A Mobile Observation

What does it say about me that it annoys me when radio stations mute minor vulgarities in their songs? I'm listening to Pink Floyd's "Money," and when it got to the "goodie good bullshit" line, they bleeped it. If that word offends you so very much, maybe you should not listen to the song. I find this sort of thing hypocritical and corrosive to the original intent of the artist. Even if they bleep it, we all know what was meant, effectively hearing it in our heads. What's the point?

Actually, Quite-a-Lot

Quite a lot has happened since I wrote last.  I've sat down with the computer several times, but each has wound up involved with other things than coming here.  I am taking a moment now to try to catch up.

I got a call yesterday saying that I'd been nominated to be the Star of the Week, a community member profiled and highlighted in our local newspaper.  I was floored.  I do not think of myself as overly interesting.  I was honored, though.  I saw the completed interview in today's paper.  It was strange to see myself there, picture and all, but nice, too.  I don't think I came off sounding like an idiot.

I was also informed that I have been chosen by one of students for a special kind of recognition.  It was totally unexpected, but I am so grateful for what it represents.  To be chosen by one's students as worthy is probably the highest honor and vote of confidence a teacher can hope for.  Once I am sure all of it is official and not-a-secret, I'll talk more about this.  Right now, I've said about as much as I need to.

I found out about and have been working on an application for a two-week summer trip to Japan to  collaborate and exchange information with teachers there and with other teachers from around the States.  I finished the application last night, and now all that's left is the waiting.

I'm also waiting to hear about the AP Reading this summer.  I think it's time or past time for the first round of notifications to come out (I can't find my letter), so I might not have been selected this time.  I am worried that missing last year for TGC has hurt me in the selection process.  Only time will tell.

Regardless of all the things still up in the air and while tomorrow might be a hammer right between the eyes, I have a good, good feeling about 2013.  Thirteen, for a variety of reasons, has always been lucky for me.  Maybe this whole year will be.

A Letter from Myself

(this arrived in the mail today.  we wrote letters to ourselves on the last day of the TGC Brazil trip as a final reflection.  although I knew it was coming, opening it still came as a poignant moment.)

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23 June 2012

Dear You,

Please remember what you've learned and seen here.  Even on the days when things get terrible, appreciate all you have.

Don't forget the students you've met.  Don't forget David Campista and their great generosity.  Take it with you and remember that beauty.

Remember the monkey.  Wild things can be gentle, too, when approached with the appropriate attitude.  This is good classroom advice.

Remember the joy of being alone.  Remember the joy of being with others.

It's okay to order the caipirinha.

It's okay to go back to the hotel if your head hurts, too.

Take a minute and look back over the pictures.  Watch the light go through the crystal ball.  And, finally, if you are not as happy right now as you were at every moment in Brazil....get your ass back there.

ME

All the Etsy Things

It struck me today as I was sitting on a steel-pad table by a rural creek just how many thing I use constantly and really love have come from Etsy.  There were the red case for my Kindle and the red strap on my Nikon, both made by Couch Straps from deadstock automotive vinyl.  There was the small sandwich wrap by Yulco I use so I don't have to put a PB&J in a sandwich bag and wastefully throw the bag away after.  There was the red martingale collar from Mod Dog around Chewie's snow-white throat, allowing him comfort and me control if needed.  Even the tiny silver studs with their kanji symbols for peace and luck on them I was wearing in my second set of piercings had come from someone there, Cherry Creek Jewelry.

I know Etsy receives criticism.  Maybe some of it comes rightly.  I haven't researched stuff enough to know.  I just know that since I started shopping there, I have access to things I love.  I like my stuff to be either a) old or b) classic/unique and always c) well-made.  Etsy shops, the ones I frequent, anyway, meet all those requirements.  There are all these incredibly talented people out there who make exactly the right thing when I'm looking for it, something my style, my size, my philosophy, and without this site, I'd never know about it.

