13 September 03
Scrutinizing White Privilege
For the past two days I was participating in a diversity workshop run by the campus. Though it was not specifically about race, this culture is organized very much along racial lines, a racial hierarchy that includes class and other elements. Race was therefore an important topic over the two days.
The thing I learned most forcefully: that there will always be more to learn.
Owning up to, and acknowledging, the privileges that are mine because of my skin color is painful. I can rent or buy a house, I can expect to drive anywhere without being stopped by the police, I can shop in the market without being followed, I will be innocent until proven guilty: these things I take for granted; I don’t even notice them. My brothers and sisters of color do not experience life like this. They fear for their children’s safety on a constant basis. They experience much more subtle racism than perhaps their parents did, but they experience it all the time. Every day. The stories I heard made my skin crawl.
Another thing I learned is that there is not much impetus for the dominant culture—i.e. the culture that looks like me—to change. We have it too good. Any requests for a reconsideration of our position on the part of people of color are likely to be met with incomprehension, incredulity, or ridicule. “We’re bending over backwards,” the standard line runs. “We’re doing what we can. But we can only do so much…”
I believe we can do more, we whites who are tired of the way things are. We can encourage those around us to look at these things in a new way. It involves a lot, mostly the acknowledgement that the privilege we have is unearned and undeserved. That the fear we have, collectively, is mostly fear of the unknown, and the unknown can be learned about. It’s an opportunity we have. I believe our world can be richer for it. And I believe the consequences of not doing this will be disastrous.
30 August 03
Getting Moving Again
Yesterday was my first visit to the physical therapist’s since my injury. The doctor was a little worried I was getting started too early, but I assured him I’d be in good hands—this guy was recommended to me by a colleague who had had a similar injury who just raved about him.
It was exhilarating: not only was I told I was putting about 2 pounds on my foot (as opposed to the 20 or 30 the doctor said I could: how can you measure this kind of thing?), but I was able to produce some measurable flexing, which gave him a baseline from which to proceed. After about an hour he said okay, let’s get you on the stationary bike—right leg only.
It’s been a few weeks now since I did anything physical that caused me to sweat, but heavens it felt good! I’m really looking forward to this now. He’s going to work on strengthening the rest of my body so I’m better able to compensate for the left achilles, and upper body strength is a priority too. I am all fired up, ready to take this on, grateful my sister-in-law urged me to push for early PT intervention.
27 August 03
Sunset With Cam Walker
A homage to Coup de Vent. Pica watches the sunset from her reclining chair in front of the house.
26 August 03
Have Cam Boot, Will Travel (Some)
Being able to put a tiny amount of weight on my left foot is better than none at all, but it doesn’t mean I’m able to start turning cartwheels yet by any means—or even getting myself a cup of tea. (Crutches are NOT GOOD for carrying anything that can spill.) After a minor meltdown about this last night, I’m feeling a lot better today, and have begun to resign myself to the fact that this really is going to take a long time. Today I had to beg off a bus ride into Sacramento next month because I have no idea how I’d get onto a bus with crutches unless I sat on the bottom step and edged in backwards like a crab, which even I’d balk at, having done enough to sacrifice my dignity this year already.
I’m boring even myself with all this talk of infirmity, so I’d like to urge everyone on down to check out the fabulous Doc Rock at WriteOutLoud, who is dodging desert thunderstorms and articulately bemoaning the state of the teaching profession, all the while wielding a machete.
Finally, I just started reading Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, a wonderfully entertaining account of the paradox of poor baseball clubs and their strategies for selecting winning players—against all the traditions of this tradition-laden sport.
24 August 03
Baby Steps
My world has been diminutive the last two weeks—the sofa, the bedroom, the bathroom. A big outing involves going outside to sit down and watch the birds and the trains. I have to say I’ve been well spoiled by lots of people, not the least of whom is my new husband (who has managed to throw his back out; it’s like the walking wounded in here).
All this is likely to change tomorrow. I get my sutures out (hooray—they are itching like crazy). If all goes according to plan, I exchange my plaster cast for a Cam walker, and start putting tiny amounts of weight on my left foot, which will increase progressively as the leg gets its strength back. I start seeing the Physical Therapists. And I’m going back to work.
I may not last all day for a while—being on crutches is still exhausting me. It’s going to be strange to leave this little space I’ve confined myself to and interact, as if it were normal, with the world again.
Being taken out of action like this is a really good reminder that lots of people can’t walk—ever. Not properly, not without help. I’ve been given an opportunity to see what that must be like. It will have been only two weeks since I’ve had a real shower! A friend brought over a copy of Frida for me to watch, and I wondered a lot about showers and such things as I was watching it…
22 August 03
Cabin Fever
We had no power all day—the thunderstorms Numenius mentioned yesterday continued all night and knocked out a lot of the county. For us, this means no water either, since we’re on a well with an electric pump.
