Sunday, September 30, 2012

Just Another Rainy Sunday

Yesterday, I spent all day cleaning.  I had friends coming over for dinner for the first time in about three years, and of course, that meant a massive purging and cleansing of my whole house.  I didn't mind the work.  It needed doing.  Having them here for the simple meal we shared made it worth it all over again.  It's been far too long since we put aside our daily lives and made time for each other.

Today, I woke at my customary 5:00 to the sweet sound of rain on the roof.  I rolled back over and slept until 8:00.  After that, I moved to the couch and caught up on Warehouse 13 and part of the Doctor Who I have missed.  It was nice to have nothing sitting on my shoulders demanding my attention.  Only grading, that constant burden in my life, remained.

After dinner with my parents, I took a nap.  I felt even then that my head was not as it should be.  I hoped that sleep would reset all the fizzing connections, but when I got up, the pain was threatening like the rumble of thunder from a storm sliding over the hills toward me.  I walked the dogs with a Maxalt in my pocket, trying to figure out whether or not I would take it and the inevitable side effects that always accompany it.

When the pain started jumping up and down with its delicate little icepick spikes, I relented and took the pill.  Now, I'm just floating.  Most of the pain is gone, but I just want to sleep.

So I'm listening to my two new albums (I got the new Avett Bros and the new Mumford for a payday treat), and I'm trying to focus enough to plow through some of these papers.  Hopefully tomorrow won't be a repeat of today.  Migraines at home are one thing; migraines at school are altogether another.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

That Which Was Lost

Yesterday, as I was putting up my October bulletin board, I found something I thought was gone.  It is the small Peter Rose raven I bought last year at Chimneyville.  I had looked everywhere for it, opened and emptied all my drawers where I hide things away during the summer, dug to the back of all the stuff I have in my big locking cabinet.  Every so often, I'd have a flash of some new place to check, but it was never there.

Every time I looked, my heart got a little sadder.  It seemed to be the last dose of crap from last school year, the last kick in the side, the last indignity.  I had loved that little bird from the first moment I saw it among its larger brethren in Jackson, and to find that it was gone was terrible.  The thought that someone would take it was of course a million times worse.  I couldn't figure out why anyone would take it.  It isn't flashy.  It isn't fancy.  Unless you know something about pottery, you probably wouldn't get it at all.  It wasn't like it was something electronic that could one could hock.

I had remembered that I had put away as one of the very last things I had done when I was shutting my room down on that terrible last day of last year, but it was in none of the places I usually kept things.  When I opened a random filing cabinet drawer yesterday, though, it was sitting there as if it were only waiting for me.  I picked it up and held it for a minute.  The feeling of finding it was sweet.

It isn't the only lost thing I've found lately.  I had lost something far more important than a mere object.  Last year, I lost the feeling of connection to my students and purpose for my job.  I felt bad all the time, off balance, struggling.  My relationship with my students is critical, and for whatever reason, it just wasn't as strong as it has been previously.

This year's class is different, though.  They are sweet and thoughtful.  Yesterday, we studied "Homage to the Empress of the Blues," and as a part of the assignment, they created their own
 homage to someone.  Four of the groups did teachers, three of my good friends and respected colleagues...and me.  I almost cried.

They say the relationship piece is the most important part of the teacher-student interaction.  What they don't tell you is how important it is on our side of the desk, too.  The amount of sheer internal power we have to pull every day to care for all the needs of our students, to be enthusiastic about our material even when we feel sick or weary ourselves, to ignore the outside distractions that constantly surround us, is something that I'm not sure people who haven't been in education understand.  When we feel that we're fighting our students, that sheer apathy reigns, it makes it extremely hard to refresh that inner spring.  Without something to breathe life into it somehow, it is only a matter of time until it runs dry altogether.

Which is basically where I was when this year began.  The events that closed out last year hurt me.     Even though there had been bright spots in that year, there had been so much badness that went with it.  I didn't really know what to think about this year, only that I had a hope and a prayer that it wouldn't be more of the same.  It really isn't.

That feeling when you find a thing that was precious to you and had gone missing is full of joy, surprise, and relief.  It doesn't matter if that thing is something you can lay your hands on or not.  When a loss is healed, when restoration comes, peace comes with it.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Mouse Shower

(which, by the way, I think would be a totally awesome band name)

This morning, I had more trouble than usual focusing and waking up.  I stumbled into the shower, and turned the water on.  As I was washing my hair, I glanced into the corner under the shower curtain, and I saw something odd, a grey spot that shouldn't be there.

