October 19, 2008

The Pronoun Game, part two

When I first met Miccah, it was through a mutual acquaintance. Denise had lived next door to us for a year or so in college and had recently moved into her first all-by-herself apartment near campus. And then one of the banes of college life reared its head: we had a rapist haunting the area - and he'd specifically been targeting the run-down crappily lit apartment complex where Denise now lived. She quickly made friends with Miccah, who did handywork for the complex - and when Miccah became ill and couldn't work, Denise took Miccah in. She did this partly out of a genuine desire to help someone in need - and partly because Miccah looked like Miccah could help protect her from the rapist (even while being sick).

Did you notice I'm playing the pronoun game yet?

I was perhaps 20 or 21, had only been living away from my rather conservative folks and sheltered life for just a couple of years and Miccah's story was beyond anything I'd ever imagined. Denise took Miccah in because Mikey looked like a guy who could take care of himself - and provide some protection for Denise against this campus rapist. But what Mikey had fallen ill with was ... female problems.

Miccah had been born female, but for whatever reason, Miccah's father raised the child as a boy. Registered in school as a boy, used the boy's bathroom, everything. Teachers thought Miccah was a boy. It's not like anyone asked for a physical check. Mikey remembers asking Pop one day why he didn't have a penis like the other boys and Pop replied, "You'll get yours soon. They all grow at different rates, and you'll get yours soon."

Nice, huh?

Well, the long and short of that is Miccah really is more of a male than a female in terms of thought process and behaviour. We can argue until the cows come home over whether this is a nature or nurture kinda deal - my best guess in Miccah's case is that it's probably a little of both.

Who knows how Pop was going to explain away the biological female awakening impending ... as it was Miccah's mom took custody of Mikey at the age of ten.

Imagine this for a minute. Really think about it. Everything you know about who you are during elementary school comes from your parents. And if they've snowballed the teachers into cooperating with that? Think back to when you were ten. All the things you knew about yourself. The stuff you liked to do. The kids you hung out with.

Now imagine your mother coming in to talk to you and telling you as gently as possible ... that you're really not who you think you are. That you are really a member of the opposite sex.

Can you even begin to contemplate your reaction?

Can you imagine your reaction as suits are replaced with dresses or dresses replaced with suits? Can you imagine your favourite doll replaced with a Tonka truck or favourite Tonka replaced with a Madame Alexander doll?

Sure, many of us played with toys that are supposedly "boy" toys or "girl" toys. But can you imagine suddenly feeling like you couldn't play with the stuff you loved best and your mom was forcing you to play with stuff you had no interest in?

By the time I met Mikey, he was in his mid-to-late twenties and I was in my early-to-mid twenties. Maybe five years between us. I'd never met anyone who was a transsexual before. And, with as much as I understood that Mikey would prefer to be a biological male as well as feeling like a male ... I didn't fully understand the way Mikey felt.

My simple reasoning at the time was this: I was cool with Mikey thinking he was a male trapped in a female body. Made sense to me. He didn't seem like a female at all.

But I wasn't going to use the male pronoun in reference to Miccah - because he hadn't had the surgery yet. I fully supported his decision to have the surgery, but until such a time, he was a she to me.

What I really didn't understand was how this attitude made Mikey feel ... and just how difficult and expensive it would be to get that kind of surgery done. I mean, it's not like it's covered under most health plans - and it's not like most people can just walk into a clinic and have it done. It's a long damn process ... and it's damned expensive.

For someone born female to have the surgery involves first finding a therapist who specializes in Gender Identity Disorder. We're talking some long and involved sessions for the therapist to determine that yes, this person does have GID and is a candidate for moving forward. Next, the person has to begin living as the opposite sex. In many cases - like Mikey's - this was a change they'd already made. And for Mikey it was easy. He was built like a guy. Not a football player, but he definitely had that lanky, sinewy look that a lot of 20something men have. If you passed Miccah on the street, you'd have said he, not she.

At any rate, after passing for a year, you have to do things like get your driver's license changed from the birth sex to the intended sex. (Really, this usually happens during the year of "passing.") You also start taking hormones during this time. So for female to male transitioning, you start shooting testosterone. It lowers your voice at least somewhat and often means facial hair growth as well. The body does begin to change and adapt.

Some female to male transsexuals basically live in this state for the rest of their lives. After all, whether or not one has the genitalia that it looks like you probably have is really not anyone's business but that person's and their partner. But for those who do choose the surgery route, there's the mastectomies and then the physical building of a penis.

This ain't for the weak of heart.

Miccah, the last time I talked with him, had never really progressed to the point of the testosterone. He's not had the world's easiest life and every time I hear from him, there's been another round of insane tragedies. The loss of a music career just as it was getting started ... girlfriend troubles (yes, they all know!) ... bar fights ... having to move towns to try to land jobs in music somehow ... having her beloved dog kidnapped (complete with note) ... another dog impaled when he tried to jump a fence to find Mikey. It's never easy.

