Mission Improvisational

Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

2012-01-28T12:43:00.001-05:00

I love men. Oh, not like that. Well. OK. Like that, too. But that's not what I mean here. What I mean is that I have always had an easier time making friends with them than with the fairer sex. Things are simpler with guys. If you don't like what someone's doing, you say it. If you do, you say it. There's no female crap where you say you feel fat just to make everyone else tell you that you look great. There's a whole lot less censoring. And you don't have to worry about your hair getting messed up because, chances are, they won't notice nor care. Guys are easy to get along with, in my experience. And I have always laughed at (and told) locker room humor, to the horror of my mother. So it was a bit of a sweet surprise to me when I found working with the femi-centric improv troupe, the Dixie Cups, to be such fun. I even posted about it here.

So, if you believe in this sort of thing, the universe read my blog and giggled. For, no more than a few weeks after posting, I showed up to rehearse with See You Thursday (the co-ed troupe of which many of the D-Cups are also a part) and found that I happened to be the only one there wearing a bra. (At least I hope I was. I didn't actually check.) It was me and a bunch of dudes.

I have to say that even though I have always felt like one of the guys, I felt a bit weird standing there in a room full of testosterone. Part of my apprehension came from the fact that I worried they felt overly conscious of my presence, or maybe they really wished I'd not shown up that night, that they'd have to censor themselves or... well... read my post here about anxiety and I'm sure you can recreate for yourself all the nervous chatter filling my brain in the five or so minutes before we began to play. I quickly talked myself off the ledge, though, and decided to just do my best to have a good time and to learn from my improv-bros.

To let them know that they didn't need to worry about protecting my girlishness or fear that they might offend me, I walked on stage and chose a character who cussed like Eddie Murphy and would make a sailor blush. It may have been my imagination, but I was pretty sure I saw them all relax a bit. More importantly, I relaxed a bit.

And I learned a lot from my boys. Here is what I love about improvising with the boys:

Relax.
If you want to do something, do something. After you walk out into the darkness, the lights will come on and you'll find yourself on stage. Usually with another person. (Or two.) And there's a moment where you have to decide whether or not you're going to offer first (speak the first line). With the gals, there's perhaps a sense of politely assessing (in a nanosecond) if she has something she wants to do. And being well-trained in the feminine arts, we often acquiesce. The boys, who never received this cultural training, don't. If they have something, they say it. And if they both have it and say it at the same time, well, that's the scene.
Enjoy yourself. Even when you're failing. If you aren't having fun, you aren't doing it right. It's ok to fail. Failing means you're trying. The boys taught me to take my failures like a... well, like a man, I guess.
Process over product. There's a sense, when playing with the boys, of not really caring how the whole thing will turn out. That isn't so much true with the ladies. I think we women are so used to, in our daily lives, worrying and fussing over the end-product and how people will react to us, that we do worry about whether what we are about to say will work for the scene, will support it, will be funny. The boys? They play to play and only wonder about the product after it's done. (We did talk about what worked and what didn't after the fact.)
Fart jokes are funny. Always.
Cocky (pun noted) is good. They're all so confident, these guys. Or they seem to be. Or they just fake it. Doesn't matter. Being confident makes you feel confident. And feeling confident allows you to get in there and play hard without worrying. And playing without worry lets you get out of your own ego's way. This sounds like a contradiction. But it isn't. Trust me.

A big thanks to the boys of SYT for letting me into the fort. Learned a lot!

Long Live the King (repost)

2012-01-16T09:41:00.000-05:00

(Originally posted 1/17/11)

Media is abuzz today with honoring the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I am glad so many people are taking the time to remember the iconic man who helped fuel this nation's much needed Civil Rights Movement. I've been home studying lines for my next play (more on that later), grading papers, and planning the next few weeks of lesson plans for Cool School with the radio on in the background. I've caught snatches of some of King's famous speeches, especially the most famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Analysts, historians, and other members of the movement have discussed the power of his oration, his ideas, and his inspirational life.

I want to honor King as a writer here today. I recognize the Dream speech as one of the great accomplishments of our country's literature, but I think my favorite has to be "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." The speeches are meant to be heard, but this- this is meant to be read slowly and savored. To study it from a purely language-based point of view reveals Dr. King to be a fantastic wordsmith, a mighty wielder of rhetoric, and a pretty brilliant language tactician. It also proves that passive resistance does not equate with wishy-washiness, civil disobedience is not wimpy. Au contraire.

We don't have to look at the whole thing, though here is the full text if you want it. Just a taste will satisfy. Want to take a look with me?

It starts with an author's note.

*AUTHOR'S NOTE: This response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama (Bishop C. C. J. Carpenter, Bishop Joseph A. Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop Holan B. Harmon, the Reverend George M. Murray. the Reverend Edward V. Ramage and the Reverend Earl Stallings) was composed under somewhat constricting circumstance. Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while I was in jail, the letter was continued on scraps of writing paper supplied by a friendly Negro trusty, and concluded on a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to leave me. Although the text remains in substance unaltered, I have indulged in the author's prerogative of polishing it for publication.

First off, I love that King identifies his attackers as "fellow" clergymen, listing each name using only the most respectful and formal titles. He then goes on with a terrific understatement, quipping that he (a fellow man of God) is writing under "somewhat constricting circumstances." He could have said "from jail," he could have said "while behind bars," but he chooses to use sophisticated diction further underscoring the truth that he is no common criminal, but a scholar, a holy man... with a wry sense of humor. I love, too, that King tells the particular details of being forced to write these thoughts on "the margins of the newspaper" and "on scraps of writing paper from a friendly Negro trusty." With these two details, he tells us that instead of stewing in his cell, he spends his time reading the paper... and that he has people on the inside helping his cause. He then graduates to "a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to leave me." Not one attorney. Plural. The man is letting us know he has a network. So. With this little "note" he has established his authority, his intelligence, and his power with the people. Gauntlet thrown, bitches.

The real letter then begins:

LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL
April 16, 1963
MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN: While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

Check out the word choice in the first sentence: "I came across your recent statement." Came across. Not "I read" or "someone showed me"... I came across. As though King, in his cell, had many important things to do, was reading reams of important information, and then saw this curious little article and thought, "Now, goodness! What might this be?" He further enhances this image of King as busy businessman in the next sentence. You can imagine him sighing, like a father does to pesky children, as he says, "Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas." And we learn in the next sentence that just as he has multiple attorneys, he also has an army of busy secretaries doing "constructive work." He appeals to the men to whom he writes as "men of genuine good will... sincerely set forth," before he once again sighs and returns to his weary paternal role, hoping he can continue in "patient and reasonable terms."

In the next paragraph, he offers a narrative resume while he gently reminds the readers that he was, indeed, invited to Birmingham:

I think I should indicate why I am here In Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here I am here because I have organizational ties here.

After listing these credentials (and again reminding the readers that he has a considerable and mighty numbers behind him), he spends his next words to provide biblical precedents that support his current movement:

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

This next paragraph contains so many quotable insights, I hardly know where to begin. Here, he appeals to his audience as human beings and as Americans:

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

I especially love the pronoun we. Dr. King boldly asserts a kindred relationship by including his readers into this personal, plural pronoun usage... just in time to finish the paragraph with a dressing down of the newspaper's accusation of King as "outside agitator."

The body of the letter goes on to systematically dismantle the ethical, emotional, and logical fallacies behind the inherent racism strangling the South and the nation as a whole. Dr. King engages in arguments based in economy, religion, and constitutional law. He references his own son's questions, the Supreme Court, St. Thomas Aquinas, Thoreau, and Socrates, among others. In doing so, MLK shows himself to be a scholar, a philosopher, a patriot, and a caring father. I imagine the men he lists in his author's note furiously scrambling around their library, searching out the texts and history in order to keep up with this man they have tried to paint as their inferior.

Then, he changes his tone near the end. I picture him shaking out his cramped hand and writing:

Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?

Tee hee. "Precious time." Love it. And then the apology that is not really an apology. King reminds them that if they had taken the time to meet with him, to speak with him, listen, hear reason- this long ass letter (one which surely would come to be known as the masterpiece it is) could have been avoided. Now look what you made me do... publicly humiliate you by showing your argument to be ridiculous and unChristian, and by showing myself (and by extension my race) to be capable of utter greatness. He then whips it all into a big finish. Enjoy:

If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. King, as an American, a civil rights supporter, and as a Language Arts teacher, I thank you. And happy birthday!

Slave to Feline Wiles

2012-01-07T22:19:00.001-05:00

It is hard not to fall in love with George. He's 18 pounds of furry, purry, ridiculously content grey feline that lives with my dad and his wife deep in the heart of Texas. He has a great handle on life. Eat well, sleep well, establish your routine, and make relaxing with the people you love your biggest priority.

So it is no surprise, really, that Amy fell in love with George when we visited Dad and Lara over our holiday break. And it was no surprise when, on the way home from Texas, she brought up the idea of another cat. Hubby and I talked it over and decided that, sure, we'd be open to it. (Though I must admit that having lost our last three cats too young to three different fatal diseases, I felt and still do feel a little anxious that maybe it's me.)

And so, last week I visited our vet and mentioned that if they were to come across a healthy (please!) young female cat, to keep us in mind. A bit sheepishly, I added, "And we'd prefer declawed. I mean, we could never do it ourselves, but it would be nice if our furniture-"

When Dr. Carpenter cut me off, I feared she might lecture me about the inhumane aspects of declawing. (I agree!)Instead, she grabbed my hand and said, "I am so glad you said that. I wanted to call you, but I was afraid it was too soon after Saki." Amy and I looked at each other. "Come back here with me."

Oh shit, I thought. I knew that if I met a cat, I'd fall in love. Was I ready, really? I had it in my head that it would take weeks maybe months for New Cat to manifest.

She turned back to me, "And I should mention. There's two. Brother and sister. 5 years old. Front and back declaw. Healthy. Sweet. Just come on."

Oh double shit. TWO?! Double the brushing. Double the fur. Double the food. Double the trouble. Double the poop. Two?

"Their owner had them, bought a dog, and the dog kept trying to eat them. They've been living here because I couldn't bear to let them go to a shelter. They'd never get adopted. And certainly not together." We turned the corner. "Ah. There they are. They're out!"

Oh shit shit shit. Knippy, a "dilute calico" (kind of like a Monet version of a calico) instantly dove under her cage, shy. Fat Louie, sat up and meowed. I pet him. He purred. I snuggled him. He purred. He demanded Amy pet him. He purred. She and I looked at each other. I'm not sure how you say it in Korean, but I know we were both thinking it.

Shit shit shit. And shit. He's so cute. We talked turkey with the vet. Learned their story. Heard all the health and fitness tests they'd passed. And as we talked to the vet, Louie, no longer being pet or snuggled, tapped Amy on the shoulder and said, "Mew." We both translated this to mean, "Hey."

And so, Dear Readers, as you have no doubt guessed, I write this to you tonight with a purring Knippy at my feet and a purring Fat Louie snuggled next to me. Good think we bought a king sized bed when we moved here.

Ephemeral Bloom

2012-01-01T01:31:00.000-05:00

Ephemeral Bloom

It all had to be just right
the season
the weather
the time
To allow that thin ray of light
to peek through
the trees
the leaves
To find almost out of sight
a slender bud
nodding in shadows
cool and verdant

Then coaxed awake
Flinging open wide
Yawning hot pinks
Pistils and stamens
In a vibrant moment

Had I blinked
I'd have missed it
Seeing only
Mud and rot

And I can think of it
and savor it
even now

Of Mice and Jwi

2011-12-20T18:34:00.000-05:00

I have been wanting to write you this post since it happened, but I knew that in order to write it, I would also have to tell you that our new and sweet little kitty, Saki, had passed away. And I didn't want to have to start out with that sad news. And I knew that if I did, I'd have to tell you that she had a rare and fatal disease that had remained hidden until we took her to get her vaccinated, but got kicked into high gear when her poor little body had to fight it and the vaccines... so we lost her. And I knew that if I told you that it would be all sad and this is supposed to be a funny post (not to mention a sort of funny blog to begin with.) And I knew that if I told all that, I'd also feel compelled to admit that losing Saki (in addition to having just lost the evil-yet-lovable Destiny the Dingocat) kind of made me feel cursed. And then I'd have to admit that I don't really believe I'm cursed because frankly, I don't think the universe is that organized. And I worried that all of that would sound sort of nutso.

So.

Put all that aside for a minute, ok?

Imagine instead this:

It's late at night. The Kid is upstairs getting ready for bed in her room, and Hubby is upstairs in our room also getting ready to start snoring. I am downstairs in a foul mood, banging away on my laptop, trying to input my midterm exams on this new oh-so-easy-it-will-make-your-life-go-much-smoother-once-you-learn-how-to-do-it computerized testing program. I'm bleary-eyed and perhaps pulling chunks of hair out of my head and muttering obscenities. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a dark shape wander in and sit on the wood floor next to me. Absentmindedly, I think, Oh hi Saki.

And I keep typing for a moment before a dim realization seeps through my fuzzy-headedness, That can't be Saki. Saki is gone. Then I think, and I quote, ???

I look down and to my right and sitting there, looking (in retrospect, you must understand) undeniably adorable, is a perfect specimen of a little field mouse. He's sitting on his little mouse butt, and he's holding his little mouse hands together in front of him, he's staring at me with his big brown mouse eyes, and he's even got his little mouse head cocked to one side like you might see in a cartoon.

I do what any card-carrying woman would do.

The sheer explosive volume of my shrieking shocks the little mouse, so much so that he performs what I can only describe as a rather impressive backward flip high into the air. It may have been a double. It's hard for me to say because I'm screaming, "Mouse mouse mouse!" so loudly and so forcefully that I'm starting to feel lightheaded. The mouse, utterly terrified, recovers from his backflip and runs away from me and my sound and full tilt into a wall. The force with which he hits the wall makes an audible thud (one that I can hear over my screams) and sends him tumbling back toward me. I comment on this by screaming, rather observantly, I think, "Mouse mouse mouse!"

By this time, both Hubby and The Kid have come dashing down the stairs each expecting (they told me later) to find me bleeding with an axe protruding through my skull. The Kid, for her part, finally deciphers what I'm saying, translating "Mouse mouse mouse" into the Korean equivalent "Jwi Jwi Jwi" and does what any red-blooded girl would do. She screams, "OhMYGOSH!" and runs back upstairs, slamming her bedroom door behind her. Hubby does what it tells him to do in the Husband Manual. He tries to catch the mouse. "Mouse mouse mouse!" I scream, while now also flapping my arms and hands at him. He retrieves a giant cup and I ascertain (not easy to do while screaming and flapping) that he means to put the cup over the mouse, then scoop the little guy up and take him outside. The mouse does not ascertain this at all, knowing only that things have become for him very loud and very chase-y. The poor little thing dodges Hubby, finds himself too close to my foghorn sound effects, and keeps plowing into every wall in the room. I narrate, "Mouse mouse mouse!" No doubt he is seeing stars by this point. I know I am.

Something desperate in my head tells me to open the front door and maybe the mouse will go out. I do and, to the astonishment of both Hubby and me, Mickey dashes out the door and into the wilds of the rainy Ohio night. I would guess he's still running. Maybe he has made it to Wisconsin by now.

If you see him, tell him hi from me.

The Long and Winding Road That Leads You to My Door...

2011-12-05T22:39:00.001-05:00

I haven't done it in a long time. But I am so glad I did.

I checked my keywords analysis on my little site visit counter at the bottom of my blog. It tells me the search terms that people used to land on this blog. I love what I found:

"we argue about the price of pomegranates, i convince him it is the fruit of scholars"- I could not be more intrigued by this... the scenarios it inspires warrant the material for next year's NaNoWriMo. And then I wonder what in the world would compel one to search THAT?
"mouse furry girl"- This one makes me a little weirded out that I'm a landing page for that search. And I'm even more weirded out when I note that not one, but TWO people searched this and found me. It made me want to go shave my legs.
"chenay newton danced in mahogany at sab in nov 30 2008"- It's just so... precise. It makes me want to search it myself... Ok. I did it. I'm 4th for this search.
"closing mitochondrial pores"- Because HOW embarrassing is it for mitochondria when people are all like, Whoa, those are some giant pores.
"how not to fall in love and become cold"-Wear a sweater. Boom.
"ineffable test score"- Chances are if you cannot understand the score, you flunked the test. Just guessing.
"i showz you muh kung fu stanz"- Again. Not once, but twice I was found with this search term. Although you will not find muh kung fu stanz on this blog, I hope you are somewhat satisfied in the fact that I cannot stop saying that whole phrase now. Only I keep wanting to add, "Bitches" at the end.

"...and remember, the next scream you hear may be your own!"

2011-12-04T21:59:00.001-05:00

So I thought that I had survived the horror. After all, I made it through the marathon known as NaNoWriMo for the 4th year in a row.

But the terror had only begun.

Invasion.

That's right. It's... in our house.

We first heard the tap-tap-tap on our wall about 24 hours ago. Cold fear filled our hearts as we stepped outside to find the source of the sound.

A cute, fuzzy, adorable... Downy Woodpecker.

Eating our house.

A quick trip around the internet made us feel no better. Several sites told us that this sort of single-minded intense pecking meant that our little stalker had decided that our house... our attic, to be precise... would make a very nice home for the winter.

This morning, he made it. In just one day, even with Hubby making frequent trips outside to yell at the little guy, (GET! GET OUT!) he proceeded, undeterred, through about an inch and a half of nice cedar into our attic. And now he's doing us the dubious favor of flitting about up there and pecking little neat holes wherever he hears bugs. Or thinks he does. Or maybe he's just making a big connect-the-dots design that we'll only truly be able to appreciate in a few months... you know, when the ceiling caves in.

So Hubby and I again consulted our good friend, the internet, and came up with warring remedies. Both of us agreed that the bit about aluminum flashing over the hole leading into the attic. From there, our philosophies on woodpecker removal differ a bit.

Mine involves horror movie tactics. Thanks to the Cornell University ornithology lab, I was able to put together a 45 minute loop of this short soundtrack. To you, it may not sound too frightening. But to our little Jack Torrance (as I have begun to think of him), it sounds horrifyingly like another Downy Woodpecker screaming bloody murder, followed by the sounds of a scary hawk crying victory over its prey. The idea is that he hears this, thinks, "Whoa, crap. I'm not going in there," and then goes and pecks through our neighbor's wall instead.

I guess technically, Hubby's plan involves horror movies tactics, too. But where mine is a creepy, atmospheric sort of thing, his is a bloody, gore-spattered sort of thing. And it's also a lot simpler. A lot more low tech. A bit of suet. A giant industrial sized rat trap. A couple of nails to hang it next to the hole. You do the math.

After loads of sad looks and mewling about "cute" and "fuzzy" and "not his fault" from Amy and me, Hubby has agreed to let us try Operation Don't Go in the House before he implements Operation Splat.

We'll keep you apprised.

Once More unto the Breach, Dear Friends, Once More...

2011-10-31T20:37:00.002-04:00

... for most red-blooded Americans, for most normal folks, for most of you October 31 stands for ghosts and goblins and spooks and poltergeists. It's pumpkins and candy and black cats and haunted houses.

For me, for my 8th graders, and for a growing (but still esoteric) number of weirdos out there in the webby world of wacky, October 31 signifies the last gulp of air we'll have before embarking upon the wild and woolly and you've-got-to-be-nuts-to-try-it journey known by those in the know as NaNoWriMo.

This will be my fourth year participating in the international event humbly calling itself National Novel Writing Month. And it's the third year I've dragged along my middle schoolers, some grumbling, some cheering.

Today we spent part of the class period signing into (or for the newbies, signing up for) our accounts on the fantastically designed, awfully fun Young Writers' Program NaNoWriMo site. As we tooled around the site and checked out the forums (where did those plot bunnies go?), my virtual classroom, and how to become each others' writing buddies, we also chatted about our game plans. We've got some horror, some romance, and quite a bit of comedy flitting about the imaginations of my would-be, soon-to-be, or once-again novelists. A few have so many ideas they don't know where to start. One will be writing a series of short stories he'll try to string together a la Bradbury's Illustrated Man.

For the first time, I came to October 31 with absolutely no idea about what I'd be writing. Usually I have some notion. My first year, I wrote a (terrible) sequel to David and the Phoenix. The next year I wrote a (terrible) government-conspiracy-theory thing about some vaccination program gone horribly awry. And last year I wrote a (terrible and unthrilling) thriller about what would happen if a computer virus wiped out all the world's electronic banking records. The good news each year is that I've hit my 50,000 word count goal (my eighth graders shoot for 8000 words) and I've usually created at least a few strong and interesting characters. The bad news each year is that my (terrible) novels, though at their 50,000 word count goal are never finished-- and that's usually because I have no real plan, I get lost, and I can't think of a good ending.

The trick would be to at least think about planning out the novel. At least have an ending in mind. (Improv is great- improvising a novel is not so great.) And this year I didn't even have a beginning in mind!

Until my last class today when I confessed my lack of inspiration to my students. The barrage of ideas that flowed toward me would have stunned Shakespeare. Such creativity! And they were undaunted as I fended off some ideas, "Yeah, that's cute, but I want something a little more thoughtful"... and, "No, I'm not going for comedy..." Little by little they, like a fantastic collective author's therapist, honed in on something I kinda love.

You'll have to tune in for updates on my students' work and on my (terrible) fifth novel. Who knows. Maybe I'll even finish this time. One can dream, can't one?

Anyway, wish us luck!

Playing in the Sandbox

2011-10-23T16:38:00.003-04:00

After years of standing on street corners and asking innocent passers-by for suggestions ranging from "Give me a non-geographical location" to "What's a reason someone might be limping?" I finally got adopted by a local improv troupe. The fine folks at See You Thursday (which performs on Fridays) invited me to come see a show after reading this review I posted on Theatre Vault. I watched a couple of shows and even accepted when they asked me to come play with them in their guests-welcome third set. ~~The psychotropic drugs I slipped them worked.~~ They, for whatever reason, asked me to become a member and (duh) I accepted.

SYT has quite a few members, with some folks dropping in and out as Life calls. The 8-10 core members are, to a person, a truly kind, funny, and accepting lot. This isn't surprising, though, as improv relies upon a collaborative spirit. Acceptance, any improviser will tell you, fuels improv. Neither is it surprising that, though the troupe boasts several strong female improvisers, men outnumber the women. This gender imbalance plays out as the norm in most improv circles. A troupe with six men and one or two women stands as the typical breakdown. The whys and wherefores behind this fact are a bit more complex. (Let's not even get started on why improvisers tend also to be Caucasian.)

