A Day of It

I knew I needed to get out with my camera today (Gypsy Feet), but I am flat broke right now (flatter than that, actually...is there anything flatter than flat?  If there is, I'm there...), so I knew I needed to do it cheaply.  I decided, after some serious plotting and scheming, to go back to some places I'd already been and try to capture some things that got away from me before close by.

The weather today was perfect for shooting, gorgeous light and a sweet temperature.  I could have stayed out forever.  I started at Rose Hill Cemetery.  Last time I was there, it was approximately 4,000 degrees and the middle of last August, so I took a few pictures and made haste to get back in my car before I burst into flames. Today, I took the time to walk all around the entire cemetery and shoot whatever detail of carving caught my eye.  I found all sorts of things that my heat-addlement (not a word, but..well...) last time caused me to miss before.  There are all sorts of wonderful inscriptions people put on the tombstones, some short, some full length poems, almost miniature essays.  I shot some of them.  I hope there was enough contrast to get them to show up in the images.  I'll process the day's shooting after I'm done here, so I guess I'll know soon.

Rose Hill also made me sad, though.  Since I was there last, someone has vandalized Kelly Mitchell's grave, knocking off the top part of the cross just below the "arms" of it.  It has been repaired with rather ugly cement, and as always, the grave is adorned with the traditional huge piles of Mardi Gras beads and so forth, but I just stood there looking at it for long moments before I took a new picture of it.  I felt as though someone should apologize to her.  I don't know if she could possibly hear or feel it, but my God, to die in a place like this of something as horrible and sudden as her illness was in that time period and then to have to suffer the constant indignity of generations of people mucking about with your resting place, I think somebody should apologize.  It disturbed me.  Everybody, even if or maybe especially if they weren't left in peace in life, ought to be allowed to rest in peace in death.

From Rose Hill, I went across town to our carousel.  I have been trying to capture the tiger there for quite some time.  He's sort of tricky.  I think I got him this time, though.  I shot the animals as best I could between the rides, and I even took a ride on it myself, something I didn't do last time and regretted.  I think that if you're near a carousel and you don't take a ride on it, you're only cheating yourself.  I plan always to ride them if I can from now on.  It was grand.  After I rode it, I stayed on a little while and worked on some more angles.  I happened to catch a bit of a lull between loads of little kids and pensioners, and the two high school girls manning the place let me go through the swinging doors onto the carousel platform and take all the angles I wanted.  I got the male giraffe, a shot I could not get previously, and I think I got the lion as well.      We'll see how it all comes out in the wash.

While I was there, I got asked by a lovely couple from somewhere else if I was doing research about the St. Louis Exhibition.  I had to tell them that I wasn't, but we had a nice brief chat about antique carousels.  Every time I go out shooting, I always have the greatest conversations with people who mistake me for someone who knows something because of the camera in my hand.  I love that.

I really would like to do some research, though, write about some of the things I shoot.  I wonder how people do that, find people to publish them.  My dad suggested that I do that, too.  I don't know if anybody would be interested in it, though.  Heh.  I guess maybe you could tell me....

After I came home, I picked up Chewie, and I went to the Old Place.  Chewie on his leash is one of the sweetest, sassiest, silliest things I've ever seen.  He alternates between prancing along beside me and grabbing the leash in his mouth and trying to lead me where he wants to go.  He had a good time today.  He had a bit of an odd moment where he balked at getting up on the porch of our country shack, but I finally convinced him that it wasn't some new sneaky vet, and he spent the afternoon sitting beside me while I read. We walked through the woods some to a spring that flows on the property, and when he got bored with exploring that, he grabbed his leash and promptly pulled me away.

I finished my day driving home with the windows down, cool air filtering in, Chewie drowsing on the seat beside me.  It's true that nothing I did was an exotic excursion, but it was just what I needed today.

Meditation Upon a Comment

Today, when someone said something about why I hadn't dealt with an online assignment system I run IMMEDIATELY late at night, I replied it was because I'd been busy with other things.  As the students left the class, I heard one of them say something to the effect of, "Well, I guess maybe she does have a life!"

What a shocking revelation!  My God, no!  It makes me laugh the way students perceive their teachers outside school.  We are either supposed to roll into a corner and plug into a recharging socket or hang upside down from our ceiling perches until dawn brings a new teaching day.

Here, then are some imaginary explanations for what I might have been doing instead of updating Shelfari:

1)  I was selected to be a judge at a semi-professional Elvis impersonator competition.  I spent my evening listening to novel interpretations of "Love Me Tender," "Don't Be Cruel," and "Jailhouse Rock."   When that 70-year-old man from Japan stepped out in that rhinestone spangled jumpsuit, struck a pose, and started into "A Little More Action," I really think that might be the best night I've ever had.  Really.

2)  Through a set of circumstances that would take far too long to explain here, I sort of wound up fighting off an elite team of assassins.  Nerf was involved.  That is all I'm allowed to say about the incident at this time.  When the appropriate agencies all decide that the papers are declassified, I'll probably revisit the incident again in my blog.  Since it crosses international lines, it may be awhile.  Maybe all the scars will have faded by then, though....

3)  Well, there was this sort of grinding noise in my back yard, and I looked out there was a big, blue, wooden box out there with a flashing light on the top.  The doors opened, and this lovely lanky guy came out of it talking all British at me and really, it's lucky at all that I'm back in this time and on this planet at all....

4)  I could say elves to you, but it isn't elves exactly, and I'd rather you said it for yourself.  (about four thousand bonus points to you, a homework pass, a gold star, and my undying admiration if you catch that reference)

5) An absolutely majestic performance on the flying trapeze, center ring, with the circus that passed through town last night.  You missed it.  You should have seen it.  I had a spangly costume and everything.

6)  I was forced to pretend to be married when the student from my past who sort of proposed to me ("What sort of man are you looking for teacher?  Let me tell you what sort of man you are looking for..."  describes creepy, creepy self  "You could never marry any other type of man, teacher....") showed up on my doorstep.  This farce went on for quite some time and wound up involving a good friend and several neighborhood children who guest starred as my "husband" and "kids" before it was done.  The film version will be hitting the big screen sometime around Christmas....

7)  Okay, so there was this guy, and this big, fast Honda bike, and Louisiana in the evening, and...well....

I think this amused me even if it didn't do anything for you.  Sorry to drag you through it, but you know how it goes, darlin'.....

Spread a Bit Thin

No posting here lately because I've been taking care of writing in other places.  (Now some of you just got excited by that, but don't.  No.  No new updates. I still haven't had time for THAT.  Maybe soon, though. I know.  I know.)  I've been tending Shelfari like a mad person and grading papers, writing course syllabi that turned out to be largely useless, things like that.  It's taken my time and my focus.  When I've come home, I haven't felt as though I've had much of use to say.

There's not much new or exciting with me right now.  What there is that's new, I can't really discuss.  (Doesn't all this make for a fascinating post?  Whoo-whoo.)

The only thing I can really say that's interesting right now is the new book I'm reading:  Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.  I read Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by him several months ago, and it was amazing, totally surreal in the best possible sense.  I decided to give NW a go after seeing it described with such glowing reviews and comparisons to Gatsby, Catcher, and other classics I loved.  WBC was NOTHING like those, so I wondered how different the style was and how an author could swing such a massive change.  It's fantastic.  I am seeing little threads of that weirdness that is just a foundational part of Japanese culture creeping in, but the storyline is quite good, and I've already been highlighting like mad (it's on my Kindle),always a mark of enjoyment for me.

It's giving me creepy dreams though.  Bits of Japan show up here in Chunky, or I'm walking through the streets of Japan and odd things happen.  It's not comfortable.  Last night, stuff from some music I was listening to before I went to bed got frapped in with all of it, and I don't know what the hell all happened.  Not.  Good.  I think I am going to have to be more careful about what I take in right before I sleep.  At least I'm dreaming again, though, I guess....

Speaking of Japan, that takes me back to an earlier post I did about wearing that little smile as my little mask for my real emotions.  Never have I done that so much as I have in the past few days.  I will probably need it more today than I ever have before.  Be interesting to see if today's the day it cracks and falls to the floor to reveal that other Noh mask, the one with the horns and the teeth (and yeah, I know that's supposed to represent jealousy, but you know what I mean...) instead.

Gandhi Again

I looked at that quote again this morning, and suddenly inspiration struck.  I think what he meant was that when we are faced with a monumental task and we know that our efforts are tiny, we must still continue to contribute those efforts anyway.  That is what the quote means.  It's sort of a little and often fills the purse sentiment.  We must not be daunted by the size of the undertaking before us or assume that what we do doesn't account for anything just because we cannot accomplish the whole task ourselves or won't see the whole thing done in our lifetime.  If we don't add our portion, the job will never be done.  This, this, this, I can live with.  This feels like something he would have said, would have believed in.  The man who preached "[y]ou must be the change that you wish to see in the world" would never have told people to give up because nothing they do matters.  Clarity at last.  Or, well, at least this is what I'm going with.

But, Anyway...

