Sunday, May 31, 2009

A Week of Cheers! and Jeers.

Cheer!: The convertible bra - that claims to be strapless, backless, and push up, depending on the occasion - is truly convertible! Standing in front of the Victoria's Secret mirror that instructed me to "strip" in neon red, I realized that in this bra my bosoms went from less than perky bobbers to "you can start me up," va-va-va-voom fantastic! Welcome back to the surface ladies! (and welcome back sideways glances from men)! And watch out Betty Paige! Strip, indeed!

(p.s.. Dear VC, I love the new fitting/customer service system! You guys rock!)

Jeer.: Unfortunately, the convertible part of the bra also converts my stomach into two ginormous muffin tops. Great top to muffin top in a single glance to my midsection. It's fair to say that I do have some body fat to speak of. I did have a baby and all. But seriously, Kate Moss is as waifish as one can get; she's almost inside-out, she's so (too) skinny! And I would wager most of my life's savings on a bet that even Kate Moss would have a muffin top in this thing. Ok, probably not. But it helps me sleep at night to think that. Plus, my life's savings is like three dollars, or something.

Cheer!: Regarding School - Next week is the last week of school! Everyone is so excited, including the teachers who have stopped counting days and started counting minutes! There are very few of us rocking in corners, muttering incoherently to ourselves. I have everything ready for exams and check out, so I really can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Also, I got fifth place in the ranks of teachers voted to read names at graduation. Only the first four read! (This is a victory, friends. Believe me. If you don't understand, try saying "Onegbule" or "Fuc Duc Dong" or "Oluwakanyinsola Obayan" correctly in front of a packed auditorium, these kids' mommas being among the many. Hell, try saying "magna cum laude" correctly. It sucks. But I don't have to do it!!)

The litmag is OUT! It looks phenomenal, thanks to my great staff! (Pictures to follow.) Temporary Utopia , the release party, is over. :)

Jeer.: I still have to make a failure list for those who won't make it. I get so angry when kids put me in this position - having to tell them that I'm sorry that their great aunt Gladys flew in all the way from Buffalo for the commencement, but she'll have to go home. "You're not walking across the stage this time, but chin up! There's always summer graduation." (sigh) I should mention that I do everything I can to help my kids pass. EVERYTHING. Ironically, they have to really work at failing. :(

We have to sell 100 magazines in a week. That's what happens when your deadlines get pushed back two weeks because of AP/IB testing that you forgot was happening the week before the mag was supposed to go to printer.

Hey, y'all! Want to buy a literary magazine for the low, low cost of $15?

Cheer!: My baby is turning one in two weeks!

Jeer.: My baby is turning one in two weeks.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

With Crime and Punishment For All

Plinky asks, "What activity should be considered a crime? Explain why this behavior should not be tolerated and describe a fitting punishment."

Dante's Inferno, the first part of The Divine Comedy, describes the worst crimes committed by the worst sinners, and then he details the specific punishments for each of those crimes. He says the worst sin/crime known to man is when a person is a traitor to his master. That's why Satan sits in Dante's frozen hell, flapping his six wings to keep the place icy (as should be the place that is absent of light and love), chewing on the likes of Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot. Dante felt that betrayal was certainly worse than those that our Western society seems to be hung up on - suicide, abortion, murder, and homosexuality**. Though we are likely to nod at several of Dante's suggestions, we have to remember that he was also very political and actually named names when talking about some crimes and punishments - not so Christ-like, I'm afraid.

We obviously must talk about Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment when Plinky suggests that we do. In it, the main character, Raskolnikov, commits a double murder while in a deranged state. His punishment is existence itself. Rather it is living with his own troubled conscience.

For Meursault in The Stranger, the crime again is murder, though really he is tried for apathy - not crying at his mother's funeral; the punishment is that he is "beheaded in the name of the French government" which is not nearly as bad a punishment to him as is being deprived of a cigarette and sex while in jail. Eventually, even those thing are of little consequence. After all, everyone dies eventually, right? Why is execution better or worse than any other death?

For Shakespeare's overexposed couple, Romeo and Juliet, love and naivete make up the crime and the absence of that love is the punishment. Death joins them in the end. In The Tragedy of Macbeth, Macbeth is too ambitious. It's death and delusion for him. Lear favors the wrong daughters and goes insane. Hamlet's crime is revenge, also punishable by all encompassing death - no one, not the criminal nor the innocent, makes it in the end.