The gender disparity has been discussed for as long as I've been involved with the form. Longer, I'm sure. You can read what smarter people than I have had to say about it here (from 1993!) and here. And if you women (and the men who love them) want to get really good and pissed off, read Christopher Hitchens's infamous and polarizing Vanity Fair article "Why Women Aren't Funny", in which he uses a Stanford University Medical School study to make such endearing conclusions as:

For women, reproduction is, if not the only thing, certainly the main thing. Apart from giving them a very different attitude to filth and embarrassment, it also imbues them with the kind of seriousness and solemnity at which men can only goggle...Is there anything so utterly lacking in humor as a mother discussing her new child? She is unboreable on the subject.

Breathe. And then nod vigorously as you read Alessandra Stanley's well-researched and... dare I say it?... witty Vanity Fair reply "Who Says Women Aren't Funny."

This ongoing and long-standing conversation makes me especially happy that SYT gave birth to the Dixie Cups, a splinter group of all female improvisers. And color me tickled pink that these wacky women invited me to become a D-Cup, too. (Insert boob joke here.)

I've never improvised in an estrogen powered team before, and to be honest, I wasn't all that sold on the idea at the start. For the most part, I tend to relate to men more easily than I do to women. (Might have something to do with my missing shopping and crafts genes. And with my penchant for foul language and inappropriate humor.) I worried we'd be mired in scenes about PMS, hair products, and how diets suck.

In fact, improvising with fellow funny gals has been liberating. Sure, we can do a good scene about bad hair, cramping, and binge-eating. But that's merely the tip of the femme-prov iceberg. At our most rehearsal alone, I played a Latin lover about to get a tongue piercing, a therapy patient with possibly deadly telekinetic powers, a singing dog, a Herpes angel, and a purely ambient character employed for the sole purpose of providing creepy mood through song. And that was just me. The other women each brought similarly diverse, random, and inventive characters to our little basement rehearsal stage.

Playing with the Dixie Cups has opened my eyes to some startling truths about how I play.

Improv is all about getting out of your head. It's about asking your internal censor (you know that guy) to step aside, allowing unleashed spontaneity to have its way with you. In order to tap into the core marrow of your funny bone, you have to be bold enough to try anything, yet relaxed enough to surrender to the flow when your partner changes the tide. And then there's that nano-pause as the lights come up and the scene starts, when you and your partner somehow come to an ESP agreement as to who makes the first offer.

To make the first offer, to establish the scene's who/what/where, is universally smiled upon by the improv community. And it's such an important role to serve. After all, whatever your offer, your partner (in the spirit of "yes and") has no choice but to go along with whatever you say. When improvising with the Cups, there's a sense of calm. Someone will bring it, or (more likely) you'll all find it together. Sure, scenes sometimes start with a bang. But sometimes they start from a place of calm, of quiet stasis. And those scenes have an equal chance of finding the funny.

When playing with the boys, though, it's different. As a female player, I find that if I don't pounce on that first moment, I'll usually have to yes-and to being someone's girlfriend, mother, prostitute, or waitress. These aren't necessarily bad roles- but they ain't no Herpes angel, telekinetic therapy patient, nor choral ambient. So I find myself doing one of two things to avoid such a fate. Either I cleverly twist the scene so I'm not the girlfriend's mother the prostitute waitress, usually by playing as though I'm one of the guys eagerly awaiting the female character in question- or I come on stage and make sure to make the initiating offer before anyone else has a chance. It can be fun, of course. But in a way it feels like improvising with my dukes up. I either have to passively accept the typical female roles, cleverly twist my way out of them, or come in aggressively and assert my own will. Whichever way I choose, it affects my playing.

I want to be clear that I'm not in any way saying our SYT guys are in any way bad dudes. They're not! They're team players, they're generous improvisers, and you bet your sweet bippy they're incredibly funny. It's just that playing in the Girls Only sandbox has illustrated for me how differently women play on their own than we do with men. In point of fact, I count myself as incredibly lucky. I get to play in the SYT sandbox with guys and gals... and let's be honest; I tell at least as many boob and fart jokes as the next guy. And I have the rare opportunity to play in the sandbox with my sister Cups, where I can put my dukes down and just enjoy pure play. Sure as heck beats begging for suggestions from some dude waiting for the bus.

Bonfire

2011-10-10T18:44:00.003-04:00

Click here for information about the photo

Bonfire

aroused and aglow in radiating incandescence
dripping down ember-reds and burnt-umbers
ardently sparking with smoldering saffrons
the trees ignite in a final fevered performance

loamy soil stages its own plentiful genesis
yielding all fat ample sensuousness
in rows of ripened fleshy succulence
fields offer up their fertile consequences

the whole world erupts to combustion
burning with flushes blushes and rusts
spectacular cinnamon and tawny blasts
before all submitting quietly to gray decay

for Grandma

What's in a HM? Or the Adventures of Egg Girl

2011-09-24T20:18:00.001-04:00

They're going to remember me as Egg Girl.

I'm not sure that's a good thing. I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

You see, today I auditioned for one of my favorite local companies, Available Light Theatre. I've been a fan since I saw my first show and have even been fortunate enough to work with them. So, I signed up a few weeks ago when I heard they were holding season auditions, and this morning I dusted off a few old monologues and got myself to the Riffe Center for my two minutes.

As I made my way out of the house, Hubby followed me and shoved a napkin in my hand. "I made you a road sandwich!" he declared proudly. Not really registering this, I nodded as I mentally worked through my monologues, the directions to the space, whether or not I had my headshot/resume; I muttered, "Yeah thanks" and tossed it onto the passenger seat, along with my purse.

Driving to the space, I probably entertained the people in neighboring cars as I ran through some vocal warm-ups and my monologues. I completely forgot about the road sandwich...

...until I parked, slung my bag over my shoulder and saw it there, slightly smushed and leaking egg yolk onto my already stained car seat. I grabbed a wipe and did a quickie job of removing the yolky cheesy puddle from the upholstery before giving up and hustling inside to do some vocal warm-ups before my scheduled audition time. I paid the parking meter (thanking the powers of consumerism that it took credit cards) and started to hoof it inside. I chatted with the security guys who, very suavely and sweetly wished me the proper broken limb when they learned I'd be auditioning on the fourth floor.

It wasn't until the elevator ride when I checked out my reflection in the reflective doors that I noticed my right shoulder was covered in egg and cheese, now hardening into a thick mass in the shape of my purse strap. "Awesome," I said out loud but unconvincingly. Then I began the arduous process of picking off bits of road sandwich from my shoulder. And although I removed most of it, I was still left with a ghostly yet distinct eggy imprint.

I tried to put it out of my mind as I signed in, filled out the form, handed in my headshot/resume, and went on with my vocal warm-ups. After only a few minutes, which also included pleasant banter with another woman auditioning and with the audition monitor (a fine actor I'd seen in their productions before), they called me into the room.

Before I could stop myself I blurted out, "I'm not usually covered in egg." And then I blurted out the whole sordid tale in about ten seconds, panicking that they'd see my egg clad shoulder and think, Wow, this chick couldn't even be bothered to wear a clean shirt. After my babbling preamble, though, I started to worry that now they'd be thinking, Wow. This chick is nuts. One of the directors said, "I wouldn't have even noticed." To which I thought and said, "And now you won't be able to stop looking at it." Sigh.

With that inauspicious beginning I launched into my two contrasting pieces. I did fine, I think. Not my best work, though not the unmitigated disaster I described here either. My first piece, from Eve Ensler's Floating Rhoda and the Glue Man is a sort of dreamy, poetic, dramatic piece. And my last piece, from Alan Ball's "Power Lunch" is a riot. It's a lively piece with a high energy ending.

So how did they react?

Right after I finished, one of the directors said...

"Hm."

Just like that.

Now what does that mean?

All the way home, I wondered about this. Was that "Hm" as in, "Hm. What an interesting pair of monologues and how smart she was to pair these together. And hm what a great actor and even though we've worked with her before, these pieces showcased her range in a way I find intriguing and I must cast her to see what she's really capable of doing. Hm. We're lucky she showed up today. Hm. Which parts should I cast her in?"

Or was that "Hm" as in, "Hm, that was obnoxious/pathetic/boring/stupid/too fast/too slow and just not what I was looking for. Hm. I wonder how long until lunch. Hm, that egg on her shoulder is disgusting."

Of course, maybe the hm was indigestion or a belch or something.

Time will tell the fate of Egg Girl.

The Absolutely True Adventures of the Golf Penguin

2011-09-17T19:07:00.001-04:00

Today, I played the role of golf penguin.

In order to explain, I need to backtrack. Years and years ago, my dad and I watched a program (I want to say it was on Nature or Nova) about penguins. These particular penguins, as we found out, had a habit of all rushing together (as quickly as the little waddling tuxedo-ed beasts can rush) to the edge of a cliff. They'd all throw on the brakes in unison and peer down nervously into the water below. They knew, the narrator informed us, that danger lurked in those waters in the form of leopard seals and killer whales, two predators that enjoy snacking on penguins.

So, these little birds skid to a stop, seeming to weigh the fact of abundant food against the very real possibility of becoming food. Then, a most extraordinary thing happens. They all look at each other and, by some mysterious wild instinctual groupmind agreement, they choose one of their own and together they shove that unlucky penguin into the water. After, they all inch closer to the cliff's edge and watch with great interest the fate of their fallen comrade. I imagine them saying, "Let's see what happens to Abner!" And maybe, "Sorry dude!"

If Abner makes it, swims away without incident, they all instantly pile into the water behind him like little fat torpedoes. If Abner, however, doesn't make it, there's a sort of collective, "Oh. Wow. There goes Abner," and they all waddle to another spot on the shoreline where the whole process starts again, though this time they pick Felix.

Cut to today. I'm playing golf in Hubby's company golf outing. The outing has been organized as a scramble, which means everyone on your team of four hits a drive. You pick the best drive and everyone hits their second shots from there. You pick the best second shot and everyone hits their next shot from there. And so on and so on until eventually the ball finds its way to the hole and you acquire your team score for that hole.

It's a great set-up when you have a mix of ability levels. Like today. There were golfers out there who can do amazing things... you know, like hit the golf ball in the direction they intend. And then there are the players like me, who can do amazing things... you know, like make up funny songs on the spot or swing really hard and miss the ball entirely.

Because there are prizes involved, and more importantly to Hubby and his coworkers, bragging rights and pride, people tend to actually try to win these things. (Me, I personally just try not to make a complete ass of myself and not to hurt anyone with the golf cart. I spend most of my time thinking about what drink I'll use my drink tickets to buy. And wondering if there will be chocolate.) But it's not as though I actively try to sabotage or block the strategy of my team. I'm game, right? I mean, so long as they don't expect me to like... do anything well. (Other than the singing and color commentary.)

So our strategy went like this. Everyone went before I did. They'd hit it hard and sometimes straight. And then I'd do my best and sometimes actually hit the ball and everyone would say, "Nice job," in much the same way you tell a kid her drawing of a goat is great when really what she was trying to draw was the Death Star.

Things changed on the putting green, though. I became the golf penguin. I imagined our journey to the putting green paralleling the penguins' mass rush to the edge of the cliff. Then, much like the penguins tossing Abner into the predator-infested waters, my mates made me putt first. The strategic logic behind this move was that I'd do my sad best to putt, while the three guys on my team watched. They'd all hunker down behind me as I putted, sometimes making quiet commentary theorizing on the condition of the green, and always watching closely to see if the putt broke to the left, to the right, or just went straight. "Let's see what happens to Abner!"

Usually I'd miss. ("Sorry, dude!") But they'd have the advantage of learning from my death. This green breaks to the right. This green slows down right before the cup.

If I happened to make it, they'd grab their putters and walk with me back to the carts and on the next hole. But I'm here to tell you, Abner rarely lived today. But he served his purpose. He served his purpose.

Big Bang Theory

2011-09-14T10:46:00.000-04:00

In helping our Amy with her Astronomy homework last night, I got to thinking about how the universe began from nothing, banged binary-like from nothing into something... and then immediately began speeding away from that central point in all directions into the void. Couldn't stop thinking about how sad and beautiful that feels...

Big Bang Theory

I long
sometimes
(don't you)
to return
to the singularity,
to that time
just after
zero
exploded into
one.

For now
we speed
(somehow)
apart and
away and
adrift and
rocketing
from
somethingness to
none.

Of course
we can't
(if only)
refute the
relentlessness
of relativity,
only
look forward and back
through time.

Imagine There's No Evil

2011-09-11T21:47:00.001-04:00

Just after 9/11, my then boss brought me a VHS tape (remember those!?!) containing a documentary about the Jihadist movement within the United States. The film had been released before the collapse of the towers, but after the first bombing... one that many of us never registered, which happened back in 1993 in the basement of the WTC.

At the center of the documentary simmered an uncomfortable question that would become central to much of the unrest that followed (and still follows) 9/11's tragedy. How much freedom is too much freedom? The film traced how easily extremist anti-American Jihadist cells proliferated on U.S. soil by capitalizing on the very freedoms they sought to destroy: the right to free speech, the freedom of religion, the right to bear arms... Our civic rights in a darkly ironic twist protected our enemies, allowing them not only to recruit, but to raise money, and to train with weapons. Pre-9/11 extremists were able to use the guise of charitable organizations and religious entities to cloak their darker purposes of gathering to plot terrorist acts (and tax-free, even). The film, like any good documentary, never answers the question, but only raises it.

The documentary also explored the reasons behind the extremists' focus on the USA as a target for their anger. Many of the recorded Jihadist speeches and interviews showed their leaders condemning the U.S. involvement in global activities that they perceived as threatening Muslims through the support of Jewish and Christian interests, such as the U.S. military and financial support of Israel. The roots run deep, as these extremists consistently pointed to U.S. involvement and presence in middle eastern locations like Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria... the list goes on and on. Again, the documentary did not excuse radical terrorism, but sought to reveal its roots.

Most chilling and profoundly affecting to me was an interview with one such extremist who had been incarcerated after his involvement with that original WTC attack. He was not, as we might like to believe, a crazed and stupid fanatic. Instead, he came across (other than his alarming message) as measured, reasonable, and even intelligent. The interviewer criticized the man about his use of violence against innocents. With tried patience, this convicted terrorist answered the interviewer's questions, listing off the wrongs Muslim people had suffered, in his perception, at the hands of the U.S. government. The interviewer seemed unimpressed. Finally, the terrorist sighed and said something I'll never forget. (Remember, this is well before 9/11.) He asked the interviewer suddenly, "If I were to, I don't know, destroy the biggest buildings in your city, kill thousands of your citizens. What would you do? What would you want to do?" The interviewer leaned forward, "I'd be angry. Furious. I'd want to kill you and everyone responsible." The man smiled at him, "You see? We are not so different after all."

So much of the coverage of 9/11 blithely describes the hijackers as "evil." To me, that's a terribly (and dangerously) simplistic way to describe a problem that is far far more complex than black-and-white, good-and-evil. To describe the people who did this as evil allows us to simply dismiss their actions as being a natural condition, one against which nothing can be done but to levy revenge against it. And of course, this expands the vicious circle. We call them evil and seek to destroy them, then they call us evil and seek to destroy us... and it goes on and on and on as it already has for all these many many years.

To instead realize that "They" believe their own perceptions with the same righteous indignation we believe our own asks us to attempt to understand the complexities of the world around us and even to question ourselves. You see, to dismiss these acts as evil lets us off the hook. We can't do anything about them: they're evil. There's no hope: they're evil. If we really want to heal from this, really want to move on, then we must expunge the term from our vocabulary. Instead, we must choose a more dignified position... courage, introspection, decency.

Curiouser and Curiouser

2011-09-02T23:56:00.003-04:00

Sometimes you pull back to realize you've been looking not at the photo, but at the negative.

Alice had always thought she had been
falling
down the rabbit hole or
dissolving
through the looking glass

But suddenly she realized after
catching
her reflection that she was
staying
perfectly stationary

And it was everything else that kept
rushing
skyward or just stood in her way
deflecting
with stubborn opacity

I am the white rabbit,
she thought with clarity,
and you are all chasing me.

What Not To Do

2011-08-22T23:55:00.000-04:00

The kickoff to the school year always starts with the same peculiar mix of awkward ice-breakers and dry orientation activities. For instance, today I had to figure out that the sign on my back read "Mickey Mouse" then go find my match, "Minnie." Turned out to be a rather embarrassed fifth grade boy.

This after we had drilled into freshly summer-tenderized brains the rules of classroom conduct and the dangers of cyber-bullying. Next, teachers will deliver our syllabi. As I listened to these well-intentioned offerings, I felt overwhelmed. Already our students have been hit with what not to do. Don't bully. Don't stand by and watch it happen. Don't be late for class. Don't forget to tuck in your shirt. Don't come to school with an uncharged battery. Don't trade food in the cafeteria. Don't use your cell phone. Don't. Don't. Do not. Nope.

I found myself increasingly upset by the negativity we so casually fling about. It doesn't end with orientation, either. Most grading policies rely upon the negative, too. This many errors cause a deduction in your grade. Forget to bring your pencil and you lose points. Most of what we communicate centers around how not to fail.

What about wanting to succeed?

What if, instead of warning against bullying, we talk to students about what a model citizen looks like? Instead of giving energy to those few kids who steal lunches, slam locker doors, or post Facebook flame sessions, we shine a spotlight on the students participating in food drives, working in animal shelters, or even just taking care of someone who's upset? What if, instead of spending our words in handbooks describing what constitutes misconduct, infractions, or demerits, we devote our verbiage to describing the ideal student, laudable behavior, and awards? What if instead of grading papers by counting errors, we count the juicy verbs, inventive phrases, and creative metaphors?

Instead of stomping about, swinging a club, and waiting for the next criminal to do something bad, let's keep an eye out so we can catch someone doing something right.

In keeping with this idea, I've just stayed up way too late revamping my own syllabi to remove the negative words. Whereas I used to measure in terms of mistakes, now I'm trying to measure in terms of successes.

Before: "0-1 days tardy or missing materials, never disruptive, does not require prompting to participate in discussion= A for participation."
After: "A-level participation: Contributes readily to discussions, activities, exercises, and also supports participation from others. Arrives on time, appropriately dressed, and prepared each day."

I'm loving it. I wonder if the students will even notice!

Now... if we could just get our politicians to tap into the power of positivity...

Call Me "Mom"

2011-08-04T01:13:00.000-04:00

Today, my future daughter sent me a Facebook message and asked if it would be ok to call me "Mom."

Let me backtrack a little.

One of the coolest features of Cool School is the fact that, for whatever reason, we attract lots of international students. Yep, out there in the middle of suburban vanilla Ohio, Cool School educates students from China, Korea, and other far-off Buckeyeless locations across the globe. It's not a formal arrangement with an agency; it's just sort of... well, a happening. The enrichment it brings to the students who brave leaving home and its familiar smells and sounds and languages and customs must be quite something. Can you imagine at the age of 16 going to another country, all alone, and plunging into small town life amidst people who don't eat what you eat, don't listen to your music, don't have a common cultural history to yours? Heck, at 16, I had difficulty moving from California to Oklahoma. The enrichment to our native students is far-reaching. Out in the middle of nOhio-where, my students are exposed firsthand to diversity at its best. The world seems suddenly much smaller, much more immediate than even the virtual global village they access through Google. They learn about the world via friendship, not via Wiki. It's outstanding.

Most of the international students who make the trek from far off to our little humble corner of the midwest spend their school years living with a family not their own. Oh, sometimes it's a distant relative... or a friend of a friend. Usually that family is of the same ethnicity and/or nationality as the student.

But not always, I guess.

At the end of the school year, one of my Korean students came to me and asked to live with me and Hubby. You see, Amy (a darling girl, a hard worker in my tough American Lit class), had been living with her brother- a college student. But he's graduating. So what would she do? Go back home? Follow him to his new job and change schools? No. Plus, she wanted a family.

And she picked us.

Of course, you know, we said yes. A resounding yes.

So, in mid August, just a few weeks away, I'll suddenly be "Mom." And you know, I'm scared out of my skull. This poor kid! Does she realize I am a terrible housekeeper? Will she be able to deal with our wacky schedules? Am I equipped to handle teen troubles after 3:30pm? Will she regret her decision when she finds out I can be given to uncontrollable laughter? And Hubby plays Guitar Hero... really really loudly. Jeez. Shouldn't we think about how to divvy up chores? Rules? Meals?! She'll see how scary my hair is in the morning. She'll probably see Hubby hooked up to his snore machine. I cry during Oprah sometimes. What if she needs advise about... like... things....or stuff?

More than anything, though, I'm absolutely thrilled. I know we're imperfect, but who isn't? What a glorious chance to share our home. What a beautiful chance to positively affect such a beautiful and brave young soul. Opportunities to do such a thing come along rarely, if ever. How fortunate are we to find ourselves in this position!

Funny. With all our struggles to become parents, in a strange and most unexpected way it's found us. I keep hearing Booker telling me, "Oh girl. You always go t'ru the back door everywhere you go. Some people go t'ru the front door, some they even wait to get invited. Not you. You make your own way. And that's okay. Just remember, that's who you is, girl. Go open the door and walk in."

So... here we go!

Pulling Weeds

2011-07-31T23:20:00.002-04:00

Guess what I did this weekend? And I thought, before I finished writing this Sunday offering, that I'd write something inspired by and an echo of the tone of this little excerpt from Thoreau's Walden:

Consider the intimate and curious acquaintance one makes with various kinds of weeds — it will bear some iteration in the account, for there was no little iteration in the labor — disturbing their delicate organizations so ruthlessly, and making such invidious distinctions with his hoe, levelling whole ranks of one species, and sedulously cultivating another. That's Roman wormwood — that's pigweed — that's sorrel — that's piper-grass — have at him, chop him up, turn his roots upward to the sun, don't let him have a fibre in the shade, if you do he'll turn himself t'other side up and be as green as a leek in two days. A long war, not with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans who had sun and rain and dews on their side. Daily the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead. Many a lusty crest-waving Hector, that towered a whole foot above his crowding comrades, fell before my weapon and rolled in the dust.

Instead, I found something else. A bit darker.

