Wade's Annual FAQ

Subj: Annual FAQ: alt.support.wade (long and off topic!)
Date: Tue, Jan 2, 1996 7:32 PM EST
From: WadeBlack@aol.com

Annual FAQ: alt.support.wade

As usual, this will probably arrive closer to epiphany than nativity. I suppose there's something appropriate about that. But it might ALSO arrive near Chinese New Year, end of the year of the boar. So it goes. Meanwhile, to answer the MOST frequently asked questions:
#1 -- No, still not yet.
#2 -- Not complaining.

1995 -- The year I intend to lie about for a long time, or avoid thinking about entirely. The year grant money dried up, for me and for many of the organizations I work with. The year Aaron and his mom moved to Tallahassee six hours away, hurricanes came through town, the furnace got condemned. The year of paying off 1994 debts -- the necessary new(er) car, the necessary new(er) computer. The Year of the Bore -- end of the twelve year cycle,according to the Chinese Zodiac. Not that the cycle itself was bad, just that it wanted to end with bumps and squalor. All in all, a year with plenty of time for reflection, and I used it for that. Reclused (probably too much), and started new things.

Work: Some things NEVER end. Still plugging away on the Mental Health video, the Native Recognition video, the Songs of Protest project. Started doing more workshops, wrote some, read a lot, stayed active on the internet. Stayed busy but stayed poor. Another year of possum living. Not much else to report. :-(

Aaron: Now 15, in tenth grade. Tall, wears his hair long, otherwise looks good. Bright, droll, some talent in art and writing. Can't tell it from his grades. But he hasn't been arrested yet.

Play: A bit, but not as much as usual. Definitely not enough! Mostly volunteer work. Average one night a week at the shelter. Conflict management work with local high school kids. Red Cross storm damage assessment after Hurricane Opal, with my mom, who now in her seventies is turning into WonderWoman, mainly as a Red Cross volunteer -- L.A. after the earthquake, north of San Francisco after the floods, south Georgia, in Alabama, other places. I'm getting jealous; she's traveling more than I am. I've been living in the same house now for six years, longest I've ever lived in one place. Feet starting to feel itchy, time for something interesting to happen. National Enquirer's1996 horoscope looks pretty dull for me. Don't worry. I'm searching for Cosmo, New Woman, etc, wanna find a better reading.

Other things: Q the Scottie with an Attitude is doing well. Now has a gray beard and looks quite distinguished, but still does his dancing bear routine when I come home. Rabbits back in the yard, lots of squirrels, birds nesting in my hollies again. Another year without a resident Mockingbird. The wild plum continues hanging on, a good spring for the dogwoods, I'm still losing trees from the small copse that was so damaged by the winter storm two years ago, my bonsai died, but I'm apparently nursing a bougainvillea back to health (a MAJOR achievement!). Book to recommend this year? The Grass Dancer (Susan Power). Music? Aaron give me King Missile for Christmas because I've been listening to too many oldies, but I've also been adding more Kronos Quartet to the collection. Movies? Too few highlights this year. Exotica, Get Shorty. Another year the Academy went screwy in the documentary category, ignoring Hoop Dreams. Desperately seeking Crumb. I apparently missed a lot of the best stuff, the indie and foreign films, because of their short runs here.
Feel like I'm coming out of my two years of being a recluse. I've started some new things that I'll report on next year if they pan out, and I want to push a lot harder on the film projects, because I think they're good ones and they're suffering from the money crunch. I've lost touch with a lot of you guys, too, while I was reclusing, and I want to change that. So send them cards and letters to this ex-recluse at the usual addresses: wadeblack@aol.com.

Best wishes for everyone's new year!

=========================

And a long P.S. -- A lot of you didn't get last year's FAQ because my trusty Mac SE computer died last December. I've included it (the report, not the computer :-) here for those of you who haven't seen it and want to.

[1994] Annual FAQ: alt.support.wade
#1: No. I bought a new used car instead, and I desperately needed to replace my computer :-(
#2: Everyone has a year, every once in a while, in which NOTHING happened. 1994 was that year for me.

