The Onslaught of Cupid

Love is being stupid together. ~Paul Valery

We're all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness - and call it love - true love. ~Robert Fulghum,True Love
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Valentine’s Day is starting to fill every conceivable space. The red and white menace is creeping like some horrid form of kudzu into retail space both real and virtual. The front page of Etsy screams at you every time you log on, reminding you exactly how many days it is until that most hellish of holidays.

Sigh. Great. One more year when I won’t get flowers. One more year when I won’t have anyone to buy anything for myself. One more year alone.

It’s enough to make somebody my age start to think about options, settling, just finding someone, ANYONE, and getting it “over with.” I think a part of me would just die, though. If all I wanted was just a ring, even I probably could have managed that at some point in the past. Granted, I am not beautiful. No line of guys has ever stood outside my door hopefully waiting for my notice, but probably, I could have found somebody if I were diligently looking. (This is my story, and I’m sticking to it.)

It’s always been about more than this to me, though. I don’t want just somebody. I am looking for something specific. Oh, I don’t mean some sort of magic, eyes-meeting-across-the-room moment. I did that once, remember? It went very, very badly, and I don’t think I’m particularly interested in going through it again. What I want in a man is something a lot more complex and apparently a hell of a lot harder to find. Who knew that the electric rush, the magic, Disney scene was the easy thing to get hold of? (Okay, so T. shouldn't be classified as Disney.  He was never G-rated, not even that first look he gave me...)

I want someone I can talk to. I don’t mean that in the trite sense. I don’t need an audience. I mean I want someone who can keep up, participate. He doesn’t have to be an expert in the things I love; I’m not looking for a twin or a mirror. I don’t want us to wear matching outfits. I don’t want him to give up who he is and what he loves for me. I just want to find someone who is interested in at least some of the same things as me. I want compatibility. I want a friend. When I say, “Oh, that’s awesome,” I’d love it if he were right there beside me saying, “Too right. Let’s go.”

That’s the core of it in a nutshell. Oh, there are all kinds of little physical attributes I gravitate toward. If you can’t tell from my comments and the pictures of “pretty men” I post here and on Tumblr on rare occasions, I seem to like them tall and blue-eyed (no real hair color preference), built strong but not bulky, like a swimmer or a soccer player. Personality-wise, I like them brilliant, into everything, cynically funny, musical, and just a little (or maybe more than a little) dark. None of this is really the key, though. The essential thing, the thing that matters, is that connection of the minds, those threads of commonality.

Ultimately, then, I guess I’m looking for somebody who will go on adventures like I went on yesterday to take pictures and protect me from myself when I’m not paying attention and who I can also depend upon to pin me against a wall and kiss me senseless when needed. Somebody who is passionate about the world and all this wonder there is in it, wants to see it with me, and is also passionate about me, can be passionate with me. I’m looking for a best friend I can wake up next to every morning, can come home to every night.

I don’t think this will make everything perfect. I do not expect any relationship to be a rainbow of hearts and flowers. After all, even with the friends that I have now, disagreements still occur. Even with my very best friend, the one I’ve had since I was five, there have been hard times and moments when the two of us didn’t connect very well, and she knows almost literally everything there is to know about me. She’s also a girl. There’s not that gender barrier that is bound to cause crap between us. I can’t imagine, though, any sort of relationship with a man being of any use or worth wasting a minute over if it wasn’t this. Anything else would be something so inferior, something so obviously doomed to fail, something so tremendously less than what it could be. Why would anyone ever settle for that?

I suspect that waiting for this, the ideal of this, is why I’m still alone. I may never get this. Maybe it’s unreasonable. I’m going to keep waiting, though. The alternative, occupying myself with people I know don’t fit the bill just to pass the time, is every bit as grim to me as simply being alone. Therefore, while it’s going to be so hard to watch the rest of the world “bill and coo” this Valentine’s Day, I guess I’ll just turn my head and hope for better in the future. I don’t really know what other option I have.

The Spirit of a Place

(Or, Ambitious but Rubbish)

Today, I got to go take some pictures at a place I've wanted to shoot at for a long time.  It's an abandoned amusement park in a nearby town.  I've been hearing about it for years and years.  It's been on my "Holy Grail" list for a long time now, but it's in a place that I should not really go by myself, secluded and lots of trees, possibly also inhabited by the homeless, so I have never been able to get in there and get any pictures.  Today, though, one of my friends came home from DC, and she decided that it was on her list of things to do as well, so her sister, she, and I hatted up and went to see Royal Land.

It was both oddly wonderful and oddly sad, which, I suppose, is to be expected of an abandoned amusement park.  We could find no equipment left in the complex.  All we saw were signs of others' presence, an eerie abandoned doll, wrecked and burned furniture, a child's shoe.  Clearly someone had been living there.  We didn't go all the way to the back, and we didn't stay inside the gates long.We took a lot of pictures outside and left.  As I drove home, I thought about the experience.

The town where I go to take many of my pictures has a pervasive problem.  Maybe it isn't unique to that single place.   It seems that all too often big projects get undertaken and abandoned; important things are allowed to decay and disappear; instead of preservation and appreciation, a great deal of quick, cheap replacement occurs.

I keep thinking about the general state of repair of things around town.  For a very long time, one of the great jewels, a movie palace from the heyday of film, was being allowed to fall into ruin.  The ceiling is spotted from leaks, the plaster on the walls of the stairwells is in need of repair, and nobody was using it at all.  Finally, someone came and saved it.  It is starting to recover at last.  Performances are being held in it once again.  Films are being show in its lavish walls.  While the restoration process is slow-going, it is no longer being lost.

Then there was the opera house.  There was a gorgeous gem hidden away, locked up, and forgotten.  Almost nobody cared.  It was out of fashion, like a diamond in a setting nobody wanted to wear.  Despite the efforts of a few local people, it took people coming in from outside to see its true worth and save it.  Now, it is a wonderful place to go and see concerts again.  We have world-class shows coming in to something that even ten years ago was still a dusty memory in the minds of most.

I photograph so many other things that are on the verge of being past reclamation, a skyscraper that has deco details that put it on the National Historic Register; an old train car that is a remnant of this city's legendary status as a rail hub without equal.  Some of what I've shot is actually already gone or beyond recall, an old hotel they waited too long to try to save, an amusement part that was never very good in the first place.  How many other things will join them in the pile of cast-offs and left-behinds?

What a city builds says a lot about it, what it chooses to create.  I think, though, you can also tell a lot about a place by looking at what it chooses to save, by whether it chooses to reclaim or destroy and start again.  Then there are the things that can be learned by what a place chooses to neglect....   I wonder what these choices are saying about this town?

Thinking

I taught my first college class in a long, long time yesterday.  It happened in my own little high school room with students from my school.  It's a dual-enrollment thing offered by our local community college so they can get early credit for the core classes they'll need regardless of where they're going.

As I was standing there going over the class syllabus, I was amazed at how different it felt to be doing that again.  It was the same place, the same student population (although none of them are actually mine during the day), the same equipment surrounding me.  How I felt behind that podium was completely different.

I know that I am different with AP than I am with my regular classes to some degree because they have to be pushed harder and faster, but they are still high school kids in a high school world.  High school rules apply.  High school rules are all too often about giving about a million chances, about taking anything that is turned in.  Even though I have a reputation for being one of the "harder" teachers (as in students flee my class in droves at the beginning of the year), I know that I, too, frequently err on the side of mercy because they are still kids.  Not every time.  I won't get into my philosophy on this here.  It's long and it's complex, and it would be a whole blog by itself.

College is another ballgame.  I had forgotten what it feels like to be able to tell people to their faces that you will not take any assignment they turn in to you that has those stupid little edges that come out of a notebook without perforations because that's NOT PROPER PAPER.  I had forgotten what it is like to be able to tell people on the very first day of class that after the second time you have to say something to them about their cell phones they will be dismissed from your room (not sent down to the office, blah, blah, blah) and told not to come back until they have a conference with you.  Then they can be readmitted to the course at your discretion.  The ability to tell students that after they are absent I get to decide whether or not they CAN do makeup work for me is at my discretion based upon their explanation of their absence is almost totally foreign after so long in K-12.

It's not about power tripping.  Maybe it sounds like that.  I don't mean for it to be.  I will likely never have to use that cell phone rule.  Actually, I really don't care if they slip them out of their pockets to check the time, if you want to know the truth.  Everybody has done it. Most likely, I will allow anyone who is absent (unless they tell me "Uh, I just didn't come because I didn't want to" to do makeup work.  What this stuff gives that I don't have in my current environment, maybe, is the sense that what is going on is important.  It brings a maturity and a focus to the learning.  The stuff in that syllabus says, "You are here for a reason.  You are going to be doing something that matters.  If you can't get on board with that, get out.  The rest of us have important stuff to do.  We don't have time to waste with trivial shit."  I wish there was more of that intensity in high school education.

It's just a little thing, just a little class, just a little hybrid comp course.  But it's got me thinking.  I can't say that it doesn't.

Athena and Me

(here there be stupid stuff.  you have been warned.)

Don't ask what started me chasing this rabbit.  I don't even know.  But now I'm deep into it, and it's turned into a full-on blog.  If you have something better to do, well, you know...

