Buy me a Boat

Honesty has to come before gratitude. If you can't be honest about what you're experiencing, how can you be grateful for it? It's just an illusion. 

One thing I don't like about... Call them half-truths, if you wish— One thing I don't like about lies is that the really good ones affect not just the person being lied to, but the liar himself. When you tell a really good lie, you are changed. Comedians lie for effect; it makes them comedians. That's a magician's trick. But real liars... Con men, philosophers, politicians— When you have to tell an audience that you're their savior, knowing not a word of what you're saying is true, knowing that the system is corrupt and the status quo is king, knowing you are but flesh and bone, you have to become their idol. Their god. Their dime store messiah. 

It changes you. Sometimes names are changed, to protect the guilty. Sometimes whole lives are sacrificed on the altar of the lie. Sometimes, whole nations. We live and die by our lies. 

This is not a political post. Drivel, maybe. Expository at best.

Sometimes the world forces us to lie. Sometimes we force it upon ourselves. Sometimes we don't even know we're doing it. 

And then the line blurs between liar and author. If we are the authors of our own destinies, why can't we be wealthy? Beautiful? Have endless strength? Never fail tests, never get sick... Never get it wrong. 

We can be superhuman in our lie. And in that superhumanity, perhaps our lies take on a shape and a shadow all their own. Perhaps the lie desires to end all existence, to end reality as we know it. So great is its desire to exist, its jealousy of that which already is, that it tears at the fabric of reality. 

But what of the author? "Buy me a Boat" was one of my favorite album titles of recent memory, because the irony is that song probably bought him a boat, a truck to pull it, etc., etc. 

Keep up, I'm streaming Black Pumas and sad that October 33 never happened. 

We can argue with what is. But there are parameters. 

Honesty has to come before gratitude.

I have a good life. I have people who love me, more than enough to eat, a roof over my head, a freaking amazing dog, friends who would give me the literal shirts off their backs. 

If I'm honest. 

Part of me hates that. You know, a negative experience can give you a side of yourself you never knew you had. Each time you're pushed to the ground by whatever force, it becomes a tool in your chest. Every time you are attacked, you'll think of those things. "How can I show the world my pain today?" It becomes a competition. 

Race to the bottom. 

I am grateful for honesty. I am grateful for discernment. I am grateful for knowing the truth. 

I am also a writer. 

I want to write a future so beautiful that it changes a generation. And it starts with growing my family..

If I can manage to get my appointments done this month, that will be a step. I need strength. I need sleep. Sleep study on the 17th, retinopathy at some point— wish me luck. 

It's time to stop being afraid of reality, and face it. 

per aspera ad astra

Last post to this blog...

Hey everyone. This will be my last post on the job search blog. There may be more guest posts if people decide to send their stories in, but I will not be actively blogging here. Instead, I am going to try to finish translating http://chaimeliyah.blogspot.com/ and then I will be using that space as my creative outlet.

I wrote this poem, the verse of which was inspired by another author's work.

From behind the lines, or prison bars

They lock up our lives with pleadings
I find myself pleading just for life
Accused, I sit alone
Abused, bitter and cold
Because I can't find the right form to file

Proper service; proper service from a nation
Long overdue for a jailbreak
The Russians stood in bread lines,
    fearing starvation,
While we stand in lines for our TWO MINUTES HATE
Never alone on the phone
For he is always on the line
Listening,
   watching,
       waiting
Like a demon who finds solace in the terror of time
Keeping us afraid to just take back our lives
Shackled and chained by the hate that they spew--
   is it me?
   is it you?
Is it the immigrants or the Jews?

It's got to be somebody's fault!

Battles fought along lines of color and income
And if you're lucky you'll move out of the daily conundrum
To a professional job with some shiny rewards
While people die
   in the streets
       in the jails
           in the hospital wards
           in the ghetto
               in custody
                   or hanging from cords

Step away from your privilege
And see
There may be a guilty party, but it isn't just you
And it sure as hell has never been just little old me

I would move for a settlement
Or move for a judgment
But in the end the cards are stacked
  contrary to all of us

I'll sit and I'll smoke
A death sentence, I know
And I'll dream of a world
   filled with us
   filled with love
   filled with beautiful thoughts of we
                                                               --free.

