Liar, Liar

Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review 

I hate lies.  I hate being lied to.  I am an easy dupe, constantly credulous, so I know it happens all the time.  I want to believe people, want to think they're all playing above the table, want to believe everyone is trying to do the right thing even when I know they're not.  I need to believe that there are people who want to play those rules, need to believe that people are basically good, or I can't even get out of the bed in the morning, actually.

Therefore, when I learn that I've been lied to for a very long time by somebody I really trusted, the betrayal I feel is profound.

I can understand why it happened.  The situation, I'm sure, felt like one that demanded it at the time.  However, who we are when nobody is looking is who we really are, right?  We all struggle with darkness.  We all have secret sins, flaws we hope nobody ever sees, pieces of ugliness that we fight every day, but embracing them, excusing them with situational ethics is not a way to make ourselves or any situation we find ourselves in better.  We refine nothing, solve nothing, bring forth no gold from the dross when we say, "I will do this wrong this time, in this crisis and call it good." All we do is stave off disaster until later, allow the wound to fester untended.

What are the results of this latest revelation for me?  Another person I can't quite look in the eye.  Another huge mess somebody is going to have to clean up.  Another nail in the coffin of the whole situation.  Another scar I have to carry internally.  Most crucially, I've been thinking lately, another reason I should just force myself not to trust anyone. 

Is this a way to live, though?  Do I need to close myself off because of the unfaithfulness of others?  Should I stop believing in the truth because others have?  Part of me very much wants to protect myself, become cynical, trust no one, but this is no way to go through life, is it?  At the same time, I don't think I can be the same person I was.  I don't think I should be.  It is equally unwise to learn nothing from a situation that has brought pain.

Maybe the best course of action is to follow Shakespeare's quote, "Love all, trust a few, do harm to none."  Maybe if I can keep this axiom in my mind, I can find a middle road between a hard shell that keeps everyone out and a heart so credulous that everyone can wipe their feet on it and walk away laughing.

Tired

What do you do when somebody won't lift a hand to save themselves?  When they're perfectly content to go down for the third time, slip under the surface and disappear, maybe forever?  How many times do you swim out, try to grab them, drag them to the shore when they fight you, or worse still, when they laugh and sing, party and dance as the ship goes down?

My heart, my very soul hurt.  I don't know what to do anymore.  Everything I do feels useless.  I'm surrounded by pockets of indifference, gallows humor, crudeness, and outright cruelty in an emergency of epic proportions.  I feel like I'm trapped in this old, old nightmare I used to have where I was inside a burning building full of people who I was trying to alert to the danger but none of whom would listen.... 

As always, it's not every single thing in my day to day that is causing this.  I need to focus on those bright pockets, those shining stars, but I am so distressed over the other, the lost ones, right now, that I can't see anything else.  I'm so tired.  Just tired, tired, tired.  I wish this was just over for awhile.

Sweet Shakespeare

I got such a surprise yesterday.  My AP students, stealthy little creatures that they are, had noticed me looking at busts of Shakespeare about a month ago and had gotten me one as a "happy."  I was caught completely off-guard. I've been wanting one of these for a very long time, but all of them, even the very small ones, have been impossible on my budget.  This one is lovely. I had them all take a fine-tip Sharpie and sign the bottom so I will have a permanent reminder of just who those sweet people are who gave it to me. Every time I look at it, I will be able to think of that good day and this good year and smile.

Oh, So, SO True.....

CNN is one of the participants in the war. I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected president but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.
  - Arthur C. Clarke

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

It seems I start so many reviews out this way....

I've had this book on my "to read" shelf for a long time now, and I really, really wish I'd gotten to it sooner.  I can see why it got the Pulitzer.  I devoured it in two long Saturdays of reading, last and this, and it turned out to be one of those books that I regret being over. 

I loved the mix of Dominican history, something I first got curious about through Julia Alvarez, and the "Genres," stuff I've been reading for years.  The storylines of the different members of the Cabral family were so beautifully told.  I loved the narrative voice and its endless footnote digressions.  I found myself laughing hysterically and learning stuff, too.  Can you ask for more than that, really?

The book just moved me.  I am still turning bits of it over in my mind, and in time, I will definitely reread it.  Oscar himself reminds me of people I know, famous characters from other pieces of literature, and the whole thing is a bit like a horrifying fairy tale set in a place not imagined by too real to have been dreamed up.  I want to put it on my reading list for my course, but because of the strength of the content, I may have to forego that.  I will recommend it here, though.  It is one of the five best books I've read this year, hands down.  If you're interested, you can click the image of it above and go right to its listing on Amazon.

