a sad sign of the times – handwriting has been phased out schools. (or you can listen here)

i’m a sentimental fool and always have been. as a kid i went annually to sleep-away camp in the catskill mountains of upstate new york. at the end of the summer there were always tearful heartfelt goodbyes with girlfriends and solemn promises to keep in touch. long distance calls were too expensive in those days, so we wrote letters. long earnest letters reminiscing about boys we’d been secretly in love with, or stuck-up popular girls whom we were equal parts resentful and jealous of, or the kind of cheesy fun you can only have at camp where everyone else is acting just as goofy. these were letters written on carefully selected stationery – something not too childish (like puppies or dolls) but still playful and pretty, like butterflies or flowers. some had special pens with purple ink and dotted their”i”s with hearts or smilies. and found next to the signature was always a code of some type – the popular “b.f.f.” (best friends forever) or more individual “i.l.d.a.a.f.” (i love danny always and forever) or generic “s.w.a.k.” (sealed with a kiss). getting a letter was special, but writing a letter was an indicator of loyalty. you never make friends like those you make at camp, and those letters tell the story of the kind of pure friendship that doesn’t exist amongst adults.

as i got older, handwriting became a hallmark of maturity. neat essays and even script signified a serious scholastic effort and were rewarded by teachers. high school girls vied amongst themselves for the unofficial title of “best handwriting”, unabashedly seeking compliments by putting their own penmanship down. some slyly emulated others. boys avoided using cursive at all costs, afraid of seeming too feminine if they cared about careful script. block printing was far more manly. and so my first love letter from a boy was written in tiny hand, all capitals, taking pains to look just the tiniest bit slapdash – but he hinted at his true feelings by using the special blue paper i’d given him as a gift. it was 6 pages, front and back, and it came mailed with a mix tape. on the last page he used the “l” word for the first time. i smelled that letter and traced the words with my finger. i wore that letter out until we broke up only a few months later. but i still have it.

and when we embarked on our trip, i brought along a large notebook. over hours and miles of endless bus journeys i wrote about my experiences and thoughts in bumpy fashion. i crossed out and contemplated, my mind racing faster than my fingers as i mentally edited and re-wrote. some of my best journal entries were the result of several re-readings, and it was only when we at last arrived at an internet cafe and i typed them up for permanent publishing that they got final approval. there is something about the act of putting pen to paper which inspires creativity in a way no keyboard can. it is the thread which ties together my girlhood and adolescence – the kid who carefully wrote back to every cabin-mate on the camp mailing list so she would have friends the following summer, the one who wrote passionately to her teen boyfriend hoping he missed her, the one who traded freshman tales of woe with friends at far-flung colleges. my handwriting documented all of these, and it has matured and changed as i have. it reflects my personality – unique, a little messy, a lot exuberant. it looks similar to my dad’s handwriting and is carefully practiced to get the most my long name on a short signature line. i still write in a paper diary and send cards in the mail. i still like getting the increasingly rare letter.

and so i am saddened that children no longer learn handwriting. it makes me sad to know i will likely never get to see my niece piper dot her “i”s with little bubbles or hearts. it makes me feel old to think that i have lived to see letter writing pass into extinction. i don’t know why this one change brings out such nostalgia but it does. some essential connection has been lost.

i still save text phone messages and emails… but it’s not the same.

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i no longer have to fear for my life everytime we get on a bus. given the two horrible accidents we witnessed and yesterday’s recent tragedy, my fears were hardly unfounded. it tied my stomach in knots of anxiety every single time.

but what galls me is that shitloads of tourists pay crazy money to bike down “the world’s most dangerous road” (with over 100 fatalities a year). we originally intended to do it as well – it was only because we were shaken up from the accident only days before that we decided not to. yet none of that money pouring in goes toward improving the road safety. probably because they’d lose the tourism dollars.

one life lost every three days is far too high a price to pay.

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bolivia, accident, road safety

I’ve been “tagged” by the lovely Anglofille. While I usually don’t do memes, this one is interesting in a very sociological kinda way, so what the hell…

Do you like the look and the content of your blog?

yeah. though i would love my blog to look “cleaner” and neater and more professional, it’s all my design so it gives me something to play around with. as for content, i think i have a decent balance of the personal and political. mostly i write about whatever strikes my fancy. if that strikes other people’s fancy as well, then so much the better.

Does your family know about your blog?

yep, though they rarely check in. i think they find it a strange and nerdy hobby.

Can you tell your friends about your blog? Do you consider it a private thing?

my friends all know about it. i have a private journal-style blog for the really private stuff. because google is evil.

Do you just read the blogs of those who comment on your blog? Or do you try to discover new blogs?

i read all sorts of stuff – you never know when you’ll stumble across something interesting. i make an effort to read those who comment on mine, and i think like minds tend to gravitate toward like.

Does your blog positively affect your mind? Give an example.

well it forces me to stay informed and examine my reasoning and opinions, so i consider that a good thing.

What does the number of visitors to your blog mean? Do you use a traffic counter?

i have a statcounter, and i’d be lying if i said it didn’t give me a little thrill to see more people reading it. but in the grand scheme of things, if you keep a blog only for an audience you’re bound to be disappointed.

Do you imagine what other bloggers look like?

occasionally.

Do you think blogging has any real benefit?

i think blogs are beneficial in fostering the open flow of information – that can only be a good thing.

Do you think that the blogsphere is a stand alone community separated from the real world?

I think the blogosphere *is* the real world – just in a different format. but it is definitely a distinct community unto itself.

Do some political blogs scare you? Do you avoid them?

nah – everyone’s entitled to their opinion. of course, that doesn’t mean i have to waste my time reading those opinions i think are stupid or ill-informed angry rhetoric.

