I Love My Refrigerator...

Taos Pride

brighty18 — Sun, 21 Aug 2016 01:07:30 GMT

Today we marched with PFLAG to honor those slain in the Orlando shootings. We each wore t-shirts representing one of the fallen and I was Geraldo Ortiz-Jimenez. I actually got pretty teary when I got my shirt.

Lots of people came out to support the "rolling parade" (parade on one side of the street, traffic on the other), and most everyone was excited and supportive. In fact, the only ones who didn't smile and wave and cheer were a few of the drivers on the other side of the road who were probably less homophobic than they were annoyed at the fact they couldn't get where they needed to go...

Not the best of selfie, but you get the idea...

This was who I represented. Another really moving moment came when the woman who represented the spouse of the guy on Cody's shirt sought him out in tears.

Andrew writing a message to his person

Best outfit of the day, by far!

The parade ended at the Pride in the Park event. These people are so Taos. In fact, this year's theme was "Be Who You Are," which is also very Taos

UConn Habitat: Taos, NM Alternative Spring Break

brighty18 — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 15:52:31 GMT

Each year, dozens of Visiting Work Groups come to Taos to build homes, bond with one another, and bask in the beauty that is northern New Mexico. This video was made by the fantastic University of Connecticut who came last week. Watch and see what the experience meant to them. Enjoy!

Oh, and you can meet my awesome coworkers!

Picture Update on my Weekend

brighty18 — Sat, 09 Jan 2016 20:59:02 GMT

So, Cody and I both got international packages containing late Christmas presents. How was from Japan and contained bath salts from a different onsens (as well as some super adorable, Santa-shaped mystery snacks) and mine contained...

This handmade awesomeness from cackling_madly! I love th cowl (very me), but that donkey is like the coolest thing EVER!

In other news it has been snowing like hell. Much to the displeasure of my boss, I had to call out on Friday because, despite a good twenty-minutes of pushing, we couldn't get the Saab out of the driveway and Andrew's car was buried in snow. It took us over an hour just to dig our way to the truck and clear a path and the driveway a bit. Scully, of course, fussed about being left inside, so we let her out. She made it all of five minutes before demanding to go back in. Silly pussy. (By which, I mean, she is, quite literally, a cat. Here she is all warn out after her adventure - never mind that Cody and I were still fighting the snow mounds to help Andrew get to work.

The icicles! They're attacking! Seriously, these look like the fingers if some Dr. Who alien villian...

On snowy days we all stay inside

Interruptions By Any Other Name

brighty18 — Sun, 22 Nov 2015 15:42:44 GMT

How do you feel about being interrupted and what bothers you most?

View Poll: Interruptions By Any Other Name...

So Guess Who Caught Her First Mouse Last Weekend?

brighty18 — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 21:53:04 GMT

Yes, that would be Princess Agent Dana Scully, the cutest little serial killer we know!

We'd just finished dinner on Saturday night when Scully came scampering in from outside. We didn't really see that there was anything unusual about her, but then we're quite accustomed to her brining in myriad grasshoppers and crickets, etc. We were about to go outside to see the full moon (in Piscese) rise, when Cody mentioned that he thought he could hear bats. I heard them, too, but they seemed to be coming from inside the house. We looked under the dining room table, and there was Scully, playing with a quasi-dead mouse.

We thought we'd spare you a shot of the actual mouse, but here she is afterwords, feeling extremely proud of her little grey self!

She is quite the little hunter. In a 24 hour period over the weekend she ended the lives of at least 13 grasshoppers, several crickets, and a mouse.

New Moon Resolution: Language and Communication Issues

brighty18 — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 17:56:00 GMT

This is probably more for my own edification - or at least is a reminder of my goals - than anything else.

Long ago I committed myself to shaping my language and communication style to be more kind, compassionate, inclusive, and open-minded. This included things such as using "I" statements ("I think, I feel, I believe") rather than stating my own perceptions as truth ("That's stupid" or "It's too cold to do that"), not making assumptive statements about other people ("You don't, you never, you always, you are"), not making assumptions in general, especially about cultural things ("That's not really Mexican" or "Everybody knows that"), not interrupting, not talking about myself (at least excessively), being less sarcastic, not correcting people/interjecting opinions/stopping the conversation to point out small isses ("Yeah, but that's not really the point" or "Yes, but that's just an urban legend" or "That would never happen"), avoiding use of binary gender pronouns whenever possible, asking questions about other people's interests, remebering little things about others and bringing that up in conversation, and other such things. However, this weekend, it has come to my attention, that I have some very bad language habits that extend beyond these good intentions. So, going forward, here are some things I need to work on:

1) Using "I" and "me" more while avoiding "you" and "one." Unfortunately, I am one of those people who grew-up under the impression that it was polite and inclusive to speak using vague, second-person pronouns when describing situations. You know, like when you are trying to explain what it is like be stuck on hold forever and you have to listen to an endless loop of really bad smooth jazz? Exactly that. Although I believed I was being inclusive, I have learned that this is actually hypocritical of me to use alienating language under the assumption that it is somehow a shared experience.

