Whispering on Twitter

A couple of my very favorite authors and musicians lurk about on Twitter. I both love and hate this. If you follow my Twitter feed at all, you know in addition to the totally useless things I write about (going to vacuum the floors now, oh look! have found apples in fridge, etc.), I also like to tweet about what I'm listening to or reading about at the moment, sort of a review in 140 characters or less. It's awfully hard to do that comfortably when you know the person you're writing about is sort of standing in the corner listening....

I ran into this the other day when I finished Good Omens. My first response was to tweet loudly and long about its merits, but then I remembered that Neil Gaiman is practically the King of Twitter. His followers are legion. I shuffled my feet (metaphorically), made some sort of weak comment about how much I liked it, and saved my commentary for the safer backwaters of blogland, this shallow pool where no one but you and I, gentle reader, ever wades.

I haven't always been this cautious. In fact, when I first joined Twitter and was discovering its vagaries, I was also reading American Gods for the first time, and I was tweeting the lines I liked best. Imagine how stupid I felt when I found out that @neilhimself had several thousand avid followers running around out there.... I shut up pretty fast. I felt like I was caught talking about somebody at a party and was overheard. Not that I was saying anything but good things, but still. It was unnerving.

There are several musicians I love that I had the same experience with. I was tweeting along about how I liked this one or that one, and bam, there they were.... I have gotten almost gunshy about the whole system. In one way it is an amazing chance to interact, even in the shallowest of ways, with creative people whom one admires. And that's something I'd very much like to do.

However, this is where the shy (as in socially inept, not the previously mentioned gunshy) comes in, even over a computer buffer, and especially once I know I've been caught out talking like some starry-eyed worshiper (which, in most cases, unless Elvis shows up, I think I can say I am not), I just don't know what to write. I can't imagine anything I type being useful, interesting, or amusing to those Twitter Titans, and I feel sort of embarrassed about being there. It's exactly the same feeling that drove me out of a concert hall before I could even get my copy of Punch signed by Chris Thile and company, but that was real life. Ah, but talking about the unreasoning weirdness I feel about asking another person to scrawl his or her name across an object may be a subject better left for another blog....

Well, I'm off to take one last tour of the Twitterverse before bed. I will skulk through quietly, wading gently, and making as few waves as possible. I don't think anybody will even know I'm there....probably....surely....right?....

Speaking of Poetry

I've been writing lately. Little trickles in the desert sand, not the torrent of true inspiration I'd love to feel. I've gotten three things down on paper. One and a half of them need to be thrown out. I'll put them in the notebook to chew over. Maybe something good can come of them if I turn them over in my hands long enough and wear away some of the stupidity and rough edges. My notebook as a giant rock tumbler, I guess....

One of them came out pretty well. It still needs considerable revision, but the ideas in it don't make me want to pack in my pens and swear off writing for the rest of my life. I need an editor so badly, somebody who I can share this stuff with who can tell me what's crap and with whom I can bounce ideas back and forth until some of these poor broken-winged birds can heal and fly again. I've got some things that aren't terrible, but again, I really need somebody else's eye, somebody I can trust.

Maybe one day I will make it to that meeting of poets in town. I'm not sure that's what I'm looking for, actually, but maybe it's a place to start.

The Beautiful Poet Boys

God save me from the beautiful poet boys, especially the ones who swing a guitar or other instrument in their hands. I swear, I think they're sent just to distract and destroy me. This fascination is rooted in my love for intelligent men. There is nothing sexier than a smart man. Add to that native attractiveness a gift with words and music, and it's lethal. However, there is always a sadistic twist to these guys that I flee in my saner moments. There is no such thing as a healthy, functional relationship with a beautiful poet boy, especially the musical ones, because, apparently, they have all been screwed up beyond all reclamation by somebody else. They also usually seem to be looking for somebody else to screw them up further, are flinging themselves sacrificially on the altar of some great pyre to some woman who doesn't even notice or who gets a kick out of it. Maybe this is because it makes for good poetry and/or lyrics? I'm not quite sure of the philosophy there.... I'm going to develop my own version of the sign of the cross for this particular brand of temptation, my own lucky charm to ward them off. Since I'm a screwed-up poet girl (who can lay no claim to the title beautiful) myself, I think this is the best scenario all around.

Good Omens by Gaiman and Pratchett

I finished reading Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett today. I've had it on my "to read" shelf for about six months now, I guess, bought sometime after I finished American Gods. With school finally being out, time to read things not related to teaching has returned, and I started it Saturday and finished it today. I loved it. As always, the writing was flawless, but as one might expect with the addition of Pratchett to the mix, the humor was even more present than usual. I frequently found myself laughing out loud, not something one would expect given the subject matter.

I read the articles at the end of the novel about how it was written, and I found myself thinking about how much fun the two of them must have had working together on the book. There are rare pairings in music and literature when really gifted people get together and just play for the love of it, just tinker around to entertain themselves, and sometimes we mere mortals down here on the ground get blessed with the results.

I'm not trying to romanticize authors and musicians; I know they are people who have to get up and deal with all the issues of life, mundane and serious, but they also do things the rest of us don't or can't. They create these wonderful pieces of beautiful stuff that they are then kind enough to share. I think that's a fabulous thing, personally, and I'm really grateful to them for taking the time and effort to do it, especially because I don't believe even for half a minute that creating the things they do, despite the fact that it may look effortless in the finished product, is an easy thing.

Good Omens is one of those lovely things Gaiman and Pratchett were nice enough to share with the rest of us. I know I'm going to reread it repeatedly, and I'm looking into getting it in my traveling library on Kindle. I don't know if I'll ever be able to present my copy to get it signed or if I'll ever have to hold it together with string, duct tape, or place the water-damaged pages in a large ziplock bag, but rest assured, it's loved nonetheless. If you haven't tried it yourself, find out more about it by clicking here.

School Supplies

Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank my teacher. That is, I used to, until she got an unlisted number. ~Author Unknown

I have often thought that one of the key reasons I became a teacher is so I could keep buying notebooks, pens, pencil pouches, and other spiffy school tools every year. The beauty of the first clean page of a new notebook is a lovely sight to me. I have more colorful and decorative ring binders than even the most industrious of filers could fill.

There's just something cheering and somehow hopeful to me about walking down that aisle of unsharpened pencils and unbent folders. Each new eraser and sharp crayon is a wish for a good school year, for a student to find his or her path, for the love of knowledge to be kindled and fanned to flame. I guess that may be an awful lot to expect out of a plastic pencil bag or a package of pens, but from those small tools and symbols of my trade, I think great miracles can happen. Maybe it's a little like a magician and a wand....

Life Is a Highway

The car has become a secular sanctuary for the individual, his shrine to the self, his mobile Walden Pond. ~Edward McDonagh

I did my first driving over the past three days. Today was my first trip to town as I took myself in for therapy, and I felt as proud of that short jaunt as any teenager leaving the house without supervision for the first time. Two days ago, I got out in the late evening and drove around Podunk to test my reflexes and ability. I even drove over to a small town near here to get a fast food burger and enjoy the feel of the vehicle on the road again.

None of that compared with being independent in truth again today, though. I got up on my own schedule (and was, of course, almost late without the goad of making sure I wasn't keeping someone else waiting), and when I was ready, walked out, cranked up my own vehicle, and drove to the hospital. I found a parking place rather than being endlessly dropped off like an invalid, and walked in. I had a set of car keys to keep up with in a meaningful way instead of just to open the door when somebody else dropped me off home. It was good.

I had almost forgotten how much I enjoyed cranking up my stereo and turning the Cruiser into a flying karaoke machine. One of the local radio stations had a "Flashback Lunch" full of great old songs, and on the way home, I sang and sang. It's good that nobody could hear me, probably, but it was great fun. Most music is better when it's loud (at least when you're happy, I guess).

While it may seem like a lot to be placing on just being able to drive, it's amazing what just having that one thing back gives to my quality of life as a whole. Now I don't have to be such a burden to everybody else. If I need something, I can go get it. If I have an appointment, I can keep it without having to disrupt my entire family's day. It's nice to feel like a grownup again instead of like that hellish pseudo-preteen state I've been stuck in since I had to stop driving. It's reinvigorating.

Crutch-Free

I'm listening to the re-released Thriller album and getting ready to do some heavy-duty reading. Today is the day of MJ's memorial, which I totally missed seeing because I had PT this morning and spent the day in town. I guess I missed a landmark event for my generation, but I prefer to remember the music.

I am more than willing to have sacrificed my viewing time in any case because this morning my PT cleared me, albeit reluctantly, for walking without a crutch. For the very first time since mid-February, I don't have to have any form of support, no cane, no crutches, just me to walk around. It's intoxicating. I want to jump up and moonwalk around my living room, but that might be pushing it just a little bit right now.

My PT is picking up, too, exponentially. Today, the therapist put me on a rocker board as a new exercise, and I had to laugh a little privately. I think she and everyone else expected the big tall goofy girl to fall down with that, but it wasn't all that hard after doing tree pose on one foot for so long. I miss tree pose, too... Some of the other new exercises kicked my butt, though, and my knee is telling me about it now. I have new things to do at home, and I will keep working through.

