just finished my first week at the new job. yes, a job was finally found months and months after the tortures of temping. working for the marine geology and geophysics department at columbia. helping with archiving and database management. the campus is beautiful, the people are interesting and knowledgeable. and there's a chance that i might go to sea on a research ship. or rather i'd like to go to sea on a research ship and if i can pick up the skills needed i might be able to stow away. at lunch i go on hikes and get too much sun. there is a rose garden where frogs fornicate and goldfish swim. i now know what dog tooth violet leaves look like. the only downside is the commute. about two hours each way it takes up a major portion of the day. on the upside i'm reading a lot more. i just finished running with scissors the other day. might even want to see the movie. those strange memoirs are all the rage these days. i read in the fall that pieces book, and watched as james frey was torn limb from limb. and then a few weeks ago i read the glass castle. very moving and even more so because i could find paralles with my own life. choices my parents made that put us in alternative situations that the mainstream society would look down upon. we chose to see things as freedoms of choice but them might've just been expressions poverty.
currently i'm reading three books, gravity's rainbow (for about five months now and i haven't picked it up in at least three); mansfield park (2nd time), and the memory keeper's daughter. this last one is about a doctor who delivers his twin children on a snowy night only to discover that the daughter has down syndrome. topic close to home the book was lent to me by emhavs who's brother has down's. the novel is set in the late 1960's where thoughts of institutionalization are the status quo and the ideas of equal medical treatment and education were a struggle. it is an interesting read because my mom, when alice was born in 1981, was told she should put her in and institution. when my mom refused they told her all she could do was take her home and love her because she wasn't going to get past the mental age of a two year old.
some of my favorite diane arbus photos are of the women with down syndrome. taken at a time when the developmentally delayed were locked behind closed doors and the women who birthed them were shamed into thinking it was their fault. here are two of her pictures of people with down syndrome. i know it's been said that diane arbus demeaned her subjects with the photographs she took but i truly think photographing what was never seen or locked away and shunned by society empowers. shines a light on what was dark. plus, the attention she paid to them during the photographing and the importance felt by having a picture taken outweighs the people who choose to see the photographs as demeaning.
this is my favorite, made me think of alice. i was just so happy to see them outside and laughing. i believe it was taken in the late 60's early 70's.
