What Were You Thinking?

Much in the news recently was Terry Jones whose church was going to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11 with a mass burning of the Koran.  When I first heard of this, I was, as I seem so often to be when I hear of horrifying things, in my car on my way to work. 

My first thought was disbelief.  How can anybody believe this kind of behavior solves anything anymore?  How can anybody believe that this sort of thing is what God wants his people to be doing?  I read up on the situation a little, and Jones claims it's all an attempt to get the NY imam in charge of opening an Islamic center near Ground Zero to talk to him.  

I wonder if it ever occurred to him that this behavior might be counterproductive.  The Koran is venerated in Islam, and the proper treatment of it is tantamount.  Why would any Muslim even want to come to talk to someone who would threaten to debase it?  It would be like someone crawling up on the altar of Jones's church and using the bathroom there.

God never called for Christians to go ye therefore and be offensive to everybody around them.  He never told his people to walk out into the peoples of the world and slap them in the face rudely, act superior, and deliberately do things that were acts of aggression and provocation.  He told us to be mirrors of himself, and since God is Love, I think actions like Jones which are all about threat and hatred are missing the mark.  Wars start because of actions like his. Lives are lost because of actions like this.  Hate grows because of actions like this.  People go further away from God because of actions like this. 

Jones backed off.  He got his fifteen minutes of media attention, which, probably, was all he was ever after to begin with.  I just can't help but feel, however, that harm was done just by the suggestion.  As a nation, as a world, as a humanity, we're now just a little further apart that we were before.  I'm sure it grieves the heart of God.

No! Child Left Behind

As I drove home today, I was turning over a puzzle that I can't solve:  how to help some of my lowest-performing students reach the levels demanded of them by standardized testing mandated by state and federal law.  These students work, for the most part, very diligently, but due to circumstances beyond their control, they may never make it to what the state and the fed in their almighty wisdom have said is necessary to get that most basic of tools needed to have any sort of success in life, a high school diploma. 

I'm tired and I'm confused.  What chance have these kids got?  I stood beside one as she took her test today, and she was working so hard, so very, very hard, giving me everything she had.  I don't know that it's going to be enough.  What am I going to do?  How am I going to bridge that gap?  I can adapt, accommodate, adjust, and basically rewrite everything I do; I can bend myself into a teacher pretzel, but I don't have magic.  I'm so afraid that I'm not going to be anything like enough when it all is said and done.  I'm afraid that I'm going to fail them.

It's a terrible feeling.  My day is split between student who will go on to be the proverbial doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs, who will blaze brilliant swaths through their chosen fields and trades, and then these little lost ones who are slowly slipping through the cracks of society.  Why can't there be a place for all of them to be okay?

Misplaced Saint

I forgot my St. Cecelia necklace this morning.  I ran out in my usual tizzy, and somehow, something happened to disrupt my routine of putting on accessories, and it didn't get slipped around my neck.  I didn't realize it until I reached up to fiddle with it as I habitually do.  I sort of felt around on my neck for it, and I immediately realized it was not where it was supposed to be.  It's amazing how much something like that, the absence of one tiny thing you're used to having on, can be a major difference in a day.

All day long, I felt as though something was off, and I must have reached for the chain and charm a hundred times.  I use the necklace as a worry stone, something to occupy my fingers with when I'm thinking or working.  As I've also blogged elsewhere, I also love the general symbolism of it.  I felt a little bereft without it.  Tomorrow, I'll be more careful.  I have enough other things keeping me off-balance without running out without my saints.

Prairie Arts

My best friend and I went to West Point Saturday for the annual Prairie Arts Festival.  We went two years ago, and intended to go last year, but a variety of things prevented us.  Prairie Arts sort of takes over West Point and fills that small town to the brim with artists, crafts people, and musicians every year for Labor Day weekend.  There are some truly remarkable things there.  In addition to the sales, they also have a competition, so the people who come bring their very best crafts to enter.  I saw some pottery and some glass that was exceptional.

Both my friend and I wanted to see specific artists that we'd seen before, and we hoped they'd be there.  We got up early and drove up.  The weather was gorgeous. The last time we went, it was horribly hot, but Saturday was cool with a breeze.

The artists I really wanted to see were a couple from Alabama.  They do face jugs and other pottery pieces.  I had gotten a fantastic piece from them two years ago when I was there, and I had been thinking about their face jugs for quite some time.  Fortunately, they were back, and I got a two-sided face jug.  He has wonderful personality.  The expressions on both sides are incredibly detailed.

I want to use it as a model to try to see if I can figure out how to make face jugs of my own.  I like the combination of vessel and sculpture in them.  They remind me of the ogre tiles of Japan a little with their grimacing faces and individuality.  They're ugly and fun.  I don't know if I can get to a point of competency with my pottery where I can make them, but I'm sure as heck going to try.

The whole day was great.  Being with my friend for a whole day was sort of an escape from our normal routines for both of us.  The only part we didn't get to do that we'd planned was a trip through MSU.  We tried, but State had a home game, and we got caught up in the massive herd of people trying to get into the stadium.  We just flowed through the campus with the river of other vehicles until I could find an out door that wasn't blocked, and then we got the heck out.  Maybe we can go back up there on a day when there is no home game.

I'd like to go back to West Point, too, on a day when there is nothing else going on.  It looked like a good town to take some photos in.  There were some lovely old signs that had been well-kept and so forth.  West Point has some nice junktique shops, too, so a day trip up there for MSU and photography might be in order soon.  After all, I can end it with a meal at Little Dooey's, and that's no small enticement.

I hope going to this festival is really going to turn into an annual thing.   It's so nice to spend time with my friend.

The Hand of Fate

It's amazing to me how just when the last point of unbearable horribleness is reached that something comes to give some relief.  The Hand of Fate swept in today and shoved me into a place where there was some surcease from the sorrow and panic that was destroying me.  I don't know if it's going to last, but at least for the moment, I feel better.  I feel like there are people around me who care.  I didn't know there were so many people who did.  It is the best sort of surprise, really.  And even if the floor falls out from under me again, I will have that to hold onto if it does.  I'm tired, I'm exhausted, and I'm going to bed now.  Tomorrow will be, hopefully, the start of a brand-new day.

Relics

I went out shooting today. (It just strikes me as I write that how different that phrase is for me as compared to most of the people who live around here.  Hmm.  I guess we're all shooting SOMETHING around here,though...)  I specifically wanted to get the rake we've been using on our family hay fields for as long as I can remember.  Its big wheels make surprisingly lovely patterns as they cross each other.  They're almost lace-like. 

The rake is a piece of equipment that my father and my uncle share, at least on one particular piece of property.  Today, I found it in a pasture near where my grandfather used to come and sit just to rest during a hard day's work or simply to escape.  My grandfather was tough-as-nails.  He farmed, raising cows and cutting hay, and worked on the pipeline all his life.  All my memories of him include overalls in various states of repair, even overall shorts my grandmother made him for the summer when he was home at the end of the day.  Even though he's been gone now almost ten years, the tree he used to lean against and read Westerns or spy novels still has his hard hat and a whiskey jug hanging there as if he were returning soon to sit in the cool near the creek and look out over the sea of green in front of him.

I find something almost overwhelmingly comforting about that.  I suppose some people would say that after a certain amount of time, leaving those relics hanging in the tree is a pointless thing.  To me, though, it's a reminder of family, of the great love he had for his work, for that place, for us.  Just seeing them there made me smile. 

Camera Plans

I haven't had a chance to go out and play with my camera since school started.  As I suspected, all other forms of life ended when school began.  I've intended for the past two weekends to go somewhere and do something with the Nikon, but I've been so exhausted or had other things to do (like beating down the green jungle outside) that have prevented me from being able to go play. 


Yesterday before I left to go to work, I put the battery for the Nikon on charge so whatever I got to do this weekend, I'd be ready to take the camera.  Today wound up being a rainy day of dogs to the vet and then TV and couch, so I didn't get out with it.  Tomorrow, though, I think I'm going to try to go up to our country place and take some photos there.

I'm anxious to try out the new strap I got from an Etsy seller called Phat Straps.  I replaced a Tamrac one I liked with a much longer one that I think will be more comfortable.  The camera should sling across my body now more easily, the way I prefer to carry it when I am not holding it in my hand to shoot.  The Tamrac cut into my neck and it was just a couple of inches too short to maneuver into the cross-body style comfortably.  