So there's never been the money and the insurance to really start counseling ... and never the money for the testosterone shots, much less the surgeries needed.

And who am I, really, to pass judgment and call Mikey "she" when it's so obvious that even with the small tidbit of femaleness that isn't even obvious, that Miccah is a "he" and has always been so no matter what the physical biology says.

I've grown a lot in the last not-quite-20 years since I first met Miccah. Today, despite his outward biology, I look deeper. He's comfortable with himself and who he is. Unless you insist on calling him she. Then, he's uncomfortable with you - not with himself. He knows who he is and he enjoys being himself.

Who am I to question that?

Gender is more than our biological sex. It's a sociological set of expectations which change from culture to culture. Some so-called "primitive" cultures knew that some women were born male and some men were born female and they had places for such people - not as outcasts - but places where they belonged.

This insistence on the male provider and the female caregiver is a trope that we've seen throughout history, yes - but the absolute rigid insistence on it is relatively new in history. It's really time and past time that we recognize the diversity of each individual and be glad that we are NOT all the same, that we can learn from the differences in each other and continue to grow.

Were we all alike, we would not have utopia ... we would grow stagnant and boreded and we would falter.

In my last post I spoke about the tv show Bones and in particular the episode called "The He in the She." I laud the writers for having the strength to NOT write an episode where everyone was carefully correct because that's just not how it happens when we are confronted with something outside of our experience - even when we want to be supportive. Instead, we struggle and fumble and get frustrated and call someone "it" in the heat of a moment when we can't decide if we're talking about he or she. It's in our fumblings with what is new and different that we learn and grow.

I know that if I had not met Mikey when I did, I would not have been as supportive and accepting of other people with differences later on.

Even if I did have to fumble with his pronouns for a while. Even if I do still fumble with his pronouns today when I talk about his history. (It's still not easy to say "His mom had to tell him he was a girl.")

Posted by Red Monkey at 1:23 PM | Comments (2) | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Struggles | Stumble

October 18, 2008

The Pronoun Game

I love observing how people interact and particularly with my interest in the autism spectrum, I am utterly fascinated with the television show, Bones. Each one of the characters in the show has some kind of serious issue interacting with other people. Zach, first an intern/grad student of Dr. Brennan, is an obvious example of a character with high-functioning autism or Asperger's - a condition which very obviously meant he had troubles interacting with others. He is mystified by the emotional reactions and actions of others and tries to always live by logic. Dr. Brennan (Bones) herself seems to also be on the autism spectrum, although with her vast experience in field anthropology, she seems to comprehend people's emotional rollercoasters better than Zach - but, it's still from a very intellectual understanding rather than being a part of the whole messy act of being human. She often has conversations with FBI agent Booth where Booth attempts to explain emotions to her. Her best friend, Angela, also spends an inordinate amount of time explaining human reaction and foibles to her - often attempting to explain to Brennan why she herself is reacting a particular way.

Angela and Booth, however, aren't paragons of perfect human interaction either. They also have their very flawed and confused interactions. Angela has embraced the idea of being a "free spirit" and artist so much so that she often reacts primarily out of a stubborn desire to stay within the confines of her definition of "free spirit & artist." When she reacts illogically and emotionally, she does so without apology or, often, explanation. It is what it is. And, this eventually leads a character who often appears to be the most normal in her interactions into a rather stupid decision (to break up with Hodgins).
Naturally, she's somewhat the opposite of Brennan, creating a nice foil.

FBI agents are rarely known for their stellar social skills, so it's not surprising that Agent Booth also has his issues interacting with others although he does have a wonderful ability to read his suspects - an ability that usually confuses Brennan. Booth reads people's tells and body language when they're being questioned ... but he still finds it difficult to do the same with the people he knows.

While the show is technically a crime solver with a different twist from the CSI genre (since almost everyone in the show is a "squint," or scientist, instead of law enforcement), the real interest and drama of the show (not to mention comedy) is to look at how these people relate to each other - particularly how they screw up these interactions. In one episode, the murder Booth and Brennan are investigating involves "pony play." Apparently some people like to pretend they're horses for their sexual excitement. (Frankly, I could have lived my life without knowing that ... but there you are.) Booth is as startled and somewhat confused by this as I was ... Brennan, on the other hand, reacts as an anthropologist studying a new tribe. She explains in scientific terms to Booth what these people get out of it and why they do it - she looks like she understands - but she explains chunks of it in front of the pony play folk, which offends them. Booth understands why it offends them, but he's flabbergasted and somewhat judgmental about them - so he looks like he understands their reactions, but he also offends them in a different way.

In other words, they both understand a piece of the human relationships - but they're completely separate pieces and neither has the whole thing.

It's fascinating to watch.