Pulling Weeds

I must hunker in the dirt

knees hammered in mud

in order to do this work

Must stoop down so close

that I can inhale dark

earthy scent of moist decay

Must pry through shoots

follow webs of vines grown

in complex tangled labyrinths

Must trace them to the source

entwine my fingers, grasping

each stem to pull by its roots

Must wrest twisted undesired

invaders that choke out lush

and verdant delicate blossoms

I must spend days here or weeks

here or months and years here

prostrate to this never-ending task

Helm Full and By

2011-07-24T20:29:00.001-04:00

It's been a long (shamefully long) time since I have made good on my promise of Sunday poetry here on ye olde blogge. Not really sure why, but my muses have been silent until today. The refrain of this one kept bopping around in my head this morning and wouldn't leave me alone all day. I've cherished carving out a little time to write it this evening.

Ah, the title- for those of you who don't get down with the sailing lingo, is a command for when you set a new course at the wheel. Not sure where I picked that up. I sailed with my folks as a kid. I was the "winch wench" on the Holly Too. As I recall it, I coiled all the ropes neatly for everyone doing the real work. Wasn't really in charge of steering the boat. Later, I did some sailboarding and loved it... though you don't have to give a lot of commands on a sailboard. Unless you like talking to yourself.

Anyway. Thanks for reading!

Helm Full and By

I have been anchored here for so long

chained to a darkly deep underneath

a place that I have never even seen

I have been anchored here for so long

staring at these same distant horizons

tethered floating in an untraceable circle

I have been anchored here for so long

that when I reach down to feel my keel

I discover only years and years of bilge

I have been anchored here for so long

it is time to pluck from my teeming hull

the rocky colony of clinging barnacles

I have been anchored here for so long

I must ignore the mildewed smell of

heavy cloth as I unfold it in the sunlight

It takes all my strength, my shoulders,

my legs my hands, my back, my breath

to crank the weedy chain up link by link

It takes my faith to haul on the halyard,

peer over the bow, swing the boom and

let the wild winds impregnate the sails

How Low Can I Go? Real Real Low, Apparently.

2011-07-21T12:06:00.002-04:00

I need to admit something a little embarrassing. After receiving the news that our first and only attempt at getting pregnant via IVF, just after the hysterical crying of course, a thought passed through my head. "I can drink coffee again."

I know.

But it's coffee. Not only do I love coffee, but the months without it taught me a few essential facts:

Without it, I get horrific headaches.
Without it, I can barely remember my own name.
Without it, I sort of hate everybody and everything.
Decaf is an insulting caricature of the real thing.

I tell you all of this to underscore the importance of this particular relationship. I tell you this so you can grasp the gravity and full tragic scale of the incident I'm about to share.

It's 8am. I pad down the stairs and into the kitchen sporting a Don King hair-do and wearing my pjs, some fleecey shorts adorned with a peace sign on the rear ("peace of ass" shorts, I call them) and a tank top. I've got one thought repeating on an endless loop, "Coffee. Coffee. Coffee."

While living in Chicago, I never would have wandered past my open windows wearing such an outfit. For in Chicago, our windows overlooked a busy city street. Here, however, in our rural setting, we never see people. I might inadvertently flash an errant raccoon or some blue jays, but they never complain.

So, imagine my surprise when, as I stand at the sink filling my glass carafe with water, there is a loud and insistent knocking at my door. I handle this shocking incident (maybe the fifth time anyone has unexpectedly knocked at my door in the three years we've lived here) with my usual grace.

I shriek loudly and drop the carafe.

Water and glass shards go everywhere in a dramatic splashing crash. I stand staring, horrified and dripping, and the knocking resumes. Now I'm drenched and nearly naked and standing in front of an open window, surrounded by a minefield of shards from my fallen comrade. I do what any mature adult would do in this instance. I leap past the circle of destruction, crouch, and crawl past the window to the stairs. I climb the stairs and peer down at the stranger I now have come to think of as the murderer who killed my coffee carafe. I expect to see a creepy giant in a leather mask and black tie hulking at my door. Instead, it's just some young salesmannish looking kid clutching a shiny binder and peeking in the window quizzically. Go away you evil creep, I think. He finally does, climbing into his sedan and rolling evilly and creepily down our long driveway, oblivious to the tragic destruction he's left behind.

It's hard not to weep as I clean up the mess. No carafe = no coffee. No coffee = um... bad bad bad stuff.

After cleaning up and showering, all made terribly difficult by the fact of my fuzzy morning brain, I venture to our local grocery store to purchase the largest and darkest coffee they'll sell me. Coffee ingestion begun, I realize they might sell carafes here, too. They do. But my coffee maker came to me as a promotional deal approximately an eon-and-a-half ago. It's a Gevalia brand maker, and the store does not carry replacements for it. Increasingly desperate and kicking myself for not noting the license plate of the fiendish bastard who killed my coffee so I could hunt him down and stab him with the shards of my dead coffee pot, I select a no-name replacement that looks like it might work.

The next morning, set up the coffee machine: I fill the reservoir with water, I grind the beans, and I unpack the new carafe. Then I almost slip into sobs when it decidedly does not fit. Will not work. I pack the stupid thing back into its box and begin pacing back and forth like a lion in a cage. What am I going to do? What am I going to do?

I examine the machine with a sudden burst of determination. I must have coffee. I can do this.

I select my most sturdy and large mug, sliding it onto the hot plate. I know that if I turn on the machine, it won't dispense the coffee into the cup unless that little nipple looking thing gets pushed up... A ha! Inspiration strikes. I turn on the machine and grab a fork. I depress the little nipple thing with the fork and a thin stream of life's nectar drizzles into my mug.

The phone rings, and it's Hubby.

He: What're you up to?

Me: Um.

He: What? What's wrong.

Me: N-nothing.

He: Well then, what're you doing?

Me: (sigh) I'm... I'm milking the coffee machine.

He: (silence)

Me: Shut up.

It takes forever, but my diligence pays off eventually and I have a full mug of the stuff. Of course, I've made the world's strongest cuppa because I've put in enough grounds for 12 cups and have condensed it into one. It's so strong I could probably chew it, but I don't mind.

Now, I have never ever plugged a company before, but I'm going to plug Gevalia here. That morning, fully functional due to my muddy coffee friend, I get the idea to check the company's website about the possibility of ordering a replacement carafe. It's there, and it's only $14.50. I place my order and the site tells me it might take up to two weeks for my item to arrive. I'm not terribly happy with the idea of milking my coffee machine every day for two weeks, but I'll do it.

But get this. The coffee pot arrives the next day. I love you, Gevalia. You get me. You really get me.

OK Dear Readers. Time to go pour my second cup!

Just Like in the Movies

2011-07-15T01:28:00.002-04:00

I know people say that a lot. You know, "It was just like in the movies."

But it really was.

Well, not the situation- that was more like out of an absurdist play. Or a gun control commercial. Or an absurdist gun control play. But the sound? That was just like in the movies. Saving Private Ryan or Full Metal Jacket or Jar Head.

Like any would-be writer, I try to write for my audience when I post on this blog. This time, though, I think I'm writing this like therapy for myself. Please forgive me that, but I simply must write this story out in order to exorcise it from within me. Because, to be honest, I'm kinda freaking out here. So here goes...

This week, I've been enjoying having my show (Helen of Sparta, promise to write more about that soon!) rolling right along, things at Cool School taken care of for the summer, and a period of no house guests. I've taken the opportunity to go play golf on my own in the mornings and early afternoons and have really enjoyed it. Of course it's fun to play with Hubby and sometimes with his friends, but I've very much taken to being out there by myself. It's quiet, there's no pressure, and I like moving at my own pace. Additionally, solo play has allowed me to work out (at least fleetingly) some bugs in my swing. I've made friends again with my driver (inherited from Grandma) and also my irons.

So, today found me out there wandering around and chasing a very disobedient golf ball. Picture, please if you will, a lovely sunny day... low humidity, perfect temperature. I'm playing behind a guy who's also playing solo and walking like I am. Behind me are four guys playing what I've come to think of as Dude Golf. (It involves backward baseball caps, a constant percussive beat of opening beer cans, and loads of cheerful cussing.) I'm happy. I'm playing well enough not to embarrass myself, and I'm keeping pace with my little golfy-niche.

As I make it to one of my nemesis holes, 14 where I regularly donate at least one golf ball to the stupid creek that drapes itself across the front of the green, I start to hear what I first think are firecrackers. But they're not. I realize it's gunshots. They're off in the distance, I ascertain, beyond the 15th green, over the Olentangy River, and beyond the woods. The shots come in bundles of quick succession. There must be a firing range out there, I imagine. Haven't I seen signs on the highway advertising that sort of thing? I smile to myself as I tee off on 15, thinking how this adds a new challenge to the game. How does one maintain focus when at any moment there might be a crack-crack-crack-crack-crack-crack? I eventually get to the 15th green and share a little jovial moment with Guy in Front of Me as he waits to hit his drive on 16.

Me: Gun shots! That's a good test of our focus?
He: Ah! Gives us something to blame if we hit a bad shot!

Golf humor. (Note that although my golf game is situated firmly in the pre-amateur genre, both my trash talk and golf humor are already in the professional realm.)

I make my putt and am surprised at how quickly GiFoM has putted out and left the sixteenth green. I chunk my drive to a whopping 50 yards or so, but I smack my long iron and land softly on the green, rolling slowly to its far right side. (I've not yet figured out how to put the right spin on anything. I'm always wondering what will happen when the ball lands.)

I hate that 16th green. It's huge and tilted massively difficult for me and I always screw it up. So I'm looking at a side-hill putt of about 15 feet. For a normal golfer, this would represent one, maybe two putts. For me, it could take hours. So, I take a good hard look at it, decide the line I want to take, and I give it my best shot.

Then things kind of go into slow motion. Not really slow motion, but it feels like time goes elastic and every second has about a million things happening in it.

First, I hear something that at first I discern to be a bee. There are a lot of bees humming around this time of year on the course. They don't even bother me anymore, I just view them as impediments to my focus. And then I think it's too high pitched to be a bee. Maybe a mosquito? But then, I think it's not that either. It makes a sounds like, "ZeeeeeeeeeeeeeYeeeeeeeeeewTHIP." I think that it was too fast to be a bee or a mosquito. And too loud. And not at all like anything living. And then there's that THIP at the end. And the fact that I feel a warmth in my whole body. And the THIP sounds like something small being absolutely smashed into the ground right next to me, just off the green. Smashed hard.

I slowly put together the information my senses are telling me. That ZeeeeeeeeeeeeeYeeeeeeeeeewTHIP came just a few moments after another barrage of gunfire. That ZeeeeeeeeeeeeeYeeeeeeeeeewTHIP sounded just like in the movies. It takes me another moment to place which movies and to juxtapose that with the fact of the gunfire. I put together the thought, Was that a bullet?

Stupidly and slowly I begin to make a visual search of the approximate area in which I heard THIP. Then, even more slowly, it dawns on me that I still hear more shots being fired. And even more slowly I do the complex math that tells me I'd be an absolute idiot to spend another nanosecond searching for a bullet while there are still faceless rednecks out there in the woods firing randomly, seemingly oblivious that there are real people playing bad golf beyond those fricking trees. I finally feel my heart begin thrum insistently under my shirt and I pan slowly to find my ball. With some shock I see I've actually putted the thing into the hole.

I feel as though I'm living one of those nightmares we have all had. You know the kind. Where you're trying to run, but everything's gone all gummy. I grab my ball, pop the flag in the hole and plod through a world that's become made of jello, hearing CRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACK beyond the 15th green, suddenly feeling much closer and sounding louder than it had before.

The cart path to the 17th hole takes you over a hill and well out of the impromptu firing range. Something odd happens in my head as I walk over the ridge and onto the 17th tee box. I start to doubt what's just happened to me. I'm just being paranoid, right? People with guns couldn't really be that thoughtless, that horrible? Maybe I imagined it. If I tell anyone, no way they'll believe me.

As though on autopilot, I actually play the 17th hole. But I'm shaking like a leaf. I end up taking 8 strokes to get in the hole. But GiFoM is on the 18th. I hear myself asking him, "Hey! May I ask you a question?" And I tell him what happened to me. What I think may have happened to me. I'm about to apologize for sounding like a hysterical woman, when he trots closer to me and tells me, "Yeah! I heard something in the trees. Not the whizzing sound, but something small zapping through the trees and landing hard. And fast. Really fast. I got myself out of there because, well, it just didn't feel safe. You know, with the guns."

He plays on and so do I. I'm shaking even harder and I feel sick, but for some really weird reason, I play through and finish the round.

My legs take me right to the clubhouse and before I can stop myself, I am telling Steve (the guy behind the counter) what I think has happened. He doesn't look at me like I'm crazy. No. His eyes get as big as tonight's full moon. He tells me that there used to be a guy with a firing range back there, but he's moved out. "Someone," he shakes his head disbelievingly, "must be using it. Using it wrong." He thanks me for telling him and assures me he's going to have it checked out.

I pack up and call Hubby to tell him what's happened. He tells me to get home and call the police. I agree, hop in the car, and burst into hysterical, wracking, gasping sobs. I finally get it together and make it home.

When I call the sheriff's office, they know my story before I can tell it. And the officer on the phone tells me, "We've got our deputies at the golf course and canvassing the area. We'll find out what happened. And we will take care of it."

So now here I am. And I have been on this sort of weird adrenaline roller coaster. Every hour/hour and a half or so, I freak out. For the few hours right after, it was sobs. Then tears. Then a sense of panic. And now, it's just nausea. (Helped immensely, I might add, by a gin and tonic.)

I keep getting overwhelmed by several thoughts.

Had I hit the ball a little more to the right... things would have been a lot different for my parents, my husband, my friends, my family, my students...
Had the ball rolled straight or left, I never would have known the danger I was in.
I hate guns.
I think the second amendment may just be a tad outdated.
I doubt the people who did this will get caught.
I want to go back and find that bullet in the ground and like... keep it or something for some reason.
I don't know how soldiers do it. They need lots and lots of hugs. And good benefits. And more time off.
ZeeeeeeeeeeeeeYeeeeeeeeeewTHIP.
Today could have been it for me.
There is a lot more I want to do before it's it for me.

Why I Couldn't Find a Card for Fathers' Day

2011-06-19T23:56:00.002-04:00

Dad, just a few weeks ago, putting the smack down on some old dudes.

Most dads let their little girl win. Most dads treat their little girls like little little princesses. I'm trying to think of a third thing to say that most dads do, but it's difficult.

Because, you see, my dad is not most dads.

Dad never "lets" me win. If I win (and I have very occasionally), I really win. How do I know this? Dad complains loudly. And usually accuses me of cheating. (Not that his accusation is always incorrect...) And little princess? Nope. He taught me, before I even learned to drive, to change my own oil and to change a tire. He also told me that if I ever got in a fight and hit someone, I needed to make sure I hit that person hard enough that he couldn't get up and chase me. And if that person was much bigger than I, I'd better pick something up to hit him with. (This advice came in useful in the third grade when I found myself in the position where I had to punch a kid named Art. But that's a story for another post.)

When I was a kid, we didn't do daddy-daughter sock hops or dances or tea parties with stuffed animals or crap like that. Nope. But we once built a solar cooker together out of cardboard and aluminum foil and cooked hamburgers on it. We went on daddy-daughter ski trips where we wore ourselves out snow skiing from the time the lifts opened to the last lift ride of the day, subsisting only on cinnamon rolls and giant bags of M&Ms (that we also winged from the chair lift to hit fallen skiers who had the misfortune to crash beneath us). We spent the summer after my junior year in high school touring the California coast ostensibly to pick the best college for me (I ended up going to Knox College in Galesburg, IL of course), but really managing to use most of our time to play doubles volleyball against any takers we could find. And, if I might brag a bit, we kicked some serious ass. "Not bad for an old man and a kid," Dad still tells any audience we can find. We also write and share stories and poetry; once sang together in a talent show (we were robbed!); made monkey faces at the dinner table by stuffing upwards of ten grapes in our mouths at a time; tortured my poor mother with pranks; sailboarded together; now golf together; and have always shared the same peculiar, off-center, usually inappropriate sense of humor.

So, I'm a unique kinda Daddy's girl because I have a unique kinda Daddy.

And I wouldn't trade him for the world.

Thanks, Dad. I love you. Happy Fathers' Day.

(Oh. And he agrees with me that it ought to be "Fathers' Day" and not "Father's Day" since the day is not for one father, but for all of them. Punctuation ninjas of the world, unite.)

Farewell to Destiny the Dingocat, aka Fur Ball...

2011-06-09T09:34:00.001-04:00

...aka Nut Bag, aka Furry Face, aka Dingobat, aka Sweet Girl, aka Spazzy Cat, aka Des....

We lost our beloved kitty last night. She died in our home, fighting until the very end, with both of us there. Hard to adjust to life without her spunky meows, sudden mad dashes, mouse torture, ankle biting, and most especially her purring cuddles.

Thank you all for the well-wishes and kindness.

In Praise of Fight Club

2011-06-07T19:55:00.001-04:00

Here is why I love my wicked cat. In the question of fight or flight, there is no question with her. Even at her current weakening 6.6 pounds, she can be moved in an instant to ferocious furry fury. Just ask the vet and her tech. I tried to warn them that though Destiny was very lethargic and unwell, they ought to respect her. Even she tried to warn them, like when the vet leaned over to peer into Destiny's little carrier and was met with an unearthly screaming hiss followed by all of her feline might being hurled at the screen, claws first. I recommended gloves, but they poo-pooed me. When blood was drawn, they shouldn't have looked at me with such surprise.

See, the thing is, she's tough.

She came to us from the mean streets of Chicago. We'd seen her, a tiny wisp of fur, stomping around the urban jungle, for a few months. Figuring her for a feral lost cause, we hadn't thought we'd meet her in person. We both remember seeing the neighborhood kids throwing things at her. We'd yelled at them and wondered that although she'd ducked behind a tree to avoid getting clocked with a rock, she hadn't run away and had glared at them, puffing her fur on end and stomping over to the puddle of water she'd been drinking from. So later on, just hours before the season's first snow, I was shocked when I looked down while unlocking my front door to see her staring up at me as if to say, "Come on. Hurry up. It's cold out here, idiot." Opening the door, I felt sure she'd run away, but she didn't. She marched right into our house, even though Hubby had loud Phish blaring out of his stereo speakers. From that moment, she became ours. That's not right. We became hers.

I have grown to admire her toughness. I feel like I can and ought to learn from it.

For example:

When something pisses you off, bite it. That's the only way it will learn.
When something scares you, put your claws out and smack it. Best cure for fear is a confident attack.
When you're unhappy, meow constantly until someone fixes it. If you don't complain, they won't figure it out because people are really thick.
When you're happy, purr loudly. If you don't, they won't realize they should keep doing that because people are really thick.
When someone wants your love, make them work hard for it. Otherwise, they take you for granted. And then you'll have to bite them.
When you sit somewhere, make sure its a sunny spot and that you look great in it. Live your life like it's a piece of art.
When you've done something really bad, be sure to look really cute. It helps.
When in doubt, fight. If you choose flight, you'll never know what could have been.

Sadly, Destiny is very unwell right now. We're trying to figure out what exactly is wrong, but we do know there's a giant ugly mass on her lung and she's wobbly and not hungry and sleeps all the time. Somehow, I think she understands the nasty meds Hubby and I jam down her throat are meant to help her heal, for she doesn't bite us. (Doesn't exactly submit easily, either, but I would be extremely worried if she did that. This is, after all, Destiny the Dingocat made famous from these previous posts.) I like to think her meanness and aggression might just be the key to possible recovery. Who knows. If she can make a veterinary professional leap backward with a bitch slap through a cage, maybe she can do the same to this nasty thing that's decided to take up residence in her chest.

Watching her try to muscle her way through this unfair card she's been dealt has clarified for me why I love this little demon cat. At times, I have wondered. I've got scars on my ankles and hands, our nice leather furniture bears the marks of her bad behavior, she's torn the head off of a mouse, and she once punctured the eye of another cat. So, yeah. I have wondered why I've stuck with her. I've even had friends I care for and respect suggest that I get rid of her. But I never have. In fact, I feel lucky she picked us.

Your Expected Wait Time Is Five to Five Hundred Thousand Bazillion Years

2011-06-01T23:38:00.003-04:00

When I read this post from my fantabulous friend over at MommyNaniBooBoo about her near death experience with AT&T, I was reminded of this post of my own in which I bemoaned the death of customer service in this, our Age of Fee-Based Service.

I shouldn't have laughed. This obviously interested the gods of industry.

See, I received a courtesy email from the company with which we still have our archaic "landline" phone. It's really not even a landline, it just acts like one. It's really internet based. I'm sure it's slanderous or something to name the name of the company, but let's just say it rhymes with Bonage. The email tells me that they're super happy to tell me that they will automatically renew our pre-paid annual plan without us having to lift a finger. The $250 cost plus another $50 they attribute to "fees" will buy us another year of fantastic service.

Please note, we receive calls from four people we know on this phone. Both sets of parents. That's it, really. The rest of the calls are from telemarketers. And we get a lot of wrong numbers from Chicago, since the area code is still a Chicago area code. My favorites are the calls for some place called "Red's Lounge." I have built this place up in my mind as being a total dark dive of a jazz joint. Often the people calling for Red's Lounge are vendors looking to sell different alcoholic beverages, but sometimes we get musicians. Once, a guy named Skinny Ray (or something) left us a message that he was a "helluva sax player." Something about his scratchy voice and, let's face it, super cool vibe moved me to actually call him back and let him know he'd called the wrong number. "Danks, baby doll. Real nice a'ya," was his reply. Totally worth it. I felt hep for days.

All this sort of romantic blah blah isn't quite reason enough to pay $300 per year. And now that my Dad has moved back to the States, we don't need the international calls either. (Even if he did live back in the UK, we'd just Skype, right?)

So, I follow the web links to the, uh, Bonage site. I go through several prompts and when I finally tell it that I want to cancel, I'm told to call.

I speak to two different people. The first woman tells me she has to wait for something to process, and in the meantime grills me about why I want to leave and tries to entice me to stay with a slightly less crappy offer than the one we've had for five years. I tell her thanks but no thanks and ask again that my account be cancelled. She thanks me for my patience (with no sense of irony) and tells me she has to transfer me to an account manager who can cancel my account.

