Chick With a Camera Makes a Request

Dear Sir and/or Madam and/or All Four Hundred and Eighty Seven of your Progeny:

I am absolutely delighted that you have come out to enjoy this festival/museum/cultural showcase today and/or tonight.  Isn't it a grand spectacle of what humanity is capable of when everyone works together?  Yes, indeed. That being said, I did have one or two little things I'd like to request of you:

1)  Might it be possible for you NOT to slam into me/roll over me with your oversized purse/stroller/child-in-arms/purchases?  I'd love to go home today without bruises.  Injury should never be a part of anyone's weekend plans.

2)  It does require a bit of distance to photograph most objects.  I am trying to be as respectful of everyone's desire to see everything as I possibly can.  Heaven forfend that I become a nuisance.  Could I gently ask that you not dart in front of me two or three times AFTER YOU LOOK AT ME when I have the camera raised to my eye to take the photograph?  This will make me want to do you bodily violence much less.

3)  Just a general rule in all public situations, do you think you could possibly make sure your children aren't running loose and, oh, say climbing the stairs into forbidden and dangerous machinery past the clearly-marked off boundaries in a second-floor shop in an old factory while you are deeply involved in discussion of such world-shattering matters as the upcoming football game?  I really feel that it should be beyond my responsibilities to reclaim toddlers from the gaping maw of death.  Well, at least on a weekend.

4)  I am perfectly willing to wait for you to finish up your exploration of today's exhibitions as I wish to be as unobtrusive with my hobby as possible.  I might just gently ask, though, that you don't congregate in front of major objects of interest in order to use your cellphone, eat, talk about the upcoming football game/weather/your last surgery/Mamaw/etc., admire your offspring or the offspring of others, or plan further stops on your excursion, or all of the above.  One or two tiny steps to the side as a courtesy are much appreciated.

5)  Everyone knows that parking at a major event is a stressful hassle, especially if you don't wish to walk very far.  However, one should never be in such a total frothing panic to claim a space that one is willing to BACK OVER a pedestrian, especially when one has LOOKED AT said pedestrian for thirty seconds or so before putting the vehicle in reverse.  And no, kind sir, your age does not excuse you.

Thank you for your generous consideration.  A little more courtesy will keep us all harmonious and happy (and me from having to wreck on you in public in such a way that would make my students all proud).

Sincerely,
The Chick with the Camera

Soule Live Steam Festival 2011

I got up this morning and walked the dogs aware of the brisk chill in the air.  The weather meant it would be a perfect morning to catch the steam coming off the engines at a festival I'd been waiting for since I left it last year.  The Live Steam Festival would start in a few hours.

As I walked down from my parking place, I could hear the full-throated scream of the whistles mounted on the roof of the old factory, the rhythmic thumping of the big steam engines, and a new sound added to the mix this year, the merry singing of multiple carousel organs scattered throughout.  Plumes of white smoke and steam curled up into the sky and a pleasant smell burning wood hung in the air.

I saw many of the same engines there this year as last, and I focused on trying to capture them in new ways.  I used my new Diana lens to get some different angles on them, and then I went inside.  The Industrial Heritage Museum folks have done massive amounts of work on their buildings, cleaning out and building new structures inside.  It is wonderful how nice the place looks.  They have added little "shops" inside one of the buildings to showcase crafts like broom making, pottery, weaving, and have also taken all the materials from the print shop that so fascinated me before and set up a working printing press from the factory's belt drive.

A gentleman was printing Marks-Rothenberg ads today as a demonstration, and I talked with him just a bit about the process and took a couple of pictures.  He let me have one of the printed pieces.  It tickled me to no end.  Marks-Rothenberg is one of my special places and always will be whether it is the department store of memory in which I rode the elevator with that wonderful lady who was kind enough to put up with me when I was an overly-inquisitive child who asked too many questions while my mother shopped or whether it is the MSU Riley Center of today where I can go and see wonderful performances like Macbeth the other night.

