As defined by Webster's Dictionary, efficiency is the ability to do something or produce something without wasting materials, time, or energy, a technique that sounds like a sure-fired way to close more sales.
But, how, exactly, does being efficient translate into everyday work habits and productive routines? Many of the steps to becoming more efficient are simple ones we merely need to add to our repertoire of tools or refocus on. Take our suggestions and tips to become a more dynamic agent.
He who hesitates is lost.Make decisions more quickly. A great deal of time is spent overanalyzing simple choices and not infrequently opportunities are lost during time spent in analysis. Use your best judgement, make a quick decision and move on to the next task.
Create systems. Work is easier and more productive when you have systems that enable you to move smoothly from one task to the next without organizing documents or hunting for phone numbers. Systems don't have to be elaborate: They can be as simple as preparing at the end of one day for the next or planning 50 minutes of call time followed by a 10-minute break. An ordered work life means you can accomplish more without reinventing the wheel daily.
Never leave empty-handed. You should be able to earn something from every contact you make. Start with your highest ask and work down: If you can't book an appointment, ask for a referral. And, if you fail to get anything with them after three contacts, it may be time to cut them from your call list and move on to better prospects.
Mother was right. All that time spent cleaning your room as a kid turns out to be good practice: A messy and disordered office isn't conducive to efficiency. Don't believe those online stories about messy people being more creative! If you tend towards sloppiness, undertake a full-scale organization of your office space and pay attention to how you work afterwards.
Finally, one of the best suggestions we can give is to find a mentor or an accountability partner to help you stay on track. No matter how you pride yourself on your systems or efficiency, regular check-in conversations with another person are a great way to fine-tune them and see what works for another agent.


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Man denies string of offences including assault in Paignton
Thomas Williams pleaded not guilty to seven offences including spitting and urinating on police property
Caroline AbbottSenior Reporter
Custody cells
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A 33-year-old man has appeared in court to face seven charges including a racially aggravated offence and assaulting a police officer in Paignton.
Thomas Williams, of Mapstone Hill, Lustleigh, has been accused of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour towards two men in Paignton on September 20.
Woman accused of smashing church windows 'unfit to attend' trial
In one case this was alleged to be with intent to cause fear of unlawful violence and in the other, to cause harassment, alarm or distress – and the offence was racially aggravated.
Williams, who appeared at Newton Abbot Magistrates' Court on Monday, has also been charged with assaulting a police officer in the execution of his duty in Paignton, and having 1.04 grams of cannabis, a controlled drug of Class B, in his possession on the same date.
Large Marks & Spencer out-of-town food store coming to Paignton's old Nortel site
Williams also faced two charges of criminal damage relating to the same date. It has been said that he damaged the inside of a police van cage by spitting on it, and he damaged a police custody cell in Torquay by urinating in it. In both instances, a special clean was required.
Williams pleaded not guilty to all offences and the trial will take place on January 22.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Attractions > Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge
Area : 24,552 acres
Telephone : 2471-1309
Hours : 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily
Entrance Fee : $10.00
Location : 16 miles west of Los Chiles
Caimans bathe with wide-open mouths on the banks of the Frío River in the Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge. Above them in the trees, the second loudest animal in the world, the howler monkey bellows its wild, vicious roar. If you're lucky, you might even catch a glimpse of a rare albino monkey that lives with a troupe of howlers in the trees along the river.
The Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge spans nearly 25,000 acres of grasslands, rainforest, marshes, rivers and lakes near Costa Rica's Northern border. It's one of Costa Rica's most important wetlands and recognized as an international conservation site by the Ramsar Convention on wetlands. Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge has no trails. Instead, visitors navigate the park along its network of canals, lakes and lagoons.
The Monica, Cano Negro and Frío Rivers flow through the refuge and flood over their banks during the wet season (May-Nov.) filling the 2,000-acre Cano Negro Lake. During the dry season (Dec.-April), the lake gradually drains making way for a huge influx of migratory bird species, from the endangered roseate spoonbill and jacana to more common annual species including anhingas, wood storks, black-bellied whistling ducks, blue-winged teals, glossy ibis, and the Nicaraguan grackle.
The only way to access the refuge is on one of Cano Negro's river tours, which takes visitors along the Frío River looking for howler monkeys, capuchin monkeys, king fishers, green basilisk lizards, caimans, turtles, and many other species. Most tours depart from Arenal, a two-hour scenic drive past pineapple and sugar farms with a stop at a local restaurant –famous for the iguanas that live in the nearby trees.
Dedicated anglers are also faithful fans of Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge where half-day sport fishing tours take visitors though shallow lakes and tributary rivers that promise hard-fighting tarpon as well as champion snook. Other species common to the area are drum, machaca, gar and rainbow bass.
Jan. through March are the driest months and also the most active for migratory birds.
Annual rainfall: 117 inches; average temperature: 79 degrees.
Wildlife watching and fishing are the two most popular activities. Canoeing, kayaking, and safari boat tours are the most common ways to see Cano Negro. Guided nature and fishing tours depart from Arenal, but it is also possible to hire a local guide in Los Chiles.
Flora & Fauna:
Cano Negro is home to an incredible diversity of wildlife including more than 350 bird species. Common sightings along its rivers include land and river turtles, white ibis, two-toed sloths, howler monkeys, anhingas, great egrets, white-faced monkeys, howler monkeys, green basilisk lizards, caiman and white-tailed deer. Less common sightings include jaguars and pumas.
Hundreds of tree species line the riverbanks around Cano Negro including poro trees and raphia palms, which drop a special fruit into the river's turning the waters black and giving Cano Negro its name.
From San Jose, take Route 1 to Alajuela. Drive toward San Carlos and follow the signs to Los Chiles. About four miles before you reach Los Chiles, you will see the turn-off for the bridge to Cano Negro.
It's possible to drive to the park during the dry season (Dec.-April), but a 4WD is recommended in the wet season (May-Nov.). You can also catch a tour boat at the Los Chiles docks on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 a.m.
Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge in Pictures
Wildlife in Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge
American Crocodiles
Basilisk Lizards
Cane Toads
Neotropical River Otters
Spectacled Caimans


Zoologica (published since 1888) is a series of in-depth, monographic contributions to zoology on all animal groups, notably insects. Zoologica distinguishes itself from competing publications by its high-quality large format illustrations, figures and plates. In contrast to journals, which mostly do not publish lengthy, image-heavy contributions of monographic character, Zoologica recognizes the scholarly value of these and invites the submission of such manuscripts. All recent contributions are in English, while older contributions are in German.


9 a.m., at Nash Auditorium, Wilcox Building, Chedoke Hospital, Sanitorium Road.
And in Sarnia on Tuesday, April 20th, 7 p.m, at the Kinsmen Centre, (Oakroom Room), 656 Lakeshore Road.
Bingemans Conference Centre, 425 Bingemans Centre Drive.
tinyurl.com/yetky6u (Yankee Echo Tango Kilo Yankee Six Uniform).
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Encyclopedia of American Loons
It's … The Encyclopedia of American loons! Our new and exciting series presenting a representative sample of American loons from A-Z.
#2338: Theresa Thombs
William Thomas, popularizer of paranoid chemtrail conspiracy theories, is apparently Canadian. Theresa Thombs, on the other hand, is not only American, but a representative for a very familiar, very American type of denialism. Thombs was a 2014 candidate for the Texas state board of education, whose campaign was largely based on warning people that the then-current board was "using your tax dollars to brainwash our children into socialist issues and ideas." Among those socialist ideas were, unsurprisingly, the theory of evolution, and Thombs firmly denounced "people from socialist higher education" who support the teaching of evolution. "We know we didn't come from monkeys!" exclaimed Thombs. She later said that people who criticized her attack on evolution at a school board candidate forum are actually trying to take away the right of Christians to speak freely and run for public office, because there is no difference between criticism and persecution when the criticism is directed at her.
Thombs considers herself an "international evangelist" who was in the running to fight "adgendas and ideoligies" (yes, that's her spelling – she also asserted that parents are "criticle," and that she's an "advicate" and "expereinced") and to defeat "Devil worshipers". Her "Mission and Issues" statement also described her goal to "stem the tide of our best and brightest teachers leaving the classroom to pursue other carriers, because they can no longer live with the policies and mandates they no are harmful to their students." We are not convinced her idiosyncratic spelling would actually count against her in a Texas schoolboard election.
On other issues, Thombs emphasized the importance of asserting "straight pride" to stop "political correctness." To clarify her position she did say that she is "not bigoted or hateful" and that she in particular didn't hate gay people, and then she compared gay people to murderers.
Diagnosis: Colorful village idiot, mostly. Thombs didn't win a seat this time around, but it is worth pointing out that she probably didn't lose because of her views as much as her tone.
Posted by G.D. at 7:22 AM
GeorgeV July 9, 2020 at 3:27 AM
The old "I'm not a bigot, but here is my bigotry on parade" style of nutter.
Consider the words, even today of the most vehement believers, who make threats of hellfire and even worse by their own hands against others.
Consider all the histories of religions that have been spread by compulsion, torture and the sword, as recorded in history and the books of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and others.
Consider the bones of the history they have wrought for themselves on fields of blood, compelled by fantasy horrors in their crazed desires...
Then read this ancient wisdom preceding that history, wisdom which all these acts delivered of faith have corrupted:
"From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate"
Socrates - 469 BC - 399 BC
This blog is currently subject to a short break - we'll pick up the action again in a little while.
#2342: Tom Thompson
#2341: Melvin Thompson
#2340: Gary Thompson
#2339: Damon Thompson
#2337: Paul Thomas
#2336: Jennifer Thieme
#2335: Bob Thiel
#2334: Nancy du Tertre
#2333: Dennis Terry
#2332: Robert Temple
G.D.
Ads by Project Wonderful! Your ad could be here, right now.