Probably it was this morning when I was getting ready.  I pulled my owl necklace out of the box and put it on, the one I got at the Parthenon in Nashville.  It's a little silver replica of Athena's owl, and I smiled when I fastened the clasp, thinking that I had at least a few other things than my fondness for owls in common with the mythical lady.  I started running those over in my head.

Then I got curious.  I don't know that I've ever really looked up stuff on just Athena.  I've researched background for stories in which she is a major character, and I know her basic aspects, but now my little research monster was hungry, so...

It's sort of funny and frightening.  The owls behind me are looking on in calm amusement.  Yeah.  I have one or two things in common.  For instance:

• War Goddess -- She's not into the stupid raging bloodlust side (that's her brother Ares) but rather strategic butt-kicking. She is, and I quote, a warrior maiden.  Check.  Where's my sword?
• She Likes Her Men Smart -- Who does she support/mentor/back/pick?  Not the Achilles/Ajax crew.  Nope.  Odysseus.  Jason (before he gets dumb and dumps his witch wife).  Heracles.  She goes for the smart ones.  Check again. 
• Good with Her Hands -- The metalwork of weapons is in her hands.  So is weaving.  She can make stuff.  Lots of stuff.  Have you seen my work room?
• Forever Alone -- No men at any time.  Not even those smart, pretty ones.  (HITTING TOO CLOSE TO HOME.)
• Competitive -- Too much so.  Over the top so.  She made a freaking olive tree to win a competition.  (Yeeah....  Don't go there with me.  I like to keep that side of me in a nice little box even if I can't whip out any olive trees on you.)
• The Owls -- Enough said.

They say you only need three points of comparison to have a legitimate argument.  I think I have more than three.  Hmm....  Well.  I suppose it could be worse.  

Everything Is Broken

Broken bottles broken plates
Broken switches broken gates
Broken dishes broken parts
Streets are filled with broken hearts
Broken words never meant to be spoken
Everything is broken.

"Everything Is Broken" ~ Bob Dylan
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Broken seems to be the theme for my recent life. First my thermostat on my heater did its little song and dance. Then my car decided to have its thousand dollar crisis. Now my big freestanding freezer in the laundry room has gone to its final reward. Objects live their lives, give out, need repair or replacing. Parts fail. Cracks develop. Flaws that were there all the time surface.

The material things are a nuisance, something to be worked around, absences to be endured. They aren't the things that take the joy from the days. It's brokenness on a larger scale that does that, broken relationships, broken ties.

I feel a little adrift right now, disconnected. I keep looking for a person at work who isn't there anymore. There's a great emptiness where she used to be, sort of a dullness. My biggest hope for her is that she's happy now, having a good time, peaceful. I miss her being around, though. There is a definite lack. It's strange how her absence has made me feel that I am somehow gone in some way, too. I don't know how to explain it. It's like some part of me got packed up, too, when she left. This is not a good explanation, and I know it, but it's the best I can give.

And then there's the thing I wrote about on Saturday....

I keep thinking there is going to be a day when I wake up and everything is repaired or whole. I'd settle for a day when there were no new emergencies. I don't think you get to wake up to that as a magic gift, though. Probably work and effort are involved. The big question is, though, how to do it. How does one fix all this stuff? I'm not so good at the fixing, to be honest. I'm much better at the avoiding, at the ignoring and pretending like nothing is wrong, at the praying that all things will be well instead of the hands-on maintenance.

There is no remedy for some of the things that are broken. They were cut off clean, over and done. They have been carried out, carried away; they are finished. Other things, well, they are broken, but I am not sure they wish to be repaired. I can't be sure one way or the other, and so I'm leaving them alone. That's all I know to do with them. I'm afraid that anything else will just destroy whatever shards may still stand if anything can be said to be left standing at all.

All I know is that as I sift through the jumble that's left, I get tired of bits and pieces. I miss the things that they used to be. Everything disappears with time, I guess. Some things, though, I really wish weren't gone.

The Car

I got my car back today, finally.  The damage to my pocketbook was as serious as the damage to all the moving bits and pieces under the hood.  The final bill was almost a thousand dollars.  Nowhere in my budget did I have that, but if it won't go without it....

I cannot express how happy I am to have the vehicle back.  Or at least how happy I will be, at any rate, once the shock of having to write that check has worn off.  There was nothing like having to coordinate borrowing or using one of my parents' vehicles for every single thing I wanted to do to make me feel dependent and horrible. It was miserable.

Even though I know I was very lucky to be in a situation where there was some other form of transportation available, all I could think of was how..."unfree"...I was.  I could feel it like a hand holding a bird's wings down. I did not feel free to go anywhere or do anything except the most necessary of things.

I know I've noted this before, but it's worth repeating.  It's amazing how much of our personality is reflected in our vehicles.  I did not feel like myself behind the wheel of either of my parents' cars.  I felt somehow altered, like I'm pretending to be somebody else.

Maybe tomorrow everything will settle down some.  It would be nice to think that just having my vehicle back will be a magic panacea, that all the things that are screwed up in my life will be fixed.  Unfortunately, as silver bullets go, I don't think this one has much power behind it.  Somedays, though, I guess you just sort of take what you can get.

Remembering How Much You DO Have

...and letting the rest go.

Yesterday, somebody looked right through me.  As in, no recognition.  As in, just another stranger standing there instead of somebody I talk to fairly often, somebody I had thought was my friend.

I don't know why it happened.  I just looked up, and quite unexpectedly there it was.  It caught me off-guard so badly that I just stood there, and then it was over.  There was no time to talk.  It ate at me.  And it took me back to places I didn't need to go.

That's the kind of shit D. used to do.  I'd be good enough for all kinds of things...until I suddenly wasn't.  I was a friend when I could do something for him, when he wanted somebody who would listen to him, when there wasn't somebody more interesting around or when he'd pissed all the others off, when he felt like it was my rotation in the harem for the glorious gift of his attention.  It was never really me he wanted.  It was only some reflection of himself. I don't feel like playing those games ever again with anybody on any level for any reason.

It's alright.  It hurt, but it's alright.  God knows, I've been kicked down the fucking stairs before.  It's not new.  It was just from a direction I was not anticipating.  Whatever.

One good thing did come from it.  It made me think about what I do have, people who will never do that to me, and how blessed I am with them. It's humbling.  So to all of you who routinely have a roll in putting your hands on this fractured surface and holding me together despite all odds, thank you.  I love you.  I don't say that enough, probably.

I need to just let the rest of it drop away.  If it's a lost cause, if I've been that wrong this long, then I need to just forget it.  I'm not going to keep holding onto a razor-sharp blade just to watch it cut deeper into my hand.  That stopped being my idea of fun a long time ago.

What I Already Knew

I forget this from time to time, so maybe I need to have it tattooed on the back of my hand so I will see it constantly.

Everybody is going to hurt you.  It's just a matter of when, how much, and the degree of intentionality of the act.

Maybe if I saw that every minute of every day, it wouldn't keep coming as such a shock.  Maybe if I repeated that as a mantra, a meditation upon waking, then I could be ready for it, maybe I wouldn't bleed when it happens.

It's just a matter afterward of deciding if you keep going with that person despite the pain or if you walk away. What are they worth to you?  Are they going to do it again?  (Be honest here.)  If so, can you keep living with it?  Should you?

I don't have that answer right now.  And you know what?  I'm tired.  Screw it.  And quite frankly, just at this moment, that individual, too.

A List

What it says on the tin.

Today involved:

• Waking up from a night of truly horrible dreams, in one of which, in fact, I died.  (And yes, I know you're not supposed to do that in your dreams, but there you have it.)  It may be one of the worst and most profoundly disturbing dreams I have ever, ever had.  That's how I started the day, folks.....
• Another delay in the car repair.  It *might* be ready tomorrow.....
• Another big migraine and pill to repel it.  I managed to hide in my room for lunch and clutch my head in the privacy of that 20 minutes.  I was probably written up for that, too, by my new administrator.
• A big sort of dead numbness inside where my emotions ought to be.  I do not know if this is the Maxalt (I'm hoping) or if I'm just finally gone.  And if I am finally just gone, I do not know of one single thing I can do about it.
• Driving my Dad's vehicle which actually has a V6 and tops out at 160.  No, I didn't quite get it up to that.  That would be highly illegal.
• Wearing Gatsby hidden under my plain black jacket again.  He didn't stop the headache, but he was a hint of blue, and he made me smile.  I was hoping against hope that my new The Sun Also Rises shirt would be here for tomorrow, but no dice.  I might wear 1984 instead.  The red will be nice, and that is the January required reading for AP.
• One of my students asking me about a Murakami novel.  God love him, he sort of made my afternoon.  He may be the first AP student I have ever taught who knows who that is.  I think I might adopt him, put him through school, just on the basis of this alone.
• Assorted piles of sleeping doggishness on my floor.  Which, with the greatest of reluctance, I must disrupt to walk and crate for the night so I don't find all things in the living room destroyed in the morning.

I tried very hard to put in good things here because I know I put in bad.  I don't want to be bad all the time.  Maybe I balanced it some.  I'm trying.  I need good dreams tonight.  I need my car back tomorrow.  I need....I don't even know what else to ask for.  At least it will be Friday.  That's something.

