Archive for March, 2011

I wrote and designed this print-based ad for Equinox Consulting, illuminating the benefits gained by working with an IT consulting firm.

The following appeared in Do Justice: A Social Justice Road Map, a collection of essays about engaging culture for the sake of bringing about positive change. (Three Rivers, MI: Culture is Not Optional,  2008. 64-68.)

Written in a colloquial, somewhat aggressive tone, this is a persuasive essay that originally appeared as a post on my travel blog. A reader who is also a publisher enjoyed the post and asked me to spruce it up and submit it for this publication.

Dreamers Vs. Dreamingers

Don’t Get Cynical, Get Even

I am not cynical.

I appear to have a lot of people fooled, though.

Quick background: I’m 28, spent the last seven years or so wandering around—including an 8 month stint with the Peace Corps in Bangladesh—and am currently living in Malawi, Africa spending other people’s money on a “freelance” development gig. I work with a few orphanages, generally trying to help in whatever ways I can. It’s as much an experiment in human nature, with me as one of the test subjects, as a do-gooder mission.

I think people are generally more bad than good. Most Western aid to Africa doesn’t work and some of it does more harm than good. The human race does not, in general, move forward. We are no less barbaric than we were four thousand years ago. The situation of the poor here in Malawi is not going to get better for a long time.

But I am not cynical.

I don’t think telling the truth is ever cynical. And the truth just isn’t very pretty sometimes. Nor is it always fun, engaging, or easily identified. When the glass is well below the halfway line, it’s not half-full—it’s time for a refill.

Let’s say there are two kinds of dreamers. Those who have a dream (Dreamers) and those who dream as a way of life (Dreamingers). I’m trying to be the former and not the latter. I’m tired of Dreamingers. I’m tired of being called a pessimist by people who’d rather fantasize about tomorrow’s reality than start building the bridge from today’s. I’m sarcastic. I chuckle about gross injustices when there’s nothing I can do about them (which is precisely the reason I usually don’t chuckle about American politics). Not everyone needs to be sarcastic; it’s my way of coping. It’s an alternative to outright disillusionment. Disillusionment is the shock, the heartbreak that comes from being ambushed by the awfulness of the world. It takes the idealistic wind out of your sails; it shoots you out of the sky.

What gets me frustrated is when I see some people racing off towards that brick wall with a big D painted on it. They hit it and fall hard. They sink like Peter trying to walk on water—except in this story they go all the way to the bottom. That’s when you’ve become cynical. When the disillusionment has truly felled you. When you’re no longer looking out for the good. Others do what really drives me nuts: They treat disillusionment like an ugly pink eviction notice and they slip it into the bookshelf hoping it will blend in with the other printed material. They learn to ignore it. They buy the groceries, read the funny pages, raise the kids. They forget about that awfulness they caught a glimpse of once upon a time. It’s always there, but if you talk about the kind of new blender you want to buy and the rising prices of cable TV for long enough and with enough people who think likewise, it can start to feel like maybe these are really the things that matter. Still others live in a fantasy world, constructed by their egos or religion or just plain old naïveté. Dreamingers.

I can’t think of a place that’s been hurt more by these Dreamingers than Africa. Almost every white Westerner around here has a plan, a Land Rover, a load of money, and a heart bursting with guilt and charity. The intentions are usually good, if a bit egocentric—(“What can I do with my life to help these poor people who clearly both want and need my assistance?”). But the results are a continent in extreme crisis that is just as often exacerbated as helped by the new school or orphanage that someone built over there. Within a mile radius of my place here in Malawi, there are no less than three orphanage/preschools whose once-cheery and colorful marquees have been painted over or left to fade in the hot sun, and whose interiors have become, at best, squalid bedrooms for some family, and at worst, completely deserted rat hotels. One well that was dug by the Indianapolis Rotary Club has been taken over by a local man who now sells the water and keeps the profit. I cannot express to you how common this phenomenon is. The former executive director of the orphanage for which I volunteer now (another local man) started and led the place effectively for years, only to sexually abuse the kids and staff, take money from the orphanage’s coffers, and effectively chase away all of the good help, by and by. This stuff happens all the time.

