"The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers."
---Lewis Thomas
Friday, March 07, 2008
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Thirteen Things in My Desk Drawer
Yesterday I came home and swiped at the wide, flat drawer beneath the center of my desktop, intending to open it and grab a pen. It budged, but wouldn't open. I had to drag it open, to my wry displeasure. The reason? Too much stuff crammed in it. Here's a sampling.
1. Umpteen million pens and pencils: ball point, gel, and mechanical. (The fountain pens are set apart, well-nigh sanctified, in fact.)
2. Two pairs of sissors. One for me and one that the children are allowed to use. This is not due to safety factors. This is due to me wanting a pair of sissors that haven't been used to cut industrial grade cardboard to make castles and French log homes.
3. Empty Whitman sampler and Altoids tins. You never know when these will come in handy.
4. Enough mechanical pencil refills to be a lead poisoning health hazard.
5. A stapler. This is not always in residence, as Great Scott and The Daughters borrow it with regularity.
6. Umpteen million erasers, but they're apparently the wrong kind, as I am regularly asked to buy more.
7. Flathead and phillpshead screwdrivers.
8. Coconut brittle.
9. Two miniature screwdriver sets, neither of which are the right size to fix whatever pair of eyeglasses has broken this time.
10. Boxes of staples, brads, two or three different sizes of paperclips, and a box of butterfly clips.
11. Two or three different kinds of staple removers, regardless of the fact that I almost always just use my fingernails. This would explain the shape of my fingernails, I suppose.
12. Occasionally a stray M&M or Skittle. Finding these is just like Christmas, no matter how old they are. Hey, who am I to ask questions about age?
13. Two freerange, vampiric thumbtacks that attack and then scurry away to hide beneath the pens or in a far corner until they feel the need to feed again.
1. Umpteen million pens and pencils: ball point, gel, and mechanical. (The fountain pens are set apart, well-nigh sanctified, in fact.)
2. Two pairs of sissors. One for me and one that the children are allowed to use. This is not due to safety factors. This is due to me wanting a pair of sissors that haven't been used to cut industrial grade cardboard to make castles and French log homes.
3. Empty Whitman sampler and Altoids tins. You never know when these will come in handy.
4. Enough mechanical pencil refills to be a lead poisoning health hazard.
5. A stapler. This is not always in residence, as Great Scott and The Daughters borrow it with regularity.
6. Umpteen million erasers, but they're apparently the wrong kind, as I am regularly asked to buy more.
7. Flathead and phillpshead screwdrivers.
8. Coconut brittle.
9. Two miniature screwdriver sets, neither of which are the right size to fix whatever pair of eyeglasses has broken this time.
10. Boxes of staples, brads, two or three different sizes of paperclips, and a box of butterfly clips.
11. Two or three different kinds of staple removers, regardless of the fact that I almost always just use my fingernails. This would explain the shape of my fingernails, I suppose.
12. Occasionally a stray M&M or Skittle. Finding these is just like Christmas, no matter how old they are. Hey, who am I to ask questions about age?
13. Two freerange, vampiric thumbtacks that attack and then scurry away to hide beneath the pens or in a far corner until they feel the need to feed again.
Friday, February 29, 2008
How I Got into this Business and Where It Went Thursday
I didn't intend to do anything but start a writing club at our school. In November I was given permission to do so for the Jr. High and high schools provided I find a certified co-sponser on the current staff and that I obtain a substitute teaching certificate myself. I didn't even have to sub. You know the outcome of the substitute certificate (see the last post). Here continues the story of the originally intended writing club.
Thursday was our first meeting. I knew we'd have 9 students or so. I hoped we might get as many as 12-15. Before the afternoon's club schedule I went into the tiny half-room at the back of the library where we were to meet and waited to see who would arrive. To my amazement, 37 kids managed to cram themselves into that little space. The tables were quickly filled. More lined the walls, standing. Others leaned in the doorway or sat in what little floorspace existed. What's more, they are excited not just about starting a club, but about writing itself. They want to compete. They like the idea of running in-house writing contests not just for the Jr. High and high school, but for the elementary students. Mostly, though, they want to workshop papers with each other, to read each others' work and comment, to have feedback and find ways to improve their writing. They listened to our ideas and hopes for the club; they shared their ideas (good ones) and listened to each other and were in agreement about their goals. They wanted to have after school meetings to workshop, and then someone said, "What about over the summer? Can we do something this summer?" and was echoed.
