One More

I'm listening to something quiet to try to slow my brain down a little before I go to bed.  I am so incredibly TIRED, but I'm afraid I'm going to have horrible dreams again tonight.  Last night, I dreamed I got tied up in some sort of kite rigging and couldn't get down....it was like parasailing a little, but horrible.  I'm sure if you're a psych major, my dreams will keep you in papers eternally.

My back and neck hurt.  My head is full of cottony crap from yesterday's major migraine and today's little one. My left hand is bruised from trying to keep today's little migraine from becoming a big one (acupressure points only work if you apply pressure, sweetie).  In just a few, as soon as this piece of music finishes, I'm going to go brush my teeth, take my nighttime dose of nastiness, and fall down.  I hope tomorrow is full of daisies and unicorns.  By God, I have earned at least one day of ridiculous niceness this week.  It's already all paid in advance.  It can just come on and show up.

Refreshing

I'm looking through the stuff for my TGC online course, and boy is it going to be work.  It's been a very long time since I had school work that I actually could look forward to, not since I was taking those graduate 8000 level English courses for fun.  I hope I can manage to put together intelligent responses and not make too much of an idiot of myself among all the learned folk.

The topics here are very cool, engaging to me, and if the other people doing this are also interested, then the discussions we have (which are how we are getting our grades) should be very good indeed.  I think this might be a massive shot in the arm for me.  Right now, I am in a major...rut is far too kind a word for it.  What's lower than that?  Pit?  Valley?  Abyss?  I don't know.  Go with one of those.  I think exchanging new ideas with new minds is going to be fresh water into a pool that is fast going dry.

I've been leaning against my sturdy red brick wall lately and thinking more and more about running away.  There has been less and less holding me there; I've been feeling the bonds that hold me slipping a little more each day.  This experience is going to do one of two things, really.  It's either going to remind me why I do what I do where I do it, revitalize me and refocus me, give me what I need to rekindle the flame that is sputtering right now, or....

It's going to be the thing that finally cuts the last of the bonds altogether and reminds me that there are other things out there in the wider world.

I can't tell you which it will be.  I can't tell you which one is right one.  I just know every time I think about the online stuff, the meeting of people who think it's awesome that there are other people in the world, other cultures, other ways of doing things, other places our students might go and be involved in, I feel a little better about life.

Do Want, Will Have

This is the new Kindle Fire.  Oh, Baby, have I been waiting for this....

I've been eyeing the tablets on the market for quite some time, asking the gurus among my group of friends what they thought about this or that one and biding my time.  Really and truly, I have other pieces of equipment that already do most of the things an iPad or its Android cousins can do as well as or better than they can.  While I've seen a million applications for them (and I don't just mean apps) for education, I haven't been able to justify the massive cost of another gadget that would be so redundant without giving me something extra in return.

And then there's this.  My dear old Kindle 2 is getting a bit ragged around the edges.  I've already super-glued the selector button, and I've managed to crack the screen somehow despite how careful I always am with it.  This new Kindle is first and foremost a touchscreen e-reader.  I am all for that.  I read more and faster with my e-reader, and all the snobs who have a problem with e-text can lump it.

Next, though, and fantastically, it offers access to all my Amazon Cloud music.  I buy all my digital music from Amazon and have for years because I hate dealing with the DMR crap from iTunes that causes problems if I want to use the songs in a PowerPoint or some such.

Because I also keep an Amazon Prime membership for the purpose of free shipping, I also have access to all the streaming videos and content that they offer.  The Fire is going to let me watch that on it, too.  This means I will be able to watch Fawlty Towers and Doctor Who on my Fire.  Freaking Shiny Score.

It is going to do other stuff, too.  It will have a web browser and handle email.  It will run Angry Birds.  There will be other native apps.  The things I've listed, though, are all the things I really care about it doing.  These are all the things I have ever wanted something to be able to do while I travel.  It is all my entertainment in one very small, convenient, independent, rechargeable place.

I'm sure there will be those who say it doesn't do enough.  For them, probably the iPad or something larger is a better answer.  For me, this "superbook" is the right fit.  I may not be able to get my hands on it until November, but I can be happy knowing it's around starting right now.  Well done, Amazon.  Well done.

Dusting Off My Hands

...because I made one of my problems disappear today.  Screw this. Right now, you irritate me, disappoint me, or depress me, and so I've made you go away.  I don't have to look at it if it makes me sad.  Bye-bye, darlin'.

...because I'm finding it easier to let go every day.  Every disaster brings me closer to decision.  Every moment of peril brings new understanding.

...because I had a migraine that made me weep.  Literally.  And had to be taken home by somebody else.  Sometimes there's nothing else to do but brush the dust off the hands from the fall and get ready to get up again tomorrow.

...because I cannot fix everything that is broken.  Because I cannot make everyone pick up every gift that is offered.  Because I'm tired of being heartsick over it.

...because today my family was stolen from by redneck thieves.  I'm revising my theories about guns.

...because I saw things today that took me right back to the "bad old days" I hoped were gone forever.

I'm going to bed now.  Today was pure-D-hell, as my grandfather would have said it.  I took a big migraine pill long enough ago that I'm no longer screaming and crying from the pain.  Everything else will hold.

No Time for It

Two things are keeping me from updating right now:  lack of time (we're at the end of the 9wks, and the rush is on) and a general lack of sense of myself as good company right now.  If you were close enough to be near me right now, you'd know exactly what I mean.  Sometimes, and I'm all too aware of this, believe me, I am the least pleasant person who ever lived.  As much as I wish I were all woven from dewdrops and sunbeams, from fairy wings and elvish whispers, this is not the case.  Right now, solitude is more or less probably the best quarantine until I'm better company and more tolerant of everything, my own foibles included.

A Song for Your Birthday

-just for reference, this you is not the you I usually write to/about.  This you is a something of a ghost, and I cannot call him fiction, more's the pity.  If ever there was a confirmation that I am worthy of the title "fool," though, he is it.  