2) Using "always" and "never" when it applies to myself. While I consciously try to avoid saying that about others ("You never wipe down the counter" or "You always have a smart-ass answer"), I have not been that careful about removing these words from my own vocabulary altogether. I have a tendency to things like, "I never knew that it was alienating to use words like that" or "I always try to be kind." If I am really trying to speak the truth, I am clearly lying here because I, obviously, no one, including me, always or never does anything.

3) When people call me out on my language, don't say that that is how I was taught/that is what people expected of me. While this might be true, it is not the most effective way to engage the matter. Personally, I have a need to get to the root of a matter. If I am going to solve a problem I feel I need to know the reasons why that problem occurred in the first place. But that is not always helpful to the others involved; it sounds like an excuse. So, instead of saying that that is what I was taught, I should say, "That is what I was given. For a long time I chose to accept it, but now I don't." And then I just need to do something about it.

4) Not apologizing for things that do not, necessarily, warrant an apology. I'll admit it, I have a habit of saying "I'm sorry" for simple mistakes, misunderstandings, etc. I've done this all my life. For example, last night I thought that Andrew had grabbed forks for dinner, so I just sat down without getting silverware and I said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought Andrew had done it." Or, I'll apologize for not hearing someone/misunderstanding someone/forgetting things. It was what I was given and for a long time I chose to accept it, but I no longer do. It was pointed out to me, that apologizing robs me of power.

5) Avoiding stating statements as questions. If I am even slightly unsure about something - or if I feel as if I might be correcting someone - I tend to phrase it as a question. For example, the other day, Andrew mentioned never having been to a winery in Utah, and I said, "Didn't we go to a winery in Moab?" Or, at work I might say, "Wait, didn't you tell me on Tuesday that you decided not send out an email about it?" In the first case, not only did I not want to correct him, but I thought that maybe I was mis-remembering a restaurant/bar as a winery. In the second case, I am trying to reconcile my own memory with what I was just told and I want to make sure that I am doing the right thing without being rude to my boss. That said, this is apparently not a helpful construction and I need to no longer accept it as an option. It, too, is a disempowering thing.

6) Not trailing off. I have no excuse for this habit, I just tend to not finish sentences. It's like I start fine with a concrete statement. "It's probably going to rain," and then I leave to to those around me to finish the sentence, "so we might not want to..." I have no excuse for this.

So this is what I am currently working on. As per usual, I long to get at the root of my language issues and I suspect that some of this comes from a combination of generational changes, misplaced humility, anxiety about being an only child, possibly gender, and flat-out low self-esteem.

My parents were at least a generation older than most of the parents of my friends. While their parents were Baby Boomers, my dad fought in WW2 and my mom graduated from high school in 1950. My grandmother, too, was a huge influence on my life and was definitely of the school that children are meant to be polite, compliant, and non-confrontational. Consequently, I learned the manners and speech habits of people generations before me, and that does serve me well in modern society.

Part of what I learned was to be humble, to not talk to much about myself, to always be polite, to put others first in conversation, and to follow along with everyone else. Whether this was a factor of being an only child or because those who raised me came from an era before the "special little snowflake" concept of childrearing was much of a thing, I do not know, but it is clear that I tend to avoid "me-centered" speech. I recognize that only children have a reputation for being selfish and, at least when they're younger, for seeing the world from a rather limited perspective. Perhaps to combat this, my parents/friends/relatives very consciously helped me not to be that way. Being brash or bold in my speech was discouraged, but politely listening and not correcting people was. Not that that is an excuse.

I feel like my language development is, at least partially, a response to the people who have surrounded me. Though my family encouraged one thing, I also have very distinct childhood/teeenaged/college/post-college memories of people who flatly said things like, "I'm not interested in that" or who interrupted with corrections/comments, etc. These things hurt my feelings and helped me to realize that I don't want to have those same habits. Those were positive lessons, but I am sure that there were some negative ones mixed in there as well. More importantly, I can move beyond all that!

So, from this point on, these above things will become part of my language habits. I will not let other people rob me of power. I will not make excuses. I will not be hypocritical. I will speak my truth confidently and compassionately, I will still speak with kindness and love, but I will include myself in that kindness and love.

Saturday Hike to Williams Lake

brighty18 — Sat, 22 Aug 2015 21:03:22 GMT

Andrew, Cody, Aaron, and I just got back from hiking to Williams Lake. The trailhead begins just above the Taos Ski Valley (just over 10,200 feet) and goes straight up for about two miles, ending at Williams Lake (an elevation of over 11,000). It's a little challenging, but fun. I generally don't do well with downhills, but I had poles, so that helped.

We had a picnic at the top and watched a huge, black dog play in the water while two marmots on opposite sides of the shore shrieked out their warnings of him.

The only bad part was that I got a kinda huge blister and, for once, nobody was prepared with a Band-aid. However, the trail was super crowded and we noticed a group of Boy Scouts (who at least claim to always "Be Prepared"), so I asked one of their mom's and she gave me something for my blister. #noshame

Waterfall behind ski lift #4

View on the way up the mountain

Andrew and Cody at the lake

Williams Lake

The Taos Mountain Balloon Rally

brighty18 — Sat, 25 Oct 2014 17:44:39 GMT

I will post about last weekend's trip to Chaco next, but this is what we did this morning...