You could have knocked me over with a feather. I was stunned. Stunned and utterly humbled.
Thursday was our first meeting. I knew we'd have 9 students or so. I hoped we might get as many as 12-15. Before the afternoon's club schedule I went into the tiny half-room at the back of the library where we were to meet and waited to see who would arrive. To my amazement, 37 kids managed to cram themselves into that little space. The tables were quickly filled. More lined the walls, standing. Others leaned in the doorway or sat in what little floorspace existed. What's more, they are excited not just about starting a club, but about writing itself. They want to compete. They like the idea of running in-house writing contests not just for the Jr. High and high school, but for the elementary students. Mostly, though, they want to workshop papers with each other, to read each others' work and comment, to have feedback and find ways to improve their writing. They listened to our ideas and hopes for the club; they shared their ideas (good ones) and listened to each other and were in agreement about their goals. They wanted to have after school meetings to workshop, and then someone said, "What about over the summer? Can we do something this summer?" and was echoed.
You could have knocked me over with a feather. I was stunned. Stunned and utterly humbled.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
The Plan...or...Am I Out of My Mind
Lately a question one of my readers asked a long time ago has been haunting me. Seeker once asked if I would ever walk the halls of academia again. My answer was a pretty definite no.
I'm reconsidering.
The last week of January I began substitute teaching in a local high school. While I thought I might survive it pretty well, I did not expect to enjoy it past a vague satisfaction, so I was taken entirely by surprise when after subbing for our French/English teacher for three days running, I found myself bewilderingly and entirely in love...with the kids. This was not supposed to happen. This was not in The Plan.
The Plan, as much as there is ever a plan in my INFP life, was to eventually go back to school to finish a MA or if I was very lucky and somewhere found the energy and self-confidence, an MFA, and acquire a job teaching per course for a college or university in the area, maybe even landing a full-time job with a community college, perhaps in a writing center. Teaching secondary school was not even a consideration. Notta. Notta. Notta.
Yet here I am with an application to admittance to a teacher certification program sitting in an envelope on my dining room table, check enclosed, addressed and stamped. Granted, I put a note on it this morning--"Wait until after Friday to mail this, you fool!"--just in case my four day sub stint in the Family and Consumer Science room this week changes my mind about exactly how much punishment I'm able to take. Nevertheless, my instinct, that deep down knowing at the center, tells me that, yes, indeed, I am going to do this.
I am going to do this, and it will change my life, and there will be no end to it. It will be difficult and hair-pullingly frustrating and utterly exausting and shatteringly glorious beyond my wildest imagining. It will be good.
I'm reconsidering.
The last week of January I began substitute teaching in a local high school. While I thought I might survive it pretty well, I did not expect to enjoy it past a vague satisfaction, so I was taken entirely by surprise when after subbing for our French/English teacher for three days running, I found myself bewilderingly and entirely in love...with the kids. This was not supposed to happen. This was not in The Plan.
The Plan, as much as there is ever a plan in my INFP life, was to eventually go back to school to finish a MA or if I was very lucky and somewhere found the energy and self-confidence, an MFA, and acquire a job teaching per course for a college or university in the area, maybe even landing a full-time job with a community college, perhaps in a writing center. Teaching secondary school was not even a consideration. Notta. Notta. Notta.
Yet here I am with an application to admittance to a teacher certification program sitting in an envelope on my dining room table, check enclosed, addressed and stamped. Granted, I put a note on it this morning--"Wait until after Friday to mail this, you fool!"--just in case my four day sub stint in the Family and Consumer Science room this week changes my mind about exactly how much punishment I'm able to take. Nevertheless, my instinct, that deep down knowing at the center, tells me that, yes, indeed, I am going to do this.