I walked over and looked at the trains at the depot this year, and I sort of wish I hadn't for two reasons.  First, I saw what is left of the New Orleans and Crescent.  It was a tattered and fading exhibition with peeling paint and shattered glass.  It made me feel sad.  It feels too much like so many other things in town, a glorious and proud past that is disappearing.  Second, it struck me that "Whistlestop" part of the weekend could have been so much more.  Aren't there train groups out there that could bring in something fabulous the way the other groups involved have done?  It needed a little more work.  Amtrak had an engine on the tracks, but that was all.

One thing that was new and really fabulous was all the carousel organs.  They were just frilly and fantastic.  Everywhere you went in a two block radius and inside the building proper itself, they were sitting on corners and in open spaces filling the air with their glorious sound.  Some were hand-cranked and small enough to roll.  Some were so giant that they were an entire vehicle themselves.  Some were very old.  Some were made in the last twenty years or so in some guy's garage.  All of them made me smile in delight.  I love the sound of a carousel organ.  I have fervently wished the one in our local Dentzel were restored.  The recordings they have on CD are, I'm sure, very convenient, but it's just not the same as hearing the real thing.

I hope they continue to have the Carousel Organ Association come down and be a part of the Live Steam weekend.  It seems that they are a natural offshoot to me. It would be grand, in fact, if more things related to steampower wound up being centered on this festival.  Going back to what I said about the trains, I'd love to see some of the gorgeous steam engines come into Meridian somehow.  To me, it would be a resurrection of what Meridian used to be when she was at her best.  I don't know what kind of finagling that would involve, but maybe, someday, it could be possible.

More News

Roux's not poisoned.  The vet checked her, and she is exhausted and run-down.  They kept her for observation, but as far as I know right now, she is okay.  The relief was a physical thing, almost like being released from a big vise grip somebody had been twisting up.

My doctor's appointment got moved.  I have longer to wait now for whatever my sentence outcome will be.  I know realistically that this is only going to be the start of something; it always only ever is with this process, but I had mentally prepared myself to wait until Thursday of next week.  I had prepared myself to be strong only so much longer.  Now I have to gear myself up for more waiting.  I have to convince myself I can jump this next hurdle, too, when what I want is to lay down and just look at it with tired sad eyes.

I'm reminded of the old quote about us never being tested more than we can bear.  Immediately after that come Mother Teresa's anecdotal words, "Then I wish God didn't trust me so much."  Absolutely freakin' ditto, Sister.

Scared Now

Roux came in last night about 11:30.  She was dragging and once I actually saw her, she was shaking like a leaf.  She is covered in little scratches and her skin is red.  I got her fed and on the couch, and she continued to shake.  She slept immediately and hard.  This morning, she's still shaking slightly.  I'm going to take her to the vet, but I'm so scared she's eaten or been given something toxic.  I keep thinking about Rufus, the neighbor's Rottie who died.  I can't stand it.

Misunderstanding

Apparently one of my classes thinks I got mad at them yesterday.  I was very sick yesterday, and I know I wasn't at my best.  Possibly (okay, likely) my patience wasn't good.  When I have an active migraine, I have one of two things going on.  I am either screaming in the floor wishing I were dead or I am fighting the effects of medicine and the stupidity going on inside my head to pretend that I am a "real girl" like everyone else and not whatever simulacrum somebody cobbled together and turned out to fend for itself instead.  Yesterday was sort of horrible.  I spent the time between every class leaning against the comforting cool support of the red brick wall outside my classroom praying for support to get through the next class period.  I ran my fingertips over and over the mortar lines behind me, and I remember thinking how comforting it was that the building was strong, stable, and old since I felt like I was going to come rattling apart into a million pieces at any moment.

I have very fuzzy memories of most of my classes yesterday.  It's likely that my words were sharper than usual.  When I feel as bad as I did yesterday, when I'm struggling to stay upright and functional, I don't have a lot left to put on a mask of sugar over the top.   My emotions come more readily to the surface.  I don't remember saying anything that could have been taken as outright anger, though.  I did warn each class when they came in that I had a migraine and that I wasn't doing well so they were going to have to bear with me.  Apparently, whatever happened in this one wasn't covered by that disclaimer.

