Faulkner

I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it.
William Faulkner

I am starting the process of teaching Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying to my AP kids. It's been years since I read it myself, so the re-reading has been a pleasure.

Faulkner's world is such a thoroughly messed-up, yet somehow familiar place. Those characters he crafted are slices of Southern culture. They still exist. I see fragments and shades of them in neighbors and family members. I don't know what that says about me. Is it a bad thing when you recognize Faulkner characters?

For years I wouldn't read Faulkner. My first experience with him was The Sound and the Fury. I hated, hated, HATED that book, a reaction that is rare for me. I wouldn't read anything else by him and considered him to be highly overrated. Sometime in graduate school, I came back to him. I suppose it was more out of curiosity than anything else. I don't even remember what book it was that I read. It might have been AILD. I enjoyed it. That lead me to read more of his work. With each one, I found a rich world waiting that was fictional, yet familiar.

Faulkner distills the South into tiny, shimmering, jewel-like drops. Even though lots of things have changed since his South dissolved into mine, so many of his observations hold true. I don't know if that's because things change so slowly here, or if it's because the characters he wrote share traits that will be a part of human makeup one hundred years from now. Maybe it's a little bit of both.

I am by no means a Faulkner scholar, but I have learned to enjoy him. There are many more of his books that I need to read. I even have plans to revisit TSTF to see if it's really as bad as I remember. (Probably.)

Teaching Poetry

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.
Emily Dickinson

I love teaching poetry. It makes this job worth doing. Every time I open a textbook or anthology, I feel a sense of wonder. I feel like a mage opening a tome of wisdom. And when I spin out the words, say them and hear them, I feel the magic of them unfold like a sparkling woven mantle wrapping me snugly.

Meanwhile, the kids are rolling eyes, printing misspelled slogans on their notebooks, and praying for the bell to set them free. I can't understand them. They are Other. Yet, not all of them have built those walls. Even some who are firmly entrenched may find that the power of the words slips through a chink, a bolt hole they forgot to secure, and touches them.

I will spend money on books, especially good poetry anthologies, faster than any other item. I bought one yesterday, and I bought another today. (If you're looking for a good anthology, I recommend the Garrison Keeler collection Good Poems for Bad Times. ) I love the feel of the covers in my hands. Paperback, hardback, clothbound, or rare, rare leather, it doesn't matter. There is luxury in the weight of it, the heaviness of ideas contained within. Every new poem and every old, familiar one demand and deserve my attention.

I sit in my new chair in my 70's paneled living room, and I open the pages. The words tumble out like a treasure chest of jewels spilling across the crocheted afghan in my lap. This is true luxury. I may never own the best or most modern of things, but as long as I have these words, these shards of their writers' souls, then what more could I ask?

Tomorrow, I will go back into the classroom full of enthusiasm. I will fight the gnawing void I find there and stand guardian over my poor, broken-winged student-doves once again. Maybe a few of them will see the vast wealth that beckons. If I can share even the tiniest glimmer of the magic, then I suppose it will have been a good day.

Monkey with a Tape Recorder

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. ~Voltaire

For those of you wondering where I've been the past 5 days, have I got a story for you.

The week just started out badly. I was tired and cross, and the following days did nothing to improve things. Monday was forgettable. Tuesday saw my beloved cat Yoda at the vet's because she'd somehow hurt herself. She's taking antibiotics and pain medicines, and will hopefully be better soon. Wednesday, though, came and took the prize for worst day EVER at school, eclipsing all that had gone before.

As those of you who read me often know, I'm a high school English teacher and our professional lives here in MS are subject to the gravitational pull of State Testing. Our school is seeking to improve scores and had invited an educational consulting firm in.

I was expecting a lecture of dubious value on teaching methods, blah, blah, blah. I was expecting to have a headache and possibly, depending on where they decided to seat us, a literal pain in the posterior by day's end. What I was not expecting was that they would bring an entire curriculum in and tell us to teach it and only it....or else.