Dried Jalapeno chile peppers are available as powder or flakes. This pepper has a slightly sweet, fresh, crisp taste similar to a bell pepper, but with a little heat. Rated up to 8,000 Scoville heat units.
All natural, no ETO, and non irradiated. These peppers are grown in the U.S.
The jalapeno chile pepper is probably the most well known pepper in the world. The jalapeno originates in Veracruz, Mexico. Most of the U.S. commercial growing of jalapeno peppers is in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. Jalapenos are used in Mexican and southwest cooking and are used fresh, canned, smoked and dried. Jalapeno peppers range from 2,500 - 8,000 in Scoville Heat Units (SHU). They are pretty mild; hotter than bell peppers and milder than habanero peppers. Individual peppers can vary in heat also. The smoked form of a jalapeno chile pepper is a chipotle pepper and it rates higher on the Scoville Scale, 5,000-10,000.
The flakes are similar to red pepper flakes but are from the dried jalapeno chile pepper.
They have no additives, preservatives and are processed in a "sanitary" environment. These are 100% all natural, and non-irradiated. They have also been tested, and are free of sudan dyes and aflatoxins. These peppers are grown in the U.S.
192+ pods in 1 pound.
This pepper has a slightly sweet, fresh, crisp taste similar to a bell pepper, but with a little heat.


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Home > Liberal Arts > PSYCHOLOGY > Faculty Publications > 607
Psychology Faculty Publications
Buprenorphine Naloxone and Extended Release Injectable Naltrexone for the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder Among a Veteran Patient Sample: A Retrospective Chart Review
Steven D. Shirk, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester
Victoria Ameral, Bedford VA Healthcare System, Bedford
Shane W. Kraus, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Joseph Houchins, Columbia University, New York
Megan Kelly, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester
Kendra Pugh, Bedford VA Healthcare System, Bedford
Erin Reilly, Bedford VA Healthcare System, Bedford
Nitigna Desai, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester
Journal of Dual Diagnosis
Previous research has demonstrated the effectiveness of both extended-release injectable naltrexone (XR-NTX) and buprenorphine/naloxone (BUP-NX) in the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD). However, studies using real-world samples with multiple medical and psychiatric comorbidities are lacking. The study's primary aims were to: (1) compare clinical presentations in an inclusive sample of OUD-diagnosed US military veterans receiving XR-NTX and BUP-NX, and (2) investigate differences in 90-day treatment outcomes between these two groups. Methods: The medical records of 79 patients receiving medications to treat OUD in a VA hospital's addiction outpatient treatment program were reviewed retrospectively. The analysis included all veterans who initiated medication treatment during the study period. Differences between medication groups on co-occurring diagnoses, treatment retention, and related outcomes were examined. Results: The two groups were similar in medical and psychiatric comorbidity, although the BUP-NX group were more likely to have a pain diagnosis. No statistically significant differences in retention or toxicology results were found between the two groups over the 90-day study period. The rate of positive urine screens for the BUP-NX group was 19.2% for opiates and 13.5% for other illicit substances, and 3.7% and 11.1% respectively for the XR- NTX group. Conclusion: There was no evidence that 90-days outcomes differed for veterans based on medication received, and there were more similarities than differences in clinical characteristics. Additional research is needed, including larger sample size and prospective randomized control trial to evaluate VA patients' treatment outcomes receiving BUP-NX or XR-NTX for OUD.
Opioid use disorder; buprenorphine naloxone; injectable naltrexone; veterans
Shirk, S. D., Ameral, V., Kraus, S. W., Houchins, J., Kelly, M., Pugh, K., Reilly, E., Desai, N. (2021). Buprenorphine Naloxone and Extended Release Injectable Naltrexone for the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder Among a Veteran Patient Sample: A Retrospective Chart Review. Journal of Dual Diagnosis, 17(3), 207-215.
UNLV article access


Please print a picture and story about the Treasure Hill project. It is so incredibly massive and way disproportionate to the neighborhood. I have been aware of the project for some time, but was taken aback at the size. The project needs to be more in line with the Town Lift, blended into the town, not overpowering it. Please inform the residents of Park City and open up discussion so that we are all aware of what is headed our way.
My family and I have enjoyed the quiet, scenic life in Park City for upwards of 25 years. We've owned a home off of Lowell Avenue for 20 of those years. We've watched the city change, some for the better, some for the worse, but what the Sweeneys are planning would change the very essence of Park City. The project is a monstrosity. The building of this project alone would completely disrupt the city.
Most of Park City does not travel Lowell or Empire roads, at least not regularly. For those of us who do, it is a nightmare during the winter season, and that is with the current traffic, snow removal, illegal parking and ongoing single-home construction. There are already countless delays trying to navigate Empire and Lowell on a regular basis. With the added strain of this project, the resulting delays would be staggering.
There are so many ramifications for the building, supplying, staffing, etc. of this project that it is only right that the city as a whole, and not just those privy to insider information, know as much as possible. Reading about the project is one thing, but to see a rendering of it is imperative to fully grasp the size of this thing.
Thank you for the front-page story that mentions all the patriotic feelings being expressed this week. It is great to know that it is once again fashionable. Welcome aboard, Park City. We've been waiting for you!
Thank you for printing my comments. I was surprised it made it in your paper and even more so that it was during the SFF when so many liberals are running around town. I read the replies in today's (Wednesday's) paper and they had no effect on my position, just more liberal bantering. As for my support of Israel, I feel that nation is doing everything possible to protect its people and the Palestinians from the terrors of Hamas. The embargo was an attempt at hurting Hamas and it failed.
There is a lot of talk about how Israel reacted last week but very little talk about the weekly and daily missiles sent into Israel at innocent civilians and the effect that has had on the people there. I believe that the majority of the reports we hear from the Palestinians and the media is twisted half truths or rearranged facts. This is one of the main tools used by terrorist groups and has so far been very successful for Hamas.


Often in life it's the trivial things that really get to you. The big things seem to take care of themselves. Love, marriages, births, deaths – they are exciting but they tend to happen whether we like it or not. But what about the small challenges that we have to deal with every day?
Comedian Guy Browning has some interesting and rather hilarious rules on how to deal with everyday trivialities in his book Never Hit a Jellyfish with a Spade. From sports and exercise, to fashion and grooming, Guy's rules are laugh-out-loud funny and true as a monkfish.
For instance, Guy notes that exercise is any kind of movement you wouldn't normally make in everyday life. However, everyday movements can be converted into exercise by adding the word 'power': hence 'power walking', 'power lifting' and 'power dressing'.
The Sunday Times describes the book as a 'brilliant one-off in which everyday matters are skewered with deadpan style and deadly accuracy'. 'Funny and strangely useful' is how the Daily Mail describes the book.
I find the book rather amusing and his rules are particularly useful for when we seem to be taking life far too seriously!


Noon-mark sundial with display of solar time and date. With CET/CEST table.
The MERIDIANA noon-mark sundial displays solar time and Central European time (CET). As soon as it is 12 noon, you can read the date. Using the date, you can calculate CET at 12 noon from the diagram below the sundial scale.
The MERIDIANA can be used for all locations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The MERIDIANA is manufactured from high quality bronze using the traditional sand casting method.
Includes securing materials, tools and detailed manual.