My tastes are not what could be called "common" for this area.  While we have some mightily awesome junktiques that I adore, finding makers for the type of art and the style of personal items such as phone cases, jewelry, etc. I want is problematic unless I go to a larger place.  The beauty of Etsy is that I don't have to go anywhere.  It comes to me.

Even as my tastes and little manias change, Etsy remains able to satisfy them.  If I'm on a "kick" with a particular topic, set of characters, or item, I can find things on Etsy that fulfill that desire reasonably.  I can also find new interests, even new project ideas for myself, by looking there.

The last thing about using Etsy that I appreciate is the general friendliness of the craftspeople.  I've never run into anyone there who wasn't willing to adapt or create a custom order.  I have ordered from some of them several times, and they actually remember that I was a customer.  It's nice.  I also like the fact that so many shops offer discounts to repeat buyers.  In a world where often you go into a shop and are made by lack of service or outright rudeness of the staff to feel that you're doing them a disservice by spending your money there, being acknowledged and appreciated is a fairly novel change.

I've also almost never run across anyone there whose quality wasn't even more than advertised.  I have some pieces, including my long-desired and much-loved green Leonard messenger bag from New Duds, that I know I will have for a very long time.  I will probably wear out before it does.  In a world of use-and-toss or buy-knowing-you'll-have-to-buy-again-soon, it's refreshing to see durability and quality accompanying beauty.

I didn't mean for this to become an Etsy hymn, but really, I don't mind that it did.  I get far too much enjoyment from the site not to have said something good of it.  While not everyone may agree with me about its virtues, for me, it is the perfect "shop."

Wonderful Things

(a list)

• Watching my Pyrenees run, frolic, and splash wildly in the creek.
• Having said Pyrenees warm and dry and leaning on me as we drive down dirt roads.
• Driving down red dirt roads.
• Having just enough coffee left to make a pot.
• Watching a new coffee maker produce said coffee.
• Drinking that coffee from a new Fiestaware jumbo cup.
• Sitting in sunlight streaming through the window.
• Knowing that if I want to, I can go take a nap.
• Knowing that if I do go take a nap, four-hundred-and-eighty-seven cats and dogs will pile up in the bed to nap, too.
• Listening to the rumbling purr of a small, plump, striped cat.
• Having a vehicle that stops when the brakes are pressed.  (Mine currently does not do this.)
• Driving a big, brown, battered farm truck with enough pulling power to move a small moon.
• Hearing the quiet chiming of agate windchimes and thinking of Brazil.

I think I hear a nap calling me.  It's been peaceful today.  I hope yours has been as well.

Snow Day

Yesterday before we left school, all the talk was of the incoming winter storm.  Preparations were made in case we needed to start school late.  Phone chains were checked.  Reminders were given to keep everything in the building safe.

I have to admit I didn't really expect any snow.  Every year, snow is predicted, and every year, the hearts of local children are crushed when we get four flakes or none at all.  Their bright little eyes glimmer with the thoughts of waist-high drifts which prevent the school buses from running, but the reality of living this far South is that if we get enough to cover the ground fully, we've had a heck of a storm.

I woke up about 4:30 as usual, my never-ending fear of oversleeping my alarm kicking in, and I wondered if it were snowing, but not enough to get up from my warm cocoon, dislodge cats, and go see.  Thirty minutes later, the alarm sounded, and I dragged myself out of bed and started the wait for notification.

District told us they'd notify us by 5:30 if we were going to try a late-start day.  At about 5:15, my phone started chiming.  The person above me on my phone tree, a person in my department I depend upon to get news, the actual email and call from the CO all told me I could go back to bed.  Late start was a reality.  I rolled over with great happiness.

About thirty minutes later, everything went off again.  School was officially called off for today.  Snow day protocol was in place.  I got up, looked out the window, and even in the dim light, I could see white everywhere.  Against all probability, we had snow.  I have to admit, I was glad to have been wrong.