Every word was scripted. Every activity was prepackaged right down to little captions saying, "Say this now...." Every novel, every short story, every poem had been chosen for us with no input allowed. We were to become glorified monkeys with tape recorders, and we were to be grateful for the chance to become such wonderful teachers with so little effort on our own parts. If we chose not to use the material, we needed to be aware that they (the consulting firm) would be doing surprise drop-in visits just to make sure everything was "on track". Should they find us not using their materials in the approved way (naughty, naughty), they will write a nasty little evaluation that bypasses our principal and goes directly to the system superintendant.

The three other 10th grade English teachers and I were stunned. I could not have been more shocked if the tidy little blond in the navy blue suit had gotten up on the conference table and started breakdancing. My eyes actually teared up, and I thought I was going to have to flee the meeting to recompose myself. Was this what they thought of my teaching? If so, if I was so incompetent, shouldn't they replace me?

The information got even more grim when we were told that the company was behind in development and publication of this magic tool. Only the first nine weeks of curriculum was ready. The second nine weeks was to be shipped in early October, and the following semester hasn't even been written yet. No full course progression exists, nor could anyone tell us exactly when our major works would fall, or even what those major works might be. We broke for lunch and staggered out of the meeting into the sun of the parking lot.

The English department as a whole is known for being...er...opinionated. We are the hallway most commonly avoided by the administration because of our propensity for grabbing the hapless principal and dragging them into our rooms with a muttered, "Come here...I have to tell you something..." I'd say those of us who teach 10th grade are probably at the loud, frayed, leading edge of this.

That being said, you can imagine the conversation when the four of us went to Sonic for lunch. We were all varying shades of mad, hurt, and/or hopeless. Rebellion was fomenting. Ultimatums were flung along with wild french-fry enhanced gestures. Solidarity was forged. Chocolate was sought and consumed on our way back for the second half of the day-long meeting.

I went up to my room during sixth period to collect a couple of text books for discussion at the tail end of the meeting, and found an additional problem awaiting me there. The kids, as kids will do with a sub, were talking and laughing instead of taking care of their assignment. The sub was sitting at my desk playing with her cellphone and the radio was blasting boom-boom music. I almost blew a blood vessel. They were supposed to be writing an essay, and she hadn't even given them the paper for the assignment. They were supposed to be WRITING an ESSAY and she had boom-boom music going.

I displayed heroic restraint, passed out the papers to the kids, ignored the sub, went back downstairs, found the principal in charge of substitutes and gave him an earful. He went to deal with it. I wanted to smite her. It was just too much to deal with when I was already so distressed because of the meeting.

By the end of the day, I felt as though I had been beaten head to toe. I was heart and soul sick. I wanted to pack my Shakespeare bobblehead and walk away for good. I picked up the tattered remnants of the assignments I'd left for my classes and went home. I ate something and crawled into my bed.

The next day, I was still sick. I woke up with my stomach churning. I dragged myself to school and went through the motions. I could not shake the thought of the monkey with the tape recorder. It would save the system so much money, after all.

One of the other teachers went and had a talk with our head principal. He said that he wasn't aware that the consulting firm expected us to use their materials to the exclusion of all else, and that he would not support that. He told us not to worry, and yesterday morning, he came by my room to talk with me personally about it. I felt so much better.

This week has been a total crap-fest, but I am hopeful that next week will be better. Even though I will lose two days to testing, I think I can stand anything as long as my principal doesn't throw us to the testing wolves.

This is where I've been over the past week. Hopefully, this particular "long, dark night of the soul" has passed.

All Things to All People

To weep is to make less the depth of grief. ~William Shakespeare, King Henry the Sixth

I haven't been keeping up with this very well this week. Just another stone of guilt and obligation around my neck, and I'm already so weighed down that I can barely stand it. I am almost at my break-and-run stage. I am so burned out from trying to be all things to all people.

I'm tired of trying to get all the stupid limbs out of my yard. I'm tired of constantly dragging them only to find that I haven't really made any progress at all. I'm tired of seeing the tops of the pines lying in the middle of my circle drive and knowing that I have neither the tools nor the strength needed to get them moved.

I'm tired of trying to keep my house immaculate. My floors need the vacuum, my tub needs to be scrubbed, and I need to sweep my porches. I need to dust, polish, and mop. I can't keep up with all of it.

I'm tired of trying to be a perfect teacher. I'm tired of the weight of fourteen sets of papers dragging at my shoulder every day when I leave school. I'm tired of putting together my best efforts and it not mattering at all.