So I'm fixing a lingering case of the blues the best way I know how:

• My stereo is making things rattle on my shelves.  Dance music is good for bad moods.  Right now, I like Maroon 5 for this.  Later on, I might shift into some disco or some 80s stuff, but truth right now, it's amazing how good Maroon 5 sounds really loud.  I am totally in love with "Moves Like Jagger" right now.  I wish I had a small car with a very good engine to drive this song like it deserves to be driven, something like that luscious Nissan they had on tonight that could get to 60 in 3 seconds.  I could be in Jackson in about fifteen minutes, barring the interference of law enforcement.
• Orange slices.  They remind me of both my Nana and my Granny.  Both of them always had them around.  I found a bag at Big Lots, and I rediscovered what was left of it in my pantry just a few minutes ago.  Total freaking score.
• TopGear.  I have the sound off and I'm watching Hammond, Clarkson, and May blow crap up.  God, I love them.  They've had them on all night, the episode where they try to make a train out of a car and now the new episode where they're doing demolition.  I got to see Mr. Bean become their fastest driver ever.  Fantastic.
• Gradual refusal to deal with crap that makes me sick. This includes people.  Tricky bit this, but I'm getting there.  
• New Murakami novel waiting for me on my Kindle, Norwegian Woods.  

I'm going to listen to my loud music, eat my orange slices, and disappear down a Japanese rabbit hole the rest of the evening. At some point, I will probably get up and dance around my living room in a ridiculous fashion.  (I REALLY need to find somebody to go out dancing with.  But everybody is either married or short.  It's a problem.)  Tomorrow, I have a neurologist's appointment, so we'll see what fun that brings.  Who knows?  I'm not anticipating any "new news," but if everything goes to crap, well.... I can always stop somewhere and get another bag of candy....  O_o

Okay.  Almost a day I've been looking at my last post, trying to be all philosophical about it, trying to take it in, harmonize my soul to it, accept it, "zen" it, if you will, resonate as one with it. I get what he's saying. The process is the important thing, not the end product.  We should focus on the steps that we take and not the destination since, really, none of us despite well-laid plans, can be certain of where that final place may be.

Screw that.

If what we are doing is not important, why do anything at all?  My soul screams at that.  If all I am doing is stacking greased BBs in a corner all day long, why not seek something more meaningful?  And if the message is supposed to be that nothing anywhere is meaningful at all then I reject that wholesale.  I would have to sit right down in the floor and do nothing the rest of my life if I believed that no action we did had any purpose to it at all, that all our actions were empty.  One might as well go out in the street and shoot his fellow man through the head as seek a cure for the disease that was taking his life if this was true.  What would be the difference?  What we choose to do helps to define us.  So does what we choose to leave alone.

Oh, and I'm coming to this quote at the end of such a bad, bad week, and I'm so full of sadness and so many things that make me tired and willing to believe that maybe, just maybe all our efforts are ashes and dust and handfuls of ourselves thrown into a void that doesn't even know it's sucking it down.  After what's happened lately, I cannot lie and say there is not some part of me that doesn't want to fall in the traces, give up, lay it all down, stop and just say enough because my best isn't good enough, isn't wanted, doesn't matter.  That's a horrible feeling to offer up something you work hard at, value, and have someone be totally apathetic or snide or inattentive.  It happened several times this week, and every time it was like a kick in the face.  The last was the worst.

And maybe what I do is unimportant, after all.  Maybe it doesn't really matter at all to anyone but myself.  Maybe this should be that moment of great self-revelation, the final mask of deception coming off.  I just don't know that I can live with what I see if this quote is the measure of it.

Purpose

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Not What He Meant, Probably....

On the way to school this morning, I heard the song, "Run to You."  My mind went IMMEDIATELY and quite oddly to the bitter triangle of Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon, and Anne Boleyn.  I could just see Henry singing it to Anne.  Listen to the lyrics sometime.  It's sort of uncanny.  I'm never going to be able to get that imagery out of my head again.  It's always going to be hooked to Tudor England for me now.....  Of course, I'm almost certain that this isn't what Bryan Adams had in mind when he wrote it.  English Literature strikes again.

Nothing Deep

• I stole a line from a song I like and started a poem with it.  It was something, anyway.  I hardly ever write anymore.  I miss the feeling of pulling things from my mind and seeing them come to life.
• I ordered a blank punch clown from amazon.  It is designed to be decorated with wet-erase markers.  I foresee hours of stress relief in my future.
• I had a good day as far as my students are concerned.  They are an outstanding batch this year.
• On Etsy, I found the most amazing things:  a necklace made from a farthing with a wren on it and a pin from France that is a purple plastic cicada.  It might not make you happy, but it does it for me.
• I filled out a load of paperwork getting ready to be a comp teacher at a local community college.
• I rediscovered how much I HATE paperwork, especially when it just keeps coming and they don't tell me what I need to complete it.
• I wore my Gatsby shirt today.  It was under a blazer, but I knew it was there.  I knew it was there.
• I want to do something fancy this weekend as an escape.  I'm thinking a road trip.  I'm wishing for some company.

That's all.  The end.  I'm sorry there is no philosophy or anything of depth here for you.  I guess I'm just not very entertaining tonight.

Put You in Your Place

And that place is on the floor.

And that place is with this big black boot on your face, crushing the life out of you slowly.  It would be a shame, really, to rush it.

And if you get up, oh, how sweet the taste of the pleasure of kicking you right back down again.  It's a calling, this.  It's an art.

You have no worth, no purpose, no meaning, other than this.  You're nothing.  Nobody. Just another diversion.  Your best is not even worth wiping up.  Stay down or we'll make you stay down.  And we'll enjoy it....
---------------------------------------------------
How did I forget these lessons?  How did I forget how these eyes see me? It took me so long to learn them.  I have all the scars -flat, shiny, well-healed, now- that should constantly remind me that I need to run. Maybe I'm too much like my pit bull; maybe my pain tolerance is just too damn high.  Maybe I'm a fool. I don't know.  All I know is that right now I'm angry and hurting....and trying so hard not to stay down.

Mad Girl's Love Song - Plath

Mad Girl's Love Song


I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)


--Sylvia Plath
____________________________________
Holy freaking crap.  And then I found this.  O_o   The middle two stanzas...that image... ("I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed....  God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade/Exit seraphim and Satan's men/I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead")  I've been sitting here for about five minutes trying to think of something to say about it to describe its power.  I'm just going to leave that to speak for itself because I mean...damn...


(edited)
Upon further reflection....maybe I will just add one tiny thing...sign me up for just a wee taste of the "[sing] me moonstruck and kiss me quite insane" bit.  I think I could do with a touch of that.   Maybe more than a touch.  Maybe like a full course of study.  You can keep the inevitable Plathian tragedy at the end for yourself, though.

Admonitions by Plath

Admonitions

Oh never try to knock on rotten wood
or play another card game when you've won;
never try to know more than you should.

The magic golden apples all look good
although the wicked witch has poisoned one.
Oh never try to knock on rotten wood.

From here the moon seems smooth as angel-food,
from here you can't see spots upon the sun;
never try to know more than you should.

The suave dissembling cobra wears a hood
and swaggers like a proper gentleman;
oh never try to knock on rotten wood.

While angels wear a wakeful attitude
disguise beguiles and mortal mischief's done:
never try to know more than you should.

For deadly secrets strike when understood
and lucky stars all exit on the run:
never try to knock on rotten wood,
never try to know more than you should.

--Sylvia Plath

________________________________________________

I came across this villanelle today as I was prepping a poetry unit. It has one of my favorite motifs in literature, Faustus or the dangers of pursuing forbidden knowledge.  Sylvia knew all too well how it enticing it is and how easy it is to reach too far too fast and get yourself into trouble. This poem, too, is a meditation about the appearance vs. the truth of things.  Too many things seem lovely, safe, seductive, even, only to do harm when embraced.  Plath is saying it's better not to push your luck.  Of course, she didn't always live up to her own rules, but maybe that's her own experience speaking as a warning here.  We're about two weeks from starting Faustus with my classes.  It's been a full year since I taught it.  I'm looking forward to it.  It never fails to move me.

Tracking a Quote

Sticks and stones are hard on bones aimed with angry art. Words can sting like anything but silence breaks the heart.   Mcginley, Phyllis
I saw this today on the web attributed to Emily Dickinson.  It didn't quiiiite sound Dickinsoneque, if you follow me, so I did some more digging.  I think it more likely traceable to the source above.  The fact that it didn't come from the Divine Dickinson, however, does not make it untrue.  It's the silence that kills.  At least if someone is "cussing you," you know what they think of you....  It's when you have to wonder what they think, when silence reigns, that your mind can fill in those blanks with all sorts of nastiness.  Yeah.  Silence sucks.

The Obligatory 9/11 Anniversary Post

Everyone is turning their minds back to that moment ten years ago when the world shifted.  FB is full of "where were you then" posts, "commemorate the heroes" statuses, and people generally testing the tender edges of a wound that may not ever fully heal.  I remember in all of the media blitz going on at the time one of the talking heads saying that 9/11 was the day America's innocence ended.  I think that is probably about right.

I wasn't living in country at the time.  I was still in Japan.  It was late evening for us there with the time difference.  I'd cooked dinner, watched a movie, and when I turned the VCR off, I saw an image on the screen that looked familiar, but somehow wrong.  It still seemed to be a film of some kind.  It was, of course, the Twin Towers just after the first plane had hit.  As I began to understand through the confusion of my lack of Japanese that what I was seeing was NOT an action film but a live news feed from New York, the second plane hit.  

