Goodbye, Hello

Clothes

I have too many clothes. There’s a plethora of reasons I may hold onto something…

~ Because someone I love gave it to me;
~ Because I am waiting for the perfect thing to wear it with;
~ Because I might iron it next time it comes out of the dryer wrinkled;
~ Because I might like it better on me the next time I try it on…
… and so on.

So I’m always on the verge of getting rid of about half of what I own. I devised a new way to say goodbye to clothes I don’t wear so much, but am not quite ready to get rid of: Wear each item one last time before popping it into the clothing swap bag*, and make it as memorable as possible.

The last time I ever wore my pale green World Peas sleeveless tee shirt – the one that has a pea pod on it with tiny earth-peas inside – was a few weeks ago. My friends R and A were en route from Burning Man to San Francisco, playa dust still molding their hair into wild, lovely chunks. They parked at my place and we walked to the Tower Café. We sat at the angular table outdoors, me at the apex, under the warm white glow of the lights strung in the trees. I had a glass of white wine, and the Caprese salad. My birthday had been the week before, so they surprised me by ordering a lemon tart from the dessert case! When it came, there was a little candle stuck in the top, and the waitress lit it. They sang me “Birthday” by The Beatles; “Happy Birthday”; and “God Danced the Day You Were Born” loudly and joyfully, and other diners grinned at us. One told us it was her birthday, and thanked us for the show. When R & A left, I gave them CDs to listen to for the drive home.

The last time I ever wore my blue plaid skirt was at a dinner party at E’s house last week. W was there, and E’s friends T and N. We laughed so much and had such a great conversation. We drank awesome chardonnay. E made delicious tofu, veggies and rice, and salad with sweet poppy seed dressing. I brought a chocolate cake, which I had baked with Reese’s Pieces, which ended up looking like moldy spots on the cake… it tasted good anyway. We piled onto the couch and watched silly YouTube videos while N tried to fix E’s mouse. I left with a big grin. I’m pretty sure it was the best dinner party ever.

* As most of my friends know I have a clothing swap party with my friend K twice a year.


Seasons

I feel the changing of the season. I feel the slowing of my world. I feel the way each person or thing is preparing itself for hibernation. I want tea and baked goodies and naps. I am less in the mood to go out, and more in the mood to sit and read.

Goodbye, summer, you sticky, coconut-scented, skin-baking thing. Goodbye sunshine till late evening. Goodbye, swimsuits and sunburns on legs I forgot to shave. Goodbye, choosing which pair of flip-flops look best with my tank top. Goodbye, eternal warm nights on roofs looking at stars. Goodbye, carefree, no-school-havin’ teenagers with highlighted hair and cell phones tucked into bras under aquamarine or orange tube tops. See you all next year.

Hello, autumn, you smoky-smelling, cool-aired thing. Hello, pajama pants, thick slipper socks, and soft glow of lamp. Hello, reason I kept my Netflix subscription through the blur of nights I preferred going out while Tyvek-encased disks collected dust near the TV. Hello, crisp apples and kids crossing the street in school zones and new, sharp-cornered magenta Dora the Explorer backpacks. Hello, crunchy brown and yellow and red speckled leaves falling on rivers and into gutters. Hello, cat in my lap and orange sherbet-colored blanket of cloudy urban night sky. Hello, Halloween costumes, Thanksgiving potatoes, and everything pumpkin. Hello, nutmeg. Hello, long-sleeved top the color of baked yams creamed with marshmallows and butter. How’ve you all been?

Petrichor and Other Autumn Joy

Eleven Cool Things To Love About Fall

A few days ago, I was feeling kind of gloomy about the impending end of summer, and so I posted a status update on Facebook saying as much, and soliciting from my friends things to enjoy about autumn. My friends responded in full (gale) force! What a windfall!

Kel Munger of the Sacramento News and Review thought the list was fun stuff, and posted a condensed version to the SNR's blog, SNOG.

And now, shamelessly stolen from SNOG, I present you with the Top Ten Reasons to Love Autumn in Sacwhich was shamelessly stolen from my Facebook page! Shameless thievery abounds!

10. Walking around without sweating out all your bodily fluids,

9. Wearing awesome socks without melting,

8. Flannel!,

7. Apple Hill! Cider!,

6. Leaving the windows open during the day,

5. Fall colors, followed by the crunching sound of leaves under your feet,

4. Dusting off the Crock-pot and making soup,

3. No more air-conditioning,

2. The sound of rain on the roof, and

1. The smell after it rains!

Read the SNOG posting here, or friend me on Facebook to read the entire status message with all its deliciously detailed comments!

