Linda Robinson's Blog, page 15

Linda's Little Book of Caregiving

Informal. Unpaid. Caregivers in the United States, whatever the statisticians call us, number in the millions. Statisticians love numbers and percentages. 29% of the population. 66 million people. Any organization that keeps track does so based on self-reporting. My estimate is closer to 100 million people engaged in caregiving. I'm not sure surveys administered to caregivers, when identified, are accurate for this reason alone: caregivers think of the persons receiving the care before they think of themselves. And caregivers may be prone to underestimating the amount of daily living activities they perform, when they report at all. I participated in a Wayne State University graduate student's survey via telephone interview. I started crying 1/3 through because I could not keep it straight who the survey was about. I kept answering on behalf of my father and brother. Me! I'm the caregiver. Adding to this loss of self are workshops that claim to be for caregivers, when the session is actually about the caree. Remember to have an extra handbag for when mother loses hers is not about the caregiver. These misrepresented sessions add guilt to the stew. One I attended was displayed on the library sign "Caregiving." 2 hour session, and with 20 minutes left, I raised my hand to ask when we were going to get to the part about caregiving. The moderator was surprised. Really? Later, looking at the handout, it dawned: the session was put on by an assisted living facility. It wasn't about us at all. A friend and I went to an inaptly named Caregiver Conference a couple years ago. Some of the workshops were about the caregiver. But the booths were about paid assistance, products for the caree, not the carer. Paid in-home health work. Stand-in bathtubs. Handrails. We were dismayed. No booth offering free neck and head massage. No gifts for caregivers. No booth just thanking us for doing what we do. We pledged to have a booth the following year, but do we describe ourselves as a nonprofit? When we can't sleep we look at the internet for caregiver help. We know it's a loving job, doing [your higher power name here] work, but we still can't sleep, we're losing our hair and our strength, and damn it, when is it about us? Ah, well, we read that caregivers have health issues. Some are predeceasing their loved ones. And site after site reminding us we're unpaid. We don't give a flying fig how much our work is worth. We do care how we can keep our selves, our sanity, and a modicum of independence. We need to know we have sisters who are struggling to maintain well-being. We are who this book is about. All those big numbers, personalized. Me, my friends and the gallant tired carers who need to know we're not crazy. Or alone.

Default

This is my first movie poster. I was lucky to be involved in creating it, and delighted that the filmmaker let me have that much fun. It began with a screenplay for a science fiction short titled Default, by E.M. Spairow. It is set close by in the future, has education as a theme, and a Bradbury book in the scenic design.The dystopian story displays a soupcon of horror, a touch of dark comedy, a terrible timely trope. What would that look like on a poster? There would be red and black, because those are the colors of the horror genre. Black at the bottom because if you're sinking, you're fading to black. Black is the pit of hell, it's also a dandy pedestal to support the art above, and it works as a perfect place to put credits now, and film festival laurels later. Anyone who has enjoyed seeing a PAID IN FULL stamp will appreciate the terror of a PAST DUE stamp so an inky untidy font surrounded by a decayed box in dried blood red would simulate an old school rubber stamp. The yellow to orange descending gradient in the background is meant to simulate flame. "It was a pleasure to burn," is the opening line of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. I wanted the lighter versions of the Default stamp to glimmer enough to create a phantom shimmer. One of the prototypes had a 50% transparent gray gaussian blur ascending middle to top, but it was too much, and I remembered to rely on the audience to see what it wanted to see. Put everything in and then take stuff out. It's a good design rule and a good writing rule, too. In drawing class I liked the method of laying dark all over and using erasers to pull the highlight. I haven't seen the poster with gloss paper yet, but I think, with a good light source, it will fool the eyes into seeing fire. Glance at the poster, quickly look away and your retina will supply the ghost image I'm talking about. The filmmaker liked this poster enough to use it on the DVD cover, too. I'm delighted. The creative process is joy for me, and when the person I've drawn for is happy, that is bliss. You can follow the life of Default on the movie's facebook page, or on twitter.

