Suddenly Awakened

My remote-controlled TV activated in the middle of the night, propelling me out of bed to turn off the blaring garbage that spewed far too early in the morning for consumption. The last time that had happened, I’d returned to bed, slept some more, but was nearly late for work, which led coworkers to question how on Earth I could have possibly slept without first checking the apartment for burglars.

“Who’d break into my apartment silently, only to wake me up by watching TV?”

This time around, I didn’t mind the nightmare interruption that found me frantically preparing beds for my grandparents, parents and two of my uncles. What bothered me in the nether hours was that out of all those people in the dream, only my parents are still alive.

Then I dreamt about something that only a former math teacher could find inspirational: The Additive and Multiplicative Identities. Now before you start cursing in your head because, dammit, I’m talking math again; let me remind you, or in some cases, share with you for the first time about what these two things are.

Let’s pretend that I’m the number 8. Now think: which number can you add to me and the sum still be 8? Again, think: which number can you multiply by me and the product still be 8? If you thought the numbers 0 and 1, you’re correct! Zero is the additive identity because when added to any value, leaves the value unchanged. One is the multiplicative identity because when multiplied to any value, leaves the value unchanged.

When most people think about zeroes and ones, binary coding comes to mind. In my fantasy dream, people came to mind. Vividly clothed people.  Think something along the lines of the Whos in Whoville meet the Emerald City citizens from The Whiz. And because this was a fantasy, I knew that each individual represented both a zero and a one.

Individuals reflect both the values they add to and multiply by. In this mathematical liberal fantasy, I knew the reflected values would balance out to a saner, more harmonious society when no demographic was underrepresented in positions of power and influence. (Yes, I got all that from that!)

If we only saw the numerical makeup of a person, devoid of gender, sexual orientation, religion, skin color, immigration status, political affiliation, all the things we claim that makes us so different, we’d only see our own values and fears reflected. We’d notice how many commonalities we had. A seemingly unending string of zeroes and ones. Every added experience. Zeroes and ones. The things that brought us joy. Zeroes and ones. The things we feared. Zeroes and ones.

Our brain isn’t programmed for randomness. It seeks patterns, distinguishing among items. Particularly noticing what’s different—at least on the surface. But if we transcended the superficial, we’d see the zeroes and ones. Our own personal collection that significantly overlapped with others.  We’re made up of the same stuff. Zeroes and ones.

In real life, I get to approximate this experience as a health insurance agent. Since I always talk with my clients over the phone, they only know that I’m a woman. A confident woman who is a good listener, answers their questions and finds them the health insurance plan, which best suits their needs and budget. Often times, as I’m building rapport, I may share my age with potential clients, who inevitably think I sound like a younger woman. At that point, I always want to ask them if I sound like a Black woman.  It shouldn’t make a difference, right? But I’ve heard people say things that I don’t think they would normally say in front of a Black person.

When I was a middle school math teacher, I called a student’s mother to explain an incident, involving her son. The first thing out of her mouth was, “I’m tired of all you White teachers calling me up about my son!” My response was: “Who are YOU calling White? I promise you, if you come up to the school, I will be the only Black female teacher with dreadlocks.  I won’t be hard to find.”

She never came to the school to see me in person and I never had a problem with her son in my classroom again.  Initially, that mother couldn’t hear the essence of what I’d said to her because she’d had a preconceived notion of what I looked like, based on my voice and how I spoke. Once she realized my skin was brown, then she focused on the zeroes and ones.

Humans are full of contradictions. Is it any wonder that I find the elegance and logic of numerical expressions are so comforting and reliable? Wouldn’t it be wonderful, for a change, that we when we looked for a common denominator, that we’d do so in a spirit of finding the common good among us all rather than seeking the bad?

Day for Super Interns

Proving just how super we are, my fellow Tuesday morning intern at the Austin School of Film and I showed up to work one day wearing our strength on our chest. Not to go too deep with the Superperson analogy, but I loved how my neat, precise “S” matched my sense of organization and his slightly unkempt “S” matched his very relaxed style. We both bought our T-shirts at second-hand stores since both of us were broke ass artists, opposed to paying full retail price for depreciable items such as clothing.