My favourite social gaffe was when Brennan walked into an interrogation room with Booth to speak with a profoundly overweight character. She immediately said something to Booth about how people who are profoundly overweight often have a funky odour because they can sometimes get a fungus in between the folds of skin. Booth is horrified that Brennan would say such a thing where the character can hear. Brennan protests, "but it's true" as if that makes it okay. It's not that she is trying to hurt the character ... she just doesn't see scientific fact as causing emotional hurt. If it's true, then it shouldn't hurt. In fact, Brennan goes on to point out to the character the very real health problems caused by such a level of obesity and tells her that she should lose weight.

Of course the character is offended and Booth is horrified all over again, trying to get Brennan to STFU. Despite all of her knowledge of how people work from her anthropology studies ... Brennan is completely clueless to the reactions she causes. She looks like a complete ass in this scene, once again underscoring what I feel is the point of the show: how we interact.

So, knowing all of this about the show, I was somewhat surprised to read on Womanist Musings a reaction to one of the more recent episodes, "The He in the She." Since Brennan is a forensic anthropologist, she and her team at the Smithsonian are often called in to help solve murder cases where the remains are in a rather bad state. In this particular episode, we're confronted by either a grad student making a weird mistake or a very unusual set of remains. The new intern (to replace Zach, who is now incarcerated) declares that according to the bones on this set of remains, the person was male.

The team's boss, vetting the new guy as he does his examination, blinks at his declaration. She announces the body is female because "that," she points out, "is a vagina." He insists the bone structure is male.

They're both right.

The remains belong to someone who had been born male and then underwent sexual reassignment surgery to become female.

As the team begins to piece together the mystery, there's some amount of stumbling around the entire transsexual issue. Agent Booth in particular has a difficult time - not with the victim being trans - but with trying to settle on a pronoun. At one point in his fumbling, he begins to call the victim "it" causing Brennan to squawk about giving the victim some dignity. Booth spends a fair amount of time trying to fumble his way through his reasoning and why he's settled on "it" for now. The other characters are clearly irritated with him over this. At another point, he fumbles around and claims that they should always call "him" "her" because that's what "he ... she was when she died and she deserves some respect."

Now the author over at Womanist Musings has an excellent point - it's annoying as hell that when American television portrays a transsexual person, that person is either the comic relief or the victim of horrible tragedy, but never just another person, just another character. But, I remember not so long ago when that was true of all gay characters. Now, however, we're seeing more gay characters who are "just" characters - not there just for comic relief ... not there to show the terrible plight of the queer. (Where I disagree with the author is that the writers of the show were somehow disrespectful to the issue of transsexuals.)

That's pretty much the way it happens on American television. Bring in the marginalized as comic relief, bring them in to show the tragedy ... until the mainstream viewers get used to seeing that group ... and then they can be just characters like everyone else. It's annoying, I certainly agree.

But I think that Bones did this in a really interesting way. First of all, the show revolves around odd forensic mysteries - what's more unusual than a body with both male and female "tells"?? Secondly, you have scientists having to grapple with pronoun because it's got to be jarring to look at a male knee and say "she." It's not that they're being disrespectful or rude - they're reacting to the biological part in front of them at the moment when they speak.

And then, of course, you have the very Catholic Agent Booth trying to grapple with the facts he's getting from his squints ... and with the real confusion of speaking of the transsexual person's past. After all, the history of Patrick could be important to the death of Patricia and it is honestly confusing or difficult to switch between talking about Patrick as "he" when he was an evangelical minister ... and Patricia's ministry and her death.

The characters constantly have to flip back and forth between his history and her history as they put together the facts and clues in the case.

I think this very much mirrors the confusion that many people go through when they first meet someone who is transsexual. It's not that the writers or the characters of Bones were making fun of or somehow disrespecting transfolk as they were reflecting how we react. To me, that made the episode a really important and valuable one rather than one which somehow negated the dignity of transfolk - it attempted to bring the issue to an audience which might not know about it, or which might be rather hoping to avoid it. It was an episode to raise awareness and show us our human foibles and fumblings through the reactions of some wonderfully rendered and flawed characters.

Next time, I'll tell you about the first time I met someone who identified as transsexual ... and how I reacted.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:02 AM | Comments (5) | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Struggles | Stumble

October 14, 2008

The Writing Paradox

Despite the fact that English was one of my favourite school subjects, that I taught college writing classes for nine years, that I've had a blog for a bit over 3 years ... I shocked some friends last week by announcing that I hate writing and would not like to make a career in copywriting. (Oddly enough, technical writing is more interesting.)

I hated writing essays in school, and I think that was one of the things that made me an excellent writing teacher. I remembered where I used to get hung up, frustrated and what caused me to pull my hair out - and I did my damnedest to help my students find ways around those problems - or through them in a less painful manner.

The writing I enjoy is the writing I do for myself. This blog, the large directory on my hard drive called "Thinking" and writing stories.