Dates sneak up on a person sometimes if they're not paying attention.  I was just putting stuff up on Tumblr, and a post about Faulkner's birthday rolled through.  That set something, a dim memory of an unfortunate conjunction of dates, spinning like fall leaves in my mind, and I looked at the calendar.  Sure enough, the numbers don't lie.  Tomorrow would have once been significant to me, would once have had me getting ready to tell you happy birthday, wondering whether or not I was currently "in favor" enough with you among all your collection of girls to get to do something with you on the actual day.  I might have even been trying to figure out what to get you depending on what phase of that long, dark night we were in together.

A friend of mine is a quite a fan of Dylan, and he and I have a running conversation about his music since I famously haven't been.  He sent me several songs to listen to since lately it seems I might be on the verge of conversion.   In the playlist, there was one that immediately made me think of you, "What Was It You Wanted."  It rather perfectly sums up the confusion I always felt every time we went somewhere and you hugged me too close too long, were just a little too affectionate; every time one of my new roommates ever told me, "Oh...but...I thought....," after having to have the stupidity of the situation of you and me explained; every time you gave me silly little gifts or roses and then turned around and hit on one (or more) of my friends; every time you somehow kept me together when the world shattered, pushed me to reach for things I didn't know I could do, and then casually kicked me down a flight of stairs afterward by ignoring me, being in a bad mood, or by switching to one of the girls you collected, who, like me, were damn fools enough to put up with you.

Yeah.  God, I wish I'd had it back then.  It would have made a perfect present for you.  I could have just sent it as a response to an email, or low tech as we all were "back in the day," left it burned on a CD hanging on the door of the Wesley for you to pick up on the way through.  I could have left it, let Dylan say everything that needed to be said, and walked away from you.  It's what should have happened so long ago.  In a perfect universe, those "do-over" sorts of universe possible only in the movies and in worlds populated by blue police boxes, I suppose it still could.  I like to think of it.  It makes me proud to think that in some alternate world, that tall, long-haired girl flipped you the bird musically (the most appropriate of all possible ways for you after all since so much of our time together seemed to revolve around music, the playing of it, the listening to it, the participating in it, the talking about it) and walked away.

You are long gone now, and you've finally stopped sending me Christmas cards.  Whatever I felt for you ended a long time ago, too, except for the lack of understanding of what it was all about, about why you were the way you were, what it was that you wanted from me, about why I was so foolish as to keep on in a situation that was as full of stupidity and pain as that one was.  And all that, I guess, is never going to be made clear to me.   I'm just going to take this last birthday, then, to give you one last belated present.  Burn it to a CD if  needed to get the right feel and sort of consider it a statement asked many, many years too late.

Giraffes Again

So I'm proud of this one.  Sue me.  I love the giraffes on the Dentzel.  I always have.  I shot them quite a bit yesterday, and although I know I do not have good control over my camera, especially compared to some people I know (Tree Boy, yeah, I mean you among others), I am very happy with this one.  I did process it through Picnick to make it look "Lomo-ish," a finish I like, but this one needed very little else.  It pleases me, and it's rare for me to say that.

It's hard to nail down exactly what it is about this pair of giraffes that I like so much.  Partly, of course, it's the detail.  I always perceive them as a male and a female.  I love that the maker took the time to paint and decorate them differently.  The male has light greenish eyes.  The female's are dark gold.  I love that their saddles have bright silver fringe or ivy.  I think, though, that they also look intelligent, perceptive.  They are graceful and elegant.  Even when I was little, the giraffes, the lion, and the tiger were always my favorites.

I don't know if I'll go back to take more photos there again.  I think I got everything this time, or at least as much as I am going to be able to do with my ability.  I have this image in my desktop wallpaper set now, so when it shifts through, I can see their tranquil expressions and smile.  

A Day of It

I knew I needed to get out with my camera today (Gypsy Feet), but I am flat broke right now (flatter than that, actually...is there anything flatter than flat?  If there is, I'm there...), so I knew I needed to do it cheaply.  I decided, after some serious plotting and scheming, to go back to some places I'd already been and try to capture some things that got away from me before close by.

The weather today was perfect for shooting, gorgeous light and a sweet temperature.  I could have stayed out forever.  I started at Rose Hill Cemetery.  Last time I was there, it was approximately 4,000 degrees and the middle of last August, so I took a few pictures and made haste to get back in my car before I burst into flames. Today, I took the time to walk all around the entire cemetery and shoot whatever detail of carving caught my eye.  I found all sorts of things that my heat-addlement (not a word, but..well...) last time caused me to miss before.  There are all sorts of wonderful inscriptions people put on the tombstones, some short, some full length poems, almost miniature essays.  I shot some of them.  I hope there was enough contrast to get them to show up in the images.  I'll process the day's shooting after I'm done here, so I guess I'll know soon.

Rose Hill also made me sad, though.  Since I was there last, someone has vandalized Kelly Mitchell's grave, knocking off the top part of the cross just below the "arms" of it.  It has been repaired with rather ugly cement, and as always, the grave is adorned with the traditional huge piles of Mardi Gras beads and so forth, but I just stood there looking at it for long moments before I took a new picture of it.  I felt as though someone should apologize to her.  I don't know if she could possibly hear or feel it, but my God, to die in a place like this of something as horrible and sudden as her illness was in that time period and then to have to suffer the constant indignity of generations of people mucking about with your resting place, I think somebody should apologize.  It disturbed me.  Everybody, even if or maybe especially if they weren't left in peace in life, ought to be allowed to rest in peace in death.

