Friday, 29 February 2008
Most people think of Florida as Disney World and beaches. They're partly right, but I'd like to give you all a geography lesson. Florida, like California, is a long state, so there's a huge variation in climate and lifestyles. We've also got the panhandle and the keys, and, of course, in one day you can watch the sun rise over the Atlantic and set over the Gulf (highly recommended).
Today I want to talk about what lies in the middle (other than theme parks). Central Florida, once you leave the interstate, is as Southern as Southern gets and mostly agricultural. Yes, we have big cities, and the influx of industry has even given us some culture, but you can drive 20 minutes out of any city and find yourself in the backwoods.
Last night we ate real southern BBQ at a family-owned and run restaurant where Mama still does the baking and Daddy the grilling. They make the best collard greens and cornbread pudding you can find, and a person can gain five pounds just by parking their car out back. The floors slope, and the decoration is country kitsch but a lot more authentic and personal than Cracker Barrel's.
There are still quite a few of these type of restaurants left, but their locations, like their reputations for great food and lazy conversation, are one of our best-kept secrets. If the tourists found out, we'd have to close the Florida borders to preserve what little authenticity we have left.
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Wednesday, 27 February 2008
Yes, boys and girls, it's that time of term again...midterm...which means I have more work to do than I can get done, which also means that I am blogging much more than usual and definitely more than is necessary or wise. It also means that I am getting lots of work done around the house, none of it being the (literally) stacks of grading that must be done by a deadline that looms frighteningly near.
On the bright side, we now have clean underwear, bathrooms, and kitchen; the groceries are bought and the bills are paid. I've not gone so daft as to begin working on taxes, but I bet I'll even get that done before I get the grades in. I'm beginning to scare myself.
Yesterday, a student used the word "anal" in connection with me, and I was shocked. Today I asked a friend who knows me well if I was, indeed, anal, and he told me to ask Mr. Bluesky. Okay, I admit, I am an old lady English teacher, but still, I've never seen myself that way. Sigh. I guess it's all over now. I'll have to keep my house clean and learn manners and stop wearing jeans to work. Damn. I'm anal. And I worked so hard not to be.
Stop laughing now. I mean it.
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Wednesday, 27 February 2008
I hadn't realized just how stale my writing has become until yesterday, when I read a new blog that I can only describe as a breath of fresh air. Check it out! It makes me want to spend time I don't have on writing things that are worth reading.
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Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Today, boys and girls, we learned a lesson about electricity. Or the lack thereof. There was a power grid failure, a nuclear power plant was shut down, and much of Florida ground to a sudden halt in the early afternoon. Because some of the buildings on campus don't have an automatic emergency power supply, some were stuck in elevators, one person in a wheelchair was carried down six flights of stairs, and buildings without windows were left in complete darkness.
In my usual carry-on mental state, I made my students continue our discussion in the dark, where I could see them texting instead of participating. I tried to reason with them that people have been operating in the dark for years with no catastrophes, but they refused to play, so I gave up too and fumbled my way out the building, lighting my way with my cell phone.
Once outside, we all stood and passed rumors around until the power came back up about three-quarters of an hour later, and just in time to teach my last class, a feat that merely depressed my students, whose papers were due today. In a sea of rapidly circulating rumors and doomsday theories, I tried to teach students about ethical dilemmas. I could have canceled class, but it just didn't seem right, since teaching ethics to a group of promising young adults could serve the greater good for the most people in the long run, as opposed to some free time for a few in the short run.
Have I fallen into a parallel universe? Can someone lift me out of it please?
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Tuesday, 26 February 2008
When the awful day passes and merges into another and then another and then another and you slowly begin to recover from what is not yours to recover from, from what is their problem, one you helped them with, but one they will have to navigate on their own, having brought it upon themselves, the stages of dealing become apparent. Emotions of crisis, mingled together and running over each other, shock and anger and fear and amazement that it is not so much worse, gratitude really because it could have been, and fear that it will yet turn into a worse nightmare. Can she handle it? Can they handle it together? Will they learn? Will we, as parents, strike the right balance? What is the protocol for situations like this?