I paused, blinked, looked again, and the spot moved.  This is not comforting when you are in as vulnerable a position as you are when you're in the shower.  Looking through the distortion of the clear liner, I figured out that what I was looking at was a small field mouse.

I decided at that point to get out of the shower.

I wasn't scared, but I kept having this image of the mouse running up my leg trying to get away from the soap and water.  I grabbed the big plastic cup I keep in the bathroom for rinsing the sides of the tub when I scrub it, and I looked around for something thin but strong and waterproof to slide under it to form a trap.  The only thing I could think of was my Cricut mat.  I took it, placed the cup gently over the unmoving mouse, slipped the mat under it, and I hustled him outside to a less-watery freedom.  Then I came back to the shower to enjoy rodent-free cleanness.

Any day that starts out with a mouse in your bath probably isn't going to be the best.  It really lived up to its start.  The polite, damp, little mouse was actually a high point.  That should tell you everything else about today that you need to know.


Tuesday, September 25, 2012

I'm the Woman Who...


  • frequently looks at guys with hot cars and thinks, "Give me your keys and get lost."
  • is made happy by a well-made bulletin board.
  • loves you.  (sorry.  the allusion/song reference just felt necessary.)
  • just spent about 30 minutes cleaning stuff off her iPhone so it had enough space left to upgrade the iOS.
  • can't sleep because I have nightmares.
  • wears bunches of rings and doesn't really care what you think about that.
  • is going to have Froot Loops right now.  Without milk.  Just because.
  • prefers to watch all TV through my Roku because I can get instant gratification and no commercials.
  • is going to DC in about 10 days.
  • has a sack of grading to do.
  • is still eating Froot Loops.
  • really does miss you, probably.  No song allusions at all.
  • is going to bed now.  To sleep.  (to sleep perchance to dream...aye, there's the rub)
  • cannot avoid a Hamlet reference.
  • is now done.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Bad Moon Risen

(Yeah.  I know that's not the title of the song.  Still.)

Last night, I got to bed late because I stayed up working on stuff.  When I finally did get to bed, I had nightmares all night.  They were the horrible kind, the wake you up, but not quite enough to make you understand everything that jarred you wasn't real.  There aren't too many places worse than that grey fuzzy place where you still feel sick and sad, where you're still grieving or afraid.  I would wake up, slowly focus on the spill of moonlight moving across the bed, find my alarm clock, and try to roll over again.

I was off my game all day today from lack of sleep.  I hope tomorrow will be a better day.  Maybe tonight the devil moon will leave me alone.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

AFAR magazine

About three months ago, I opened my mailbox to find a copy of a magazine I really don't remember asking anybody for, AFAR.  Just the cover grabbed my attention.  The photography on the front was spectacular.  There were the standard little article blurbs there that caught my eye, too.  An article about traveling cross-country in an Airstream.  Travel tips for South Africa.  I had it open in the car and sat reading it in my driveway before I ever even took it inside the house.

As I read, I found that they have an app and a website.  I played with those, and they're great.  I can see some classroom applications for them and tons of personal ones.  I uploaded some trip pictures from various places I've been to their photo feed.

Since then two more issues have come.  I don't have many magazine subscriptions.  I only subscribe to Mental Floss and Real Simple.  This one, though, I want to keep coming.  It has high end and more realistic tips and travel helps.  I have never seen anything like it.  It is for people who love to go, even if they can only do it from the comfort of their favorite reading spot.  It has inspired me and brought out all that old urge that's never very far from the surface to throw all my crap in a box and run away.

While I can't do that for long periods of time yet, this lovely publication is at least keeping that flame burning.  It makes me remember how good I feel when I am somewhere else, soaking in all the mind-boggling, soul-healing beauty that is our world.  It makes me dust off the camera and look for somewhere good to go point it.

For a slim volume of pulp and printer's ink, I'd say this is no minor accomplishment.  Kudos to the team that puts this thing together.  Thanks to whomever saw to it that I'm getting it now.  It was something I did not know existed but that I needed terribly all the same.

Italian Dreaming

It's just possible that I might be going back to Italy.  Three years after the first trip, I have the chance to go again....if everything works out just right.  I will know later this week, but just the thought of being able to go back thrills me.

This trip will include Rome, Florence, and Venice.  I loved Rome last time.  Florence, a day trip, was spectacular.  I desperately wanted more time there.  Venice has been a dream of mine for a long time.  It seems too beautiful and delicate to be a real place.  I want to see it with my own eyes, maybe fall into a canal or something, and know that it's possible.

