"Kiss Me" - Tom Waits

I know I already mentioned this song earlier, but it really deserves its own proper post with nothing else in it.  This song just does me in.  The more I listen to it, the better it gets.  Everything in it is understated, restrained and so much more powerful for that holding back. This is a slow dance between two people who have other types of closeness on their mind but are content to wait for that because the waiting, too, is good sometimes.   The upright bass, piano, and guitar are the perfect accompaniment for that rough voice. There's even the sound of old vinyl record hiss in the background that somehow makes it a bit film noir, a bit of something happening in a half-dark room between strong and equally matched leads. Every time it rolls through a playlist, I replay it.  It's rapidly becoming one of my most-played things in iTunes.  And it's generating a piece of writing.  Beware.  I will strive to keep it "blog-appropriate."  Or if not, well....

And It's Gone

I shot this last year after I got my camera.  I took this from the middle of an overpass, got trapped on a pedestrian footpath by my own carelessness while shooting because I wasn't paying attention to the "locals."  Stuff like that happens to me when I go out to take pictures.  I sort of need a bodyguard, or at least a friend who can say to me, "Really?  Um....or not...."

I had wanted to shoot this building for a long time.  Its red sign advertising "European Plan" rooms with "reasonable rates" used to make me smile every time I saw it.  I knew that it was one of the things I wanted to capture when I got my good Nikon.  When I did a day taking pictures of various structures in downtown Meridian, I made sure I got this shot.  I am exceptionally glad I did, because today, they tore it down to make way for a new museum that may or may not get built on that site.

Time marches on.  Progress requires renovation.  You can't make omelets without broken eggs.  Whatever.

I saw pictures of the inside of the building that another very lucky professional photographer got to go in and take last week before they started razing the building, and it was completely beyond hope.  The west wall had begun to sag noticeably, and it's a well-known fact that there is water under and in some cases in the basements/foundations of all the buildings on Front Street where this thing is located.  After seeing the photo essay, even the staunchest of hearts, even I, couldn't say that there should have been restoration.

That doesn't mean it is easy to know the next time I come over that bridge there will be that gaping hole in the skyline.  That doesn't mean it will ease the absence of that somehow cheerful if fading red sign inviting us all to stay in a place that was once "new" and "fireproof" but that now will only exist in the memories of a city all too full of them.

Tea and Reading

If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty.  ~Japanese Proverb


This afternoon, after taking care of some online payday stuff (lookit!  I had money for about ten minutes!  and then it was gone...), I bought a book on Kindle, made myself a big mug of tea, buttered some toast, and let iTunes make me a playlist from "Shankill Butchers."    It's been a wonderful afternoon shading into a peaceful night. 


I've started drinking a lot more hot tea lately.  I don't know if it's a winter thing, an I-need-a-break-from-soda thing, or what, but it seems good more often lately, so I reach for it as an alternative frequently.  I am not a cream-and-sugar girl, and I grew up drinking Earl Grey cold and black, so I tend to favor it hot and straight, too.  Irish Breakfast Blend is good, too, and of course, there is always green...


There is something soothing about the ritual of tea.  I don't do the full-on formal pot and loose leaf routine very often, but when I do get out one of the pots I got in England or one of the ones I brought home from Japan, it makes the mundane special.  I can remember where I was when I bought it, and especially with some of the Japanese ones, the festival or pottery town related to it.  I have an electric kettle here at home that heats the water quickly, so making tea at home is quick and fairly mess-free.


School is another matter.  I used to have to fiddle with an electric kettle there, too, and worry over someone bumping it or keeping a teapot hot or whathaveyou, but then I found a wonderful little thing from ThinkGeek called the Ingenuitea that lets you heat water in the microwave, add loose or bagged tea, brew the tea in it, place the tea over a mug, and dispense the tea through a filter in the bottom to keep whatever tea leaves are left from going into your cup.  I love it.  If I fill it completely with water, it makes up my largest stainless travel mug full of tea, enough to last me all morning.


I have a million mugs, too, and it's nice to rotate through them for something other than cereal.  I've forgotten I have some of them.  I grabbed one at random today and laughed.  It was my "Naughty Shakespeare" mug, an accidental purchase from the last time I went to the Frazier Museum in Louisville.  They had several Shakespeare Quote Mugs, and I thought I got one that was just regular quotes, but when I got it home, everything on it was related to sex in Shakespeare.  I shoved it in the cabinet and didn't really think about it anymore.  This afternoon, then, I drank my Earl Grey out of the mug with "shake a man's back," "pick the lock," "assault between the sheets," "charged chamber," "country matters," and "buried with her face upwards" on it (among others).  Needless to say, this one won't be joining my Verb mug at school....


I think what I like best about tea is the fact that it appeals to so many different senses at once.  The mugs are always warm and heavy in my hands, solid and grounding, centering my attention on what I'm doing.  The beverage is not an afterthought.  If I'm drinking from one of my Japanese teacups, they need to be lifted with the whole hand, and again, all my senses are engaged.  The glazes and textures are meant to be appreciated as the fingers interact.  I love the smells of the different blends.  Earl Grey is so spicy; good Shizuoka green has a tang to it that reminds me of iron, something that you would not think appealing but that I adore. Then there is the first taste as it rolls across the tongue.  I am impatient, and I almost always burn my mouth, but as the subtle flavors expand and fill the palate, that first sip is always the best.


When I go to the UK next year, I am hoping to find something nice by way of tea stuff to bring back to my personal ritual.  I don't really know what I'll be looking for since I don't really need more teapots (I am NOT going to collect them), but something to add to the enjoyment might be nice.  Until then, having a quiet mug or chawan to settle my poor bruised soul seems to be exactly what it was designed for.

The Warrior's Way

I just watched this tonight.  I remember seeing the commercials for it when it was coming out and thinking, "Hmm..." but I am always about four or five years behind the new releases.  Oh boy, did I miss it with this one. It sort of had it all...