Most importantly for me, though, is that I was also cleared to drive. I didn't jump off the table and turn cartwheels, but mentally, I was howling with unholy glee. Freedom, ladies and gentlemen. Sunday night trips to Newton for an unhealthy but delicious treat after playing the organ. Road trips to Jackson to see my best friend. For that matter, grocery runs to Meridian just to walk up and down the aisles of Wal-Mart and stare at plastic bottles of Diet Mountain Dew. Anything, anything, anything but being trapped here on the hill like a burden on others. Bring it. I've been more than ready for awhile now. I'm going to hook up my little iPod shuffle, crank my stereo and fly down the road like a bird rediscovering healed wings....

Well, MJ and I are going to have a night of reading as I await tomorrow to start all my new range of motion. I find myself much more patient now that I know I can do things. Just knowing the cage door is open is keeping me from throwing myself against the bars so much, I guess.

Things Not to Do

Restless, restless.... Midsummer is come and gone. The moon is almost full. I'm trapped again in this house waiting on clearance to be able to drive, and the joke of that, of course, is that even when it comes, there's nowhere to drive to anyway....

Schemes and ideas that certainly fall into the category of "Things I Shouldn't Do" flicker across my bored brain like flashes of heat lightning. I think about writing a letter to somebody I haven't written to in years, breaking that wall of conscious silence. I have an address; I just haven't felt compelled to use it. There hasn't been anything to say. Is there now, or is it just the humidity, the boredom, the almighty press of the living summer stirring the bottom of that settled pool up and muddying the waters? Leave it alone, leave it alone....

But what if I don't want to? What if I wanted to write that letter? What if I wanted to do one of the other things on that list of reckless things, too? Would the world grind to a halt, really? The simple truth of it is that not one other person in the entire universe would care, I might get an interesting story out of it, and at least I would feel like I had done something other than walk to the door looking north and stare, walk to the door looking south and stare, walk to the door looking east and stare.....

Restless, restless.... The moon will be up and full in a couple of hours. My satellite is out; the constant error message says it's looking for a signal. I am tired of reading. I guess I'll have to figure out something to distract myself with, or I really will wind up doing something unwise after all.

Longing

Spending last week in Washington has reawakened those longings I try so hard to keep dormant or dead. I really did like what I saw there, and I didn't expect to. The city felt livable, navigable, and the sheer luxury of being able to get on the Metro and arrive at the ridiculous wealth of one of the many free museums almost made me lightheaded. It was like a feast of fairy-tale proportions, and I've been starving for a long time now.

Just the architecture alone made it worth it. I could have taken my Nikon and spent days walking and shooting the details on common buildings without ever approaching anything like a national monument or historically-significant building. There was such a great blend of styles and a preservation of buildings that pleased me.

From the time I got off the plane, there was the wonderful sound of other languages everywhere. This, of course, is no surprise in the nation's capital, but it was wonderful to me to see other languages written, to hear them spoken, and to see restaurants and services catering to other cultures. I wanted to take time to quietly explore all of them and revel in it.

History, too, was an ever-present friend. It was impossible to turn the eyes or take a step without it tapping me on the shoulder or whispering in my ear. Things and places I'd heard about all my life suddenly were laid out before me like jewels on display. Again, there was far too much there to take in during a casual excursion such as mine. It needed a much deeper exploration.

And what shocked me, ultimately, as I got on the plane to leave, was how much I wanted that deeper exploration. I wanted very much not to be leaving Washington at all. I know that living in a place is never the same as vacationing in one, and I certainly heard enough "natives" complain about it while I was there, but I can't help but thinking that at least for a little while, I would have enough to dazzle me that no matter how bad it was, the positives would outweigh the rest.

A Song for the Fourth

I heard this song today in a mix of songs put together by NPR. It came from a Ken Burns documentary soundtrack, the one for The War. It is melodic and lovely, but the lyrics are what set it apart from the other songs I listened to today in the five-hour playlist. It is a powerfully thought-provoking song about what it means (or perhaps, should mean) to be an American.

It reminds me a little of Kennedy's famous "Ask Not" speech in its focus on giving back and giving of one's best to the nation. It's beautiful in the elevation of its sentiment. We live in times in desperate need of grand sentiment and of the fulfillment of and dedication to those noble ideals. What if we did all give our best to our nation, to our fellow man, to each other? Can you imagine what changes could happen here if we lived this way? It's something to consider as we celebrate the birth of our nation and its future.

Reading Of The Declaration Of Independence : NPR

How long has it been since you've really listened to or read the words of the Declaration of Independence? For me, I have to say that I haven't read it or paid much attention to it since whatever my last history or government class was ended. That's a shame. NPR has an annual tradition of reading it as the Fourth approaches, and I think this is a beautiful thing because it brings our attention back to those reasons why we became a nation, the very serious and dangerous issues the founders of our nation were willing to lay their lives on the line to fight against for us. If you haven't heard or read it lately, I encourage you to click the link below and take a moment on this holiday weekend to refresh your appreciation of our nation. Reading Of The Declaration Of Independence : NPR

National History

Today I saw the National Archives amongst other landmarks here in DC. I didn't expect to be all that impressed to tell you the truth, but I should have. After all, paper and the things that people are moved to put on them, the words that are the living avatars of ideas and emotions, are the foundation of what I am and do.

I wound up there almost accidentally. I got separated from the group I was traveling with early this morning. A communication error led me to believe that I had missed them in the hotel lobby, so I threw my crap in a sack, tucked my ubiquitous crutch under my arm, and hobbled to the Metro station, one of which is mercifully only steps from the hotel in which I'm staying.

The DC Metro is an absolute dream. After navigating the subways in Japan (in Japanese, I might add), these are so simple and easy! The Japanese subways were always convenient, too, but there was always the worry that I was going the wrong way because of my stupidity with the language. It happened on more than one occasion. These trains here, though, have provided me with a freedom I haven't had since before my knee surgery. It's pure heaven to be able to go and come as I please without having to wait for someone to drive me.

Once I got to the National Mall, I decided to go to the Archives instead of trying to meet my friends at the Washington Monument since a) I'd have to hike 100 miles to get there and b) there was already a mile-long line snaking its way around the base. It turned out my friends had the same idea, so we toured through the Archives together, seeing the foundational documents of our nation, bits and pieces of trivia and personal data from people who were never famous but who were important nonetheless, and a great many other interesting things.

The room everyone goes to the Archives for, though, is the room with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. It's as solemn, dimly lit, cold, quiet, and ornate as any ancient temple. Maybe that's appropriate in its way. The items in their cases are large parchment squares, and most of them are so faded by time and wear that they are mostly illegible save for the flourishes of Hancock's showy J or the beautiful calligraphy of "We the People" atop a page. One can only trace some of the letters, and in places, imagination is called to replace what the naked eye cannot scan at all.

This in no way diminishes one fragment of their power. If anything, it only makes them stronger. Despite the ravages of time, ill care, and the elements, they have survived. They have endured. Now, with the best sciences possible, they are protected as well as or perhaps even better than the Crown Jewels. I think there's a very heavy-handed allegory here, or at least I'd like to think that we're bent on conserving more than just the paper form of those documents. I'd like to think that just as much care and concern was shown by every branch of our government, by every citizen in this land, that just as much pride and respect was given to the nation as to the paper symbol. Otherwise, I think our founding fathers would agree that their purpose has failed.

Eras Ending

Today both Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died. With them goes a big piece of the 70s and the 80s pop culture. My friends on FB are buzzing about Michael Jackson. We all grew up with his many incarnations, and we're exchanging notes about the first time we saw Thriller or the sparkly glove. His personal life came to overshadow his music, and I think that's a real shame, because that early stuff was really good and continues to be so. I hope that in these days when he will be a media circus for the last time the networks will be respectful. I know that is to much to ask for, but it would be nice to allow some dignity to the dead in honor of that shared spark of humanity we all share regardless of what skeletons might be locked in the closet.

Not Enough

If you're going through hell, keep going. ~Winston Churchill

Since Saturday, things have just been insane. Dad has been in CCU since the heart attack, and we've been shuttling back and forth to visit him there, going to my PT, and trying to take care of the minutia of daily life. Mom and I are both at the breaking point with it all. It's too much.

This is a season of trial, I suppose, but I don't feel like I can do enough to help out with it. I am trying to do what I can, but as I watch the toll it's taking on my mother, it seems woefully inadequate. I can only make calls, act as a communication center, deal with computer-related issues, and try to control my own reactions.

Tomorrow will be another surgery, another stressor, and there are a whole handful of things that need to be scheduled and taken care of by way of repairs, visits, and maintenance. If there were only three of me, and if at least one of them had healthy movement, maybe we could get some of these things taken care of.

Breaking Point

I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once. ~Jennifer Yane

I'm humming like a high-tension power line, like a rubber band that is being pulled tighter and tighter. When the world starts falling in, it just keeps collapsing it seems.

The past two days have been difficult on so many levels and for so many reasons. The big obvious ones don't need explanation. Watching someone you love go through something like a heart attack is sufficient unto itself. The trivial crises of daily life, too, don't need explanation, the lost items, the broken appliances, the frustrations of injury or inability. All these things are pebbles in the pan of the scale, but not the things that cause it to tip.

Instead, the things that make that balance swing are feather-light, but unbearable all the same. It's watching perfect strangers being told that I'm unable to handle basic situations like I'm some sort of mental and emotional incompetent. It's having to pretend that I'm an absolutely solid rock of Gibraltar or have to be relegated to a corner like a crippled child for daring to show a shred of emotion. It's never being allowed to talk about any experience I've ever had without being told that I don't really know what that experience is because someone else has lived through that experience or something like it before and is therefore the undisputed expert nonpareil. These are the tiny moth-wing brushes that are destroying me.