Even though there is still a detail waiting to be finalized for me to be sure of the trip, it hasn't stopped me from looking online, from downloading the free editions of the Lonely Planet guides for Florence and Venice.  There are so many things I want to see again.  There are so many things I want to see for the very first time.

I have a "real" camera now.  Every time I think of how glorious everything I saw was last time, I get even more excited by thinking about going back and getting to capture it well this time.  My little point-and-shoot that I carried before was in no way capable of getting the kind of detail shots I like.  It recorded the big stuff, but it's the little things that are so fantastic in Rome and Florence.  I am going to need a BIG memory card if I do get to go.

The most exciting thing to me, though, about this trip is that my best friend is probably going to get to come along.  I know that Italy, particularly Florence and Venice, has been a dream of hers for a long time.  I remember her talking about it back in college.  To be able to go and see her get to experience what for her will be both her first time out of the country and one of her life-list goals at the same time will be awesome.

It will also be fantastic on my end because I'll finally have somebody along who thinks like me.  Sometimes, when you're stuck with a group, it's hard to be alone inside it.  This happens to me frequently and I just roll with it.  To be in an incredible place with somebody I've known quite literally since my first day of kindergarten is going to be just that much greater an experience.

I'm really hoping this comes together.  It's one of those things that I'm fairly sure about, but that I can't quite believe is actually going to happen.  Maybe all the stars will align one more time, and I'll get this great good thing.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Pro-Crastination

So I have this ginormous project due.  Tomorrow.  Guess how close to being finished with it?

Yeah.  That's about right.

Sigh.  Procrastination has come back around to bite me once again.

There's this block that jumps up when I have a lot of something, anything to do.  There's this stubborn little streak inside me that absolutely refuses to start it.  I know that I must do it.  I know it's not going anywhere.  Despite that, I still find inane tasks to fill the time as though some magic fairy is going to swing down from a star and make it all disappear.

I'll be up until the crack of dawn as a result.  You would think that as old as I am, I would have learned by now, but I am truly a professional procrastinator.  It's never as bad as I think it's going to be once I begin.  So.  I guess I should probably get on that.  Soon.  Really soon....

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Pain

Headache.  Day off.  Headache.

This is my life right now.  I don't know why.  Maybe it's the weather.  Maybe it's the stress.  Maybe it's just crap to be me sometimes.

I get so tired of hurting.  On the Topamax, off it, it doesn't seem to matter.  Why can't I just be a normal person?  The kind who doesn't feel like her head is going to explode every time there's a flashing light on a cop car or a thunderstorm blowing in.

Last night, it hit me as I was preparing to play for the revival service.  All the lights were too bright.  I toughed it out, though.  I finished the congregational hymns and then I stumbled out and drove myself home.  The whole way, I drove about 35 mph, saying, "I can do this.  I can do this.  I can do this...."  I hope it would have made Mrs. Sarah, my music teacher, proud.

Some of my most immediate stress ended today.  I still have a couple of more things to resolve, but maybe if I can get all this stuff cleared up, my head won't continue to impede my living.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Inhumanity

"The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity." ~ George Bernard Shaw

Photographs

Yesterday, I was fooling around with my computer and my iPad when I ran across old folders of photos.  Since I was in the process of transferring a few from the netbook to the iPad, I wound up scrolling through images I haven't seen in a long, long time.

I looked at places, faces, and events from my past.  I also looked at the dates.  Can it really have been as long ago for some of those things as that number says?  It doesn't seem possible, to be honest.  Yet, I know it must be so because as I looked at some of them, little details that had become blurred came back into sharp focus.

After all of that, at some point in the day, I checked in on FaceBook.  I'm not on there even half as much as I used to be.  I get notifications to my phone, and I find that I'm just not as interested in what happens there unless somebody close to me is having a problem.  I check in once or twice a day now to catch up instead of leaving it running as I used to.  I don't know what that says about my interest in my fellow man, but there you have it.

As I was on FB yesterday, I saw a photo of someone I haven't seen in a long time.  Almost the only contact I have with him these days is through the random FB mention.  He doesn't post much.  I suppose he's too busy with his job and his obligations.  He never has been one for FB, less now than ever.

I looked at the image and thought about how much he's changed, how much he's still the same.   Memories of how we met and the time we spent together made me smile.  His wry sense of humor and quick wit came back to me.  I wished once more that we weren't so far apart, that I could see him again somehow.