In real life, Martin Luther King said that the biggest crime committed in society is inaction. In many speeches and writings he says that folks who turn blind eyes to injustice are the criminals. I suppose his crime was speaking the truth that many were reluctant to hear. His punishment was being forced to leave this world before his dream was realized. Society's punishment was the loss of a very wise man, their crime being apathy.

And on and on and on.

The point of me going over all of this is to say my answer is I don't know. Literary geniuses have gone over this in many, many works. There is no conclusive answer. Murder, of course, is bad. Rape is horrendous. And still I'm inclined to say that apathy is the most ruinous because apathy can literally kill millions - (See Darfur, for reference). But then, ambition and greed, crimes that are lesser ones in our culture, can have a similar result.

I vote, instead, that we take the wisdom of those who have spent time pondering such things with a grain of salt, and focus, rather, on the things we can do for each other. Maybe if more of us wholly invested ourselves in our metaphorical gardens, taking care of our families and our communities, there would be less crime to think about, and less punishment to inflict.


* the other parts being Purgatorio and Paradiso, don't-cha know
** Apart from murder, our society has no business persecuting or prosecuting these "crimes". Shouldn't we focus on helping and loving each other? Why are we so fucking stuck in what we call 'righteousness', when really our agenda embodies exclusion and hate!?

Saturday, May 23, 2009

An Acceptance of Change and and Invitation to a Tea Party

I have never been one to openly embrace Change. I find her naggy and even mean sometimes, but she is always persistent.

When I see Change coming to the door of my metaphorical life, I usually cower in the corner from her, and then shake and cry and rock because she might force her way in. "Don't answer the door. Don't answer. Don't answer. Don't answer to Change." But I always reluctantly do. That's how Change works. Of course she's going to come in. She's invasive like that.

After all my angst and worry, when Change does come in, I eventually get used to her being there. Or maybe it's that I forget that she was unwelcome in the first place. I feel silly for being such a coward, and to make ammends I make a pot of tea for us, we get all cozy and sister-like, and then write in our reflective journals. My entry might read, "Change is not so bad - certainly not as bad as I thought, anyway," and hers would say, "I wish Ginger would be more confident about our relationship. If she had just met me with open arms, we wouldn't have had any sort of struggle."

Change is actually very nice. It's Fear I should watch out for - the same Fear that paralyzes people into inaction, the one that blinds rationality and causes people to do really stupid things.. Honestly, it's Fear that puts me in my corner. Fear sometimes accompanies Change. I'm pretty sure Change wishes Fear would leave her the hell alone, but Fear is insistent, too. He petulantly annoys Change, and he isn't very endearing.

Unfortunately, Fear tends to sneak in with Change. Rather, Change invites Fear to come along under the guise of Responsibility. It's when we allow Fear in with Change that the foundations shake.

So this might potentially be a time of Change for me. I see her coming up the drive. And because I want to live my life without Fear and his asshole cousin, Regret, I'm trying to decide how best to welcome her, to actually embrace her with a huge, all accepting hug, while slamming the door in the faces of the unwelcome visitors.

If only Wisdom were here. She would know how to do this..

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

A Toast

To the teachers and the guides,
and to the students and their students,
to all who teach and learn,
in this place and every place,
to them and to us,
Life!

To friends and companions,
brothers and sisters of souls and heart,
to all who give and receive,
who share and who trust,
in this place and every place,
to them and to us,
Love!

-- Inspired by Kaddish D-Rabbanan, the Jewish Prayer for Scholars; from Teaching Tolerence Educational Newsletter

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Spit Wad Survival

I'm five. At least, I've been acting that way lately. In the last week my professionalism at work has diminished into something akin to a hollow ballpoint pen and perfectly saturated spit wad aimed at that waxy old school marm, also known as me.

For example, I walked by a colleague's classroom on Tuesday. By colleague, I mean the very same Tweedle Dee who passed extremely mature notes with the cool kids at that very formal staff meeting that one time. Anyway, as I passed his room, I noticed his door was propped slightly open which, as any amateur knows, is an invitation to jackholery.

I peeked into the room and noticed Tweedle Dee was at his desk. The lights were off and the kids were watching some sort of enlightening documentary, one that I believe comes standard with any American history class.. or maybe it was contraband.. I can't remember. The point is that seeing TD at his desk, clearly absorbed in the film, I crouched down close to the floor and whispered to the nearest kid sitting in the closest desk.

"Pssst. Hey. Psst."