So I swallow down my every response, something I swore long ago that I would never do again, and I go on. What else is there to do, really? I comfort myself with the knowledge that misconceptions of me don't have to become the realities of who I am. But all the time, I can hear the discordant sound of the strands of my soul tightening, tightening....

Heart Attack

My mother came in while I was participating in my favorite Saturday sport, couching, and said, "Don't go to pieces on me. Get up, get some shoes on, and come with me right now." No conversation that starts out that way can possibly preface anything good. Today was no exception. Today I saw one of the scariest things I've ever experienced in my whole life. I watched my father have a heart attack.

Dad was out in the van. I limped around the house in a moment of complete brain failure after Mom told me that he was having chest pains, but I managed to find my purse, my crutch, and my flip flops, put Roux in her crate, and get to the vehicle, flailing madly all the way. Dad was in such terrible pain. Mom drove like mad to get to the hospital, faster than I have ever seen, but I don't know that I have ever felt that short trip to town to be longer. We ran red lights, stop signs, and wove in and out of traffic like we were in a high-speed chase, and finally we wound up at the ER.

The next hours passed as if we were encased in amber. Time disappeared, but some of the strangest details are stuck with me. I can remember the bizarrely cheerful pattern on the curtain in the cardiac unit of the ER. I can remember the red rhinestone pin the cardiologist wore on her white coat when she came in, and I remember the black leather jacket and motorcycle helmet the CCU nurse had on over his scrubs as the team began to trickle in from wherever they were before they were called in to attend to Dad's emergency. Everything in the ER, of course, was blue. That observation struck me again. Blue gloves, blue gown for Dad, blue scrubs on every nurse and tech except the doctor herself, the CCU folk, and the phlebotomist.

Once they took Dad up for a heart cath, one of my very best friends and her husband along with my pastor came to sit with us. I don't know what I would have done without them there to distract me. In that timeless little waiting room stuck off in a silent back hall, I think Mom and I would have gone crazy without something to do other than stare at the walls and think.

Hours passed, and when the word came that they had restored blood flow to Dad's heart and stopped his pain, relief came for us, too. We got to see him in CCU during visiting hours, and that awful grey pallor had gone. He seemed to be much more comfortable.

We'll go back to see him tomorrow morning for the first visitation. I'm about as tired as I've ever been, but I am so grateful that he's still with us. It's such a blessing.

Learning to Walk

Wash out your ego every once in a while, as cleanliness is next to godliness not just in body but in humility as well. ~Abbe Yeux-verdi

Twice in my life, I've had to learn to walk again. The first time was in 2001 after a serious surgery. That was mostly a matter of abdominal stitches and feeling as though I was going to split in half everytime I stood up or took a step. This time has been a little bit different.

Since having my ACL replaced a month ago, I have literally been relearning how to place my foot and move my leg, consciously having to think about something most people take for granted in the same way as moving air in and out of their lungs. It's been a philosophical journey as well as a physical one.

Each day I go to PT, my therapist has me take a couple of laps around the gym, simply focusing on the mechanics of walking. The good foot takes its step; then my injured leg must strongly snap forward both from the hip and from the knee. The knee itself must go straight, something that has been a long time coming, and when the foot lands, it must roll from the heel to the ball of the foot before the good foot can take its stride. The toes need to be pointed forward, turned neither too far in nor too far out. All these myriad adjustments are things that I never thought of at all prior to the 19th of May, but are now a part of my every step.

It's amazing to me how complex our smallest motions and everyday processes are. It's humbling how hard it is to reteach myself those most basic of things. As I make my trips around the gym concentrating on straightening the knee and planting my heels firmly, I almost feel like it's a meditation like yoga. It's good sometimes to bring intense focus to simple things.

Lost iPod

Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without. ~Confucius

So once I started moving around again and trying to gather things together for short trips around town, I began looking for my iPod. I think I was going to put the Wood Bros. album on it, in fact, when I realized that it wasn't in my purse. I went to my bigger purse and dug in it. No small black case. Unfazed, I turned to the large green L.L. Bean messenger bag that had been my lifeline during the last few weeks of school and started looking through the vast wreckage of paperwork and other debris from my last day moving out of my classroom. Nada. Zip. Zero. The first trickles of alarm started to make themselves felt. I tottered around my house, and with the help of my mother, proceeded to to generally destroy my kitchen, go through every box I brought home, contort into impossible positions to explore the vehicles, look under and behind all the major pieces of furniture, and peer into all the containers or bags that might have possibly held my iPod. It was a completely fruitless search.

I don't know where it is. My parents speculate that we somehow managed to pack and tape it up in one of the 22 boxes currently in storage at school. I am praying that this is the case. That iPod, as silly as this will sound, is special to me.

It's not the thing itself so much as what it represents to me. Dad gave me the money to buy it. I had been wanting one for a long time, but coming up with big chunks of money to blow on electronic gadgets, as much as I do love them, is not something I can do very often. Dad had gotten an annual bonus at work, and he gave me part of it with very specific instructions to spend it on something I wanted, not on a bill, household repairs, or anything like that. I sat and thought about it, probably far longer than the situation warranted, and I decided that an iPod was the thing I most wanted.

I went to the online Apple Store, and I ordered the Product Red edition Nano. I even had it engraved on the back. I loved it from the moment I took it out of the box. It wasn't just the sleekness of the design and the fact that, at last, I had such a huge chunk of my music with me. I could feel that same happy surprise and that same loved feeling I felt when Dad gave me the money for it each time I used it.

Hopefully, when the boxes are all opened and my room is restored to whatever configuration the 2009-2010 school year will have, I'll find that small black case amongst all the binder clips and hanging file folders. It will be a wonderful small miracle with which to start the year. In the meanwhile, I went to amazon and found a 2nd generation refurbished Shuffle for about $20 so I'll have something to take on a trip later this month and to use throughout the months to come. It won't begin to take the place of my beloved Nano, but maybe it can be a substitute for the time being.

Incentive to Learn Another Language

Learn a new language and get a new soul. ~Czech Proverb

Into Which Camp Do I Fall?

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." -- Plato

Well, the answer to that is all too clear....

Things I Wish I'd Said

My best friend recently did something which still leaves me in awe at her bravery. She, after being put back in touch with a high school romance, asked a question that had bothered her for a long time. She said a thing she needed to say, and while she hadn't been brooding over it for years or anything Lifetime-esque like that, she had the satisfaction of saying that thing. How brave she is!

I never do that. Put me in any situation requiring any sort of expression of emotion, and I will always put on my smoothest mask, a slightly distant smile, and retreat inward. Blame it on my Aquarian nature, blame it on growing up an only child, blame it on whatever you like, but I've never had the satisfaction of saying the things I wanted to say. Only in retrospection do the right things or the true things come to me sometimes. Other times, I know what I want to say, but my reserve keeps the words trapped inside, beating against the walls of my heart like a panicked bird longing for freedom.

This, then, is a little exercise in fantasy. What would I have said, should I have said, or did I indeed long to say in some of life's small and large moments? Some of these are big deals and some of these are trivialities. These apply to different situations which I may or may not elaborate on.

1) Goodbye. -- to A. leaving Japan since I didn't know I was never going to see her again.

2) What is it, exactly, that you want from me and that you see in me? Why am I not enough for you, but you always seem to wind up on my doorstep when it all falls down? Was there ever anything at all? -- to the one I spent most of my undergrad confused over.

3) Go straight to hell. Don't think you didn't hurt me, but don't think for a minute that I won't rise from these ashes and be stronger for it. You won't win. -- to T. after Indiana.

4) Is there any more room on that trip? I'm changing my flight date by a couple of days, and I'd like to see that World Heritage Site. -- to D. and crew as they headed to Cambodia

5) Tell me more about our family. -- to my Nana before she was gone.

6) God, you're adorable. -- to I. in Ireland.

7) If you can't be a positive, hands-on part of the solution, then please shut up and get out. -- too many times and places to specify.

8) How am I today? Well, actually, I hurt like the hounds of hell are clawing their way out slowly while little men with sledgehammers are smashing my skull into fragments from the inside. I want to curl into the fetal position in a dark, cool, quiet place and whimper, gibber, or scream until merciful Death takes me. That's how I am. How about you? -- again, too many times and places to specify.

9) You know what? I will put in my application for that job. -- to M. in Korea.

10) Yes, yes...you're frightfully clever. Good for you. Yes, I AM from the South. Aren't you a clever linguist to have figured that out and to have "tricked" me into having run through that sentence so I'd pronounce all my diphthong vowels for you. Yankee Schmuck. -- to unknown linguist in Japan.

11) Sure, I'll dance with you. And give me a pina colada, too. -- to G. in Costa Rica.

I think eleven is a good stopping place. There are some trends that are beginning to emerge, I think. Interesting. Well, that's one thing a blog is for, after all, personal reflection.

Bad Dreams

I have been having bad dreams lately. I don't know what's triggered them, but I hope they dissolve soon. They're the kind that hover around even after waking, leaving a trace on the day like the smell of burnt toast.

It may be because I've felt so bad physically the past two days with headaches, etc. That should be done, now, though, and tomorrow should get me back into whatever passes for "healthy" for me. Some of that residue of discomfort may be bleeding into my nighttime world.