I slept late, got up, took the dogs out, and got wet from the thick clumpy snow still falling.  Roux went out and came in quickly.  Chewie absolutely frolicked.  He loved the snow.  He ran in huge circles, kicking up mud and snow everywhere.  He dove face-first into the tiny drifts.  I laughed and laughed, and I realized as I did it that it was the first time I had really laughed in days.

I took some pictures, came in to get what I needed to fill all the birdfeeders.  When I went back out carrying the twenty-pound sack of birdseed, Roux slipped out with me, and she and Chewie took off before I could navigate the slick steps and get her collar.  Memories of the last time she ran off played back almost immediately.  Those 22 hours where I was waiting for Chewie and her to come home were some of the longest of my life.

I waited for several hours to see if they'd come back on their own before I grabbed leashes, bundled myself into forty layers and a purple hat, and headed after them.  I walked through the woods road to the far pasture calling their names.  I'm sure if the hunters who hang out across the road were there today, they got very tired of it.  As a teacher, I can be exceptionally loud when I need to be.  I made it all the way to the line of trees at the edge of that pasture and still, no dogs.

I stood and I called over and over, and just when I was thinking that I would have to give up and just go home, I saw a flicker of movement in the trees and heard the distant and longed-for jingling of collar tags.  Roux appeared and disappeared behind the trunks of the pines.  Then Chewie burst out of the woods in a blur of dirty wet white.  I captured him and put him on the leash, and we chased Roux down, leashed her, and we all went home.

I took the time to make breakfast, fought my ridiculous, useless coffee pot and managed to eke out a cup with it, got on Amazon and bought a new coffee pot so I can have the exquisite pleasure of destroying the one I have with a hammer, did some online research and browsing, and was as useless as possible.  I decided to watch Friends, and it has turned into a marathon.  It's been fabulous.

Roux has been sleeping all afternoon.  Chewie is mostly wiped out, too.  As I look at them, all I can think of is how grateful I am that they came when called.  If the weather hadn't been as nasty as it was, I'm not sure if that would have been the case.  Maybe we all got a chance to do some things today we don't normally do, and we all got it out of our various systems.  Tomorrow will be a return to what passes for normality around here.  I guess all good things, even the unexpected ones, must come to an end.

Fede Gimmel

This is a fede gimmel or gimmal ring.  These rings are made of two, or as in the case of this one, three rings that swivel open.  The hands open, and there is a heart inside.  You can see an example of an opened one below.  It's a different ring, but I think you can get the idea.  These were used as men's wedding rings or women's engagement/betrothal rings during the Victorian period.  (By the way...I like the word "betrothed."  If I ever get to that point, I'd like to be "betrothed" instead of "engaged." Betrothed.  Yeah.)

I love this.  To me, it's a fascinating variation on the Claddagh.  The same symbolism of eternal unity and companionship is there.  The heart is hidden, a private thing, on this ring, but it's lovely.  The detailed hands, one masculine with its shirt sleeve, and one feminine with its ruffle, are charming.  I have seen lots of different types of old jewelry, but so much of it is intended for women.  The fact that this has so much detail and could be worn by men, too, delights me.

If I were getting married, that distant misty if, then I think this would be a cool band for that imaginary husband of mine to have.  I would hope he'd be interested in it.  I don't know.  Maybe it's too fancy for a modern guy.  I just adore the history, the symbolism, and the function of it.  I'd like to think Imaginary Husband would look down at his ring, think of us together, and smile.  Isn't that the purpose of those things, after all?

Oh, and if you want the ultra-awesome one from the top picture, I found it here.

My Ring

From this Etsy listing by Meg:


"Etched into a genuine, natural, beautiful deep purple amethyst stone is a gilt flower and in the center of that lovely painted flower is a Salanger or 'rough cut' diamond (pre-dates the rose cut)

These rings, known as Rose of Sharon, were very popular in the Mid Victorian Era. They were used as love tokens, sometimes betrothal rings....or just as a romantic gift. It was a symbol of unfailing love.

