a Strange Land, by Heinlein, A Wrinkle In Time by L’Engle, and the short story “Harrison Bergeron”
by Vonnegut, but none of those were written after 1962, so I guess I might want to revisit the genre before I make an opinion about it. But, really, you know, why try to be well-reasoned before you speak, and especially prior to putting stuff in writing? A waste of time, if you ask me, so I’ll just go on and say it…mostly, I think that stuff blows. However, this story by Kij Johnson is disturbing, psychologically stimulating and well-written. It’s also about alien sex, which is a definite selling point. And it’s short. Nice.

Another thing that wows me – and most of America, I s’pose – is AMC’s tv show “Mad Men”. (Personal Note to Mad Men: Oh Mad Men! I love you so much! I look forward to you every Sunday, and I don’t think this season is slow at all! You make sitting on my couch eating sardines and green beans out of the can in my boxer shorts sexy! Thanks for just being you!)

Thanks to REL and CHM for providing me with stuff to talk about! Keep those cards and letters coming!

P.S. I’m not done with South Dakota, so you can look forward for more from “The Great Faces, Great Places” state soon! Woohoo!!!!!
BONUS: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html It really is a great story, and it’s short, I promise!

Dizzy Miss Lizzy

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I have been getting bouts of dizziness for years. They come and go and range in severity. I used to think they were fun. I would first feel funny, both strange and ha ha, in my legs and low back, like my blood was giggling. To put it more technically, I suppose one might say it felt like my veins were constricting and it left a tingly sensation. Then, I would hear that blood,whooshing in waves to the beat of my heart in my ears, or more like in my skull, and then my eyes would feel wonky and then focused and stuck, like a drunk staring at his shoes, and then woo-dee-hoo, dizzy like when you were a little kid playing with big kids on the merry-go-round, and everyone was laughing, and you were too, and then all of a sudden, you got very quiet, quiet enough to hear a tiny voice from inside you say, “Uh-oh. I think I’m gonna have to tell ’em to stop… Real soon… Maybe now… Yep, now’s the time,” and then another voice, thin and more little kid than you’d hope, scream-whined, “Stop! I can’t take it! Stop this crazy thing!” What’s not to like about that?

Since I’m older and cooler now, and there’s nobody around to stop the spins, I usually try to focus on something in front of me and just walk through it. Sometimes this works. Sometimes I have to stop and hold on to someone or something. Once I had to sit on a curb because I was afraid I would fall into the street. One time I had to lean in the doorway of a liquor store with my head down until the manager came out and told me to move along.

I told my family about it, and my doctor, who was very briefly worried and ran some tests. She called back and told me she didn’t know what caused “the spells”, but that I was fine. Good enough for me.
Recently, she got fired, or dis-barred, or whatever happens with doctors. I was sad to see her go. She was a nice lady who sometimes talked to me about some of her other clients who were strippers. We talked a lot about our vacations, too.
The new doctor is very thorough and apparently read my charts. We’ll call him Dr.X.
“It says here that you complained of dizziness about seven years ago. Whatever happened with that?”
“Oh, Dr. Y ran some tests and said that I was fine.”
“So you don’t get dizzy anymore?”
“Oh yeah, I still get dizzy. Especially in the summer. I got real dizzy in my classroom and almost fell off a desk! My students thought it was hilarious, especially this kid named Deonte whose head looked like a butt…”
Dr. X cut me off. He’s a very busy man.
“What tests did Dr. Y do?”
“Ummm…I don’t know. Blood was drawn. Urine was sampled. Insurance was charged. I don’t remember. She said I didn’t have a tumor.”
Dr.X referred me to a specialist – a dizzy doctor. He told me I had to make an appointment before school started.
So I went to South Dakota and climbed a really high mountain…but I’m getting ahead of myself.
When I got back from South Dakota I went to the appointment.
The appointment was at noon, but a lady on the phone told me not too eat after midnight the preceding night, so in the morning I had some coffee. And a peach. An about three of those spicy pickled green beans people put in Bloody Mary’s. Dang, those things are delicious, y’all!
Prior to actually seeing the doctor I was going to have to fill out papers and take some tests. Fair enough. Turns out there were TWO HOURS of tests! That’s right! Two hours! I should have waited until school had started and then taken a day off to spend two hours at the doctor’s! Stupid Dr.X and his telling me what to do!
So yeah, lots of tests. Hearing tests with all kinds of little tricks to them: “…press the button as soon as you hear…would you call this a rattle or a hum?…repeat the words in the order that you hear them…is that a beep or a buzz?…what about now?…stop trying to read my lips!” There were eye tests where I had to wear these weird glasses that had cameras in them that recorded how my eyes responded to light and movement. The glasses were strapped so tightly to my head that all I kept thinking about was Marty Feldman as Igor in Young Frankenstein, and how much pressure it would take to pop my head like a zit. “Follow the dot with your eyes…and now up….and down…use your eyes, not your head…and now the dots as they come out from the left side of the screen…and now faster…faster…and faster…you’re going to give yourself whiplash! Use your eyes, not your head!”
Finally the nurse said we were almost done. “This will be the last test. It is a little uncomfortable, but it won’t take long. I am going to make you very dizzy…” She put a small kidney shaped bowl in my hands. “Just in case, ” she nodded knowingly.
Really, this dizziness thing was getting less fun all the time.
She put goop on my head, face and neck and stuck receptors into the goop. I had to lay down on the examination table and get connected to a computer. She spindled, folded and mutilated me into the exact position she wanted me in and told me to relax, but not to move a muscle. She put a clamp thing on my finger and the camera glasses over my eyes. Then she put these cuffs around my ankles so that I would be still, and she could be sure that my reactions were all neurological and not physiological. Before I could begin to panic, she flipped a switch and the exam table lurched into motion, whipping me around and around like a chicken strapped to a ceiling fan!
No, that part didn’t really happen. But all the rest is true! After I was hooked up and plugged in and clamped down, she made me shut my eyes. She said she was going to blow cold air on my ear drums for sixty seconds, and I would get really dizzy, and then she would say, “Open your eyes,” which was my signal to open my eyes. Then maybe I’d puke, and then she’d monitor my reactions and help me get focused again, and then she’d repeat the process with warm air.
“Yay,” I said, but I think she could tell I wasn’t really happy.
When someone aims a jet of cold air directly at your eardrum for sixty seconds, it is loud. Then it is uncomfortable. In the last twenty seconds, it is nauseatingly dizzying. Vertiginous, if you will.

