Stepping Out on the Ledge a Few More Inches

Our local group of writers has an open mic night at a local coffee house, and one of my colleagues is a regular reader there. I've thought about going since I first heard of it, but something's always interfered, classes or knee or something. She brought it up again Friday while we were standing around waiting for a copier to be free, and I think I'm going to go.

I've only ever read my poetry publicly at the awards ceremonies for the competitions I've been in and at a writers' night we had for our students and staff at the school, so this will be another really big stretch for me. My first inclination is to just go and listen, in fact. I know, though, that if I don't throw myself off that cliff, I will lose my nerve and lose a chance to fly.

Of course, there will be some pieces that I definitely will NOT be reading. Some stuff will have to stay in the notebooks here at home. There are some cliffs I'm not ready to throw myself off no matter how amazing the flight down might be....

Back to the Future Trilogy

I bought the Back to the Future Trilogy today. I see the films occasionally on this cable channel or the other, but it's been a long time since I've seen any of them whole and without any commercials. It's one of my favorite 80s series, and it's a great light break for tonight. I have always loved the idea of that one definitive moment of courage that changes a person's whole life, love the transformation for Marty's downtrodden dad at the dance. The other installments of the trilogy have great messages, too, but the first one will always be the best to me.

The New School Year

Our new school year is off and running. (It seems like all I do is write in cliches, lately...oh well...) My kids are going to be a good bunch this year, and everybody just has the most positive attitude. It's wonderful. I feel better about this year than I have for a long time, not because of the people in my class (they're always quality) but because of the atmosphere outside it. I hope that it holds, that this feeling that all things are possible remains. We can do an awful lot with this.

Loss

One of the great ladies in my church passed away Thursday. She was a combination of many things to me, a fan of my rough and sometimes terrible organ playing, a friend, one of the few people left who remembers my paternal grandmother and called her "friend", someone who lived in Japan once as well and could share recollections of life there as a gaijin outsider, and the sister of my beloved music teacher. It's such a cliche to say that you never think about the last time you see someone being the last time you're ever going to see them, but that's all I've been able to think about these last two days. I didn't see her often enough, and now there are no more chances to tell stories, give hugs, or play songs. Every time I play, that pew will be empty, empty, and all those links are broken.

Old Hymns

Meant to blog this last night....

I played with our substitute pianist last night because our usual night pianist, one of my very best friends, was out of town. Since our sub isn't used to playing very often, we did some very old traditional hymns that everybody knows, and it was wonderful fun.

I love to play old hymns. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy all church music from stuff with loud guitars to stuff with loud banjos right up to stuff with loud pipe organs. It all makes me happy, and I think it all makes God happy, too. I know not everybody enjoys every type of music, but to me, it's all wonderful stuff. There's just something about playing and singing those old, old hymns, though, that moves me.

I don't have a blazing musical talent. I have friends who do, and what they can do with instruments humbles me. I will never forget as long as I live hearing one of my gifted pianist friends play his arrangement of "It Is Well with My Soul." That simple old song glowed like stained glass struck with the rising sun. It's a song I've always loved, a song I used to sneak up to the chapel at the university I attended for my undergrad and play on the piano there late at night when I felt bad. Of course, when I played it, it never sounded like his version. If anything should ever happen to me, I want him to play that at my funeral.

"Angel Band" is another one of those old hymns that affects me that way. I still remember my grandmother crying whenever it was played in church because it reminded her of her own mother. It was in due time played at her funeral, and whenever I hear it, I can hear my Granny's voice singing it. Someday, I am going to get the courage to sing that at church. Maybe I won't screw it up....

There are so many other lovely old songs that I also love, but one I frequently play for prelude is "In the Garden." I figure probably 75% of the congregation isn't paying attention to what the organ is doing anyway, and it makes me tremendously happy to hear the King of Instruments purr through that song. Playing it is a bit like singing it in many ways. It just feels good to walk the baseline in the chorus and imagine the words coming true.

