Out of Bubblegum

My Twenty-fourth Christmas

2008-12-30T13:31:00.000-08:00

It's a strange thing, being born on Christmas Day. My birthday is a day of incredible happiness for many people, and a day of incredible sadness for others, and for some, it's just a day. For me, it's Christmas; it's a day to spend with my family, a day to open presents and laugh and eat too much and watch A Christmas Story and/or The Muppet Christmas Carol at least once and nap after lunch. Lucky for me, it's also the day that I blow out candles on my birthday cake. It makes it extra special somehow. It's a day where I practically roll around in what makes me so fortunate the way Bond villains roll around in dollar bills.

It's not usually a day where I think. Generally, I do that in the days afterwards. I was born a week before the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one. Which means, my age and the year go together so closely that "The year 2008" and "The year I was twenty-three years old" coincide almost perfectly. It's a double-dose; I reflect on being a year older, and I reflect on the exchange of an old year for a new one all at once.

And so, just after my twenty-fourth Christmas, my mind is scattered out over my twenty-third year, over the year 2008. Everyone will remember that the year 2008 was the year the economy tanked, the year Sarah Palin became the most popular Halloween costume, the year Barack Obama made history with his sense of hope for the future. I will remember these things about 2008. But I will also remember what happened in my small life this year, and how I have changed.

In many ways, I'll remember 2008 as my first year as a grown-up. In 2008, I completed a year of teaching high-school English, and a year of being gainfully employed and paying my own bills and cooking my own food. It's still strange to think of myself as an adult.

I'll remember it as the year of live music. I saw more live music this year than I ever have before in a year, partially because I discovered that I love it. I also discovered that I love roller coasters, after having been scared of them since I was ten.

I'll remember it as the year I spent feeling as though my life is unstable. I think being in your twenties, being unsure of where you'll be or who you'll be with in the coming years, is hard for people like me. I don't like transition. I don't like it when I have to start over, I don't like it when I have to move, I don't like change, because it takes me too long to get used to it. Once I'm settled, once I know what direction things are moving, then I can start to be happy. But I know that I won't always work where I work, and I know that I won't always live where I live, and that bothers me. Not because I'm extremely happy either place, but because I don't know where I'll be in a year.

I'll remember it as the year of moving. This past summer, my parents moved out of the house where I grew up, a house that has housed five generations of my family, and I moved out of Chapel Hill to an apartment in Burlington to be closer to work. I miss the mountains, I miss living in a college town, I miss my old house...this was the first Christmas, the first birthday, that I've ever spent away from that house since my first Christmas ever, which also happened to be my first day ever.

I'll remember it as a year of funerals. This past fall, we had two deaths in the family: my great-aunt and my grandfather. Two more transitions. My great-aunt was really an extra grandmother; she spent Christmas with us. This was my first Christmas without her cackling at my brother when he teases her for being short. It was my first Christmas without my grandfather laughing his rumbly laugh in his chair with a glass of bourbon in his hand and a dog in his lap.

I'll remember it as bittersweet. I was in the room when my grandfather died. He was ninety-two, and died the way people should die but rarely do: at the time and place of his choosing, and surrounded by people who loved him. It got me thinking about how I want my life to turn out. Perhpas not like my grandfather's, but not necessarily unlike it, either. If the attendance at one's funeral is any indication of how well-loved a person was, my grandfather was recieving love from so many directions he must have been inhaling bushels of it with every breath. I would like to give so much love in my life. I would like to be as full of love.

The year 2008 was a year where I discovered that I am lucky, and that I am humbled by how lucky I am and how easy my life is.

I hope, in this coming year, I find my feet. I hope I break in these changes until they are comfortable enough for me to walk through the next set. I hope I see the direction in which I'm supposed to move next, and I hope to be happy. I hope to love as much as I am loved.

I'm grateful for the year 2008. I'm grateful for the lessons I learned, for the lessons I taught, for the miles that I've walked.