The university I taught at provided housing, neat little apaatos, for the gaijin staff.  My colleague lived just across from me, and although I don't remember covering the small distance between her apartment and mine, I do remember her, her boyfriend, and me sitting and staring at her TV (she had English language newsfeed) for hours as Japan's night and the horror in the United States unfolded.  We watched people make the decision to end their lives rather than burn, something I don't know if some audiences here saw.  We watched the towers come down.  And, because we had so few news options even though we were also pulling news feed from online, we also were in absolute terror because we kept hearing there were more planes in the air....more planes in the air....but nobody knew where they were....

We fought international phone lines congested beyond the point of their tolerance and an already overtaxed domestic grid trying to get through to our loved-ones back home as we sought that most basic of reassurances, the answer to the question everybody asks, "Are you okay?  Is everything okay at home?" It was hours, many many of them before we could get a connection through, and we waited eyes glued to the TV as we tried to piece together the information coming to us as the Pentagon was hit, as the other plane was taken down by those brave passengers who chose their own end rather than to be used as a tool against their nation.

The next day, the other American teacher and I stumbled through our classes in a daze.  The reaction to us was to be an indicator of the world's reaction.  So many were full of sympathy and grief, anger that anyone would commit an atrocity of that nature.  Japan has such a complicated set of emotions when it comes to acts of violence, but mostly, now, and most ironically now, thanks to the very nation they were extending sympathy toward, they value peaceful resolution above everything else.  And then there were those others...the woman from Ireland who told my friend that what had happened was really just too bad, but it was all our own fault, wasn't it?  The war protesters who sprang up in the middle of campus immediately and ran up to hand us flyers, bowed very formally, and ran away again, as if the two of us somehow were responsible for our nation's foreign policy....

Flying home after 9/11 was worlds different.  Everyone was scared:  passengers, airline crews, the men who suddenly appeared with assault weaponry in every place in the airport.  The first time I went home afterward, I flew the day the Shoe Bomber tried to take a plane out of the sky, and I went in through LAX.  I didn't know it had happened until I touched down in Jackson and my parents grabbed me and held me.  That's when I knew that we were never going to feel safe again.  

Of all the things we lost, of all the precious things that are gone, that were taken, that's the one I worry about the most.  Fear makes any creature do terrible things, self-destructive ones.  It is always sensible to take precautions for safety.  It is unwise not to care for one's wellbeing or to prevent danger when possible.  I worry, though, that after 9/11 we have slowly started to become afraid of everything, and in that way, we have begun to allow others to do things for us and to us, both our government and the people we're fighting against, that never would have been stood for before that date.  

9/11 stands as a dividing point in our nation's history.  I'm not sure yet what the ultimate outcome of it will be.  I hope that we are still in a period of change from it.  Today, there will be so much said and so much remembered of that day.  I hope that people will not use this as a moment to relight old flames of paranoia, divisiveness, and destruction.  Instead, let's remember some of the highest and most honorable things from that day.  There were other lessons to take from it, after all, other models shown, examples of some of the finest things we as people are capable of. Let's remember all those who gave of themselves that day, who conquered the fear instead.  Maybe if we can do that, then we can find a way back to a place of safety once again.  

Clean

It takes so much to keep a house clean, especially one this size and with so many creatures living in it...

I spent three hours of my afternoon just working on the carpets, vacuuming and running the steam cleaner, but it needed to be done, and as always, I feel great satisfaction with the results.  I still have to do laundry tomorrow and the kitchen is a total wreck, but laundry isn't hard, and I'll put on some loud music while I wash up all those pots and pans and empty and reload the dishwasher, so it will get done.

I washed all my bed linens including the comforter and put my feather mattress out to sun today all day.  It's remade and waiting for a clean me, the last chore of my day, to slide into it.  The feeling of a freshly fluffed and sunned feather mattress settling around me is one of my favorite sensations (if a dog hasn't beaten me to it and flattened it out already).

I don't much like doing housework, it's true, but I like the results of it.  I think maybe if there wasn't so MUCH of it to do here, I'd feel differently.  I never get caught up here.  In my little apaato in Japan, I could get up on a Saturday morning and clean the whole thing, fixtures, floors, kitchen, laundry, everything in the time it took me to do just the carpets here.

And yet, for all that this house means family, history, so much to me.  I suppose it's a tradeoff.  I know if I were designing a new house, planning one from the ground up, many things in structure would change. I carry the plans for one around in my head, and many of its elements are more or less designed with ease of living in mind.

It's time now to go get myself cleaned up and put into that fresh bed.  I'll close up all my windows and turn off my attic fan and enjoy a little island of order in the sea of chaos.

Stuff that Made Me Feel Good Today

Another List (to balance out the one filled with poo from yesterday because I think I owe it to you, myself, and the universe):

• I got to see one of my sweet former students today, and she's doing wonderfully well in her university life.  That always makes me feel so happy.  I love it when they're out there heading toward that great thing they want for themselves, whatever that happens to be.
• There were NO SONGS regarding my "mighty-mightiness."
• I wore one of my roses today (a blue rose pin made from reclaimed wool -- something I got at Chimneyville last year).  Instant boost.  Roses make me happy.  So I'm a cliche.  Shoot me.
• I thought I lost or had "misplaced with the help of others" my favorite fountain pen today at one point.  Then I found it.  Finding the pen was fantastic.  Confirming what I have always believed, that other people wouldn't really do that to me over a pen, was ten times better.
• Two words:  puppy kisses.  Love from Chewie and Roux when I got home.  Dogs are grand.
• Hammock. This is perfect hammock weather.  I plan to spend most of tomorrow in it if I don't go out shooting.  (With the camera, of course.)
• Reading the acceptance letter for TGC more carefully and realizing that I was one of 65 teachers selected from about 300 applicants nationally.
• Massaman curry for dinner.  Never fails.  Even when I don't want any other food, I always want massaman.  It may be the perfect food.  Except for cheese....
• Shaun of the Dead came today from amazon.  Tomorrow, I'm having my very own showing since I missed last week's drive-in presentation due to rain, tiredness/sickness, and Prairie Arts.
• Beowulf's Boasts were today.  We all wore crowns (mine is cuter; I work hard for that plastic tiara, baby), they brandished foam sabers, and a good time was had by all.
• I'm rereading Gatsby.  A craving got flung on me by a friend of mine (guilty party, you know who you are), and so ONCE AGAIN, I'm at Gatsby's watching the pretty people dance with Nick.  Not a bad way to spend a Friday night.  After all, tomorrow will be all about the zombies... Oh, wait.  I see a literary travesty in the making....
• I'm getting comments on my blog.  Even little ones where people can click anonymously at the bottom.  It's nice.  I like it.  I won't cliffhang you until you respond (some of you will get that, and yeah, I know, I know....), but a little interaction is unexpected and, I think, good.

That's enough to balance out the scales.  After yesterday's focus on the negative, I just felt like I should adjust my lens, so to speak.  Don't worry.  I'm sure that if doom is your thing, if you hang around here long enough, it will come rushing back.....

really? REALLY?

Things that happened lately that have made me say the above either out loud or in my head:

• the singing of "Brick House" by a student when I slipped my sweater off today because I was hot (I'm sure this was neither a complement nor an homage to my beauty since I look like a school marm from the nineteen teens.....This just made me roll my eyes... Just what I need -- verbal irony.)
• the ringing of my alarm clock after only four hours of sleep.  I was NOT prepared for today.  
• getting behind the third slow-moving thing on the way to work this morning which caused me to be late.  Again.  For the second time on duty week.  (MOVE...Get that thing...out...of...)
• coming home after leaving Roux out just once to see what she'd do to find she'd shredded every single thing she could get her teeth into in a gleeful festival of destruction all over the living room
• having to use the Porta-Potty at Prairie Arts and finding that to add insult to injury the door had no lock  (What?  Why?  I can't...even....  I have quite literally seen facilities consisting of holes in the ground that were less heinous.)
• trying to print from a non-saveable PDF application and having it screw up, disappear, screw up, disappear, screw up, disappear....

Wings

Last night I dreamt that I grew wings
I found a place where they could hear me when I sing
~ "Wings" Josh Ritter
(probably in my top three favorite songs by him now)

I still have to clear a rather thorough medical exam (which, of course, all things being what they are with me... well...), but that aside, I have been accepted into the Teachers for Global Classrooms exchange program.  Happy doesn't even cover it.  Somebody somewhere thinks I'm worth something professionally.  Imagine it.

I don't know yet which of three countries I put on my list that I might be sent to, but you know how I feel about that.  Anyplace, everyplace is a miracle.  I can't wait.

I will also get to go to Washington...twice, once right around my birthday.  Sounds much better than the way I usually spend them, no?  I don't know if I'll have any time to do anything other than just be there for the preparatory meetings, but I'm praying I can get into a wing of the Smithsonian, maybe even for an hour....