I am going to do this, and it will change my life, and there will be no end to it. It will be difficult and hair-pullingly frustrating and utterly exausting and shatteringly glorious beyond my wildest imagining. It will be good.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Friday Quote: On Darkness
"Sometimes I forget that even though the darkness whispers my name it does not tell the truth."
--Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixens
--Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixens
Forty
In my blog wanderings and perusals over the past three years, I've seen many lists of "Forty Things to do Before I Turn Forty." By the time I thought of composing my own, my time was seriously running out, and I was faced with either making a list of "Forty Things to Accomplish in the Next Nine Minutes" or of finding a creative alternative. (Allow me to offer a small bit of advice: given a choice between Lots of Potentially Emotionally Unhinging Work or a Creative Alternative, go for the latter.)
My alternative to the "Forty Things to do Before I Turn Forty" list? It needed to be something positive, something affirming, something that would help me appreciate the life I've had already and the one I have now rather than laying on the pressure to do more, accomplish more, be more. I needed not a list of things to do, but a list of wonderful things I have done in my first forty years, a list of appreciation and celebration. Therefore...
Forty Things I've Done Before Turning Forty
1. Learned to see God as a very real and compassionate Person rather than a Lurker with a Big Board.
2. Convinced my brother to willingly eat mud.
3. Slept in trees.
4. Jumped out of a barn loft.
5. Earned a writing degree, had success with creative pieces, publication, readings, two Pushcart nominations and served a week long term as Poet in Residence at Bryan College.
6. Been proposed to or seriously co-considered marriage five times.
7. Had a sixth man fall to his knees dramatically before me in a public place, spread his arms wide and sing loudly, "Besa me! Besa me mucho!"
8. Promptly married him.
9. Stayed married 17 years to the above to date.
10. Gave birth to two children with a midwife presiding and no meds.
11. Learned to enjoy poetry. Learned to detest poetry. Learned I can't live without poetry.
12. Enjoyed mathematical theory.
13. Pieced and hand-quilted a quilt from dress scraps.
14. Found out what happens when one puts one end of an electrical cord in one's mouth while the other end is still in the outlet.
15. Learned to cook, yea, even unto a complete Thanksgiving meal for company.
16. Played the piano and the oboe.
17. Walked barefoot through snow.
18. Danced.
19. Put my brother in a tractor tire, rolled him down a hill and survived my mother's wrath afterward.
20. Attended wonderful Renaissance festivals.
21. Played the lead onstage in "Once Upon a Mattress."
22. Sang a solo in Handel's Messiah.
23. Learned to live without medication for an affective disorder--something a diagnosing doctor said I would never do.
24. Lived amid a passion for learning.
25. Discovered a passion for teaching.
26. Learned to live in the midst of prayer.
27. Made peace with an ongoing and difficult relationship from my past.
28. Learned where I fit in my family.
29. Read thousands of astounding, wonderful books.
30. Tutored and taught writing to amazing people.
31. Moderated for the beautiful ladies of LHM's Lighthouse and Covenant Women for several years.
32. Given up an addictive and self-destructive way of "coping."
33. Found the courage to keep/enforce my own boundaries while remaining unruffled.
34. Learned jewelry making.
35. Mentored some incredible young women.
36. Learned to recognize and name flowers, trees and other native plants.
37. Taken up yoga.
38. Kindled a love of books in two children.
39. Laughed nearly every day.
40. Been a student of grace.
My alternative to the "Forty Things to do Before I Turn Forty" list? It needed to be something positive, something affirming, something that would help me appreciate the life I've had already and the one I have now rather than laying on the pressure to do more, accomplish more, be more. I needed not a list of things to do, but a list of wonderful things I have done in my first forty years, a list of appreciation and celebration. Therefore...