Why? Because we in America believe in magic bullets. We want our TiVo. It shows in our public opinion about things like universal health care: We desire it but we don’t want to pay taxes like the Canadians or the Norwegians to get it. When we came under attack from Islamic militants, we didn’t want to stop and think about the dizzyingly complex and widespread cycle of poverty and destitution that produces this kind of extremism. Instead we beat a quick path to the armory and taped American flags to our windows. In terms of development, we want to believe that buying the right concert ticket or a special GAP t-shirt will really help just enough that we can continue going about our daily lives, guilt-free. And, more to the point, we want to believe that if it actually takes fifty years to teach a man to fish and we weren’t exactly planning on that, we can get away with buying him a fancy new pole.

Africa is littered with failed projects by Westerners who didn’t get it. A friend recently told me about an article she read about “development porn” (I have a handy excuse for not reading and citing it here: I’m in Africa! Internet time costs an arm, a leg, and a goat). The big, staring eyes and distended bellies, interspersed with shots of emaciated infants crying to make you feel as guilty as possible and get you to pick up the phone and pay $22.50 a month. It’s selective images from the Third World intended to give you a certain picture and make you believe that you can make a difference with your credit cards. I’m not commenting on those kinds of programs’ efficacy—after all, credit cards have to come in somewhere—but rather the advertisements’ veracity. They’re a filter through which to view the Third World, whose root motivation is to get money out of you. You’re left with the impression that if only we who have televisions would give money to those people wearing Panama hats with the kids on their laps, it would all be fixed. The truth is so, so much harder than that. The real change happens with back- and heartbreaking work, on the ground and over the long term. All together now: GRASSROOTS. If you come to Africa with both guns blazing, spraying money every which way, starting new projects that aren’t anchored by years of training and/or experience; if you haven’t seen firsthand the cornucopia of crap that comes along with poverty and injustice; and if you haven’t acknowledged it to be such, then you’ve taken your first steps as a Dreaminger. I could give at least ten pages of examples of such ugliness without stopping—and you certainly don’t have to go to halfway across the world to experience it.

So what good is all of this “truth,” or that which we previously thought of as cynicism? It forces you to draw the hard conclusion: We have to change ourselves. It’s about markets and awareness and demand and language and geography and beliefs and history. It’s about the whole system. It’s not about Africa or South Asia or even The Third World at all. It’s about the whole system, which means that creating change in North America is just as important as creating change in Africa. After all, we’re the ones consuming the toys, burgers, and cars and dumping the waste into the air, water, or land(fills) when we’re finished. Admitting our own culpability in contributing to the gross injustices in the world takes the kind of humility and courage that few of us possess in great quantity. It forces you to confront your own shortcomings—even those that were handed down to you from previous generations—and makes you one heck of a wet blanket from time to time. It’s no fun to think about. It begins to feel like everything we’ve touched has gone bad. To confront those bad feelings without pat reassurances and without curling up into the fetal position is the best training I can think of to equip a person for a legitimate assault on injustice. And this assault is what gets me excited. In my incredibly short career thus far in development, I’ve been leveled at least a dozen times. That is to say, taught a lesson. Proven very, very wrong. Embarrassed. I usually go through a few days or weeks of self-pity and yes, some disillusionment. But every time I get a little wiser, and a little less afraid of what will happen next time I fall on my face. My heart doesn’t ache for the kids like it used to. It aches for the system that left them flat, and gets pissed off enough at that system to want to go out and do something about it.

I’m not saying I’ve found the perfect way to scale that wall of disillusionment and I’m not saying I’ve got the perfect dream. (And naturally, by writing this article I’m setting myself up to be called, perhaps rightly, a hypocrite.) I’m just saying that any attempt at redemption needs to have a working relationship with the suffering and misery it’s trying to overcome. Don’t get cynical, get even. Dig a foundation of determination that runs deeper than the disillusionment—you’ll probably get really dirty and you’ll have to make several trips back to the hole to make it deeper before you can set the forms and pour the cement. But do it anyway. The thing about the Dreamers who might seem cynical is that the hope is way, way down there. It waits, like an undiscovered diamond, hard and unmovable, compressed by hardship and sadness. Heck, sometimes they even talk cynically, but it’s just an act: They’re redemption addicts on an undercover mission to infiltrate and systematically destroy—then rebuild, brick by brick.

