Small Town Wren

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. Is anyone surprised? And while the internet is all abuzz about how misogynistic the Super Bowl Ads were this year…I’m not going to discuss that either. Yes, shocking! How could I possibly resist the intersection of media and gender?

Because Riese over at Autostraddle wrote the most amazing takedown of Taylor Swift and the Grammys. That’s how. And oh boy, it touches on virgin/whore complexes, and copycat songwriting, and the perpetually perceived purity of childhood. And she’s got awesome charts and awesome comparison pictures between Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga, and has quotes like this:

Let’s bring it back around to the lady that obvs should’ve won: Lady Fucking Gaga. Lady Gaga is viscous hungry sex in hellfire. She’s more theatrical than Broadway and every night she sings in romantic open fists. Lady Gaga opens her dress, extracts her gut, assembles it in shapes splashed in sinister glitter and then shatters her dangerous violent diamonds onto the piano and screams FIRE and it sounds like bad romance. She wants your ugly, she wants your disease, and she’s everything Taylor Swift will never be. Punks don’t win awards, they eat awards.

Yeah. I don’t need to talk about the Super Bowl. Or anything else. Just go read it.

1. I will write everyday.
2. I will make the world a better place.
3. I will not forget myself.

These are the three promises I have made to myself. They are part of my goal to be a functioning, independent human being. It’s not that I’m not these things already–I am–but I sometimes forget this. I often forget myself, and I often put myself last. This has made me an incredibly vulnerable person at times. I’m tired of being a person prone to falling apart, teetering on the edge of despair.

So I’m giving myself a head-space make over. And writing is a key component. The seven years and nearly half-million dollars invested in my education as a writer is important to me and has shaped me as a person. Writing is something I have always done, since the days when I first became verbal. I’ve come to learn that when I don’t write, I start to wilt, and that withering causes me to not write. It’s a vicious cycle that I refuse to feed any longer. So I will write. Every day, Wren. Every day.

Committing to make the world a better place might seem like a vague and tall order, but it really doesn’t have to be. It can be as simple as saying “thank you” and holding the door, or it can be far more. Either way, being mindful to stewardship and being kind is a moral and ethical obligation to me as a human being.

I’ve already touched a bit on not forgetting myself, but this is important. I really need to learn to put myself first. This has always been really difficult for me, for as long as I can remember. I’ve had altruism drilled so deep into my brain that it feels wrong to take care of myself. And it shouldn’t be that way.

And it won’t. I promise.

I had the pleasure of going to the opening of The Neo-Futurists most recent main stage production: I AM A CAMERA this evening. It was an interesting, often ethereal performance trying to understand the crossroads of identity and photographs. While there were moments that seemed a little long, this was, perhaps, intentional. However, there were moments of pure beauty to balance it out. At one point, the production took on the qualities of a dance piece while exploring sections of projected photos using pieces of paper. At other times, the actors–Jeremy Sher and Caitlin Stainken–are forced to ask and answer questions using only a small range of photographs.

I really enjoyed the evening. It was a thought-provoking night that posed more questions than answers, and I propose that it is better this way. How can actors tell us who we are? They can only tell us who they are, and, in fact, that is what they spent the evening doing. Greg Allen asks us who we are and that is his thesis. In reality, he is asking us who will we be.

I AM A CAMERA runs through March 13, 2010 on Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Tickets can be bought through Brown Paper Tickets.

The Batavia Public School’s Twitterfeed often sends alerts about things from the school time capsule. These unknown ladies were the 1907 Girl’s Basketball Champions of some unknown championship, either the last or second to last ever achieve this mysterious title before Illinois banned girls competitive sports in 1908. Which is incredibly sad, especially considering the Batavia Boy’s basketball team didn’t win a title until 1912. I also find it somewhat offensive that the 1912 banner still hangs in the Batavia High School gymnasium, but there is nothing to honor these girls for their 1907 accomplishment.

These ladies look capable, determined, healthy, and fun to me. It’s a shame that some organization of men decided their delicate lady bodies had to be protected from the horrors of athletics. While I’m not a big sports participant, I can only imagine how these women felt when they were told they could no longer play.

Having known an implausible number of writers, I’m acutely aware of the quirks and phobias many of these odd but wondrous creatures hold. I can certainly tell you about one of mine, and it’s a pretty common phobia: fear of the blank page.