Plus, we both self-identify as writers, but I’m more prone to write spoken word and novels, whereas he writes mostly screenplays and for the stage. At this point when we were laughing and posing as superheroes, we had merely taken a break from using our creative talent to clean the facility. I normally dislike cleaning up after other people, but for every 30 hours we intern, we get to sign up for a film class.

Another excellent perk of this internship has been networking with other artists. I continue to be amazed at the variety of people who I cross paths with.

First Three Pages: Bad Driving

What began as a 3-minute radio drama script with one MeetUp group, transformed, after much painful Word Doc template formatting, into a movie script. After all that work, an opportunity presented itself, in the form of a script-writing competition, to get more mileage out of my effort, “Bad Driving.”

The Austin Film Festival usually hosts all of its competitions in the fall during their big festival, but sponsored its inaugural First Three Pages competition in collaboration with the ColdTowne improv actors outside of their regular festival time.  They mentioned, at the start of the show, that they wanted to hold the competition every month.  After the event, the producer in me suggested that they consider doing it once a season.Two of my friends joined me before the show to enjoy complimentary drinks.

Unfortunately, only one had bought her ticket ahead of time and there were none available for sale at the door.  Yet, since we’d arrived early, we still had a wonderful time talking.

Another friend, who is a member the same film MeetUp that I am, showed up without a prepaid ticket, but he was far more determined to get in and signed up for the waiting list, figuring that someone would either not show up or the venue would allow him to stand in the back to view the show.

[From March 2nd until this night, March 20th, the greater Austin community had been terrorized by a package bomber.  So, there was a good chance that some people would remain home due to fear. Everyone who showed up did so out of defiance of those acts of violence and a determination to go on with life and not let him win.] Another friend, who had been among the first to purchase her ticket, arrived just after we’d been allowed to enter the tiny theatre space, which perhaps sat 60 people. Nonetheless, I loved reconnecting with her since, out of all of my friends who’d came out to support, she was the one I’d not seen in quite a while.

Every audience member was given a ballot to vote for their top three scripts. On the back of the ballots was a snarky set of instructions on feedback etiquette. As far as voting was concerned, I knew my piece was number one. Until the improv actors performed the third script. Then, I knew I was number two. They even performed my script fourth, which turned out brilliantly, causing me to daydream about making it my first animated film.

As I’d surmised, that third script about the lesbian couple coparenting their dog won. I was satisfied.

Crossing Borders

I’ve crossed many international borders, starting with being born in Japan on a military base. I don’t remember entering The US since I was barely over a year old, but I didn’t leave The States again until I was 22 as a Peace Corps Volunteer and later as an expat math and science teacher at various American and private schools.

I literally fell across the border walking into Zimbabwe from Zambia. One time, I had to run back to the last train stop in Zambia because I missed getting my passport stamped since I was using the bathroom when the immigration agent passed through my cabin and had already exited the train, which was about to cross into Tanzania. And the time I landed in Turkey, I was tempted to jump back on the plane when I discovered that Americans had to pay $100 just to enter the country. There was a brief moment when the immigration agent saw that I was born in Japan, looked at me closer and asked if I was Japanese. A part of me was so tempted to ask how much was the visa if I were Japanese, but I made life easier for myself and said “no.” Being detained in a Turkish prison for fraud or whatever my illegal actions would have been called sounds like a good story, but I’d much rather write a fictional account of that.

Most of my border crossings have been via airports, especially when I worked in Egypt, South Korea and Honduras, but when I lived in Mexico, half the time I drove, especially if I were going to The States. I’d moved to Egypt a month before 9/11; so when I returned to The States for Christmas and summer breaks, I was ALWAYS the randomly searched passenger. That ended just as soon as I’d moved to Mexico—except that one time.