Normally the Topamax keeps me from remembering anything whatsoever about my dreams. Before I started taking it, I always had vivid and bizarre dreams fit for sci-fi movie scripts, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always detailed and rich. This is just another thing along with precision in language that Topamax strips away.

Right now, I don't know whether this dream muting is a blessing or a curse. The pieces I recall include the usual gamut of daily life fragments being filed -- people I know, events and objects of the day -- but also things, people, and places I know nothing of bathed in that golden slant of light that's only seen in dreams. That unknown guy with the intense blue eyes and the long-fingered hands is back lurking in the corners again, not really menacing, but a confusing stock character who shows up like someone I'm supposed to recognize. Sometimes I almost think I do. I am probably a Freudian delight if somebody with some expertise in dream interpretation cared to sit down and analyze this crap.

Of course, all of this unrest (literally) is most probably because I have no schedule and because I feel so useless right now in my activities. I hope soon I'll be able to get out of the house and do more on my own. This constant dependency on others is taking its toll. Not all the happy readings, comedies, or songs in the world can make up for the feeling of independence.

Depressing News

I never read the news or watch it on TV. Maybe that seems like the "ostrich with its head in the sand" approach to life, but every time I do read a newspaper, go online and scan the events of the day, or God forbid, get trapped in a place with either FoxNews or CNN blasting their conflicting breeds of propaganda, I always feel so bad when I'm done that it's an amazing incentive to prolong the time between exposures.

Take today for example. I do have the CNN breaking news email feature activated so if the world ends, I will at least get a message on my BlackBerry, so when the shootings at the Holocaust Museum occurred, I found out about it. That event hit one of the NYT columnists I follow on Twitter about that time, and I followed a link to learn more. What I found there made me want to cry, as such things always do: hate, paranoia, racism bearing their deadly fruit in a place that should stand as a warning of what those worst of human traits can do to humanity.

Another comment later on from someone else directed me to a local paper, and there of course, the news continued to deteriorate. Jackson, our vaunted state capital, is now 4th in the nation as far as the murder rate goes; it's second only to Flint, MI for armed robbery. How does that even happen? If you're not from here, you may never have been to Jackson. When I think about how much smaller it is than cities it's beaten for this most dubious of crowns, it completely boggles the mind....

I'm going back on a news blackout, I think. I can't stand it. It's too depressing. There is never any good mixed in with the bad, and I don't want to have to feel more anxiety about this world that I live in than I already do. Ostriches, prepare your heads....

The Blog Does Its Phoenix Routine

I completely overhauled the old blog today. Part of that was driven by the fact that I feel terrible today in the wake of last night's migraine, so I'm mostly just lying here on the couch today with the netbook in my lap. In an effort to accomplish something like usefulness today, I decided I would take care of that other blog template.

The other thing that led me to this was the absolute non-functionality of that other template. While I loved the colors and the design at the top, the notebook design itself had always bothered me, as had the little tabs down the side that read "Undefined." Too much of my life is actually undefined without every blog entry being labeled as such. It also made all the photos that I import from various sources MUCH too large. Regular Blogger templates are supposed to help put a size limit on them without the author having to download, resize, upload, etc. Then there was the fact that there was no blogger bar at the top for navigation/ease of creation of new entries. That aspect of the old template drove me crazy from the moment I installed it. I've just been too lazy and/or occupied to try to fix it or replace it until today.

This template is a return to something much simpler, I suppose, but with blogs, simple is better. Most of the templates I looked at were so over-designed that one couldn't even read the posts. I want a little pizazz down the sides, but I still want the words to be clear. I think this one might be a good blend of those two things...at least until I get bored again and redecorate.

Anyway, all the traditional accoutrement of bloggage is back, at least as far as I know, anyway. I added a couple of new widgets for you to toy with if you have the time. The Magic 8 Ball is a perennial favorite of mine in all its many forms, so I hope you'll forgive its presence here. Smile indulgently. You might as well....

Geek Flags Flying

I've been tweeting tonight with some of my twitter friends about the joys of "geekery." The prompt for this was the fact that on a Monday night, I was trying to decide between watching Sci-Fi's Star Trek: TNG marathon or the new box set of vintage Dr. Who I just got from amazon. It struck me as funny that all my viewing choices (or the only ones I was interested in, anyway) were those that would settle that Geek Queen crown more firmly on my head.

You know what? The heck with it. I'm a geek. I claim it. I even have little black stud earrings with the word "geek" on them in tiny green letters. I like computers, Twitter, Star Wars and Dr. Who. I know who Elric, Harry Dresden, and Gandalf are. Somewhere, in the back of my house, are a bag of polyhedron dice, a box holding my painted Warhammer 40K army, and several books related to various and sundry RPGs I played "back in the day." I have electronics named after deities from the Norse and Egyptian pantheon, epithets I gave because the gods and the tools matched up. I use words like "epithet" in blogs. I could go on, but I think this is probably enough evidence to convict in a court of law....

The thing about geekery is that it's a whole lot of fun, but it makes you mostly unmarriable. I love the things I'm interested in, the things I read, the friends I have. I enjoy "flying that geek flag." I just know that being this way has ensured that I'm going to live the rest of my days single. It's a real pain.

I have this fantasy guy in mind. He's intelligent, he's tall, he's funny, and most of all, he's as big a geek as me. We go do geek stuff together. He's even willing to load up and go to things like the Elvis Festival for the sheer geeky goodness that can be had. We go to the movies, enjoy the good ones, and MST3K the bad ones together (he knows what that is because he's a geek like me). He has odd collections, and he doesn't mind the fact that I have PEZ all over the walls of my office. He does, in fact, find this charming and not odd. Above all, he's not threatened by the fact that I'm independent and capable since he is, too. In my most secret fantasies, his computer gear is better than mine, and he's willing to share. Mmm.....

Okay, so I'm hamming it up just a bit. It just seems sometimes that the things I like are so different for some reason than the interests of most of the people I know. Maybe they're all secret geeks, too. Wouldn't that be funny? Of course, I guess they might be something worse.... I'm just going to keep on with what works for me, even if that means it's just me. As my friend C always used to say, "I gotta be me." That's all I know how to do.

Wood Brothers

During those last hectic days of school, one of my students was in my classroom working on something, and he happened to recommend a CD to me, Ways Not to Lose by the Wood Brothers. Those last few days, we were all furiously working away on laptops, he on his, another student on hers, I on one loaned to me by Technology since mine had died an inconvenient death, and he played me a brief sample of their music. I liked what I heard well enough to write down the title on one of my ever-present Post-Its and stick it to the back of my Seagate case.

The other day when I was moving files from my resurrected school laptop to my Seagate, I found the Post-It, and I looked up the album on Grooveshark. It's great. I love the stripped down Southern sound of it, but what I like even more is the craft of the lyrics. If you've ever read any of my other blogs about music, you know I'm a sucker for a good songwriter, and whoever is writing these knows what he's about. The songs are original and intelligent without being pretentious.

I downloaded the mP3 album from amazon last night, and I already have favorites. I love "Luckiest Man" and "Chocolate on My Tongue," and of course any band than can pull off a respectable version of one of my favorite old hymns, "Angel Band," is going to get my respect. Another that I love the lyrics to is "The Truth Is the Light." The words and imagery in that song resonate with me.

I foresee this one going into heavy rotation with me. I'm glad I followed up on that recommendation. I'm going to link four songs here with Grooveshark. If you haven't heard it yet, you might want to check it out for yourself.

The Moon

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day. ~Vincent Van Gogh

As usual during the nights of the waxing moon, I haven't been able to sleep very much. The last two nights, though, the moon has been amazing in its beauty. Its color and size have made it look like a luscious piece of fruit laid on a bed of blue velvet as it has risen.

Nights like this make me want to go walking in the pasture and in the woods, trailing my fingers through the long grasses and across the leaves. There are deer in the pasture, and on nights silvered like this, the angle of the light makes me feel as though I could run with them, fleet-footed and graceful.

I wish I were at the Red Field, at our shack in the pasture, tonight, so I could see the sky unobstructed. I think there is no better place to observe than the porch there. It's so peaceful and lovely.

No matter how far we come into this technological age, we cannot escape the old magic of the moon. Maybe something in our blood surges in response to it just as the tides are pulled by it. We're fascinated by it. It shows up in our songs, in our poems, even in advertising and decoration.

Maybe it's just the change in perspective it lends to everyday scenery. Even things that are not at their best (and I guess even we ourselves can fall into that category) are somehow made lovely again. What a wonderful gift to receive every month.

Kicking, Just Not Very High

Today was my first active session of PT, and it really kicked my tail. Most of the activities were fairly easy to do, more about stretching and repetitions than about any real weight-bearing or force, but at the end of the session, the therapist, who reminds me a bit of a pixie for some odd reason, peeled the backing off three adhesive electrodes, and hooked them to the long muscle on the top of my thigh leading down to my knee. That's when all the real fun began.

The electrodes were hooked to a battery pack which released a charge every ten seconds. The charge fired for ten seconds and rested for ten seconds. The therapist adjusted the intensity to something just under pain and told me how to perform a set of exercises using the electric shock as an extra stimulant to pull the leg muscle and therefore the knee tight.

