Ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

Hello friends. Recently, I decided it's time for a change. At least a change in my blogging life. My blog has never really had much of a focus. Hence the "Rena's Random Ramblings" title. I have so much randomness in my brain, I thought I could translate it into a blog. However, it's difficult to keep up with how random my brain is, and often I would be so excited about something I was going to write that I would completely forget to do it. What? That makes perfect sense.

So, I am moving. My blog, that is. My new focus is going to be on those everyday things in life that you just have to laugh at. The absurdities of life. The things we do that are so silly when you think about it, and you really just have to laugh. Even those things about which, if you don't laugh, you might cry. I have already exported all my old entries from this blog to the new address. There are no new entries yet, but hopefully soon.

It's not really a complete change. It's still me, and I will sometimes still be random, and there will definitely be times when I ramble. I just want the new address/title to represent more of my view on life. So, the new address is...

spendlifelaughing.blogspot.com

Click, follow, and let's share some laughter!

Furious

I am not a violent person. I don't believe in the death penalty. I don't think violence solves anything. However. Today, I think that all monsters who think that hitting an innocent child is acceptable should be drawn and quartered. Twice.

And maybe I could watch.

My brain is full

Sometimes you read something, and it causes a sort of paradigm shift in your brain. An avalanche of sorts, wherein your comfortable life is suddenly thrown into chaos, where the way you are used to thinking and acting is suddenly in question. It seems silly, I suppose, to those who have never had such an experience. How could one book/story/article have such an impact? How could something so small be so significant? Now, to those who are not fans of reading, I will warn you, you may not enjoy what follows. I have no idea how lengthy my thoughts may become, and I begin writing this knowing full well that I may lose every last one of you by the end. After all, we are all far too busy to take time to read such ramblings and rubbish. There are far too many other important things to be doing. But I begin writing anyway, with this paragraph as my disclaimer, because I feel the thoughts bouncing about in my brain are too important not to piece together in some way. This may be the epitome of the title of this blog, full of random ramblings, or it may become the least random and, in my wildest dreams, most thought-provoking entry of all.

This morning, I woke up without the help of an alarm clock, because I forgot to set it last night before collapsing into bed. It was too late to get to church, too early to get up and be productive, so I burrowed under my covers with a book bought in a moment of childhood nostalgia. A book I had read when I was younger, and apparently loved, though I had since forgotten many of the details. Rereading it, I wonder how much the girl I was really understood of what she was reading. The ramifications of such a book, written so long again, yet so salient in today’s culture. I read it straight through, along with the notes from and interview with the author, and then just sat, thinking, rolling everything around in my head, trying to make sense of my own thoughts. I have since made it to the living room, but I dare not turn on the TV for fear that the spell will be broken.

The book was Fahrenheit 451, written by Ray Bradbury.

If you have not read this book, I strongly suggest you do so. It was written 50 years ago, so it may not flow in the same way as books of today might, but it is only just over 150 pages, fairly short for a novel, and has plenty of breaks and stopping places, though once the action starts it is difficult to put down. This entry will be a major spoiler, but hopefully will add to the desire to read the book instead of detracting from it. In fact, I plan to put many quotes in that I found fascinating, though I will surely miss many of them, since I, unlike my dad, do not read with a highlighter and sticky tabs next to me. For this book, I wish I had. But I’m getting ahead of myself. For those who have not read it, I will start with a general synopsis and a snapshot of the world of Fahrenheit 451.

The book is set in the future, though exactly when is never revealed, which I think lends to an underlying message of the book: it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. In this future world, cars travel at speeds hovering around or exceeding 100 mph, even in the city. Billboards have been stretched to be readable at such speeds. Houses are equipped with television walls, with which viewers can interact and become part of the fictional world. Gone are front porches, where people might sit and talk and discuss ideas, or sit and get lost in their own thoughts. Houses have been made completely fireproof. And reading has become an offense punishable at the very least by jail time. Firemen are now in the business of setting fires, rather than putting them out. Friends and neighbors become spies and report any suspicious behavior. Murder and death have become almost negligible aspects of society, with no time spent on remembering or mourning. Bodies are incinerated immediately, their memories gone as quickly as the smoke from the fires where they are turned to ash. Marriages are simply a matter of convenience rather than connection, two strangers living in the same house, going about their separate lives with little interaction, and if a divorce or a death occurs, they simply move on to the next placeholder.