Also, thanks to S, and to Wikipedia, for informing the masses that there is, in fact a word to describe the smell of rain. That word is "petrichor."

The term was coined in 1964 by two Australian researchers, Bear and Thomas, for an article in the journal Nature. In the article, the authors describe how the smell derives from an oil exuded by certain plants during dry periods, whereupon it is adsorbed by clay-based soils and rocks. During rain, the oil is released into the air along with another compound, geosmin, producing the distinctive scent. In a follow-up paper, Bear and Thomas (1965) showed that the oil retards seed germination and early plant growth.

Finally, a haiku I wrote awhile back about enjoying fall without risking the ire of landscaping neighbors:

Leap in piles of leaves!
Jump only vertically…
Don't scuff; leave no mess.

I hope you enjoy fall, friends and readers, and keep me posted on your seasonal adventures!

Ode to Oatmeal

We decided to write odes at our writing group meeting tonight. I wrote an

Ode to Oatmeal

O oatmeal,
you simplest
of foods,
you most unassuming
nutritious
victual,
you shy,
naked,
quivering
bowl of mush.
How insulting
your properties
sound!
But how essential
you are,
quietly nourishing
entire generations
and their children's children's children.

O oatmeal,
you never asked
to be dressed up
in apple-sugar
and paraded in boxes
through 10-Items-Or-Less lanes
at Vonn's, Albertson's or Safeway
by soccer moms
with false eyelashes
and purses they can't afford,
by college students,
pulling crumpled dollar bills,
one
by
one,
out of front jeans pockets.
No, you gnashed
your teeth
and cringed
and sighed
the day they shook
maple flakes into you
and put you in
plastic-lined
brown paper packets,
hermetically sealed
by the crimper
at the end of the
assembly line.

If you had your way,
o oatmeal,
you'd only be
sold in bulky
cylinders,
with
"rolled oats"
humbly printed
in plain Arial font
on the label.

O oatmeal,
you would be
satisfied
to live your
life
out among the
heather,
beneath a cloudy
sky,
the shepherd's fiery-haired wife
slowly bringing
you
to
a boil,
in her cream-colored
sweater,
wouldn't you?

An Olfactory Tour of SacTown

Last fall, I was in the midst of writing a piece about the smells of Sacramento, when the Sacramento News and Review published Josh Fernandez's article "Inhaling the City." I scooped together the bits I'd written and stitched them together into following letter. Enjoy!

Letter to the Editor

October 27, 2008

Dear [Sacramento News & Review] editor,

A big “bravo!” to Josh Fernandez for his article “Inhaling the City” (October 23, 2008). Having always been a scent-sitive soul myself, I thrilled to read about Josh’s olfactory memory associations. Many writers neglect the power of smell in their works.

I am an aficionado of the olfactory myself, and have many memories linked to odors. Having been raised in Placerville, the musty smell of caves and mines immediately evokes evenings spent at the coffee shop at the converted Pearson’s Soda Works (now the Cozmic Cafe) which itself is built into a hill. The smell of tar reminds me of an indistinct nightmare, so summertime construction projects always make me illogically squeamish. Wet summer grass is the smell of road trips and being achingly in love at eighteen. Fresh laundry drying is one of the best scents: it immediately takes me back to a particular rainy afternoon spent listening to Sarah Vaughan and reading paperback novels in my bedroom, just next to my apartment complex’s laundry room. I was shivering under a rust-colored afghan blanket, but couldn’t bear to shut out that clean, wet smell. And smelling pie baking will always take me to Thanksgiving Eve in my grandmother’s orange-linoleumed kitchen, where I would sprinkle the pie crust dough scraps with cinnamon and sugar, and bake them on a cookie sheet into crumbly "cookies".

This summer, at age 26, I belatedly taught myself to properly ride a bike. Since mounting my blue mountain bike, I have often found myself toodling through Downtown, sniffing wildly at fleeting smells, like a dog with her head out a car window. I’ll sometimes find several in a single block. For example, T Street between 11th and 12th Streets tonight smelled of sour and smoky cooking (sausage and sauerkraut, perhaps?); the faintly acrid tang of a just-peeled green banana; and something perfumey, like the bubble bath I used as a pre-teen. Downtown Sacramento's alleys are even more fragrant than the streets, exuding the rich scents of backyard soil, ripe garbage cans, and motor oil.