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Category: Nonfiction
Emmys and Cosmo.
I feel like I'm still very new to winning. I would imagine there are many people who'd disagree with me, but that's because they're observing from the other side of the glass. "Winning" is relative; everything is. And, of course, only we can determine the units by which we measure it.
I rarely feel like I'm winning when I'm expecting to reap a material benefit as a result. The rate of pay is never high enough, the terms of a contract never secure enough. And it rarely feels like a legitimate win just to accomplish a new feat. Sure, I was published somewhere. But how prestigious is the publication? Is it digital or print? How difficult is it to be published there? Am I proud of the work that made to print? Did I take pains with the wording or rush it through? Would the publication have taken an essay from anyone who could turn one around, just because they needed quick copy? It's still not a book. It's still not The New Yorker. It's still not a full-time job.
It's not whatever smoke or mirror I've convinced myself I should be chasing.
It's hard for me to maintain a healthy perspective, is what I'm saying. While I was watching the Emmys Sunday night, I saw a few shining examples of health, examples of women — black women — clearly embracing their wins. And I had no idea how desperately I needed to see that until I was bearing witness to it.
I've been watching Regina King on screens since 1985, when I was six and she first appeared on 227. Exactly 30 years later, she's nominated for and winning her very first Emmy, despite having put in masterful performance after masterful performance for decades. It was never about an Emmy for Regina King. She just worked. From age 14 until now, in her mid-forties, she's just worked. She's acted, directed, raised a son post-divorce, kept a pristine reputation among her peers. She's been winning. So when she accepted the Emmy, it was with pleasant surprise, deep gratitude, and admirable groundedness. She leaned right into that mic and told us all that it was particularly special because her homegirl and colleague, Taraji, presented it to her. She told us it meant more because her son, who escorted her to the awards, was present to witness it. And it was easy to believe her, easy to understand that the Emmy itself was mere icing. She'd long held all the ingredients she'd needed for personal fulfillment.
And then I saw Uzo Aduba hear her name called as a winner. It wasn't her first time, but she was as shocked and thrilled as if it were. She did not rush to the podium; she didn't need to. She understood what it meant for her to win. For her, it meant leaning over to her sister, talking to her for a moment, ignoring the audience and the camera and the expectation that she hurry. That bond, that moment of privacy in the one of the most public possible venues in all of Hollywood: that was winning. "I love you mostly because you let me be me," she said to her professional team during her speech. Maintaining your core identity in a profession where everyone's job is to change you — role to role, set to set, carpet to carpet — is the truest success of all.
Of course there was Viola, whose relationship with winning has always been public and candid and complex. Viola, who wears her insecurities on her sleeve, who gives voice to every ancient feeling of inadequacy she's managed to silence, who trusts us all enough somehow to confide that there are still uncertainties she has yet to vanquish. Viola is always winning, because, with every Hollywood validation, she deepens her advocacy for the women who've been cast aside, passed over, and ignored. Viola is always winning because a lifetime of feeling loss has taught her to consume accomplishment without an aftertaste of bitterness.
But it was Taraji who exemplified winning best of all last night, Taraji who took home nothing but her joy (and a lead role of one of the hottest series on television these days). It's one thing to know how to remain fully present in the midst of a win, to understand its magnitude before the moment passes, rather than growing to appreciate it in retrospect. It's quite another not to win, in the conventional sense, and to fully commit to celebrate everyone else who does, anyway. I've been there. And each time, I like to believe I've been genuine in my celebration of others. But I don't think I've ever managed to fete someone quite as unabashedly for receiving something I really wanted as Taraji managed to do last night.
This moment was everything: crowd applause died down long before Regina made it to the microphone. Taraji yelled out a "Yay!" and hyped them back up, literally from the shadows of a spotlight.
There was no shortage of inspiration during these awards, and days later, I'm still thinking of how long it can take to experience a moment, how many years of dues-paying could be necessary before you get your due. I'm still thinking of everyone's tenderness, of how intrinsic that is to the experience of winning. Kindness, uncomplicated delight for someone else, groundedness, pride in oneself, gratitude, an ability to feel happiness unsurpassed for someone other than yourself: those are the surest gauges of success and contentment.
To win is to understand when to silence your questions and simply accept every good thing that you attract. If we are only in competition with ourselves and not with our peers, if our goal is only to top our last highest peak, we still need to know when to rest and to bask and to cherish. Every good thing must be good enough, even as we look ahead and work toward something more. It could all end here and we would find ourselves the opposite of empty-handed: heavy-laden with moments, relationships, accomplishments, and triumphs over our more despondent, disappointed natures. Each in our own way, we are constantly winning.
I got my first byline at Cosmopolitan.com yesterday. My mission is simply to be pleased with that today.
Three in a Day (and Other Feats).
I managed to catch this before it rotated out of the feature spot. I think the sight of my story being the lead on a homepage will always thrill me, even when it only lasts a half-hour. That never gets old.
I've had a busy week, juggling multiple deadlines, and as fortune would have it, everything I wrote was published today: the latest of my weekly columns at New Republic and Washington Post Act Four, as well as a quick piece for Rolling Stone.
Here are links to those:
"The Personal Essay Economy Offers Fewer Rewards for Black Women" – New Republic
"The Perfect Guy and the Drawbacks of Colorblind Filmmaking" – Act Four
"10 Things We Learned from Cosby: The Women Speak Special" – Rolling Stone
I honestly don't know I managed to put out these three pieces this week. Some weeks are just "How I Got Over" weeks; from the other side, you see the chasm between fixed points and marvel that you made it. In addition to those three pieces of writing, I had a few other deadlines, meetings, obligations, trips. And the requisite duties of full-time caregiving for a daughter who's becoming increasingly expectant of my time and attention, because we're together roughly 21 hours a day every weekday (and 24 hours a day most weekends). She used to care less whether I was nearby when she was younger; now any distance we have from one another seems to overwhelm her. That makes conducting phone interviews, trying to write coherent sentences in momentary emptiness of the next room, fielding work calls hard, or just finding an uninterrupted stretch of minutes to compose a single, complete, and purely adult thought very challenging.
I don't know if I'm a good enough writer to convey just how challenging it can be, so I won't belabor it. Just know that this week, in particular, it all got the best of me. It's important to admit that — and if there's anyone around to help when you reach that breaking point, that critical mass of responsibility, tell them immediately and be very specific about what they can do to assist you.
A few days ago, I was looking at Twitter like I do compulsively every day and decided quite extemporaneously to stop tweeting. I took about five days off before I tweeted out my articles today and thanked some folks for sharing them (Thank you, if I didn't tweet you directly; I saw it and I appreciate it). It was a good decision.
I'm not a cold turkey person; I don't handle sudden and total abstinence well. It's just hard for me to make drastic changes and stick to them. So I've still been reading my feed, but I've been refraining from active participation. My life has gotten really noisy, and I've been looking for ways to quiet it. This has proven to be an effective way to do that, at least in the short-term.
That said, there are a few things I just can't resist sharing:
This local news clip I cannot stop watching, because it's amazing from start to finish:
Care free black girls pic.twitter.com/6iIIzsIhug
— Syrup-sexual Nymph (@5ftanomaly) September 17, 2015
This really endearing story about a boy deciding to forgo the use of his prosthetic eye, because of Fetty Wap — and Fetty Wap's nuanced, self-aware response, which thanks the boy's mom for being "a fan of him as a person" (if not a fan of his music, because… yeah) and thanks the boy for being a fan of Fetty Wap, the artist:
Fetty Wap inspired a young boy to remove his prosthetic eye http://t.co/NYA27OEhbr
— billboard (@billboard) September 19, 2015
I definitely would've tweeted yesterday about how I spent a few hours traveling by car to an all-Bilal soundtrack. I would've shared these two versions of "When Will You Call," the raw, "She just left me, and I've forgotten the purpose of soap and water" original version and the "I've had some distance and I can be a bit more mature from a reasonable remove" Terrence Blanchard version. I would've noted that this song chronicles a textbook case of ghosting, which didn't have a name back in 2001 when the track was released. I would've mentioned that I used to feel as anguished as he sounded when I listened to this as a 21-year-old. But when I listened yesterday, I wondered what he did that made her decide not just to leave but not to let him know why she was doing it. Age and experience can drastically alter the way we listen to songs. Early Bilal reminds me of when I was a senior in college (His first album dropped that year, and I'd never heard anything like it). In retrospect, he just sounds so impossibly young and petty and angsty — like we all were at that age and still are on occasion, if we're being honest. I've connected with a lot of his later music (and I listened to a ton of it yesterday), but there's something so nostalgic about First Born Second. Certain albums and artists make you feel like you can reclaim time; as long as you can revisit their past works, your own past — however naive or fraught– is never entirely lost.
This was so good, I just went ahead and tweeted it, break-be-damned:
This made me cry but I'm so grateful to have read it.|She's 10. She has HIV. This is the moment she learns the truth. http://t.co/rw00RYuQZE
— stacia l. brown (@slb79) September 18, 2015
Please read that. It's so important.
Lastly, I *might* have shared this clip from early yesterday evening. It was around dusk and at that time, I was fielding second-round essay edits, stressing over a proposal, considering quitting professional writing, starving myself. So I thought it would be a great time to dance. My daughter, who was dealing with some toddler-level stress of her own, did not agree:
Running Toward 36 (With My Woes).
I'm turnin' into a nigga that thinks about money and women, like, 24/7. That's where my life took me; that's just how shit happened to go. — Drake, "Know Yourself"
When I turn 36 in two months, I will cross over the benchmark of this decade where I'm closer to 40 than I am to 30, far closer to middle-age than post-adolescence. Subconsciously, during 2015, that must've been significant to me. This has been the year that I started chasing. Finally, I stopped waiting for my dreams to find me working, and refocused my work so that it gathered like an arrowhead and flung itself forward.
I still don't know what else I want to be when I grow up. But I know far better, thanks to 35, who I am right now.
The things we learn about ourselves in our 30s, man. The ugly things. Whew.
— stacia l. brown (@slb79) September 2, 2015
A few days ago, I tweeted that the 30s are a revelatory set of years — and not everything you become during them is inspiring or pleasant; not everything you realize about yourself makes you proud. The truth is: the first five years of my 30s taught me just how many of my good traits are decision-based. They're the result of waking up every day and choosing to be kind or generous or thoughtful or compassionate. None of that is innate. I'm not always tender with my child instinctively, for instance. Sometimes I take a deep breath first and set my intention on a soft word or a gentle touch or a question — "Was that nice?" or Was that the right choice?" — rather than yelling, "What's gotten into you?!"
And, I mean: I fail.
I can be shallower than I thought I had become, either compelled or unnerved by physical appearance in ways I thought I'd conquered as a child. I still notice how people look before I notice who they are; how they look still impacts how I process who they are. It's something I intend to continue rejecting, now that I'm aware just how much work I still need to do.
Even when I think I'm operating out of pure human kindness, I can discover, at the end of a day, that I was in fact motivated by the response I'd hoped to receive. The disappointment I feel when I don't get it is what makes that apparent. Take this, as an example: when I was 33, I fell in love with someone, dated him for four months, and pined for him over the next two years. For him, I would run a gauntlet of errands, under the guise of just-friendship, attempting all the while to convince both him and myself that I was simply good-hearted, willing to accept what would never be — us, a couple, reconciled — yet still present myself to him, whenever he was in a bind. Love, after all, whether or not it's met with equal or greater force, is kind. It doesn't seek its own. It meets whatever need it sees, without expectation of repayment. This is what I wanted us both to believe. It's who I thought I was: purely kind, unconditionally loving.
But I was stealing all kinds of repayment: the sight of him, his touch, the scent of him steeped in the cloth seats of my car, long after he'd left it, his conversation. I used it all as a kind of fossil fuel; I let it burn off my loneliness.
Worse, in my 30s, I've been on the receiving end of this very kind of attention, offered as under a label of friendship and undeterred by known disinterest in it. I've chosen not to reiterate my disinterest, because these days, having someone familiar near can be far more appealing than resolutely sending him away.
I am embarrassed to admit that. I spent my 20s eschewing all behavior that could be called clingy or needy or desperate or validation-seeking. I prided myself on being able to take a hint. I always left first, even if I didn't want to. I knew all the adages: Never make time for someone who doesn't make time for you. Listen the first time. Follow your first mind. If he's truly interested, you'll always know it. That I could know those things as true and decide to test them anyway isn't something I enjoy disclosing about myself. The woman who does that isn't the woman I believed I was.
My 30s have made me different. My 30s, with a small child I have yet to raise, whose future frightens me, for all its potential and for the possible ways that this potential will carry her far away from me and lead me, in my very old age, back to the silent, less vibrant life I led before her, are the decade where my worst qualities and greatest fears are revealing themselves and it's too exhausting to keep pretending to the world that I don't have them.
I am often afraid, especially in my friendships and with lovers. I do not want to let anyone go. I can say this now because I am almost 36 and I think, when a woman is still single at this age, this sort of admission is expected.
I do enjoy the life I'm carving out. I am a writer, which is really all I ever wanted to be in the world, and I am a mother, which I was never certain I wanted to be, but have risen to — with all my heart — just the same. Ten years ago, I would not have dared ask for more. I do not always dare it now.
But increasingly, I am challenging myself to own whatever I am and then to interrogate it. I am, at turns, angry and jealous and petty, short-tempered and selfish, and even, as this most recent failed relationship taught me, unwittingly duplicitous. I have done more than my fair share of compromising what I truly want. Now, I am becoming exacting about it.