I'm tired of coming home to a dark and empty house. I'm tired of having to do everything all by myself, including picking myself up when I feel like this, and I'm mortally tired of pasting the socially-acceptable smile on my face and pretending that everything is okay so nobody has to worry about me. I'm tired of being the shoulder that's cried on and never having anyone to turn to myself. I'm tired of all the circle closing and me being on the outside everytime.

I guess this is going to be my form of venting, and tomorrow, I'll probably have all this back under control, but right now, I just can't juggle these balls any more. If there's no entry for a few days, it's because this is one thing I can drop from my daily routine without huge effects. I'm just sick and tired and in need of an extended holiday.

Power Returns

Fallen-tree video is absolutely essential to hurricane broadcasts. The most sought-after footage is, in order of ratings: 1. Big tree on strip mall. 2. Big tree on house. 3. Big tree on car. 4. Small tree on car. 5. Assorted shrubbery on car.
Carl Hiaasen

Today, eight days after the hurricane, I have electricity again. I hardly know how to live. I have been walking around in the humid darkness for so long, that turning on a lamp seems almost foreign. All the windows in my house are now closed, my air conditioner is functional, although set very high because I've become so used to HEAT, and there is a pitcher of Red Diamond Sweet Tea chilling in my refridgerator. In a few moments, I will partake of the almost unheard-of luxury of a hot shower.

The past week has been strange and beyond strange. I started to title this entry "A Country Girl Can Survive", but I opted for the more prosaic title above. I am trying to make the transition from manual labor and tree clearing to secondary education again. I learned to live by the light of kerosene lanterns. I became adept at the mind games of "it's not really cold water...it's just cool and pleasant." I tied a bandana around my mouth and cleaned out nasty things with odors that almost gagged me from my freezer and refridgerator. I ate vegetables cold from the cans.

Right now, everyone is very tense about fuel, and another storm is brewing. Everywhere you look, there are still massive trees lying in forlorn chunks and people sort of wandering around their yards staring at things. Crazy people are shooting at rescue personnel in New Orleans, and every moment seems to be writing historically momentous events. I don't know what tomorrow is going to bring, but for tonight at least, I have power again, and all the often-taken-for-granted pleasures that it bestows.

Alive

No quote. I'm on my parents' aged computer and I don't want to take up a lot of their computer dial-up time.

I am alive. The city where I live is slowly recovering. I still don't have power, but my parents do, so that's where I am at the present time.

Sometime later, sometime when I have power at my own house (whenever that is), I'm sure I'll write something terribly clever about the whole thing, but right now, all I wanted to say is that I'm alive, my house stands tree-free, I have no power, I'm sick to death of soup from cans, and that I am very thankful to be here, even in these conditions.

For all of you who have been praying, thank you. Only God could have gotten us through this. Please keep praying for all the people not so far from here who have lost it all.

More later....

Waiting for Katrina

The first rule of hurricane coverage is that every broadcast must begin with palm trees bending in the wind.
Carl Hiaasen

I went to Wal-Mart today after Sunday School to pick up a couple of tiny radios in case we lose power in the next few days. For those of you who don't know because you live in another country or because you haven't turned on a TV or seen a newspaper lately, a big whopping hurricane called Katrina is approaching the Gulf Coast. The city I live nearest to is a major interstate hub, and from the time I went to church this morning to the time I came home from town this afternoon, the traffic coming from the Coast and New Orleans had quadrupled. They've one-wayed the south-bound interstates and now, everybody is rushing north to escape.

Every car that passed was loaded to capacity with people, pets, and possessions. I saw a big white and brown hound riding in the back of a pickup truck. In true dog form, he had his long ears flapping in the breeze. He was the only comical element in what was really a deadly serious flight.

Some of the cars were curiously empty; others were taxing the springs with the weight of their cargo. Almost all of them bore Louisiana plates. New Orleans, always on the brink of being under water, is being evacuated because if Katrina walks into town, the great pumps under the streets won't be enough to keep it dry. In the cars, I'd see odds and ends pressed up against the windows, and I kept trying to figure out how you'd even chose what to take in a situation where everything you love might be under water in 48 hours.

