Bad Air Day

The air was bad outside. Smoke from northwestern wildfires gets blown and trapped in the valley, and after a few days, all this “particulate matter” starts to kick your ass. I’ve a sick stomach and a headache that a only a fatal overdose of meds could alleviate. Around noon, I had to get out of the house as cabin fever sets in no matter what.

I boarded the Blue Line train downtown, deposited a check into an ATM — pay from last night’s gig — , and then hopped on the Green Line. Passengers bound for the airport filled the car with overstuffed carry-on bags leaving nowhere to sit and barely anywhere to stand. Getting off at the Guadalupe Bridge stop, I tottered dizzily down the overpass. Afraid to breathe, but afraid not to.

A few people were hanging out at Mestizo Coffee. A good spot today because nobody knew me or would bother me. I ordered a multi-grain “power waffle” with berry syrup and a medium coffee, took a seat, and caught a partial view through the art gallery doorway where a couple danced tango in black evening attire (in the early afternoon). Strains of accordion and violin mixed with the indie pop the barista was playing at the counter. I’d wished I’d brought my camera until upon closer look I saw several other couples dancing in casual streetwear. One Asian woman was wearing a lacy black dress and large clompy tan shoes. Anyway, the light was completely wrong.

A mother and child entered the shop, and did I mishear their conversation?Why are we here, mom? Because I have to give Jeannine some Linux towers. Who knows.

The tango dancers finished and shuffled out of the gallery.

The food and coffee alleviated my nausea and vertigo so I bussed my dishes and exited the shop. Outside, the Wasatch Mountains on the eastern horizon looked hazy. The street was quiet, lonely, and felt almost post-apocalyptic. Maybe because it was Sunday, maybe because of the air quality. Everything felt sick and green.

I walked back up the bridge and boarded the crowded Green Line once more. A man and his son blew bubbles with a plastic wand to the chagrin of the passengers around them. I found an empty seat and immediately the vertigo returned. At the next stop, a filthy, smelly, tattooed man with thick black glasses and a tangled beard sat next to me, retriggering my nausea. I held my breath and looked down at my lap, where I saw that a sore on my right middle finger was glistening — a crescent-shaped crater that had refused to heal. The wound reminded me somehow of the trace of dog shit on my shoe. I’d stepped in it earlier that morning as I walked my own dog and did my best to clean it off. My stomach churned like a granita machine. Not knowing what to do, I exited the train at the next stop.

The heat was oppressive and I had to pee. Only the bars were not closed. I almost entered one open doorway, but it exhaled a breath of stale beer and tobacco smoke although bars have been legally smoke-free for years.

I trudged east from Main to State, and then south toward the library. When opened over a decade ago, this curved modern structure was a source of municipal pride. But rounding the final curve of a long hot summer, the stench of slow human rot has reached its apex as the space provides entertainment and respite for so many of Salt Lake’s growing down-and-out population. They would be there reading, using computers, just biding time and — contrary to library policy — sleeping, some having gone days or weeks without bathing or laundering. Knowing this, I entered anyway.

After relieving my bladder, I ordered an iced tea from the coffee shop. The barista was pleasant. She asked how my day had gone and complimented me on my tee shirt which advertised a program on a local community radio station. I found a relatively odor-free seat in the browsing section and noticed T.C. Boyle’s new novel. I’ve admired his work for many years, even met him once, but haven’t followed his career lately. I remembered the fine that I owed and debated if I should pay it and borrow the book, or purchase the ebook from Amazon. The fine was less than I remembered so I took the hardback library copy.

I walked across the street, now boarding the Red Line. The trip home was uneventful. Not quite pleasant, but almost comfortable.

St. Paddy’s

Having St. Patrick’s Day on a Monday is simply wrong for obvious reasons.  It’s Tuesday morning, and after an evening of weekday-appropriate libations (just two beers and an Irish car bomb) and a hearty old-country supper (corned beef, etc.), I’m doing fine.  I assume that many weren’t so lucky.  And luck has a lot to do with it.  Despite one’s best attempts at self-control, once the party starts rolling it takes a zen monk’s will and discipline–or divine intervention–to quit before you go over the edge. Cops are everywhere.  I hope you brought cab fare.

It’s been a few centuries since we implemented the Gregorian Calendar.  I propose a revision.  There must be a team of mathematicians that can devise a way to have March 17 fall on a Friday or Saturday every year.  While they’re at it, they could have Christmas and New Years fall on weekdays so that most of us would have guaranteed days off from work. February 14 could happen during a warmer month, though this innovation would require something more advanced than math: maybe quantum mechanics, string theory?  Maybe wormholes?  Stretching and twisting time to optimize the calendar is not as important as mining asteroids or developing sustainable farming, but it just might improve our lives a little.