In the Victorian Era, the language of flowers was as important to people as being "well dressed." For example, the recognizable scent of a particular flower, plant or perhaps a scented handkerchief sent its own unique message. Roses symbolized love, but even different colors meant different things."
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When I was in my first year of college, I went to one of the first antique malls to be opened downtown.  Part of the sprawling space was a venerable jewelry store, one of those institutions that had been in town forever and was now a part of this larger enterprise.  In addition to the contemporary pieces they had an entire case of estate pieces.  

I looked down into the case idly, and among the lockets and diamonds there was a ring with a giant, glorious, dark purple amethyst.  It was near my birthday, and amethyst is my birthstone.  I dithered, knowing it would be beyond my slim budget, but I tried it on.  My mom was with me, and as we looked at it, she told me that I should get it.  My Granny wanted to get me something for my birthday, and Mom said that she and Dad would also chip in.  I put the first payment on it that day.

It's been on my hand every day.  I always wondered about the carving in the middle.  Was it a violet to accompany the February birth month?  Was it a tulip?  It sort of looks like one.  Was it a rose?  I didn't know.  Not knowing didn't make me love the ring, which I had come to see as a symbol of my united family, any less.  

Today, I found this ring on Etsy.  It's so much like mine that the two have to be sisters.  The cut is the same.  The setting is a little less elaborate than mine, but even the design is similar.  The I finally have answers to my questions.  As always with things with a past, knowing what it really is makes it even better.  Every time I look at it, I can know that it represents everlasting love.  Even though it wasn't a romantic gift, it is totally fitting. 

With Apologies to the Wilburys

Been stuck in airports, terrorized
Sent to meetings, hypnotized
Overexposed, commercialized
Handle me with care

I'm so tired of being lonely
I still have some love to give
Won't you show me that you really care

~ "Handle With Care" - The Travelling Wilburys
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I've been on a massive Wilburys kick lately.  I've been listening to the big double album practically non-stop for about a week.  Today, I relented somewhat and let Genius make me a mix from one of the songs.  I freaking love the Genius feature on iTunes.  Most of the time, the mixes it comes up with make me much happier than if I'd tried to do it myself.  It's like a little surprise gift every time I click it.

Anyway.

That's not really what I was going to write about.  Maybe it's as good a topic as any.  The continuing rain seems to be blotting out my will to do anything other than slog through the day, float home, and fall down.  Snow is rumored for tonight, but, quite frankly, I'll believe it when I see it.

I'm just tired.  And maybe all I really need is a day where I can see that blue sky.  Maybe it's something far more profound.

Something made me realize today that my birthday is coming up soon.  It comes in on sneaky little cat feet when I'm too busy to pay attention, and then suddenly, BOOM, there it is dancing on my head.  I can't scrape up even the tiniest little bit of enthusiasm for it.  I need to be planning something good, but mostly, I'm just thinking, "37.  Whooptedoo."

There's also the fact that I have no idea what I'd plan.  The actual day is in the middle of a week this time.  I will probably be driving to a city two hours to the north to pick up a carload of Krispy Kreme doughnuts for a fundraiser we're trying to do at school that night since our tentative delivery day is Valentine's Day.  Since I'm in charge of it, I get to do the driving.

I could make a list, I guess, of things I'm going to do as 37 comes, but what belongs on that list?  Maybe a midlife crisis complete with a sports car (okay, yes.  I want one of those for reasons that are not midlifecrisisy.), a twenty-something boyfriend with "an old soul," vast swathes of leopard print, too much alcohol, and not quite enough sense?  Maybe a declaration that this is going to be the start of the year in which I really, truly, finally...  what?  How do I end that sentence? Write the story?  Get the tattoo?  Go back to Brazil/Japan/England?  Learn to play the banjo?  Make another stained glass window?  Finally get all these repairs done on the house?  Really get control of my camera?  Write some poetry that isn't poo-ish? Have electricity or water run to our country shack?   Buy a kiln?  There are so many things hovering in the wings, waiting for me to decide if I'm ever going to do them or not.  The possibles are meeting the actuals, though, and they're not coming off so well in that clash.

