I’m your handy (wo)man

By Admin | Published: May 21, 2013

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ZOMG, you guys. It’s been a busy few months. My spring semester of classes nearly did me in; they were difficult and incredibly time consuming. But hey, it was worth it: I got an A in each class and now I’m one step closer to finishing my Human-Computer Interaction degree.

I’m taking courses this summer, but until the semester starts, I’ve been enjoying my free time. Last weekend I nearly panicked when I had so much free time on my hands. I’m used to spending weekends working on homework, so it’s eerily quiet when I don’t have classes.

But anyway, I’ve been busy with other things, with fun things. Specifically, I’ve been helping my mom, sister, and brother-in-law with technology-related stuff. My mom and dad got their first ever smartphone, so I had to teach them everything from scratch. Our conversations went like this:

Me: “This is a smartphone. It’s a small computer. Your smartphone has 4G.”

Parents: “What’s 4 and G?”

Me: “It’s called ’4G’ and it’s kind of hard to explain. But just think of it as a magical place where you can connect to the Internet from nearly anywhere.”

Dad: “You mean I can use eBAY from anywhere?”

Mom: “You mean I can ask my smartphone for driving directions and the phone will talk to me and tell me where to drive?”

Me: “Yeah. And there’s so many other things you’ll be able to do, too. It’s so exciting.”

I forgot how hard it is to teach a person how to use a smartphone when they’ve never used one before in their life. There are so many settings to adjust, sounds and notifications to select, accounts to create, cases and styluses to select, apps to download and organize, etc. etc.

My mom has impressed me immensely with how quickly she grasps new concepts. My parents went to Oklahoma to visit relatives and my little cousins asked my mom if she knew how to text and if she had an Instagram account. Mom called me to confirm if she had these capabilities. When I told her yes and then told her how to download and set up the accounts, she gained instant street cred with my young cousins. They said my mom was very cool.

I had dinner last weekend with my parents and I noticed that my mom kept yawning non-stop. I finally asked her why she was so tired. With a sheepish look on her face, she confessed that she and Lydia, one of my mom’s nieces, had stayed up texting until 1:00AM or so. It cracked me up that my mom was behaving like a teenager.

My sister, who thus far has refused to use any social networking apps (not even Facebook!), asked me to help her install and set up an Instagram account. I was shocked that she wanted to do this. I figured that she would try it out and then delete her account. But to my great surprise, she is using Instagram to make friends and connect with people all over the globe. The other day she called me and asked what a hashtag is and how to add them to her photos. Tots adorbs!

My summer semester starts soon, but in the meantime, you will find me acting as the information technology handy (wo)man for mi familia. :)

 

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For my mom

By Admin | Published: May 10, 2013

We celebrate Mother’s Day in the USA this Sunday (May 12). My mom is out of town; she went on a trip to see her own mother, my grandmother. Because I won’t be able to spend Mother’s Day with her this year, I decided I’d write about mom on my blog.

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Mom and I have had a difficult relationship from the beginning. We openly talk about this with one another. We disagree about nearly everything (religion, education, feminism, gender roles, anger management, humor, communication styles, politics, etc.). What we’ve agreed to do is listen to one another, try to have patience, and be forgiving of one another’s shortcomings.

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No one can hurt me like my mom. A simple look or a few spoken words can upset me terribly. Mom’s not a saint. She’s made a lot of mistakes and, thankfully, realizes this and takes ownership of these not-so-flattering qualities. She admits she’s a work in progress and mom has said that she finally feels like she’s hitting her stride in life. This gives me hope for my own life and future.

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The past 3 weeks have been incredibly difficult for me. I became very ill and had to undergo emergency surgery. I was scared, restless, anxious, and worried. My mom stayed with me in the hospital. She’s a big believer that a person who is ill shouldn’t deal with their illness and circumstances on their own. Mom was a huge help when I was hospitalized. I was so sick and loopy due to all the drugs I was on that I could not take care of everything. Mom kept track of when I needed pain medicine, she hydrated with plenty of ice chips, and she called my colleagues and professors to inform them I would be out of commission for awhile.

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Despite our differences, I have to give thanks to her for bringing me into the world!

