I’m taking the opportunity to try and get my life in order. I’ve been working on improving my website koidesginchicago.com, getting it into better form and trying to market myself to some freelance clients. Gotta make that cash. I’m making Dr. appoitnments for everything I’ve been holding off on. And I’m going for long walks at night. I’m listening to “The Universe in a Single Atom” by the Dalai Lama, read by Richard Gere. Thought-provoking. I’m feeling less stressed and more relaxed. I’m applying for volunteer positions and looking into taking some courses at Columbia College. And so on and so forth. Oh, and I’m helping to start up a book club! This fall is looking busy and wonderful.

Ciao for now!

Alas, I go out Saturday night, iPhoneless, naked. I manage and come out on top, forgetting my woes with a few drinks and dancing the night away to country western music at a friend’s birthday celebration. A solid night.

Then came Sunday, and there was a certain point in the day, around lunchtime when I realized by the end of the day I was not going to have a voice left. Over the last month or so, I have been struggling with a raspy, hoarse voice that comes and goes. And I talk A LOT, in general yes, but mostly for my job because I teach. By the end of the day, I was outright yelling to produce any sound and I knew it wasn’t good. I went home early and by the end of the night, literally could not produce noise. Now it doesn’t matter how many drinks you’ve had, I know that’s not normal. The bar was noisy too, but I was doing more dancing and laughing than talking.

Time for action. I made a Dr.’s appointment yesterday and he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with my still missing voice, so early this morning I had an appointment with an ENT. They held out my tongue and put a long metal pole into my mouth that had a camera attached to the end. It took video of my vocal chords. It was weird, but very cool to watch afterwards, as they have the ability to watch it in slow motion. Throats aren’t pretty places. Anyway, it turns out that I have either nodules or polyps on my vocal chords – it’s hard to tell based upon appearance. I could see 3 white bumps in the area where my vocal chords meet. I’m hoping they’re nodules because those can go away, but the Dr. seemed to think they could be polyps because of the formation. They develop out of overuse or strain to the vocal chords, basically just doing what ya do. Anyway, of course I’m supposed to go on vocal rest for 6 weeks. Ha! I’m just going to try to conserve my voice and drink lots of water. I’m also going to be starting voice therapy to see if they can help me. No coffee, chocolate, alcohol, smoking, or apparently anything fun.

Now I’m going straight edge, like it or not. Because if I change nothing, they could get bigger and really interrupt my life to the point of where I would need surgery. Yuck. No thanks. I’m going to try to be kind to my voice.

I was joking yesterday that the Gods of communication (maybe they exist, maybe not) had nothing but scorn for me or that the Universe was telling me something about the way I communicate. Maybe’s it’s just old fashioned bad luck that over the course of the weekend I lost both my iPhone and my voice.

Either way, I like to embed meaning into life’s events and I am going to take a healthy approach to this. It probably won’t kill me to use my phone less or have one that’s less technochic. And it also won’t kill me to adopt a healthier lifestlyle for a while. I’ll miss my coffee, but I know that tea has it’s strongsuits. And as far as no alcohol or chocolate, well that seems near criminal. But I was a damn vegan for over 3 years … I’m off to find where that willpower went. Maybe all of this will leave me feeling better than ever.

I want to mention something about this “community organizing” issue. It’s something that I think many black people are feeling this morning, however no one, not even the Obama camp will mention it. For me, this isn’t about whether person X will vote for Obama. Or how this will help/hurt his or McCain’s campaign. It’s not about a politics. In other words it’s much more personal to me.

I found the comment vaguely bigoted. It wasn’t calculated, it wasn’t purposeful. I don’t believe Ms. Palin and her advisors sat down and intentionally tried to be racist. No one but the most extreme racists do that. And those people don’t worry me. What Palin said rolled off the tongue so naturally, without any regard for the impact of her words. It convinced me more than ever that prejudice is mostly implicit, at brain-level. It’s so easy to be dismissive of marginalized groups in almost every setting because it’s ingrained in our psyche. Perhaps the scariest part  is that our own implicit biases makes us all complicit in discriminatory activity and in the institution of discrimination, That is something this country needs to come to grips with. So before anyone says, “well I don’t think they were trying to be racist.” That’s beside the point. The point is how easy it was for Palin and her speechwriters to dismiss something that historically, and even today, is a very important part of the black community.

These organizers include some of the greatest, bravest people of our time. They’re the ones who fight for marginalized communities, who stuff sandbags in New Orleans, instead of blaming victims for being in the wrong place at the wrong time (Barbara Bush). They risked their lives to register people to vote in places like Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia. If it weren’t for these people who supposedly don’t have actual responsibilities, we would never have had Brown v. The Board of Education, and all those tens of thousands of people wouldn’t have marched in Washington with perhaps the greatest community organizer of all time, Martin Luther King, Jr.

I know Palin’s comments implied a type of a racism that we are too terrified or even glib to talk about. It’s vague, and it doesn’t wear a white sheet over it’s head or say the N-word (out loud). It’s hard to identify. But as a black person I see it every time this type of thing happens. It’s the belittlement, the constantly calling Obama — a 47 year old man — not by his name, but a “young man,” (which is today’s “boy”), calling him elitist (today’s uppity negro) and now, the putting down of the backbone of many of our communities. What’s next, Republicans, calling out the black church?

You all are my friends, and you happen to be white. You guys are probably some of the more enlightened people out there when it comes to race. But I can understand how even this might make you scratch your heads a little. All I can say is I have a lot of experience dealing with vague bigotry. I know it when I see it. And I saws it last night. I always hear white people say complain about how black people always cry racism. You know, bigotry is such an evil presence in this country. I think anyone who’s been discriminated against for any reason knows how horrendous it is and would never make light of it by falsely accusing someone of bigotry without reason.

