Remains

Anisodactyl bird digits.

The Necchi Challenge

In rain, snow, or 90 degree weather I carry ten laptop computers from my car to a little classroom on any given day of the week. I have about 10 minutes to unwind, set up each laptop, and squeeze in a few shameless minutes of surfing the internet before students start to filter in. As a child raised on computer games and typing tutorials I can say that it takes about as much thought to check my email as it does to breathe.

I can’t say the same for my students who walk through the door and take their places behind the laptops. They bite their nails and nervously talk too much to their neighbor, wondering if they will be making fools out of themselves in the next two hours.

“Tonight’s class is called Meet the Mouse and each of you will be introduced to the laptop sitting in front of you.”

Pairs of eyes peer up at me from behind the monitors.

As I teach each student how to properly hold a mouse, how to open a program, and how to save documents, they begin to open up and let their fears be known. Almost all of my students are senior citizens and I can’t tell you how many times they’ve told me that I’m at an advantage because I grew up with computers while they were using slide rules in school. Many have never touched a computer before. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that the concept of saving a document can be so abstract to my students, but I keep an immense amount of patience and understanding when telling a student for what feels like the hundredth time, “Please click directly on the icon, not the left of it. Not to the right of it either; directly on it.”

Finally, I found a way to relate. Since most of my students are older women, I started asking them if they knew how to sew. Most of the time, their faces would light up with that expression of, “Yes! Something I understand!” And I would explain to them that they need not feel intimidated when they come to my class because each and every one of them has a skill that I do not understand because we all grew up in different times, with different parents, etc.

This technique worked beautifully. The women really responded to feeling superior in at least one skill. Of course, it didn’t turn them into computer whizzes and they still tried to furiously double-click in the blank space on the desktop occasionally, screaming, “Why won’t Microsoft Word open?!” But with each class they were less overwhelmed.

One day while visiting my Grandpa, my Grandma’s old sewing machine came up in conversation and sparked an idea. Maybe learning how to sew and talking to them about it in class would allow me to relate to them even more. They would see that learning a new skill isn’t really all that daunting. So I found my Grandma’s old Necchi machine, took her home and cleaned her up. She sat beautifully on my old wooden desk and I felt so domestic sitting down to a sewing machine instead of a computer that night. I had patches all ready for a couch-cover and just needed to sew them up.

But…what’s a bobbin? And where does this end of the thread go? I tried every possible coordination of thread here, spool there, press this button and voila! But nothing worked. I couldn’t make a single stitch. I started viscously swearing at and threatening the machine I had praised only a few hours ago. Finally I resorted to searching on the internet for some instructions for myself. How did these women learn how to sew if they didn’t have Google to give them a detailed video for dummies? Perhaps their mothers taught them.

But with my mother 1000 miles away, I found a video online (yet another difference in how each generation learns) and again, foolishly thought I was on my way to smooth sailing. I learned what the bobbin does, how to get the thread to wrap around it, and where to put it. All I needed to do was thread the needle and start sewing. Threading the needle was the easy part. Every time I pushed my two pieces of fabric underneath the needle and pressed on the foot pedal, the needle frantically dipped and dipped before stopping completely and leaving me with a mess of knotted thread caught on the underside of the fabric. And every time I yelled and cursed and growled and slammed my elbows on the table before resting my head on my hands in a dramatic fashion. The patience I pride myself with in my classroom had quickly dissipated.

I read through the entire instruction manual online before finally finding the crucial step that I had been missing. I guess threading the needle hadn’t been so easy after-all, because once the loop is through the eye you actually have to pull the loop all the way through so there’s only a tail. Oooh. So I did this, gently pushed my pieces of fabric under the needle yet again, and pressed the pedal down slightly…

A whole two inches of stitches! I was so happy I jumped up and started yelping with happiness. I felt extremely empowered.