Forty Things I've Done Before Turning Forty
1. Learned to see God as a very real and compassionate Person rather than a Lurker with a Big Board.
2. Convinced my brother to willingly eat mud.
3. Slept in trees.
4. Jumped out of a barn loft.
5. Earned a writing degree, had success with creative pieces, publication, readings, two Pushcart nominations and served a week long term as Poet in Residence at Bryan College.
6. Been proposed to or seriously co-considered marriage five times.
7. Had a sixth man fall to his knees dramatically before me in a public place, spread his arms wide and sing loudly, "Besa me! Besa me mucho!"
8. Promptly married him.
9. Stayed married 17 years to the above to date.
10. Gave birth to two children with a midwife presiding and no meds.
11. Learned to enjoy poetry. Learned to detest poetry. Learned I can't live without poetry.
12. Enjoyed mathematical theory.
13. Pieced and hand-quilted a quilt from dress scraps.
14. Found out what happens when one puts one end of an electrical cord in one's mouth while the other end is still in the outlet.
15. Learned to cook, yea, even unto a complete Thanksgiving meal for company.
16. Played the piano and the oboe.
17. Walked barefoot through snow.
18. Danced.
19. Put my brother in a tractor tire, rolled him down a hill and survived my mother's wrath afterward.
20. Attended wonderful Renaissance festivals.
21. Played the lead onstage in "Once Upon a Mattress."
22. Sang a solo in Handel's Messiah.
23. Learned to live without medication for an affective disorder--something a diagnosing doctor said I would never do.
24. Lived amid a passion for learning.
25. Discovered a passion for teaching.
26. Learned to live in the midst of prayer.
27. Made peace with an ongoing and difficult relationship from my past.
28. Learned where I fit in my family.
29. Read thousands of astounding, wonderful books.
30. Tutored and taught writing to amazing people.
31. Moderated for the beautiful ladies of LHM's Lighthouse and Covenant Women for several years.
32. Given up an addictive and self-destructive way of "coping."
33. Found the courage to keep/enforce my own boundaries while remaining unruffled.
34. Learned jewelry making.
35. Mentored some incredible young women.
36. Learned to recognize and name flowers, trees and other native plants.
37. Taken up yoga.
38. Kindled a love of books in two children.
39. Laughed nearly every day.
40. Been a student of grace.
Monday, January 14, 2008
A Review: Goblin Fruit Winter 08
So many of the poems in this issue were excellent in either storytelling or wordplay, and so many excelled in both, that I hardly know where to begin in letting you know what I like. Where to start?
JoSelle Vanderhooft's two pieces were, as hers always seem to be, strong. I very much liked "The Explorer's Daughter," but it was "Death Enters a Mother's Service" that had me crouched in front of the monitor scrolling up and down and up again to read and reread. Elements there of Walter de la Mare and Rosetti, strong images and rhythms, heartbreak and beauty. Lovely work.
Robert Borski's "The Bashful Young Swain at the Ogre's Cotillion" made me raise my eyebrows and laugh aloud with pleasure.
Sophanny Marin's "The Choke-Damp"...ah, what a poem. This is definitely one of my favorites, and I need to find a way to let her know. I think that by which I am most struck in this poem is her adeptness in bringing the world of faerie and the modern world into such graceful, frightening and heartbreaking juxtaposition. Well done.
Maureen McQuerry's "Selkie" is a study in wonderful line breaks (always tricky and potentially awkward!) and language that sings in both sound and sense. McQuerry is someone whose work I will be watching in the future. If all her poems are as well crafted as "Selkie" and "Chesire" (another poem I loved in this issue), I can't wait to read her books.
Jennifer Crow's "Twelve Swans" also was exquisite and exceptionally wonderful technically as well as lyrically and narratively. She has a skill in poetic construction that shines as she spins the familiar tale of the twelve swan brothers into a new poetic form with each section. Brava!
And finally, I couldn't comment on Goblin Fruit's Winter 08 issue without mentioning "Revisiting the Maiden's Tower" by Stacy Cowley, a piece that gave--and continues to give--me chills, with its images both beautiful and horrific.