God Moment

2008-04-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

I may be a little bit in love with my life right this second.

Yeah, we should be in love with our lives all the time, but who the fuck actually is? Potheads, maybe… you never see an angry pothead…

Well. Right now, right this second, it’s actually true.

I am sitting on my front porch. It is 75+ degrees outside. There is a beautiful breeze, and everything around me is green. I have counted four different types of flowers growing in my yard: wisteria (maybe lilac, I can’t really tell them apart), daffodils, baby’s breath, and my favorite – azaleas. I love azaleas; they are sturdy, they are consistent, they are beautiful, and they are totally, one hundred percent unapologetic. What other North American flower can pull off being gloriously, unabashedly, riotously hot pink? If an azalea were a person, I think it would be the punk chick with a hot pink Mohawk who works at a record store wearing a vintage Ramones t-shirt and secretly reading Jane Austen novels behind the counter. I love azaleas so much I sometimes consider naming my first child Azalea. Or…well…maybe a dog. Kids freak me out.

My wind chimes are making music this afternoon. The little lotus bell from Japan is chiming sweetly and my bamboo pipes sound like moored boats at a dock, knocking against each other in gentle waves. There are two big monarch butterflies hopping from blossom to blossom on the azalea bushes three feet away from me. There’s a wooly worm crawling on the arm of my chair, and the birds are fussing at each other everywhere around me.

I’m having what I used to call a God moment.

I might still call it a God moment, if for nothing else but for lack of a better word.

All the time, I hear people standing on mountain tops or in wooded trails or staring at beautiful sunsets making the same comment. They always say something along the lines of, “How can someone see all this and not believe in a God?”

You know, I have a love/hate relationship with such people. I love them because when I’m having moments like this, I completely agree. This Earth, in all of its beauty, is part of what God is to me. The hate part comes in for a variety of reasons. They are, as follows:

1. That person is infringing on my God moment.

2. That person is making the statement that they are much more appreciative of nature and the Earth and mountains and whatever because they believe that a higher power created it. Not just a higher power, but THEIR higher power. As if everybody else in the world doesn’t appreciate beauty on earth because THEY don’t believe that GOD, specifically, created it. I think everybody appreciates it. Everybody finds something higher, something greater than themselves when they see it, whether that higher power is “God” or not.

3. Not all of God is external. At least not in my head, anyway. God is sort of half and half: half outside of us, and half inside of us. There is a piece of God in me, and that piece contributes as much to a God moment as the outside piece. When I have a God moment, I’m selfish a bit, I suppose. The outside part of God helps me find the inside part of God. I am content, thrilled and overjoyed even, to be me. I am finding something divine about me, about my life, about my existence. If love is the meaning of life, then surely loving yourself, and finding divinity in yourself, is part of the purpose of life, too.

I tend to collect quotes and phrases and song lyrics that sort of define what I think life should be. Sometimes I even write my own. This time I can’t claim credit. The two quotes that best sum up how I am thinking this afternoon come from Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (although the first one was the word of a philosopher that she quoted, I just thought it was great):

To the person who wonders about people who see beauty in the world and don’t believe in God, I would like to say what the stoic Epictetus said: “You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not.”

To everyone else who is NOT having a God moment, I would like to say this:

“You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.”

My Right Foot

2008-04-06T14:28:00.001-07:00

Hmph. I hate being injured.

I have managed, ever so gracefully, to bust my ass. Or, well, more accurately, my ankle. It's quite purple and puffy and now because of all the blood pooling down there half of my foot, even the uninjured part, is also turning bluish purple. Bah.

For about the last thirty six hours, I have been watching movies, eating, and rotating a heating pad and a bag of frozen peas over my blasted ankle. I really want to get out of the house, I'm not sure if I can drive at all, and every time I so much as hobble to the laundry room and stand up for more than fifteen minutes, I start to hurt. Alot.

I REALLY don't do this injured thing well.

