Letters from the American Interior

Things I Love (Today)

2011-02-14T07:55:00.000-08:00

~This is the happiest thing about Valentine's Day! What can I say, I'm a stamp geek, Google's avatar, of course, being a spin off of Robert Indiana's classic 1973 8c stamp.

2010-10-12T11:55:00.001-07:00

Today is a waiting room. I'm waiting on an appointment, with whom I'm not too sure. Well--that is, this expectant feeling can be chalked up to: a reply to a request for some advice that will lead to radical financial changes; a reply from IT saying they're coming to fix my monitor that is determined to display everything as if it were Super Mario Bros, circa 1989; an extra pair of hands to help me over the next step in this project; a student worker so that I have someone else to talk to. All of these things may or may not happen today, so I'll meet them again when I walk through this door tomorrow. Known waiting, known response.

At home, I'll walk into another waiting room. But there I'm less certain of what it will be for. For a phone call? A half-finished project or a half-read book? Enlightenment? Visitors? The exact dinner I want? My intuition--the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?--insists on "Wait. Wait." Wait? When I want to run on and meet whatever is coming. When I know I'm not, mysteriously, equipped for it.

Migraine Puts on Her Happy Face

2010-09-08T14:31:00.001-07:00

Today has just about been too much. My patience, my understanding, my tolerance, my sanity. At the breaking point. What is wrong with me? Tonight, I'm going to church, and I'm going to read stories to some precious little 3 and 4 yo souls, and we're going to sing about how much God loves us. The end.

2010-08-09T15:26:00.000-07:00

One day, I'll be able to put both of my hands around all of this. I'll be able to lift it up as one piece, set it aside, and reveal the world that was always happening underneath.

These shall be mine, and I will call them manna.

2010-08-04T15:13:00.000-07:00

Spoiler Alert: Cupcakes are now being served at people's weddings as the cool thing to do.

Last winter, two friends of mine got married in an event that was low on frills and rich in love. Being generally behind the rest of the world when it comes to the wedding scene, I found that cupcakes are "the thing" these days, but this was my first time to see it in action. And I was...hm. Well. Cupcakes present many benefits that a traditional cake doesn't, namely, you don't have to wrangle up someone to "honor" by asking them to "serve" it. You can save valuable time by not having to "train" someone on how to exactly put 8 layers of off-center hearts onto 450 plates with equality. And, and! They asked our minister's wife to make them. I had heard tell of Becky's raspberry mint cupcakes, but it just didn't sound right. Since February 2009, I've been dreaming of them. I finally decided 'twas time to locate a recipe.

I chose this one from The Cupcake Blog. I suggest you make them as well. Every time someone makes these, an angel gets its wings.

Win Some: Oh my word. My craving has been satisfied. The basic vanilla cupcake shall forevermore be the starter for all my cupcake efforts.
Learn Some: Why in the world does this involve gelatin in any form? Imagine jello mixed with whipped cream, and what do you have? That's right: elementary school cafeteria. Won't. Do. That. Again. Oh. And I'll chop the mint finer.

A few photos for your enjoymentwill be forthcoming. I call them food porn.

My new personal theme song

2010-07-28T14:49:00.001-07:00

In homage to The Year of the Thyroid's passing and The Year of the B12 Deficiency's inauguration, I play for you now The Rolling Stones. Let the injections begin!

In sleepier news, I'm reading a lot. Finished all of the Stieg Larsson books. Reviews posted soon at Think Journal.

Cheers!

Sinks, while floating

2010-07-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

Transcendence comes walking, galumphing, swimming. It whispers, screams, stands silent. It's red, purple, grey. It is sandy, silky, sickly, robust. It sinks while floating. Today we sang a song in church that had that feeling. The line was "Lest I forget thy love for me..." The altos ascend in pitch while every other part descends. Rare, that approach. But, oh, so right.

Lectio Divina

2010-07-01T06:47:00.000-07:00

One of the most intimate scenes I've read in a novel happened in Grapes of Wrath. Ma Joad--the pillar of the Joad family in increasingly bleak circumstances--calls her daughter to help her with a task. She calls out the daughter's name "Rose of Sharon" and then repeats it over and over to herself under her breath, "enjoying the feel of it in her mouth." I've often felt a need to read quickly over that passage, as it isn't meant for the 3rd person omniscient narrator, let alone the unworthy reader.

I enjoyed Matt's Lectio Divina lesson at church last night. Lectio Divina is fancy Latin for purposeful meditation of scripture, involving prayer, silence, meditation, and memorization. I've been doing a lot of reciting to myself these days, and this was a way to focus that memorization and meditation on scripture, which I do less often than I do with other writings.