Even as I continue to find new songs that I enjoy and add to my repertoire, I will always hang on to these oldest loves of mine. I know I'm never going to be a fantastic concert organist, but maybe if they're played with love and happiness, that will be enough.

...And Still No iPod

Another side effect of the unpacking has been the fact that I still haven't found my iPod. I was hoping that I would locate it in and amongst the flotsam and jetsam of my room, but as each box has been unpacked and discarded in the hall, there has been no little black pouch. I don't know what genius thing I did with it in my befuddled state at the end of last year, but I must have truly lost it.

I will wait until the end of tomorrow when all the boxes are truly unloaded, just so it doesn't turn out to be one of those O. Henry ironic things, "Oh, huh, if you'd just unpacked that one last box," but I have to try to figure out what to do now. Do I want to get an iPod or do I want to get an iPhone? I am a hardcore BlackBerry junkie, so I am loathe to relinquish my Berry for the iPhone even though they look like fun, but they have more storage for less money than most of the iPods I want. Grr...why can't my sweet little red square Nano just be in a box? I miss it so much.

Dragging

The past few days have been an all-out race to get my classroom ready. Every time I've turned around there has been ONE...MORE...BOX. I think that when I dream, I see ONE...MORE...BOX. I am coming to hate corrugated cardboard. Why, oh why, do I have so much crap in my room? I can't possibly use all that stuff, can I? I have looked at stuff as I've unboxed it, and thought about each item, but unfortunately, yeah, I do use it all, or at least I will at some point. Sigh.

The room is coming together, but I am just about shot. I finally got some of my personal stuff in today, and I think I only have two boxes left. I still have to paint my speaker's stand and get it in, a major job, but maybe tomorrow will be the day I can close my door at the end of the day and leave without feeling like I'm sneaking away from the scene of an accident.

Moving Back In

Our school has been in renovation all summer, and we can now move our stuff back in. Yesterday was the first time I've seen my classroom since the remodeling began, and I was a little nervous about what it would look like, what the school as a whole would be like now. Our building is quite old, built in the early decades of the last century, and it has a solidity and old-fashioned presence that I was afraid might have been lost.

The renovation is wonderful. Everything that was tattered and ragged has been refreshed, and nothing that makes our building warm and charming has been removed. The floors are lovely, the lowered ceilings both reflect more light and hide the ugliness of conduits and duct work that was exposed before, and all the woodwork had been refurbished.

In my classroom, the floor has been replaced with light-colored tiles, and the effect is startling. My classroom has lots of windows, so there has always been a lot of light, but now, with this new floor, the space looks so much bigger. It's wonderful. I spent three hours yesterday trying to rearrange the big pieces of furniture to decide where they should go. I think I have the basics in place now. All that remains is dragging all the many, many boxes here at the house back to school.

It's good to see the place looking so nice. I hope that when our students return, they will take pride in what they see as well. Maybe this can be a fresh start for all of us, the start of a strong new era for our school.

Following Eleanor's Advice

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt

The sky is orange fading to red, and I am full of a quiet joy. The past few days, I've been following Eleanor's advice in a small way, and I feel like I've discovered new wings to fly.

Sometimes it's so hard to face fears, so hard to do the things that really matter to me even when they are small steps, things that nobody else would even care about. When I get to the edge of whatever it is, and I look down at that sheer drop, I want to cling to the status-quo, keep my wings furled and folded even though my heart is longing for the sky. The fear of failure keeps me mute, still.

Now that I've had my little taste of flight, though, I don't think I'm going to be able to fold my wings again. That's the thing about flying; I think it's addictive.

Thoughts on Imagination

Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun. ~George Scialabra

The Novelty of It All

This weekend, I got an unexpected gift from my uncle. He gave me a check when I went to see him. The money was only a tiny portion of what he actually gave me, though. It just keeps rippling forward. I don't know how to express the fullness of what he actually handed me Saturday.