Which made me think about people who are in bed all the time for various illnesses and injuries. HOW CAN PEOPLE SURVIVE THIS WAY FOR EXTENDED PERIODS OF TIME? I haven't even been like this for two days and I'm already frustrated and pissed off and starting to lose some of my mental clarity.

...although it was AWFULLY nice to have such great nursemaids/friends/general company keepers around for the weekend. They brightened things up considerably.

Just needed to rant a minute to get this out of my system. May you all avoid tree branches that would incapacitate you for a whole weekend.

Spring Itch

2008-03-10T07:11:00.000-07:00

Every year, I go through this thing.

Toward the end of winter, I am absolutely dying for warmer weather. I end up writing down all the the things I miss about summer and spring, and until it gets here, I'm just sort of itching for it.

To name a few of the things that are ALWAYS on the list: flip flops, cold beer (it just tastes better when it's warm outside) , skirts, watermelon, blueberries, mild sunburn, summer blockbusters, late-night ice-cream runs, air-headed-but-catchy summer pop-songs, sunscreen, sleeping with the windows open, and playing in water (water guns especially).

So right now, when it's freezing early in the morning and at night but gorgeously warm all afternoon, I feel like we're standing on the edge of spring but not quite there yet. I'm like a hyper puppy on a leash that KNOWS it'll be able to get out of the car and run soon, but we're still five minutes from the dog park. I'm excited and it just can't seem to get here fast enough.

COME ON SPRING!!!! HURRY UP ALREADY, DAMNIT!

Curious

2008-02-11T18:29:00.000-08:00

Questions I am currently sending into the void:

1. Why is South Park so funny? It's a cartoon about eight-year-olds doing and seeing every sick thing that can possibly be imagined. By all rights, it should be repulsive. But, every time I watch it, I find myself laughing guiltily. Why is that?

2. Why isn't it Friday?

3. How is it that names come and go in trends and there are names that mark entire generations? Names like "Barbara" or "Bill" -- people don't name their kids Barbara anymore -- or "Brittany" and "Jason" for our generation, and now our generation is naming their kids "Destiny" and "Chastity." Don't get it.

4. What the hell kind of sadistic person names their daughter Chastity? Don't they know what it means? Are they going to name her little sisters "Virgin" and "Celibacy" and "Nun?"

5. What IS America's fascination with Hannah-Fucking-Montana????

6. Why isn't it Friday?

7. How come getting up the gumption to go and exercise is sooooo bloody hard?

8. Now. I know I'm not the first person to ask this, but why can't weekends be at least one day longer? Would the world and the economy really just explode if people worked for four days a week instead of five? I suppose it might... I mean, it's possible... ugh. I hate it when I answer my own rhetorical questions.

9. Why does reading Bridget Jones's Diary make one speak in incomplete sentences?

10. Have I mentioned why isn't it Friday?

Almost Monday

2008-01-27T20:13:00.000-08:00

It's 11:17 on Sunday night. That means, damnitall, it's almost Monday.

The kids are interesting this semester. I have two classes of remedial sophomores, which means they hate English and have NEVER done well in it and I will be pulling teeth to get them to do anything at all, and one class of college-bound seniors who also hate English but are willing to work hard to pass because they don't want to be stuck in Caswell county forever.

One of my students said something Thursday that hit me in the head like a sledgehammer.

Last class of the day. I'd spent the entire day introducing myself to my students and getting them to introduce themselves to me. We played that toilet paper game -- the one where you have to take some toilet paper and then tell a fact about yourself for every single-ply sheet you have wadded up on your desk. I always have one smartass that takes off half the roll and then, when he realizes the catch in the game, stuffs the whole wad (with the exception of one sheet) in his pocket or backpack. But that's beside the point.

I always go last. I let the kids go first, so I can get an idea about what they're like, how they spend their time, whether or not they have any aptitude for English at all, etc.... so I go last. I always tear off an average of seven sheets, and my staple facts are always something along the lines of "I was born on Christmas Day" or "I gradutated from Appalachian State University" or "I spent two and a half weeks in Japan this past summer."