"Your approximate wait time is less than three minutes, we thank you for your patience." I hear this recording five times during the ten minute holding pattern while I wait for what sounds like the same woman to pick up the phone and run me through the same opening questions about account numbers, PIN codes, and names. She lets me know I'm a valued customer and have been with... er... Bonage for over five years and is sorry but I need to hold while something or other processes. And in the meantime, she has offers to discuss with me. I cut her off and tell her I just want to cancel.

"I understand that you don't want to hear about the $19.99 per month plus fees and taxes plan."

Eventually, she tells me that my account is paid up through July 1. I can either cancel effective today or cancel effective July 1. Of course I want to have the service I paid for, so I say July 1 will be fine. More holding as she tells me rather proudly that I won't be charged any cancellation fee. "That's something Bonage will never do," she says, as though expecting me to start weeping and begging her to come back. "And so now I have written down what we've discussed today. And you'll just need to write down this reference number and call back July 1 to cancel."

"Wait... what? I have to go through this again July 1?"

"Just to get your cancellation number."

"Give it to me now."

"I can't, ma'am. You'll have to call back July 1."

"Then just cancel me now."

"I've sent you an email with everything in it. The reference number will expedite your call."

Dazed, I write down this reference number (which, by the way, has the word ASS in it... really!) and hang up.

When I check my email, this is what it says:

We're delighted that you've chosen to stay with XXXXXX.

We're writing to confirm the terms you discussed with our Account Management representative on 06/01/2011 to continue your service on the following plan:

XXXXXX World(SM) Annual Prepay Plan

This plan is associated with the phone number(s) listed above.

As discussed, you'll continue to receive service on your existing plan.The plan period includes service from 07/02/2010 to 07/01/2011. Your plan will automatically renew according to the same terms on 07/02/2011. Thereafter, your plan will automatically renew at the end of each plan period.

I feel like I'm in some absurdist play.

So I was wrong in my earlier post where I posited that we had moved from a Customer Service Era to a Fee Based Era. We now live in a Make So Hard to Cancel Anything That People Just Give Up Era.

____
Addendum: This process took 28 minutes.

Temporal Disturbance (or Birthday Wish)

2011-05-30T23:36:00.003-04:00

I hope, dear Reader, you might see your way to allow my Sunday poetic offering to be a day late (though I hope not the proverbial dollar short.)

It's almost my birthday, a big one, an odometer flipping one... I'll be turning the big 4-0 later this week, so I've been thinking a lot about Time. Funny thing, true thing, is that I love my birthday. And I'm very much looking forward to this one. My thirties saw some great victories and some greatness, but by and large they were a struggle! I'm ready to kick them in the butt and bid them an impassioned farewell. (By the way. 40s? If you're listening? I have high expectations for you. You're officially on notice.)

Be that as it may, I am also becoming more and more aware that Time is also kind of an overachieving jerk. That's the place that inspired this week's poem.

Temporal Disturbance (or Birthday Wish)

Does Time never get exhausted

from spinning this rock every day,

of shoving us around the sun?

Could it please take a rest and

stop pulling my soft body down,

quit stamping creases in my face?

Time, such a heartless force,

makes moments of occasions,

eternity of soon and not yet;

and cruel cruel Time drags out

all mundanity and life's tests,

yet rushes me from your side.

Quantifying the Ineffable

2011-05-29T01:47:00.000-04:00

This week, I came across this Washington Times article that reports on recent findings by the National Research Council indicating the nation's dependence on standardized testing as a measure of educational effectiveness handcuffs teachers and does a grave disservice to students. To most educators, this news could hardly be less shocking. What shocks us is the fact that the nation's policymakers seem determined to ignore these and other similar findings, continuing to tinker with the standardized tests but refusing to dump them altogether.

I posted a link to the article on my Facebook page this morning and received a thoughtful reply from my best friend and fellow teacher, Mel. She expressed succinctly the cry of many teachers. "...we're all about numbers and measuring even though true learning is completely ineffable and unmeasurable."

Our current national policy seeks to apply the techniques that steer our businesses toward monetary success. In the business world, you set up benchmarks and you reward measurable successes. Problem is, of course, that students aren't widgets. And learning isn't manufactured. It's a messy, squirrely, slippery act that changes not only with each individual student, but can also change within that student depending on such factors as what he ate that day, the weather, or who got cut on American Idol that night. Too, when a company manufactures a widget, there's tangible and inarguable proof that a widget has indeed been produced. When a teacher inspires learning, tangible proof often does not exist within the neatly filled in bubble of a standardized multiple choice test. Often, the proof of learning occurs outside the classroom or deep within the psyche of that student years later.

But here is where we teachers need to, I'm sorry- and I'm running the risk of being kicked out of the faculty lounge here- suck it up.

We do not have the luxury of demanding the destruction of Scantron standardized tests if we cannot offer an alternative. To cry that standardized tests are inadequate has no merit if we cannot offer another way to do what these tools nobly (if poorly) attempt to do, which is to measure and track the effectiveness of our curricula.

This whole issue has been scratching at my door recently, as I have been asked (in my capacity as the head of the Language Arts department at Cool School) to present to our board a five year plan that centers around measuring our effectiveness. Up to this point, we've done it through (you guessed it) tracking test scores.

Presented with this challenge, I've been doing some research. Everyone warns against using test scores alone, though nearly everyone admits that test scores must (due to the current national emphasis) factor in somehow. I also, wisely, went to the experts: my fellow teachers in the department. Our discussion was absolutely fascinating and my colleagues proved terribly insightful. (Why aren't they running our national programs?)

What we came up with was a combination of metrics with which to track our effectiveness.

Student self-assessments: We're designing self-assessments that include our departmental standards in written expression, literary analysis, and rhetorical/critical thought. We will ask our students to fill these out at the beginning and end of every course we offer. We hope that tracking the trends indicated by this tool, we'll be able to see whether or not our students feel improvement in our standard areas.
Teacher assessments: We're redesigning and tweaking our grading rubrics to more closely reflect our standards. As we assess our students throughout the year, we will archive the results so that we can track overall trends. Let's hope we see a trend toward improvement. If not, though, we'll be able to target areas that need extra instruction.
Peer assessments: Peer reviews are always fraught with problems when they're done carelessly. Often peer reviews ask students to assess areas they don't have the training to assess: a kid who doesn't grasp the semicolon can't comment on that piece of misunderstood punctuation. Our peer assessments will be a bit different. For example, one standard for written expression requires that students written work obtain clarity. So, we'll ask peer reviewers to write the main idea of a piece of writing, say, a poem. If that matches the author's intended message, great! If not, that is an area requiring improvement. Again, we're interested in the overall trends as we archive peer assessments of student work.
Parent assessments: As Cool School parents tend to be very involved in their students' education, we're fortunate that we can rely on this important demographic to complete beginning and ending assessments about their students' work.
College performances: We'd love to track how our graduates perform in their first college writing and literature courses. This may be the most difficult to track, as it requires our alums to participate. It may be the most important area, though, so we'll give it a shot!
Test scores: Yep. Parents at Cool School want to know their kids can perform above the rest on these. So we need to care, too.

Although we've invented none of these ideas, tracking the results over five years is new to us. I'm excited to see what happens.

How would you assess and evaluate effective learning?

If

2011-05-15T22:00:00.000-04:00

If

If I were to

unpack the contents

of my quavering heart

spread them out under

bright lights on a table

If I were to

set out my ingredients

all in a neat and tidy row

my tender central truths

my boundless devotions

If I were to

display the rest of it, too

my growling selfishness

my insatiable hungers

my wailing secret terrors

If I were to

label every last piece

clearly, in waterproof ink,

not just the parts that care

not just the parts that throb

If I were to

simply filet my soul and

lay it down with the rest

would you- could you-

should you take it all?

Jingle Mama

2011-05-09T23:52:00.001-04:00

My new pals over at Jingle Poetry continue to support poetry in general and little ol' me in particular. This time they posted an article I sent their way about the passing of Maria "Mama" McCray, a Chicago performance poet. Please take a minute to drop by their site and check out not only my article in their Sunday Dispatch, but their site, which promotes all causes poetic with great energy and passion!

Thanks Jamie and the Jingles!

By the way, they had a little trouble posting Maria's essential recordings... three of her most rocking performances. I'll post it below for you! If you have difficulty streaming on this page, please go to her page I've created on Archive.org here. Either way, listen to "From African..." (her signature piece), "Old School" (it'll make you laugh!), and "Sol," which, for my money shows off the full range of her performance power. Enjoy!

Trick of the Light

2011-05-09T02:29:00.000-04:00

http://blackiechan-fuzzball.blogspot.com/

For those of you wondering which is greater, poetry or plumbing, you've come to the right place. I have your answer. It's plumbing.

This is my clever apology (excuse) for not quite posting my Sunday poem in time. A major watery catastrophe had me wearing gloves, wading through goopy liquid, hauling buckets, and -at the most exciting climactic moment- trudging through Meijers at midnight looking for a 1 1/4 inch > 1 1/2 inch adapter thingy- and not at my laptop posting this poem for you.

But, the disaster has subsided (though still not totally fixed) and I can now post.... Enjoy!

Trick of the Light

at first it seemed a trick of the light

a morning shadow mirage but my

fingertips detected its texture so

I slid my nail under the edge

pulled at the plaster digging

until I made a tiny slit

it was slow work

a little at a time

every day

until

light

slipped

squeezed

through and I

put my eye up to

the hole I'd created

and saw a world that

looked like mine and yet

more alive and verdant and

all full of realized potentialities.

May's PoMoNaPoWriMo Retro

2011-05-03T00:08:00.001-04:00

Photo credit link

Well, folks, we made it through April's National Poetry Writing Month challenge. You inspired me to create 30 poems (of varying length, style, subject, and quality) in 30 days. I had a great time with the project. Committing to the challenge required that I spent each day actively seeking out the poetry hiding in my mundane activities or drifting about in my psyche.

I took some time tonight to review not only this year's verse-a-thon, but I also looked back at my posts in April of 2009 when I took my first swipe at NaPoWriMo. (I skipped last year, though I wrote some poetry in March 2010.) Reading the poetry of my past (recent and more distant) is a little like examining the sediments of my self. Back in 2009, my poetry was mostly about the spring season. For the most part it was nature-driven and light-hearted. This year's has a much different vibe. And I seemed infatuated with themes dealing with the ambiguity and strange dichotomy of existence, with icons of my past, with living life large and with reckless abandon, and with the poignant and powerful pain associated with self-discovery and personal awakenings. Oh, sure- there was also a little nod to Pound, a little femme fatale, some anxiety, and of course- goose love. But the overall tone this year was much more heavy hitting than it had been in the past.

What an interesting way to traces one's evolutionary path. I briefly wondered as I posted my final NaPoWriMo2011 offering what it might be like to commit to this for an entire year. Imagine that! Well, I did imagine it, but only for a moment. Instead, I think I will commit to something slightly less mad... I'll commit to a new poem every Sunday. Church of Poetry, sort of.

In between I'll pontificate about whatever strikes me, as I have all along.

And until then, here's a poem comprised of the titles I used for this year's rally.

PoMoNaPoWriMoRetro, Yo

A ghazal for Anne saved the space between

with a lifewish to remember how to breathe.

Just walkabout blossoming and then sleep.

Find an answer edit on an oak branch in the fall

Like a kept man labryrinth in October.

Farewell fuzzy math! The big wu li shines

available light for a Halsted morning bus ride

to Planet Booker where the sum of the parts

makes your self-image, but it's just one damned

thing after another, except Maria Mama McCray

who'd say just ectomy your katabasis or suffer

rare but serious side effects to your spirits so go

dig war stories in an ode to the goose of parking

space 49 with the chaos theory.

NaPoWriMo 30: Chaos Theory

2011-04-30T23:56:00.002-04:00

A plot of the Lorenz attractor for values r = 28, σ = 10,b = 8/3.

In classic Danielle fashion, I'm sliding this last poetic offering of the 30-in-30 NaPoWriMo Poetry Rally of Madness under the door just in time to live through the deadline. I've had a lot of fun this year and feel really proud of myself (not in the scary Donald Trump way... plus, I have better hair) for having made it and for having made so many new e-friends along the way. Special thanks to the support from Jamie Dedes , Jingle Poetry, Into the Bardo, the Promising Poets peeps, and Maureen Thorsen over at NaPoWriMo.net.

Chaos Theory

I now perceive the concept

that everything is nothing.

Proof adorns the heavens,

all full of empty expanses

interrupted by infrequent things.

Look down inside the atom, then,

a nearly barely no thing whose

quarks make up every single thing.

And even you, my treasured

Friend, you are a combination of

nuclear nothingnesses forming

a pattern I divine to be divine.

This body of mine, too, is only

a perceptual constellation

designed by your mind's eyes.

So when we think we're touching

it's really a matter of overlapping

patterns of anythings in the void.

NaPoWriMo 29: Ode to the Goose of Parking Space 49 (In Five Parts)

2011-04-29T22:26:00.002-04:00

The Goose of Parking Space 49

Every once in a while, each teacher at Cool School gets tapped for a week of "opening duty." This means we must arrive at approximately 20 minutes before Godawful Early in order to open the building and sit with any students whose parents must drop them off that early due to work schedules. Being a strident critic of mornings (I used to refuse to speak before the double digits), I absolutely despise this week. This time, however, I experienced a rather fascinating phenomenon during my early arrival that I had not shared with anyone... until now. It came in the form of goose, one which has become rather notorious at our school for its cruelty: students, teachers, administrators, and parents have all reported having been attacked (sometimes verbally, sometimes physically, often both) by this feathered menace. Our facilities manager has built wire fencing around its favorite flower boxes where it likes to roost. And our arts teacher created a fake coyote that she erected in the parking lot in hopes of scaring it off. My heart fell when I pulled into the lot to park in my assigned space, #48, and saw that our foul fowl had parked himself in the adjacent space #49.

I'll leave the rest to today's poem.

Ode to the Goose of Parking Space 49 in Five Parts

I: Monday

In Kung Fu movie slow-mo, you stood to your full impressive height

as I rolled through the damp grey.

You eyed me with a curious intensity that made me nervous.

For I had heard your reputation:

the spitting and hissing, the aggression and chasing.

Locked in our gazing duel,

I edged my way past you, trying to look big, fooling nobody.

II: Tuesday

Like a gentleman, you rose as I sped into the lot, a bit late,

in fact, you seemed not to mind.

You took a step back as if you sensed my anxious mood.

For I had hit snooze four times

and got caught behind a tractor and a school bus.

I felt sympathy in your look,

as I hustled past you, to get inside on time, panicked.

III: Wednesday

As did Gatsby in Nick's doorway, you hunkered in the rain,

blinking at me forlornly from your puddle.

I understood at once how difficult your night had been.

For you had withstood wind gusts

and torrents of angry water spiking down for hours.

I wanted to say something,

but I didn't have the right words, so I exited silent.

IV: Thursday

With a hint of eagerness, you shifted from foot to foot,

waiting for me to gather bags and join you.

We stayed standing together sharing delicious blushes.

For we both had caught each other's smiles

and then we fell silent and unsure that other car pulled in.

We might have spoken I think,

but our mood had been broken by loud talk radio.

V: Friday

Playing the part of gallant knight. you arise in pure majesty,

greeting my mechanized arrival like royalty.

For this kind of thing happens only in film

and sometimes in novels but never in parking lots.

I avoid your eyes though,

and wonder what you'll think when I'm not there tomorrow.

NaPoWriMo 28: War Stories

2011-04-28T13:10:00.002-04:00

Study for Crouching Nude by Frances Bacon

Maybe it's because I'm about to make a massive switch of gears in teaching my American Literature course, moving from the imagistic and superficial but glamorous world of Fitzgerald's Gatsby into the unrelenting brutality of The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. I had this poem written fairly early this morning, by about ten or so. I just had the worst time finding an image to go with it. I hope that doesn't mean my poem lacks strong imagery, but here it is.

War Stories

We compare scars in secret places-

soft pink rivers clinging to our bellies

left over from past battles when we

were too slow to dodge bullets,

defensive wounds slathered across

forearms we once used as shields

fending off blunt clubs and bayonets;

the ghosts of stitches strapped across

our backs laced hastily in fox holes

tell the stories of enemy ambushes

sneak attacks we never saw coming.

In quiet conference we can admit to

tactical errors we made that caused

mortal wounds and collateral damages

and together we then bow our heads

to mourn all that is missing and lost,

sharing our private regret-thoughts

and engaging in dreams of If Only.

NaPoWriMo 27: Dig

2011-04-27T22:56:00.004-04:00

http://www.inglebybarwick.com/cnt/history/html/forum/html/forum.shtml

Hard to believe April is almost over and so NaPoWriMo is purring to its inevitable close. It's a case of so close and yet so far for me today. My muse stayed quiet today (I think it's because I've got a lot of chatter in my head, so she couldn't be heard over the din), so I reached for this poem that I had conceptualized some time ago but had never made happen.

Hope you enjoy!

Dig

Picking through the ruins

sifting miles and pounds

of dirt for all these years

requires a thing between

patience and obsession.

To comb pebbled grit for

ancient clues asks of you

the ability to sensibly grid

out the area and approach

the dig with meticulous cool

while fueled by gallons and

gallons of high octane hope

that there hide earthen secrets

worth finding amidst the dusty

layers of mud-caked clay time.

You must plunge into raw soil

gouging deep into the ground

using your fingernails and up

to your elbows every single day.

For one morning under sunshine

you might excavate shards of your

high school Sweetheart dance where you

threw away your first pantyhose

in the girls' locker room while your

friend Shelly asked what was wrong.

Or one foggy evening you might

work free a broken mosaic tile

depicting a scene where you ran

in the rain with horses in a field

while Don Alberto waited inside

sipping tea and crunching apples.

And just before sunset you may

find in the loam a bone fragment

that is evidence of some fight you

once fought to own your own soul

gleaming unburied and exposed.

For if you are to rebuild your city

lay down foundations and pave

new pathways on this ground,

you will need to exhume these

artifacts and gently move them

to rest on exhibition pedestals

protected by glass cases and

clearly dated and labeled.

NaPoWriMo 26: Spirits

2011-04-26T22:56:00.003-04:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pictographs/4464636153/

Not sure about this one... neither how it will come across to you, nor why it came to me. I saw the image in the fifth stanza this morning when I awoke (maybe a dream aftershock?) and then the rest of the scene kept filling in all day, bit by bit. I think I know what it means, but I wonder what you lot will make of it. I could see your interpretation being very very different than mine! At any rate, thanks for stopping by.

Spirits

Here, she produced a little bottle,

slid it across the table, her grin

like a titanium shield,

take it... I meant it for you.

And so, asking his own stone hands

to protect the delicate glass,

he picked it up to

peer inside... decode the message.

I have been saving up,

she tossed this after, almost making him

drop it in surprise, all along

without knowing why... she paused.

He thought her thin arm extended

to steady his, but -no- instead

she uncorked the vessel

and then sat back... Go ahead.

Though he expected it to be full,

only a shimmer of liquid played inside,

sloshing like the ocean

gone microscopic... suspended.

Sensing his hesitation,

she widened her eyes in a way

he thought looked good,

For you... if you want it.

Its warmth radiated

through the crystal surface

making him feel small

and immense... and he

could smell it now and

wanted to taste its complexity

and -yes- he wanted it,

he told her... and drank.

Imagining the liquid slide

down his throat she wondered just

then about the taste

but didn't ask... not yet.

Thanks for the Perfect Poet Award!

Check out the other winners here.



Check out my nomination, Jay... some gritty stuff...

I am a perfect

poet. See that logo there?

Proof enough for me.

NaPoWriMo 25: Rare But Serious Side Effects

2011-04-25T23:16:00.001-04:00

http://www.edvard-munch.com/gallery/anxiety/scream.htm

Since the kind people over at NaPoWriMo saw fit to use a prompt I sent in (and even credited me!), I felt sort of obligated to... um... do what I said to do. So, today's prompt brought to you by way of them by way of me... (that is so heavy- light some incense, man):

Today’s prompt comes to us from Danielle Mari at Mission Improvisational. She suggested doing a riddle poem – one in which you write from the point of view of an object or person (or about an object and person), and the poem itself forms a giant riddle.

I love the poem they reference. Not your typical Sylvia Plath. Very fun! And my friend, Jill, who is pregnant as we speak, should get a wry smile from it:

I’m a riddle in nine syllables.

An elephant, a ponderous house,

A melon strolling on two tendrils.

O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!

This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.

Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.

I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.

I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,

Boarded the train there’s no getting off.

So here's mine. And I'll post the "answer"- that is, what it is I'm writing about- in the comments if anyone cares to gander.

Rare But Serious Side Effects

insomnia, drowsiness,

hunger, and nausea;

loneliness, jitters, and severe claustrophobia;

giggles and sniffles and intestinal gas;

selfishness, snoring, and being an ass;

loss of your mind and reduction of humor;

eating disorders and feeling inferior;

imbalance and hiccups and acting unkind;

in general your freak-show roams free unconfined;

weakened relationships and drunken phone calls

while dead plants and dust bunnies collect in your halls;

also the inability to write poetry

So take a deep breath and remember to smile

and maybe some meds every once in a while.

That's Right. I Said It.

2011-04-24T22:08:00.000-04:00

It's always nice to think that somebody (anybody) cares what you think. And the poetical support team over at Jingle Poetry has seen fit care what I think. Read my goofy interview on their fine site right here.

Thanks Jamie and the Jingles for making me feel kinda... you know... cool.

NaPoWriMo 24: Katabasis

2011-04-24T20:55:00.002-04:00

Last year I went through some tough stuff. And back in 2007. And back in college. And back when I was a teenager. And I survived it all, of course, because here I am... not a zombie. Alive. And doing pretty well. People during those times always looked at me with reverence and intoned, "You're so strong." They said this, I know, as a compliment. But it always secretly pissed me off. I mean... I didn't want to be strong. What I wanted was to curl up in a ball, eat chocolate, and cry. What I wanted was to not be strong, to hand over the reins and let somebody else drive, to allow an autopilot (now I'm thinking of Otto from the Airplane movies) to steer through the storm until things cleared up. Of course, none of those options are truly viable in this crazy improv called life, are they?

You know I'm a director, right? I find myself wanting to tell you how to read this poem... it needs stage directions. So, humor me please- as you read this poem to yourself, please do it with a sort of sarcastic tone. Maybe even roll your eyes at the end. Thanks.

Katabasis

There is a special kind of strength

in rising from a fall.

