Comrade Robinov

First to know you had a great time last night, then not remember what happened, and finally forget the experience entirely...that is the nature of dreams.

Yet daydreams, hopes, wishes...they never really leave us.

Why bother with a happy childhood when we're destined for misery in adulthood anyway?

I'm glad I don't really believe this.

Time is flying and my optimism from the summer has returned. What good things are around the corner? Don't tell me - they'll be more fun as a surprise!

I love this time of year. Classes begin in the afternoon heat and end after then sun has moved on to other parts of the world. My 6PM class on Thursday feels like it starts at night.

But I know that within a few short weeks, the semester will already be over and the sun will linger in the sky until after-class discussions have really begun to heat up.

Yesterday, I judged a speech and debate tournament for hundreds of talented high school students from all over the region. I put on a bowtie, handed out scented smiley-face stickers, and rang a bell when the students had consumed their allotted time.

While waiting for the next round to begin, a payphone rang.

It was grandmother who wanted to get in touch with her grandson. She had not heard from him and she wanted to make that he was safe. He wasn't around, but the old woman's passion inspired me to take down a message just in case. I hung up the phone.

She called again.

This time, she was pushier. She wanted my name. "John Steinbeck," I fibbed (she wrote it down: S-T-E-I-N-B-E-C-K), and for my phone number, I gave her the number of the payphone next to mine. We got to talking. She had such a thick Hispanic accent that I could hardly understand her at times. Intrigued by her devotion to her family and to her community, I developed my persona just to keep her on the line. "I'm a professor" I lied. "I graduated in 1956." I earned her trust.

She confided that in the south valley, every child gets the short end of the stick every time around. Even the brightest students have difficulty entering (and paying for) college. The schools are underfunded and understaffed but overcrowded. Parents often do not have the time or resources to make up for these deficiencies. I began to see that her passion is what it will take to help level the playing field and to improve the lives of all these sons, sisters, cousins, and neighbors. Every aspect of the community and the quality of life, from crime rate to level of pay all hinges on education. She went on: I don't know what it's like to deal with such unfair disadvantage from generation to generation in an entire community. She's right.

"These are good kids," she said. "They need attention - they do not get it at home. If we do not help them now, they will not have a future," she continued. Mrs. Baca tutors slow learners in her neighborhood, supplementing the overworked teachers as she helps children with their colors and ABCs. It's hard to imagine a world where your English teacher is bilingual...and English is not her first language!

After twenty minutes or so, it became too much for me to handle, so we began to wrap things up. "I'm not angry," she insisted. "I just want somebody important to know how unfair life is to these good kids." Her story sent me nearly into tears just listening to her quotidian troubles and views on life, especially when I realized that I can barely begin to place myself in her shoes.

I've been wondering what can be done to help, and I'm afraid because perhaps there is not much that we can do.

All I know is that every child deserves a mother like Mrs. Baca.

DonaldVote! is site of the day at Dan Pollock's Ninety Five Percent Monkey Free Homepage, and if you haven't voted yet, you really ought to right away. Tell your friends about how much fun you had, too.

Dear members of my generation:

Please refrain from writing any new books. Most of what you have to say is worth neither my time nor yours. There is a great deal of important literature written by those who lived before us that we ought to consider before we decide that we're as important as Horace and Milton. Even though there were fewer people on the planet in the past, what they had to say was more interesting and more useful than the feeble ideas of today. So put your manuscript in a drawer for nine years, and then decide if it's worth publishing.

To be candid, the problem is not so much that you're a bunch of fools - it's more that you need to get caught up on the past 10,000 years worth of thinking before you can really think for yourselves, and there are just too many people who think their ideas need to be heard today but who have no idea how stupid they really are. So unless you're absolutely certain your books will stand the test of time, don't bother. You'll only embarrass us to future generations.

Also, buy my books when they come out. You won't regret it.

All day, I've been wondering what this country would be like today if Thomas Jefferson's nail factory at Monticello had been profitable.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." --Theodore Roosevelt

I may be almost overwhelmed with the end of the semester, but I will finish everything, and I will do it competently. I am healthy and alert. Above all, everything is clear to me. My thoughts are clear - almost as clear as the perfect blue sky of a high desert December.

If my arms were longer, I could pick up the mountains and stick my pinkie in the volcanoes. I could so easily pluck a contrail-less airplane from the sky or put the moon in my pocket like spare change. When everything is so cool and clear, the world is vibrant, alive, near.