He handed me the ability to walk into the business office of the hospital today and walk out without the albatross of debt around my neck. I didn't pay all the accounts off, but I paid off four out of the five hospital accounts that had sprung up in their arcane and hellish billing since my ACL surgery. I practically skipped out to the parking lot I felt so good. Instead of spending months staring at ever-increasing stacks of paper and trying to figure out how to rob Peter to pay Paul, I actually might be able to pay it all off.

I even had enough money to go to the grocery store and buy something other than survival rations for once. I walked up and down the aisles, bought refills for my air freshener, and got two kinds of ice cream sandwiches. Luxury, luxury, luxury.

The last thing I'm going to do with my gift is get a DVR, something lasting to keep. I've been wanting one for a long time because I am so rarely home to watch the things I enjoy. It seems I am always leaving when the things I want to see are coming on. It's also the case that with this, I can remember his gift every time I use it.

The gift was a gift far beyond just simple money. He gave me relief from the things that were presently plaguing me and comfort and enjoyment for the future. I am so grateful to him. I feel more relaxed right now than I have in months.

The Power of Words

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."
Philip K. Dick

Another Argument for Jeans

No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit.
Sir Frederick G. Banting

Lava Lamp Screen Saver

Lava Lamp Screen Saver - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

Don't ask me why because I am not remotely interested in explaining, but I got on a lava lamp kick the other day. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know kitsch is my life....) I found this screensaver, and it is really actually very nice. I am planning to order the full version later on, but the freeware was something I thought those of you who also appreciate the...um...finer things in life...might want to check out as well. The link above will take you to CNET, home of safe downloads. Enjoy, and you might let me know what you think of it, too, if it made you smile.

A Sudden Pain

What do you fear in yourself? What do you watch yourself for, dread to see, flinch away from? Is it a tone of voice, a gesture, a pattern of behavior? Maybe you have a temper, an addiction, a weakness that you can't fight quite hard enough or long enough. You're having a perfectly good day, and then suddenly the shadow moves across the sun. You stumble, only a half-step if you're lucky, a graceless sprawl if you're not. There's a moment of disorientation, blood on the palms of the hands or a skinned knee if the fall was a serious one, and that sudden pain of knowing regardless of whatever physical signs remain. That inner pain is worse, actually. The scars carried inside are always worse than the ones left on the outside because you know what they came from, something for your mind to worry itself against like a tongue against a sore tooth. After the fall comes the excruciating process of dragging yourself up again and rebuilding your careful guard against that slice of darkness which will, for a time at least, be content to recede.

The Five Most Interesting Imaginary Men

I'm more random than usual today. Who knows what backwash of energy in the neurons prompted this list, but here you have it, the official Dancing Fool List of the Top Five Most Interesting Imaginary Men, in no particular rank order:

*) Mr. Darcy -- Any literary chick worth her salt would have to include Darcy. He has probably ruined more women for real men than any other imaginary man out there. I wonder if he smirks smugly about this to himself. Probably not. He is, of course, above such things. The traits that put Darcy on this list for me are the fact that he does have such deep feelings that he fights so hard to contain, channel, and figure out. He's not a perfect man, Lord knows. He's arrogant, stubborn, and sarcastic. When he realizes that he is in love, though, he genuinely examines himself and while he remains much the same man he always was (nobody wants a doormat), he is willing to bend some when Lizzy does, too. It's a beautiful thing.

*) Dr. Who -- Sheer, raw intelligence and knowledge of worlds and more worlds coupled with madcap humour and adventure, and in the later regenerations, good looks that will absolutely melt your eyes out. If you're curious like me, could you resist the lure of the 900-year-old man in the blue box who could take you to worlds you've never seen or back to see the pyramids being built? Of course, don't do what all his companions lately seem to do and fall in love because there are some fairly nasty commitment issues at hand, the abjectly broken heart of a soldier who is the last of his kind because of his own actions, and there is always the risk that you will be possessed, kidnapped, or killed, but hey, every relationship has its little pitfalls, right? As long as you are just along for the ride, "What could possibly go wrong?"

