More Poetry

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

Intensity

Scares people
Enjoys the odd fan
Lights the way
Tries too hard
Worries many
Attracts some
Feels shame like fire
Gives birth to inventions
Generates loneliness
Perseveres through loneliness.

Poetry Would Be Fun to Write on a Day Like Today

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

Transcultural Experience

Jubilee Park Diner in Clifton, NJ for breakfast with Pat post-swim
Burn the hash or Pat will send it back; same with my feta-spinach omelette.
Joan Rivers is in NYT Styles, on Jay Leno's and Ambien's effectiveness
Another Sarah Siegel is in the weddings section -- freaky to see my name,
But not Pat's...
Maybe someday, when we're considered human and it's legal for us to be wed....

Paying for our meal, an apparent transwoman comes to pay her bill, too.
She is 6'4" with a strong jaw and a head punctuated by playful gray pig-tails.
She wears faded jeans, a pastel-pink belt, huge, worn sneakers and a cane.
We get into Pat's station wagon with its stubborn Hillary bumper-sticker.
Pulling out, we see the woman getting into her Toyota Matrix.

I feel ashamed at how grateful I am:
Not to be using a cane, not to be alone
To be merely gender-ambiguous, depending on what I'm wearing.

I Could Have Danced All Night

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

...But My Avatar's Performance Lagged Too Much

Tonight, I was invited to a Fancy Dress Ball in Second Life, so that we could test performance on Second Life's Viewer 1 compared with Viewer 2 for work. Pat was at a play with friends and if she had been here, it would have been good for her to join me. Another woman brought her husband.

It felt a little weird to be preparing for a ball at which I'd be with colleagues, but I also recall the '90s and even while in India that there were occasions, where I'd be in dancing situations with colleagues in real-life. They always felt scary and awkward and then turned out to be really fun.

Designing my outfit this afternoon, I felt excited; I could dress ultra-femininely, as I always tend to do in Second Life. In real-life, I'm most reluctant to wear formal-wear. Once, in real-life, for a GLAAD benefit at the Kodak Theater in L.A., I became very tan and wore a gorgeous, coral, formal gown, pointy-toed, but low-heeled shoes and a string of large, fresh-water pearls, but could hardly focus, as I was distracted by my own woman-ness.

Who can relate to that, I wonder? Am I the only woman, or only lesbian, who is unnerved by her own attractive appearance, depending on what she's wearing?

Tonight, in Second Life, I wear diamondy-stiletto platform shoes, a diamond watch and a sleeveless, black gown with subtle lace-work around the neckline and a cutout back. And then my lag is so great shortly after my arrival that I can hardly move. Upon my arrival, the ballroom is set up, so that I have to ascend stairs and I feel like I am making a grand entrance.

I am the first woman there. At the door, the host is lovely, but I am super-nervous. Please don't misread me. I'm not single and I'm not heterosexual. Oh, God. What am I doing here? Me and three other men. In text-chat, I tell the host, "Nice place. I think I'll walk around a bit," and that's when I begin lurching forward and back into the potted plants due to machine-lag.

From my potted-plant vantage point, I see a familiar colleague arrive. Phew, another out lesbian. Oh, no. She's wearing a super formal petticoated gown and it's low-cut. I don't recognize her from other Second Life experiences. I want to stay hidden. My cool black sheathy dress now seems inadequate.

Soon, more avatars arrive and my machine lags just about impossibly. My other openly lesbian friend and colleague arrives as a tuxedo penguin, rather than choosing to appear humanly, stereotypically ultra-feminine or ultra-masculine. She sits down almost right away, rather than dancing or mingling and I am touched at her apparent awkwardness...but maybe I'm just projecting.

She is there to do diagnostic testing and asks me technical questions that my machine won't let me answer. Ultimately, I switch to our company's instant messaging system and tell her that my Second Life performance is impossible and that I feel worse than the prom I didn't get invited to in high school, standing here all alone, since I cannot return to the room where everyone else is; I'm frozen.

"I know. I feel awkward, too," she responds.

"No, I mean, not only do I feel awkward around a bunch of ladies and gentlemen dancing with each other, I am unable to be with them because my machine is stuck."

We agree that I will exit Second Life and try coming back in, but first, I somehow end up back in the ballroom, where my other colleague in the stunning, low-cut dress listens to me kvetch for a bit by text-chat about my machine's performance and finally says, "Oh, well. Would you like to dance?"