People in Wal-Mart were frothing at the mouth and ready to cut each other for bottled water and batteries. I hate it when emergencies bring out the crap in people. It seems like everyone would try to be kinder and more helpful, but instead, it was a snatch and grab environment. I only had three items in hand having bought supplies a few days ago, but cartloads of the oddest stuff were being pushed to the registers. I've never seen so much sliced ham and so many cases of coke being bought at one time.

Katrina is one of the biggest hurricanes ever to hit the Gulf Coast. Of course, comparisons are being made to that mother of all storms, Camille. My father was in the Coast Guard in N.O. when Camille came in, and he tells stories that will turn your hair white. This was when my mother and father were still dating, and Dad had to drive from where she lived down the state back to New Orleans through the storm. Just another one of those cases of God protecting, or there's no way he would have made it back in one piece.

I can almost visualize the hurricane as an entity. I have this picture in my head of a female wraith-like creature dancing on the water. The face is horrible. I don't know why this keeps coming to me, but since I first imagined it this way, I can't get rid of it.

Right now, of course, the sun is shining. Yellow swallowtail butterflies are feeding on my abelias. Only the increasing wind and the ominous, distant, gray curtain of cloud tells that something terrible is coming.

My windchimes are ringing with growing urgency, and in a couple of hours, I'll go outside and take all the birdfeeders and windchimes down. I'll also find safe places for all the potted plants and rocking chairs on my porch, unhook the chains on my porch swing, and put away all the decorative doodads that accumulate. I'll park my car under the car shed, and call my parents to put Mom's van in, too. I'll run a work cooler full of water, make sure my hurricane lamps have oil, and arrange lighters and flashlights in places where they can be found. I'll generally batten down the hatches and hope for the best. When faced with one of nature's Furies, what else can you do?

They're expecting Katrina to walk right over where I live, so it's likely that you won't hear from me for a few days. Hopefully, I will be writing to you tomorrow evening, but if we're without power, then I'll be back when the electricity is. I hope all of you are battened down and ready as well. Take care.

Not Really What I Had In Mind

Procrastination gives you something to look forward to.
Joan Konner


I got up this morning with every intention of grading. I had it all planned out. Then, around 11:30, Mom called saying she and Dad were on their way back from the landfill with an empty trailer. They were planning to stop off here and pick up more stuff to take in another load.

That's how it started. We loaded the two ancient, broken-down recliners from the guest bedroom, then the microwave that practically glowed every time it ran. Once we'd loaded the worst of the junk, we started to shuffle things from the house to the storage van out in the yard. The small bed I replaced earlier this year was moved out of the guest room from where it had been standing against the wall for months. Several pieces of bed linen were folded and put away. Curtains were discussed.
By the time I realized it, most of the day had crept away.

Intending to do work, I took a minute to eat some lunch. While I ate, I picked up a book, Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde, and read. That turned into a several-hour long reading spree in which I finished off the book and lost the rest of my day. Oh well....

Tomorrow, after church, I will HAVE to grade. I hope nothing else shiny comes along to catch my attention.

Blues in the Soul

Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel.
Jimi Hendrix

I drove home from a rich meal of fried shrimp and a dessert called Death By Chocolate to the sounds of one of my favorite radio shows, "Highway 61". Our local public radio station has made Friday into a blues night. They play three blues shows back to back, and it makes for a very nice way to relax after a long, hectic week of crap.

The sun was setting, and as I flew down the highway, Howlin' Wolf's big wonderful voice filled up my car. It's said he was a giant of a man, more than six feet tall and weighing in at 300 plus pounds. Nobody else has a voice like his. It's raw and powerful, yet capable of presenting every subtle nuance of the lyrics.

I have always wished that I could have seen him perform. The biographies and reports that I've read say he swayed like a man possessed. He got his nickname from the way he howls when he sings. I think I would have enjoyed seeing him live. When he howls in the recordings, it's like an electrical current runs right up my spine.