Do you think that criticizing your blog is useful?

i suppose it can’t hurt. i’m always open to suggestion.

Have you ever thought about what would happen to your blog if you died?

Nope.

Which blogger had the greatest impression on you?

catherine’s pita was the blog which inspired me to start my own, and dooce is my idol (isn’t she everybody’s?) but blogher makes me feel like i’m part of a movement.

Which blogger do you think is the most similar to you?
prolly nicole in london, just because we’re both american expats living in south london. thevolabroad too,but she’s a southerner

Name a song you want to listen to?

hmmm – well right now weezer’s “say it ain’t so” is going through my brain, so maybe i’ll go give it a whirl on the ol’ mp3 player…

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the guardian this weekend poses the question: are you a universalist or relativist?

Are you U or non-U? By which I mean, are you a universalist or a relativist? Forget left and right; the defining political divide of the global era is between those who believe that some moral rights and freedoms ought to be universal and those who argue that each culture to its own. This new frontline of contemporary debate runs across issues as diverse as race, faith, multiculturalism, feminism, gay rights, freedom of speech and foreign policy. In each instance, the argument eventually comes down to whether you have a universalist or relativist view of the world.

Universalists argue that certain rights and protections – freedom of speech, democracy, the rule of law – are common or, at least, should be available to all people. Relativists maintain that different cultures have different values and that it’s impossible to say that one system or idea is better than another and, moreover, it’s racist to try.

it’s an interesting question, and one that will continue to come up with increasing frequency in a world where the most powerful nations profess to respect all faiths and beliefs, yet their political actions often speak volumes to the contrary.

and i don’t think the answer is as simple as one generic classification or another, just as the moral issues involved are not so easily defined. i think these are both extreme ideas at the ends of a very long continuum. certainly my political beliefs do not sit squarely in on camp or the other.

for myself, i believe the ideas of personal freedom and political democracy are lovely ideals to aspire to, but ones which even the most egalitarian societies like the u.s. and the u.k. have yet to fully realise. to hold ourselves up as defenders of the absolute moral great and good is the most egotistical kind of hypocrisy. and if we’ve not yet achieved it, how can we possibly condemn others for their failures.

yet i don’t think all issues of human rights can be viewed through a lens of cultural relativism either. while my westernised thinking finds cannibalism abhorrent, i don’t think it’s *only* because I’ve grown up with the motto of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. i’d like to think that even if i were a member of a cannibalistic society i’d be just as upset to have my mother killed and eaten in the jungle, as if the same thing happened in boston.

i guess the best way to describe my belief would be that there is a spectrum of progress along which all societies must progress. and that they must do so of their own volition. change impose from without is never as lasting as change generated from within – which is why i think that invasion and attack in order to “free” people from oppression and dictatorship is never the preferred option. it is only through struggle and uprising that people learn to cherish and preserve those beliefs and ideals for which they have sacrificed so much. and perhaps that sounds harsh, but i think it’s the only way that real, permanent human rights become inculcated into a society without a sense of cultural disconnect. without the resentment that comes with having another’s ideals proscribed as your own.

i *do* think most people yearn for the freedoms which westernised countries have so neatly claimed as the moral high ground. but i think that each nation, each neighbourhood, each individual, must get there by their own path, in their own time. and to pretend that we’ve somehow perfected the definition and protection of human rights is sheer hubris.

instead, we should concentrate on leading by example. because we all have a long way to go.

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freedoms, universalism, , cultural relativism, human rights, plural monoculturalism

interesting article in this weekend’s financial times on the experience of the american immigrant to the u.k. – several people from my expat forum were interviewed for the piece. (the full article requires subscription, so i’ll quote it liberally here.)

In 2004, the latest year for which figures are available, the 4,120 Americans given indefinite leave to remain in the UK easily outnumbered the 3,115 Bangladeshis granted permanent residence, even though Bangladesh has long been seen as one of the biggest sources of immigration to Britain. Americans also outnumbered the 3,825 Somalis, the 3,240 Australians, the 2,930 Jamaicans, the 2,315 Chinese, the 1,725 Iranians and the 1,720 Iraqis.

According to an analysis of the latest available census data by the Institute for Public Policy Research, a London-based think-tank, there were about 155,000 US-born people living in Britain in 2001, outnumbering all other migrant groups except those from the Irish Republic, India, Pakistan, Germany and the Caribbean…

…Yet the surprise, surely, is that any Americans move to Britain at all. While American brides may have a long tradition of settling with British husbands – Nancy Astor, Wallis Simpson and Madonna, to name a few – why would other Americans want to leave the land of plenty for a grim, drab and relatively poor little island with leaden skies, high prices and appalling food?

…But Americans who choose to settle in the UK have very different reasons for staying. They like the schools, the long holidays and the multiculturalism. They like Britain’s proximity to other countries and the sense of being connected with the rest of the world. Some even like the weather (but not the food – “bland, tasteless and boiled or fried to death”). And, at least for those outside London, one of Britain’s biggest attractions turns out to be the National Health Service.

…Still, expensive as London may be, census figures show that London’s American-born population shot up by 37 per cent to nearly 45,000 in the 10 years to 2001…

…What of those who settle in Britain for reasons other than marriage? Some, you might say, are political refugees. Paula Higgins, a noted musicologist, gave up a tenured professorship at the University of Notre Dame to take a chair in music and become head of department at Nottingham University. An avowed feminist and far-left liberal, she says a big factor in her decision to move was “the almost intolerable political climate in the US, as well as the increasingly oppressive infiltration of rightwing conservatism into the university I was working at, which was at one time a citadel of left-wing concerns with social justice issues”.

Others, however, simply weigh up the American way of life against the British way and decide they prefer the British one.