Bits and Pieces

I've had a big migraine pill, so if I wander, forgive me.  I didn't have enough food in my system when I took it, and so I'm sort of untethered.

Today was better than I expected it to be on several fronts.  I'm not worried about some things anymore. The thing that had been giving me nightmares resolved itself.  I think I will be able to live with it.  Only time will tell if it will be better than that.  I don't want to be any more hopeful right now than this.

I found out that not only is the power steering out in my car, but it also apparently has a coolant leak, too.  The coolant leak may have caused the power steering problem, in fact, as the leak has been dripping on the power steering pump.  They discovered the leak this morning since it was making a tidy little puddle in their garage.  They called me and gave me the $200 tidings of great joy to start my day.  What can you do?  It's not like I can knit a new one.  I told them to fix it.  It meant at least another day without my car.  Hopefully I'll have it back by the end of tomorrow....

The headache took me midday.  I tried to ignore it, never a good idea.  I don't know why I try.  It was a product of stress, too much for too long, worrying about the car and the day.  It was a product of being corralled in meetings, which, no matter how pleasant they were, I do not sit through with any sort of ease.  I keep thinking to myself, "Can we not just say what needs to be said and go?"  I have no patience for it.  I am an abysmal "meeter."

Mom had to come get me both because I had no car and because of the medicine.  She kindly took me through Chick-Fil-A and got me dinner which is helping to mitigate some of the worst of the fog.  I didn't even remember what day it was when she got me.  I kept thinking it was Monday...  I am going to get a brownie from the kitchen (if there are any.  I think there were brownies.  I don't think that was a cruel illusion...) and keep sitting here watching TopGear for a while longer.

It was just a day of bits and pieces. I didn't get done everything I needed to do.  I will have to try to play catch up tomorrow.  It's probably about where I expected to be.

Tomorrow

I need to be grading, but I can't focus on it.  I have that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I'm out of distractions.  I have done everything I possibly can to put tomorrow out of my mind, but there's nothing left.

I did intricate, tedious computer stuff.  I took apart my MSI Wind, put in new memory, shifted around a whole bunch of files, made it work right again.  I set up my new 2 TB external drive, got it synced.  I moved my iTunes from one drive to another on the netbook which, of course, destroyed a bunch of crap, and so I fixed, and am fixing that. While I was doing some of that, I also talked to one of my friends on the phone for awhile.  I talked to one of my others online earlier.

But I'm out of stuff to do.  It was all worth the doing.  It all needed to be done.  My netbook works right now.  It is not just a ridiculous memento.

When I run out of things to do, though, I have to start thinking.  Thinking about what tomorrow is going to be like since what has happened has happened.  And I really, really don't want to think about it.

I wish I had another distraction, something else to take apart, put together.  If I had my car, I would be sorely tempted to get in it tonight and point it in a random direction.  It's as good a time for running as I've seen.

I'm going to put this laptop back down so the netbook can finish pulling music off it.  I'm going to pick back up the red pen and the papers from the floor.  I'm going to do my level best not to pick up all the horrible little shouting demons of worry that are clustered there with them waiting.  It's been such a nice two weeks.  I wish it could just keep going.

Drama

I've been exceptionally self-conscious all day as I've written things, said things.  All I've been able to think of was a comment yesterday said in passing by a friend in conversation.  A phrase I'd written was called "dramatic."  Maybe it was.  I didn't intend it to be.  It was just an ordinary garden-variety comment for me.  Maybe I'm so steeped in the drama that I don't even see it anymore.

God knows I can go there quickly enough if I want to.  I can elevate anything, even getting a fork out of the kitchen drawer, to an epic quest when the whimsy takes me. Words are amusing and pretty.  They tumble together nicely, make a lovely sound as they click together.  They are the tools of my particular trade, and I can wield them to different ends as I choose.  Sometimes taking the mundane and making the mighty is a lot of fun, too.

The response just caught me off-guard.  Oh, I know I do tend toward hyperbole in my speech and in this particular type of blog writing as well.  I turn fancy phrases and play with images, trot it all out on parade.  I am aware that sometimes I turn out gaudies that more properly belong in something like Carnival, that it frequently lacks an elegance and grace that I might wish it had.  I just never had the sensation of myself as a "drama queen."

Of my kind, the English Literature folk, as in every profession, there are several "types." Nobody is a perfect fulfillment of those archetypes, of course, but we do tend to fall into big categories.  One of those stays over-the-top or in another world, eccentric for the sake of it, dramatic for the joy of the shock of it.  This comment made me worry.  Have I crossed that line?  If I did, when did it happen?  Is it possible to become that and not know?

I guess I know how to play that role, sure.  I could put myself into hysterics and "the vapors" if it were called for.  I grew up in the Deep South.  I have seen it done by certified experts.  I just don't really think of myself as someone who actively seeks drama in my daily life.  In some of my current environments, it comes and drags me out of the foxholes I've dug for myself, pulls me into the fray....

But maybe that's the kind of language we're talking about here that's over-the-top.  I don't know.  It's confusing.

However.

The longer I sit here with it, the more I am convinced that I don't think I'm going to worry about this a whole  lot more, actually.  I am who I am.  I write the way I write (and this can be expanded to "talk the way I talk" as well).  I have hands that fly like a flock of startled sparrows when I teach; I'm gesture-happy.  This is just me.  I know that is not a pleasant thing for everyone.  Well, lo siento.  Gomenasai, ne?  If I'm not mistaken, there is a door right over there....

Sad

I am desperately seeking something to cheer myself up and failing miserably.  The sadness is creeping in like a slow fog rolling in and covering everything.  I just wrote a goodbye letter to somebody.

I did not want to write the letter.  I did not want to say goodbye.  This situation is so STUPID.  I can't even wrap my mind around it.  Every time I think about it, about the circumstances of it, I just feel a little more ill.  I had been hoping against hope that I was mistaken, but today everything was finally confirmed, every last shred of carefully tended hope was knocked away, and I was forced to face the truth of what is going on.

All that was left, then, was to say a few final words and press send.  And feel sick.  And wait for the next horror.

The Sun Also Rises

After watching Midnight in Paris Saturday, I was struck with the desire to reread some Hemingway, specifically The Sun Also Rises since there is reference to Zelda going off with a bullfighter in one of the scenes.  I got it on Kindle Sunday, and I finished the reread just now.

I guess I haven't read it in two or three years now, not since I took that course in Hemingway where we read all his works together.  I had forgotten so much of it.  I know that the last time I read it I didn't respond to it as I did this time.  There was something in it this time that hit just like a ten-pound sledge.

Maybe it's that I'm older now, and I have seen more of the nastiness people are capable of dishing out to each other as they are scrabbling to fill the empty spaces inside them.  Maybe that same aspect has allowed me to come to a place where I know a Brett, a Cohn, a Mike.  Perhaps when I was younger, I thought these people unrealistic.  I seem to remember my students saying something like that when we studied it together.  They're wrong, though.  I think that Hemingway has captured types fairly well.  Maybe we were all just too young to have encountered them yet.  I see horrible shadows of myself at times in Jake, willing to give up my own happiness for the happiness of the one I love and suffering because of it.

As for Hemingway's prose, I love it more now than I did even a few years ago.  I am not one of those people who say that his style is the only way to go, but perhaps because I do deal with developing writing so often (and you can consider that a euphemism if you like), I find the stripped-down sharpness in TSAR like a minimalist painting or traditional Japanese architecture, good because it is clean and strong, powerful because there is nothing to detract from its focus.

I have been rereading The Great Gatsby off and on routinely for years, but for some reason, TSAR hasn't been in on that rotation.  The last time I left it, I did not have this feeling of bittersweet love for it.  It might have been because I was teaching it at a stressful time.  Sometimes that colors a work for me.  For whatever reason, and for whatever reason my feelings toward this work have changed, I suspect this will now be one I go to more often.

(This is not to say that I love all Hemingway.  I still hate Catherine with a passion.  She doesn't get off that easily.  I can't forgive any woman who apologizes for the inconvenience of her own death or any writer who creates her.)

Waking Up

I'm trying to wake up.  I can't get the cobwebs to clear away this morning despite application of Diet Mountain Dew.  This is probably because of the freaking bizarre dreams I had all night.

They were mostly school related.  It doesn't take a genius to tell I'm anxious about going back.

I dreamed I had a room full of things other teachers had been looking for but that I had somehow overlooked and had not given to them, thus failing in one of my supervisory capabilities. Somehow their stuff had gotten mixed in with my stuff, and I had not found it.  They had needed it, asked for it, but I hadn't found it in time.

I dreamed that they asked me to move my classroom again.  This time, impossibly, the move was somehow to the room my old AP teacher from high school had.  I do not teach at the same school I attended, yet, somehow, by the magic of dreams, the two schools melded together, and I could walk down the stairs, turn a corner, and there was a version of that room, that hall there.  I do not even know what to make of that.

As I was trying to move my stuff, I dreamed that students from last year showed up to take an exam they claimed they had missed. They had been told they were permitted to take it now.  They did not understand  the material, and they sat in front of the test blankly for a long time.  They just became shadows in the desks.

