- I did not go to my pottery class tonight.
- I got hugged a lot today.
- I had that Sonic New York hot dog and a banana shake, both of which I am becoming dangerously addicted to. (Please forgive the prepositional ending.)
- I did not have a migraine, although it was a very near thing at times as the storm arrived.
- I saw a former student I have been SO worried about (ref. hugs above). He's not currently being shot at in a foreign country, and so I feel better about life.
- I did not get wet.
- I wore Chaco flops and a silly Shakespeare shirt.
- I continued to appreciate the advice of the Sunglasses Hut salesman. (Thank you, sir. Polarized was the right choice, indeed.)
- I did not adjust well to the new reading glasses.
- I got at least one student comment on said glasses. (sigh)
- I got Super Glue on my fingers.
- I got Super Glue off my fingers.
- I did not use the Force, the Voice, or any other might or gift to destroy the pompous or the arrogant despite all provocation.
- I forgot to recharge my iPod.
- I dropped my handkerchief.
- I was confessed to by a student.
- I forgave said student.
- I read several good poems in stolen moments and smiled.
- I leaned against a red brick wall and pretended I was somewhere else for five-minute intervals every fifty minutes.
- I wished I had a tiny giraffe so I, too, could be "epic win." (and you may not get this one if you don't have DirecTV.)
- I drank far too much Diet Mountain Dew.
- I did not leave on time despite all my best efforts to the contrary.
- I prayed for Japan and my friend with cancer and two babies.
- I did not hit the person who ran the red flashing light at the intersection by Magnolia.
- I was happy with a friend who had good news.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Things I Did and Things I Didn't Do Today
What it says on the tin.
A Reason to Wear the Motley
"It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish." ~ Aeschylus
I wish I could say it's the reason I wear the cap with the bells, but alas, I'm just an ordinary fool. No wisdom to brag of here, folks....
I wish I could say it's the reason I wear the cap with the bells, but alas, I'm just an ordinary fool. No wisdom to brag of here, folks....
Sunday, April 10, 2011
And the Transformation is Complete
And that's totally unfair, by the way, since guys in glasses tend to be so terribly, terribly cute and sexy. Glasses make guys look smart and delightful in most cases. Case in point:
Why doesn't it work that way for women? I just can't imagine any hearts are going to flutter (if any hearts have ever fluttered for me, something I think unlikely) over mine. Damn. Damn, damn, damn.
I am not saying women can't be attractive in glasses. I know lots of attractive women who wear glasses all the time. I'm just saying that I do not personally feel that these help me out any myself. I'm just saying that I hate becoming a cliche. Sigh.
Just Another Saturday Night
It's late, late now, and the tree frogs and the night insects are singing. The attic fan is finally pulling the last of the almost 90 degree temperature out of the house since I resolutely refuse to turn the air conditioner on before the middle of April, and the cool damp night air of a Mississippi spring is flowing in through all the screens of open windows, open doors. I can hear the windchimes on the front porch clattering together, but other than these soft night sounds, there is no noise.
It's just another country Saturday night. A car will briefly break the darkness with headlights every now and again as it passes, a temporary trespasser on all this solitude, but the night slides back together behind its passage like it never was there, its brief smudge of luminescence quickly devoured. This aloneness is not uncomfortable. It is not an isolation but a sense of being in one's own space.
It's a good night for reading or thinking, for remembering, and tonight my mind is dancing lightly across the past and into the future. It's making the silliest and most improbable plans, confections with no basis in reality at all. These plans stir up longings and desires, make me take out maps and look up places online that I'd like to be, make me see myself with different light spilling over my face, different views out my windows. Of course, Thoreau said, "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." However, that's the part that's giving me problems. I can spin dreams for days. I can make the most fantastic plans, see the most amazing futures. When it comes time to begin attaching those castles to the ground though, that is where I lose my way.
It's also apparently a good night for walking down the hallways of my mind and peering into old storage that I am more comfortable leaving the doors of locked tight and left alone, though. And, so, too, this night also makes me sit and think of what is gone, what I had and wasted, what was never mine at all.... We recently read "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" by Herrick in my senior classes, and the last two lines, "For having lost but once your prime/ You may forever tarry," keep circling in my head like the mocking call of circling birds of prey. My roses have faded. I have not seized my day. Herrick would be shaking his semi-priestly head at me, saddened by all the opportunities I've let go by. But if I did not love them......
It's time to get up from here and take the freshly aired and sunned feather mattress and put it back on my bed, to take the clean sheets and reassemble my nest and get in it, perhaps even to take a cool shower to make sure all the heat of the day is gone before I climb in since sleeping hot will ensure the bad dreams I suspect are lurking at the corners of my mind will become a reality. Whenever so much of what I desire and what I regret are in my head like this, I dream horrible things.
It is hard to be content sometimes. I try to be. I try very hard to be content with what I have, the blessings that I have at this moment here in this place. Sometimes, though, I just feel like going out under the dark of the moon and throwing my arms up to the sky and screaming. I don't know what that childish act would accomplish. Nothing, probably, other than frightening the white tailed deer who sneak into the back yard and graze. At least nobody would call the cops. There are, after all, no neighbors near to be concerned by the sound of silly venting in the pasture edge....
