I’m a crappy storyteller

I don’t have many stories about myself.  The stories I do have about myself largely ramble, lacking climax, trickling off eventually into mumbled endings.  They are less than impressions of me, they are some sort of odd string that you pull, hanging off an old sweater.  Somehow attached, not really anymore, that piece is an annoying harbinger of vague unraveling.

At any rate, I’m not much good at stories.  Not the cocktail hour kind, anyway.  It’s hard for me to hone it all into one sort of palatable two dimensional less than five minutes and you’ve digested the gist of the bit thing.  I tend to tell people about other people.

Cocktail character sketches, I guess.  I give their outlines, then if they’re still listening, I give their shading, I give their color. At this point I’m ready to give them movement, their sway, rhythm.  Of course I’ve lost you at this point, for another drink, for another partner in discourse.  I’m not so good at stories.

I collect people, always have.  I don’t know when it started.  I remember middle school.  Rough boys, the girls who got boobs early, I’d sit near them, head turned, asking strings of questions.  Sometimes I’d just be quiet and they’d just start talking.  This isn’t to say I was a good friend.  I never knew quite how to move beyond being their odd little witness, conduit, whatever.

So I’d collect them.  Not really their stories. Them.  Like some Pokemon of different bits of humanity.  Gotta catch em all, I guess.  So sometimes I bring them out at cocktail hour when everyone’s tongues and ears are just a bit more loose, hoping someday I can do something about it.  Like showing them to people will somehow make their lives suck less. Like lots of little characters frozen in time will do something more than provide a personal curio, a way to show these odd little creatures I’ve collected over the years, more museum curator than advocate.

See, I’m no good at stories.

Word aversion

We’re joining this church right? See there it is. I typed it and it’s out there and it says “church”. Queasiness.

Christianity is rough for those who didn’t drag it through the dirt on the back of bigot elephant mobiles. What we’re left with is this name and vocabulary used to describe very different things.Etymologist’s dream, practitioner’s nightmare.

The place we’re joining is UCC, open and affirming, and their motto is something about agreeing to disagree but uniting to serve. Which means we can yell at each other as long as we want just so long as we’re helping people. Which is pretty cool. But not like just charity, activism stuff. Which is weird I suppose being a Christian (there it is again, word nerves) and opposing these other people who wave around their big Cs (Christ, Church, Christian) like some sort of massive status symbol. It’s weird when we’re marching in the gay pride parade and the people on the other side say things like God (there’s another one) wants to protect heterosexual marriage or whatever. Like anybody could ever possibly know.

Heck I don’t know if what we’re doing is right. Maybe we’re reading it all wrong. But loving and accepting and helping each other and thanking whatever made us this way sure feels all good and nice.

But what you come out with is this word aversion. I’m really proud we’re becoming members next Sunday because it’s a place that does a whole lot of good and changes a whole lot of lives. But you know, it’s hard to tell people about it without feeling all righteous sounding or alienating or whatever.

Stupid elephants.

(originally published on Tumblr, reblogged for posterity)

Hygiene

Over time I’ve noticed that the one thing which usually keeps me from spinning off into crazyfaceville is some sort of creative outlet, exercised regularly. It’s like mind sweat. Especially in law school where there isn’t a whole lot of room for much beyond logic and rote memorization, you just have to balance it out with something. Otherwise I end up like a dude who does waaaaay too many bench presses and ends up having a huge upper torso and itty bitty legs. At least I imagine a person like that would get bitchy and off-kilter feeling about it eventually.

It’s a mental Neti pot, pour in some ideas, get that gunk out that you’ve been trying to blow but can’t quite dislodge it. So I’ve never used a Neti pot and it’s kind of apparent. Whatever. The idea of giving myself pool-nose deliberately wiggs me out. Whatever. Art, music, dancing, writing; anything that scratches the itch for a bit. Helps to come out with something tangible. That’s sorta my theory on the influx of blogs. Non-creative jobs leading people to need a left-brain mental treadmill after a day of repetitive keyboard-banging.