The next day in class I couldn’t wait to see my students so I could tell them about my experience. They were pleased to hear that I had decided to learn the craft of sewing, but even more so to hear that it wasn’t as easy as I had expected it to be. They giggled and whispered about how silly leaving the loop in the eye of the needle was, and I imagine that those giggles were not unlike my own at times, wondering why some students can’t easily grasp seemingly simple tasks on the computer.

I knew that taking on the task of learning how to sew would be challenging, but I had no idea to what extent. I wanted to relate to my students and share with them that I had become just as frustrated as they get with the computers, yet I still learned an important introduction to using a sewing machine. So I pushed myself through the anger and desperation of learning a completely foreign skill. Now I’ve got over five sewing projects started and continue to keep my students informed on my progress. 

February

I have never liked February. As a child of the north, I have only known it to be that relentlessly bitter month that drags out what could have been a picturesque winter with snowy roofs sparkling with strings of icicle lights. I’m sure that if you could see a record of my college absences, they would all be in February; I would rather turn the thermostat all the way up and stay nestled into my stuffy dorm room then risk frost bite by walking 200 feet to class. February is also home to the most exploitative and aesthetically displeasing holiday in the calendar.

However, this February, my second in the south, has been far more pleasant than any other in my memory. My partner and I, like millions of other Valentine’s Day saps, have fallen in love; we’ve been house hunting for months and have found that perfect little nest. Even though we’ve only just begun the process, and know that it could fall through like wet plaster at any moment, we’ve still begun to emotionally move ourselves in to test if this space is really the one that fosters our lifestyle.

For example, I’ve already [mentally] piled blankets next to the woodstove. That would be my seating of choice to listen to the banjo.

February is also home of International Crepe Day. If you missed it, since it was yesterday, then I suggest you celebrate it for the rest of the month. Make them yourself, or even better, get someone that you share a symbiotic relationship with (mother, sister, or partner) to make them for you. Serve them on trays and platters on the living room floor in the sunny spot. Try savory crepes with avocados and olives and crumbs of almonds. Then try sweet crepes with strawberries and cream or nutella and powdered sugar. Eat them with tea or wine.

Being just the beginning of February, and already the birds are singing in the morning and I can eat my potatoes outside, I have high hopes for the rest of this month.

Survival of the Most Creative

The combination of my recent weatherization classes and the trip to Vermont mid-winter has got me thinking about all the creative ways I've learned to keep warm in cold spaces.

Growing up, we always welcomed fall with a firm, "Stay the hawk out of my house" by covering the windows with plastic and stapling it to the frame. This kept the warm air inside and the cold air outside. Because the plastic was nearly opaque, it also kept the sunlight out, so winters were spent in a large, dark, cold Victorian beast of a house that I hated in those months. Looking back, it was one of the most beautiful places I've ever spent time in.

There was also not that much warm air to keep in. Oil prices, even at their lowest, add up over long winters, and I swear any heat that actually came out of the oddly placed radiators (some behind doors, underneath windows) found all of the empty rooms to breathe into instead of the few rooms that were actually occupied. This house was truly enormous, and my last few years there were spent only with my mom; being the baby of the family, the rest had flown the coop by then.

While I chastised my mom for tucking her leggings and thermals into her multiple pairs of socks, I froze in my stubborn and inadequate summer outfits. To compensate I unscrewed the valve of the radiator in my room to let the steam in. I would close the door and enjoy a sauna that was no doubt causing immense moisture damage. These days I tuck my thermals into multiple layers of socks.

I can remember begging my mom to bake blueberry cakes and pumpkin pies and boil beef stews not out of hunger, but because I wanted to stand by the stove or sit in the big kitchen chair with a blanket around me and feel the warmth. The kitchen is always an excellent place to be to get warm. Just the smell of cinnamon can warm up a person.

We stuffed socks with rice and warmed them in the microwave and collected them under blankets like a squirrel's den full of nuts. We shoved old towels against the bottoms of doors and window sills to keep the wind from creeping in. I used the blow dryer to dry my curls, which was actually just a disguise to feel the hot air on my goosebumps. You have to be really cold to blow dry curls because the result is a feral mane.