• Awesome freaky circusness  - Check.  In the middle of the desert no less.  You can't beat that with a stick. I don't know what it is about a creepy circus that turns up the booyah (my favorite word right now if you haven't noticed) on a setting, but for some reason, it just does.  Works here, too.  Is it logical that there's circus with a half-built Ferris wheel hell-and-gone from everywhere else?  No.  But, then again, neither are the...
• Ninjas - And you have an assortment to choose from.  You have your bamboo ninjas, your boat ninjas, your snow ninjas, your super-bad in-town cowboy-killer ninjas, and what I like to think of as your cannon-fodder ninjas.  
• Cowboys - Creepy disfigured evil ones.  (Getting killed by the evil ninjas.  You're going to be happy when it happens.  Trust me.)
• An absolutely splendid formerly-ninja hero (who is now more or less samurai even if this isn't from Japan) - And here we pause while I have a fit of the vapours over the pretty man with the blade.  (Lawsy.)  
• A baby - Who is cute.  And who gets carried by the lovely sword-swinging stoic samurai man.
• A sword-toting chick with an axe to grind - You know I am a fan of girls getting revenge.
• Geoffrey Rush - Need I say more?
• Magic swords, subdued romance (because it's from Asia ((sigh))), and Matrix-like fight scenes

Are you not watching this movie yet?  What is wrong with you?  Go.  GO.  I'm not going to tell you it's high theater, but it's great good fun.

Quick Mix

A list.  Take what you can get and be happy.  Yeah.  It was one of those.

• Good:  BLT, Chess Square, AND unexpected bonus potato chips for lunch.  Hell.  Yes.  Nothing I ate came out of microwave.  It was like heaven.
• Bad:  Watching a good friend of mine beat himself up for something he did not do.  I would take those stripes for you if I could.
• Weird:  Being told by a student my jeans were not dress code, and so I needed to take them off.  (Oh NO he didn't....  Well,  yeah.  He sort of did.)  Um.  You do know I'm old enough to be yo mamma, right?
• Good:  The elusive F came to see me (amongst others) today.  Don't see him nearly enough, but any day he shows up at my door is a good day.
• Bad:  Sick puppy, and now dirty puppy.  Some things, nobody should have to clean.  Repeatedly. (Said dog is now trying to play "shake the sock", his favorite game, while the sock is still on my foot.  Anybody want a dog?)
• Weird:  I'm hooked on a song about an Irish killing squad, "Shankill Butchers" as sung by Sarah Jarosz.  It is twirling in my head like a beautiful deadly little ballet.
• Good:  TGC sent me a gorgeous little electronics device called a Bloggie.  It's slim and lovely, shoots for about eight hours, does still pictures and video, emails, stores for later, or uploads instantly to FB, Flicker, etc.  Yeees.  Send me sexy tech, baby, and I'm yours for life.
• Bad:  I'm not sure I have any food in my house.
• Good:  I have almost all my TGC homework done because unlike my usual schedule of procrastination, I came home and was a good girl who worked diligently.  Gold star to me.

Now I'm going to go scratch around for something that isn't ramen or puppy chow and slack.  I have by God earned it this week.

Glass Box Hell

What do you do when you can't do anything?  When all your good intentions are worthless and the situation is so far past SNAFU that no amount of fixing will ever un-FU it?  Oh God, my soul grieves.  I cannot lend a hand, soothe a pain, mend a tear, be of use at all.  All I can do is clench my fists, feel my stomach turn, and rage at it as I ask why.  WHY?  I say this so often, I hear it come out of my mouth so much that it is becoming my own personal cliche, but there is no logic in it.  I keep using this as a yardstick in a world that is like something from the reject dimension from Alice's nightmares or Oz's darkside.  Please, somehow, please, let me be of use.  Put a sword in my hand and give me a fair fight.  Put a shovel in my hand and point me to what needs to be dug up or filled in.  Put a bandage in my hand and tell me how to give aid.  I cannot stand this special hell of being useless while those around me hurt.

Things That May or May Not Be Good

• My AP students (at least some of them) are starting to learn the difference between my real smile and my "Noh Mask" smile (see a previous post about this).  So much so that today, rather suddenly, one of them grinned and said, "Yeah.  That one's the 'Noh Mask' one, right?"  He was dead on.  Cheezus.  Sometimes I feel like I might be the star creature in one of those documentaries....  "Watch the teacher move carefully now...any quick gesture could startle her...."
• In the same vein, one of my regular students said, "Aw, you know Ms. __________.  She will wreck on you and be smiling."  (Little Noh Smile)
• Working on thesis statements.  Changes are starting to happen.  Lightbulbs are going on.  The first step on that hard long road is being taken.  I think everybody feels better.  I know I do.
• All my pants are about to fall off because I've lost 15 lbs. since school started. This is not a bad thing, but it's about to destroy my clothing budget since I am going to have to buy new stuff.  I feel like the saggy baggy elephant in everything except my jeans which, for some totally inexplicable reason, still fit me.  Chalk it up to the magic of denim, once again proving it is the only pant fabric I really need to wear.
• Four words:  Vomit in the hall.  Do I need to elaborate?  Yah. 
• In the past two days, I have been dragged into the following conversations I'm not qualified to have:  why nuns become nuns, what happened to men in the medieval period who denied their wives the rights to their bodies/the right to have children (my answer "I'm guessing this never, EVER came up, darlin'."), how the Roman baths at Bath probably were not used soley for the purpose of immoral acts.  This is the short list.  GOD, I love my job.  You just never know from day to day what you're going to be talking about, and it sort of keeps you on your toes mentally....
• Four more words to balance out the other:  Blue glitter butterfly mask.  Which I plan to wear.  Tomorrow.  While I have to drive in the Homecoming Parade.  Booyah.  