Every day I come in and I hang my purse up on the hook where my camera bag also rests.  I run my hand down the strap of my go-bag for the camera, and I touch the little bell/charm I got at the Toyokawa Inari shrine that I keep on it.  I think, "Soon."  I have pictures that I took at the end of summer around Meridian up on my new school laptop as the changing wallpaper in Windows 7 (one of my favorite things about 7), and I get to enjoy them that way, too. 

I want to go somewhere, anywhere, really, that I can just walk around with my camera in hand and get some interesting things "on film."  (How odd that's not the appropriate phrase anymore!)  I can spend a whole day doing that.  It's a shame I don't have better control over that Nikon.  Maybe I can take a class in photography when my pottery class ends.  In the meanwhile, I can just enjoy my little excursions and the simple joy of making the plans to go.

That Question Again

Another thing I'd forgotten about teaching sophomores is the questions.  There are things seniors will ask you and things they won't.  Sophomores acknowledge no boundaries.  Your life is their playground.  I've always been a little amazed by that.  If they want to know, they just ask.  I miss that fearlessness a little.

Being on the receiving end of it again takes some getting used to again, however.  I got asked yesterday if I was married.  Now, that's a question seniors will ask.  Usually, though, when you tell them no, they stop.  They recognize that if a woman of my age says no, there are probably paths they don't want to walk behind there.  For a sophomore, this is merely the opening of an entire irresistible Pandora's Box of other issues....

I got a chance to reevaluate my life thoroughly.  The marriage question led to the children question.  The children question led to a boyfriend question.  The boyfriend question was connected to an age question...  I think I'm going to make a big poster and hang it next to my classroom rules so I don't have to run through that rather depressing list again.  Then I guess all answers to life can be found on my bulletin boards...  Sigh.  Maybe I'll make up some fictional responses that are more interesting than the real ones.  That might be amusing, too.

Hanging On

He conquers who endures.  ~Persius

How is it possible to keep holding on to something that has begun to cut like a razor knife in a bare palm?  Does the blade become a feather again?  Can the sandpaper transform itself into satin silk once more or is that change one-way only?  

I realized this morning that I haven't laughed, truly laughed, in a very long time.  That's not a way to go through life, I think.  And yet, what is there to do about it?  This is one of the darkest personal times I can remember going through, and I'm confused.  Every time I think I've reached the bottom, the lowest level, somehow that bottom drops out again and I fall.  Every time I think it's safe to hope and I allow my heart to unfold tendrils toward the light, I find that the environment is hostile, too hot or too cold, and those tender shoots are burned or frost-bitten and die.  How long is it going to be before I just stop hoping at all?  I don't want to be the person who doesn't hope.

I feel like I'm becoming someone...other...and I'm not comfortable with this.  I feel like a shell of who I used to be.  How do I overcome?  How to I persevere when it feels like little spoonfuls of my soul are being dipped out day-by-day by careless hands?  Who am I going to be when it's all done?


The quote I have put at the top of this post is all about hanging on.  The question facing me now is how to do that when doing that is full of pain.  I need to know how to do it when doing it feels counter to every instinct I have. I need to know how to do it when doing it makes me want to cry.  If endurance leads to conquest, I need to know how to endure. If somebody can show me that, maybe there will be some sort of worthiness at the end of this for me at the end after all.

Tuesdays Are from Hell

Today was another classic example of a day I should have skipped.  Let me rephrase. It was an example of a day I should have peeked out the window at timidly, studied carefully, then ran from, screaming at the top of my lungs.  It was full of drama, revelations, moments of panic, and pure-D hell.

I'm tired of that.  I'm tired of having bad Tuesdays.  I am tired of earth-shattering revelations and casual betrayals happening on a regular basis.  I want a change.  Today's was so great that I almost caused a change myself.  Had I had just slightly less self-control, I would have had that change for better or worse. 

There were a couple of bright spots:  a visit from a precious former student, a moment brought to me courtesy of someone I know.  By and large, though, grim determination and fortitude were the name of the game.  It's a game I'm not sure I can play much longer.  It wears you down after awhile, and I'm all but down to the bare bones as it is.

The Miscellanea of Living

Yesterday, it seems that I mowed grass all day long.  My Husqvarna zero turn has been in the shop for over a month waiting on repair.  Never have a mower go down during the height of the season in the Deep South.  I could practically hear the bahia every night out there growing for the stars.  It had started to take on bamboo-like aspects by the time they finally got mine put back together again.  It needed a new solenoid. 

I had to mow every single blade of the yard twice.  That may not sound like much, but I live on a seven acre lot, and quite a lot of that lot is grass.  Hence the zero-turn.  Hence my frustration at not having said zero turn for so long.  It's working quite well now, though.  It needed every adjustment it got.  It's much faster now, and the steering is much less precocious. 

It's strange to look outside now by the light of the almost full moon and see the yard neatly mowed, though.  I can see the dried trails of grass clippings like windrows waiting to be raked and bailed, slightly silver despite the rain we got today.  In a couple of days, all that will be gone, but just the uniform flatness of it is a little disconcerting.  I got so used to it being wild that now that it's tame again, it looks like somebody else's house. 

It's funny how fast we get used to things, I guess.  It will be nice, regardless, not to have to wade through knee-high stalks when I take the dogs out in the morning.  I know Yelldo will enjoy not having to do his dog-porpoise routine just to be able to see now, too.  It's good to be able to bring some order to something in my life, even if it is just the lawn.

When I'm 35

Around mid-life everyone goes maniac a little bit. ~ Tom Berenger 

I'm contemplating having a midlife crisis here in a few months when I turn 35.  Can you do that?  How type-A is it that I'm planning my crisis....  Anyway, I think I'm about due.  I've been staid and predictable for a very long time now.  Dependable.  Everybody's go-to-girl.  While I don't know how much of that will change in February, sometimes it's fun to turn over a few options I might take up when the auspicious day arrives:

My Midlife Crisis To-Do List:

1. Get Muscle Car -- Preferably Big HEMI Dodge Charger.  Since this is my personal fantasy, let's pretend that for some silly reason I fell into money and don't have to play "who am I paying this month?" with my bills anymore and can buy anything I like.  Let's make that Charger a Super Bee.  Yeah.  Let's.
2. Find Erudite and Lovely Male to Worship Me -- He should be able to cook and give killer backrubs.  If he's never read a freakin' book or will only consume food of the hamburger persuasion, he can just get out.  He should also be able to perceive when it's time to shut up and be useful in other ways, too.
3. Finally Get Tattoo -- Because I will now be ready to throw caution to the wind, I will finally just bite the fear bullet and get the design I have prepared done.  It will be in every way lovely, and I will feel exceedingly empowered by just going.
4. Take Fabulous Trip With Friends -- Don't know where; don't know when.  We will, however, all load up and go somewhere.  It will be a mighty journey that the lucky destination will write tales of for generations.  Husbands and the Lovely Male may not go.  I suppose they may take a trip of their own if they like.
5. Write the Book -- I will stop fiddling about with the eight-pages-at-a-time publication system and I will actually get the courage up to take the storyline I've had in my head for the last ten years and make it a reality.  I try not to think about the fact that just writing this down makes me a cliche.  Sigh...

That's probably enough insanity to be going on with.  I might as well also throw in some frolicking and some insouciance as well. One or two of these things are definitely not going to happen.  I mean, OBVIOUSLY.  A couple of the others might.  I'll leave it to your good intelligence to figure out which ones are which. As I said earlier, this is just me relieving stress by musing in print, playing in pixels. A birthday doesn't have to indicate a crisis, I suppose.  Whatever I manage to come up with, though, I guess it ought to be awfully fun to watch from the sidelines.