It's just another Saturday night here in rural Mississippi. The frogs are singing. The breeze stirs the curtains gently. My mind eddies and tumbles like fast-moving water over mostly submerged rocks. This is what happens when there's nothing to distract me from myself. I suppose what I need more than anything else here is something to save me from myself, then. I wonder if anything ever will.
It's just another country Saturday night. A car will briefly break the darkness with headlights every now and again as it passes, a temporary trespasser on all this solitude, but the night slides back together behind its passage like it never was there, its brief smudge of luminescence quickly devoured. This aloneness is not uncomfortable. It is not an isolation but a sense of being in one's own space.
It's a good night for reading or thinking, for remembering, and tonight my mind is dancing lightly across the past and into the future. It's making the silliest and most improbable plans, confections with no basis in reality at all. These plans stir up longings and desires, make me take out maps and look up places online that I'd like to be, make me see myself with different light spilling over my face, different views out my windows. Of course, Thoreau said, "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." However, that's the part that's giving me problems. I can spin dreams for days. I can make the most fantastic plans, see the most amazing futures. When it comes time to begin attaching those castles to the ground though, that is where I lose my way.
It's also apparently a good night for walking down the hallways of my mind and peering into old storage that I am more comfortable leaving the doors of locked tight and left alone, though. And, so, too, this night also makes me sit and think of what is gone, what I had and wasted, what was never mine at all.... We recently read "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" by Herrick in my senior classes, and the last two lines, "For having lost but once your prime/ You may forever tarry," keep circling in my head like the mocking call of circling birds of prey. My roses have faded. I have not seized my day. Herrick would be shaking his semi-priestly head at me, saddened by all the opportunities I've let go by. But if I did not love them......
It's time to get up from here and take the freshly aired and sunned feather mattress and put it back on my bed, to take the clean sheets and reassemble my nest and get in it, perhaps even to take a cool shower to make sure all the heat of the day is gone before I climb in since sleeping hot will ensure the bad dreams I suspect are lurking at the corners of my mind will become a reality. Whenever so much of what I desire and what I regret are in my head like this, I dream horrible things.
It is hard to be content sometimes. I try to be. I try very hard to be content with what I have, the blessings that I have at this moment here in this place. Sometimes, though, I just feel like going out under the dark of the moon and throwing my arms up to the sky and screaming. I don't know what that childish act would accomplish. Nothing, probably, other than frightening the white tailed deer who sneak into the back yard and graze. At least nobody would call the cops. There are, after all, no neighbors near to be concerned by the sound of silly venting in the pasture edge....
It's just another Saturday night here in rural Mississippi. The frogs are singing. The breeze stirs the curtains gently. My mind eddies and tumbles like fast-moving water over mostly submerged rocks. This is what happens when there's nothing to distract me from myself. I suppose what I need more than anything else here is something to save me from myself, then. I wonder if anything ever will.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Book Haunting
It got me thinking about Gatsby, though, and the cover art by Francis Cugat was much on the website. I decided that on payday, I'd splurge and get the shirt since Out of Print finally released the original Cugat cover on a beautiful blue shirt, just like the original dust jacket. I ordered it from San Francisco. Keep track now, because these are instances of Gatsby numbers one, two, and three....
Sometime around in here, I had a strange dream about Gatsby. I don't remember the details. I just know that I woke up thinking, "Huh. Can't wait for my shirt to get here. Weird. Maybe I need to reread that book." I probably, to be perfectly honest, also thought something about Robert Redford in the movie version, too, because, well, COME ON...does any woman worth her salt really think about Gatsby and not think about Robert Redford? (I mean REALLY? He's all pretty...and...and...shiny....and...and...)
Then, last night, I had a interesting conversation with somebody that wound up headed down a literary alley and...voila...Gatsby was there again. I sort of felt startled when I saw it come up, but then I just shrugged and went with it. By now, I was sort of getting used to seeing it here, there, and everywhere, lounging idly against the hood of expensive vehicles and on street corners, insouciant and knowing grin in place.
Today, one of my students was turning in some work when another came in holding a paperback copy of the novel. The second student wanted to give it to the first, as it had the first's name in it. The first was bemused, saying she hadn't seen that book in over a year, hadn't brought it to school at all, didn't even know where it was until it turned up in the second student's hand. I simply nodded and thought, "Okay, well, now it's actually coming AFTER ME in print..."
I've never been haunted and pursued by a novel before. It's a little disconcerting. I guess after I finish what I'm reading now I'll reread Gatsby. I'm afraid that if I don't the next stage will be looking out my window to see a green light has appeared at the end of my pasture or having somebody start calling me "old sport" for a nickname. That would be more than a little too much, I think. I hope it can be patient until I finish this book I have going. Otherwise, I guess I better look for big yellow cars as I cross the street....
Sonnet, Redux
As you can tell, I've rediscovered a treasure trove here. This collection of sonnets, The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, is wonderful. This poem reminds me that all too often the private lives of creative people wind up as a horrible sort of sacrifice. I believe everybody is deserving of privacy. While I'm not usually a fan of Wilde, I am touched by his words here. I don't think there were many more gentle in the world of letters than Keats. To think of people pawing through the private musings of his heart breaks my own. It's too much to hope that kind soul bought those letters, sealed them up in a box, and burned them to allow what was supposed to remain only between two to continue that way, isn't it? I guess I'm just not much of a scholar when it comes right down to it; there's no desire in me to know what he wrote to his beloved. It should be left alone.