That's enough.  Time for bed.  Tomorrow will be, quite probably literally, hell on wheels.

Elvis Special

Today on my way in to school, I saw something that made me laugh.  I was stuck behind a slow-moving SUV blocking the passing lane, and as I was mentally shoving it along, I happened to notice its tag.  Apparently, the state of Mississippi now offers an Elvis license plate.  It was pretty awesome.  I'm sort of going to have to have one.

At school, we ordered lunch from a downtown restaurant, and I finally got to have their "Elvis Special," a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich.  That may be one of the best things I've ever had.  Ever.  It totally made my day.  I could eat another one right now.  I think it had honey on it, too.  Everything is better with honey on it, though, right?

And I really needed all that honey and Elvis, truth be told, because the rest of the day was made of mostly pure suck.  Right now, it's like the universe has a backlog of suck it's got to ship somewhere, and so it's just slinging it my way as fast as it can box it up and get it out the door.  I'm trying to keep my little smile firmly fixed, but sometimes it's getting hard, especially when it keeps coming from the same sources over and over.  Some of it I can't do anything about, some of it will put me in jail if I try to stop, some of it I'm diligently and patiently trying to change, and some of it is just something I have to wait out in measured fear.

As long as there continues to be Elvis, though, I think I'm going to be okay.  God help us if there's not enough Elvis to keep all this stuff at bay....

The Longing

“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.”

~	Leonardo da Vinci

Deep Breath

I am taking a deep breath.  I just stopped running.  I just made the appointment I've been avoiding for two years.  Like some kind of ostrich with my stupid head in the sand, I've been pretending that nothing could possibly be wrong if I didn't go.  It's the sort of thing I'd kick anybody I loved right straight in the backside for. There is no logic in it, nothing intelligent or wise.  I ended it, and my hands are shaking just from the phone call. It might be nothing.  It might be the beginning of an end.  I won't know for a couple of very scary weeks.  Everybody bear with me.

Just to See....

Well.  Doesn't this about sum it up?  Once again, xkcd nails it right on the head.

Late Night Rambling

I'm listening to Tom Waits's new album on NPR's First Listen, and my friend F's descriptions of him keep coming to my mind...cheese graters....table legs....only I'm not much laughing right now because I just heard "Kiss Me."  Great God Almighty....  I think my house might possibly be on fire (no euphemism intended).  I need to go check on that.  And maybe take a cold shower.  Whoo.  O_o  Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a song.

I haven't been in a very "write-y" mood lately.  Or anything else for that matter.  I engaged survival mode about two weeks ago, put my head down and hunkered down to avoid flying stupidity and fall out, and when the crisis had mostly passed, or at least the all-clear had sounded and what passes for safety around here had returned, I forgot to come out of it.  It's getting harder to do, actually.

I looked at my icon on FB the other day, and realized that I was using a shadow.  Not something else as I'm so prone to do, not a picture I'd taken that I like of something that's in some way representative of me, my past, or  some aspect of myself.  Not even Joan with her sword lifted on high.  It was my shadow, indistinct and edge-blurred, that was there to represent me.  That's what I had been drained down to.  I felt a little sick, actually.  I put back up the last photo I had that actually had my face in it, and while I'm not exactly thrilled with it, I felt better that I wasn't disappearing from the world anymore.

Because I'm tired of that.

As in I'm tired of waiting, tired of fading, tired of being in the background, tired of pretending to be less like it's some sort of obligation, some sort of requirement of my job or status or age.  I want to do ridiculous things, want to get the black velvet dress out of the back of my closet, the one with the tiny straps and the split all the way up one leg and find a reason to wear it again.  I want to be in a Tico bar dancing even though it's been so long I've forgotten all the steps and would have to learn them all again.  I want to be more or less living "Kiss Me," turning the familiar into the unexpected.

I just don't want to become that damn ghost in the FB picture.  After everything else, I don't think I can stand that.  There may be others who are trying to shove me into the background, but ultimately, I am the one who controls whether or not they can do it.  It's time to quit going so willingly, so much like I deserve it.

Sometimes Silent Films Say It All

Listening In

I'm writing this while I listen to my bebes play football.  They are doing amazing things.  Every time they do something good, I am quite afraid I yell a lot.  If something bad happens, I also yell quite a lot.  Aaand, truth be told, I might be just a tiny touch... um...vicious in my desire for my team to win.  This is why I don't go to the games.  I tend to behave this way at the actual events, too....  I learned a long time ago it's better for me not to go to sporting events.  I am not calm at them.  All the warrior chick in me comes out.

Tonight as I've listened, there have been a couple of really awesome plays, including some that have just made me so very proud to know these students because of their sheer loveliness and audacity.  I'm glad I stumbled across the game on the radio tonight.  Now, even though I get a little silly over my team, I can do it in the safety of my own living room where I'm only a danger to myself.

Ghost Mail

I close my eyes for a while
And force from the world a patient smile

But I gave you all....
"I Gave You All" ~ Mumford and Sons

My iPhone dings all the time now with ghost messages, emails that never quite manage to come through.  Could it be special delivery from you, another message that doesn't quite come through?  You've absented yourself everywhere else; maybe that's all that's left of you, phantom notifications like sonar pings indicating more lack of communication is on the way.  Somehow, I can't think of any symbol more appropriate.  It seems like something with meaning, but when it's opened, it's just hollow. I've been summoned for nothing.

Silence leads to silence.  Expect reciprocation.  Be relieved.  Whatever.  I'm done.

What We Became

for L, L, B, C, and everybody else who was a part of those late-night imaginary worlds... even G

While I was in the shower this morning, my thoughts were roaming randomly as they are prone to do, and I was thinking about my AP students and the things they tend to find interesting.  Some of them are geekish the way I used to be when I was in high school and gravitate toward some of the cultish and traditional genres of Geekism:  Monty Python, Star Wars, Star Trek, RPGs, Doctor Who,  or the vast and shifting world of computer geekery.