Restoration of Balance

Today was my students' AP test (come on, College Board....hit my blog.  I dare you.  Hit my blog.  I know you're going to.  You do every single year.  I'm not saying a fee-freakin thing about the exam except "it was".), and I got up early, went and set up their "snack table" for the break, and took my jittery nerves on about my day.  I had done all I could for them: providing intensive review, even adding two afterschool sessions that I've never offered before to help prep them,  giving what I hope was solid instruction all year long, of course, and although I really, really wish we'd had that month we wound up missing because of school's late start, etc., etc., I felt fairly peaceful about it. They were so motivated and have worked so hard.  All I can do now is wait for the scores.  I can't wait until I get to see what the prompts were like this year. The waiting period is just cruel.

Test day for me is always the lifting of a huge burden.  This year because of all the added stress of everything else that's been going on, I don't think this has ever been more true.  I  used the extra class periods to get some serious catching-up done on grading and paperwork, so I had even more reason to feel good when I left the building today.  If I can get two or three more good work days in, I think I can get everything completely caught up. 

I recently finished up another big project I had hanging over me, too, and I got some news that resolved an issue that was causing me stress in another area, too, so things are slowly starting to even out.  There is still one big shoe waiting to drop, though.  I may know more about it after tomorrow.  I guess, though, if I can get my stressors down to one or two from four or five, I will be at such ridiculous leisure that I will just count myself lucky and complain to no one.

The RSC Hamlet

As a person who loves and teaches Hamlet, I have seen more than my fair share of versions of Hamlet.  Prior to yesterday, I had three of them in my personal DVD collection: Olivier's, Zeferelli's, and Branaugh's.  There are things I like about all of them, strengths and weaknesses of them.  I use different versions to teach different scenes.

Yesterday, I got a long-awaited treat in a small brown box from Amazon, the new Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet starring David Tennant as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart as Claudius.  It may just be the best version of the play I have ever seen all in all. 

I had been hearing of this production for about two years.  David Tennant, of course, has been playing Dr. Who for the last four years, and it was during his tenure as the Doctor that he started performing Hamlet with the RSC.  Patrick Stewart has been doing things with the RSC forever, I suppose, but putting the two of these actors into this production must have been a marketing coup beyond all coups for somebody.  I mean, how many people probably bought tickets because they wanted to see the Doctor face off against Jean Luc Picard? 

I'm not trying to denigrate either actor, believe me.  They are both superb.  I don't think I have ever seen Hamlet done so well.  The "mad" act is completely zany, great fun to watch, and as I came to appreciate with Tennant in his role as the Doctor, the scenes of emotional grief were capable of wringing the soul without being overacted.  Tennant is capable of expressing pain and suffering with expressions, movements of the eye.  It's restrained and elegant. 

Of course, what can I say about Patrick Stewart?  Just his voice makes him a better Claudius than all the rest, but that's the least of what makes him good in this.  His performance, too, is restrained.  The inherent cleverness and plotty complexity of the character is perfectly portrayed here as I've never once seen it before.  Since Stewart is playing the Ghost and Claudius, Gertrude's quick remarriage makes more sense, too, and his portrayal of Claudius is such that you actually find yourself liking him...until you look under the surface and know him....  I understand why he got the Olivier Award for this.

From the set to the portrayal of Gertrude, from the modernization of the costumes (Hamlet delivers "To Be or Not to Be" in jeans and barefooted) to the fact that dumb show is done by risque clowns, it's just a brand new beast.  This performance helped me look at this play that I love and know so well in new ways.  I love it.  If you like Hamlet at all, you should definitely check it out for yourself.  You can click the photo at the top and get it right from Amazon if you like.

(Un) Comfortably Numb

The migraine hit during second period as I was doing my usual frantic dance to finish my last full class day of preparations for this year's AP test.  I should have known it was coming.  One of my students called me over to look at something on the sheet they were working on, and although I can usually read stuff upside down, the symbols on the page made no sense.  They could have been Cyrillic for all the meaning I could wring from them.  I managed to force focus back into place, but a few minutes together, the pain struck, and it felt like someone was literally stabbing me through the inner corner of my right eye with an ice pick.  I could feel the little sliver of pain all the way through my brain, sharp, brutal.  Right behind it came the light sensitivity and the radiating broader pain.

So I did what I had to, I took a Maxalt.  Mercifully, I got to it early enough to stop the chain reaction and slow down the worst of the pain that would linger.  The rest of the day, I was just wrapped up in a horrible floating disconnected haze, wanting nothing more than to lay my head on my desk and sleep.

I had to go to Wal-Mart after school because I was out of every single thing in my house, and I found myself gravitating toward brightly-colored objects like an infant.  I hope I bought what I needed.  I may wake up tomorrow and find I brought home a whole carload of Fisher-Price toys....