Natural Rough Diamond Earrings by artifactum on Etsy

Natural Rough Diamond Earrings by artifactum on Etsy
I finally found a pair of diamond studs that I both really like and can also afford. I know the stones in these aren't super valuable since they're uncut and therefore probably flawed, low-grade, etc., but they appeal to me so much. I always tell my writing students that they are uncut diamonds and that it is my job to help shape them so they shine, and that was the first thing that jumped into my mind when I saw these. I also think of myself as something a bit rough and unpolished, too, so although I have always loved the classic elegance of diamond studs, I don't know if I can pull that look off personally. Let's face it; I have many charming qualities, but "poshness" isn't one of them. Diamonds are a bit like a string of pearls. They're undoubtedly lovely, but they're not quite me, perhaps. These, however, are understated and symbolic, and of course, that appeals to me on almost every level. I'll have these as my "payday splurge" soon. I think they will go with almost everything, just like diamond studs, however one likes hers fashioned, ought to do.

A Very Good Weekend

I was accused of living at the Temple Theater today in jest, and I suppose that statement is increasingly becoming true, especially this weekend.  I don't care, though.  It's a gorgeous place, and this weekend it had everything I wanted to do.

On Friday night, my best friend came in from Jackson and we went to see Friday the 13th IV courtesy of the Watcher's Council film series.  Although that movie is pure crap, we had a great time.  I had forgotten how really and truly bad the Friday the 13th movies were as a whole, and that one is, believe it or not, the high point of the entire series, having as it does Corey Feldman in it.  My friend and I had a blast, though, MST3King the thing along with everybody else in the building.  One of the guys from the Watcher's Council dressed up as Jason and everybody took pictures with him afterward.

Today, the American Theater Organ Society had an organist come in from Atlanta to perform a recital on the Robert Morton organ.  It was great.  I haven't heard that organ play since the time they ATOS had someone accompany the 1929 Phantom of the Opera one Halloween, and I've been longing to hear that wonderful instrument again now that I'm older and am an organist myself.  It was absolutely divine. I sat near one of the walls where the pipes are.  I looked up into the high arches of the architecture and watched the dampers opening so it could pull air into those massive pipes, and the voice of the organ filled the space like the song of a benevolent god. 

The organist's repertoire was very diverse.  He played what he called "American music," a medley of music from old country artists like Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson, and then a medley of Woody Guthrie.  He played some music that was themed around Georgia, including the theme from Tara from Gone with the Wind.  I must say that the organ handled that piece with especial grace.

He also accompanied a Buster Keaton short film called One Week that I hadn't seen before.  I love Buster Keaton, so it was a lot of fun.  It never ceases to amaze me how versatile that organ is, how all the sound effects it's capable of come from real things in the walls instead of electronic reproductions.  I hope they do more of these shows.

Of course, all that organ wonder made me want to do better with my own playing, and when I practiced I started trying to recover my use of the foot pedals.  I managed some of it.  It felt good.  Maybe if I keep at it, I can get there again.

As I drove home from church tonight, I found myself feeling rested and relaxed despite the fact that I came home from school Friday so exhausted that I literally couldn't form words.  I don't even have that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think of work.  That's how I know I had a very good weekend.  There are several more coming up, too, with more great old movies and other things starting to happen here in this area.  If I can keep having things of this nature to look forward to, then I can recharge my soul and endure.

Bridget Jones

I saw the tail-end of Bridget Jones' Diary on BBC America (and yes, I do watch that network an inordinate amount, perhaps.  Sue me. Or send me across the pond.  Anyhoo), and I had forgotten how funny it was.  One of my favorite lines is the last exchange between Bridget and Mark Darcy.  Bridget finally kisses him after who knows how many misunderstanding and squirm-worthy scenes of embarrassment and personal pain, and since it's COLIN FIRTH, a man who I personally would pay good money and lots of it just to listen to him read names from the phone book because I mean Have You Looked At Him????, it's a truly meltable one.  She leans back and says, "Nice boys don't kiss like that."  His reply, delivered in that gorgeous voice of his with the slightest of smiles, is, "Oh yes they f---g do."  Mmm.... 

So maybe this little entry isn't so much about Bridget as it is about Colin Firth, Mark Darcy, Mr. Darcy, and the desire to find a nice guy who understands and can live up to that last statement.  Wonder if there are any of them around?  Sigh.

Something Else

I'm going to go out with my camera tomorrow.  I'm not sure where.  Somewhere that's not here.  Somewhere that's not school.  Somewhere...else.

I'm trying to recover.  I had left-over pizza and a very vintage Dr. Who episode, "The Deadly Assassin", to go with it.  Now, TCM has Casablanca on.  Next, they're showing Notorious.  It's a night designed to soothe. 

I wish it would take.  Instead, I just feel as though someone has gone over and over my nerves with a file.  I suppose it's just change.  Change or the fact that at every moment of the past week, there has been somebody in my room who needed me for something.  I love those people, wanted to see some of them very, very much, but because of my natural introverted wiring, I now feel so overly-sensitive inside that I  feel twitchy.  I don't understand why I get that way, but when I am constantly surrounded with no down time, it happens. 

I need to go back to the school tomorrow, but I don't know that I can stand it.  The big stuff is all in place for Monday, and maybe I can get the details in order for the rest of the week on Monday itself.  I really and truly need a day just to take my camera and be anonymous somewhere. 

Giraffes Make Me Smile

Which is, incidentally, the name of a collection I put together on Etsy.  I wanted to share this guy with you specially, though. Doesn't he have attitude?  I think he's fantastic.  If you read the artist's description, he gets into talking about why giraffes make good fashion models.  It's amusing.  This particular guy's sort of haughty, amused expression reminds me just a little of somebody I know.  Maybe that's why he is particularly appealing to me.  Maybe it's because he's not a "cutsie" raffe.  I'm not altogether sure.  I just thought he was bloggable.  If you like him, click here and go support the artist.

Simple Pleasures

I didn't feel good today. I'm having a sick day, and I started to spend it all on the couch.  This is the last weekend before the rigmarole of school starts, and I haven't had much of a summer to recover in.  However, the theater I love was going to show another classic movie, so I dragged it all together and went to town.

I was so glad that I did.  The movie was fun, Thoroughly Modern Millie.  It was interesting to see the 1960s take on the 1920.  Those two eras colliding was a happy trainwreck.  It was cute, funny, comedic, and mushy romantic with a nice happy ending.  Just exactly what I needed today.  The music was fun, too. 

As always, I loved the theater, and this time, I took my camera with me.  I got a couple of interior shots, but they didn't come out very well.  I will try again next time I go, maybe.  The lighting is really, really bad in there for photography, and I felt exceptionally conspicuous running around with the camera. 

After I got out of the theater, I decided that since I had my camera with me I'd try to get a few of the things in downtown that I hadn't got yet but wanted.  One of the shots required me to get on the pedestrian walkway of an overpass bridge to shoot it.  The access to that walkway is behind a bunch of old mostly empty buildings downtown next to the train tracks.  Going there was not my smartest moment. 

I checked carefully under the overpass for traces of people.  Nobody was living there or hanging out there, and I thought I could get up, get the shot, and get back around the block since there was nobody around.  That was just stupid.  While I was up, some miscellaneous guy walked out of one of the empty buildings about halfway down the block and strolled down under the overpass.  I waited, but he never came out the other side.  He also didn't come up onto the pedestrian path.  I came part of the way down the stairs and looked.  He was just standing under the overpass smoking. 

I got out my cellphone, called somebody and told them where I was and told them what was going on as I headed down.  I figured that even if I had to run for it, I would be able to make it.  It was a short block.  I stayed on the phone, and he just watched me go. 

It was silly of me to do what I did.  I keep thinking every place is safe, when I suppose, almost no place is these days.  I put myself into situations without thought, and then, suddenly, I look around and realize that I probably never should have been there in the first place.  My guardian angel certainly has to work overtime.

On the other hand, that guy may have been perfectly harmless.  Maybe he just liked to hang out under bridges.  I hate this world we live in sometimes, where everybody always has to be thinking all the time of every person around us as a threat. 

Kodachrome

Doesn't this make you want to take it in your hand and capture something?  Isn't there something fundamentally appealing about its shape, its color, the function for which it was designed?  This vintage Kodak Brownie is for sale on Etsy, so if it makes you happy, too, you might go pick it up.  The price is very reasonable. All the others you see in this blog are also from Etsy, too.  If you click their images, you should be able to go to their listing, I think....