I thought back over the long hours that crew of guys and I spent together playing D&D or what have you, and then a very odd revelation hit me.  We have, by and large, become the characters we played the most in those games.

L always played a wizard, and now he more or less is one.  The magic he wields is the code he writes, the specific computer languages that bend the electronic world to his will.  He continues to learn new forms of it, digging deeper into the mastery of it, just like his characters always did in the game.

L, his brother, was usually a ranger, keeper of the woodlands. Rangers knew all the lore of animal and plant and could move with ease in that environment and survive there.  He grew up to be a registered forester.  Once again, later in life the real world followed that character choice.

Then there's me.  I had several characters, but my favorite was a cleric.  Clerics had a type of magic, too, that came from their religious devotion to their canon.  I would say that I am devoted to the mysteries of my authors and my poets, that I find magic in their glorious words.  I am spending my life trying to share that beauty with those who come to my secluded place of study to learn it.  Yeah.  I pretty much lived up to my archetype choice, too.

There were other guys I knew that played these games with other groups that wound up "becoming their characters."  One of them was always a paladin.  He was first a Marine and is now a prison warden.  Check and check.  I am not sure about the others.  I've sort of lost touch with them.

Is what we were going to become somehow patterned into us that deeply from our youth?  Is it hiding in our subconscious just waiting to pop out?  I had NO plans to be a teacher at that time. In fact, I was actively opposed to the idea.  I'm not sure about the others.  It's a curiosity to me to think that we were somehow exploring our future selves through those rolling dice and THACOs.  I think that we have all become very good at what we are, and I think that, unavoidable frustrations of our jobs aside, we all enjoy what we do as well.  Perhaps those little previews we got, those excursions in imagination, were somehow tied to that success after all.

Confusion

Ultimately, I chose silence.  At the time, it seemed the wisest option.  Everyone else seemed to be able to be bright and happy, wise and positive.  As I sat there, I could not be.  I could not think of a single diplomatic thing to say.  Everything I thought of to say would have only been inflammatory, would only have raised tempers, made things worse.  I put my finger over my lips, folded my hands, and reached for my patience.  I did not want to be the cause of things getting worse.  Don't let that be laid on me.  Don't let me be a hindrance if I can't be a help.

And yet now, I wonder if that silence was somehow a betrayal.  Was it the right thing to do?  I thought so at the time.  Everything seems to be okay now, but is it?  I just don't know.  I did get to talk about my concerns privately afterward, so I did have a chance to voice some of what I did not say publicly in another way.  I may also continue that conversation.

I am so tired.  So tired and so confused.  I don't have anything left for this anymore.  I want to do what is right for everyone and make sure everyone has what they need, but my cup is empty.  I am useless.

Early Morning Fear

Rarely do I have to say that I'm afraid to start a day.  Only maybe three or four times that I can think of has that been true in my whole life.  There have been mornings tinged with nervous anticipation or even out-and-out dread of what was coming, but usually this creeping unease is not the dominant emotion in my life.

I don't know what's coming today.  I have no way to know.  It's been so hard lately.  It's felt like standing in the bottom of a cistern with water pouring in from every angle even as it rises up from below.  I've been trying to figure out what the right thing to do is, what the best and wisest path to follow should be, but even Daedalus never drew up a Labyrinth like this.   I'm not sure there are any safe paths.  I'm not even sure there are any safe places left to stand without pitfalls waiting to drop me into some oubliette where agony awaits.

Will the right things be said?  Will I be able to keep a rein on my notorious temper?  Will anything change, or will it all be a gigantic moment of anti-climax in which all of this will, once again, have been for nothing?

Can I live with whatever the outcome is, most especially if it turns out to be just another one of those moments of "sound and fury" that are so common?

Ah, God, help me.....

With Apologies to Bryan, Henry, Katherine, and Anne

I almost titled this one "Run to You," but then I thought better of it after my previous post about that song.  And yet, these are the words that keep coming to my mind right now.  This is, more than any other thing, what I want to do.

I want to run to you.   I want to do this almost literally.  I want to have almost one of those moments from a cheesy stupid chick flick where I get in a car, drive, get out, stumble to find my footing and wind up in your waiting embrace.  There wouldn't need to be words because you would recognize that I am past the point of endurance now, past the point of being able to carry this alone (although I have tried), or I wouldn't have had to come to you with it at all.  You would just enfold me, hold me in a grip just one or two degrees short of too tight so I could feel that there was one thing that was stable, one thing that was not going anywhere, one thing that was unquestionably secure, and we would stand there.  I would listen to the steady, rational sound of your heart beating, and I would be reminded that this was all I had to do, live and be here in this place with you at this moment.  I would be permitted to let all the other go.  I would pry my mental fingers open and slowly lay down the burdens that are breaking me.

I'm tired of war drums.  I'm tired of the sounds of panic and sirens going off and wailing and despair and the end of worlds and the feel of all the decks shifting beneath my feet as attack after attack hits.  I just want to bury my face in the collar of your shirt and smell fabric softener and you, just want to feel you solid and warm, without caprice and logical, calm and asking nothing of me that I can't give you, a place of peace.

If I could have this just for a little while, I think I could endure all the rest of it.  I could fold the moment like an origami crane and put it in my pocket, take it out and hold it in the palm of my hand when all the voices around me grow shrill and insane, when every situation is beyond my ability to better or even affect.  I could remember the feeling of you holding me, of you grounding me to this earth to keep me from spinning away into the chaos that surrounds me, and I could rise up to shove the stupidity aside again and start the fight anew.