The blues move me. I don't know if I absorbed it gradually through the water and the red clay of Mississippi, but there is something in those simple patterns that feels elementally right. Even though I don't know the harsh life of Delta farming, I, too, have baked in the sweltering heat of Mississippi summers. I've played in cow pastures and waded in creeks. I've eaten real barbecue and gotten the sauce from ear to ear. I've read Faulkner and Welty, and I recognize family and community members in their stories. I've seen incredible prejudice and incredible unity in the face of hatred. I've known people who are fulfill every Southern stereotype and others who completely destroy them. It hasn't been necessarily the same experience of a Delta Blues artist, but it has been a Mississippi life, barring a few extended trips elsewhere.

I love the Delta Blues most of all. Simple guitars and bared emotions, tales of love, loss, and revenge, the human heart exposed with all its gold and dross before refining, these are what I hear in those oldest and purest blues. When I feel my worst, I turn to Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and the magic master of them all, Robert Johnson. I dance and sing, feeling the slide guitar pulling the weariness away.

All in all, it was a great way to end a cruddy week. As the sun hung on the edge of the horizon, and the rolling ultra-green Mississippi pine hills unfolded on either side of the highway, I felt the emotional catharsis of the blues, and I felt at peace with world.

Sisyphus Days

No quote. Too tired/lazy to look it up. Also too tired for complete sentences. Grammatical nightmare.

Okay, enough of that. I was having a really crappy day today. I won't go into huge details, but I didn't feel well. I was having one of my disconnected days. I hate that.

The kids were also whiny today. Some of them are about to drive me crazy about grading. I do at least a double set of papers/cards every day, and by the time I get that done, I am completely burned out. Tomorrow, I have to get them off my back. It's time they figured some things out, such as, they'll get the stinking essays when they get the stinking essays.

I got this really nice email in the afternoon, though, from a friend. It had a short funny story in it, and that moment of connection to another adult, to a friend who knows the real me and not the me I have to be in front of the kids, made all the difference.

That difference between who I really am and who I have to be in the classroom weighs on me. I can be more of my real self with the AP kids, but there won't ever be a time that I can take down all the masks and illusions. It's nice to touch base with my friends and feel like I am an entity outside of the classroom.

The wonderful lady who ran our AP seminar this summer talked about that. I didn't realize how MUCH I would feel this way, though. I've taught challenging courses before, but this one feels like a giant stone pressing down on me. I feel like all I do is grade papers. I am at school long after everyone else has gone home to family and relaxation, and I am still always behind. I feel like Sisyphus and that damn rock.

More and more this year, I long for somebody to lean on. There's a U2 song that I increasingly identify with, "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own". I am in that place right now. I need somebody who will help hold me up, make me eat real food, and be sure that I come home before all the weirdos start hanging around our school. Until that time, I'll have to keep pushing the rock up the hill and focusing on the tiny sweet bits that come my way.

The Screen

You learn something every day if you pay attention. ~Ray LeBlond

Today, I won a huge victory. I got an overhead projector screen for my room. I wanted to dance with glee. Now that I've achieved this unreachable goal, I don't know what I'll set my eyes on next. I can take down the square of white paper that's been what I've used for so long.

Yes, this is hyperbole, but not by much. I have been waiting for so long for something that most people probably wouldn't even spend money on. Such is teaching in America.

I heard a piece on NPR this morning talking about the lawsuit Connecticut is filing against the government for No Child Left Behind. I don't know all the particulars, but from what I heard, I am saying GO CONN!!! The Federal government and their ivory tower bastion of edu-experts (and I use the term loosely) can't possibly have any idea of how much pain their mandates create.

I'm a teacher in a state that doesn't really make much of a priority of education. In fact, I'm a citizen in a nation that spends vast amounts of money on everything except education. The only time politicians seem to worry about those of us in the trenches is when they need numbers to throw at each other to get this pet project pushed through or that candidate smeared. I'm sick of it.

I wish that TPTB could see that we are fighting a war with no equipment other than raw courage. I wish that TPTB could spend one full week substituting in one of our classrooms and understand some of the realities of dealing with teenagers.

I am not criticizing our kids. For the most part, they are doing the best they can. I am saying that if our governments (national, state, and local) don't quit padding their own pockets and pointing accusatory fingers, the war will officially be lost, and worse still, there won't be any replacement troops coming up to try to turn the tides. After all, none but the truly dedicated would be excited over the prospect of getting a bright, shiny, new overhead screen.