We got up early to go to the "Mass Ascension," otherwise known as "the part where they all take off." It was held in this enormous dirt lot, filled with balloons, trucks, and milling people.   Despite the term "Mass Ascention," they don't all really go up at once. In fact, it takes the better part of an hour, with some just taking off and some bobbing up and down. Apparently, tehy all wait and then float off together.

One of the first things you notice is the noise, a dull, hissing roar that permeates everything. You can hear it from yards and yards away, too. The sun was bright, but the colors were still spectacular.

Up close, you can hear everything from the rustle of fabric to people in the basket talking.

It takes a lot of people to launch one, too. You can see the people in red, here, hanging on to the ropes. One woman, for whatever reason, was the last one to let go and the thing practically dragged her up into the air. I have seen them launching the local ones before, the ones that take out and over the Gorge, etc. It takes a lot of people on the ground to get just a few people into the air.

Someday I want to go up in one; the view must be incredible.   Unfortunately, even with the local discount (about 50% off) it is still around $200 per person. A bit much for us at the moment.

Ballooning is the unofficial state sport of New Mexico.   Albuquerque has the biggiest one, but there are many balloon-based events out there. I suppose the weather has a lot to do with it, with the dry air and near-constant sunshine.

Santa Fe Day (Pics and Adventures)

brighty18 — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 17:08:21 GMT

Have I mentioned that Andrew is interning at KTAOS, our solar radio station? Well, he is! One of his jobs is to assist this guy, Alphonso, who does a reggae show. Alphonso is from Kingston, but now lives in Pecos, NM, a little village outside of Santa Fe. So, yesterday, the three of us went down there so that Andrew could work with Alphonse and Cody and I could just dink around.

First off, Cody and I had brunch. We asked Alphonse and consulted Yelp about the best place to go, and everyone recommended Frankie's at the Casanova. Granted, the other choices were mostly Dairy Queen and a Slushee stand, but it was really good.
The main dining area:

I don't know the entire history of the building, but it predated Santa Fe Trail, making it well over 150-200 years old years old.

And it had the most amazing murals! Apparently, they were painted by a local artist in 1948, but they totally made us laugh. First off, is it me, or are these cowboys wearing wizard hats? Perhaps this is from that little-known part of 19th Century history in which wizards moved westward? Maybe this is a reference to the highly fascinating, but little recorded WWW, or Wizarding Wild West?

Also, why is the big dude so limp wristed? Cody, of course pointed that out. Also, it's ostensible a table leg, but the dude in the lower left-hand corner looks like he just lost his wand.

That was pretty much it for Pecos. Well, there is this really cool Historic Park, but I wasn't wearing the right shoes and we had no cell service (meaning no way to Andrew to contact us when he was done), so we moved on to Santa Fe. Once there, we just parked in the "old town" part, near the Plaza and walked around. Santa Fe can feel really touristy, but we hit some bookstores, went to an art museum, and breezed through a craft fair and the Palace of Governors.

Here we have Cody posing with a statue of a very hot CCC worker. (We had other ideas for this pic, but the proximity of an approaching family of four kept that at bay.) Cody has a general rule about posing with statues: nothing to do with war or someone who died tragically, so this guy seemed perfect in myriad ways.

Old Santa Fe features "Burro Alley, so, of course we had to go to there:

A rare pic of me and my new iron-assed iron ass friend.

The Santa Fe Art Museum was actually really cool - not to mention free to New Mexicans on Sundays. The courtyard is really stunning and, though I failed to capture them, there were some really interesting murals from the WPA era. We saw this fascinating exhibit called "Local Color" by a lady named Judy Chicago.

The courtyard

The Judy Chicago thing was super interesting. She lives in NM and completed much of her work here, but shows pretty much everywhere. It was refreshing to see art inspired by NM that was not all howling coyotes and insipid landscapes destined for the walls of wealthy Texan living rooms. Her work is really powerful, referencing everything from feminism to nuclear energy to the Holocaust to her own cats. Her use of gendered images was inspired, too, using the male form to mirror emotions whilst replacing Old-Testament male figures with Old-Testament female figures in traditional Jewish art forms. She also did some extraordinarily powerful images (of death and destruction) in media like needlepoint and tapestry. Oh, and her cat stuff was super cute. Okay, I'll stop, but I could go on and on and on about that exhibit.

So, on the say out, this really adorable, semi-unintelligible gay couple asked if we could take their picture. They were from Oklahoma and one guy had an almost entirely unrecognizable accent that Cody and I could not place at all until his partner started teasing him about being from "OwakLAhooooooma." The Oklahomos were super cute and took our pic as well.

After, we quickly ran to Trader Joes before picking-up Andrew and heading home in the setting sun. We stopped for dinner, I ate some delicious chile relleños and made our way back to Taos.