You grow strong in straightening

those tired bended knees;

And muscles mass from scars you bear

within your tired heart-

the side effects of loss and death

you suffered over time,

the fortitude from living life

full speed without a net,

surviving this enduring that

it builds your potency.

Or else you fall and stay and die.

There is no choice, you see.

NaPoWriMo 23: Ectomy

2011-04-23T15:59:00.001-04:00

http://archerpelican.typepad.com/tap/2005/11/index.html

Caution: do not read with a full stomach if you're squeamish! Guess I'm feeling a little gory today or something. Maybe you folks can help me... I thought about titling this "Surgically Removed" but went with this title instead. Do you have a preference? Thanks for stopping by....

Ectomy

unanesthetized on the table supine

gloved fingers gripped either side

cracked wide her groaning rib cage

creaking open along her spinal hinge

with the cool eyes of a professional

she scanned through the contents

around slick liver, fluttering lungs

tangled intestines and aortic tubing

almost gave it up as nonexistent but

something made her lift the heart

palming the throbbing warm weight

to find

it

curled up fetal but ferocious

a blind thing made of teeth and claws

selecting her scalpel steady-handed

she sliced through hard cartilage

releasing it from the grip of tendons

and blood supply without wincing

before placing it in the lidded jar

she took a moment to examine the

surrounding area tissue damage

noting how the scribble of scars

resembled a detailed road map

NaPoWriMo 22: Maria Mama McCray

2011-04-22T22:14:00.004-04:00

http://voices.e-poets.net/McCrayM/

Just recently, I was asked to think about my list of influential poets. It's a long list, of course, and contains the usual dead white suspects, but also many others. I saved my biggest personal influence for last: Maria McCray. I first saw her perform in Chicago back in (I think) August of 1999. On the verge of the great millennial odometer spin, I was working several jobs and doing a lot of gritty theatre. Through that route, I found my way into the lively and rich Chicago poetry slam scene... not as a performer or a writer, but as a supporter and a fan. I remember Maria, tall and slender with long braids (back then) and her glasses. I hardly noticed her as she took the stage, but as soon as she took the stage, I couldn't look away. Within three lines of her performance, I started crying. It wasn't just the subject matter, it was Maria's elemental energy that put me over the top. I wanted to listen to her, watch her, hell- I wanted to be her. Confident in her message, a primal force of nature, she performed several pieces for us. She had us in the palm of her hand, conducting us to cry, laugh, think... and did I mention shout? Thinking about her poetry, I looked online in hopes of finding a youtube video or an mp3 of her live performances to share. Instead, I found out that Maria passed away in March of this year. I can hardly believe it even still.

I went down to my basement and dug through my box of poetry and found the book she made by hand of her poetry, Growth. It's full of her poems, her photographs, her handwriting, her drawings, her essence. I feel so lucky to have it. I remember buying it. She was telling me that I was getting a good deal for the few dollars I gladly shelled out. She pointed out that she had splurged for color copies and that she had put it all together herself. I told her to shut up. I knew I was getting the good end of this deal. Man, I'm so glad I bought it.

So, of course I'm writing about her tonight. Wish you all could have met her.

Maria Mama McCray: aka Maria Emarenshana Emiliana Flora Bellena Mazon Bellissima Blount McCray

Maria

She was all sinews and synapses

a vibrating electrified live wire

spewing her hypersonic sparks

eye-popping heart-stopping zaps

rolling and rhyming word bombs

shooting her poetry from the hip

power generator lightning strike

of survival and of motherhood

of soldiering and of smoldering

of prejudizing and harmonizing

Maria

And then later in my car that night

on the way back home past trashcan

fires and broken sidewalks tires

humming on North Ave. metal grid

she confesses to the Chicago River

a war-borne fear of bridges so

I grab her hand and tell her to think

of grandmothers and ancestors

of babies' cheeks and P.H.A.T

of picture poems and performing

Maria

NaPoWriMo 21: One Damned Thing After Another

2011-04-21T22:30:00.001-04:00

http://thedookie.deviantart.com/art/Sun-Yang-Yin-Moon-64623819

With all my meditations (poetic, verbal, and solo) about the incessant nature of time lately, I thought I might as well try to give it the NaPoWriMo treatment. Again, for some reason, the first line catapulted into my head as I drove to work this morning. I'm starting to imagine my muse, kicking back with her cup of french roast, rolling her eyes and casually launching these things at me just to avoid my frantic whining when she waits too long. (And yes, I have taken cold medicine this evening, thank you very much.) At any rate, please enjoy.

One Damned Thing After Another

The sudden sun shouts the morning awake

thrusts nighttime's groggy lunar mists aside

overturns cumulonimbus with muscled clout

vaporizes silver dew, reveals tender emeralds.

Obedient blooms rouse and rise to attention

in strict time to a symphonic aviary cacophony

a unified and perfect choreographed formation

armed with fragrance, to stand atop slain shadows.

But a quiet nocturnal insurrection is brewing

as the solar calvary follows its tedious march

the clandestine resistance crawls in ambush

invading relentless, intrepid shaded sentry.

NaPoWriMo 20: Self-Image

2011-04-21T00:28:00.000-04:00

Forgive my being a tad late in posting tonight! I had a photo shoot to create some promo shots for my solo show and didn't get back home until past 11:30... had the first line of this just rattling around in my head today somehow and wrote as fast as I could. I was stuck until I finally landed upon the last line... and then I had to scratch around in my addled brain for an adequate title. So, here it is, a quarter of an hour late. I beg your mercy!

Self-Image

With spit slicked lips she whispered it into existence,

leaning breath fog close to the mirror, staring fluently

unflinching at her own steady unblinking grey eyes

carbon copy reflected specters glinting shined silver.

It slid out, skating past her stop signs and smashing

crashing through her unsuspecting looking-glass.

(she was the only one who had heard it, of course)

A Between the Lines "Thanks!"

2011-04-20T12:57:00.002-04:00

Wanted to offer a quick, humble, and a little shy "Thanks" to Jamie Dedes and the folks at Into the Bardo for choosing to feature one of my feeble poetic offerings on their thoughtful and artistically done site today. I'm honored!

To quote Sally Fields, "You love me! You really really love me!" (Thank goodness I wore waterproof $11 mascara and not that other kind....)

NaPoWriMo 19: Sum of the Parts

2011-04-19T22:17:00.001-04:00

Another discussion with a friend inspired this one. (I have the most amazing friends, don't I?)

Sum of the Parts

A bare lightbulb sways,

casting moving shadows

all stretching and sliding,

producing the illusion of

all those costumes gaping,

yawning undulating in the

closet in the back room;

but he tells himself no,

knows that really they just

hang there: loose, static,

hollow cases where past

roles once breathed vital,

now still, empty, at peace,

learned, lived, and let go.

He comes in here after

every last closing night,

slips another on a hanger

in sacred reverence or in

funereal silence or, too,

sometimes in utter relief.

Running a hand along

the shoulders of his past

selves, he can remember

fighting, seducing, feigning,

shouting, kissing, longing...

now he stands exposed

and undisguised, peering,

trying to calculate, decipher.

NaPoWriMo 18: Herd Mentality

2011-04-18T22:04:00.000-04:00

Not feeling 100% great today... caught the nasty fever that ripped its way through my school. Been sleeping off and on all day and having truly strange dreams. This poem comes from an image that was left to me in one of the dreams, a result, I think of a deep discussion I'd been having with a friend recently.

Herd Mentality

the herds wander here and there

migrating from task to task to task

they plod along pleasantly enough

every day it's like this, every night

it's like this, every single time it's-

until one day she

just looks up

and notices the sky to be so much

higher than she'd imagined it to be

and even when she looks back

down

she sees cloudshadows skimming the

ground always ahead of her

and she can hear the stars at night

and she feels her heart tick-tocking

and smells ripening and rotting and

now

every way it's like this and every sight

she vibrates and asks and asks and asks

she wonders in the herd there and where

NaPoWriMo 17: Planet Booker

2011-04-17T22:50:00.000-04:00

Although I knew what I wanted to write when I woke up this morning (actually, I knew a couple of days ago...), I still checked the NaPoWriMo prompt today:

Today’s prompt calls for you to write a portrait poem. Your poetic portrait can be of anyone: your mom, Hulk Hogan, George Washington Carver, Snooki, whoever. And it doesn’t have to cover the whole of someone’s life or try to wrap them up with a bow. It just has to try to give a sense of that person. Any form, any style. On your mark, get set, go!

I had to smile because I sort of had already decided that Booker deserved a portrait. Given permission to write his poem, I still found myself a bit blocked. It's hard to write about someone so big and bad and bold and beautiful with his Buddha belly and endless supply of unconditional love. All wrapped up in a super sense of humor and wisdom that rivals the Dalai Lama.

Finally, it came to me. Well, the title did. And then everything else flowed. And here it is. Hope you enjoy. Hope it does him justice. I miss you, friend.

Planet Booker

Here you can breathe easy-

laughter is the standard currency

and donuts work as anti-depressants

and the side effects include sitting in the sun

on rickety old lawn chairs with frayed edges.

Here you must listen to the blues-

because it reminds him of this gal he once knew

and throw your head back to sing loudly

and sometimes he might share his war stories

but only late at night when everyone else is gone.

Here you know you hear the truth-

spoken in plain words through smoke rings

and nothing you say or think is surprising

and everything you do is really all right

because here you are found and celebrated.

Here you can rest hurried worries-

set down your haunted doubts and fears

and trust in the basic ecology of the place

and authenticity wears denim and t-shirts

a cool dude guru rules astronomic atmospheres.

NaPoWriMo 16: Halsted Bus Morning Ride

2011-04-16T23:19:00.001-04:00

Been thinking a lot about the past lately. Specifically, I've been remembering all of the incredible guides I've had along my way in this world... you know the types, those people, some who flash in and out of your life and others who stay a while to become woven into your existence, those people who serve to help you become a slightly better version of yourself? One such mentor (closest thing to a guru I've ever encountered) was my friend Booker. I wrote about him already in this post, but it's not enough. I've been scribbling poetry about him over the past few days. I think he's getting a few days worth of NaPoWriMo time in maybe a little series about him. Man, would he laugh at and be delighted by that!

Here's the first:

Halsted Bus Morning Ride

The #8 rattles

past the hospital blocks

with weary faced scrubs clad nurses

and techs smoking cigarettes

The #8 shudders

past University girls

with bleary eyes nursing regrets

and hang overs blinking in sun

The #8 lumbers

past Greek town now

with last night's opa's still echoing

and morning brunch smells

The #8 lurches

past Maxwell Street

with stale grilled onion scent

and stolen tube socks for sale

The #8 arrives

at 18th and Halsted

with a sigh it eases to rest

and Booker waits on the stoop

NaPoWriMo 15: Available Light

2011-04-15T23:59:00.009-04:00

Under the gun! Halfway home! Day 15! I had a poem started, a long one about my old pal Booker and the Halsted bus in Chicago, and the Pilsen neighborhood. Then I went and saw Skyscrapers of the Midwest with Available Light Theatre and got all teary eyed and moved and inspired and had to rush home to post this just under the deadline.... Hey C'bus peeps. Get your cute little butts over the Riffe Center and see this show!

Available Light

Imagine the surprise

when after years and years

floating through outer space

of hearing only emptiness

of tasting the edges of echoes

when after years and years

of drifting end over end

of swimming and seeking

warmth in the vast coldness

Imagine the surprise

after all those years after

all that time and loneliness

a voice a hand

from the darkness

pointing out

comet tails

and galaxies

that had been there

all along

NaPoWriMo 14: The Big Wu Li

2011-04-14T10:04:00.003-04:00

I once again combined a few ideas that have been playing in my imagination like cats with a toy. On the one hand, yesterday's actual NaPoWriMo prompt challenged us to create a poem quickly (within a five minute time constraint) about something fast. I also had a friend note what I had been noting, that of late, my poems have had a sort of dark and depressing pall over them! And I'm actually happy. Happier than I've been in a long while. (Just recently, I have come off of two extremely rewarding artistic endeavors, have a job I love, will have that same job next year, and have made the most incredibly special and darling friends a girl could ever hope to have. Happy!) So I thought I better create a happy poem, darn it.

This comes from a time, years ago... it was a summer hippy dippy music fest. A great band was playing and it had rained recently and everyone was bare-footed and fancy-free and there together for a shared purpose- get the groove on, shake the funk in the trunk, and have fun. Just a sort of flash of an image that I've kept in my mental rolodex filed under Times When It Was Really Cool to Be Alive. So here it is as a quick five minute poem!

Big Wu Li

conjuring their own weather

bare feet slap thunder

into the earth pounding

moisture from puddlemud

to the bass throbbing beat

unified thumping lub dubs

with ripened hearts and

sweat wicks up bare bodies

bursts out of tossing hair

rains down from the air

breathe in misty bodies pant

radiating shared heat storm

NaPoWriMo 13: Fuzzy Math

2011-04-13T23:04:00.001-04:00

I had the vague need to cobble this one together rattling around in my strange head all day today. I knew I wanted to do something poetic with math... I had read a prompt somewhere some time ago somehow challenging me to "make math poetic." And I also had this image of chalk dust. And so here's the result! (Where does one's head come up with such things?)

Fuzzy Math

chalk dusts her hands

where she used them

to erase her mistakes

smudging miscalculations

where t equalled time

and x equalled all

that could have been

where solving for y

meant searching out

her missing variable

but no matter how

cleverly she wielded

pluses there were

always minuses

and for every factor

she also sensed division

so in the end she just

kissed her fingers

pressed them to the board

leaving fingerprints as

her answer

NaPoWriMo 12: October Farewell

2011-04-12T15:15:00.001-04:00

Used another NaPoWriMo prompt today, and here it is:
Spend a few moments examining an old photograph—a found image, a photo from childhood, an iconic shot from history—and give it a title. Then put the photo aside and write a poem using this title.

I've included the inspiring photo here for you.

October Farewell

no longer

vivid in

ruby or

salmon or

saffron spice,

they curl up

carelessly

rocking on

verdant blades,

discarded and

tossed there by

oaks and elms.

one more drifts

downward, like

the queen of

diamonds lost

mid-shuffle,

to land in

her hair and

tangle there

unnoticed

in auburn

silken grip.

she studies

the stone page

short story

etched in the

earth, told to

the cool soil,

of secrets and

sisters who

never knew

pinky swears.

NaPoWriMo 11: Kept Man Labyrinth

2011-04-11T15:32:00.001-04:00

I admit it. I felt a little guilty about the last poem I posted. I liked it, don't get me wrong. But it felt a bit like cheating... to use poor Ezra that way. Really, the only poetic crafting I did (that I did not steal) was in coming up with the word "animation" as a mirror to "apparition." And I'm not even sure that's the right word. I just rearranged an already perfect poem into a less perfect reflection. (I hope he and his followers will forgive me!)

So, I decided to take on today's prompt, which required much more work. Here it is, again, from NaPoWriMo's site:

Write a poem of at least 40 lines that is a single sentence. Hints: try using very short lines, or else a lot of commas, as though you were a Victorian novel.

I ran with this, playing with the idea of a long sentence (very much in my wheelhouse, since I seem to love to, you know, digress and create thought tributaries) and the idea of a Victorian novel. I think I accidentally also mixed in a little T. S. Eliot as my students have been playing with "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"- specifically, they have been writing derivative poems inspired by it. Some have written from the point of view of the woman who is the object of the poem, some have recontextualized it to make Prufrock speak in modern terms, and so on. I usually try to do the exercises I assign to them alongside my students (they respond better when they see me toiling and scratching words out of my head with a pencil, too), so I think this will be my submission. This could be the feminine parallel to Prufrock?
-----

Kept Man Labyrinth

She wants to ask

is dying to ask really

but can't

quite

make herself because

because of a million reasons why it's a silly thing to do this

to ask him

including the fact that

well, not a fact, since she hasn't yet asked

and she wonders with a sense of quavering

deep inside if she ever really will

and so how can that be a fact

that she has stretch marks and belly fat

that he has read and forgotten more than she will ever know

that he couldn't possibly

and yet she spends a great part

great in both terms of time

and of extraordinary delight

of her day

fantasizing

about this

about asking him

and in some fantasies

the good ones

he says

yes

and in those fantasies

those ones where he says

yes

she imagines just how

his eyebrow raises

and his grin spreads

slowly

like maple syrup

across his stubborn chin

and he smells like

something sweet and something earthy

like something she wants

to burrow into

something warm and safe and dangerous too

and yet

in some fantasies

the other ones

the ones that come at night mostly

upon the zenith of solitude

when shadows have eaten her light

where time between his tangible existence and hers

has elapsed enough to blur memory

he says nothing

not even no

just avoids her eyes

changes the subject

and then she knows

everything would change

it would be over

he might reject her

and so

she keeps him

in secret

with vehement intent

held

unaware

as he goes about his day

prisoner

in her

fantasy

where he may never escape

never reject, nor never neglect

only respond

yes

NaPoWriMo 10: On an Oak Branch in the Fall

2011-04-11T08:18:00.001-04:00

I didn't forget you yesterday. Really I didn't. You see, I performed my one-woman show (Inconceivable! And Other Absurdities), and the build-up to it and the performance of it and then the utter exhaustion and relief of having birthed it left me without energy or words.

I did, though, check the prompt at the official NaPoWriMo site and loved it:

Today’s prompt is a mirror poem. Find or think of a poem you admire, and write a poem that is a “mirror-image” of it. You can make this mirroring quite general, or very specific. For an example of the general approach, if the poem you like is about spring flowers, you might write one about autumn leaves. If you want to be more specific, you can go line by line. If the poem you like begins, “I was a blue bear,” your poem might start with “I will be a red ant.”

Before stumbling into bed and slipping into a mild coma, I chose my "poem I admire":

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

-Ezra Pound

There's a lot to love about this compact little gem! And a real challenge, I think, to mirror. What I love about it? Lots. First of all, that word "apparition" just plain makes the poem to me. (What would I use as a mirror to that?) Also love the juxtaposition of using nature to describe the urban. (Could I juxtapose the urban to describe the natural?)

Here's what I came up with upon waking (with apologies to Mr. Pound):

On an Elm Branch in the Fall

The animation of these leaves on a bough;

Faces in a metro crowd.

*PS- I will write my #11 later today! Promise!

NaPoWriMo 9: Answer Edit

2011-04-09T16:21:00.001-04:00

Not sure what you all will make of this one. Not sure about the title again. I also wonder if the last line of the first stanza is too much? And please don't make any "that's what she said" joke. Unless you really want to. Then, go for it.

Answer Edit

discarded snake skins and spiderwebs

temporary verses on steamed windows

letting honey drip drop slop on the floor

patterns of ant armies across back alleys

oily rainbows on sudden mud puddles

whispered impromptu poetry in private

attention, invention, authentic intention

That is what I should have said

Instead of what I said instead

NaPoWriMo 8: Sleep

2011-04-08T12:57:00.003-04:00

I'm exhausted. And that's my muse today... can hardly keep my eyes open! Thanks for visiting. Please leave a mint on my pillow.

Sleep

Skulking around the periphery

Growling about consciousness

Crowding against somnolence

it

Slips out of sight-lines

Flees fleeting glances

Dances distracting time

and

Cannot keep my mind

Still cannot keep my

mind moving anymore

O

I long to wash across your shore ensconce my body under warm sands let my hair drift in your tidal pull pooling cooling settled polished by salt and surf and sweetnessandbreezes andsunshineandstarlightand mouthandhandsandsoftnessandmight...

NaPoWriMo 7: Blossoming

2011-04-07T06:11:00.001-04:00

Awoke with this thought brought to me via dreaming memory. The central image comes from a moment at a wedding I attended years ago, a wonderful celebration of the union of two people incredibly special to me then and even more special to me now. The man who married these two souls (called Erik and Karen, for those of you keeping score at home), used this metaphor to illustrate the idea of patience. That image remained with me, resurfacing again and again over the years, gaining depth of meaning for me. Here, with apologies to anyone involved on that day, I have made it my own. Hope you enjoy.

Blossoming

Much as you want to

you mustn't.

Wrest the petals,

force them open,

and you'll bruise

fragile silken pistils.

Much as you cannot

you must.

Wait very patiently,

allow water to

wander up the stem,

fatten the bud.

Much as you can

you shall

abide an agenda

set by the sun

whose warm whispers

coax her unfurling.

NaPoWriMo 6: Walkabout

2011-04-06T11:06:00.002-04:00

Thanks to the muses for taking pity on me and giving me this one relatively early in the day so I didn't have to enter Panic Mode like yesterday. This is for anyone who wonders or worries about their wayward wanderings...

Walkabout

Look at that past path

a serpentine/switchback

twisting over

under and and

around up

and and and

down then

it took you

(circuitous like Odysseus)

where you

didn't think you would want to be

away

away a

way to

right here

with me

NaPoWriMo 5: How to Breathe

2011-04-05T23:57:00.001-04:00

Whew! Just getting this one in under the poetic gun! My muse decided to play coy today and stayed cleverly hidden in 11:30pm, where I almost missed it.

How to Breathe

Whenever I forget how to breathe

Cannot make the apparatus work

I step outside to a cloudless night

Press my backbone into the earth

Gaze up at the celestial ineffability

Find myself made instantly miniscule

Under galactic milk spilled skywide

Only infinitesimal against the infinite

And yet

Whenever I forget how to breathe

Cannot make my machinery engage

I rush right out to a bright clear night

Sink back grateful into forgiving dirt

Take in the whole enduring firmament

Find myself made incomparably rare

When compared to all that empty there

A singular thing among no end of nothing

And so

I remember

inspire

then

expire

NaPoWriMo 4: Lifewish

2011-04-04T12:45:00.002-04:00

This one came to me early this morning while driving to work, unbidden yet welcome. That's something lovely about participating in NaPoWriMo; it invites you to search your daily life for the poetry hiding there. It begs you to open your pores, your nerves, your antennae for the (he)art inherent in your existence.