When You Really Should Be In Bed

"Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." -- Ben Franklin

I don't know why I'm doing this instead of sleeping, but here you have it.

Today was a crapfest of epic proportions. We were giving the retest for our state mandated NCLB stuff and the master computer at the state department of education from which every tester's computer in the state gets its data went down. I spent 15 minutes frantically running from computer to computer with my "magic password" trying to right the situation, but it didn't work. The students were bemused, then bored, and I finally let them play solitaire or surf the web.

It wasn't until lunchtime that I was told the test had been called off by the state dept. Apparently, they couldn't get the system back up. Lucky us, we get to do the whole crappin' thing over again next Tuesday. That means another day of my classtime for THIS year's testers has been stolen. Oh how I hate it....

Well, there's more to tell, but I guess I better finish my copying and go to bed. I'm late enough as it is.

Spam on the Blog

I had my first blog spam today. Some stupid wretched advertiser actually had the nerve to post their crappy ads as a response to my blog. I just want to go on record as saying that they SUCK and I wish them ill.

It wasn't a little ad, either. It went on for pages and pages. It was some absurd crap about speculating in forestry. Since I have relatives in that business, I was doubly offended.

There are so many places to advertise in this world. Heck, it seems like you can't even sit in your own living room without being attacked by some form of advertising, even if you're not watching TV, using the computer, or listening to the radio. It's all-pervasive.

Don't advertising companies realize how much it hacks people off when they keep shoving stuff down our throats? My advice to them is: make a good product, tell people about it in a reasonable fashion, and then leave them the heck alone. My top don'ts? Simple: DON'T SPAM MY BLOG, don't call me and try to sell me crap at home (I'm on the No-Call, but sometimes they're adventurous), and don't make commercials that an amoeba would find intellectually inferior.

Once you take a look at all the subliminal/psychological stuff going on in ads, it's really quite insulting. Actually, it might be more frightening than insulting since they are apparently based on solid research about the things that motivate humanity. Maybe if we elevate ourselves, advertisers will follow suit.

Oh well, that's probably enough for a Sunday night. Again, all manner of Egyptian curses and voodoo evil to you blog spammers out there. For all the normal readers and those of you just out cruising cyberspace, a good night and a better day tomorrow.

James Bond

No quote.

What is it about James Bond that makes people like to watch him? Right now, I'm typing and watching AMC's month-long Complete Bond movie festival. It's The Man with the Golden Gun, not one of my favorites, but here I am watching it all the same.

I think part of it is the travel aspects. He's always in some exotic location. In the past two I've watched, I've had the odd experience of actually having been in some of the same places he's in. It's kind of neat to be able to say, "Hey, I saw that."

Another draw has to be the gadgets. Especially starting with the Roger Moore movies, Bond just had cool stuff. I think it satisfies that little kid with the overactive imagination in all of us. Who didn't want a car that could turn into a submarine or suddenly sprout wings or skis? Heck, I still want that.

As I've gotten older, one thing that sometimes amuses and sometimes annoys is the cheesy double-entendre. Sometimes I wonder how the actors ever delivered those lines with even the slightest straight face. For that matter, I wonder how the actresses who were playing the evil women with the sexual names ever managed to get through that inevitable scene where they introduce themselves. I think the all-time worst character names were Pussy Galore and Plenty O'Toole. I mean, COME ON. Those actresses were underestimated if they could deliver those lines without even a bit of irony.

That, of course, is the whole basis of the Mike Myers Austin Powers series. That's another post, of course. Well, I guess I'd better go. I have laundry to dry and no Bond magic toy to do it for me.

Grading

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. -- Douglas Adams

I've been grading too long. I have a feeling in my head that's like the high-voltage buzz of an electrical transformer. I also have another set of papers in my work bag that are awaiting grades. I don't know if I can do this tonight.

The grading is killing me. I still like the teaching, but I need a vacation from the constant grading. I don't guess that's going to happen, though.

This is one of those teacher things. It's just one of those things that you have to do. I just hope it slacks off some before I go outside and howl at the moon. I know this isn't one of my deeper or better entries, but this is really all the energy I have tonight. Maybe I'll be profound tomorrow.

Run Away! Run Away!

No quote tonight. Look out...

