Thanks to Bink

During my sophomore year in college I usually carried a steno notebook around with me. This was surely because of the influence of the writing classes I was taking, in which we were encouraged over and over to "write what you know" and the nature of the acting training we were getting in the theater department. I wrote down random thoughts and my friends did too. Sometimes people would draw pictures in it (but not me, usually, as I was - and am - more comfortable with words).


Before the era of the coffeehouse, there was really only one place to go in Tacoma if you were under 21, and that was Denny's. My friends and I spent a lot of time there, sometimes with our books and notes, but usually eating fries and cake and drinking sodas and talking and teasing each other. In that period when I was bringing along my little notebook, Bink and I went up there one night. I was wearing a blue denim skirt with buttons up the front that I really liked, and somehow we wound up talking about it.

The Family

Shel was my father's best friend and he had a speedboat when we kids were small. I had forgotten until he sent me these pictures from 1972. Then I remembered the whole thing, zipping around on San Francisco Bay, the wind too strong on my face.

The Family Additions

No and KT are sending this photo of Zaye as their greetings card this year. A friend of KT's is a photographer and took a set of photos for the family. This is one (though a not very good copy since I scanned it off of the card).


The card says it's from "The K Family - No, KT, and Zaye. " My eye keeps coming to that part of the card. For years the K Family was me, Mom, and No. To see something referring to the family not including me or Mom looks really really strange to me. I remarked on this to No, and he got it, but KT totally didn't.


Now, my sister-in-law is one of the most generous spirits anyone could ever meet. She said, "Of course you're part of the K family! You're Auntie!" No and I laughed and I tried to explain that the K family was me, Mom, and Noah for so many years, that to see someone else listed as the family looks odd. I didn't want to say the word "interlopers" but that's what I was thinking, even at the same time thinking of course they are the K family too. KT still didn't understand - she seemed to think I was saying that I felt excluded because she and Zaye were listed with No.


Finally No told KT that she and Zaye are newcomers and it seems really strange to have newcomers calling themselves "the K family." I said, "Yeah, how can people who weren't around in the 70's be 'The K Family'?" Finally KT understood, and she laughed with us.

Review

Well, my friends, I did what I wanted to in November with the blog: Tell stories from my (or other people's) life. I had aimed to do it every day, but you know, I work in a food bank and life intervened. The choice was to write three or four posts on the weekend, when I actually had time and brain cells to do it, and then post them dated as if I'd written them each day. Not only did I not have the brain cells to write three or four stories, but I ran out of stories. I'm realizing that most of the good, long stories I have left are not ones I wish to post on the internet, embarrassing myself or, more importantly, embarrassing others.


Maybe I've relaxed my standards or just gotten lazy. Maybe I am more realistic about what I can and wish to accomplish in a day. Maybe I am more tuned into what my body needs and wants. Maybe I'm getting over feeling guilt for small things. This year I don't feel badly about not completing National Blog Posting Month, which I have done the last two years. I read Boegle's post on why she didn't finish NaBloPoMo and it resonated: Like her, I've been so engaged in others that I haven't been connected to the blog. And frankly, those of you who know me in real life know that I will always choose connecting to people over pretty much anything else. If I am not, that is a signal to me that something is wrong.


I was going to ditch Princess Always Learning at the end of the year, but Zirpu asked me why I would do that. I can go back to the random stuff I'm experiencing or thinking about, which is how a lot of people use their blogs or LJs. I thought that I would just close up shop since I am out of stories I wish to post, but I think I won't.

Attittude of Gratitude

This past Tuesday marked my third year of involvement with the Alameda Food Bank. My first volunteering gig was helping to hand out turkeys on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving in the old trailer. Shortly after I arrived a Board member arrived with his son to assist - and it turned out that I knew this Board member from my previous life in financial aid!