I finished a colored pencil drawing of what I’m spending lots of hours looking at these days from my sofa, inspired by Beth’s recent watercolor and intrigued by the challenge of how to render transparent fabric. It’s moderately what I was looking for. The colors aren’t quite right, but I think the values almost are.
We’ve been enjoying the pleasure of the company of a MacGillivray’s warbler the last two days in the rosebushes and oleander—this is an unusual bird to have in one’s yard! Fall migration is definitely underway here in the Central Valley.
20 August 03
Fellow Achilles Sufferer…
In June of this year a piece of mine was published in Faultline. The subject was the competition for the design of the California quarter (twenty-five cent piece) and the invitation by the hapless governor for Californians to vote for their favorite. Tied to the article were cartoons by Keith Knight depicting alternative suggestions for the quarter design.
Well, as many of you know I snapped my Achilles tendon on my wedding day, August 10, a week ago Sunday, and I’m recuperating from surgery—slowly.
Chris Clarke, Faultline’s editor, noticed that Keith had suffered the same injury on August 12. We are all three in shock at the news and Keith and I are comparing stories about narcotic painkillers. Keith wasn’t getting married, he was playing tennis, but he was celebrating his first wedding anniversary. He has a funny strip about this which you can see on salon.com (if you don’t subscribe you’ll be subjected to a million annoying popups; beware).
19 August 03
Tufte On Powerpoint
As long as we are ranting about various pieces of Microsoft Office, it’s time to recommend reading Edward Tufte’s recent essay The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint. As somebody who has lived through far too many Powerpoint presentations, I am appreciative that Tufte has taken on the fundamental cognitive limitations of talks given using Powerpoint (or, to be fair, other but similar presentation software). Such a style has become a clich, and I am thankful whenever somebody eschews slides for notes on a chalkboard. As Tufte points out, you can put far more information on a printed handout than in a set of Powerpoint slides, so why not pass out the handout and actually engage your audience in conversation? My worst Powerpoint peeve is gratuitous use of animation: I will automatically give anybody who uses animated text fade-ins 15 demerits.
18 August 03
Not Just Annoying
Warning: Extended Rant Follows
A story on BBC online this morning highlighted the security risks of using Microsoft Word. Especially in documents that are edited by more than one person, a perceptible trail of who did what is apparent to anyone with the knowledge to go in and look for it. This is the case with the plagiarized document which is embarrassing Tony Blair’s government—the document which supposedly “sexed up” the reasons to go to war with Iraq.
I don’t work in a field that’s very sensitive in this way, and I don’t share Word documents very often. They get sent to me as attachments all the time, so I have to have it on my computer at work. But I almost never write straight into Word any more: a text editor is fine for my needs, and if it needs to be designed, I use Adobe InDesign.
I am sure that hundreds of thousands of hours are wasted each year by hapless office workers trying (and failing) to disable the default automatic formatting features in Word. I share an office with someone who practically bursts into tears wrestling with this horrible software on a regular basis. I offer my copy of the O’Reilly Word 97 Annoyances (now apparently out of print).
Word used to be not too bad when it didn’t try to do everything for executives. (Word Perfect was better, back in the mid-80s, and I’m sure it still is.) It’s just that Word is now so powerful, so bloated, so full of features that most people never use, that it’s simply too cumbersome for ordinary office use, which is where it gets installed by systems administrators following orders from executives.
(You know, the people who love Power Point.)
Then there’s the infantile phallic paper clip helper who seems to be trying to establish a relationship with me. Yes. I know how to type a letter. I even know how to type a memo. There used to be a way of strangling Mr. Clippy by sticking him in a folder named “Dead Actors”; Microsoft has capitulated to demand and made it somewhat simple to turn the feature off.
But why should we have to? Why should we have to buy books to figure out a way simply to do our jobs without having the *?!* software get in our way? Why does Microsoft continue to churn out software that ignores the abilities and needs of most of its users?
And now, like the rest of its products, it turns out that Word is full of security loopholes too. I’m investigating Open Source alternatives to Office. My Mac runs Jaguar; it’s about time I became more familiar with Unix.
13 August 03
Tofu-Cilantro
2 bunches cilantro (fresh green coriander)
2 green peppers
2 jalapeño peppers
12 oz firm tofu
soy sauce
Finely chop cilantro and peppers and stir-fry in a large saucepan or wok. Add cubed tofu and 2 tbsp of soy sauce. Cover and let simmer for 10-15 minutes. Serve over basmati rice.
This is Pica’s favorite dinner which she was quite glad to have after returning home from surgery this afternoon, which went well. The jalapeños today were deliciously picant.