What's in a name?

Today, I started instructing another writing class in partnership with Badgerdog Literary Publishing. I'm no longer with my Alzheimer's group in Westlake. Instead, I'm working on the East side at a Housing Authority complex, with a group of older adults. They're a completely different demographic: low-income, low education level and facing mental/physical challenges.

I only had two people in this first workshop. Amazing the ability of two strangers to humble me.

The two women I taught today reminded me so much of the Women's Adult Literacy Class I taught while in Ghana. The same bashfulness, the same eagerness, the same pride at picking up a pen and writing.

I was reminded today of how guilty I am (we all are) of judging people. Had I seen these two women at a bus stop or grocery store, I would have thought they were less than me. That's the truth.

But everyone has a story and no one is more important than the other. I was also reminded of that today.

We read My Name by Sandra Cisneros. We also read this poem by Eartha, a previous workshop participant:

My name looks like a globe.
My name is the world.
There is so much in it--
the flowers, the trees, the birds,
the fragrance,
the beauty that's within it.
The cry of a newborn baby,
the sound of my mother's voice.
My name smells like clay or dirt.
Soil, sod. It feels squishy and cool.
It's grainy and gritty.
My name smells like my Aunt Dora's house--
the smell of flowers and leaves and trees.
My name tastes like honeysuckle
and watermelon and fresh peaches.
My name is the color of red brown
dirt of West Texas.
My name means terra.

After reading this, Rosemary told me about how she could remember the smell of West Texas dirt. She and her twin sister were separated as infants; every six years, Rosemary would trek out to West Texas with her family to visit her. I never would have guessed....

Let me also mention that the woman who wrote that piece is completely blind. How often have I seen people walking with white canes and burdened them with my pity? When inside, they are carrying their own poetry, songs, ideas, experience, talents, life, love.

I have so much to learn.

An odd couple.

+ =I love summer. It includes my birthday. And while --this year, anyway-- it does not include rain, it does include two of the best things to come off the vine: tomatoes and yes, hatch chiles. The hatch season is barely a flash in the pan and by the 4th of July, whispers of the coming harvest are buzzing around. While many hoard the peppers and freeze them, I choose instead to wait patiently every year. I think this makes me appreciate the arrival of hatch season better, plus it's a good excuse to put them in every dish I can imagine while it's possible. And being as how I've also never met a chocolate I didn't like, I decided to try my hand at combining these two loves (with inspiration from a spicy brownie recipe from Serious Eats). I gotta to say, the result is a delicious treat, better than the hatch brownies at Central Market. You can thank me later:

• 5 oz. good quality dark chocolate (I used 100% cocoa baking bar from Ghiradelli), broken into pieces (also, you can substitute 1 oz. chocolate bar with 3 tablespoons cocoa powder+1 tbsp. oil, although I'm not sure you'll get the same fudgy consistency)
• 10 tbsp butter, plus a lil more for greasing
• 2 tbsp hatch chile, raw, seeded and ground (I used the hot variety. If the batter tastes a bit too spicy, that's fine, some of the heat bakes off)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon (this will set a nice background flavor profile for your hatch to take stage)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup flour

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate with chiles, cinnamon and salt. Stir regularly and be careful not to burn your chocolate!
3) Grease a 9"x9" pan.
4) In mixing bowl, combined melted chocolate mix with sugar. Add eggs. When it's smooth, fold in the flour.
5) Transfer to pan and bake approx. 40 minutes.
6) For the best result, let your brownies "rest" at room temperature for several hours/overnight, before cutting. And devouring.

How not to phone interview.

Goodness me, you're on a flip-phone! That's even more appalling than your terrible interview answers!

The month is closing, which means my deadlines are looming. Usually, I walk around the corner and set-up shop at Flightpath Coffee (they make a mean Americano) in the mornings. But today, I had a phone interview and because I a) try to be professional and b) refuse to be that person talking loudly into a cell phone while in a public space, I'm working from home.

To accomplish said phone interview, I had to barricade myself into the office. The door doesn't properly close and it took all of 3 seconds for a couple of noses to appear, wedging themselves in the doorway and breathing loudly. My dogs will stop at nothing to be in a room with people. Their emotional dependency is truly astounding.