“I think people have a misconception about what it’s like to live in America,” says Tracy Abrusci, a nurse and single mother from Chicago who now lives and works in Birmingham. “People think the streets are paved with gold and everybody lives in these big houses and drives these big cars and nobody has any worries, when the reality is a lot of people are struggling.”

She says people work far harder in the US – more hours per week and more weeks a year, plus they have a heavier workload. And life is much more precarious. “If you lose your job, there is nothing to fall back on. If you’re a relatively healthy, middle-aged man, you’re not going to get any benefit at all. They just give you a list of shelters.”

…Meta Jamison, who moved with her husband Brian from Orlando, Florida, to Southampton, Hampshire, where they both work at the university, says: “I think the way of life here is a bit more real; not quite as work-driven and consumerism-driven. In the US I felt like my whole life centred around working, working, working, knowing that if I worked at the same job for one year I may get a week off, whereas here there’s more of a sense that work is not everything.”

this is all very interesting for me. many of the expats i know moved here to be with their brit spouses, and i think it makes for a much different experience to have that built in safety net of family when the going gets tough (as it invariably does). as a single person who moved over just for the hell of it, i learned a whole lot about the meaning of self-reliance when things got really difficult. truthfully, i’m still not quite sure how i did it sometimes except through sheer stubbornness. but i do know that it made me a stronger person for it. still – sometimes i find it hard to identify with other expats because of that difference. if i’m honest, a tiny part of me is bitter that they had it easier than i did. and a little part of me is also proud of having made it on my own. it’s very true though, that when i first arrived everyone did seem flummoxed that i would have electively moved here of my own accord. they were genuinely surprised that i might think the grass to be greener on this side of the pond. and if my only real knowledge of america came from what i saw on the telly, i might wonder the same. but it was an odd sensation to feel that i had to defend my choices or substantiate my rationale for wanting to live somewhere outside the borders of the good ol’ u. s. of a.

but i’ve found that most of the sentiments of the article really ring true for me – some of the things that i find most gratifying about living here have to do with the political climate, the social benefits, and the work-life balance. i still find it incredibly refreshing that when i go to the doctor, i can walk in and out without ever once opening my wallet. i love being able to go from country to country the way i used to travel from state to state. i love the fact that politicians are continually held to a higher level of scrutiny and accountability. i like working to live, rather than living to work. for example, i could never make the kind of trip i’m getting ready to embark upon if i were still living in the u.s. The idea that i could just drop out of work and society to take six months off and go sightseeing is nearly unheard of in the states.

the u.k. is by no means a utopia – but it ain’t too shabby, either.

in any case, it’s nice to know that i’m no longer as alone as i once was. i only hope we don’t ruin the place.

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three years ago today, I arrived at heathrow – luggage laden, wide-eyed, and hopelessly romantic about life in london. i dragged my suitcases through the streets of peckham, to a flat i’d never seen and a flatmate i’d never met. i had $4000 and a six month work visa, and it was the culmination of a life’s dream. it was an early spring that year and i spent my first full day in london soaking up the warm sun, drinking pints at a pub by the thames, and i remember thinking how incredibly lucky i was to be able to make it come true.

at the time, my only goal was to find a way to stick it out for a year and see what happened. and boy, did stuff happen. during the first week i was there, i did a pub crawl, stayed out all night, snogged my first brit, went on my first uk date, landed a job, went to museums, went to clubs… i thought that’s what my new life in the uk would be like. it was every bit as wonderfully exotic and vital as i’d hoped.

but really, after the weather turns and the shine wears off, life in london is like life in any big city. which means that often it is mundane and annoying. i was lonely and broke for a good long time. i had romantic disasters and culture shock and immigration woes. i got lost and confused and homesick. i thought long and hard about packing up and going home, convinced no one would even miss me if i did. that was the low point.

but: there were also flashes of the life i’d imagined myself leading. the weekend jaunts to grand european cities. the pastoral getaways and quaint charms of genteel britain. the crazy debauched parties and raunchy stories tucked away for old age. culture and historic ambiance abounding. the doe-eyed lover’s view of the picturesque and the rose-coloured. the quintessentially urban experiences that make you appreciate the pulse of a city. there were those hints of the brilliance underneath – and they kept me here.

and now, after three years, i truly feel i’ve reached a milestone of some sort in my relationship with london. that hard-won balance of the mundane and the amazing. a point where i am comfortable enough to leave, knowing my place in this city is assured, and will still be here when i get back. knowing i will be welcomed back into the fold, the heart of things, quickly enveloped back into life-current. I am at ease enough to take this for granted, and yet, still new enough to have my breath taken away occasionally. There are still days when I have that sharply acute awareness of how lucky i am to be here. those flashes still keep me here.

and here is a good place to be.

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one of the differences i find most interesting about living in the UK is the difference in racial profile and classification.  For example, here, the accepted (census used) race classifications are:

• white (white british, white irish, white other)
• black or black british (black carribean, black african, black other)
• asian (indian, pakistani, bangladeshi, other)
• mixed (white/black carribean, white/black african, white/asian, other)
• chinese or other

To those of us from the US, this takes some getting used to.  Terms such as bi-racial or multi-ethnic are instead just called "mixed race" – which to the american ear seems a bit crude.  "Asian" means almost exclusively those ex-commonwealth countries which still play cricket. Everyone else from the continent of asia is lumped into "chinese or other", because really, there are few koreans, vietnamese, or other asian countries demographically represented here.  (and it sounds silly to say this, but it’s so ingrained… "african-american" is obviously not in usage over here.)  the distinction between black-carribean and black-african sounds pedantic (since most black-carribeans in the u.s. would say they were of african descent) until you realise that there are a lot more african immigrants in the u.k.  there’s no hispanic category – I presume they’re expected to identify as one of the white or black categories – and the term "latino" doesn’t even exist.  and it’s a particularly strange sensation to tick the box for "white – other" when one is used to just belonging to the category at the top of the list.