I can't believe I got into this.  It was just something I took a chance on despite being so discouraged about it (about everything, really), found out about so quickly, threw my application for together while I was at the Reading and never believed I'd be truly competitive for as an individual or as an educator thanks to the absolute beating I'd taken during the months that had gone before.  I'm so glad, so very, very glad I'm getting this chance.  It will keep me going through whatever else comes my way now, wings to soar upon, indeed.  It's wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

My Guy

What can I say?  You know I'm a sucker for a cute blonde....

Chewie is growing more and more adorable every single day.  I don't know how in the world I'm going to be able to let him go.  I don't even want to.  He's getting puppy-fat, and I swear every single time I see him, he's grown taller.  He's going to be just a gorgeous dog.

Whenever I go outside, he is there by the door waiting with that gentle, quizzical expression and that soft wooly coat, and I have to reach down and pat him.  He is such a fuzzy little wookie.  He loves the Puppy Chow.  He loves the vitamins the vet sent.  He loves the little rawhide treat bones I got him to help him teethe.  He loves the deer antler Roux and Yelldo dragged up.  He loves everything.

That's always a gift.  He's precious.  Whether he stays with me for good or whether he eventually goes to another home, he will make someone a great pet.  Right now, he can keep on being "my guy" until he's ready for that decision to be made.

Dresden 13 -- Ghost Story

I just finished up Jim Butcher's 13th Harry Dresden novel, and I have some mixed feelings about it.

BE FOREWARNED.  HERE THERE BE SPOILERS.

I knew that Harry was dead.  I knew that this was going to be the focus of the novel.  I just didn't know that the entire thing was going to be quite so much of a "beat up on your main character" sort of endeavour.  I don't know how I feel about that.  See, I sort of love Harry Dresden.

Yes, he frequently makes things go boom.  Well, okay.  He makes EVERYTHING go boom.  But to me, that has long been part of his charm.  He makes the right things go boom, the baddies.  He is also always aware of the costs.

This book spends an inordinate (to me) amount of time rubbing his face in old wounds, making him aware of the fact that he doesn't really seem to know the costs, and I think that this isn't quite true.  Harry has always carried guilt and scars over what he's done.  It is part of what has kept him from going over to the "Dark Side" (and he would be proud of me for the Star Wars reference at this juncture) in his actions.

I think, or rather I hope, Butcher is using this book to clear the stage for a new phase in Harry's life.  I foresee Molly becoming a Girl.Friend. instead of just kid/chick/apprentice.  I'm fine with that.  She should be a good match for him.  I foresee the thing with Mab becoming an all-out war with Faerie.  That, too, should be awesome entertainment.  The White Council has got to show back up at some point, too.   I rather suspect the Angels and the Fallen will come back to town since they are apparently still mucking about behind the scenes, and I am almost positive that Harry will wind up wielding one of the Swords (as will Daniel Carpenter...who doesn't see that coming...).

Ultimately, this book had sort of a feel of anticlimax to me, and I'm not sure why.  Maybe there was just so much time spend rubbing his nose in his sins, describing the ghosts and their nifty world, and memories of things in Dresden's life that it just felt a little fragmented to me.  Or something.  I don't know.  The revelation of who Harry's killer was felt rushed.  I was not surprised; it made a great deal of sense, but it felt like Butcher was just cramming it in there to finish it out.  So did the scene at the end with Mab.

The best scene in the entire book was the Star Trek scene in Molly's head.  It was well done, and well up to the geek standards I've come to expect from Butcher.  I loved all the ST cliches he threw in, including the obligatory red shirt.

I hope this book is a bridge to a new phase in Dresden's life.  I kind of get the feeling that "everything has changed."  Sometimes when an author does that, amazing things are possible.  Sometimes when that happens, well, everything has changed, and the series is never quite the same again.  As a major fan of Harry Dresden, I'm hoping that Butcher isn't tired of his grumpy, geeky wizard, and that he hasn't decided to throw him out the window just yet.

Rainy Musings

The rain on the roof makes me wish for you.  The gentle drumming sound of it and the music of it pooling as it falls from the eaves soothes and makes me drowsy.  If you were here, we could curl up together under the covers in the soft grey light.  I would bury my face in the curve of your neck; you could wrap your arms around me.  I would run my hand down your back and let it rest just at the base of your spine.  I want to fall asleep to the sounds of your heart and your breath and the rain.  When we wake up, I would open my eyes and see you still there, feel the strength of you there beside me like some unexpected gift.  I might reach out with just the tips of my fingers and trace the line of your cheekbones, your beautiful mouth, watch the sleep fade from your eyes....

Ghosts

My friend and I wound up driving through the town where our old high school was yesterday because of some construction that blocked the route we'd intended to take to get home.  We started talking and reminiscing over things, places and people, and one individual in particular made her say, "Why were you ever friends with her?  She was crazy."  I paused a minute and thought about the person she was talking about.

The person in question had once hit the long flat reservoir bridge with the accelerator pedal all the way down, pegged her speedometer at 120 while looking at me wide-eyed, yelling, "Are you scared?!!  Are you scared?!! Scream!!"  I stared back at her like I was bored, saying, "No.  I don't know what you're talking about," before I looked away.  There are nasty curves on either end of the bridge, and I can't say I didn't have a tight grip on the door handle beside me, but I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction.  Not even if it meant we wound up in the water.  That incident pretty much defined our friendship.  It ended over some lies told sometime after our Senior Prom (oh GOD...Prom...there should be no Prom, or at least it should come with a warning label for ridiculous amounts of drama).  

As all this flickered across my mind, I looked back at it and other events in a sort of astonishment.  I shook my head.  "I don't know," I said. "I guess I sure can pick 'em."  I was silent a moment more, and I laughed a little.  "Her and D. both."  And my friend cracked up.

We'd been on MSU's campus much earlier that afternoon, driving around all the old places where I'd known him, where that Greek tragedy (or tramedy?  there were funny bits, I suppose) unfolded, so he was on my mind.  I can't drive past Simrall or what used to be the ERC without thinking of him.  That campus is haunted by that strawberry blond ponytail and sandals for me.  I don't much like that.  I don't even go to the Wesley when I'm there.  I haven't been back since I graduated.  He would be everywhere, the amazing D. and his Gibson leading the praise band or just sitting moodily in a corner or asleep on a sofa or sitting on the porch swing or doing his homework, and the Wesley was so much more to me than him that this would be a debasement.  

And it's a debasement of MSU, too.  My time there was more than him, more than that damn guitar-playing engineer.  I was more than him and the stupid cycle we were locked into.  I was more than riding around with him late at night, him showing up on my doorstep at ridiculous hours, conversations that never ended but that never exactly headed where they seemed to be going.  More than just that horrible push-pull.  More than just him singing at me, playing for me, playing with me.  

The next time I go, I am going to deliberately think of the rest of it, going to remember flying kites on the drill field, sitting in the arbor until 2 in the morning and talking, playing the piano in the Chapel with the rest of my stealthy anonymous brothers and sisters who rotated through there with me, hanging out and laughing with G. and J. and B. and M. and C. and all the other wonderful people at the Wesley who weren't insane collectors of women to no purpose, creating a giant web of multicolored yarn so thick it had to be cut out in the downstairs apartment of the Wesley as a practical joke, and getting pranked in return for that by the guys who lived there, working at Alley Kat's (except for D's role in it), and Fleur de Terre (except for the time D. brought me roses).  I'm going to drive him out with the other things, and that way, the next time I go through, his memory won't be there; only the good things will remain.

Prairie Arts 2011

My best friend and I went to West Point today for our annual trip to Prairie Arts.  I needed this get away so badly.  Last week was in many ways a thing woven from the fibers of hell, and all that helped me hold it together was the knowledge that I had this trip to look forward to at the end of it.  It was overcast and threatened rain off and on throughout the day, but this led to cooler temperatures than we've had in the past few years, making it a very comfortable day.

We saw all sorts of gorgeous stuff made by artists from many places.  Other than Chimneyville, it's the only time I get to see real craftsmanship.  Some of the same artists come to both, in fact.  I got another piece of metal yard art from the same people who made my rooster and flying pig, this time a nodding mule.  He's sort of awesome, if I do say so myself.

The stuff we bought wasn't the best part of the day, though.  The best part of the day was just talking and spending time with each other.  Both of us were tired, so at one point we simply sat down on the sidewalk across from some of the vendors and drank a bottle of water each and talked.  We went from West Point to Starkville and Little Dooey's and spent much longer than the chicken-on-a-sticks we ordered warranted because it was so good to sit and converse.  We've known each other so long; it doesn't really matter how long we go between conversations.  We always just pick back up seamlessly.

It was just what I needed.  When your world has gotten stupid, it always helps to have the company and conversation of a good friend.

Cheap

I have had two run-ins with the things I fight against back-to-back, and I'm sitting quiet and still, trying to hold the fort, trying to wrap my mind around it.  How is it possible that people sell themselves so cheaply, take all the beauty and potential I see everyday and throw it away for such nothingness, such absolute ashes and dust?  I know that so many of them have been hurt, maybe can't see clearly, but to trade infinity, wonder, joy for despair, brokenness, emptiness...  It causes me pain.  Every single time.  I just talked to one who may not come back because of choices made, consequences earned, and while I'm sure somebody will say that this is the cause-and-effect, the physics of life, if I thought it would lead to a reclamation, if I thought it would lead to a change, I think I could have some peace with it.  Lately, though, all I see is wrong choices leading to choices still more dark, people running down paths laced with thorns that cut to the bone while they laugh and call it "pleasure" and "fun."  I don't know what to do for them.  I don't know what to do for myself.  I can teach literature.  I can teach grammar.  How do you teach someone the value of their own soul?