_______________________________________
OSCAR WILDE Sonnet: On the Sale by Auction of Keats’ Love Letters
These are the letters which Endymion wrote
To one he loved in secret and apart,
And now the brawlers of the auction-mart
Bargain and bid for each tear-blotted note,
Aye! for each separate pulse of passion quote
The merchant’s price! I think they love not art
Who break the crystal of a poet’s heart,
That small and sickly eyes may glare or gloat.
Is it not said, that many years ago,
In a far Eastern town some soldiers ran
With torches through the midnight, and began
To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw
Dice for the garments of a wretched man,
Not knowing the God’s wonder, or His woe?
1886
_______________________________________
OSCAR WILDE Sonnet: On the Sale by Auction of Keats’ Love Letters
These are the letters which Endymion wrote
To one he loved in secret and apart,
And now the brawlers of the auction-mart
Bargain and bid for each tear-blotted note,
Aye! for each separate pulse of passion quote
The merchant’s price! I think they love not art
Who break the crystal of a poet’s heart,
That small and sickly eyes may glare or gloat.
Is it not said, that many years ago,
In a far Eastern town some soldiers ran
With torches through the midnight, and began
To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw
Dice for the garments of a wretched man,
Not knowing the God’s wonder, or His woe?
1886
Musicians and Poetry
Found this today as I was pulling sonnets for my AP class. It is, of course, Shakespeare. I've felt this way too often watching certain musicians who were very bad for me play.....
_________________________________________________
SONNET 128
How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blest than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blest than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
Monday, April 04, 2011
Rain and Eggplant
I had a D-A-Y today. The natives were growing restless, what with spring and testing and all. It is not to be talked of.
After school I took my taxes out to the lady who does mine. She's in the town where I went to high school, and just driving out there is an experience. So much has changed. When I went to that school, it was a small country school, very good, but not very big. Most of the families who were there had been there for generations. It was truly a community school. Now, there are subdivisions everywhere and mammoth houses where people have moved in from everywhere. It makes me feel strange, a little like somebody came in and took something that was mine when I wasn't looking. I know that's not logical, especially since it's not mine anymore in any part, but still....
I came back to town and decided not to have a Sonic burger for supper. Instead, I went to an Italian restaurant to have something more substantial. Eggplant Parmesan is one of my favorite dishes, and I took the time to read over it and enjoy it slowly. It was a nice change over eating a jalapeno burger in the car, even if the burger would have come with a banana shake.
I hope tomorrow will be better. Today I feel as if I was a bear in a cage who was being poked at from all sides. I'm going to put my paws over my eyes and pretend there's nothing there and hope that they all leave me alone for a little while.
After school I took my taxes out to the lady who does mine. She's in the town where I went to high school, and just driving out there is an experience. So much has changed. When I went to that school, it was a small country school, very good, but not very big. Most of the families who were there had been there for generations. It was truly a community school. Now, there are subdivisions everywhere and mammoth houses where people have moved in from everywhere. It makes me feel strange, a little like somebody came in and took something that was mine when I wasn't looking. I know that's not logical, especially since it's not mine anymore in any part, but still....
I came back to town and decided not to have a Sonic burger for supper. Instead, I went to an Italian restaurant to have something more substantial. Eggplant Parmesan is one of my favorite dishes, and I took the time to read over it and enjoy it slowly. It was a nice change over eating a jalapeno burger in the car, even if the burger would have come with a banana shake.
I hope tomorrow will be better. Today I feel as if I was a bear in a cage who was being poked at from all sides. I'm going to put my paws over my eyes and pretend there's nothing there and hope that they all leave me alone for a little while.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Dunn's Falls
The weather was too beautiful to stay indoors today. Although I left much later than I'd wanted, I finally went to Dunn's Falls to take some pictures. I hadn't been there since I was very little. That's a shame. It's a very peaceful place. I need to go back when I have more time to hike the trails some. There isn't much there except the mill, the trails, and the river, but there doesn't really need to be more than that to be honest.
The old mill is in very poor repair. I suppose things like that need a great deal of money to keep them up. At one point, I think they used to run it and mill grain there periodically. As I was taking pictures of the various components, I noticed the damage to most of the working structures. I don't know if it will ever mill again, but it is still lovely for all that. It's still possible to go in the building and look around. I got several pictures inside it that I'm fairly pleased with, lots of interesting details to shoot there.
The river is beautiful where it bends at the falls, wide and curving, and with the water cascading down into them from the mill, it's a great spot to take photos. As usual, I shot much more than I kept, even after editing, but it was nice to wade out into the spring-cool water in my Tevas, feel the sun on my face and arms, and baptize my feet in the water of my native region as I tried to find the right angles on things. The little shelf of limestone where the water comes over the falls is ridiculously pretty, and on either side, all of Mississippi's lush spring blooms were on display, native honeysuckle and dogwood sprinkled through the new green of the woods. I am more glad than I can say that I waited for spring to go out to take pictures. I think I'll go back again with a picnic lunch, a quilt, my Kindle, and much more time. It should be a good place to find a quiet spot in a bend of the river and listen to the water go by and the wind in the tree tops. I won't forget it's as close as it is again. There are too few places of refuge to throw one like this away.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Songs I Hate #1
"Love the One You're With" -- Stephen Stills
"If you can't be with the one you love, honey / love the one you're with / love the one you're with...."