I’d been living in Monterrey, Mexico for two years and had become very comfortable with driving to the border on a Saturday morning, shopping in either Laredo or McAllen, Texas for the day, then driving back in the late afternoon. Normally, all I showed border control was my American driver’s license and that was that. But this one time, for no good reason, I showed my passport instead. The same passport with all those Egyptian, Emirati, Jordanian and Turkish stamps.  Granted, I’d had immigration stamps from Germany, Greece and Tanzania, but those weren’t the red flags. I had to pull over and explain my travels before entering The States.

First, one border patrol guy questioned me, but then he wrote on an orange piece of paper, “traveled through many countries in the past two years,” which shouldn’t sound suspicious for people who love to travel, right? I had to wait for another guy who sat in the air-conditioned building to interview me further. As I waited, thinking about how surreal being detained in my own country was, my friend, who happened to be a white woman, just fumed.

“What about me? Why aren’t they questioning me?” She grumbled. “I’ve got Guatemalan stamps on my passport! I could be a drug dealer.”

I didn’t address her indignation or bother to inform her that a White woman with Guatemalan stamps in her passport wasn’t nearly as fear-inducing as a woman with international brown skin who’d travelled in predominately Muslim countries.  Traveling while Black—the international version.

I’d actually experienced that phenomenon for the first time in the Charles De Gaulle airport after finishing my two-year stint as a Peace Corps Volunteer. My dreads looked rough and although I wore my best attire, I looked grungy since nothing about my appearance really said, “American” to the extent that the immigration officials had automatically handed me a form to fill out as if I were a foreigner going to The US without even speaking to me.

As I struggled to remember the six years of French I’d taken in high school and college, I wondered to myself, “How the fuck does anyone manage to escape this country if they don’t understand French?”

I finally jumped through that hoop, handed my passport and form to another agent who yelled, “Why are you filling out immigration papers? You’re an American!”

I laughed nervously and explained that someone had given it to me. Somehow, I got through that hoop, but I was irritated. I made a mad dash to the terminal, boarding pass in hand, thinking all the bullshit would be over once I was on the plane. Yet, I was stopped once again in mid-stride when an airline worker, asking to see my passport.

“Oh, you’re an American!” she said with so much shock, I was done.

“Oh, you’re surprised?” I responded as an ugly American.

Out of nowhere, a security guy materialized, got in my face and barked, “What did you say to her?”

As I drew breath to cuss him out like I knew how, the airline worker responded with honey, glitter and rainbows, “Oh, she’s tired.” She handed back my passport, gently placed her other hand on my back and guided me in the direction I’d been originally heading in the first place. International incident averted.

So, the second guy at the US-Mexico border, who sat at a desk that seemed built into the wall, beckoned me over to answer his questions. He asked me about why I’d traveled to those other countries and why I was in Mexico and why I wanted to enter The US and how long I was planning to stay.

At that last question, I nearly lost my cool. “You realize as an American citizen, I can stay in The States for the rest of my life, right?” Fortunately for me, he was in a conversational mood and my question didn’t worsen the situation. Then I added, “Of course, if I didn’t return, I’d lose my teaching job; so, I’m only making a shopping trip today.”

My conversation proved to him that I was on the up and up and I imagine that they ran a quick check on my passport, which was all I wanted them to do in the first place—look at the picture, my name and all that front-of-the-passport information. I didn’t think they’d go flipping through the damn thing and reading all the entrance and exit stamps. Granted, I’d had extra pages sewn in because I traveled a lot, but even so…

He returned my passport and on my way out, I asked the first guy if I could have my slip of paper where he’d written me up for traveling a lot in two years.  He said “no,” which was astonishing since those used slips of paper littered the ground. I’m sure no one gave a shit about keeping them as a record since they were so carelessly discarded, but I think he didn’t want me to have any evidence of my brief “detainment and interrogation” as my friend kept calling it.

At any rate, for future US-Mexico border crossings, I only used my driver’s license and had no problems. (Now, that’s the closest any story of mine has ended with “and she lived happily ever after!”)