Autism Memoirs, Part One

Memoirs and other books about autism are becoming a kind of cottage industry.  Go to Amazon and you will find, not only the big name best-sellers by John Elder Robison, Daniel Tammet, David Finch, and others, but a slew of self-published works.  Many of them are memoirs, but also “how-to cope” books written by people who claim to have either a professional diagnosis, or just figured it out on their own.  There are books on strategies for parents, teachers, lovers, spouses, siblings, and children. There are book about dating and work, males and females.  Books by professionals describing symptoms and treatments as well as carnival hucksters promoting special diets and promising miracle cures.  There are books and books and books…

I haven’t written about autism on this blog until now.  They may be some oblique references to it somewhere, I don’t know.  Some astute readers may even notice symptoms.  I’ve wanted to write about it for some time, and I even thought of writing my own memoir.  I’ve probably given up on the latter idea, because the field just seems too crowded.  

And besides, a person with autism is basically a country of one.  My life has nothing to do with that of most other people on the spectrum.  It’s not representative.  Sure, you’ve got traits in common with others, but I’ve noticed that other “aspies” (how I detest that ugly little word) have little in common with me.  Some of us don’t fit the stereotypes of monotone computer geeks, dinosaur lovers, math wizzes, mechanical tinkers, or Trekkies.  On the contrary, I don’t like any of that stuff (except computers.)  

People assume that we lack emotion, but studies actually show the opposite to be true.  I’m a blues musician, for hell’s sake.  You can’t get more emotional than that!  It appears true that we have a hard time expressing our emotions.  I remember remaining still and stoic–while my younger brother cried–the day we found out that my mother had cancer.  There was a torrent of emotion that I couldn’t express, couldn’t describe, couldn’t deal with.  Still can’t, although she survived the disease.  Twice.  I just wanted to catch a Greyhound and get out of town.  I just wanted to be by myself.

On the other hand, if any aspect of my planned routine is disrupted, it can send me into an emotional frenzy.  Just ask my family.

I’ve lived with it all of my life, and I always knew I was different, but didn’t understand how or why.  I’ve got low vision, and assumed that it was a part of it.  Finally, I heard an NPR interview with David Finch, who described getting his diagnosis as an adult.  Something clicked as the interview went on, and I said to myself, “This guy is like me.”  He explained that, while having marital problems, his wife got him to take the Aspie Quiz and how it changed his life.  That evening, I took the quiz and scored very high.  186/200.  For me it was like a religious experience.  Later, I did get a professional evaluation which confirmed what I already came to know myself.  I’m on the spectrum.

I didn’t relate much to his book, which is about the things he has done to get along with his wife.  As I said, we are all different in important ways.

The question is what now?  Many people know about my erratic behavior: pacing, muttering, tapping.  I’ve been told that I’m “tactless” and one person described me once as “candorous” (which is a nice way of saying “tactless.” They know about my obsessions with music, literature, Linux OS, and other things.  I have a hard time with small talk.  I’ve been afraid to deal with people one-on-one, but feel as comfortable on a stage in front of an audience as anywhere.

Now, I just tell people, especially people who will be working with me.  It defuses a lot of potential problems, I imagine.  The response I most get is: “I never would have guessed.”  That’s probably true.  But, instead, I might say or do something that leads them to assume that I’m an insensitive, compulsive, arrogant asshole.  That’s what I want to avoid.

Out of my Acoustic Space!

I was up working late last night, so I find this more annoying than usual: a woman sitting across from me is listening to an evangelical religious sermon through the external speaker on her phone.  The last thing I want to hear at 6:30 in the morning is a pastor hooting and hollering in Spanish (in which I am fluent and literate) or any other language though a cell phone speaker.

The tiny speakers on cell phones are obviously necessary so the user can hear the ring tone when a call comes in.  I also employ mine as an alarm clock, as do many people, I’m sure.  Regrettably, these dime-size speakers have become a public annoyance when people use them to listen to audio content.  They make good music sound bad, and bad music sound worse, stripping away the lows and mids, and leaving only tinny harshness.  It’s like somebody scraping the inside of your skull with a fork.  When I hear a human voice coming through them, it awakens a dormant disdain for my fellow homo sapiens that I forgot I had.