I also came downstairs with a load of stuff and was for some reason outside in a courtyard area our school does not have but my old high school does, and a principal I had never seen came running past me on a walkie-talkie (all the admins at our schools carry these) with a set of keys.  He went to the door I was using and he locked it.  Then he came back to me, telling me he'd locked the building down and that it was my responsibility to find a way to get back in.  He walked off even though I was standing there with my arms loaded.

The scene switched and for some reason I was having my AP class on a football practice field.  I had all my stuff in a car.  I was missing half of my class.  I had no idea where they were.  I had all these kids in my room that I had never seen before who were earnestly scribbling things down.  At the end of the period, one of these kids I didn't know (he looked like he was about 12) came up and asked me for an essay topic handout to take with him.  He said that all my other kids were in the gym at a protest because the coaches were trying to cut a kid off the track team midseason and they felt like this was unfair.  The students I didn't know had been sent to cover their classes during the protest.  It was a system they'd worked out.

It just kept getting progressively stranger.  I finally got in my "new" classroom.  I had windows on both sides of the room, even the one with the interior hallway.  I could see the mountains of Japan out the hallway side....  People I know, colleagues, friends, former students, people dead and gone, dropped in and out of this thing like it was a major motion picture.  It was not a horror movie because there were no monsters or gore, but I have rarely felt so glad to wake up or so happy to be in my own little bedroom when I did.

I hate it when my brain gets cute with the things I'm worried about.  I can trace back a lot of what I saw.  Not all of it, but much of it. I miss harmless dreaming.

Happy New Year to You

Found on Neil Gaiman's Tumblr.  It says everything I think probably needs to be said.  I love you all and wish you the best.

New Year's Eve

Another New Year's Eve.  I made homemade pizza and brownies, and I'm watching movies as I'm waiting to bring in the new year.  There are assorted dogs passed out in the floor and assorted cats passed out on the back of the couch.  It's a pretty good evening.  I could wish for some company, but that's not a part of my current reality (unless somebody just shows up in my yard...well, that might be fun, too), and I'm content.

I de-Christmased the house, and as nice as it was to have all my doodads out and around, it's also good to have everything back to normal and all cleaned up again.  I like to have all the order restored.

The mild weather today allowed me to go out and hang up the hammock for awhile this afternoon.  It felt strange today to be out in short sleeves in the back yard on New Year's Eve.  Only in Mississippi....

I didn't get around to my computer stuff.  I might try to install the memory tonight, but I suspect I will wait until tomorrow.  It just wasn't a priority for me today.  All the other things mattered more even though my mind was clear enough to do the work today.

Well, I think I'm going to finish up this movie, fight off the temptation to eat another brownie, and then maybe read and listen to some music as 2012 comes into my neck of the woods.  I hope that as it finds you, wherever you are, you are happy, healthy, and at peace.  Happy New Year, everyone.

Midnight in Paris

Oh, it's lovely.  Lovely, funny, smart, and wonderful.  It's what movies so rarely are.  I laughed.  I clapped my hands in delight.  I loved it thoroughly.  In one viewing, and not even all the way through that first viewing, Midnight in Paris made it onto the list of my favorite films.

I already know that I will be getting the DVD version from amazon next month as a part of my birthday indulgences.  I might watch it again while I've still got it as a 24-hr. streaming rental.  I'm sure I missed things while I watched it that first time.

I loved the way they drew the characterizations of the famous artists and writers.  Some of it was caricature.   Hemingway talked exactly the way he wrote.  I freaking loved that, though.  I wanted to hug him for being wonderful.  Some of it was sort of dead on.  I loved the whole thing with Scott and Zelda, Hemingway and the bullfighter whose name I can never remember.  All I could think about was THE SUN ALSO RISES!!!

I also loved that they kept bringing people in.  I felt like Gil did when he saw Josephine Baker, sort of gobsmacked and then sort of giddy and willing to go with it.  It was glorious.

I wasn't quite sure where they were going to go with it, and I won't spoil that here, but I thought it was perfect. The bit with the detective was one of my favorite parts.  If you watch it, let me know what you think about that.

All in all, it made a couple of very good points, but not necessarily the points I've heard other people say about it.  This isn't a movie condemning dreamers at all.  It's a movie that shows that there is magic in the world after all, but that one needs to be cautious about where one's eyes are focused.  That is something I can totally agree with.

Thinking (Badly)

I've a bit of a migraine, so this may not flow well.  All day long, I've been trying to fight it off, and the world has been fuzzy.  As I was going to Jackson to see my best friend, I heard Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" on the radio and I laughed.  Yeah.  Appropriate song was appropriate today.

Anyway.  I'll be keeping this short.  Besides, Shaun of the Dead is on, and that's about where my brain is at right now.

I decided (quite wisely, I think) not to try to install my new internal memory although it came today or perform the transition of the external hard drives.  I shudder to think what sort of crapped up mess that would have resulted in.  Hopefully tomorrow, this little ache and all the fog will be gone.  Maybe this won't be a three-day headache.  That will give me some New Year's Eve plans anyway, since I never have any.

I found something the rest of the universe has probably known about forever tonight (IFTTT) and got it set up. I only need about four recipes from it, but I like the concept.  It's a nice way to tailor the e-universe and connect all the separate services one uses together.  I like things that do that.

I also installed the new FB Messenger standalone today.  This means that I will be "on" FB Messenger all the time whenever I have it running but I don't have to dedicate an open tab to FB unless I just want to.  Since it seems that I use FB Messenger more than email to talk to my friends and family, this solution works for me.  If I don't actually happen to be at the computer, it will just archive the convo as usual, and I'll get to it.  I've already used the interface, and it's okay.  It's a no-frills sort of thing, exactly what it says on the tin.

When I got back home from Jackson, I watched MSU play football, and it went surprisingly well for them.  They managed not to choke.  I was rather astonished.  They did try.  They threw the ball to the other team and made shocking fouls.  However, they got far enough ahead to win it.  Plus, they weren't playing another SEC team.

Well, it occurs to me that it's 10:30 and I never ate anything tonight.  (This is bad.  The Topamax will wreck me, not that I'll be able to tell much right now...  It might be AWESOME.  Maybe I should try it?)  I think I'll go microwave a Hot Pocket or something and enjoy the zombies for a little while.  Oh WOW, my exciting life.....

For What It's Worth

I've never been one to cut out pictures of gowns or plan floral arrangements.  I only ever looked at rings once.  That was a TOTALLY screwed-up trip to a jewelers with D.  I won't get into it.  It was a nightmare. I had taken a ring of my own in to be repaired, and he went with me since we sort of went lots of strange places together.  Somehow we wound up at the ring case looking and the lady behind the counter made assumptions.  You've never seen two people get away from each other so fast.  Probably it was comedic from a safe distance.

Anyway.

If it should ever come down to it.   If a little box should ever come out of a pocket or be presented to me creatively.   If there should ever happen to be some poor brave fool wonderful man out there who decides I am the one (and I just can't see this ever happening but I'm going to say this anyway), this is the ring.  I've never seen any other diamond ring I liked at all.  I suppose there may be vintage pieces out there I'd like, but this one has...something different to it.

It's a raw diamond, like my earrings, and I have already talked about why I like them so I won't belabour that point here.  It's also white gold.  I prefer the white metals, silver, white gold, or platinum, to the yellow.  The style is also to my tastes, simple and elegant.  I would feel ridiculous with something ostentatious on my hand.  I am not a fancy jewelry person unless it is old jewelry, and then not all of it.  Somehow, this just sort of seems like me.

Anyway, you can take this for what it's worth.  If you like it too, you can find this and other lovely things made by the Etsy maker masaoms by clicking through the link.

Hats

I have a thing about hats.  I sort of love them, especially when they are ridiculously fancy and ornate.  I don't know when this obsession started exactly.  Maybe back in high school when my friend and I began to wear "Easter bonnets" every year on Easter Sunday.

In reality, though, it might go back further than that.  I have, somewhere, a Goofy hat with floppy ears from DisneyWorld, a giant Mad Hatter's hat from Six Flags.  Maybe this addiction to ridiculous headgear has been a lifelong thing, then.

I started finding old hats in antique malls, and their styles, colors, fabrics seemed to demand that I put them on.  They were like little windows into other ages.  Some are classy and elegant.  Some of them were utterly dramatic.  Some of them were completely over the top.  I suppose it's a little like playing dress-up.  When I see them, I always wonder if the women who wore them originally wore them in times of joy, if those hats went to social functions or parties where the ladies felt happy.  I like to think so.

It also makes me feel sad to see them cast-off in the shops, especially the ultra-dramatic ones.  To me, they almost seem to cry out for someone to love them.  I can't resist them.  I have only a few of these; it's not like I buy every one I see, but the ones I do get have definite personality.

I don't know where I'll ever wear these.  I would like sometime to get all my friends together and for all of us to wear an odd hat and go out to eat.  My friend who went shopping with me today when I found my latest "rescue" suggested that I wear it to Winn-Dixie on a Tuesday just for the hell of it.  That made me laugh and laugh.  Some horrid Tuesday, I just might.  For the time being, it's enough to have them, take a silly picture in them that I might use for my FaceBook or Twitter profile photo, and then hang them up on my wall.  It's a harmless enough thing all the way around, I think, and a way of reclaiming something old and giving it new life.