Free Pancake Day 2018

I love a good food plan. For Free Pancake Day, I did my usual morning workout, showered and arrived at IHOP a little after 8. The only other time I participated in this event, was years ago when I was a classroom teacher and I’d gone after teaching.  The place had been packed. Obviously that wasn’t the best time to go, but the best time I could go.

This time around, there wasn’t any wait, even though I’d brought a book with me mostly to read during what I thought would be a long wait for a table. Still, I enjoyed reading while scarfing down a short stack with a side of hash browns and one of my favorite condiments.At one point, much sooner than I expected, I felt like I’d vomit if I took another bite. I’m sure those fluffy dense pancakes expanded in my stomach or something because I reached miserable, bypassing “full.”

When I received the bill, I donated $5 to the Shriners Hospital and got the chance to fill out a cute little sign. I don’t remember if I filled out a sign years ago since a friend had met me that time.

While I ate, I saw one of my former students.  Whether she recognized me or not, I kept looking at her to catch her eye, but I didn’t press it since the last time we’d seen one another, years ago, she was mad as hell at me. As her physics teacher, I did my best to get her to work in class. Most of the time, she barely passed because she’d come to tutoring in the nick of time and catch up with her work enough to limp by. The closer to graduation, however, senioritis really got the best of her.

Again, I did all the teacher things to motivate her to keep working, including contacting her parents and advisory teacher about her not graduating. At this point, I cannot remember if she chose graduated on the minimum plan or went to summer school to get a full diploma.  All I know is that she never acknowledged me. At least the pancakes were delicious.

Transform 2018

I declared 2018 as the year I’d start becoming a filmmaker. Fortunately for me, The Austin School of Film has a wonderful program where one can intern and for every 30 hours worked, qualify for a “free” class.  That’s how I like to think of bartering my time for classes. Normally, I help to keep the facilities clean and do whatever tasks need to be done to support film students and coworking members. Since I’ve been interning, the biggest event I’ve worked so far has been the Transform Fest, created by women, featuring women filmmakers. The night before the event, I helped clean the facilities. One of my on-going pet peeves is the dirtiness of the carpets. Lucky me chose the broken vacuum cleaner before being told that the OTHER vacuum cleaner was the one that worked.

Since we set up a temporary VIP area, I was determined to make it look more presentable than it currently did; so I ran the working vacuum cleaner over the two carpets again. Just then, one of the resident filmmakers, who use the coworking facilities, plopped down on the couch, reminding me of why I don’t live with anyone: if I’m cleaning up, then everyone in the house should be cleaning up! Nonetheless, the area was tidier and he had a terrific nap.On the day of the event, I arrived three hours before the doors officially opened. Of course, I left my apartment late, drove on empty and didn’t have time to gas up. So as I drove with the gas light on, I thought about how I’d have to gas it up after the event, which I don’t like doing after sunset. (Well on my way to little old lady-hood!)

Fortunately, one of the co-organizers asked me to go the nearby grocery store to pick up ten bunches of flowers and tampons–she was real specific about the brand and kind of tampons. I thought about how both items were fertility-related. Before purchasing a variety of flower bouquets and the exact box of tampons requested, I happily gassed up my car at the nearby station. After viewing two trailers and sixteen short films, which all fell within one of several categories, the winner from each category (narrative, experimental, animation and documentary)  was revealed by the industry expert woman who judged it.  The audience voted for their overall favorite film: a documentary about the senior Ms Texas pageant. I counted the ballots and saw that the most popular films involved mothers.

I finally took a picture with the other usher after the event was over. We’d greeted everyone after they cleared the ticket area, showed them the layout of the facilities, pointed out the vendors and escorted VIPs to their designated area. As a matter of fact, for the first couple of VIPs, I mixed drinks for them because the front of the house hadn’t gotten into an organized groove and I didn’t want to entangle myself. The plan worked.

Another thing that worked out as well was the decision to allow the Sunday volunteers to clean up after the event! Win-win for all because we were tired and often times, there’s not enough work for most of the volunteers outside of special projects.