Now, I really do feel like I'm at the prom I never went to. And finally, a reward after the suffering. Just like in real-life, something often makes me anxious in a situation where there's dancing and equally often, it turns fun just when I'm despairing and wanting to escape. "Sure."

"Who'll lead?"

"How do we dance here?"

"Just touch the pink ball in front of me."

I touch a pink ball nearby, but it's not the one in front of her, so I'm beginning to dance by myself.

"Oh, I'll come over to you," she says and suddenly we are ballroom-dancing as Celine Dion sings, "Here, there, wherever you are..." and I'm moved, watching the two of us being so beautiful and defiant of social norms, even though in real-life, I'm not a huge Celine Dion fan.

This afternoon, I send my colleague e-mail, letting her know that I'm alienated by the sign in front of the ballroom, which promises a formal, elegant atmosphere, "...where Ladies dance with Gentlemen." I think subversively, I'll wear a tux and come as a gentleman tonight. Ha! But then I create an ultra-feminine outfit, as my need to play with my gender role toward the ultra-feminine end of the continuum wins out.

She doesn't answer the e-mail. I don't know if she has seen my message. But her invitation to dance is the best response of all. We're a graceful, marvelous pair -- thanks to scripted moves, courtesy of Second Life. As our avatars glide along, it's hard not to just stare, mesmerized. Perhaps, she is also more moved than either of us mean to be and chats, "There's a way to dance to a faster song, but it's hard to touch the ball while we're dancing."

"Yeah, I can't reach it either. In any case, thanks for the prom experience I never had."

From across the ballroom, my friend and colleague, who's a guy married to a woman and who has two kids, chats, "Me, too, Sarah." As in, he did not go to his prom either. How helpful. I'm not the only one, making up for, and redeemed from, a sad adolescence.

We whirl and whirl and finally, I feel both self-conscious and ever-so-slightly bored. My dance partner probably feels the same and chats that if I'm getting tired, I can simply click the "Stand" button, which will end the dance.

"How gallant you are," I chat, meaning, I know you want to stop, but you're inviting me to end it. I click on "Stand."

"My pleasure," she says charmingly, as she glides away, petticoat ruffles whooshing onward.

Loss

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

...and Gains, but First Losses

Heather, the bulldog that Pat rescued last Saturday is with her original human mother....Hebrew fluency...stomach- and back-cramp-free living today...my father of blessed memory when I was 17...motivation to read for school....

Gains

Toonces, one of our two pet cats, draped across my lap...Pat's kind company...witnessing a series of Olympic events...sitting still...resting...having a good conversation with my mom...and one of my sisters...moments of daylight....

Baristanet, Please Help Heather Find Her Family

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

Note: If anyone on Baristanet is reading this and knows of someone in Montclair, who has lost a Bulldog, please comment here. Thanks.

My sister Deb and I are chatting on the phone about my niece's college ideas when my cell-phone rings. I see it's my partner Pat, who I've just heard pull into the driveway. I almost don't answer it, figuring, Pat can tell me whatever it is when she comes inside.

"Deb, 'scuse me for just a sec," I say, picking up the other phone at the last minute.

"Sarah, I need you out here," Pat says. What could she have bought that's too heavy to lift by herself, I wonder. Still chatting with Deb, I walk outside the garage and Pat rolls down her window just as I see something white flashing in the well of the station wagon.

Oh, God! It's a darling Bulldog.

"She was running around on Alexander when a few of us stopped our cars. A man lifted her into the back here. We've gotta take her to PAWS, and they can check whether she's got a microchip."

"Deb, there's a Bulldog in our car and she's adorable! I've gotta go."

In the space of the 10-minute car-ride, I name her Heather, inspired by the dog Pat had prior to being with me, a Bull terrier whose middle name was Jonquil. I'm panicking: What if PAWS, or whatever it's called now, isn't open? What will we do with her? The kitties will feel invaded if she comes inside and it's too cold outside. Oh, she's so cute. Clearly, she enjoys going for a ride. This black station wagon never seemed so perfect as it seems at this moment, with a tan-splotched white doggy staring out its back windows.

We arrive at PAWS and a woman's posting a sign outside, with hand-drawn, red hearts around its borders, meant to lure adopters over the Valentine's Day weekend. Pat leaves the car to talk to her and Heather ignores me completely. She stares at Pat and the woman, her breath making a little fog-patch on the left-hand, back window. She seems to be trying to read their lips. My soothing tones do not register with her.

Soon, Pat is inside, signing papers, swearing that she is not abandoning the dog while the woman comes with a leash and opens the back hatch. She puts the cloth leash over Heather's head and during none of this is Heather barking. In fact, I never do hear her voice.