I'm just tired.  I'm not afraid of the upcoming birthday.  It doesn't distress me.  It just feels like another one of those things I'll have to take on and deal with, one more stone into the big sack of them I drag around on my back.  That, I guess, is why the lyrics of "Handle With Care" strike such a massive chord with me right now.  I know how they feel.  It is practically my very own personal theme song.

God.

I need some sunshine really badly.

Rereading Harry Dresden

A cop, a wizard, the king of the goblins, and Santa Claus go on a hunting trip.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one. ~derekisanerd on Tumblr
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When the break began, I ripped through Cold Days, the latest installment of the Harry Dresden books by Jim Butcher.  As I read it, I realized there were SCORES of things I dimly remembered.  Anytime a series has 14 books in it, I suppose it's natural that the first ones are fuzzy, especially since these have come out about one a year for the last 13 years.  I decided when I finished that this would be a good time to go back and see what I had forgotten about one of my favorite characters.


Craploads, apparently.



It took me most of the break, and then life intervened as it so often does, and I didn't quite make it through all 14 again before school started back.  I just finished the reread of the one that started it all off, Cold Days, this afternoon.  My initial reaction to this readathon was a genuine appreciation of Butcher's forethought as a writer.

He's a tricksy beast.  Rereading, meaning I knew where the characters were headed this time, I could see that he's been weaving some of these things together now for a very, very long time.  Some of the books were stronger than others, but all of them moved the character forward.  Rereading them all together, I saw certain themes and patterns emerge that having to process the story in bits and drabs over the course of YEARS had gotten a bit lost.  I saw things that I feel are foreshadowing of what's coming next.  It makes me look forward to the new one even though I know I've got about eight months (probably) to wait.

I also have a deeper love of Harry.  He might be one of my favorite characters ever.  The thing that endears him so to me is that he knows he is deeply flawed.  He's got a dark side that makes Darth Vader seem gentle and caring.  And yet, even when it costs him everything, even when letting that darkness out would save him pain and suffering, he keeps finding the strength to rein it in.  He is constantly willing to take the bullet if it means somebody else won't have to feel the pain.  And yeah, he's a little blind to certain things, exceptionally confused about women, and wizard-arrogant, too.  If I were going into some kind of fantasy-world fight, though, I'd want him by my side (or maybe out in front of me).  If I were hanging out in my living room on a Friday night, he's also a literary figure I wouldn't mind having crash on my couches and MST3K a film.  He manages to give a pretty good feeling for the good and bad of what it's like when a person who suddenly finds themselves becoming larger than life.

I'm on to other books and new territory now, but I ought to do things like that more often.  There are certain books I reread almost every year, like sitting down with an old friend and catching up on what's changed over a cup of coffee.  I don't think I can do all of Dresden that way again each year, but there are other series and singles that I've read before, think I remember all of, and probably need to revisit.

Yeah.  And I'll find time for all that sometime after the fifth of Never.  Why isn't there a job somewhere that lets me get paid to read?

Cool Hand Luke (revisited)

"Cool Hand Luke, hell.  He's a natural-born worldshaker."  ~ Dragline, Cool Hand Luke

I just watched Cool Hand Luke again, and a couple of scenes really struck me this time.

The first was when Luke is out in the yard fighting Dragline.  He keeps getting knocked down, is broken and bloody, but he continues to stand up even though he knows Dragline is not going to stop hitting him, isn't going to be allowed to stop hitting him.  Everybody including Dragline keeps telling him to stay down, but he refuses.