Happy Raunchy Valentine’s Day

 The biggest fantasy is

Some man would be a mind reader

Knowing instinctively what to say

To make me want him

In an instant

He’d just size me up

Know how to connect to me

Doesn’t that sound marvelous

Someone crossing your path

Just knowing how to be attractive

Or at the very least

Not a turn off

There are such men like that

We call them con artists

 

I have a friend

Let’s call her Lulu

She’s not a con artist

But whenever she wants

To declare the end of a relationship

Like a period

Punctuating the situation

She dyes her hair—at either end

Not sure if she flips a coin

Heads or coochie

But one or the other

Gets dyed some unnatural color

Commemorating the moment

Another part of her breakup ritual

Is swearing off sex

And welcoming celibacy

Like a beacon

Signaling sexual frustration

That unnaturally dyed hair

Ensnares the next

Future ex

Within her sensuous wake

All without talking dirty

 

Here’s a limerick:

Is it a good time for a kiss

She mentally asks her secret wish

If they don’t go to her head

They’ll travel down South instead

Like horny little fish

 

Now back to me:

I’m conflicted

What turns me on

Isn’t dirty talk

It’s intelligent talk

From a non-condescending man

Who listens

Very few men can actually pull

All three of those things off

Instead

There are many third-rate Romeos

With lots of words, dirty and all

Completely exhausting the limits

Of their vocabulary

Regurgitating clichés

Jokes and current sayings

 

Here’s a haiku:

Sweet-sounding words ooze

Warmly from his gorgeous lips

Like diarrhea

 

True inner conflict

Is being constipated

You aren’t funny, sexy, or intelligent

You’re miserable as hell

And full of shit

 

I want Love to be some tangible place

I can go to a map of the cosmos

Put my finger on it

 

Lovingly caress it

Become enveloped into a daydream

Save up enough goodwill

Good karma to take me there

Like the Staple singers sang about

 

I want the 12 coordinates of Heaven

Sought out and discovered by

Mathematicians, physicists and religions

Intersecting in undeniable existence

Proven by the yet-to-be-discovered new number

Unlike any other number

In existence

 

Here’s a play on an old nursery rhyme:

I have read

Now you’re less blue

Laughter is sweet

I bid you adieu

 

 

 

Broccoli-Encrusted Cheese & Basil Pizza

I’ve not bought a pizza since I left my latest dead-end job, which used to feed us every college student’s favorite meal, despite the amount of money we collectively brought in. Yet, this recipe, using broccoli, cheese and spices as the crust was intriguing enough to prepare. I made a marinara sauce, using my blender, but I skipped boiling down the water since I figured it was thick enough for my purposes.

Next, I pulsed the broccoli in the blender and skipped the step of squeezing out the excess water with a towel.  The broccoli didn’t seem overly moist and, truth be known, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with cleaning broccoli off one of my dish towels.  I mixed the broccoli with some Italian spices, cheese and an egg. Then, I spread the mixture onto parchment paper to bake.

I could’ve happily eaten the baked broccoli and cheese crust!  Instead, I spread the sauce on top.

Then, topped it off with parmesan, mozzarella, and fresh basil.

I returned it to the oven long enough to melt the cheese.  This was one of the best flourless pizzas I’ve ever eaten.  Plus, the crust wasn’t too much of a pain in the ass to make. Often times, the thing that discourages me from making gluten-free or vegan meals is the time-consuming preparation. I know, the grander scheme of things, there should be a nobler cause that dictates my diet.

Yet truth be told: I’m an omnivore who restricts her meat consumption. Overall, it seems that the people who live the longest, are nonsmokers, eat lots of fresh produce, very little meat or dairy, has the occasional drink, exercises regularly and socializes.

I’d like to add another to that: controls her own schedule.  I’m a much happier person and have even started cooking more often since I’ve had control over my own schedule, so it’s not this rushed chore I cannot wait to complete just to have sustenance. I like having leftovers, but now, I have a variety of meals and combinations throughout the week.