"May I pet her for a moment? Pat found her and rescued her. I've just met her."

"Sure."

When I give her back a couple of pets, it's like when the dental hygienist hits a nerve under my gums while cleaning my teeth. The dog is a raw nerve. She doesn't reach back to bite me, but squirms anxiously, still not barking. I notice then that she has a cinnamon-bun-curly tail and a husky/muscle-bound frame in addition to her pushed-in nose, impressive jowls and the bit of tongue that hangs out of her mouth at all times.

And then she's walking away, along-side the woman, like a jaunty, little lady.

I miss her so much. I can't stop thinking about her. The shelter typed in her name in the system as "Heather." If no one claims Heather soon, she might have two mommies...and two feline sisters.

Intracultural Intelligence - Excerpted from My Internal IBM Blog

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

Comment in the LotusLive meeting chat:

Sarah Siegel (IBM) to All - I think this is so marvelous because individuals from historically-underrepresented groups sometimes grow weary of having to educate people. This, though, is vibrant, poignant education that re-inspires me, for one, to be generous in helping educate -- because the cultural piece of helping people understand really is gripping.

We met in LotusLive to listen to Mr. Lonnie Bunch deliver a lecture [internal link, not accessible beyond the IBM firewall] on the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) as the first in IBM’s U.S. Black History Month series, on Habitual Giving and Better Living, including giving to our:

* Families
* Teams
* Communities
* Selves.

My LotusLive chat-comment referred to my own occasional weariness at having to explain my female or Jewish or lesbian perspective to the larger community. Really, when I thought about it generally, everyone had a unique story, no matter how prevalent their people; it was just that when they were prevalent, fewer of the prevalent people seemed curious about one another’s story, as they assumed that they already knew it, since on the surface, they came from a similar background.

Mr. Bunch’s remarks reminded me of the power of each of us telling our story, and of the power in listening to one another.

As we prepare for the 2010 Cultural Intelligence Summit, I'm even more hyper-alert to cultural differences and commonalities, whether compared with other countries, or with other cultures within my own country. After swimming at my local Jewish Community Center the other day, I walked toward the exit, thinking, So many of us are always searching for common ground with one another when the much more interesting learning opportunity is to notice the differences and actively expose ourselves to them.

Probably, the perfect balance of familiarity and disorientation made for optimal learning conditions...in any situation, and particularly with intercultural learning.

For example, I loved seeing a screen-shot of IBMers' memories that were posted on the NMAAHC web site, as it reminded me of the exhibit that my mom and my partner Pat and I attended a few years ago, at the emerging National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, called "Forshpeis," which was Yiddish for "appetizer." As part of the exhibit, there were metal boxes filled with index-cards, where visitors could add memories of growing up in Jewish kitchens. Also, just as Mr. Bunch referred to the future site of the NMAAHC, being, "...right next to the Washington Monument, in the shadow of the White House," , according to its web site, the National Museum of American Jewish History is, "...steps from the Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.” Mr. Bunch’s story felt familiar then…

Until he re-told a story that made me feel guilty/disoriented and validated at once; it was captured by StoryCorps, and featured a grandfather, talking with his grandson. The grandfather was relating how he arrived in D.C. from overseas, having served his country with distinction in World War II, and how he headed to a movie theater after touring around D.C. landmarks during the day. The ticket-taker would not admit him because he was Black.

Listening to the story, I felt guilty, as I am White and my dad of blessed memory was a D.C. native and also a WWII Navy veteran, having been a radar technician on the USS Alabama. My father told us of how the Black sailors lived in the lowest part of the ship due to the still-discriminatory nature of the U.S. Military then. And then as a lesbian in the United States in 2010, I felt validated, since the news lately, has covered whether or not the U.S. Government will enable openly gay and lesbian soldiers to serve their country in the U.S. Military.

How could we have treated Black people so sub-humanly for so long, and even still, it is happening? And then I thought of how GLBT people sometimes still were treated like pariahs in the United States, for example, in this week's "New Yorker" magazine, I read an article about a popular Gospel singer, Tonex, who has been shunned by a number of the Black Gospel community, since becoming open about his homosexuality. I hadn't heard of him prior, and so I went to find a sample on YouTube. I found "Fail U." I'm not Christian and it stirred me. Music with a strong beat was my favorite kind, which this featured, and I felt sad that Tonex's talent was taking a nearly mortal hit for his openness around his sexual orientation.