when I first started working for the council, one of the first tasks I had was to write up a "Race and Equalities IMpact assessment" for a project we were doing.  and it was like learning a while new language.  we become so used to throwing around the most politically correct terms in the u.s., it’s so ingrained, that everything else feels foreign.  "wrong" somehow.  racial sensitivity often takes a back seat in a country where 87.5% of the population identify as "white british", and it takes some adjustment to get used to.

which is really just my long-winded way of saying that living in a country with such a different approach to diversity and ethnicity points out just how much of a social construct all our ideas about race and classification really are.  a person’s skin colour or background doesn’t change when they move from one country to the next – but the way they are identified by others certainly does.  and by extension, the way we identify ourselves.

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I’ve written about this before, but this article just supports my thesis: that what people are calling the “mommy wars” really still all harks back to pay inequity between the sexes, which is based in the expectation that women will always be the primary caregiver.

Inflexible workplaces offer socially mobile women a devil’s choice: they can advance in their careers or they can have families… But more often women don’t have that choice, and take the financial hit. Much of the “wage gap” is in fact a baby gap… Pretty much every aspect of women’s reproductive work is punished economically in the American workplace. And that affects all two-earner, nuclear households — the ideal to which we’re all supposed to aspire (the wage gap is estimated to cost working families $200 billion dollars per year).

While there has been an increase in the number of women working outside the home, that *hasn’t* translated to the same kind of increase in involvement *in* the home by most men. Yes, men are doing more – but women still take on the majority of domestic and childrearing tasks.

So organisations still operate on the presumption that it’s okay for women to be offered lesser jobs, or receive fewer benefits because their primary role is still as caregiver at home. I think in order to understand just how dramatically that impacts things like pay parity and families’ economic well-being, we need to start picturing what things would be like if the “men’s” and “women’s” roles were reversed.

I bet there are plenty of men who *would* like to take time off to be with their children – and if it made financial sense, would do so. In treating both men and women as potential primary caregivers, you make it easier for parents to return to work if they choose to do so, and you do away with the disparity in treatment (i.e. “wouldn’t you prefer admin work”). You empower people to reinforce strong families, solid working roles, and undo so much of the traditional caregiver stereotypes (”I won’t hire her because she’s likely to leave to have a baby and never return, or if she does, only work part-time”).

We’ve said it’s okay for women to have kids and work – but we’ve never said it’s okay for men to have kids and stay home.

And paradoxically, I think that even though we’ve said it’s fine for women to choose either way… we still *expect them to choose* to spend at least some time at home. Which means it’s no longer really a choice again, is it? Men almost never have to make that choice because usually it makes more financial sense for them to stay in the workforce. That’s incredibly unfair, to both fathers and mothers. Aside from the obvious example of breastfeeding directly, no one has ever determined that somehow a) women perform some sort of magical service at home that can’t be done by an equally attentive and caring and loving father and b) that these stereotypes don’t reinforce the traditional uptake of roles, reinforcing the gender pay gap, becoming a self-perpetuating cycle.

This is where the conflict amongst women over the gender-political impact of their own personal choices comes into play. We all intellectually believe that choices should be made solely on the basis of what’s best for a woman and her family. But in real life, it’s hard not to feel that one woman’s decision (either traditional, or non-traditional) makes it more difficult for the women who come behind her because of the expectations it reinforces. We become personally invested in how other women balance their work and home lives, because we feel it directly affects our ability to do the same. The decision to work or not carries so much more weight because it becomes a value-laden representative stance on families and feminism, rather than just an individual preference or path. The personal becomes political.

The workplace becomes a warzone and the homefront becomes a battleground. Instead of channeling time and energy into those things which we hold dear, we squander time and energy attempting to defend our choices by attacking others.

what a sad sad waste. and it will be even more tragic if all the infighting only means that 20 years from now, my nieces will be faced with the same agonising decisions.

you’ve come a long way, baby.

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feminism, women, workplace, sahm, mommy wars, family values

i know I tend to go on a bit about not trusting all these identifying and tracking devices which are supposed to make our lives so much easier and safer… but turns out, I have good reason to be suspicious.

rfid chips are the next frontier for hackers

the impact would be felt far beyond the corner grocery store. RFID is used for a range of tasks, from identifying pets to paying for gas, by just about everyone from Wal-Mart (WMT), the world’s largest retailer, to the Dept. of Defense. There are hundreds of millions of RFID tags being used worldwide today, and the tally will reach tens of billions within seven years…There’s a growing financial incentive for would-be RFID hackers, too. RFID tags are increasingly used in credit card payments and other financial transactions.

which could make life very interesting for the people deciding to voluntarily get chipped.

see? Sometimes I’m not as dumb as I look.

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well after a lot of false starts, it seems we have sold the car.