From Rose Hill, I went across town to our carousel.  I have been trying to capture the tiger there for quite some time.  He's sort of tricky.  I think I got him this time, though.  I shot the animals as best I could between the rides, and I even took a ride on it myself, something I didn't do last time and regretted.  I think that if you're near a carousel and you don't take a ride on it, you're only cheating yourself.  I plan always to ride them if I can from now on.  It was grand.  After I rode it, I stayed on a little while and worked on some more angles.  I happened to catch a bit of a lull between loads of little kids and pensioners, and the two high school girls manning the place let me go through the swinging doors onto the carousel platform and take all the angles I wanted.  I got the male giraffe, a shot I could not get previously, and I think I got the lion as well.      We'll see how it all comes out in the wash.

While I was there, I got asked by a lovely couple from somewhere else if I was doing research about the St. Louis Exhibition.  I had to tell them that I wasn't, but we had a nice brief chat about antique carousels.  Every time I go out shooting, I always have the greatest conversations with people who mistake me for someone who knows something because of the camera in my hand.  I love that.

I really would like to do some research, though, write about some of the things I shoot.  I wonder how people do that, find people to publish them.  My dad suggested that I do that, too.  I don't know if anybody would be interested in it, though.  Heh.  I guess maybe you could tell me....

After I came home, I picked up Chewie, and I went to the Old Place.  Chewie on his leash is one of the sweetest, sassiest, silliest things I've ever seen.  He alternates between prancing along beside me and grabbing the leash in his mouth and trying to lead me where he wants to go.  He had a good time today.  He had a bit of an odd moment where he balked at getting up on the porch of our country shack, but I finally convinced him that it wasn't some new sneaky vet, and he spent the afternoon sitting beside me while I read. We walked through the woods some to a spring that flows on the property, and when he got bored with exploring that, he grabbed his leash and promptly pulled me away.

I finished my day driving home with the windows down, cool air filtering in, Chewie drowsing on the seat beside me.  It's true that nothing I did was an exotic excursion, but it was just what I needed today.

Meditation Upon a Comment

Today, when someone said something about why I hadn't dealt with an online assignment system I run IMMEDIATELY late at night, I replied it was because I'd been busy with other things.  As the students left the class, I heard one of them say something to the effect of, "Well, I guess maybe she does have a life!"

What a shocking revelation!  My God, no!  It makes me laugh the way students perceive their teachers outside school.  We are either supposed to roll into a corner and plug into a recharging socket or hang upside down from our ceiling perches until dawn brings a new teaching day.

Here, then are some imaginary explanations for what I might have been doing instead of updating Shelfari:

1)  I was selected to be a judge at a semi-professional Elvis impersonator competition.  I spent my evening listening to novel interpretations of "Love Me Tender," "Don't Be Cruel," and "Jailhouse Rock."   When that 70-year-old man from Japan stepped out in that rhinestone spangled jumpsuit, struck a pose, and started into "A Little More Action," I really think that might be the best night I've ever had.  Really.

2)  Through a set of circumstances that would take far too long to explain here, I sort of wound up fighting off an elite team of assassins.  Nerf was involved.  That is all I'm allowed to say about the incident at this time.  When the appropriate agencies all decide that the papers are declassified, I'll probably revisit the incident again in my blog.  Since it crosses international lines, it may be awhile.  Maybe all the scars will have faded by then, though....

3)  Well, there was this sort of grinding noise in my back yard, and I looked out there was a big, blue, wooden box out there with a flashing light on the top.  The doors opened, and this lovely lanky guy came out of it talking all British at me and really, it's lucky at all that I'm back in this time and on this planet at all....

4)  I could say elves to you, but it isn't elves exactly, and I'd rather you said it for yourself.  (about four thousand bonus points to you, a homework pass, a gold star, and my undying admiration if you catch that reference)

5) An absolutely majestic performance on the flying trapeze, center ring, with the circus that passed through town last night.  You missed it.  You should have seen it.  I had a spangly costume and everything.

6)  I was forced to pretend to be married when the student from my past who sort of proposed to me ("What sort of man are you looking for teacher?  Let me tell you what sort of man you are looking for..."  describes creepy, creepy self  "You could never marry any other type of man, teacher....") showed up on my doorstep.  This farce went on for quite some time and wound up involving a good friend and several neighborhood children who guest starred as my "husband" and "kids" before it was done.  The film version will be hitting the big screen sometime around Christmas....

7)  Okay, so there was this guy, and this big, fast Honda bike, and Louisiana in the evening, and...well....

I think this amused me even if it didn't do anything for you.  Sorry to drag you through it, but you know how it goes, darlin'.....

Spread a Bit Thin

No posting here lately because I've been taking care of writing in other places.  (Now some of you just got excited by that, but don't.  No.  No new updates. I still haven't had time for THAT.  Maybe soon, though. I know.  I know.)  I've been tending Shelfari like a mad person and grading papers, writing course syllabi that turned out to be largely useless, things like that.  It's taken my time and my focus.  When I've come home, I haven't felt as though I've had much of use to say.

There's not much new or exciting with me right now.  What there is that's new, I can't really discuss.  (Doesn't all this make for a fascinating post?  Whoo-whoo.)

The only thing I can really say that's interesting right now is the new book I'm reading:  Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.  I read Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by him several months ago, and it was amazing, totally surreal in the best possible sense.  I decided to give NW a go after seeing it described with such glowing reviews and comparisons to Gatsby, Catcher, and other classics I loved.  WBC was NOTHING like those, so I wondered how different the style was and how an author could swing such a massive change.  It's fantastic.  I am seeing little threads of that weirdness that is just a foundational part of Japanese culture creeping in, but the storyline is quite good, and I've already been highlighting like mad (it's on my Kindle),always a mark of enjoyment for me.

It's giving me creepy dreams though.  Bits of Japan show up here in Chunky, or I'm walking through the streets of Japan and odd things happen.  It's not comfortable.  Last night, stuff from some music I was listening to before I went to bed got frapped in with all of it, and I don't know what the hell all happened.  Not.  Good.  I think I am going to have to be more careful about what I take in right before I sleep.  At least I'm dreaming again, though, I guess....