Unlike some of my electrical engineering friends, I have never had a deep personal affection for electrocution. I never stuck a fork in a wall socket (D -- you know you did it, if you're reading), I don't work with electronics and come home with arc burns in my hands (Dad), and I've never felt the need to tinker around inside my home computer or electronics to see what "that wire there does" (that one applies to so many of my friends that I will just let it hit whomever is appropriate). The feeling of electricity coursing through that big muscle in my leg was a brand-new thing for me.

The pixie therapist asked me several times if I was in pain, and I wasn't exactly. Pain wasn't the right word. I don't really have a word for what it was. It didn't hurt, but it wasn't like something you'd want to have going on all the time, either. Maybe it was like a million little things dancing a jig with a million little pointed metal feet inside my skin. My main answer when asked how I was feeling was, "Strange. Bizarre." I think this must not have been the standard answer she was used to receiving for this treatment because she looked at me a little oddly. I'm almost immune to that, though. After all, it's not like that's the first time I've gotten an odd look.

When the session was over, she took measurements again for how far the knee can bend and straighten, and I was thrilled to hear her say that it has come remarkably far since even Monday. I reduced the numbers that needed reducing and increased the ones that needed increasing, and although I'm still not able to do simple things like drive or be crutch-free, I have taken some important steps toward getting there. I left feeling buoyant. I may not be kicking very high, but at least I'm kicking.

Baby Steps

I went to PT for the first time Monday. The therapist did an assessment, took basic measurements, and checked to see how much progress I had made since surgery. The news was mostly good. I still have a lot of work to do, but I felt quietly optimistic when I left. She confirmed several things I had thought might be true about pushing myself further with exercises, weight-bearing, and so forth, and at no point did I want to cry or fall down, so I felt like it was another small victory. Any visit to the hospital where I don't want to do one of those two things is a small victory....

Today, I got my hair cut. It needed doing badly. I hate the cowlick in my bangs that starts to curl like horns whenever it gets the slightest bit too long, and I was already way past that point. After the haircut, Mom, my constant chauffeur, and I went to eat at an Italian restaurant for lunch. It was the first sit-down restaurant meal I've had in a very long time, and one of the first non-microwave meals in a while. It was a delightful eggplant florentine calzone, and along with the tiramisu for dessert (I was NOT missing that), it was a feast.

After lunch, I still felt mostly energetic and Mom needed birdseed, so we decided to go to Big Lots. I haven't been to any kind of store in months. The last time I went was just dreadful. I tried to do some Wal-Mart shopping myself, and the pain in my pre-surgery leg was excruciating. Today, I crutched around the store for about 30 minutes before I started hurting and wore myself completely out.

I only bought one or two small things, a laptop riser and some Pirouline, but just being able to get out and be mildly independent was very nice. Granted, I can't drive myself yet, and I had to ask Mom to bring the cart to the things I wanted, but at least I wasn't sitting in my big chair or lying on the couch. Motion felt liberating, even if the feeling was something of a self-deception. Sometimes the lies we tell ourselves are the most important ones....

Well, I still have to do my last set of exercises for today and crank on the knee one good last time tonight. I also want to read some more of this really good biography of the six wives of Henry VIII I'm working on right now, so I'll draw this to a close. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? I'm going to trust that it will be more progress, and not a very, very ANGRY knee.

Summer

Today is the second day of my summer vacation. It's just now starting to register that I don't have to go to school tomorrow, and that giddiness of unexpected freedom is just now starting to flow through my veins.

Tomorrow I have to go to physical therapy for the first time, and I know that's not going to be fun. I am, however, looking forward to starting on the serious road to recovery with my knee. I'm already able to walk/hobble for short distances, and although it's a small thing, I'm proud of it.

I wanted to travel this summer here in Mississippi, to go to Clarksdale and to Natchez and do some simple tourism, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to get back on my feet fast enough. What I will be doing is spending time up at our shack in the woods on the porch with my Kindle reading. Just the thought of being able to do that without a pile of papers waiting on me is a luxury like sliding into a hot bubble bath. I can't wait.

Huginn Arrives

"Every morning the two ravens Huginn and Muninn, are loosed and fly over Midgard; I always fear that Thought may not wing his way home, but my fear for Memory is greater."
-- Odin, From Grímnismál

Earlier this year, I was named STAR teacher by one of my wonderful students, and I was surprised to learn that there was a check that came with that. I pondered for quite some time as to what I should use that money for. I wanted it to be something lasting and something that I could use in relation to school as befitted an award given for teaching. Since my school laptop weighs a ton and has started dying at intervals, I decided to explore netbooks. The result currently perches on my lap, sleek, black, light, and lovely.

In keeping with my tendency to name things either literarily or mythologically, I chose to name it Huginn. Paired with my 500 G Seagate Freeagent Muninn, I now have both Thought and Memory working together, and what a pair they are. The netbook is an MSI Wind, and it's wonderfully fast. I am still in the process of updating everything and getting all my programs loaded on, but so far, I love it. I can't believe how nice it is not to have all that weight sitting on my lap! This is what computing should be, light, portable, and simple. If I need a workhorse, I have a desktop in the back for big stuff.

The keyboard is taking a little getting-used-to, but to be honest, it's not all that much smaller than usual. I had a wireless mouse, and I attached it. It's much better than the touchpad for most things. I ordered a skin from skinit, so when it gets here Huginn will look good, too.

I'm looking forward to a pleasant summer of recovery and convenient computing. It will be a nice change.

Seven Days After

It's the one-week anniversary of the day they re-threaded my knee. Is there a Hallmark card for that? No? Slackers. I can't believe they haven't hit that one yet....

The knee itself is UG-LY. Sometimes it swells, but even when it doesn't, it's kind of a science-fiction-ish thing. The sutures are small, so this set of six scars will not be too bad. My knee is mostly still shaped like a knee, also pretty good. Right now, the worst part of any of it is the bruising. It looks like they hit me with a hammer all the way down my shin. Maybe they did. What do I know about it? The very cute anesthesiologist (a Dr. Luke) and/or his nurse anesthetist gave me some Very Good Drugs indeed, and I was gone long before I knew more than that the tile in this operating room, too, was blue. (Is it blue in all of them?)

I tried to go to school yesterday to take care of finalizing senior grades and closing out other things, but that was a mistake of epic proportions. I was okay for about the first hour, and then I started to have pain and disorientation. I made it through until about 1:30, and then I had to leave.

There were a few good moments, though. I got to see several of my seniors. I already miss that class. They were, for the most part, very sweet. Two of our very best brought me an arrangement of yellow roses. The roses are lovely, and once Mom and I found a spot here in the house where the cats won't snack on them, they brighten up my exercises.

I will try to express my gratitude to everyone for all that they've done in some nice thank you cards here soon because I know I haven't been able to express it verbally in my typical fashion. So many people have done so much, been so kind. I am humbled. There are some that I'm simply never going to be able to repay, like my mom and my friends at school who are picking up all the loose ends and keeping them from unraveling. Those debts go too deep.

I will have to sleep again soon. That's mostly what I do now. I am trying very hard not to get frustrated, but as you know if you read much here, I am not a patient person. My Wonder Woman complex tells me that I should be leaping tall buildings, blah, blah, blah, and my poor human body just laughs and laughs, demands a Vicodin and dozes off. I am trying to look at this philosophically as a patience-building exercise, but really, there is only so much sophistry my mind will let me get away with.

This, too, shall pass, I know. In the meantime, I think a nap on a rainy afternoon sounds about the right speed. I think there's a cryocuff full of ice waiting, too. This, right now, is my definition of bliss.

Dead and Gone (Sookie 9)

Here there be spoilers....

Friday, I ordered the ninth book in the Sookie Stackhouse series on my Kindle, and I finished it about midnight that night. I've been turning it over in my mind for the past two days, and I think now I'm ready to write about it a bit.

I have a mixed reaction to this book. The fact that Sookie is back with Eric in any way, form, or fashion makes me happy. I love the big blond vampire. I think he and Sookie fit each other very nicely. There is more tenderness between them in this book than in any of the previous ones, in fact more just simple contact time, and that was very satisfying. I was getting very tired of everything between them always having to be put off until later. I liked that they talked, that they spent time together not fighting, not being jerked around by higher powers, and that they actually shared some things other than blood or sex with each other.

I like that Eric is being more direct with his feelings. He's still sneaky, though. The bit with the bonding knife was classically him. I wish Harris would write a short story sometime from his POV. It would be nice to know what's going on inside that clever and calculating mind.

I did NOT like what happened at the end. It felt like something I've seen other authors do whenever they suddenly realize they have too many characters on their plates, a "housecleaning" of sorts. Claudine, in particular, bothered me. Maybe more than any other character in the whole thing.

I also have to say that I hate the fact that there is any ambiguity about Bill remaining. I don't think I'm going to be able to keep reading this series if Sookie goes back to Bill, even temporarily. I know there are probably die-hard Bill fans out there who swooned and cheered at the end of this one, but to me, Sookie and Bill were never a good match. He doesn't have the fire to keep up with her.

Also, really, really, really, I don't want Sam to declare how much he loves Sookie. I mean, yeah, we all know that he does, but if he makes that declaration, it's going to stink to high heaven. I like Sam, but I don't think he belongs with Sookie, either.