Tech Crap

It's been a day of fixing technology on the fly.

Chewie started it by biting partially through the power adapter for my laptop.  Unlike the other electronics and cords he's destroyed, this one had current running through it.  Aww.  How sad I am!  He yelped and ran away, looking at me with those big sad eyes.  I just said, "GOOD.  Now maybe you'll leave my stuff alone."  He only got shocked, not hurt.  I have no real hope that he will really learn from this.  I've already had to throw out a sync cable for my iPhone, a non-plugged-extension cord, TWO USB connection cables for my wireless music system, and he has torn up countless non-electronics things.  He doesn't get a lot of sympathy from me.  I got the damage mended.  Black electrical tape is a wonder.

My parents called next.  I bought them a Roku for Christmas, and they'd gotten it connected as far as plugging it in and getting the RCA cables attached.  Past that, they needed me.  I went up, fought with their wireless router which had never been set up for things to connect to it since nothing they have is wireless, added their Amazon account to the Roku and reactivated a defunct Netflix account and generally got the thing up and running for them.

I tried to use their computer at first, but something was using all the memory on it.  I took a few minutes to take care of that problem, cleaned off some old programs they didn't use, purged their startup folder, and tried to help speed up their machine a little.   I couldn't find what was eating all that memory even though I looked, closed some programs through Task Manager.

I'd brought my little netbook up to take care of the Roku setup since I knew from previous experience it's easier to have a computer in front of the screen to put in codes and so forth when setting one up.  My netbook, though, has serious issues because the hard drive is almost completely full of music, etc., and the memory is insufficient.  It started acting up and then it just began to shut down.  I guess it ran its batteries out and didn't warn me.  I was so afraid it was just dead from some kind of hardware failure, but once I got it home and back on the charger, it did finally load again.

I've been wanting to upgrade my external portable hard drive for a long time since the one I have currently is almost full, and I take pictures all the time and need space to put those fairly large files.  I have a plan to make my old 500 GB external my iTunes library for my netbook and take the load off its internal HD.  Friday, the 2 TB external and some new memory for the netbook will arrive, and we'll see if I can figure out how to make all that happen.

I'm not much by way of tech support.  I am hoping that I don't have to do much more of it in the near future. I can only do the most basic of things.  With any luck, I will be able to get my netbook working like it should before I have to start travelling with it, though.  In its current state, it's a real pain.  Maybe I have enough geek in me to manage this, at least.

Empty Hearts

So save all of your light
For those who can't sleep at night
And who can't even sing to their shadows

Oh they ride into town
And they throw the shots down
And they save the last round for the windows

(CHORUS)
Singing don't let me into this year with an empty heart
With an empty heart
Don't let me into this year with an empty heart

I'm inside with my friends
We build fires and pretend
That the night could just bend on forever

While outside in the frost
Are the wolves and the lost
And we sing to the dogs or whoever

Chorus

There's a friend that I have
And for her I'll go back
You see all of these empties that I'm holding

They're too much for a man
Empty arms, empty hands
And she'll know me by the sound of my hoping

"Empty Hearts" - Josh Ritter

_____________________________________

More musical meditation on the new year ahead.  This song made me think more about the situation again after the last blog went up.  Having an empty heart means so many things.

Of course there is the romantic implication.  Who wants to be alone? I would certainly love to have someone in the year ahead. The thought of having to spend another year by myself is discouraging. Just the thought just of not having someone to kiss on New Year's Eve....AGAIN...is discouraging.  (I mean, come ON.  Is this really too much to ask?)  

To be honest, though, if all the ones who show up to fill that space are as self-consumed or as willing to put me dead last as the ones who have been around in the past year, then maybe what I need to fill up that space is a contentment with being alone.  I am tired of being something less than an afterthought or a part of a collection.  I deserve better than that.  Maybe being happy with being alone is a safer thing to ask for.

I don't want to go into the new year with an empty heart, though.  I want it to be full again of enthusiasm and excitement.  I want it to be full of love and joy.  I want to believe in the positive not as a dim miracle that breaks through sometimes despite all odds but as the thing that is there all the time if one will only look for it. I used to be that person.  I want that person back.

I want to let go of the "empties that I'm holding."   I want to let go of the things and the people that I lavish time and care on that only turn around and hurt me, either intentionally or through neglect and indifference.  These empty things break me, empty me in turn.  I think they do nobody any good.  I want to replace them with things that mean something, are worthy.  I want full arms, filled not necessarily with romance but rather with the people that I love, family, true friends.  I want busy hands, engaged fully with things that are meaningful and not just idly twisting together waiting for the next disaster to fall down.  I want to be able to hear the sound of my own hoping again.  I love that line in this song.  I think that's beautiful.  

Nobody, no mortal man, can fill up an empty heart, can mend a broken one.  I've known that for a long time.  This song does remind me, though, of how important it is to refocus priorities and assess the condition of my heart, to take care of the internal house cleaning, as it were, as the old year fades away.

What He Said

And it would take a miracle
For her to break my fall
Cause she don’t care at all anymore
And I don’t know why I still do
and why I’m telling you
~ "Stay Away" - Chris Thile
______________________

Thile always says it best, doesn't he?  Reverse the genders, and you have the situation exactly.  The End.   Oh well.  It was not enough.  Maybe I wasn't.  Maybe he wasn't.  I am curiously indifferent now.  It was never more than something pleasant, anyway, and now it isn't even that.  

This is the end of a year, a particularly long and bad one for me.  I think it's time to let several things end with it,  either just let them fade away of their own volition or take up arms, and by opposing, end them.  (And yes, for those of you paying attention, that was a Hamlet allusion...)    I am determined that next year, by hook or by crook, is going to be better. 

 Yes.  Better.  Even if I have to pin it down and rip the goodness out of it with my teeth.  

Found

Awhile back, I very cleverly hid some things from myself.  Actually, I wasn't hiding them from myself at all.  There were thieves in the area, and since my parents' house had gotten broken into fairly recently, when I heard about them, I took some of my favorite pieces of jewelry and put them in places where they'd be "safe."

Then I promptly forgot where I put them.

Skip forward several months.  I started to want those pieces to wear.  It was always early in the morning as I was getting ready to go to school, and I would always be frantically pawing through the place where I keep my accessories looking for this or that.  The desired item was never there.  I would go to see if I'd perhaps removed it in my bedroom and left it on the small secretary in that room.  Nope.  No dice.  One morning, I even took out the luggage I took to Louisville to see if I'd accidentally left it packed from my trip to the AP reading.  I simply could not remember where I'd put the items I wanted.

Today, as I was getting dressed to go somewhere, there was a particular item that I really wanted.  It had been a gift, and it bothered me that it was now gone.  When I got home, I decided I would systematically tear the house up until I either found the missing things or finally convinced myself that I had left them somewhere and they were gone for good.

I looked for about twenty minutes, pulled things out of cabinets and drawers, emptied all the places I thought I might possibly have placed them, and finally everything I had been so frustrated over was back in my hands again.  It took pulling things out of dark corners and making a huge mess, but it's done.

I thought about the whole process as I gently sorted through the little box that held all the pieces I'd been looking for for so long.  Fear had made me look for what I'd thought of as safety.  I'd taken something precious, something I treasured and enjoyed the use of and had hidden it away because I was afraid that it would be taken by those who were cruel, those who only sought to destroy.  In that quest to protect it, I'd come very close to losing it.  I certainly had gotten no pleasure from it, no use of it, nothing good from a good thing during the time it was supposedly "safe."  It simply sat idle and worthless even though it was filled with things of value, things capable of bringing joy.

I know I'm an English teacher and we're terribly, almost chronically, prone to seeing symbolism under every rock and shrub, but I don't think it is really much of a stretch here to see the bigger trend.  How often do I shut other parts of me away, hide them to keep them from harm, so worried about them getting broken or misused?  How much of me is sitting like that silver in the dark, well-protected but of no use to anybody?  As I ran the thin chains of a necklace with a quote by Emily Dickinson with words about hope on it, I couldn't help but think about these things.  I suppose finding a couple of pieces of lost jewelry might not seem like much of an impetus for soul searching, but it's odd the things that will bring on a moment of introspection.

What I Want for Christmas

(a slightly mixed list)

I haven't felt much like blogging in the past couple of days.  I have been on Tumblr and Twitter instead much more than usual, but I sort of feel like I need to put something up here, so....  Needless to say, you probably should not expect deep ruminations.

• All my favorite authors to come out with new books next year.  Even the ones who just came out with something last year.  Especially you, Jim Butcher.  Now would be good.
• To find out a certain situation has been magically reversed and wiped away when I go back to school.  I have no hope that it will be, but if this is my list, I can ask Santa for it, right?
• A version of the Kindle Fire with 3G.  
• If I'm wishing for impossible things, then....well...  (Okay, so no, not really.  First, Santa is probably not going to stuff him in a sack, right?  There are laws and things.  He also seems like he would probably put up a fairly decent fight.  Also, I don't really know him.  I enjoy the character he plays on the show, but I have no idea what he's like in real life. Based on the few things I've seen about him here and there, he seems like a decent person, but who really wants a perfect stranger stuffed under their tree for real?  I know that joke comes around every Christmas, but come on.... That little shallow, jesting Santa list item was based on one criteria only.  He may be one of the most beautiful people I have ever seen in my whole life.  I'll go back and feel really terrible about myself as a human being in a few minutes.)  *I love how he's so amused in this gif by this entire blog. I wish there was one where he walked off at the end, maybe even sort of shaking his head.