These vintage cameras are very cheap right now, most of them costing less than $25, and I'm thinking of collecting a few just for the beauty of them.  I love vintage items, love the stories that cling to them, and cameras somehow seem as though they might have some of the happiest stories to tell, I think.  Maybe it's all the trips and birthdays, weddings and holidays they've seen....  Now, though, they seem a little sad to me sitting and waiting to be purchased, sort of like something waiting to be rescued and reclaimed, slightly scuffed around the edges, but still waiting with that cheerful smile to be picked up again.

So many of them have been abandoned not because they no longer work but because they've become victims of the great march of technology.  While many of them are still functional, the film they were made to use no longer exists.  In fact, the film most of the cameras that use it were designed to use is becoming a historical notation instead of a part of daily life.

I recently upgraded my camera equipment from a film body Nikon to a digital one (which you know if you read this blog very much).  That change was partially one I made because of the ease of dealing with digital images, but it was in no small degree one that was increasingly necessary.  Film is getting hard to find.

It has always been hard to deal with.  Whenever images were shot, I, a person with less control of my camera than I should have, always had to pray that the shot was there.  With the digital, I can more or less know.   Getting the film to the processor and then remembering to pick it up was also a hassle.  Now, I can also be my own photo studio for prints that aren't archival, and that's a wonderful thing, too, since the vast majority of what I do with my photos are use them in digital media anyway.

The change is universal.  Everywhere that film once reigned is slowly becoming digital.  I noticed that even things like x-ray at hospitals and in dentistry that used to produce large film negatives have gone to all digital images instead.  For them, I suppose digital is probably instant, modifiable, electronically archiveable and shareable in a way that hard copy film is not.  I think that is largely good.

And yet, I couldn't help but feel a little sad when I saw the NPR article about the end of Kodak's production of the famous slide film Kodachrome.  It was inevitable with so many people, so many professional photographers even, using only digital cameras.  This is just another step toward an altogether filmless world.  There are already so many little orphans out there like the cameras I'm showing here that no longer have a place as technology advances.  Indeed, my beloved F80 lies with its body cap attached, its strap wrapped neatly, in the bottom of its gear bag, another more recent casualty of the same process.  I guess time has to march on, but it makes me a little sad and nostalgic all the same.  I think a collection of these bright curving cameras would be a nice way to commemorate what's gone before, repurpose and honor them, give them a way to continue to share all those smiles they captured during their years of useful service.

All Is Well

The surgery is done, and Dad is now in the CRU recovering.  We are hopeful that with this, all the pain he's been having with every step is going to disappear, and he can start to return to full activity again.  He's hurting now from the procedure itself, but he already seems better than he did this morning before he went in.  I think it's just the knowing that the actual surgery itself is done now, the part we all feared is over and now the healing can begin. 

For all my fear yesterday, I felt so calm this morning when I woke up.  I just knew somehow that things were going to be okay.  Everyone I met at the hospital today just reinforced that.  I felt blessed.  I still do.  I think I'll sleep tonight and sleep well.  This is the first time I'm saying this in more than a month.  It feels good to say.  It will feel even better to experience.

The Night Before

Stress is winding me up like D.'s guitar strings on that old Martin of his.  Keep turning that tuning key, and sooner or later, even metal snaps....

I went to get lunch for the family today at a local Quizno's.  On the interstate, there was a terrible wreck.  A pickup truck had overturned somehow, completely flipped and crushed the front portion of the cab.  I don't know if the people inside survived or not.  I can't see how they did, if they did.  It was in the eastbound lane and I was headed west.  It had happened not long before I came through.  I cried the whole way to get the food.  Nobody should die on I-20 on a sunny Sunday afternoon.  Or any other time.

I know I'm on edge because of Dad's surgery tomorrow.  Everything has been putting me on the verge of tears:  those poor unknown people in that truck, the last prayer at church tonight when they unexpectedly mentioned Daddy by name, everything. 

I played "I Must Tell Jesus" for my offertory, and every note of it was the truth, every note of it was a prayer.  I cannot bear these burdens alone.  In a few hours, I'll be getting up to start this new day, whatever this new day is going to be.  I'll have to get my mask out, dust it off, and put it on very carefully for the rest of my family and for all the strangers who will be around.  It will be a massive effort of ignoring elephants made of worry standing in the middle of tiny rooms.  It's all I know to do. 

Time to try to sleep.

Typewriter

After being inspired by items on Etsy, I decided that I wanted to try to take some photos of meaningful objects.  I decided to start with my mother's old typewriter.  I found it out in the storage van here at the house.  It's an old Underwood.  Her office was right next to my bedroom when I lived in their house, and the desk she kept that typewriter on was on the wall the two rooms shared. 

If you've ever heard anybody type on an old-fashioned manual typewriter, you know they have a very distinctive sound.  Mom could type very fast on it.  I woke many mornings to the percussion of that Underwood coming through the wall, including the light ding of the bell indicating the carriage return was needed.  She fought the computer revolution a long, long time, not even switching over to an electric typewriter until long after I graduated from high school.

I was fairly happy with the pictures. I left most of them natural, but as you can see, I took one of them and modified the crap out of it just to see what I could make. I may use them as a computer background or on a journal cover or something.  They may not be very artistic, but they satisfy me because I know the backstory.  I think that's the most important thing.

Excuse Me, Please.....

I did try to mow the grass today.  Really.  I ventured out into the oppressive heat, went out and got the Husqvarna ready, and turned and turned the key.  Nothing.  Whatever has been keeping it from starting quickly has graduated to keeping it from starting altogether, and not all my cursing it and futile flailing at what parts of it I knew were safe to wiggle and adjust did any good.  Tomorrow, it will go on the new trailer my parents bought when they got their RTV and it's going to some repair shop somewhere.  I'm tired of playing lawnmower roulette every time I need to mow anyway.

After that fell through, I decided to refill my birdfeeders.  I did that, but it was so hot that I got overwhelmed with it.  Topamax reduces my tolerance to heat dramatically, and I haven't been out in the heat lately much, either, so I went to sit in my lawnchair for awhile after I got all the birdfeeders filled and the big storage container for the leftover seed stored again.  I brought out my red Camelback bottle full of ice water to try to cool down some, and I sat and read for a little while. 

I was sitting there reading, and all of a sudden, a hummingbird came zooming up at my elbow to inspect the Camelback.  He levitated there a minute, kind of stabbed at it lightly with his beak, and gave me a look before flying off.  Well, inasmuch as a hummingbird can be said to give someone a look, anyway.  There was definitely frustration in him.  I had to laugh.  It was funny in a sad way.  My feeders were all empty, and I guess that was his subtle way of trying to tell me to get off my backside and do something about it.  Hummingbirds are so feisty.

After I cooled down, I went in and filled the new feeders I got to replace the ratty, faded, broken old ones.  I had just about enough time to get them up on their hooks and get out of the way before the feathered parade began.  It was good to see.  I'll try to be more careful about that so they have full feeders from now on.  I'm scared to think about what they might do if I don't.  I'm picturing having to run a gauntlet to get to the car in the mornings....

It's as If It Were Made for Me

I need this.  On payday, I think I'll have it.  Especially if you read the description, it sort of sounds like something I'd say/do.  Plus, how can you resist the giraffe?  Too funny.  I love Etsy.

The Amazing Disappearing Past

I went out to take pictures today.  That Nikon calls to me almost constantly.  I had the same issue when I lived in Japan.  Of course there, you could pretty much close your eyes, point the camera in a random direction and push the button and get something interesting on film.  I routinely just got on a train and went on photo trips.  If I also came back with some pottery in my backpack, too, well, that was just a hazard of living in Japan, wasn't it?  I have tons of photos from Japan.  Travel was easy, history was everywhere, and the sorts of things I enjoy photographing, the old, the odd, the rare, and the sacred, abounded.

Here, it's a little trickier.  The South is like Japan in so many ways that it actually becomes frightening after awhile.  That comparison is a whole "nother" blog, though, so I'll leave it alone for now.  Suffice it to say, it should in theory at least be easy to find the sorts of things I appreciate shooting here, too.  But, outside of a few things that I knew I would be able to get because they are "Historic Landmarks" protected by megabucks and the strong, if largely inactive, arm of the Federal government, it hasn't been.  I noticed today that the things I love are disappearing.   Things I should have been able to find, signs, whole buildings even, are gone now.  Even here, in my lovely backwards rural South, everything is becoming homogenized, streamlined, sanitized.  Progress is marching forward with its steel-spiked jackboots.