Taos Farmers Market Morning and a Rare Public Post

brighty18 — Sat, 30 Aug 2014 22:02:09 GMT

It's really fun and relaxing to be on the other side of a Farmers Market. Just shopping is so much less stressful.

Really amazing soaps from Bison Star Soap Co. (The bottom one is cinnamon and the top cedar.) Cody did a story on the girl who started the business, and she was so thrilled we got some free soap!

This is what northern New Mexico is all about in late August and early September: Hatch green chiles! The are everywhere. These, of course, are small-scale, organic, but you can buy conventionally grown ones at grocery stores and have them roasted outside the store on large, cast-iron drums that rotate over an open fire. The eyes sting, the air is heavy with the sharp scent, and people seem to have a great time chatting while waiting in line. Then, you take them home and prep them for freezing. The trick there is never, ever touch your eyes (or any other delicate body part) and, if you are a guy, pray that you do not have to pee. The pain is excruciating.

Fresh, sustainably grown veggies! We bought a bunch of the beans to ferment!

Gladiolas from Daniel's farm.

Pride Issues

brighty18 — Sun, 24 Aug 2014 19:02:50 GMT

Not the best shots of me (unless you're super into multiple chins), but here are two pics from Pride last week.

This was from Taos Fierce Pride which is a local resource for promoting health in the LGBTQI community. Their big emphasis is on raising awareness & providing resources on smoking cessation.

They did a picture booth and you can see all the pics on Facebook. Really, it was fun - defs one of the better participants at Pride in the Park. However, thinking back on the booths, leads me to a question: Do you believe that (other than food and drink, of course) the focus of the booths at a Pride event should be on issues relating to the LGTBQ community?

Pride in the Park is pretty small. Besides the entertainment (the main focus), there is a dunking booth, a couple of pic booths, a handful of vendors selling Taos Pride swag and rainbow paraphernalia, and info booths from Equality New Mexico, Aids Foundations, P-Flag, an AA/NA group that focused on LGTBQ people with addictions, etc. Also, Susan's partner, Judge Jeffery Shannon, had a booth where he married people who had $25 and a marriage license.

There were also booths from groups with missions not directly related to LGTBQ issues. Much to Cody's and my disappointment, there was no voter registration this year, as we were going to coerce Andrew into doing it. Stray Hearts was there, "tempting all the lesbians with cats" - or so the joke went. Actually, they brought more cats than dogs because they are easier to transport and don't want to run around and interact with other dogs. Honestly, there were some pretty cute dogs who attended with their owners, but some were trouble makers. This one little long-haired dachshund was a darling little brat who started all kinds of dramas with other dogs, so Stray Hearts pretty much had the right idea.

But voting and pet adoption are still pretty universal and (unless you're Andrew with his voting issues) not particularly controversial. Besides, if one really wants to stretch it, voting is key to any socio-political movement, and puppies and kittens ~~are cute~~ love you no matter your gender or sexuality. However, off to the side, far out of the ring of booths, was alone booth: Citizens Against Taos Airport Expansion. "Cause nothing says LGTBQ issue like a crosswind runway****.

Why were they segregated? "Because it's got nothing to do with queer issues!" suggested Cody, a queer supporter of the crosswind runway. Another possibility might be that they were not invited, but just showed-up because they knew people would be there. So is Pride only for LGTBQ issues?

**** In a nutshell, Taos Airport is a tiny, single runway airport used mostly for recreational flying, a few private planes, and, most importantly, MedeVac Air Ambulance. Because Taos is in a bowl-shaped valley, the winds can come from any direction, which makes take-offs and landings difficult to impossible in certain, very common conditions. We have periodic crashes for this reason. Theoretically, the cross-wind runway would be used when the wind conditions called for it, but it could also increase air traffic slightly. And for this latter reason, many people are against it. It is a controversial issue, with people who work in tourism supporting it and people who don't care for increased air traffic opposing it. The thing is, air traffic would not increase that much because both runways can't be functioning at the same time. But for me, the most important factor is safety - and not just the pilots. As mentioned above, the primary use the airport is taking critically injured or ill patients from Holy Cross to larger and more complete facilities in Santa Fe or Albuquerque. Liam, one of my favorite babies in Taos was airlifted to Albuquerque when he was just three months old, but the plane was delayed about an hour and one-half because of winds. People could die.

Taos Pride

brighty18 — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 23:11:41 GMT

So this weekend was Taos Pride. As mentioned in the previous post (when I was tired and pissy, so there's no need to read it), we were meant to volunteer, but our plans were thwarted by Andrew's broken truck and our own exhaustion. The irony? We'd elected not to go to "The Gayest Dance Party Ever" the night before because we had to get up at dawn. Oh well!

