potential inventions for future life.

we did circle dances and square dances. the crowd was primarily in their late thirties and above, some couples, some beginners, some fairly non-socialized older men*, a handful of single hopeful-looking women. we tripped over our own feet and went the wrong way and laughed and smiled and got sweaty.

however.

in square dancing you call out the moves. and often the moves are for ladies or gents. they just are. some of them are called the ladies ___ or the gents ___ even. no getting around it. and its fine – you have designate partner a and partner b somehow. so.

Caller (this is the dude in charge, who’s showing us moves): gents should be on the left.
Lady on the other side of sb, who is on my left, to me: oh! you’re in the wrong spot!
–she then fairly nicely grabs my arm and pulls me to the “proper” location.

i am used to this. i am not outraged. i dont frankly care, as long as no one’s trying to get me tossed out of the ladies room. if it makes someone more comfortable to think im a dude i neither confirm or deny, i just roll with it and they figure it out or they dont. sb on the other hand is outraged and confrontational on my behalf and gets sputtery and upset and is totally willing to storm out. she is perpetually confused by it. my response is to grin uncomfortably and just tell her over and over “its fine, dont worry about it, its not a problem, its fine” and just dance lead.

she did make the very good point however that the caller could have said at the beginning (not even for sensitivity to androgeny reasons, but just because how do you know there will be an even number??) that the ladies and gents parts were arbitrary markers and just to make sure that whichever role you took, you kept throughout the dance so the numbers wouldn’t get messed up. my response was that straight people are often self-selecting in that regard, especially the type who are likely to show up by themselves at a folk dance – if there’s not an even number, they’ll just sit out til there is.

but i’ve been thinking about it more today, and i am pset by that. is that true? do straight people do that? why? and what should my response be? and why are people allowed to make stupid assumptions? i know the woman was trying to be friendly and was then just flustered, but c’mon! does it really make that much of a difference? will this problem just disappear in another generation or so as people get used to gender fluidity and same-sex couples?

*is there a particular breed of non-socialized older man who always becomes scrawny? are they born scrawny? with chicken necks and big ears and with their belts belted to high? lots of these men were that sort…

HOPE ive done (almost) every year i have lived in new york – i lamed out last year, can’t remember why, but the two years before that. the first year i went to east new york and we had a two cop escort – apparently nypd likes to send rookies to east new york, so they both looked roughly 12 and were overly macho about knowing which gang tags were which and about sneaky drug deals happening under our noses, but were fun to talk to kinda. and we walked around a school and a playground and some row houses, and talked to maybe 5 people. the second year I went to bushwick, and ended up on a team with one of my professors from pratt, who was doing the survey as a church outing. episcopalians are so active! we got in the back of a uhaul van someone had rented and were taken to a totally dead area of bushwick – like in the last picture show, with tumbleweeds blowing down the wide open street and faded billboards, plus some barbed wire.

this year i went to the kings county hospital area in south brooklyn (this is the hospital where people have died waiting for their turn in the ER – its eNORmous, and a little scary in the middle of the night). for the first time my team was more than 3 people – six in fact! 2 from HPD plus a boyfriend who works at deutschebank, a guy who’s worked intake for DHS for 10 years, and a woman from crown heights who produces action thrillers.

we went through an hour long training – most of which was the trainer telling us to make sure to speak to EVERYONE. EVERYONE> speak to EVERYONE. to whom? E-V-E-R-Yone. then we catch the bus down to Kings County, get to the first block of our first zone and there’s a guy standing on the corner, maybe waiting for the bus, maybe just standing on the corner, so I pull out a survey sheet and start to introduce myself and explain and ask the questions, and he’s like uh uh, not interested you crazy? so I fil lthat out and we walk away – and the nDHS dude gets all over my case about how we don’t have to ask people at bus stops! or who look like they know where they’re going! and I politely steer back to “wait didn’t the dude say everyone?” and DHS guy says its rude.

!!#$%!

and then keeps crossing the street to interview people outside the zone – which we were specifically told NOT to do! so that we don’t accidentally overlap someone else’s zone and get duplicate results. plus he kept not saying the thing we were supposed to say about it being a “housing survey” and saying instead that we’re doing this “homelessness thing” which seemed fairly off-putting.

he and the producer lady spent a long-time talking to each other about how stupid and useless the survey was.

why are people like that? maybe I’m just too much of a rules person… or have too much faith in methodology?

the thing tonight was fun and a little crazy though – lots or 6-12 year olds running around and mostly reading but also dancing and whispering to each other and using up leftover energy. I listened while B (names have been shortend because it seems like maybe you’re not supposed to post kids names?) read 3 books, and tried very hard not to be distracted by his friend, and did a lot of energetic cold-having. he was eleven and his friend z was ten and Very Cool, and he saved a slice of his pizza at the end to bring to his mom. and he was a ridiculously good reader – and I talked to T, an eight year old girl, about school for a bit and we practiced division. all ofthese kids seemed wicked smart! maybe i just don’t remember how old I was when I learned stuff? but it seemed like maybe the group self-selected positively to be there…

I might go back and do it again – its once a month, on the last tuesday. nycares is weirdly awkward for volunteerng in some ways because its volunteer run, so sometimes projects are great and sometimes its unclear whether they’re being run at all, but this one seems like a keeper.

anyway. hope everybody’s safe and happy and healthy and warm.