The kid turned around slowly. From the expression on his face I knew he was slightly horrified to be breaking a rule - that is, to almost talk during a movie - and even more horrified to find a grown woman- a teacher, no less- crouched close to the ground in the hallway, whispering "psst" to him through the slightly open door. His amusement quickly overtook his surprise, and he grinned.

I held one finger to my mouth, the universal signal for "shhhh" and in this case for "Act natural, kid. Don't draw attention to this area of the room," and then I whispered, "Do you have any paper?" He slowly and methodically unzipped his backpack, careful not to make a sound that might alert his teacher that he was doing anything remotely devious. He shimmied a single loose leaf sheet out of a folder and carefully passed in through the door to me.

I took the paper and on it wrote, "Walk up to Tweedle Dee, point one finger at him, and say, 'Zap!' Do this before you leave class today." I then passed the note back to the kid, who read it and looked back at me. I made the universal hand signal for "pass this around the class," which in return was given an almost too enthusiastic thumbs up. Before I left, I took one more peek at Tweedle Dee who had not moved a muscle.

I'm not sure how far the note got, or if any of his class had the chance to Zap Tweedle Dee. I did get an email back with the word "ZAP" written in 72 font size, so I know he knows..

See? I'm five. And this story does not even include the argument I had with a student that involved my shoulder angel (that sits across from my demon one) being Al Capone which means that his shoulder angel should watch his back. It does not include the fact that I had my entire LitMag staff singing Minnie Ripperton's "Loving You" with a particularly robust "La la la la la" chorus, or the fact that I'm making my kids River Dance to the pencil sharpener.

I think my stress level is really high and because I'm drowning in worry - about whether or not my kids will graduate (I seem to be the only one who cares); magazine production - printing, music recording and release party; IB assessment papers; and general end of the school activities - I think I've reverted to these immature shenanigans. But I'm surviving. And it's kind of fun to be the crazy one..

Saturday, May 9, 2009

My drug of choice? KERA

I watched the Antiques Road Show on KERA the other night and learned that if you live in Texas, your heirloom valuables should come, NOT from those hard workers who made do with the dusty land they beat into submission to survive, but from Europe, hopefully France. That is unless your grandfather played professional baseball for an out of state team, preferably the one that had Joe DiMaggio on the batting list. Also, it is imperative that your grandfather had the forethought to get his most important teammates' autographs, photographs, DNA samples, and a list of their favorite warm-up songs, and then compile this data neatly in an air resistant scrapbook.

It turns out my possessions are highly expendable.

The following night I watched a KERA documentary on "the true stories" of World War II which focused especially on the rocky relationship between Stalin and Hitler and then on the one between Stalin and Churchill when Hitler turned out to be a two faced back stabber. I wasn't at all surprised to learn that Hitler was a bad friend. I was surprised to learn that Stalin was, in a previous life, the girl in a particularly moving After School Special who just wanted to fit in but couldn't because the popular girls made fun of his naivete and, apparently, his training bra. I learned that this type of trauma leads to indescriminant.. er descriminant exections and that Soviet winter is bad, until it stops Nazis, in which case it is good.

I also know, thanks to KERA, that Abe Lincoln may or may not have had a degenerative disease which may or may not have caused him to be so wonderfully radical. I made the mistake of saying this out loud to a group of students who eagerly agreed that, "that boy ain't right just like Kennedy ain't right and neither is Obama". I then wished I had the same disease Lincoln had so that I could emancipate myself from their presence. Plus, I've always wanted to be tall.

So one of three things is happening:

a. KERA is no longer dry and boring, but is a really interesting, poignant part of my evening ritual.

b. My TV only receives one channel, and in this economy, who can afford cable?

c. I have a mild case of the H1N1 Flu and a scoch of insomnia on the side.

The answer, as one can obviously conclude from process of elimination, is C. (KERA is still freaking boring, so much so that I have to remind myself to blink; and I would pay the cable bill before I pay my mortgage.)

As for the flu part - perhaps I'm overreacting. I do have at least a cold that keeps me in Kleenex all day long. This isn't pleasant, especially in times of pandemic. Passersby take one look at my red nose and cross the street while tightening their surgical masks and speed dialing the CDC.

As for the insomnia - I haven't slept well in weeks. That part I am not exaggerating. There's a lot going on these days..

But not to worry. KERA is doing it's damnedest to lull me back into that beautiful, peaceful REM cycle. It's starting to work, I think. It may take effect any day now.

Monday, May 4, 2009

The Beckoning of Lovely

The Mighty Girl blog introduced me to this and it was too lovely not to share..