On the drive home, the radio station I listen to most played "Comfortably Numb," and even though I am not, by and large, a huge Pink Floyd fan (I'm almost positive that this is because of "Another Brick in the Wall"), that song has always been one that I've loved.  Today, I actually lived it.  I spent my whole day in that freaking horrible numbness where my pain was separated from myself, where my whole self has been separated from me.  Of course, I do recognize their means of getting to this state was somewhat...less legal...than mine and that perhaps that numbness was apparently somehow appealing, but other than these minor differences, so many of the lyrics applied. 

Of course, too, this might just be the Maxalt talking....  Sigh.  I think I need a nap.

Sweet Jesus, If I Could Just Write Like This.....

9.
by E. E. Cummings
there are so many tictoc clocks everywhere telling people what toctic time it is for tictic instance five toc minutes toc past six tic Spring is not regulated and does not get out of order nor do its hands a little jerking move over numbers slowly we do not wind it up it has no weights springs wheels inside of its slender self no indeed dear nothing of the kind. (So,when kiss Spring comes we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss lips because tic clocks toc don't make a toctic difference to kisskiss you and to kiss me)

Another Rainy Saturday

Storm clouds are rolling around us, and the house is creaking.  My windchimes outside have been clattering all morning. The dogs won't go outside except when I sort of shove them out the door, and then they run into the yard, run back, and stare into the porch door looking infinitely betrayed.  It's a good day to be inside.

I have gotten a lot done today on my project.  I have a little more to go, and I'll be done with it.  That feels so good.  With everything else basically going to hell in the proverbial handcart, it's nice for something to be resolving itself in a timely fashion.  I might push on through this afternoon or tonight and get it completely done, but it will be finished tomorrow in any case.  I will be able to take my mental fountain pen and cross it firmly off my list.  (Do other people have mental fountain pens?  I'll worry about that later...)

I spent a good portion of the morning reading, and I'm almost done with The Devil's Punchbowl.  It has, like the last book by Iles I tried to read, disturbed me more than entertained me.  I loved probably the first five books by him I read, but these last two have both attracted and repelled me.  I think the problems I'm having with this one are because it has so much to do with dogfighting.  I keep having to put the book down and grab Roux, hold her and pat her and be grateful that she wasn't one of those.  I loathe dogfighters.  I don't think there's a place in hell hot enough for them or anything that can be done here on earth that's too strong a punishment, really.  Maybe that's what Iles is trying to show.  I don't know.  It's hard to read, anyway.

I hope we don't get the really bad weather today.  Apparently, it's out there, ripping things to pieces again this weekend.  It seems this spring is going to be the year of the storm.  I find that somehow almost too Natural Law appropriate for words, but you really can't go by me, can you?  I am a literature freak, and we see signs and wonders under every rock and tree, a little like the shamans and druids of old, I suppose....

Take It Easy

I'm going to take it easy this weekend.  I have something I have to finish work-wise, but other than that, I am officially declaring this weekend hand-off-me time.  Since my answering machine is out of commission anyway, this shouldn't be all that hard to pull off.  I am going to finish the Greg Iles I'm working on now (once I get the work done, that is), get Jim Butcher's new one on my Kindle and read it, and generally indulge myself in music and print.  Tomorrow night will be a new episode of Dr. Who, and I am actually enjoying the new series quite a bit more than I expected, so that will be a nice treat, too.  If the promised bad weather doesn't come in, I may tag one of my friends and see if she wants to go get some Japanese food.  If not, I may go myself and be the chick with the iPod and book in the corner eating udon or donburi.  In fact, the idea of being totally anonymous feels mightily appealing.  Whatever I decide to do, the break in my usual routine should feel good, I think.  It will be the most important thing, just trying to get my mind in a new place.  If I can do that, I think I can hold up for what's to come.

Astute Observation on the Mother Tongue

The English language was carefully, carefully cobbled together by three blind dudes and a German dictionary.

~ Dave Kellett, Sheldon, 02-01-09

Still Tumbling About in the Polisher

Here's one of the pieces I'm still working on.  I wanted to put one of them up.  I still don't have a firm title for it since it's changing shapes with each revision, but right now, I'm calling it Persistence.

You surround me
vast, endless
sea, desert, sky
a universe of you
everywhere

A flood of prepositions
sweeping me before you
enfolding me gently or rough
consuming me inside

Your blue eyes peer at me
with gentle and impersonal question
over the rim of every chipped coffee cup
every stranger behind a paperback
is you
gold and blue

Into my ears
subtle as Claudius' poison
slides your music
a rock and roll ventriloquism
still pulling the strings
after you took your voice away

Unkind of you
to have left behind
so many ghosts
when you went away
You should have taken it all
cleared up these shades
of or and azure
that cling like wind-borne incense
fragrance of something
sacred, clean, wild, precise
of the shoulder I used
to lay my head on
in the stillness of the long
moonless night

Instead there's the endless shock
again, again, again
of seeing the monuments
you left behind
carved into the corridors of my soul
like some latter-day pharoah
yearning for immortality

New Poems

I've written two new poems lately, and I'm quietly pleased with them.  They are still in the "rock tumbler" phase of adjustments little and large, but the core is solidified, the idea is there, the key phrases are clicking against each other and starting to look like poetry.  It feels so very good to write again.  I hate it when my inner voice is mute.  I walk around with pieces of things jangling around in my head, bits of colored glass and old buttons, oddments I've collected, and I sort through them with my mental fingertips, but during those times, no pattern forms.  Lately, though, everything has been treasure.  I'm grateful. I needed it.