I was driving home today and this song came on the radio. I usually just make a face and switch the channel or make fun of it by singing in an irritating voice, but today I decided to blog it when I got home. Thus commences my list of songs I hate. Don't expect to see a lot of these or to see them pop up sequentially.....
What bothers me about this song is the whole message of it. It basically reduces love to a reaction to boredom. To me, it's like the guy is saying, "Hey, I'm horny and I'm bored. Oh, man! Bummer! My sweetie isn't here! What now?" (Looks around, sees miscellaneous woman, shrugs) "You'll do...." And if that isn't just the very SOUL of romance.....
I don't find the lyrics freewheeling and fun. I find them stupid and demeaning to everything love is supposed to be about. How about this: "If you can't be with the one you love....F'ing WAIT." How about that? Because call me crazy, but last time I looked up a definition of love in the book, that's what it sort of said, chief.
/rant
"If you can't be with the one you love, honey / love the one you're with / love the one you're with...."
I was driving home today and this song came on the radio. I usually just make a face and switch the channel or make fun of it by singing in an irritating voice, but today I decided to blog it when I got home. Thus commences my list of songs I hate. Don't expect to see a lot of these or to see them pop up sequentially.....
What bothers me about this song is the whole message of it. It basically reduces love to a reaction to boredom. To me, it's like the guy is saying, "Hey, I'm horny and I'm bored. Oh, man! Bummer! My sweetie isn't here! What now?" (Looks around, sees miscellaneous woman, shrugs) "You'll do...." And if that isn't just the very SOUL of romance.....
I don't find the lyrics freewheeling and fun. I find them stupid and demeaning to everything love is supposed to be about. How about this: "If you can't be with the one you love....F'ing WAIT." How about that? Because call me crazy, but last time I looked up a definition of love in the book, that's what it sort of said, chief.
/rant
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
San Francisco Again
I simply stopped having time to blog. That's how good the trip got.
I'll talk about some of my favorite parts.
We went to a restaurant called Farallon. It's a 3.5 star restaurant built in and over the old municipal swimming pool. The decor alone was worth the trip. The arches are all cast iron and the ceiling is a tile mosaic. Those big lamps are glass sea urchins. It was gorgeous. The food was incredible, too, if expensive. That was to be expected in that sort of establishment. My one great regret was that I couldn't have a glass of wine to go with my meal since we were in a place that specialized in wine wonderfulness. I think everybody should eat in a place like this occasionally. It sort of offsets the airline food and $8 sandwiches one has to eat at the conference center from time to time.
Another major high point of the trip for me was the car tour we took. Two of the teachers who went with me met a gentleman who offered to show us around in a Town Car. We took him up on it, and we had a very awesome tour. He took us all over town and let us stop and get out to take pictures. He drove us up to Twin Peaks, out to the Sutro district, down Lombard Street, everywhere, really. He told us all about what we were seeing. He was originally from Louisiana, and he said he just wanted to make sure we didn't leave without seeing the city. Without his help, we would have, too. Our only other option would have been the "hop-on, hop-off" bus. We didn't see everything I wanted to; I didn't get to the Chinatown gates or City Lights bookstore, but we saw so much that I don't consider myself shortchanged at all. I am going to work on the pictures this afternoon, get them processed and uploaded if I can.
During that tour, I got to see the Golden Gate Bridge. I have heard about it all my life from my father. He spent part of his growing-up life in California and did military training there, too. To see the bridge finally was to make something I had only a thousand stories for a tangible thing. The bridge itself is also a lovely thing. So often when you have longed to see something, it somehow fails to measure up; the image you've carried in your head is somehow larger or more grand than any real thing could ever possibly be. I don't think this could ever be the case with the Golden Gate. It was stately, imposing, inspiring, and grand as it stretched up into the sky. I think I could spend a hundred days with my camera trying to capture its elegance. They would be pleasant days, indeed.
I also got to go to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I didn't see all five floors, but what I did see was amazing. I don't respond to all forms of modern art; some of it does not move me at all. I find it interesting, though, to see what people decide to create. I did get to see several new artists that I loved and some pieces by some artists that I have never heard of that I really liked. I love De Chirico, and I got to see one of his that I didn't know about, The Vexations of the Thinker, that may be one of my favorites by him, several lovely pieces by Frida Kahlo, and an entire exhibition of early photography by Muybridge.
I loved the feel of San Francisco. It seemed in my short time there to be a city that appreciated beauty and art. If they built something, they took the time to put it together well and make it lovely. Their downtown was vibrant, their old buildings full and refurbished. The civic heart of San Francisco had in one mighty square in buildings of equal might and magnificence a City Hall, a Symphony Hall, a Library, and a Civic Theater. I always think you can tell a great deal about the soul of a city by how it treats the arts, whether it provides a place for them, ignores them, whether they are seen as a necessity or an extra. San Francisco very much is in that first class of cities. Its soul thrives on art.