Ultimately, I did like the book. I love the series as a whole, so I was bound to, I suppose. I hope that someday soon we'll see Sookie be able to be happy with one guy. I don't think the series would have to suffer if that were true. Harris has created such a rich world that there are other plot lines to explore other than the perpetual dance of guys around Sookie's front porch. In fact, I think it might be a lot more interesting if that weren't the only thing or the main thing going on.

Scorpions and Starlings

This past week was filled with lots of animal oddness. It started with Roux injuring herself in a bizarre way last Saturday. She was outside to play for awhile during the afternoon, and when she came back to the house, she had two pencil-sized pieces of cedar impaled through her paw crossways. I still don't know how she managed to get the first one in, much less continue on to get the second one sideways.

I called Dad, he came down and picked us up, and we took her to the vet for emergency surgery. I stayed with her while the vet rendered her unconscious and cut the wood from her poor paw. She has stitches between most of her toes, but she, in her typical pit bull manner, doesn't seem to notice it much. She stayed at the vet for the weekend, and now I'm cleaning the sutures each day with peroxide and shoving an antibiotic down her throat twice a day, but other than that, she's doing okay.

The next fun with nature moment came Tuesday. My TA was building boxes to help pack up my classroom for my big move at the end of the year, and she suddenly stepped away and said, "I think I just saw a scorpion." My TA is an extremely level-headed and reliable individual, and if she says she saw a scorpion, I believe her. I got up and limped around to the pile of flat boxes and began to lift them gingerly to see if I could locate the insect. Sure enough, after a couple of minutes, a brown scorpion about two inches long fell out of the flat box as I tilted it.

My TA, the student taking a makeup test, and I just kind of looked at it for a minute. Scorpions just aren't common here. However, I wasn't awed enough not to know what to do with a crawling nasty. My trusty Crocs flops smashed it flat. I do have to say though, that they're not very easy to kill. I had to step on it several times before it crushed. I am also glad it was a small one. Otherwise, I'm not sure a flip-flop would have been sufficient.

Since then, I've been surreptitiously looking around on the floor for "friends" of his/hers and praying that one was both male and alone. The thought of it having laid eggs in those boxes as little "surprises" for me to find when I open all those boxes in August is just shudder-inducing. I think I'll get some Raid before then. Surely Raid works on scorpions, too?

Anyway, Friday afternoon right before the last bell, I started hearing high-pitched shrieking in the stairwell outside my room. I stepped out to see what merriment prompted this, and I saw a poor little starling just crouched in a puddle of sunlight on the landing. The kids were backing away from it like it was rabid Bengal tiger. I knew with the bell about to ring, the next thing to happen would be that someone would harm it, either accidentally or on purpose, so I grabbed the first thing that came to hand, and empty file folder box, and eased my damaged knee down the stairs.

The little bird is one of the many that nests in the nooks and crannies of our old building. Occasionally, they come inside our building when one of the upstairs doors gets left open. They flutter around in a pitiful fashion, and of course, they are terribly distressed every time the classes change because of the noise and motion of several hundred active teenagers moving around.

As I approached it, it didn't move at all. I just placed half of the empty box over it. A student brought me a file folder and I slid it under the box, and then I slid a ring binder under that allowing me to lift the box with the bird safely contained in it. I got it up the stairs and took it out on the upstairs walkway. I opened the box. I was afraid that it was injured or shocked, but when I removed the lid, it flew away straight and true. My heart lifted with it as it soared away. It was a good ending to a bad animal week.

I hope next week will have less of a menagerie in it. I think I have had enough of bird and beast to last me for awhile. If not, well, I guess I will just have to continue to be creative with my solutions....

Moldova

Why aren't more people paying attention to what's going on in Moldova right now? Except for a random drop here and there, I hear nothing about the situation in our media. Perhaps the general public is unaware of what's going on, that people are being put in jail, being threatened, even being killed there. I think everyone needs to know this. I'm posting a link to a blog that is keeping track of news stories related to the ongoing situation in Moldova. I hope you'll check this situation out and spread the information about the shocking conditions there via Twitter and other social feeds since the major media doesn't seem to be noticing. True Moldova

Scars

My knee is going to require surgery; the depth of cutting is the only mystery left. The nurse practitioner, once I finally hacked my way through the Nurse Nazi front-desk personnel to get to her, was sort of astonished that I had not known how bad it was. Apparently I tore out one of the damaged ligaments a long time ago. "Old damage," she called it. "Are you really athletic? 'Cause we usually see this type of damage in people who are..."

It's amazing how much I had hoped that it was all in my head instead of lurking in my knee. Now I'm facing at least six more weeks of crutches, other people doing even the simplest tasks, ever-multiplying medical bills, and another stupid set of scars. It's impossible for me to tell right now which aspect of it is worst.

I can't begin to express how tired I am of people cutting on me. It seems that every epoch of my life has to be marked by a trip to a cold tile room where people made anonymous and sinister by sterile masks and gloves treat me with a certain condescending kindness, render me unconscious, and then hurt me for my own good. How tired I am of waking up with a drip in my arm in rooms with generic art that doesn't quite make "soothing" or "cheerful" despite a lackluster effort. Tired of presurgery paperwork, tired of mean and indifferent nurses, tired of postsurgery checkups, tired of bloodwork, backless gowns, the little barcode I become once I hit the surgery ward the day I check in at whatever ungodly hour I have to report for my "procedure."

Maybe the scars are the worst. Of all of it, the scars don't go away. I've seen the scars that accompany serious knee surgery, too. I just can't wait to add those to my freakshow collection. The set I have on my knee now is not noticeable at all unless you really look hard for them. They're the small old scars of a scope, and they get lost in the freckles that appear on my fair skin with the lightest touch of the sun. Who knows what I'll have to look forward to after this?

I'm trying to put all this in the proper perspective. After all, at least I will get it fixed. I can still walk. I have both limbs. I am alive and can see the tops of the cherry tree outside my classroom glistening in the sun. Life is not ungood. I am just struggling right now with the knowledge that in my future a scalpel is waiting for me like a thin finger of ice tracing its way down my spine.

Missing Yoga

I haven't been able to do yoga in about a month. It's ridiculous how much I miss it. My gear bag is in the back of my car still, and every time I open the back door of the Cruiser to throw my school bags and crutches in, I see the black canvas with its white moon and bamboo design and I yearn. I want to unroll the pretty striped Tappas mat and go into down dog to feel that incredible stretch rolling up the back of my legs. I want to go through the ritual of the sun salutations and raise my hands to the sky. I want to know the stillness of tree pose, find my balance, feel my breath calm and my mind relax.

I can't do any of it right now. I can't even walk for long enough to push a cart through the grocery store without wanting to grit my teeth. It's beyond frustrating. Just when I found something that I really loved and that I felt good doing, my knee came apart on me.

Wednesday's MRI should give me some answers. I only hope that the answers it brings will be ones that will allow me to get back to yoga someday. I have to believe that I will. Anything else is just unacceptable.

Poetry Contest 09

I won! The poem I submitted, "Teaching the Death of Ophelia," won first prize in our local competition. I am so proud. The poem was written about something personal, and I believed in its strength, so I am more gratified than I can say that others thought it was worthy, too. I really want to start trying to see if any of my work is publishable in larger forums, too, but maybe I can start that process this summer. Even though I don't have a lot of time and energy for writing right now, this is an inspiration to try to find the time.

Kindle2

I finally got a Kindle2. I have been looking at the Kindles since they first came out, but I kept putting off getting one for a variety of reasons. The first generation ones were a little bulky and new technology, which is always scary, and I am always broke, which was another powerful inducement to wait. When the K2s came out, though, I had a much harder time waiting. They are sleek and many of the complaints early users had were gone. I went so far as to place one in my amazon cart several times, but I didn't get one until Saturday of last week.

It came Wednesday. It's already one of my favorite pieces of technology. I have read two books on it and am about halfway through a third. I have about 25 books downloaded onto it including some of my very favorite rereads. Almost all of the books I've found so far have been free, too, since they are old enough to be out of copyright protection. It's amazing.

There are so many people and sites out there putting out literature for free. I find that to be a wonderful thing. It's like having a huge free bookstore with thousands of titles for the asking. Granted, the latest best-sellers are not free, but that's not a big deal to me. I pay less to download the ones of those I'm interested in that I would pay to buy them from my local bookstore. Plus, I can get them when I want them, something I can't always say about my local book store.

I've also noticed that with my Kindle I read much faster. I don't know why that should be true, but it is. It may be because of the adjustable print size or the ease of use, but even though I've always been a fast reader, I'm really flying now. The day I got my Kindle, I read the 8th Sookie Stackhouse novel and half of a Lauren Willig book, too. I'm now working on rereading Beloved.

Are there things they could do better? Absolutely. Sure. It's a device in development. I know that future models will just get better and better. I love the one I have now, though, for what it is: the integration of literacy and technology. It's time the two met and were friendly.

Sookie Stackhouse Novels

I have become addicted to the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris lately. I started reading them last weekend, and so far I'm up to book 7. I am ripping through them with great gusto, and I can't wait until my Kindle gets here so I can download the last two. The series is nothing like I thought it would be.

It's really quite beyond genre classification. There are elements of horror, mystery, "chick lit" (whatever that is), and a healthy dollop of good old fashioned romance novel thrown in for makeweight. The heroine is admirable, strong-willed, and thoroughly Southern. The guys (and I guess I have to use that term rather loosely, all things considered) who pursue and woo her are interesting and exotic. My personal favorite is Eric. Despite his shortcomings, he's just...well...let's say he's the type one wouldn't kick out of bed for eating crackers (not that he would, again, all things considered).