These were probably my favorite pieces, but the other poems were wonderful as well and deserve a read, especially by anyone with an appreciation for mythopoetic literature. Old fairy tales spun in new directions, silk kimonos, ravens, seals, cherries and snow and a saint... It is easy to become lost here. Tie a string to your wrist as you enter, to be sure of finding your way back out.
JoSelle Vanderhooft's two pieces were, as hers always seem to be, strong. I very much liked "The Explorer's Daughter," but it was "Death Enters a Mother's Service" that had me crouched in front of the monitor scrolling up and down and up again to read and reread. Elements there of Walter de la Mare and Rosetti, strong images and rhythms, heartbreak and beauty. Lovely work.
Robert Borski's "The Bashful Young Swain at the Ogre's Cotillion" made me raise my eyebrows and laugh aloud with pleasure.
Sophanny Marin's "The Choke-Damp"...ah, what a poem. This is definitely one of my favorites, and I need to find a way to let her know. I think that by which I am most struck in this poem is her adeptness in bringing the world of faerie and the modern world into such graceful, frightening and heartbreaking juxtaposition. Well done.
Maureen McQuerry's "Selkie" is a study in wonderful line breaks (always tricky and potentially awkward!) and language that sings in both sound and sense. McQuerry is someone whose work I will be watching in the future. If all her poems are as well crafted as "Selkie" and "Chesire" (another poem I loved in this issue), I can't wait to read her books.
Jennifer Crow's "Twelve Swans" also was exquisite and exceptionally wonderful technically as well as lyrically and narratively. She has a skill in poetic construction that shines as she spins the familiar tale of the twelve swan brothers into a new poetic form with each section. Brava!
And finally, I couldn't comment on Goblin Fruit's Winter 08 issue without mentioning "Revisiting the Maiden's Tower" by Stacy Cowley, a piece that gave--and continues to give--me chills, with its images both beautiful and horrific.
These were probably my favorite pieces, but the other poems were wonderful as well and deserve a read, especially by anyone with an appreciation for mythopoetic literature. Old fairy tales spun in new directions, silk kimonos, ravens, seals, cherries and snow and a saint... It is easy to become lost here. Tie a string to your wrist as you enter, to be sure of finding your way back out.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Publication: Goblin Fruit
This morning a wonderful email waited impatiently in my inbox to be discovered. The Winter '08 issue of Goblin Fruit (which I wrote about earlier) is out at last, and in it, "Night Augur", a poem of my "own pure brain." To my surprise and deep pleasure, the Editors Who Shall Be Adored have even used it as a prologue to the issue, may-their-names-be-praised-forever.
Seriously, I am very happy and very grateful.
(There's even audio!)
Seriously, I am very happy and very grateful.
(There's even audio!)
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Someday You'll Have Children Just Like You...
The Younger Daughter is the liviliest of our bunch. Great Scott and I are, as The Older Daughter likes to remind us, aged and slow, and her sister, as Great Scott and I like to remind her, is energy conservative (save her father prefers the briefer, 4 letter word in all its simplicity). This means that The Younger Daughter often finds herself wandering about the house forlornly looking for something interesting to do while the other three members of the family are preoccupied. Christmas break has evidently been especially hard on her, but ever the innovative child, she managed to entertain herself with pen and pencil. The results are telling.
Once upon a time there was a little dragon. Now she was a good little dragon. Her family hoarded not gems but books. The little dragon got on nerves a lot. Though she tried her best she always got on other dragons' nerves.
One day she was bored, and she'd read all her Humanology books. So she went to her sister who was reading.
"Leave me alone. I don't have any ideas. Now go away!" her sister snapped. Then she burned the little dragon's backside very fiercely, and the little dragon left her sister to the book.
So the little dragon went to her mother who was also reading.
"I'm bored. Do you have any ideas of what to do?"
Her mom was not in a good mood. "Youngling, you are taking your life into your claws. The only things that stands between you and my snapping sanity is this book!" her mother answered and gave her a good whack with it.
Sadly the little dragon left to find her father. Suddenly her father flew in the lair and removed the umbrella from over the book he brought.
