FELTEN, AMONG

Chainbreaker

kky — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:33:08 +0000

I wish Franklinton Cycleworks paid me because:

I LOVE working in Franklinton
I LOVE working for Franklinton
I LOVE riding bikes
I LOVE learning to fix bikes
I LOVE dreaming of powerful woman mechanic-hood
I LOVE working hard all day for my community, not my employer
I LOVE used parts
I LOVE the freedom to not have the newest and best
I LOVE downward mobility
I LOVE piecing random objects together to make something functional
I LOVE teaching young women about bicycles
I LOVE people who LOVE bicycles

I am also fascinated by homesteading, diy, chickens in the city, bees and goats in the city, my beautiful house, my beautiful family, my stinkin’ adorable yet ornery neighbor children, and giant potluck feasts with stuff we’ve found in our cabinets or gardens and creatively sewn together, so many eggs everywhere, and sticking it to all the expectations others have for my life that I have no interest in.

Better Blog

kky — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 03:10:37 +0000

You should wander over to this blog, because it’s a lot better than mine, and Heather is one of my best friends:

http://booksandthebottoms.blogspot.com/

List

kky — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 03:03:30 +0000

I spend an unnecessary amount of time thinking about what sucks re: winter, Franklinton, adulthood (adulthood especially), chronic illness, life, etc.

Since I need to actually force myself to consider what is happy or good in a season like this, the following list is an exercise toward such:

HAPPY
Taking a shower when we have warm water (see, I’m already grumpy about running out of hot water all the damn time!)

Ahem. Let’s start over again.

HAPPY
Yoga (in the mornings, with the sunlight pouring into the livingroom)
Sleeping/sleeping in late with Husband
Snack-nights with Husband in our room
Weekly community meal and washing dishes completely and collaboratively
Thinking about Dorothy Day
Using Robyn’s tea tree sugar scrub
Coming home to people I love milling around
Telling people about how we live and why
Not having to run errands all day alone
Feeling confident in the mission of my employer
Forming partnerships with like-minded bicycling folks
Girl-talking with my middle school students
Lotion on my dry bleeding knuckles
Hard day’s work stench
Dancercize badge with our little girl scouts
Our little neighbors yellin’ to us out their front window
Husband’s beard, hands, laugh
Dancing to Jonsi in the living room
90-minute India Pale Ale
Rumi verses
Snuggling up to Husband for warmth in winter
Dance-fusion at the Y with Ashley and Arnold

I ran out of ideas, but that was certainly temporarily therapeutic.

For the Colored Girls

kky — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 04:28:58 +0000

Tonight the girls gathered ’round wine (and gluten-free vanilla mini bundt cakes with fresh whipped cream and blueberries…) to perform a reading of the “choreopoem”/play, “For the Colored Girls who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” by Ntozake Shange:

When we sat down to dinner, our color napkin decided which character we would assume. I was lady in red.

Every time I read this play in its entirety I love it more. Meant to be “HARLEM,” we substituted Franklinton in for some parts that felt truly true.

“i usedta live in the world,
now i live in [franklinton]
& my universe is now six blocks

when i walked in the pacific
i imagined waters ancient from accra/tunis
cleansin me/feedin me
now my ankles are coated in grey filth
from the puddle neath the hydrant

……

i usedta live in the world
really be in the world
free & sweet talkin
good mornin & thank-you & nice day
uh huh
i cant now
i cant be nice to nobody
nice is such a rip-off
reglar beauty and a smile in the street
is just a set-up”

As the play unravels, each story or monologue becomes more and more intense, and the last is quite brutal.

Meanwhile, in our Free Bitch Cinema Film Series, we recently watched Winter’s Bone by Debra Granik.

Really, the most incredible film I have seen as of late. As a girl who usually falls asleep during movies and tends to have somewhat average film taste, I know that I don’t have great credibility. Luckily, I know some smart people who have excellent taste, and they expose me to incredibly worthwhile material, such as Winter’s Bone (not that it wasn’t out in many theaters, I believe it was a fairly big mainstream release) I’m so obsessed with it that I’m reading the novel the film was based off of. Backward, I know. The story is primarily about Appalachian culture, patriarchy, family relationships, and growing up. It’s like rural fucking Franklinton, which is really just urban Appalachia. Intriguing, confusing, and real.