This is the fifth year of Pride in Taos and the first year that they had a parade. We missed it, but everyone said it was a blast. I was really confused by what the parade actually was because it was explained so many different ways, but, essentially, it was a "rolling parade" that was only on one side of the street. The other side was open to regular traffic. Yeah, it meant that traffic could only go in one direction, but that's better than blocking traffic altogether. Taos has one main street (Paseo del Pueblo del Norte/Paseo del Pubelo del Sur) going north-south and virtually everything is along it. Unfortunately, because it was build over 200 years ago, it is very narrow in parts. During parades and events, traffic is diverted down two other streets, but those are only two lanes, as well. So, predictably, people get pissy during parades. They get pissy because they can't get to WalMart or the grocery store or the yoga studio or their favorite restaurant, etc. Anyway, despite being high tourist season and having semi-blocked traffic, the entire town was surprisingly into the parade.

We did go to "Pride in the Park," which is fun in a small townish sort-of way. There are booths and a few games and stuff like that. There's also entertainment ranging from burlesque to magic to drag queens. The only downside of it this year was that it was hot as all hell. Seriously, it was the first really super hot day we'd had in like six weeks, and it caught everyone off guard. We all thought that we were headed for fall, but I guess 90+ degrees had to rear it's ugly head once more.

Let's be honest here. Heat and soft grass are not kind to drag queens. The wigs, the make-up, the stilettos, and even the dresses are really more suited to dark, smokey bars that the glaring sun of a New Mexico afternoon in the park. But then, these ladies are all natives of the Land of Enchantment so they know what's what. Miss Santa Fe Pride (below) totally had the right idea: skimpy black dress and no wig. She still managed stilettos on grassy, uneven terrain, which deserves mad respect.

Last year's Miss Santa Fe Pride but on quite a show, too. And she got all of us up and dancing. And, in the middle of all the gyrating LGTBQ folks and allies was the one person who had it worse that the drag queens. I didn't get a picture, but the University of New Mexico mascot was there - in his/her full wolf costume. Trust me, I've been inside those full-character costumes, and it always sucks, but in the sun? Dear god!

The little blond boy in the foreground was really darling. He ran out and gave her a dollar as she was singing. She sang to him for a moment, but the cutest part about it is that, I know who he is and he lives in an old school bus with like five brothers and sisters. They're the cutest family and the kids are exceedingly polite and well behaved, but that dollar was surely a lot of money to him.

We were contemplating going to the Mary Gauthier concert and the big drag show, but it was expensive and we were tired. Also, the drag show was at The Alley which is a decent bar, but terrible for shows. There's really no stage to speak of - everything is one one level. And what is the point of a drag show that you can't really see? It also strikes me as not the safest place for drag in that the building was originally built in the 16th Century (seriously) and bits have been added on willy-nilly for the past 400 years. Thus, no floor is even remotely close to being an even surface, and some of the ceilings are under six feet high. I wore heels there once and it was... well, let's just say I didn't break anything so all's well that ends well.

I can hear you wondering why on earth they would have the show there, and the answer is because Taos is small and political. Six bars compete for Pride events, but there is only need for two or three venues at most. One bar is owned by the former mayor and always gets included because, well, it's owned by the former mayor. The other one that always gets included is The Alley. They always support LGTBQ events and it's a great place for some things - just not for a drag show. Of course, the other bars feel slightly slighted. The most awkward thing? Tino, the President of the Pride Association is the one who took my place at Midtown, a bar actually owned by two members of the LGTBQ community. But they didn't get asked to host anything. Awkward, but predictable, all things considered.

To be fair, though, this happens with more than Pride. Habitat deals with that during fundraisers, as do most non-profits. Social groups who meet in bars go through the same thing. Even drinking and drag queens have their politics, I guess.

Bad Tech Habits Poll

brighty18 — Wed, 07 May 2014 19:28:36 GMT

Okay, obviously there are places in which using technology is super annoying or just plain wrong. The movies, for example, or perhaps weddings and funerals. But there are also places in which the line is not so finely drawn.

View Poll: Annoying Tech Habits

There are Acceptable Places to Drop Dead... and Then There's the Laundromat

brighty18 — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 15:53:12 GMT

So, our washing machine passed away this weekend. R.I.P. Mr. Kennmore, you served us well! We're getting a new one this week, but, in the meantime, I had to go to the laundromat in town.

Like many laundromats, this one features mid-century, faux wood paneling (with an inexplicable hunting theme) and aqua-blue machines, but this one has an extra-special feature: a warning against untimely death.

Though I am relatively sure they meant to prohibit, dyeing, as in the coloring of cloth, it is heartening that they would go to such lengths to protect the lives of customers. Still, I question the feasibility of the fines. Once dead, where is the impetus to pay? I suppose they could simply fine the family of the deceased, so, should you ever find yourself experiencing severe chest pains whilst engaging in public laundering in Taos, by all means, save your family some money and run for the door.

Volunteerism Follow-up

brighty18 — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 20:33:25 GMT

This is kind of a follow-up to THIS POLL I WOULD STILL LOVE FOR PEOPLE TO TAKE. It's a public entry, so you can even have friends do it.

Interestingly, most of you said that you did volunteer (or had volunteered), and for that I applaud you heartily. It's a really great way to give back to the community, and, as one commenter very astutely pointed out, it's cheaper than donating when you don't have the money. And, sometimes, it is even more welcome.