Mom? MOM?! I know you're in there! MOM! Wait..green carpet. Really??

At any rate, after I piled up a bin of Christmas ornaments and a couple boxes of spare kitchen tiles (where did these come from?) I settled in. While I prefer in-person interviews (conversation flows more naturally and you get all the great nuances in tone and body language) they're not always time-efficient and they don't work when your subject is 200+ miles away. Even so, phone interviews don't have to be all that bad....

Unless you do any of these things:

• Pick your nose: Okay, okay, I'm not sure anyone has actually done it but I think it's happened before. I can just feel the nose picking through the phone.
  
• Surf The Interwebs, check your email, Twat (Twit? What the hell is it anyway?), check-in on Four Square (again I ask, what the hell is it anyway?) etc. I should not hear clicking from your end of the phone. It is not allowed. Unless you live in a magical typewriter factory where the machines operate themselves, the only typing sound should come from me, and that's only because I'm taking down (word for word) the drivel coming out of your mouth.
• Pace around incessantly. I'm guilty of pacing while on the phone. I get it, really I do. But if you're walking around your house/office/local high school track at such a brisk clip, you become difficult to understand and worse, I become uncomfortable at your heavy breathing.
• If we agree on a 10:00 a.m. interview time and I call you at 10:00 a.m. sharp, at least try to muffle the sound of your sheets as you answer the phone. I know you are still in bed. Oh, and I also know that "can you call me back in ten minutes?" Is really code for, "sorry, although your magazine is profiling me, I didn't feel it necessary to set my alarm clock for 9:55. Why do that when I have a writer to call and wake me?! hah! But now that I am awake, I've really gotta pee and have a quick glass of water to hide my gross-morning-voice, k?"
• When I do call you back ten minutes later, don't be outside or in the car with your windows rolled down. I shouldn't have to point out that you sound like you're in a wind tunnel.
• Finally, don't be wildly unprepared. Please? I always give a generous 48-hour+ notice and the specific topic of the feature/interview. Perhaps I should start giving detailed lists of every single softball question that's coming your way. Honestly, when I tell you the interview will be about how you spent your summer raising champion golden unicorns, I shouldn't have to sit through you 'umming' and 'ahhhing' when I ask you to tell me about a typical day raising champion golden unicorns. Just sayin. Yes, I know that while I know how to talk in copy/sound bites and enjoy public speaking, not everyone does...still, try to help a sister out, will ya? Because what should be a breezy 250-word article is now like pulling teeth for me.

Why, yes! I did spend my summer raising champion golden unicorns! Let me tell you all about it...

Please take these 6 lessons and learn from them... Because every time a phone interview goes well, a journalist gets it's wings.

A crazed love letter.

Dear Rain,

What happened to you? What happened to us? I was pretty excited last Friday. I mean, you were supposed to show up on Saturday evening and stay through Sunday. Okay, okay, you were only going to be one inch at most, but I'll take what I can get. You'd feel so good, I know it. I even made a list of all the super-special things I would do while you were around: sort laundry, mop the floors, finally watch Highlander III on Netflix PlayInstantly. To seal the deal, I even washed my car.

I told everyone you were coming for the weekend and I'd probably be holed up. Well, now you've just embarrassed me. Not only did you not show up in Austin, I actually read that the Texas air is so hot and dry, your tropical storm actually evaporated when you hit land. So. It's true then. You never really intended on being here in the first place. LIES.

I thought we had something special. I thought it might be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. I don't understand what I did wrong. I guess you were too busy giving 7 inches to Chicago the weekend before. CHEATER.

The truth is, I'm desperate. It's been so long and I just can't remember what it feels like to have you on my skin. Never again will I curse you for ruining my hair, forcing me to walk groceries to my car without an umbrella, or making my dogs smell like they rolled in the moldy, decomposing intestines of a very large rodent. I take it all back! You know how it is, sometimes in the moment we all say things we don't mean. Right?

Anyway, you know where to find me. It's 108º out there today so if you could please, please find it in your heart to take me back, I promise I'll never take you for granted ever again.

Love,
P.