Blogging has definitely slowed lately. I blame Twitter—I’ve been enjoying its strength as a place to make temporary, pithy comments that don’t require much time or thought investment. Maybe that says something about how valuable/worthless my Twitter posts are, though I do try to avoid the Twitter equivalent of the cat blog and at least keep my tweets entertaining. Not sure if I’m accomplishing that, though 191 people don’t seem to be too bored.

Our big Memorial Day weekend was spent helping my brother’s family move. This is a borderline psychotic admission, but I think moving is kind of fun. Yes, it’s incredibly stressful (for those moving). But it’s an interesting opportunity to cram all your stuff into the back of a truck and redistribute it into a new space. It always makes me realize how much crap I own and wonder if I really need all that crap (and hopefully I spent enough time minimizing the crap before the move). All that said crap also makes me realize how unorganized I am, and how stuff I thought I needed so dearly I really don’t need. There’s plenty of stuff I haven’t touched since moving into our current home a little over a year ago, and that helps me let go a little bit.

We spent the drive down listening to Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James Loewen. Fascinating stuff. Primarily it talks about how high school history courses tend to whitewash history, glossing over things like Woodrow Wilson’s racism, Helen Keller’s socialism and the genocide of Native Americans. It can be a bit depressing, though the point is not ‘feel bad’ history in place of ‘feel good’ history, but simply honest history. I’m not sure I swallow everything Loewen said—he tends to make sweeping statements and decisive arguments that make you wonder if he’s as biased as the textbooks he’s skewering. Though there’s no questioning the institutional racism that’s reinforced in the books as they set up what’s basically America’s origin myth, whitewashing and forgetting the crimes of European explorers and vilifying and ignoring Native Americans.

I think you can sum it up in the fact that humans suck at communication.

Finally, I’ve been taking in lots of art, as my Flickr account clearly shows. It’s taking longer to get it all into Start Seeing Art, though it’ll be there eventually (I’m guessing I’ll be woefully behind all summer). Though it was pretty hilarious when Lexi and I were running errands and she suddenly cried out, “There’s art! Take-ah picture,” as we drove past “Midwest Canto Al Pueblo Dos” on Robert Street.