During my tenure with the Peace Corps in Bangladesh, I kept a personal travel blog. Here are a few entries exemplary of my off-the-cuff, casual writing style. Click the date to visit the blog itself.

January 29, 2006

Pneumonia, in the Study, with the Candlestick

This is the post I hope my parents don’t read.

I just can’t seem to catch any really cool diseases. The bronchitis hasn’t really gone away, and now it looks like I might have pneumonia. But they’re not sure. And, um, yeah, there’s a “spot” on the X-ray. Now this probably isn’t a big bad “spot,” in fact, it’s probably just an irregularity on the film. But nonetheless I get to cough my phlegm into a special cup that resembles something from an alchemist’s lab. I’ve been getting fevers (not too bad, usually 102 or so) and don’t have an appetite. And tomorrow–you guessed it–they’re going to collect some of the discharge from the other end. Oh, and I’ve lost weight. I now weigh less than I have since high school. But that’s deceiving since I’ve only really lost 14 pounds. Unfortunately, 14 pounds off a skinny guy is like 58 pounds off of some portlier gentleman.

All that said, I could be a lot worse. And they had Top Gun on cable last night at the fancy hotel, so I’d say as a tradeoff for the current ailment it was worth it.

And on the bright side, I saw a large box of laundry detergent in a store last night whose name, printed in bright red letters (ala Surf or Tide) was “Barf.” So I could feasibly be washing my clothes in barf tonight.

But on the non-bright side, that moment at which she said “spot on the X-ray” was a little surreal–that is, before she explained that it’s probably nothing and at worst it’s a little tuberculosis. You know, that moment at which you feel like you’re in a movie. Sweat instantly forms on the forehead and you feel very small and insignificant. You instantly try to think of all of the unhealthy things you’ve done over the last year and go “D’oh!” when you realize there have been many. The word “Cancer” echoes in your mind from a thousand doctors behind a thousand desks behind a thousand closed doors.

But that’s a bit extreme. Let’s not write my obituary just yet.

Hey no wait, let’s do that.

“Died valiantly saving Chuck Norris and Nelson Mandela from a burning snake pit while solving world hunger. Plans to regenerate and revive him as a Batman-like superhero are currently underway. He is survived by a loving family and thousands of beautiful and talented women who had hoped to be the love of his life.”

But anyway.

 
March 12, 2006

NO

It’s over.

PC Bangladesh has been suspended (read: shut down). I am typing this from a room in Washington, DC, where we have all been consolidated and await our Close of Service seminar. Why? Because someone in one of the towns in B’desh got threatened by a member of an Islamic extremist group.

My grief, and the grief of other volunteers, has at times been overwhelming. We had just gotten through some of the toughest times; we were excited about actually starting to do some things that we could be proud of for the rest of our lives. This was our home.

Why did I ever waste a single day feeling sorry for myself? More often than not I was annoyed by the legion of little kids outside my door constantly trying to get whatever piece of me they could. On my way to the bus station they chased my rickshaw repeating the same “Halllo, Uncle!” just like any other day. Some days I would smile and reply back in Bangla, but most days I’d just ignore it if I was in a bad mood. On this day I just stared. It was a lot easier not to get down about the state the world’s in when I could tell myself I was at least doing my part to stem the tide.

No one understands why we have left. I will be forever replaying the mental tapes of the faces of my colleagues and friends falling one after another when they learned the news. There was a pattern: First, the eyes would fall as the information was processed. Immediately following, the eyes would flit about the floor in order to assess the believability that such an unsuitable thing was really happening. Next, the eyes would return to my face and the mouth would protest: “But Bangla Bhai and Sheikh Abdur Rahman were captured!” After my flimsy explanation, the eyes would lag off to the side and the mouth would stall, wishing it could speak better English or that mine could speak better Bangla so we could sit down together and work out that Peace Corps was WRONG, I COULD stay and this was all a big mistake. The eyes would come back and ask, “You’re really leaving? For good?” Yes. And then the face would change to match mine. “Oh, this is very sad news for us.”

And I had nothing to say.