Blank pages are pregnant with possibility. You could put anything down a glaringly white (or ivory, or whatever) piece of paper, and it’s exactly that potential that is so exciting and alluring. It’s also terrifying. Why, what is one to do if one puts the wrong thing down on that precious paper? What if you make a mistake? Or worse: what if it’s stupid? This is perhaps the single reason why I respect any artist: they all are putting themselves out there and opening themselves up to ridicule. It’s definitely the hardest part of the process for me.

I know I am a capable writer, and most of the writers I encounter in workshops and what-not tend to agree. And yet, every single person I have ever been in a workshop has, in some form or another, encountered the irrational fear and shame that I have in my work. Though I am proud to say this has improved greatly over the years, especially the confidence I have in my criticism. In a shocing reversal, Wren the Critic is more confident than Wren the Writer. This must indicate that I’ve grown more confident as a writer, too.

Back to my original point: blank pages are frightening things to deal with. The boxes and boxes of blank notebooks in my parents’ basement can attest to this. I’ll fully admit I’m a bit of a perfectionist: revision-as-process is my modus operandi. Yet another thing I’ve been working to change in my approach. My academic writing is always a one step process. I’ve never done a full revision of anything academic. Ever. And I’m sure that comes out in my blog posts, as well. How many times have I gone off on a tangent in this post already?

What really made me start thinking about all this is that I bought a new notebook today. A new notebook that prompted my mother to chastise me about all the boxes in the basement. It’s no secret I have trouble marring pages. Especially in purposeless books.

But this moleskine has a purpose. I’m consolidating my life into one place: calendars, planning, writing, ideas, random notes, etc. Not exactly an original idea for a moleskine, but it’s an effective plan. I slapped some indexing tabs on (in?) it and have broken in the spine. It’s all ready for some ink.

And I did the most important thing: I marred every single page. There are no blank pages in my new notebook now, which means there is nothing to fear about sullying them more. And I’ve already gotten some meaningful use out of five pages. I don’t want to be afraid anymore.

Photo courtesy of Thomas Hawk.

I spent some time at the local library this weekend getting some work done. I took some time to graze through some periodicals, including the Utne Reader. It’s been several years since I last picked up the Utne in a tiny Michigan town, and that’s a decision I have come to regret. The January/February 2010 issue has some fantastic articles and dispatches.

In particular there’s a quick dispatch from the IEEE Spectrum on the coming streetcar revival. Considering I’ve been planning a move to the stereotypical trolley-land of San Francisco in two years, the timing is interesting, to say the least. Nevermind that the true trolleys are the land of tourists and real transportation is on subways and trolley-busses (far less romantic).

I’m sort of passionate about public transportation. While driving is convenient (and a necessity for my current locale), it stands in stark contrast to my ethics. Cars are perhaps, among other things, a hallmark of American consumption and consumerism. They’re also terribly inefficient in terms of resources, and time & energy waste. And I’m aware that most people who have never lived in a public transport mecca will go on and on and on about how that is false, cars save so much time, blah blah blah.

I hate to break it to you, but no. They don’t. I’ll concede that they do in public transport black holes, but anyone who’s lived in cities where transportation is essential to the entire population will understand my point. When implemented effectively, public transportation is superior and reduces pollution and the need for resources. It’s why I’m such a huge fan of the bicycle.

But back to the trolleys. I find them to be exciting. It could potentially be a way to get an effective public transportation system in place without the crazy high costs associated with them. Smaller metropolises could utilize a streetcar system to great effect. The more people we get on mass transit the better. Driving a car is political, and it’s not politics I endorse.

Well folks, I submitted it. I submitted my application for student teaching (Spring 2011). What a frightening prospect this is. Not because it will be a difficult job–which it undoubtedly will–but trying to figure out how to cope with working 40+ hours a week for free. Actually, not for free, for -$6000.

That’s right, I will be teaching ~25 youngsters in a public classroom and I will be paying a university for the privilege. Now I’m no stranger to the unpaid internship, I’ve had plenty coming from the entertainment industry. But student teaching is a little different. It’s not running coffee and giggling with professionals; it’s teaching. It’s accepting the full responsibilities of a teacher without compensation. This is the business of changing lives, people.