So it is three years later and the food bank has been booming. We're serving half again as many clients as we were three years ago. Now a supervisor, I have recruited and trained (or, frankly, had other train) hundreds of volunteers, some of whom have come and gone, some of whom have come and are still working with me. I have managed the food bank through my colleague's parental leave; I have "shopped" at the Alameda County Community Food Bank; and picked up gleanings from the farmers' market, Trader Joe's, and Safeway. I have helped redesign the way we give out turkeys. I have attended Board meetings, and I have driven the forklift. I have counseled completed many, many intakes, and counseled families on local services. I've done a little college financial aid counseling. I have become good friends with my colleague and his family, and so has Zirpu.


I've been thinking about what was going on for me when I started at the food bank. I was really, really depressed, and didn't consciously know it. I had thought I was on the career track for life, figuring out what my next steps would be in the state association. When I left my last financial aid job, though it was my choice, I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. I had lost my identity as a professional, work I was proud of. Suddenly I was not doing it anymore, and was unable to pick up where I left off and look for a new gig immediately.


When people ask me how I got involved in the Alameda Food Bank, when I tell the story I always include that the AFB saved my life. Thinking about how miserable I was when I started, I especially realize how happy I am now. I recognize the sadness and the happiness in other people who have become volunteers. We do a lot more than give away food; we are all recipients of something at the food bank.




** If you're interested, please assist your local food bank by going to Feeding America, formerly America's Second Harvest, to find out how to help people in your community.

A Visit From The Past

Jujubi gave me my first matryoshka (nesting) doll as a birthday gift. I have ten sets, all but one with at least five dolls, including one that is the size of a seed. Most of them have a lot of detail and glitter and gold flake, but one of them does not. She is not a spectacular, fancy doll, like the others that stand over the fireplace. There are just three dolls total in this matryoshka.

I bought her while we were in Alaska, because of the label on the bottom.

Freshman Falling Out

In the fall of my freshman year at college, I was assigned a roommate by the university's Residential Life Office. The books I'd read that took place at boarding schools or colleges had always shown that roommates were friends, and of course I was hopeful (actually, anxious) that my roomie and I would be friends as well. On paper, we matched pretty well. I had chosen a college far away from home which no one else I knew had heard of, let alone attended.


Things did not start out very well. I n retrospect, I think I bore a lot of responsibility for this. Because I was anxious I was more arrogant than usual. I remember specifically showing off that I was from a big city, saying that Tacoma was a small town (which it wasn't). This could not have impressed my roommate, who was from a bona fide small town in eastern Washington.


Our room was split in half, closet-bureau-desk-bed in a row on each side. Other people in our dorm freed up space by bunking their beds, but we didn't even consider it. Over her bed, she had a very current Wang Chung poster; over mine, there was a tattered American flag with 48 stars, with a chain hanging across it.


She had a job as a lifeguard and was out in the afternoons and evenings when I was home studying. I was out in the evenings and late nights goofing around with Denver D, Phil, Mrs. P, Bink, Jujubi, Spudwhip, and Tripp when she was at home. I only remember one conversation between my roommate and me, when I asked her was a "suite" was. I had been listening to Suite Judy Blue Eyes and she was enrolled in a music theory class. She told me, and that was the end of that conversation.


The big showdown happened toward the end of the semester. Phil and I had been hanging out at the Ceramics Building, and as usual I returned to the dorm after midnight. A bad feature of the doors in my dorm was that if the doors were locked from the inside they could not be unlocked from the outside with a key. I knocked on the door, first quietly and with relatively long pauses between knocks, and then louder and more constant. There was no response from inside, and I knew my roommate was home because if she hadn't been, if the door had been locked from the outside, I would have been able to get in.


Ultimately I went back outside, to the phone by the front doors that people used to call residents. I dialed our phone number and the phone rang and rang. I was really angry that my roommate was treating me this way, at the same time that I was puzzled about why she hated me so much. It also seemed to me that by not immediately letting me in, she was choosing to be kept awake by listening to me pounding on the door and calling. Eventually she answered the phone and I asked her politely to unlock the door because I was unable to get in to our room.


I moved out at the semester break.