A Million Good Things

This time of the year, I tend to get stressed, worn, and tired.  My focus tends to narrow down to the negative.  God knows there's enough negative to go around right now without looking very hard.  That, too, makes it hard to raise my head, unfold my wings.  I forget that there are a million good things around me.  I have to force myself to remember that there are tulip poplars in the world, beautiful with their yellow and orange blossoms.  I need to loop my sari silk scarf around my neck and study the vivid colors.  I should enjoy the simple pleasure of using my fountain pens when I have to do the everyday tasks of schoolwork paper-pushing.  I need to sing louder with the radio on the way to school and in the privacy of my classroom after the day is done.  If I can hold on to the good things, maybe I can offset some of the ridiculous detritus I can't clear away despite all my best efforts to the contrary.

Why My iPhone Rocks

My DSL has been out all weekend.  Something happened in the wee small hours of Saturday morning, and my phoneline got fried.  I, being the consumate electronic addict that I am, was panic-stricken at the idea of a whole weekend with no email or internet.  Worse still, I use email and web to do the bulletin  for my church. 

Enter the iPhone. 

Although I had to charge it in the middle of Saturday, it saved the weekend.  I could still get email.  I was able to pull stuff off the web for the bulletin.  I went and looked at a punch bowl for my mom on Ebay since she does not "go there."  I kept up with people on FaceBook during the insane weather.  It was a very, very good thing.

Now, my BlackBerry was very good to me for a long time, but I'm here to tell you right now that I could not have done everything that I did this weekend with it.  Before this weekend, I was fond of my trusty little "electronic device," but afterward, I just want to give it a hug and make it a little cushy bed all of its own. 

Signs and Omens

I deal with literature too much.

Pale Rider just came on, and of course, my brain just traced the path of allusions to Revelations, webbed it across Pratchett and Gaiman and Anthony, and then tied it to my own current situation.  Is this a good thing or a bad thing?  Most of the time I enjoy this extra layer that almost everything has laid over the top of it.  Sometimes it's a little like a game of Six Degrees of Separation.  Right now, though, I'm just tired, and the bits and pieces that are rubbing together are like the raw edges of broken bones.

I have nightmares when I sleep.  It doesn't matter what I watch or read before bedtime; I wake up in the night dreaming of serial killers, of monsters (and not the kind I empathize with), of loss that makes me cry. 

I am so forgetful that I can't get from one room to another without losing what I went there for.  It's distressing and horrible, like my mind is a slate being continually washed clean by fast-flowing water.  It's like being pre-migraine all the time.  Maybe that's what's really happening, but I'm not actually on-setting with pain, halo, or anything other than very delayed processing, so I can't tell.

I'm going to have to take a day soon.  As soon as I can get everybody through testing, I am going to take one of my many, many personal days and just go somewhere else.  Maybe Jackson, maybe just the Old Place.  It won't really matter.  Maybe if I spend a day somewhere other, maybe the web of connections that ties everything together won't be such a leaden burden afterward. 

Good to See

A local university has started to take unused buildings downtown and renovate them, use them as arts centers, parts of its campus.  I think that's great.  Nobody else seems to be doing anything with these great old buildings except buying them up and letting them fall in or tearing them down.  It makes me happy that these old department stores which were once the heart of the city will again have life in them, maybe give life back to our town.  I'm tired of deadness and decay.  It will be great to see something grow instead of fall apart.

The Price of Knowledge

To know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody. ~ Quentin Crisp

Some Things Are Just Right

i carry your heart eecummings inscription by pocketfullofpoesy

I don't usually do this.  I'm not the type to browse through bridal magazines, and God knows I avoid the latest rash of bride reality shows like the plague that they are.  I've never done the ultra-girly thing of picking out my dress, my colors, or planning my reception.  It's always seemed so unreal, so impossible, to me that there was no reason to do it.  The only wedding idea that I've really had involved a Las Vegas Elvis....

That being said, if I ever do find a crazy sucker wonderful man and we wind up getting married, I have at least found what I'd like my ring to look like.  This is e.e. cummings, of course.  How could it not be, really?  Now if I can just find a man who knows who that is.....