I confused the hell out of who knows how many teachers in elementary school who knew how creative I could be ... until a creative writing assignment came up. One teacher told me years later that my first creative writing assignment for her just shocked her. Instead of the involved and creative story she had suspected I would write ... she got a typical elementary school paragraph of blah.

I just laughed ... there's a huge difference between making up your very own story ... and being given a paragraph of "starter story" and told to finish it.

It's the same in copywriting. There's a huge difference between writing a novel about a comic book writer and a video game developer who become self-appointed agents of karma ... and cobbling together the disparate ideas of the president and vice president of a start-up company (who, by the way, each has a different idea about the company's direction - president wants to market to average joe and veep wants to market to the already converted & knowledgeable audience).

Later on in elementary school, our language arts teachers began to give us more leeway on picking what to write about and only used writing prompts when we got stuck. My favourite project was also one that got me into the most trouble.

In sixth grade, I had Miss Bailey - the teacher we all loved and adored. (At the time, years later was a different story.) Every Thursday was creative writing day. But one week, on a Monday or Tuesday, she gathered us around for a new creative writing assignment.

"Since I will be gone on Thursday, I'm giving you your creative writing assignment now."

With those words, my fate was sealed.

You see, I was determined to do everything "right."

She went on, describing the project, which was due on Friday as usual. We'd have our standard amount of class time to work on it Thursday and a bit of bonus time to work on it the day she assigned it because it was a bigger assignment than normal.

We spent the next little while searching through newspapers for an article - we were to use the article we selected to write a "book" with at least two or three illustrations. I was excited - and I settled on a story about a plane crash. (What can I say, tragedy always makes for a great story! Actually, all of my early stories were about tragedy befalling kids - and kids pulling out of it despite the incompetent adults around them. But that's another story for another day.)

I dutifully cut out the article like we were told. I worked on the project during the time allotted on Monday. And then I didn't work on it again until Thursday's class. Now, I suddenly had to write a story, re-write it onto my booklet paper, illustrate it - and because I was as interested in realism and crafts as possible, create a cover cut from posterboard and then freaking SEW the thing together. (My idea. Damn over-achiever.)

Yeah, I didn't get close to finished in class. And so many of my friends told me they'd been working on it since it was assigned on Monday. I was shocked.

Thursday was creative writing day. Not Monday. Not Tuesday. They were all cheating! They started EARLY! That was cheating!

I was horrified.

I was even more depressed that evening as I stayed up later than ever before, frantically trying to complete the project to the specifications I had set myself. My mom asked why I hadn't started the project earlier in the week and I responded that we'd been assigned the project on Thursday and it was due Friday. It wasn't a lie - it was how I'd interpreted the week, since Miss Bailey claimed we were getting the assignment on Monday since she wouldn't be there Thursday.

I thought that like most teachers, she simply didn't think the substitute teacher would be able to explain the assignment adequately and address our questions. Hence, she gave us the assignment early, but we were not to start until Thursday as usual.

My mother was rather irked at Miss Bailey for assigning such a project in such a short amount of time.

And, when I was dragging and sleepy the next day, Miss Bailey asked what was wrong. I explained that I'd stayed up late - and confessed that mom was upset with me for staying up late and had asked why I hadn't started the assignment sooner. When I then added that we'd been given the assignment on Thursday and it was due Friday - Miss Bailey gave me that terribly disappointed look and tone as she said my name. We didn't speak of it further.

I was terribly confused and hurt.

I had done everything exactly right according to the rules and I had still gotten "in trouble" for doing things wrong. Everyone else in the class had cheated by starting early and here I was the one getting fussed at.

Today, were I taking a class where this happened, I would still assume the same thing. But, I would now ask the teacher "are we supposed to start on it now or on Thursday?"

I suppose this is another example of "rigid thinking." Despite the fact that I'm creative and very much a think-outside-the-box kind of person most of the time, there's a certain rigidity of thought that creeps into my life in strange ways. It's the same rigidity of thought which caused me to not study for the SAT exams - the SAT was supposed to measure what you already knew ... therefore, studying was cheating. Yeah, I know. I'm a dork.

Oh and the novel about the comic book writer and video game developer who become self-appointed agents of karma? Yeah, I've been working on that sucker since '04, so no stealing my grand concept, k?

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:19 AM | Comments (2) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Why Johnny Won't Learn and Mrs. Curnutt Is Tired of the System | Stumble

October 1, 2008

Welcome to Thunderdome

My introduction to world politics was ... intense. I know adults who have not paid this much attention to a single international event in their lives - ever.

My elementary school years were marked by major event after major event. Kindergarten was, of course, the beginning of school. I had looked forward to school for well over a year and was majorly irritated that I could not go at age four, almost five; but had to wait until five, almost six. I was further irritated when Stephen was bumped from kindergarten to grade two and I was only bumped from kindergarten to grade one. Along with pretty much everyone else.

Second grade was moving from the about to be integrated public school to a Catholic private school. Supposedly better than public school - but that's because no one asked me. I actually asked to see the principal within the first few months.