When I went to college I lived in an assortment of apartments, ranging from the quaint and aesthetically pleasing, to the claustrophobic and hygienically questionable. I wore hats and gloves to bed, falling asleep only after drinking a pot of hot chocolate and rum. I covered myself in blankets and wrapped up in them in the morning, dragging them into the bathroom and letting go only when the shower water was hot enough.

I've migrated south since then mostly to escape the rabid Vermont frosts. But this particular Virginia winter has brought back some of those old tricks. I sometimes sleep with a hat on, although I sleep next to a human furnace so it's very rare that I have to. I make hot tea just so I can hold the mug until I've soaked up every bit of warmth and am left holding a stale, cold mug of tea water.

What creative things have you done to primitively weatherize your home or body during the dark days?

Grade A

I imagine that most people turn into a maniacal beasts around the new year trying to create the perfect night of party dresses, glitter, cleavage and champagne flutes while simultaneously vowing to stick to a strict yoga routine and hand-crank their own wheat-grass shots every morning before work for the following 365 days. I have painted this picture from what I know.

I decided to start 2012, my first full year in Virginia, a little differently. Even though creating resolutions is one of the most exciting traditions of the new year, the inevitability of breaking them is a depressing reminder of how poorly sculpted my willpower is. So I spent the week prior to the new year in Vermont with family and didn't write down or even think about a single resolution. I resolve nothing.

In fact, my snowy retreat was so mind-engulfing that I didn't even wonder if Occupy took a holiday break or if atheists were hired to assemble and decorate the Times Square Christmas Tree. Instead, I slept in a big house with old wallpaper and listen to my grandparents argue over patched socks. I laid in bed with a fever and listened to trees scratch the windows when the wind blew, and I could even feel the wind through the glass. I woke up to homemade pancakes cooked on a cast iron pan with four little permanent pancake shadows and I ate them with Vermont Grade A maple sugar. If you've never had delicate homemade pancakes with Vermont Grade A then you are missing a true delight.

I drove a full day to get back home just two hours before the new year struck. Exhausted and relieved to be home, I spent New Years under a pile of warm blankets next to a banjo player. I'd say that's a grade a start to a new year.

Cities within Cities

It turns out that a house is more than just a structure.

I spent the past week in DC for a green housing training. I learned that cats are filled with fire retardants and what R measurements are for. I took notes in a recycled cardboard notebook and slept in a thousand dollar room. I saw the tops of occupy tents in a glimpse after dark. I went to a Busboys and Poets, but not the original, and was reminded that I'll never share a jail cell with Howard Zinn, or at least a pot of coffee.

I learned a lot about houses, though. Their basic function may be to keep us sheltered, but there's much more in the science of building houses. I may not be ready to build a home, but I'm excited to start building a greenhouse and some outbuildings.

While I wait for the day when I've acquired some land to start these projects, I've been reading about other projects in the world. The most fascinating one I've run across today is called the Crystal Island. It's a building proposal located in Moscow, Russia. The idea is that this beautiful, multi-use, giant tent will be home to a city within the city while simultaneously meeting green standards. The societal issues that can be foreseen of building a giant structure within an existing city are fierce. The idea of encasing people into a bubble may stem from the harsh Moscow weather and may sound cozy, but I'm guessing the people on the outside looking into the Crystal Island will feel differently.

Beasts that Feast

I want to see beasts that feast in fields, roaming and ruminating. The radio preacher said that the devil is more subtle than any beast in those fields and that he wishes death upon us all. But I don't see anything more blatant than the intentions of an indulging and digesting bull on a warm day. He also said that humanism animalizes man, and if that's so, I've never wanted to be a humanist so badly. I could spend my days eating the heads of flowers and bathing in shallow pools filled with leaves and earthworms.