I simply want to be good — to myself, to my child, to others, good at my work and at a love as yet unseen. I no longer want to pretend to anyone that I am sweeter or more self-sacrificing than I am. And in the absence of that performance, in the midst of my daily choosing and failing, I want someone beside me making his own, similar decisions. Among them: accepting me just as I am and choosing, each day, not to flinch.
Happiness Happens.
"People who like sweet things are people who want to be happy." — Kim Mi Young, Fated to Love You, Ep. 2
I like extravagant gifts: costly travel, pricey meals, good wine, undivided attention, genuine laughter at a joke I've made, forgiveness. I don't often get those things and when I do, typically, I give them to myself. This is, in part, because grown-ups told me, when I was small, that it's impolite to ask for gifts, immodest to carry myself as though I expect or deserve them, imprudent to confess aloud that I desire them.
I come from a line of women unaccustomed to getting what we want, unaccustomed to granting ourselves permission to voice our desires. We have never known what could be asked for without the answer of a scold or denial, without the answer of silence or a promise unfulfilled. My grandmother, a middle child among ten siblings; my mother, the only child of a single teenage mother; me, born to my single mom when she was 19: We weren't offered much in the way of lavishness.
That history matters.
Some families are run spare and hectic, in households where extravagance, if it ever stopped by, would have nowhere to sit, no uncluttered surface on which to settle.
By the time I was seven, my grandmother was doing fairly well, working as a court stenographer, a career from which she would retire after nearly 30 years of service. I grew up watching her take cruises to Caribbean and South American isles. She came back with textiles and key chains and magnets for me, t-shirts I never wore painted with the colors of toucan plumes.
She went to jazz concerts and stretched out on lawns to hear woodwind trios manically convey whatever they could without words. Sometimes she took me with her.
And other times, she took me to plays and performances. We saw Jelly's Last Jam with Savion Glover and Maurice Hines. We saw Spunk, a play that adapted three of Zora Neale Hurston's best short stories. Twice, we saw the Boys Choir of Harlem.
In those halls where choral sound rose to the rafters, where the patter of a dancing legend's tap shoes echoed offstage during a scene that portrayed his death, where a south Floridian negro dialect was performed just as Hurston wrote it, I came to understand what money could buy– not just a night at the theatre but exposure, not just access to a performance, but the sense that you are sharing emotion and wonder in tandem with whoever sits beside you. Only you, in that great hall on that one night, will ever have seen the show precisely as it was performed in those hours. Tomorrow, someone will recite the line with another inflection or remember, that time, to say a word they often forgot, or, someone with a certain rogue sparkle in eye, will improvise. But tonight, you all bore witness to this incarnation. It will not come again.
Nana, in her extravagance, taught me that happiness does not reside in the moment for me, but in the recollection of it. In the process of recalling what marvels I've had, those marvels magnify.
For holidays, she bought me gifts I never requested. I didn't ask for many things by name, so she had to guess. She bought me a Sega Genesis Game Gear one year, a toy I did not realize she knew existed. I politely played, watching the blue, spiky-haired hedgehog move through a gauntlet of chores toward some goal I was meant to help him reach. When the batteries ran out, I never requested new ones. I did not ask for any other game cartridges.
I was often mistaken for ungrateful or stoic or sullen over those kinds of gifts, played through once and set aside. But I remember receiving them. I remember wanting to share them. I remember that they were given to me because someone wanted to see my eyes widen with surprise and with glee.
In the end, all true gifts are experiences, the material encasing them meant to harbor something far more meaningful. Whether or toy or a theatre ticket, the happiness is in whatever action follows your grateful receipt of it.
How painful it becomes to live lowlier than you ought, to cloak yourself in denial of need or of pleasure, to constantly settle for less than you'd like. Over time, it means forgetting what you like. It results in an uncertainty of what would truly make you happy and, for a time, it seems it seems that you are in a state of perpetual discontent. Nothing is ever quite as pleasant as you'd want it to be.
There are ways to end this. Each one begins with opening your mouth, with saying: I want. and allowing it to be both public and true. Let it breathe I want. and animate I want. and demand undivided attention.
Photo credit: my five-year-old daughter
When I got the email, I was afraid to say yes. I waited nearly two weeks to respond. What if there were strings attached to the offer? What if I said yes, admitting just how much I wanted the gift, and it never came? The email, as soon as I acknowledged it, could become a broken promise, a wish unfulfilled. It was possible.
But what if there were no strings and the gift did come on the promised day? What if, like the heroines of myth and of fable I'd long been admonished not to emulate, my wish — once confessed — came true?
In all confession, there resides an element of risk. Courting rejection in exchange for a chance at delight: this is the writer's only real ambition. This risk is nearly a friend, a long-familiar.
So I said an eventual yes, and the company let me choose any gift it offered. I said yes, though I apologized for what may be viewed as greed: I wanted both the strawberries and the cheesecake trio. I said yes, with a slight blush and a bitten lip, as I always associate gifts like these with the lovers I wish I had asked for them.
In turn, the company waved its magic wand. Three days later, the package arrived: one dozen chocolate covered strawberries and a lovely assortment of miniature cheesecakes. They sent the gift, with simple hope that it would make me happy. I shared it with my daughter and my grandmother, splitting the cheesecakes between us and offering up all the white-chocolate-coated fruit to Story. They were her favorite. I'm smiling even now, remembering how delighted she was biting into them.
Happiness happens at the intersection of courage and confession, risk and recollection. I am never prouder of myself than when I choose to stand at those crossroads.
Dispatch from Freelancia.
I wasn't supposed to be in town this week. I was supposed to be in New Mexico, about 30 minutes from Albuquerque, at a writing retreat. I'd been looking forward to it since April: the desert, the solitude, the productivity. Though I've been incredibly fortunate this summer, having traveled to Yale (three days) and to DC (two days, commuting) for training in digital storytelling and media appearances, respectively, neither of those opportunities — as useful as they've been — afforded me quiet, unmarked time to write. The writing retreat would've given me seven whole days, the longest stretch of time I would've spent away from home and away from my daughter not just this summer, but in the five years I've been a mother.
I was really ready for it.
I'd envisioned myself writing at least one (but ideal two) nonfiction book proposal(s) and finishing the rough draft of a YA novel, returning home with reams of handwritten notes for new projects, my brain swept clear of its dusty preoccupations. (In all my fantasies about free time, my reach exceeds my grasp.)
The trip didn't pan out. I thought I'd have childcare for the entire week. I didn't, and I couldn't get an alternative solution together in time to attend.
The irony is that this was still the most productive writing week I've had in quite some time — distractions, kid in tow, and all.
I wrote two essays on Sunday, one that would run on Monday, the other on Tuesday. I spent the middle of Sunday night, between 1 am and 5 am, turning around edits on the Monday piece, and spent Monday afternoon turning around edits on the Tuesday piece. Then I turned my focus onto a piece that was due on Wednesday, one that required interviewing (and transcribing an interview) and watching a documentary. On Tuesday night, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun's Insider blog called at 9 pm to interview me for a column called "The 410 in 140," which focuses on Baltimoreans who use Twitter in noteworthy ways. I managed to file the essay with interviews late Wednesday (after staying up until 4 am Tuesday night/Wednesday morning to work on it); the piece ran Thursday. Thursday, I also pitched what I'll be writing for Monday's column with The New Republic and Thursday's contribution to the Washington Post Act Four blog.
Today, I'll be attempting to schedule and conduct interviews for the Monday column, as well as doing research for it.
You can find all this week's essays and the Baltimore Sun Insider interview, in order of publication, here:
I've had a dope week. TNR: http://t.co/KoKgfBIXyV BF: http://t.co/Ho7AkUkm4I WP: https://t.co/9Izdvm9A4d Balto Sun: http://t.co/PzuKdiPKVi
— stacia l. brown (@slb79) August 13, 2015
That level of productivity, when coupled with all the other demands on my time and resources, comes at a cost. And the anxiety I feel about generating ideas, meeting deadlines, and writing well — every time — is compounded by the freelance net 30 (or 40 or 60) payment terms. When I'm writing anywhere new, I'm never quite certain when I'll be paid (and the onus is, of course, on me to invoice for payment in a timely manner, which I don't always remember to do, because: other deadlines, responsibilities, invoices, obligations).
I love being this busy with the work of writing. I don't love what the business of freelance writing does to my heart rate and stress levels. I hope it will always be okay for me to express that here, at my personal blog, without seeming ungrateful for the opportunities I'm being afforded. I wish I'd had access to this level of candor about the business of writing when I was, say, 18 and picking English as a college major, or even 26, when I borrowed thousands in loans for my creative writing MFA. I don't believe in discouraging anyone who aspires to a career in new media writers, but I do believe they deserve to know what awaits them. I think more of us are being open about the rigors and challenges attendant to this life — and that can only benefit future generations of workers.
I've been giving some thought to how much of my life is spent online. One of the questions I fielded for the "410 in 140" piece was about whether or not I feel a pressure to use Twitter constantly. The answer is tricky. The relationship between the freelance writer and social media is an essential one. In much the same way that syllabi and lecture prep, grading, and holding "office*" hours are necessary, unpaid labor for adjunct instructors at colleges, social media use is necessary and unpaid labor for new media writers. It's a basis for research, a space to solicit interview subjects, a platform for carrying out the kind of intellectual debate I imagine goes on between colleagues in the brick-and-mortar newsrooms to which I don't have access (only, on social media, that debate is more inclusive, occurring as it does across class lines, regardless of city, state, or country of residence, with far more diversity along race, gender and disability lines).
I can say for certain that, to whatever extent I'm on anyone's radar as a writer about culture, race, motherhood, or anything else, it's owed to my online presence. Everyone goes about growing a readership differently. My way has been slow, with an emphasis on quality over quantity (even now, though it's thrilling to occasionally discover raw numbers of clicks or unique visitors, I try not to linger too long on the size of an essay's reading audience. I care more about how memorable and affecting a piece is, what — if anything lasting — it contributes to the larger discourse on an issue, and what — if anything — it compels a reader to do). Interacting with people online, thanking them for reading and sharing my work, trying to emphasize to them that we're in ongoing dialogue and that I'm trying not to write at them, so much as to them, and that I'm not interested in having the last word on any topic, simply because I've been fortunate enough to have my word published — these are the cornerstones of approach to writing for new media and for growing an audience in a grossly oversaturated market.
But I do crave a greater sense of balance. I envy my friends who nobly take "social media breaks," a week here, 30 days there. I covet how refreshed they always seem when they return. I've never been good at cutting off any activity or person completely cold turkey. I don't know if that's due to a lack of discipline or simply that I'm better at making long-term changes when I do so gradually and moderately. But I probably won't ever have a long lapse of online silence. A day here or there, where I'm on deadline or actually (gasp) out gallivanting through the tangible, analog world around me, perhaps. But I imagine even then, I'll tweet once or twice.
This is especially true now that I'm up to two weekly columns — one at The New Republic and one at The Washington Post Act Four. I can assure you that there isn't enough pre-existing knowledge or opinion or insight in my head for me not to be reading news stories or engaging with other thinkers about the news of the day. The most efficient way for me to engage in that work is via my Twitter feed.
In the last few month of the year, however, I do want to make more of an effort to step away. Quality over quantity is a principle that needs to operating in my personal life, too. I'm quite proud of how much work I put out this week, over a number of publications. But this week was also supposed to be about retreating, getting some physical and emotional distance, and recharging. I'm hoping to make my weekend about that (… while also working on my Monday column).
*Adjuncts don't typically have brick and mortar offices — and certainly not ones that they don't share with anywhere from one to 40 other people.
Life with a Five-Year-Old Coworker.
In the past ten days, I've started three different potential blog posts, but I've been overcome with ennui somewhere between the opening paragraph and the halfway point of each. If I'm bored with the work, I know that you'll be twice as bored. So I'm not going to publish any of that.
Since my last entry here, I've been published at RollingStone.com twice, once about Bill Cosby and more recently about Black Twitter (I spoke about the latter — among other things — on L.A.'s KCRW Press Play on Friday).
I've also written more weekly contributions for The Washington Post's Act Four, about my friend Daniel's fantastic young adult novel, Shadowshaper (and about the state of YA lit for black and brown kids generally), about "The Astronaut Wives Club" and its dogged insistence on Disneyesque racial commentary, despite being set in the early 1960s; and most recently on the news that the Obamas' first date is being made into a Before Sunrise/Medicine for Melancholy-type romantic dramedy.
Last weekend, I spent two days in D.C. at Women's Media Center, where I was part of Progressive Women's Voices Class of 2015.
When I couldn't find anyone to watch my daughter for 10 hours per day (eight in training and two in round-trip Baltimore-DC driving commute), the Center kindly provided two amazing caregivers for my daughter. The first day, she timidly crept up to me as I sat in U formation at a table, trying to focus on the work ahead. I scooped her into my lap and rested my chin in the downy crown of her head. I felt so empowered in that moment, so supported. It was one of few moments in my parenting life when I felt like Having It All might not be the myth we're convinced it is, that if work and life can never be quite balanced, they might at least have sweet, small clearings like this one at some of their intersections.
I breathed in the scent of my daughter's hair, an admixture of cremes and jojoba, proud of myself for my tentative strides toward caring for it myself, ever since my mother — who'd lived with us since I gave birth and who, aside from being my first-string childcare back-up, was also my kid's only hope for fashionable, healthy hairstyles — had moved away a month before.
My first-ever attempt at a milkmaid braid (or twist, as it were). I was so proud that I took pictures! Next up: learning to cornrow. … Maybe.