As usual, I went through the staple "interesting facts" about myself, stopping on that last one about Japan.

A kid in the back, who looked like he should have been a senior, a tall "good-ol-boy" type in hunter camouflage and a Carhart jacket, made this confused and disgusted face (yeah, disgusted -- like he'd just found a brand-new, unfamiliar turd that had come from some strange and unknown animal) and said, "Why would anybody want to go to Japan?"

I, not thinking, replied, "Why not? Do you want to stay in this county the rest of your life?"

He laughed with his buddies and said, "Well, yeah, I plan on bummin' off my parents as long as I can!"

I nearly had to leave the room to throw up.

After thinking about it for a long time, I have several theories as to why he made this response: 1.) He really is the product of a small-minded, isolationist, and bigoted culture or 2.) He's just scared of what's outside of this weird county because it's home or 3.) He's intimdated by somebody with more education, more life experience and obviously enough money to make trips to Japan.

Not that I'm Daddy Warbucks, but comparing me in high school with this kid, I probably do have a pretty significant financial advantage.

I have my work cut out for me.
Ugh, it's gonna be a hell of a semester.

New Shoes

2008-01-14T15:00:00.000-08:00

I think....I think I'm in a slightly unstable period in my life.

I'm not settling down any time soon, so everything is possible and impossible at the same time. I can do what ever I want and yet nothing that I want. Does that make sense?

Hmm...let me rephrase. Or explain. Or whatever.

This is just one of those transition periods. The first year of high school was a transition year. The first year of college was a transition year. Each year I spent sad and uncomfortable, until my new shoes finally formed to my feet, and I wore them until they fell apart. Once I get comfortable, I'm so comfortable I don't want to leave until I have to (for those who didn't get the shoe metaphor).

Thus, what I'm trying to say is that I'm in the process of breaking in my new shoes. I'm in the process of carving my newest niche. God knows this year is not quite as bad as some of those previous ones, a few of which I spent utterly miserable. I'm hoping that means that the shoes, once broken in, will be the most comfortable yet, because I had a head start on breaking them in. I guess. My logic is twisted, I know...if you could call it logic...

So here's to new shoes, to breaking in new shoes, and to old shoes that are great to drag out of the closet every now and again.

Gratitude

2007-11-28T16:54:00.000-08:00

Things I'm currently thankful for (all basics aside, since they're kind of a given) in no particular order:

1. Heroes (the TV show)
2. Winter trees against orange/pink/purple/blue sunsets
3. Pesto
4. Quirky movies (like Lars and the Real Girl)
5. Functioning heaters
6. Friends' blogs from Boone, Grenada and Reiko's room
7. Weekends
8. Roses
9. REAL Christmas trees
10. Payday
11. Questions
12. Books, films and people that question everything
13. Mint Mojito chewing gum
14. The Independent Film Channel
15. Nutmeg
16. The glass bottle tree on highway 86
17. Hippies with dogs and frisbees
18. Rain (whenever we can get it)
19. New cell phones with reliable alarms
20. Pretty much everybody I know

Amazing Women I Know

2007-11-15T17:32:00.000-08:00

I know a lot of amazing women.

My mother is one, my grandmother was one, my aunt Doreen is one...and that's just my family. I don't even know where to start when I get to the amazing women who are my friends.

Today, I met an amazing woman. And when I say amazing, I mean that after I spoke to her, I was so amazed that I wasn't sure what to think, much less what to say. I was stunned and speechless and emotionally wrung out.

In a good way, I was overwhelmed.

This woman's name is Gizella. She was about seventy five, maybe younger, maybe older, I'm not sure. She was about four feet tall and had that same sort of kindly grandmother face, except she was more petite in every sense than any grandmother I've ever met before. Her eyes alone were amazing; they were huge, expressive, cheerful-- and they were this remarkably clear, bright aquamarine color with dark blue-green circles rimming her irises. I've never seen such beautiful eyes before.