A Thought on What Love Might Be

You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love 'til it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other 'til it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. Real love isn't brains, children. It's blood. It's blood screaming inside you to work its will. I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it.  ~ Spike, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

No Escape

The oddest thoughts have been floating through my mind today.  Yesterday's glorious weather was gone today, and the greyness kept me indoors.  Maybe that's why my thoughts wandered down such odd paths.  In no certain order, things I could not escape from today were:

• Missing certain people -- Quite a lot, in some cases.  One of the things I miss about college life is sort of having people underfoot all the time.  I look back on that life now and all the talking, all the random conjunctions of people and the time together that we took so for granted, and I wish there was more of it in my life now.  It's a luxury too little had in my current existence.
• Dreading the oncoming drama -- I would give almost anything not to have to be a part of it.  It's going to be a crapstorm of almost epic proportions, and if I thought it would actually resolve the issue at hand, I would go into it with a different feeling.  I am coming to the pessimistic notion, however, that nothing will ever resolve the issue, that we will all perish with the firm grip of the issue wrapped triumphantly around our throats.
• The need for escape routes -- And that involves so many, many things.  I shopped for replacement power adapters on amazon.  I threw in a couple of interesting pieces of packing gear.  I looked at vintage cameras on Etsy and imagined all the trips their owners might have lovingly taken them on.  I put a new type of camera bag for my own beloved Nikon in my amazon cart for the first of next month, perhaps, as a way to prepare it for the trips I will be taking it on soon.  I looked at pictures of "places i wish i were" on Tumblr.  I prayed to God that I can have my wings before my soul is crushed down to the point that it can't get up again ever.
• That "long shadow" that is dogging me -- And that I won't be much more clear about here but that it comes after me when it's still and quiet lately to remind me of time running out and my perfect and complete failure and inadequacy.  

Grey days are the worst, really.  When the weather is good, the sky takes all the worries and swirls them away, the sun burns them and shows them to be a "thing of nothing."   When everything is dark, though, I don't have anyone here to help me fight those shadows.  I'm doing the best I can, telling myself that what I perceive as a monster is probably only a coat on the back of a chair or some such that I'm scaring myself with.  Maybe tomorrow will be sunny again, and everything will be back in perspective.

Columbus Day

Today was grand.  I forgot to turn off my school day alarm, and after I stayed up really late last night (2 am-ish), I slapped it off when it made its chirky little chiming at 5, and struggled to right myself mentally.  I was inches away from staggering to the shower when it occurred to me that TODAY WAS NOT A SCHOOL DAY.  That felt better than I can tell you.

Then Mom called at 6:15.

I managed to sleep late for me despite all obstacles, and then I moved to the couch for a mini-marathon of TV courtesy of the Roku.  The day outside was too delicious to resist, though, and so about noon, I went out and repaired my clothesline, pole newly welded and quickcreted in the ground as of yesterday.  I did some laundry, hung out all my bedding, and started a few outdoor chores such as changing out my banner to a Halloween one and so forth.  Chewie and Roux kept me company when they weren't too busy ambushing each other.

I planted my yellow rose finally.  It is between two old pink ones in the bed around where I hang my hammock.  I sort of think of it as having Nana around where Granny is now, since the two pink ones are some of Granny's old roses.  I hope it will do well there.  Chewie and Roux already dug up some of the soft dirt beside it once.  Dog chastisement followed, and I put a small cairn of stones around it until they lose interest, so I don't know.  Everything has to be complicated with the canine army around here....

After I took care of a few more small tasks, moving rocks, resituating the bulbs I'd unearthed when I planted the rose, and so on, I hung my hammock up.  Today was practically made for a hammock.  The sun was brushing everything in that light that looks like a coat of honey, and the wind was rustling all the leaves in the trees like a soft and perpetual sigh.  I grabbed the book I'm working on now, Reading Lolita in Tehran, a bottle of water, my journal, and spent most of the rest of the day in the hammock.  Roux and Chewie hung out with me when they weren't frolicking elsewhere.

I'd read for awhile, and then I'd just stop and look around.  The day was just that delicious.  The lantanas over next to my garden shed are more gorgeous this year than they have ever been.  The last of the summer butterflies are all over them.  Ageratum  is blooming in the flowerbed where I planted my rose, and a few straggling pink blossoms on those roses still remain.  The tulip poplars that support my hammock are starting to change color, and occasionally one of their leaves would spiral down.  Chewie would grab one and carry it around in his mouth as though he'd caught a living creature.  I didn't question him.  He was full of canine dignity at his conquest.

As the evening came and the sun dropped behind the treeline, the woods filled with a light I always associate with the light in my dreams.  I always sort of expect to look up and see elves or a creature from myth walk out of the opening to the path there when that gilded brilliance drops.  More likely, I'll see a deer, I suppose, but I can't quite shake that feeling that at that time of the day, there is more to what I'm seeing than...well...what I'm seeing.

Eventually, even the best day ends, and I rolled up the hammock, brought my laundry and feather mattress in off the line, and came inside.  I had dinner with my parents, and then I came home to work on my online class for TGC.  I'm listening to music and the sound of snoring, exhausted dogs.  In a few minutes, I'll get up from here and go make up my bed with clean giraffe-print sheets and bedding that smells of fabric softener, sunshine, and autumn wind.  Not a bad ending to a day, if I do say so myself.

Finally

I am unbelievably moved.  I have just finished reading an article for my online class for TGC, and it says almost exactly what I have always believed to be true.  It's not just me.  There are other people out there, people who publish and who write and who are listened to who think that this kind of education and philosophy are important, too.  I am not alone.

It's incredible.  Not since I left Indiana have I felt this way.  For just a minute, for just these few precious minutes, I don't feel like a freak or an outcast.  I feel like there are people who understand where I'm coming from, who might understand my basic philosophy of education and not look at me like I have three heads.  I've found a few here and there since I left EFL, but they've been very rare.  In the K-12 world I've found myself immersed in, these ideas have seemed so foreign and so little talked about that I have begun to doubt that anybody else cares about them, that they could possibly be important.  They do not, after all, directly seem to impact the goddamn state test scores....