It’s very surreal and highly disconcerting. You want to cry, but your tears are too dizzy to make their way to your tear ducts. To make sure that I wasn’t slipping into the void, she made me tell her girls’ names that started with different letters of the alphabet. My eyes were desperately trying to focus on a large dot on the wall that kept jerking towards the ceiling. I couldn’t remember how to make me lips form words. Thinking seemed too far a stretch to attempt.

“Come on!” she yelled. “A name that starts with ‘A’!”
My name starts with ‘A’, but I couldn’t remember it. I was trying to locate my hands to see if I was still holding the barf bowl. Let’s see… I used to keep my hands right next to my arms…
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!”, she screamed. (Perhaps I am remembering this a bit more dramatically than it actually occurred.)
“Althea. Araminta. Anastasia. Ahuva. Anayeli. Alcestra. Amberlyn. Antoinette. Aquaneshia.”
“Wow, ” the nurse said. “Ready for the other ear?”
The doctor said I have fluid in my inner ear that sometimes “leaks” to my middle ear and wells against my eardrum, which makes me dizzy. I told him this was hard to believe, since I never swim and seldom bathe. He assured me that we all have fluid in our ears, but that I produced excess at certain times, because of allergies and stuff. The dizziness could probably be cured with medication, which he would prescribe. He was much more worried, he said, about the hearing loss.
“What?” I asked.
“Good one, ” he said. “But I’ve heard it before.”
“No, really!” I exclaimed. “What hearing loss?”
“Do you shoot rifles often?” he asked.
The doctor explained that I’d lost the highest range of sound in one of my ears. Losing this frequency is relatively common in the elderly (RUDE!), but he couldn’t figure out how I’d lost it in only one ear. The fluid ear has perfect hearing. We will have to do an MRI to see if all the signals from my ear are being sent to the brain, but I am definitely scheduling that for a school day. And I’m eating first, too.
I’m pretty sure my hearing loss is caused from all the bad, loud music I have been subjected to. I specifically blame the Grateful Dead, and even more specifically fault this one guitar lick I was forced to endure repeatedly, at unimaginable decibels and in the dim light of one candle and some glowsticks. It was excruciating, and even the memory of it blanches my skin. That lick, and Sarah Palin’s voice. I must never hear them again, not even for a moment.
I’m a little sad to be deef, even though I don’t notice it, because nobody uses those extreme high pitches in daily conversation. My sister keeps testing me, squeaking nasty things about me to her husband in the voice of a dolphin. He yells at me like Garrett Morris in the old Weekend Update skits on Saturday Night Live. The upside is that when my school calls me to tell me it’s time to come back, I can be late and tell them I couldn’t hear what time they said. I can guilt my students into being quiet while I tell them interminable stories about the history of Mount Rushmore. And if I ever meet a handsome gentleman who strikes my fancy- and believe you me, my fancy could use some serious striking- I can say, “Hey, why don’tcha come a little closer and whisper in my ear…I can hear you better that way!”
QUERY: The other day, Tuesday to be exact, 78 people looked at my blog. I can account for about 30 of those hits myself (I can’t help it! I think I’m fascinating!), and at least 10 of them were probably searching for that Blue Meanie I used that one time, but still and all, that’s a lot of people! Who are you? How did you get here? What are you looking for?
I can only figure it’s because I said ‘cocksucker’. You like it when I talk dirty, don’tcha?! Who’s a Naughty Ned or Nancy?! You are, dirty bird!
Whoever you are, and for whatever reason you’re reading, thanks. Don’t cyberstalk me and steal my identity, ok?
NOTES to folks: Smurp, Jono and Kari – I’m so happy we’ve reconnected! Thanks for being so nice to me! I’m looking forward to getting to know you all over again!
E.D.B. – Doh! I said it again! Sorry about the potty talk!
KB – Welcome back!
Jenn- I love you. Let me know if I can help.
For LSD: A topless bikini photo