Gizella was born in Poland. She was a member of the Polish underground until it was discovered that she was a Jew who had somehow escaped the Lodz ghetto, and then she was sent to the Majdanek death camp. Her family, her parents and her brother, died at Belzec, the death camp of which there are only two known survivors. Before she joined the Polish underground she saw Nazis shoot an entire community and dump them into crude ditches while she was hiding in the bushes. She slaved and scraped by at Majdanek, passing herself off as healthy by pinching her cheeks and biting her lips to give herself some color, until she was made to dig her own grave, but before she was shot the Allies appeared to save the day, all too late to save the rest of her family.

She did not speak about what had happened to her until 1970 -- almost thirty years after she had experienced it -- when she was living in Raleigh with her husband and two small children, and now, she says that she cannot stop talking about it, hoping that we all "understand what a precious thing you have in the democracy of this great nation...that you understand that this country is not perfect, but it is beautiful, and we must hold on to the freedom that makes it so special."

She told us her story today -- us being about 40 History and English teachers from around the area -- over the course of about three hours, which didn't seem long enough to sum up such a remarkable life. She had a remarkable (and sometimes wicked) sense of humor, and a sense of joy about the world and about her life that I absolutely could not believe.

I suppose I expect everyone who survived something as horrible as the Holocaust to be shells. I expect something that horrible to completely gut somebody, to eviscerate their souls. I expect to see somebody so full of sorrow for what they've seen that a smile seems difficult and a laugh seems damn near impossible.

Not Gizella.

Gizella was so full of joy and love, it was as if she had to overproduce it to make up for all of the joy and love that was sucked out of her life the instant the Nazis invaded her hometown. She told me today about going back to Poland to visit the Belzec death camp, where her family died, from which she was miraculously spared. The memorial has the names of thousands of those who died there -- including her parents and her brother. She tried to touch all of their names, but because she is so short (she cracked short jokes about herself pretty much all day) she could not reach her father's name. She suddenly felt someone lifting her up to touch her father's name; she reached it, touched it, and turned around to see an American marine standing behind her, smiling. I got teary and she hugged me and took my hands and said in her thick Polish accent, "Don't you cry, now!"

I was at a loss for words.

She lost her mother -- I've been thinking about mothers alot lately, and that made me think of all of my other "amazing women -- " and still, she was the one telling me not to cry. I just kept thinking about how incredible and unbelieveable it was that she still found joy in life, after she had lost what was most precious to her. I was suddenly so grateful for everything, especially for all of my amazing mothers, aunts and sisters.

I wanted to share this, and to offer it up as a thanks to "the Big G" (which is how Gizella refers to God) for this country (despite all it's faults), for my life, for Gizella, and for all of the amazing women I know -- some of the things I love most in this old world. Whether she meant to or not, she reminded me today that I have so very much to be thankful for.

I think now, when I picture God, I might just think of Gizella.