Speaking of Japan, that takes me back to an earlier post I did about wearing that little smile as my little mask for my real emotions.  Never have I done that so much as I have in the past few days.  I will probably need it more today than I ever have before.  Be interesting to see if today's the day it cracks and falls to the floor to reveal that other Noh mask, the one with the horns and the teeth (and yeah, I know that's supposed to represent jealousy, but you know what I mean...) instead.

Gandhi Again

I looked at that quote again this morning, and suddenly inspiration struck.  I think what he meant was that when we are faced with a monumental task and we know that our efforts are tiny, we must still continue to contribute those efforts anyway.  That is what the quote means.  It's sort of a little and often fills the purse sentiment.  We must not be daunted by the size of the undertaking before us or assume that what we do doesn't account for anything just because we cannot accomplish the whole task ourselves or won't see the whole thing done in our lifetime.  If we don't add our portion, the job will never be done.  This, this, this, I can live with.  This feels like something he would have said, would have believed in.  The man who preached "[y]ou must be the change that you wish to see in the world" would never have told people to give up because nothing they do matters.  Clarity at last.  Or, well, at least this is what I'm going with.

But, Anyway...

So I'm fixing a lingering case of the blues the best way I know how:

• My stereo is making things rattle on my shelves.  Dance music is good for bad moods.  Right now, I like Maroon 5 for this.  Later on, I might shift into some disco or some 80s stuff, but truth right now, it's amazing how good Maroon 5 sounds really loud.  I am totally in love with "Moves Like Jagger" right now.  I wish I had a small car with a very good engine to drive this song like it deserves to be driven, something like that luscious Nissan they had on tonight that could get to 60 in 3 seconds.  I could be in Jackson in about fifteen minutes, barring the interference of law enforcement.
• Orange slices.  They remind me of both my Nana and my Granny.  Both of them always had them around.  I found a bag at Big Lots, and I rediscovered what was left of it in my pantry just a few minutes ago.  Total freaking score.
• TopGear.  I have the sound off and I'm watching Hammond, Clarkson, and May blow crap up.  God, I love them.  They've had them on all night, the episode where they try to make a train out of a car and now the new episode where they're doing demolition.  I got to see Mr. Bean become their fastest driver ever.  Fantastic.
• Gradual refusal to deal with crap that makes me sick. This includes people.  Tricky bit this, but I'm getting there.  
• New Murakami novel waiting for me on my Kindle, Norwegian Woods.  

I'm going to listen to my loud music, eat my orange slices, and disappear down a Japanese rabbit hole the rest of the evening. At some point, I will probably get up and dance around my living room in a ridiculous fashion.  (I REALLY need to find somebody to go out dancing with.  But everybody is either married or short.  It's a problem.)  Tomorrow, I have a neurologist's appointment, so we'll see what fun that brings.  Who knows?  I'm not anticipating any "new news," but if everything goes to crap, well.... I can always stop somewhere and get another bag of candy....  O_o

Okay.  Almost a day I've been looking at my last post, trying to be all philosophical about it, trying to take it in, harmonize my soul to it, accept it, "zen" it, if you will, resonate as one with it. I get what he's saying. The process is the important thing, not the end product.  We should focus on the steps that we take and not the destination since, really, none of us despite well-laid plans, can be certain of where that final place may be.

Screw that.

If what we are doing is not important, why do anything at all?  My soul screams at that.  If all I am doing is stacking greased BBs in a corner all day long, why not seek something more meaningful?  And if the message is supposed to be that nothing anywhere is meaningful at all then I reject that wholesale.  I would have to sit right down in the floor and do nothing the rest of my life if I believed that no action we did had any purpose to it at all, that all our actions were empty.  One might as well go out in the street and shoot his fellow man through the head as seek a cure for the disease that was taking his life if this was true.  What would be the difference?  What we choose to do helps to define us.  So does what we choose to leave alone.

Oh, and I'm coming to this quote at the end of such a bad, bad week, and I'm so full of sadness and so many things that make me tired and willing to believe that maybe, just maybe all our efforts are ashes and dust and handfuls of ourselves thrown into a void that doesn't even know it's sucking it down.  After what's happened lately, I cannot lie and say there is not some part of me that doesn't want to fall in the traces, give up, lay it all down, stop and just say enough because my best isn't good enough, isn't wanted, doesn't matter.  That's a horrible feeling to offer up something you work hard at, value, and have someone be totally apathetic or snide or inattentive.  It happened several times this week, and every time it was like a kick in the face.  The last was the worst.

And maybe what I do is unimportant, after all.  Maybe it doesn't really matter at all to anyone but myself.  Maybe this should be that moment of great self-revelation, the final mask of deception coming off.  I just don't know that I can live with what I see if this quote is the measure of it.

Purpose

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Not What He Meant, Probably....

On the way to school this morning, I heard the song, "Run to You."  My mind went IMMEDIATELY and quite oddly to the bitter triangle of Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon, and Anne Boleyn.  I could just see Henry singing it to Anne.  Listen to the lyrics sometime.  It's sort of uncanny.  I'm never going to be able to get that imagery out of my head again.  It's always going to be hooked to Tudor England for me now.....  Of course, I'm almost certain that this isn't what Bryan Adams had in mind when he wrote it.  English Literature strikes again.

Nothing Deep

• I stole a line from a song I like and started a poem with it.  It was something, anyway.  I hardly ever write anymore.  I miss the feeling of pulling things from my mind and seeing them come to life.
• I ordered a blank punch clown from amazon.  It is designed to be decorated with wet-erase markers.  I foresee hours of stress relief in my future.
• I had a good day as far as my students are concerned.  They are an outstanding batch this year.
• On Etsy, I found the most amazing things:  a necklace made from a farthing with a wren on it and a pin from France that is a purple plastic cicada.  It might not make you happy, but it does it for me.
• I filled out a load of paperwork getting ready to be a comp teacher at a local community college.
• I rediscovered how much I HATE paperwork, especially when it just keeps coming and they don't tell me what I need to complete it.
• I wore my Gatsby shirt today.  It was under a blazer, but I knew it was there.  I knew it was there.
• I want to do something fancy this weekend as an escape.  I'm thinking a road trip.  I'm wishing for some company.