In fact, I think the yellow-jacketed Downtown Sacramento Partnership guides ought to offer tourists SacTown Scent Maps. Here are some olfactory packages to get them inspired:

Locale: Old Sacramento.
Time: Mid-day, warm weather.
Scents: Dust, chocolate (near Rocky Mountain), hay-laden horse droppings.

Locale: Southside Park neighborhood.
Time: 5:30pm to 7:30pm.
Scents: A mouthwatering menagerie of Asian delights on the stove: rice, hot oil, fish in the pan.

Locale: Capitol and McKinley Parks.
Time: Post-rain, springtime or early summer.
Scents: Wet pavement, infinite combinations of flora and fauna.

Locale: Lavender Heights.
Time: Saturday night.
Scents: Each carouser wears her or his own cocktail of scents, a mixture of beer, sweat, soap, cologne, and lotion.

My best friend J’s stepfather lost his sense of smell as a child to hay fever. I’ve often wondered, looking at him pityingly, what a world without my sense of smell would be like. When people ask those irritating “Would you rather…?” questions, aimed at forcing you to think long and hard about which fate would be worse, I usually answer to the one about deafness versus blindness, “either one, as long as I can still have my sense of smell.”

Lunch.

Coffee Perfume

I had a marvelous lunch today. I hopped on my bike and made my way to the Sacramento Central Library, and was waited on by a very cute and smiley guy with a few scattered tattoos (and a wedding ring. Drat!).

Then I rode over to one of my absolute favorite places in town, Temple Coffee, and ordered an iced black citrus tea, which was super yummy. When I went to sit down, I saw that the best seat in the entire house - the window seat with all the pillows and the view of the street and the flower boxes - was free... just waiting for me to occupy it! It was enveloped in sunlight and calling to me, and there were music and birds twittering in the background as I floated toward it, so happily.

That tea was so good - cool and tall and flavorful and PROBABLYHADTOOMUCHCAFFEINEFORMEBECAUSEINEVERDRINKCAFFEINEANYMORE!... It was a perfect complement to my delicious peanut butter and honey sandwich. I used soft, healthy bread with texture and all kinds of interesting little seeds to nibble at. The peanut butter was the kind you grind fresh at the store, so there was nothing funky in it - just a thick spread of smooshy peanuts. The honey was just a little crystallized so it was ever so slightly sugary. And to top it all off, I read a super interesting article from my favorite magazine!

Soon it was time to go back to work, and as I went back out to get my bike, I chatted with people standing outside under the shady trees. One of the guys owns this little store next to Temple I've never been in but I'm now super curious about. They sell all kinds of miscellany, and there was a rack outside with $1 shirts on it. I buzzed through the streets and alleys, grinning the whole way at pedestrians, other bicyclists, motorists. I love the allies in Sacramento because they dip down into the basement and parking garage level of the street so you can race up and down the little hills and have an urban adventure! The sunshine was just warm, not sweltering, and I could smell the rich bits of city life as I whizzed past restaurants, dumpsters and cars.

The most incredible thing about this lunch is that I even got back a few minutes early!! A foreshortened lunch hour, yet I didn't feel shortchanged at all.

And before I knew it, I back at my desk, coffee scent hanging off my body like wisteria on trellises. I smelled like a waitress, hon.

Conflict and Harmony

The following thoughts were written a few weeks ago.

A Drive at Sunset

Last night was extraordinarily beautiful. As the sun was setting, M and I drove down Jefferson Road in West Sacramento to where it turns into a levee road. Clouds were stretched over the pale sky like layered gauze. The sun was as red as a strawberry, halfway behind the hills, when we saw a blond field up ahead with a backdrop of towering oak trees. But the trees looked peculiar – they had large, white spots in them. I thought maybe it was the sky shining through, but the spots were too pale and uniformly-sized to be sky patches. As we approached, I realized they were nesting egrets - my favorite birds!! I never knew they roosted in trees that way.