When I first touched down in Bangladesh, I’d never have admitted it but I was filled up mostly with what should be called dread. Leaving on the plane yesterday, the only thing I could think was

NO

No. This is not right. It feels like someone has died. While this is not as dire a loss as the loss of a friend, spouse, or fiancee, I am reminded of Laura G.’s loss of her love a few years ago. They had only been “together” for less than a year. But in that time they had found a love that made them happy to think about the future. YES! I’VE FINALLY GOT SOMETHING RIGHT! THIS IS WHAT MY LIFE FROM NOW ON WAS SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE. Then not.

And that’s only for me. It’s less than a picnic for the hundreds of friends and colleagues around the country whose hopes for their respective towns–well founded or not–were resting on the work of some kids from America. So many want to leave the country as it is. Every day someone would ask me to take them–sometimes as a joke, sometimes not. Most who are fortunate enough to leave the country to get a good education don’t come back. How can things ever get better?

And yet this is a nation that has come back from floods, war, oppression, and extreme overpopulation and continues to thrive. Maybe they’re better off without us coming and raising false hopes among the educated few with whom we fraternize.

January 7, 2006

war of attrition

Today 2 students whose English level is better than the rest of their classmates found out that they were not selected to be in my upcoming English class because, as I attempted to explain, they would not learn very much since they already know what most of the other students are about to learn. These two accosted me and we had . . a . . discussion. Lower lips quivered, and there was crying. Without the certificate they would earn from my class–and apparently the mental benefit of taking a class with the first foreigner they’ve ever met–they believe that their job prospects would be significantly poorer. I’m sure they prepared for days, if not weeks, for the screening interview that ironically eliminated them.

My tentative “solution” was to invite them to my once-a-week open practice session on Wednesdays, which is currently populated only by other teachers from the DYD, since that is the only demographic group that I am currently instructing. It’s an informal session and not part of a class.

So. The teachers who are in my class hear of this offer. Immediately they come to me and protest, saying that it is not proper for students and teachers to mix in such a fasion. They will not allow students to attend the practice session.

“But, just for practice?”
“It is our culture.”

Faaaantastic. Now, here’s the thing: these teachers are not selfish or bad people. They are actually quite nice and easy to get along with. In other words, they’re right–it really is their culture that students and teachers can’t even practice English together even though English practice is what people beg me for EVERY DAY.

Situations like this are quite common for PCVs in Bangladesh. But as I ran down the 4 flights of stairs to my counterpart’s office, thinking about my missing cell phone (Peace Corps-issued), angry landlord, ear infection, bronchitis, crying students, and best friend’s wedding (the one I’ll be missing in a few days), I felt really good. Maybe it’s just that being the center of attention is nice, even when it’s not all positive attention. Maybe it’s just the delicious irony. But at the time, I’m thinking the most likely reason is that it really is pure bliss to feel relevant. And I do. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have a lot of love (or at least liking) for myself. But today, I felt relevant. If I have a bad day because I’m feeling sorry for myself because I’m sick, then my cause here suffers. Maybe those students would cry for any foreigner, but there aren’t any other foreigners here, now, teaching an English course. I guess it only feels like I’m doing something good if something’s going wrong at the same time.

Matt and Brielle: Someday soon I will tell you about the my failed plot to get an early leave to come home for your wedding. I did try, and I even told a few fibs to my superiors in doing so. But it didn’t work. I love you both more than I have shown. And I am not a little saddened that I will be here and you will be there. It’s the only thing that I have regretted about coming here.

Hey, I think this might be the first post where I haven’t tried to make any jokes or write anything funny. Maybe the Blue Fairy will make me into a real boy now.

Composed for the organization Goods for Good, these are concurrent Twitter and Facebook updates publicizing the organization’s annual Gala for Good.

3102 words

Fiona laughed. So did he. She leaned back into her chair, a bit more at ease. Maybe this would work after all. Trying to segue smoothly, she straightened her note pad on her lap, and, making sure to keep a pleasant, casual tone, said, “So you can see why some people have a problem with that sometimes.”

“Yes. I can see that. Some people, you just never know.”