I also want to add that I've been on both sides of the issue: volunteer and organizer - and each has it's own challenges. Thus, I was especially interested to learn the negative things about volunteering, the reasons why people hesitate, quit, or fail to have the best experience possible. As someone who works with volunteers, I want to try my best to correct those.

My first piece of advice when you do have issues with the place at which you volunteer is to (politely) be open about it and discuss it. Most of all ask why things have to be the way they are. For example, two of my favorite volunteers, this awesome couple named Debra and Laurie were helping with our mailing and wondered why they couldn't just use pre-printed labels instead of addressing each envelope individually. Yes, it would save a lot of time and effort, but, believe it or not, there is a reason. As it turned out, people are far, far more likely to open a hand-addressed envelope than a pre-printed one. And people reading the newsletter (and responding to it) is precisely the reason they are sent out.

My second piece of advice is to always remember that, sadly, it all comes down to money. There's no escaping it: all non-profits need it and few, if any, can waste it. Our affiliate, for example, must charge groups to build because we need to pay for materials and, most of all, pay the salary of our construction supervisor. We are looking at ways to get around this, but for now we have to abide by that. Does it suck? Yes. Is it unfair to groups? that depends upon your definition. There is a lot more we could do if we had more money.

As to the issues themselves...

No rewards or thank yous, criticism from organizers, and unpleasant organizers: I'll say it flat out: there is really no excuse for this. Yes, if it is a big event, the organizers may get stressed and a bit snappish, but there is no reason to fail to say thank you. Sometimes I feel like a professional thank you note writer (my grandmother would be so proud), but I like it. I'll admit that there can be difficult moments. As an organizer, you want things to run smoothly, but you also need to be understanding, compassionate, and grateful to those who help - even when they screw-up. My first Habitat build (in Tacoma) was NOT fun. The construction supervisor seemed stressed out and over-worked and was entirely unwilling to instruct newbies. Consequently, I stacked linoleum and tile for an entire day because, as he put it, "I don't have the time to teach you people new things." Mark, our construction supervisor here in Taos is just the opposite. He has this amazing way of teaching people to do things so that they are done right, and, when things are done wrong, he manages to do it over in a very unobtrusive and compassionate way. When I volunteered to Pierce County AIDS Foundation, we had an incident in which we asked to drive a Lincoln Town Car. My friend - who had never driven such a large vehicle - hesitated for a moment, and was told, "Never mind. Clearly you can't do this." In retrospect, I'm sure the employee was just burnt out and over-worked, but my friend never went back. By contrast, I just had a person seal 40 envelopes incorrectly, but I didn't say a word. I just thanked her and re-did them. Why? Because she volunteered to stuff/address them out of the goodness of her heart, and saying something would just make her feel bad and not want to volunteer again.

Menial or unpleasant tasks and feeling like it doesn't make a difference: Yeah, this sucks and I know it. But, again, there are reasons. Often these reasons have to do with liability, expertise, and time-management. If you volunteer for a thrift store, for example, you may not be able to run the register, but will find yourself sorting and stacking. this is not because they don't trust you, but because it is a safer, over-arching policy. Yes, people do steal. Or if you work with animals, there may be certain things that you are not allowed to do, but the employees can do. Why? Liability and safety. No one wants to see a volunteer bitten or scratched. Yet, sometimes, if you talk about it to an organizer, you can get more interesting work. Training is time consuming and most organizations want to know that you're serious before they invest in that with a volunteer.

And then there are the menial tasks, the things that seem small and insignificant, the stacking of linoleum tiles or stuffing of envelopes, for example. Those may seem menial, but, in fact, they are not. Mailings and fundraising are an enormous part of non-profit life. They're not fun, but they're necessary and they make everything else possible. Those tasks also free up the employees to so things that they are specifically trained to do, so what you are doing is very important. When someone comes in and does filing or data entry, I am eternally grateful. I have a lot to do and tasks like that take up valuable time that should be spent working homeowners and supporting Cynthia and the other employees. It means the world to me.

No tasks is really meaningless. You may feel like an unimportant cog, but, in truth, every cog is important. Without it, the entire mechanism can fail. Besides, you did make a difference to someone. Think about that phone call you answered or that kid who now understands fractions or that cat who got some petting. It made a difference to them!

Too much is expected of me: This one is harder - mostly because it is a matter of perspective. On the one hand, organizations want to cultivate happy, active volunteers, but on the other, they depend on them, too. Scheduling and deadlines can be issues, and often organizations really depend upon people being there/doing things when they say they will. For example, if five tutors are needed on a given day, and only three show up, that leaves children without help. Or if you say that you will take the Thursday shift at the basketball tournament and then cancel, people have to scramble to cover. For you, it's not a job, it's just something nice you do, but from the other side of the fence, the view changes.

Unpleasant clientele: Not much I to say here except to remember that, for the most part, volunteer opportunities involve clientele who are needy or in bad space, and that can make for difficult personalities. That said, I used to work at a children museum, and some of those kids were just unholy brats from hell.