Great news!

Hey everyone! So the seemingly endless job search is nearly over. I found a part time position with Seattle CISPES (mentioned in mylast post 15 days ago) and I am extremely humbled by this opportunity to serve the community, to work toward social justice and to continue teaching the students that I can. Now that I can pay the bills, it will be a lot easier to focus on my next steps and the things in life that I love. I will create a link from here to any new blogs that I create.

Having said that, I will still be telling the stories of those who continue to be ill affected by this "jobless recovery," like my friend D who is now staying in his van after losing his job last month. I will also be accepting guest blog entries like the one published earlier this month.

I will post the community announcement of my new position after this blog post in an unabashed display of my sheer and utter joy.

In peace and solidarity,

Chaim Eliyah

After much discussion and careful reviewing of eight strong applications, last week the hiring subcommittee for the new coordinator position of Seattle CISPES invited five of the applicants to interview.

The 5 member subcommittee's deliberation resulted in offering the position to Chaim “Jaime” Eliyah. Chaim has accepted our offer, and becomes our new Seattle CISPES staff coordinator!

Chaim (pronounced Hime - kinda like lime, but with an H) is a graduate of the University of Washington, and has a strong background in community organizing with groups such as the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), Jobs with Justice, UFCW, Black Student Union among others. He has traveled to Argentina, Ecuador, and has most recently returned from a volunteer trip to Costa Rica, where he taught English in addition to learning rural community organizing, and graduating from a language academy. Chaim comes to us highly praised for his work in the community. We look forward to having his knowledge and expertise within our CISPES familia.

Chaim will start on October 4, Monday, and there will be a two week overlap with Cameron to facilitate training.

Please join the hiring subcommittee in welcoming Chaim to Seattle CISPES!



- The hiring subcommittee

Updates...

Hey everyone. So I just wanted to give a couple of updates on prior blog posts.

First off, about the CISPES organizer position, I have been called in for an interview. I'm super excited. I don't think I've been as excited as this for a job interview since the Jobs with Justice interview in Portland a year and a half ago. Luckily, I don't have to drive for four hours to get to this one. In fact, I could walk. Please wish me luck.

In other news, regarding the tragic death of carver John T. Williams, there is a major action being organized by a number of community groups that will take place tomorrow, Thursday September 16, at 2:00 pm. Demonstrators will begin marching from Boren Ave. and Howell St. in Seattle, where John was shot four times at a distance of ten feet by Seattle Police Department officer Ian Birk.

OK that's all for now! Thanks for reading and I will post more updates soon.

From Edmonds,

Chaim Eliyah

No More Email Rejections, Please!

GUEST BLOG: Michael Miller, Managing Director, Let Kids Be Kids Inc.

You see the perfect job advertised online. The job you could have created for yourself if you had had the opportunity to solicit yourself for the position. It's perfect!

First of all, let’s get this all in perspective! XYZ Company cannot find anyone internally to fill a position so they solicit from the great unwashed out there to save their bacon and solve their management challenge. If they were such a hotshot company, why couldn’t they solve their problems from the inside? So many companies are over-burdened with MBA grads who have little or nothing to bring to a company until they've been around long enough to actually realize how companies operate, which is really at the whim of the big cheese who runs the place. If they were smart, they would actually know how to go about hiring people or better yet not get themselves into a position where there is no one internally who they can brow beat or cajole into solving their self-made "crisis." Job hunters are in fact problem solvers–the other guy's problems.

I digress!

You take the time to complete an online-only application form that gives you no opportunity to explain why your skills are perfect for the job. As you fill in the endless, invasive form that asks you such woefully pertinent questions as your major in high school thirty years ago or questions you on your first job, you try to thwart their ability to figure out your age, marital status, race, religion, sexual preferences and how little you are actually willing to work for in today’s climate.