“Right. So that’s why I’m suggesting–”

“Did you happen to see the other house on this road? The one up by the end of the gravel?”

Fiona breathed, maintained. “No.”

“The one with the windmill out front? You didn’t see it?”

“Oh, the one with the hedge out front?” she said, seething internally.

“Yes. That house. They’ve got such a problem with, uh, with them termites nowadays, they’re just going to let it crumble and Alvin tells me he’s not going to bother until the roof caves in. Then after that they’ll clear everything out of there and Alvin says he’ll just . . Build a new one.” The old man smiled warmly and shook his head, looking at nothing. He chuckled slightly. “Boy old Alvin. I’ll tell you what.”

“Hah,” laughed Fiona artificially. “Do you think that’ll happen to this house? What if–”

“Oh, no, that won’t happen to this house. My father built it and he knew how to build, boy. I’ll tell you.” Now he was grinning and looking at her like a second grade teacher welcoming a new student to the class.

She tried another tactic. “I see. And how many of you lived in the house when you were a boy?”

“Oh, let’s see. When I was a kid, there were eight of us in here. Course I shared a room with my brothers.”

“And now it’s just you?”

“Now it’s just me. Only one left.”

“But it was built for eight of you.”

“That’s right. Held up pretty good, I think. I’ve had to patch the roof a couple of times, and fix some water pipes, this’n’that, but just about all of the original timber’s still in it–”

“AND wouldn’t you prefer a smaller place, that’s easier to keep clean? I mean, I’m sure there are some young families around here that could use a bigger house like this one, especially with so much character.”

“Nah I don’t think so. Nowadays those houses cost so much–”

“Actually, if you–”

“–and I’ve got all of my junk out in the garage, and it would take too long to move. Plus I like to have people over sometimes.”

Fiona looked around the room, momentarily considering whether or not to tactfully state that the house wasn’t exactly conducive to having people over. The living room where they sat was stacked almost to the ceiling with shoe boxes, shirt boxes, and any other kinds of boxes of that size. The dusty curtains, which were drawn, as always, were not without charm, hand-made with a rich paisley pattern, but faded and frayed. The couch upon which the old man sat was dog-eared and smelled of old pipe tobacco. Even Fiona’s chair, pressed up against a mountain of boxes, rocked back and forth on unbalanced legs whenever she stirred. It was a bit unnerving and made her feel less professional than she’d wanted to appear. The old man generally stared ahead, and though his eyes pointed at the TV, which was off, they were not looking at it. Rather they seemed to be looking back inside him, as his mouth hung in a soft, fixed, somewhat detached smile. He looked to be in a constant state of remembrance. It made him difficult to talk to, as he appeared not to be listening whenever she spoke. Still, he responded to questions and seemed unbothered by Fiona’s presence.

“Ah, of course,” she said, shifting again and pulling the collar of her blazer slightly. Holding her face with her pen hand and cocking her head, trying to look understanding, she put it to him again. “I can certainly see why leaving would be a difficult thing for you. You’ve got so many roots here, and memories, and . . . collections and things. The family tradition is important. That’s why I’ve suggested that you sell to Mr. Dyksterhouse. Since he’s a friend of the family, he can–”

“Oh, Mike’s a good guy, yeah. But I really don’t need to sell the house, so I’d just as soon stay around.”

Fiona breathed, a little more quickly, and smiled. “But, I’m sorry if I’m not explaining it right, Mr. Dortmund, you . . do have to sell the house. Do you remember what I said before? The bank has to foreclose. They could have foreclosed two months ago. It’s only because they’re such good friends and such good people that they’ve waited this long. Unless someone you know has got a lot of money, there’s no other option.”

“Well, that’s how you see it, Miss. I’ve known Harv for a long time, and he understands how things have been around here. He’s not going to give me any trouble.”

“But I spoke with him this morning, Mr. Dortmund. He wanted me to try to talk to you because he couldn’t seem to get through.”

“And I have a daughter who lives in the city. She’s making a lot of money and she always takes care of me. Have I ever told you about her?”

Fiona smiled, though her reserves for doing so were nearly exhausted. “Yes, you told me all about her . . Yesterday when I came,” she lied.