I was starting to get the hang of this, I thought. Finally. A full five years in. I'd worried that, with one less person to fall back on, the plates I'd already been struggling to spin would definitely topple. But here I was, managing a rigorous training program, surrounded by wildly accomplished women — chiefs of staff, directors of government agencies, nonprofit founders, news analysts, people who'd confidently testified before Congress, all of them the kinds of change agents I hope my own child will grow up to become. And here she was in my lap, being so serene and well-behaved. Here we were — miraculously — making it.
Then she lifted her head from my chest, and for a second, her face clouded. So did mine. "Are you o—?" I started and she answered by vomiting. Oatmeal, an orange wedge, a single bite of a chocolate muffin. There it all was in my lap.
So much for uncomplicated triumphs. Motherhood is a sustained effort at maintaining professional competence while struggling to mask the faint waft of toddler vomit lingering in the fabric of your smart little rayon-blend, business-professional romper. It's practicing how to sound like an "expert" in an interview while rushing into the lobby between takes to rub your kid's belly, make empathetic cooing noises, and apologize in advance to the sitter for any repeat-hurling performances (Mercifully, there were none). Because my attention was so divided, I didn't entirely understand the assignment we were supposed to complete toward the end of Saturday's session.
I ended the day flustered and deeply unsure of what I was even doing there. Had I experienced something like that at a training session before becoming a mother, I certainly would've excused myself from the table to cry. I was close this time.
But the thing that forced the tears back into their ducts was that I knew how hard I'd fought even to get to the building that morning. To load my child up and drive her here, to find our way out of a poorly designed underground parking garage without freaking out, to recover my calmness after getting lost in D.C. as I so often do, to keep telling myself that my acceptance to this program wasn't a fluke and that someone more deserving without so many self-perceived obstacles should not, in fact, be here instead of me. Those things were as difficult as managing the heartstring-tugs of a nauseous child and the eight hours of new material that needed to be synthesized and practiced immediately. But I'd done them. Here we were. I'd do this, too.
Binder full of women('s media training material).
By Sunday, I knew that no matter how I performed in the day's exercises, the training had already given me invaluable experience in managing my life. It helped me refocus on Beyond Baby Mamas, an undertaking I'd ironically convinced myself I was too busy simply trying to survive as a mom to devote the necessary attention to. It taught me not to be afraid to articulate my needs as a parent entering a professional space and, more importantly, to seek out spaces that are welcoming of and accommodating to me as a parent. Those spaces do exist and, when possible, I am entitled to enter them. Where they don't yet exist, I now have a precedent for what such spaces should look and feel like. And above all, attending PWV media training boosted my confidence in my ability to juggle the unexpected with the anticipated, with my daughter in tow.
I've had few greater moments as a mother than the one I felt last weekend, when it became clear that my daughter understood what I was doing at Women's Media Center as work — that even at almost-five-years-old, she is capable of comprehending that our world's responsibilities are broader than the work we do at her school and in our apartment. As a (mostly) work-from-home mom, that felt momentous.
She was thrilled to return to the offices on Sunday. "Are we going back to work?" she asked and I knew then that she'd approached the weekend with her own sense of duty and viewed it with her own sort of seriousness.
Her voice and, often, her laughter filled the corridor outside the conference room, and some of the deeply gracious women there were calling her "Dr. Story" because she was wearing and wielding her Melissa and Doug lab coat and check-up tools. It should be said that, no fewer than ten times over the course of those two days, trainers and trainees asked after her recovery from the upset-tummy episode, and/or offered their own commiserating, encouraging anecdotes about their own kids' projectile vomit.
I'm happy to report, our second day onsite was completely bile-free.
Children, Church, and Charleston-Writing at Vox and WaPo.
Last week, I spent four evenings at a local United Methodist Church where my daughter was attending Vacation Bible School. My grandmother suggested I sign her up. She'll be five on the first day of August and she's reached a tipping point as it relates to social interaction.
When I moved back to Baltimore from Grand Rapids when she was one, I did it in part because my mother, my grandmother and her father's parents were here. (The other major factor in moving had to do with the a greater breadth of career opportunity on the East Coast, as opposed to the Midwest.) But I didn't take into account that by moving here, she wouldn't have access to a single cousin. I'm an only child. My mom was raised as an only child. Her dad's closest brother lives four hours away (and all three of his daughters are just about grown). She has zero extended family, beside grandparents, here.
I'd forgotten how big a deal that is. I wasn't raised near cousins, either. And without siblings, I spent a lot of time alone as a kid. Most of my social interaction occurred at church. I still keep in touch with my church friends because of that; they kept me from complete childhood and adolescent isolation in ways they'll never be able to imagine.
Most of the kids at VBS knew each other; they were a part of that church's family. Many of them also had siblings and were attending with them. Only two girls were around my daughter's age and they weren't really playing with her because they had big sisters to shadow. Instead, my kid found herself surrounded by protective, older boys. They took her hand to lead her to the next station or small group activity. They gave her bear hugs. They looked down at her to make sure she was mouthing the right words and making the right gestures during song time.
It wasn't lost on me that we were gathering in a church at night, that we were mostly black congregants, that predominantly black church gatherings at night have become sites where we have to worry over our safety in ways we haven't had to in over 40 years.
I was introducing my daughter to church not just as a place for Sunday worship but a space where one's sense of family is expanded. I've never seen as much joy on her face as I did on those nights.
Eliana Pinckney (left) and Malana Pickney (right) with mother, Jennifer (center) walking to the South Carolina statehouse
I watched her beam and I thought of those girls, Eliana and Malana. I thought of how one of them was there that night, at bible study, waiting on her Daddy to be done for the night. I thought about the trauma etched onto their faces as they were photographed following his casket to the statehouse (under the shadow of a scornful flag). I thought about the bright white bows in their hair as they sat on either side of their mother in the front pew at his funeral.
The Pinckney girls and their mother at Rev. Clementa Pinckney's funeral
Church is family to them, too. I hope the other children there help them smile again, deeply smile, even if it may take years for them to see the edifice itself as a site of pure and guileless joy.
I wrote about the enduring importance of the black church now, in my first piece for Vox. You can read it here. (Many thanks to Dylan Matthews and Lauren Williams for the opportunity and editing, respectively!)
I also wrote about Dolen Perkins-Valdez's new novel, Balm, at the Washington Post and how eerily resonant it is right now, set as it is on the cusp of the Civil War's end.
It took me about a week after the massacre to submit anything to a publication about it. I blogged here first, as I often do when I'm trying to process something horrible, unsettling or difficult. I don't have to be as coherent, precise, or formal in this space. And I feel more confident that the people who read me here are patient, nurturing, and supportive, as I try to work through tough emotions within a safe online community context. That's important for people like me, who don't have as many people to touch, soothe, or talk to in person as others.
Community matters. To the extent that any of us have a public voice, we owe its credibility and impact to the people who allow us to vet our first instincts and initial thoughts without condemnation.
Black Faith in a Time of White Supremacy.
When the mothers of the church got to casting out demons, they'd set their massive weathered bibles in our tiny laps and tell us, "Whatever you do, don't let go of the Word." And we wouldn't. We'd clutch those King Jameses in our trembling hands and we'd wait out the after-service exorcisms.
We were children of parents who spoke in other tongues, danced themselves to ecstasy, prayed themselves apoplectic. The adults addressed the devil directly sometimes, told him he couldn't steal their joy, demanded back the years he had stolen, the relationships he'd severed, the health he'd destroyed.
They told us we were waging a war unseen. We'd best be prayed up and gird ourselves against principalities and powers, spiritual wickedness in high places, miscellaneous, but terrifying minions from hell.
We believed them.
I talked to a friend from that childhood church a few years ago, one whose parents, like mine, were on leadership staff there. That one of mutual friends had died suddenly, young and wed and parenting, still zealous about his own faith, was the reason we'd gotten in touch at all. We were trying to make sense of it.
I was thinking of how late we would stay after service as kids, waiting for our parents in the semi-darkened sanctuary, security volunteers posted, yawning, at the entrance and exit doors, all but the most fervent among them, longing to head on home.
"Do you ever think about how we were raised, how different it was?"
I was asking as if gazing back at something we'd survived. I was asking as a woman who considers herself logical and rational now, but who also still hopes for heaven and shivers at the thought of hell.
I wondered if he remembered the bibles in our laps, the prayer warriors and their wrinkled hands, all those conversations about demons conspiring to lure us away from our Lord.
He was calm when he answered. "All I know is that without being raised that way, I'd be dead or crazy now."
My grip on the phone loosened. He didn't say any more. But the weight of a dozen secret, sidestepped disasters walled themselves high behind his words. I couldn't push back, even if part of me wanted to.
I believed him.
We welcomed the white folks in. And over the years, they came. Some poor and some polished, they came. We broke bread with them. We prayed for them. Aware of what we guessed might be their discomfort with our traditions, our language, our liturgy, we sometimes went out of our way to assuage their unease. We laughed alongside them. Thought nothing of it.
They rarely stayed.
I needed time away from church because it began to feel too much like a house of superstition than a respite reserved for communal worship. I did not want the strength of my faith to be predicated on the material blessings I stood to gain by believing. I just wanted to believe. Even when babies were killed by those closest to them. Even if those professing to share the same faith as mine committed unspeakable acts of violence. Even if I never earned more than I did at my poorest. I didn't want to think that by tithing or praying I was somehow more insulated from harm than my neighbor, that my church attendance or my own unfocused stabs at righteousness would protect me from worst of life's fates.
John the Baptist was beheaded. Four girls burned. As have countless crosses. Myles Munroe and his wife died unexpectedly in a plane crash, on their way to work for their ministry. Our Christian friends and relatives contract diseases from which they die as often as they are healed. We are not all spared. And what good is our belief if it can be shaken when God doesn't step in to prevent the calamities we don't think we deserve? What good is our faith if we base it on the dollar value of the bills we place in an offering bucket or on uttering a certain combination of words during prayer? What makes any of us think we will never have to stare down unimaginable despair, simply because we're devout?
I needed a God who felt all the more real when the world was at its worst. And to test that He was the one I had vowed all these years to serve, I thought I had to get away from all the other Christians who sought to define Him for me. I had to interrogate what I questioned, what I doubted, what rang false, even after a series of itinerant preachers echoed it during revival.
There comes a time when faith can no longer be absorbed secondhand. Wheat — what you alone are certain you believe — and tare — what you've been taught but have never bothered to question — must finally part ways. And the voice that exits your body in prayer must be clearly recognizable as your own. It cannot mimic your mother's or be tinged with the sweetness of Grandma's clichés.
This is your life. You alone will answer for it. And the only voice you'll be able to access then will be your own.
I wandered a while on a long stretch of road, the light on its path possibly dim at turns. It took entire years. I left markers along the dirt, not entirely sure I wouldn't find myself returning to them.
My meandering days were numbered when I had a child. It was clear to me as she ripped her way out and the nurse rested her in my arms: this girl was not the work of her father and I alone. She had not gotten here by sheer force of my bodily effort. She was not a result of mere biological function and, because of this, part of her would always be unknowable to me. I'd need help then, to reach that part of her. I'd need a mediator whose presence among us was also not the mere work of mortal hands.
The church friends I made as a child are still, by and large, still fervent about church and faith. Even the ones I wouldn't have guessed would be. Most of them are parents. They are raising their children the way we were raised. They are doing this because it works. If they, having ventured away from our sacred, if cloistered, community, and having seen and survived the darkest days they'd known, and having found themselves right back in the house of God , alive and there to tell, then so would their children. Most of them.
This is reason enough to return. This, and days like this one, when the words to explain how this happened, where and when it happened, could not possibly come without divine intervention.
This isn't an attack in faith unless we're attacking the depths of racism within this faith. This man prayed first.With the ppl he murdered.
— stacia l. brown (@slb79) June 18, 2015
He likely felt he was praying to a God who sanctioned what he was about to do.
There's no way white Christians should, in 2015, be raising Christian kids who believe they can pray with, then massacre black believers.
But in this country, there are *plenty* of Christianity-professing white supremacists. Don't try to distance this shooter from the faith.
Racism among founding fathers of many American iterations of the Christian Church has allowed this kind of hate to persist. For generations.
How dare conservative pundits call this "an attack on faith"&refuse to acknowledge why black denominations had to be founded in 1st place?
Some of y'all have *got* to make your way to the intersection of religious faith and blackness, wake up, and smell the burning crosses.
Photo: cordjefferson: Imagine being so married to your narrative that says black people have it easy in… http://t.co/lQqeyjHvms
The Sunday after the 1963 church bombing, my wife's grandfather gave a sermon telling his Birmingham congregation, "We are guilty"
— William R. Black (@w_r_black) June 18, 2015
@w_r_black whole sermon here: http://t.co/p3KQ2B2qM0
Before the massacre at "Mother" Emanuel in Charleston, SC, I had been inching ever closer to God. He came at church on Sunday, when the pastor told us, "You have to cope before you can conquer," and later asked us to turn to our neighbors and declare, "I am raising my faith to the level of my fight." He came though a long conversation with a friend that night. We prayed for one another. No. More accurately, he prayed for me and I stammered a few well-intentioned words in return. But he told me that God did not feel the same way about my faith as I did. He didn't see it as feeble, flagging, inadequate. He didn't consider it something I was "struggling with." I am not a case study in what it means to falter. My faith has been sufficient, even when it's seemed small, even when I've had a hard time voicing it. It's been sufficient because I wouldn't let it go. It's a seed and, as such, it retains its ability to grow.