"Daddy..." the little dragon began.
"I'm reading. Leave me alone, Child!" and he lashed her with his tail.
By now the little dragon's backside was hurting miserably, so she made an ice pack and lay down. Then she drew. She drew dragons killing with flame, diamond spear and tail. The her parents came in with her sister and saw the painting and realized the suffering they had caused her and asked for forgiveness, and the little dragon gave them just that, and her family learned to think before they acted.
Once upon a time there was a little dragon. Now she was a good little dragon. Her family hoarded not gems but books. The little dragon got on nerves a lot. Though she tried her best she always got on other dragons' nerves.
One day she was bored, and she'd read all her Humanology books. So she went to her sister who was reading.
"Leave me alone. I don't have any ideas. Now go away!" her sister snapped. Then she burned the little dragon's backside very fiercely, and the little dragon left her sister to the book.
So the little dragon went to her mother who was also reading.
"I'm bored. Do you have any ideas of what to do?"
Her mom was not in a good mood. "Youngling, you are taking your life into your claws. The only things that stands between you and my snapping sanity is this book!" her mother answered and gave her a good whack with it.
Sadly the little dragon left to find her father. Suddenly her father flew in the lair and removed the umbrella from over the book he brought.
"Daddy..." the little dragon began.
"I'm reading. Leave me alone, Child!" and he lashed her with his tail.
By now the little dragon's backside was hurting miserably, so she made an ice pack and lay down. Then she drew. She drew dragons killing with flame, diamond spear and tail. The her parents came in with her sister and saw the painting and realized the suffering they had caused her and asked for forgiveness, and the little dragon gave them just that, and her family learned to think before they acted.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Friday Quote: On Coffee and Women
"I like my women like I like my coffee: scalding, dark and bitter."
--Great Scott
(whose Christmas gifts are under reconsideration)
--Great Scott
(whose Christmas gifts are under reconsideration)
Friday, December 14, 2007
Friday Quote: On Poetic Cultivation
“Travel broadens the mind, but great poetry is often the product of narrow obsession, the neurotic cultivation of a tiny plot.”
--Stephen Moss
--Stephen Moss
Friday, December 07, 2007
Friday Quote: On Bibliophilia
"She is too fond of books, and it has addled her brain."
--Louisa May Alcott
--Louisa May Alcott
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
So Far This Week...
I replaced the modem.
The Older Daughter threw up twice at school and came home early.
The Older Daughter ate tortellini two hours after arriving home, and two and a half hours after that competed in an Academic Team competition (her team won both their games).
My grandmother had her 91st birthday (Yay, Grandma!).
I was approved for substitute teaching in our school district.
The Older Daughter won not just the local but the district Patriot's Pen essay contest for her age division.
And...my dryer broke (I am awaiting the repairman now).
Oh, yes! And Dad put an extra hard drive into my computer.
With a coathanger.
Which is still in the computer.
And it's still only Wednesday!
The Older Daughter threw up twice at school and came home early.
The Older Daughter ate tortellini two hours after arriving home, and two and a half hours after that competed in an Academic Team competition (her team won both their games).
My grandmother had her 91st birthday (Yay, Grandma!).
I was approved for substitute teaching in our school district.
The Older Daughter won not just the local but the district Patriot's Pen essay contest for her age division.
And...my dryer broke (I am awaiting the repairman now).
Oh, yes! And Dad put an extra hard drive into my computer.
With a coathanger.
Which is still in the computer.
And it's still only Wednesday!
Friday, November 30, 2007
Spotted
I know today is Friday and that I should be posting a quote, but my modem is down (again!), and I don't happen to have my quote journal in the library with me. Hopefully Dad and I will get the electronics working again this evening. I'm coming back into town after feeding Great Scott and the girls, and we'll work on the thing then.
The real reason for this post is to celebrate. Today on a walk a barred owl flew across my path and landed in a tree just across the creek. It let me cross and approach close enough that I could see its face and eyes clearly before it flew to a tree a little more distant. The eyes of barred owls are hauntingly beautiful. I've heard that if you look down a deep well in daylight, you can see stars. If the same were true of those black, black eyes, I would not be surprised. I could look at them for hours.