I'm sad and tired tonight. It may be hormonal, or it may be because I was up WAY too late last night grading essays. I don't know.

I found out today that I may have to start taking allergy shots. Apparently, I'm allergic to most of the great outdoors and a good bit of the inside, too. Ugh. I hate needles. There is no good shot. Something about the thought of that sliver of metal sliding into my skin makes me shiver. Even the thought of it just now raised the hairs on the back of my neck. You'd think a "big girl" like me could grow up about that, but although I've come a long way from screaming and crying over it, I still have to fight it every time I get a shot.

The allergy shot thing wasn't the biggest deal today. It just kind of topped off a long, odd day. We were without air conditioning for the most part today. My classroom hovered around 80 degrees all day. The brilliant head of maintenance sent an email telling us the heat was "all in our minds" and to leave him the heck alone, basically. Of course, he was safely off campus. Otherwise, I might have had to have tracked him down and smacked him around.

All day, whether because of the heat or the massive paper stack weighing me down like a millstone round the neck, I've been in full-fledged run away mode. I have postcards and pictures from places I've been on my speakers' stand on my desk, and I sometimes daydream between trying to wrangle my students through the subtleties of subject-verb agreement.

Today, I was wishing I was in Ireland. It was even more pronounced because I've set my computer desktop at school to a picture of a place we went on our trip. I'd like to just have time to take a book, sit on a hill, and get all this crap off my back. I would like to be safely anonymous and go back through some of the places I went on the trip without a big group to be responsible for. I'd like to see a couple of the people I met on the trip and just sit and talk with them some.

I guess I'll have to settle for a stuffed baked potato, some cheesecake (none of which I had to cook), and a Fred Astaire movie. It's not hardly Ireland in any degree, but maybe I can rest a little in the world of overly-happy vintage Hollywood.

Cancer

We have common enemies today. It's called childhood poverty. It's called cancer. It's called AIDS. It's called Parkinson's. It's called Muscular Dystrophy.
Jerry Doyle

First of all, for those of you who know me and read this, this isn't a revelation that I have it. And for those of you who read this often, this is a theme I've visited before.

Cancer has been the red specter floating through my life for years now. When I was a sophomore in high school, my father's mother died from lung cancer. She was the first person that I'd ever lost. She was also the person who took care of me when I was a baby. I stayed with her until I went to kindergarten. She taught me to do needlework, to woodburn, to love books, and so many other things. I'll never forget seeing her gasping for breath. She'd had half a lung removed in an effort to get the cancer.

I lost my mother's father and my mother's mother to it. I lost a beloved cat to it. Now, the shadow is back. Another pet, a dog we've had for 10 years, has it.

I hate cancer. I hate the stealthiness of it. It's a vicious, backstabbing sort of disease. How horrible that your own body can betray you. How nightmarish that cancer can stroke you with its bony, putrified finger and the future can shrink from years and retirement to day-by-day. I wish with all my soul that I had been given the wisdom and the intelligence to be a part of the fight against it. I see it as a physical presence, a living, sentient thing. I want to take up a sword and hack at it.

One of my biggest fears is that I'll develop it. I don't want to die that way. I had rather whatever happens be quick, a snap of the fingers and a transition from this world to the next. I don't think I'm strong enough to die by inches. I remember watching my grandparents, and they were all so strong. They had time to make their peace with the disease, to say goodbye, and to take care of the things that were most important to them.

They thought I might have cancer once. I had surgery, and once they checked what they removed, they found that it wasn't. Ever since, when I go to the doctor or have a twinge in my side, I think about it. I remember driving home from tests that showed the original problem and the Chris Rice "Time Means So Much" being on the radio. I had to pull to the side of the road. The meaning of the song seemed crafted for that one moment in my life.

Now, as we try to take care of our sick pet, all these issues are coming back again. It may seem trivial to some, but for us, it's another battle with the monster.

The Friend I Lost

Without friends the world is but a wilderness. There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his grieves to his friend, but he grieveth the less.
Francis Bacon

I had a dream last night about the friend I lost. It was actually not so much about her as it was a bizarre collage of memories and daily trivia. Japan was mixed in, as it almost always is, and a person who was a friend in high school. At the end, the person from high school morphed into my missing friend, and I woke up feeling sad again.