This week, too, I experienced a couple of reality-checks about how the month of February appeared not to be on the radar of certain groups in relation to U.S. Black History. For instance, in the United Kingdom, February has been declared Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans (LGBT) History Month, probably to bring attention to the Community’s capacity for love during the same month that included Valentine's Day. Surprising, perhaps, was how a U.S. small town, Elk River, Minnesota, declared this February as "Random Acts of Kindness Month," without acknowledging it, also, as U.S. Black History Month.

Such an absence made me want to understand the demographics of the community, so I looked at a "quality of life" video, which showed only White people and referred only to welcoming churches (as opposed to welcoming churches, mosques, synagogues...). When I read the mayor's proclamation, though, it embodied a fundamental goal of the Cultural Intelligence Summit (and world peace): "I urge all citizens and city employees to practice acts of random kindness for family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers, and to live their lives in keeping with this attitude every day." Without kindness and openness to everyone, including strangers, we could not be culturally-intelligent.

Cultural intelligence, though, may have come more easily to people who already felt bicultural, e.g., immigrants, people with disabilities, GLBT people, really, anyone from an historically-underrepresented group, depending on where they lived. I didn't want to generalize about Elk River, but at a glance, it certainly didn't seem to have as high a proportion of bicultural people as, say, Toronto.

Look how sophisticated I tried to be just now in my stereotyping and prejudice! I did not know anyone’s story from Elk River, Minnesota and had never been there, but pronounced its ignorance of U.S. Black History Month….And this was why cultural intelligence was such a priority. Until we could suspend our judgment of other cultures and even immerse ourselves in them physically or at least virtually, how could we know their people and culture?

The role and goal of the Museum, according to Mr. Bunch, were primarily U.S.-oriented, but the specifics got at the universal goals of cultural intelligence:

To help America remember. To find ways to help America explore our tortured and contested racial past. It needs to help us wrestle with slavery and segregation and also must be a place that celebrates the joy of Duke Ellington or Aretha Franklin, or humor. It has to be a place that helps us all. A national museum has to use African American culture as a lens to help Americans understand what it means to be American....

It needs to tell a story that all Americans can embrace. It also has to help us understand that we are in an international context...to make America better, to help us grapple with the great divide of race….We look to the virtual world to help us expand our audience and expand our reach.

The goal of living, let alone of any one museum or even of cultural intelligence, was to remember and wrestle and celebrate and gain support…and to be willing to educate, and be educated.

The Best of Stamford

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

The Official Version vs. My Version

Earlier today, I received e-mail from a Middle Eastern restaurant in Stamford, Connecticut, asking me to vote for it as the best ethnic restaurant in Stamford for 2010. When I went to the voting site, it included a link to the winners for 2009.

Stamford is my hometown. I spent ages 0-18 there.

Here is my Best of Stamford list:

• Best rock to climb upon and eat a picnic lunch: At the Stamford Museum & Nature Center
  
• Best bikeride: High Ridge Rd. from Sunset Rd. to the Dorothy Heroy public pool
  
• Best friends from Stamford in the order I met them:
  
  • Sarah Tauber
    
  • Jimmy Gutterman
    
  • Didi (aka Nicole) Doutre
    
  • Helene Doutre
    
  • HoneyB (aka Barbara) Prins
    
  • J.J. (aka Jennifer Juliet) Rogers
    
  • Adrienne Weiss
    
  • Jennifer Gerstel
    
  • Amy Neufeld
    
  • Caryn Lesnoy (z"l)
    
  • Atalia Hochenberg
    
  • Svetlana Bekman
    
  • Leslie Karp (z"l)
    
• Best stone wall: In the woods on either side of our driveway
  
• Best place to ice-skate in my neighborhood: In the woods behind Did's and Helene's house
  
• Best Chevy Impala convertible ride with the top down: To Friendly's ice-cream shop on High Ridge Road during spring and summer, with my parents in the front and my two sisters and I, on our knees, facing backward and gripping the back-seat as the breeze whipped through our hair
  
• Best place to roller-skate alone: Hickory Road
  
• Best reminder of the heather in *My Secret Garden*: At the intersection, where you turn right to go to Scalzi Park
  
• Best sledding hill: Behind Temple Sinai
  
• Best wild raspberries and blueberries: In the woods to the side and behind our house
  
• Best pets: Didi's and Helene's dog, Fluffy; HoneyB's dog, Elizabeth; and Amy's dog, Tigger
  
• Best place to play ping-pong: the Jewish Community Center's recreation room
  
• Best pool to swim in as a guest: the Italian Center's
  
• Best ski club: Stamford High's
  
• Best salesman/ambassador/recruiter for his alma mater: Cy Carlton for the University of Michigan
  
• Best contemporary mind: Scott Kogan's
  
• Best resemblance to my 14-17-year-old self, or so all of our Stamford High teachers thought: Karol Nielsen
  
• Best dances in the '80s, where everything from "Reunited" to "Hungry Like the Wolf" played: Stamford High's.
  