• In reality, if Santa is bringing me men, then he and I need to have a serious confab.  I have a couple of definite ideas on the subject and a slew of DO NOT WANTS.  But you know what they say about beggars and choosing.  And I DEFINITELY fall into that beggar camp, darlin'.  (sigh)
• Stability with my students.  There are one or two issues that I left school with them still up in the air.  I don't want to walk back into those same things in the new year.  
• A way to see/talk to my friends more.  Maybe I need one of those time turner things from Harry Potter.  Maybe we all do.  Maybe he's got a set of those he can just pass out.  We'll all be good.  Promise.
• A way to go live in Europe for about two years.  I'm thinking Germany, but Italy or England are also fine with me.  

Maybe there's more, but I'd hate to be greedy.  You know.  I'd hate to burden the good old man by asking for more than my fair share. (ha)  I think I'll just let the incredulous gentleman above say it for everybody and go do some reading or something.

If I Asked It...

I'm about to have to go do something exceptionally uncomfortable for me.  I won't get into it a lot.  There are reasons.  (Heh.  That's almost a meme.)  I have to go alone, as always.  If I had somebody I could take, it would be better.  I wish I had somebody I could call up and say, "Hey.  I have to go to another one of these  things.  If you're not in the middle of something, can you go?"  Then at least I wouldn't have to feel like I'm going to be feeling for the next little while.  Just the thought of it has a migraine brewing.  

It's probably wrong to use another person that way, though, as a human shield.  It's more than a little selfish.  I don't know.  I suppose situations like this are what God made iPhones for.  I will get through it with what dignity and grace I can muster.

Punch Brothers AND Josh Ritter?

WARNING:  Total fangirl squee in progress

Just found out that Punch Brothers will be releasing their third album on Feb. 14th and that Josh Ritter co-wrote two of the songs on it. TOTAL FREAKING SCORE.  This makes me utterly happy.  I have long wanted something they both worked on.  And.  AND.  This release date is one day after my birthday.  How supremely thoughtful of everyone involved to give me such a nice birthday present.  I mean, gentlemen, I did NOT know you cared.  (and yeah.  I know Thile's birthday is also creeping around somewhere in there, too, if I am not badly mistaken....we will not recognize or reference the red and white frilly devil holiday of the blind bow and arrow boy as any sort of influencing factor...)  Now I just need to get tickets for the January concert in Birmingham so I can go see some of them (oh how grand it would be if Josh Ritter were there, too!) live.

Riveting Statistics

I just opened up my Last.FM page and looked at some of the statistics there. I never remember to go to the page with all that stuff they keep track of.  I don't know why.  I suppose I could take advantage of it somehow, but well, I just never think about it.  They track my "top songs" and "top artists" by week, month, year, of all time, etc.  That's kind of interesting, I guess, to see how my listening trends change over the course of time.  The "scrobbler" doesn't work all the time since frequently it's blocked by a firewall at school when I'm working in my room and listening, so I'm not sure these are entirely accurate, but I suppose proportionally, they are representative.  According to their record-keeping, my top ten artists of all-time are:

1) Josh Ritter
2) The Black Keys
3) The White Stripes
4) Maroon5
5) Calexico
6) Wilco
7) The Tallest Man on Earth
8) Bob Dylan
9) Pink Floyd
10) The Rolling Stones

This, of course, is based on number of plays.  I am profoundly surprised not to see Ella Fitzgerald or Chris Thile/Punch Brothers in my Top Ten.  (I just clicked "more" to see who else made the big list, and Thile is 11.  Fitzgerald is 20.  Who knew?  If Punch Brothers and Thile were combined, they'd be at number 4....)  I guess I listen differently than I think I do.  For some reason, I didn't perceive the White Stripes to be that high up my list.  Either that, or they are in EVERY SINGLE PLAYLIST I've ever made.  Heh.  Jack would be so proud.

Looking at this list, another thing strikes me.  F, if you're reading this, you probably have noticed that your little fingers are all over this.  I would imagine that you are especially amused by number eight.  Yeahwell.  So be it.  Nobody has managed to convert me to James Taylor yet.  On that point I hold resolute.

I never think about having true "favorites," so it's a bit odd to see these as a top ten list.  It depends entirely on my mood and current kick or obsession as to what I listen to.  I could just as easily swing into a country kick tomorrow and listen to nothing but Patsy Cline and George Strait for the next six months.  I wonder what my top ten list would look like then.  Hmm.

And now, I have to get back to listening to more stuff.    Maybe I'll look at Last.FM in another six months or so and see if anybody else has edged out these.  If I think about it again.  Maybe.  Because I know you'll be on the edge of your seat waiting.

The Need to Dream Better

Okay.  Those of you who know me and know what's been going on will get some of the symbolism involved in some of these things.  Other parts of this stuff, I won't pretend to tell you from where my mind dragged it.  Last night, I dreamed:

1)  That I went back for my PhD and got chased by a psychotic killer.  He was also apparently a magician or monster or something.  He decided that I was a good recruit for his cause, whatever it was, I don't remember, and also, oh yeah, that he was in love with me.  There was a lot of running away.  I got chased through dorms, libraries, and campus streets.  It would have made a good movie, maybe.  Clip, you were there, too.  Sorry.  I guess if I go back, you do, too, honey.

2) Just before I woke up, I was running away from and fighting a giant crocodile.  Maybe it was an alligator.  Does it really matter?  It was not good.  It kept coming again and again.  There were other people with me, but who is vague.  We kept trying to hit it and shoot it, but it kept coming back.  Weapons we had that should have killed it failed us or just plain did not work on it.  We finally had it pinned down (don't ask me how) with a stick, and it was supposed to be dead, but it got loose, and it came after me.  I had a gigantic wooden cutting board of all things, and I kept bludgeoning the thing with it, and almost beat it to death (again, no reality here), but then the cutting board fell apart in my hands FOR NO REASON, and it started coming back to life again. When my 5:00 alarm went off, I was backing away from it with an even more ridiculous weapon in my hand, a slotted wooden cooking spoon with a handle as long as a sword.  (WONDER WHAT THE CROCODILE REPRESENTS)

3) I keep dreaming about the same house over and over again.  I have never been to this house.  I have never seen this house on TV.  What is this place?   Last night there was a garage and all these guys I do not know working on crap.  I don't even know what to make of that.  Is my brain randomly channeling satellite feeds now?

There was more, but blessedly, I can't pull out more than fragments.  I think I almost miss the Topamax blocking my dreams out entirely if this is what my brain manages to come up with.

All the Foolish Little Things

Then her face starts to set and her hands start to fold
And one day the dried fig of her heart stops its beating

"The Curse" - Josh Ritter

________________________________________

Today, all my usual little frivolities are gone.  It is true that I am wearing a Doctor Who shirt composed of owls dressed as the various regenerations of the Doctor, but I have no levity to accompany the attire.  In fact, I don't know when or if my general supply of levity is going to return.  I feel completely levity-free.  It's been quite a little run I've had here lately.

I have enough vicious battle wounds from this situation and that one, quite a few deep ones in my back, to account for this emptiness that resonates through me.  I want to (and probably will in a few minutes) go fold into a small still ball in the middle of my bed under all the covers and just let the warmth and comfort of it wrap around me until I am no longer conscious.  I may opt for a stupid movie and mindless hours of Tumblr instead.

I don't know how to explain what has happened because the feeling is so new.  I'm not surprised by any of it.  My capacity to be surprised went away a long, long time ago.  But there is this new feeling, not a particularly good one.

Increasingly, I become aware of my lack of worth.  (And no, this is not where I want, expect, or need you to jump in with a pep talk or a chastisement.  I would just like to express honestly how I feel.)  Everything I do is of nothing.  So many of my students barely seem to pay attention or blatantly throw away what I offer.  Therefore, my profession, that which matters most to me, is of nothing.  Recently, it seems every human and institution imaginable is reminding me that "at my age" I am making choices that will condemn me to be alone and childless for the rest of my life, and therefore in the eyes of society, apparently, of nothing.  (And if you don't believe that's true, you try being a single woman my age for just a few days.  Just a few.  Then you come talk to me again about it.)  All the situations and battles I try to resolve come unraveled almost as soon as I remove my hands from them.  All my care and effort, then, is of nothing.

Maybe I'm just tired.  I suspect this goes somewhat deeper, though.  This feels like a more permanent alteration.  I do not want it.  I do not like it.  It feels like something is dying inside me.

A Day of Music

Today has been all about music.