The real reason for this post is to celebrate. Today on a walk a barred owl flew across my path and landed in a tree just across the creek. It let me cross and approach close enough that I could see its face and eyes clearly before it flew to a tree a little more distant. The eyes of barred owls are hauntingly beautiful. I've heard that if you look down a deep well in daylight, you can see stars. If the same were true of those black, black eyes, I would not be surprised. I could look at them for hours.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Overheard
It must be hard to be the child of two writing oriented parents. One day last weekend The Younger Daughter's evening prayer went in part like this:
"Dear God...please forgive us for our sins and our improper English."
"Dear God...please forgive us for our sins and our improper English."
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Thanksgiving Eve--Surprise Me List
Infamous for his War on Whining gratitude posts, Randy of Everyday Thoughts Collected asks for Thanksgiving lists of those things for which we are grateful but which are a little unusual. Skewed, in fact. So here it is, dear twin, the Quotidian Light list of Thanksgiving peculiarities.
1. Dirt. (For repotting the orchids.)
2. Socks with individual toes.
3. Benadryl for when the children are too crazy.
4. Alcohol for when the husband is too crazy.
5. Morrowind, for when one simply MUST live life as a lizard in a dress robe.
6. Children who want cooking utensils and badgers for Christmas.
7. Wormer.
8. Small dead animal carcasses on the front porch. (As opposed to in the house.)
9. The word "no." As in, "No, we're not going anywhere for Thanksgiving."
10. Individual cups in bras. (Great Scott seconds this one enthusiastically.)
1. Dirt. (For repotting the orchids.)
2. Socks with individual toes.
3. Benadryl for when the children are too crazy.
4. Alcohol for when the husband is too crazy.
5. Morrowind, for when one simply MUST live life as a lizard in a dress robe.
6. Children who want cooking utensils and badgers for Christmas.
7. Wormer.
8. Small dead animal carcasses on the front porch. (As opposed to in the house.)
9. The word "no." As in, "No, we're not going anywhere for Thanksgiving."
10. Individual cups in bras. (Great Scott seconds this one enthusiastically.)
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Quotidian Light Reading Level
And...
Once more unto the quotidian light, dear friends, once more.
Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?
Kudos to Seeker, from whom I unabashedly yonked both of these.
Friday, November 09, 2007
I Just Did WHAT?!
This week I went to the superintendent's office at school and after a meeting with her and the Jr. High principal, took home an application packet for a substitute teaching certificate and position. What's more, when I arrived home, I immediately got online and made an appointment to have fingerprinting done for the required background check. Immediately as in before I could change my mind.
What could possibly drive me to do such a thing? I, who swore I would never teach (especially at the secondary level, not to mention Jr. High) and could not foresee a return to "walking the halls of academia" ever again? I, who cringe at mispronounced words, bad grammar and misplaced commas--my own and everyone else's--and grimly remove myself from the vicinity of mouthy children in public lest I be tempted to "help" their parents? I, who am familiar with the discipline plight of the public schoolteacher, who hear about it and see its result every night when Great Scott arrives home, head bowed, shoulders slumped, dragging his six foot three inch frame over the threshold, his soul nearly sucked from his body? What, indeed could possibly entice me to enter that world, even on an intermittent basis? Especially on an intermittent basis, without the authority a full-time teacher holds over her own classroom?
Passion. Something I don't talk or write about very often or very much. I am passionate about the written word, and I am passionate about helping others find in themselves some good, some hidden potential previously unrecognized. Substitute teaching will very likely NOT give me the opportunity to indulge either of these passions, I realize. However, a substitute teaching certificate will enable me to begin a writing club for the high school and jr. high school in our district. The one condition I was given was that I find a full-time faculty member to help sponsor it, and this afternoon a quick conference with horror writer and H.S. English teacher, Matt Cardin met that condition, may-his-name-be-praised-forever.
