[I've been watching my debts/ and debits and trying
to ignore others deposits and plaque]

Sure–Your replacement of me is-
low in fat/ lighter on your stomach
but retains most of the other qualities
you enjoy about me.

But I–/ with a thickness/ full
and as seductive as va va voom
lips and legs gawked from
construction yards.

Please note, I am still
prominement in triangles
and charts/ I am fundamentally
part of life.

And I help build the remains,
that are left,
behind when the flesh has rotted.

I am inside you already.

5-15-11 (5:28 PM)

Working Notes – I figured I should try to post something past my writers block.

“ChesterintheRye” which can be found here on WordPress as well
at ChesterintheRye.wordpress.com

-C. Kent

So I lied when I said that the next part would be coming tomorrow last time.  Actually, it was moreso a miscalculation of my ability to not procrastinate,  for which I’m sorry.

When we had last left off, I was just reporting to the courthouse, and  was headed to the Jury Pool room.  Before getting there, I had to venture through the rain and gain entery into the Courthouse, which entering most goverment builds in New York City means through a metal dectector. A metal dectector that had a metal detector line that stretched from Hell to Sodam, and was quite helpful by informing me that I carry way too much luggage with me at all times.  Bookbag notwithstading but in my slack pockets I (seriously) had something like a brush, napkins from the last wear and like 17 pennies.  All  in my pocket, no idea how they got there, and a comedic wonder of why I hadn’t thought to consolidate them (the pennies) into less of a rattle/jangling.

Anyway, the Jury Duty Pool room was a large, expansive room full of peple of whom I hadn’t even imagined existed.  All walks of life, from every end of Bronx County.  Familiar faces but nobody that I knew. Whereas in comparison,many of the other potential jurors seemed to have received their notices at the same time as their long lost best-friend from high school, or someone from their World Civilization 2(Two) class at college.  However, armored with my crossword puzzles, Suduku, Ken Ken, and  various reading materials, I was ready. Ready for what, though?

We all checked in when a roll call was literally called, and then what I’m calling “The Rapture of the Lucky began.”  Right away, potential jurors who had various timely issues were given the opportunity to check to see if their issue would allow them to postpone their juror panelling service.  In the previous sentence “timely” is the most important word.  If you had something else to do that day like shower, or watch tv…well no.  If you did not read, write and or properly understand English (such as recent immigrant) well then you were able to postpone.  (Make note of that though.) If you had childcare issues, including but not limited to being pregnant and scheduled/expecting to give birth within the next week, or you had a child to pick up after school that day and no prior arrangement had been made for such then you were able to postpone.  If you had a sick child at home, and would actually go get a doctor’s note to prove it, well then you were free.  Another timely issue was if you, yourself, were sick today, and the exempter could see it then you were free to go home and crawl into a corner or your bed.   A sick spouse or Fluffy puking?  Nope.  Previous things that qualified for exemption/postponement of service  such as being a Doctor, Police Officer, Judge, etc, no longer mattered.  It’s more apparent of why these exemptions dont exist after you look at the Panel Selection Pool after the Rapturing. 

Suddently, it seemed as if God only favored those who had children or didn’t comprehend the words that I am typing to you right now.  Mathematically, I would have to say that about 32% of the people there stood up and were magicallyunaware of the English language and had some friend who was  just there accompanying said person to interprete for them .  On their own free time or day off from work. In a room that originally had 500 people there were just roughly 350, but really that had to have been somewhat less accurate estimate considering  like 150 more uncounted heads technically existed inside the pregant women with childen waiting at bus stops alone.  Anyone given their chance to fly free did.  Some of the pregant women (oh, and the expecting fathers rolling them) rolled free.  Thus that leaves us with roughly 200 people left. 

Then the people with actual medical illnesses not including just timely being ill, but rather they had serious medical issues and the documentation to prove it.  That kicked out about 40 more people to Freedom.  In less than 1 (one) hour we had gone from roughly over 500 (five-hundred) people to being left with about 140 (one hundred-forty) people left!  140 (One-Forty) left!