One of the crappiest parts of getting older, it seems to me, is that paths tend to split and people who are dear to us tend to wind up going in directions we can't follow.  Even though we intend to "stay in touch" and hold on, life intrudes, and the best of intentions all too often fails.

I think I read an article somewhere talking about how FB completely destroyed the natural life cycle of human relationships.  It said that in previous generations, it was completely normal for people to pass in and out of one's life and be "lost," that every friendship had a life cycle.  If I remember correctly, it sort of accused FB of hindering the rightful deaths of these connections.  At the time I read it, I hated it.  Who has the right to say how long or to what degree a person is important to you?  Should there be an expiration date on how much you care for someone?

Even though I haven't seen him in the real world for a long time, it still brings me joy to know he's out there doing well (better than well, actually).  For some reason, it's a hopeful thing.  We will probably continue to e-talk and make plans to see each other that fall through.  I will continue to be proud to know him from this distance that separates us.  Maybe we will never see each other again except for the images on an online social networking site.  I can't say.

All I know is that seeing that picture made me miss him all over again.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

The Fun Just Never Ends

I woke up this morning to a really horrid stench.  I knew what it was, but I couldn't figure out where it was.  As I got ready, I looked everywhere for the source.  It wasn't until I went to the back to walk my dogs that I found it.  Chewie's normally snow-white self was covered in nastiness.  He'd had attacks of diarrhea in the night, and he, his cage, and even the wall behind his crate had paid the price.

What started as a part of my daily routine, that last quick walk with the dogs in the morning, turned into a rushed festival of unpleasantness.  I took Chewie out, watched him struggle with the sickness, brought him back inside and led him to the bathroom.  When I closed the door, he started getting nervous.  Somehow I manhandled him into the tub and bathed him.  This is such a calm description for such a frantic episode.  He stood drooping and miserable while I washed him.  He tried to get out, I grappled with him, he slipped and fell.  Meanwhile, the time I needed to leave for school crept ever closer.

I dragged the pan at the bottom of his crate out to wash it with the hose, and Mom arrived, coming to the rescue.  She sent me to school, and finished things up.  She checked in on Chewie to make sure he wasn't dehydrating himself through being ill.

I worried about him all day.  By the time I got home, Mom had been forced to wash him twice using the hose outside.  I took him for one last walk, and no sooner had I stepped out the door than he pulled the retractable leash out my hands and took off.  I ran to the house and got my flashlight, and then I found myself walking down this deep woods path in the uneasy quiet of a Mississippi night.  I heard all kinds of things rustling, but none of them were Chewie.

I came back to the house and was about to go to the cut-over across the road when I saw his white form glowing in front of me.  I jumped out of the car and gently called him until he finally came to me, leash dangling.  He put his head on my knees and just leaned.

I need tomorrow to be less adventure.  I'm not sure I can stand otherwise.


Wednesday, September 12, 2012

A Passing Thought

Today I wanted to talk to someone quite a lot.  I woke up sick with a migraine looming, but oddly, this person was so much on my mind.  And so there they stayed all day.  Granted, I was so busy today fighting off the sick, dealing with the usual assortment of classroom circus acts, and flailing hither, thither, and yon to get all my responsibilities met that I had few free moments for it stick its hand up and wave for attention.  In the relative stillness of my car on the way home, though, that want came back.  So far, I've ruthlessly ignored it.  I've watched a movie, fought with a laptop, downloaded some music, updated a few files, toyed with my Cricut.  Now it's time for bed.  The desire to talk to that person is shrugging its shoulders, folding its hands, and resting its case.  Maybe I should have intruded into their day.  I couldn't make myself believe it was a good thing to do, though.

Yeah.

Sometimes life is a lot more ridiculous than it looks from the outside.

Captain America

(in which I watched a movie)

I seem to remember a TV show for Captain America when I was little.  It was of that Wonder Woman variety, super cheesy I'm sure, but I have always remembered the shield.  I don't remember anything else but that.  Therefore, unlike most superhero films of recent years, I really didn't know what to expect.

I was charmed.

I shouldn't be surprised by that.  Right now, whoever is controlling those Marvel films is turning out some very engaging stuff.  I really and truly love the Iron Man films.  Part of that, granted, is because of Robert Downey Jr., an actor whom I find charming, intelligent, and humorous, but the writing is fun, the plot is fast-paced, and the characters have a depth that I respect.