Ocean Storytelling Jewelry

The first person I followed on twitter is a woman in California. Her avatar is a Roy Lichtenstein image, he is a favorite artist, and she writes smart interesting stuff. Today's world of connection by technology is still a strange one for me. Connecting with a stranger on twitter was a first step. Do I know the woman in California? No. Does she know me? No. This year I've been posting jewelry I make on twitter. I feel weird doing that; it's easier to promote other people. The CA woman admired some pieces. Those comments are a connection that transcend twitter follows, a thread that links us as individuals. This week, when she commented on a necklace, I wrote her. She likes my work and I wanted to celebrate that. I'm going to make you a piece. What do you wear? Bracelet, necklace, earbobs and in what colors? She wrote bracelet and she likes ocean colors. I crave freedom to create this way, to disappear in creative bliss, to select findings that tell a story. The story of a woman who likes ocean colors. I do not have to know her, to sit in a room with her, I can picture her wearing this physical manifestation of her story. A woman who likes ocean colors. Anyone who likes ocean colors needs to have her own private ocean. Each of the glass beads chosen had thought of her in the selection. Each glass bead is an individual ocean and circled together are the earth's water in perpetual cycle. The bracelet is on its way to California, to a woman I know likes ocean colors. With the little story she shared and the art circle closed, a new cycle is created in the world.

Bring Me The Head of Kyori Sato

I've coveted the Integrity Toys Fashion Royalty Urban Geisha Kyori Sato for years. I cannot explain it to myself. Nonetheless, I craved. I bought an Adele Makeda doll 6 years ago because she did not have the price point of Sato. I could justify that expense to myself. She's special, but Adele Makeda is not Kyori Sato. If I was feeling flush, I'd shop for the Urban Geisha, but mostly I'm never flush enough, can't justify the expense, chicken out. She is rare and expensive. I do not consider myself a doll collector. I did have all the Disney Great Villains dolls, which I sold this year. So maybe that's why I felt like I could finally get Kyori Sato. A deal showed up on ebay. I won the auction. I was thrilled to see the box arrive. She'd been described as taken out of the box, so I wasn't afraid to take her out myself. What I forgot was that early FR dolls are not fully articulated. I tried to turn Kyori's head. Her head came off. Not from the stem, her neck cracked raggedly, and I was staring at the decapitated body of my dream doll, her detached head still wobbling on the desktop. Stunned, I glanced up at the Adele Makeda doll on my dresser and, for a tiny moment, I thought she was smiling. In the complicated and entertaining backstory of Jason Wu's Fashion Royalty coterie, Kyori Sato and Adele Makeda are mortal enemies. I did not own Urban Geisha Kyori Sato for a full day before I killed her. For another full day I tried not to tip over into crazy. No, Adele Makeda did not cut off the head of Kyori Sato. Yes, the rigid plastic is a problem, and her neck knob was fused, and no, I did not subconsciously buy this doll so I could maim her. So what's the lesson? There are 1001 stories to write about this ersatz tragedy. A million universal truths to mediate upon, another million to discard. And one day I'll be brave enough to open the box again to glue her head back on her jagged neck.

Guybonics

An ex brother-in-law, a person who thought himself a real grown man, was my sister's husband when this word was born. We were sitting on the couch at a family dinner, and he was blathering about how his family meant everything in the world to him. How he only lives to take care of his wife and his baby girl, how he does without to provide for them. I was squirming mightily, too polite to guffaw. He continued building his own virtual statue in the town square until I did laugh out loud. What? he asked. What you just said, I laughed. He said that's ebonics. He thought I meant the phrase he used. I laughed harder. I know what ebonics is, I said. That was guybonics. This ex-brother-in-law is someone I will happily slap, should I have the misfortune to run into him, for the pain he's caused women I love. But he sure was the creator of some of my best words. Guybonics is mansplaining plus total detachment from any self-awareness, coupled to the belief that women are dumb as stumps. Guybonics is taking the facts, flipping those 180, and calling your bluff to your face. Guybonics is swearing you do without to provide for your baby girl while wearing a $2,000 Hugo Boss suit and some $1,200 skin shoes, and that baby girl is in an outfit her mother bought her. Saying I'm sorry if I hurt you, right after you just told him he did hurt you, is guybonics. Oh, well, I don't know when you explained something from certain knowledge, is guybonics. Saying this is not what it looks like when you discover him naked in the sack with someone not you. Guybonics. Every woman can add to the definition: we know it when we hear it. And it takes the sting away a little to know what the language is. One of an ex's favorite lines is from a chockablock doofus movie D. C. Cab. Some guy asks "what are women so pissed off about? They're got half the money and all the p***y." That is guybonics. That is also why the ex is an ex. He spoke guybonics fluently.