The main character of the story is a Fireman named Guy Montag. He is about 30 years old and has been a Fireman for over 10 years. At the beginning of the story, it seems he has never questioned his vocation, but quickly the reader realizes that he has never been quite happy, though he may not even realize it. He has simply always done what was expected, and never questioned, because to question is to arouse suspicion, to stand out from the crowd as an “odd duck.” Coming home from work one day, Montag meets a neighbor, a 16 (almost 17) year old girl named Clarisse, and she turns his world upside down. She is the proverbial straw the breaks the camel’s back, and all of Montag’s hidden feelings, desires, thoughts break free from the dam of propriety he and society have so carefully constructed. Though Clarisse exists in the book for just a few short pages and conversations, the impact she has on Montag shapes the rest of the story. Montag starts to realize he is not happy, and begins to see the things that society does not wish people to notice. The sense of disconnection in an overly connected world begins to grate on him, and he becomes angry when his attempt to breach that disconnection with his wife is a miserable failure.

Through foreshadowing, the reader realized that there is more to Montag than was originally presented, and we find out that he has his own stash of hidden books, though he has been too wary to actually read them. An attempt to bring his wife into his confidence ends in her betrayal, and Montag’s flight into the unknown. He picks up another confidante along the way, a retired English professor by the name of Faber, and in Faber Montag finds that slight hope that he is not alone, and that there might be others of similar thought, though many, like Faber, are too frightened to do much about it, with good reason.

That will do for a summary, I think. After all, I can’t give it all away! The part of the book where I really started to feel the shift was when the Fire Captain, a man named Beatty, visits Montag at his house when he is staying home “sick.” He gives a lecture that explains somewhat how books came to be banned. Some of the highlights are below. I apologize in advance for the length of the quotes, but it is important to read them to try to understand.

“Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending… Then, in midair, all vanishes! Whirl a man’s mind round about so fast, under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary time-wasting thought!”

“School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped. English and spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts… The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour.”

“More sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, and you don’t have to think, eh? Organize and organize and superorganize super-super sports. More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience. Highways full of crowds going somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, nowhere.”

“ The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines become a nice blend of vanilla tapioca.”

“It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.”

“… the word ‘intellectual,’ of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally ‘bright,’ did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn’t it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike.”

“A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?”

“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. .. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy… So bring on your clubs and parties, your acrobats and magicians, your daredevils, jet cars, motorcycle helicopters, your sex and heroin, more of everything to do with automatic reflex. If the drama is bad, if the film says nothing, if the play is hollow, stick me with the theremin, loudly. I’ll think I’m responding to the play, when it’s only a tactile reaction to vibration. But I don’t care. I just like solid entertainment.” {emphasis mine}

(Fahrenheit 451, The 50^th Anniversary Edition, Ray Bradbury, 1953, Ballantine Books, New York)

I know, I know. That’s a lot to trudge through. Believe it or not, I cut what I wanted to share. In short, the idea is that by the time books were actually banned, the majority of people barely noticed because there were so many other things to capture their attention. They had already, bit by bit, begun to turn their backs on the written word, so it was a natural progression to simply do away with books, especially those that might upset people, or step on toes. It was decided that people would be happier if they were just told what to think, rather than deciding for themselves.

How much of this is reflected in society today? It seems like everything needs to be maximized to keep our attention. There’s a new commercial out now for a car, and most of the commercial shows people in every public arena saying, “Bigger, bigger, BIGGER” over and over, until someone realizes that less is more, and a smaller car might be the way to go. It seems like everything needs to be more colorful, more outrageous, louder, more extreme than ever to try to fulfill us. We need to dance faster, laugh louder, play harder, and be busier than ever before. The country spends billions on violence and entertainment, which feed each other in equal turns, while children become more and more illiterate. Recent SAT scores are at an all-time low for the reading portion. And yet, we dance on, ignoring the glaring inconsistencies in what we deem important. The most important thing has become entertainment, yet even with the technology available to us, we are harder and harder to please.