More than you ever wanted to know about…

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MOUNT RUSHMORE!!!!!!!

It stormed the day we went to Mount Rushmore. Great rivulets of water dyed the gray stone black.The presidents looked considerably less grand and dignified with pools of liquid roping from their mouths and nostrils.

A fellow visitor and his family stood next to me at the floor-to-ceiling windows in the huge Rushmore cafeteria. They all wore fanny packs and t-shirts that boasted other family trips to various national monuments. “Tourists, ” I mentally sniffed, as if I had been born and raised just next door in the gift shop.
“Look, kids. The mountains are weeping.”
Instantly I was shamed. The man I had written off as the Ugly American had the soul of a poet. He cleared his voice and went on, a little louder this time, so that all of us that stood around could hear the truth and beauty of his words. I leaned in more closely.
“That’s because Obama is in the White House! Har, har, har!”
Mount Rushmore has an interesting history, much of which doesn’t speak of what is best about Americans. Part of a range originally known as “The Six Grandfathers”, the mountain was considered sacred to the Lakota and Cheyenne, and had been deeded in perpetuity to the tribes, along with the rest of the Black Hills region, in 1868. (The Six Grandfathers includes Mount Harney, which I’ll talk about later. I know how much you guys like continuity, so I wanted to be sure to alert you, and tip you off to digging my flow!) That was before miners discovered the lucrative value of the land and its resources, which included timber that could be floated down the Cheyenne and Missouri Rivers, and a multitude of minerals, including, of course, gold. (And lithum! Yum!) The rush was in full swing and growing when a “negotiating” committee went to “talk” to tribal leaders about just giving the Black Hills back, on account of that would be the “right neighborly thing to do, cocksucker.” (NOTE: While I was not actually at this meeting, and therefore had to fabricate this quote, I am assured by HBO’s Deadwood series that the language I am employing is realistic and authentic. Far be it from me to curse gratuitously or to risk offending my readership with obscenities; I’m just all about accuracy, and as such, I seek only to inform you with the utmost respect to veracity and verisimilitude. Plus, if you say it enough, as I found myself compelled to do throughout South Dakota and particularly in the actual town of Deadwood, you find that after awhile the word just rolls off the tongue in a rather pleasing manner…) Colonel John E. Smith recognized the importance of the Hills to the Lakota; in fact, he said that they were the only portion of the reservation “worth anything to them,” and that “nothing short of their annihilation will get it from them.” (NOTE: This quote is real, and comes from a letter from the Colonel to his commanding general, General Ord. It would have been a lot spicier if I had made it up, but as I told you, I’m all about truth in journalism. General Ord was a known cross-dresser and often worked in the saloons of nearby Wyoming. Not really. I made that part up. Interesting though, right?)
I guess I don’t really have to tell you what came next. We waged war and destroyed the indigenous people, stole their land, and called it progress, as it advanced our economic goals. After the land was raped and resources were depleted, the Gold Rush disappeared as quickly as it had begun, and Homesteaders were paid to take the land and farm it. As I mentioned before, many of those claims, and claims of the miners, are still honored today. The mountain that had been known as ‘Cougar Mountain’ ‘Slaughterhouse Mountain’, and Keystone Cliffs’, among other names, became Mount Rushmore, in honor of a lawyer from New York who came on a prospecting mission in 1885. (And do you know who else was on this mission? David Swanzey, who was married to the boring Little House on the Prarie sister, Carrie, who lived in Keystone! See how it all comes back around and ties together?)
The monument was created in order to build tourism for South Dakota. This was the vision of Doane Robinson, a lawyer from Wisconsin, who later became South Dakota’s State Historian. He originally wanted to depict a sort of scope of history thing that would show steps in America’s progress, but that was vetoed when he found his sculptor, Gutzon Borglum. (NOTE: I know it sounds like I made this name up. It is, in its own way, as fantastic a fake name as McLovin. However, I can’t take credit for this one. Somebody actually had an adorable little infant, took one look at him and said proudly, “Gutzon! You are, and shall forever be, Gutzon!”) Mr. Borglum, well-known, respected sculptor and sassy-assed diva, refused to sculpt something with unnamed personages on it, and said that if he had any part of this endeavor, it would have to be of the national and historical significance that was befitting of his work. Borglum himself chose the four presidents who would grace Mt. Rushmore, all of whom were in office during the acquisition of Native American land.