Too structured/doesn't allow for my input and seeing how things can be done better: Yeah, I know, this can be SUPER frustrating. This is a classic example of situation in which discussing things can do wonders. For example, during the wrap-up meeting for Trivia Night, several volunteers commented to Cynthia that they would and could want to take a greater role next year. Why had they not been offered greater responsibility before? Well, because Cynthia did not know and because it was their first year she wanted them to experience it first so they knew what they were doing. But we're all on board with them doing more next time.

But seriously. Ask. Sometimes something may seem obvious to you, but it has never occurred to the organizers. Or sometimes something may seem obvious to you that is actually not the case. For example, we do both an email and snail mail newsletter and recipients have their choice as to which one to be on. Many a volunteer has suggested ditching the paper one in favor of electronic, which would save us money on copying, paper, stamps, etc. However, not everyone uses email. But, perhaps more importantly, the paper newsletter brings us 21000% more money than the electronic one. Seriously. So, if you think you know a better way or can see areas of improvement, please say something - but please ask at an appropriate time and perhaps phrase it in the form of a question. "Hey, out of curiosity, why do y'all do X. Would it be easier to do Y?" Don't assume. Don't push. Just ask. You may be doing them a real favor.

So, I'm far from an expert, but there it is, laid out. Have you had negative experiences? Questions? Thoughts? Feel free to share.

Tournament of Privilege

brighty18 — Sun, 29 Sep 2013 20:43:59 GMT

I'm not sure if you're familiar with Gawker, but I found THIS rather interesting - and perhaps slightly problematic. It's Gawker's Privilege Tournament, and I far from the first to talk about.

Ostensibly, it is designed to foster dialog, to get people thinking, and to remind readers that privilege (and lack thereof) can take myriad forms. But some disagree. I've read criticisms of this that include accusations that it is a tool of the hegemony to make the rest of us battle it out and the "tournament" being denuded of situational context and reduced to a competition between arbitrary categories. That said, may simply find it amusing - as it is likely intended to be.

I, of course, did vote, and in addition to getting me to think about privilege it forced me to think about statistics and viability of categories as well. Some of these are pretty damned obvious: cisgendered male v. intersex? Pretty v. ugly? Unless you live in a bizarro land, those are pretty obvious. I'm going to go out on a ~~very well-supported~~ limb ~~and bounce~~ and say that "protestant," "straight," "white," and "cisgendered male and female" are going to be out the first round. But others are more more subtle: male to female transperson v. female to male? Bisexual v. Lesbian? Those are more nebulous.

There are also those that could be geographic. Jewish v. Catholic? Do you live on Long Island or Los Angeles? Even Latino/Hispanic v. South Asian can be affected by geography. Theoretically, both could be immigrants, but not necessarily. Here in Northern New Mexico, the Hispanic people are the second oldest ethnic group - second only to the Native Americans - and the old families still own most of the land and control the politics. Taos County has never had an Anglo Mayor of Sheriff or County Commissioner, nor have many areas of the Southwest. But I also know how Mexican nationals are treated in big agriculture. I would assume that the assumption is that one is American when answering this, but different areas bring on different privileges and prejudices. For example, in the Pacific Northwest I encountered many people who felt that Native Americans were horrifically over-privileged in terms of fishing/hunting rights, scholarships, gambling/tobacco/firearms, land ownership, and taxation, yet history tells a different story. Is this a matter of perspective? Does history even matter? Your answers for "Jewish" might depend on it.

Other categories might hinge on presentation and viability. Being a Sikh is more visually obvious than being Buddhist. (Well, unless you're a monk.) Being blind is more easily noticeable than having a mental illness and being a quadriplegic/paraplegic more instantly obvious than having an eating disorder. And, whilst we're at it, how does the fact that many people believe that the eating disorders are more prevalent in populations with a higher sociology-economic status play into this?

And how do one's own experiences play into this? Short v. amputee? I'm short, but fully-limbed and there's not contest: I have more privilege. Homeless v. over-educated and under-employed? Yeah, I'll have the give it to the homeless. They're far less privileged than I.

And I'm not even sure what to think of the allergy category.

What do you think of all of it?

Ring Bell (or Just Bellow) for Service.

brighty18 — Fri, 23 Aug 2013 17:51:33 GMT

View Poll: Ring Bell (or Just Bellow) for Service

Unsurprisingly, I have thoughts on this issue. You may read them in the comments. And, yes, I do realize that things are different in different regions or cultures, for example, encountering an empty store in Boston would be different than in Taos.

Questions, Questions, and How to Ask and Answer!

brighty18 — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 16:07:28 GMT

View Poll: Ask Me A Question... How?

When you ask me a question, whatever the type, please, for the love of all that is good in the world, LET ME ANSWER IT WITHOUT INTERRUPTING!" What I mean to say is, please let me finish before you ask another question. For example,

Person A: "Do you know how to get to the Post Office on Market Street?"
Me: "Sure... it's..."
Person A (cutting over my answer): "Well, how do you get there?"

or
Person A: "Hi, I'm looking for Greg. Do you know where he is?"
Me: "Hi, Greg's in his office and..."
Person A (cutting over my answer): "Where's that?"