Lifewish

Drive like mad

into the front end

of a thunderstorm

wipers off

windows open

Leave your shoes

sprint across a pond

pounding the ice

with bare feet

shouting your name

Wedge your hands

between a lion's teeth

pry open massive jaws

put your head in

taste his hot breath

Entwine fingers

in the hair of Icarus

lash yourself

to his strong back

and hold on tight

NaPoWriMo 3: The Space Between

2011-04-03T15:33:00.001-04:00

Didn't need the prompt today. In fact, my inspiration came from a rather surprising source- my golf game. (Ok, one friend predicted this would happen, but that friend has obviously never seen my golf game, which is the absolute antonym of poetry.) As I worked on my swing ("swing"), I pontificated about the golden golf dichotomy that dictates an inversely proportional relationship between how hard one tries and how far and straight the ball goes. In other words, think about it and try hard and you may or may not hit the ball past your big toe. Don't think about it, release into a subconscious state of mellow nothing-headed-ness and you might crush it. This is a tough lesson for someone who has as many chatty voices in her head as I do. Today, though, as I found my attention wandering to the sound of the birds, the smell of the earthiness around me, and other such pleasant thoughts, I found myself swinging the club free and easy. I observed in myself a quiet spot, felt it in my breathing- and when I didn't think too much about it I could play.

Ironically, this discovery triggered this poem in my head, which made me absolutely unable to play anymore because all I wanted to do was go home and write it. I quit on the 15th hole and drove home, composing as I went. OK. Enough with the big preamble. Here it is, in all its imperfect glory!

The Space Between

O to dwell in the space between!

That quiet spot of breath

after moaning tide slips out

before it growls back in.

Suspended waiting weightless.

Peace and potentiality.

To live within the space between

would mean floating in the eddy

where hunger and desire

not quite at last already.

In almost quench and satiate.

Need and fulfilling.

Meet me in the space between

unformed dreams and sharp waking

throbbing pleasure and aching pain.

I'll be waiting there you'll see.

Someday soon but yesterday.

End and ellipsis

NaPoWriMo 2: Saved

2011-04-02T11:50:00.002-04:00

Day 2 of NaPoWriMo and I awoke in a bit of a panic about producing a poem! That's not a good sign... So I did a little surfing and found some sites that offered prompts. I do better when I have a prompt or a starting point. I found this site, Book of Kells, and borrowed (repurposed, I guess) prompt number three:

Write a poem that is really a love letter to an old flame. To make sure it’s doesn’t slip into sappy make sure one or more of these words is in the poem: dung beetle, politician, nuclear, exoskeleton, oceanography, pompadour, toilet.

This sounded like lots of fun, so I went for it... though it isn't really a letter and it's not really to an old flame. (God help me that I ever do that- I think most of those old flames oughta stay out of my poetry!) I also found myself influenced by prompt two and borrowed something from it as well:

Write about a poem about a superhero coming to your house and confronting you about something. Somewhere in the poem, you have to state what your superpower is.

So, what I'm saying is that this is sort of a frankenpoem. Ah well. Hope you enjoy!

Saved

(a damsel in distress)

no she never thought of herself that way

just figured her tough impermeable

exoskeleton could repel all those

radioactive stun gun blasts and

nuclear mutant monster attacks

she never saw it happening

didn't notice her

power was

drain

in

g

(enter superhero)

he

may

have flown in

or maybe teleported

she will never know she didn't

see him coming past her force fields

to reach through intermembrane space into

her mitochondrial power plants so he could

remove the kryptonite hiding there that had been

slowly killing her with dull mundanity and good enough

Happy NaPoWriMo!

2011-04-01T09:29:00.001-04:00

As the last bits of stubborn snow cling to the shadows out there, do you find it as hard to believe as I do that it is finally April? And along with the invitation for today's foolishness, comes the annual adventure known as NaPoWriMo** (National Poetry Writing Month). I skipped it entirely last year as I swept up broken bits of my life and learned the art of moving forward instead. But this year, April finds me enjoying life, living fully, loving... everything! So I shall take this chance and try, once again, to meet the challenge brought by our fourth month to write a poem a day 'til May. No promises on quality, here, ok? These will come to you raw and mostly unedited, but that's part of the fun.

So, here is my first offering. I dedicate this to my friend Anne (the woman in the first couplet), as she inspired the line of thought my wobbly attempt at the ancient form of the ghazal describes.

A Ghazal for Anne

Leaning back, she gazed at me.

"What will be your legacy?"

Once I taught some grammar rules.

Will they have been my legacy?

Yesterday I inspired three laughs.

Can that sound be legacy?

A year ago did smash my soul.

Are those shards my legacy?

I've lit a fire in one man's heart.

Is his glow warm legacy?

Other men devoured my light.

Don't let my dark be legacy.

No genes express beyond my life.

No child to bear that legacy.

I've lived, I've failed, I've loved and learned.

Must I pick one legacy?

Danielle Mari? She's still awaking.

Seeking, searching her legacy.

** If you'd like to join the many other poets poeting this month, please visit the NaPoWriMo site here. Or if you'd like to browse some of the other poetry being written, check out the participants' sites here.

I Could Have Titled This Something Really Inappropriate

2011-03-31T22:56:00.000-04:00

Why would I bother to have shut and locked the bathroom door? Nobody was home. Nobody but Destiny. And she's just a cat, right?

So I'm showering. Think lots of suds, lots of steam, that sort of thing. I'm unaware, completely unaware, that I'm being stalked.

Suddenly, and for reasons I'm not sure I'll ever truly grasp, Destiny picks this particular moment to launch a full on attack. Now, let me backtrack a bit and admit that she has shown a cat-like curiosity about my showering before. She likes to walk between the shower liner and the shower curtain along the tub. Sometimes, when she's feeling saucy, she'll bat at me through the thick plastic liner. I always have imagined that her internal monologue goes something like, "What the hell? Why are you IN WATER? THAT IS WATER!!! You're an idiot! An idiot!" And then she swats me to drive home the point.

But this is different. This isn't pensive swatting. No. This time Destiny launches herself, all seven furry pounds of fury, at the center of the shower curtain. She does this with such force that she surprises both me and herself when she plows through the curtain and liner and ends up in the tub with me.

She's instantly covered in suds, instantly drenched, and instantly furious. In a soggy panic, she scrambles helplessly, slipping in this unfamiliar alien landscape, biting and clawing everything in her way. Like a small (really small- she looks like a little pipe cleaner all sodden like that) Tasmanian devil, she whirls and spins and somehow pulls down the curtain and the rod right on top of both of us. Somehow recovering (I'm at this point sort of stunned and trapped, too), she explodes out of the tub and is off like a shot, leaving a trail of water and suds down the hall and around the corner.

All I can think is that now I have a deranged, freaked out, wet and soapy beast unleashed in our poor and unprotected house. I extricate myself from the mess in the tub, throw a towel over my shoulder and take off down the hall, trying my best to dry myself while tracking Destiny. She's gone downstairs (where the leather furniture sits unaware) and I follow, feebly trying to cover myself as I pass by our windows. (The neighbors and passersby do NOT need this scene to tell to their therapists.) I finally catch her, fold her in the towel and realize that as soapy as she is, I need to rinse her off.

The look Destiny gave me as I forced her, apologizing the whole time, back into the still running shower can best be described as baleful. I then had to dry her off and release her, then put back together my poor bathroom and mop most of my house.

If I die tonight, you'll know who did it and I ask that you contact the authorities.

Going Big or Going Home

2011-03-29T08:29:00.001-04:00

I used to hate auditioning. I used to get light-headed and nervous and could not stop my hands from shaking like a junkie in need of a fix. I remember one audition in particular during my Knox College days. I felt my heart absolutely pounding, and when I looked down at my chest, I could see my beating heart moving my blouse... lub dub, lub dub. But after years of sitting on both sides of the audition table, as a director and as an actor, I've (glad to report) lost that panicky feeling.

Now I look forward to auditions. When asked to perform a monologue or two, I feel happy because I get a guaranteed two minutes (or so) of stage time and have absolute control over my material, blocking, choices, and even costuming. But I really love cold readings. For my sane (read: non-theatre) readers, this is when you walk in, get handed a few pages from the script, and then get tossed up on stage to read through it with other auditioners. I can see why this frightens many other actors... it's the great unknown, you have to juggle the script (remembering not to shove it up to your face and block the director from seeing your beautiful mug), connect with your fellow actors, decipher what exactly the lines mean as you read them, and (one hopes wanly) make some sort of acting happen.

In this environment, all my word-nerd tendencies actually come in handy... my decent (and indecent) vocabulary, my infatuation with punctuation, and even my addiction to reading out loud to my students in the classroom. My improv background proves useful, as well. For "cold" readings (though most are more like warm readings... you usually get a few minutes to look over the script before jumping up) are just elaborate improv games-- you have to say these words (that's the rules), but everything else is up for grabs... how you say them, how you react to everyone else, where you move.

Here's why I dig it. It's raw. You get to stand at the edge of creation, jump in (often with strangers), and see what happens.

Having sat on the director's side of the table quite a bit, I learned quite a lot about acting in cold readings. Most actors, I note, make the mistake of being safe. The majority of people up there end up being nothing more than a bunch of talking heads- sometimes very beautiful heads, very articulate heads, heads with nice voices... but safe and boring. (This is true, too, of monologues auditions.) What I respond to, as a director, is actors who make choices. Even bad choices. Just big, noticeable, dangerous choices. From the director's chair, this appeals to me because it means I'm casting a thinking, creative, brave actor who will play hard for me.

It's a good standard to follow in life, too, isn't it? Don't be a boring, safe, talking head. Make big choices. Play hard!

Can't Spell "Heart" Without Art

2011-03-27T23:01:00.001-04:00

Maybe it's that it's springtime (though the cruel temperatures outside seem to deny this equinoctial fact). This time of year always does curious and forward things to my psyche. I'm at once delighted that winter finally comes to an end, bringing longer days with more sunshine- something I just plain need in order to quit submitting to dark thoughts, lethargy, and what might be called The Doldrums. And I am also rendered melancholy by that other side of Spring, the fact that in order for all this flagrant and unabashed life that this time of year boasts in the form of rampant flowers and teeming life and sex just moaning around everywhere, there is also necessarily, to make room for it, mud and loss and death. It's all about dichotomy. Balance. In and out. Death and life. Dark and light. This train of thought is nothing new for me; it's driven me to stab clumsily and poetically at the complexity in these past posts about the season.

Spring just makes me feel so... awake.

And I like feeling awake, even when I'm awaking to painful revelations, though I really prefer my romantic musings to all that. But even those poignant truths of the season. They make me feel so very alive!

When I look around at the greening earth, throbbing with color against the dark mud unveiled finally by its cold and faceless winter white; when I breathe that all in, smelling that complex organic smell of rot giving life; when I hear delighted birdsong and screeching hawks hunting their prey; I am struck by the profundity of life and even of my place in it. It reminds me that I want to live fully, completely. I don't want to wander like a zombie through my days and do things, do anything, without intensity and (even worse) without intent.

I want to live my life as though I am creating a work of art! Intensely. Sloppily. With intent. What if we did? All of us? What if we started the day off by picking clothing that reflected that in some way? What if we cooked our food not for speed, not for fat content, not for concern about blood pressure, but for elegance and beauty? If we cooked for one another as an expression of love, of nurturing. What if we chose our words in conversation as carefully as poets choose theirs? What if we accepted only that from ourselves? What if we demanded it for ourselves?

As I go to sleep tonight (ignoring the forecast for snow I've just accidentally heard), I am going to dream of a world conducted by heart and art. Dream with me?

A Very Neat Monster: Darkly Devious Destiny Devastates Again

2011-03-19T15:15:00.002-04:00

I should have known. Any time she acts sweet, something horrible has or is about to happen. So I should have known when I awoke this morning to Destiny purring madly under the covers, snuggled against me in a drowsy, happy state... almost like a real cat. And I should have been further alerted when later in the day, she curled up on my lap (my lap, for goodness sakes!) and resumed her contentedly lethargic purring nap.

Why am I such a pushover? Such a gullible, gullible girl?

How could I have forgotten that I do not live with a cat. I live with a cute, furry, sadistic psychopath. I mean, she has proven this to me time and time again (see these posts if you need a refresher course) and yet I am time and time again rendered slack-jawed at the depth of her depravity. Surely this latest crime against nature committed by my felonious feline shall cement in my stubborn mind that if Showtime's Dexter were a cat, he would hunt down and capture Destiny, taping her to a metal table, force her to look at photos of her many many crimes, and hiss, "Look what you've done!"

But there is no cat-Dexter. So Destiny reigns supreme.

In this episode, the background information is important. Hubby and I are preparing to go visit my Daddy in Houston. Dad lives on a golf course, so we decided we should take our sticks with us on the airplane. We don't travel via airplane much, and when we do we usually don't travel with our clubs, so we decided to buy a travel bag for Hubby's clubs, but to borrow one for mine to save cost. A kind coach at Cool School happily loaned me his. Awesome possum.

Destiny took interest in the bag, as she does in anything new we bring into the house. This goes for anything. A new piece of furniture? She feels compelled to sit on it, scratch it, rub it. Hers. A bag? Walk inside, sit on, claim as hers. A box from Amazon? Enter, sit, rub, hers. And this golf bag? She instantly curled up on it and went to sleep. Fine. Hers. So Hubby and I thought nothing of it as we watched her sniff it and sleep on it last night. And this morning. And this afternoon. Great. She loves the bag. Fine. Hers.

Hubby decided just now to try the bag out on my clubs, something we hadn't done yet. Explaining that my small clubs might swim in the adult sized bag, he started to pick it up and suggest that we might put straps on it or wrap my clubs with foam....

He: I think foam might be the way to.... (he lifts the bag to illustrate, stops, rolls his eyes skyward, swallows hard)... uh.... hm.
Me: What? I think that will work.
He: (Turning slightly green) We might have to buy this bag from your friend.
Me: Why? What's the-

And then he shows me. Hubby opens the bag to reveal a bloodbath, and what seems to be a stiffening former mouse.

He: Destiny.
Me: (earth-rending scream and flapping arms and stomping feet)

We pieced the grisly evidence together, punctuated by my frequent screams. This poor field mouse, driven inside our seemingly comfortable and safe home by the rising water table level outside, sought refuge in our basement only to be sniffed out by The World's Most Evil Cat. She chased it out of the basement... actually, she probably caught it and brought it upstairs as she previously has been witnessed to do. She let it go and the misguided creature saw the golf bag and thought, "I'll hide there!"

That was Mickey's last thought... well, no. Probably his last thought was more along the lines of, "The horror! The horror!" a la Heart of Darkness. For my cat, my little wicked pet, bludgeoned and pierced and brutalized that defenseless rodent through the bag until it was finally quite quite dead.

Because I love you Dear Readers and because I fear you may want to eat again, I did not take photos of the carnage. Suffices to say the inside of the bag... is... not good. The mutilated mouse is... barely recognizable.

Destiny? She's peaceful and happy. Purring. Psychotic. Mine.

Sigh. How do I break this to the owner of the golf bag?!

Transcendent Pathways

2011-03-18T10:40:00.003-04:00

I've never been exactly comfortable with the term "teacher" in reference to what it is I actually do at Cool School. It sounds as though I, the sage on the stage, stand before a room full of empty vessels and upload my information into their data banks. A sort of human Google Search.

On my good days, though, my job feels nothing like that. On my good days, I'm more of a dancer. For when I'm doing it right, it's as though I'm providing these eager minds the music and joining them in discovering the steps. Or maybe it's more as though I am a conductor, providing the sheet music and sort of directing their energies to make sound into song? Or maybe I'm a head chef. I provide some recipes and they cook it all up with me and for me, experimenting with their own spices and flavors. Yes, I think that's it. For in my job, I constantly feel fed by my students' bravery, their energy, and their insights.

My American Lit students, sophomores, the same ones who boldly trekked into e-Walden with me back here, have just finished reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Throughout Twain's essential novel, they have missed nothing: his complex treatment of Jim's character; his satirical commentary on our education system, societal law, and Puritanical dogma; the strange bro-mance between Huck and Tom; his abolitionist agenda; and the elements of Romanticism and Transcendentalism clashing with Realism. They have, for the most part, loved this novel. (This is not always true- not sure why this group has connected with it so profoundly.) And those who haven't loved it have still managed to respect and admire what Twain is doing. In exploring the novel with this inspiring young group of thinkers, I have to say that my love for the work has deepened considerably. Not that I didn't love it before, but now- borrowing from the fresh vision of my students- I find it simply delicious and nutritious.

Example. One of my students, we'll call him Sam, spends much of his classroom time sitting in the back and looking bored (Mandate #4 in The Teen Book of Student Behavior). Most teachers, including this chef, tagged him as an underachiever, one of those students you have to pull with a rope like a reluctant mule. But Sam's bored expression and laid-back attitude are really clever covers for what has turned out to be a thoughtful, creative, and romantic soul (with a side of caustic humor thrown in for good measure). Yesterday, as we discussed and unpacked the idea of the Mississippi River as a metaphor in Huck, Sam sat doodling. The rest of the class wrestled with the different tone of chapters taking place on the river versus on the shore. They did a laudable job of this, noting the pleasantly lethargic and loose atmosphere on the raft and how it contrasts with the restrictive and often violent uptight mood on shore. Sam, though, finally broke his silence and raised his hand in the manner he always does- sort of jabbing the air and glaring at me a bit, as if to say, Fine. I know this is what you're waiting for.

"The river," he began, with a sigh, "is like this transcendent pathway." I felt chills dance across my arms. "It's almost like a birth canal. Huck starts out in St. Petersburg like this dumb kid with unformed morals. As he moves down the river, he starts to get it... he gets that all he's taught hasn't been right, he gets that Jim's a person, that just because a law's a law doesn't mean it's right, that sometimes you have to do the right thing even when it's a pain in the butt... and then finally he gets reborn at the end and is this fully developed complete human being. Enlightened. New."

The rest of the class jumped in on the conversation, noting too how the river serves as Huck's missing mother figure, providing comfort and nourishment. They added on to this that the idea of rebirth fits with the image of water, of the river- Huck has been baptized in a sense by his journey. Washed of sins and renewed and ready to take on the world in his own terms. Expanding this beyond Huck's personal evolution, other students toyed with the idea of Huck standing as a symbol of America itself... so as Huck evolves into manhood, the country evolves past its Puritan roots and blind acceptance of slavery and into a new era of independent thought and freedom from the confines of the past.

I found myself standing on the sidelines of the classroom and simply enjoying my students' conversation. Finally, one student (a precocious young lady who studies Jung and Shakespeare on her own for fun) turned to me and asked, "Is any of this right? Are we reading this right?" I replied by asking her if the last lines of Twain's novel made sense against the backdrop of their new insights.

But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before.

That's what it's like on the best days!

Chasm

2011-03-15T21:42:00.002-04:00

Shining high polished wood
imperfectly reflects their faces
the older one crumpling hers
like paper with knotted fists
the younger one all slack
hers a smooth stone slab

If you could hear through
terrain of receding decades
hers b l a r i n g siren blasting
through lemon-scented air
underscored with that one's
        silence

In this seemingly intimate scene
where she weeps about betrayal
and she mourns abandonment
you must see none of this none
of these tears mark the tragedy
it's not that

No    It's what's between them
yawning
            gaping
disconnected by empty space
cavernous abyss

Be Careful What You Wish For

2011-03-13T19:01:00.000-04:00

When I first spoke the words out loud, "I think I'm going to apply for this," I spoke them to my cat. As usual, she blinked at me nonplussed and deeply unimpressed with this declaration. I do suppose, in her defense, that it may have been difficult- given she has a brain the size of a walnut- to grasp the gravity of sending in a submission to participate in Estrogenius 2011's Sola Voices festival celebrating female performing artists.

Had I stopped there, I might have been able to leave it at that and go merrily along.

But I didn't.

I text messaged another friend, emailed others, and even told one dear friend live. They all not only didn't laugh, but all (all!) supported me with offers of help and wishes for good fortune. Part of me believed that at least Hubby would tell me I was nuts... not only is the April 15 deadline too soon, but I'm working on a show now, directing one soon, and don't have a director, props, voiceovers, anything. But he instantly liked the idea and jumped past the little details I've mentioned above, and also leapt past the tiniest detail (Estrogenius actually selecting me) and started figuring out how we'd drive to Manhattan for my performance.

Hm.

And those details have been working themselves out.... my director and I haven't yet met-- but she and my best pal (and most reliable and honest editor) have both given me feedback that has encouraged a new and much stronger draft of the script. Another friend who is a sound designer and engineer has reached out to help me with the voiceovers and sound fx. I have a puppet designer making my vagina puppets. (Yes.) AND I have a space, thanks to the kindness of the folks at Columbus Civic. (I need to perform it and record it as part of my application.)

So I'm starting to realize that I'm actually going to have to, like, perform this.

In front of people.

For real.

Somehow when I uttered those words to my psychotic feline sidekick, I hadn't really imagined that far ahead. I think I'm excited about it.... but I'm also terrified. In a play, if people see it and don't like it, there are all kinds of things you can blame. The script. The directing. The other actors. The production values. In a one-woman show written and performed by me about me and from me, uh... there's really no hiding. The prospect of performing this feels a bit as though I'm planning to strip naked, stand on a table in front of everyone under a bright bright light.

This is so very personal. I also wonder if it's worth doing. Will it make people uncomfortable? Will these friends who supported me see it and then feel differently about me? What if it just sucks? What if the writing is bad? What if? What if? And why am I doing this?

I usually hate one person shows... most of them. The idea of them. It seems so pretentious! Who wants to go watch an hour of some nobody talking about herself?

But I guess I'm starting to realize that it's not really a one woman show. It's already a huge team effort. And even though it is incredibly personal.... I do hope it's also universal. Yes, it's about my own particular and peculiar journey... but I think it's also for anyone who's ever gone in pursuit of a dream and then found herself (or himself) acting like a crazy person.

So here's the thing. I think it's going to be ... good. I do! And I'm really completely absolutely tickled and excited that the dream seems as though it will manifest. I'll let you guys know the date!

Gift of Time

2011-03-10T10:07:00.000-05:00

It seems more than a little poetically appropriate that the new grandfather clock would, in a strange waterfall of happenstance, provide me with such a gift. You see, once Hubby found and purchased the grandfather clock pictured here, we realized that we had to find the perfect place for it to sit on our home. After much heated discussion, we settled on this corner of our front room... right where one of our large bookcases loomed stuffed with books two layers thick from top to bottom. To move that bookcase, we needed to move another bookcase out of the way... and to move that one we needed to move yet another... and so on until I imagined us filmed in high speed with the theme from Benny Hill playing behind our frenetic movements.