As you are completing the form, you wonder exactly who is going to screen your application. Is it going to be scanned by a computer program looking for all the key words you forgot, or, more likely, didn’t know to use? Will the lowest paid employee in the targeted company look it over not understanding why you listed such-and-such as examples of your expertise? Will it be a print out on some HR person’s desk that knows the least of all about line responsibilities? Who is going to read the bloody thing? You/we should be able to find this out, like we did in the old days–before online applications made us feel like less of a human being.

Now that you have successfully filled out the form, you have to write a cover letter. You have to go back a number of times as you keep forgetting to mark a box or radio button, swearing everything you said in the application was the whole truth.

Who do you write the cover letter to? HR, the company president, the vice president, or maybe a name you got online? What if it’s not the right person? What do you know about this non-person? In the good ol' days, you would wear the right school tie or pin to the initial informational interview and perhaps say something reflecting your membership in Rotary, Kiwanis, Moose, or Elks, or do whatever else it took to show some human connection with the hiring authority. Anything to get a conversation going, to reduce your anxiety and to endear yourself to your potential new boss. Those days are gone, my friend!

So, you write the cover letter to no one; "To Whom It May Concern." You try to guess what to say in a single page that will summarize your lifetime of experience, wondering if it is really reducible to just four paragraphs. Job seekers are told employers don’t want to read anything more than one page. Perhaps we should all boycott companies that limit their inquisitiveness to bullet points.

We need the money, so we write something–hoping it will garner us an interview.

Now we wait. And wait. And wait. The application forbade phone calls or any attempt to solicit a decision so we just wait, and maybe pray a little, as we are now thirty days from being totally broke.

Finally you get an email, with implied happy music playing in the background, telling you that the company was swamped with excellent applicants. Unfortunately, you are not one of them. They thank you for taking the time to send in your life story and they will hoard and guard it in their vaults for the next time they can’t solve an internal crisis.

Thanks for the additional insult! Please, XYZ Company; don’t tell me how too many excellent candidates swamped you and that it took you four months to sort through them. I don’t care that you have so many challenges; I just want a job.

Recently a friend applied for a position that was created for him. He went through all the above steps, hoping the application was submitted correctly. He had the advantage of knowing who the hiring authority was and tailor-made his cover letter to that person's experience with him as a volunteer, board member of a non-profit and fellow graduate of a large University.

Yep! He got an email telling him how happy they were he applied for the position. Nicely, he was told he was not one of the finalists in a field of billions who had more impressive credentials. They didn’t say that exactly, but you get the point. They did end it with a solicitation for their foundation and happiness that they would see him at an upcoming volunteer meeting where it was anticipated he would lead a subcommittee!

Please. We are people out here trying to solve your problem. Please remember you asked us for help. Please try to treat us like we actually matter.

Ableism: The game is afoot!

In college we had a lot of discussions about racism, sexism and classism. The less frequent and slightly less popular discussion topic was ableism. I took one class on the civil rights that people with disabilities have in our country, and I learned that most of the things that inhibit our ability to perform certain jobs are not, legally defined, "disabilities." I am going to dedicate this blog to a discussion of these ailments as they pertain to my experience and studies.

A disability, according to the legal definition, is an ailment which significantly limits or prohibits a major daily activity. There is a lot of room for interpretation here. A person missing one arm, for example, isn't necessarily disabled. They can still brush their teeth, write, and carry things with the other arm. They can apply for jobs that require two hands, but the employer has the right to turn down their application if the job description requires typing, carrying objects with two hands, operating machinery, et cetera. Therefore, while the person has a disadvantage when it comes to seeking employment, they do not have a legal disability.

I am concerned by this because there are a number of people who are not defined as disabled that still have debilitating psychological and/or physiological ailments for whom support services are often inadequate or nonexistent.