That's all.  The end.  I'm sorry there is no philosophy or anything of depth here for you.  I guess I'm just not very entertaining tonight.

Put You in Your Place

And that place is on the floor.

And that place is with this big black boot on your face, crushing the life out of you slowly.  It would be a shame, really, to rush it.

And if you get up, oh, how sweet the taste of the pleasure of kicking you right back down again.  It's a calling, this.  It's an art.

You have no worth, no purpose, no meaning, other than this.  You're nothing.  Nobody. Just another diversion.  Your best is not even worth wiping up.  Stay down or we'll make you stay down.  And we'll enjoy it....
---------------------------------------------------
How did I forget these lessons?  How did I forget how these eyes see me? It took me so long to learn them.  I have all the scars -flat, shiny, well-healed, now- that should constantly remind me that I need to run. Maybe I'm too much like my pit bull; maybe my pain tolerance is just too damn high.  Maybe I'm a fool. I don't know.  All I know is that right now I'm angry and hurting....and trying so hard not to stay down.

Mad Girl's Love Song - Plath

Mad Girl's Love Song


I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)


--Sylvia Plath
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Holy freaking crap.  And then I found this.  O_o   The middle two stanzas...that image... ("I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed....  God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade/Exit seraphim and Satan's men/I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead")  I've been sitting here for about five minutes trying to think of something to say about it to describe its power.  I'm just going to leave that to speak for itself because I mean...damn...


(edited)
Upon further reflection....maybe I will just add one tiny thing...sign me up for just a wee taste of the "[sing] me moonstruck and kiss me quite insane" bit.  I think I could do with a touch of that.   Maybe more than a touch.  Maybe like a full course of study.  You can keep the inevitable Plathian tragedy at the end for yourself, though.

Admonitions by Plath

Admonitions

Oh never try to knock on rotten wood
or play another card game when you've won;
never try to know more than you should.

The magic golden apples all look good
although the wicked witch has poisoned one.
Oh never try to knock on rotten wood.

From here the moon seems smooth as angel-food,
from here you can't see spots upon the sun;
never try to know more than you should.

The suave dissembling cobra wears a hood
and swaggers like a proper gentleman;
oh never try to knock on rotten wood.

While angels wear a wakeful attitude
disguise beguiles and mortal mischief's done:
never try to know more than you should.

For deadly secrets strike when understood
and lucky stars all exit on the run:
never try to knock on rotten wood,
never try to know more than you should.

--Sylvia Plath

________________________________________________

I came across this villanelle today as I was prepping a poetry unit. It has one of my favorite motifs in literature, Faustus or the dangers of pursuing forbidden knowledge.  Sylvia knew all too well how it enticing it is and how easy it is to reach too far too fast and get yourself into trouble. This poem, too, is a meditation about the appearance vs. the truth of things.  Too many things seem lovely, safe, seductive, even, only to do harm when embraced.  Plath is saying it's better not to push your luck.  Of course, she didn't always live up to her own rules, but maybe that's her own experience speaking as a warning here.  We're about two weeks from starting Faustus with my classes.  It's been a full year since I taught it.  I'm looking forward to it.  It never fails to move me.

Tracking a Quote

Sticks and stones are hard on bones aimed with angry art. Words can sting like anything but silence breaks the heart.   Mcginley, Phyllis
I saw this today on the web attributed to Emily Dickinson.  It didn't quiiiite sound Dickinsoneque, if you follow me, so I did some more digging.  I think it more likely traceable to the source above.  The fact that it didn't come from the Divine Dickinson, however, does not make it untrue.  It's the silence that kills.  At least if someone is "cussing you," you know what they think of you....  It's when you have to wonder what they think, when silence reigns, that your mind can fill in those blanks with all sorts of nastiness.  Yeah.  Silence sucks.

The Obligatory 9/11 Anniversary Post

Everyone is turning their minds back to that moment ten years ago when the world shifted.  FB is full of "where were you then" posts, "commemorate the heroes" statuses, and people generally testing the tender edges of a wound that may not ever fully heal.  I remember in all of the media blitz going on at the time one of the talking heads saying that 9/11 was the day America's innocence ended.  I think that is probably about right.

I wasn't living in country at the time.  I was still in Japan.  It was late evening for us there with the time difference.  I'd cooked dinner, watched a movie, and when I turned the VCR off, I saw an image on the screen that looked familiar, but somehow wrong.  It still seemed to be a film of some kind.  It was, of course, the Twin Towers just after the first plane had hit.  As I began to understand through the confusion of my lack of Japanese that what I was seeing was NOT an action film but a live news feed from New York, the second plane hit.  

The university I taught at provided housing, neat little apaatos, for the gaijin staff.  My colleague lived just across from me, and although I don't remember covering the small distance between her apartment and mine, I do remember her, her boyfriend, and me sitting and staring at her TV (she had English language newsfeed) for hours as Japan's night and the horror in the United States unfolded.  We watched people make the decision to end their lives rather than burn, something I don't know if some audiences here saw.  We watched the towers come down.  And, because we had so few news options even though we were also pulling news feed from online, we also were in absolute terror because we kept hearing there were more planes in the air....more planes in the air....but nobody knew where they were....

We fought international phone lines congested beyond the point of their tolerance and an already overtaxed domestic grid trying to get through to our loved-ones back home as we sought that most basic of reassurances, the answer to the question everybody asks, "Are you okay?  Is everything okay at home?" It was hours, many many of them before we could get a connection through, and we waited eyes glued to the TV as we tried to piece together the information coming to us as the Pentagon was hit, as the other plane was taken down by those brave passengers who chose their own end rather than to be used as a tool against their nation.

