Being a Member of the Language Police is Not My Job

I know it annoys the heck out of my brother-in-law, a doctor, when any member of our extended family asks him for medical advice. "My advice is, see your own personal physician. S/he knows you and your personal medical history best," is always his terse reply. Yes, I realize: people just want to be reassured, people want to know if it's serious enough to go to the doctor, people want help in the middle of the night when the baby is crying with a fever. I suppose many professions suffer versions of this syndrome: accountants or stock brokers who are queried for financial advice, attorneys for legal advice, plumbers for advice about drains and toilets. There was an episode of Seinfeld where Jerry was dating a masseuse, and kept trying to get her to give him a neck rub, but she wouldn't. "Let me make you an appointment," she'd say. The message was : When I do that, I am at work, and I get paid. I am not at work now, and I am not getting paid. I will not do it.

When I am introduced to someone new, my profession often garners a variety of strong reactions.  Upon first hearing that I am an English teacher, and an AP senior English teacher at that, many people often react nervously, and say things like "Ooooh an English teacher. I'd better be careful with my grammar around you!" My physical therapist says this every single time I walk in the door - 3 times a week for the past 6 weeks - but he is not alone. My thought is always - is there ever anyone actually rude enough to go around correcting people's grammar? If so, then call them on it. It's none of their business - just as it's rude to go around telling people they need to lose weight, floss, or stop smoking. You will not change strangers' behavior by doing this, folk. I always wonder what English teacher, somewhere back in time, put fear into people's hearts this way. Do we worry, upon meeting an algebra teacher, that s/he might ask to review our checkbook balancing or tip calculating skills?

The next reaction I get is a hyper-vigilant critique of my own grammatical skills. If I make a typo, if I am using regional dialect (for rhetorical effect), if I don't know the answer to something minute about my subject, people enjoy feeling superior and correcting me. I just let them, because I know that I am human, too, and everyone makes mistakes. I am confident in my professional skills and know that they transcend minor spelling errors. Yes, I get annoyed when I read a work email that is so horribly mis-spelled as to be incomprehensible. The difference is in scale.

Another type of reaction I encounter frequently is more like what my brother-in-law experiences- a request for free advice or services. People will often learn that I am an English teacher and then want me to teach them or use my skills for free in some capacity. I hear all this and more on a near daily basis: "I just wrote a novel about dragons, it's 1000 pages long, and I'm going to self publish it on the internet. Could you proofread it for me, edit and correct it, make suggestions as to how I can improve it- by tomorrow?.... Could you spend several hours a week prepping me for the SAT ? ....Could you proofread and edit our non-profit newsletter? ....Could you help us design some brochures-signs-ads?....  Could you help my neighbor's friend's niece apply to college, and teach her how to write and proofread all her essays? .....Could you tutor my friend's child in reading in your spare time? ....Could you teach each month's selection to our book club? Oh, ok, how about just prepare some questions and background on the author then?"

For the record: I spend 50+ hours a week doing all of these things- for my students. I bring home papers to be graded most nights and weekends, am constantly attending seminars, meetings, and lesson planning / curriculum writing sessions outside the school day, work extra duties before and after school, on weekends, and in the summers. Any additional work you ask of me won't be undertaken gratis, just as your dentist won't come over and clean your uncle's teeth for free, either. I've already spent 20 years volunteering and donating my time and talents for various organizations when my children were little- scouts and VBS and many other activities. There have been periods of my life when I tutored on the side, mostly when still in grad school. Like any professional service, be prepared to pay for services rendered outside my workplace.

Collecting Southwestern and Native American Jewelry

Many have asked me about my hobby of collecting North American southwestern jewelry. I love to wear my jewelry pieces that are made in a variety of colors and materials; it makes me so happy! Some dreary winter days it is like wearing blue skies and desert sands. I started collecting as a young girl, on family camping vacations to Colorado and New Mexico in the 1960's. Over the years, I have added more items from various sources and enjoy wearing them nearly every day. Once, a shaman said to me, "You must have unfinished chakra work in the area of blue/turquoise, as you wear it all the time. Think about what this is telling you about yourself." Good advice, perhaps.....

If you enjoy the beautiful colors and handmade, artisinal quality of American southwestern jewelry, by all means, collect pieces that appeal to you and enjoy them. I myself  mostly prefer older, "vintage" pieces, with that perfect combination of  detailed silverwork artistry, gorgeous stones, and aged patina. I do have a few very clean-lined modern items that I like as well. While many of my pieces have increased in value since I first purchased them, I do not advocate beginning a collection just for the intention of creating an investment that will increase at a certain rate or percentage over time. The market is too uncertain for that and as with anything, you have to really study to know what you are doing.