It bothers me.  A lot.

They're precious, I love them, and that they think I was angry is distressing.  I don't get angry with my students easily.  Upset, yes, sometimes.  Irritated, frequently.  Both of those are different from anger. They're fleeting, like a rain squall.  If they had ever really seen me truly angry, they would know the difference immediately.  God, I pray they never, ever see me angry.  There are darknesses inside me that never need to be revealed.....

We talked about it a little today after somebody said something about me being mad.  I explained, but they still have a bit of that spanked-puppy look, and now I feel terrible.  This is happening too much this year.  I haven't ever had this problem before.  They are so exceptionally sensitive to every nuance of every word and gesture, maybe more than any class I've ever had before.  I am trying very hard to make sure there is no miscommunication between us, but I am notoriously non-demonstrative with my emotions at all times (ask any guy I've ever done the relationship dance with) making me prone to react to people I like most the least (don't ask.  it's screwed up and I know it.  you see that I am still single, don't you?) and as a teacher worried about being accused of playing any kind of favorite which makes the problem worse.

I don't want them to think I treat any of them any differently than any of the rest of them.  I'd like us to come in, have class, respect each other, get along, and all go out feeling good at the end.  I just don't understand how all these wires keep getting crossed.  I guess I will just keep working to soothe ruffled feathers and be more clear.  I can't really change who I am personality-wise.  I am who I am. (no Popeye jokes please)  To try to be other than that is a falsehood, and I'm not doing that to myself for any reason.

"Waiting for Icarus" by Muriel Rukeyser

He said he would be back and we'd drink wine together
He said that everything would be better than before
He said we were on the edge of a new relation
He said he would never again cringe before his father
He said that he was going to invent full-time
He said he loved me that going into me
He said was going into the world and the sky
He said all the buckles were very firm
He said the wax was the best wax
He said Wait for me here on the beach
He said Just don't cry

I remember the gulls and the waves
I remember the islands going dark on the sea
I remember the girls laughing
I remember they said he only wanted to get away from me
I remember mother saying : Inventors are like poets,
                                                          a trashy lot

I remember she told me those who try out inventions are worse
I remember she added : Women who love such are the worst of all
I have been waiting all day, or perhaps longer.
I would have liked to try those wings myself.
It would have been better than this.

----------------------------------

The story of Icarus, like the story of Faustus, is one of my perennial favorites.  This, the song of a woman who loves him, caught my eye for the first time today as I was looking through a potential new anthology for AP, and it was instant love.  Wow.  Holy freaking wow.  Magnificent.  I couldn't wait to share it.

Fiction from a Song

I think I did promise this.  It is, of course, inspired by Waits's "Kiss Me."  If you have it, you might want to spin it while you read for full effect (ha.  I just know you will, too.).   It's as pure as pure, folks.  (Some of you will be vastly disappointed.  Sorry.)  As always, this is just a writing exercise.  If it weren't, I sure as heck wouldn't be blogging right now, let me tell you.  Sue me.  I have to take my fairy tales where I can find them these days.

_________________________________________________

We’ve known each other a long time, more than well enough for you to make free with everything in the house when you’re here, books, TV, music…. For some reason, tonight you’ve picked a playlist full of slow yearning, and as we’re sitting and talking, I’ve been wishing you’d gone for any other group of songs. This one has Thile promising “I Am Yours If You Want Me” and LaMontagne’s anguished “Burn” while you’re there so close. I lose the thread of the conversation as I ponder the special hells I get stuck in and what I must have been like in a previous life to have deserved them. I hope it was fun….

It’s when “Kiss Me” comes on that it happens. I make some random comment about it being a song made for slow dancing when you take my hand and try to pull me to my feet. My immediate reaction is resistance and wariness, which of course makes you laugh. I’m still looking at you to see what the joke is. You just keep holding on to my hand, and even though I know better, I can’t resist that grin.  I grudgingly follow your lead. The next thing I know, we’re leaving the light cast by the lamp, sliding into the semidarkness of the room beyond, and the notes of the song resonate through me.