at least I think they must have been lovely.

i finally got my lazy behind in gear and took them down the block to get the film developed and it was blank!

blank!!!

i don’t know what happened.

maybe i left the film sitting in unregulated temperature for too long? maybe gremlins came and traded my used film for unused film? maybe, saddest of sadnesses, its the camera?

i have a half-used roll in the beast now. i really really hope it comes out because i took some photos of past art projects before trashing them… i would be sad if there is no photographic evidence of stella the giraffe – she came so far with me before becoming too tattered to keep up!

fingers crossed please, and maybe someday I will post photos.

one more for good measure…

and the fabulous gingerbread lighthouses (startlingly easy, though I recommend MUCH stiffer icing than ours!)

summer’s:

and mine:

merry christmas to all, and to all a good night!

introducing yoshi the wundercat, exhausted from a night of daredevil banister walking!

and the birds…

and kabuki, who is quite certain that the birds are for her rather than for the golden child’s wall…

the piece de resistance will be posted tomorrow (or shortly thereafter) once the birds and the secret beastie are installed on the bubblegum pink walls of my young kin…

]]> http://katerli.wordpress.com/2008/12/24/christmas-art-project-with-the-kid-and-catlets/feed/ 1 katerli pc240155 pc2401592 pc2401612 pc2401602 pc2401622 http://katerli.wordpress.com/2008/12/18/yahoooooo/ http://katerli.wordpress.com/2008/12/18/yahoooooo/#comments Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:55:32 +0000 katerli http://katerli.wordpress.com/2008/12/18/yahoooooo/ ]]> Thu Dec 18 16:27:12 2008
STATUS: Open – Active
PROGNOSIS: Monitoring
Weather-Snow
Citywide

URGENT – WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE UPTON NY
412 PM EST THU DEC 18 2008

SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL POSSIBLE FRIDAY AND FRIDAY NIGHT…

LOW PRESSURE NOW TAKING SHAPE OVER THE SOUTHWESTERN STATES WILL
MOVE OUT INTO THE HIGHS PLAINS THIS AFTERNOON…THEN MOVE ACROSS
THE OHIO VALLEY AND PASS SOUTH OF LONG ISLAND FRIDAY AND FRIDAY
NIGHT.

WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 8 AM FRIDAY TO MIDNIGHT
EST FRIDAY NIGHT…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN UPTON HAS ISSUED A WINTER WEATHER
ADVISORY FOR SNOW AND SLEET…WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 8 AM FRIDAY TO
MIDNIGHT EST FRIDAY NIGHT. THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN
EFFECT.

SNOW IS EXPECTED TO OVERSPREAD THE REGION FRIDAY MORNING…AND
COULD BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES IN THE AFTERNOON. THE SNOW IS EXPECTED
TO MIX WITH SLEET AND RAIN IN THE AFTERNOON…ESPECIALLY ALONG
THE SOUTH SHORE OF LONG ISLAND.

SNOWFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 2 TO 3 INCHES OF SNOW AND SLEET IS
POSSIBLE ALONG COASTAL AREAS…INCLUDING LONG ISLAND…STATEN
ISLAND…QUEENS AND BROOKLYN. 3 TO 5 INCHES OF SNOW AND SLEET IS
EXPECTED ACROSS MANHATTAN…THE BRONX AS WELL AS HUDSON AND UNION
COUNTIES IN NEW JERSEY. LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS ARE POSSIBLE
FURTHER INLAND.

THERE MAY BE SHARP DIFFERENCES IN SNOWFALL AMOUNT OVER SHORT
DISTANCES…BUT IN GENERAL HIGHER SNOWFALL AMOUNTS ARE EXPECTED
AS YOU MOVE INLAND.

WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY MEANS THAT PERIODS OF SNOW…SLEET…OR
FREEZING RAIN WILL CAUSE TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR
SLIPPERY ROADS AND LIMITED VISIBILITIES…AND USE CAUTION WHILE
DRIVING.

RESPONDING UNITS:
INCIDENT NO: Inc-184447-340-121708

(I get awesome email, right?)

Today is a very special day…

Happy Anniversary

It’s the anniversary of your first donation with New York Blood Center.

Whether you became a member of our “family” last year or many years ago, your kindness and generosity means so much to patients in your community who need your help. They depend on donors like you.

So, it’s time to celebrate….You now have Advantage reward points available for your use. To learn more about exciting gifts or gift cards you can receive visit:

www.redcelladvantage.com OR www.plateletadvantage.com

To schedule an appointment to donate, click here.

Or, here’s a list of upcoming blood drives in your area:

[herein lie 12 dates, places and times, for which  i can " Click Here to Schedule an Appointment," all within roughly 5 miles of my apt]

For eligibility questions or to schedule an appointment over the phone, please call: 1-800-933-BLOOD(2566).

If you are eligible to donate now, we hope to see you soon.

Thank you.

– they sure do try to make it easy, right? though they still haven’t learned how to spell my name…

!@@##$%*()P!

however: there is now a stubby christmas tree in my living room, with lgiths and ornaments and a tiny paper mache dinosaur, I’m holding a beer, the weather outside is frightful but inside my apartment is warm and cozy, I just finished a delicious book, and most of all it is FRIDAY.

shabbat shalom!

tomorrow I brunch and craft fair cruise and see a puppet show! i hope you all have nice plans too.