Well today I got to tell someone they didn't have gonorrhea, happy happy joy joy.

Been working on powerpoint presentation.

Got to see a tooth cut out today, happy happy joy joy. Not just twisted out but they had to cut through bone. Yippee!

Every chance I think of, I ask people to teach me Mam. Today I learned from the toothache sufferer. I repeated over and over in Mam the phrase, "I am seated here." Can I remember it now? Guess again! I do remember the syntax, though. Seated I here.

And Sunday night, I get to call a bunch of places in Japan (Monday morning there) and use my extremely halted Japanese to try to make appointments for us to go speak at their schools! Oh joy joy joy!

Why on every map (including the most recent of National Geographic) of Native American nations/settlements, do they say Cincinnati is devoid of Indians? (Yes, the American ones, not the ones Columbus thought he saw.) I see tons of Mam people every day!!! I mean there are probably 40,000 Mam people here in Cincy! Most in Lower Price Hill. Are these maps not up to date with migratory history? I mean they have the Navajo migration of 800 years ago but not the Mam migration to Cincy (and I-75 corridor cities) of the last 5 years. I see more Native Americans than I would if I lived in Tuba City. Honest. We have serious problems in "classifying" people. The Mam are so often classified as Hispanics. Which they are. Like Dominicans are classified as Hispanics. Which they are. But they could also be classified as African-Americans, which they are. Argentines are classified as Hispanics. Which they are. But they could also be classified as Caucasians. Which they are. What is up with "classifying" people anyway!? It's so crazy! The thing is, do we classify on the basis of language? (Hispanic) Or this elusive thing called "race"? Anyway so many people in Cincy are "mixed" anyway. Matisse. Metis. Mestizo. Whatever. Why bother? Is there a point? Why are the Native Native Americans of Ohio not really connecting to the Immigrant Native Americans? I don't see Guatemalans in pow wows. Powwows seem to be a US/Canada thing. Is "immigrant native American" an oxymoron? Really people are just continuing a pattern people have been on since their genesis- OK? Migration, emmigration, going here, going there-look at the criss-cross of languages spoken in Europe, Africa, America, Asia, say in the year 1700. The Algonquian languages were from the east coast to California! Karok and Shawnee. I mean these people got around. Without big pack animals! Think of the Incan Empire! I mean people were NEVER in this sort of "stasis" where they just were stuck where they were. Think of ALL the tribes contributing their words to the English language. (Yes, English is an adopt-a-word language, not an invent-a-word language like Nahuatl or Navajo. No wonder when you have a Navajo word translated into English it has to streeeetch out....like People-of-the-Streaked-Earth-Clan being all one word...)

I think it interesting that the geneses of human civilizations continue to point to a certain period of time around 6000 years ago, for the rise of civilizations concurrently in many parts of the world- South America, China, Mesopotamia. I don't think that before that so many people wandered around for millions of years producing or doing nothing. There was a definite change. Bang. And there were people as we know them. People as we know them were as we are. Artistic. Moving. Superstitious. Surviving. Communicating. Spreading DNA. Drifting. Learning. Losing communication. Most of all, aesthetically tailored to each area. Which made contact with strangers difficult because they couldn't understand each other's sense of beauty. That has probably been, more than language, the most difficult cultural barrier to cross. We are as close now as we have ever been, as a people, to having 90% of the people on earth adhering to what approximates a shared aesthetic perception. In other words, what's beautiful in Norway is beautiful in Ghana. And China. And Colombia. Which makes the world friendly to some people who happen to have those desirable qualities and unfortunately for some, not so friendly. Aesthetics sux sometimes. But look at Miss Universe competitions. All the women have the same body type, same face structure, same makeup. That couldn't have been done 200 years ago without worldwide TV, communication, radio, travel possibilities. Oh but in whatever aesthetic ideal, someone wins and someone loses, right? I'd have been a big loser in Mauritania of 1500 when the blackest of skin was considered the most desirable. Now it sucks so bad for so many dark-skinned black women. IT SUCKS! I live in a 50% black city and I see this all the time. I used to work in a 90% black school and even when I went to Senegal, even among African people I see now, and among so many Hispanic cultures, they want the light skin. It's an aesthetic created by old money. Colonial money. But it sticks today. And conversely, I am from common German peasant stock. I tell Guatemalans and Mexicans that my grandmother was an empleada. She was! I have no old money. In Iowa or Ohio I'm just one of the flock. But in some places since I'm white it's considered by the locals to be a good thing. It looks like old money. They don't realize that's why they think it's good. But it's old money. Light skinned blacks look like old money. Because their grandfathers had money. Thomas Jefferson had money (before he spent it all). Wherever you go lighter skin looks like old money. It's colonial aesthetics in the post-colonial era. I wonder if it will change. If it were dark skin that looked like old money then it would still be aesthetics of some sort. Some poor untannable soul would suffer.