We passed over a little canal lined with horse grass and reeds, and pulled over by the trees. The field alongside the canal was bordered by a white post-fence, with an opening to a dirt pathway. As we approached the pathway, the egrets (who were hundreds of feet away) all took flight and circled around the sky. Funny, I thought, that they wouldn't be afraid of large, loud, motorized vehicles whipping by at 50 miles per hour, but that two people on foot would spook them. They probably knew what guns sounded like, and that they were usually fired by humans on foot.

We wandered through the field, which seemed to be some kind of grain, and eventually took a side path down to the canal. Some of the egrets returned, and I could hear them honking and chattering. But mostly they settled among the branches of trees further down the canal. One flew almost directly overhead, and we had a full view of its slender elegance from beneath.

We sat down at the water’s edge, toes on the mud, and watched as fish splished and flipped in the water. Small, dark birds sped after one another, zipping down close to the water, but never touching it. We took pictures of the horse grass silhouetted against the sky. Small animals created rustling noises as they went about their business in the dry, hollow reed grasses. We joked about getting West Nile Virus from the mosquitoes that hovered around, and I said I’d rather die of West Nile than miss evenings like these. The sun slowly melted into the horizon, and eventually nighttime came.

Conflict and Consensus

As we sat, we talked about philosophy, overpopulation, and reproduction. We talked about emotions and communication, and M. gave me one of the best compliments I could imagine:

“I really admire how you do such a good job of asserting your opinions without shoving other people out of the conversation.”

That is precisely the kind of balance I strive for - only I'd never put it in those words before. I was very touched. For about five years now, I’ve been thinking constantly about my own worldview in the context of conflict and harmony.

Two bedrock theories of sociology (and other social sciences) are the structural functionalism perspective - attributed in large part to Emile Durkheim - and the conflict perspective - the brainchild of Karl Marx. Structural functionalism conceptualizes every aspect of society to have a constructive purpose, even dysfunction. This means our society’s institutions function as a result of the synthesis of different perspectives, or the compromises reached by opposed parties. The Marxist conflict perspective, on the other hand, posits that society is characterized by the constant state of opposition between various classes, or groups of people with differing interests. To put it more simply, one theory posits that we are defined by our ability to compromise on our disagreements; the other views our same society through the lens of those very conflicts themselves. Either of these perspectives can be used as a level of analysis for any sort of issue, from the interpersonal level to a global scale.

I haven’t decided whether I put more stock in Marxism or structural functionalism - either as far as an explanation for the way society works, or insofar as far as which approach I value more as a tool for organizing for social change. It’s clear that both are at work in the world, and I also truly value both techniques. However, I always feel somehow at odds with myself when I consider this fact. It seems the two paradigms cannot co-exist simultaneously because by their very nature they are diametrically opposed. But last night I had a little epiphany about balance: the two are not mutually exclusive; they happen in tandem with one another.

Similarly, both confrontation and consensus-building are useful and necessary tools. The two even complement each other in what may appear on the surface to be a contradictory or counter-productive way. In fact, one could go so far as to say they are interdependent. One oft-cited example is the respective roles played by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s non-violence and the Black Panthers’ radicalism in the civil rights/Black freedom movement.

Thus it is neither illogical nor wrong in any way to use both as tools at appropriate moments. In thinking about this further, I see that this has been obvious all along. Most reasonable people would agree that trying to talk through a problem when it arises is the best course of initial action; and everyone but the most staunch of all pacifists would agree that things come down to confrontation sometimes. Academia, however, tends to set up a false dichotomy about the two. Do you have any thoughts on conflict or consensus?

Update: Today (yes, literally less than 12 hours after posting this blog), I ran into the professor I had for Introduction to Sociology during one of my first few semesters at Sierra College. Apparently, she works for DHCS. She was so excited that I so clearly and fondly remembered her class. That is quite a strange coincidence, no?


Bird Family

Finally, some sad news to report.

If you didn't know, a family of pigeons was nesting just outside my bathroom window. Recently, I walked to the laundry room and saw an egg splattered on the ground. I thought, “Why would anyone throw an egg at the side of my house?" But, hey, I live downtown, so I didn’t think anything of it. But a few days later, for the first time since they appeared, neither Mirabel, the female pigeon, nor Maxwell, her mate, were on their nest – and I saw there were no eggs, either. It clicked then that the egg on the ground a few days before had been one of their eggs, and that probably during the night, a raccoon or a blue jay or something had come and taken their second egg, or else maybe it had fallen. But the next time I walked downstairs, I didn't see any evidence of another egg on the ground. Poor, sweet family. Mirabel, Maxwell, and their eggs – all gone. Just an empty hollow of twigs where their white-shelled offspring were once developing.