The next day, the other American teacher and I stumbled through our classes in a daze.  The reaction to us was to be an indicator of the world's reaction.  So many were full of sympathy and grief, anger that anyone would commit an atrocity of that nature.  Japan has such a complicated set of emotions when it comes to acts of violence, but mostly, now, and most ironically now, thanks to the very nation they were extending sympathy toward, they value peaceful resolution above everything else.  And then there were those others...the woman from Ireland who told my friend that what had happened was really just too bad, but it was all our own fault, wasn't it?  The war protesters who sprang up in the middle of campus immediately and ran up to hand us flyers, bowed very formally, and ran away again, as if the two of us somehow were responsible for our nation's foreign policy....

Flying home after 9/11 was worlds different.  Everyone was scared:  passengers, airline crews, the men who suddenly appeared with assault weaponry in every place in the airport.  The first time I went home afterward, I flew the day the Shoe Bomber tried to take a plane out of the sky, and I went in through LAX.  I didn't know it had happened until I touched down in Jackson and my parents grabbed me and held me.  That's when I knew that we were never going to feel safe again.  

Of all the things we lost, of all the precious things that are gone, that were taken, that's the one I worry about the most.  Fear makes any creature do terrible things, self-destructive ones.  It is always sensible to take precautions for safety.  It is unwise not to care for one's wellbeing or to prevent danger when possible.  I worry, though, that after 9/11 we have slowly started to become afraid of everything, and in that way, we have begun to allow others to do things for us and to us, both our government and the people we're fighting against, that never would have been stood for before that date.  

9/11 stands as a dividing point in our nation's history.  I'm not sure yet what the ultimate outcome of it will be.  I hope that we are still in a period of change from it.  Today, there will be so much said and so much remembered of that day.  I hope that people will not use this as a moment to relight old flames of paranoia, divisiveness, and destruction.  Instead, let's remember some of the highest and most honorable things from that day.  There were other lessons to take from it, after all, other models shown, examples of some of the finest things we as people are capable of. Let's remember all those who gave of themselves that day, who conquered the fear instead.  Maybe if we can do that, then we can find a way back to a place of safety once again.  

Clean

It takes so much to keep a house clean, especially one this size and with so many creatures living in it...

I spent three hours of my afternoon just working on the carpets, vacuuming and running the steam cleaner, but it needed to be done, and as always, I feel great satisfaction with the results.  I still have to do laundry tomorrow and the kitchen is a total wreck, but laundry isn't hard, and I'll put on some loud music while I wash up all those pots and pans and empty and reload the dishwasher, so it will get done.

I washed all my bed linens including the comforter and put my feather mattress out to sun today all day.  It's remade and waiting for a clean me, the last chore of my day, to slide into it.  The feeling of a freshly fluffed and sunned feather mattress settling around me is one of my favorite sensations (if a dog hasn't beaten me to it and flattened it out already).

I don't much like doing housework, it's true, but I like the results of it.  I think maybe if there wasn't so MUCH of it to do here, I'd feel differently.  I never get caught up here.  In my little apaato in Japan, I could get up on a Saturday morning and clean the whole thing, fixtures, floors, kitchen, laundry, everything in the time it took me to do just the carpets here.

And yet, for all that this house means family, history, so much to me.  I suppose it's a tradeoff.  I know if I were designing a new house, planning one from the ground up, many things in structure would change. I carry the plans for one around in my head, and many of its elements are more or less designed with ease of living in mind.

It's time now to go get myself cleaned up and put into that fresh bed.  I'll close up all my windows and turn off my attic fan and enjoy a little island of order in the sea of chaos.

Stuff that Made Me Feel Good Today

Another List (to balance out the one filled with poo from yesterday because I think I owe it to you, myself, and the universe):

• I got to see one of my sweet former students today, and she's doing wonderfully well in her university life.  That always makes me feel so happy.  I love it when they're out there heading toward that great thing they want for themselves, whatever that happens to be.
• There were NO SONGS regarding my "mighty-mightiness."
• I wore one of my roses today (a blue rose pin made from reclaimed wool -- something I got at Chimneyville last year).  Instant boost.  Roses make me happy.  So I'm a cliche.  Shoot me.
• I thought I lost or had "misplaced with the help of others" my favorite fountain pen today at one point.  Then I found it.  Finding the pen was fantastic.  Confirming what I have always believed, that other people wouldn't really do that to me over a pen, was ten times better.
• Two words:  puppy kisses.  Love from Chewie and Roux when I got home.  Dogs are grand.
• Hammock. This is perfect hammock weather.  I plan to spend most of tomorrow in it if I don't go out shooting.  (With the camera, of course.)
• Reading the acceptance letter for TGC more carefully and realizing that I was one of 65 teachers selected from about 300 applicants nationally.
• Massaman curry for dinner.  Never fails.  Even when I don't want any other food, I always want massaman.  It may be the perfect food.  Except for cheese....
• Shaun of the Dead came today from amazon.  Tomorrow, I'm having my very own showing since I missed last week's drive-in presentation due to rain, tiredness/sickness, and Prairie Arts.
• Beowulf's Boasts were today.  We all wore crowns (mine is cuter; I work hard for that plastic tiara, baby), they brandished foam sabers, and a good time was had by all.
• I'm rereading Gatsby.  A craving got flung on me by a friend of mine (guilty party, you know who you are), and so ONCE AGAIN, I'm at Gatsby's watching the pretty people dance with Nick.  Not a bad way to spend a Friday night.  After all, tomorrow will be all about the zombies... Oh, wait.  I see a literary travesty in the making....
• I'm getting comments on my blog.  Even little ones where people can click anonymously at the bottom.  It's nice.  I like it.  I won't cliffhang you until you respond (some of you will get that, and yeah, I know, I know....), but a little interaction is unexpected and, I think, good.