Places I Wish I Were

On my Tumblr, I have a tag: #places i wish i were.  I use it on photos of places I have been, places I want to go, these impossibly wonderful, breath-stealingly gorgeous places that roll through my dashboard periodically.  Oh God, how I wish I could reach out my hand, make a gesture graceful and arcane, and melt into the reality they represent.

Tonight it was Rome at dawn or dusk, a city that even in the harsh light of day can make that sweet, sharp pain well up under your heart, make you want to spin in little circles to take it all in, make you laugh because you know that if you lived there your whole life you would never, ever be able to....but it would be so fun to try....  Fun to delve into the depths of that history overlapping like the pages of a living book, waiting simply with near-eternal patience for all who are interested to uncover it layer by layer.

So often it's London and I reblog every image that comes through, every cliched St. Stephen's Tower, every angle of the Eye I'm given, and I think of beautiful, red-headed, Kerry-on-his-tongue I. every time I do.  My mind is back with him as we float through the sky in that tame soap bubble, watching all of London unfold in front of us...  London fascinates me.  Too many authors I love and teach have spun through it, lived in it, died in it.  It is the great sun in my universe, its awesome gravity spinning all the little satellites in their orbits or causing them to expend energy to create escape velocity.

And then there are the fragments of the me who used to be that come sailing along like ginkgo leaves drifting, snapshots of Japan, every one heartbreaking in its loveliness.  There is no such thing as a bad picture of Japan.  You can take your camera and point it randomly and come away with something of wonder.  And when she is really trying, when she garbs herself deliberately and with care, turns her eyes upon you with intent to charm, there is not another place in the world that can stand up to her.  Newness of cherry blossoms or red and gold autumn leaves against centuries-old tile, gardens whose carefully-sculpted emptiness invites you to walk in and lay down the tangle you carry in your mind, these commonly photographed things in Japan are only the tiniest corner of her graces.

Then there are the places I haven't been that I want to see.... India and Brazil leading the group, Germany and China coming hard on their heels, so many places in the world so lovely and enchanting, all the world full of beauty and knowledge.  There are pictures from places my friends have been recently that further whet my appetites, and I dream....

Oh, somebody, take me away from here.  Just for a little while.  Let's run away, not tell anybody, just take a passport and a camera, a change of clothes or two and get the hell out and roam until home feels exotic again, until the pictures I'm wanting to put up online are pictures of here instead.

Menagerie

I've had this poster since grad school, part of the decor of my living room.  I've begun to notice something sort of prophetic about it, though....  Except for the black and white spotted cat on her shoulder, this is me.  I have this menagerie currently living at my house.

Stay with me now....

The black cat with the devil eyes is Yoda, Queen of All She Surveys, Destroyer of All that Pisses Her Off.  Except for the tail, it is a very good likeness.  Behind her is grey Pearl looking grumpy because Yoda is getting attention.  To the back of the grouping is young Dillon, sitting where the others have sort of shoved her.

Down on the floor, you have Yelldo the beagle/dachshund  and Roux the brown dog.  I suppose that big white monster shoving them both out of the way is Chewie or rather Future Chewie when he gets his size on him.

I suppose this needs to have my name instead of Cheron.  Maybe I should have become a vet instead of a teacher.  It sure would have saved on the upkeep around here.

Great Pyrenees?!

I took Chewie to the vet this morning after my own doctor's appointment, and he does indeed have mange.  Mange and every form of intestinal parasite known to man.  Great.  Here we go vet bill deluxe....

I asked what type of dog or dogs might make up his illustrious pedigree, and I was expecting to hear some form of lab in there based on his head shape and paw size.

"Great Pyrenees.  If not pure bred, then almost."

Knock me down with a freaking feather.  That is a big, BIG, dog.  I mean BIG.  And unusual for these parts.  We don't herd sheep upon the mountains here, you know.  Somebody threw out bastard royalty on me.

Of course, this isn't the first time.  Britta, my first pit bull, was pure bred.  She was crazy as all get out, but she was 100% pit.  This little boy appears to be another little diamond in the rough.  Very, very rough, as it turns out, and maybe that's why somebody tossed him.   I suspect it has more to do with the general fecal nature of the composition of their souls, personally....

The vet told me that Great Pyrenees are herding dogs, gentle shepherds, good with protecting stock, loving and gentle with kids.  Chewie, then, should rehome easily.  He'll be somebody's gentle giant.  I hope I can find him a house full of kids to ride him like a big white horse.  I rather suspect, as he reaches that size, that he'll like that.  The thought of it makes me happy, too.

Gypsy Feet

Even though I'm back in the school-year swing, I'm restless.  I need to go somewhere, do something.  I wanted to go out with the Nikon this past weekend, but I thought someone was going to come and take a look at Chewie, the puppy that was thrown out on me last Thursday, to see if they wanted to adopt him, and so I was sort of trapped here all day.

Chewie continues to live here on the hill.  I'm taking him to the vet later today to start him on his shots and so forth.  He's a sweet little thing, a little less than fully healthy, I think, but our vet is amazing, so I know he'll be right as rain soon enough, and we'll find him a family who can keep him.  He just can't stay here.  I have more mammal than I can manage as it is...

I wish I knew of more places to go to take pictures that qualified as "day trips."  It's getting to the point that most of the things I think of that I'd like to shoot involve overnight stays.  I can't really afford that, and it seems a bit silly when really and truly what I'm doing is not shopping, dining in exotic restaurants, etc.  I am literally driving, getting out, taking a bunch of pictures, hanging out a bit, maybe grabbing a bite to eat, and leaving for another site.  The photography, the seeing of it, is the thing.  I guess that's a bizarre sort of travel, but when I get like this, it's what I want to do.

It's been suggested that Birmingham would be a good place to go, and maybe that's where I should aim for next.  I don't really know much about it except for the fast driving, though.  I haven't been back to Tuscaloosa's Moundville in YEARS, not since that last disastrous trip with D. (Good frakkin grief.  How many places in my life do I have to label that way?)  So yeah.  Maybe I should go back there, if for no other reason than to have a memory other than those blue eyes, that little smirk and those painful moments over by the picnic tables as he sort of jumped up and down on my heart...yet again.... I'm also told there might be some good stuff to shoot over around Clinton if I can ever find any of it.

I just need to make some quick escapes for myself.  Exit doors for my gypsy feet to run through, if you will.   If I can do that, I might not have to take the big escape over the river bridge and into Louisiana and parts west that I sometimes contemplate late in the evening on rough afternoons.

Comment

I checked in on the old blog this morning, and lo, there upon my dashboard, there in shades of orange was the indicator that I had a comment!  My blog got a comment!  I clicked upon it with a bit of trepidation....  Was it my old friend AC?  Had some heretofore unknown entity liked what I'd written?  Hated it? Was there a kindred soul out there yearning to commune? (excuse the hyperbole, I'm still having my first Diet Mountain Dew of the day.)   I get very little feedback here.  I'm usually just tossing this stuff off into the void, and even though I'm okay with that, the thought of actual interaction made little writer's heart nervously quiver.....  (okay.  it got away from me again.  I'm working on it.  I'm working on it.)

Yeah. You guessed it.  Spam.  BOO.

Well, there's a button for that, isn't there?

O_o

Summer Lightning

Sometimes, I see things happen, and my first thought is that I should tell you about it.  There are little pieces of my day that I look at, tuck away, and wish I could share with you at the end.

I hope you understand that this isn't an every-moment-of-every-day thing.  You don't rule my thoughts or permeate my every waking moment.  You're not an obsession.  I don't do those anymore.  I'm not Juliet, and God knows I'm not looking for any sort of Romeo.

But sometimes you do cross my mind.  

I see things that I know you'd find amusing, and I wish I could bring them to you just to see you enjoy them, wish I could see that beautiful light of happiness dawn in those eyes, see that true smile, not your little clever restrained one, once in awhile.  Events occur that I want to bring to you just to talk with you about, just to know your thoughts, to bounce them back and forth between us for awhile.  

When these moments come to mind, I just let them flicker like the summer lightning, like the faerie fire they are, and they disappear.  What I dream of and what I actually have are very different, after all.  I will stay grounded in the real.  It's safer that way.

Sniffling Along

Still sniffling and starting to cough a week later.  I hate this.  I have another doctor's appointment Tuesday, so I guess I'll just shuffle from Doctor A to Doctor B and get the inevitable shot and antibiotics that this is probably going to take to go away.  Joy beyond all describing.

I took a three-hour nap this afternoon, and my body soaked that up like rain on parched soil.  I don't know if that was because of the ever-present demands of the Topamax, because of regular fatigue from getting used to teaching life, or because I'm still sick.  Roux piled up in the bed with me quite joyously.  I think she's missed our summer sleep schedule.  Pit bulls make very good nap buddies.