It all makes me want to stop eating eggs. And it also makes me marvel that any birds survive, living as they do in delicate nests, beginning their lives protected only by a thin, fragile shell. Maybe you think pigeons are disgusting, but I think any bird is a miracle.

Job Search Tips

Hi friends,

I know many of you are looking for work right now. Below are some tips I wrote up for a friend who was out of work. I was just recently out of work for six months - so I know how it feels. I hope it's helpful!

Best of luck to all of you.

Love, H

It sucks losing your job. (Mostly. Take cheap road trips, relax and volunteer when you can.) But being laid off or fired is a loss, just like any other. Allow yourself a little process of grieving - you may feel pained, shocked, angry, confused, guilty, whatever. Let yourself feel those feelings when you need to, and then move on.

Having just been through this, I thought I’d put together a list of tips and ideas for job searching.

First off, if you can get it, get Martin Yates' Knock 'Em Dead books - I used the Interviews one to study, and I rocked my interviews!

Try not to sleep in in the mornings. Have a routine, or a reason to wake up. I took my mom (she lives two blocks from me) to work every day, and that kept me from sleeping in and waking up at 11:00 am feeling crummy.

Register with as many websites as you can.
Register with both those sites specific to your profession, and general, as you can to keep your options open. Here are some I was on/checked every day:
http://www.idealist.org
If you live in California, take state tests and get on lists ASAP at:
http://www.spb.ca.gov/jobs/vpos/index.htm
http://www.sacbee.com
http://www.csus.edu/webpages/employment.stm
(There are more. I’ll post them as I think of them.)

Go to job fairs. You never know what might lead to something. Plus, once again, it gives you a reason to get up in the morning when you feel like sleeping in, eating ice cream and watching Seinfeld re-runs instead.

When I was out of work, Kinko’s had a special where they let you print 25 copies (per location! On nice-ass paper!) of your résumé. I hit up three locations on my bike and got a total of 75 copies of my three-page résumé on fancy granite-gray paper. Watch the business news – CNN.com or Yahoo business – for these kinds of jobseeker opportunities.

Keep a spreadsheet (or a binder, if you’re old school) of jobs that you’ve applied to, contacts at each location, dates to follow up, etc. That way you can keep track of who to call when. Also (obviously) ask all your ex-bosses, favorite co-workers and professors for letters of recommendation. I included an average of five letters of recommendation with my application each time I applied to a job. It can’t hurt. Keep copies of cover letters in the computer so you don’t have to re-invent the wheel every time a job opportunity arises. Be sure to let your references know when someone will probably be calling them.

Have a weekly routine. I used to apply for all the jobs listed in the Sunday Sacramento Bee and the California Job Journal on Mondays; local government jobs on Tuesday; private sector on Wednesdays; and state jobs on Thursdays. I saved Fridays for researching and contacting non-profits I was interested in working for, so that let me have something to look forward to on Friday, even though I wasn't working.

Pound the pavement! It can’t hurt to do walk-in inquiries and résumé drop-offs; besides (again) it gets you out of the house, and you'll probably learn about businesses/organizations you didn't know about walking around.

Also, register with temp agencies. I had an awesome account executive at Apple One who was always keeping her eyes peeled for me, and got me a temp job and a bunch of interviews.

Unemployment benefits have been extended, so at least there’s that. If you’re lucky, it’ll be enough to pay your bills and still have money left to eat and buy gas.

Get on www.linkedin.com. It’s a great network. And use your resources – which basically means anyone you know. Make a business card and have a brief description of what you do. I got free business cards at http://www.dcp-print.com. There are also a couple of other free websites. Google “free business cards”. Remember to include the information you want to share with everyone.

If there's a cause you care about, volunteer there for awhile. It can't hurt to have something - be it unpaid - on your resume for the time you were out of work.

Job searching is like a full-time job, but remember that it’s just that – something to occupy a decent amount of your time, but not to obsess over. Take time to exercise, go for a walk, cook good food for yourself, and watch movies. Don’t feel too bad at the end of each day if you haven’t found something yet. It’s tough out there.

Finally, good luck!! Go kick butt, and be yourself. You are resourceful, amazing, smart, and capable. (Duh. Why do you think your other employer hired you in the first place?)