*) Marshal Marshall Mann -- Rock steady, strong, funny, and smart, but you know, you just know that if it were necessary, this guy would be able to destroy anything put in his path. It's in his eyes behind the gentleness and the sparkle of the humor and in the angle of his body in certain situations, even when he's not holding a gun. He's a man who enjoys knowing things for the sheer joy of turning over the information in his head and playing with it. He can hold his own verbally and physically even with the best of them, and it's always fun to watch him give at least as good as he gets. He's not a sidekick; he's a balancing force, equal and opposite to his partner, and although he is not as loud and flashy as she, it would be a real mistake to assume that he's the lesser because of that.

*) Harry Dresden -- Complex layers of power, lack of self-awareness, self-deprecating humor and intelligence make Harry one of my favorite imaginary men. Those around him see him so much more clearly than he sees himself. He has power to break open creation in his hands, and he constantly tempers that power with restraint, goodness, and dry wit, much more than he ever manages to give himself credit for. Although it seems he is always put in situations that have no solutions without wounds, he strives for resolutions that will only wound himself and the ones who started the trouble orignally. Of all the series I read regularly, The Dresden Files are ones I will buy in hardback and pre-order just to see how he's going to make me laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time, in his next adventure.

*) Det. Robert Goren -- Quirky brilliance, the ability to analyze any set of information given and find connections, a passion that simmers almost always under control, and a seemingly endless base of background experiences and interests make Goren fascinating to me. There is an air of the feline to Goren, both in the way that he deals with interactions with other people and in the way that he sets traps for unwary criminals. The rare explosions of temper are feline, too, big-cat-feline-pushed-too-far dangerous. He's been a favorite of mine since the very first time I watched Law and Order: CI for both his inability to be just like everybody else and the fact that he just doesn't need to be like them, either. As the seasons have gone by, the darkness that hovered in him has blossomed, and Goren has had to deal with things that would destroy most people. And maybe, just maybe, he's been destroyed, too. That's part of the appeal, part of what breaks my heart in some episodes even while I'm shaking my head in others trying to figure it all out.

Here they are, then, my favorite fictional fellows. If you have some of your own, you might post a comment and let me know.

INFJ

I took a FB Myers-Briggs this morning (and don't you know that was the very pinnacle of accuracy?) and came out INFJ again. Every single brush with every permutation of Myers-Briggs I've ever encountered has resulted in my being INFJ. Apparently, INFJs are very rare composing about one percent of the total population. (Lookit, I'm a unicorn!!!)

I am unsure if I believe that the depths of any human being can be plumbed by using a test, no matter how many psychoanalysts have been tinkering with it over the years. However...I have to somewhat uncomfortably admit (using a split infinitive, no less) that a lot of this information in this summary from Purdue sounds an awful lot like me.... Well, you always did KNOW I was a little different. Now you know why. If you'd like to know just how much, click the link and read away....

A Fantasy on Why My Car Might Have Cost $536.00 to Repair

The Cruiser went to the shop for a day of needed repair, and the bill, when I got it back this afternoon, was about $536.00. The notations on the printed invoice showed that actual parts were only about $45.00 of the total bill. Everything else was labor. This then is my attempt to inject a bit of levity as I try to imagine how a part worth $45 might have needed that much labor to install. (I am, for the record, completely, totally, and utterly, in the wrong freakin' business....)

1) They had to use specialized equipment to shrink the mechanic to one fifth his normal size enabling him then to crawl inside the vehicle and do the repair that way. No regular-sized mechanic can do this repair.

2) Special tools had to be crafted by the gang of fairy elves they keep on staff just for repairs of this nature. These tools can only be used once and are forged of starlight and the tears of maidens during rituals that take hours and hours on nights of the full moon. This was of course included in the huge labor total.

3) Time actually had to be slowed to allow the repair to be done. Since it was the "timing chain" that had to be replaced, a temporal shift was necessary, and although the rest of us weren't aware of it, they worked for four frantic days to ensure the chain that keeps all of time and space from collapsing in on itself was properly in place so the universe could be safe again.