There was something more with Captain America, though.  Maybe it's that they focused so much on him as a developing individual rather than just, "Oh, hey.  Lookit.  I can has powers now."  The powers were important, but the film was much more about just how far he would go, just how much he was willing to give up to do the thing he believed was right.

I can hear you muttering "Boy Scout" behind your hands, and you're right.  He was one.  But, as I tell my seniors every year, our epic heroes/comic book superheroes tell us a lot about what we value, what we as a culture think is most important.  He had strength without arrogance, a willingness (even a drive) to help his fellow man, badassedness and total fearlessness on the field of battle, a background rich in technology and gadgets, a history of overcoming and rising from humble origins, and (and here I feel a blush stain my maidenly cheeks) physical beauty.  I think that's pretty much the catalog of virtues from America.  The only bell he didn't ring was super intelligent, but I think Iron Man does that about eight times anyway, so Captain America doesn't have to worry about it so much.

As far as the superhero movies go, I will have to watch it again.  That is high praise for any film, really, since I don't even half-watch most of them the first time.  It was nice to have the mythos of that character re-examined and to refresh hazy memories.  Maybe someday they will reboot Wonder Woman in the same way.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

What's Going On

A list.  It's all I am capable of.


  • Migraine.  Big, bad, nasty one.  It caught me in Wal-Mart, doubling my misery, and then I had to wait at the checkout while a manager was called repeatedly to come and open a security box for an ink cartridge.  I finally left the cartridge and fled to the car for my medicine.
  • iPad.  I love it more and more.  It lets me do so many things on the move in my classroom.  Today, I used it to show parents grades on my desktop and to adjust things by way of makeup grades and so on as needed.  There are some distinct limitations to what I can do on it, but it's a great tool.  Plus...
  • Doodle Jump and Fruit Ninja.  God help me.  I can't stop playing them.  
  • Fall Weather.  I have the windows open and the attic fan on.  It's delightful.  I got to wear my new Birki clogs, and today I even put on a scarf.  I hope this weather sticks around awhile.
  • Eggplant Parmesan.  I came home from a long day of school followed by Parent Teacher Conferences, and I was thinking in the simplest possible terms of supper:  peanut butter and jelly.  I opened the freezer to look for an option, and there, waiting like a surprise gift, was a frozen eggplant parm I'd forgotten I'd bought as a payday splurge.  It was doubly good for that.
  • DVR.  Last night's headache made me forget about one of the few TV shows I watch with regularity, Warehouse 13.  It occurred to me on the way home today that I'd missed it.  Then it came to me.  Even though I was out of it doesn't mean my DVR was.
  • Well-groomed lawn.  It's a simple and cheap pleasure to walk through my yards now that the grass has been cut.  It's so pretty that I don't know why I don't do it more often.
  • Tired.  So achingly, miserably tired.  Doesn't matter how much I sleep.  It's still there.  I'd like to curl up in ball in the middle of my bed with the cool air washing over me and sleep for days.
  • Busy. Meetings and tests and plans, oh my.  Meetings and tests and plans, oh my.  (And me without any red sparkly shoes....)   
A few more stubborn minutes of Downton Abbey, and that's all for me for tonight.

Sunday, September 09, 2012

The Hollow Woman


We are the hollow men
    We are the stuffed men
    Leaning together
    Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
    Our dried voices, when
    We whisper together
    Are quiet and meaningless
    As wind in dry grass
    Or rats' feet over broken glass
    In our dry cellar
~ "The Hollow Men" - T.S. Eliot
_______________________

Today was Baby Dedication at church.  Even though my cousin's youngest was in the lineup for the service, I had not planned to go.  Despite my mother's wistful disapproval, I was firm about skipping it, meeting up with everybody afterward to go out to eat.  I needed not to be there.

Of course, that's not the way it worked out.

I got a text about ten til ten telling me that I was needed to play for the service, so I gathered my fortitude and headed out.  I managed to put together some music, and it went okay.

I sat on the organ bench watching as the babies and their parents came forward, and I thought about my own life and my own situation.  I couldn't help it.  It wasn't about me, but it made me think about things I try desperately not to drag out into the light very often.

I am constantly surrounded by children, by families.  How is it I am not going to have that?  The most basic of single-celled organisms can reproduce, yet I won't.  Butterflies in the yard, crows in the treetops, they manage to find some other that they fit with, become a part of a pair.  What is wrong with me that I cannot?