All of the moving and dust flying exacerbated the severe case of swamp lung I picked up at Cool School (seriously, the place sounds like a tuberculosis ward right now) and sent me into a horrible coughing fit. Hubby, being the gallant gent he can be insisted that I retire from the book schlepping business. Resisting the urge to faint lightly onto our couch while biting my knuckle, I instead grabbed a leather bound book we had excavated in our session of furniture tetris. I had snagged this book from my Grandma's house on the sad occasion of her funeral.

The volume, titled The Voices of England & America: Wordsworth to O'Neill, boasts a copyright dated 1939 and includes poetry, fiction, essays, and dramatic literature. More amazing, it contains throughout handwritten notes from my beloved grandfather. You see, Grandpa loved literature... so much so that he used to memorize poems and perform them for me (and indeed for anyone who sat still long enough to listen). And not just short poems, but incredibly long works. He once quoted me Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven in its entirety, verbatim, without ever seeming to search for a word but instead channeling the poem's very essence and energy all with a very distinctive wink in his eye.

I certainly credit Grandpa with the place in my soul reserved for the love of poetry. How could I not love it, not be fascinated by the ability of some to wield words in wild and wonderful ways, not dive into the fray myself and play with the wonders of meter and connotation? Why would I not want to enter that communion with my granddad, with Shakespeare, Keats, Wordsworth, Dickinson, Alexie, cummings....

This book! I'm reading it on two levels: on one level for the literature within and on another as a conversation with Grandpa. He would have been 23 when he had this book. Such a young man! Would he have read this at Monmouth College? That would certainly explain some of the notes. "Meet May 7- MUST." There are also lines that he just underlined or bracketed. For instance, the last lines of "To Sleep" by one of our favorites, John Keats: "Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,/ And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul." And above Keats's "To Autumn" he has simply written, "Master!" Under the title, he follows this up with, "Most serenely beautiful poem in Eng."

And he liked Robert Browning. I know this because he has written in stern letters, "LEARN!" next to many of his poems. Also Wordsworth and Whitman. And others. Many I recognize from my childhood so much so that I can hear his voice as I read them. And Grandpa, a meticulous writer himself, has even been so bold as to correct some of the editorial material that introduces the poetry. Under Browning's "My Star" for instance, he has (I imagine angrily) crossed out "~~Usually~~ considered to be a tribute to Mrs. Browning." And, I am happy to note, Grandpa loved Elizabeth Barrett Browning, too. He adorned her poems with brackets and lines, stars, and on occasion wrote, "Good!" and "Great!"

In the beginning of the book, Grandpa scrawled, "Literature is writing that endures." In that case, Grandpa, thank you for the great literature!

Mascarapiphany

2011-03-06T01:25:00.000-05:00

This is one of those things that, when you're experiencing it feels Immensely Profound and even Deep. Then, when you share it out loud, it suddenly sounds absolutely silly and goofy.

But as I am not afraid to sound silly and goofy, I'm still sharing it.

As anyone who knows me at all already knows (because it's all I keep talking about lately), I'm in this play. (You! Yeah you! You still have two weekends to come see it. Really. You should.) Set in 1968, the script makes me (a non-make-up, non-fiddle-with-her-hair kinda gal) feel obligated to do my hair in a somewhat period fashion and to make my makeup also hint at the era we're meant to be representing. I fuss with my hair and with a combination of bobby pins, hairspray, and verbal threats, I manage it into something not unlike what the women of the time may have worn. Similarly, I apply makeup, including the annoyingly unforgiving liquid eyeliner. I've failed on the mascara front, though. Danielle wears either no mascara or, when feeling sassy, brown. (I have such fair skin and light hair that black looks completely weird on me.) But my character and in the late 60s? She would only wear black mascara.

So off I went today in search of black mascara.

The wall of mascara possibilities seemed overwhelming. I stood staring at it for a while before turning my focus to the prices. Eleven dollars for a tube of flipping grocery store mascara?! Really?! And for something I wouldn't wear in my daily life, but only on stage. And since I won't likely be acting again anytime soon, I would only be using it for this show? I turned my attention to the six and seven dollar mascaras. Of course, I'd used that mascara before and it left ugly little dark flakes on my cheeks. And that one ran like Usain Bolt. And that one made my eyes water.

I looked back up at the eleven dollar version. I'd heard good things about that one.

Then I thought it. The big thought.

"Are you kidding? I'm totally worth eleven dollars. This is ridiculous. I'm getting that one."

And I did.

I left the store feeling empowered and happy with myself. And yes. The mascara was quite nice.

I've Got Humble Pie on My Face

2011-03-03T14:02:00.000-05:00

If I were a brassy general in some invading army, I might expect this sort of thing. Also, if I happened to be the college coach of some down-on-their-luck, under-dog-Daniel-v-Goliath athletic team prone to inspirational half-time speeches.

But I'm not.

I'm just Danielle.

And yet, in recent days (... can it be? ... Yes, I believe it is.... only 48 hours?!... indeed...) I have been on the receiving end of an army of people, a team of friends, all leaping to their collective feet to support a cause. My cause.

Let me explain. Just two days ago, while perusing stray emails, I came across a notice about this fest, Estrogenius 2011. The creators seek submissions of, among other types of feminine performance artistry, solo pieces. Long time readers may know it, but newer recruits may not, but back in May 2008 I wrote and performed such a piece in Chicago, just before moving to Ohio.

Since that time, I've frequently thought of my poor neglected one-woman show, but have left it like a piece of old gym equipment in the basement of my mind. There it collected dust, and although I always mean to use it again, the powerful fact of inertia and my life's soul-sucking roller coaster turns, made me (at least subconsciously) assume it would never again see the light of day. Too, when I wrote it, I had been at what amounted to Ground Zero to the events it chronicled. I had not the distance, temporal or psychical, to truly feel happy or satisfied with the ending of the piece. I remember just slapping any old ending on it before packing it away in the musky corners of my mental cellar.

Reading about Estrogenius, though, excited and inspired me enough to flick on the light and head downstairs to see what hid beneath the dust cover. I quickly reread it and felt delighted and deeply shocked to discover that the ending I had written over 900 days ago resonated a deeply profound truth today. Had I been wise? Or only lucky? I'll take either, I suppose.

Via chat, I mentioned this to one friend who demanded to read the script. I sent it and received, almost instantly, an email that started:

Just finished.

We have to do this. Somehow. Because I love this.

Inspired by her enthusiasm, I began to work out a rough idea of the logistics. Estrogenius wants not only the script, but a dvd of the performance, a promise of an NYC mailing list, and a marketing plan. I'd need a director to look it over and get it ready. I'd need a space in which to perform it. I'd need a recording studio to re-record my voiceovers. I'd need a videographer who would also be willing to edit... for free. I'd need NYC contacts, mailing lists, a place to stay if I actually have fortune smile on me and I'm chosen. I need someone to create vagina puppets for me.

I sent out a few inquiring emails.... now, 48 hours later, I have a director. I have three leads on recording studios. I have two ideas for videographers. I have one performance pretty well assured (an excerpt) and a lead on two separate performance spaces. I have several NYC pals who responded with offers of help and even marketing ideas within hours of receiving my email. I have already amassed a small but loyal ready-to-go audience. And I even have someone excited to make vagina puppets.

Humbled.

Now I guess I have to do this thing, eh?

By the way, this pie is scrumptious.

Sowing My Hey

2011-02-28T19:48:00.001-05:00

Back in college at Knox, I became deeply interested in the language of improvisation. Inspired by our improv troupe, wittily named the Second Suburb Improv Troupe (in a wry nod to Chicago's Second City), I found myself unable to stop thinking about the peculiar and ineffable language of "making it up as you go" on stage. Our little troupe, though far from professional or polished, really did work as an ensemble. During our rehearsal process, we not only learned the basics of good improv (thanks to our fearless student leader, J.T. Gorham), but we also developed into a cohesive group. Onstage, over and above and beyond and below the scene as it was taking place, we were able to communicate to one another by eye contact and by... vibe... I guess as to whether or not we needed help, needed an idea, had an idea, or had a great line to end the scene.

This kind of communication happens, too, with great musicians. Jazz combos, while they play their notes and trade their eights, also communicate to one another above (or below?) the notes as to whether or not a solo is running out of steam, if one phrase has particular fuel, if they want another round, etc. Along this line, I love the tale of Phish, who shared a game they play called "finding your hey." In this game, each band member gets to jam with the others holding a steady rhythm. As the soloist noodles around, he eventually finds a lick he likes and yells, "Hey!" The next band member builds on this until he finds his "hey!" And so on, until the whole band is jamming in "hey" bliss.

My fascination with this tele-vibe communication inspired me to write and produce a play, in which I tried to meld the two fields of theatrical and musical improvisation. Though the play was fairly well-received (thanks in no small part to my stellar and devoted cast) and I earned my honors for the work, I think I was only marginally successful at exploring that magical improv telepathy that happens on stage in at the local dive bar. (Or giant arena, if you're Phish.)

And these days, I'm finding this communication can happen on stage even in (extremely) scripted plays, like The Price, in which I am now fortunate enough to be acting. A talky talky play with complex emotional terrain to navigate, we actors at times find ourselves lost or at least somewhat un-moored in its sea of ideas. But we four performers have worked so hard together, been so open with one another, taken the process so to heart that we can now read one another. While some part of my conscience is playing character, a totally different part- my actual self- is also conversing with my fellow actors throughout our 2 hour jaunt through Arthur Miller's circus. I know when my partner needs me to just go on to the next line versus when he's found a new moment that may elicit a longer pause than it did last night. And he can tell when I need help. And he gives it to me. Another partner can also tell that the sound of my knee cracking as I kneel down is making me laugh inside. And I can tell he can tell and that he thinks it's funny, too. This all happens so quickly, so fleetingly, that it's almost subliminal... but it's absolutely real, thrilling, and electric.

I'm currently in the limbo days-- that is, those days between performances and with no rehearsal to feed my need-- so I've found myself daydreaming about the play instead. (I'd normally be at rehearsal right now or listening to Emmy, our stage manager, tell us that the house was now open.) And today I've been pondering that telepathic vibe talk that we do, and looking for it in my day to day non-stage conversations. I think it happens everywhere. That student is telling me in words that she didn't have her homework, but she's also transmitting that she had a horrible night of some sort and needs some leeway. On the other hand, that kid is begging me to let him take his quiz tomorrow, and at the same time admitting through the ether that he just didn't study because, well, he had more fun things to pursue. And my friend shows off her new engagement ring casually, but with a bursting happiness exploding under her calm assurance that she knew he was about to ask.

It's a beautiful thing to behold, all these impromptu heys! Hope you all find some of your own today.

Thank you... by Which I Mean Shut Up

2011-02-26T17:00:00.003-05:00

As much as I am luxuriating in the completely rewarding and fulfilling process of acting (by the way, of you don't mind a little horn-self-tooting please check out the awfully kind review of The Price here), I have one eye toward my next theatrical endeavor. Over the summer, I will be spending the warm and sunny months holed up in some dark space shuffling actors about in hopes of doing justice to a great script, Helen of Sparta. Written by the same playwright as last summer's theat-venture, Jacob Appel, this piece leaves trees behind and instead embarks (get all those puns?) on a comedic mash up of Greek mythology.

In honor of that, I took the opportunity to sit with my pals at Raconteur Theatre Company and watch the Unified Auditions hosted and arranged by Theatre Roundtable. This is your typical "cattle call" audition- a parade of people taking two minutes to show off their acting chops. You've seen this kind of thing if you watch American Idol, I suppose. But the real thing is a bit different. You don't get a slightly anesthetized Paula Abdul giving you hope, nor do you get a delightfully crusty Simon ordering you to rethink your life.... (I know, Mel, they're gone now! People, go to Mel's blog if you want more Idol. I don't watch it, but I DO read her pithy take on it.) What happens is you get your two minutes. At one minute fifty seconds, a guy with a stopwatch stands up. If you're still talking after 120 seconds, he says, "Thank you." If you still haven't finished in another 10 seconds, he then says, "THANK. YOU." Today, we had someone who still talked, causing him to say, "THANK! YOU!" I sort of hoped the rebel actor would keep going so we could see what happened next. (Perhaps, "Shut the hell up!" Or maybe a flying tackle? We'll never know.)

I've now been on both sides of the table in this scenario. Many times. It may surprise you to learn that I think it far less painful to be sitting in the audience than it is to be standing alone under the spotlight.

At least when you're acting, you have it all under your control. Sitting there in rough judgment, you have to just sit there and let it play out. The lady with the hair from the set of Steel Magnolias. The dude who bends over and shows some serious plumber butt. The poor girl who would have, had Simon actually been there, left in angry tears, for our surly British friend would certainly have let her know that her singing is... not good. The kid who mistakes volume for energy and shouts everything while glaring through his eyebrows.

But far worse than that are the countless others who are just plain boring. They know their lines, might even know what they mean. They may have attempted some blocking, though many just stand there. All in all, there's no... oomph. No choice. No point of view. It ends up a very beautiful voice reciting words.

It made me appreciate the bold and plucky minority that make choices. Even bad choices. And before you accuse me of being cruel and unusual in my level of snark, rest assured I did find some great talent there today!

The whole thing made me wish I could write all of the dramatic wallflowers letters. Or chat with them. Go for it! I wanted to say. Don't worry so much! Play. For God's sake, play!

Come to think of it, I find myself wanting to shout that at people on the street, too. So, go play today, Dear Readers! For God's sake!

And I promise not to say THANK YOU.

Flying my Idiot Flag

2011-02-22T00:20:00.002-05:00

I get looked at as though I'm an idiot a lot. Most of the time, people are nice enough to not add, "Boy, you're kind of an idiot," but it's often implied.

It happens when I tell people that I teach high school. There is often shivering, coughing, or a sympathetic moan. As though I was condemned to my profession, instead of the truth- that is seems to be my vocation. It happens, too, when I tell people that I like to write... I blog, I write reviews, I dabble at poetry, tinker with my own plays, a one woman show I've got in me that I haven't really let out yet. The writing thing, people ask, "Have you been published?" Nope. Cue the boy-you're-an-idiot look. It happens, too, when I talk about my spiritual habit, my soul's work, theatre.

For instance, last week, I went out to lunch with some teacher friends and passed out postcards for the show I'm in now, The Price by Arthur Miller at Columbus Civic Theatre. "How do you have the time for it? When are rehearsals?" I tell them that we rehearse in the evenings usually 4 days per week, but now it's tech- so it's a bit more intense. Then, "Why?! Do you get paid?" Usually not. "Do you get fame and recognition?" Nope. There's the look.

I'll admit that recently, I've asked myself the same questions. Sometimes it got to the point where I was working hard, spending all my non-existent free time to make the visions of others come to life. I more than a few times found myself acting in a production with a terrible script, or with people who just didn't care enough to show up when they said they would, or with companies wrought with (gag) politics.

This show, though, has reminded me why. Because I freaking love it. That's why. This script, while flawed (I think it gets a bit over the top and could use some cutting), still packs a wallop. It's Arthur Miller- so it's bursting with quotable lines that make your knees weak. "The big decision is always the one you don’t realize you’re making until the results start coming in. And then you’re stuck with it." The process has been unabashedly heady, intellectual, and feels like an emotional excavation of character more than ... acting. And my fellow actors (and our ever patient, ever calm stage manager) have made the process soul warming. (You miss that kinship when you direct, by the way. As the director, you're... mom. So lovely to be one of the kids again instead.)

I do it because I love to slip into someone's skin, to borrow her thoughts, and in doing so to find and define truths about myself. I do it because I like to be part of transitory beauty. I do it because I love actors. I do it because it's fun to dress up. I do it because it's fun to play.

Go ahead look at me like I'm an idiot. Totally worth it.

Sometimes Parallel Universes are Full of Idiots

2011-02-01T15:17:00.002-05:00

It’s been about four years since I first gazed at a grainy black and white screen to see what looked like Picasso’s version of the female reproductive system. My reproductive system. The shards of memories from that day still slice through. My forehead tingling with sweat. That cramped feeling running like a rod from my gut through my throat. The unmistakable look of pity overwhelming the young medical tech’s face as he accidentally catches my eye. The nurse placing a cup of oj in my hand as I feel the color drain from my cheeks. And it’s been about three years since I sat in a hotel room and stuffed my hand in my mouth to keep from screaming when Hubby and I listened to a different nurse telling us the two little blobs we had named Thing 1 and Thing 2 wouldn’t turn into babies.

Since then, things have gotten easier. My shattered soul re-healed. Hubby’s shattered soul re-healed. Our marriage has weathered these storms, withstood the crucible. In the process, we discovered our love for each other is more than enough to make a truly happy life together.

But a part of me still clings to parallel universes. In one, we become one of the miracle couples everyone seems to love to tell us about, and I wake up in glorious puking pregnancy. In another, where we keep trying IVF until it works, it somehow works. That part of me finds herself peeking at articles reporting new advances in IVF and fertility treatments.

Like this one about shared risk plans.

The article isn’t terribly exciting- nothing new to me here. What gets me are the comments some people left:

Janette Smith (janettetsmith) wrote:
Jeez. There are plenty of children that already exist available for adoption, then you don't have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to increase the population of this already overpopulated planet.
Tue Jan 25 20:36:20 2011 Recommend (13)

Miss M (marceline) wrote:
I have a tough time thinking of fertility treatment as "essential." As some people have already noted below some people are more interested in having a baby than being parents. Not to mention, the planet is plenty crowed as it is.
Tue Jan 25 13:13:19 2011 Recommend (4)

K C (Kals) wrote:
I have no sympathy for people who would rather spend thousands and thousands of dollars trying to make another baby when there are already so many unwanted children in the world. If you can get pregnant on your own, great, I'm happy for you. If you can't, ask yourself this: Is your baby looking like you worth possibly risking it's health, your health, and all your savings? Wouldn't you rather know that you're giving an unwanted baby the opportunity to have a family instead of growing up in foster care?
Tue Jan 25 12:48:21 2011 Recommend (11)

Carmen del Coro (carmenalex) wrote:
www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/trends.htm  What I find sad is that a lot of people that can't have kids don't even think about adoption as an alternative. so many kids are already here that deserve a good home.
Tue Jan 25 11:59:35 2011 Recommend (17)

For real!? THIS is what you come up with? Wow. Listen up, people.... and by “people” I mean Ignorant Judgmental Ass Monkeys...

Adoption isn’t cheaper or easier. It can cost more (also not covered by insurance) and often takes longer than IVF.
It’s not my job to adopt just because I happened to draw the short fallopian tube. You so into adoption? You go adopt.
It’s about my boobs, not my looks. I want to feel life growing inside, what it’s like to breast feed... it’s not that I want to create a child that looks like me. (In fact, I’d rather s/he look like Brad Pitt or Taylor Swift.)
You don’t get it. If you have kids or don’t want to have kids, shut up. You might think you get it. You might feel sympathetic. But just as I don’t know what it feels like to be a man, to walk on the moon, or to be pregnant-- you don’t know what it feels like to find out you don’t have the answer to the biological imperative.

Ah well. The good news is that on days when I start to feel sorry for myself and feel a little sad, posts like this fill me with enough rage to let my anger keep me warm. And, in hindsight, Janette, Miss M, KC and Carmen do- in their own ways- make a compelling argument for infertility.

The Real Power of Authentic Nowness

2011-01-22T13:04:00.002-05:00

A post from my pal Lissy over at I Hate to Weight got me to thinking... In her post, she discusses the fact that she's learning to love living make up free(ish), and she meditates on the way she (and we all) tend to spend so much of our precious time covering up who we are with an image of what we think the world thinks we ought to be. (Especially women-- though any members of the other side of the gender fence can feel free to pipe in and tell me how wrong I am.)

We slick over freckles and uneven skin tone with globs of foundation and various powders. We cover "unsightly blemishes" with medicated pastes designed to camouflage while they raze zits. We cinch, push up, lift, separate, smooth, hoist, and squeeze with various undergarment contraptions. We scrutinize colors, patterns, and fabrics to assess their ability to emphasize or slenderize. We straighten up, curl up, and finally dye.

How exhausting.

And whom are we really trying to fool? And why?

For how long have I been doing this? Surely, in those early years of reckless and youthful abandon I rejected the societal norms and allowed myself to just be me, thumbing my nose at authority! I remember those years. I was a total rebel. I didn't listen to Top 40 music. Too common. Too mainstream. Instead, I listened to alternative music... opting for all those dour bands like Depeche Mode and The Cure and The Smiths who wore black, moaned a lot, never smiled, and crooned mournfully about girlfriends in comas, disintegration, and working on pipelines. I didn't wear the fashionable stuff Teen Magazine told me to wear. I wore ironic and sardonic t-shirts and rejected popular hairstyles when I chopped my hair off short. I rolled my eyes at just about everything I could and felt contentedly satisfied with my wry sense of superiority when I looked at all the sheep-ple around me.

Thinking about all of this inspired me to look back at some photos from that time period. The site of these photos shocked me. Without looking at them, I was able to maintain this myth I'd created of Younger Me as a self-confident pioneer. But looking at them, I felt that myth dissolve. I have never shared photos of me on this site before, but I just have to share these so you can get what I mean.

Here's Cheerleader Me early on in high school prior to my change into High School Rebel Me:

As I looked at this photo, I found myself transported back to the day the photo was taken. I remember feeling terrifically insecure as I stood next to my teammates. I felt... get this... fat. Fat!? If I could go back in time, Now Me would slap the crap out of Cheerleader Me.

Here's a shot of High School Rebel Me all dressed up posing for my senior picture. I had gained weight since the days of Cheerleader me. I felt that my cheeks were too pudgy and that my face looked fat. I used to tell people that I looked like Yoda in this shot. And I felt it, too. Now I look back and wonder where I got that idea! I feel saddened remembering that I used to stare at my bare tummy in the mirror and want to punch it for being so so fat. Now I look back and think how softly pretty I was.

Here is College Me. I'd gained even more weight for this backstage photo before performing Truvy in Steel Magnolias. One of my best lines in that show was, "I've always been built for comfort and not for speed." A great line. But getting cast in the role where I had to speak those words convinced me I was definitely chubby. Now I look at that shot and think I looked healthy and great.

I could post more recent pictures: Grad School Me, Second City Me, Secretary Me, Married Me, Teacher Me, Depressed Me, Nervous Breakdown Me... And I think it's all more of the same. I thought I looked horrible. And admittedly, Depressed Me gained a LOT of weight... emotional and physical. And the years and their accompanying sets of tragedies and roadblocks have added wrinkles and sags. Here's the thing. All those Me's hated having their photos taken. But you know what? They were all Me. A person doing the best she could. A person who now, in retrospect, looked anywhere from fine to beautiful. And you know what else? I'm glad the random photographers caught me in those moments. Those photos are precious to me.