Miscommunication

2007-11-09T13:49:00.001-08:00

Gyaaaahhh, I hate it when communication gets all fucked up.
I think that I have a habit of assuming that everything is settled when it isn't in other people's minds, so I make plans accordingly, and then end up feeling like a royal bitch for making plans that end up ruining somone else's. Kind of like right now. I think I should just start flying by the seat of my pants and not make plans at all (of course, then, things would REALLY be fucked up because everybody's plans would be ruined except mine, because I wouldn't have any). Argh.
I kind of desperately want to crawl in a hole; I feel like I've somehow managed to waste the last two weekends when I could have been doing something useful like visiting my family so my mother can have her Erin fix and my grandparents will stop sending me guilt-trip phone calls about how they've forgotten what I look like. Or maybe going up to Boone to re-center myself. Or...something. Truth is, I want to stay here, I want to have people over, and I want to sit around and play hostess like I used to back when I lived at College Place -- watching Scrubs and The Daily Show on my sofa sipping wine/beer/improvised mixed drinks and slowly getting tipsy while laughing at the television and my friends' latest antics. God, I miss that sofa. It was a great sofa. Still is, only now it's my brother's, because it was too much trouble to move down the stairs and onto a horse trailer that was temporarily serving as a makeshift U-Haul.
I'm heading to Yadkinville in about a half-an-hour, and I'm typing this while I should be throwing shit in the car (not literally; that would be a sight, wouldn't it?), and I feel like a royal bitch for not making sure that everything was settled before I let someone talk me into doing something else.
Who knows? Maybe I'll still have a fantastic weekend. I'm just so tired. And I tend to freak out unnecessarily about miscommunication, especially when I feel like its my fault.
Sorry, everyone. Love you muchly anyway. Hope sincerely that the only weekend I ruined was my own.

Cock on a Rock in a Frock

2007-11-03T15:19:00.000-07:00

This morning, since I currently have an infinitely uninteresting life, I watched the movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. It's an Australian road movie about two drag queens and a transexual trekking across the Outback in a purple Swedish tour bus named "Priscilla," and seeing as how few things cheer me up like drag queen movies, it is probably now in my top ten list. But anyway, that's beside the point.

Last weekend Reiko and I went to a party. it was a Halloween party, full of folks I don't know -- I've only met the girl who invited us once, for that matter, and so the only people that Reiko and I knew at the party were this girl and each other. There were two kegs in the backyard, and lots of people in interesting, creative and witty Halloween costumes (my personal favorite was two girls who dressed exactly alike with blood smeared all over one side who told everyone they were Siamese twins who had recently tried to separate themselves). Reiko was a naughty referee and I was a naughty librarian -- black pencil skirt, all-business pinstripe shirt, hair in a bun, glasses, black high-heeled pumps, etc., except I had the shirt buttoned about up to my waist to show off a red bra. Wasn't quite sure what to make of all of it. I've discovered that I love parties, but only when I know just about everyone there.

Spoke to a few guys, who seemed surprised that I knew as much about action movies and George Orwell as I did, who sat around and talked literary nonsense all evening -- all about books they hadn't actually read and authors they weren't actually fans of, but everything sounded prestigious and pretentious, so they ran their mouths about them. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm the queen of pretentious articulate bullshit, but when I do know something about the subject matter, I'm frustrated by people that don't and still try to sound like they do.

We left the party at about 1 AM. I went home and went to bed.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm nowhere near the kind of party animal I thought I was. Yeah, I like to party, and yeah, I like to get drunk, and yeah, I like to act scandalous and be silly -- but only when I'm around people that I know, only when I'm in places that are familiar, and only when it's usually on my terms that I'm acting ridiculous. Isn't that strange? I guess I'm just not as outgoing as I thought.

Well, back to Priscilla...one of the characters, one of the drag queens had a son, and was forever afraid that his son wouldn't understand the fact that his father was gay, and wouldn't love him because of it. Turns out, he didn't give the kid enough credit; the boy (who was about ten), didn't seem to care at all; in fact, he asked his father if he'd have a boyfriend when they got back to Sydney, and when his father said "Probably," the boy said, "Good." All I could think was, "what a beautiful moment. Here's this father, who's so used to being beaten down for what he is, and he's pleasantly surprised when his estranged ten-year-old doesn't give a damn if he has a drag queen for a dad." It said something to me about people being so worried about other people's acceptance that we're too cautious. This man had been avoiding meeting his son for this very reason, and when he finally did, turns out there was no problem at all.

I guess what I'm saying is that I should get over my neuroses and meet people -- minus the pretentious bullshit. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Oh, and the title of today's entry? A quote from Priscilla, of course -- the old transexual in the film, upon finding out that the youngest member of the troupe has the ultimate dream of climbing Ayer's Rock in a full-length sequined Gaultier ball-gown, says to the kid, "Oh, great, just what we need: a cock on a rock in a frock." Hands down, favorite line from the movie.