And yet, I can't seriously feel as though I should be searching for anybody. I can't seriously feel that it has the least possibility of working, barring a miracle.  I'm too solitary, too...odd, too set in my own ways, too demanding, and then there's the always present whisper that I probably cannot have children.  How could I stick somebody with all of that?  Who would possibly want it?

So I walk around feeling hollow.  I feel somehow less real than other people, somehow like I am just a simulacrum of a woman, something that can trick the eye from a distance but is just paste and paint when viewed too close, something that can be taken out for emergencies and then neatly folded and put away again when it's not needed.

I can't say that I'm wildly unhappy.  I don't feel deeply depressed.  It's just days like today pile on top of me like that old Puritan punishment of pressing, one and another and another, eventually making it hard to breathe.

On the Go

This is the first post I've tried to write on my new iPad. To be honest, although I adore this thing, typing quickly on it is going to take more than a little adjustment. Part of the problem, of course, is that this is still an iPhone app. Apparently, not enough people want to blog like this for Blogger to feel like they need to improve/expand their app. I wish they would. I Dan already tell you that if it stays like it is, I will be using my regular computer for this instead of the iPad.

I think that's something of a shame, too, since blogging on the go seems like a natural part of what the iPad should be about. I would be far more likely to write more lately if this were a little more user-friendly.

There's more I want to record; I haven't been writing much because I've been busy. I will wait until I'm back home to do it, though. This is wearing me out.

Monday, September 03, 2012

Road Trip

Despite overcast skies, my friend C. and I took off toward West Point early Saturday morning just as we'd planned.  It was time for our annual trip to Prairie Arts.  It sprinkled a little on the way, but the storms that had been hanging around in Isaac's wake held off.

When we got to West Point, we went to the Pizza Inn, our traditional lunch stop during the trip.  I don't know what they do to their pizza, but it's some of the best restaurant pizza I know of.  As we ate, we talked.  For the second time in as many weeks, just how much of my friends' lives I am unaware of was brought home to me.  I've had two conversations with two people I dearly love and rarely see, and I've learned things that I would have loved to have been able to help them with.

And maybe, truly, they weren't the kind of things somebody could have helped with, ultimately, but I hate the thought that people I love were going through challenging times, and I could not give some kind of aid, even if it was just a listening ear or a silly distraction.  We are all so far away from each other:  in geography, in life stage, in so many ways.  However, just knowing they went through these things, even though some of them were years ago and far away, made me feel like a bad friend.

That's another conversation that has been much on the lips of those I'm around lately, the disconnectedness from each other we feel, the fact that we only know about each other's lives from FaceBook updates.  Everyone has expressed a desire to "do better," to see each other more, to have conversations, not just "like" statuses.  Are we finally at a point now where we will be able to do what we say?

I get so lost inside my job.  I have friends who are also teachers, who live a million miles away, who are trying to meet the demands of college life or young children.  Can we find a way to get over all the hurdles and be closer?  Is it unrealistic even to want that?  Or is it ultimately a matter of priorities and effort?

I am hopeful that it is the latter.  My friends genuinely matter to me.  I think it's time they started being more of a list item than an afterthought.

The best part of the trip yesterday was the talking.  We saw fantastic things at Prairie Arts, ate at Dooey's in Starkville, enjoyed a good bookstore and coffee, but the most important part was that sense of reconnection.  I want to find a way to make it last.  I don't know how to go about it,  but it's time to try something.

Sunday, September 02, 2012

Quickly

There's more to tell, but I have to go to church in a minute to play for night services.  Today, I decided that I needed a dedicated workspace for school stuff.  I am tired of working in my lap or at my dining table.  I packed myself up in my little blue car after lunch with Mom and Dad and went to my favorite junktique.  I pretty much knew what I was looking for, but I never expected to find it so fast.  I got a small enamel-top table with a drawer, and then as I made a quick circuit of the huge place to make sure I didn't see something better suited, I ran across a wooden captain's chair somebody had painted a bright, cheerful teal.  The color matches the speckled edge of the enamel table, so I grabbed it, too.

There was a moment of concern when it came time to load the table in my car, but again, it managed to hold more than it probably really ought to be able to hold, and I came home.  I put my new small metal donkey (from Prairie Arts yesterday) and assorted other desk things on it including a good work light.  I've been grading papers there ever since, of course, with plenty of feline assistance.  I can finally get things done here at home.

I have more to tell about the past few days, but right now, I have to go try to get meaningful noise out of a musical instrument.