The other hygiene thing that I gotta do is give. Spending all my time devoted to personal goals and ambitions is awkward for me. I just start feeling like crap. Like my world’s getting itty-bitty. Maybe more jogging would help with it. But physically helping someone does the appreciation/perspective bit that gets lost while in school spending all this money. Since the semester started, there hasn’t been much time to give, and it’s been sated a bit through texting cash to Haiti or picking up stuff for the homeless from the drug store. But it’s not like face-to-face stuff. I met a girl at our church membership group who was diagnosed with MS at age 25, has a kid, is confined to a wheelchair now but she has so much energy about trying to find faith and stuff she’s never had before even though life has just handed her a big fat pile of poo.

But it just sorta reminds me that there are a lot of people out there trying to make it with not even an eighth of all the stuff I have and if they had just a few things–car rides, shelters, food, clothing, mentors, adequate legal advice, it could really change their lives. There are a lot of opportunities with nonprofits and organizations that need law help. Like domestic abuse, immigration, civil rights stuff. This is what it’s about. Directly helping people and hopefully changing the system someday to make life suck a bit less. But for now all I’ve got time for is the gum-as-a-meal-substitute system of giving. Doing little stuff until there’s sufficient time to go help face to face. Never enough with all the need around. But ya always worry about whether you’re steering wrong. Law is high stakes shit, especially to people who couldn’t afford it otherwise. Having somebody rely on that so much is gonna take way bigger cajones then I have right now.

A real woman’s sport.

“You’re late”

The girl with the helmet and a body as solid as an icebox barked as I wandered, bewildered, up to the group  seated rinkside.

“traffic–” I started to bluster.

She eyed me with a look so stinky, even Clint Eastwood would have shrank back a little.

I tried a different tactic.

“Yeah, well. You know. Can I still suit up?”

She seemed to like that all right. At least it didn’t seem that she was going to boot me straight out of town.

“Yeah. We just finished warm-ups. You been here before?”

I shook my head. She handed me a folder.

“Fill this out and give me your money.”

I thumbed through the contents. Lots of medical information. A release and hold harmless contract. Something about engaging in dangerous activity, I might get killed and they don’t want to get sued blah blah blah. Whatever. I signed.

Then I looked around the room. Most were built just as solid as my welcoming committee. They all had helmets. They all looked a lot like they could kick my ass. I’m pretty sure one of them growled. I’m pretty sure some were rabid. At least, that’s what it looked like with the mouthguards in.

But damn, get them in skates and they can kick your ass and look graceful while doing it. At least that’s how it seemed in warm-ups. We were sprinting, doing turns, skating backwards. They looped around me with reckless abandon. Skate on one foot backwards and jump turn? Right. I felt like it was puberty all over again. You know that part where you suddenly have absolutely no body awareness? Yeah.

Then they scrimmaged.

Lemme tell you one thing about roller derby: it’s hard to tell what the heck is going on. Much like Nascar, there’s a lot of circling. Much like football, there’s a lot of ass-kicking. And when those girls fall, they fall _hard_. But damn if they don’t get right back up and keep skating. And yelling.

“Who has the nails?”

“Seriously, who has the nails?”

“Cut your damn nails!”

This is no girl fight. This is woman brawling and there will be no scratching. Just straight up get-the-hell-out-of -my-way checking. This is no Macy’s sale, these bitches are real competitors.

Scary? Absolutely. Empowering? Hell yes. And you can bet your ass I’ll be there next week, trying to become even half the athlete these ladies are.

Dear Justice “Pulls the Ladder Up Behind Him” Scalia

(Today @jsnprkn sent me a very thought-provoking post from the Wall Street Journal Law Blog. It relates and asks readers to respond to comments made by Justice Antonin Scalia about the quality of legal counsel, some of which follow.)

“I mean there’d be a, you know, a defense or public defender from Podunk, you know, and this woman is really brilliant, you know. Why isn’t she out inventing the automobile or, you know, doing something productive for this society?

I mean lawyers, after all, don’t produce anything. They enable other people to produce and to go on with their lives efficiently and in an atmosphere of freedom. That’s important, but it doesn’t put food on the table and there have to be other people who are doing that. And I worry that we are devoting too many of our very best minds to this enterprise.”

First, Your Honor, I gotta say that the automobile? Already invented. Even us ladies of Podunk know that. And while I’m sure you’d rather have us inventing combustion engines for lugging your ass around instead of writing amicus briefs, that’s not what we’re here for. Take this really brilliant defender from right here in Podunkland: Roxanne Conlin. Give her clients a call. Every last one of their wronged, downtrodden selves that she helped find justice. Call them and find out if they’d rather trade a new hedge fund or tractor or something more “productive” in your mind for the fundamental difference she made in their lives.