I once had psychological issues that prevented me from doing much of anything productive for a good two years of my life. I would get jobs and lose them because I couldn't hold things together mentally. I was mentally unstable, but not "disabled." I received minimal support from DSHS, but the Social Security Administration denied my claim for benefits. These were, naturally, the same two years of my life that I was homeless. I dread to think of all of the people wandering the street at this moment who probably would have a good chance at becoming functional again if they could find a place to live and experience a series of stable friendships. Stress exacerbates mental illness, and there is nothing more stressful (let me assure you) than wondering if anybody cares whether you are dead or alive as you wander the streets of a well-to-do city.

Nobody should be forced into this position. It is a downward spiral of negativity and despair. I'm surprised from day to day that I survived that period of my life. People with personality disorders or clinical depression may not be considered "disabled," but we need some way to provide support for destitute people regardless of their disability status. People need a place where they can stay.

There are several extant arguments against this idea. Chief among them is the idea that providing services to people who otherwise could work only causes them to be dependent and to assume that society will take care of them no matter what they do. Granted, it would be hard to argue that a non-competitive market is as productive as a competitive market, but when we are talking about providing the basic necessities, we are talking about the right to life. It is not a matter of economics. If we can imagine the environment as an externality (as many economists often do), it shouldn't be too much of a stretch of the imagination for us to picture issues of human rights as external to laissez-faire market practices. It is pompous to say to the least among us that they must compete in order to live; this goes against the principle of solidarity and is contrary to many of the teachings of the world's religions. Providing a warm place to sleep and cook meals is neither beyond the capacity of our great society nor threatening to the industriousness of the American worker. To the contrary, it is my belief that our productivity as a society would be greatly increased by extending a helping hand to those who suffer.

Physical ailments, on the other side of the spectrum, are a whole different ball game. Most aches and pains do not prevent work, although many people believe that they do. Some things that are thought of as physical conditions are actually psychological ones. My father, who was a chemical dependency counselor, once had a patient who thought that his hearing had been wrecked by an assault. The patient could hear fine in both ears, but was convinced that he was going deaf. He probably had some tinnitus, which I also have; it doesn't specifically limit your hearing ability, but it sure is annoying. Apparently, it's also largely psychological, from what I've read. But even in terms of actual physical affliction, psychological stress will exacerbate just about any condition. Physical and mental health are inextricably linked. Even so, most physical ailments can be dealt with on and off the job, and even those conditions that are severe enough to limit our daily activities cannot necessarily keep us out of the workforce entirely. It is important to be aware of our strengths as well as our weaknesses when seeking employment.

Many people find the dichotomy between ability (to perform) and disability to be emblematic of ableism, a "discrimination in favor of able-bodied people" (Oxford American Dictionary). For this reason, many people use other terms such as "disAbled," "differently abled," "otherwise able," et cetera to emphasize their abilities rather than their disabilities. A person who cannot walk long distances but can type seventy words per minute, for example, is hardly disabled. Unfortunately, ableism--like racism and sexism--works on many different levels in society, including within the person's self, and so we become overtly aware of the things we cannot do and tend to emphasize those limitations over our skills. Our incapacitations become part of our identity and often obscure our strengths. This is something to be fought against.

I had trouble walking as a kid. I couldn't run more than fifty or sixty yards on the track during P.E., and my feet constantly hurt when I went to the mall with my parents. After a while, my dad (who had custody) wanted to know what was going on, and took me to a doctor. The doctor recommended me to a podiatrist. (Apparently, in Greek, "pod" means "foot" and "iatros" means "physician." So it's a fancy way of saying foot doctor. Go figure.) The podiatrist told me that I had flat feet and pointed out that I was walking funny. After some X-rays were taken, he told me that he wanted to perform surgery.

I was on state medical care at the time, and in those days the state medical care for children paid 100% of the medical costs deemed as "necessary" by physicians, so cost wasn't an issue. That left me with one simple question for the foot doctor: "Will I be able to run?"

He answered in the affirmative, saying that I should have no problem running. I told him I really wanted to be able to play soccer. He said it should be fine.

