Damn them: memory and connotations

I just turned the radio on while eating my lunch. A pleasant female voice, singing in Spanish, the lyrics vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite decipher them.

Then she got to the chorus, and I was singing along before I thought about it: "Guantanamera." One of the songs I grew up with, thanks to Pete Seeger. When I was sixteen or so, I was hanging out at a friend's house, and there were a bunch of other people there, mostly Dominicans [1]. It was someone's birthday, and they were improvising a song about him, in Spanish. I didn't know him, wasn't close to fluent, but I joined in on the choruses, and seemed to be a little more part of the group.

Literally, a "Guantanamera" is someone from Guantanamo. Yes, that Guantanamo. Too many layers of significance. One verse has the singer stating her (or his—I learned this from Pete) sympathy and affiliation "con los pobres de la tierra," the poor of the world.

It's not that history is a nightmare from which we cannot awaken, it's that it's layered, like Schliemann's Troy, and what we write changes meaning with time. I found myself explaining Flanders poppies in a comment last week, after casually offering one in response to a post elsewhere on LJ about 11:11. "Someday no-one will march there at all," and I never doubted that lyric, but neither did I think about that "someday" as something that would be part of my life.

[1] La Republica Dominicana, not monks.

Damn them: memory and connotations

I just turned the radio on while eating my lunch. A pleasant female voice, singing in Spanish, the lyrics vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite decipher them.

Then she got to the chorus, and I was singing along before I thought about it: "Guantanamera." One of the songs I grew up with, thanks to Pete Seeger. When I was sixteen or so, I was hanging out at a friend's house, and there were a bunch of other people there, mostly Dominicans [1]. It was someone's birthday, and they were improvising a song about him, in Spanish. I didn't know him, wasn't close to fluent, but I joined in on the choruses, and seemed to be a little more part of the group.

Literally, a "Guantanamera" is someone from Guantanamo. Yes, that Guantanamo. Too many layers of significance. One verse has the singer stating her (or his—I learned this from Pete) sympathy and affiliation "con los pobres de la tierra," the poor of the world.

It's not that history is a nightmare from which we cannot awaken, it's that it's layered, like Schliemann's Troy, and what we write changes meaning with time. I found myself explaining Flanders poppies in a comment last week, after casually offering one in response to a post elsewhere on LJ about 11:11. "Someday no-one will march there at all," and I never doubted that lyric, but neither did I think about that "someday" as something that would be part of my life.

[1] La Republica Dominicana, not monks.

Giving myself the credit I deserve

eleanor posted about overhearing a conversation between two men, the second of whom said that he considered himself a big reader too, but didn't read much. I commented with what still seems to me like the most likely interpretation, and she told me I was being incredibly generous.

I get comments by email, and when I read that email I started saying "I'm not trying to be generous," and then realized that the thought behind that sentence was that I shouldn't be taking credit for generosity.

Not because generosity wasn't my aim (my aim was understanding, maybe empathy, not generosity to a stranger who'll never see this discussion), but because I somehow felt I shouldn't give myself credit for being generous, because I don't think of myself as unusually so. Like not self-identifying as sensible, despite numerous friends telling me I am.

I think this connects to discussions, both in person with rysmiel and on pegkerr's journal, about being the person I want to be, the best Vicki I know how to be. The person I want to be is sensible (though sometimes silly), is generous within what I can afford (which is as much a matter of priorities as quantity), and understands the world around her. In that light, I'm glad to be getting to where I want to be.

Giving myself the credit I deserve

eleanor posted about overhearing a conversation between two men, the second of whom said that he considered himself a big reader too, but didn't read much. I commented with what still seems to me like the most likely interpretation, and she told me I was being incredibly generous.

I get comments by email, and when I read that email I started saying "I'm not trying to be generous," and then realized that the thought behind that sentence was that I shouldn't be taking credit for generosity.

Not because generosity wasn't my aim (my aim was understanding, maybe empathy, not generosity to a stranger who'll never see this discussion), but because I somehow felt I shouldn't give myself credit for being generous, because I don't think of myself as unusually so. Like not self-identifying as sensible, despite numerous friends telling me I am.

I think this connects to discussions, both in person with rysmiel and on pegkerr's journal, about being the person I want to be, the best Vicki I know how to be. The person I want to be is sensible (though sometimes silly), is generous within what I can afford (which is as much a matter of priorities as quantity), and understands the world around her. In that light, I'm glad to be getting to where I want to be.

Unemployment insurance glitch

This one is partly my fault, partly their software's. I may try again to fix it tomorrow.

I didn't "certify" for unemployment insurance last week. I thought I'd done it on Sunday 16 July, for the week ending the fifteenth. This morning, I went to their Website to check that I had, and to certify for the week ending the 22nd. The "check status" section told me that I hadn't certified for the previous week, and couldn't do so on the Web, only by phone, but I could go ahead and do the current week online. When I did, it asked whether the reason I hadn't certified was that I'd worked. A yes/no question, I said no, and went on.

Then I tried to use the phone system to certify that I hadn't worked the previous week. The number I have won't let me do anything at all without entering my social security number and PIN. When I do so, it tells me that I've already certified for the week ending July 22, and that my only option is to check the status of the payment (waiting to be mailed). There seems to be no way to get to talk to a human being.

The Web site FAQ is less than helpful. This isn't entirely surprising, because if this is a bug, of course they haven't documented how to get around it. But there ought to be--and I suspect is--some way to reach a human being. The Albany contact number looks like a possibility.

There are two reasons to try to fix it tomorrow, or at least sometime this week, and two not to. The first reason in favor is, simply, that I can use the money. The second is that if I don't, I'm almost certain to get a letter asking why there was an interruption in my claim. The reasons not to are that the combination of a bureaucracy and a software bug may be beyond my strength, and that an actual letter from them asking me that question might be the simplest way to explain what happened, whether or not I get the benefits for the week in question as a result.

Unemployment insurance glitch

This one is partly my fault, partly their software's. I may try again to fix it tomorrow.

I didn't "certify" for unemployment insurance last week. I thought I'd done it on Sunday 16 July, for the week ending the fifteenth. This morning, I went to their Website to check that I had, and to certify for the week ending the 22nd. The "check status" section told me that I hadn't certified for the previous week, and couldn't do so on the Web, only by phone, but I could go ahead and do the current week online. When I did, it asked whether the reason I hadn't certified was that I'd worked. A yes/no question, I said no, and went on.

Then I tried to use the phone system to certify that I hadn't worked the previous week. The number I have won't let me do anything at all without entering my social security number and PIN. When I do so, it tells me that I've already certified for the week ending July 22, and that my only option is to check the status of the payment (waiting to be mailed). There seems to be no way to get to talk to a human being.

The Web site FAQ is less than helpful. This isn't entirely surprising, because if this is a bug, of course they haven't documented how to get around it. But there ought to be--and I suspect is--some way to reach a human being. The Albany contact number looks like a possibility.

There are two reasons to try to fix it tomorrow, or at least sometime this week, and two not to. The first reason in favor is, simply, that I can use the money. The second is that if I don't, I'm almost certain to get a letter asking why there was an interruption in my claim. The reasons not to are that the combination of a bureaucracy and a software bug may be beyond my strength, and that an actual letter from them asking me that question might be the simplest way to explain what happened, whether or not I get the benefits for the week in question as a result.