When we doubt, the friends who believe alongside us are often the light that keep us drawing nigh, lest we float away. We hold onto them when horror rushes in. We remind them, "Whatever you do, don't let go of the Word." In that moment, they are the Word in motion. And if we must die, for welcoming the troubled white supremacist 21-year-old whose boyish face looks as innocent as the brain behind it is wicked, if we must die for praying alongside him, if we must continue waging a war as unfathomable as it is unseen, there is no one better to be with in the end, than the people who kept us feeling closest to God when we felt farthest away.
There is no greater lesson to be gained for believers than to keep believing, right next to those with whom and for whom you would not mind dying. We are what we need most, now and ever.
Yesterday, I sang a worship song. I haven't done that, unprompted, in a while and I've never recorded myself singing one. I am glad to have that moment now, when freedom feels like such an improbable farce.
I echoed the words of a popular tune, one that the congregation had crooned in church on Sunday. I sang that I'd withhold nothing. I meant it and cried as I often do when I sing a prayerful song and every fetter falls and I feel — however fleetingly — free.
I sang it twice.
Hours later, nine other people who likely knew and sang that song and whose hearts promised the same, lay dead just feet from their church's altar.
Here, Lord, is my desperation.
Here, Lord, lay my anger.
Here is the love I hope won't not kill me.
Here, my longing for retribution.
Here, the depth of my unforgiveness.
Here, my hopes for their souls' safe passage.
Here, my desire to see them again, in a life beyond this often terrifying one.
Here, every doubt I have about what was and what is, and what's still to come.
I deny You nothing.
The Labor of Happiness: A Thread at Yale Reflection.
We hear it all the time: don't look to outside stimuli for happiness. The onus is on us. Only we can define the textures and scents and flavors of contentment in our own lives. Happiness is too subjective, too knotted in the personal experiences that have disappointed, injured, and traumatized us, for anyone else to be able to perform it in ways that will please us, long-term. And of course, happiness isn't designed as a longterm thing; it's temporal. Contentment — that general, resting state of emotional neutrality, or, even better, vague, uncomplicated pleasantness — is the longterm thing. Happiness is usually felt at the height of a moment or in the recollection of it:
"I wish this feeling would never end."
"I was happy then." That kind of thing.
We know now what our parents and grandparents may not have: "X makes me happy" isn't the healthiest requirement of a person, place, or experience. "I can be happy with X" is.
But old social demands die hard. And no one wants to bear the burdens of their own angst and anguish alone. No one thinks happiness (or contentment) should require much work. It's more comforting to believe that the external can be blamed when we are unhappy and some un-bottle-able kismet is responsible when we are happy. That absolves us.
I discovered at Yale earlier this week, that happiness isn't just work for me. It's hard labor. But I also learned that I'm fit for the rigors of it.
I needed Thread at Yale, the 3-day, 3-night conference on multimedia storytelling I attended June 7-10, to be transformative for private reasons. (I'm pretty forthcoming here about my personal and professional challenges, so those reasons may not be difficult to guess.) But I also needed to enjoy it. The use of "needed" is deliberate here; this wasn't a wan desire. Enjoyment wasn't optional. I needed to leave New Haven feeling like I'd wrung its most pristine higher ed institution dry. I've no idea if I'll ever get to return. And I needed to feel stretched and twisted and pulled taut, too; happiness lasts longer when your muscles ache at its memory.
But the happiness, the enjoyment, those weren't things I needed for just for myself. I was thinking of the people who helped me get there. There were so many of them, some identified, some anonymous, none who I will ever be able to thank enough. I knew that the closest I could get to adequately expressing my gratitude would be to maximize the experience, to let every minute I spent there make the full ride through each cell and tendon and synapse.
To do that, I had to introduce myself to more people than I would normally feel comfortable meeting in a day. I had to be an active listener and a keen observer. I had to participate fully in workshop, to spend lunches and dinners among new folks, to bond with the people I instinctively knew would become real friends.
And I had to make it look easy. Because no one should ever be made to feel like paying attention to them is a laborious act.
I hope I succeeded. I think I did — and if there's any picture that reassures me that I did my absolute best, it's this one:
Me with my storytelling workshop peers at THREAD. Our mentor, Mark Oppenheimer, is pictured center. [Photo credit: Pearly Tan]
I look at this and I know. I was happy. I think we all were. We worked for it. Workshops were held Monday through Wednesday for three afternoon hours. We discussed 4-5 projects a day, offering feedback on stories told either in print, video, or audio formats. And we also just learned about how writers live. I'd assumed before showing up that I was drifting on an ice floe out here in Baltimore, floating further and further away from the epicenter of a successful writing life. But I realized most of us feel that way, no matter our money and privilege (or lack thereof), no matter our residential address, no matter our age. And most of us worry constantly about whether or not we're on the right track as we struggle to balance ourselves on that floe and to keep creating, as all around us, professional leads and private loves go cold.
That may sound depressing, but I found it so incredibly affirming. I don't know. Maybe you had to be there.
But I promised I'd try to take you with me. Especially those of you who helped me finance this trip. So here's a multimedia story, told I spent most of yesterday creating. It's at VoiceThread.com, a basic slideshow-with-audio capacity app I found by Googling. I flattened my inflections in the narration because I'm mimicking Gillian Laub, who showed us her own narrated slideshow, during her talk on our third night in town. I'm talking fast because I wanted to convey how time flew. And I'm also channeling my Ira Glass NPR voice (which is something we were frequently warned not to do. lol).
I didn't really get to cover everything meaningful thing I felt or saw or heard in this blog post or in that Voice Thread. But I'll leave you with three videos Glynn Washington of Snap Judgment screened for us from his live shows:
Artistic director of The Moth, Catherine Burns, brought writer, Matthew Dicks, to tell us a Moth story in person. It was devastatingly beautiful, but I can't find a recording online. She also showed us lots of clips.
This was one of them, from the late Mike DeStefano, who describes one of his last, best memories of his wife, who died of AIDS (Trigger warning: grief and work-viewing warning: this includes profanity):
We also heard from Pulitzer Prize-winning sports journalist John Branch, who explained to us the process of how this story became a book and how this story became a 17,000-word multimedia project. Also recommended: his piece, "Lady Jaguars."
Illustrator and political cartoonist Steve Brodner told us so many things, but the most significant for me was an off-the-cuff comment he made about his life. He said (and this is a paraphrase), "I ate breakfast this morning. There are things I created that are out there for people to buy. I do work I love." I turned to my roommate, seated beside me, and whispered, "That's really what I want my own life to be, too." She smiled and reassured me, "You're on your way."
Final things:
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is right. We all have to let go of our preoccupation with being liked by one and all, at some point. It's not an attainable goal, and it's the absolute wrong one to chase.
Intuition and self-awareness are great time-savers. Both help you know right away how much time to invest in a conversation.
You definitely want to check out fellow Thread attendee Naima Green's gorgeous photography website.
You definitely want to subscribe to my Thread roommate Nicole Taylor's podcast, "Hot Grease."
Innovative digital storytelling involves a great deal of risk — and, like most other kinds of writing, good luck making money at it.
Many of my self-confessions ("I'm not social," "I don't perform extroversion well," "I never go out, now that I'm a mom," and "I'm more passive than I'd like to be.") are terribly outdated.
Whatever your field is, it's always going to be an enriching experience to regularly gather with others committed to that field. There are so many concerns and questions specific to our vocations and we forget that when we spend too much time away from others who've dedicated themselves to them.
The Racial Prism.
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. — W.E.B. DuBois
An American, a Negro… two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. — W.E.B. DuBois
I made it (Thanks to so many of you. I'm incredibly grateful).:
But last night, when I got here — to this previously inaccessible institution for this improbably-accessed opportunity — I made the mistake of catching up on the news. In my dorm suite, I read about the police assault on a young black girl and her black friends at a pool party. I was lying down on the spare, thin mattress when the news hit social media that Kalief Browder died, following years of trauma at the hands of of the NYC judicial and correctional systems broadly, and at the feet and fists of Rikers Island guards and inmates, specifically.
I have been elated since I arrived. There's a frequency of bliss, a thrilling current of excitement buzzing through me every single minute I spend here.
But in the midst of my euphoria at having barely scraped my way into this respite, hours away from the rigors of my daily life back home — the just-getting-by of it all, the constant, intimate, semi-secret worries I tend to share a bit too much of online — I've also felt an intense and all-too-familiar need to grieve.
The private joy must make room for quiet mourning, the mourning for performing public joy.
To vent the grief, I tweeted these things. Early. Before even leaving the dorm:
Being black in America is the black trauma following you to the ends of the earth. You can't escape it. You can't media-blackout it away.
— stacia l. brown (@slb79) June 8, 2015
These #McKinney kids? #KaliefBrowder? We carry that everywhere.
We're expected to carry on in schools and workplaces where, in many cases, only we've kept up with our news, our trauma. Every day.
And all the while, this grief is sitting on our chests. https://t.co/wHbVdxn4sU
Just think about that, everybody else. To be black in America is to feel like you've had a death in your family every hour of every day.
I know that sounds melodramatic to some of you. Might sound like hyperbole.
But that boy sat in Rikers for 3 years w/no trial. That girl and all her friends were terrorized at a pool party.
And we had to process the news of both events w/n hours of each other — to say nothing of the deaths/assaults of ppl we know personally.
And not only is being black in America like having a death in your fam every day; it's also having ppl try to DENY that death. Every day.
It's having ppl daily deny the validity of your grief.
Imagine someone hitting you with, "that's not how I see it." every. single. time. you tell them someone you love died.
Imagine someone rushing to you, practically giddy at the prospect of debating you about the death or assault of ppl you love. Every day.
That's blackness in America. It's "but was that really murder, though?" "Was that really assault?" Every day. https://t.co/6PUbqTpEmq
Tbh, I hate this "Now imagine they were white" Matthew McConaughey in "A Time to Kill" approach to racial discourse. I hate explaining this.
We all do. No one wants to de-prioritize their grief to explain what should be (and is) obvious. https://t.co/Ee6Fyq5qs4
I'm about to shift gears, both here & offline. But I hope at least one of you non-black people here believes what I said about being black.
Someone else will tweet the same thing tomorrow. And next week. And next year. Hopefully, one more of you will believe it each time.
And not just believe it but also help us legislate and truly, proactively enforce our way to a more just tomorrow.
This is hard, this divided attention. But it isn't just an emotional and intellectual focus divided by half. This is no mere doubled consciousness. Race in this country, with each successive generation, with every historical echo, and for all our technological advancement, has become a prism. This new racial prism — this 24-hour access to every horrible, three-dimensional detail of black trauma, requires constant, multiplicitous division. I can anticipate occasional euphoria, but I will always do so with the understanding that injustice will disrupt my joy. That is its own kind of violence, a forced splintering of identity, intellect, and emotion.
Here, in New Haven, where I want to enjoy an undisturbed experience of enrichment and networking, I find my thoughts drifting to the black folks I've seen on the streets and in service jobs. It's hard not to devote concern and curiosity to what seems an obvious and stark class distinction between Yalies (white, black, and brown) and black New Haven residents (or transients or commuting workers).
And once that rope of care has lassoed us, once we have gathered into each other, huddling against our shared and separate sorrows, it's hard not to cast our rope further, out to Kalief Browder's mother, who discovered him hanging outside the window of their home, out to the teenage girl in McKinney, Texas, kneed in the back, left all the more vulnerable to police-manhandling, while still wearing nothing but her sunny orange and yellow bikini, out to her friends who will feel the terror of that memory rippling through them at unexpected moments for the rest of their lives.
I almost felt weightless here. At times, I still do. To the outsider, the briefly affiliated, only partially initiated outsider, Yale seems a space devoid of regular burdens. Come here, and forget the cost. Come here, and mere proximity to those for whom money is either no object or an object that capitulates to their will, will make you feel temporarily unfettered. Even as your financial worries gather just outside the card-access gates of your dormitory, even as your awareness that your three-day visit is sifting quickly through your fingers and the pressure to make each minute, each meeting meaningful mounts as if the trajectory of your entire future depends on it, even as you know for sure that your future is not as secure as some of the baby-faced summer session undergrads strolling jauntily by, Yale beguiles you like a tropical resort surrounded by hovels might. It does not resemble the lives of those just outside its gates. It is no vacation for those who cannot leave. Yale is not your real life, either, until, for a triad of incredible days, it is.
Even here, in the space of the briefest of days, here, where praise and promise are plentiful, ironies cannot be sloughed. Grief cannot be shed. I can't escape the maladies in McKinney. I can't pass Yale School of Law without wondering if Kalief Browder's name will ever be uttered in a classroom there. And I know that I wouldn't want to.
I've wondered. Could this ever be a place where all my splintered pieces, all these race-bent beams of light and looming shadows, could ever be fully known?
It's possible. But perhaps only for the middle-aged woman with the teeny weeny afro, I've seen sitting outside powerwashed storefronts displaying wares she and I can't afford. Perhaps only to the security guard at Walgreens who told us when we asked for directions yesterday, "I'm not from New Haven." Perhaps for the black student-worker who bussed our tables tonight, inside a storied old boys club on campus.
And even for them, it may only be possible when they are looking full-on at one another, each catching the refracting light in the eyes of the other.