(small rant aside: If you call and get directions and say you’re going to come look at our car, it is RUDE to do a no call – no show, and then chickenshit to *NOT answer the phone* when we call you back to see if you are still coming!! Three people pulled that crap… as if we have nothing better to do than sit around waiting for people…)

but now, brucie is going to a good home. i will miss him. i don’t know why I get so attached to them, but i always fall hard for my cars.

my first car was the old family hand-me-down, “the silver bullet”. He was a 1984 toyota cargo van, converted into a 7 passenger minivan – one of the very first off the line. i took my very first long road-trip by myself in that car, and remember being terrified getting caught in a really bad storm where the car wanted to carry itself across a four-lane highway. he made me very popular when I worked at a remote camp in the catskill mountains and none of the other camp counselors had any way of getting into town on their days off. he was unfailingly sound of motor, and never broke down on me. he was reliable and steady and i passed him down to my siblings when i moved to new york. in the end, “the silver bullet” lived for 14 years and went more than 200,000 miles – takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

my next car was also a family inheritance. “phantom” was a gunmetal grey 1986 chevy caprice classic. a real battleaxe of a car – the frame of that sucker was pure american steel, and I never felt safer. he was a guardian – i knew that nothing could happen to me in that car, he was so solid. my sis owned him before me and drove him into the back of a giant truck, so his hood liked to bounce around a bit and looked like it wore a permanent grin. He was rear wheel drive, and my apartment was on a steep one-way hill, so winter driving was always an adventure. he was boiling hot in the summer and freezing in the winter, but he served me well, lived a good long life, and went to the aids charitable organisation in the afterlife.

my third car was yet another relation donation. “bandit” was a smoke-coloured 1996 mitsubishi galant from my brother. he was my daily ride to and from work for the 3 years I lived in boston, and i *loved* driving him. i took him everywhere, and he really felt like another part of my family. we went to provincetown and montreal and new york and new hampshire on a regular basis. we went to the beach when it was fine and sunny, and the mountains when the weather called for a hike. my dog suzie sat in back with her seatbelt on, and we’d just drive. anywhere. everywhere. it didn’t matter. the driving was the thing. he had a sunroof which leaked, and I was forever taping up the edges, but in a secret way, i loved his quirks. he was my car during my divorce, and whenever i needed to get away, he was there. he wasn’t fancy, and he wasn’t big. he was your average mid-sized foreign economy car, but he saved my sanity in a million small ways. Having to sell him to finance my move to london was supremely difficult, and I still miss the feel of the stickshift in my hand.

so maybe it’s because remembering when j bought “brucie” reminds me of the very beginning of our relationship, when everything was new and exciting. maybe it’s because brucie was my first car in the UK, and allowed us to get the hell out of london when urban living got to be too much. maybe it’s because the memories of him will always be associated with my first memories of my new life with jonno.

so call me silly and sentimental. all i know is that i will miss our faithful friend, and remember him fondly.

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started packing up our stuff this weekend. as of next week, we’ll be living like nomads, as a friend is coming to collect all our furniture and take it away.

packing is such a bittersweet exercise. the unavoidable culling of personal detrius, sorting out one’s mementos and effects, and ranking their importance. What’s expendable, what’s not reflecting the shifting internal landscape.

i’ve moved 9 times since i left home after high school. i’ve left a trail of belongings like breadcrumbs through 4 cities, 3 countries. artefacts of the lives i used to lead, and my changing priorities. pieces of my old self shed like a skin. what i no longer needed or wanted or loved became junk. objects once infused with sentiment, now refuse.

and it’s a mundane process which drains them of their power – only time. the items i brought over in my suitcase when i first moved here to remind me of home, no longer carry that weight. home is no longer home. and when i revisit the items i left behind in basement boxes, they no longer seem so poignant. mementos less momentus. the attachment eases by degrees with the passing years.

but it’s tough, this paring down to the bare necessities. I’m a thrower by nature, but I’ve done this so many times now, that my instinct is to hold fast. i’m tired of discarding things because I have to. i want some stuff that is *mine*. things that feel like home. things that i keep just for the hell of it, just in case. i want the luxury of the non-essential.

nomadism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

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From my sarnie label today:

“Either write something worth reading, or do something worth writing.” Benjamin Franklin

Wise words, Benjie.

In a few discussions lately, this has come up. I love having my website, but some days writing feels like homework. Good homework, but homework nonetheless. Yet it’s gotten to a point where I feel I have something of an obligation to keep it up, nearly daily. I have just enough people reading that I think it’s important to try to say witty or opinionated things on a pretty regular basis. And I enjoy the challenge. It keeps me informed and engaged in the world. And writing. I like writing.

But somedays I feel like I’m completely repeating myself. That I’ve said something on a forum, or here, or in my private online journal. Or people will get me in a conversation about something, and i find myself repeating phrases that I wrote, then wondering if they’ve already read it.

The biggest downside is that I find I’m not keeping my written journal. Which I really enjoyed, but once I’ve already got it out somewhere else, it’s silly to basically copy it into a diary.

Sigh. The secret downside to blogging that no one tells you about.

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The thing that really makes me despair lately, the thing which makes me want to run far, far away and never come back, is not the misogynistic ban on abortion in south dakota, and it’s not the sickening homophobic protest at the funerals of soldiers. It’s not the fact that guantanamo detainees who have been deprived of their rights are being deported back to countries where they’re likely to be tortured or executed. It’s not that teenagers think it’s fun to beat up or torch homeless people. it’s not that our sports heros flout the laws for fame and fortune.