4) Seventeen sanctified holy men fasted and prayed for thirteen days in preparation for this repair, chanting over the tools and purifying them with water drawn from a deep mountain spring untouched by human hands. The sweat and fervor of their dedication ensured that the old timing chain could pass from this world into the next without causing harm to anyone else and also with a sense of peace and accomplishment that will allow it to come back in its next incarnation as something higher and better, perhaps a master cylinder or a fuel pump. This, though, was not a part of the bill. The cost of cooking for the celebratory meal they will feast upon tonight was the labor charge.

5) Timing chains are wily, and they don't easily or gladly relinquish their position. The damage a timing chain can do makes a Bengal tiger look friendly and cuddly in comparison. They have to be hunted, stalked, knife-between-the-teeth, and one wrong move could mean total annihilation for an entire team of crack mechanics no matter how well they have been trained or equipped for the chase. Really, who could put a price on such a dangerous mission?

And...although I could go on, I think I'll stop there. At least I laughed. That's something I suppose. It was an expensive giggle though....

Geekery

I've been on Mental Floss most of the day raising my Geek Quotient. I cannot get enough of that site and magazine. They have the most fascinating stuff, most of it probably not really useful to me in day-to-day life, but all of it terribly, terribly satisfying to me somehow. Every drop of new knowing I have helps me understand the world and my place in it a little better, helps me maintain my sense of wonder in the face of the badness and darkness that crowds in all too often around us.

Put me in any situation where I can learn, and I'm happy. I'm like a nesting raven, picking up the shiny bits of knowledge to tuck into my well-feathered nest. They can be any old thing, truly valuable diamonds or just fancy shards of mercury glass, really. I've even managed to turn some situations that were decidedly not fun (getting fingerprinted so I could be employed as a teacher, having various surgical procedures done) into things I could tolerate by forcing my mind into knowledge-gathering mode. You see, I can deal with just about any-damn-thing if I can get away from the nasty real of it and start looking at it like an exercise in expanding my universe.

I'm looking for a like-minded mate, a geek guy who can enjoy the quirks of this world and find treasure everywhere. I'd love to have somebody like the character Marshall from USA's show In Plain Sight (see the photo at the top, as so wonderfully and gently played by Fred Weller). He's just geekalicious, a person who enjoys knowing everything, has a sense of humor, is strong, honest, and sweet to boot. (Of course, he's fictional. I think we all know "Marshalls" aren't really running around out there free-range. I guess he can be filed under Imaginary in the GEMINI acronym....)

This proposed guy can be from any tribe of geekdom; I don't care if he spends his moments engrossed in Viking literature, doing complicated things with the computer, or watching DW reruns. As long as he loves and longs to know, this is what matters most. This is the heart of all things geek, what every one of us knows is the secret joy of our obsession.

In the meantime, I will continue to read my National Geographic and Mental Floss, enjoy the tweets from the Smithsonian branches and the National Archives (oh, I could have just LIVED in those museums for the rest of my days....), chase electronic rabbits, pursue odd hobbies, and accumulate the unusual objects and knowledge that make my silly little heart go pitter-patter.

A General State of Badness

What do you do when someone you love hurts you? What is the best course of action to take? Do you just suck it up, hold it in, hide it deep, and smile through it? Should you rage and scream, cry and show the bloody wounds in hopes that somebody will sew them up? What's the recommended protocol for survival?

I can see both sides of this issue all too clearly, so as much as I want to cry and throw a temper tantrum, I suppose the current situation is something I brought on somehow myself. I can't say I'm not confused about it still, and I can't say that this horrible logical seeing-of-all-the-sides helps it not to hurt any less.

I also don't know how to let go of my pride and try to fix this. Or even if there is a way now to fix it. There have been hairline fractures for a long time, and apparently, with stress, those fractures have split open wide. I suppose even the strongest stone cracks given enough pressure.

All I do know is that I'm hurt, tired, and oh-so-ready to run away....

The Big Empty

In addition to doing lots of nothing today, I watched a biography of Bette Davis, one of my very favorite actresses from Hollywood's heydays. I learned much that I didn't know before, but as with many of my favorite artists and authors, the thing that struck me most about her life was the singular alone-ness of it.