Sunday, May 31, 2009

A Week of Cheers! and Jeers.

Cheer!: The convertible bra - that claims to be strapless, backless, and push up, depending on the occasion - is truly convertible! Standing in front of the Victoria's Secret mirror that instructed me to "strip" in neon red, I realized that in this bra my bosoms went from less than perky bobbers to "you can start me up," va-va-va-voom fantastic! Welcome back to the surface ladies! (and welcome back sideways glances from men)! And watch out Betty Paige! Strip, indeed!

(p.s.. Dear VC, I love the new fitting/customer service system! You guys rock!)

Jeer.: Unfortunately, the convertible part of the bra also converts my stomach into two ginormous muffin tops. Great top to muffin top in a single glance to my midsection. It's fair to say that I do have some body fat to speak of. I did have a baby and all. But seriously, Kate Moss is as waifish as one can get; she's almost inside-out, she's so (too) skinny! And I would wager most of my life's savings on a bet that even Kate Moss would have a muffin top in this thing. Ok, probably not. But it helps me sleep at night to think that. Plus, my life's savings is like three dollars, or something.

Cheer!: Regarding School - Next week is the last week of school! Everyone is so excited, including the teachers who have stopped counting days and started counting minutes! There are very few of us rocking in corners, muttering incoherently to ourselves. I have everything ready for exams and check out, so I really can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Also, I got fifth place in the ranks of teachers voted to read names at graduation. Only the first four read! (This is a victory, friends. Believe me. If you don't understand, try saying "Onegbule" or "Fuc Duc Dong" or "Oluwakanyinsola Obayan" correctly in front of a packed auditorium, these kids' mommas being among the many. Hell, try saying "magna cum laude" correctly. It sucks. But I don't have to do it!!)

The litmag is OUT! It looks phenomenal, thanks to my great staff! (Pictures to follow.) Temporary Utopia , the release party, is over. :)

Jeer.: I still have to make a failure list for those who won't make it. I get so angry when kids put me in this position - having to tell them that I'm sorry that their great aunt Gladys flew in all the way from Buffalo for the commencement, but she'll have to go home. "You're not walking across the stage this time, but chin up! There's always summer graduation." (sigh) I should mention that I do everything I can to help my kids pass. EVERYTHING. Ironically, they have to really work at failing. :(

We have to sell 100 magazines in a week. That's what happens when your deadlines get pushed back two weeks because of AP/IB testing that you forgot was happening the week before the mag was supposed to go to printer.

Hey, y'all! Want to buy a literary magazine for the low, low cost of $15?

Cheer!: My baby is turning one in two weeks!

Jeer.: My baby is turning one in two weeks.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

With Crime and Punishment For All

Plinky asks, "What activity should be considered a crime? Explain why this behavior should not be tolerated and describe a fitting punishment."

Dante's Inferno, the first part of The Divine Comedy, describes the worst crimes committed by the worst sinners, and then he details the specific punishments for each of those crimes. He says the worst sin/crime known to man is when a person is a traitor to his master. That's why Satan sits in Dante's frozen hell, flapping his six wings to keep the place icy (as should be the place that is absent of light and love), chewing on the likes of Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot. Dante felt that betrayal was certainly worse than those that our Western society seems to be hung up on - suicide, abortion, murder, and homosexuality**. Though we are likely to nod at several of Dante's suggestions, we have to remember that he was also very political and actually named names when talking about some crimes and punishments - not so Christ-like, I'm afraid.

We obviously must talk about Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment when Plinky suggests that we do. In it, the main character, Raskolnikov, commits a double murder while in a deranged state. His punishment is existence itself. Rather it is living with his own troubled conscience.

For Meursault in The Stranger, the crime again is murder, though really he is tried for apathy - not crying at his mother's funeral; the punishment is that he is "beheaded in the name of the French government" which is not nearly as bad a punishment to him as is being deprived of a cigarette and sex while in jail. Eventually, even those thing are of little consequence. After all, everyone dies eventually, right? Why is execution better or worse than any other death?

For Shakespeare's overexposed couple, Romeo and Juliet, love and naivete make up the crime and the absence of that love is the punishment. Death joins them in the end. In The Tragedy of Macbeth, Macbeth is too ambitious. It's death and delusion for him. Lear favors the wrong daughters and goes insane. Hamlet's crime is revenge, also punishable by all encompassing death - no one, not the criminal nor the innocent, makes it in the end.