Once I finish with this series, I think I'm going to start her Lily Bard series. I have one of them on the shelf, in fact, and now that I know how much I enjoy her writing, I think I'll explore other avenues to see if they're as pleasurable to stroll. In the meantime, I will go see what else I have on the "to read" shelf now that Spring Break is allowing me to indulge my voracious literary appetites.

Waiting on My Kindle

I have been drooling over the Kindle2 on amazon for a long time now, but I have resisted temptation successfully until yesterday. I finally gave in after several days of having one in my cart and bought it. Now I'm just waiting for my favorite UPS driver to roll up the driveway with it so the real fun can begin.

I love pretty gadgets, to be sure, but that's not the only reason why I wanted to get one. I have thought long and hard about the way I read, and it really made sense to me to get a Kindle. I tend to rip through pulp fiction very, very fast. I can destroy a novel in a day, two if I get really ambitious and nothing else is pressing. It's very tiring to have to try to guess whether or not I'm going to like a new series enough to purchase all the books for it in order to have them on-hand for a big reading spree.

I also ALWAYS have at least one book in my bag. I never go anywhere without a book in case a moment opens up to read. Long trips mean even more books need to be packed, and sometimes I just have the wild urge to read something random. The Kindle weighs less and will be like a portable library in my bag. I'm pretty excited about that. So many of my favorite books are public domain and therefore downloadable as free e-books. The cost of others is less than it would take to get them from our local bookstore, and they'll come instantly.

I made a custom skin for it on this awesome site called skinit.com. I uploaded a pastiche of bookcovers from some of my favorite books to make the skin, so my Kindle will be protected, literary, and colorful. One of my least favorite features of it is the plain whiteness, but that was a fairly easy fix. I always have to customize everything I own, anyway, so I would have skinned it no matter what color it came in. I actually looked at the skins on this site, iStyles, too, but I wanted to make my own, so I did it on the other one.

I got a nifty Janine King carrying case from eBay. The style is really funky in a fabric called Geisha Fans, and I liked it way more than any of the cases on amazon. I decided that it had a lot of personality, and I enjoyed that more than the basic black or leather ones I was seeing elsewhere. I don't know why designers don't understand that people like to tweak things. Is it just me?

I have been surfing for free e-books, and I've been thoroughly astonished by how much good stuff there is. I already have 11 free titles ready to download from the Project Gutenberg offshoot site when I get the Kindle Wednesday including the complete Emily Dickinson Poems, something I often turn to for solace, and a collection of Jeeves and Wooster stories, one of my "feel good" standbys. I haven't even dug around very much yet, either.

Well, I think it's time to start digging for more stuff. My Twitter tweeple have been really awesome pointing out tips. I think this was a good investment in something that I'm going to enjoy for a long time to come.

And Another Thing...

I am in a permanent state of song-stuck-in-the-head, except I have a whole album stuck in mine. Chris Thile's How to Grow a Woman from the Ground won't get out of my head. If I'm concentrating on something else, I always start to hum abstractedly, and lately, it's been tunes off that particular disc that have always been the running soundtrack waiting to pounce. It's not that I don't listen to other things, either. I have tried to drive it out with ZZ Top, the Stones, Howlin Wolf, Ella Fitzgerald, Third Day, TobyMac, good disco, and Bach. That mandolin won't go, though. How does he do that? It's not annoying, just weird, but if it goes on much longer, I think I'm going to start getting worried....

Late Nights

Well, with the time change, I'm back to my late night routines. I love daylight saving time. I like the way the light hovers in the trees and the sky glows that greenish blue for a long time after the sun has dropped. It makes me feel like going outside and dancing in the pastures.

Of course, this also means that once again, I am not getting my work done. Grr... I am now, deluded soul that I am, feeling that it is only 10:00, when in fact it is now 11:00. I am frantically throwing together the last preparations for tomorrow's work day despite the fact that I really want to be bopping around the house cleaning, reading, and well....playing for lack of a more adult term. I feel playful, sort of like a big cat with some string being dangled before it. Maybe I have spring fever?

Oh well. One more week to get through until I can have some legitimate late nights with Spring Break. I can do this. I know I can.

Poetry Contest

It's time again for our annual poetry competition, and I'm trying to get my entries ready for this year. I think I'm going to take T.'s advice and enter one of my essays from here as well, but I'm having a hard time trying to decide what to do about the poems. I have a couple that I've been polishing although I haven't produced anything new in awhile.

There is one that I feel may be better than anything I've done in a very long time, and I really want to try it in a bigger pool than our local competition, but I don't know how to do that. I wish I had a mentor or an editor that I could ask for advice on this. I think back to my teacher at college, a published and publishing poet, and I long for his guidance.

The first experiences I had in his class were a little traumatic, to be sure. He would mercilessly remove everything that was not good from a poem and help to reshape it. It was like passing metals through a refining fire to remove the dross. After the first shock of not hearing, "Oh, that's so goooood," anymore, though, I came to crave that kind of red pen slashing. If it isn't good, I don't want it in my work. He never tried to make me sound like anyone but myself; he just wanted me to grow into the best version of myself possible. I wish I were in a place now where I could take my stuff back to him again.

I also hope, as I think about it, that I am giving that sort of feedback to my own students. I try to keep his model in mind when I grade. My students, especially my upper-level students, are already so good at writing that they don't need head-patting any more than I did. They need someone to help cut away all that is not gold, to put facets on those rough diamonds. I hope that they can go away from the experience with some new idea about how to be the best writer they can be.

Maybe I will be able to find someone else who can help me. In the meantime, I will make some decisions and try to figure it out on my own.

A Brush with the Past

Yesterday as a part of the Welty Conference, we went to the Medgar Evers house museum, maintained by Tougaloo College. Even though we were there less than an hour, I cannot get the place out of my mind. The image of the little house in its small lot persists with a tenacity that will not let go.

To get there, one turns off a four-lane strip of badly-kept highway labeled with black and silver signs that proclaim that particular stretch of road to be Medgar Evers Boulevard. It's down an unassuming side street in a neighborhood of modest, fading ranch homes. The lot seems too small to hold so much history or sadness, and even now, so many years later, there is an emptiness to this place that cannot be explained by the fact the mere absence of constant habitation.

The house itself has been restored to its original cheerful 60's aqua paint, something that clashes sharply with the huge historical society dominating the space between the living room and bedroom windows. The black and bronze surface reminds even the most casual eye that this is a place where history turned, where blood was shed, and where a life was taken in hatred.

Our guide for the tour, the archivist at Tougaloo, took us through those last troubled days of Evers' life as we stood crowded together in what had been his living room. Our feet shuffled across the wooden floors he'd been so proud to provide for his family; light filtered weakly through the windows set just a little higher than normal in the safehaven he'd tried to make. We heard the story of how he'd come home from a war to fight others here, a war to make a home for his family in this middle-class black subdivision nestled among the white ones, a war to bring an end to the artificial divisions in his home state based on the color of skin, a war to be accepted when even those he was trying to help saw him as a threat to safety and security.

When the archivist related to us Mrs. Evers' remembrances of the night her husband was assassinated, standing there inside that small room with the 1960's furniture and the piano in the corner, a feeling I cannot describe came over me. The story, so well-known, of the shot from the dark, the bullet that ended a man's life, came into the house, tore through the kitchen, and ultimately landed in the sink, was no abstract history lesson. It was no dusty fact to be cataloged or checked off. It was the stuff of real people's real lives, and I was standing there on the parlor rug, looking at the knickknacks on the shelves and the china breakfront, inserted into those lives, at least in some way. It was all too horrible to tell, too horrible to hear, too horrible to stand in that place, crowded as we were, and not be able to run away from. In that place, not ten feet even from where I stood, a man whose only "crime" had been to try to destroy evil had been slain in the most craven of ways right on his very doorstep with his wife and his children in the back of the house.

We toured through the rooms, looking into the reconstructed image of the Evers family's life. In the tiny kitchen, aqua blue appliances sit quietly, the refrigerator with the hole in the door from the shooting long since gone. In Mr. and Mrs. Evers' room, a cheerful pink chenille spread covers the bed, and a wedding photo sits on top of the dresser. In the children's room, the curtains were a bright colorful 60's animal print, dolls and sock monkeys sat in small rocking chairs, and the mattresses of the beds were on the floor to prevent a stray bullet from killing the occupants of that room in their innocent slumber.

When I got back on the bus, as others were finishing up their tours and comments, I spent time just staring at the outside of the little turquoise dwelling there hidden in the middle of Jackson. It seemed as if were too fragile, somehow, to bear up under the weight of that much sadness. I think a fortress of solid steel would have been more appropriate than plastered interior walls and a black shingled-roof. Those two small steps, one slightly larger than the other, that lead into the entrance from the carport were also much too small a stage for such a momentous event to have occurred upon them. Then again, history rarely happens in places where the setting is suitably grandiose.

I came away from the Evers House Museum with a new sense of urgency about knowing about my state's and my nation's troubled past. I have lived here, barring trips away, all my life, and until yesterday, I had never seen that place. It is a chunk of history as profound in its way as Plymouth Rock, yet it sits hidden, quiet, unassuming in the soft shadows of Mississippi's capital city. What else am I missing? I think I'd better find out, even though it may not be comfortable to know.