“Oh yeah, okay, I remember. You know, she might make six figures this year. I think she’s got enough to pay off whatever debts I can’t handle.”

“Oh, Mr. Dortmund. I’m sure she’s wonderful, just wonderful,” said Fiona, with an edge of urgency. “But I’ve already spoken with her too, and she wants to help, but she just can’t afford it with all of the interest that’s been accrued.”

“And I can sell that old tractor too. It’s worth a lot of money as an antique, and I don’t really care to keep it around anymore.” He remained as even and cool as if they had already had this conversation a hundred times. He might as well have been down at the barber shop.

Fiona scribbled on her pad and tongued her canker sore. Damn it. “I had the tractor assessed for you.” Oo, that was good. She congratulated herself silently for such quick thinking. “It’s worth about eleven thousand on the antique market. That’s less than one tenth of what you owe.”

The old man looked placidly at her and then back at the mound of boxes. He was thinking of what to say, not at all worried whether the right thing would come to him or not. “Well, anyway I don’t need the money. I’ve got a lot saved.”

Fiona exhaled sharply. “Mr. Dortmund, I’ve already told you, you do NOT have a lot saved. Your savings are gone! When winter comes you won’t even be able to pay your heating bill!”

“My savings are not gone. I have plenty from the last spud harvest.”

“No, I’m sorry but you don’t, sir.”

The old man looked at her and something flashed in his eyes. “Now you listen to me, honey. You come in here and try to run all of my affairs and tell me I don’t have any money, and I’m telling you I’m not paying you one red cent and you can just get along back to your office and tell them that!”

“Mister Dortmund, I am here on behalf of the bank and Mr. Dyksterhouse to tell you that if you don’t sell this house, you will be evicted! Do you understand what that means? You will be thrown out! I’m not the enemy! I’m trying to help you!”

“You’re NOT going to throw me out of my own HOUSE, do you hear me?!” He was yelling now. “You’d better get out of here right now or I’ll call the police! And I know those guys too!”

Fiona threw up her hands. “DAD! . . .”

Her hand immediately shot up instantly to cover her mouth, then she quickly put it back down.

Oh no.

“Mr. Dortmund I mean. Mr. Dortmund.”

He was staring at her with a look of terror in his eyes. He stuttered for a few seconds, “You–y–it–you–y–y– . . .” and his face transformed from that of a perturbed but amicable old man, to a bitter, vindictive, abandoned old farmer. “You vicious, cheap . . . My daughter is a beautiful, sweet, loyal . . . she’s . . she’s not some stupid crone like you!! You dare insult my daughter, you . . You stinking . . . WHORE! Y–y–y–you hag! You–”

Fiona shrieked and threw her notepad on the ground. She pressed her lips tightly to keep any more words from tumbling–exploding–from her mouth, and ran out of the living room, leaving her father raving and screaming after her.

“You, you GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! You filthy little . . If you ever talk about my daughter, you stinking. . .”

The screen door wailed and slammed behind her as she fumbled down the decrepit wooden steps out into the yard. She stumbled awkwardly as one of her high-heeled shoes caved in, twisting her ankle to one side. She kicked both shoes off furiously and continued, limping, out toward the stand of trees opposite the house on the other side of the yard. Her face was a dam on the verge of bursting. She vocalized a seething whimper with each breath, through clenched teeth and closed lips, like someone undergoing surgery without anesthetic.

Her father was still yelling. He put his head out the window to the front driveway, where her white Saturn was parked. Fortunately, the driveway lay in another direction, and he could not see Fiona from this vantage point. “Get off of my property!” he yelled at the car.

“SHUT UP!” Fiona screamed, just loud enough to risk his hearing her. She knew he never wore his hearing aids except to church, though, and he put his head back inside the house without turning his head in her direction. “Shut up.” It felt good. She started to sob as she made her way trippingly towards the barn. Where was she going? She wasn’t sure. She wanted to keep walking and never come back. She wished she was in her car, speeding away, leaving all of this in a cloud of dust, spraying gravel behind her from underneath the spinning rear tires. Oops, no. The Saturn was front wheel drive. It didn’t matter anyway. She was here now and she wasn’t going back into that house.