Truly, the speaker is not to blame, though.  Earbuds are ubiquitous and cheap, sold in grocery stores, gas stations, and big box stores.  Common courtesy suggests that we use them.  I don’t know why some don’t get that.

The Wrong Side of the Holidays

We’re past the holidays and moving into that time of the year where we buckle down and get to business.  Reeling from economic and alimentary excesses, cramming the remains of plastic Christmas trees, wreaths, strings of outdoor lights, and crumbling gingerbread houses back into closets, we brace ourselves for at least two more months of chafing winds, bad air, dark frigid nights, and dingy mounds of permafrost.

How to survive the post holiday winter?  I’ve got no new suggestions.  You can drink yourself into a stupor, hunker down with your Netflix account, maybe start that memoir you’ve always wanted to write…

I like to find places to be, places where it’s hard to find myself in a funk such as quiet bars or coffee shops.  Places where people are conversing in the background, but not talking to me directly, places where I can look out the window, but not spend a lot of money.  Get a cup of fresh drip coffee instead of a latte.  $1.75.  A couple of hours can pass, and if I’m lucky, no one will call or text.  Home is too comfortable, too predictable.

Harmonica Mars

(Almost) everybody loves Christmas and New Year’s Eve.  There’s that stretch between them that can be quite depressing for a number of people.  Especially when you have time off work, but no money to go anywhere.  

That’s me.

I spent my time, as time will be spent whether you intend to spend it or not.  It spends itself.  Unlike money.

These days have been cold, but most of them sunny.  I decided it’s good to spend time outside, so I walked around downtown a lot as I usually do, doing my best to avoid the dangers of overexposure, falling on ice, breathing bad air, and eating fast food.  

It’s also good to do things for others.  

When my daughter was about 9 years old, she spent  too much time (in my view) watching  mindless Disney “tween” that I found really horrible.  I went to Netflix (this was before the days of streaming if I recall) and tried to find and intelligent alternative.  I found Veronica Mars. which is a little-known TV series about a female teen-aged detective–a rebel girl, living in an affluent Cali beach town.  It only ran three seasons, but apparently had a small cult following.  In fact a film based on the series is to be release in 2014, this coming year.  In hindsight, the themes in the show were probably too mature for a nine-year-old girl.  Call me a bad parent, but –in my mind–it was better then the stupid tween shows she was watching at the time about coddled, mindless, spoiled kids: Hannah Montana, Zack and Cody, and a bunch of others that I’ve blocked out of my mind.  It also changed my daughter’s point of view, giving her a strong role model who doesn’t take shit from anybody and keeps at it until she accomplishes her goals.     I was able to check the second two seasons from the library for my daughter, who is more mature now.  Boy, was she excited.  

I’ve also been focusing on music, doing arrangements for a demo, and making plans to record a solo album this year.  This required that I purchase–among other things–a new C harmonica.  I’ve also spent a lot of time wailing on my squareneck resonphonic guitar, which is a sure way to beat the wintertime blues.

The new year is approaching, and I hope it will be a great one for everybody.  

Blogs and Wikis in Education

Thanksgiving break is over and those of us who teach are trapped in that awkward wormhole known as The Three Weeks Before Winter Break.  Students hate it, and teachers hate it too.  You have to plan a unit that ends right on December 19.  If you end up with an extra day, you can show a stupid Disney movie and risk getting in hot water with the district.  If you go over, you end up having to finish after a two week break that causes students to forget everything they know.

You find yourself standing in front of 70 eyeballs googling in empty craniums.  It’s like they’ve never seen a pencil or the Latin alphabet.

Your school computer lab probably doesn’t look like this. It most likely has no windows and hasn’t been painted since the Nixon Administration.

I don’t know how to segue into the topic at hand, other than saying that the above statements are necessary to proceed.  Here I go:

Wikis are great for collaboration because any student can edit any page.  Veteran teachers see the inherent problem here automatically:  the situation is ripe for sabotage.  Every class has at least one smart ass whose sole intent is wrecking whatever you plan, and destroying the work of his peers (this saboteur is almost always male, but you do run into the occasional saboteuse.)  The good thing about wikis that you can create at a site such as www.wikispaces.com, though, is that you can revert back to previous drafts, as well as see who has made any changes.  These are perfect for long-term projects such as writing portfolios, collaborative essays, lesson plans, etc. They can be content rich, allowing users to embed photos, videos, Google Docs, audio, etc.   The only limit to the way that they can be used is the imagination of the user.