Excerpt

kky — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 21:50:48 +0000

Excerpt from my neighbor and friend Kyle Meyer’s blog:

“Archbishop Oscar Romero offers us much to consider in this most recent icon of relevance to our modern/post-modern context of living in an urban environment of first-world americana. The orphaned children, the helicopters, and hospitality fires of arson are so the norm of our existence, that sometimes they go without notice.

The child I currently tutor for literacy is in Kindergarten. In efforts to compete with the “rest of the world”, kindergarten is now like first or even second grade used to be for us so many years ago. This means, that you better know the fucking alphabet when you walk into kindergarten, or you will not survive basic training. Our first week (a month after school began), my little dude did not even recognize the letter “A”. In America, that is poverty. You lose.

Six weeks later, he recognizes several letters, including A and C, but not B. We spent an entire 45 minute session learning the letter B. His classmates already recognize words. Learning disability? Maybe. Unstable, unintentional home-life? Most likely. Fortunately, even though he doesn’t recognize the letter B, he could tell me all about popular horror icon Michael Myers, whom he dressed up like for trick or treat. If you think that is disturbing, you should hear the violent fantasies he has shared with me. Poverty. You lose.

When I look at the Romero icon, I see this child I tutor, whose future is on the brink now, not in 12 or 13 years, when he might otherwise consider a direction for his own life.

Helicopters. They used to wake us up at night. Not anymore. Normal.

Arson. Too often results in the loss of life. Last week, a grandmother, a mother, and an infant fell victim to arsonists. Even one of our own homes dedicated to housing women coming out of prison, has been out of commission since spring because of a fire from arson. Is it vengeful, or just boredom? America.

We need more than the alphabet and firefighters.

We need hope.”

In Light of Wednesday “Breadlines”

kky — Thu, 20 May 2010 16:16:34 +0000

“Every one of us who was attracted to the poor had a sense of guilt, of responsibility, a feeling that in some way we were living on the labor of others. The fact that we were born in a certain environment, were enabled to go to school, were endowed with the ability to compete with others and hold our own, that we had few physical disabilities00 all these things marked us as the privileged in a way. We felt a respect for the poor and destitute as those nearest to God, as those chosen by Christ for His compassion. Christ lived among men. The great mystery of the Incarnation, which meant that God became man that man might become God, was a joy that made us want to kiss the earth in worship, because His feet once trod that same earth.“

“He had set us an example and the poor and destitute were the ones we wished to reach. The poor were the ones who had jobs of a sort, organized or unorganized, and those who were unemployed or on work-relief projects. The destitute were the men and women who came to us in the breadlines and we could do little with them but give what we had of food and clothing. Sin, sickness and death accounted for much of human misery. But aside from this, we did not feel that Christ meant we should remain silent in the face on injustice and accept it even though He said, ‘The poor yet shall always have with you.”

Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness

Good Ones

kky — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:46:55 +0000

Afternoon is Fading

kky — Tue, 11 May 2010 16:22:21 +0000

New seasons come and at the beginning I think they will change everything. The sun! It changes everything. And today is rainy, which changes everything. It was hard to get out of bed this morning. My two perfect blankets keeping me warm, and my groggy cognizance of drizzle and thunder. A perfect spring morning, and a perfect way to not have to water the garden. Alas, rain does not water our chickens’ watering fountain. And (un?)fortunately it does not rain poultry pellets to fed them with. Ha! Gross.

Looking forward to the summer. A new way to spend some of my AmeriCorps hours– gardening with first-time non-violent juvenile offenders on the east side. This is a welcome break from my most-challenging year running an after-school program. Produce from our harvest will be donated to the Community Kitchen on Ohio Ave.

I haven’t been playing my ukulele much lately. It just hangs on the wall reminding me that I’m leaving it unfinished, unattended. Perhaps today I will take it out to the porch and reconcile myself to it in the company of the raining symphony. Maybe I could hear the drops on the coop tin roof.

Jonny and I are sort of planning a small harvest wedding, but really we’ll probably just end up getting married barefoot in the woods somewhere.

123WP & New Orleans

kky — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 23:42:22 +0000

Photos of: The back porch being framed and insulated, of our beloved neighbor kids helping us with the garden, of Jonny and Jy with our friend Junior, of Jonny and I in New Orleans, of our baby chicks that will grow up and make eggs, and of all the progress with Franklinton Gardens that Jonny and I came home to. Can you believe how hard my housemates have been working on those beds? Beautiful!

See: franklintongardens.org

Common’s “Testify” Short Film/Music Video

kky — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:21:14 +0000

Who even knew this existed? I’ve been waiting all my life.