This is why people enter the law. Do you need to be reminded that 35 of the 55 framers of the Constitution were lawyers? The goal is so much more than to “enable other people to produce and to go on with their lives efficiently and in an atmosphere of freedom.” Your years on the bench must have made you forget your heart.

We choose the law to strike down bigotry, discrimination and ignorance of those who came before. We choose the law because it brings fairness and justice into the lives of those who have been wronged today. We choose the law because the battles we face in the courtroom will shape the fates of those who come after us.

While we are not the ones who sewed the seeds of the corn which fed the cow which gave the steak that lands on your plate, we are the ones who protect those who do from harm. Here in Podunk we know that more than anyone. We know our food like we know our neighbors, and we sure as hell know our right and wrong. That’s why great minds choose the law, Your Honor, because of their fundamental desire to see justice served.

All right, back to studying.

ironing dress shirts

Hey hun, I’d just like you to know that the cuffs on these things are a pain in the ass. Oh, and don’t get me started on the “steamer” bit– dribbling all over, leaking on the ironing board, are we sure it’s not just a very hot, useful baby? Anyway, with any luck, this will be the last time I try to send you to work looking crisp. Or at least not homeless.

Yes tomorrow I begin orienting myself to pay for people to yell at me. Again. Music to your ears, right honey? Just as we were getting accustomed to nice things like movies, grown-up furniture, and foods other than ramen, I pull the rug out from under you. (Literally. I was going to sell the rug to pay for a day of Torts but nobody would take it.) Yep for the next three years I will bring nothing to this relationship but crippling debt and bitchiness. Kind of like having a trophy wife but without the nice skin.

Hopefully though, when this is all over, once a week we will wad up our dress shirts together and dump them in a bag, laughing about that time I somehow managed to iron my foot. Then some fellow will charge us out the ass to do what I’m doing right now: make our fledgling existence as twenty-somethings stumbling forward in the world seem right and good, free of wrinkles and smelling of starch.

To My Dearest Sister on this most Auspicious Occasion:

This day marks the temporary Passing of the Pile. For generations, siblings have passed on their gently used vehicles to their next youngest of kin as it becomes less and less appealing to potential mates. Eventually this “well-loved” vehicle lands in the hands of the youngest in a state that only induces feelings of pity from dates and friends who have the privilege of riding in it. Some sociologists attribute this behavior to a certain ‘Modern Darwinism’.

Our Beloved Camry was built when our brother was first laying his foot upon an accelerator; permanently cementing the concept of driving was as a terrifying twinkle in my twelve year old eye. Now it is in your hands; you, who only knew the concept of “car” as the large machine that makes mommy and daddy yell at other large machines when it was conceived.

As with all well-loved vehicles, this particular pile comes with a few peccadilloes—ahem. Features, yes features.

1. Rust. Yes the undercarriage contains a bit of rust. This is a reminder not only of the interminable property of time, but also of the wonders of the air we breathe. Ferrous Oxide, the breath of metal. Isn’t it magical?

2. The Minimalist’s Door Handle. The state of this handle is, of course, not due to laziness on my part for not getting it fixed, but a tribute to frugality and adaptation. It also serves as a reminder that sometimes strangers are indeed strange, as I found out when the mechanic in Geneseo declared that his “dipshit son broke [my] door handle… c’mere porkchop!” (‘porkchop’ being his most affectionate nickname for his impish granddaughter).

3. The Dented Rear End. Sometimes we are not the most distracted person on the road. Sometimes that person is *behind* you. In all seriousness, this is why you should never crank your wheel while waiting in traffic for space to turn. Related to this is another feature:

4. The Midsummer Smell of a Spilled Soy Latté. Yes, I could have shampooed the carpet after that accident. Many people would’ve. But though my back pain subsided, this smell persists. Why? It is a reminder of human frailty and the crappiness of Caribou’s soymilk.

5. The Ripped-Out Speaker. Music has a transcendental property which occasionally alters our mood, renders us nostalgic, pensive, perhaps even transporting us to a different time and/or place. Imagine how much that property would be amplified if the music surrounded you. This lack of a drivers-side door speaker is clearly a safety feature.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to cover a deer turd in a thin candy shell (though I hear this is a delicacy served at most used car dealerships). I most definitely vacuumed the entire vehicle before handing you the key, even though this sent perhaps one of the Midwest’s most extensive collections of soil samples into the trash can.