The town I work in has an absolute embarrassment of history in it.  At one time, it was the largest city in the Southeastern United States.  It was a rival to, and even at certain brief moments in its glory days, surpassed, Atlanta.  I don't think one in five people here know that.  Traces of it, only traces are visible.  Actually, there is a lot of it left, much that could be unearthed, restored, reclaimed, shown off, revitalized as so many places I've been are doing.  Here, though, nobody much except for a local university seems to be interested in that in a big way.  It's puzzling.  What the hell are they planning to do with all that, then? 

The downtown area is chock-full of buildings that should be chock-full of businesses, professionals, restaurants, and so on. Yet, the businesses in the downtown area are ephemeral.  Very few of them manage to stay open long.  Just as one begins to get attached, they disappear.  There are a few foundation businesses down there that have been open forever.  They cling with tenacious determination, but even they are not immune.  I noticed a sign on one of the oldest in town, in business for 185 years, that they are "quitting business," their massive four-story building now going to be another of the blank-eyed ghosts staring out in quiet desperation.

I don't know much about business to be sure.  I will be the first to tell you that I have no head for money at all.  Look at the sad tragedy that is my personal finances.  However, I do know this:  every town that I've ever been in that has been vibrant, active, and pulling itself out of what I loosely term "urban slump" for lack of something more creative has been making the effort to do something with its past. and not just slam a giant wrecking ball through it or leave it to fall down bit by bit.  There has to be some solution.  Otherwise, how are all these other places doing it?

The Japanese valued both progress and tradition.  They might have a 500 year old temple nestled next to a highrise apartment complex that was just put up this year.  They know how to balance both and are interested in the preservation of both, at least as far as physical things go, exceedingly well.  They understand that the past helps to define a people, that it is worth looking at whether it is bad or good.

I don't think we do that as well here.  I don't know if it's because we have so much less history, because we have history that is full of so much strife (although, granted, Japan's has not been a cakewalk), or because we are still trying to figure out what our working definition of ourselves is, something Japan pretty much had nailed down a couple of centuries before we sewed together the first flag that flew over our infant nation on the day of its birth.  We frequently have to have our own history pointed out to us.  Things reach a point of total ruination before somebody sweeps in to "save" it or form some kind of restoration society to preserve it. Meanwhile, everybody sort of sits around going, "Gosh, that old thing was important/valuable/nice?  Who knew?  We were going to put the cows/tractor/hay in it/burn it down." 

I just hope we can find a way to reach that balance here.  Not just for the photographs or the economy, either.  Mostly I hope so because I think that one day, if we keep going the way we are, we're going to wind up wanting some of this stuff back again, and it's going to be gone for good.  Reconstructed history is nice, as far as it goes, but nothing compares to the reality of saving the authentic thing, especially when it's so possible to do if someone will just trouble to take the time and effort to imagine the beauty of it.

Lately

Today I only had to kill off two Chinese Porno Spammers.  I think I shall begin to keep a running tally.  Maybe I can get some kind of widget, make a "kill" sign, post the score visually.  Jesus....

Anyway.

I got back from my second trip to Louisville yesterday afternoon.  It was a good trip.  I really like Louisville, and as I always say whenever I'm almost anywhere but New Orleans, I could see myself living there pretty easily.  It had that river town feel to it that I love so much.  It wasn't quite as steeped in it as St. Louis or Memphis, but it had both a feeling of age and preservation that appealed to me very much.  It was another city that was a perfect example of what a place can be when it cares for itself enough to renew itself not with random acts of stupidity but with careful planning and with preservation and restoration of its old treasures.  The downtown area was lovely.

My new Nikon and other assorted treasures were waiting on me when I got home.  I had been eagerly tracking the progress of the Nikon from the time it left Elizabethtown, NJ and Adorama by using an iPhone app called TrackIt.  I had to pay 99 cents for TrackIt, I think, but as much as I have things shipped to me, it's already been worth it.  I frequently need to know when something's coming in or if it's already been delivered, if for no other reason than to assuage my impatience, and this will track all my packages in one handy place.  Now everything I have coming from orders on amazon, Etsy, eBay, Levenger, or whatever can all be perused at the click of an icon.  Makes me feel almost like there is some order to my little chaotic corner.

I unpacked the Nikon last.  I forced myself to wait to open it until I had everything else opened, unwrapped, unpacked, and taken care of.  Then I cut that box open and ripped into it.  It's lovely.  Except for the fact that it didn't come in a box full of crap, I can't tell that it's ever been used.  I transferred my everyday runaround lens from my filmbody F80 to the D80, thus ceremonially passing the torch, as it were, and retired the F80 to a well-earned rest in its camera bag.

Then I ran around the house like a fool chasing the cats with the camera yelling, "Smile!"

It was a good afternoon.

Tomorrow, I have big plans to go to town and see if I can shoot some of the landmarks before they proceed to completely freaking destroy them remove them in the name of progress.  I may have missed one I really wanted to get already, and one I know I always wanted to shoot is gone for good.  There are several places, including my beautiful vintage theater, that will yield good results, so I will dress in comfortable clothes and go skulk around downtown tomorrow if it doesn't rain.  I may also go shoot a few things at the school if I can tolerate being there.  There are one or two specific things I've had my eye on for awhile, thinking, "Man, if I just had a camera that would get that..."  Well, now I do.

Night of the Living Dead

(I just deleted two more faux Chinese comments, so either all my blog comments are being translated into Chinese, or the spammers are the world's most persistent and hopeful losers.)

Yesterday, I went back to our gorgeous theater for a classic double-feature of The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price and Night of the Living Dead.  I'd never seen either of them, but I read reviews of both before I went, and they both looked really good.  I knew NotLD was was a classic, and I felt like I should have seen it by now, and the chance to see it on the big screen was too good to miss.

The Last Man on Earth was unexpectedly wonderful.  I should have known that it would be.  Vincent Price, when he was allowed to be, was a fantastic actor.  Even when they had him so deep in camp that only the barest of his cultured voice and acting skills showed, he still managed to salvage something.  TLMoE was as good as it was, I think because he was alone in it for the most part.  There was no Gothic castle, nothing Poe-esque lurking.  He got to shine instead of having to fight with the background.

Night of the Living Dead wasn't what I expected it to be.  There were moments of extreme camp, but by and large, it wasn't a camp film at all.  I don't know why I always thought it was.  It actually made several really good points.  I saw in it the beginning of so many other horror movie traditions, and of course, the origins of every zombie thing that is currently so popular.  It was full of stereotypes, too, but that seemed quite deliberate and sophisticated.  It felt much more like social commentary masquerading as a horror film than any other thing.  I really liked it.  There were a few images that I had to look away from because they were really disturbing and gruesome, but the final scene was the most disturbing one, and it didn't have a thing to do with reanimated corpses.  The ending was perfect and ironic and terrible.  I think I'd like to use it when I teach irony, in fact.  Well, if any of my students have seen the movie....  Maybe we could watch it for Halloween....  (ha.)

I'm so glad to get to see these films in our wonderful old theater.  I hope they show a million more.

Leave It Alone

I went in my classroom yesterday after the last part of a workshop, and the cleaning crew had taken everything out to do the floors.  That happens every year, so it wasn't unexpected.  What was unexpected was that they had also taken everything down from my window sills and knocked stuff off my shelves, I suppose in an effort to dust and clean.  They'd also wiped messages from my class last year that I had carefully preserved off the boards.  The last I have of that class is now gone, taken away by an uncaring hand.

I was spitting mad. All my blinds were pulled up where the sun was just streaming in to fade out every single thing in the room. They had knocked down student projects I've had for years, torn up one that I don't think I can repair, and generally left things strewn hither, thither, and yon.  I know we have a whole new crew of housekeeping this year, and I did come in during the middle of the process, so I didn't go find anybody and say anything.  I am hoping that when I get back, I won't find that giant mess waiting on me.

I am very fussy about my room, about what goes in it, about how it looks.  I know that may seem ridiculous to some people.  However, I am in that space much more, actually, during the school year than I am in my own home.  That room is also a part of the way I interact and instruct my students.  It is important to me that it look appealing, that it be filled with interesting and instructional things, displays that inspire curiosity and showcase the amazing work of which my students are capable. 