Immediately after or quite biblical moment, we all watched a vintage video of  the history of Juries.  I half expected to see Zach or Screech from “Saved by the Bell” to pop up; that’s how early 90′s (nineties) the video was.  The movie skimmed and sumerized Panel Selection, which is the process of picking the Jury by Lawyers and a Judge, and then the  typical manner of which a trial is conducted  in regards to phases (Direct Examination, Cross, Re-Direct etc…,) the people who will be in the courtroom i.e. Plantiff, Defense, Witnesses, and Court Reporters.  Basically it offered brief descriptions of their roles in a way that a 1st (first) grader could understand.

However our instructional and imformative state movie was to be cut short by one of the women facilitating today’s pre-panel service when she addressed the room with a call for volunteers for 2 (two) 1(one) day court trials.  Panelling and Jury Selection, Case Presented by 12:00 noon on Friday, Delibrations Friday and Monday.  Notice that, in a deceptive way, it was really 3 (three) days in total.  Moving on, she only needed about forty volunteers.  To sweeten the deal, volunteers for those panels (“the first twenty in queue” after she finished)  would be rewarded with being excused from having to actually return to the jury duty panel pool if they were not selected as in what happens during standard procedure.  Seriously, 1 day (liar, liar….)  Time Served.  However, you had to risk that against being selected and having to serve on that 1 (potentially 3 day trial.)  Near the front-front of the room, suddenly it was as if a riot had broke out.  I’d never seen people line up to volunteer to do their Civic Duty like that.  The riot progressed then moved to the mid section of the front of the room (again, it was a large room) since it was fairly obvious who the first ten in each line were.  However Ms. Deceptive had not yet made it clear how the first 40 were being counted.  Would it be 20 (twentyy) picked from one line for a trial, or 20 picked from both lines a trial?  (Take a second to digest that, it took me a few minutes to actually understand that notion after I wrote it.  Think about it in terms of where you would like your best friend to be in line if you were 19 and 19- each of you in a different line.)  Ulitmately to say, after they had their 40 (forty) people they then proceeded to tell the remaining 100 (one hundred) of us to take lunch and then come back in an hour. Roughly 12:45-1:00 PM. 

At that time,  it was annouced that some lawyers were requesting a panel, and 20 names were called.  By 1:45, 14 (fourteen) people had returned with both disappointed and relieved faces.  They had not been picked for the panel, but the axe sat over there head.  Again, the arguments are do you want to get picked and get it over with, or remain nervously in a sanitized room with an axe potentially over your head.  This gathering, and subsequent returning happened a few more times, when about 3:30, it was announced we were being released from the waiting room early because of the tempture.  Perhaps I should have mentioned earlier the room had no air conditioning or circulating fans, and most of the windows were bolted shut.  Compound that with the raining weather that had greeted me in the morning had morphed into a humid, Indian Summer day.  Good times, except the waiting in the humid room (which I myself) had entered soaking wet.

Thus…I got to leave the court house on a happy note (which is how I end this entry.)  It was quite the beautiful day, having gone from an nervous, nerve wracking morning thus accompanied by the remnants of Hurricane Asshole/Angelina to 70 degree weather, with a light breeze and a miraculously cloud free early evening.

Tune in for the next part, that in which the axe is dropped on my bank account. 

[As always, thanks for comments on FB and by email, if you have a chance to check out and comment the original site www.gitr.telldat.net  that would also be helpful. Thanks again.

Chester Kent - Get in the Rye - Writer/Moderator
www.gitr.telldat.net]

The idea of taking care of one’s self seems so American and timely in today’s day and age?  There”s a constant echoing from Media (ie Reality TV, Talk Shows), Ego’s and a new sense of entitlement is quite persuasive in American society.   Everyone wants to be loved by everyone yet so quite often we don’t take care of ourselves nor do we truly seem to listen to each other.    To me, it’s become quite so apparent that the idea of duty is another chore.  I found this quite evident in my recent 3 (three) week stint serving jury duty.