In real life, Martin Luther King said that the biggest crime committed in society is inaction. In many speeches and writings he says that folks who turn blind eyes to injustice are the criminals. I suppose his crime was speaking the truth that many were reluctant to hear. His punishment was being forced to leave this world before his dream was realized. Society's punishment was the loss of a very wise man, their crime being apathy.

And on and on and on.

The point of me going over all of this is to say my answer is I don't know. Literary geniuses have gone over this in many, many works. There is no conclusive answer. Murder, of course, is bad. Rape is horrendous. And still I'm inclined to say that apathy is the most ruinous because apathy can literally kill millions - (See Darfur, for reference). But then, ambition and greed, crimes that are lesser ones in our culture, can have a similar result.

I vote, instead, that we take the wisdom of those who have spent time pondering such things with a grain of salt, and focus, rather, on the things we can do for each other. Maybe if more of us wholly invested ourselves in our metaphorical gardens, taking care of our families and our communities, there would be less crime to think about, and less punishment to inflict.


* the other parts being Purgatorio and Paradiso, don't-cha know
** Apart from murder, our society has no business persecuting or prosecuting these "crimes". Shouldn't we focus on helping and loving each other? Why are we so fucking stuck in what we call 'righteousness', when really our agenda embodies exclusion and hate!?

Saturday, May 23, 2009

An Acceptance of Change and and Invitation to a Tea Party

I have never been one to openly embrace Change. I find her naggy and even mean sometimes, but she is always persistent.

When I see Change coming to the door of my metaphorical life, I usually cower in the corner from her, and then shake and cry and rock because she might force her way in. "Don't answer the door. Don't answer. Don't answer. Don't answer to Change." But I always reluctantly do. That's how Change works. Of course she's going to come in. She's invasive like that.

After all my angst and worry, when Change does come in, I eventually get used to her being there. Or maybe it's that I forget that she was unwelcome in the first place. I feel silly for being such a coward, and to make ammends I make a pot of tea for us, we get all cozy and sister-like, and then write in our reflective journals. My entry might read, "Change is not so bad - certainly not as bad as I thought, anyway," and hers would say, "I wish Ginger would be more confident about our relationship. If she had just met me with open arms, we wouldn't have had any sort of struggle."

Change is actually very nice. It's Fear I should watch out for - the same Fear that paralyzes people into inaction, the one that blinds rationality and causes people to do really stupid things.. Honestly, it's Fear that puts me in my corner. Fear sometimes accompanies Change. I'm pretty sure Change wishes Fear would leave her the hell alone, but Fear is insistent, too. He petulantly annoys Change, and he isn't very endearing.

Unfortunately, Fear tends to sneak in with Change. Rather, Change invites Fear to come along under the guise of Responsibility. It's when we allow Fear in with Change that the foundations shake.

So this might potentially be a time of Change for me. I see her coming up the drive. And because I want to live my life without Fear and his asshole cousin, Regret, I'm trying to decide how best to welcome her, to actually embrace her with a huge, all accepting hug, while slamming the door in the faces of the unwelcome visitors.

If only Wisdom were here. She would know how to do this..

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

A Toast

To the teachers and the guides,
and to the students and their students,
to all who teach and learn,
in this place and every place,
to them and to us,
Life!

To friends and companions,
brothers and sisters of souls and heart,
to all who give and receive,
who share and who trust,
in this place and every place,
to them and to us,
Love!

-- Inspired by Kaddish D-Rabbanan, the Jewish Prayer for Scholars; from Teaching Tolerence Educational Newsletter

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Spit Wad Survival

I'm five. At least, I've been acting that way lately. In the last week my professionalism at work has diminished into something akin to a hollow ballpoint pen and perfectly saturated spit wad aimed at that waxy old school marm, also known as me.

For example, I walked by a colleague's classroom on Tuesday. By colleague, I mean the very same Tweedle Dee who passed extremely mature notes with the cool kids at that very formal staff meeting that one time. Anyway, as I passed his room, I noticed his door was propped slightly open which, as any amateur knows, is an invitation to jackholery.

I peeked into the room and noticed Tweedle Dee was at his desk. The lights were off and the kids were watching some sort of enlightening documentary, one that I believe comes standard with any American history class.. or maybe it was contraband.. I can't remember. The point is that seeing TD at his desk, clearly absorbed in the film, I crouched down close to the floor and whispered to the nearest kid sitting in the closest desk.

"Pssst. Hey. Psst."