Be good to her, and by “good” I mean better than the absolutely horrendous treatment given to her by your elder siblings. She may be a crapwagon, but by God, she’s our crapwagon.

With love,

Your Sister.

PS: Seriously though, I’ll be back for it next week.

(note: this was first posted to my Tumblr, where I realized that 500-word letters are best dealt with in Wordpress– oops!)

on death and all of that

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still absolutely terrified, but the thing is that I’m starting to get it. I know a number of people who are dying right now of cancer. I’ve also had a number of friends in the past who have died of accidents or overdoses. The cancer is harder though. It’s hard to face someone who’s dying. Watch them look worse and worse. We like to deny death, it’s hard to look at it take over people we know and love. Sometimes we wonder if it’s an omen for our own life. Grief is so largely personal. So much about our own fear. I have a lot to learn about talking with people who are nearing death, and not dodge the issue when they talk. I think my relationship with God has helped a lot so far.

I just know there’s something after life. Something greater than ourselves. To deny that and leave our existence to chance is the highest display of hubris. I also know that life has to be lived in the most dynamic way possible so that when it’s our time, we can reflect on how much we have done and declare that we are ready for the next level. Until that point, we have to fight for life, treasure what we have. To not do that would be to disrespect all people as well as God.

I’m building a website for a friend who is deep in that fight for her life right now. She has extremely extensive cancer. Her legs keep giving out and she’s all swollen but when she writes, she has the most extraordinary sense of humor and is so full of life. It’s absolutely amazing. In the face of this all kinds of bills are coming that she can’t cover because her insurance is terrible and attributes everything to preexisting conditions. Anyway, hopefully a Chipin will be up soon and friends’ll rise up and throw in. I’ll link up here when it’s ready.

::UPDATE:: Netty died July 14, 2009 of a blockage. Her (now memorial) site is here if you would like to give to the family.

Tech writing what what?

Hey guys hey guys! Little known fact: I went to school for technical communication. You know, like writing manuals and web content and all that biznass. True story. Did it for a while in conjunction with dev.

At any rate, I got to dust off my not so rusty (after all, I communicate about technical stuff every day) skills to write some web copy for a startup the other day. SO. So. I thought maybe. Maybe I could write about it here for whatever audience that stumbles upon this entirely unfocused collection of ill constructed paragraphs.

STEPS TO CLARITY (aka what I think about before putting fingers to keyboard in writing startup copy)

1. Figure out what you do. Whether it’s easy, like Drupal dev for nonprofits, or more obscure, like myriad js based services development, sit down and come up with a one-sentence definition. CAREFUL: showing this definition to non-technical users will probably cause glazed-over looks and slight drooling.
2. What are you good for? Really. What the heck are you good for. In totally simple terms. Give some examples, list it all out. While you’re at it, list what you aren’t good for. Finding the space where you operate off the bat saves you and your customers the pain of figuring it out as you go.
3. Who is your audience? What level of experience are they coming at you with? Are you pitching to major corporations, in which you’ll have several levels of bureaucracy and knowledge? What kind of buzzwords are they stuck on? Here’s where you need to research the trends of your target consumer.
4. Pull it all together. Rewrite your first line, the definition of services, in terms of what you are offering, and who you’re offering it to. This is where you develop some diagrams, lists, whatever to make your purpose easy to access. Try to boil it down initially to one or two sentences, but if that sacrifices clarity for the sake of conciseness, don’t do it. If you end up with a full paragraph, break out the bullets. The idea is to put on a different pair of glasses when approaching your content. The glasses of your typical consumer.

If you can’t do this, you might want to hire a middle person like a technical communicator lest interaction with customers become difficult. Also, it can be very tough to be as close to your product as a developer or engineer is without losing objectivity that enables you to communicate non-technically.

¡¡BODA!!

Estoy haciendo un investigación sobre bodas en España. Mi novio y yo queremos casar en Barcelona. Esto no es un anuncio sobre nuestro compromiso (mamá!), solo es un investigación sobre si es possible. Si tienes sugerencias, recomendaciónes, comentarios, etc. ¡¡dígame por favor!!!