You’re holding me properly for the dance, but all the humor evaporates. Even in these shadows, I avoid your gaze. Whatever has been hiding there all evening is clearly revealed. It’s too much, and I’m too unsure. It makes me want things that I usually can’t have, so I’m in the long habit of not reaching for them, of slapping my hungry hands away from them. Our eyes meet only a little on this strange ersatz ballroom floor, and each time I look away. This song, it’s going on forever….

But I’m not imagining it, the hand on my back that moves to press me closer to you, the thumb circling my palm. I’m not imagining the way you’ve turned your cheek against mine, moved suddenly so we’re only that one breath-I-can’t-quite-take apart.

“…I want you to kiss me…like a stranger…once again…”

And then you do it. As if it is something you’re trying out. A theory you’ve been working on that you’re not quite sure of. Your hand releases mine to cup my cheek. You brush your thumb over my bottom lip. And then…

“I won’t believe our love’s a mystery….I won’t believe our love’s a sin…”

You pull back and look at me for just a second, and the honest truth is that I think we’re both just a tiny bit shocked. Then something just a little hungry but completely sure passes through your expression before you lean back to me as last of the song fills the room. It will be some time before either of us notices there is no music.

Past Comfort

It's amazing how fast personal demons can jump out of the sewer gratings to batten at the ankles, isn't it?  I'm trying to do a favor for somebody, and it's pushing me way beyond my personal levels of comfort.  I'm going to finish this because I said that I would, but it is hard, so very hard when things like this happen.  I want to throw it as far as I can from me and not touch it again, but I can't do that because I gave my word.  Today really has been a day made of pure fecal material from waking up and realizing that I'd been incoherent in email in my sleep to getting to school late because of dealing with dog problems to the migraine that crucified me through midmorning and the resultant fight with pain and medicine right up to this delicate torment.  I wish I could have some big, good thing to offset it all.  Maybe that's selfish, though.  I guess I just have to do what Harry on 3rd Rock from the Sun says, "When life gives you lemons, just shut up and eat the damn lemons!"  I'm getting awfully tired of sour, though.  Where is my sweet?

Wives and Lovers

Bear with me, I'm processing through Maxalt lag, but I really want to write this.  It's been bugging me for two days...

Every year, I teach the Wife of Bath's tale.  Every year, the Knight rapes the maiden.  Every year, he gets his sentence, goes on his journey, seeks his answer, comes home, winds up married, and has his little temper tantrum (I can't call it anything else).  Every year, he is offered his choice, gives up the power to his wife and gets, to his surprise, everything he ever wanted.

Can I just tell you that this bothers me a little?

I love Chaucer for what he's trying to show.  I believe in what he's saying.  He believes in the power of repentance, the power of people to change and become something new if they will take the presented wisdom and opportunity to change.  If they will turn from the path of destruction (unlike the assorted idiots in the Pardoner's Tale), they don't have to die.  They can be forgiven, reclaimed, renewed and transformed.

He also perfectly shows the three types of power relationships that can be had between men and women: man with all the power and abusive (Knight rapes maiden) = destruction; Woman with all the power and dominance (Queen sentences Knight to death if he can't fulfill her requirements) = destruction; Mutual yielding (Knight gives up power of control, "Old Woman" gives up power of control of her form to make him happy) = happily ever after.  I totally and completely believe this.  If anybody in a relationship is trying to have the whip hand, then it's all going to fall down.  God bless Chaucer for getting that in 1400.  Wouldn't it be nice if more people in 2011 could?

What I guess I can't quite get over is the fact that this is a rapist getting a happily ever after.  And maybe that his "transformation" seems to come so fast, consist of so little.  I keep thinking about him with his now-nubile wife marching (or whatever the bedroom equivalent of that is since that's where we see them last) merrily off into a golden sunset....while that poor broken girl from the beginning of the story is somewhere in a cold grey convent cell with her head in her hands wondering what her life might have been like before he rode by that day.