The little dog, Chewie as I'm calling him for his Wookie-like appearance, followed me around the yard while I put bird feeders up and re-situated my bottle tree in a new flowerbed.  Everything that was moved for the roofing is almost reassembled.  Chewie is not a lot of help, but he tries.  Oh, how he tries.  I hope I can find him a good family soon.  He's a sweet and loving little creature.  He's going to be a very large loving dog.

Well, as the day ends, I've seen the new Doctor Who (more on that possibly later), and I'm watching Lost in Austen on my Roku.  Tomorrow will be a festival of grading.  Maybe the creeping crud will have abated by then.

Caravan

As I was taking Roux to the vet this morning for an allergy shot, I came upon a long string of Asplundh trucks slowly moving east on I-20.  I passed them, but I knew where they were headed.  They were an emergency clean-up crew headed for the Carolina coast and the damage Irene is due to leave in her wake.

The sight of that slow-moving caravan of out-of-state rescue workers made my eyes tear up.  I flashed back to our own post-Katrina days here in Mississippi when our local highways were full of power company crews and other heavy equipment from every state in the union trying to get our basic services restored and the debris and devastation cleared away.  I remember all the different logos and colors as they trekked up and down the interstates, trying to help us put our shattered lives back together.  They'd be gathered at truck stops and gas stations refueling themselves and their equipment.

I also remember after power returned finally and we all headed back to interrupted jobs, school years, lives, and we watched those people who helped us to do that packing their gear and turning their big trucks back toward Illinois, Indiana, Ohio once again....  I couldn't help but thinking that even though it was their job to come, even though they got paid by the power companies they represented to do that work, that they were heroes.  The battle that we were fighting to get to something like normal, as much as we were going to have after the hammer of the gods had hit us, anyway, was their battle, too.  Their work made it possible for us to recover, to survive.

I hope that Irene doesn't hold a candle to her older sister.  I hope that she's shy and stays away from society.  I hope that these slow and deliberate caravans headed toward the coast are just a sensible precaution.  Nobody should have to need those heroes in the heavy trucks, but it is a great comfort to know they're on the way.

Fragile Optimism

I have been called Pollyanna and a hopeless optimist.  The people who said those things were not complementing me.  I wonder if they have any idea how difficult it is to keep looking for good, to keep being hopeful.

People act like it's a weakness, a sin, a mark of stupidity, or an affront to them personally if I try to believe that change is possible, if I believe that things can be better, if I think that badness isn't everywhere.  Why is it so much more clever, so much more holy and right to see darkness than light?

All that sort of thinking does is poison everything.  If you believe that evil is everywhere, you will most certainly never find anything else.  If you maintain that nothing ever changes for the better, I'm sure that in your presence, it will always be exactly as you've always seen it.  Your attitude will crush out any tender new green shoot that manages to push its way through that rocky soil.  

And you know what?  Maybe that's the way you like it.  Maybe it validates something inside you when you shove and the world shoves you back.  It gives you a moment to hold up your hand and say, "I told you so.  I knew it.  THIS is what I was talking about.  I was right all along...."

However.

I know that there are monsters in the world, flaws in the manufacture, and that sometimes we're given orders that may lead us down paths that will take us to the edges of sanity.  I know that people are frequently savage and all too often give into instincts that do them harm instead of credit.  I am a dancing fool, but I am not oblivious to all reality. 

But you have to quit shoving my face in it; you have to quit kicking me down the stairs, especially about the things that I love most. Sometimes hope is all there is, the dream of the thing wanted, that thing made perfect, when the thing itself is not.   I respect that you may think that there is no good possible anywhere at any time.  It grieves my soul, but that's your belief.  So be it.  Get off of mine. 

You're hurting me with your constant negativity and I can't take it anymore.  I need this hope to get where I'm going.  I have to fan this little spark to keep the embers burning when the flames themselves are gone.  The day it dies completely (and it came so close last year...so very, very close) will be the day I have to stop altogether.  When I can't have a dream, a way to move forward, when the fire dies inside, then I'll just be a hollowed-out shell.

Connections

Every day, I watch the shifting masses of people around me, and I see some of them dealing with things that are lifechanging, crippling.  Major events pass through the lives of my colleagues, my friends.  I see and hear of things in places where I don't know a single soul.  People react to each other and to the events that beset them and those near them in ways that puzzle me.

Why don't we connect to each other better than we do?  Why are we seemingly so eternally so separated from each other?   I don't think the other species that we think of as "lower animals" are.  They seem aware of each other when another one of their kind is in distress or pain.  Depending on what sort of creature they are and how they are hardwired, they react in compassion and support or by attacking at those times, but they don't seem to be oblivious, walking by each other encased in little spheres of self-absorption or deliberate obtuseness.  If we're supposed to be the pinnacle of awareness and processing, how is that we so often miss all the little signs and signals when they're present?

This has been on my mind quite a bit today.  I have a couple of theories.  The first theory is that we are so inundated with woe that we build protective shells to keep it from dragging us under.  We block out to survive because we start to think we have to do that, that it's somehow necessary.  We are not unaware; we've simply built up a callus, a protective layer to keep our own hearts from being rubbed raw on the rough surface of life.

That theory might work, but I suspect another factor is at work, too.  If we don't see the pain in others, if we put our little hands over our little eyes and press down really, really tightly, then we're off the hook for giving assistance.  It's the old image of three monkeys sitting in a row, eyes covered, ears covered, mouth covered, all evil shut out.  It takes time and effort, resources both tangible and drawn from the wells of the heart to meet the needs of someone who is hurting, and in a world that is careless and rushing, demanding and brutal, the temptation too often is to cross to the other side of the road and pray that somebody else comes along to do the job.

So we gain a little measure of temporary breathing room.  So we don't have to carry that person's darkness or sorrow with us as we go.  We slip the "trap" and tell ourselves we've escaped.  What we really need to be asking ourselves as we are moving away alone in our little globes is what the trap really was, taking the time and effort to give a little to help somebody else out and possibly reach a new understanding and relationship with that person, heal something that was broken both in them and maybe even in ourselves, or continuing to stay in a shell that pushes everyone away in selfish fear.

I'm fairly sure I don't have this dynamic figured out yet.  I'll continue to tumble these pieces and ponder.

Now Panic and Freak Out

I randomly selected an AP prompt to use in class today for an activity.  It happened to be from 1993.  The year meant nothing to me.  I picked the prompt because it had the form I wanted, something easy to deal with for a first time breaking them down.  Suddenly in my last class, a student said, "Hmm.  1993.  A very good year," and the pieces clicked together giving me an extremely odd moment.

This class, by and large, was born in 1993/1994.  That means that they were busy coming into the world during my senior year of high school.  I was having the year they're having now when they were being blanket-wrapped and bottle-fed.  It's sort of messing with my head and not just a little.  I am a whole person older than they are.

This is not an "oh-God-I'm-so-old" post.  Well, in truth, the students probably perceive me that way.  (Actually, I have no idea how they perceive me.  I just assume they think of all their teachers that way.)  That doesn't bother me.  It's just that this realization is a bit of a shock, sort of an unexpected duality that snuck up on me.

This also means that they are the first class that are actually young enough to be my children.  I would have had to have started very, very early, it's true, but it's possible now.  That slammed me like a hammer.  I looked at those students sitting in those desks and thought about what it might be like to have a son or daughter that age.  It would not register.  Biologically possible, but not in any way, form, or fashion comprehensible.  Would my children be anything like them?  Would they be as bright and wonderful?  Would they be as full of potential and promise?  I often look at my friends' children and think about what it might be like to have a child of 3, of 5, of 7...what about a high school senior?

Of course, that started me down a road mentally that I will not pursue in writing here because of certain recent unpleasantness...the road of whether or not I will ever have any children of my own at all and what that means to me and my family.  One day, I will write that blog, but I cannot and will not right now.  I'm just going to ignore that just a bit longer, dance and sing and pretend it's not hovering in the corner with wings and claws.

Stubbornness

I dragged myself to school this morning for the simple reason that it's easier to battle through a day of feeling like crap there than it is to deal with getting stuff ready for a sub and deal with the aftermath of having one.  I really wish I hadn't.  All day long, I sniffled and sneezed.  I'm sure my students were thinking, "Oh God!  She's come to destroy us!"  Well, turn about is fair play...  One of them brought this stuff to me, after all.

In all reality, I made sure I wasn't running any fever before I went.  I was no danger to anyone but myself.  Between classes, I just wanted to slide down the cool brick wall into a little huddled ball and stay there.  I'd lean back and close my eyes.  It was amazing how time distorted during those intervals.

Tomorrow, if I feel this crappy, I'm not going.  I can't do today again tomorrow, even if it does put all my lesson plans off.  I'll hate it, but I just don't think I can endure another day of it.

Sherlock

Oh, I do so love this show.  The new Sherlock Holmes is totally obnoxious and completely brilliant. Specific little quirks and oddities Moffat has built in that I adore are the way Holmes will tell people to shut up because they're thinking too loudly, the way he harasses people through text messages, and the relationship Holmes has with his brother Mycroft.  They're hilarious.  If I knew him, I would probably be torn between absolute wonder and slapping him around.  It's lovely.

