Colorful Days

So I’m getting pretty used to not having a life…what with working a full time job M-F (and many Saturday school Saturdays) and taking three classes…I have time to hang Wednesday night (which I have designated my swim night and therefore sacred) and Friday night (open to whereever the most magnetic forces pull). Saturdays are apparently Pisces birthday party nights…and Sundays I just study the hell out of the day.

That was my plan this Sunday. I got up bright and early and drove out to Clairemont to get out of the hood and hang out with my friend Kennie. We went to a random spot called Tea N More which delivered more than I hoped for. A little boba shop that reminded me of my boba-berkeley days, it had carpet and bomb asian food…and it was furious with studious activity. I did not expect that for clairemont drive…after a few hours and two orders of dumplings, kennie had to finish a report at home, and I had to continue to nerd out, so I dropped her off with the mission of returning home to persevere with the reading left to do.

I made the rounds at all my usual cafes, but my neighborhood is bursting with overintellectual hipsters and cafe-rats…there really wasn’t a place to sit at my 3 usual spots…so I called my friend Pauly who just moved back to San Diego from his self-imposed exile in the mountains. He’s been at me to come to the coffeeshops in Little Italy, but seeing as how I prefer walking everywhere and there are a minimum of four coffeeshops on my block it has been a contentious issue of who should visit whose coffeeshop. Today, I would travel. I picked him up and we took a 30 minute detour to go to see the grand opening celebration of an awesome Mexican art shop. We were late (a given, I was with Paul afterall). The owners were gracious despite our tardiness and sweetly offered us delicious churros. We proceeded to chomp them down as we marveled at all of the treasures of Mexican comic book coasters. I bought a margarita glass with color & textures I liked. I am also posting rad art I thought was super interesting below. The place is called Casa Artlexia on 2419 Kettner Blvd.

The rest of my day was studying at Twiggs with a nightcap at Lancer’s discussing the disgusting goings-on in sweet home San Diego…my friend Maki, a grad student in history at UCSD, gave me all the latest updates…with this coming week sure to hold more protests against racism at UCSD… and a possible demonstration against the new round of PINK SLIPs for Sweetwater teachers 2010, I’m not sure what protest shirt I’ll be wearing on which day…pink or black…but I’m bound to be colorful! It does bother me though when art has to say the things that aren’t being brought up in a pre-existing dialogue….the economy is bad, but we should never cut in education…and we should have leaders in education who will cultivate an atmosphere of respect across collectives….the more I study history though, the more I learn that leadership is much rarer than I expected…

I’m drawn back into a world of puffins, munchkins I used to teach with Marin Day Schools at San Francisco City Hall. The biggest lesson I had to teach them was not to pull on the little girls’ ponytails or hit. I was a broken record of “Don’t push…say ‘No!’ Use your words.'” A constant admonishment that violence, action, would not get you very far if you couldn’t express yourself through words, hold a dialogue (consider mutual concerns and shared solutions). This is the credo of toddler teachers everywhere I would venture to say. It’s this lesson that mature adults stlll grapple with.

Until then, at least there will be t-shirts and art and other means….

Enjoy the awesome dark goat and cute creature below!