My Birthday

It's 12:09 am, so technically, my birthday is over. I haven't gone to bed yet, though, so it's still rolling as far as I'm concerned. It's just been a wonderful day.

I started planning this birthday informally last year. Last year, I got so sad over my birthday that it took a minor miracle to pull me out of the funk and depression of it. Once I got my head on right again, I promised that this year wouldn't be allowed to do that to me again. Therefore, I started looking for little ways to make sure this year turned into a celebration rather than some sort of wake.

When the program of events for our local theater arrived, I had my first idea. I would make a week of it. Thus was born the idea for the Week of Senseless Indulgences. I went to see Punch Brothers. I got a new yoga mat. I took myself out for meals I like. I bought lots of books and took the time to read them even if other things didn't get done. I left school at a reasonable hour. I made a concentrated effort to analyze why I was getting so stressed out over silly little things I had no control over and that don't matter in the long run anyway. It's been fabulous.

The cornerstones of the entire week, though, were today's Eudora Welty Conference at Millsaps and tonight's frolic with my best friend. The Welty Conference took us to the Medgar Evers home and to Eudora's house before returning to Millsaps to discuss the Welty short story "Where Is the Voice Coming From?" I will blog about the Evers house probably tomorrow. It was more moving than I can tell you, and I want time to get the words and the feelings together before I dive in to that subject. Right now, it's late, I'm tired, and my poor befuddled brain has had too much sugar and too little sleep to handle that subject with the care it deserves.

The dinner with my best friend was wonderful. We talked for hours, about the present and the past. Just getting to be myself again and not having to be someone else's responsible party or teacher was like shedding a heavy winter coat being worn in a hot room. I felt like dancing on tables. It was liberating, renewing, reviving, a cup of water on a wilting plant. I laughed like I haven't laughed in months. Even now, I feel my lips curving into a smile at the memory of some of our conversations. It was healing and good, and in many ways, it was the best birthday present I could have gotten.

I probably could say more, and later I may come back and talk about it again, about this new contentment with everything that has descended with 33, but right now, there is soft rain on the roof, a warm cat at the foot of my bed, and I am weary with laughing. I cannot think of a more enticing inducement to bed than that.

The Way I Wish I Could Resolve to Live

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -- Mark Twain

The Good Ones

As I'm listening to these two discs, Punch and How to Grow a Woman from the Ground, I find myself snared by the clever lyrics. Snared, in some cases, moved, and, in that place where I try to be honest with myself, a little jealous.

Being a person who is in every way fascinated by words, I enjoy good songwriters. Don't get me wrong; you will also find me blazing down the highway at lightspeed singing along with stuff that has almost no depth at all to it other than "loud" or "happy." Sometimes, I don't want to think or listen intently. Other times, though, I need the wall of sound to resolve itself into meaning, maybe because so much that goes on around me is so frequently meaningless.

There's a danger to the good ones, though. It's the same allure that's always there with my favorite print poets. Where there is genuine craft, there is something generating it, there is a magic shimmering just under a seemingly-calm surface that might pull you in before you even know you've been grabbed, take you on a journey that might be pleasant or painful, but will leave fingerprints on you either way.

Dickinson said, amongst other quotes of hers related to what poetry feels like, "If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry." I have felt that way once or twice in the presence of really good songs or poems. There have been poems that have left me jawdropped, either saying or thinking, "Yes, oh yes. Just so. This is what I've always wanted to say. Now that it has been written, nothing more needs ever to be said about this topic again." Some of them have been so right and keen that the reading or hearing of them was like being struck with a thin, razor-sharp blade in the heart, a moment of perfect pain. What I said on reading those probably isn't fit to print. Still others writhe through the veins like an intoxicant, bringing to the mind a slow, slow smile and memories.

A couple of these songs have this kind of evocative, almost physical, power, too. Track 13 on How to Grow a Woman from the Ground, "I'm Yours If You Want Me," is the auditory equivalent of being pinned to a wall and slowly, lusciously, voluptuously kissed senseless. There is such a raw honesty, self-doubt, and need in the lyrics and that is mirrored in the stripped-down nature of the music that by the time Thile gets the promise at the end, one wonders who ever could walk away? The string quintet on Punch has the same power but with different emotions and to different ends. The music is lovely, but it's the lyrics that are captivating me. These are the words of somebody who had the heart ripped right out of his chest and destroyed but is living on at least to tell the tale.

If these are the genuine article he's showing, if he's doling out little bits of his soul into what he is singing, then I admire what he's able to do more than I can say. My own personal "muse" has been largely silent now for about a year. I don't know if it is because of my schedule (teach, grade, come home, fall down, teach grade, come home, fall down...), because I am not pursuing those things that make the words and the blood flow (for me, love and travel), or because the migraine medicine I'm taking is suffocating said source of inspiration along with keeping me from being able to name common everyday things and focus properly. (Sometimes I feel like a whole team of engineers rewired my brain and did it badly. Maybe it was badly wired to start with, and that was the problem all the time....) Regardless, Thile's lyrics as much as the glorious riot of the group's music are going to keep me coming back to these discs and looking at whatever they come out with in the future. Maybe if I surround myself with that kind of power, some of it might awaken the spark in me, if it still burns at all.

A Poem I Found and Love

I found this in an anthology recently, and I am putting it out here to share with you my gentle readers. I loved this imagery. It makes my soul sing to think about it. Enjoy.


Emily Dickinson and Elvis Presley in Heaven

They call each other `E.' Elvis picks
wildflowers near the river and brings
them to Emily. She explains half-rhymes to him.

In heaven Emily wears her hair long, sports
Levis and western blouses with rhinestones.
Elvis is lean again, wears baggy trousers

and T-shirts, a letterman's jacket from Tupelo High.
They take long walks and often hold hands.
She prefers they remain just friends. Forever.

Emily's poems now contain naugahyde, Cadillacs,
Electricity, jets, TV, Little Richard and Richard
Nixon. The rock-a-billy rhythm makes her smile.

Elvis likes himself with style. This afternoon
he will play guitar and sing 'I Taste A Liquor
Never Brewed' to the tune of 'Love Me Tender.'

Emily will clap and harmonize. Alone
in their cabins later, they'll listen to the river
and nap. They will not think of Amherst

or Las Vegas. They know why God made them
roommates. It's because America
was their hometown. It's because

God is a thing without
feathers. It's because
God wears blue suede shoes.

Hans Ostrom

Punch Brothers

I just got home from the Punch Brothers concert, the treat with which I kicked off my birthday week Secret Celebration of Senseless Indulgence. I came home from school, actually sat on my couch long enough to eat a meal, got up and put on clothing that wasn't "teacher person" clothing, and went back to our beautiful restored theater for the show.

It felt a bit like making a prison break to get to go back to town at night for anything, much less not be wearing my standard issue "uniform," but it just kept getting better. I somehow managed to get my trusty seat next to the support pole again. Don't ask me how, but every single time I get tickets for this theater, I always wind up in either the seat I had tonight or the one on the other side of this same pole. I'm not complaining; there is more leg room and you don't have to fight anyone for an armrest. I just find it highly amusing. The place seats about 1000. How is it the computer just "knows" it's me? I'm pretty sure I didn't carve my name in the arm or anything....

Anyway, I got to the theater early enough to sit and enjoy the quiet and the beauty of it. For reasons recorded in earlier blogs, I feel a deep affection and almost a proprietary pride in this theater. I have known about it almost my whole life and longed to see it like it is now, so every time I go to see a performance in it and see it so full of life and beauty and hear performers pleased with it, I feel, for no good reason at all, as if someone complemented me on something I had a part in. As I walked up the staircase, I remembered tonight as I always do what it used to look like, and as I looked up into the repainted and gilded ceiling, I had no trouble recalling the strips of paint and paper that once hung there. Just being in that little jewelbox of a place fills me with satisfaction every time.

Once the music began, though, it was more than enough to take me out of contemplation of the furnishings. I had bought a CD of Punch Brothers when I first saw their program blurb in this year's concert listings for our theater. The description of their musical style intrigued me, and after listening to a couple of online clips, I had trusty Amazon send me their latest offering. I have been enjoying it for some time now. Nothing, though, can compare to seeing this group live. I love to watch the interplay between musicians, how they cue each other and sync together, and this group works together so well.

The style of their music pleases me, too. I love it when people take the time to master traditional styles and then innovate. I heard both tonight, and all of it was done well. I heard harmonies dissolve into pools of seeming dissonance only to resolve themselves sweetly at the right moment. I saw a string quintet wonderfully done with instruments more commonly found in other sorts of arrangements. You really have to know what you're doing to pull things like this off, and you really have to love it, too. This group tonight had both qualities.

I only hope we were a good audience for them. I sort of think, as usual, we weren't. We clapped in the wrong places, something I know is irritating from my experiences with my musician friends. I don't think the audience really got how good the banjo player really was, either, because playing the banjo doesn't require or even really allow the same sort of showy hand motions that guitar and mandolin will provide to cue an uninformed audience as to exertion. Our hearts were in the right place, though, so maybe that counts.

All in all, I had a good night. I got their other CD, came away from it feeling better and more like a person as opposed to the dreaded "dead teacher" than I have in weeks, developed a new musical line of inquiry, and, if I'm honest, got to look at a really cute guy (the banjo player) for a couple of hours. Pretty good start to the old birthday week.