 It is a perfect reinvention of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle character.  It's all there.  The moods, the mind, the darkness.  Too often, people who try to do Holmes turn him into a caricature, play up the deer stalker and the pipe and play down the very real demons that were written into the man.  Moffat has not shied away from the obsessions, the addictions, or the compulsions that accompany the brilliance.  There's a fabulous scene in one episode where he gets bored, paints a smiley face on the wall of his living room in yellow spray paint, and then shoots at it with Watson's Browning.  Characterization perfected.

Watson, too, is right on.  He's a man of action and intelligence who needs what Holmes has, the fire and the bright sheer insanity, to pull him out of the pain of his own past.  He's also a normal man trying to keep up with a genius. You can see the strain of what that is like well-played.  It is not always easy to be the friend and the point of stability for someone like Holmes.  I like that this Watson isn't written as a hero-worshiper who is blind to all of the negative qualities.  He admires, but not without awareness.  He does serve as the steady foundation that Holmes needs to ground himself, though, something he can rely on to be there so he can dance on and over the edge and know that there is something to pull him in even though he would probably never admit to that concept or that need.  And then, of course, there is Holmes' need for an appreciative audience...

And then there is Moriarty....  Well.  If Holmes describes himself as a "high-functioning sociopath" and really is, imagine what this new Moriarty has been made.  I think it's going to be a grand series.  It seems Moffat cannot miss.

Sick

What I thought yesterday was just a sore throat from too much lecture seems today to be something else.  I feel like I was hit by a truck.  I have spent all day on the couch watching movies and TV shows through the Roku, shuffling precariously to the washing machine to get a few loads of clothes done as I can.  

I hate being sick.  Other than migraines, it happens to me very rarely.  I feel pitiful when it does, like I want to put my head in somebody's lap, curl up into a little ball, and just be very still.  I hope this passes.  I'm treating myself with hot tea, lots of liquid, and rest.  I have to be in fighting form for Monday.  I can't do Beowulf if I still feel this icky.  

Shake, Rattle, and Roll

Things are moving along, but periodically, I have the oddest feeling.  Have you ever dropped something and not had it shatter, but had instead a small piece break off somewhere inside?  Every time it moves or tilts, that little piece will rattle around, ricochet off the internal workings, skitter and tumble.

I feel that sometimes.

I'm still feeling the effects of last year.  There are still little rills, little jittery fragments of the horror of it fluttering around at odd moments inside me, and I have to wrap my fingers around the edges of my speaker's stand and take a deep quiet breath and remind myself that this is a new year.  That it's going to be okay.  That, by and large, the gates of hell have creaked closed with me on the good side of them.

When are the cracks going to heal?  Am I ever going to feel like myself again?  Is that person gone for good?  I don't relate to anything the way I used to, not my job, not my friends or family, not the things I enjoy, nothing.  It's unsettling.

I've never been in this place before.  I'm just feeling my way out of the darkness that swallowed me during the summer and the insanity that was last school year.  Maybe it's like a scar that's forming.  I don't know what it says that I find that image a little comforting.  Scar tissue is strong to protect the area of injury from further damage.  It may not be pretty, but at least it has that extra layer of strength. 

I hope that all of this is leading me to a place where I am not shaky anymore, where, if I'm not what I used to be, perhaps then I can be something better.  I look forward to the day I can stand up and feel all the cracks mended and everything sound once again.

Mad Scientists

"We live in a Newtonian world of Einsteinian physics ruled by Frankenstein logic." ~ David Russell

Exactly.

Song in the Head

Okay.  I love Josh Ritter and all, but I do NOT LOVE waking up with "The Temptation of Adam" stuck in my mind over...and over...and over...  It was quite literally the first thing in my mental soundscape this morning.  I might even have been dreaming it.  I've been walking around the house getting ready singing to myself, "If this was the Cold War, we could keep each other warm..."  I hate it when that happens to a song I really like.

He will have to be driven out.  What's the anti-Ritter?

For some reason, I'm thinking AC/DC.  Sigh.....  At least I'll get to work on time.  I always drive fast when I listen to them.

Roofs and Ring Pops

My house has a new roof at long last.  The shingles are darker than the old ones were, but I like the look of it.  Now that the trees have been pruned back, the old chimney taken down below the roofline, and all the repairs done, I feel that the house is sound again.  It's such a relief not to have to worry about it anymore.  There's some cleanup left to do, but it won't take long.

I gave my AP students Ring Pops today as a prize for their college application essays.  I wish you could have seen their faces when I brought the Ring Pops out from behind my desk.  That part of teaching never gets old.  They were so happy with that simple little treat.  They sort of fought over the watermelon ones making me wish I had more of those and then they sat there just as happy as little larks with the plastic rings on their fingers.  That was a very good thing indeed.

There's more to this day, some of it a little disturbing, but I'm not ready to put it in print, or at least not here.  I'm going to leave this day with the image of my dear little ones and their sugar-induced happiness.  I think that's a good way to go out for right now.

Silent Films

This is an intertitle from a silent film taken from the Tumblr Silent Films. What an amazing quote.  The whole Tumblr is amazing.  Silent movies are wonderful, and part of what I enjoy about them is this combination of text and image.  If you also enjoy silent films, or really, even if you've never seen them, check this site out.  It's a great archive showing some of the more interesting quotes and some of the fancier backgrounds from this now lost art form.

More Better(er)

I just wanted to do that to set your teeth on edge.  Sorry.  It crossed my mind, and I couldn't resist.

Today was a fair day despite a general lack of sleep last night.  I stayed up too late watching TV (curse you, Roku...okay, not literally.  I really love that thing...), had bizarre, TV-induced dreams, and woke up feeling a little less than rested.

The new school year continues to plod along.  I'm finding a rhythm with most classes.  There's a curious sense of isolation this year that's new.  I just try to keep my head down, do my job, and not worry about it.  Laugh, clown, laugh, right?

I'm feeling much better after the recent bout of migrainage.  Whatever internal or external trigger was moving through is done, and I am grateful.  The chaining ones like those were are terrible, especially when they linger, hovering just around the edges of perception to make me miserable.  Either I take a Maxalt and cannot function or I am in pain and it's pretty much the same situation.  Catch-22, indeed.

Well, I'm off to Dollar Tree, loved by teachers everywhere, to get some prizes for tomorrow's AP essay activity.  I have a date with the Roku or maybe even my Kindle later tonight.  Woo-woo!  My social calendar is just BURGEONING with excitement....

Moonlight and Movies

The story unfolded, glorious technicolors just there in front of my windshield, an entertainment made of flickering bits of light and dark, and I was very happy.  I could lean my head out, stare up, and see stars glittering against that blue velvet vault.  The yellowed globe of the moon slowly lifted itself over the treeline, an extra decoration seen briefly before being obscured by the clouds that dotted the sky.  Everything was wonderful.

As always, the only thing missing was you.

I kept thinking about how much you would have liked the movie, how much the drive-in aspect of it would have amused you.  I kept seeing your long legs stretched out in that small space, your feet popped up on the dash next to mine.  We'd have made quite a tangle, but it would have been fun.

One day, it would be nice if these little simple moments weren't fragments of fiction, if we were really sharing the popcorn and the silver screen and the small spaces and the starlight together.  I am not sure, though, that I really believe that this will ever happen.

McLintock (Drive-In 2)

I went back to the drive-in tonight.  They were showing McLintock with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara.  I had never seen it, but as my Nana was a huge John Wayne fan, and my dad has always loved his films, I wanted to see this one.  My interest increased when I heard it was based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.

I gathered my provisions earlier and better this time and set off.  I had plenty of snacks, and I sprayed myself with OFF before the movie began, so except for the bug bites I'm still healing from Tuesday night's horse adventure, I am mosquito free.  That made a big difference.  So, too, did the cooler weather that's begun to return at last.  It was nice to be able to sit there and it not still be 90-something degrees.  Their next film is September, and it should be pleasantly cool then, possibly even requiring jeans.

I really loved McLintock. The whole movie is a joy.  I think if I can't get it streaming on the Roku, I'm pretty much going to have to own it.  It made me laugh too much not to.   It was very funny.  The fight scene in it might be one of my favorite fight scenes in any movie.  People keep falling down and it keeps being funny.  Even John Wayne, the great god of heroes, keeps falling down.  It's wonderful.  And I love Maureen O'Hara.  I want to be her when I grow up.  She's awesome.  She's right in the middle of it, stabbing people with this feather pin thing she takes off her hat.  Love, love, love it.

I will say that somebody somewhere will think that I probably should get all grumpy woman about him spanking her at the end, but...I feel about that like I feel about the stuff that happens in Atlas Shrugged and gets called sexist.  Would I tolerate it happening to me?  Oh HELLS NO.  He would die.  A LOT.  I'd break him into about forty-seven neat segments.  Did it work for them?  Apparently.  In that case, I don't really think it's anybody's business and we need to stay out of it.  The whole movie is incredibly violent.  She knocks him out with a bottle; people punch each other repeatedly in sort of casual, happy-go-lucky way.  I think getting wound up over the bit at the end without seeing it as a part of the larger whole would be a little of that camel/gnat syndrome that seems so prevalent in society.