The kid turned around slowly. From the expression on his face I knew he was slightly horrified to be breaking a rule - that is, to almost talk during a movie - and even more horrified to find a grown woman- a teacher, no less- crouched close to the ground in the hallway, whispering "psst" to him through the slightly open door. His amusement quickly overtook his surprise, and he grinned.

I held one finger to my mouth, the universal signal for "shhhh" and in this case for "Act natural, kid. Don't draw attention to this area of the room," and then I whispered, "Do you have any paper?" He slowly and methodically unzipped his backpack, careful not to make a sound that might alert his teacher that he was doing anything remotely devious. He shimmied a single loose leaf sheet out of a folder and carefully passed in through the door to me.

I took the paper and on it wrote, "Walk up to Tweedle Dee, point one finger at him, and say, 'Zap!' Do this before you leave class today." I then passed the note back to the kid, who read it and looked back at me. I made the universal hand signal for "pass this around the class," which in return was given an almost too enthusiastic thumbs up. Before I left, I took one more peek at Tweedle Dee who had not moved a muscle.

I'm not sure how far the note got, or if any of his class had the chance to Zap Tweedle Dee. I did get an email back with the word "ZAP" written in 72 font size, so I know he knows..

See? I'm five. And this story does not even include the argument I had with a student that involved my shoulder angel (that sits across from my demon one) being Al Capone which means that his shoulder angel should watch his back. It does not include the fact that I had my entire LitMag staff singing Minnie Ripperton's "Loving You" with a particularly robust "La la la la la" chorus, or the fact that I'm making my kids River Dance to the pencil sharpener.

I think my stress level is really high and because I'm drowning in worry - about whether or not my kids will graduate (I seem to be the only one who cares); magazine production - printing, music recording and release party; IB assessment papers; and general end of the school activities - I think I've reverted to these immature shenanigans. But I'm surviving. And it's kind of fun to be the crazy one..

Saturday, May 9, 2009

My drug of choice? KERA

I watched the Antiques Road Show on KERA the other night and learned that if you live in Texas, your heirloom valuables should come, NOT from those hard workers who made do with the dusty land they beat into submission to survive, but from Europe, hopefully France. That is unless your grandfather played professional baseball for an out of state team, preferably the one that had Joe DiMaggio on the batting list. Also, it is imperative that your grandfather had the forethought to get his most important teammates' autographs, photographs, DNA samples, and a list of their favorite warm-up songs, and then compile this data neatly in an air resistant scrapbook.

It turns out my possessions are highly expendable.

The following night I watched a KERA documentary on "the true stories" of World War II which focused especially on the rocky relationship between Stalin and Hitler and then on the one between Stalin and Churchill when Hitler turned out to be a two faced back stabber. I wasn't at all surprised to learn that Hitler was a bad friend. I was surprised to learn that Stalin was, in a previous life, the girl in a particularly moving After School Special who just wanted to fit in but couldn't because the popular girls made fun of his naivete and, apparently, his training bra. I learned that this type of trauma leads to indescriminant.. er descriminant exections and that Soviet winter is bad, until it stops Nazis, in which case it is good.

I also know, thanks to KERA, that Abe Lincoln may or may not have had a degenerative disease which may or may not have caused him to be so wonderfully radical. I made the mistake of saying this out loud to a group of students who eagerly agreed that, "that boy ain't right just like Kennedy ain't right and neither is Obama". I then wished I had the same disease Lincoln had so that I could emancipate myself from their presence. Plus, I've always wanted to be tall.

So one of three things is happening:

a. KERA is no longer dry and boring, but is a really interesting, poignant part of my evening ritual.

b. My TV only receives one channel, and in this economy, who can afford cable?

c. I have a mild case of the H1N1 Flu and a scoch of insomnia on the side.

The answer, as one can obviously conclude from process of elimination, is C. (KERA is still freaking boring, so much so that I have to remind myself to blink; and I would pay the cable bill before I pay my mortgage.)

As for the flu part - perhaps I'm overreacting. I do have at least a cold that keeps me in Kleenex all day long. This isn't pleasant, especially in times of pandemic. Passersby take one look at my red nose and cross the street while tightening their surgical masks and speed dialing the CDC.

As for the insomnia - I haven't slept well in weeks. That part I am not exaggerating. There's a lot going on these days..

But not to worry. KERA is doing it's damnedest to lull me back into that beautiful, peaceful REM cycle. It's starting to work, I think. It may take effect any day now.

Monday, May 4, 2009

The Beckoning of Lovely

The Mighty Girl blog introduced me to this and it was too lovely not to share..