Like Me Fund Me

Talking with a filmmaker friend yesterday, we were enjoying the prospect of a new Alice Guy Blache documentary being produced. Be Natural: the Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache. Actually, it has been told, more than once, and brilliantly by Alison McMahan, but Madame Blache is not in the zeitgeist yet. There are players attached to the project - Robert Redford, ExP, Jodie Foster, narrator. And the researchers highlighted are topnotch. Two years in the making, claim PIC Agency codirectors. The film is a Kickstarter project. I'm an old bird-the crowdsourcing stuff was outside my range of vision. So, I educate myself a little more. The coproducers want $200,000 from you and me to complete the documentary. Robert Redford is Sundance, yes? Why do they need our money? Looking into project crowdsourcing this morning, I found this article from indiewire on the relative success (as can best be determined by squishy data) of indiegogo, Kickstarter, and newbie Seed & Spark. The big loot in filmmaking is focused on franchise film, overseas sales, and a dumb audience. Please no documentaries, dialogue, story or character. These stories are being left to us, the audience with little money, but a need to feed our brains and hearts. Will I give $$ to realize an Alice Guy Blache documentary? The big studio boys with the real money have zero interest in a story about the woman narrative film pioneer. I'm wondering how far we are away from crowdsourcing all our creative - those projects in art, music, literature that keep us human. How far away are we from privatizing education and crowdsourcing teaching children? All those lovely critical intangibles that keep crowd from becoming mob.

The Newsphere Changed My Brain

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In a story I’m writing there is a character named Catalyst. Catalyst is an ambassador. Ambassadors negotiate peace and foment discord, as required by the political body they serve; specifically, the agenda of the power brokers who influence that political body.
Catalyst is a cynical character.
Are our news sources cynical as well? I don’t know. I do know that I became a cynical news consumer, and an aggravated commenter. Read the comments beneath any news piece on the internet and feel the itch to log in and rejoin. En garde! Claim your space, bash the other side. Anonymously. Because who wants to be attacked for an opinion?
To be clear, news is not opinion. Journalism is not opinion. What we read today is primarily not news. What we find is an endless loop of links to opinion pieces that conform to our gut take on a news story, and we choose what we consume based on confirmation bias. Guests on TV nonfiction (can't call these news) shows are well-known for which side they’re on. News has become a virus-its sole mission to replicate itself.
Why do I see weekly Rush Limbaugh video on MSNBC shows except Rachel Maddow’s and Chris Hayes’? Because MSNBC is confirming our political bias, while whining that Fox News does the same thing. Why does Dee Dee Myers wish the Anthony Weiner story would go away, while agreeing to discuss the Anthony Weiner story on a Sunday nonfiction show?
Famine, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, is a character in Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman’s book Good Omens . Famine in this modern dark comedy owns a chain of fast food restaurants. The more you eat, the sooner you die of malnutrition.
A friend had been attending a mindfulness class. I asked what mindfulness meant. She gave me an example: pain is pain. It happens and then it abates. When one revisits the pain, that is suffering. Suffering is memory of pain, rather than pain itself.
I was starving for news and could not stop consuming. The news was making me suffer. I was lucky to regain my mental health because of Dr. Christine Tracy and her book, The Newsphere .
News addiction, in an era when news is mixed with opinion like a drug masked in a cocktail, has to be cured by avoidance. Dr. Tracy calls it going on a news diet. She changed my brain. I read the sites and the columnists I had bookmarked, only as Dr. Tracy suggested, I listened to my gut reaction. Was I angry? Did the news story make me think or just make me triumphant because I agreed, or furious because I did not?
One by one I offloaded the bookmarks. Inch by column inch, I quit reading the loudest side-takers. Then the more subtle nudgers. Any news that made my insides holler I stopped reading. In the newsphere, I trained my brain to read those writers/observers who advance my knowledge base, point me willingly to the writers who are thoughtful and can debate the other side, and give me facts I crave. Real news, real reporters. There are rules in journalism, and our world has abandoned too many. Where and when the rules are abandoned, I abandon those sources.
News can instigate dialogue and action. We must be aware and active participants in our news consumption. When I comment today, I point out where the piece went awry in actually beingnews.
I commented on an inflammatory headline on a major news site, and the headline was changed that day. I commented on an NPR story headline that misrepresented the report of a medical paper, and NPR changed the tagline. Was it me? I don’t know. I feel neither triumph nor anger. I did the thing it was appropriate to do.
Participation in news - in keeping news honest and informative - is healing, not damaging, both to the news cycle and the person consuming. Not reacting when reaction is the goal is a gift. What I learned from The Newsphere applies to life as well. I am calm. And grateful.