It’s what’s reflected in all of these instances, but explicitly addressed in none of them. it is the ever-present, ever-growing naked hostility towards our fellow humans. it’s the undercurrent of a country which is quickly and constantly becoming more divisive and more embattled within its own borders. it’s the anger which runs through the headlines every day, and the fear which hides behind our locked doors. it’s the threat which is implicit in the lines we draw in the sand, and the myopia of our blinded world view. it’s the selfish narcissism and rampant cynicism that shine through our professed values. it’s in the bitter taste of all the politicians lies, and in the knee-jerk reflex of the pundits that pander to them. it’s more pervasive than violence, and more devastating than poverty or lack of education. it is more soul shattering than any one act committed against our country, or by our country.

it’s the slow, sure, torturous death of compassion and understanding. the arteries have hardened. the bell tolls. we’re becoming heartless. as hollow as the statue in new york harbour.

from an outsider’s perspective, it’s blindingly obvious. it’s staggering to sit back and observe from afar the amount of energy and hatred and money invested in shouting back and forth at each other across the issues. it’s mind-numbing to watch the drooling apathy of the public who tune out and turn off because they just can’t stomach any more bad news. it’s painful to watch the backbiting and posturing and blustering that’s broadcast to the world at large, in deliberate and willful ignorance of the impact it has. it is unbelievable to witness the regression of an entire country to imitating a time of cold war and oppression and fear-mongering and religious fervor and callow bravado. didn’t we already get enough of that? haven’t we learned our lessons?

how did we get to this place? how have we become so entrenched in our own sense of righteousness, both individually and collectively, that we cannot extend ourselves towards others? when did we lose our sense of expansiveness? when did our caring end at own front door? when did we become so *hard*?

i can’t identify anymore. i think many people feel lost, and there is anger underneath that sense of sadness. dreams have soured, and no one seems to know how to make it right. i think people are mad at losing the dream. but it’s only wild speculation on my part. i have no real theories, only observations. perhaps this is a transitory phase, much like the unrest of the sixties and seventies. maybe we need some national catharsis. maybe it’s in the swing of the pendulum. maybe we’ll come out better on the other side of it. i can only hope.

because it really can’t get much worse.

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So I am nominally Catholic, and even though it’s a Catholic thing to give up something over the Lenten period, other churches have sometimes adopted this as well, and most religions have some observance of abstention at some point during the year.

I remember growing up that we would set an extra empty place at the dinner table, and then donate the cost of the extra meals over the Lenten period to a charity. The idea stayed with me and at certain points in my life I have deliberately fasted in observance of an event or belief. I fasted when the US first went to war, as my private way of registering my moral objection, in solidarity with those being bombed. It would seem silly to most, but I couldn’t go throughout my daily routine, flipping on light switches and water, going to work and coming home, opening the fridge and cooking my dinner – I couldn’t do all that resolutely ignoring the fact that there were people in Afghanistan huddled in their houses in the dark with their children gathered around them, praying for their lives because my government decided they should die.

So even though I don’t generally observe Lent any more, I have been thinking a lot about the meaning behind giving up. For me, going without represents a way of being deliberately conscious, of acting with purpose and intention. Too often I find myself following the path of least resistance, or sleepwalking through day, and the idea behind “giving up” something is a way of making me feel more present.

I am so incredibly fortunate. I have never lived without water or electricity or food. I have never gone without clothing or shelter. And yet, that is not the norm for the majority of people in the world. I think it’s important for me to stop taking the basics for granted, and through my tiny act of self-deprivation, identifying more closely with those who go without, *not* by the luxury of choice, but by default. Those who are wanting, and needing as a matter of everyday survival.

My sacrifices are negligible and I want for nothing of importance in this world – and sometimes I need to remind myself of that.

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Was sent this story by a friend earlier today (thanks for the link, A) about using mobile phones to track someone’s movements

These sorts of tracking services, now available in the UK, get information from the network about which cell your phone is currently in, and, for a small fee, display the location on an online map.

As well as checking where a certain phone is right now, you can run scheduled lookups, or snail trails, to record the phone’s movements throughout the day, and produce a report for you to peruse at your leisure.

The only thing currently regulating this usage is a voluntary code of conduct. I’d be shocked to the core if the government is not already using this technology.

Yet people seem singularly unfazed by this. And why should they be? They’re already captured on CCTV nearly everywhere, tracked via Oyster cards, tracked for friggin’ TV licenses and car tax, for crying out loud. Remember, this is the same nation that feels it’s perfectly acceptable to keep your DNA on file, even if you were falsely arrested, even if you are completely acquitted – just in case.

It reminds me a bit of a discussion I was having the other day with J about the difference between freedom of speech in the US and freedom of speech here. In the US, laws enacted must prove they do NOT infringe on reasonable expectations of freedom of speech, or undermine the spirit of the first amendment. The expectation is that you can say and express yourself however you like, and the government has little right to limit that.

From wiki:
Text of the Virtual First Amendment (heavily abridged)

No State legislature or the Congress of the United States shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press all media of information; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. This general prohibition shall be subject to the following elaborations, extensions, restrictions, limitations, interpretations and conditions: a. The absolute freedom of engaging in or refraining from speech and non-verbal communication, and receiving or refusing to receive information, without any coercion, shall be a rebuttable presumption in any administrative or judicial proceeding, concerning any attempts to abridge them. The onus of rebutting this presumption shall rest entirely on the party seeking such abridgment, by showing that the speech or non-verbal communication sought to be restrained, or the information to be withheld, do not, by virtue of some other conflicting and overriding considerations or necessities, fall within the categories of freedoms that this section is intended to protect;

(emphasis mine)

The burden of restriction rests squarely with those who seek to make any impositions on freedom of speech.

Here in europe, it’s explicitly stated that free speech is only free insofar as that which they have not made illegal.

From the European Convention on Human Rights:

Article 10 – Freedom of expression

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

(emphasis mine)

And it occurs to me that the different sensibility in approach to privacy is much the same. For example…

The Fourth amendment of the bill of rights states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

You see, even where it doesn’t explicitly state a right to “privacy”, per se, that right is implied in the nature of what is enshrined in the constitution. In other words, one must prove that laws passed do not transgress the rights implicit in the ten amendments of the bill of rights.

Once again, the wishy washy European convention on human rights states:

Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life1

1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

This difference of approach is an important distinction. The crux of which is that Americans operate in their day-to-day lives with the presumption of a certain set of givens, which are all meant to underpin this principle: that unless they break a law, the state may not unreasonably interfere with their person or property or everyday life, and it is incumbent upon the state to prove that they have not done so.