I woke up and started listening to my new Josh Ritter album, Live at the Iveagh Gardens.  I like it more every time I hear it.  This sort of surprises me because I am not usually a big fan of live albums.  It's incredible to me that almost every song on the entire thing is a beautiful reinterpretation of something I already love.  Somehow, some way I must find a way to see Josh Ritter live.  Just based on the recording, he must be fantastic.  There's a new version of "Long Shadows" with Celtic drums in it that whets my appetite for Ireland (that trip CANNOT get here fast enough) and reconfirms that song as one of my very favorites by him.  The previously mentioned "Moon River" gets sweeter with every playing.  I could just keep going on and on, but I'll stop because either you don't care and wish I'd shut up or you love him, too, and you already have the album and you know what I'm talking about for yourself.

Wednesday night, I got "drafted" to sing the special music this morning.  I don't do that very often, but the song is one that I love, "What Child Is This?" so I agreed.  I am not a strong singer, but when I love a song, I do okay.  I love this one, and I think it came off alright this morning.

We thought the organ had died for a little while, but we managed to find the problem (something got unplugged behind it when things were getting moved around).  I felt such relief.  Last time the organ needed major repairs, it was out for about three months.  It was terrible to be without it for so long.  I played Christmas hymns tonight, and enjoyed the sound of them, the feel of them.  There is always something special about it.

And then there was the "special music" that our music director put together.  He basically just drafted a bunch of people and put instruments in their hands tonight.  It was hilarious.  Some of them could play them, some of them could SORT of play them, some of them just strummed along.  We had a mandolin, a banjo, a violin, a bass guitar, a dobro, and a guitar, and then he randomly started pulling singers up to the front.  It was a glorious mess.  We did two songs that way.  It came off really well and we all had a good time.  He does stuff like that, and it always magically resolves itself in the end.  I love it.

Now, I'm relaxing and watching some TV, but I know tonight will end with music, too.  I'm going to return to Josh Ritter probably before I go to bed.  Maybe I'll have "Moon River" dreams that way.  All in all, I'd say it's been a good way to spend a day.

Interesting Invitation

“I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours.”
~ Bob Dylan

And Now My Life Is Complete....

....because I just downloaded Live at the Iveagh Gardens by Josh Ritter from amazon, and it has him doing "Moon River" on it.  Yes.  That is indeed all it took.  I love that song.  I love that man.  I love the notion of it being played live in Ireland.  I am now going to wear a hole in that portion of my hard drive.  What are you doing with your Saturday night?

The Act of Cleaning

The trouble with living alone is that it's always your turn to do the dishes. ~Author Unknown

If the shelves are dusty and the pots don't shine,
it's because I have better things to do with my time.
~Author Unknown

Don't cook. Don't clean. No man will ever make love to a woman because she waxed the linoleum - "My God, the floor's immaculate. Lie down, you hot bitch." ~Joan Rivers
________________________________

Many parts of my life right now are up in the air or broken.  Since I can't control them, I am falling back on an old standby, imposing Type-A-ism where I can.  I cleaned out my classroom thoroughly yesterday afternoon, throwing out three trashcans full of old papers and projects, putting away misplaced objects, and generally neatening the accumulated mess of a semester.

Today, I turned my attention to the house. I washed all the bedding, sunned the feather mattress.  I washed all the dogs' blankets and sunned their beds, too.  I did regular laundry, vacuumed, did fixtures, emptied the dishwasher, cleaned up the kitchen, put out the trash, mowed the yard to shred the old pecan leaves and the last of the dead grass, and started working on the endless piles of things inside.  I put away about a million coats and sweaters, countless books, and migrated all my shoes back to my closet.  I threw out tons of junk mail, but I am not done.  I feel better, though.  It does not embarrass me to live here now.  

I wish I could keep my house like this all the time.  It gets sacrificed, though, to other things.  When I come home in the afternoons, I usually am in survival mode with stuff like daily chores.  It's patch and feed and wash what has to be done right then.  I don't like it so much, though.  I wish I could have a more gracious home sometimes. 

Then I look at some of the other things I get to do instead, and I sort of don't worry about it so much.  I think that I really need to clean out some things on a permanent basis over this holiday, though, do a big purge of things I don't use at all.  Simplifying will help me keep everything neater and less stressful.  The more of that I can do in every area of my life right now, the better.

When Did It All Become War?

All I do these days is put out fires and wage war.  This is not what it was supposed to be.  This is never what I imagined doing with my life.  It makes me physically ill, this running from emergency to emergency.  There are these deceptive periods of peace when the klaxons are silent, and I think, "Wow.  Finally.  I can put away these weapons at last.  The last of the enemies has been vanquished.  It's done.  It was hard, but maybe it was worth it now that we can just move on and all the stupidity is over."  That's when the bottom always drops out.

I get lied to directly.  This makes me unable to trust...well, anybody really.  I keep looking for the hand that will come with a slap behind the complement.  Because let me assure you, friends and neighbors, in my experience, it's always, always coming.  Everybody hurts you eventually.  They just do it for different reasons at different times.  It never gets any easier.  Some of it is forgivable; some of it is not.  The decision to pick up the pieces and go on or throw out what's left is just another kind of fight.

There are other battles, too, ones I probably created for myself, others caused by misunderstanding, pride, and a lack of communication, but I am too tired to untangle the Gordian knot of it all.  Then there are the fights I can't win at all, the ones where everybody involved just loses and loses and loses....  It hurts.  It all hurts unbearably.

I would like a storyline where when the thing is defeated it stays dead.  I am tired of reoccurring villains.

I would like a storyline where I have some sidekicks or a co-hero.  I am tired of fighting it all always alone.

Screw it.  If I'm wishing, just give me a happy ending already.  Much more of this, and all you're going to get out of me is pure Shakespearean drama, no kisses or crowns, just that pile of corpses left at the end....

Red Ink Burnout

I need to be grading, but this would make about the fifth straight class day of nothing but that, and I'm starting to hate the sight of red ink.  It's starting to make the think of battlefields, corpses on operating tables, and other horrible things.  I need more than a weekend away from this.

Or even getting back to the joy of delivering information and facilitating discovery would be good, the part of teaching I actually love.  This holding pattern I'm in right now waiting to be able to give exams is a little slice of Purgatory.  The kids are understandably bored (the ones who are bothering to come), and I am just trying to stay productive.

However.

There are only so many papers one can grade before even the sight of a pile of them starts to make my skin crawl.  But it's not going away, is it?  Therefore....

Discipline!  Hand to sword!  Another repetition!  Again!

(somebodybreakmeoutofhere,K? iwillgiveyouacookieorsomething...)

Patience, Please

I close my eyes for a while
And force from the world a patient smile...

"I Gave You All" ~ Mumford & Sons

___________________________________

I'm afraid I must call on your patience and your gentleness tonight.  If you were here with me, I might even go so far as to sit down beside you, take your hands in mine, lean on your shoulder, invite closeness instead of sitting across the room, instead of keeping the space that I'm more comfortable with between us.  

It's been one of those weeks, one of those times when I hurt.  When I'm tired.  When the spring inside me is at low-ebb.

My precious students have been trying to make me laugh today, and I love them for it, but that's not really what I need.  What I need is stillness and that uncanny understanding that you have of me that lets me take off all my masks and lay down all my swords for just a few essential moments. 

Starting the Day

Nightmares all last night.  It's not hard to know where they're from.  They were filled with endless bits of the situation from yesterday that I could not resolve.  I woke up several times, something I do not usually do, and this morning, I don't feel especially rested.   I'll manage.  At least the heat, which was being coy last night at one point, stayed working well all night.

Today, though, is a new day.  I want it to be a good one.  I'm going to put on my Great Gatsby shirt, have a pineapple and yogurt smoothie, hook my iPhone to my car stereo, and go face whatever the day brings me.  I don't have a better way to armor my soul these days.  It will have to be sufficient to the demands of the day.

Broken Feathers

What do you do when you can't save them?  When what you are by your nature is a builder of nests and a strengthener of wings and you have to stand by and watch them plummet instead?

Is this what Daedalus felt like when he saw Icarus falling?  I feel like am reaching out and grabbing nothing but handfuls of  feathers when I need to be pulling a body to safety somehow.

Yet the choice to fly to safety is not mine to make.  Though it breaks my heart, I know some not only have to singe the tips of their wings but also to lose them altogether before understanding comes.

It's just that I've seen this happen too often, and I know that not everybody survives the fall.  The ocean that waits down there is not soft when the crash landing happens.  It just wants to swallow down, cover over.  It is relentless.  As that old painting by Bruegel shows, all too few bystanders will turn away from their own little pursuits to extend a hand, either.

I don't want them to fall at all.  I want them to turn away from this madness, this futile and destructive insanity, this pretend command of things that are as destructive and unstoppable as hurricane winds, that will rip through their fragile, beautiful wings like a typhoon through a paper kite and start learning how to soar again.

My heart is broken.

Moooooon

Have you seen it?  That moon is insanely beautiful out there tonight, like something you could reach up and pluck from the sky with your hands.  It's the thing that has been making my kids nuts the past few days, I guess.  Right now, it's doing the same to me.  I totally understand the dogs running around in the yard at top speed and barking at things and the cats staring out into the dark with bright shimmer-saucer eyes.  It all seems like a good idea to me.