Naked and Famous

2007-10-16T15:05:00.000-07:00

So...I've decided with all certainty that I absolutely DO NOT want to teach high school English for the rest of my life. I am fairly certain that I do not want to teach high school English for the rest of the next four years. Trouble is, I've also decided that I pretty much don't want to teach High School Anything. I want something else entirely.

I want to be Naked and Famous.

Like the song. A band called Presidents of the United States of America (who's initials, beautifully enough, are POTUSA) has a great song called "Naked and Famous." The chorus goes like this:

"Everybody wants to be naked and famous;
Everybody wants to be just like me, I'm naked...and famous."

I would give the rest of the lyrics, but you should download it for yourself if you haven't heard it. It's great. Anyway, I love this song, because I think it pretty much sums up what I would really LOVE to be right now: naked and famous.

I suppose I just have this mental image of somebody being completely, totally shameless, despite the fact that everyone's watching; maybe not literally naked (or maybe so...that could be fun) but more like... completely unafraid, completely unashamed to be and to do what you want no matter who's paying attention. I suppose this is just me being frustrated with having to censor everything for the tender ears of teenagers (cough, cough), but it's just such a lovely idea, naked and famous. Unabashedly doing...whatever... and having the guts to say to the cameras, who the fuck cares? I'm happy with it, and I don't care who else is.

Wouldn't that be nice?

Shameless Displays of Happiness

2007-09-30T17:25:00.000-07:00

Just a thought for the week...

Friday, I went home pissed as hell. I discovered that teachers are not compensated at all for staying after school or showing up early. Despite the fact that we sign in and out everyday, as if it were a computerized time clock (which is what I thought it was), we are only payed for our time in school that occurs between 7:45 and 3:30. Now. Here's the shit kicker. I get to school at 7:30 or earlier every morning, and I leave around 4:00 every afternoon, and this is not counting how much work I do at home grading papers and other such bullshit. I don't get paid for a minute of that time. Not overtime, not comp time, not even extra sick or annual leave (of which I have none, I might add). So, an already frustrated teacher was made even more frustrated by the system. Baah. Needless to say, I started the weekend in the worst sort of mood.

Well, here's where the loveliness came in.

I got home Friday afternoon, and Reiko was working until nine or later, so I decided to go by the store and see her -- it gave me an excuse to go by the bookstore and pick up the latest Entertainment Weekly and perhaps (gasp) yet another chick lit novel (I ended up buying The Jane Austen Book Club...nifty book so far). On the way there, I got a little lost and somehow ended up cruising down Franklin Street. There were people everywhere... and there was a bluegrass band playing on the lawn of a very fancy house nearby, with tons of hippies sprawled out on the lawn with children and dogs climbing over them as if they were human jungle gyms. I thought, bitterly at first, I wish I was having that much fun. And then, I looked over to my left as the stoplight turned green, and I saw a woman walking by one of the sorority houses. She was on the sidewalk, and there was a very tall picket fence separating the lawn of the sorority house from the sidewalk, and spilling over the fence was this -- pardon the corny word -- cascade of pink roses. The woman looked to be about sixty, dressed in black, carrying bags from Food Lion and Dollar General, and would have looked pitiful if it hadn't been for what she was doing. She stopped as I passed by, set down the bags, took one of the roses in her hands and dove into it face first, just inhaling that rose smell. She had her eyes closed and just breathed in all of that rose that she possibly could. I couldn't help but think, how many people literally stop to smell the roses? That's one of those things that people tell you to do, one of those metaphorical cliches that they use all the time in movies, but how many times do you see somebody actually stopping to smell roses?