I could have lived there quite easily. Even the clothing style suited me. The weather suited me. I could have melted into that city like liquid butter. I realize that part of my feeling was the fascination of tourism and that the day-to-day living there might be quite different, but so much of what I saw there was so much of what I wanted. California, of course, has the worst educational crisis of all right now, a state government that is completely bankrupt, so this is not the time to pull up stakes and move realistically.
I guess I'll have to say that I have a new dream city now, I guess, a new place to think of running. I don't think it's an accident that it is so close to Japan, that so many Japanese hands have helped to shape it. Maybe that's part of why I loved it. Maybe that's why it felt so secretly familiar to me. Maybe that's why I wanted to be there and that it was so hard to come home in the end. All I know is that of all the big cities I've been to in the U.S., it is the one that has called to me the loudest, and when I came home wearing my obligatory tacky tourist "I (heart) SF" tee shirt, I really meant it.
I'll talk about some of my favorite parts.
Another major high point of the trip for me was the car tour we took. Two of the teachers who went with me met a gentleman who offered to show us around in a Town Car. We took him up on it, and we had a very awesome tour. He took us all over town and let us stop and get out to take pictures. He drove us up to Twin Peaks, out to the Sutro district, down Lombard Street, everywhere, really. He told us all about what we were seeing. He was originally from Louisiana, and he said he just wanted to make sure we didn't leave without seeing the city. Without his help, we would have, too. Our only other option would have been the "hop-on, hop-off" bus. We didn't see everything I wanted to; I didn't get to the Chinatown gates or City Lights bookstore, but we saw so much that I don't consider myself shortchanged at all. I am going to work on the pictures this afternoon, get them processed and uploaded if I can.
During that tour, I got to see the Golden Gate Bridge. I have heard about it all my life from my father. He spent part of his growing-up life in California and did military training there, too. To see the bridge finally was to make something I had only a thousand stories for a tangible thing. The bridge itself is also a lovely thing. So often when you have longed to see something, it somehow fails to measure up; the image you've carried in your head is somehow larger or more grand than any real thing could ever possibly be. I don't think this could ever be the case with the Golden Gate. It was stately, imposing, inspiring, and grand as it stretched up into the sky. I think I could spend a hundred days with my camera trying to capture its elegance. They would be pleasant days, indeed.
I loved the feel of San Francisco. It seemed in my short time there to be a city that appreciated beauty and art. If they built something, they took the time to put it together well and make it lovely. Their downtown was vibrant, their old buildings full and refurbished. The civic heart of San Francisco had in one mighty square in buildings of equal might and magnificence a City Hall, a Symphony Hall, a Library, and a Civic Theater. I always think you can tell a great deal about the soul of a city by how it treats the arts, whether it provides a place for them, ignores them, whether they are seen as a necessity or an extra. San Francisco very much is in that first class of cities. Its soul thrives on art.
I could have lived there quite easily. Even the clothing style suited me. The weather suited me. I could have melted into that city like liquid butter. I realize that part of my feeling was the fascination of tourism and that the day-to-day living there might be quite different, but so much of what I saw there was so much of what I wanted. California, of course, has the worst educational crisis of all right now, a state government that is completely bankrupt, so this is not the time to pull up stakes and move realistically.
I guess I'll have to say that I have a new dream city now, I guess, a new place to think of running. I don't think it's an accident that it is so close to Japan, that so many Japanese hands have helped to shape it. Maybe that's part of why I loved it. Maybe that's why it felt so secretly familiar to me. Maybe that's why I wanted to be there and that it was so hard to come home in the end. All I know is that of all the big cities I've been to in the U.S., it is the one that has called to me the loudest, and when I came home wearing my obligatory tacky tourist "I (heart) SF" tee shirt, I really meant it.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
San Francisco, Day 1
Yesterday, mostly I went to conferences and walked. And walked. And walked. I saw very little that was of historic or touristy value. I endured.
Today, though. Today....
Even if I have to beat people with one of my friend's storybook "long handled spoons," I am getting out of that convention center some and going to see this city.
Because I think I like it here.
There is some indefinable energy about it I find really appealing. I was very nervous about coming to California, to tell you the truth. My experiences in Los Angeles were BAD. People here, however, don't appear to be made out of silicone and attitude. They are, in fact, friendly, smiling, helpful. And the mix of languages, cultures, ethnicities, is wonderful. It's so nice to be in a place where I can hear other languages, many other languages, washing around me like a soft sea, none of it more, of course, than the sound of Japanese which is everywhere. The architecture is jaw-dropping in places, but not so much that it is...rude, if you follow. The streets enclose and meander. It is walkable (testament to that borne in the blister on the bottom of my right foot; my Chucks failed me).
They have such a selection of things here. There is art everywhere in that casual, everybody-should-have-it way that I think all cities should embrace, and those lovely little specialty shops that sell things that bring joy to my soul. If they can exist here as they cannot at home, that means there are people here like me, people who also revel in them, too. I like the thought of that.