Daylight Lengthens

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

Even On a Rainy Day

Spring feels not that far off.
If it were here already, the grass would be bright-green.
Heavy, heavy water inspires blades and shoots and tree-roots.
The light in today's sky is wet.

Every Night, a DJ Saves My Life

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

Especially Tonight

Pat's watching infernal football games, so I'm on my own. My friend Lynn made me promise to do something fun for myself today, since she knew I needed to work and study all weekend, so here I am:

Inspired by the "Vanity Fair" article on an oral history of Disco...

I'm reading about how Fran Lebowitz used to dance non-stop for hours on the street, outside of 12 West. Like Pat was obsessed with King Kong -- the original version -- I was obsessed with the picture of Fran Lebowitz on the back of the book-jacket of *Metropolitan Life*, which came out when I was 13.

I won't try to interpret Pat's obsession (though if I were forced to hazard a guess, I'd bet it had to do with animal-cruelty as well as his special relationship with the pretty blond lady), but in my case, I just had never before seen such a cool-looking female person. She looked tough and preppy in parallel, if I recall correctly: cowboy boots, faded jeans, an oxford shirt and blazer plus cigarette. I'd never be that cool.

Now, as she's nearly 60 and I'm nearly 45, I get to read about how she loved the Disco scene. Of course, my version was rollerskating down Hickory Road in suburban Stamford with chunky headphones and yellow-wheeled sneaker-skates from Caldor, a department-store chain owned by the Bennetts, who went to our synagogue.

Catching the Vibe Despite My Age and Life Circumstances

Frankie Crocker is being mentioned in the article by Judy Weinstein. I loved him. As a pre-teen, he made me think romantically in a way that only Minnie Ripperton had achieved before him.

Maybe it's also Teddy Pendergrass' death earlier this week that's got me thinking so sentimentally of the Disco era. Picture a bunch of Bar- and Bat Mitzvah-aged kids shuffling around during ballroom and Disco lessons in a private-home's dance studio in Stamford. Did the Village People know how many of us did the YMCA dance at one another's celebrations of our Jewish manhood and womanhood debuts?

I love Jonathan Lethem's books, as I imagine that he was a Jewish kid like me, entranced by the music that played on WBLS-FM 107.5 and then 98.7 KISS-FM. I was transported by "The Quiet Storm" and even before I had a boyfriend or girlfriend, I was moved by the DJs.

My sisters, who I've written here before, loved Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell, basically thought of me as an alien, but no matter. I was in heaven whenever songs like, "I've Got the Next Dance" or "This Time Baby" came on the radio. In high school, I lost my innocence, as there was a huge, anti-Disco movement by so many boys, who said it was music for [pejorative label for gay men]. I thought they were being racist, and then I learned they were (also) being homophobic. Of course, no one suspected it to be the music of lesbians -- and perhaps Fran Lebowitz and I were the only ones who loved it....Wow, I just got to the part, where the article is quoting Fran Lebowitz:

"Disco Sucks" was a kind of panic on the part of straight white guys. Disco was basically black music, rock'n'roll was basically white: those guys felt displaced.

Seven years ago, I had a huge thrill, i.e., the revenge of the nerdy 13-year-old suburban Disco-rollerskater: In my role in GLBT Business Development for IBM, we gave awards to worthy G, L, B and T Chicago entrepreneurs, among whom was legendary Frankie Knuckles himself! What a delightful evening.

Reading a review of "The Book of Eli" yesterday, there was just one point the critic made that caused me to be remotely interested: He spoke of a scene where the Disco smash-hit, "Ring My Bell," blares.

Disco, like swimming, makes me feel vital.

Love Poem 2.0

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

Love Ballad

Who's That Lady both of us wondered
Our Day Will Come, we hoped and then
I Need Your Lovin' I declared, though with more subtlety
Ultimately, I affirmed, I Found Lovin'
Rush Over, you did, and swiftly, I'm in Love
My Cherie Amour, I Like What You Are Doing to Me
You're the Best Thing Just the Way you are and
Still a Thrill