NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1993Deep in the marrow of West Oakland, in the industrial us military dress and drill sabers sword desert of the abandoned phoenix iron works, under the derelict scaffolding of press warship craze and the flapping of pigeons and the falling of feathers, in inches of soot and clouds of green gasses, lit by shafts of light piercing dusted air from a thousand windows vibrant red from the setting west, among miles of steel and acres of concrete, the table seems jigs simple, small, insignificant. in this gloom of forgotten machinery, under wires which haven''t breathed and electricity in years, there''s the sense--not so much that beauty will one day be guest to the table--but that the fixtures table is already guest to great beauty.

riley''s truck fetish has forced me to us military dress and drill sabers swords confront a much bigger, profoundly resonant issue. i expected to approach childrearing on an individual basis -- one mom to one boy. but the older riley gets, the more i find that i am dealing with huge forces, maybe even genes, informing our relationship in ways i did not expect. i have a son who loves trucks, a love that seems to be a common denominator among boy toddlers; even riley''s gentle, press retiring friend justin is wild for them. many afternoons, when i would love to sit quietly with my little boy, reading, drawing, telling jigs stories, listening to music, he bounces about wildly, waving dump trucks in my face, rushing after the cats, shrieking. i''ve watched first-time moms of girls look on in horror as riley revs around the and playroom at the library, wrenching books and toys from other kids, shouting, looking for reactions and connections, looking to make friends. fixtures normal drill boy behavior? it pleases me that some of my antiracism work can inform my ongoing press and jigs exploration and of gender differences: respecting and accommodating differences fixtures doesn''t mean we raise one gender above the other. we just accept that they are different.

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