Say Something (Parody of "Say Something" by A Great Big World as covered by Pentatonix)

(specifically this cover of the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dYlvdLdK9w)

Say something, I'm giving up on you
I'll walk away, if you want me to
Anything I would've done for you
Say something I'm giving up on you

And I, am isolating

it's been three full years now

and yet just beginning

and I, am still trying to sing

I'm still fighting my way

but does it mean anything

Say something, I'm giving up on you
I'm sorry but I may need just a few
Anything, I would've done for you
Say something, I'm giving up on you

And I will swallow my pride

For sake of the show

Need I say goodbye

Say something, I'm giving up on you
(say something, say something, say something)
I'll walk away, if you need me to

(Say something, Say something, I'll)

Say something, I'm giving up on you

I'll walk away, if you want me to

Say something, I'm giving up on you
I'll walk away, if you need me to

Say, say something, I'm giving up on you

I'll walk away, just need ask me to 

Say something, I'm giving up on you

(Say something, I'm giving up)
I'll walk away, if you want me to

(if you want me to, oh if you want me to)
Anything, I would have done for you

Say something (say something), say something (say something), say something (say something), I'll
Say something, I'm giving up on you

Who Took Herod Out of Christmas, A Story Missed

This is the second year in my memory that I have not listened to a family member read a pair of newspaper articles my grandfather had clipped about Christmas.  If you don't know this about me, I'm agnostic bordering on atheist, but my grandfather was a Methodist minister.  He grappled with ethics and lessons of good and evil both in his role as a religious leader as well as in his job at BU as a professor who taught society and ethics.  I'd like to share the essence of one of articles that he would read to my family throughout my childhood and which someone in my family has read at the annual gathering each year since his passing:

"Who Took Herod Out of Christmas" is an article about how the story of Christmas is not just about the baby Jesus, not just about a miracle, not just about a manger, not just about Mary and Joseph. The article starts by saying that perhaps those that lament the loss of the story to the consumerism we see that has taken over the holiday for so many may be looking in the wrong place. Those that lament the loss of their soap box have long been neglecting a key component of the story: Herod. The story is also about evil, selfish evil, powerful evil, a nearly inconceivable evil. It is about a king who, concerned only with his own power, sent an order to kill all the babies. The article points out that this evil has been glossed over far too often in the telling of the story and the figure made out to be just a boogeyman, if mentioned at all. Perhaps this glossing over is because, in the darkest days of the year, days that are depressing enough already, it can be just a little too much for us to handle. But let the thought of the story sink in. It is a story of a king who sent his army out to kill massive numbers of babies. The story of Christmas is one of an earthly power seeking to destroy for no other reason than to maintain its hold on power. It is dark and troubling.

And yet this is not something that we only see in religious stories or in fables or in the movies, we have seen this story played out in our recent history. We've seen atrocities the world wide, with children being separated from their parents and detained in hostile conditions. We've seen genocides. We've seen the powerful of our world demand that we sacrifice the welfare of our children for some other "good", a "good" which is almost always entirely to the benefit of the powerful and not to the benefit of the meek.

The story of Christmas should be told in its entirety and not watered down to make it more easier to take, for it is in recognizing the darkness within the story, it is in understanding the presence of evil and thinking about what drives that evil, that we can more fully appreciate the story and learn from it. And it is in recognizing this evil that there is even greater impact in the other power of the story choosing to be born into this world in such meek and understated terms... but the meek/understated terms is the focus of the other clipping, so I'll leave us there.

Thank you for letting me share with you what has been an important part, and a missing part, of my Christmas these last two years.  One more thing that has been missing from my Christmas is the sharing of a particular song which I'd like to share with you now:  May the Light of Love by David Roth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVBYERSwc2E

Little Things Have Many Meetings

The OPENAIR Circus is returning to in-person classes in 2021.  There's a bit of effort going into it and it's not going to be like the Circus I know and love... but it's something.

Here's the thing, I've heard people say "I'm so happy the Circus is returning to in-person" but none of that has impressed upon me that it's a good thing or that I should be happy about it.

To understand this reaction, let's start with the obvious, which is that my feeling is that the pressure to return to in-person classes ignores that some fundamental parts of what makes the OPENAIR Circus what it is will be missing due to the restrictions we're putting in place... restrictions without which I would not be willing to participate in bringing in-person classes together this year since there is still COVID-19 spread and, even if stopping the spread among vaccinated people weren't important, the population we serve is not eligible for vaccines yet.

But there's something more subtle than frustration about what we're doing and why.  There's something that's more problematic.  Such gratitude about returning to in-person ignores all the effort that went into putting last year's program together and suggests that roughly one third of what we're doing this year isn't worthwhile or at least is not as worthy as the other two thirds.  And what we did last year certainly was not nothing.  And the third of classes happening online this year is not nothing.  And suggesting otherwise is not nothing.

Usually, when someone says they're thankful for something you're working on, it makes you feel good.  But when they're thanking you for something you have reservations about... when they're thanking you and it makes you feel like they're dismissing other efforts you feel are just as worthy... that doesn't feel good.  It may even make you feel worse.