Third grade saw me go back to my public school ... and then move from my beloved Austin to the much-hated Arlington. Fourth grade was pretty much a blur.

Fifth grade was a nightmare.

For starters, I can recall my homeroom teacher, Charlotte Christopher. The absolute only reason I recall her first name is because Ashley Wylie and Vickie Furr used to call her "Miss Charlotte" in a very fake Eastern seaboard Southern drawl instead of our Texas-speak. I knew it bothered the hell out of me, but it wasn't until years later that I realized it wasn't just because they used her first name ... they were playing (whether they realized it at the time or not) the race card. Because Miss Christopher was the only black teacher I'd ever seen in the entire elementary school.

It was also the year that I was put into second-high language arts instead of high language arts. The reason was I did not do well at the spelling test at the beginning of the year - because the teacher who uttered the spelling words had a very thick East Texas accent. It was the year I lost the friends I'd managed to acquire at my new school. It was the year that I dangled from the soccer goal in a vague effort to fit in with some group of kids - any group - the boy playing goalie pushed me from behind ... and I broke my left arm.

I remember little of recess until the very end of the school year, when Shannon Heizer befriended me after I'd spent most of the year struggling.

But before I really made friends with Shannon ... it was October 22, 1979 ... the Shah of Iran came to the U.S. to be treated for his cancer. My sister turned seven the same day. And then it was November 4, 1979 ... Iranians seized 52 Americans hostage and I turned 11.

I was suddenly immersed in world politics.

I began watching the evening news in my own semi-obsessive way, hungry for information about the hostages. I began dreaming about them, the hostages. Strange dreams, unbelievably realistic and haunting - mostly involving 52 people ... and yellow ribbons.

For the next four hundred and forty-four days, I was as obsessed as a pre-internet 11 year old could be.

My mother didn't particularly approve of my "sudden" interest in the news, regardless of the reason.

The day after I was born, Richard Nixon was elected President.
November 7, 1972 (just weeks after my sister was born), Richard Nixon was re-elected.
November 2, 1976, Jimmy Carter defeats Gerald Ford.
November 4, 1980, I turn 12 as Ronald Reagan is elected president of the U.S. Despite the fact that I wanted Ford to win over Carter in the previous election, by 1980, I was forming my own political bent rather than parroting my parents'. In 1980, I was crushed and depressed that Reagan was elected instead of re-electing Jimmy Carter - a regret I carry to this day.
November 6, 1984, Reagan is re-elected. Again, I'm not best pleased.
November 8, 1988, George Sr is elected. By this point, I'm resigned, but not happy. I'm particularly irritated that the man I voted for in the primaries neither won my state nor the country.
November 3, 1992, Bill Clinton is elected.
November 5, 1996, apparently when the election falls one day to the left or right of my birthday ... my candidate wins.
November 7, 2000 - the dark reign begins in earnest as The Shrub is elected amidst much controversy.
November 9, 2004, the shrub is re-elected. Depression, in many senses of the word, sets in.

November 4, 2008 - I turn 40.

I beg you, United States, give me a birthday gift I will cherish.

The first time I was old enough to vote, I could not vote ... I threw up all day instead. Not one of my better birthdays. That spring, I was happy to vote in my first primary ... and to the chagrin of my mother, I voted for someone most Texans did not vote for: Jesse Jackson. I liked him in 1988. I liked what he stood for. I don't regret casting that vote even though he was not chosen as the Democratic candidate, even though my mother thought I had voted poorly.

This year is the first time since 1980 that election day falls on my birthday. I wish, to be honest, that it did not fall on my birthday this year. I would rather be selfish on my 40th birthday. I would rather the day be about me.

All of my friends are politically active. They all know that my 40th is also the decision between Obama and McCain.

When I think of 1980, I recall sixth grade ....

... the year that Reagan became president.
... the year that Miss Bailey taught me that teachers are most decidedly NOT perfect.
... the year that I screwed up a friendship and hurt Susan Stetson's feelings on advice of a trusted adult.
... the year that I dreamed of a month of yellow ribbons.
... the year that I began to look outside of myself and think of others (inasmuch as I'm capable).

... the year that I began to realize that the U.S. was not headed down the best path and that there was little to nothing I could do to stop that.

Next I plan to talk about what did happen that year, eventful as it was for me.

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:30 PM | Comments (2) | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

September 25, 2008

Artistic or Autistic (or all of the above)

I have been around acrylic paints, oil paints, pastels, Sakura Pigma Microns, Prismacolor markers, X-Acto knives and the like all my life - and that was just Mom's kit. With Dad it was Testor paints and train kits and loads of balsa wood. He scavenged little chains and wires to make realistic details to a train rig that was laid out for perhaps four years. He worked on it from the time my grandmother gave he and I a starter set for Christmas when I was five until I was about 17 when he finally decided to start selling it off. He'd buy a kit, take it out to his toolbench in the garage and work on assembling it, painting it, and then adding clever little touches to make it more realistic. When he was done, he'd carefully box it up so it didn't break and add it to the stack of like boxes on the shelves in the garage.