Two days later, today, actually, the Tanakas and I went to Carrboro for the Carroboro music festival, and on the way back, I saw a girl on a bicycle. Just like the woman on the sidewalk on Franklin street, I saw her for just an instant, but it stayed with me. She was pedalling along, looking very intent on her destination, until she leaned back and flung her arms out and just coasted the way down the hill with her arms out as if she was trying to hug the world. When we passed her, she even had her eyes closed, and she was smiling with the sunset on her face.

I just couldn't help but think... it isn't often that we catch somebody putting on a shameless display of happiness, much less indulge in one ourselves. I guess somebody upstairs is trying to tell me something. I keep having this mental image of God rolling eyes at me, as usual, and thinking, "Jesus, Errn. Cheer the fuck up."

Maybe I should indulge in a little shameless display of happiness.

The name's the thing

2007-09-21T18:30:00.000-07:00

Hmmm. I don't usually post blogs or read blogs, but it's become a recent habit, so I thought I'd attempt to jump on the bandwagon; if I fall off, well...I suppose Errn the blogger just wasn't meant to be.
First thing: I hate having to choose screennames, because I feel like I can never come up with anything interesting and catchy that still somehow relates to me. I thought about just using my AIM handle, MountainMermaid8, which I like too much to change, but I realized that I am no longer a "Mountain" Mermaid (having betrayed my roots and moved down the flatlands of Chapel Hill and all) and "ExMountainMermaid" just sounds incredibly depressing. And then I remembered playing on this random name generator a few years back -- what's your pirate name-- (don't ask for the URL, 'cause I can't remember) and my pirate name was supposedly "VoodooEsmerelda." Well, it had this fun pirate/pornstar/stripper ring to it, and it was much less depressing than "ExMountainMermaid." And god knows, since I've starting censoring myself as a teacher, I've realized I need alot more pirate/pornstar/stripper elements in my life. So if you're wondering, that's why "VoodooEsmerelda."
Second thing -- I can't write a blog and NOT sound off about how much my job sucks. I have quickly discovered that I love studying literature much more than I love teaching it; I love to analyze it and read into it and tear it to pieces with my silly little brain, and in teaching, I am more or less regurgitating state-mandated interpretations of books and short stories that were lucky enough to make it into the state's "canon" of literature. Damnitall.
Here's the thing, though. I LOVE my students. They're genuinely good kids. Not just good, they're really great kids. Which surprises me, because I don't have any honors classes. My students got into this absolutely amazing debate the other day about racism after one of my students brought up the Jena Six incident. Considering that about fifty percent or more of each of my classes is black, that got interesting real quick. But in a good way. I thought seriously about having them write letters to the press and to government officials about it, to let them sound off on it and express themselves and WRITE at the same time. My dad told me that they make movies about teachers that pull crap like that; I thought of Dangerous Minds and Freedom Writers, all about the kindly white woman who comes in to save the black delinquents, and I wasn't quite sure what to think of myself. A little disgusted and inspired at the same time. What does that mean? These kids are NOT in any way shape or form delinquents, and most of them will go on to do good things with their lives no matter what I "inspire" them to do... so maybe they don't make movies about inspirational teachers, just the ones who's students deal drugs and carry guns in their oversized britches. Aw, hell, I've already decided to weasel my way out of this loan debt thing anyway and get my doctorate and teach women's literature at some university until I'm a pickled old hippie anyway, so who really cares if I inspire anybody at all, as long as I meet the state fucktard standards?
Last thing, and then I quit, I swear. I miss college life and Boone and the GANG like a bitch. Seriously. I miss sleeping in and skipping class, I miss being able to take the Appalcart to class and not drive my car for days at a time, I miss POTLUCK, I miss four or five people casually dropping into my apartment to get drunk and watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I miss all the people -- seems like I formed the neatest little makeshift family up in those mountains, especially over the last couple of summers (you know who you are), and now I've gone and left to go and figure out what it means to be a grown-up, and I've left everybody behind. It hurts alot more than I expected it to, which is saying something, because I expected it to hurt alot. Just not this much.
Sigh....I suppose I'll live.