He was doing it on purpose, she knew it. Or at least if he hadn’t been such an ornery old jackass when his head was still working right, it wouldn’t have fallen into these kinds of patterns. He was like a nine-year-old with some extra swear words. For the thousandth time within the past year, Fiona remembered the look her mother always gave her when she talked about him. She wished she had a mirror, to see if the same look was bleeding from her own face now. But even mom had never had to deal with this.

Before she realized what she was doing, she had walked behind the barn, where the property opened up onto a potato field, thick and green, almost ready for harvest. Where the heck was she going? She couldn’t walk out into the field. Instead she sat down with her back against the old cement foundation of the barn, several feet below where the wooden wall began. The sun glared rudely at her from the cloudless sky, now just at the spot where your lowered sun visor would block it if you were driving west. She choked and whimpered, crying and preventing herself from crying all at once. Nothing would ever work with him. Even if he were completely in command of all of his faculties, he’d still find a way to make life difficult for both of them. Let him. Let him sit on that couch until they came with a Caterpillar and demolished the thing. Probably everyone would be happier, including him.

“I’m . . trying!” She said to herself, between gasping sobs. She swore. Her makeup was getting smeared, she was sure. She wiped with the inside of her wrist, then her fingers. Her sobbing subsided into silent, jerky heaving as she covered her eyes from the late afternoon sun and put her head between her knees.

Tears dripped down through her fingers. The field in front of her lay calm and and sentinel, absorbing the irregular, distraught sound of her voice back into the earth. A bug of some sort was crawling up the underside of her leg. Nearby, a drab-colored pair of butterflies–moths?–flitted around some tiny wild flower blossoms. The sun shone, constant, silent, and monotone, warming her head through the dark blonde hair and her knees through the black, pinstriped slacks. Six months of frustration from all the pleading, arguing, and completely thankless negotiating came flowing out. She gave in and cried, letting the field take it all.

The barn, the field, the weeds, even the bugs–everything was listening without responding. As her crying softened into quiet moans and sniffles, she became aware of the sound of her voice, bouncing off the cement foundation of the barn and fading away into the dry, breezeless afternoon. No one cared a whit that she was out here, crying like a fool, while her senile father yelled himself hoarse back inside the house. But at least the countryside knew how to shut up. Sniffing, she smiled fleetingly in spite of herself.

After several minutes, she raised her head again, wiping her nose. She blinked as her eyes adjusted again to the direct, glaring sunlight. She picked a long, thick blade of crab grass and peeled it, lengthwise, into no fewer than six thin sinews. She had stopped crying, though she still trembled a little with each breath. Her face was wet but she didn’t wipe it off. The feeling of salty, drying tears on her face was pleasing, somehow. She felt older. She lapsed for a moment into staring out at the field, neither seeing nor thinking anything in particular. Then she sighed tremulously, as if her lungs were old water balloons that had to be filled slowly or they’d burst. She looked at the grass in front of her absently, peacefully. “I know. I know,” she said to no one.

She took one more breath and rose to her feet. She picked her way around the other side of the barn and around the lilac bushes on the south side of the property, furthest from the house. Her car was unlocked, and she slipped into the driver’s seat. Sitting in the slightly uncomfortable heat of the car, she breathed and stared again.

“Okay.” She said to herself, and her eyes cleared. She reached into the back seat and retrieved a brown paper grocery bag. Setting it on the passenger seat, she took out a soft, sky-blue blouse, old and bearing an outdated white floral pattern. Casting a quick glance around, she took off her dark-rimmed glasses, removed her white, starched, button-down shirt, and put on the blouse. She took the neat pony tail out of the back of her hair and a bobby pin from the front, leaving her hair softer and somewhat unkempt. She flipped her bangs out of her eyes and fluffed the kink out of the back of her hair with her hands.

She got out of the car and walked to the front door of the house. He wasn’t screaming anymore, and Fiona couldn’t hear any noises coming from inside. Without hesitating, she opened the front door and walked in.

“Dad?” she called in a measured, somewhat high voice. She waited, with a touch of apprehension, listening.