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How to make a game of waiting

By Admin | Published: April 21, 2013

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How To Make a Game of Waiting

by Jennifer K. Sweeney

This is a capsized game
and there is no display of aces at the end.
Buy a rare and expensive plant that never blooms.
Rearrange your books by the color of the spines.
Bury all your keys that don’t unlock anything.
These are not rules but merely suggestions
of what has worked for others.
For instance, the man who painted landscapes
on his daughter’s sheet music.
Put a big rock on your desk.
Do not name the rock.
Take the numbers off the clock and mail them
to your creditors.
Stitch the hours onto a kite.
Every night, ask until you can hear what replies.





											
					

					
					


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Poppies


					


	By Admin

	 | 

	Published: April 14, 2013

	



     				
					

					
						
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Poppies


by Jennifer Grotz


There is a sadness everywhere present

but impossible to point to, a sadness that hides in the world

and lingers. You look for it because it is everywhere.

When you give up, it haunts your dreams

with black pepper and blood and when you wake

you don’t know where you are.


But then you see the poppies, a disheveled stand of them.

And the sun shining down like God, loving all of us equally,

mountain and valley, plant, animal, human, and therefore

shouldn’t we love all things equally back?

And then you see the clouds.


The poppies are wild, they are only beautiful and tall

so long as you do not cut them,

they are like the feral cat who purrs and rubs against your leg

but will scratch you if you touch back.

Love is letting the world be half-tamed.

That’s how the rain comes, softly and attentively, then


with unstoppable force. If you

stare upwards as it falls, you will see

they are falling sparks that light nothing only because

the ground interrupts them. You can hear the way they’d burn,

the smoldering sound they make falling into the grass.


That is a sound for the sadness everywhere present.

The closest you have come to seeing it

is at night, with the window open and the lamp on,

when the moths perch on the white walls,

tiny as a fingernail to large as a Gerbera daisy

and take turns agitating around the light.


If you grasp one by the wing,

its pill-sized body will convulse

in your closed palm and you can feel the wing beats

like an eyelid’s obsessive blinking open to see.

But now it is still light and the blackbirds are singing

as if their voices are the only scissors left in this world.


											
					

					
					


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I’m correcting my mistakes


					


	By Admin

	 | 

	Published: April 10, 2013

	



     				
					

					
						
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Again a Solstice


by Jennifer Chang


It is not good to think

of everything as a mistake. I asked

for bacon in my sandwich, and then


I asked for more. Mistake.

I told you the truth about my scar:


I did not use a knife. I lied

about what he did to my faith

in loneliness. Both mistakes.


That there is always a you. Mistake.

Faith in loneliness, my mother proclaimed,


is faith in self. My instinct, a poor polaris.

Not a mistake is the blue boredom

of a summer lake. O mud, sun, and algae!


We swim in glittering murk.

I tread, you tread. There are children


testing the deep end, shriek and stroke,

the lifeguard perilously close to diving.

I tried diving once. I dove like a brick.


It was a mistake to ask the $30 prophet

for a $20 prophecy. A mistake to believe.


I was young and broke. I swam

in a stolen reservoir then, not even a lake.

Her prophesy: from my vagrant exertion


I’ll die at 42. Our dog totters across the lake,

kicks the ripple. I tread, you tread.


What does it even mean to write a poem?

It means today

I’m correcting my mistakes.


It means I don’t want to be lonely.


											
					

					
					


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You smell nice


					


	By Admin

	 | 

	Published: April 8, 2013

	



     				
					

					
						
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The Decorative Airport Fern Is Not What It Pretends to Be


by Jennifer L. Knox


and it takes me a triple-take to realize it’s scanning

me, or something near my ear—that must be it. No plant’s

ever complimented my perfume—wait—there it goes

again. Did you see that? [Time passes, drinks] “Sure, I

remember when I thought you were a fern but you were!

Who could blame me?” I tell the what’s now a magnificent

purple tetrahedron, eggplant-sized cilia straining at its corners, just

a hint of ferniness remains in its fingertips—enough to blush.

We hug goodbye. The scent of flowers lingers around me

the next day. Flying home, a decorative airport fern that really

is a decorative airport fern says, “You smell nice.” I don’t

believe it, but it’s still a happy

ending.


											
					

					
					


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I am struck by an overwhelming need to go to Iceland


					


	By Admin

	 | 

	Published: April 6, 2013

	



     				
					

					
						
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[image by Yago Hortal]


Fragments for the End of the Year


by Jennifer K. Sweney


On average, odd years have been the best for me.


I’m at a point where everyone I meet looks like a version

of someone I already know.