Frequently, however, folk will come to me and show me an item purchased from an estate/tag/yard sale, and ask me what it is worth. Something you have bought is always worth what you paid for it - that was the market price at that time. Generally, you get what you pay for : people are savvy enough these days to look big ticket, important items up before they price them. If you are truly interested in collecting southwestern jewelry for the pleasure of wearing it, I would spend time on the internet, browsing what is available for sale, in order to get an overall idea of what styles are available, and at what range of prices. Try a google search for "native American jewelry" or similar. If you wish to go shopping in  New Mexico in person, just remember: Sante Fe prices are twice that of Albuquerque, and Albuquerque prices are twice that of Gallup. I am not experienced with shopping in Arizona, Colorado, or Utah. Generally, the more chic and touristy the town, the higher the prices you will pay. Pawn shops will offer better "deals" than boutiques. Junky spots along the interstate sell items made in China. Don't be afraid to haggle or wave a wad of cash and say, "this is all I have." For online shoppers, if you can find an online business with a brick-and-morter store located in Arizona or New Mexico - you are headed in the right direction. I'd avoid items with a shipping location from China or India or anywhere else. You can find quite a lot of nice pieces on ebay - just use their tools to figure out what you like, and what are the recent prices for that item. (Use the sidebar filters: Ethnic, tribal jewelry. Native American. Old Pawn. Bell trading post. Harvey era. Etc.) The amount of information you need to make an informed purchase is worth a few hours reading, so you know what you are doing. Here are some highly esteemed sources to do just that:

Great general source of information, many topics, very thorough and accurate.
http://www.horsekeeping.com/native-american-jewelry-artifacts.htm


Information about turquoise stones, and what makes one stone valuable and another. less so
http://www.durangosilver.com/turquoisemines.htm

http://thestrayarrowjewelry.com/2013/01/03/turquoise-guide/

http://www.ebay.com/gds/The-Complete-Turquoise-Jewelry-Buying-Guide-/10000000177633105/g.html

http://www.silvereaglegallery.com/turquoise-mines-of-america/

Enjoy!

New Year's Resolutions

Do you make resolutions each New Year? Do you resolve to exercise more, eat better, lose weight, save money, get fit, change your life? I don't choose these sorts of things. Instead, I make resolutions to improve my life in this way: I resolve to take care of my health, live life more fully, spend more time with my loved ones, travel, read, do, eat, drink, try new things and have more fun. I resolve to spend more time with family and friends, travel more, have more fun. I resolve to retire as early as possible, and am working conscientiously towards that goal.Taking care of my mother through her recent strokes and dementia has made me realize, if I follow in her footsteps, I may not have too many good years left. I 'd better enjoy life while I can. What would you do if you knew you only had 20 years left? Or 10 "good" years, where you felt well enough to actually do stuff? 

Provincialism in the Purest Sense of the Word

One of my personal pet peeves involves people from other places who think that wherever they live is the only civilized place there is, and while frequently never having travelled to Texas, proceed to tell me all about its pitfalls. I remember once being at a party in Westchester Co (upscale, suburban NYC) with a lot of yuppie types who worked in the publishing and arts industry. One woman said to me, "You must be relieved to move away from the desert." Now, this woman knew I had just moved there from Houston, which has a tropical coastal climate similar to Rangoon, and so I replied, "While I am excited to be in New York, not all of Texas is a desert. Only the furthermost western areas are like that." She countered with,"but it's so close." Now I know, to be charitable, she : 1)had no idea what she was talking about, b)was just trying to make conversation, c)was probably trying to save face, and d) I was feeling ornery. But really? The conversation took a turn for the worse, when she said,"But Arizona is a desert!" To which I replied, "Um, gee, Arizona is over 1000 miles away from Houston !" (1,174 miles from Houston to Phoenix, most of it still in Texas.) I do realize all this poor woman had to go on were her experiences driving from Conn to N.Y. To N.J., and thinking that Texas, N.M. And AZ were of similar scale. But this was supposedly an intellectual, artistic gathering, I was alarmed by her lack of basic geographic knowledge.