This is completely ridiculous. And also somewhat enraging. And the logistics of it for a non-undergraduate student are next to impossible. I’m among the lucky ones in my program; I don’t have children I need to support. I’ve got free room and board to help me float the five months of forced “unemployed employment.” I know a number of single moms in my classes. I can’t even comprehend how much in savings they’ll need to be able to survive that semester. I cringe as I discuss working tail evenings and weekends with the couple who are as lucky as me.

I’m angry. I love my job more than anything, and I’m angry that I have to leave it and it’s meager salary (let’s forget the fact that I’d be willing to do it for free). I’m angry that I have to leave my buddy for a minimum of 5 months, possibly after this year if that’s what his parents and the district think is best. I’m angry that there is no way I can do both. And I’m angry that I’m going to have fight high school students for minimum-wage part-time grunt work with evening and weekend hours. But that doesn’t compare to the anger that this havoc-wreaking institution is thrusting on my lives and those whom I work with. I could at least understand it a little easier if I didn’t have to pay out of my pocket for this “privilege.” I could at least justify it if I would receive some form of compensation beyond the promise of a degree in the future.

I don’t want to leave my job. My job is the whole reason I’m getting this degree. I just find it incredibly upsetting that the two are in conflict, a conflict that doesn’t make much sense.

I’ve been avoiding writing here, which annoys me to no end. The reason why I’ve been putting it off is that most of the things I have to say, I feel I cannot because there are a number of people in my life right now who like to assume that anything I write is actually about them. I find this really frustrating, because I usually don’t let the thoughts and opinions of others have much say over my standard operating procedure. And yet, I feel the need for caution now.

It’s silly. I’m not going to do this much longer. It’s to the point where if people are offended by me, they shouldn’t read my thoughts. My patience has run out, and I’m not going to give the feelings of others more consideration than my own any longer.

Out of curiosity, what with the turbulent economy of late, I poked through Craigslist to see what rooms were going for in San Francisco. Anyone who’s known me over the past year and a half has known that my longterm dream is to move to San Francisco. My sister took me on a long weekend there in July, 2008 and I fell immediately in love. It’s been the only place that has felt truly like home in a long time.

Anyway, I ran the numbers, and I could afford it. Today. It would be tight, but I could do it, even if I couldn’t find a job for a year; I could do it. Which is an incredibly comforting thought. I can actually get out of here after grad school, if I want.

That might seem odd, the girl who named her blog Small Town Wren (the girl being Wren herself) is fantasizing about leaving the Midwest forever for a big city? Yes, because being the small town has never been the ideal. But, having grown up in a small town and attending high school in an even smaller town has always been central to the construction of my identity. During my childhood, Batavia had less than 18,000 people. Even now the 2000 census puts us at 23,000 (and the trend growth suggests the 2010 census will put us at around 28,000). Back then, there were more cornfields than neighborhoods. And I spent my high school years living in a northern Michigan town of ~600.

Growing up and coming of age in the middle of nowhere isn’t something you can ignore in your worldview. And those who don’t know me might suggest that it makes me an ignorant fool. They’re entitled to their opinion and their ignorance. I’ve experienced more diversity than a number of my friends back in New York City have.

I’m a city girl and I loved New York City. But I missed the trees, and the sky and weather that didn’t make you feel filthy all the time. San Francisco has always been the balm to New York City’s problems. And I’m thrilled that it looks like I can make that dream a reality.

I have a very funny feeling that this new semester of graduate school is going to bring more than its fair share of funny/sad anecdotes. I don’t want to imply that I don’t like my professors or my fellow students–that’s hardly the case at all–I just find many of them to be…interesting. While I have enjoyed getting mad props for my crazy organizational colored pens and matching colored highlighters, that’s the only consistent thing about all of my classes so far that I’ve enjoyed (besides a few choice classmates who are in all of my classes).

As for the anecdotes…I somehow always get elected to be secretary of X, Y, & Z due to my compulsive organization. This leads me to reading much more of my classmates’ work than most others do. Today I had the pleasure of reading a summary that was twice as long as the text it was trying to summarize. I’m not even sure what to do with something like that. I’m not even sure how that works, period.

I’m still baffled.