There is also the fact that I probably, quite literally, could walk out of the front of this hotel, throw a rock in any direction, and hit a museum. Not that I've had a moment to go in any of them, but how unusual. How charming. It makes me greedy for more time here.
I am eating breakfast as I blog, Nutella on an English muffin that I bought in a wonderful market in a downstairs food court in a shopping center nearby. I also started my day with two mikan from a big net bag from that same place. I'll stroll out on my way to the convention center and pick up a green tea latte from the Starbucks in the lobby (since, as in every major city, they are ubiquitous here). This is much more the way I'd like to live. Don't get me wrong; I'm not foolish enough to think this place is some sort of utopia with no drawbacks, problems, or sacrifices. It's just that sometimes while I'm struggling even to find fountain pen ink cartridges or a showing of a film that's won an Academy award but hasn't been deemed worthy to be shown in the august theater of Podunk, my little heart sort of yearns for living a little more like this.
Today, though. Today....
Even if I have to beat people with one of my friend's storybook "long handled spoons," I am getting out of that convention center some and going to see this city.
Because I think I like it here.
There is some indefinable energy about it I find really appealing. I was very nervous about coming to California, to tell you the truth. My experiences in Los Angeles were BAD. People here, however, don't appear to be made out of silicone and attitude. They are, in fact, friendly, smiling, helpful. And the mix of languages, cultures, ethnicities, is wonderful. It's so nice to be in a place where I can hear other languages, many other languages, washing around me like a soft sea, none of it more, of course, than the sound of Japanese which is everywhere. The architecture is jaw-dropping in places, but not so much that it is...rude, if you follow. The streets enclose and meander. It is walkable (testament to that borne in the blister on the bottom of my right foot; my Chucks failed me).
They have such a selection of things here. There is art everywhere in that casual, everybody-should-have-it way that I think all cities should embrace, and those lovely little specialty shops that sell things that bring joy to my soul. If they can exist here as they cannot at home, that means there are people here like me, people who also revel in them, too. I like the thought of that.
There is also the fact that I probably, quite literally, could walk out of the front of this hotel, throw a rock in any direction, and hit a museum. Not that I've had a moment to go in any of them, but how unusual. How charming. It makes me greedy for more time here.
I am eating breakfast as I blog, Nutella on an English muffin that I bought in a wonderful market in a downstairs food court in a shopping center nearby. I also started my day with two mikan from a big net bag from that same place. I'll stroll out on my way to the convention center and pick up a green tea latte from the Starbucks in the lobby (since, as in every major city, they are ubiquitous here). This is much more the way I'd like to live. Don't get me wrong; I'm not foolish enough to think this place is some sort of utopia with no drawbacks, problems, or sacrifices. It's just that sometimes while I'm struggling even to find fountain pen ink cartridges or a showing of a film that's won an Academy award but hasn't been deemed worthy to be shown in the august theater of Podunk, my little heart sort of yearns for living a little more like this.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Life on Other Worlds
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." ~ George Carlin
Friday, March 25, 2011
A Long Flight
I still don't like flying. Or rather, I like the sensation of flight, but I don't like the mechanics of getting on the plane, getting through security, fighting with the seats that are too small, and the "thousand natural shocks" that air traffic is heir to. We now even have to pay for food in-flight, and this tiny indignity bothered me more than it should.
I read most of the trip, my Kindle once again proving worth its weight in gold. Once we got on the ground and sorted luggage, shuttles, hotels, and so forth, we meandered around to the conference center, registered, found food, and bought a hat.
Now I'm tired, jet lagged, and trying to figure out what I'm going to do tomorrow. It seems utterly impossible that I'm going to wake up tomorrow on the other side of the country. Maybe it will be more real in the light of day. For now, I think bed is in order. Maybe I'll be more interesting tomorrow.
I read most of the trip, my Kindle once again proving worth its weight in gold. Once we got on the ground and sorted luggage, shuttles, hotels, and so forth, we meandered around to the conference center, registered, found food, and bought a hat.
Now I'm tired, jet lagged, and trying to figure out what I'm going to do tomorrow. It seems utterly impossible that I'm going to wake up tomorrow on the other side of the country. Maybe it will be more real in the light of day. For now, I think bed is in order. Maybe I'll be more interesting tomorrow.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
All Things Change
I'm walking out.
I'm closing doors.
I'm not going to play
your game tonight.
I can see you now
clearly. Open eyes
at last. All your gold
chipped, flaked, and pyrite.
You're just a faded
photocopy, a
thing tarnished, broken,
a stereotype.
You smirk as you watch,
pretending concern
but, ah, you don't quite
bother hiding that knife.
And you want to say
I've not been patient.
Grumble and sulk that
I haven't been kind.
But if we're honest
You've feasted and grown,
taken advantage
And left me the rinds.
So ready yourself
because changes are
sometimes unsettling
storms that crash right through.
Why don't we phrase it
this way (politely)
Inversion of that
Well-Known Golden Rule
You need not expect
anything from me
that I have not learned,
wasn't taught by you.
I'm closing doors.
I'm not going to play
your game tonight.
I can see you now
clearly. Open eyes
at last. All your gold
chipped, flaked, and pyrite.
You're just a faded
photocopy, a
thing tarnished, broken,
a stereotype.