A moment here to speak of ol’ Gutzon. Born in 1885 in St. Charles, Idaho, Gutzon Borglum was proud to be an American, which he defined as being born of American parents. This was a bit ironic, as his own parents were Dutch immigrants. Not only that, they were Mormons, who, in the 1800’s were being jailed left and right for their practice of polygamy. According to a website devoted to Mormon missions, Dearelder.com, http://www.dearelder.com/index/inc_name/Mormon/title2/Mormon_Polygamy, “The Lord recognized that the Church would not be allowed to progress while it still practiced Mormon polygamy. So in 1890 the Lord commanded the people of the Mormon church to stop practicing polygamy.” Mighty obliging of the Lord, right? Unfortunately, that was too late for Papa Borglum, who had two wives, Gutzon’s birth mother and her sister. Eventually, the senior Borglum tired of Mormonism and of polygamy, or perhaps just of Borglum’s mother. He moved to Omaha, where polygamy was forbidden, and ditched Borglum’s mother, upon which she was never mentioned again. (NOTE: This info came from an ep of PBS’s American Experience, so you KNOW it’s true!) Gutzon, an uber-patriot nativist, proved himself once again to be on the side of the right when he immortalized heroes of the Confederacy on Stone Mountain in Georgia. He was an active Freemason, and an active member of the Klan, who were major financial supporters of the Mount Rushmore sculpture.
Funding was always an enormous obstacle for the Rushmore project. Though Doane Robinson had been advocating the idea of the monument for years, it wasn’t until Calvin Coolidge was persuaded to vacation in South Dakota in 1927 that the concept began to look concrete. (Get it? Good one, huh? Mt. Rushmore is actually granite, but who cares.) South Dakotans gifted the president and Mrs. Coolidge with many things, including boots and a cowboy hat, in which Coolidge took to swaggering around the porch. He climbed – but didn’t summit – Mount Harney (What a wussy! Stay tuned for STILL more to come about Mt. Harney! I know! I can hardly wait either!), and tried fly fishing, at which he was an immediate pro, largely because the good Dakotans stocked the lake with fat trout from the local fish hatchery. When Coolidge dedicated the site and presented Borglund with ceremonial drill bits, Borglund asked him to write a 500 word explanation of the site that would also be carved into the mountain.* In 1930, Borglund released a version of Coolidge’s “Entablature” that Borglund had edited. It was widely mocked by literary critics, and though Borglund later admitted that he had changed the presidents words, a rift between Borglund and Coolidge developed. Towards the end of his life, someone asked President Coolidge about Borglund.
“About how far would you say ’tis from here to the Black Hills?” Coolidge asked.
The questioner said it was about 1500 miles.
“Well, y’know….that’s as close to Mr. Borglund as I care to be.” (NOTE: PBS again. I don’t make this stuff up, people!**)
In 1991, President George H.W. Bush officially dedicated Mount Rushmore as a National Monument. Until then, it was known officially only as Giant White Heads on Black Hills.
I tell you what, visiting Mount Rushmore really opened my eyes. Proud to be an American? You betcha! Just not so much at Mt. Rushmore. Good snack shop, though.
*Except of course when I actually do make this stuff up.
**Borglund originally intended to write the Entablature in three languages, English, Latin and Sanskrit, so that future generations would be sure to understand the monument’s import. Unfortunately, by the 1930’s, Sanskrit and Latin were already dead languages, so I guess only REAL Americans (and some Brits, Canadians and Irish folk – I don’t think Scots actually speak English, though they say they do) really needed to understand anyway.

S-A-T-UR-D-A-Y Night!

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ManOMan! What is wrong with me?! It’s 6:45 on a Saturday night and I am on my couch, curled up with a glass of wine, ratty purple tank top on and sans pantaloons, watching Superbad. You know, Superbad, that movie that had such hype in 2007 when it first came out? I’m just now getting around to checking it out, on account of, mostly, I hate comedies. I mean they are never that funny. Adam Sandler is goofy. Will Farrell drops trou. Lok at him run! Chris Farley, Seth Rogan, whoever, is fat. Ha ha. But for some reason, on one of the last Saturday nights of summer, it appears that by 6:50, I am in for the evening. This comes at a bad time. My young and adorable friend Em, who is as spunky as she is scintillating, just accused me of being a shut-in. “You’re a hermit,” she announced. “A real hermit crab.”

