http://www.sfreporter.com/articles.sec-17-1-opinion.html It’s been over a year of residencies, sublets and couch crashes, and it’s time to get my own digs. I hunt tenaciously, determined to find a place rife with sunlight, privacy, built-ins and garden space, garnished with hardwood floors, cheap rent and a month-to-month lease.]]> The Big Test was upon us, and during the next three weeks of testing, my special education students felt like complete failures—due to the fact that they were complete failures. They cried. They screamed and threw chairs. They stared at text that may as well have been written in Swedish and conjured up an answer. Many of them bubbled in the same letter each time, or simply rewrote the question in the “extended response” boxes, painstakingly recopying words that held no meaning for them.]]> I sprawl away my Sunday on the front porch of my housesit in a whisper of a sundress, soaking up the vitamin D, while reading the New York Times. Spring at last; spring at last; thank God almighty, spring at last!!!]]> I felt no smug satisfaction when reading of a recent federal court case involving The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company. In March, the company pled guilty to charges that it had knowingly sold poisoned birdseed.]]> I rapped on a wall to make sure I wasn’t on the set of Little House on the Prairie.

I wasn’t. I’d just entered the world of Waldorf education.]]> In a shaky, hand-shot video from 2010, Nimish Vyas of the United States Geological Survey pans across a field in Vernon, Colo. Vyas focuses on a dirt mound and then zooms in on a pale spot atop the dry, tawny grass. The spot twitches, and he zooms closer.]]> On Feb. 27, the Santa Fe Public Schools Board of Education summoned its courage and did the right thing: It voted (narrowly, 3-2) to buy out the contract of Superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez.]]> The VP (Vagina-Penis) Dialogues show is proving to be an existential roller-coaster ride before I even set foot into Warehouse 21 for the It’s on; it’s canceled; it’s back on again multimedia extravaganza. Apparently, the venue—“a hub for youth directed development”—got all freaked out and flighty when an anonymous group of “concerned community members” collectively opined that sex education should be taught in the home. Logistical chaos ensued—or, at least, it tried to.]]> In 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope captured dramatic images of gas formations in the Eagle Nebula, approximately 7,000 light-years away from Earth. One of these images became known as the “Pillars of Creation”—an awe-inspiring demonstration of star formation, of literal creation in the vastness of the universe.]]> In 2008, the US elected its first black president. In 2009, as a late-blooming college student, I spent a semester in Chicago and saw firsthand the affective powers of hope. Now, the Barack Obama honeymoon has ended, and yet people still say, “Well, he’s better than McCain.”]]> Most New Mexicans have never spotted a wild river otter. In the 19th century, the animals were trapped out of existence in much of their historic range. The last one known to have lived—or at least died—in New Mexico was caught in a beaver trap set in the Gila River near the town of Cliff in 1953.]]> I hit my I-hate-Valentine’s Day wall a few years back, having grown tired of giving my power away to a random winter’s day and all the propaganda that went along with it. Railing against Valentine’s Day took just as much effort as playing into Valentine’s Day, while proving equally stupid.]]> Climate change affects everyone, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

Over the past 15 years, I’ve driven through a handful of dust storms that made me feel, even just momentarily, that I wouldn’t find a safe way out of the darkness and stinging grit. Even inside the vehicle, it was hard not to hold my breath.]]> Mama Nena is in the kitchen, reheating a pot of fried beans from several days before. Papa Mon sits in the living room, his frail, ancient body occupying barely any space on the wide couch. He is asking me about my life.]]> It’s Christmas Eve, and I’m playing cat’s cradle with an unruly tangle of thoughts telling me I should feel happy, I should act merry, I should engage in festive revelry. But I’m not feeling it and haven’t felt it yet, not since that first digital snowflake fell across an innocent Google search, or a glittery felt version affixed itself to a retail shop window, and certainly not now. Christmas—what does it even mean anymore?]]> It was snowing, and I was on foot, determined to find no less than every piece of art hidden around the city, as part of Caldera Gallery’s Hide and Seek treasure hunt for all.]]>