That's enough to balance out the scales.  After yesterday's focus on the negative, I just felt like I should adjust my lens, so to speak.  Don't worry.  I'm sure that if doom is your thing, if you hang around here long enough, it will come rushing back.....

really? REALLY?

Things that happened lately that have made me say the above either out loud or in my head:

• the singing of "Brick House" by a student when I slipped my sweater off today because I was hot (I'm sure this was neither a complement nor an homage to my beauty since I look like a school marm from the nineteen teens.....This just made me roll my eyes... Just what I need -- verbal irony.)
• the ringing of my alarm clock after only four hours of sleep.  I was NOT prepared for today.  
• getting behind the third slow-moving thing on the way to work this morning which caused me to be late.  Again.  For the second time on duty week.  (MOVE...Get that thing...out...of...)
• coming home after leaving Roux out just once to see what she'd do to find she'd shredded every single thing she could get her teeth into in a gleeful festival of destruction all over the living room
• having to use the Porta-Potty at Prairie Arts and finding that to add insult to injury the door had no lock  (What?  Why?  I can't...even....  I have quite literally seen facilities consisting of holes in the ground that were less heinous.)
• trying to print from a non-saveable PDF application and having it screw up, disappear, screw up, disappear, screw up, disappear....

Wings

Last night I dreamt that I grew wings
I found a place where they could hear me when I sing
~ "Wings" Josh Ritter
(probably in my top three favorite songs by him now)

I still have to clear a rather thorough medical exam (which, of course, all things being what they are with me... well...), but that aside, I have been accepted into the Teachers for Global Classrooms exchange program.  Happy doesn't even cover it.  Somebody somewhere thinks I'm worth something professionally.  Imagine it.

I don't know yet which of three countries I put on my list that I might be sent to, but you know how I feel about that.  Anyplace, everyplace is a miracle.  I can't wait.

I will also get to go to Washington...twice, once right around my birthday.  Sounds much better than the way I usually spend them, no?  I don't know if I'll have any time to do anything other than just be there for the preparatory meetings, but I'm praying I can get into a wing of the Smithsonian, maybe even for an hour....

I can't believe I got into this.  It was just something I took a chance on despite being so discouraged about it (about everything, really), found out about so quickly, threw my application for together while I was at the Reading and never believed I'd be truly competitive for as an individual or as an educator thanks to the absolute beating I'd taken during the months that had gone before.  I'm so glad, so very, very glad I'm getting this chance.  It will keep me going through whatever else comes my way now, wings to soar upon, indeed.  It's wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

My Guy

What can I say?  You know I'm a sucker for a cute blonde....

Chewie is growing more and more adorable every single day.  I don't know how in the world I'm going to be able to let him go.  I don't even want to.  He's getting puppy-fat, and I swear every single time I see him, he's grown taller.  He's going to be just a gorgeous dog.

Whenever I go outside, he is there by the door waiting with that gentle, quizzical expression and that soft wooly coat, and I have to reach down and pat him.  He is such a fuzzy little wookie.  He loves the Puppy Chow.  He loves the vitamins the vet sent.  He loves the little rawhide treat bones I got him to help him teethe.  He loves the deer antler Roux and Yelldo dragged up.  He loves everything.

That's always a gift.  He's precious.  Whether he stays with me for good or whether he eventually goes to another home, he will make someone a great pet.  Right now, he can keep on being "my guy" until he's ready for that decision to be made.

Dresden 13 -- Ghost Story

I just finished up Jim Butcher's 13th Harry Dresden novel, and I have some mixed feelings about it.

BE FOREWARNED.  HERE THERE BE SPOILERS.

I knew that Harry was dead.  I knew that this was going to be the focus of the novel.  I just didn't know that the entire thing was going to be quite so much of a "beat up on your main character" sort of endeavour.  I don't know how I feel about that.  See, I sort of love Harry Dresden.

Yes, he frequently makes things go boom.  Well, okay.  He makes EVERYTHING go boom.  But to me, that has long been part of his charm.  He makes the right things go boom, the baddies.  He is also always aware of the costs.

This book spends an inordinate (to me) amount of time rubbing his face in old wounds, making him aware of the fact that he doesn't really seem to know the costs, and I think that this isn't quite true.  Harry has always carried guilt and scars over what he's done.  It is part of what has kept him from going over to the "Dark Side" (and he would be proud of me for the Star Wars reference at this juncture) in his actions.

I think, or rather I hope, Butcher is using this book to clear the stage for a new phase in Harry's life.  I foresee Molly becoming a Girl.Friend. instead of just kid/chick/apprentice.  I'm fine with that.  She should be a good match for him.  I foresee the thing with Mab becoming an all-out war with Faerie.  That, too, should be awesome entertainment.  The White Council has got to show back up at some point, too.   I rather suspect the Angels and the Fallen will come back to town since they are apparently still mucking about behind the scenes, and I am almost positive that Harry will wind up wielding one of the Swords (as will Daniel Carpenter...who doesn't see that coming...).

Ultimately, this book had sort of a feel of anticlimax to me, and I'm not sure why.  Maybe there was just so much time spend rubbing his nose in his sins, describing the ghosts and their nifty world, and memories of things in Dresden's life that it just felt a little fragmented to me.  Or something.  I don't know.  The revelation of who Harry's killer was felt rushed.  I was not surprised; it made a great deal of sense, but it felt like Butcher was just cramming it in there to finish it out.  So did the scene at the end with Mab.

The best scene in the entire book was the Star Trek scene in Molly's head.  It was well done, and well up to the geek standards I've come to expect from Butcher.  I loved all the ST cliches he threw in, including the obligatory red shirt.

I hope this book is a bridge to a new phase in Dresden's life.  I kind of get the feeling that "everything has changed."  Sometimes when an author does that, amazing things are possible.  Sometimes when that happens, well, everything has changed, and the series is never quite the same again.  As a major fan of Harry Dresden, I'm hoping that Butcher isn't tired of his grumpy, geeky wizard, and that he hasn't decided to throw him out the window just yet.