I look at more recent pictures of Now Me.... here's one- I feel weird not putting up a recent one- and I am bound and determined to like these photos and more importantly those that are to come. More than that, I am bound and determined to find a way to like Now Me, banishing those silly "not good enough" thoughts. And you know what? It's not so hard. I like this picture! (Thanks for the cool hat, Cuz.) Could it be that Now Me is finally wise enough to get it? Like who you are where you are right now. Why wait for later?

Or is it so sane I just blew your mind?

2011-01-21T17:32:00.002-05:00

I'm teaching my Emily Dickinson unit at Cool School. Often, when I invoke the name of the "belle of Amherst" I get eye-rolling. People tend to think that she's sort of quaint, cutsie, and too girlie. I guess it's because of that image we all have of her, prissy and in her white gossamer gown, sitting alone in her house, writing on little scraps of paper. That and the facts that her poems have a regular rhythm and they rhyme.

I used to feel that way, too. Especially in high school. I found Keats far more romantic and melancholy. With Whitman I learned to yawp. And in ee cummings I found a poetic rebel, thumbing his nose at grammatical law and beating punctuation into submission.

Over the years, though, I grew to appreciate Dickinson's work for all of the above reasons. The body of her works (not the poem I'm highlighting here, but others) ache with romantic melancholy. There's a sassiness, too, in much of her work. (See if you agree that it's in this poem I'm sharing today.) And what some editors tried to correct, her Seemingly Arbitrary use of capitalization and the bizarre Dickinsonesque Dash... that's a real poet there cashing in on her hard-got license.

Most of the time, I try to ignore a poet's biographical information... I don't want to assume the speaker in any poem is the poet's voice. But I find it hard not to hear E.D. speaking from the page when I read her works. Her loneliness, her reported fear? distaste? of dealing with social life, her taste in unattainable men (be they pastors, married, married pastors, or just plain not interested)... it all radiates from her words.

See if you agree. It's a snow day here today, so I decided to put together a special presentation for my class next week. I'm embedding it here. I recommend making it run on auto-play, but do what you will.

Much Madness is divinest Sense by Emily Dickinson on Prezi

Let me know what you think. And tell me if you'd like me to ruin all her poems by telling you something about how to read them... I warn you... it does ruin them :)

Long Live the King

2011-01-17T16:20:00.000-05:00

Media is abuzz today with honoring the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I am glad so many people are taking the time to remember the iconic man who helped fuel this nation's much needed Civil Rights Movement. I've been home studying lines for my next play (more on that later), grading papers, and planning the next few weeks of lesson plans for Cool School with the radio on in the background. I've caught snatches of some of King's famous speeches, especially the most famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Analysts, historians, and other members of the movement have discussed the power of his oration, his ideas, and his inspirational life.

I want to honor King as a writer here today. I recognize the Dream speech as one of the great accomplishments of our country's literature, but I think my favorite has to be "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." The speeches are meant to be heard, but this- this is meant to be read slowly and savored. To study it from a purely language-based point of view reveals Dr. King to be a fantastic wordsmith, a mighty wielder of rhetoric, and a pretty brilliant language tactician. It also proves that passive resistance does not equate with wishy-washiness, civil disobedience is not wimpy. Au contraire.

We don't have to look at the whole thing, though here is the full text if you want it. Just a taste will satisfy. Want to take a look with me?

It starts with an author's note.

*AUTHOR'S NOTE: This response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama (Bishop C. C. J. Carpenter, Bishop Joseph A. Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop Holan B. Harmon, the Reverend George M. Murray. the Reverend Edward V. Ramage and the Reverend Earl Stallings) was composed under somewhat constricting circumstance. Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while I was in jail, the letter was continued on scraps of writing paper supplied by a friendly Negro trusty, and concluded on a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to leave me. Although the text remains in substance unaltered, I have indulged in the author's prerogative of polishing it for publication.

LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL
April 16, 1963
MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN: While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should indicate why I am here In Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here I am here because I have organizational ties here.

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

This next paragraph contains so many quotable insights, I hardly know where to begin. Here, he appeals to his audience as human beings and as Americans:

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?

If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. King, as an American, a civil rights supporter, and as a Language Arts teacher, I thank you. And happy birthday!

Hey Gift Horse. Say AAAAAH....

2010-12-20T18:59:00.003-05:00

This is the season of giving. Right? Any gift should be appreciated for the spirit in which it was given.

And I really do like giving... it's one of my favorite things.

But I also really love getting. It's also one of my favorite things.*

And I love chocolate and sweets. But if you happen to be, say, the parent of a student of mine, please think about the fact that lots of students give me gifts (on account of either my general awesomeness or the fact that it's really hard to earn an A with me... I'm not sure... and I'm not sure I want to know). A lot students give the gifts of sweets and chocolates. One or two gifts of chocolate and sweets are great. Twenty or thirty such gifts amounts to overkill. And don't look at me like that and even suggest that I don't personally eat all of those sweets and chocolates and things. Come on. We both know I'm not capable of saying no to that plaintive, sad little chocolate truffle sitting there looking all forlorn. And give it away? Really? Hahaha! It's me. Have we met? So really, I have no choice other than to eat as though I'm being fattened for the slaughter. And blame you.**

I know. I know. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth... Though I can honestly think of a lot worse places to look inside that gift horse... and for that matter, wouldn't it have been a GOOD thing for, say, the Trojans to have looked inside that gift horse way back when? So really, looking inside a gift horse is really a good thing. So I'm helping here. Really. Think of it as a gift.

*(Is that wrong? I hope not. If it IS wrong, maybe you ought to email me and let me know... but send me an I-Pad first so that I can read your email in style and the sting of your criticism will be greatly reduced by the thoughtful spirit in which you gave your gift.)

**(Except you, Mrs. O. Your cookies and baked goods are so incredible that I will be sad, upset, and very angry at your kid when I'm grading papers if I don't have those cookies. Every year.)

Spinach Teeth, Deadly Sneezes, and the Art of Insignificance

2010-12-17T17:57:00.001-05:00

My beautiful friend over at MommyNanniBooBoo reposted an amazing bit of writing (and by amazing I mean hilarious) in which she describes what it's like to live with anxiety. Or, as I like to think of it, what it's like to be alive.

I know some of you are going to be shocked by this. (Dad.) And others of you are going to go, "Well, DUH" like when that friend of yours who you've always assumed was very very gay makes a huge deal of coming out. Others (including Dad, I'm going to guess) will disagree with the diagnosis, as I did for a long time. (Thinking about it made me... well... anxious.) But, yes, it's me.

Mommy NBB's list is great, and I'd like to add to it:

When anyone is angry or in a bad mood, I'm absolutely 100% sure it's something I've done. It might even be something you didn't know I did, but I know I did it, and I'm sure it's made you angry.
While waiting to cross the road and/or when waiting for a bus or subway, part of me is sure I'm going to somehow accidentally step in front of the large moving object and become roadkill.
When eating alone, I'm sure I'll choke and have to do the Heimlich on myself.
When I'm eating with you, I'm sure you'll choke and I'll have to do the Heimlich on you.
My cat is going to kill me in my sleep. (Really, if you knew her, you'd say I'm just being realistic, not anxious. Seriously, if I die in suspicious circumstances, tell the authorities to question Destiny first.)
When, in a time of weakness or insomnia, I watch something stupid on tv (reality tv, any Lifetime movie, Fox news), I have the itching suspicion that I'm going to die with that tv show on and everyone will say, "Did you hear what she was watching when she died?"
I'm afraid I'm going to paralyze myself when I sneeze. Look here. It happens. Kind of a lot.
I always wonder if you know what I'm getting at. If you know what I mean.
I read the literature with my prescriptions very carefully and am certain I'm going to exhibit one of the "rare but serious" side effects. (BTW- my anti-anxiety med lists "uncontrollable laughter" as a side effect, which I think is reason enough to take it.)
At a party, when I'm telling a funny story and everyone's laughing, there's a part of me that suspects everyone is just humoring me and that I'm not that funny. Or that later you're all going to talk about how I wouldn't shut up. Or that I already told you that story. Or all of those.
If you scratch your face or touch it in any way, I'm positive you're trying to tell me that I have a booger in my nose or toothpaste on my cheek or spinach in my teeth. Or all of those.

If you look at most of those bullet points up there, you'll see I'm reading the world as though it is a book written for and about me and me only. The thing I've discovered in accepting my little label is that (now this is shocking...) it's not all about me. I know. I know. I've completely ruined your entire grasp of the physical and psychic laws of the universe, but it's true.

So it's been sort of nice, in the process of embracing my inner freak, to learn that I'm entirely unimportant. And in being so unimportant, I don't really matter all that much.

Do you know what I mean?

Back from E-Walden

2010-12-09T22:49:00.000-05:00

So I made it. And a good many of my students did, too- though I think we all felt a bit surprised by how difficult we found it to disconnect from our digi-selves for 48 hours. If you remember, I described in my last post how Thoreau's Walden inspired me and my students to embark on a 2 day digital sabbatical. We eschewed our connections to what I came to call "the crowd in the cloud"- no cell phone, no computers, no i-pods, no radios, no television... no nothing that would take us out of our present moments. We strove to be fully present in our here-and-nows.

Some failed spectacularly. Although, that's not entirely accurate. A few just plain refused to participate. They suffered the wrath of those who dove into the project. One of the Refusers puffed up his chest and declared, "I won't do it. It's a punishment." I also heard reports from my many impromptu spies (faculty, staff, parents, and students not even in that GRADE) that he had bragged that he was pulling on over on me. But when his classmates cornered him during one of our discussions about how the sabbatical affected us, they criticized him pretty ruthlessly. "You think you're a rebel," cried one upset young lady, "but you're not. You're a conformist. You're doing what everyone else is doing. We're the rebels. Not you." Even the failures were successful in teaching us all lessons, I think.

And then there were those who had little slips. She hopped up one morning and checked her email without even realizing it. He started to text without thinking. She HAD to watch just one song from Glee. He, dying of curiosity over what he might be missing, gave in and checked Facebook. When asked what he'd been missing, he replied bleakly and not without a sense of humor, "A bunch of nothing."

Finally, there were those of us who proudly soldiered on and emerged as purists. In this crowd, there tended to be glowing smiles not unlike I imagine Moses wore when he came down off the mountain. One young lady, stuck on a bus ride to an athletic event for an eternal 90 minutes each way found herself as the only passenger not plugged in-- nobody else was in my class. But another student saw her lack of electronic leashes, asked what was up, and promptly unplugged herself. "We talked for the whole bus ride. About everything. We got to know each other so well. It was amazing." Another student who serves as a Big Brother had complained he would need to email his Little Brother. I suggested he just go visit. "The kid was so excited to get a real visit!" Yet another student had the misfortune to get a stomach bug one of the days. Excruciating, the prospect of sitting at home sick with no bad daytime tv to pass the time. "I slept, I read. I wrote letters. It was actually kind of nice. Peaceful."

Other less instantly profound lessons proved to be no less life-changing once we grasped the bigger ideas behind them. One student remarked that she got her homework completed in 30 minutes- as opposed to the two hours she usually spent. "I wasn't constantly interrupted with emails, texts, Facebook..." Several students noted that they got more sleep. Some just went to bed earlier because they didn't have the job of tending to their various screen lives. Others slept better without the television droning in the background. "It took me longer to fall asleep, but I think I slept much more deeply. Part of me must always be listening to the noise."

Parents, too, reacted in a variety of ways. Some hated me. "How will I know when to pick him up?" "We watch tv in my house. So, that's too bad." Others delighted. "We lit a fire in the fireplace and looked at old family albums." "We pulled out the guitar and sang." And others just thanked me.

As for me, I had a great time. I was a little like a celebrity in school. Everyone felt it necessary to come and tell me what they thought of the project, to confess their own reliance upon their screens, to report students who seemed remarkably dedicated to the task, to ask to read what we were reading. The best part was at home, though. I had assumed Hubby would click on the tv at night and I would be sequestered into another room to read or write or sleep or play with the stupid cat. Instead, we cuddled on the couch and talked. About the nature of life, about what happens after we die, about the state of the world, about what we want when we grow old...

Don't get me wrong. I"m glad to be back. I love my new smart phone. I could hardly wait to tell you all about it. But the experience was a good one- one which makes me appreciate technology, but one that also reminds me that it's important to pause, important to stop tap-tapping when someone is talking to me. Important to enjoy the space between.

Digital Sabbatical

2010-12-06T22:03:00.001-05:00

I love Thoreau. And the only thing I love more than reading Walden? Teaching it. Students have usually heard of this dead white guy, but once I help them muscle through the rich language, ol' Henry David delights them. He's progressive. He's environmentally conscious before there was such a phrase. And he's funny. Really funny. Disarmingly funny, for they soon learn that right after he makes you laugh, he usually blows your mind.

Here's a bit of the funny... he's describing his battle to grow beans in the land around his little cabin on Walden. Specifically, he's describing his attack on the weeds:

That’s Roman wormwood—that’s pigweed—that’s sorrel—that’s pipergrass—have at him, chop him up, turn his roots upward to the sun, don’t let him have a fiber in the shade, if you do he’ll turn himself t’other side up and be as green as a leek in two days. A long war, not with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans who had sun and rain and dews on their side. Daily the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead. Many a lusty crest-waving Hector, that towered a whole foot above his crowding comrades, fell before my weapon and rolled in the dust….

We just loved that image. One student said he could see it like a graphic novel, with a muscle-bound Thoreau towering over the slaughtered weeds.

In addition to his hyperbolic meditations on the finer points of gardening, Thoreau spends a lot of his words wondering over the fact that most people seem to sleepwalk through life, distracted by the minutiae and forgetting the deeper meaning:

Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail.

And this last resonates deeply with all of us, surprising and delighting us with its relevance these many years later. I could not help but point out the irony to my students that we could Google "Henry David Thoreau" and return nearly two million results. How sad is it that when we see a movie or hear a news story and are asked what we think, we jump on Facebook or Twitter or Google (or this very informative blog, thank you very much) and sift through what other people think in order to decide what we think? We no longer carve out space in our lives to simply sit and, as H.D. suggests, let our thoughts unfold and take root. So, inspired by both Thoreau and by William Powers and his book Hamlet's Blackberry, I devised an experiment.

Tomorrow and Wednesday, my students and I will embark upon a digital sabbatical. We will leave our cell phones and laptops at home, unplugged and dark. We will drop off the grid and turn off the tv. When we leave home, you won't be able to reach us unless you come find us. And we won't be able to reach you, either.

I expected much wailing and gnashing of teeth when I unveiled this idea to my poor, unsuspecting students today. And there was some. (The biggest loss, it seems, is the episode of Glee everyone will be missing.) But none of them refused. And a few even felt excited by it. And everyone agreed that it should be interesting to be alone with our thoughts without the noise of the crowd in the cloud drowning out our own voices.

So, friends, I'll see you in a few days.

Of course, you can feel free to join us if you wish.

1-2-3-4 What're We Learning For?

2010-12-02T22:39:00.001-05:00

Knox College gave me the gift of a tremendous liberal arts education... a gift that keeps on giving. I remember my four years there being marked with a-ha moments that blew my mind and revised my understanding of myself and the world around me. There was Psychology class when I learned about state-dependent memory... the theory that your ability to recall what you've learned increases when you reproduce your learning environment. It means that drunk people might not remember what embarrassing things they did once they get sober, but might suddenly remember after a gin and tonic. It also means that if you can't take the test in your pajamas while listening to Stevie Wonder, you shouldn't study in your pajamas while listening to Stevie either. Life-changing. And in Professor Brady's Shakespeare class, I learned the undeniable truth that Shakespeare was a dirty dirty bird. When in doubt, assume he's talking about sex. This will serve you well in interpreting his texts. It also goes far in explaining why the man's works have endured for so long. One of the biggest shocks to my system, however, occurred in my Society and Education class. It was there I came face to face with the fact that the American education system had been set up to create trained factory workers- not to create great minds. This rocked my world. I had always been, from my first day of preschool to my last day in high school, an eager and hungry learner. I impatiently stood in straight lines to walk into class from recess and I rammed my hand in the air when I had the answer to a question. I never dreamed that learning to stand in lines and to wait to be called upon might actually be the true goals.

Now here I am, standing in front of the room sometimes put in the odd position of requesting that students raise their hands so that I can organize a discussion in which everyone gets heard.

But what is the point of education these days? Sometimes from my spot in front of the SmartBoard, it's hard to remember. It's especially hard to remember when students argue grades... or even worse, when parents argue grades. I fight a prevailing sense from both parents and students that effort should equal success... little Janey worked for hours on this project, so it deserves an A (no matter the fact that little Janey ignored some of the requirements or missed hitting some of the more sophisticated objectives). Others argue that their little Johnny ought to be able to do extra credit to augment the poor grade he earned on a difficult test because anything less than an A is unacceptable. In reviewing the results of a poorly edited and superficial literary analysis a student had turned in, I was met with her frustration. "But what's the right answer? Just tell me!" She sat, red-faced and teary-eyed with her pen raised high, ready to jot down The Right Answer. I know this sounds like I should be ok with this. It sounds like a conscientious student. But in reality, she doesn't care about understanding the concept but about scoring the points. She cares about the grade. And she was the first in a long line of agitated students that ringed my desk as they received their graded tests.

I grew so frustrated, I returned everyone to their seats and asked a question. "Why do you attend school?" After the first round of the "Because they make us" chorus, other answers started to trickle in. To get good grades. To get high SAT scores. To get into a good college. To get a good job. "Doesn't anyone want to learn?

I think my students may have heard my exasperation and thought I was angry at them, but it's really not them. And it's not even their parents. It's how the education system is set up. I had great hopes that President Obama's move away from NCLB would be a move toward something great, but I'm so far not all that impressed by Race to the Top, either. Yes, R2T has added funding to education- a good thing. But I'm not sure inspiring the creation of more charter schools is a great thing. And frankly I'm not sold on the heavy emphasis on common standards. I think that works for manufacturing things, but kids aren't things and learning isn't manufacturing. Standards and their baby, standardized testing, measure specific outcomes, but are they really the outcomes we want? Do they measure learning? And measuring a teacher's "performance" by how well his students score on tests... is it possible that this might not address the individual needs of students with a variety of backgrounds, abilities, challenges, and home lives? If you get what you measure (as the saying goes), what are we really measuring? And what are we really getting?

So my question is, what is the point of school? Is it to prepare kids to get into college? How about preparing them to succeed in college? If so, are the standards measuring that? Certainly there is an abundance of evidence showing the correlation between high SAT scores and success in college (beyond Freshman GPAs) is sketchy at best. Do we just want to make good workers? If so, what kind? Is school here to teach our students to be thinkers and to be global citizens? How is it possible to standardize creative problem solving and the development of a moral compass?

From my seat, I wish we would concentrate on researching, developing, and evolving an educational process that inspires a hunger for learning, promotes creative development, and rewards rigorous self-discipline. I wish we could work to create that environment, then measure our ability to adhere to that deliberate process. If we could put our efforts toward the development and devotion to a strong process, I believe the product would take care of itself.

OK. Back to grading papers.

Mission Improvisational

Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Long Live the King (repost)

LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAILApril 16, 1963

Slave to Feline Wiles

Ephemeral Bloom

Of Mice and Jwi

The Long and Winding Road That Leads You to My Door...

"...and remember, the next scream you hear may be your own!"

Once More unto the Breach, Dear Friends, Once More...

Playing in the Sandbox

Bonfire

What's in a HM? Or the Adventures of Egg Girl

The Absolutely True Adventures of the Golf Penguin

Big Bang Theory

Imagine There's No Evil

Curiouser and Curiouser

What Not To Do

Call Me "Mom"

Pulling Weeds

Helm Full and By

How Low Can I Go? Real Real Low, Apparently.

Just Like in the Movies

Why I Couldn't Find a Card for Fathers' Day

Farewell to Destiny the Dingocat, aka Fur Ball...

In Praise of Fight Club

Your Expected Wait Time Is Five to Five Hundred Thousand Bazillion Years

Temporal Disturbance (or Birthday Wish)

Quantifying the Ineffable

If

Jingle Mama

Trick of the Light

May's PoMoNaPoWriMo Retro

NaPoWriMo 30: Chaos Theory

NaPoWriMo 29: Ode to the Goose of Parking Space 49 (In Five Parts)

NaPoWriMo 28: War Stories

NaPoWriMo 27: Dig

NaPoWriMo 26: Spirits

NaPoWriMo 25: Rare But Serious Side Effects

That's Right. I Said It.

NaPoWriMo 24: Katabasis

NaPoWriMo 23: Ectomy

NaPoWriMo 22: Maria Mama McCray

NaPoWriMo 21: One Damned Thing After Another

NaPoWriMo 20: Self-Image

A Between the Lines "Thanks!"

NaPoWriMo 19: Sum of the Parts

NaPoWriMo 18: Herd Mentality

NaPoWriMo 17: Planet Booker

NaPoWriMo 16: Halsted Bus Morning Ride

NaPoWriMo 15: Available Light

NaPoWriMo 14: The Big Wu Li

NaPoWriMo 13: Fuzzy Math

NaPoWriMo 12: October Farewell

NaPoWriMo 11: Kept Man Labyrinth

NaPoWriMo 10: On an Oak Branch in the Fall

NaPoWriMo 9: Answer Edit

NaPoWriMo 8: Sleep

NaPoWriMo 7: Blossoming

NaPoWriMo 6: Walkabout

NaPoWriMo 5: How to Breathe

NaPoWriMo 4: Lifewish

NaPoWriMo 3: The Space Between

NaPoWriMo 2: Saved

Happy NaPoWriMo!

I Could Have Titled This Something Really Inappropriate

Going Big or Going Home

Can't Spell "Heart" Without Art

A Very Neat Monster: Darkly Devious Destiny Devastates Again

Transcendent Pathways

Chasm

Be Careful What You Wish For

Gift of Time

Mascarapiphany

I've Got Humble Pie on My Face

Sowing My Hey

Thank you... by Which I Mean Shut Up

Flying my Idiot Flag

Sometimes Parallel Universes are Full of Idiots

The Real Power of Authentic Nowness

LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL
April 16, 1963

LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL
April 16, 1963