This feels in so many ways like a homecoming, like a return to a land that is green and logical after a sojourn in a place that is in decay and filled with insanity.  We can teach our students to see themselves as a part of a greater world; we can teach them to be independent thinkers who use integrated approaches to tackle a curriculum that is presenting the material in relevant and applied ways.  We can.  We should.  And what wonders are possible if only we will.  It is not an easy change.  So much work is involved.  How can we not, though, when we know what the rewards of doing it and the costs of not are?

The Curious Phenomenon

There's this odd thing that I used to see on FB all the time, the Inbox Question and Answer session.  You are all, no doubt, familiar with it.  People send you a bunch of questions, and you answer them publicly on your FB feed.  The questions are inevitably about really private things such as "Did you ever love me?", and so I guess there is a sense of daring given to the person when they answer there in that never-pausing wave of information.  It's the digital equivalent of stripping before a crowd, maybe.  It's always struck me as odd, though, as to why the asker of the question would want those things published in that very public forum, too.  If the question was asked anonymously, wouldn't they want the answer to come back that same way?

Until recently, I had never seen this sort of internet party game anywhere else but on FB.  The other day, a big version of it rolled through my Tumblr feed, too, a list of some 75 questions you could reblog and let people select from with a message.  If you reblogged it, you were telling your followers that you were willing to answer any of them that they selected.  As usual, the questions were fairly intrusive.  Some of them were things that, quite frankly, my close friends don't even know about me.("When was the last time you cried?")  Some of them were just goofy or ridiculous.  ("Do you think you can last in a relationship 6 months and not cheat?) So why would I volunteer to answer them for the entire e-universe?

I realize that there is this sort of anonymity that comes with putting fingers to keyboard.  And yes, I am aware that many of you are pointing fingers to the fact that this blog itself is not listed under my name.  However, I reveal just as much of myself as I'm comfortable with here.  You see only a flash of pale ankle under a long skirt, the nape of a neck above a kimono collar.  I'm not doing a full-on strip show for you here, no matter what you may think.  What is revealed is controlled.

That is my choice, I guess.  I just don't want perfect strangers asking me "Will your next kiss be a mistake?" or "Are you currently wanting to see anyone?" because my answers would probably have to be rude, flip, or total fabrications.  

Of course, I suppose that might be fun, too.  Maybe that's why people do it.  Maybe they all just make up nonsensical crap and nobody tells the truth at all.  For the one about the kiss, for example, I'd say something like, "Yes.  There is no way around it.  It's going to be a mistake. He knows it.  I know it.  We've been fighting it for so long because of all that stands between us, but every time we meet it gets harder and harder to resist.  There's this sort of ridiculous attraction between us, you know?  That kind where you look up into his eyes and you feel that little click and you have to make yourself look away because if you don't...well...  We mostly play it off, and since I don't see him very often, it's been easy to do, but I have this feeling that the next time we run across each other, it's going to be a kiss to alter two worlds completely."  I could say that and then everybody I know would be in a total lather trying to figure out who the hell I was talking about and what was going on.  That might be hilarious since it would all be complete and total fiction.  (Or would it?  Mwahahaha....  No.  Really.)

Or not.  Because you know what?  Even if it were total fiction and I had a blast writing little snippets of story to go with these snoopy questions, these things would still be items that if my friends wanted to know, I'd tell them privately.  I'm just old-fashioned that way.  I can't imagine that everybody on my FB feed wants to know crap about my life.  I'm having enough trouble imagining they even want to know the stuff I'm putting up as statuses, to be honest.  I feel silly every time I post something.  I can't imagine those few brave souls that follow me on Tumblr do, either.  Therefore, if you are absolutely full of curiosity about "If the person you wish to be with were with you, what would you be doing right now?" or "Have you ever kissed someone older than you?", I guess you will need to ask me privately.

(everything in quotation marks is a real question taken from the list that rolled through my Tumblr a few days ago.  I didn't make up any of them, and I left off a few of the more precious ones like, "Are your toenails painted pink right now?", "Can you drive a stick shift?", and "Is there a boy you would do absolutely everything for?"  O_o  Now you tell me.  Why isn't there a "boy's version" of this "ish"?  I would very much like to see one for the gentlemen.  In fact, I may just sit down and make one just as "precious" for the gents....)

This and That

Today, I conquered a minor feature of Open Office's presentation program.  While I have it on all my machines, I rarely use it for anything but word processing and compatibility issues for student projects.  A student had an issue, so I had to sit down and play with it to figure it out.  It was a small thing, but satisfying in its way to figure out the puzzle, to make it do what it was supposed to do.

I also signed up for the trip to England today.  It's official that I'm going at last.  It's incredible to think that I'm getting a second chance to go back to some of those places again.  Last time, I wasn't teaching Brit Lit, and I didn't fully appreciate all of it.  This time, I'll have the Nikon and a better understanding of the significance of it all.  It is going to be fantastic.

I continue to work on my online course material for TGC.  It is becoming a full-time thing.  The discussion requires nightly attention, and the last article I read was 89 pages.  O_o  Welcome back to grad school, ladies and gentlemen.  The good news is that it's all so very interesting and relevant.  It's feeding my excitement about what we're going to do, but it's also making me yearn for the days when I was living overseas.