text:
Playwrights make plays in the way that barrel wrights make barrels. They just bang 'em out.
That's what Shakespeare did with The Merchant of Venice, and all of them.
And that's what makes Steven Hopley's current production, with its brilliant cast, so fascinating and watchable.
(If this seems counter-intuitive or illogical, please stick with me anyway.)
Shakespeare lived before the great age of Romanticism, which promoted artists to the role of high priest. He was just making entertainment, and a living.
He tried not to tread on too many toes.
For example, there is little of the spiritual life in Shakespeare. His plays are remarkably secular.
Was he just being true to his experience? Or was he simply avoiding the great religious controversies of his time? Remember, 'heretics' were still being persecuted.
The Merchant of Venice, despite having more talk of religion than most his plays, is intriguing because it's still not spiritual.
(There are claims the play is anti-Semitic. To a modern sensibility, these claims are often mitigated by the fact that the Christians portrayed fare little better in our estimate than the Jews.)
Shakespeare talks of religion in The Merchant of Venice simply because he is making dramatic use of an imagined difference between Christianity and Judaism.
He exploits an old trope – that of the spirit versus the letter.
Shylock the Jew (played magnificently in this production by Mark Lee) will have his pound of flesh because the contract stipulates he can. And his downfall is ultimately because of this very insistence on the letter of the law.
And Portia (played by Lizzie Schebesta with a beautiful precision) gives her famous speech in praise of mercy. This one moment is an inspiring expression of the spirit. Give up on the law, it says, and just show love.
The spirit versus the letter? 'We got this right, and the Jews did not.' This is a story Christians have told themselves through the millennia. Ironically, in its harsh and simplistic judgement, it's an attitude that negates the very insight it supposedly celebrates, and makes clear that the division between the letter and the spirit is not a division between religious traditions at all.
Rather, it's a battle that must be fought in every life.
Which brings me back to Shakespeare.
I find him, in many ways, a dissatisfying voice, because he shows so little interest in the spiritual. (A lack of interest which goes a long way to explaining the currently fashionable claim that he's universal, when really he just speaks to our own materialist society. Is it the greatest of cultural tragedies – that our most acclaimed writer is so deficient in one beautifully rich sphere of life?)
And what of the decision to continually produce his plays? The letter or the spirit? Going perpetually back to the 'canon' smacks very strongly of the former. Are we making theatre that breathes life, or is it an exercise in borrowing authority and aiming to get things right?
But this production, with its superb performances and the simple beauty of its staging, is a marvelous piece of theatre.
It's an eminently watchable performance and an extraordinary stimulant to post show discussion.
See it, and consider both theatrical choices, and life choices.
at TAP Gallery until 24 August
http://www.sydneyshakespearecompany.com/#!current-production/cb3i
Tags: Lizzie Schebesta, Mark Lee, Steven Hopley, TAP Gallery, The Merchant of Venice
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Soliant is working with a school system in Glendora, interview and hire a School Psychologist. The director prefers a PSYCH available beginning of March.
All level School PSYCHs considered. Prior experience is highly regarded.


