Tax TIme

'Overhearing' Big A and At go on about receipts for college books and meal plans and so on and  whatnot on the family group chat.

I'm so over hearing them on this, so I posted:

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Intimacy and Teens

I already ruined advertisements for my students with Jean Kilbourne's Killing Us Softly, and now I want everyone to read this story of porn educators and how they're attempting to unpack and expose the sad, porn-inspired performativity of  teenage sex. It's awful enough that we have no good sex ed, but worse that there's seemingly universal and facile access to bad porn:

"It’s not surprising, then, that some adolescents use porn as a how-to guide. In a study that Rothman carried out in 2016 of 72 high schoolers ages 16 and 17, teenagers reported that porn was their primary source for information about sex — more than friends, siblings, schools or parents."

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Of Samosas and Vaginas

Because I didn't plan ahead, cocktail samosas ($2.99 frozen; broiled for < 11 mins) and the dregs of a jar of mango chutney will have to do as my offering to the potluck of a new bookclub. Unusually, I seem to be the youngest, so they all love on me anyway.

 I'm looking forward to learning--among other things--how to work with mobility/speech/hearing issues in discussion formats.

The books I suggested were Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing and Carmen Machado's Her Body and Other Parties. I started talking about "The Husband Stitch" and couldn't shut up about vaginas for a quite a while :).

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A Project with Nu

While At was out discussing a podcast project with his erstwhile boss at the high school newspaper (also junior prom date; fire tweeter), Nu and I were at the antique store trying to find a small chair for the corner of the kitchen by the cookbooks' shelves. 

We found it.

Bonus: It seems to be an actual kitchen chair covered in old-timey vinyl. 

Bonus+: It cost $15 and once we'd thrown some (faux) sheepskin on it, was exactly what I'd envisioned.

Bonus ++: It turned out that an awesome student works there (her mother had recently purchased the store)

Bonus +++: Her mother and I were able to embarrass her by talking about all the ways in which she was awesome.

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Reading

Today is a sabotaged page
brutish
dusty
untrustworthy

on the edges of my brain
the hot animal knees
me, tears me,
sees me in tears

on the undercurrent of loss
in the flooding and
leaking
and catching

I can untie words heavy as air
as ephemeral; I am
a lookout, I am
eaten by the sea


(Note: I'm reading Truddi Chase's When Rabbit Howls and took on a new CASA case yesterday)
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Imprint

I am the serotinal student

clasping ideas between breaths

clamping lips around knowledge

i touch a thousand books

i read them all


-

When a Banker Says...

that they work with families 

on Detroit's Eastside,

they deserve their own 

thank-you copy.

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Between Us and Ta-Nehisi Coates

Reader

The sky has never been a wall
it has no borders to speak of
it takes my troubles everywhere

It's true that light is rationed--
but it's abundant by my birthday
(though scant at Christmas)

So I can read a book all day,
All Day. In a cinnamon haze
my sweet, dusty feast

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First Writing Project Together...

Saved as a Google doc with the super-serious title "BigDogandPuppy Project."

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"Arrival Times"

After three different emails with that ambiguous subject heading, K and I finally got together with our respective human offspring to go see Ted Chiang's stupendous, extraordinary, etc., etc. sci-fi short story turned movie Arrival.

It broke me. It's intensely emotional and threw me for a loop (haha). And the small blazes of happiness were because At worked out and shared the reveal way before it happened and my Nu pointed out in the first few minutes that "Come back to me" was used as a refrain. Before she lost interest in the movie and took a tiny snooze.

Speaking of which, it's the first movie in a long, long time that I didn't slip a nap into. I even napped during--please don't tell my kids--The Force Awakens.

Although they've known all about it for years.

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The Ladies Finger

Don't know how I first came across it, but I love this blogzine--irreverent, honest, charming, and pathbreaking. It seems to be written and produced in India, but it's a great read for anyone with transnational feminist sensibilities.

Gender Diaries

TL; DR

I ask: Have you wondered...

Student replies: not before this class.

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Ride Home

O.K.
Actually, 

just needed it

to tidy my office a bit.

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Such a Great Feeling...

When you find the perfect textbook

for your students

(and you're thanked 

in the Acknowledgements)

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First Independent Journal Article

I hadn't realized it was out yet!

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Resonance

The in-flight magazine 

reminded me of 

my own little comic

who likes the story of 

Carol Burnett tugging 

on her ear

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New Book

Nu started writing 

(yet) another novel. 

The title makes me 

giggle 

every

time.

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Christmas Quartet

The kids gave me presents that blew me away.

Nu brought home a healthy recipe book (standard school issue parent present) in November when we had no holiday wrapping paper yet. She made this to wrap her present in:

At got me this because my RBG tee was fraying:

Nu gave me an extra present (because she loves me best of all!). It's a chocolate countdown calendar! (And she teamed it with a bag of chocolate she got her dad to buy for her.) 

And Nu kept her creativity going by making the puppies a play yard:

My four kids are simply the best.

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The Beginning of the Alma Season...

Her family makes these ornaments,

and the awesome student 

(whom I've never had in class)

gave me one.

Aw!

I turned into an embarrassing 

blabbering mess of gratitude.

Gah.

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