You know, in a perfect world, she becomes like Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, and a convent becomes her perfect freedom and refuge, not a consolation prize at all.  Her mind and her soul open, and she grows to think of the moment she first saw that Knight not as an ending but as a strange kind of rebirth.  She doesn't have nightmares.  She doesn't have scars.  She doesn't mourn.  There is peace.  She has her own happily ever after.

In a perfect world.

I wish Chaucer would have given her one, too.  Maybe someday, I will write one for her, give her wings.  It bothers me that this writer who is so much about redemption and second chances that he can reclaim a rapist and make him a hero would leave her cast aside like a footnote, like a broken-winged bird.

Business

Controlling the things I can control.  Back in that old habit as I'm waiting for Nov. 16.  I did yeoman's service at school, got there early, set up one of my favorite lessons ("Walking in Spoon River Cemetery"), changed out my homecoming lights for my Halloween ones, put grades in the computer during my first off period, made prizes for the Literary Pumpkins, taught my classes, went to a publisher's rep meeting during 7th period, and decided to come home fairly early after school.

I did a day's worth of housework when I got here, vacuuming, running the steam cleaner over floors desperately in need of it, "big" laundry (dog blankets, towels), dishwasher loaded and run, fixtures, picked up some of the debris that gathers so effortlessly around here and threw it out or put it away (how many freaking coats do I have, anyway?).  It was nice to see things be neat and orderly, graceful and clean again, or at least as is much as is possible here anyway.  At least my environment is not beyond my ability to affect.

I had a lot of energy for working until I finally sat down on the couch to eat what passed for supper.  My appetite isn't very good; the Topamax is still shredding the weight off me.  I ate, and the tiredness I suppose was just sort of waiting in the wings descended.  I had watched an episode of Being Human, appropriately Halloweenish, and was reading and listening to some good music, when my Kindle tumbled from my sleepy hands.  Blinking blearily across the dim living room, I saw Roux and Chewie were sacked out on the couch and floor.  They seemed to have the right idea even if it wasn't very late and I had classwork I still really needed to do.

There will, after all, need to be distractions for today.  Business and Busyness are always at hand.  If I can just stay moving, I won't have to think.

"Kiss Me" - Tom Waits

I know I already mentioned this song earlier, but it really deserves its own proper post with nothing else in it.  This song just does me in.  The more I listen to it, the better it gets.  Everything in it is understated, restrained and so much more powerful for that holding back. This is a slow dance between two people who have other types of closeness on their mind but are content to wait for that because the waiting, too, is good sometimes.   The upright bass, piano, and guitar are the perfect accompaniment for that rough voice. There's even the sound of old vinyl record hiss in the background that somehow makes it a bit film noir, a bit of something happening in a half-dark room between strong and equally matched leads. Every time it rolls through a playlist, I replay it.  It's rapidly becoming one of my most-played things in iTunes.  And it's generating a piece of writing.  Beware.  I will strive to keep it "blog-appropriate."  Or if not, well....

And It's Gone

I shot this last year after I got my camera.  I took this from the middle of an overpass, got trapped on a pedestrian footpath by my own carelessness while shooting because I wasn't paying attention to the "locals."  Stuff like that happens to me when I go out to take pictures.  I sort of need a bodyguard, or at least a friend who can say to me, "Really?  Um....or not...."

I had wanted to shoot this building for a long time.  Its red sign advertising "European Plan" rooms with "reasonable rates" used to make me smile every time I saw it.  I knew that it was one of the things I wanted to capture when I got my good Nikon.  When I did a day taking pictures of various structures in downtown Meridian, I made sure I got this shot.  I am exceptionally glad I did, because today, they tore it down to make way for a new museum that may or may not get built on that site.

Time marches on.  Progress requires renovation.  You can't make omelets without broken eggs.  Whatever.