We deliberately don't call because we want to communicate that we know they can handle this, and then we worry because we don't know what's going on. We let it go and let it go and pick it up and let it go and let it go. And we hate this situation but love them.
So we fantasize that this will grow them up, that they will learn and go on to better lives. But we worry that they won't, or that they won't quickly enough, or that someone will try to make an example of them just as they've learned their lesson and screw up the situation and thus, their lives.
And then it's Tuesday, and we get up and get ready for work and lead our normal lives and wonder how it's going for them today.
Maybe a phone call on Wednesday won't be crossing the line.
Picking it up, putting it down, worrying, worrying, worrying.
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Monday, 25 February 2008
You know how it is in a long-term crisis, where you pretty much hold your breath and watch what you say and try to even corral your thoughts 90 percent of the time? The other ten percent of the time is "between stages," where you cautiously breathe, even as you continue to watch what you say and think.
None of us who take on parenthood are immune to crisis, and the crises always come just when you think you can't take on one more crisis.
Even when their crises are the result of their own stupidity. Haven't we all been stupid?
So we smile and we hug and we open our wallets and our homes and our fix-it shops and we sit up and wait for them and with them through the long hours and we hold on for dear life. But only for an instant, really, and then we let it go and let them go all over again, and we say to call if you need anything, anything, and of course you can handle this, and please keep us posted, and no need for thanks, that's what parents are for.
And we remember that we did not learn how to pray when we were children; we learned how to pray when we had children.
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Thursday, 21 February 2008
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Thursday, 21 February 2008
It's struck again. That February thing. The one where everyone has had enough. It's bad enough to feel it on your own, but then the students are copping attitudes, and coworkers are going beserk and running amok, hysterically brandishing student papers and proclaiming the end is near.
Because the end is near. There are two weeks left til Spring Break and then six weeks of teaching after that, followed by one week of exams and grading.
The alien inside, the ever-present adolescent who whispers, screw responsibility, is itchy and restless and looking for fun, or at the very least, someone responsible to beat up.
Snowbirds, you'd best start packing your bags for home. Take a couple of Canadians with you as you leave. We're tired of slammed interstates and overcrowded restaurants.
Students, kwitcherbitchin and just do the work. Same for all you exhausted faculty out there. The siren call of summer will just have to wait. Blow everything off on spring break, and then come back and give it your all. You can do that for six more weeks. Yes you can.
If you need help, don't come to me; hire a professional.
Hanging on by a thread, trying to beat the million-to-one odds of being struck by bits of satellite reentering the atmosphere and the much greater odds of being struck by the wads of crap people are slinging around carelessly.
This has been a public service announcement.
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Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Yesterday, my penchant for self-preservation led me to combine supersized zombies, miniature Waltons, and a headcold, all at once. The only parallel experience I've come across lately on Motime might be Yoshick's vodka shots in an old boys' bar on the way to a bikini wax.
Lest you think I've completely lost what little mind I have left, let me reassure you that I'm not making this shtuff up. It's real. Very real. Prepare to be frightened. Very frightened.
On Monday, as I trudged home from another long day at work when everyone else was out there Partying with the Presidents, I sat at a light across from the sign at the MOSI which proclaimed that I Am Legend was playing in the Imax theatre. Something clicked in my overtaxed mind.
Isn't that the one he wanted to see, where a virus (probably similar to the one I'm currently infested with) wiped out everyone but Will Smith, a cute dog, and a bunch of zombies? Wouldn't he just love to experience flesh-eaters on the humongous screen with surround sound amplifying the screeches and screams? Wouldn't I just buy my way out from being accused of working too much and playing too little again?
And thus, a really, really bad idea was born.
Yesterday I went over research paper drafts with over two dozen students, back to back, one at a time, as the accumulating viral fluids began to invade my eustacian (oh, look it up in the dictionary yourself!) tubes and throat, making me dizzy and snarly and utterly disoriented. Perfect state to be in for a zombie date, I thought.