If I may take a sidestep to branch off this topic, which of course I can, because it is my blog, I attended movies the past two weekends, and things stood out each time. Last weekend, I took my nieces, age 6 and (almost) 4 to see The Lion King. The Lion King originally came out in 1994, when I was 10 years old. At the time, it was spectacular, and I watched it numerous times, until I had most of the lines memorized. What was interesting about watching it with my nieces was that they were almost bored halfway through. Allie leaned over halfway through and asked if it was almost over. Now, these girls can sit in front of the TV for hours if they are allowed, but cartoons and movies these days, just seventeen years after the original release of The Lion King, have become so full of bright colors and action that anything more tame is simply unacceptable and boring.

It’s no wonder so many kids are diagnosed with ADHD.

This weekend, I went with a friend to see the movie Drive. The first part of the movie was intriguing. The main character didn’t say much, but sent messages through facial expressions and body language. I was actually quite impressed with Ryan Gosling's ability to convey so much visually. And then, halfway through, someone’s head exploded. Literally. And the movie spiraled into sequence after sequence of bloody gratuitous violence. I kept my hands in front of my face to block out the images that were splashed across the screen without warning, that I had no desire to see and have stamped into my memory. As the final credits rolled, all I could do was turn to my friend and say, “What the hell?” All the build up in the characters from the beginning of the movie was lost, even the storyline became shaky, though I gathered we were supposed to be cheering for The Driver, as he was called throughout the film, even as he stomped a man’s skull to mush.

Now how can I be writing about the dangers of censorship and talking about the unnecessary violence in a movie in the same entry? Really, just to illustrate my point that it takes so much more to get a reaction out of people anymore. There is no emotional connection to the characters in this violent movie, and every scene is followed by nervous laughter, a tension breaker, a reminder that it’s not real, just a clever trick of special effects and makeup. How did we get so desensitized to violence? How is it that we hear about murders, real murders, daily, and have but a fleeting twinge of remorse for a life lost, if that?

Clearly the message of my writing and of Ray Bradbury’s “Farenheit 451” is not just about books. It’s about society. It’s a warning to not let yourself be drawn in and convinced that you don’t need to think for yourself. Don’t become complacent. Try to slow down. Spend some time just sitting. Take a day with no electronics. Do away with Facebook for a weekend. Disconnect from technology and reconnect with real people. Spend time listening and learning, instead of filling silences with empty words and meaningless gossip.

If you’ve made it this far, bravo. I have more to say, but it will keep for a few days. I would love to hear about times when a book/movie/song has touched/rattled you the way “Fahrenheit 451” rattled me. As always, I encourage you to read read read. But at the very least, think. :)

A letter to my friends

Dear Blog Readers,
How are you? I am fine. I know I do not update much, but I think of you lots. Sometimes I think about writing an entry, and then I see something shiny and I forget. I would say I am too busy, but that would be a lie, because I am not busy at all most evenings. In fact, I have lots and lots of time, I'm just very lazy. I remember how I used to write letters like this when I was little. "How are you? I am fine." Those were the days.

I have had a very fun weekend. I got to eat at Olive Garden last night with some friends, and then we saw the movie "Drive." The movie was very bad. I will never trust critics again. They love movies I hate, and hate movies I love. Maybe I will go see the Taylor Lautner movie tomorrow, because the critics really hated that one. It could be my new favorite movie. Today I woke up very early and that made me sad. Also, I woke up with a chip of one of my caps on my teeth floating around my mouth, which was very weird, and now I have a rough edge on the tooth that keeps cutting my tongue, but I can't stop feeling it with my tongue. Like when you have a bruise and you just have to push on it every once in a while to see if it still hurts. My tongue will be shredded by the time I call the dentist. It's a major bummer because I just went to the dentist on Thursday. Oh well. They like me there anyway. My nieces came over this morning and we watched TV while my sister and her husband went house hunting. I also got to see Maddy play soccer, which is fun because some of the kids are very into the game, and others prefer to practice ballet or do the splits out on the field. Quite entertaining. Maddy's team scored about 30 goals, and the other team didn't score any, which was kind of sad for the other team. It was a beautiful day for a game though. And tonight I went and saw Daphne Willis in concert, which was also fun.

It is fall now, which is my favorite season. I like to crunch the leaves. And the changing colors are awesome. And pretty. And beautiful. And amazing. If I ever get married, it will be in the fall.

Well, dear friends, this is quite long enough, and I have to go paint my nails and go to bed. I think tomorrow I will write some real cards to people and try to write more in my novel. Maybe you will all read it someday. Write back soon. Lots of love. Best Friends Forever. Call me.