I saw pictures of the inside of the building that another very lucky professional photographer got to go in and take last week before they started razing the building, and it was completely beyond hope.  The west wall had begun to sag noticeably, and it's a well-known fact that there is water under and in some cases in the basements/foundations of all the buildings on Front Street where this thing is located.  After seeing the photo essay, even the staunchest of hearts, even I, couldn't say that there should have been restoration.

That doesn't mean it is easy to know the next time I come over that bridge there will be that gaping hole in the skyline.  That doesn't mean it will ease the absence of that somehow cheerful if fading red sign inviting us all to stay in a place that was once "new" and "fireproof" but that now will only exist in the memories of a city all too full of them.

Tea and Reading

If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty.  ~Japanese Proverb


This afternoon, after taking care of some online payday stuff (lookit!  I had money for about ten minutes!  and then it was gone...), I bought a book on Kindle, made myself a big mug of tea, buttered some toast, and let iTunes make me a playlist from "Shankill Butchers."    It's been a wonderful afternoon shading into a peaceful night. 


I've started drinking a lot more hot tea lately.  I don't know if it's a winter thing, an I-need-a-break-from-soda thing, or what, but it seems good more often lately, so I reach for it as an alternative frequently.  I am not a cream-and-sugar girl, and I grew up drinking Earl Grey cold and black, so I tend to favor it hot and straight, too.  Irish Breakfast Blend is good, too, and of course, there is always green...


There is something soothing about the ritual of tea.  I don't do the full-on formal pot and loose leaf routine very often, but when I do get out one of the pots I got in England or one of the ones I brought home from Japan, it makes the mundane special.  I can remember where I was when I bought it, and especially with some of the Japanese ones, the festival or pottery town related to it.  I have an electric kettle here at home that heats the water quickly, so making tea at home is quick and fairly mess-free.


School is another matter.  I used to have to fiddle with an electric kettle there, too, and worry over someone bumping it or keeping a teapot hot or whathaveyou, but then I found a wonderful little thing from ThinkGeek called the Ingenuitea that lets you heat water in the microwave, add loose or bagged tea, brew the tea in it, place the tea over a mug, and dispense the tea through a filter in the bottom to keep whatever tea leaves are left from going into your cup.  I love it.  If I fill it completely with water, it makes up my largest stainless travel mug full of tea, enough to last me all morning.


I have a million mugs, too, and it's nice to rotate through them for something other than cereal.  I've forgotten I have some of them.  I grabbed one at random today and laughed.  It was my "Naughty Shakespeare" mug, an accidental purchase from the last time I went to the Frazier Museum in Louisville.  They had several Shakespeare Quote Mugs, and I thought I got one that was just regular quotes, but when I got it home, everything on it was related to sex in Shakespeare.  I shoved it in the cabinet and didn't really think about it anymore.  This afternoon, then, I drank my Earl Grey out of the mug with "shake a man's back," "pick the lock," "assault between the sheets," "charged chamber," "country matters," and "buried with her face upwards" on it (among others).  Needless to say, this one won't be joining my Verb mug at school....


I think what I like best about tea is the fact that it appeals to so many different senses at once.  The mugs are always warm and heavy in my hands, solid and grounding, centering my attention on what I'm doing.  The beverage is not an afterthought.  If I'm drinking from one of my Japanese teacups, they need to be lifted with the whole hand, and again, all my senses are engaged.  The glazes and textures are meant to be appreciated as the fingers interact.  I love the smells of the different blends.  Earl Grey is so spicy; good Shizuoka green has a tang to it that reminds me of iron, something that you would not think appealing but that I adore. Then there is the first taste as it rolls across the tongue.  I am impatient, and I almost always burn my mouth, but as the subtle flavors expand and fill the palate, that first sip is always the best.


When I go to the UK next year, I am hoping to find something nice by way of tea stuff to bring back to my personal ritual.  I don't really know what I'll be looking for since I don't really need more teapots (I am NOT going to collect them), but something to add to the enjoyment might be nice.  Until then, having a quiet mug or chawan to settle my poor bruised soul seems to be exactly what it was designed for.