“Oh yeah!” I shot back. I find “Oh yeah” to be one of the most effective of comebacks, and I use it often. That and, “Your Mama!”, or, if I’m really fast thinking, “You’re ugly!”

“I’m not a hermit crab,” I went on. “I have crabs! There! Who’s sorry now?”

Em didn’t answer, but I’m sure she got my point. Still, the whole thing left me thinking. (Cue sound of Carrie Bradshaw rapidly typing this week’s Sex in the City column/ theme, and voice over in three, two, one…) Am I wasting my life away? Should I be actively rejecting spinsterhood instead of letting it fall over my shoulders like a warm, soft shawl?

Now see, Superbad is an exception to my theories that comedies suck, along with several other notable anomalies; I like any comedy that is also a musical that features transsexuals or transvestites; I like comedies that are really dark, like Harold and Maude; I like mockumentaries, like Spinal Tap; and I like romantic comedies, if they are When Harry Met Sally. And – I almost hate to admit it – I like 16 year old boy humor. I find it hilarious. I totally get it. This explains why I get along so well with my male students; I think they are wildly funny, and they think I might just buy them beer. They think I’m cool because I can drive without my mom in the passenger seat. I think that’s pretty cool, too, and I admire the way they take enormous pride in simple accomplishments, like burping a word or punching a friend in the nads. What I’m saying is, I understand teenage boys, and their joy and stupidity, their idiotic crudity, their preposterous discomfort – it all makes me laugh. I like them even better in movies than in reality, because I can guffaw right at them, point even, without having to worry that they will get offended and flick something at me while I am at the board, or fart right before the bell rings and then run out.

Still, is indulging this – shall we say ‘hobby”, – really the best use of my time? Shouldn’t I be out trying to forge meaningful relationships and connections? Shouldn’t I be trying to build something here? I mean let’s face it, I am middle aged. Everyone I know has somebody special in their lives, even if they aren’t particularly happy with who – or, in some sad cases, what – they have settled for. Even my friends who are engaged in nasty divorces have boyfriends or girlfriends. I don’t even have a pet. I don’t even really have crabs. And, as Em points out, they – companions, not crabs – don’t just fall out of the sky; unless there are folks hiding out in your closets or under the bed, you have to leave the house to meet people.

But therein lies the problem. First of all, in order to leave the house, you have to get dressed, and also, it is suggested that you bathe first. We are all aware of my stance on bathing, I believe. You have to get dressed and put on make up and be interesting and witty. You have to smile and nod, even when you are not interested, and you have to pretend to like the band and you can’t make fun of anybody in case you are unknowingly sitting by his or her friend. The worse part of it is when you don’t do a good enough job of sparkling, and you feel like you didn’t pass the audition. You end up lonelier than you were before you went out. A lot of effort goes into deflation.

Instead, I could be at home with a character named McLovin. Is that a ridiculous fake name, or what? I can laugh and think, “Boys, boys, your day will come! Someday you will find someone who appreciates you and finds you delightful, even though you are gawky and weird.” These movies are always so full of hope at their core. I can relax and laugh out loud and not wonder if my laughter is inappropriate, or I can not laugh throughout the whole movie and nobody will tell me how funny it was, and that I just don’t have a sense of humor. I can eat until I’m full and get sleepy when I’m tired. I can get into my bed after the movie, content, and fall asleep, or read a book that may or may not be ‘smart”, or listen to a little of the BBC.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll go out. Tonight, I have a good movie, a good glass of wine, and a real comfy couch, just big enough for me. And that Michael Cera: hilarious! I just loved him on Arrested Development! Hey, maybe I’ll catch that next!

I am the Q of Keystone!

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Another of the disappointments at the shacklet was the free, high speed wireless internet I was counting on. While this feature was available, it involved some tricky maneuvering. What I would have had to do was hang out at the bar of the nearby Holiday Inn, buy drinks for one of the bikers sitting there, get chummy, and use my feminine wiles to elicit his internet password so that I could steal onto the hotel’s security enabled connection. Needless to say, that didn’t happen, and so now, weeks after I am home, I am just now telling you about the first days of my trip. I understand that most of you live vicariously through me and don’t want to miss a moment of my adventures, and I’ll try to make that dream a reality for you, but people, we can’t live in the past. From now on my blogs about South Dakota will be interspersed with what’s going on with me in real time. I just felt you should know.