I'm still working on Norwegian Wood.  My enthusiasm for it is almost nil, though.  What started out as wonderful has turned into WAY too much sex for me.  It's well-written, and the story is still interesting, but it seems like every other page, there's something that's graphic.  It's adolescent.  I know it's about a guy in college, and maybe that's age appropriate.  Not having ever been a guy in college, I can't really tell you.  It's just starting to wear on my nerves a little.  I'm starting to wish we had a little more...I don't know...cut to the flapping curtain and a little less bump and grind, if that makes any sense at all.  I'm not prudish but after awhile you're just sort of thinking, "Okay.  WhoopteDOO.  Can you do anything else?"  And yeah, I get that this is sort of his point, too, (he even has his protagonist say something like "can't we talk about something other than sex on a Sunday morning?) but COME ON.  I know there's plot in here somewhere.  Maybe it is going to get better again.  I'm only about halfway through, and I'm determined to finish this book.  As much as I loved Wind-Up Bird, I have to believe this one will be good, too.

The day ended with me running some rednecks on four-wheelers out of my pasture.  It is well and truly deer season when I have to go out in my front yard, yell at the top of my lungs, and go flying down my driveway in my little car to get the idiots off my property. Why can't people just stay on what they own?

Now I'm heading to bed a little early.  Tomorrow promises to be very busy as we have the biggest football game of the year in the evening and everyone will no doubt be exceptionally bouncy about it.  If we can all make it through the day, then a nice four-day break will be waiting on the other side.  Can't wait to get there....

Certain Questions I'd Like the Chance to Ask

Right now there are several things stressing me out greatly.  Unfortunately, in the way of such things, I cannot seem to get all the pieces to resolve themselves into order.  Therefore, I'm going to ponder them here just a little.  Since nobody reads this AT ALL except for the Beowulf's Boast, I don't think it will matter.  I could probably post a four-page-long adventure in erotica and nobody would raise the slightest flutter.  And you know what?  Maybe one of these freaking DAYS I WILL just to see if anybody is paying attention. (GROWL.)  But (folding my hands in the most lady-like of ways), readership isn't the point right now.  And.  I'm not doing this for anybody else, anyway.  So, with no further delay, the questions that are weighing most heavily on my mind, deliberately denuded of context:

• What the sam-hill is the matter with you?  Why are you acting like this?  Did you fall and hit your head on something?  No?  Then GET OVER YOURSELF.  CHEEZUS. 
• Really?  REALLY?  You're going to sit there and tell me you didn't know this?  I'm sorry.  Give me a minute to laugh myself hysterical, and then I'll go pull the REAMS OF PROOF to show you wrong out of a drawer.
• If you're not okay with it, WHY DO YOU KEEP TELLING ME THAT YOU ARE?  Can't we just please be past that?
• At what point did you come to believe that you are the center of my whole universe? Recheck your premise.  Your logic is not only flawed, it is shattered.
• The more you push me, the less I'll do what you want.  The harder you pull, the quicker I'll run.  Haven't you realized that?

Stop This Ride

History, sage pundits tell us, repeats itself.  I think this is an understatement of the situation.  I think it's something more like history is a big, garish, asinine midway with a vast, stupid, brutal carnival ride that you can't leave as the damn thing swirls you around and around, crashes you into your fellow riders, and makes you nauseous to the point of vomiting just before it ejects you, violently, bruised and bloody, onto the muddy ground.

I've been fighting certain issues and battles for more than five years now, and they simply go in circles like a silly puppy chasing its tail, but with far less power to amuse.  At what point is someone going to step forward and stop that poor animal from going 'round and 'round?   After a little while of that, doesn't it get tired of that relentless and futile pursuit?  Wouldn't time be better spent chasing something else?  Wouldn't some forward motion feel good?

Generally, I try to keep my head down and my mouth closed.  Believe me, I think it's better that way.  It isn't polite to say everything you think about a situation that irritates you.  God knows, we'd all be punching each other out in the streets if we did that.  However, this situation isn't just pushing my buttons, it's as though someone is leaning on it continuously, and I don't know if all the self-control I own is going to be sufficient to get me through it.  All the hard-won patience I've scraped and scratched for, all the times I've decided that it would be best for everyone involved if I didn't satisfy myself at the cost of a peaceful resolution, all the times I've reminded myself that it's better to only be thought a fool than to open my mouth and remove all doubt may be done.  

There comes a point when you can't sit still and quiet anymore, when the level of nonsense hits the tipping point for the scale and everything else has to be secondary to that.  It's time to get off this messed-up Tilt-O-Whirl, I think, my friends. God help us, one and all.  I'm pretty sure the gearing is going to go when I do....

Windows

What if you saw something outside your window that broke your heart?  What if you saw something that was trying to be brave and defiant but was actually so sad and so lost under that thin veneer that it made you cry?  You could not reach out to it.  It would snap your hand off at the wrist because to accept that gesture would only somehow cause it more pain.  There has been too much damage done, too many scars teaching too many lessons in showing anything that might be misconstrued as weakness.  Yet there is that fear in the eyes.  And it calls out to the thing in me that wants to make it go away.  Impasse, and the moment is gone.  Why are there so many things that are broken?  Why are there so many things that are hurting?

You want to know why my house is full of animals other people have thrown away?  Because I can do something about that.  Because I can offer them some reclamation and some ease when I look out my window and see that living thing in need.  It's not possible to do that elsewhere always.  What I see out other windows destroys me through my powerlessness to stop their hurting, both that caused by others and that they are causing themselves.

Little Adventures

I started the day headed to the Chapel of the Cross, intending to take photos and enjoy whatever A Day in the Country turned out to be.  It has been a long time since I went to an Autumn Festival somewhere, and today was the perfect weather for something like this.  I love it when the weather starts changing.  Jacket-and-jeans weather is my favorite.  I grabbed the North Face I bought in San Francisco like an old friend and picked up my Nikon on the way out the door.

The drive was largely uneventful and in glorious light.  I don't mind driving in conditions like that.  There is always music, and it clears everything out of my mind.  Nobody needs anything from me, and I can relax, ponder, sing.  It's peaceful.