Blogs, on the other hand, allow chunks of information by specific users.  A teacher or student can do a post–which can also be media rich–and then commented on by students or others.  You could set up a blog where students post their writing, and then others comment on it, offering feedback.

What are the challenges?  I find that students are notorious for losing log in credentials.  They couldn’t remember their passwords if you suspended them about a giant cauldron of boiling oil.  Also, districts are always squeamish about students publishing anything online.  Again, you’ve got those smart asses and exhibitionists who can’t help putting themselves out there by posting pornographic pictures or tawdry text (after all, we have both visual and verbal learners among us.)

There’s no doubt that we live in a brave new world.  We 21st century educators need to learn to embrace it and develop the street smarts to navigate the perils therein.  To use them, we need to simply set up accounts for ourselves and our students on the chosen platform.  We would also do well to get administrative and parental permission.  Students also need repetitive training on how to use the software.  We think that these little “digital natives” are super tech savvy.  I’ve found that that’s not often the case.

Self Improvement

I had to hit the library to get a video–for professional purposes that I won´t get into now.  I was hungry but too situationally frugal to purchase a meal (tail end of the pay period, folks!)  I ran across the street. Dunkin´ has waned in popularity, so coffee and a blueberry cake schmonut became my afternoon sustenance.

Two gentlemen at a nearby table are discussing self improvement, A.A., higher powers and the like.  I did some time in the self-improvement community about 20 years ago, when I was young, confused, depressed, and racked with Mormon fervor and guilt.  I eventually came to the conclusion that all of that self-improvement stuff just reinforces one’s problems and shortcomings.  You think about overcoming them instead of just living a good life and not worrying about them so much.

I´m still occasionally confused and depressed, although religion-free.  What I have learned and done many things that have made my life better, and I offer the following pieces of advice:

1. Seriously–semi-professionally or professionally–pursue a passion.  I don´t feel fulfilled as a person unless I’m serious about my music and performing regularly.
2. Dump fundamentalist, literalist religion.  Quitting the Mormon church was one of the best things I did for my sanity.  I gave up guilt about things that I now see are trivial, things that don´t hurt anyone and actually might improve your life in moderate doses.  I also now freely embrace my dark side (mostly through music). No more Disneyfication of the soul.  Mormonism isn’t the only religion that can make you miserable.  There are, indeed, many others.

   Sorry if you find number two offensive.  I don’t mean to offend, but simply give you my honest opinion which you may accept or reject.  It doesn’t matter much to me either way.

3. Get out.  Walk.  Go places.  I love to go alone to bars, restaurants, movies, concerts, etc. Going with friends isn’t bad either.
4. Read widely.  I know that my life is probably in shambles when I’m not reading a book.  I love classic and modern literature, mystery/crime, biography, poetry, science, philosophy, psychology, etc.  I detest most science fiction and fantasy.

   Read whatever you like, though.

5. Get to know people from other cultures.  My job has facilitated this for me.

I´m no expert, and I´m not saying all of these steps are useful for everyone, but I figure that my advice is at least as good as some of the clowns writing books and running seminars.  And best of all: It comes to you gratis.  I´m not asking for a damn cent.

Illusion of Relief

Surviving the Monday morning after a night too heavy for novels, podcasts, or sleep becomes a special project.  First, defy gravity; second, take your thoughts one at a time, one mental foot in front of the other, because–boy–you´re in no shape for multitasking; third, try to eat something that won´t kill you.  Coffee by itself is not food.

You love the dark but not the cold, which is too much for the black nylon jacket, not enough for the wool topcoat.  The flow of time thrums along at an almost even pace, but the train is at least a minute late.  Monday is a bastard.  He could care less about your broken glass headache.  Or that smoking is prohibited on the platform, but some shitbird lights up ever so nonchalantly–regardless of the rules.  If I smoked, I might join him, making me a hypothetical shitbird.  Anything for even the illusion of relief.

The Blog Left to its Own Devices

Does not write itself.  A few weeks have passed since I´ve been in this bar-that´s not technically true because I was here two days ago, but the staff was different-so nobody recognizes me.  West coast jazz channel on Pandora and people are chilling on an early Sunday evening.

Behind me,  a couple codeswitches between English and a language that could be Dutch.  The bartender says that he got food poisoning from yet another local sushi shithole.  They change the Pandora channel to hipster folk.  I still have a half glass of IPA.

Sunday is not a great day to go downtown, but I always do it.  63° in mid/late October.  There’s no way I could stay home.