Anyway, without delving more into philosophy of movies and relationships this late at night, I will just end this by saying that if you haven't seen it, you should.  For something that was as funny as it was, there were actually quite a few deep things going on in it, not the least of which was the treatment of social class and the issue of the Native American tribes being resettled.  For a western of its time, it caught me off guard with its tone there.  I think this is probably one of the reasons why it has lasted so long.  Treat yourself to it, and let me know what you think.  I'm curious to get your opinion.

The Crap Fairy Cometh

Bad day.  Really, really bad day.  I thought one of the new laptops was gone.  That kind of bad day. It turns out that there were never an even number in that cart.  Knowing that ahead of time or even being able to get somebody to come and give me that information after my repeated pleas for help would have saved a day that started with a migraine and ended with tears.  I feel like absolute hell.  I also feel ashamed of having caused a commotion unnecessarily as it turned out.  Now everybody undoubtedly thinks I'm even sillier than usual.  I hate looking foolish.  I was so afraid, though, that because I somehow hadn't managed to be careful enough, one of our new pieces of equipment that we'd waited so long for was gone, and I was heartsick.

I guess I'm just a useless damn fool.

Things in Myself of Which I Am Not Sure I Approve

Another list....

• I'm missing talking to somebody who doesn't miss me at all.  I think I hate that in myself.  If I'm a triviality to them, I need to make them less to me somehow.  I hate it when I'm sitting there, and that person comes to my mind, and I think, "Oh, I should tell ________ this..."  Then the reality kicks in.  It makes me feel small and somehow less when I suppose I should say, "I'm fabulous, and if they can't see it, screw them."  For some reason, I don't ever say that....  But also, I don't tell them the thing.  I at least manage not to be that person, I suppose.  Maybe that's something.
• The eternal second-guessing of motive.  I don't take anything straight.  I am always looking for the hidden context.  I think somebody could walk up, hand me a piece of cheese, and say, "This is a piece of cheese," and walk away, and I would, twenty or thirty minutes later, still be digging for exactly what it was they meant.  Okay, that situation would be exceedingly odd and maybe I SHOULD be trying to figure out what the hell just happened there to make somebody walk up and shove cheese at me, but you see what I mean.  I think this is an English major thing.  I don't know that other types of people are constantly scanning for hidden things all the time, thinking, "Okay, you said this, but really, you meant....."
• I smile to hide emotions that have nothing to do with happiness.  A small polite smile is my default expression.  I noticed this the other day, and I did a sharp internal double-take.  When did that Japanese Noh-mask get stuck on MY face?  That was unexpected....  When I don't want to tell you I think you're being an ass....little Noh smile.  Whenever you hurt me with your insensitivity and I can't bring myself to tell you....little Noh smile.   Whenever I need a minute to myself and I can't get it....little Noh smile.  Whenever I have decided that I'm not going to argue that point with you because there's no POINT to arguing...well, you know.  Did I learn that in Japan?  Because it is an exceptionally Japanese thing.  I don't remember myself before that time.  Maybe I've always done it and just not known.

I guess these three will be my work-on it list for the present.  Only...I don't know what to do about some of it.  I suspect I will continue to miss that person.  I am not sure how you stop that.  I will try to stop being so suspicious and second-guessing.  The little smile?  Well, it worked for Mona Lisa, and it stops a lot of fights and hurt feelings, so is it really a bad thing?  I'm just going to smile here, and let you draw your own conclusions about it.....

Just Your Average Tuesday (Plus Horse)

School was nothing remarkable.  It was a standard second day.  I'm starting to put a few names with faces.  We're finishing up the tedium of opening procedure.  Things continue to run smoothly.

At the end of the day, I had a knot between my shoulder blades that would have made the Gordian knot look like an amateur effort.  After standing almost thirty minutes of bus duty, I came in and put my aching head on my desk and closed my eyes for awhile.  I was just plain worn out.  Like any other major endeavor, it takes time to get back into the right physical condition for teaching all day.  As I have on many other days, I thought of the magic hands of that guy I knew at the Wesley at MSU and wished I could just sort of teleport him in to have him get that pain out of my neck and shoulders....

I came home at five and went to Mom and Dad's for supper, mostly wrapped in a zombie haze.  I came out of it some on the way home, which was a good thing as it turned out.  My day took a hard left turn about 7:00.

As I rounded the curve just after the one where a deer plowed into the side of my car so long ago, suddenly, there was a brown horse in the road frantically darting back and forth.  Of course, there was a truck in the other lane.  Both of us slowed and swerved on the wet pavement trying to avoid hitting the frightened animal, and we managed to get around it.  The truck kept going, but as the horse darted down a long road leading to a locked gate to somebody's property, I backed up and followed it, blocking it in.

Where I'm from, you don't just let somebody's stock animal run loose and hurt itself and other people if you can help it.  You try to prevent the injury to the animal the best you can.  You do it because it's right, right for the animal first of all, and also because it's right for others.  You also hope that if you happen to be a person with stock animals yourself that someone would do that for you if your own animals ever slipped the fence as they will inevitably at some point do.  Mississippi has some massively punitive laws about what people can do to you if they hit your livestock with their car because your cow or horse was somewhere it wasn't supposed to be.

I called Mom on my cellphone and told her what was going on and asked her to get a phone book and start finding out whose animal it was.  This took longer than you can imagine.  Everybody was either not home or didn't know.  Mom finally tracked down not the owner but somebody who could help us take care of it by driving to the owner's house and blowing the horn until somebody came, and they came with a key and opened a gate to get it back inside a fence.

In the interval, I just stood outside there in the gloaming with the horse watching it pull kudzu off the edges of the dirt tractor trail for an hour.  The horse was gentle and fairly small, thank God, but not very interested in me.  This was fine with me.  I just stayed near the car to expand the barrier I'd created with the PT Cruiser if I needed to and kept watch.

Sometime during the wait, Mom came back to let me know she'd found somebody, and a neighboring dog appeared, a big yellow lab.  He was SO HAPPY to see us ALL.  My first thought was overly enthusiastic dog + already nervous horse = disaster.  We managed to persuade happy dog to go away repeatedly until the people with the key could arrive, and thus a good time was had by all.

I finally got home about 8:00.  It felt wonderful to hit my couch.  Every fire ant and mosquito in the county has gnawed on me, but at least that poor horse has been fed and is no longer in danger of being struck by one of the road warriors racing the blacktop out front tonight.  Let no man say life in the country is dull until he has tried it for a little while.

New

We started back to school again today.  I think it was the best opening day we've ever had, the least nonsense, the least disruption, the least confusion.  It was done almost before I knew it.  If the whole year will run this smoothly, my broken soul has a chance to heal.

I wore my new dress today, and I felt it with every step.  That dress is just beautiful, and I felt beautiful wearing it.  I felt like a lady, as in, I felt as though I needed little white gloves to go with it.  It's a wonderful feeling.  I got lots of complements on it, and I didn't turn a single one away.  I just smiled and said thank you.  It was hard, but I did it.  Growth, I think.

I am tired, but it's manageable.  I will go to bed fairly soon and catch up on some of the sleep I inevitably missed last night.  I hope that things continue in this current vein.

Yep-yep-yep-yep

It happened about a week ago.  I was minding my own business, and I sort of looked up and there he was.  He looked up and....wham.  I thought, "Oh my.  That is a good-looking guy."  I kept doing what I was doing (walking without falling down), but I also kept looking.  Then I remembered that this is not polite, and I looked away.

But I kept running into him.  Every time, that little voice in my head would say, "Yep.  Yep-yep-yep-yep-yep.  Uh-huh.  Uh-huh,"  just like those martians on Sesame Street used to do.  (Remember them?  The ones that used to freak out when the phone rang?  Yeah....)

I had a chance to talk to him briefly yesterday, just a quick conversation, but he's interesting, easy to talk to, that rare thing.  I know almost nothing about him other than that he is lovely to look at in a completely geekilicious way, tall as I am, educated in an unusual way.  For all I know, he has an apple-cheeked wife and fifteen happy children at home.  I assume I will find out in time as I will continue to run in to him on a fairly regular basis.

I just know that instant hyper-awareness is exceedingly rare for me.  That snap hasn't happened since J. moved to Florida, and before that, well, there was T.....

It's hard to believe anything will come from this.  It's just nice that there was someone to notice.  It certainly ought to be entertaining.  I don't think somebody as frankly skittish as I am when it comes to men will wind up with anything else, but a little entertainment is always a good thing.

Atlas Shrugged Deux

There's a moment in AS when the people running Dagny's company, the people who have been in a place of power to make decisions, choose to do something that causes the deaths of about 300 people and the destruction of a major and necessary feature of the infrastructure of the railroad.  You can see it coming from the minute that section of the book starts.  It is so preventable that a three-year old child with only a rudimentary understanding of how the world functions could have stopped it, would have told the folks running the show that they were going about the situation in such a way that they were bringing disaster down on themselves as fast as they could.  Dagny isn't able to stop it from happening, and it's one of the last great eye-opening things that happens for her as she watches the seemingly deliberate glee with which some people seem to race head-first into embracing things that are the opposite of life, the opposite of creation and preservation, the absolute glee with which they throw themselves into the grinding teeth of the destroyer.

Excuse my ramblings.  I guess I've just had AS on the mind today.