Discrimination makes you feel ashamed and less than human. The thing is, talking about it not only says something about the discriminator, it says something about you. I can’t quite explain it, but it feels like you’re giving credibility to the discriminator’s arguments. It’s facing the possibility, however small, that bigotry and racism COULD keep you from achieving your goals, from living that so-called American dream. That no matter what you do it won’t be enough because you’re black, Hispanic, Jewish, lesbian/gay, etc. That’s fucking scary, and that’s something I think about all the time.

In closing, as I said to Adam last night. If Obama loses, and the revolution starts, I cannot make any promises that I’ll save you guys from white slavery. So you all better get going working for Obama!

Your dear friend (until the revolution possibly),

Taryn

In other news, I’m reading the book, “The Secret,” which does contain mostly sensational hocus pocus and overall malarky, but there are some seriously good nuggets one can extract. It’s all about positive thinking and the laws of attraction. Even though the book design is atrocious and distracting, and I recommend skipping the chapter on money (bogus), it’s worth a flip through and possibly a skim-through and possibly a quick read next time you’re at the book store.

I’m also reading a book on Argentina out of the Culture Shock series, but I’m only about 20 pages deep, so I will have to see how I feel about it. I’m kind of obsessed with Argentina right now, not quite sure why but I figured I’d read about it a bit, and didn’t want to just flip through a Lonely Planet full of info. on restaurants and hotels. Any one have a better book suggestion?

In a month I am starting guitar lessons for the first time in my life. My musical past is limited to a 3-month clarinet stint in the fourth grade. I’m looking forward to learning how to play an instrument and hopefully how to read music. I’m going to take a group lesson for beginning beginners at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Everyone has amazing things to say about this “Chicago institution” so I’m perty darn excited. I don’t know the first thing about what I’m delving into here and that’s fun. Every year, I make an attempt to learn something new. An instrument was supposed to be last year’s thing and so I’m running a bit behind schedule. If I can manage to start learning how to play guitar and start studying a foreign language (thank you, Rosetta Stone) all in the same year, well then 2008 is going to be pretty pivotal.

Powers that be, energies of the universe, I beseech you — please, pretty please — bring better luck to me and my friends. I’ll try harder to be a better person … ? Please? 

And if you’ve somehow found my wallet and somehow found this blog, please let me know (but only if you’re not seeking some kind of reward). Many, many thanks.

My submission is in the running!

Hey friends!

I submitted a tee shirt design called Last Night Disco Tee to Threadless.com to be voted on and hopefully printed. It’s for a contest surrounding Moby’s latest album, “Last Night.”

If I get enough high scores the shirt will be printed and sold from the site and I will win some prizes. I know it will take a minute or two, but pretty please, sign up and give it a score. Preferably, a 5. The sooner the better! If you have a minute beyond that, forward it around.

URL: http://www.threadless.com/submission/160126/Last_Night_Disco_Tee

Thanks! You guys are the best! 

Until next time … 

{Tribune Article}

Is it strange to ask a computer, “What does it mean to be human?” or “What does it mean to be Catholic?” or (here is my favorite related search) “Protein in urine, what does it mean?” Hmm. Maybe we need more people to talk to? And perhaps the last person just needs to advice of a physician, but instead we’re turning to Google. Are we giving Google too much credit or does Google usually deliver, and give us what we’re looking for?

The reason I even have to time to think about this stuff is the same reason I decided to type “What does it mean?” into my Google search bar. It happened because I’m wondering if there is any order to the universe or if it’s just a random sequence of events.

Rewind to approximately 2 weeks ago. I’m skipping class, heading to a show. It’s about 6pm. I’m standing at the bus stop, where I stand every day, only I’m waiting for a different bus. The bus stops and out runs a giant man with a backpack and glasses, his arms are crossed in front of him, and he charges right for me. Not having time to think or move, I was tackled right there on the sidewalk. And I landed on my back, more shocked than hurt. And I just sat there. The man scurried off. He didn’t take my stuff. He didn’t seem to have a real reason for doing it at all, at least I’ll never know what the reason was.

So the bus driver jumped out of the bus and was screaming at the man to get back here. Much to my surprise, the man turned around and starting running back. I was afraid he’d run into me again so I ran onto the bus. The bus driver asked the man why he did that. The man was clearly mentally disabled and simply answered, “I don’t know. It was a mistake.”  So I decided that calling the police wouldn’t do anything and I headed to the show.

The expected soreness followed soon thereafter, but nothing intense. Until … last Tuesday night I decided to play a friendly game of tennis with my tennis buddy, Lee. It seemed innocent. Until. I woke up the next morning unable to move my neck, head, or upper back. Oy. A visit from mom and one trip to the Dr.’s later, I found out that I have severe muscle spasms. So for the past few days I’ve been lying around, bored out of my mind and spending way too much time on the computer.

So what does it mean to be tackled by a giant retarded man? Who the hell knows, but unfortunately there are some questions that you just can’t Google.

Not usually a fan of this type of stuff, but this is really fun and a good geography quiz. See how fast you are are at clicking on the right spots on the map when prompted. 

Me, I got an 87 first go-round. I am pretty satisfied with that and I now realize my knowledge of Asian geography leaves something to be desired.

It was yesterday at work that I stumbled across this word and if you know where I work, then it makes this word all the better. Like most places in the internet, I can’t remember why I ended up here, but I think I might have a new favorite website … and a new favorite word.