For anyone out there reading this, I would like to relate one thing I have learned over the years about surgeries. Surgeons, at best, can keep a condition from killing you. On an average day, they can keep a condition from getting worse. Surgery almost never makes you 100% better. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to take your money. (Or, in this case, the government's money. It all depends on how you see things.)

I didn't know that then, and so I agreed to the surgeries. The next two years of my life became a cycle of cast-wearing, learning to walk again and undergoing physical therapy for each foot. I was 11 when I went under the knife the first time, 12 when they did my left foot. I wound up with minuscule arches and some entrapped nerves in my left foot. I was told it would take a while before I would be able to run.

During my freshman year of high school I signed up for cross country running the first quarter. I tried for the first several weeks to keep up with the other runners. My friend Joe was concerned when I would stop at even a slow pace and he would often ask what was wrong. My feet still hurt. They burned. They ached. I don't think I ever finished a single practice without stopping, and in the competitions I was just a joke. I quit after the first two.

I survived high school by lettering in chess (yeah, chess) and performing guitar in jazz band and singing in jazz choir. I eventually dropped out to go to work and pay the rent as my dad fought to keep his Social Security Income benefits after becoming permanently disabled. Working long shifts at Safeway, I would use my arms to lean against the checkout counters (when bagging) or stand on my knees while I stocked shelves. I've never had a job where I haven't had to worry about my feet. Sometimes I've cried from the pain, which is embarrassing when you have to wipe your eyes and tell your co-workers, "it's just allergies." The last thing I ever wanted to be seen as was less-than-able.

At some point during my college career I finally reached a point where I no longer had to stand all day to get income. Most of my tutoring sessions have been one-on-one while seated. Even when I have to stand up to illustrate a lesson (as I often did while teaching English in Costa Rica), I have had the option of sitting down afterwards. This has been a great relief.

Now, looking for a job, I realize how many positions out there require you to stand or to be on your feet all day. Of course, they have to say this in the job description; if everyone just assumed that standing would be part of their work, standing would become a major daily activity and those who weren't able to stand all day would become (dis)abled. But I'm also glad that I have the skills to apply for a lot of positions that don't require constant uprightness (no pun intended).

I was reminded of all of this yesterday when someone paid me to help them move. I was fine for the first four hours of heavy lifting and running up and down stairs, and then my feet started to give out. I was thankful for the iron handrails on the stairs, which I used to my advantage. When the pain got really bad, I started alternating between walking on my knees and on my feet, still packing things and carrying them down one of the two flights of stairs for my work partner to pick up. It felt good to be working but humiliating to be reminded of my physical limitations.

Well, it's a good thing that moving jobs aren't the only jobs out there right now. As long as I don't wind up with carpal tunnel syndrome or ALS (both are conditions that run in my family), I should be able to perform any of the tutoring, teaching or paralegal jobs for which I am currently applying. Today, so far, I have turned in three applications and I intend to apply for several more positions as soon as I finish this blog and get something to eat.

So, in sum, we need to remind ourselves and each other of the things we are able to do, and try to focus less on our limitations. It's good to be aware of limitations, but we need to fight ableism within ourselves and within the society at large so that our shortcomings don't define who we are as human beings.

Let's get our dreams off the ground again!

From Seattle,

Chaim Eliyah

A quick thought...

I thought this was an interesting example of everything I think is wrong with society:

Facebook friend: Homeless woman on the walk to the Sounders game told me I'd be homeless one day after I told her I wasn't going to give her money.

Don't worry. I corrected her.

How can someone be so crass and self-assured? I mean, there's all of the obvious arguments, like maybe this guy could get hit by a bus and wind up in a wheelchair and slowly lose whatever fortune he has, but his ignorance isn't what concerns me. It's his arrogance. It's the fact that during a time when so many people are suffering and scared out of their wits, he can simply cruise by a "homeless woman" asking for change and say (I imagine) "No, I won't be homeless." Ever. Not in my lifetime. I've got too much privilege. And you have to sleep in the cold tonight. And that's just the way it is.

Is this right? Is this how we should be as a society? As human beings?