whats happenin' now.

it's strange how when you come back home you feel exhilarated, tired,
strange, sad, all kinds of things. After spending the last few months
thinking about sustainability, the environment and limiting my
footprint on the world, I come back to NY and I'm focussed on desiging
a kitchen andchoosing the right kind of counter. We were looking at
all these different brands, corian (made by dupont) Silestone, grantie
etc. I like the silestone, but questions arise. . . where do they get
their quartz, how do they manufacture this stone, plastic polymer?
Then I need to think about getting a new teak table for MV . . .
where does Smith and HAwken get the wood that's going into this table,
if it's from the rainforest, I don't want to buy it. . . but that
means putting my priority over the families need, and that's sometimes
considered selfish.

A few months back, I spoke with Frank, the professor from South
Carolina, about my thoughts on a good teacher. I claimed that I liked
a true eccentric, who may give me a biased, but at least meaningful
perspective on a certain subject. Is it good for a teacher of young
children to do this. I certainly would be criticial of religious
education, or strong rightwing education, but then again, I feel that
my job is political, and it's my duty to get the kids thinking
critically about what's going on around them.

Other than beginning to plan the kitchen, I've spent many hours
working to organize nanny's papers. There are probably close to 100
boxes full of old mail, and my job is to sort through the sweepstakes,
filled out but unsent petitions, political propaganda, and find those
unpaid tax bills, those 3 year old account statements and all the
other important stuff. I'm excited to get through it, get it
organized, and then actually get her an accountant to help her pay
bills and keep her organized. she is too overwealmed by her papers
and it makes her miserable, though at the same time gives her
something to do. It's sad to spend so much time there, she is
paralyzed by her inability to get anything done, and that makes her
sad.

Today is mothers day, I'm meeting up with her, Kerith and Jay and
Jeanne and Oscar for brunch. I'm hopeful that it will be a pleasant.