Aaron: Turned 14. Started high school. As tall as I am. Living near Gadsden, about an hour from here. We went to the Green Corn Ceremony in Oklahoma this summer (Tallahassee Ceremonial Ground), I lasted until about 3am, he lasted until about 5am. In September he received his tribal membership from the Florida Tribe of Eastern Creeks, as did his mother. Comix have replaced computer games as his principal area of expertise. He also started taking art classes, and some of his work is quite good.

Work: Wish I had more to report here. A year of being the bridesmaid rather than the bride, a finalist for several major grants but .... :-( Anyhow, spent the first half of the year working on the Songs of Protest project, spent the second half of the year working on the Mental Health Care and Indian Recognition projects. These are both very close to shooting if some grants come in, and my partner in California completed the script for the first Songs segment, so maybe that will pick up, too. 1995 could be an exciting year. Oh, joy, oh, joy!

Personal: When no grants come in, it becomes time to practice possum living again, and I spent a year restoring these skills to razor sharpness! Lots of small gigs -- workshops, site evaluations, consulting -- that were fun, teaching an honors seminar at UAB, some radio work; not really enough to pay the bills, but enough to avoid foreclosure. Mostly just streeeeetched my grants and ate light. Diet much too dependent on Ramen noodles. Too little travel and a bout of depression turned me into a recluse as I kinda hunkered down, did a lot of research, waited for this cycle to change. The trip to Oklahoma was an adventure. On the way back, Aaron and I felt called to donate the car to Fort Smith, Arkansas, as a kinetic sculpture (the lights and radio worked, and it could move slowly back and forth). We spent the July 4th weekend and several additional days eating ethnic food in Fort Smith, bought a pick-up truck with my Visa card, loaded up our belongings,and headed back to Birmingham, stopping of course in Tupelo for an homage visit to Elvis' birthplace. The pick-up truck was eventually turned into a used Volvo station wagon which I have been trying in vain to de-Yuppify: a"Bouzoo, That's Who" bumper sticker, a gold crown on the dashboard, a Red Cross Blood Donor license plate. It's a good thing that there's no place to mount a gun rack ....

Other things: Weather stress finally did what elm blight couldn't. I lost three trees and the tiny cedar on the path through the yard. But the wild plum simply refuses to die, and the dogwoods, though a bit peaked this year,did their usual spring thing. Wild violets took over a little more of the yard. Kudzu took over a little more of the neighborhood. Mockingbirds returned -- although someone else had already claimed the holly bush for nesting -- and rabbits in the yard, squirrels in the attic. My newest outdoor pet? A bob-tail squirrel, probably a casualty of an encounter with a cat. But in retrospect this was the year of insects. A too-warm winter left fleas in charge of the neighborhood. Finally had to shave my dog, and he roamed around the latter part of the summer with the head of a Scottie and the body of a large Mexican Hairless. Looked a bit like "the poodle with a Mohawk," but this was Q the Scottie with an Attitude. And now, as warm weather continues into winter, the fleas are gone but the ladybugs have come out in force. Ladybugs? Yep. They swarm, looking for warm places, sneaking into houses.

The Annual Awards: The Internet gets kudos this year. In 1994 I lurched through the AOL gateway into cyberspace. There is a BIG world out there! E-mail has replaced the telephone. The trail of technological change: irritation at people who have answerphones => irritation at people who DON'T have answerphones => irritation at people who don't have an internet address! Back in the old days (you know, when there was still a postal service), it took days before someone got a letter that they didn't bother to read. Now the same thing takes only seconds! Best books? 9 Highland Road and Girl,Interrupted. Rehabilitation of the year? Pete Seeger, who spent the 50s defending himself from the witch hunts, received a Presidential Medal of Freedom. (So did Aretha Franklin.) Music? Okay, I was a late arrival to Little Village, Joseph Spence, and Cracker. Add Gavin Bryers' "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet." And then throw in a good dose of the re-mastered Otis Redding anthology. Nothing there but pleasure! And the radio series "Wade in the Water." Between songs, however, this recluse waits for your letters at wadeblack@aol.com. #8->