Certainly, she was married four times, and certainly she had a life filled with men and friends, but it always seemed to me that something kept her separated from finding that true kindred spirit that could have made her deeply satisfied. In the end, even her own daughter was mean-spirited and cruel. I cannot imagine how deeply that cut hurt, especially since she herself gave up so much of her own life to be a daughter who cared for a demanding mother.

Why is it that the ones who are most talented seem to wind up being the ones who are most isolated and alone? That seems so unjust. Is there no happiness for the people who are just that little bit different, who refuse to walk down the most common path? Why do they wind up so often standing in the heart of the Big Empty, smiling for all they're worth, but really miles away from everybody else?

Granted, frequently these authors or actors, these artists of all kinds are trying to reach out into the stars and pull down worlds that this one just isn't quite ready for yet, or they're making destructive decisions, but I still can't help but be so sad when I think over the lives of the ones who have brought me so much happiness and how much sadness they had themselves. Do they have to be isolated just because they aren't quite like everybody else? Unfair, unfair, so very unfair....

Does creativity require heart's blood to make its gaudy blossoms bloom? This isn't the first time I've had this little philosophical conversation with myself. I've read all kinds of quotes about what makes great art, and about half of them seem to agree that it comes from some kind of willing emotional self-immolation, that those who create have to be willing to become masochists of a kind, that people who create are in some way fundamentally broken right from the very start. Maybe this is what causes that isolation and ultimate and lingering sadness.

As I watched the biography today I was seized with the desire to write a letter or take the hand of a very strong lady who would never have needed such compassion from me anyway, and tell her how wonderful I thought she was. Just a note or the quick squeeze of the fingers in a gesture of support, the way you would do with a friend who was having a particularly bad day, looking a little worn or a little lost. I often feel this stupid urge whenever I watch one or read about my favorite people, and sometimes I just wish I could be there to hug whomever it is tightly to me and tell them that they are loved and cherished. It's a silly desire, I know, and dangerously full of poetry and imagination. But because I know just the tiniest bit about standing around in the gray edges of the Big Empty (I haven't the talent to ever get to the heart of it), my heart breaks for them.

But Would Anybody Want to Hear It?

I've written some new stuff, and I really want to show it to somebody and get some feedback. I don't know, however, if it's any good. There's one piece that I think needs to go right straight in "The Drawer." There are a couple of others I have hopes for, though, and I wish I had somebody I could scurry to in the dark of night and slip the pieces of paper under the door, fervently looking left and right, and then run away again. Maybe I could be like Emily and pluck roses from my shrubs, tie poems around them, and hand them out to my friends. Unlike Emily, though, I lack the power to channel the fire and majesty of the universe's soul through my pen. I am writing, but really, does anybody want to hear it?

What Kids Can Do

Therapy this morning. My regular therapist was out because there was a Swine Flu scare at her daycare which caused her to have to go take her preschool daughter to get tested for exposure to the virus.

I keep thinking about how scary it must be to have a little one sometimes. There are diseases like Swine Flu and that virus that is apparently everywhere and can kill kids (one of my friend's children had it and survived, but it was scary), there are the unexpected biological twists like extreme asthma, life-threatening allergies, and seizures (again, I have friends dealing with all these issues), and then there are the everyday things like the broken arms, fevers, runny noses, and the never-ending injuries children do themselves and others. It's terrifying.

Fortunately, and this is just based on observation, it seems that children are remarkably resilient. I know once I saw one literally run face-first into a brick wall, fall down, sit up, and then run off after his friends again a few moments later. (Of course, he was always something of a special case....legendary, really....) I don't know if I'll ever have one of my own, don't know if I'll ever come any closer than this surreptitious watching of my friend's children out of the corners of my eyes, but children will never cease to amaze me with what they can take in stride, what they can recover from. I guess this is one of God's graces to us when we're too small to take good care of ourselves. He gave us the boldness to explore the world so we can learn and a body that can then rebuild itself when those lessons are hard ones.