So, in Keystone itself, there are basically five things to do. You can ride a ski-lift to the top of a mountain and then careen down a track carved into said mountain in a little cart outfitted with a hand brake. Fun as this sounds, it never happened. You can walk on the boardwalk that is supposed to recreate the experience of Keystone in its heyday, and eat bad food or buy t-shirts that say “Keystone, South Dakota!”, or “FTW: the 70th annual Sturgis Rally”, or “Bald men have holes in their pockets so they can run their fingers through their hair.” Nice. I guess Keystone in the 1880’s was much the same as today, full of fat tourists from Minnesota and skanky biker chicks looking for shiny, black, faux leather pants with the crotches cut out. While I figured this was just what I needed to score free wifi, McAdams got frightened by a 7 foot cowboy rustlin’ up business for a Wild West bar room brawl reenactment, so the boardwalk was out. You can walk into Keystone proper and see an old mine that was in ruins, or a town that was nearly dead, or old and abandoned farm implements rusting in the sun. Exciting and uplifting as entropy is, this endeavor only took us about half an hour. The next thing to do was take the 1880’s train. Train!!!!! Boy howdy, do I love a train!

The 1880’s train is a narrow gauge steam engine that was originally used for mining, and has been in continuous use, for one thing or another, since…wait for it…the 1880’s! It is the only train of its kind currently operating in the world, and you can only catch it in Keystone, South Dakota! Who’s lucky to have landed in a shack in Keystone, I ask you?! MEEEEE!!!!!! It runs up one of the steepest grades in the country, and goes to Hill City, a town ten miles away that, when it was born in 1875, became one of the first cities established in SD…and I got to go there! So lucky!
Sometimes sitting on a train, bound for a journey to parts unknown, listening to the hiss of steam and watching the track roll out endlessly ahead puts one in a meditative mood. McAdams turned to me with a rather serious expression. She’s not usually one for random heart-to-hearts, but as the 1880’s train chugged to a start with a small lurch, she confided that she was worried about the future and had some regrets about the past. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “Sometimes I feel I keep going down the same paths, but I never get anywhere, and one day I’m going to end up like this train, back and forth, back and forth, because it’s the only stretch of track I know. Do you believe that we all have a purpose in life, something we’re supposed to do that will let us contribute to others as well as fulfill ourselves?”
“Wooo-Woooo!” I replied, for that is what I like to say when I am on a train.
Here are some things I learned from the conductor, a real nice fella in overalls and a cap:
*In Hill City, they mined all kinds of things, including lithium. This made me think that if lithium was in the Black Hills, it must also be in the water, which may have explained why I was so calm and happy in South Dakota. Hooray for drugs I don’t have to pay for or lie to my parents about!
* At train crossings, conductors toot the Morse Code for the letter ‘Q’. It’s a practice they took from British sea captains who were carrying the queen on their ships. They would whistle “Q” and everyone else would give them the right of way because royalty was on board.
Betcha you didn’t know that, right? 1880’s train, you are fun and fascinating! Wooo-Wooo!
*South Dakota still honors the claims of Homesteaders and miners, and so while most of the beautiful Black Hills are mostly state and national park areas, 10% of that valuable real estate is privately owned. We passed through beautiful forests that were suddenly broken by a dirt road that led to a huge house where kids played and horses ran free. There were also a bunch of dumps, but they had real nice views. The honoring of these ancient deeds is slightly ironic, since the American government deeded the entirety of the Black Hills to the Native Americans who had already lived there for centuries, and then booted them off as soon as we found gold in them thar hills. I guess lithium makes people pretty mellow about rape, murder and mayhem, so we didn’t mention this little historical fact to the kiddos on the choo-choo. No buzzkills allowed on 1880 train! Wooo-Wooo!!!!!


The last thing to do in Keystone is to leave it. So that is exactly what we did.
Next up: Giant Heads Rock!

One Divine Hammer

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As promised, here are some views of the sculpture garden, but first, a poem by the artist:

GOLDFISH

Said one to the other,
“Let’s find a way out… explore.”
Said the other, “We are goldfish. We live in a bowl.”
“Yes,” said the one, “but there must be a crack, a door, a soul.”
They never found the one,
or his soul,
but he swam far.




Some of the stuff is creepy. Some is whimsical. There are works of joy, profundity and hope. Inside the big cow head there is this scary macabre sort of Santeria sacrifice.Bizarre. The hilltop the sculptures sit on is windswept, green and peaceful. Even though it’s right off the highway, it’s beautiful, and with all the art, it’s surreal and lovely. I was so glad we fell upon it. It was inspiring, and made us so happy. Yay to the creators who make things just to see how they will turn out!