Pockets

My rants about the fashion industry are legendary. One reoccurring theme is the absence of pockets in women’s clothing.  Then there’s the ire that fake decorative pockets on women’s clothing causes me. Whereas men’s clothing  has pockets on damn near everything, including their pajamas.

With this raging argument always brewing inside me, I went to the bank to rollover my 401k into an IRA. The banker who helped me had her cellphone lying on the desk. I noticed that the phone case included a double pocket where she kept her credit cards, driver’s license and perhaps her medical card. Seeing that phone case was all it took to wind me up.

As she typed up my application, we both confessed about how it was a pain in the ass to carry a purse in some situations and the general lack of pockets in women’s clothing. She even admitted that one of the reasons she’d bought the dress she happened to be wearing was because it had pockets stylishly sewn into its gentle folds.

Then she asked, “Why do men need so many pockets?”

“For porn!” I answered.  We both burst out laughing.  I’d never questioned why men needed lots of pockets, always focusing my rant on why we women often were shortchanged.

About a week later, I retold that male pockets/porn joke to a male friend and a woman before a filmmakers roundtable event began. She laughed. He didn’t. Instead he fast tracked that joke to its grave by asking me to explain why it was funny. I indirectly explained that the joke may only be funny to women. The other woman said, “Men are always watching porn.” He still didn’t see any humor in that.

Another guy joined us at the table. After we all introduced ourselves, in no time flat, that guy explained that his filmmaking genre was some niche porn I cannot recall because, as the other woman and I said, men are always watching porn.  Here was this guy who was producing it. I didn’t bother to count how many pockets he had.

During the 15-minute intermission in the middle of the roundtable event, the other woman and I made haste to the bathroom and were the first two in the two-stalled women’s bathroom. We both finished up around the same time and saw a line of women waiting–of course.  I seized the moment to test out my hypothesis and told the men’s pockets/porn joke to the women in line.  They all laughed.

Some weeks later, I female friend and I got together to catch up.  I couldn’t resist.  Even she laughed, agreeing that men view a lot of porn. At least that’s what we women think.

How to De-Ice a Windshield: Austin, TX Style

For the third time in two months and since moving to Austin in 2009, Mother Nature snowed.  Par for the course in Austin, lots of ice rained down. I stayed in my apartment the entire day. I had a mental list of things to do, including working out in the morning and “going to work” in the afternoon, which was made possible since I telecommute.

The next day, I gathered my yoga gear, carefully maneuvered down the icy stairs and discovered a quarter inch of ice on my windshield.  My usual ice scrapers were an old plastic badge from my teaching days and a sturdier plastic flour spatula that I kept in the glove compartment. Yet, those things weren’t cracking the ice. To answer the obvious, YES, I’d turned on the defroster. The rear windshield defroster worked faster since the heating elements were embedded in the windshield itself, but that front windshield…

I also turned on my chemistry brain. I knew that isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol would’ve done the trick, but I only had hydrogen peroxide. One thought kept haunting me while I tried to make that flour spatula work.  As the minutes ticked by, I feared being late for yoga class; so I broke down and grabbed the vodka from my freezer.

Since vodka remains liquid in the freezer, it defrosts an icy windshield.  That’s all the chemistry anyone needs to know in this situation.

If I would have planned better, I would have poured the vodka onto a cloth, then applied it to the windshield.  Instead, I drizzled it on top of the windshield and scraped with a metal spatula.

After all that effort, I managed to get a peephole through the ice shield.  I figured the cops would stop me since I had to hunch over with my chin about an inch above the steering wheel in order to see.  I rooted every time the windshield wipers cleared a little more melted ice away.

By the time I pulled into the parking garage adjacent to the yoga studio, I was sitting upright like a normal driver, which was superb since the laws of civilization falter in parking lots/garages.

I hate arriving late to places, especially yoga, but I’d called ahead, so the instructor expected me. As luck would have it, I wore the brightest, loudest yoga pants I owned. A design called “disco dots.” Zero subtlety and absolutely no sneaking into that class already in progress. I set my mat up in the front row and joined in as if I’d been on time. Namaste!