The Warrior's Way

I just watched this tonight.  I remember seeing the commercials for it when it was coming out and thinking, "Hmm..." but I am always about four or five years behind the new releases.  Oh boy, did I miss it with this one. It sort of had it all...

• Awesome freaky circusness  - Check.  In the middle of the desert no less.  You can't beat that with a stick. I don't know what it is about a creepy circus that turns up the booyah (my favorite word right now if you haven't noticed) on a setting, but for some reason, it just does.  Works here, too.  Is it logical that there's circus with a half-built Ferris wheel hell-and-gone from everywhere else?  No.  But, then again, neither are the...
• Ninjas - And you have an assortment to choose from.  You have your bamboo ninjas, your boat ninjas, your snow ninjas, your super-bad in-town cowboy-killer ninjas, and what I like to think of as your cannon-fodder ninjas.  
• Cowboys - Creepy disfigured evil ones.  (Getting killed by the evil ninjas.  You're going to be happy when it happens.  Trust me.)
• An absolutely splendid formerly-ninja hero (who is now more or less samurai even if this isn't from Japan) - And here we pause while I have a fit of the vapours over the pretty man with the blade.  (Lawsy.)  
• A baby - Who is cute.  And who gets carried by the lovely sword-swinging stoic samurai man.
• A sword-toting chick with an axe to grind - You know I am a fan of girls getting revenge.
• Geoffrey Rush - Need I say more?
• Magic swords, subdued romance (because it's from Asia ((sigh))), and Matrix-like fight scenes

Are you not watching this movie yet?  What is wrong with you?  Go.  GO.  I'm not going to tell you it's high theater, but it's great good fun.

Quick Mix

A list.  Take what you can get and be happy.  Yeah.  It was one of those.

• Good:  BLT, Chess Square, AND unexpected bonus potato chips for lunch.  Hell.  Yes.  Nothing I ate came out of microwave.  It was like heaven.
• Bad:  Watching a good friend of mine beat himself up for something he did not do.  I would take those stripes for you if I could.
• Weird:  Being told by a student my jeans were not dress code, and so I needed to take them off.  (Oh NO he didn't....  Well,  yeah.  He sort of did.)  Um.  You do know I'm old enough to be yo mamma, right?
• Good:  The elusive F came to see me (amongst others) today.  Don't see him nearly enough, but any day he shows up at my door is a good day.
• Bad:  Sick puppy, and now dirty puppy.  Some things, nobody should have to clean.  Repeatedly. (Said dog is now trying to play "shake the sock", his favorite game, while the sock is still on my foot.  Anybody want a dog?)
• Weird:  I'm hooked on a song about an Irish killing squad, "Shankill Butchers" as sung by Sarah Jarosz.  It is twirling in my head like a beautiful deadly little ballet.
• Good:  TGC sent me a gorgeous little electronics device called a Bloggie.  It's slim and lovely, shoots for about eight hours, does still pictures and video, emails, stores for later, or uploads instantly to FB, Flicker, etc.  Yeees.  Send me sexy tech, baby, and I'm yours for life.
• Bad:  I'm not sure I have any food in my house.
• Good:  I have almost all my TGC homework done because unlike my usual schedule of procrastination, I came home and was a good girl who worked diligently.  Gold star to me.

Now I'm going to go scratch around for something that isn't ramen or puppy chow and slack.  I have by God earned it this week.

Glass Box Hell

What do you do when you can't do anything?  When all your good intentions are worthless and the situation is so far past SNAFU that no amount of fixing will ever un-FU it?  Oh God, my soul grieves.  I cannot lend a hand, soothe a pain, mend a tear, be of use at all.  All I can do is clench my fists, feel my stomach turn, and rage at it as I ask why.  WHY?  I say this so often, I hear it come out of my mouth so much that it is becoming my own personal cliche, but there is no logic in it.  I keep using this as a yardstick in a world that is like something from the reject dimension from Alice's nightmares or Oz's darkside.  Please, somehow, please, let me be of use.  Put a sword in my hand and give me a fair fight.  Put a shovel in my hand and point me to what needs to be dug up or filled in.  Put a bandage in my hand and tell me how to give aid.  I cannot stand this special hell of being useless while those around me hurt.