LOVE, RENA

We all have our reasons

The picture above was taken in the staff bathroom at my school. Weird, maybe, but there are often questions written for people to answer, which is sometimes the most interaction we get to have throughout the day sans kiddos. This one struck me, because it brings to light all the different reasons people do what they do.

Teaching is similar to social services in that no one goes into it for the money. Whether it was a revered teacher or a family tradition, a surprise passion or planned from childhood, everyone has their own story. Working with people at all can be difficult, and working with kids can be especially trying, for a variety of reasons.

What I also like about the responses is that it shows the variety of people who choose the same career. From the serious responses to the fallback plan after failing as the fifth Beatle, people's personalities come out when asked questions like this. It's interesting walking around the school and hearing just bits of the teaching going on in each classroom. I might walk past a class where all the kids are sitting still as the teacher commands their attention with a firm voice, or a class where the kids are all hopping around the room like frogs. I hear laughter as kids walk in wobbly lines through the hallways, always accompanied by the "shhhh" sounds from other kids and adults.

I feel like a celebrity walking through the halls of my school. My clients go out of their way to give me hugs, or wave wildly from across the library. Sometimes they just give a small wave, not to be too uncool in front of their friends. There is always the question, "When are you coming to get me?" which I try to answer diplomatically as I pass. Many times even kids I have never met will run up to me and say, "Hi, Rena!" and grin as I return the greeting. When I sit in my office, it is not unusual for kids to run in and draw something on my chalkboard, or just run in and stand in front of me, smiling a little smile and waiting for me to say something brilliant. Sometimes they ask why I have so many toys, to which I always reply, "For me to play with." They tell me that I'm an adult and can't play with toys, and we argue back and forth.

Kids are unpredictable. They're hilarious. They are my passion, and as hard as it can be sometimes to work with them, there is nothing else I could see myself doing. What is your passion? How did you choose your path?

Generations

I have always been somewhat of a history nerd. I find it fascinating to learn about how people used to live, how they did everyday things, what would have been the norm for them. It's no wonder, then, that I find even the differences in the generations surrounding me to be interesting. For example, I never owned a cell phone until college, and now elementary schoolers have nicer phones than I do. I got my first CD in middle school. Now my 3 year old niece has her own iPod Touch. I realize that these are not just generational, but cultural norms. But I have already turned into that old lady that says to kids, "Why, when I was your age, I had to go sit on the basement stairs to talk on the phone because that's all the further the cord would reach!"

In recent conversations with my mom, I have discovered that in some cases I am even more of a crochety old lady than she is! Not that my mom is a crochety old lady. Not in the least. Of course I didn't mean it that way. (Hi, Mom!) Here are just some of the ways that we differ in opposite ways than you would expect.

BOOK VS KINDLE
I inherited my love of reading from both my parents, but my mom and I share a similar taste in reading materials. For her birthday last year, we all pitched in and got my mom a Kindle. Since then, my mom and I have had many debates over which is better: a real book or a book on Kindle. I totally understand that a Kindle is lighter than most books, and you can put hundreds of books on a Kindle, so they're all right there. Easier to carry around, easier to hold in many cases. Definitely quick and easy access to books. But for me...I love the smell of books. I love buying new books that have that "new book smell," and I love going to the library and smelling the old books. (Shut up, it's not weird.) I like to be able to hold a book in my hands, turn the pages, know at a glance how far into the book I am. I love the ink stains on my fingers after spending hours immersed in a book. I will confess that I'm a flipper...I like to sneak a peek at the end of the book, just to see what names are still around...and I'm not ashamed. :) I like marking my place with momentos that I use until I lose them. (Currently, a musician's business card) Even though I'm all for instant gratification, there's something fun about the anticipation of waiting for a book to arrive from Amazon. Clearly, I am a big dork, and it's possible that if I had a Kindle I might be swayed, but I don't know...

PHONE CALLS VS TEXTING
I worked with teenagers for two years, and one of the common complaints from parents was that their teenagers wouldn't pick up the phone and call, but resorted to text responses. It also seems like it's parents who tend to feel slighted when their kids don't call them. Not so with my parents. They are busy little beavers, and I'm pretty sure, much as they love me, they probably wouldn't call me unless they hadn't heard from me at all in over a week. Several times I have called my mom to chat, only to receive a text in response, asking what I need. I have joked with my mom about this, so she made an effort to call me to tell me I got her hooked on a new book series I forced her to read (REAL books, mind you). Again, total role reversal, as I would talk to my mom several times a week if it was my choice.