We shall see where this goes. I anticipate beginning substitute teaching in early December and beginning Writing Club meetings in January after the break. I am more grateful than I can say to Matt, who is already staying after school several nights a week, and I am both excited and apprehensive about the venture. Wish it luck.
What could possibly drive me to do such a thing? I, who swore I would never teach (especially at the secondary level, not to mention Jr. High) and could not foresee a return to "walking the halls of academia" ever again? I, who cringe at mispronounced words, bad grammar and misplaced commas--my own and everyone else's--and grimly remove myself from the vicinity of mouthy children in public lest I be tempted to "help" their parents? I, who am familiar with the discipline plight of the public schoolteacher, who hear about it and see its result every night when Great Scott arrives home, head bowed, shoulders slumped, dragging his six foot three inch frame over the threshold, his soul nearly sucked from his body? What, indeed could possibly entice me to enter that world, even on an intermittent basis? Especially on an intermittent basis, without the authority a full-time teacher holds over her own classroom?
Passion. Something I don't talk or write about very often or very much. I am passionate about the written word, and I am passionate about helping others find in themselves some good, some hidden potential previously unrecognized. Substitute teaching will very likely NOT give me the opportunity to indulge either of these passions, I realize. However, a substitute teaching certificate will enable me to begin a writing club for the high school and jr. high school in our district. The one condition I was given was that I find a full-time faculty member to help sponsor it, and this afternoon a quick conference with horror writer and H.S. English teacher, Matt Cardin met that condition, may-his-name-be-praised-forever.
We shall see where this goes. I anticipate beginning substitute teaching in early December and beginning Writing Club meetings in January after the break. I am more grateful than I can say to Matt, who is already staying after school several nights a week, and I am both excited and apprehensive about the venture. Wish it luck.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Call for Submissions: Guerrilla Ink Press
Guerrilla Ink Press is currently accepting submissions of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction manuscripts, as well as photography and digital artwork for a new literary, arts, entertainment, news publication, GiP. This magazine allows Guerrilla Ink Press to continue providing dynamic publishing opportunities for new, emerging, and established writers in both electronic and print formats. Deadline is December 10, 2007.
Send Submissions to:
Attn: GiP Magazine
Guerrilla Ink Press, LLC
1956 E. Chestnut Exp.
Springfield, MO 65802-2235
If you have questions or would like more information, please contact GIP@guerrillainkpress.com with the subject ‘Attn. GiP Magazine.’ We look forward to hearing from you soon.
I've known Will LaPage, the founder and executive editor for GiP, for a good many years and can say without reserve that he is one of the most dedicated people I have ever met in terms of commitment to the literary world. He himself has a definite gift for writing, and reading his pieces in workshop has always been an act of appreciation as well as critical review on my part. His input on my own work has been more than notably helpful (those of you who enjoyed "Mania" have him, in part, to thank). What's more, GiP is offering book deals to each of of the contributors to its first issue. You can read more here.
Please pass this information on to other writers who may be interested. I'd love to see GiP flooded with quality work, and I know many of my readers and their acquaintances can make it happen.
Send Submissions to:
Attn: GiP Magazine
Guerrilla Ink Press, LLC
1956 E. Chestnut Exp.
Springfield, MO 65802-2235
If you have questions or would like more information, please contact GIP@guerrillainkpress.com with the subject ‘Attn. GiP Magazine.’ We look forward to hearing from you soon.
I've known Will LaPage, the founder and executive editor for GiP, for a good many years and can say without reserve that he is one of the most dedicated people I have ever met in terms of commitment to the literary world. He himself has a definite gift for writing, and reading his pieces in workshop has always been an act of appreciation as well as critical review on my part. His input on my own work has been more than notably helpful (those of you who enjoyed "Mania" have him, in part, to thank). What's more, GiP is offering book deals to each of of the contributors to its first issue. You can read more here.
Please pass this information on to other writers who may be interested. I'd love to see GiP flooded with quality work, and I know many of my readers and their acquaintances can make it happen.
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