I hope my therapist's daughter is okay. I don't want to think about any child having to be seriously ill; having been that perennially-sick child hooked up to machines, poked, prodded, and operated on long ago myself, I hate the thought of any child in a hospital room.

So I Suppose I'm an Artist Then....

"Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art."
Charles McCabe, San Francisco Chronicle

Fortune Cookies.

unFortunate - Something common will happen to you in an undetermined amount... Check out this page to custom make your own fortune cookie slips. This one is one of my favorites.

Old School Dr. Who

Amazon had a BBC video sale on last week, and I splurged. I got two more Dr. Who DVDs for my Tom Baker collection, and I watched one of them tonight. I haven't seen Planet of Evil in years. All I remembered of it was the black pool and the outline of the creature in technicolor. It was good. The jungle scenes were just as impressive as they were reported to be, and as always with these episodes, I'd forgotten so much from when I saw them as a child.

I am such a classic DW fan. The storylines were really creative, and the world the writers created had great richness to it. Even though the special effects were so low-tech and every spaceship was so obviously put together from old vacuums (something I actually love), the stories were mostly solid. Real thought had gone into creating worlds, creatures, problems, and plots. Unity was maintained. Today's writers could take some hints from DW. After all it has been for 45+ years.....

For me, the old school will always be the best. You will never be able to beat the sheer camp of the "plaything of Sutekh" or seeing the same wonderful BBC actors playing minor characters over and over in different episodes. No amount of CGI or big-budget wardrobe will replace the cheesy wonder of "space age" wardrobe choices circa 1975. Nobody else will ever be Tom Baker running around in that scarf with that particular persona. As much as I have adored David Tennant in the role, and as good as I think he's been in the storyline of the Doctor who is living in that part of the character's history, whenever someone says, "Doctor Who" to me, curly hair and unpredictable behavior always come to mind.

I enjoy the new series, too, to be sure. The writing has the same qualities that drew me to the original, especially the thoughtful planning of the four-season arc that ended recently. I don't know what it will be like when the eleventh Doctor takes over the role, but I hope that it will continue to amuse and open those worlds for the imagination to play in and for generations of new writers and thinkers to spread their wings in as well.

As I expand my collection and rediscover the mythology of the series, I am grateful again to have these DVDs. My old cassettes, diligently recorded from our local PBS affiliate so many years ago when they showed the series, have long since deteriorated, so each time I sit down to watch one, it's familiar, yet mostly new again, too. As I wait to see what happens as Tennant steps down, I can enjoy the glory years of the series and dream of looking out my own front door to see a blue police box waiting for me someday.

De Stijl

I haven't blogged this disc before, and I really should have, I guess. It's late, it's "spinning" in iTunes, and I'm blown away by how much I love some of these songs. I've been listening to it all day, driving here and there doing errands, and each time it's rotated through, I find something else to appreciate.

The blues songs such as "Death Letter" make me want to dance and drive too fast (not at the same time), sure indicators of good blues to me. Anything that makes me want to throw my head back in the car, sing at the top of my lungs, and flirt with a traffic ticket is good music.

One of my favorites for the sweetness of the words is "Apple Blossom." The whole song, music and lyrics are perfect to me. They're exactly what I'd like someone to say to me sometime, full of love. I love the slightly out-of-tune piano in the background, too. It reminds me of something old-fashioned for some reason.

In the same way, I love "Truth Doesn't Make a Noise." I could be that girl in that song for so many reasons. I just haven't ever found anybody who felt like the writer of that song about me. Even though the song is short, it's powerful to me. This is the music of true romance, as in warriors taking up arms to defeat insurmountable opposition. (This may be because I am an English teacher and I see archetypes hiding under every shrub and bush.) I appreciate the genuine emotion and, as always, the stripped-down power of the lyrics.

Well, as far as reviews go, this one is by far the least technical and sophisticated ever written, I'm sure. Even by my standards, it's pretty weak. I just didn't want to forget to at least mention how much I'm enjoying this music at this specific moment.