MARRIAGE
Okay, so this isn't a versus topic, and my mom and I actually don't disagree on this one. Much as other mothers might needle their 27 year old daughters about being married, my mom could care less. That sounds mean, but it's true. Not that she doesn't want me to get married. She wants whatever will make me happiest. Now, my niece Madelyn, on the other hand, plays the part of the interfering mother quite well. Almost every time I see her these days she comments on my marital status, and makes suggestions about how I should go about 'fixing' the fact that I am single. She's even got the passive aggressive guilt tripping down: "I'll just live with Auntie Rena when I'm in high school...she probably won't be married by then anyway." Yeah. Hilarious. Mostly ;)

In conclusion (this is how you end essays), the way generations look at things can be extremely different, but clearly there are abberrations, as is the case with my mother and me. (Yes, I called us abberrations.) But my mom is my best friend, and anyone who knows me knows that you have to be somewhat bizarre to be my friend, even if you're my mother. Yes. Crap, I have no good way to end this.

Oh! The other half of my brain and I started a blog together. It has exactly one entry. But there will be more. Hopefully. We need topics, so if you read this, check it out and leave a topic or question for us to ramble about. (Unless, of course, weird and random doesn't 'do it' for you, in which case, disregard this paragraph.)

Like the Tin Man. You know, from The Wizard of Oz?

I have been practicing therapy in some capacity for almost five years now. First in grad school, then as a Functional Family Therapist, and now as a school-based therapist. In the grand scheme of things, that's not very long. In many ways, I still feel very ill equipped to deal with some of the things that are brought into my office, and I know that I have much to learn as I continue on in my career. (That's why they call it practice, eh?) The thing with therapy is that you can never be fully prepared for things clients might bring to you. Each case is different. No two kids/families are alike. Even within the same families, there are different perspectives and dynamics. One of the reasons my job never gets boring. There's always something new coming up, a new challenge to conquer.

I have to wonder though, if I have come to see clients more as challenges than as people. I feel in some ways as if I have been jaded in my short time dealing with the problems of others. I went into this field because I feel for people, because I wanted to be able to help them through difficult times, help them to find ways to cope and to see things in a new and more hopeful light. To be able to improve their world even in just a small way, and thereby help improve the worlds of others as well. The ripple effect and all that. But again, I wonder, have the past few years built up a wall? Have I become someone heartless in all my magic therapist wand waving? Has the challenge of solving everyone's problems started to dehumanize the people with whom I work?

This isn't a new question. I have often had people ask me if it's ever hard to hear the things I hear. I have to be honest with them when I say, no, typically I can distance myself. Uncomfortable, sometimes, yes, but it doesn't do the client any good if I go to pieces when they're telling me their story. The other day, though, I went to talk to one of the teachers about a student who will be starting in her class. I wanted to let her know about some very traumatic things that have happened recently and are still happening, so that she would be prepared to deal with a kid who has the potential to act out when things are tough at home, but who is such a sweet kid otherwise. As I was talking, the teacher dropped to her seat, hand on her heart, and listened with tears in her eyes. She was truly feeling all this trauma that I was explaining to her, and it brought me up short. I don't remember when the last time was I truly let myself feel like that for one of my clients. So what does that mean?

This is where I have always been torn. I care about my clients. A lot. I will fight for them with parents, teachers, other therapists, whoever, to do what is best for them. But I can't honestly say I spend a lot of time thinking about them outside of work. They cross my mind, as surely as any other coworkers or acquaintances with whom I come into contact regularly. But they rarely even enter my dreams. Sometimes that has made me feel uncaring and, yes, heartless. I have talked to other therapists who care so deeply for their clients that they dream about them constantly. But would that be helpful, for me, or for them? I don't think so. I have had to build that boundary, that wall, to keep out the emotions that could drag me down and prevent me from doing my job, which is to help clients and families work through their trauma. How can I help them if I am feeling traumatized myself?

I worry, though, that this is leaking into my personal life as well. How do you separate how you operate in your career from how you operate the rest of the time? They are bound to overlap. I don't have the answer. I just pray that I am not becoming as heartless as I sometimes feel.