Here, there is no constitution, there are no enshrined rights. There are no absolutes. There is nothing which is sacrosanct. I find this the hardest thing to adapt to. The notion that freedoms exist only in regard to what they have not yet chosen to make illegal. there is nothing the state can’t legislate. There is not behaviour, speech or action which they can’t outlaw.

This is why they can track people’s innocent car journeys, collect their most intimate genetic makeup, and tell you what you can and cannot say. As an american, it chafes.

I just hope to get the hell out of here before the implementation of ID cards…

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tracking, law, right to privacy, constitutional rights, European Convention on Human Rights

i started this morning with a giant crying jag, because i read about someone making the difficult decision to put their pet to sleep. suddenly, images flashed in front of my eyes, memories unfurling unbidden. i can still feel the supersoft spot of fur on her forehead, still smell the cornchip smell of her paws. the remembrance is a physical ache to hold her, and i still hurt from the emptiness of her last breath in my arms. it’s been more than two years and that sob is still caught in my throat. i know i made the right decision, but i still live with the guilt of it, fresh as it ever was, if i allow myself to think about it.

it was the hardest thing i’ve ever done, and it took far more strength than running a marathon or walking on hot coals or throwing myself out of a plane. facing her death was much harder than confronting the possibility of my own. because she was mine – but i was also hers, and her passing took something of me with it.

i suppose in some way, i am writing this here now, because i still haven’t forgiven myself. and i can’t ever forget – but i wouldn’t want to anyway.

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the rare weekend where I actually *did* something more than sit around noodling on the computer. my work friend had her 30th birthday party on saturday – drinks and a big dinner at a nice pub in greenwich. but it was also one of the rare occasions where i was completely surrounded by brits i didn’t know. i was a bit nervous, since it was quite a large group, and the only person I knew was alison – but i’d completely forgotten that the novelty of being an american in an unknown group is a bit like being a walking conversation piece. it’s been so long since i was in an social situation where i was the foreigner, since most of my friends here are expats, that i’ve forgotten just how the topic of discussion always seems to revolve around the interrogation of the american: “how long have you been here? why’d you come over? where in the states are you from? what do you think of london?”

and the people i met were all perfectly lovely (and suprisingly pro-american) but it was a bit of a shock to the system. it made me realise how i’ve inadvertently insulated myself in a non-british bubble of my own making. not through lack of trying, since god knows, I really have put myself out there to try to meet new people. i took all sorts of classes, went out by myself, and generally tried to make friends any way i could. but somehow it’s never really borne any fruit. the brits, while very nice, seem to be somewhat wary of the newcomer.

whereas all my expat friends and i automatically have a commonality. we can talk easily about what we find love/hate about living here without worrying about accidentally insulting someone’s country or culture. more often than not, we all use the same lingo, and have similar experiences. conversation isn’t stilted because you have to interrupt a story to explain the background (such as people felt the need to do last night about the school system, television programmes, etc.) it’s just *easier*.

and it makes me feel a little sad – i know i’m not getting the most from this experience because i don’t know what it’s really like to live amongst brits. outside of work, i live amongst south-africans and other americans. not by choice, but by default. it’s easy to see now, why immigrants from other countries form little communities, cultural pockets. when you’re never fully accepted as just one of the group, no matter how long you’ve been here, it’s almost instinctive that you would gravitate towards others who immediately recognise you as one of their kind.

i don’t want to feel “cut-off” from the people around me. i like britain and brits in general, and have tried hard to make myself open to learning about them and accepting their culture. now if only they would do the same.

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i *love* the olympics. lovelovelove the olympics.

i love the pomp and circumstance. i love the cheesy opening ceremonies. i love the goofy sports that no one watches, like curling and biathalon. i love the underdogs. i love the stories of personal trial and triumph. it just stirs me.

i remember the los angeles olympics and mary lou retton’s perfect 10 vault (when I was still in gymnastics myself), and i think that’s what hooked me. i remember greg louganis smashing his head open on the diving board and coming back to win. i remember watching carl lewis and michael johnson. i remember kerry strug being carried out by bela karolyi. i remember dan jansen trying to skate the evening of his sister’s death. i remember michele kwan’s stunning loss, and the nancy and tonya drama. i remember zola budd and mary decker. eddie “the eagle” ski jumping, and the jamaican bobsled team. flo-jo. the u.s. women’s soccer win. derek redmond, who fell during his race and whose dad came out of the stands to help him walk to the finish. the american swim team beating the aussies in the relay. muhammed ali lighting the torch.

i know – i’m cheesy and schmaltzy and soppily sentimental. but i love them. i have been known to call in sick to work to stay home and watch them. getting to see them in person is on my list of things to do before i die. it absolutely thrilled me when they put the winter and summer games on opposite years, because i no longer had to wait so long between events. i get more choked up at the olympic theme song than i do at my national anthem. i’ve been moved to tears and profoundly proud within the same event.

i love it so much, not only because i love sports and drama, but because for me it’s a symbol of everything i still believe in about this world. what i choose to believe, in spite of scandal and war and grave injustice. namely this: that you can strive mightly for something good in the face of all obstacles, and achieve your pinnacle moment of self-realisation, your personal triumph that makes all the sacrifice and blood/sweat/tears worthwhile. and you do it not for riches or fame, but because you want to prove to yourself that you can. to my mind, there is nothing purer than that.

and now, i’m off to watch the opening ceremonies… let the games begin!