First we feasted on red meat, a sort of preparation for the orgy of blood to follow.
I noticed that it was difficult to get to the absolute center of the IMAX dome, where the aisles are steep and have no rails, when my head was threatening to explode and the whole dome was swirling round and round. However, once seated, I thought, okay.
I could not have been more wrong.
First, they announced that they were locking the lower doors once the film started, that the only way out was to climb even higher. I looked at the red exit sign, so tiny in that huge room.
Then they announced that any disorientation was due to the encompassing screen, and that, if experienced, the best way of dealing with it is to close your eyes until it passes. hmmmmm.
Then the film began, and the first thing I noticed was Will Smith's nostril hair. It's not the kind of thing you'd notice unless it was magnified beyond the size of a small car. But there it was.
I also noticed you can't see two characters at once on an IMAX screen, so every time Will talked to the dog, I had to turn my head for the dog's reactions. All this head movement in itself was enough to disorient me.
Ever notice how you're always warned well in advance before the zombies enter? The day begins to turn to night, the music becomes ominous. All of a sudden, I remembered that I can't stand zombies. I don't even like them in campy classic films. They remind me too much of my relatives. bunch of flesh-eating mindless monsters.
It was at this moment, when the camera kept flashing from one scene to another, and my dizziness peaked, and there was NO WAY I'd close my eyes in that zombie-infested theatre, that I remembered something vitally important! I'd never finished the Christmas episode of The Waltons on my Ipod, and I even had my trusty Ipod with me!
You know the episode, the one where Mama is afraid that, kids growing up and all, this will be the last "family" Christmas, and you know how much they all want to please Mama, but of course there's a blizzard and a terrible accident (but no zombies). All of a sudden, I simply had to know how the episode had ended. Did John-Boy rescue the woman and child? Did Ben fix the church roof? Did the turkey dry out?
Thus, the amplified screams of zombies and Will Smith's heavy breathing on the over-sized, overly darkened screen were accompanied by a teensy-tiny video of Elizabeth and Jim-Bob pelting each other with snowballs.
Finally, the zombie date was over. Will Smith had once again saved the world, and everyone had said good night, Mary Ellen, and good night Grandma. We walked out of the eerily empty museum into the deserted parking lot as I hummed the theme to The Waltons.
Hey, it kept the zombies at bay.
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Monday, 18 February 2008
So just yesterday I came out of my work tunnel long enough to see that the rest of the world was bathed in springtime and sunshine because today is a holiday for them, while I must work. Gee, the students who are meeting with me today for midterm conferences must feel the same way.
Ah, well. Just another day in paradise, right?
His car is no longer a lawn ornament. Keep your fingers crossed that it stays that way.
I saw a trail of small black ants moving back into our attic yesterday. Sigh.
We're in the planning stages of ripping up our bathroom to fix the leaks and assess structural damage. Maybe that's why spring break doesn't seem exciting this year. We plan to do the work ourselves, but I worry about this one. The tree that is threatening the foundation of our house will be removed by professionals, but we do our own plumbing? Wouldn't it save more money in the long run to take out another mortgage? Except for the fact that we're already dealing with the mistakes of "professionals" who did not give an extended warranty. We're bound to do better work. I think. I dunno. Sigh.
I either am coming down with his virus slowly or am fighting it off valiantly, but I've felt kind of yucky since yesterday.
Our daughter has now quit smoking for seven weeks, and she's stopped the Nicorette. She's an edgy and dangerous woman when she's hormonal or quitting smoking, and I love being around her when she's like that. Of course, I am a bit that way myself. My husband, her father, just sits and watches us with a certain smile on his face.
It bothers me to remove the tree her dad and brother planted when I was pregnant with her, the one that shares her name, but she says, it's just a tree, plant another further from the house. I love this woman.
On good days, our son seems fine. On bad days, when he gets exhausted, I worry. And he still won't tell me when his next procedure is, probably because he's postponing it as usual.