Things That May or May Not Be Good

• My AP students (at least some of them) are starting to learn the difference between my real smile and my "Noh Mask" smile (see a previous post about this).  So much so that today, rather suddenly, one of them grinned and said, "Yeah.  That one's the 'Noh Mask' one, right?"  He was dead on.  Cheezus.  Sometimes I feel like I might be the star creature in one of those documentaries....  "Watch the teacher move carefully now...any quick gesture could startle her...."
• In the same vein, one of my regular students said, "Aw, you know Ms. __________.  She will wreck on you and be smiling."  (Little Noh Smile)
• Working on thesis statements.  Changes are starting to happen.  Lightbulbs are going on.  The first step on that hard long road is being taken.  I think everybody feels better.  I know I do.
• All my pants are about to fall off because I've lost 15 lbs. since school started. This is not a bad thing, but it's about to destroy my clothing budget since I am going to have to buy new stuff.  I feel like the saggy baggy elephant in everything except my jeans which, for some totally inexplicable reason, still fit me.  Chalk it up to the magic of denim, once again proving it is the only pant fabric I really need to wear.
• Four words:  Vomit in the hall.  Do I need to elaborate?  Yah. 
• In the past two days, I have been dragged into the following conversations I'm not qualified to have:  why nuns become nuns, what happened to men in the medieval period who denied their wives the rights to their bodies/the right to have children (my answer "I'm guessing this never, EVER came up, darlin'."), how the Roman baths at Bath probably were not used soley for the purpose of immoral acts.  This is the short list.  GOD, I love my job.  You just never know from day to day what you're going to be talking about, and it sort of keeps you on your toes mentally....
• Four more words to balance out the other:  Blue glitter butterfly mask.  Which I plan to wear.  Tomorrow.  While I have to drive in the Homecoming Parade.  Booyah.  

That's enough.  Time for bed.  Tomorrow will be, quite probably literally, hell on wheels.

Elvis Special

Today on my way in to school, I saw something that made me laugh.  I was stuck behind a slow-moving SUV blocking the passing lane, and as I was mentally shoving it along, I happened to notice its tag.  Apparently, the state of Mississippi now offers an Elvis license plate.  It was pretty awesome.  I'm sort of going to have to have one.

At school, we ordered lunch from a downtown restaurant, and I finally got to have their "Elvis Special," a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich.  That may be one of the best things I've ever had.  Ever.  It totally made my day.  I could eat another one right now.  I think it had honey on it, too.  Everything is better with honey on it, though, right?

And I really needed all that honey and Elvis, truth be told, because the rest of the day was made of mostly pure suck.  Right now, it's like the universe has a backlog of suck it's got to ship somewhere, and so it's just slinging it my way as fast as it can box it up and get it out the door.  I'm trying to keep my little smile firmly fixed, but sometimes it's getting hard, especially when it keeps coming from the same sources over and over.  Some of it I can't do anything about, some of it will put me in jail if I try to stop, some of it I'm diligently and patiently trying to change, and some of it is just something I have to wait out in measured fear.

As long as there continues to be Elvis, though, I think I'm going to be okay.  God help us if there's not enough Elvis to keep all this stuff at bay....

The Longing

“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.”

~	Leonardo da Vinci

Deep Breath

I am taking a deep breath.  I just stopped running.  I just made the appointment I've been avoiding for two years.  Like some kind of ostrich with my stupid head in the sand, I've been pretending that nothing could possibly be wrong if I didn't go.  It's the sort of thing I'd kick anybody I loved right straight in the backside for. There is no logic in it, nothing intelligent or wise.  I ended it, and my hands are shaking just from the phone call. It might be nothing.  It might be the beginning of an end.  I won't know for a couple of very scary weeks.  Everybody bear with me.