“Fiona? Are you there?” He was in the living room. She relaxed and walked past the stairs, through the kitchen, and into the living room, where fifteen minutes ago she had sat, in her suit, trying to convince him to sell the house. He was there. He sat, with knitted brow, in the exact same spot he’d occupied before, but not, it seemed, because he felt like sitting. He seemed to be waiting in the only place where he knew someone would come for him, like a child who has lost his mother waiting at the information desk while the clerk pages her on the intercom. The TV against the opposite wall was on, but there was no sound. He looked confused and afraid. His eyes were pointed ahead of him at the floor, looking back into his mind and darting around trying to remember. When he saw Fiona, the child disappeared. His face remembered its usual creases and shadows, and he smiled. He licked the inside of his mouth, which was dry, and looked slightly embarrassed. “Hi honey. I . . . I can’t remember what I was doing. I . . was just here . . I was talking to someone.”

Fiona laughed weakly, her voice tinged with a faint melody like a distant piano. “It was me, Dad. We were just talking about the gas line. It’s working fine now. Thanks for doing that.”

His face settled and his smile broadened. “You’re welcome.” He left the edge of the couch, where he’d been perched, and eased back into the soft cushions where he normally sat. He took the remote control, seeing the images on the TV screen for the first time, and looked at his watch. “News isn’t for another hour,” he said, turning it off and setting the remote down next to him. “Well, I guess it’s time to see about that stove in the basement.” He put his hands on his knees, preparing to stand, but remained seated as if waiting for the last wisps of something inside his head to clear out before proceeding.

“Yeah, that’d be good. I left your tools down there,” she said, moving toward him.

“It should just be the wiring. I can fix that easy enough.” The wisps were bending and gliding away from him like the last ribbon of smoke from an extinguished candle, fading all the while as they diffused into the warm air. It was time to go fix that stove in the basement. Fiona bent down and kissed him on the top of his head. She felt numb, hard, and completely invincible, with life bursting from every pore. Let them just try it. We’ll show them. I’ll show them.

Copyright 2008 Adam Smit

A letter of introduction, or LOI, serves as a short-form grant proposal by which a nonprofit organization expresses its desire to submit a full grant proposal. Sometimes a grant is issued based solely on the strength of an LOI.

I composed this LOI for Logan Square Neighborhood Association in 2010.

Click either sheet to see it in its own window, click it again to enlarge it.

A favorite professor of mine in college, by the name of Roger Henderson, once told me that he preferred never to take in more than one great movie, play, or book per week. According to him, you can’t fully absorb one if you’re on to the next one so quickly.

It seems like there are two ways for an artist to consume art: One in which you throw a lot of things in the pan and serve them up pretty fresh and raw, and another where you may throw in fewer things but let them simmer longer.

See the analogy? Eh? From the title? Eh??

The implication, I suppose, is that if you consume art at a rapid clip, you don’t absorb it well and your output is more likely to become derivative, whereas if you let things percolate, they mingle together in a more sublime and subconscious manner. Indeed, this tends to be the way I like to think about inspiration for myself.

On the other hand, landmark films have been made by people who watch a movie every day, and great books have been written by voracious readers–in fact, I’ve often heard it said that if you’re not a voracious reader, you shouldn’t fancy yourself a writer.

I’d say it takes all types. I’m a stew guy, but I love stir fry too.

Via Roger Ebert via informationisbeautiful.net, here are the books people agree we should all read. As a person who hasn’t read as much as I wish I had, this list is comforting to me as I’ve knocked out most of the big ones. Ask me if I’ve read the newest thing by whatsisname and you’ll see a pair of eyes so glazed you could sell them at Krispy Kreme. But Crime and Punishment? Like all good semi-neurotic self-castigators, I couldn’t get enough.

According to the Download Squad at Switched.com, the world’s biggest fire-breathing spam network was shut down by the knights at Microsoft, with help from the federal government, Pfizer, FireEye, and the University of Washington.

The dragon, known as Rustock, accounted for an estimated 39% of global spam and could send out 30 billion spam daily back in its heyday.

As a happy result, your tech-challenged parents or grandparents need no longer huddle together in fear every time they open their email. Plus, you may get fewer calls to come over and fix their machine. Let’s be honest, though: You know it made you feel useful, and you never call often enough anyway.

Now if you could just get them to stop paying for AOL . . .