There's other stuff that worries me, and other stuff that makes me smile. Another ordinary day, not a holiday, nothing special or significant about it. The stuff lives are made of. But it feels like something will happen today, something unusual or significant, like the scene in the black-and-white film where the girl in the red dress walks through.
It's probably just me.
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Sunday, 17 February 2008
There is no better stress-buster than a good walk. Being outdoors, whatever the weather, takes me outside of myself, my worries, my little world, into the larger world. It is cleansing, fortifying, and it always cheers me up. A solitary walk often leads to reflection; walking with a friend or loved one is the best sort of companionship.
Sipping my coffee and tying my shoes...we're off!
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Tuesday, 12 February 2008
I love you guys.
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Monday, 11 February 2008
Here I am, being selfish, posting and not commenting. Here I am, being selfish, saying no to my mother, the Christian Martyr, the Last Hope, the Bulwark of Strength who expects me to fill in her shoes when she can't be everyplace at once.
Motherhood is not about martyrhood, although it is about unselfishness. It does no one any good to always intervene in others' lives, to impose your values on them, to enable rather than support, to cripple rather than give them independence.
It's a fight, always a fight, with her. But this time I stood firm, despite the myriad of ways she tries to make me feel small and selfish and guilty for not playing her game.
Tell me it gets easier with time. Tell me, please, that we can come to a better understanding and acceptance of each other before it's too late. Lie to me like she does.
Help me to stop shaking, to stop running from confrontation. Help me to stop spilling this on my blog, hoping for everyone to say I'm right and she's wrong.
We're both losers here.
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Sunday, 10 February 2008
Every time I log in to Motime lately, my digest is way too full of recent posts and comments, and I can't seem to do more than scan them and maybe dash off a quick comment which never does these thoughtful Motimers justice. I'm behind in all the basics: work, chores, and family, and I forget important things at an alarming rate these days. Blogging has become another thing on my to-do list, and that just won't do. Taking a blog break; will return!
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Friday, 08 February 2008
I'm from the Vietnam generation, anti-war, anti-Big-Brother, and very little of that has changed within me, but what has changed in more recent years is my feelings about those who wear the uniforms. I'm from a military city; my husband was in the military when we married, and anything military has always turned my stomach. The righteous god-and-country rhetoric of the far right, the mind-numbing training that seeks to sublimate the individual and create a climate of mindless obedience, the oppressive "homeland security" that seems to shadow us all, symbolized for me a loss of freedom and a great danger.
My attitudes toward all that haven't changed. The change is that I no longer see the uniform; I see the person. You see, now it's largely not my contemporaries who march in cadence and carry the flag; it's their children. It's my nephews. It's the young people I teach. While it's easy to hold your peers in disdain, it's a bit more complicated when you look at the next generation and remember the illusions of your youth. True understanding is hard won, and experience the best teacher.
Yesterday, a war hero visited my students because they had written letters to his men in Iraq. The media was there and the university's brass as well, and this helped my students absorb the lesson even more because, frankly, people raised in a media age attach importance to the media.
The sergeant-major, an exceptional human being, has been traveling the country since he arrived home at the first of the year, thanking people who supported his troops. My students had the opportunity to shake his hand and talk with him, and an event I was initially afraid no one would show up for actually took on a life of its own, and none of us wanted to leave and go about our regular business afterward. It was incredible.
Last night, at dinner with the hero and his friends, it was the same experience all over again. I was the student, and I didn't want to stop learning. We closed down the restaurant, and I still wasn't ready for it all to end. I wanted to stay and listen to their simple, honest tales of life in Iraq and their wives' tales of life on the home front, for much longer time than we had.
I arrived home more exhausted than I think I've ever been but checked my email anyway. I'm going to share with you an excerpt from a thank-you note from one of my students because I think she said it best:
Hearing SGM * speak today was so humbling, I take so much for granted,
and I really resent the fact that I didn't notice how bad it was until
today. He gave so selflessly, and is still willing to give so much more.