From the OED (Oxford English Dictionary)

[as modifier] (of a visit or other undertaking) done from a sense of moral obligation rather than for pleasure:a fifteen-minute duty visit

When I received my notice in the mail to report to the jury pool, I had no idea what to expect.  The only things I  “knew” about the processes behind selection of a panel and the proceedings of a Civil Case had been what I had seen on TV.  Or back when I was in high school and my French Teacher suddenly went vanishing for almost  9 (nine) weeks.  Images of 12 Angry Men, and being sequestered with  emotional angry beasts jurors.  Hell, I didn’t even know if I was to get paid.  Yet, all I could feel was an impending sense of doom.

Part 2 tomorrow.

[Chester Kent]

Recently I’ve had a lot of conversations with people in terms of etiquette, morals, culture and the basic social circumstances thus trying to educate, and become more informed of myself, and in total strengthen not just my own awareness, but the awareness of others.  I’m not going to lie, some interactions were strongly [I mean...STRONGLY] informative of my own personal brand of crude interjection into the world; There’s something about having someone literally step on your toes, and not noting that the event occurred.  One, I regret not being informative. Yet, there were a few others (actually, all the others I’m thinking of…)  there came a point, where the conversation became not butting head, not circles, but frustration, not necessarily with the other person or persons involved but with the fact that the only conclusions we came from were that we were pretty powerless because of the system that’s in place, and that we have to live with these systems.  Compound this to the different articles, news stories and blogs that I subscribe to, and well, I don’t know what to do, when I see both sides, make informed choices, listen to my heart, strive, sometimes (most times lately, actually) fail and try to attain some sense of closure while remaining realistic about getting up at some point tomorrow.

The overall hierarchy of my unease stems from feeling some sort of pressure from an omnipresent “system” that is spoken of in hush rumors from the “hood” of Buffalo, NY, mentioned in the hallways of NYC schools, and quite possibly confirmed of in hidden underground chambers below IVY league campuses. The problem I have with this rationalization of “systemic opposition” is that it is the opposition is plausibly amorphous.  Often I’ve felt like just when I think that I’ve figured out how to remove myself out from under its overwhelming weight, it just gets heavier, and if I don’t break (into pieces, or have a breakdown) and even if I do,  the floor under me probably isn’t too happy to have to have their ceiling endangered radically because of my fight.

Being amorphous this “systemic opposition” might be different for someone else.  The system or systems I see influencing me or my cultures isn’t necessarily the same for ever. In a blog written by Chris Norwood, she gives examples of the systemic oppositions that can occur in her experience as a social worker dealing with HIV/AIDS infected women and their families.  The blog speaks to how the allotment or rather dis-allotment of federal funds has (well to cheat my own vocabulary) “screwed” these families and quite possibly left bacteria that possibly could grown into an infection that breeds negative media images, or arkward experiences that we have with some young adults on the subway.  One heartbreaking statement she makes is

“Since 2005, the percentage of Bronx women among New York City women’s HIV/AIDS deaths has risen from 28% to 32%; we don’t know how many AIDS orphans these women have left behind-even with the well known Bloomberg Administration data obsession — that extends to having scooter patrols to count up potholes –”

How many children are out there grieving, acting out or in need of social services that exist somewhere?  I suppose that such is a generic question that can be applied cross culturally, objectively.  I think of an episode of “Law and Order:SVU” in which child protective services misplaced a child in their care.  The social worker in charge of that case was neither altruistic nor stoic and while her actions were the definition of neglectful, she felt remorses but was still obviously overworked even though she probably needn’t be because of a lack of funding.  How many news stories have we read of in the past few months about children under their umbrella that have been abused or have died?  Yet, cases of abused low-income/lower-income children have become altogether too rote after they break and once the initial public outrage (read:interest) in the story, coverage of it or its follow-up often receives byline (if that) mentioning.  Yet, if a middle to white collar child is treated in the same manner, a front page newspaper article and ongoing reports of the search are sent in seemingly hourly.  Hell, I shudder to mention this idea because of its triteness, and how distasteful it feels to compose the sentence;the queasiness continues when thinking of the number of federal laws that are passed that are named after or were inspired because of missing children of higher incoming earning adults.