Without fail, fall makes me nostalgic for things I’ve never experienced.


The sky is molting. I don’t know

if this is global warming or if the atmosphere is reconfiguring

itself to accommodate all the new bright suffering.


I am struck by an overwhelming need to go to Iceland.


Despite all awful variables, we are still full of ideas

as possible as unsexed fruit.


I was terribly sorry to be the one to explain to the first graders

the connection between the sunset and pollution.


On Venus you and I are not even a year old.


Then there were two skies.

The one we fly through and the one

we bury ourselves in.


I appreciate my wide beveled spatula which fulfills

the moment I realized I would grow up and own such things.


I am glad I do not yet want sexy bathroom accessories.

Such things.


In the story we were together every time.


On his wedding day, the stone in his chest

not fully melted but enough.


Sometimes I feel like there are birds flying out of me.


											
					

					
					


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It’s hard to know anything


					


	By Admin

	 | 

	Published: April 3, 2013

	



     				
					

					
						
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How the Mind Works Still To Be Sure


by Jennifer Denrow


You were the white field when you handed me a blank sheet of paper and said you’d worked so hard all day and this was the best field you could manage. And when I didn’t understand, you turned it over and showed me how the field had bled through, and then you took out your notebook and said how each time you attempted to make something else, it turned out to be the same field. You worried that everyone you knew was becoming the field and you couldn’t help them because you were the one making them into fields in the first place. It’s not what you meant to happen. You handed me a box of notebooks and left. I hung the field all over the house. Now, when people come over, they think they’re lost and when I tell them they’re not, they say they’re beginning to feel like the field and it’s hard because they know they shouldn’t but they do and then they start to grow whiter and whiter and then they disappear. With everyone turning into fields, it’s hard to know anything. With everyone turning into fields, it’s hard to be abstract. And since I’m mostly alone, I just keep running my hand over the field, waiting.


											
					

					
					


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April is National Poetry Month


					


	By Admin

	 | 

	Published: April 1, 2013

	



     				
					

					
						
This month on the blog we’ll be celebrating National Poetry Month!


The 2013 National Poetry Month poster was designed by Jessica Helfand, whose inspiration was Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem, Letter to a Young Poet:


“Write about your sorrows, you wishes, your passing thoughts, your belief in anything beautiful.”


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Lean In (whatever that means)


					


	By Admin

	 | 

	Published: March 23, 2013

	



     				
					

					
						
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I watched Sheryl Sandberg on 60 minutes a couple weeks ago. She was being interviewed about her new book, Lean In. Sandberg advocates that women shouldn’t wait to be given power in the work environment. Instead, we should go out and grab it. Sandberg also commented on how women tend to have a habit of being meek and demure when talking about their success. She says women give others a lot of credit and rarely say, “Yeah, of course my project was a success. I’m awesome.” Interestingly, Sandberg says she hears men utter the “I’m awesome” line all the time. According to Sandberg, men rarely contribute their success to 3rd parties; they take all the credit themselves. I’ve seen this over and over; I know it to be true.


Sandberg’s book is interesting, and her advice to women is relevant. A friend of mine took Sandberg’s advice to heart when she was called into the office to talk to her boss. He was trying to sugarcoat an issue, expecting my friend to be docile and wholly agreeable. Instead of nodding her head in agreement with everything he said, my friend challenged her boss. She poked holes in his logic and lame excuses. My friend said it was a tense conversation and she felt rattled afterward. But she was glad she held her own. My friend commented that she felt like her boss looked at her in a new light — a better one.


The thing that bothers me about Sandberg’s book is the stupid title: Lean In. What image comes to mind when you think of  ”lean in’? I envision someone in a weak position, someone who is not sitting upright, beaming with confidence. Can you imagine Donald Trump writing a book for men and calling it “Lean In”? Heck, no. The Donald would likely title his book “Grab Your Balls and Take Over the World Like I Did, You Stupid Morons.”


I looked up the word ‘lean’ in the dictionary and it said, “To be or move into a sloping position.” Sloping? That doesn’t sound any better than leaning. The synonyms for lean are: Incline, Rest, Tilt, and Recline. Does this sound powerful and strong to you? It sure doesn’t to me.


As I said, I like the premise of Sandberg’s book. But she really screwed up on the title. Seeing how she’s this amazing force to be reckoned with, Sandberg should have known better.


 


											
					

					
					


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