To have unfeeling hands generally smashing and tossing because it isn't theirs and because they don't care is infuriating.  I hope this is not going to be indicative of the rest of the year. 

Dreams Again and Other Fun Stuff

A massive migraine yesterday equaled dreams last night of a horrid nature.  I actually had to email somebody today to check in on him just to make sure he was okay after one of them.  All the backgrounds were grey, rundown, and gothic.  Everybody in them was in despair.  My head right now is not a particularly happy place to be, I guess.

Aside from the always joyous wonder that is my job (students not included), I found out that my father is going to have major surgery in about a week and a half.  The blockage in his leg that they were going to bypass right before he had his heart attack has reached a critical point.  He's been on Plavix, though, and will continue to be, I suppose, for the rest of his life, so the surgery has not been an option until now because he will have to come off it to have the surgery, and they don't want him to come off it.  Pain and fear about circulation in the leg have outweighed the dangers of what having him off the Plavix long enough to do it and the dangers of doing the surgery itself and the recovery for a diabetic are, apparently, so he's getting ready.  All those finely meshed wheels of the hospital system have started to turn.

I'm scared to death.  I hate being afraid.  There's nothing that relieves it.  So, my head cramps, seizes, pounds.  I have nightmares.  I exercise the most rigid of mental protocols when it comes to future events, stopping myself from thinking about them, essentially.  There is no future past next Monday when I can manage it.  When I can't, well.  I suppose that's what there's Maxalt for.

Added to all this is the usual exotic cocktail of stupidity and uncertainty at work including less money in my paycheck now because of the tightened belt everyone everywhere is feeling.  Is it any wonder, then, that I want to run screaming through the darkness of the night, want to take up my shinai and hit something until there are nothing but bamboo shards left, want to curl into a ball under a warm, soft, old quilt where it's safe.  I miss that, sometimes.  I miss there being a place where it's safe.  Where did all the safe places go?

A Query

Somebody I know told me today that she'd left a comment on my blog recently.  The only comments that have shown up here are the ones that have been left by my Chinese Porno Spam buddies. (Oh, they're persistent.  Foolishly so, considering I just delete them out of hand whenever I see kanji and links...)  Her comment did make me wonder, though, if I am somehow missing other comments from legitimate blog correspondents.  Maybe if you wrote something and you thought I'd write back here, you might write me again?  Or email me?  Most of the time I assume nobody is listening, and that's fine, but I'd hate for you to have wanted to say something to me, and it have gotten lost in the great beyond....

Finally, DSL

I was in the middle of a meeting today when my iPhone went off in my pocket.  I checked it and was delighted to find that it was the one AT&T lineman with sense.  He actually came out a day early to do the repair on the house.  He's nice.  In fact, right now, he's my hero.  I may bake him a cake.  He got the jack fixed and the DSL restored, so I am typing this from the comfort of my usual perch on the couch instead of an uncomfortable chair in the back corner of the local bookstore where I've had to fight off others for access to a power outlet.  It can't tell you how nice it is.

I'm a hopeless technophile. I might even be a tech junkie.  I'm not going to worry about it too much, though.  At least not until the next time everything goes kablooey.

Trying to Blog with My iPhone

This will be brief because it's being done on an iPhone app. I'm in day 3 of no DSL due to an error made by the repairman who was out here on Monday. AT&T isn't coming until Wednesday to deal with it. If there were any other option for service here, I'd take it. I've been going to town to get to wifi or using my iPhone to the point of having to charge it twice a day. I hate this.

Night Terrors

I'm dreaming again.  I haven't dreamed, or at least dreamed to remember them, in a long time. While I missed the fanciful world my brain always spins, I  think I might be happier right now if they would quietly slide back into whatever dark back alley in which they've been lurking.

My cousin always said that he could make a million dollars if he could just find a way to hook some kind of recording device up to my head as I slept.  I suspect he's right.  Only, lately, I don't think anybody would want to look at what my subconscious is dredging up.  They wake me up.  I sit up and stare over at the alarm clock sitting innocuously on my bedside table, look around my room, get glares from all the assorted cats draped over me who have been disturbed by my sudden jerk into wakefulness.

The dreams start out with characters from any sort of thing, people I know, places I've been, things I've read or watched, and spin off into wildness.  There are golden people with silver wings.  Sometimes I am one of them.  There are institutional buildings with endless gray block halls and no windows that I wander and wander until the hellish occurs.  I go back to Japan, but there is no sweetness in it.  Instead, I am lost in train stations, sitting in formal gardens behind temples but aware there is something bad there, visiting there and asked suddenly to change my whole life and live there once again.  I'm in hospitals, outside one of those too-large silently-hung doors, heart in my throat, unwilling to push it open for fear of what is on the other side.  And even though there may be people I know to start with, I always wind up alone at the moment it comes to face the monster, to open the door, to decide whether to flee or stay.

I wish I knew what it was that is making me dream these things so I could change it.  I have a couple of ideas about one of two of these things, and I know that I can't really do anything to alter those situations.  I wish, too, that there were somebody here when I wake up other than my grumpy cats, somebody who could tell me that there was no silent figure sliding through the darkness toward me with malicious intent, somebody who could pull me back to myself when I dream that my feet have left the ground and I can't get back to the earth no matter how hard I try. 

Until the moon changes phase, until I can get so tired that I sleep so deep I don't remember these things anymore, or until some sweetness of dreaming returns, I guess I will do in sleep what I do in life.  I will find some way to rescue myself in the dark watches of the night.  It just gets a little tiring sometimes to have to be on-duty for it twenty-four-seven.

Death at Prayer

What kind of god do you believe in if you can go into a place where people are at prayer, and are indeed praying to the exact same god you claim, and you can cut them down without mercy?  What kind of religion is it that you have if you can go out into the streets and see that violence and not have your stomach turn, your very sense of being cry out to the heavens for justice, if you can offer sweets to those with the guns over the still-warm corpses, pat them on the shoulders and tell them that they are doing a righteous deed?

Has there ever been a major atrocity that we've perpetrated upon each other that wasn't at its base somehow related to religion?  And doesn't it grieve the loving heart of God as nothing else possibly could when we look at each other and are so blinded by differences that mean nothing, nothing, by colors, by sounds, by slight variations in shapes, that we become afraid of each other and allow that fear to turn into violence?  Are we ever going to recognize that we are much more the same that different, ever going to be able to rejoice in those differences instead of try to make them a matter of superiority or inferiority? 

I'm sad tonight and angry.  I watched the news, and I shouldn't have.  Too many blind people making too much horror today.

Vincent and the Doctor

The Doctor: The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.

While he's still far, far away from occupying the favored spots held by Four or Ten, I'm growing more and more fond of Eleven.  The writing is good, and the storylines are excellent.  Tonight's episode, "Vincent and the Doctor," took Amy and Eleven to meet Vincent van Gogh, and it was one of the best I've seen in a very long time.  Maybe it was so good because it was so much a character study of van Gogh, of his pain and his art, of his joy at the beauty that surrounded him. 

It was odd that he managed to mix in so well to the world of Doctor Who, but then again, that has always been one of the great draws of the show for me, that anybody anywhere at any time does fit into it.  It doesn't have to be all technology and space mystery to have a place in the storyline.  Real, imaginary, past, present, and future all are fair game.  It gives a richness to the world of the show that doesn't exist in most other places.

As for van Gogh, the actor playing him and the storyline broke my heart. His smile was as lovely and fragile as bone china, and when he was in madness or despair, he made you want to protect him and help him.  I don't know nearly enough about van Gogh.  Artists have not, as a rule, been a major source of inquiry for me.  Instead, I tend to focus on writers.  You can be that after tonight, however, he will now be my new research project. 

Of course his paintings are beautiful.  Everybody knows some of them.  I think every college dorm room poster sale is required by law to have at least three sizes of Starry Night.  There are a few pieces by him that I personally love, including the church that was so much a focus of tonight's show, the same one I've put on this post now.  I also love his painting of irises, among others.  I will have to find a good biography of him and hope for a chance to go somewhere with a concentrated collection of his works.  The museums I've been to have had maybe one or so, but I've never had a chance to see anything like a gallery full.  Maybe someday I'll get a chance to go and experience the real thing for myself.