And it makes me ask what I have done that's so humble and selfless, and I
cannot come up with enough times that I have; I disappointed myself and
will now strive to be better in that aspect of my life.
This, from a student who, like me, opposes the war, but who now has a real sense of appreciation for the troops. This is what education is all about: helping us to see life and ourselves and others in all our complexities and giving us a sense of purpose. This is why I am so grateful to be a teacher. My students teach me and make me grow everyday.
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Wednesday, 06 February 2008
when they find the contents
of my skull, all that crap
in small, bloody scraps
spattered across the room
like a paint can under pressure
colorful bits of brain matter
that no longer matter
will surface in odd places
like the bit about the rats
will splay itself near the wall
and the worry over what to wear
woven like a fine thread
laced into the closet door
the homicidal thoughts
resting near the gun rack
and the hormonal rants
sprayed like bullets in the window
the joyful glimmers, the love,
the creative outbursts
and the hope, always the hope
these will remain in the skull
where they will sprout and grow
as the unseemly withers and dies
it will be difficult
to clean up after myself
walking around carrying
what's left of my head
but I am strong, I'm invincible
I am woman
and gray matter needs green burial
when all I can see is red
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Tuesday, 05 February 2008
I could tell you stories full of stench, but really, do you want to read that?
I could tell you tales of death and tragedy in my cousin's life yesterday, but the news video of the accident made me throw up, and it's over. Or just beginning. And really, don't you get enough drama and tragedy when you watch your local newscast?
Instead, I'll tell you about the pair of bald eagles we watched in the freezing cold. They were a real team. He caught a turtle and worked very hard to get very little meat, and in the end, he dropped it in the river. She manned the lookout post and called to him when he flew. When last we saw them, they sailed together over the frozen Mississippi. It was an unexpected delight.
I'll tell you about my granddaughter, who is so excited over the possibility that maybe one of her front teeth is starting to loosen, and then she'll be like Jared and like Brittany and like Caitlyn. Her eyes gleam more than that shiny little tooth.
I'll tell you about a good man who is back from the war and is visiting a group of students to thank them for writing letters to him and to his men when they were in Iraq. They only lost two men in this tour. They were lucky.
I am lucky. I am alive. I am well. I have work to do that means a lot to me. I have a husband who gets me and, amazingly, still loves me. I have three living children and three living grandchildren.
And I got to watch a pair of eagles, close up, in freezing snow, while rats rotted in my walls in 80 degree heat and a girl ran away from home and created a tragedy.
Ain't life somethin'?
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Friday, 01 February 2008
Question:
Where does the styrofoam go when you overheat your leftover container? The lasagna seems to have acquired a different texture, but it's still delicious.
Question #2:
How do you get styrofoam lasagna out of a keyboard?
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Friday, 01 February 2008
There is a huge tent over my house, spewing poisonous, odorless, colorless gas to kill any and all living things inside it. I hope the rats left, but that's pretty optimistic. Undoubtedly, I'll have to locate and remove corpses or live with stench or beg lodging next week. The upside is that the wood-gnawing parasites will also be dead. All we have to replace at this point is one floorboard, although the damage might be a lot more extensive than that.
When you consider buying that charming old wood house, think of the flip side. That's all I'm saying. That, and pay for the yearly contract with a reliable pest control service.
Right now, however, I am letting the situation handle itself, and I'm in a very cold place with lots of snow to play in and no phones to answer. Unfortunately, I sprained my ankle yesterday, the one that sent me to a wheelchair a couple of years ago. Fortunately, it appears to be a mild sprain. Unfortunately, the injury curtails winter sports. But there's still tons we can do this weekend if I continue to elevate the foot today and everyone keeps their fingers crossed.
I just want to say, it's lovely to be in a place that's a good 70 degrees colder than home, to see snow flurries. It's definitely strange to feel snot go from liquid to solid in your nose within two minutes in an airport parking lot. I love looking at the snow piled up on the sides of streets, love the fireplace, love the people here. Definitely a do-over. Even with the ankle.
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