Like I'm not going to tell you? Why on earth would you think that? Like I'm just going to acknowledge that I do, indeed, know the location of Greg or the Post Office, but keep the rest of the info secret unless you have proper security clearance? Perhaps I don't really understand your question and I assumed you were simply inquiring about the scope of my knowledge. No. I'm still in process of answering (or about to finish), so why must you talk over me?

When people do this I generally assume that they are in a huge hurry and not really able to listen. In fact, sometimes (and, yes, I'll admit that this is a little passive-aggressive), I will actually say something like, "Oh. Sorry. I didn't know you were in a hurry, I was just about to tell you, it's..." Only once or twice has the person ever acknowledged that perhaps their running roughshod over my answer might have been a little offensive.

This may be a regional thing because I've noticed that, for the most part, in the East Coast, people may or may not ask that preface question, but they expect a complete answer regardless. In other words, they just want to know how to get to the damned Post Office, and if they preface it with another question, they're just being polite. That seems mostly true in California, too. In the Pacific Northwest, I got a lot of preface questions followed by the notorious interruptive follow-up, something I found to a lesser extent in Cleveland, but not so much in rural Ohio where people just wanted the answer. Here people tend to be really chatty, telling you all about why they need to find the Post Office and what happened to their local one, etc., but the ones who interrupt with the follow-up are almost always tourists.

I totally get the preface question. It helps the person being asked save face if they don't know. For example, once in London, a cop stopped my mother and I on the street to ask how to get somewhere. They did not use a preface question in that case and simply asked, "Pardon me, but how do you get to such-and-such street?" I apologetically explained that I had no idea, and the last thing I heard as they drove away was the lady cop scolding her partner with, "Of all people, you asked a bloody American!" LOL.

But like I said. I get the preface question. It seems more polite. It helps clears the air and perhaps lessens than moment of fear of strangers. It feels less abrupt and more friendly. It provides a verbal buffer, making the exchange seem less interrogative. It gives people an out if they don't know the answer. But, please, please, just let me answer it properly!

For All the LOTR Geeks Out There...

brighty18 — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 05:28:23 GMT

Where talking trees do their banking in Southern Colorado. I'm sure the lines take forever, too...

MS Office Help!

brighty18 — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 18:33:34 GMT

Hi! Lame as this sounds, I'm putting the call out for some tech help!

I am using Office 2010 Professional Plus.

Yesterday, I was working on a large, Excel document (as .xlsx). For the first few hours, things seemed to be autosaving just fine, but at the end I got an error message about how “one of the formulas exceeded the character limit of eight-thousand and something characters and that I needed to save it as a binary something.” The thing is there were no active formulas in the document; it was just straight info. I even checked and had someone else check to see if something was inadvertently running as a formula. Nothing. I finally saved a copy as xlsx and another as xls. For the record, when closed and re-opened the original document I’d been working on nothing was saved at all, despite the fact that it seemed to indicate that it was autosaving about every 13 minutes.

Today when I opened the xlsx copy I kept getting a message “An unexpected error has occurred. AutoRecover has disabled for this session of Excel.” I just saved manually and got out of it.

Does anyone know a solution for this? Why did I get that strange error message in the first place and how do I avoid it in the future? This is a big, important document and I don’t want to lose anything.

Also, I don’t know if this matters, but the cells in the original document were cut and pasted from another xlsx document and it was a large cut and paste.

Correction! I'm Sorry, but You're Wrong...

brighty18 — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:01:55 GMT

View Poll: Correction! I'm Sorry, but You're Wrong...

Stuff

brighty18 — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:02:47 GMT

A couple quick things:

1. One issue with "blind casting" is that, in a sense, it can take away from the race/gender/ethnicity/sexuality of the actor in question. For example, it's great to cast an African-American actor as the Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing or, as aries11 mentioned, Nancy in Oliver Twist, but the actors are, in fact, not playing any race at all. (Or playing "white," depending upon how you look at it.)

Also, I once attended a really interesting cross-cast production of Grease (at the Alice B. Theatre in Seattle) in which some of the main characters had flip-flopped genders. (They did it as drag.) It was a fantastic idea, but it lost a little in practice because of issues with vocal ranges. That's a concern, too, I guess.

2. Don't know what I'm talking about? Or just for fun, if you haven't already, please take THIS poll.

3. Cody is coming on Friday for a nearly two-week stay. I'm so über excited.

4. DOG SHAMING. So funny. And Malcolm once did the car-locking trick.

Truth in Fiction?

brighty18 — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 20:01:07 GMT

View Poll: Fact v. Fiction in Fiction

Made Me Laugh...

brighty18 — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 04:37:37 GMT

Super Bowl Poll

brighty18 — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 21:45:25 GMT

Well, like it or not, today is the Super Bowl. Brothers, Beyonce, junk food and commercials, it's the majority of Americans tuning in. Some, especially those in the Bay Area and Baltimore, care deeply, whilst others just want a good game. Still others watch only for the commercials or switch back and forth to the Puppy Bowl. Rather than go to the bar this year, we're having a few people over. It should be fun.

View Poll: Super Bowl