Once I actually got there, I didn't find much to interest me, though, which was a bit disappointing.  There was a small crafts fair, but I'd been to Prairie Arts recently, and that sort of spoiled me for anything else, I suppose.  I walked and looked, and then I tried to take a few shots of the Chapel, but it was covered up with small children taking turns ringing the bell and adults touring the sanctuary.  I shot what I could, listened to a band doing covers of Johnny Cash and CCR for a little while, and walked back through the crafts section to pick up something I wanted to buy.

One of the booths had heirloom plants.  I wanted to get something for my mother, a shrimp plant, and something for myself, a "grandmother yellow" rose.  My Nana's favorite flower was the rose, particularly the yellow one and one called the Miranda red which I have never been able to find.  Mine is also the yellow rose. I haven't been able to keep the delicate modern cultivars alive, though.  The light colors of roses, yellow, white, "sterling," and so forth, are not as hardy as reds are.  I am hoping this old-fashioned variety will be sturdy enough to make it here.  I would like nothing better than to look out in my yard and see bright yellow blossoms every year.

With my rose tucked under my arm like a small child, I hiked back to the pasture where my car was parked, and after nestling it into a spot on the floorboard, I went back to "civilization."  I spent some time (and far too much money) in Target.  I got Chewie a new toy, myself several retro-lovely things for Halloween, some supplies, and odds and ends that always find their way into the cart just because it's TARGET.  It's probably just as well there's not one here.

After Target, I was going to come on home, but as I was passing Crossgates, I looked at the window of one of my favorite little restaurants, Kismet's, and I hastily pulled in.  They have burgers and stuff, but their specialty is Greek food, gyros.  I love them, but I almost never get to eat there.  Today, I was all by myself, so I could do what I wanted.  I ate slowly and savored.  I ignored the two guys at the table across from me giving me the "chick-eating-alone" look (if you're not a woman, you don't know what I'm talking about) until they reinvolved themselves in their conversation about getting drunk at work and whether or not this was really a problem (what-the-actual....), and after that, I had a very wonderful meal.

It didn't turn out, then, the way I'd planned, but it was still a good day.  Maybe there will be a day of photography coming up soon. I still have Moundville on my list and maybe Birmingham if I can figure out a specific thing there to go do/photograph.  I am NOT driving all that way just because....  (And no.  The chance to drive like 95 mph on the interstate does not count.  Probably.)  I am stalking some new lenses to let me get some odd effects out of my Nikon, so if all else fails, I can always go play tag with the homeless guy downtown and reshoot old familiar things through new "eyes."

That Voice, or a Study in Opposites

(edited as I thought of other stuff)

I often wonder why some singers appeal to some people more than others.  Why is it that we gravitate to the voices of some and some just don't do it for us, some make us reach down to turn the radio channel?  Do we all have a pre-programmed frequency to which we resonate?  Are we really just tuning forks waiting to be struck?

There are several artists I should like because of their similarity to other artists I like (I'll wait while you puzzle that out), but I can't stand to listen to them because there is something in their voices that irritates me.  James Taylor is one of the best examples of this.  He is SO MUCH like David Wilcox that people who know I listen to David Wilcox can't quite believe it when I make a face and switch off the station playing Taylor.  Their voices are even close, but there is something....I don't know...plaintive?...whiny?...like a shard of glass being driven into my brain through my ears?... when I have to listen to Taylor.  I could listen to, and have listened to, David Wilcox all day long.  It's strange.

Then there are the voices that catch me and that I adore.  Adam Levine's is one.  I don't like everything that comes out of Maroon5, but I love his voice.  And when he puts it through its paces, it's like hot honey, ridiculously sexy.  I'm not even sure what he looks like, to tell you the truth, wouldn't know him if I passed him on the street, but his voice when he sings lines like "Take me by the tongue / And I'll know you / Kiss me 'til you're drunk / And I'll show you" is pure sin.  There's stuff like that on Songs about Jane, too.  He should have been a Cavalier poet.  He missed his calling.  He could have Carped that Diem right along with the best of them....

Anyway. I've lost my thread, I think.

Right now, two of my favorite feel-good songs have him in them, "Moves like Jagger" and "Stereo Hearts."  Both of them are pure fluff, about as deep as a wading pool, but when they come on and I hear that gorgeous voice filter through my speakers, I turn them way, way up, sing along like a fool, and feel better about life.  I got stuck in one-lane nightmare traffic today traveling and "Stereo Hearts" came on.  Instantly, it did not matter that we were in a 150-car line at the mercy of a timorous U-Haul driving about 40 in a zone marked as 55.  Life was beautiful.  Thank you, Adam Levine.

Ray LaMontagne is probably at the opposite end of the spectrum in style and sound from Adam Levine, but he also has one of the "those" voices.  I stumbled across him by accident on Pandora when I made a mix station from either the Wood Brothers or Chris Thile, and even though I was reading, I dragged myself across the room to the computer to see who the hell that was with that unearthly gorgeous voice.  I just got my first album by him, and I'm wearing it out.  His lyrics have emotion, and that gentle little rasp in his tone adds to their expression.  I deliberately chose an older album by him to start with.  Songs on it that I particularly like are "Hold You in My Arms," "All the Wild Horses," and "Burn."

I also have a version of "Crazy" by him that somebody else let me hear, a song I was already in love with in its faster incarnation because of its lyrics.  Under LaMontagne's stripped down interpretation, the words, already something strong, become something that take you by the throat and hold on.  It's incredible.

It would be interesting to know what makes these two artists (and the others I like, the greats like Ella and Billie, another pair of opposites taken as an example) pleasing to my ears.  I really do wonder if there is any research out there on that.  I mean certainly I'm not the only person in the world that likes this artist or that one; but I just wonder if  the set that I like is somehow predetermined.  Probably this is one of those questions that isn't really important enough for science to look into, so I'll just continue to listen to these folks, sing along in the privacy of my solitude, and wonder about it myself.