Classics

I went to see a movie this afternoon.  I got to see The Raiders of the Lost Ark on the big screen, which all by itself was a great treat since I was a small child when it came out the first time.  The crowning touch on my enjoyment, though was where I got to see it. 

We have an old-fashioned movie palace here, a jewel of the bygone days of cinema as the primary form of public entertainment.  Although now it is ever-so-slightly faded around the edges, the gilt is a little worn, it is still magnificent.  From the grand chandelier on the ceiling to the proscenium arch, from the ornamental fountains to the theater organ, it makes going to see a movie an occasion. 

Too few things these days are occasions.  Certainly going to a movie at our other, more modern, theater isn't.  There, of course, you get THX surround sound, and, it must be admitted, the seats are a bit bigger and more luxurious, but there is no mystery, no sense of coming to a place for anything special.  It's just a very big screen and very loud, something increasingly attainable in the privacy of one's own living room. 

Given the choice, I want the gorgeous architecture, the history, and the gravity of the moment.  I want the Moorish arches and the red lightbulbs dimming before the show begins.  I want the tiles on the floor of a real lobby, a place to stand to meet my friends and feel excited a little to go inside again.

I hope they will continue to show old movies there.  In fact, I hope they'll reach back to the golden era of Hollywood and pull some of the great ones, Casablanca, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot.  I could spend many a happy evening there in the dark, to paraphrase Norma Desmond herself if they do.

The Illusionist

I wrote this today, and it may be the best thing I've done in about three years.  It started coming to me in the shower (why do things DO that?), and I finally got out and got it down.  It still needs work, probably a very heavy pruning down worse than anything else, but the beginnings are there.  I'm putting it up here for comments, if anybody other than my good old porn spam buddies (who continue to be persistent, curse them) have any.

The Illusionist

Poetry and magic

elevate the ordinary

reveal that world

inside a grain of sand

believe the impossible

and on good days

turn horror into beauty

waltz the truth into unwilling minds

like a party crasher at a masked ball

ripping away the domino suddenly

with a self-deprecatory grin

and the slow unfurling

of a graceful hand

Both require absolute dedication

an apprenticeship to the craft

a certain native skill with deception

a touch of divine madness

much blind luck

Practitioners jealously hoard secrets

eye one another territorially

stalking cats in narrow alleys

and even if smiles are friendly

each really thinks

his way of performing

that particular trick

is better than yours

I unveil the worn gilt-edged tools

of my illusion

all the things

borrowed, bought, won, forged, or stolen

stand before you

in the center of this paper stage

fan my fingers wide to show

my virtue

my total honesty

praying I've left behind no tell-tale trace of

wires, springs, chains

everything that's hidden

under these somber black robes

to make it appear effortless

You'll see

what I want you to see, actually

Nimble misdirection

you applaud the

a white dove suddenly soaring free

instead of the broken body

the flattened cage

which is

I'm sorry to reveal

probably always closer to the truth

of how these things really happen

It's all leading up to the grand finale

those swords in the corner

you've been eying all night

thinking they can't be real

every one unique and appalling

terror fabricated for effect

like that menacing silent cabinet

with the lock on the door

This trick is my specialty

the one everybody demands

a real killer

so it comes last

and maybe even a little reluctantly

Sometimes it's a little hard

to step out and take the bows

showmanship requires

when done

I'm locking myself inside

the mystic darkness again

feeling those familiar blades

grate on bone

and you

check your watch

glance at the door

think of heading for the exit

to beat the crowd

wondering how anybody

could ever believe in anything

as false as this

Out of Print Clothing

This is one of the coolest webshops I've seen in a very long time.  Their tees are an English teacher's dream.  The other part of that dream is the fact that every time they sell one of their very wonderful shirts, they donate a book to Books for Africa.  I hope they sell a million of them.  They are both honoring literature's past and promoting its future.  How can you ask for more?

Thumbs

I hate it when I'm not smart enough to figure out the inanimate objects.  All day long, I've been working furiously to get my kitchen cleaned up with the idea that my reward would be a green tea latte from my new coffee maker.  It came today courtesy of UPS (or the devils in the enticing brown van, as Roux refers to them), and when I took the box into the kitchen, I realized that practically every surface was covered up with crap from the school year.  Not only that, but last summer, I didn't get a chance to do a full-scale cleanup because of the knee.  Today, then, became the day of sort, file, throw away, and organize.  It took me about five hours to go through all the piles of stuff I foolishly saved for later, to do all the little projects I laid aside during the school year, and to go through my pantry and throw out all the things that were no longer useful. 

I have two large trashbags full of refuse plus a huge cardboard box full of other tiny cardboard boxes now, so I feel good about bringing some cleanliness to the space.  I don't have to walk through with my mental blinders on saying "I'll get to that later," or be embarrassed when family or the bug guy comes in.  It looks like somebody who cares might actually live here instead of it being a teenage crashpad.  I hate the way the house gets when the school year gets going, but it's an annual part of my life.  I just try to catch up in the breaks.  It's probably just as well that I'm not married.  I'd hate to foist this way of living on somebody else.

Anyway, I got everything in the kitchen pretty much squared away, set up the coffee maker, mixed my matcha and milk together, ran the first water through the boiler, and tried my darndest to steam some milk to make the latte.  Nada.  Zip.  Very few bubbles.  It did seem as though it would make a very fine cup of coffee, I grant you.  However, for my purposes, although I tried every configuration I can find, I don't think this thing is going to be useful to me at all.  It didn't even heat the milk.  I don't know what to do.  The reviewers on amazon (lots of them, not just a couple of plants from the company) said they could use this to do what I want.  I guess I'm just thumbs.

I mixed my matcha and milk, added half a shot glass of vanilla syrup to it (no idea how much is an appropriate amount, but that tasted right), and frothed it all with a Japanese tea ceremony whisk.  It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it was pretty close.  I just wish I knew how to make the machine work.  Sigh.....

Bloomington, Again

And so I came back to Bloomington.  It's been so long since I was here.  In fact, the last time I was here was the last time I saw T.  It was a bad, bad visit, full of things that made me cry. I was physically ill as well as emotionally distressed.  I didn't focus on things that I should have, and I took away a taint instead of happy memories. 

This time, though, I have spent the whole day doing whatever caught my fancy.  I visited restaurants that were favorites, that I had had great meals with good friends in, and I walked all over the campus.  I took the photos I should have taken that fateful trip in the past.  I bought silly souvenirs, lanyards, a nice sweatshirt, a couple of replacement t-shirts for the ones of mine that finally have become too worn to wear for anything but yarding.  I walked past buildings I taught in, past Memorial Hall, and it all felt both strange and familiar, like coming home after a very long absence.

 And yet.  And yet.  It's not my IU anymore, is it?  I'm not even a graduate student anymore.  I don't even look like a graduate student anymore.  I felt conspicuous today.  It belongs to a whole generation of others now, young and lean, still with that hungry and vibrant look about them.  I heard them on their cellphones fussing about professors who required them to have their books on the first day of classes only to tell them that they needed to read the first few chapters.  I heard those silly undergrad conversations that are an essential part of the college experience even if they are absolute comedy to outside observers.  I saw the music school students laden with their instruments in their fascinating and mysterious cases shuttling back and forth endlessly to and from the rehearsal building.  I was there like a stone a huge river was lazily swirling around, in it but not really a part of it. 

I'm not sad, not really.  I had my time here, and it was very very good.  It was, in fact, essential in many ways in making me who I am today.  Without the return of some of the people I loved, too, it wouldn't be my IU ever again, anyway. 

Ultimately, I'm very glad I came.  It sharpened memories that had started to grow fuzzy through time, and it gave me something to replace what had been my last memory, tears and worrying over a guy who was totally worthless when I should have been paying better attention to the music my beautiful friend was making with his magic hands as I sat by his piano listening to him play.  I don't think that even if I come to the reading next year I will come back here.  I think I've had what I needed from it.  Unless I knew that some of those I love were going to be here, I don't think I would want to.  Instead, I think I will use this time and effort to go see some of them instead.  It will be another way to relive the magic of those years with something more meaningful than a stone structure.