The second scene happens just before they bring Luke back the second time and force him to dig and refill a ditch until he breaks.  He stumbles in to eat, and the dog guy who hates him because of what happened to one of the bloodhounds starts giving him problems in the form of a huge plate of rice which Luke must eat or go back to "the box" again.  Luke starts trying to eat it, and finally, he just puts his spoon down and stares at it dully.  You can see it on every line of his face that he knows he's headed back to what is becoming his own personal hell.  Everyone is quiet, and then suddenly, one of the men gets up, puts away his own empty plate, and as he heads for the door, he takes a huge spoonful of rice off Luke's plate and eats it.  No comment.  Just scoop, chew, swallow, and gone.  Then another does the same.  And another.  And another.  The scene fades out with more than half of the rice already gone and other spoons dipping in, with everybody helping to take some of his burden on themselves.

The last was near the end, after Luke runs for the last time and winds up in the church.  The expression on his face as he's put into the car is the final image we see of him.  (Deliberately vague to avoid spoilers.)  That same small smile has been on his lips so many times during the key events of the story.

Luke, the purposeless, the drifter, the lost, the broken, became something so much larger than just himself.  He becomes a legend, a hero, a source of hope for the men of the chain gang.  He was deeply uncomfortable with the role he found closing in on him, even tried to escape.  When he ran from the prison, he was running from these expectations as much as he was running from the physical walls and chains.  He could feel the need those men had for a rebel, someone stronger than the brutal men who were in charge of their lives.  They needed someone who could show in his every action and word that freedom was something one carried inside them, not something that was dependent on location and situation.  Ultimately, he accepts this, and he is redeemed by redeeming them.

The cost, of course, is proportionate to the gain....

It's not a film I watch often, but sometimes I just need to see it.  It reminds me of several things.  First, maybe the best thing, the most important thing, we can do is give somebody else hope.  Second, even if one ultimately loses, there is a kind of victory in refusing to give in.  Third, and honestly, not as happily, everybody has a breaking point.  No matter how strong their conviction, at some point and under the right stress, everybody will snap.  Fourth, breaking doesn't have to be the end of the story.  There can be something after the shattering of the soul if you're strong enough to scrape together all the shards and reassemble them into something like the original.

Maybe this was the best of all possible films for me to see right now.  I think I needed to remember some of these things.

Januaryness

It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air - there's the rub, the task.  ~Virgil


In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald
__________________

The holidays are over, their glitter and bright lights gone.  The days are short, the nights are cold, and it won't stop raining.  I hate January.  There's nothing good in January.  It is a despicable month.  It gets a lot of press as a "new beginning," but underneath that thin gilt veneer is a rusted-out base metal that is a lot closer to the truth of things.

Because of the pay schedule I'm on, my last check came the 16th of December, and I won't see another dime until January 30th.  I am scrimping and saving, but my money is already almost gone, and the January bills are rolling in, piling up, making me sick as I try to figure out how to take care of them.

The ground outside is sodden.  Even on high ground, when I step through my yard to walk my dogs, that uneasy softness shifts and slides.  The sky is perpetually grey, dull, just like I feel.  When there is sunshine, it is almost an unbearable but wonderful brightness, like something that I heard about it a story once but stopped believing was real long ago.

The dark, bleak nothing wraps its fist around my heart, and as I look around me, everything I see is colored by it.  Maybe it's more right to say that the color is leeched away by it.  In any case, everything I see makes me sad and filled with discontent.

The city I live and work in has nothing, does nothing, it seems except produce coffins in which to lay to rest my students and former students.  Former gains disappear.  Bright spots and efforts fail and disappear.  Friends in other places tell me of things that they get to do, and the dismal cloud chokes me hard.

My dreams are bad.  People die.  Things are lost.  Situations that are unwinnable are constant.  There's never a moment of peace.  I wake up tired.

My head hurts all the time.  My stomach is constantly upset.  I don't know what to do or how to stop it.  Maybe it's something I'm eating or not eating.  Maybe it's just stress.

I would run away, but there is nowhere to run to.  I would dream of something better, but I'm fresh out of silly notions with which to distract myself.  I would immerse myself in some hobby, but they all either need money or some motivation that I can't seem to scrape up at the present.

And maybe I'll be all better tomorrow.  I can certainly hope so.  I just have a feeling that this will be with me until January is gone.