This one is called “Pleasure and Pain.” Both are fleeting. The thorn gets removed and the butterfly takes to the sky. Just another little reminder that we never know what is just around the corner, that all is transient, and that moments are what we live for.
BONUS: Check this guy out: http://www.willard-wigan.com/video.aspx. I like the TED video, but it’s a bit slow and long. If you can’t spare the moments, look at the more accessible clip here:

Locked in Keystone

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Carrie Ingalls Swanzey, Keystone, South Dakota

OK, it’s me again! I’m back! Didja miss me? Awww! I missed you, too! I am so glad to communicate with you all again that instead of ignoring you, as I usually do, I will now answer your FAC’s (Frequently Accessed Comments), in the order that they were received.
#1 to Alisa: I will get a dog, and soon. I like dogs. They come when you call, and if they don’t, you just don’t feed them until they do. I think this time I’ll start with a puppy, now that I’ve figured out how to train them. By the way, I’m FINE, just fine, even though Belle tried TWICE to sever my femoral artery. Thanks for your concern, everyone.
#2 to Shan: The cooler was filled with vegetables, because they are illegal in South Dakota, except for corn smuggled in from Iowa or potatoes from Idaho (no, you da ho!), or anything else, like mushrooms or onions, that may be used to smother a steak. We ate a lot of vegetable sandwiches, and McAdams hooked us up right; we had lettuce and other leafy things from her garden, and cucumbers, sprouts, broccoli, tomatoes, cheeses, carrots, hard-boiled eggs, and a bad-ass garlic-guacamole hummus, that she made while she was a tad tipsy. We had fresh cherries, blueberries, peaches and melons – McAdams has some real nice melons, I tell you what – and wine and crackers and another couple of bottles of wine. We picnicked all across the state and went to bed happy and full every night.
Speaking of picnics, one of the best ones was our first stop on the road, in Montrose. SD. We were just cruisin’ down I-90, lookin’ at the corn – there’s an awful lot of corn between Nebraska and Iowa – when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this enormous, 60 foot bull’s head, surrounded by these weird skeletal guardians, rears up out of the gently rolling landscape. Some might just scratch their heads and say. “Hmm, that’s odd,” but not us! We are much more intrepid than that! We investigate, driven on by the kind of wonder and curiosity that makes America great! We climb that mountain just because it’s there! We shoot men in Reno, just to watch them die! We cross the road to get to the other side! Also, I had to pee; I have a bladder the size of a walnut. This turned out to be Porter Sculpture Park, a place so wicked cool, I’ll make it it’s own post, but suffice it to say, it was a fantastic, bizarre first stop, and we stayed for lunch with Wayne Porter, sculptor and vegetarian, who pronounced our sandwiches the best ever, on account of that “weird green stuff.” More on this later. I mean on the sculpture garden, not the hummus. I don’t think I’ll be mentioning it again.
Our first destination in South Dakota was Keystone, population 311. It was once a boomtown of over 1,000, because it was a gold mining center, and there are still remnants of mines and shafts and all kinds of 1800’s stuff. Its claim to fame is that Carrie Ingalls, perhaps the least interesting Little House family member, and certainly not the wilder one (get it?) lived there as an adult. Nowadays, Keystone is a tourist resort, because it is just down the road a piece from Mount Rushmore. McAdams, who wanted to go on vacation on the cheap, booked us a ‘chalet’ that sleeps eight. She’s tough to figure, that one. When I think of a chalet, this is what pops in my head:

I was very excited. Unfortunately, our Swiss chalet turned out to be more of a piss shacklet. Sandwiched between a Chinese food restaurant that appeared to be a front for nefarious drug deals and a biker-friendly Holiday Inn, the shacklet had been the home of an elderly lady and her obviously incontinent little dog. It looked more like this:OK, not really, but still it was not what we expected. Or paid for. And it stank, like small, old dog pee, the worse kind if you ask me. Small, old dog, ASPARAGUS pee*! And it was kind of scary, and the tv only got four, fuzzy channels, two of which were always showing All About Steve**, and the hot tub*** on the deck that we were promised was directly beneath the big picture window of the Chinese drug restaurant, and the only bathroom was in the kitchen****, and we were scared to sleep in the bed so we had to sleep on the couches in the living room. I suggested we go into town, or perhaps another town all together and check out our options, but McAdams is not one to admit defeat or change a plan once she’s committed to it, so she spent the rest of the trip telling me how great it was and how much she grew to love it. Silly McAdams. Keep believing the things that you say are true…