Mom bought books on art and when we lived in Austin, it seemed like she painted all the time. She did a lot of tole painting at that time as well as working in pastels and doing some portraits. Because she was overly critical of her own work, she often used others' drawings as her "template" and mimicked them onto the wooden object she was decorating. They were fun, whimsical paintings ... and now that I think about it, they shared a fair amount in common with comic strip or cartoon art. I kept a couple of her pieces for years, but alas, too many moves finally took their toll and I'm not sure that I have any of them now.

Suffice it to say it was not unusual for our home to reek of art supplies which covered even the smell of my parents' chain smoking.

My sister and I were surrounded by music and artistic endeavors during our childhood. Besides their different artistic pursuits, they both played piano. My mother became self-conscious about it eventually, but when we were very small, we would beg her to play us to sleep in the evenings. Dad played by ear, Mom played by the rules. In other words, Mom always played sheet music ... Dad made up his own song and occasionally played other songs by ear - but that song generally became "his" song. I couldn't tell you what genre of song it was ... perhaps honky-tonk comes closest (but not in that country-western way, not really). It was a rocking, rollicking series of licks up and down the keyboard.

My sister picked up the bulk of the musical interest and talent in the family - she was in training to begin international competitions as a pianist when she decided that wasn't what she wanted and pulled back some. I hit my own wall a little sooner.

I was, to be perfectly honest, overly sensitive to any criticism from my mother from a very early age. So when I bragged about how wonderfully I was colouring a page in my colouring book and was met with a critique - I was sure already that I was not artistically inclined. The truth of the matter is that I was colouring like a kid. Mom was colouring with me - like an artistic adult. As I remember the look on her face as she coloured with me, she was quite obviously lost in the art of what she was doing. I was happy to stay in between the lines for once. What she perceived as a helpful comment - sharing with me what she'd learned about making the colour as consistent as possible, I perceived as "you're doing it wrong."

I was also a child who did not foncorm to much of anything at all. If I had an arts & crafts project with a suggested pattern or suggested paint scheme, you could pretty much guarantee that I would be oppositional and refuse to use that guide. Sometimes this meant some pretty chaotic projects - but a lot of times it meant something pretty cool to me.

I can remember getting a cartooning book one summer at my grandmother's house and spending days practicing that book ... and for some reason feeling like it was not a form of art that Mom would approve of, so it didn't last past that summer. Then there was the art enrichment class I took a summer or several later. I had loads of fun with that class until we were assigned a still-life drawing.

I couldn't get it to work right and I was ready to throw that damned apple right through the kitchen window. I wanted to do a black & white chiaroscuro drawing, but I really didn't understand how to do this and had never had anyone try to explain it. Finally, frustrated and pissy, I slammed everything down on the table and pronounced it done.

Mom threw a fit and began the "I know you can do better than that" over-achiever line at me.

I was marched back into the kitchen, forced back into the chair and I eventually did produce something better. Something that I actually kept for years.

What we didn't know back then was that I have some mild learning disabilities. I've not been officially tested for dyscalculia and dyslexia, but there definitely seems to be some similarities. I was diagnosed with ADHD about 7 years ago, but frankly, I distrust the psychologist who did the testing, so I'm unsure of that diagnosis as well.

I can say that I have a series of symptoms or issues which do tend to correspond to learning disabilities. One of those is a kind of frustration and rigidity of thought which occurs during a math or math-pattern based activity which can really escalate into a shutdown for me. An example is this: I play guitar - I'm no great shakes, but I can play several songs well enough to be recognized. My difficulty is in changing them up. A few guitarists at my church got together to play a song - and at the "last minute" (to me that's what it felt like) they wanted to change the rhythms that we strummed. This takes some time to practice, but it's really not that hard to do.

I could not do it. My brain totally shut down and I refused to play. I tried to be reasonable about it - I told them to play the song without me - not as a threat, but because I just couldn't get it in the few days left before the performance and I knew it. I can remember learning Boston's "More Than a Feeling" - and my guitar teacher trying to get me to add a grace note after I'd learned the bulk of the song. I could NOT fit that damn note in there no matter how hard I tried. I had the pattern in my head and that was it.

What does that have to do with art? Well, in many types of art, you layer shadings or colours on top of each other until you get the look you want. That appears to be the equivalent of adding a grace note to a song I already know ... my brain begins a weird shutdown pattern and tries to freeze.