And I don't expect to feel "good" about this year's program in general.  I don't expect people to socially distance after having seen the large gatherings of lots of families at a local park.  I don't expect the vaccinated parents to wear masks without confrontation, despite the simple fact that the studies that have shown that spread is lessened by the vaccines also have shown that spread still can and does happen... and despite the parents being in the same household as those that are not eligible to be vaccinated.  No, I don't expect "good" to be something I feel this season... regardless of whether people express that they are thankful for in-person classes.

So, if you're in the OPENAIR Circus and thankful for the in-person classes, you can thank another organizer but don't thank me for the in-person classes themselves.... if you want to share your appreciation for the program with me, find another way.  Show your appreciation by coming up with something else to be thankful for or by following the social distancing and masking rules we've put in place.

Is My Anger Akin to White Grievance?

This week has had me comparing myself to those that support Trump.  Not because I support Trump.  Not because I deny science or suggest that the reputable news sources are full of lies.  No, because I was upset by something someone said about me.

I was upset that someone suggested I was fat shaming when describing my own situation, hyperbolized.... and I've since been thinking about why this upset me.

First there's the more reasonable leap of the two, which is also what, I feel, brings me closer to a Trump supporter.  This is the idea that someone thinks that what I said was fat shaming when I don't agree it was. I could go into why I feel that it wasn't fat shaming, but does that really matter?  And boy do I go into why it's not fat shaming.  But isn't this just what those on the other side of the political divide do?  Sure, they use false-equivalencies and falsehoods to support their arguments, but there's also the element of abuse is in the eyes of the abused and that the intent of the person saying harmful words isn't the key.  Words can be harmful without intent and those harmed should be the ones listened to... and yet I object to hearing my words are harmful.  What right have I to claim that my words aren't harmful?  I toss around a couple reasons, but are those reasons valid?  Is it even possible for them to be valid?  Should I not just accept that my words were harmful and try to learn from that?  Is that not what I'm supposed to do?   

Second, there's the idea that my health-related target is invalid and shouldn't be worked on.  This is the less reasonable element of it but somehow it plays out in my head.  I'm struggling with my weight, trying to get it back down to where I was when my doctor gave me the good news that I had an almost-normal blood sugar level, so to hear that that struggle is fat shaming suggests to me that people saying so feel that I should give up on my health efforts.  Having diabetes, not working on my health through watching what I eat and exercising has very real consequences, so feeling that someone is saying I shouldn't be working on it is akin to them saying they are ok with my encountering those consequences.  Clearly this is unlikely and yet it's still a feeling I keep coming back to when thinking about how I might interact with them later. 

But I digress.

Even as I type this post, I continue to feel rage, though lessened, about the insinuation that what I said was fat-shaming and all the defenses come up and all the anger boils.  And I have not found the reason why my original post was fat shaming.... and yet that's still an excuse isn't it?  An excuse to feel upset about having been called out for something I would proclaim as wrong.

I'm glad to say it's not overwhelming my emotional state as it was days ago... but still, there's this feeling...  and depending upon when I investigate it, I either go down the self-pity / anger path or the route of questioning whether I'm just someone of privilege being called out and then becoming self-defensive with no actual defense other than those like "but how can I be shaming people like myself?".  

It probably doesn't help that I'm frustrated with my efforts to improve my health and that we've seen that COVID cases appear to be back on the rise in MA (as well as many other .... while these aren't directly related, they muddy my mental waters with other areas of distress and anger towards others and myself.

I'm writing this both in an effort to help myself further my self evaluation as well as to identify that it's ok to do such self evaluations.  None of us are perfect and we should all strive to be better.

Don't Assume 2

Don't assume we're ok.

Don't assume my anger has abated.

Don't assume my pain has faded.

Don't assume I know you're sorry.

Don't assume I don't need you to say something.

Don't assume the smile on my face is more than skin deep.

Don't assume this isn't about you... don't assume you can make that leap.

Don't assume my lack of comment means you're in the clear.

Don't assume that my walking away isn't near.

Don't assume the tear in my eyes are just from sorrow.

Don't assume that we'll just talk about it tomorrow.

Don't assume these bad rhymes are simply a joke.

Don't assume I won't give this bear but a poke.

Don't assume I won't be an ass.

Don't assume this will pass.

Don't assume a brief apology by text is all it will take.

Don't assume this outrage is but a fake.

Don't assume I want to move on... and 

Don't assume I won't let this rain on the fun.

The opera, the circus, the quad-friends, the workplace,

Don't assume anything, I can't promise it's the case.

Don't assume I no longer need you to say something.

Don't assume I'm no longer giving up on you.

Don't assume it's too late.  Don't assume that it's fate.

Don't assume I'll be here tomorrow... but also don't let that bring you to sorrow.

For everything in this world comes to an end... even the closeness you once may have called a friend.

I know what I know... what do you know?

I know you didn't mean to suggest that my struggle with my weight is meaningless and pointless and that I shouldn't work on it.

I know you didn't mean to suggest that my effort to control me diabetes through working on my weight wasn't perfectly reasonable.