While Norwood’s examples speak of just one specific population, it still makes me think of the serial unfair situations where I’ve thought to myself that I could feel what was happening, and yet, despite that awareness, something kept urging me down the road.  I mean, I’m here.  However, where exactly is “here?”  It certainly is not Shang-ra-la.

In my own life, I think of the opportunities I’ve had and the ones that just were and aren’t feasible because of decisions made before me.  I wish I were at liberty to share some of the things I think that have negatively influenced me in my life, but that’s not really fair to the other people who were there, and our existence.  I wish I could sum up every experience into a wonderful feeling like Nikki Giovanni does in her poem “Nikki-Rosa”   For instance, take the lines

“because they never understand

Black love is Black wealth and they’ll

probably talk about my hard childhood

and never understand that

all the while I was quite happy”

because love isn’t necessarily the kind of wealth that pays the bills, and the energy I spend trying to dodge my quite realistic fear of a growing a debt……ABRUPT ENDING.  See my working notes.

Repost of links-

“Those Bronx Bad Boys” by  Chris Norwood.  “Huffington Post” “http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-norwood/those-bad-bronx-boys_b_766366.html”

“Nikki-Rosa” by Nikki Giovanni.  Reposted from the Poetry Foundation.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=177827

Working Notes – Not finished. I’m still trying to organize parts two and three in relation to this format.  I think that any actual discourse might be too heavy thus weakened by presenting it all at once.  I’m not even sure why I felt the need to lead with Norwood’s blog.  Also I know I didn’t do real MLA citations.  I’m tired.

[Chester Kent]
[Get in the Rye.com]
10..20.10

www.gitr.telldat.net

I normally pride DeGrassi (the tv show) for being pretty spot on with its cues on teenage behaviors

However, Episode 1019 “Still Fighting Pt. 1″ had a really, really literary allusion and it almost made me go. Ugh.

So I log into Subcentral everyday and everynight, and I find maybe a job but when I try to click it, I get a notification that says “This job is currently being offered to  substitute.   Please try again later.”  It’s completely and utterly frustrating.”  My bills are beyond backed up.  They are just overdue.

I looked into this Newark Teaching residency and with it too seems futile.  Past the preliminary application, there’s an actual application fee, and if I make it to the next round, I’d have to take note just one but deux, yessiree TWO Praxis exams which are not cheap at all.  Then I’d also have to take the GRE again since my previous score is a little bit dated.  I counted close to near $400 dollars to possibly get accepted to this program, and I have come to my uncommon senses that maybe it’s not worth it.

I interviewed for a temp agency for some clerical/office work, and I did well on their simulated tests.  However, I guess if there’s no work, then all is fair and well that they have my info on file.  Would rather that they use it.

I’m wondering if it would be rude of me to some of the previous schools I’ve worked at just to say “Wassup.  I’m still a loser who likes being a guest teacher.”  Is it that too forward of a thing to do.  On one hand, I think it would be the most expedient way of getting my face back out there beyond luck of the phone system.  However, on the other hand, the thing about being a decent guest teacher (sub) is that you kind of want schools to list after you.  That way, when standing up for yourself and not being just bending over to the impending hazing by a student, you feel they may have your back because they think you might have somewhere else to be instead of there.

Either way, this sitting on my ass and reading every single news story or magazine article known to man about current education flaws is becoming both obsessive and repressive.  I want to be back in the classroom so bad.  So I’m not really sure what I should be off doing?

[Chester Kent]

GetintheRye

www.gitr.telldat.net

10.11.10