* Did you know that everybody’s pee has that particular asparagus odor, but, according to Web MD, a magazine I perused in a doctor’s waiting room, only 22% of people have the ability to smell it. Not only is this the kind of fact I see fit to remember, but this stat puts me in the top quartile of competent urine sniffers! Moreover, I have to admit, I kind of like the smell, and that puts me right up there with great thinker and recounter of minutiae Marcel Proust, who said the stalky veg “…transforms my chamber pot into a flask of perfume.” Food for thought y’all!
**All About Steve sucks, but you probably knew that already. One of the other shacklet channels showed marathons of House. How come nobody told me I’d like House?! That guy is one cranky, drug-addled, self-absorbed, self righteous, emotionally crippled, son of a bitch! I can’t believe I haven’t dated him yet!
*** Of course, in her quest to prove how great the shacklet was, McAdams insisted on trying out the hot tub. It took two days to fill up – I won’t even mention the energy and water that wastes – and, of course, after ten minutes of making friends with the folks revving up their engines in the parking lot pf the crack den Chinese place, she was ready to get out. “Refreshing,” she said, and then spent a half hour in the shower scrubbing vigorously and sobbing quietly, convinced that she’d contracted a deadly staph infection.
**** The bathroom/kitchen combo was my favorite part of the shacklet. I’d go in there with a book and a few minutes later, McAdams would rap softly on the door. “I’m just in here making a snack,” she’d croon. “Can I get you a sandwich?”
Good times.

On the road again…

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We started in Omaha, Nebraska. That’s a great first line to a novel nobody really wants to read, right? Don’t hate on Omaha, y’all! There’s a lot going on there, and I’ll tell you more about that later, because I’ll be back there before you know it. Here’s just a teaser for the Omaha homage I am going to write up: Omaha is the 40th largest city in the U.S.; a dog bit me there; I met the mayor, who was drunk and looking for a baby to kiss; I met the head of the mayor’s security detail, who was stone-cold sober and looking to kiss the mayor; and people get dressed up as superheros or furry creatures and roam the downtown area for no discernible reason. What’s not to love?
By 6 a.m., McAdams was up and at ’em, busily flying all around the house, last minute packing, loading up the car, blah, blah, blah. I’m not really the type to get up before my coffee’s been delivered, but I sat on the couch and kept her company, cuz I’m cool like dat. She loaded the suitcases and the cooler and a million other things we would soon deem unnecessary, and we were off! Lest you think I didn’t pull my weight, let me remind you, I have very delicate wrists that appear to be made of tiny hollow bird bones, so the union won’t let me do any heavy lifting. I’m not up to code.
The first day we were on the road for 10 hours. Here are some of things we saw:
*11 animals “sleeping” by the side of the road, including 3 possums, 2 raccoons, 2 deer, 1 half porcupine, half badger, a baby chupacabra, and two ULFM (Unidentified Large Furry Masses).
* A sign that informed us that Le Mars, Iowa, is “The Ice Cream Capital of the World.”
* 168 bikers, some with more than one “fatback” on the “hog”. (NOTE: I’m not exactly up on my biker lingo, so please don’t stab me if I don’t use the proper terminology.) I notice that almost all of these motorcycling enthusiasts are middle aged, and almost none of them wear a helmet, which is legal in some states, including South Dakota. There is a huge motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota every year, with bikers coming in from all over and loads of entertainment; this year Bob Dylan and Stone Temple Pilot are playing and Pee Wee Herman is showing up and Jim Rose of the Jim Rose Circus is the emcee. Have I told you yet that we are headed for South Dakota? We are!!! Congratualtions to Smurp for guessing right away.
* A trucker who looked just like Charles Manson, pre-forehead swastika, who tooted his horn and smiled a grisly, psycho killer smile at us.
*85 signs for Wall Drugs, that began at the beginning of the state and followed us all the way until, well, Wall Drugs. We didn’t stop, because we can’t be manipulated by hype and propaganda (and also because we decided we’d do it on the way back to Nebraska. Something to look forward to!)
* The following signs –
I’m Senor Weiner! You know you want me! (Advertising hot dogs…I think)
Candy Corn and New Potatoes, next exit (Yum! Another roadside farmer diversifies!)
Prepare to Meet Thy Maker (This one was in the middle of nowhere, stuck in a cornfield. It freaked me out for miles.)
2,500 loose slots- you’re bound to get lucky! (For a casino; gambling’s big in SD.)
Reptile Gardens – One of the Top Ten Places to Stay in America! (I don’t even need to comment on this one.)
*One awesome, way-cool sculpture garden off the highway near Montrose. I’ll post the pictures as soon as I have the technology.
*The following towns-
Burbank
Yankton (named after the famous Native American tribe that go around doing practical jokes and yankton my chain)
Vermillion
Winner
Pukwana
Murdo
Tea
De Smet (home of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s famous little house)
Spink
Wakonda
Reliance
Alcestor
Wasta
Viborg
Volin
and
Oblivion

The dog that bit me in Omaha is named Belle, so my Wild West name is going to be Belle Scar.