It's not just New Yorkers, the ignorance about Texas and Texans is pervasive. Upon meeting my future father-in-law for the first time, he greeted me with a dismissive "Welcome to the big city". He lived in suburban Washington, D.C. at the time (population 632,323 including suburbs) and I lived in Dallas-Ft Worth (population 6,700,991 including suburbs- 4th largest urban area in America, and ten times that of Washington, D.C.) Now I do know that Washington is the Capitol of the U.S., and thus truly the center of the world (to Americans), but a more accurate greeting could have been "Welcome to our nations Capitol!" or "Welcome to the center of the universe!"

Once when I was in consumer sales I was at a corporate meeting in Cincinnati Ohio. All the young sales managers got into a heated argument at a bar one night over who was the most educated and spoke most eloquently. The conversation quickly turned from trying to out rhetoric each other, into ridiculing each other...There were many insults aimed at various regional dialects, even though most of us had worked diligently to lose the one we were born with. (Who decides which regional dialect sounds the least educated? Why is a New Jersey or Alabama dialect considered more intelligent than a Texas accent?) As the evening progressed, tempers heated up, and I found myself defending my use of the word "stuff" by quoting Shakespeare :

 "We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep."

Every one's mouths gaped and their eyes blinked, like fish out of water. They didn't even know what I was talking about.

I do realize that people can't help being ignorant if they are not fortunate enough to travel. I blame the media for perpetuating stereotypes for humor, to make points, as a kind of short-hand for reality. Mainstream media frequently depicts Texans as a bunch of fat, cowboy hat wearing tobakky chewing bigoted uneducated idiots (and our current governor, bless his heart! who can't debate to save his life-along with news stories about teachers being forced to teach creationism as a science, have done nothing to dissuade that) ....However, most Texans I know can explain to you the basic geography and climate of major regions of the USA, as well as quote Shakespeare. Like many states, we have coastlines, mountains, forests, rivers, and prairies. We also have 3 cities that are in the top 10 (in terms of population) for the USA, fabulous universities, museums, airports, art galleries, restaurants, corporate headquarters, telephones, roads, and flushing toilets - just like any place in the western world.   

Yes, I Moved Back to Texas for Tex Mex

Tex-Mex is the national cuisine of Texas. (Some would argue barbeque or chicken fried steak....more on those, later. Combined, these three items are considered the "trifecta" of Texas cuisine.) Tex Mex is entirely diffferent from California Mex, New Mexico Mex, or Mexican Mex. Real Tex-Mex is preferably eaten in a run down mom-and-pop local restaurant in the barrio that makes Anglos feel tantilizingly sketchy just to go there. Chain restaurants will do if you are desperate (such as visiting another state and need a quick fix) or if the chain started as a local family owned business and grew. Tex-Mex is beef-centric, corn-based, and uses a wide variety of spicy peppers(jalapeno, serrano, hatch,red, chili,etc) liberally. The traditional Tex-Mex meal involves enchiladas (always made of corn tortillas, filled with cheese or meat, topped with sauce and cheese, rolled and baked. An enchilada is cheezy and soft and melts in your mouth. You eat it with a fork.), hand foods such as crispy tacos (the semi-circle above, a fried crispy corn tortilla, filled with spicy meat and lettuce, tomato, cheese), tostadas or chalupas (fried flat corn tortilla, layered in refried beans, lettuce, tomato, and hot sauce), rice and beans. You drink iced tea or margaritas with this meal.

There are many other menu items in the traditional Tex-Mex menu, such as burritos (large flour tortilla filled with beans and meat, rolled, eaten with fingers dry), fajitas and street tacos (soft flour or corn tortillas filled with spiced grilled or shredded beef, chicken, or pork, sauted onions, jalepenos, peppers, cilantro, tomatoes), chalupas (a narrow rolled corn tortilla, filled with a small amount of spiced beef and fried. It is about the size of a large cigar.), guacamole (mashed up avacado with hot sauce or tomatoes mixed in), queso (cheese dip- melted cheese and spices, you dip tortilla chips into this), nachos (take the tortilla chips, spread them out onb a plate, layer with beans, cheese, jalepenos, and bake till gooey. Dip in salsa when finished.), quesodillas (2 flour tortillas filled with cheese and /or meat, pan sauted, like a grilled cheese sandwhich) and salsa (see my post on that topic).

Much conversational time and energy among Texans is spent arguing which Tex-Mex restaurant is better, and why. It is not uncommon for natives who have moved away, say to New York or Paris, schedule frequent vacations home just so they can eat the local cuisine. Or move back altogether, for the food.