text:
Die Ozeanischen Meisterschaften im Bahnradsport 2022 wurden vom 2. bis zum 5. April durch den Ozeanischen Radsportverband OCC im Anna Meares Velodrome von Brisbane ausgetragen. Bedingt durch die Corona-Pandemie waren es die ersten solchen Veranstaltungen seit Oktober 2019, wobei letztere aufgrund des UCI-Kalenders für 2020 gezählt hatten.

Die Wettkämpfe waren in die allgemeinen Ozeanischen Radsportmeisterschaften eingebettet, die so gebündelt zum ersten Mal stattfanden und neben Straßenradsport auch die Disziplinen Straße (Details), Mountainbike, BMX-Rennsport, BMX-Freestyle und Paracycling umfassten. Als Begleitprogramm fand in Brisbane von Mitte März bis Mitte April das Brisbane Cycling Festival statt.

Es waren 117 Athleten am Start, allesamt aus Australien und Neuseeland. Die Anmeldung war frei, und die meisten Fahrer traten in den Trikots ihres Vereins bzw. ihres (australischen) Bundesstaat an. Bei den Mannschafts-Wettbewerben waren mehrere Teams pro Nation zugelassen. Es wurden alle 11 Disziplinen ausgefahren, die auch bei den UCI-Bahn-Weltmeisterschaften zum Tragen kommen, im Juniorenbereich jedoch nicht das Ausscheidungsfahren.

Ergebnisse

Männer Elite

Frauen Elite

Junioren

Juniorinnen

Medaillenspiegel

Weblinks
 Webseite der Veranstalter
 Seite der OCC über die Meisterschaften
 Ergebnisse in der UCI-Datenbank

Einzelnachweise

2022
Radsportveranstaltung 2022
Sportveranstaltung in Brisbane
Radsportwettbewerb in Australien

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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