Rainy Musings

The rain on the roof makes me wish for you.  The gentle drumming sound of it and the music of it pooling as it falls from the eaves soothes and makes me drowsy.  If you were here, we could curl up together under the covers in the soft grey light.  I would bury my face in the curve of your neck; you could wrap your arms around me.  I would run my hand down your back and let it rest just at the base of your spine.  I want to fall asleep to the sounds of your heart and your breath and the rain.  When we wake up, I would open my eyes and see you still there, feel the strength of you there beside me like some unexpected gift.  I might reach out with just the tips of my fingers and trace the line of your cheekbones, your beautiful mouth, watch the sleep fade from your eyes....

Ghosts

My friend and I wound up driving through the town where our old high school was yesterday because of some construction that blocked the route we'd intended to take to get home.  We started talking and reminiscing over things, places and people, and one individual in particular made her say, "Why were you ever friends with her?  She was crazy."  I paused a minute and thought about the person she was talking about.

The person in question had once hit the long flat reservoir bridge with the accelerator pedal all the way down, pegged her speedometer at 120 while looking at me wide-eyed, yelling, "Are you scared?!!  Are you scared?!! Scream!!"  I stared back at her like I was bored, saying, "No.  I don't know what you're talking about," before I looked away.  There are nasty curves on either end of the bridge, and I can't say I didn't have a tight grip on the door handle beside me, but I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction.  Not even if it meant we wound up in the water.  That incident pretty much defined our friendship.  It ended over some lies told sometime after our Senior Prom (oh GOD...Prom...there should be no Prom, or at least it should come with a warning label for ridiculous amounts of drama).  

As all this flickered across my mind, I looked back at it and other events in a sort of astonishment.  I shook my head.  "I don't know," I said. "I guess I sure can pick 'em."  I was silent a moment more, and I laughed a little.  "Her and D. both."  And my friend cracked up.

We'd been on MSU's campus much earlier that afternoon, driving around all the old places where I'd known him, where that Greek tragedy (or tramedy?  there were funny bits, I suppose) unfolded, so he was on my mind.  I can't drive past Simrall or what used to be the ERC without thinking of him.  That campus is haunted by that strawberry blond ponytail and sandals for me.  I don't much like that.  I don't even go to the Wesley when I'm there.  I haven't been back since I graduated.  He would be everywhere, the amazing D. and his Gibson leading the praise band or just sitting moodily in a corner or asleep on a sofa or sitting on the porch swing or doing his homework, and the Wesley was so much more to me than him that this would be a debasement.  

And it's a debasement of MSU, too.  My time there was more than him, more than that damn guitar-playing engineer.  I was more than him and the stupid cycle we were locked into.  I was more than riding around with him late at night, him showing up on my doorstep at ridiculous hours, conversations that never ended but that never exactly headed where they seemed to be going.  More than just that horrible push-pull.  More than just him singing at me, playing for me, playing with me.  

The next time I go, I am going to deliberately think of the rest of it, going to remember flying kites on the drill field, sitting in the arbor until 2 in the morning and talking, playing the piano in the Chapel with the rest of my stealthy anonymous brothers and sisters who rotated through there with me, hanging out and laughing with G. and J. and B. and M. and C. and all the other wonderful people at the Wesley who weren't insane collectors of women to no purpose, creating a giant web of multicolored yarn so thick it had to be cut out in the downstairs apartment of the Wesley as a practical joke, and getting pranked in return for that by the guys who lived there, working at Alley Kat's (except for D's role in it), and Fleur de Terre (except for the time D. brought me roses).  I'm going to drive him out with the other things, and that way, the next time I go through, his memory won't be there; only the good things will remain.

Prairie Arts 2011

My best friend and I went to West Point today for our annual trip to Prairie Arts.  I needed this get away so badly.  Last week was in many ways a thing woven from the fibers of hell, and all that helped me hold it together was the knowledge that I had this trip to look forward to at the end of it.  It was overcast and threatened rain off and on throughout the day, but this led to cooler temperatures than we've had in the past few years, making it a very comfortable day.

We saw all sorts of gorgeous stuff made by artists from many places.  Other than Chimneyville, it's the only time I get to see real craftsmanship.  Some of the same artists come to both, in fact.  I got another piece of metal yard art from the same people who made my rooster and flying pig, this time a nodding mule.  He's sort of awesome, if I do say so myself.

The stuff we bought wasn't the best part of the day, though.  The best part of the day was just talking and spending time with each other.  Both of us were tired, so at one point we simply sat down on the sidewalk across from some of the vendors and drank a bottle of water each and talked.  We went from West Point to Starkville and Little Dooey's and spent much longer than the chicken-on-a-sticks we ordered warranted because it was so good to sit and converse.  We've known each other so long; it doesn't really matter how long we go between conversations.  We always just pick back up seamlessly.

It was just what I needed.  When your world has gotten stupid, it always helps to have the company and conversation of a good friend.

Cheap

I have had two run-ins with the things I fight against back-to-back, and I'm sitting quiet and still, trying to hold the fort, trying to wrap my mind around it.  How is it possible that people sell themselves so cheaply, take all the beauty and potential I see everyday and throw it away for such nothingness, such absolute ashes and dust?  I know that so many of them have been hurt, maybe can't see clearly, but to trade infinity, wonder, joy for despair, brokenness, emptiness...  It causes me pain.  Every single time.  I just talked to one who may not come back because of choices made, consequences earned, and while I'm sure somebody will say that this is the cause-and-effect, the physics of life, if I thought it would lead to a reclamation, if I thought it would lead to a change, I think I could have some peace with it.  Lately, though, all I see is wrong choices leading to choices still more dark, people running down paths laced with thorns that cut to the bone while they laugh and call it "pleasure" and "fun."  I don't know what to do for them.  I don't know what to do for myself.  I can teach literature.  I can teach grammar.  How do you teach someone the value of their own soul?