I noticed this a few months ago when I was attempting some sketches of some mesas and canyons. I wanted to get the outline right and then begin the shading. And what would happen time and time and time again was I would get halfway through the outline, the rough sketch, and get seriously pissed and frustrated and go to a clean page. Finally, in the van on the way to New Mexico, I was able to force myself through the entire process and wow ... the drawing actually came out half-decent. The problem is that I can only see what's on the page at the moment - I can't always hold that drawing in my mind, the piece that I'm sketching from and the unfinished bit on my page - and blend them into a finished project. The brain winds up focusing on the unfinished so much that I can't actually complete the sketch.

Luckily for me this only happens in realistic drawings requiring subtle shadings. I suppose this is one of the many reasons I prefer drawing cartoons or comic strips.

It has taken years of my playing in Photoshop, web design and even action figure customizing to realize that I do have an eye for design and an eye for art, but that I have my own style which is very different from that of my mother's or of my father's. Or, for that matter, my sister's.

Today, I suspect the brain melt-downs over attempting to change patterns is either a function of ADHD or, I lean a bit more now to thinking it may be a function of Asperger's. After all, it's quite odd when a normally very logical person suddenly has a meltdown over something essentially stupid and inconsequential.

But the bigger realization for me has been just how artistic my family has always been. And that I'm not so far outside the mold as I may have once thought.

Or maybe I've just sniffed too many art supplies over the years.

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:27 PM | Comments (2) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

January 31, 2008

Living at the Edges

In Austin, we had lived miles from both elementary schools I attended, the beloved Pillow Elementary and the much despised St. Louis. After just six weeks back at Pillow for third grade, we moved to Arlington (in between Dallas and Fort Worth). My mother was ecstatic that they'd found a good school for us ... and just six blocks from our new house. Once again, my father had chosen a home with a backyard that was bounded by a fence ... and behind that, no other houses. In Austin, we'd lived in Balcones Woods and behind our fence was a wild tangle of woods untamed, unkempt and beautiful. Here, it was simply an empty field, but at least it was not another home staring straight into ours. I suppose this was Dad's response to living "in town" ... I don't think he liked the 'burbs any more than I did.

At any rate, Mom was ecstatic that I would be able to walk to school or ride my bike and she could be relieved of that burdensome chore.

There was a playground outside the school, but it seemed it was always reserved for the younger children. The older kids went out to the field to the south of the school.

Since I'm strolling around the elementary school stomping grounds, I thought I'd show you the climbing tree I mentioned in my previous post. This is shot from just south of my climbing tree ... a little west of the other day's dreaming valley ... and looking northward to the school. Clicking the image will open a new window with a somewhat larger version .. you know you can refer back to the big images whilst I point out details. :)

Hit Play to listen to a song that always reminds me of this time period ... and just the general feel of my warm woodsy places.

Things have changed both more and less than I had thought when I went back for a look a couple of years ago. My personal playground of trees were all still intact, including my climbing tree here. It's just a scraggly ole twisty pine tree. Resin would "bleed" out of the tree and stick to our hands and clothes. And as you can see here, being up in the tree, you really had little cover to hide from the teachers if they happened to come by that way. The funny thing is ... I'm horribly allergic to any of the aromatic trees. Cedars are the worst, but pine trees will set me off, too. But I don't recall ever getting an allergy attack from this tree.

In the middle area of the picture, you can see a fire lane. That wasn't there back in the day. Instead, there was a little run-off. We called it the dry creek ... unless, of course, it was raining. I would pretend it was a canyon for my Fisher Price Adventure People (these were the precursors to the Star Wars action figures), even though I wouldn't bring my prized toys up to school. The various undercuts and sediments in the "canyon" there made me think of my beloved New Mexico and cliff dwellings and I often lamented the fact that we didn't have such a cool run-off in our backyard so I could play in it properly. My parents, of course, were flabbergasted that I would want such a nasty trip hazard in the backyard. Parents are so short-sighted sometimes.

The other fun we would have in the creek was "mining for lead." Until we realized that lead was a metal and not the stuff inside our pencils. Then it became "mining for graphite." The dirt was a brown-red colour, tan in places, darker in others. And buried in the hard sediment were "pebbles" of graphite. We'd take hardened sticks and perform our digs ... sometimes grabbing sharp rocks to help break apart the hardpan dirt. Suddenly, you'd get this red-brown marble to pop out, usually showing some of the graphite where your stick had burst the outer skin of dried mud.

For some reason, the school did not really appreciate our graphite markings on the sidewalks and bricks. It wasn't vandalism to us, we'd do it right in front of the teachers. It was decorating our home. Leaving our mark on the place where we spent so much time.

Adults, truly, were unfathomable at best. So picky. So many stupid rules just for the sake of rules.