You smirk as you watch,
pretending concern
but, ah, you don't quite
bother hiding that knife.
And you want to say
I've not been patient.
Grumble and sulk that
I haven't been kind.
But if we're honest
You've feasted and grown,
taken advantage
And left me the rinds.
So ready yourself
because changes are
sometimes unsettling
storms that crash right through.
Why don't we phrase it
this way (politely)
Inversion of that
Well-Known Golden Rule
You need not expect
anything from me
that I have not learned,
wasn't taught by you.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
On Writing
"About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment." ~ Josh Billings
Free
I feel better than I have in six months. I know it's tempting fate to say that, but it's true. After I got sleep last night and got the...um...giraffes to settle down somewhat (I know that last entry has got to be an all-time classic)...I feel wonderful. It's fantastic.
Other things are settling down, too. Certain issues that have been up in the air awhile now are resolving themselves. Peace is coming. It's a rare lull and I'm happy. I love it.
I've just put up a rather fierce-looking owl on my door as a part of a State-Testing incentive we're doing here, and while I don't know that he will encourage anyone to do better on that silly thing, he makes me grin. A friend of mine brought me a sweet small owl from a trip he went on, so two new white owls came into my life today. That, too, seems to be a harbinger of good change.
I am about to go get the necessary elements to make "happies" for my students tomorrow as they head into the writing test. It's still sunny out; I'm leaving the pile of papers, much diminshed by recent bouts of grading I've been able to do since I've been able to FOCUS my mind actually instead of simply sit with it wandering in misery or pain, for tomorrow.
I feel free and it's a delight. I hope and I pray that this lasts.
Other things are settling down, too. Certain issues that have been up in the air awhile now are resolving themselves. Peace is coming. It's a rare lull and I'm happy. I love it.
I've just put up a rather fierce-looking owl on my door as a part of a State-Testing incentive we're doing here, and while I don't know that he will encourage anyone to do better on that silly thing, he makes me grin. A friend of mine brought me a sweet small owl from a trip he went on, so two new white owls came into my life today. That, too, seems to be a harbinger of good change.
I am about to go get the necessary elements to make "happies" for my students tomorrow as they head into the writing test. It's still sunny out; I'm leaving the pile of papers, much diminshed by recent bouts of grading I've been able to do since I've been able to FOCUS my mind actually instead of simply sit with it wandering in misery or pain, for tomorrow.
I feel free and it's a delight. I hope and I pray that this lasts.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Tiny Hooves
I have only slept for about two hours in the past twenty-four, so this is going to get weird quick. As my great role-model says, "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night." (God, I LOVE Bette Davis...)
The Topamax does NOT like it when I don't sleep. I need more sleep than usual anyway, and it makes me need an extra dollop. When it doesn't get it, it gets mad. In fact, it gets right pissy about it. Subtle, but really, really pissy. I was warned about this, but I don't think the doctor managed to convey quite the full array of it, somehow.....
It started last night about three when I finally lay down to try to get what sleep I could before my iPhone alarm started chiming in that silly, faux-cheerful way it has, safe in the knowledge that I would never smack anything I depend on as much as it off its charging cradle no matter what the provocation. My feet got cold and I could not get warm. I mean, icy. I tried everything. I had enough clothing and blankets. I even had assorted cattage on the bed. I was freezing.
This morning, or, as I like to think of it, "moments later when the alarm sounded," I got up, dragged myself into the shower, and I was still cold. The shower helped, but all day, I've been off on temperature. Worse yet, there has been this little rill of weirdness to accompany it. It's like there is a herd of ...something...with hooves...racing under the surface of my skin. I said earlier on FB that it was horses. I'm revising that to be giraffes. I think I can stand it if it's tiny delicate-legged giraffes. It's not normal, and I'm definitely in need of a LONG, good night's rest if that is the preferable option, but this feeling is just freaking me all the way out.
I'm going to go try to eat something a little more formidable than the two bits of nothing that composed my breakfast (ha -- the Nutella ran out, of course) and my lunch (I had...something...cottage cheese maybe?) and see if the giraffes will quit circling long enough for me to go to pottery and clean up that greenware figure I started before Spring Break. Maybe they'll....graze or something. Whatever it is that giraffes do when they're soothed.
Yeah. I told you it was going to get weird. I need a lot of sleep.
The Topamax does NOT like it when I don't sleep. I need more sleep than usual anyway, and it makes me need an extra dollop. When it doesn't get it, it gets mad. In fact, it gets right pissy about it. Subtle, but really, really pissy. I was warned about this, but I don't think the doctor managed to convey quite the full array of it, somehow.....
It started last night about three when I finally lay down to try to get what sleep I could before my iPhone alarm started chiming in that silly, faux-cheerful way it has, safe in the knowledge that I would never smack anything I depend on as much as it off its charging cradle no matter what the provocation. My feet got cold and I could not get warm. I mean, icy. I tried everything. I had enough clothing and blankets. I even had assorted cattage on the bed. I was freezing.