Crazy moonlight somehow increases my need to go, to get out and move.  I went to Jackson yesterday for no good reason, just because I couldn't stand to be in the house and that was the grand plan I devised.  I literally went, bought some Christmas ornaments at Pier 1 (my excuse for going...and I did need them for this and that, ornament exchanges I am involved in, etc.), ate at Kismet's, and drove home.  I felt better for the travel somewhat, less like I wanted to shred things with my invisible claws.  Right now, though, that feeling is back....  I would get out and just go drive around and see what there is to get into, but in this neck of the woods...well...that's probably not a good idea.  And.  I don't feel like having to shoot rednecks by the light of the silvery moon.

I wish I knew somebody else who had this same lunar weirdness.  I need a playmate.

After a Lot of Sleep...

There is such a thing as counting chickens before they hatch.  Or before the eggs have even been laid.  Or before you even buy the setting hens.

There is such a thing as building fortresses so strong and protective that you forget to put in doors to let yourself out.  It's true you're very safe that way, I guess, but you also starve to death very slowly, comfortable in the righteousness of your safety....

This is not D. again.  No matter whatever else it ever does or does not come to be, no situation will ever be exactly that again.  The person in question is not him.  Once the panic has passed, I can see that.  The similarities are there, but they are superficial.   I can't keep judging everybody by that yardstick, assuming everybody plays by his rules..  If I do, then...well...I suppose the past always wins.

The other side of the equation is not the me that I was in those days, either.  I don't know that this is a good thing all the way through, but I think for the most part it is.  I know myself more thoroughly than ever I did then, what I want, what I will and will not endure, what I need and what I can offer.  I regret some of what is gone, some of the sweetness I think I probably used to have, some of the trust that is never coming back.

In any case, I have to start allowing whatever amount I have left to be the thing with which I lead.  I have to stop looking for demons in the dark before I have seen positive signs of the cloven hoof.  While everything inside me is screaming that this is going to get me slammed through the floor, is begging to run back inside and brick up all the remaining doors and windows, I'm tired of living this way, and the air in there is stale and dead.

So.

(God help me.)

Maybe I will try to choose to start to trust somebody after all.

Maybe.

(did I leave enough wiggle room in that? ...yeah...)

Cyclical

The worst fault you have is to be in love. ~ William Shakespeare

You're an angel, and I'm gonna cry

'cause I can't have you

and I'm not gonna try.

"You're an Angel and I'm Gonna Cry" ~ Chris Thile

And I'll throw you in the current that I stand upon so still
Love is all, from what I've heard, but my heart's learned to kill
Oh, mine has learned to kill
"Love Is All" ~ The Tallest Man on Earth

______________________________________________

I have suddenly awakened and found myself in the middle of an unexpected nightmare.  It's like a rerun of something from years ago, from the old bad days of D.  When the realization hit me, I almost literally couldn't breathe. I felt the walls all closing in on me.  It had come on so gradually, you see, that I had not felt it closing its grasp around me until it was nearly too late to do anything about it.  

Oh, it's not love, not yet. That takes a long, long time and much more.  However, that doesn't stop me from knowing it's full of danger.  All the signs are there.  All the archetypes are on the stage and costumed appropriately.  Everybody is mouthing the right lines, me included.  I can see that idiot with the wings and the bow trying to sneak around in the rigging.

Right straight to hell with that.

I made a promise to myself a long time ago, and even if it means ripping my heart right out of my chest and stomping it into shattered shards on the floor, I will not walk down that road again.  Not to worry, though; my heart has learned all too well how to kill.  It was taught that lesson at the hands of the master.  

What completely flummoxes me is that it crept up on me.  Was I just so stupid, just having so much fun that I closed my eyes, or God help me, am I just that much of a fool?   It does not end happily for me.  Ever.  Do I forget my history?  Do I forget my scars?  I need to put myself in a convent somewhere high in the hills where I will not be tempted by these things.  The cycle spins, and apparently I learn nothing.  Yeah.  I am a fool.  The Queen of them all......

Favorites

I am taking a bit of a break to drink some tea and try to wake up a little.  A case of weariness has wrapped itself around me like a big blanket, and I am fighting to stay awake.  Even my desk looks like a good place for a nap.  In an effort to get my brain doing something, ANYTHING, here are a few of my favorite things.  (And I deeply apologize if you now have Julie Andrews twirling around in your head.  Unless, of course, you know, that makes you happy....)

• Flowers:  Gerbera daisies and yellow roses .  
• Beverage:  Unsweetened green tea and Diet Mt. Dew (although at present, I also love an eggnog smoothie....)
• Types of cuisine:  Mexican, Thai, Japanese, and Italian
• Places on Earth:  Nara, Japan; my family's pasture and country shack; the high-ceilinged library at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
• Hymns:  "It Is Well With My Soul," "In the Garden," and "Angel Band"
• Items (as in, I have them with me all the time):  Fountain pen, iPhone, handkerchief
• Word:  luscious  (most of the time)
• Sound:  rain on a metal roof

I suppose there are more categories, but some things that seem obvious to include would be impossible for me to select.  I could no more select favorite authors or musicians than the man in the moon.  I have similar problems with movies.  I can select a broad range of what I like, but I don't like to try to pin it down to one.  It feels wrong somehow.  Maybe that seems strange.  I don't know.  

I guess if there was anything somebody wanted to know in particular, that person could use that little feature down at the bottom and ask me.  Trying to fight off the tired with this isn't working.  I think I'm going to fold up shop and go home for the afternoon.  Maybe that's what I need.

It's Official....

 I got my notification from TGC today.  My travel country is BRAZIL.  I read the email on my iPhone after school, and I literally squealed, jumped up, ran to the door of my room, remembered that everybody was gone, and had a little moment of panic.  There was nobody to tell!  Thank God for social media...  (ha)  Then I called home.

I have wanted to see Brazil for years and years.  I have had several wonderful friends from there, been fascinated and enchanted by Portuguese forever (it's just the most gorgeous language...now I have a reason to make myself learn it - YAY), and getting placed there is almost too good to be believed.

This is just fantastic.  I don't know all the details, but I am definitely in Snoopy dance mode.  Now to the fun part leading up to every trip....the research and the PLANNING.  Boo.  Yah.

Uh-huh, Okay. Alright, Then.

It's been an odd pair of days.  I didn't feel much like writing yesterday.  You're getting a list now.  It's the end of the semester, so I'm pressed for time, and I'm running low on sleep.  I still feel good, but there's been no shortage of contenders trying to take that away from me.  Well.  To paraphrase my sage grandfather, "Never, never, never let the b-------s get you."

In the past two days:

• I had a student suddenly and unexpectedly opt to do a front roll through my classroom door instead of entering it the normal, upright way.  No.  There was no reason why.  Yes.  He did a beautiful roll....
• I have been told that I look like a porcelain doll.  No.  I don't know why.  I assume it's because I am so very pale.  Apparently it has been much discussed....  (Is this a good thing?)
• I was mistaken BY STUDENTS for a student when I went through the lunch line today in an attempt to get a pimento cheese sandwich.  (Oh, and the lunch line thing?  NEVER AGAIN.  I will totally cut up the middle next time.  WTF was I thinking?)
• My dog Chewie flung his green squeaky duck in a fit of exuberance.  I don't know where it is.  I am terribly, terribly afraid it is IN the Christmas tree.  Sigh.  Finding it is this afternoon's project.  He looks so sad now that it is missing.
• The first person figured out what my pendant is today.  I didn't even have to tell her.  She just knew.  She laughed and laughed.
• I have just about worn a hole in the new Black Keys album.  God, they're good.  They're keeping me awake when I drive, bless them.  They're almost better than caffeine.  (Well, realistically not, but you know.)  I love that the last song on the album keeps saying, "Oh....don't let it be over...."  They kill me.
• I have come to love my new iPhone even more than my old one.  I am trying not to feel like I'm cheating on an ex by saying that.  How do we come to have the attachment issues to electronics?  It's ridiculous.  (But I'm whisper-typing this and tilting the screen so Minerva never knows she's Minerva the Second....)
• The hat I bought at Chimneyville has paid for itself already.  It's purple and gorgeous, and every time I put it on, I feel gorgeous (if not purple), and I don't hate getting in the car at whatever ridiculous hour it is or going out to stand bus duty.  Definitely money well spent.

That's it.  I have a little left to do here, and then I'm getting out.  I am going to SLEEP tonight.  I am just so tired, and it's so cold and horrid outside.  This would be a wonderful night to curl up with somebody I love and pretend there's no world outside.  Shame that's not an option, really....

Putting a Foot Through

         In this world
 we walk on the roof of hell,
        gazing at flowers.
- Issa
_______________________

I've been working on student papers this morning, but I had to stop just a minute and write. This haiku by Issa has been a favorite of mine for a long time because I think it says a lot about what life really is. We have no idea about what is going on under the surface. We walk around on a thin crust of what we assume is safety until we accidentally fall in a crack or put a foot through.

One of my students' writings just broke my heart. I so want to just wrap my arms around that person and hug that one. It happens here so often and not on purpose. It is never a deliberate thing. It was just a matter-of-fact revelation that made me come back to Issa again, made me both appreciate the flowers, the fact that we get the moments of beauty, and also made me grieve for all the pain everyone has to endure that creates that gaping cauldron that constantly seethes just beneath them.

Those Who Walk Alone

“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.”
― Albert Einstein