Untraining Boot Camp

We need a Boot Camp to unlearn patriarchy. We need an intense 6 week course of untraining. For the first 3 weeks, we unwind the tape. You are a little girl. You do not learn by rote (and suggestion that this will be your work onward) to wash dishes, do laundry, set the table, curl your hair, iron, cross your ankles when seated. You learn that polite is what everyone needs to be; that nice needn't be your primary characteristic. You have never had to kneel on the floor in school to make sure your skirt touches the linoleum, planting permanently in your brain that what you wear is more important than what you learn. Or any other unnecessary female wardrobe tyranny. You are still called on for the correct answer after 9 years old. No teacher or professor has told you what girls can and cannot do. You have never had an adult shame you because you are female; or observed a boy do this and not be reprimanded. You are told regularly by those in authority that you are equal: if not that, you never hear that you are not equal. You have not been counseled to get an education for jobs like teaching or cosmetology that will provide for you if you never marry. You are never told that joy for us is rare, that you will not measure up, that you cannot have a job, a career, a skill or a dream because you are a girl. The second half of Untraining Boot Camp. For 3 weeks we watch movies, television, look at magazines, browse websites, social media sites, advertisements, listen to people who do not know we are listening and understand finally and forever that too much of what we view repeatedly on every day of our lives is designed to make women feel inferior, commodified, diminished, and scared. And that what we experience in relationships and work is the result of the cumulative effect, and the implied entitlement to, and acceptance of, that bias. We hear women bear witness about sexual aggression on the street, at work, at home, on the battlefield. We testify in safety and begin to heal. When we graduate from Unlearning Boot Camp, we are qualified to teach others that women are every bit as capable, intelligent, and eager to succeed as any other gender out there. We will be a positive influence and stellar role model. We then can and will all move forward and kick patriarchy in the nards with our shiny new untraining boots.

The Sapphires Is Not About a White Guy

The Sapphires is a 2012 film made by Goalpost Pictures and distributed by Hopscotch Films in Australia. It is based on a play produced in 2004. It is about four indigenous women who formed a singing group and toured Vietnam in 1968. Now the DVD is being released in the US, distributed by Anchor Bay Entertainment. You can find it on iTunes. I'm not going to post the Anchor Bay DVD cover here because it makes me crazy mad to look at it. Instead of the 4 women of color that the movie is about (as beautifully shown in the Goalpost poster here), the Anchor Bay cover features Chris O'Dowd who plays the manager of the group front and center. In the back under a blue screen are the women, whitened and obscured for the American audience. So far, I've tweeted a couple of times about this, written to Anchor Bay and outed The Weinstein Company, which owns 25% of Starz Media - Anchor Bay's parent company.  Some of us have been eager for the DVD release. This is a movie about women - about women of color. We need this movie. What we don't need is a bunch of white boys deciding what the image for America needs to be. Sexist, racist, maddening, infuriating - I'm exhausted from the anger. The American entertainment industry is a cesspool of misogyny, and I can no longer accept that this is normal, and that this is the way entertainment will continue. Whitewashing women. Disappearing women. What can we all do to encourage women filmmakers, discourage Hollywood from their anti-women practices, and bring some measure of equity to the industry? Keep shouting foul when foul is delivered. I won't buy this film until the cover is changed. I won't buy anything distributed by Anchor Bay Entertainment until the cover is changed. Or Starz Media, or - I am unhappy to write - from The Weinstein Company. 25% complicit is too much. I'm out 100% until this nonsense is corrected.

My Sister

My sister drew this decades ago. It may be the only thing she's ever drawn, although she has a grandson now and maybe she will draw little pictures for him. The caption is still one of my favorite sayings to use when I need something more dramatic than my grandmother's "oh my aching back." My sister is a human being I described today as a prettier Yoda. She is the sibling who got all the common sense from the gene pool that stewed the Robinsons. She was born wise and has grown into good use of the wisdom. She tells me I'm weird. I correct her in the direction of bizarre. She gets a kick out of my naivety. The world and its people are always a surprise to me, repeated experience notwithstanding. Learning impaired. My mother would ask me "how many buildings have to fall on you before you get it?" My sister is honest, in the Heinlein Fair Witness sense. She is the same with everyone. Facts are facts, humans are flawed, the world isn't built to give us what we want. Pragmatic. And admirable. She's the last person to claim she has her shit together, which means she does. And she is funny. Oh, my, we need more humans like my sister.