I know you didn't mean to suggest that my efforts to improve myself is fat shaming.... that you saw my analogy as just an analogy and not the very real parallel that it truly was.

I know these things.

I know you consider me a friend.  Nope, I can't go that far.  

I know you consider me a good person?  Closer.  

I know you value what I have provided you and your family.  There we go, that I know.

I know that I'm considering walking away from all the physical spaces we interact... and that if I don't end up doing so, it is mostly out of a sense of obligation and the feeling of guilt toward others involved in the organizations.  I know a more likely scenario is shutting down my interactions with you in those spaces to limit them to business.

I know that I've opened up a message window to you a half dozen times and started to write something asking for an explanation or to let you know how much what you said has impacted me ... just to close it minutes later, for what good would it do?

I know that I've opened up an email to the board of directors of an organization, intending to suggest that we not hold the program this year or to let them know that they may want to look for someone else to run the program... and then closed it without actually getting so far as typing in the body of the email.

I know that this is the 3rd time I've started a blog post to explain my feelings, the first two discarded.

I know all of this... and yet I don't know why I feel this way.

I don't know why I haven't gotten past this after a day.

I don't know why I'm still wallowing in my self-pity.

I don't know why, after proclaiming that one should continue to work on their health even if they're nearing a target, I'm struggling (and failing so far) to keep working on my health.

I don't know how to express myself without coming off as a simpering pathetic person and without coming off as similar to those on the right that claim victimhood through false equivalences.

And I am very much like them.  I have an extreme amount of privilege.  I'm white, heterosexual, middle-class, living in the USA, and have no outward presenting abnormalities.  How can I claim victimhood with all these privileges?  What wrong has been perpetrated against me?  The suggestion that I was fat shaming?  That's nothing in comparison to the ability to have been pulled over by a cop without fearing for my life, the ability to walk through a store without eyes watching me, the ability to never have my name be a reason for my resume to be passed over, the ability to have my voice heard, ... and the list goes on.  It's ridiculous, therefore, that I am wallowing in self-pity. 

So... with all of that... what do you know?

OPENAIR Circus gripe 2018

Ok, I don't often quite so publicly complain but I need to get something off my chest.  Please don't take this as a general complaint or something that is truly out of the ordinary for a given year.  I have had similar scenarios play out in the past and I will have them play out again in the future.  It is not likely to change the course of my life or the OPENAIR Circus.... it is, indeed, just a rant... a pure and personal rant.

I run the OPENAIR Circus.  From the end of June through the beginning of August, I essentially have the backseat and back end (trunk?... no, that's not the right term for a hatchback, right?) of my car taken over by equipment for the Circus and spend somewhere between 12 and 26 hours on the program, between being at the field for 3 hours a day 3 days a week, not counting setup and take-down (which each takes around 20-30 minutes on a good day) and stilting workshops or stilt making workshops or some other activity on the weekend, as well as the administrative work of sending out emails, coordinating with teachers and other volunteers, and just odds and ends (such as switching what equipment is in my car between one day and the next).

I do all this as a volunteer, giving back to the community that has given me so much in my life.  I do it because of the joy it brings others.

So, to the parent that complains that a particular class isn't going to perform because they haven't learned the most elemental of the skill they were set to learn because the children "only getting three classes instead of five - through no fault of [their] own" and is disgruntled enough to complain about how she has to tell her son he doesn't get to perform... I want to say this:

• I know we often joke at the OPENAIR Circus about my having control over the weather... I don't actually make it rain though... and as evidence from the first Thursday where I was at the field making the decision to call of classes rather than having listened to everybody earlier in the day and calling them off sooner, I really do try to ensure that we only cancel when we absolutely must.
• I work a full-time job and do this on top of that job.  I know it may seem like I work part-time or full time for the OPENAIR Circus or that we have any paid staff beyond the teachers, who themselves are only paid for the time they're actually at the field and even then are not paid a rate I would expect to pay them for gigs outside the summer program.  
• Not only do I volunteer my time, but I expend 6 days of work-vacation for what is really just about 1, maybe 2 days, overall, of actual relaxation.  My colleagues who don't pay close attention expect that my week off is similar to their vacations and so expect it to be rejuvenating instead of what it truly is which is physically, mentally, and emotionally taxing.
• I'm sorry you feel like 3 hours of instruction wasn't worth the $20 you spent.
• I'm sorry that you feel that your son should be in a performance that is open to the public even if he didn't learn a skill to perform.
• You are one of the reasons that I, year after year, question my sanity for doing this volunteering.

But all that would be unprofessional and poor customer service, so instead, I reply

"I can certainly appreciate your frustration.  It certainly is never optimal to have 2 of 5 classes rained out.  The report I got from the teacher is that just about none of the students had learned the basic element of completing a yo-down plus yo-up.  If [the child in question] can yo-down and yo-up, we would welcome him to be part of a filler in between acts if he's interested.  If so, just let me know.

Understanding that this has not been what you were hoping for from our program, I've removed you from the email list.

Sincerely,
Peter"

ok, end rant, moving on with my day