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olympics, torino, winter games

a friend of mine has begun the process of buying a house. and she’s been feeling down because she’s been waiting for this for a long time, but none of the houses they can afford at the moment are the kind of house that feels like “home” to her. and i can completely identify with that, because i know that when the time comes, i’ll be the same way.

and i fell into the trap of cheerleading for her, trying to say things to make her feel better about the sucky choice she has to make, the decision to settle. trying to make her feel better about giving up on her dream. trying to smooth the path to downsizing her expectations.

of course you feel you *have* to say those things. because we all know as adults that you *can’t* always get what you want, and that sometimes you have to do a mindshift when the reality doesn’t match up to the dream, because otherwise we’d spend our lives miserably pining for things we can never have.

but would we? i begin to think about all the times i’ve given up on my high hopes of what i wanted, and instead consciously decided to be happy for the best i thought could get. what would have happened if i’d held out for nothing less than the ideal? we all convince ourselves that we have to be pragmatic and reasonable, and that sometimes we have to adjust our expectations because that’s what you do to live in the “real” world. but what if, what if, we were brave enough to keep our eye on the prize? what if second-best is really a test? what if it’s the universe’s way of syaing that those who would allow themselves to be placated with the runner-up don’t deserve anything better? what if everything you wanted was just around the corner but you always quit before you got there?

i don’t know. i think it’s impossible to know. and perhaps, ultimately that’s the difference between the idealists and the realists. i used to think myself squarely in the first camp, but as I get older i find myself visiting the second more and more. is that a function of age or cynicism? or do the two automatically go hand in hand? and sure, as the DL* says, “Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck”. I’ve personally experienced that many times. the difficulty is that it’s impossible to know the future, and who the hell wants to be on the side that encourages someone towards inevitable heartbreak?

part of me wants to tell my friend, “don’t do it – don’t buy any house you don’t absolutely love because you and your family deserve nothing less.” and part of me thinks that’s a completely untenable position to take, and only a fool would encourage that kind of thinking about something as real and concrete as buying a house. which would be doing her the greater disservice? but i can feel her bitter disappointment, and as a friend i just want to say the thing that will make her feel better.

i just wish i knew what that was.

___________________
* Dalai Lama – though it’s one of those internet attributions, so really, who knows?

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Y’know, I’m not a very vain person. Sure, I like to try to look nice as much as the next person. But I have no problem wandering out of the house to run errands with no makeup on. I don’t get extravagant haircuts or manicures. When I had more disposable income, I liked to splurge on a few fancy products, but I’ve never been under the illusion that they were somehow better than the cheap stuff, or did anything magical.

I don’t need a lot of time primping in front of the mirror, and I don’t match my bag to my shoes. I’m what they call “low maintenance”. I can spruce up nice for an occasion, but for day to day, I’m fairly basic. If I look clean, neat, and have my underwear on the right way round, I call it good.

But I’m getting more and more concerned with the signs of aging. Up until recently, I’ve always been told I look younger than I am. People routinely guessed my age at a flattering 26 or 27. And I feel young. Hell, I feel years younger now than I did 10 years ago. I keep my hair dyed and moisturise religiously. i try to stay relatively fit and semi-firm. I quit smoking in large part because i didn’t want to wind up with the drawn and sallow look of long-term human chimneys.

Lately, however, the greys seem to be cropping up fast and furious. In between dye jobs, there are the telltale little white sprouts, and they seem to be multiplying. The other day I was noticing a new wrinkle and trying to figure out what caused it (since it didn’t seem to be an expression line from smiling or frowning) and came to the conclusion that it was from squashing my face into the pillow, night after night. this past year, I’ve noticed just how creaky my body is actually getting. and my metabolism certainly ain’t what it used to be.

it occurred to me the other day that if the average life span of a woman is 78, then I am due to hit middle age in just 6 years time.

I don’t want to feel old and frumpy – but increasingly that’s what i see when i look in the mirror, and it’s so discouraging. I see people who are only a few years older than myself and think how haggard they seem – and worry if I am headed for the same fate. a scary prospect. i know there are contributing circumstances, but really – how different can their lives be from mine?

i don’t think i look old – but the idea of a growing mismatch between my exterior and my interior is distressing. i don’t want to spend time and energy chasing a youth that can never be recaptured. yet I worry that if i just accept and embrace growing older, that the process will only accelerate. i admire people like susan sarandon, who age gracefully aand naturally. But I have to wonder how much of that is due to good genetics, living a good life, or a fierce behind-the-scenes battle to stave off the inevitable.

i realise you can’t stop the march of time, but maybe if i’m lucky i can figure out how to slow it down to a lazy stroll.

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aging process

reading more about the china/google/censorship item. for me the question comes down to this: is incomplete information better than no information at all? In general, i’m not one to support the idea that engaging with china on its own terms will somehow magically foster the impetus for westernised democracy. I think china will take the best of what’s offered to it, whilst completely reserving the right to reject any demands made in return. it’s like feeding a lion, and expecting the lion to feel some sense of obligation for that. i thoroughly disagree with giving the olympics to beijing – they would never have given them to cuba or north korea, and those regimes are just as repressive.

and i even have mixed feelings about visiting. i still remember, so vividly, the tienanmen square massacre, and the student staring down the tank. it’s impossible to remain unmoved by the plight of people so desparate for change they are willing to face death head on.

but the internet is something else – it’s a portal of information. the information coming through provides the recipients the necessary tools to widen the portal. it only takes one leak in the dam to break the dyke. and i think those of us who have the luxury of unrestricted information at our fingertips can stand afford to stand on principle, and say that google should have held out for something which may never materialise – but we forget that’s a luxury many people in the world still don’t have.

so is a narrow portal better or worse than no portal at all? i think that’s what’s at the crux of the argument. and i think i know which way the chinese people would vote – if they could vote at all.

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