This morning, or, as I like to think of it, "moments later when the alarm sounded," I got up, dragged myself into the shower, and I was still cold. The shower helped, but all day, I've been off on temperature. Worse yet, there has been this little rill of weirdness to accompany it. It's like there is a herd of ...something...with hooves...racing under the surface of my skin. I said earlier on FB that it was horses. I'm revising that to be giraffes. I think I can stand it if it's tiny delicate-legged giraffes. It's not normal, and I'm definitely in need of a LONG, good night's rest if that is the preferable option, but this feeling is just freaking me all the way out.
I'm going to go try to eat something a little more formidable than the two bits of nothing that composed my breakfast (ha -- the Nutella ran out, of course) and my lunch (I had...something...cottage cheese maybe?) and see if the giraffes will quit circling long enough for me to go to pottery and clean up that greenware figure I started before Spring Break. Maybe they'll....graze or something. Whatever it is that giraffes do when they're soothed.
Yeah. I told you it was going to get weird. I need a lot of sleep.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
More War
I can't watch the news today. I just can't bring myself to click or view or even scan a headline. CNN is sending its little updates to my phone in urgent email dings, and I want to throw my trusty iPhone across the room, hide it in the back of my closet, run away from it.
Yesterday, when I came stumbling out of the MRI, my mother and another woman were staring at the obligatory waiting room televisions with something like dread on their faces. It took me some time to clue in to the rhetoric falling from the Commander in Chief's lips, but I put together with the help of the scrolling titles and labels that he was talking about Libya, saying that America would not lead a military action, that it was not our place to do that.
Today, as I woke and checked my email, the first messages that greet my eyes tell me that we are now engaged in bombing there.
I cannot say that the people of Libya don't deserve a government that does not oppress them. I cannot say that their current leadership is a good or just one. I just have to wonder why, when my own nation's military is dedicated to conflicts in at least two other active zones of conflict, we have stepped into a third. Is there nobody else in the entire world who can do these things? (Notice I am not getting into the issue of whether or not it was necessary or why we might really be doing this. I am not going to turn over that rock and watch all the little philosophical debates run around....)
I think about every single young man and woman who graduates out of my classes and goes into the military, every person I know who serves as a career part of the armed forces in some way, and every time we lift another banner, sally forth in another grand crusade, the chances of those people coming home in a flag-draped box goes up again, and again, and again. I know they know that when they sign up. I know they want to serve God, Country, and the Corps (or the Army, or whathaveyou), but I just can't help but feeling that this loyalty, honestly given and rare in this day and age, is being managed badly.
Just because you CAN do a thing does not mean that you SHOULD do a thing, does not mean that it is WISE to do a thing. I think that all too often, when history looks back on war, on the devastation that comes from it, the sons and fathers, the mothers and daughters who will never come home again, on the broken countrysides and the scarred landscapes, I think that the reasons why they start frequently begin to look like things that should have been taken care of some other way.
I have said it before, and I will say it again. Those rabid dogs who want to fight need to be taken and given a very sharp stick and put in a deep pit with slick, high sides. Let them stab each other to their hearts' content. Let them get as much blood and death and violence as they can possibly need. Let them howl and rage and rip and one another until there is a clear victor. Then put that bastard down. Let the rest of us get on with living. We have enough other problems out here among us to deal with without the warmongers adding to it, I think.
Yesterday, when I came stumbling out of the MRI, my mother and another woman were staring at the obligatory waiting room televisions with something like dread on their faces. It took me some time to clue in to the rhetoric falling from the Commander in Chief's lips, but I put together with the help of the scrolling titles and labels that he was talking about Libya, saying that America would not lead a military action, that it was not our place to do that.
Today, as I woke and checked my email, the first messages that greet my eyes tell me that we are now engaged in bombing there.
I cannot say that the people of Libya don't deserve a government that does not oppress them. I cannot say that their current leadership is a good or just one. I just have to wonder why, when my own nation's military is dedicated to conflicts in at least two other active zones of conflict, we have stepped into a third. Is there nobody else in the entire world who can do these things? (Notice I am not getting into the issue of whether or not it was necessary or why we might really be doing this. I am not going to turn over that rock and watch all the little philosophical debates run around....)
I think about every single young man and woman who graduates out of my classes and goes into the military, every person I know who serves as a career part of the armed forces in some way, and every time we lift another banner, sally forth in another grand crusade, the chances of those people coming home in a flag-draped box goes up again, and again, and again. I know they know that when they sign up. I know they want to serve God, Country, and the Corps (or the Army, or whathaveyou), but I just can't help but feeling that this loyalty, honestly given and rare in this day and age, is being managed badly.
Just because you CAN do a thing does not mean that you SHOULD do a thing, does not mean that it is WISE to do a thing. I think that all too often, when history looks back on war, on the devastation that comes from it, the sons and fathers, the mothers and daughters who will never come home again, on the broken countrysides and the scarred landscapes, I think that the reasons why they start frequently begin to look like things that should have been taken care of some other way.
I have said it before, and I will say it again. Those rabid dogs who want to fight need to be taken and given a very sharp stick and put in a deep pit with slick, high sides. Let them stab each other to their hearts' content. Let them get as much blood and death and violence as they can possibly need. Let them howl and rage and rip and one another until there is a clear victor. Then put that bastard down. Let the rest of us get on with living. We have enough other problems out here among us to deal with without the warmongers adding to it, I think.
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