I met her in graduate school. Being in a small department means you have classes with all the same people. We started and finished at the same time and worked together teaching at the university. We discovered an affinity for chili cheese dogs, kitsch, and old movies. I went to Japan and she stayed, but after my first year, she was looking for a job, the Japanese university was looking for a teacher, and she came to Japan. She had the apaato under mine and we had a great time. We'd go shopping at the 100 yen store and enjoy the wonderfully, cheerfully tacky stuff in the shops at the train station.

After Japan, we communicated about twice, and suddenly, all communication stopped. The horrible part is that I don't know why. It's not like we had a big fight. I don't know what happened. I think about it often. Did I say something wrong? Did I do something wrong? What could it have been? I know I was late sending a birthday present, but would that cause a person to end a friendship?

Maybe I was wrong about the strength of the friendship. Maybe it was one of those things that meant more to me than it did to her. I counted her as one of my very best friends, and trusted her with things very few other people know. She knew not just the public person, but also the flawed, cracked clay pot under the glaze. Maybe, ultimately, the imperfections were more than she could tolerate.

I have tried at least three times to contact her. I've emailed several different people who knew us both, but nobody seems to know anything. I guess I must have somehow done something horrible. I just wish I knew what it was. I keep hoping that one day I'll open my inbox and find a letter from her telling me about her life in the interval, or simply telling me to go to perdition. Anything would be better than the horrible, incomprehensible communication vacuum I'm currently in.

Very simply, I miss my friend. A part of me has been wounded and I don't know why. If ever you read this, my friend, I wish you'd give me the chance to know what it was that I did and a chance to put it right.

The Potential for Evil

Never write a letter while you are angry. ~Chinese Proverb

Something happened this afternoon and I got angry. I don't mean I was hacked off, I mean the red haze came down, the hackles stood on end, the teeth bared, and, had the object of my ire been handy, I probably would have done a considerable deal of damage.

It was no trivial matter. I don't get really angry over trivia. It takes quite a lot to really make me literally see red. Of course, like anyone else, I get irritated, but I learned a long time ago to keep the leash on the starving attack dog of my true anger. Someone I love very much had an injustice committed against them, and if I could rush to this person's defense and do some good, I would.

It has always scared me that something that powerful and dark lives inside. Maybe I come by it honestly. My heritage is Irish and Apache. If you go back to the bizarre genetic race heritage theories, I guess maybe I get my temper and my poetry from them. I don't buy that too much, though.

It passed through me like an evil wind, and now I'm tired beyond description. Where does that darkness come from? Do we carry it around in us all the time like a deep well full of horror movie monsters? How do we kill it off and purify the flow? I don't have all the answers, just more questions and what feels like sandbags beneath my eyes. I think it's time for a shower and bed.

Geekdom

Whatever the reason, being a nerd, a geek, a dork - whatever you want to call the tragically unhip - is becoming a source of pride. BellSouth News

Look, I'm ahead of the curve again. I saw this article today in my lunchtime news browsing, and I had to laugh. How quaint that the feeling I've had all my life of not quite fitting, of seeing things through a different lens, is now the fashion of the day.

I don't know how many of you out there have ever been a geek, but I have never really wanted to be any other thing, at least not seriously. To me, it was never a matter of labeling myself as this or that. I just tried to pursue the things that I liked, and devil take the hindmost. Isn't that supposed to be what life's all about?

And who decides what is cool or worthy of attention anyway? Hasn't it ever struck anyone as odd that the "cool" things are almost always addictive or self-destructive? Why is that?

Back to the concept of Geekdom, I have to admit that I'm looking for a geek to date/marry. I could never get serious about someone who allowed the outside world to dictate what he liked. I want a man who knows why Tom Baker was the best Dr. Who EVER. I would love a guy who collects PEZ, likes to spend a long time in bookstores because HE READS, and doesn't mind having bizarre and abstract debates late at night. He may have had a D&D character, even. Unfortunately, my consort, the Geek King, doesn't seem to be anywhere in sight. :(

I was glad to see in the article that perhaps for a short time anyway, teenagers are feeling free to be themselves. I don't know how long it will last, but Viva la Geek!