For a suburban school, we had a pretty "rural" playground unfettered by an overabundance of metal apparatus or being restricted to the concrete and asphalt. The soccer field to the left of the picture? That was mostly an area of no grass and had deep creases in the land from rainwater run-off ... nothing like our dry creekbed ... but enough to make playing soccer there a bit more complicated than the norm. Back then, our goal posts didn't have the diagonal outcross where the net is attached now. We had just a rectangle of thick pipe delineating the goal. Most of the time, there would be a mob of boys on the soccer field, standing in little groups here and there ... and then a huge mob with a cloud of dust, scrabbling over the ball. Girls were not really welcome on the field, although I did play a few times. I mostly got yelled at for kicking the ball in the wrong direction. Which was interesting, really, seeing as I was not on anyone's team. Girls were not picked for sides in soccer there ... so I became my anarchist, oppositional self and simply kicked the ball wherever I wanted to kick it.

I can recall one day in fifth grade, hanging from my hands ... I was perhaps an inch or so off the ground, just dangling from my grip on the huge pipe. There were probably six or seven girls pretending to do some sort of arcane gymnastics off the bar, but in reality, we were all just kind of hanging around. The boy who was goalie on this end got mad and wanted us all to go away. He hollered. We ignored him. The ball was waaaaay down the field on the lower end. It was not coming up here for quite a while. I think he was bored more than he was mad at us. He paced. He groused.

And then he came up behind me, shouted "GET DOWN AND GO AWAY!" and he pushed me in the small of the back.

I landed on my ass, my arms out behind me propping me up. The left arm hurt and I wanted to cry ... not from the pain in my arm which was not that bad - I'd felt worse ... but because I had been singled out. There were a bunch of girls still hanging around. Why was I different? Why was I a target?

I stood up, dusted myself off and headed down the hill.

I didn't realize that my arm was broken. I thought at worst it was sprained and I dutifully told my mom that night at dinner that I thought I had sprained my wrist. She rolled her eyes, always certain that my sister and I were making up any maladies, because, well, that's what kids did. In the eleven years as my mother, she had yet to realize that when I said "ow" ... there was a serious problem afoot, probably more serious than I thought. So Mom rolled her eyes and asked how bad it hurt and I said, "Not that much. I think it's just sprained." Instead of upgrading it from "not that much" to "crap, my kid is hurt," Mom downgraded it from "not that much," to "kid is exaggerating it."

And with a great many kids, that's not a bad guess. The thing is, you have to know your child to make this call, and of course, sometimes you still get it wrong. But I would have thought my dramatic eardrum bursting at age 4 or 5 would have been the one incident to point out to her that I have a very high tolerance for pain.

After three days of trying to use my left hand as little as possible, I finally told Mom that I thought I needed to see a doctor. This was a big deal in our family, and it often felt like I was making a huge imposition on Mom's time and budget. She fussed, but agreed to take me. I could hear her telling the nurse that no, she didn't think my arm was broken, but that I wanted it looked at.

The doctor sent me in for an x-ray and as we drove back to the doctor's office ... Mom pulled out the x-ray and looked at it. Well, okay, not while she was driving, but as we sat in the car before returning to the doctor.

"It's not broken," she pronounced as she looked at the film. "All of this is for nothing. Do you know how expensive x-rays are?"

"I thought we had health insurance," I protested.

"Well, yes, but it still costs something."

Chastised and down-hearted, I stared out the side window all the way back to the doctor's office. Once there, he took the film, put it up on his light and pronounced quickly:

"Yep, it's broken, all right."

My mother was in shock.

So was the nurse. "You told me there would be no casts today!" The doctor was a little surprised at her vehemence. "I wore my black slacks today because you said there would be NO CASTS."

Since the break was at least 3-5 days old at this point and since it did not need to be set, the doctor decided on a compromise. They wrapped my arm and then made a U from the elbow out to the wrist. Then they put an ace bandage over that. The doctor was proud of the lightweight cast. The nurse didn't get any plaster on her black pants.

And I missed out on the rite of passage to have your cast signed by all your friends.

And to add insult to injury? They gave me a crappy square of some kind of cotton-thin canvas material to use as a sling.

I was floored. No plaster cast for everyone to sign. No cool, form-fitting sling. Just a painful knot at the back of my neck.

I had had enough. Mom refused to buy a "cool" sling and I was not going to take any more "good enoughs" that day. I dove into Mom's fabric basket and came out with a decent sized piece of blue corduroy, some thread, a needle and headed back to my room to sew myself a nice, form-fitting sling. Took quite a while to sew it all by hand with one arm in a sling, but it came out pretty well.

The next day at school, all the teachers wanted to know where I'd gotten that cool sling and their eyes bugged out when I nonchalantly answered, I made it. ... no, I didn't have a pattern. No, I didn't have any help. I didn't like the sling I had and I got mad and made the kind of sling I wanted.

I was stubborn that way.

At recess, I sat at the base of my climbing tree, my t-shirt getting bark and resin on the back ... and I watched the boys playing soccer, my eyes constantly scanning for one.

I never did know which boy broke my arm.

I spent the next six weeks reading books under my climbing tree until the cast finally came off. At the edges of the playground. On the edges of the kids playing. Watching. Reading. At the edges.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:53 AM | Comments (3) | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Vacations and Photos | Stumble