Albuquerque is inspiring. Writing papers and running errands, we are surrounded by almost infinite beauty. The trees out the window sway in the summer breeze; the great mountains and volcanoes rise in every direction. Look past the dilapidated gas stations. Look up. You'll see.

My best friend called me this morning from Los Angeles with some excellent news: he got engaged last night! I've known Jeffrey for a long time, and I know that the woman who inspires him to take her to a fancy seaside restaurant in Malibu before proposing on the beach will keep him happy for many decades.

I've met his fiancée (well, I met his girlfriend) and frankly I'm surprised it took them this long to get engaged. She's a charmer and as bright as can be, not to mention an older woman (well, she's a graduate student, but he's definitely older than his 21 years might suggest). It looks like I'll be headed off to Dallas at winter break next year for a wedding!

Also, I wonder if I'm still invited to bring a girlfriend out to California to meet them....they said they'd take us to all the hotspots of LA, maybe even to Disneyland!

Although he hasn't read Changing Places, Art Garfunkel has been keeping a list of books he's read since 1968.

( Here are the ones I've read too! )

This is seriously embarrassing - I have a ton of catching up to do! Then again, I'm still young, and there are many books I've read that he hasn't... And I've read so many of these authors, just not the particular book that he read. Also, I've now ordered a few more books (how much further behind can I possibly get?).

I wonder what books Paul Simon read - he was an English major!

There are millions of absentee ballots across the country. They still need to be opened and counted. Visualize those ballots. Concentrate on how they're virtually all Kerry ballots. Our mass consciousness seeing them as they are (filled out for Kerry/Edwards)...W will lose in an incredible John Kerry landslide after all.

This sounds kind of "out there," I know, but we can make the difference in the end.

Now that we're finally old enough not to need adult supervision, our jack-o-lanterns are becoming less and less sophisticated. Until it got dark out and the pumpkin took on a character of its own, I began to understand why collaborative art can be so frustrating.

( Cutting it up in the kitchen )



Happy Halloween!

Last night before going to bed, I went outside and looked up at the stars. It was cold, but clear. Beautiful!

The clarity from last night has continued into the day, and there's not a cloud in the blue New Mexico sky. The colors are changing, and so am I.

( Here are some artistic fall pictures. )

These pictures don't even begin to capture my mood today. Everything's just brilliant!

Let's do a little role playing for a minute. Pretend you're a parent. Your son bullies his friends, hurts his siblings, draws on the walls, breaks the dishes, and has gotten hold of your credit card, which he's maxed out at Toys-R-Us. To top it all off, he repeatedly lies about it all, and even when the truth comes out, he denies it and lies about the previous lies. What do you do?

I'm guessing nearly everyone would call for some sort of disciplinary action. It could be some sort of talking to, or it could be grounding for months.

But is there anyone who would encourage this sort of behavior, offering praise for creating chaos and handing out candy when irreversible damage is the intention? Unlikely.

Then why on Earth is this going to be such a close election?

Ezra Pound's mantra was "make it new."

In familiar endeavors and in old relationships this is crucial, but it's also important in new adventures as well.

Each day is an opportunity to "make it new" - to avoid falling into old traps that make projects and relationships boring and the same. Draw on the past to know yourself, but draw on the present and the future to make it new.

Every new day can be an adventure, whether in evolving comfort or in exciting new journeys.

Okay, okay, I know all those women who work at the Frontier will pass this exam, but how about the rest of you?

( Take the test )

There's no right or wrong answer, but I'm hoping for more reasonable results than I've had in the past. I'm the first to admit that it's a kind of creepy painting, but not so creepy that we can't sit in that room!

Yesterday, it was warm and summer-like. The birds played. I rolled up my sleeves.

Last night, it blew, rained, thundered, and hailed. With the best conversation I could ever hope for, midnight was magical.

Now there are leaves on the ground and the sky is dark. Autumn is here. The birds are pensive. I buttoned up my sleeves. Changes are budding all around.

It's cold outside, and wet.

But the roses aren't cold - they think it's still yesterday, summer.



I have said goodbye to a winter of my life that chilled my summers, and I feel a kind of summer approaching that will warm my winters.

Like those roses will soon discover, it may not be easy. But as the vines and the flowers have known for centuries, it will be worth it.

Let's not put the "fun" back in "funeral" - quiet reflection and sadness emphasize the people and events we make important in our lives. Yesterday - an appropriately overcast day - was a funeral for a 78-year-old diabetic friend. As is apparently customary in Jewish tradition, I waited my turn to toss a handful of dirt down onto the casket. I will never forget the sound it made with the soft rain in the background.