Thought on Politics

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." ~ Aesop

Shakespeare in the Park

I saw a live version of The Tempest tonight at Louisville's Shakespeare Festival.  They have an outdoor theater in a large park in the center of town (I think it is, in fact, called Central Park) where they have nightly performances of Shakespeare during the summer. 

I've never seen The Tempest live, although I have always liked it, always loved Prospero even though there is some sort of shady business going on with him according to some critics.  There is so much focus on that play now with a colonialist eye.  Caliban, Ariel, they become something modern, something different.  It's fascinating, in a way to study it that way, to talk about it that way.  I think it's important to rethink familiar and comfortable pieces of literature.  It doesn't mean we have to abandon the way we've always related to them, but it can mean another layer of richness, perhaps.

On a completely girlish and silly note, and having absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with criticism of any kind, if I have a daughter ever, one of the things I may name her in my overly English geekish way is Miranda. She and Ophelia are my two favorite Shakespeare women, and I don't know about naming my daughter after Ophelia.  I think that might be tempting fate a bit much.

In any case, and all hypothetical daughters aside, there is something about that play, one of Shakespeare's last, and the things he says in it that move me.  Maybe it's the magic.  Maybe it's Ariel.  Maybe it's the "now our revels all are ended" speech which I can see an aging master coming forward on the stage to say, staring around him at the crowds filling the theater.  I don't know.  It's powerful.

Tonight as a whole was a great experience.  It was outdoors in a lovely place, always a bonus when you've been cooped up in a large artificially lit and cooled space for many a day.  There were lightning bugs everywhere, and I kept thinking about how you just could not have asked for a better special effect in a play about magic than they were.  Of course, there were kids darting around in the damp grass trying to capture the lightning bugs, too, but that was just right as well.

I wish I had something like this closer to home.  I guess I will just settle for indulgences when I travel, sort of like a favorite treat you only get on vacation.  I just wish it didn't have to be that way. 

Billy Collins Reads

Last night, I saw Billy Collins read.  It was like a sort of religious experience.  I don't say that lightly or facetiously.  He was amazing.  There, standing at the front of that large room in front of all of us, he was so kind to a group that was tired yet eager, weary yet waiting for his words like rain on parched earth. Oh, and he didn't fail us. 

All day long, we'd been trapped in our chairs reading variations on the same three themes.  Well, I guess in fairness to my colleagues in AP Lang, I should say six themes, perhaps.  The quality of these essays ranged from moments of sublimity to long patches of the absurd, but regardless of the merit, the rating of them was and is hard work.  That's what made Mr. Collins' reading so wonderful.  It was a feeding of the soul, a recharging, a reminder of what we love so much and what we want to pass along to those lovelies who come into our classrooms every year. 

After the reading, he stayed to sign, and although I do not get people to sign things because I have always thought it was strange to pursue someone's name written in something, I have a signed copy of one of his books.  I felt strange the whole time I did it.  I wanted to apologize most fervently for asking it.  If I hadn't been getting something signed to give as a gift, I probably wouldn't have done it.  But I did, and I am glad now, even if it does still feel strange to have stood in a line for a very long time to ask a person I do not know and greatly admire to write his name in a book for me.

What I would have liked would have been to have talked to him.  These are the things that don't happen, you know.  I would have liked to have asked him questions about poetry, about being a poet, things that are probably so presumptuous coming from a nothing to a deity that I'm not even going to write them here.  I wish life worked like that sometimes, though. I probably wouldn't have been able to overcome my shyness to talk to him, anyway.

Last night, I heard poems of his that I knew and ones I'm not as familiar with, but every single one I heard, I loved.  And want.  And wish, in the secret burning envy of my poet's heart, I could figure out the inside workings of like an amateur magician sitting down with a handkerchief and a limb broken from a tree and trying to duplicate something once done by Houdini.  I'll have to have more of Mr. Collins' books now, just so I can be sure I have all the things he read for us last night and all the things he didn't.  Maybe if I study long enough, even though I'll never fool the crowds with my sleight of hand, I can at least amuse myself more prettily.

Appropriate Quote for the Day

"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body." ~ Sir Richard Steele

Then, lads and lasses, I am the strongest woman in the freakin' WORLD right now....

The Reading Continues

I seem to have adjusted to the rubric somewhat.  I am doing better.  I am not much faster than I was, but the crushing sense of insecurity I had about it all has faded.  I am starting to be able to read an essay and just "see" it for what it is.  That's a great feeling.  I know it's going to pay off for my students, too.  Well, let's look at that statement just a moment.  Actually, they're going to hate it.  A lot.  At first.  Because their grades are probably going to go right into the toilet.  At first.  But ultimately, it's going to pay off in the form of better scores for them, of this I am completely confident.  It should also pay off for me because I should be hella faster in grading now.  I literally rubric graded about one hundred and fifty essays today.  That may be an all-time record for me today.  If I can get my speed up even more, I might be able to survive the year ahead of me, what with all the joy of Honors English II being laid on top of AP....

The Reason I Have Comment Moderation on This Thing

Yeah, so Some Jackass posted a comment to my blog that turned out to be a porn link.  Thank You Ever So.  This is the reason I have comment moderation turned on.  Look.  If you need that sort of thing to get through the day, I rather think that's your business.  However, do NOT bring it to this tiny little corner of the interwebz.  That's all I'm saying folks.....

Intimidated

So I'm finally here where I've dreamed of being for so long, and I'm scared to death.  I feel like an idiot come among experts.  I don't know how many people are aware of how scathingly some of those of us in profession judge others.  If we don't wear powersuits and pearls, well, then what the hell do we know about grammar and literature (and, of course, that is pronounced at liCH-a-ture).  If you know me at all, you know I don't do pearls, and the only suits I own are clowny.  So basically, I'm screwed.  Sigh.  I come from the other side of the English tree.  I'm the pure poet goofy side.  God, I hope somebody here likes that, too.  Otherwise, I may be back on the road sooner than expected.  I feel very small and of very little worth right now.....

St. Cecilia

I'm not Catholic, so saints and the whole mystery surrounding them are a bit beyond me, but I've always liked the whole idea of somebody sort of "watching over" a particular area or profession.  It seems like there is a saint for everything, and I think that if I were Catholic, I'd probably be very, very confused or need a flow chart, a pocket cheat sheet, or something to keep up with them all. Is there an iPhone app for saints?  If not, maybe there should be.  And I'm really not kidding with that.  I'd download it.  I like to know, you know.... I guess maybe if you start young enough learning it all, you just sort of take it in naturally like any other thing, but there sure are a bunch of them....

Anyway, that's really neither here nor there, I guess.  As I've been poking around and doing research, I stumbled across St. Cecilia, patron of musician, church music, poets, and singers.  I thought, "Wow!  That hits me on almost every count."   (I do not sing except for my own private amusement.  Trust me.  It's better that way.) I did some research on her, and it seems she, like most saints, was an admirable person.  I thought that was pretty neat that one person had been put in charge of all those related fields. 

Then, around Christmas two years ago, I found a reproduction of a carving by Raphael that I loved.  My parents gave it to me for a present.  It now sits on my piano.  Here is the original carving.  My plaque is the central portion without the upper and lower decorations. I've enjoyed it so much that I started looking for other little things with St. Cecilia on them.

The only other thing I've found that I've liked enough to purchase came from Etsy (of course).  It's a really lovely necklace by rosamystica.  It's recast from an antique, and it's just pleasing to me visually and for what it stands for.  If you read here very often, you know I am all about the symbols....

Ultimately, the symbol is the most important thing to me.  Seeing these representations of St. Cecilia reminds me of aspects of myself that are important to me.  I am a church musician, even if I'm not a great one (and, trust me, I'm really, really not).  I am a poet, and my soul burns to be a better one every day.  I'm a shower and car ride singer who occasionally gets drafted to do a song in front of the church.  I think it's good to be reminded of these identities, these other selves I have in addition to my "teacher self" because sometimes my teacher self eats all else before it like a ravenous glutton. Maybe if I have a few small tokens around, I can reach up and touch my necklace or see the plaque on the piano in passing and remind myself of the other sides of my life and maintain that healthy and vital balance.  If the saint is up there looking down, I think she'd be pleased by that.