"I love you. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, would be my treasure still."--from Jane Eyre

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, protects all things."--I Corinthians 13:6

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." --Matthew 7:12

"For his withdrawal would have been a flight, his deliverance an accident, his reward dishonor, his future perhaps damnation. Then he would have borne witness, not to his faith or to God's mercy, but to how dreadful was the journey to the mountain in Moriah."--Kierkegaard's Fear & Trembling

Menagerie

2010-06-17T06:33:00.000-07:00

I live in one. My dear, dear friend Andrea showed up in this hood yesterday afternoon, demanding food and shelter. Obligingly, I whipped up this sublime curry and fed it to her. My endearing, tiny apartment doesn't have a dishwasher, so I was hurriedly trying to keep up with the dirty cookware as it came off the stove. Looking out the over-the-sink windows, a squirrel appeared to be running across the backyard. Really, it was a tiny tabby-striped kitty frolicking in very tall grass. Precious! I've seen the mama cat before, thinking she was a sibling of my dearly departed Beezus. Beezus is an uncle!

I went out in the cool of the morning to water the tomatoes I didn't water yesterday. I went out through the kitchen door, seeing as how Andrea was sleeping on the couch. Something smelled funny, but Thursday is trash day, so I ignored it...until I saw the furry tail sticking up around the front porch steps. A smashed, maggotty squirrel lay dead on the steps. Mama and Baby Cat huddled sleeping in the porch corner, all of my flowerpots were turned over, and a beautiful tiny bird with tufted hair on his ears was perched in the tomato container, guarding the eggshells I sprinkled on the plant to keep slugs away.

I feel ridiculously flattered that they like my house, too.

Metablogging. I does it.

2010-06-16T14:25:00.000-07:00

I often think of Blogspot the way I think (and most people think) about Windows/PCs. Functional, reliable, not so fancy. Could be a little snazzier. So today, searching for a little refresher for the ol' Inner Monologue, I found this layout. Summery, reminds of some good moments in the meadows of West TN. Way to go, Blogger.

To Dice a More Perfect Onion

2010-05-18T07:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Evaluation Day. Only 3 of 14 students responded, leaving me with one good, one average, and one bad eval. (I'm pretty sure who that one was, and he wasn't such a peach of a student.) I'm certain I can take away from this that the other 11 were satisfied/neutral enough not to feel the need to bleed all over me. Combine that with a big ball of internal rawr, a non-stop three week traveling schedule, and the annual let's-tally-how-much-work-you-did-accomplish v. let's-tally-how-much-you-should-have-accomplished reckoning and I morphed into one roiling, seething mass of primordial elements, a la The Blob.

I leap and glide and slip and slide my way home only to realize that I have a random smattering of groceries to pull into a cohesive, vaguely-healthy dinner. (Dieting--more later.) I have onions. This dinner is saved. My teaching skills may be questionable, but by golly, I can dice an onion. I learned this awesome trick from the Chinese cook on tv. Um...Simply Ming. (It's amazing what you can learn when PBS is coming through in any useful way.)

Slice one end of the onion off, and remove the papery skin layer. Don't cut off the other end. Make four or five slices across the onion in three directions, and voila! A beautifully cubic dice of onion. A dice so beautiful, so translucently pungent, so crisply caramelizing, such a supporter of the chickpeas and less of a competitor. The primordial ooze began slowly to retreat in the face of such brilliance. To question its ability to stand in the face of such superiority.

Squee

2010-05-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

One of my super incredible, nerdy student workers got her dream internship today at Historic New England. I like to think I had a little hand in that. So proud of her hard work!

2010-05-08T09:12:00.000-07:00

My work blog got picked up by speaktopower.org, topsy.com, and Curator Journal. So, you know. Yay me!

An update on TN museums in the wake of flooding

2010-05-05T13:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.fhu.edu/blogs/archives/post/Local-museums-across-spectrum-of-flooding.aspx

This is a link to my work blog, "The Archives Weekly." I'm keeping a running list of what I can find out about museums and archives in the flooded areas of Middle and West TN. Please feel free to update by commenting or contacting me directly.

Here's the latest from Country Music Hall of Fame:
http://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/nashville-flood-update

Mea Culpa?

2010-05-03T07:19:00.000-07:00

Spring is here, and without a couple of weekend tornado rallies, it wouldn't be West TN. So when I said the end was near...I didn't really mean to invite the apocalypse (which is wet, not snowy. At least then we didn't rescue people using boats, and we didn't keep running for cover every three hours). Was really looking forward to Allison's gathering in the sun. I guess she and I can trade declamations even without the trees.

Despite some flooding, all is well in Chester County. Parts of Tipton, Madison and Gibson Counties experienced severe flooding and the Navy got flooded out in Shelby County. The Navy. Got flooded out. Mom and Dad slept through the whole thing. Apparently, tornado warnings are routinely ignored by Baptist East. Which is probably practical.

A beautiful sunny day welcomed and beloved by all.
Listening to: birds.

What a month, or, the end is near.

2010-04-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

I love pay day. I feel grown up, responsible, rich. Until tomorrow. Tomorrow begins a new month. Not a month dedicated to poetry. I hope you've gotten a little taste of rhythm, imagery, cadence, and wordplay in your life this month.

Money ~Howard Simon
Money
Money
Important
Useful
Necessary

Money
Money
Money
Wealthy
Middle
Poverty

Money
Money
Money
Save
Give
Spend

Money
Money
Borrow
Lend
Money
Money
Foe
Friend

Money
Money
Master
Slave
Money
Money
Satisfied
Crave

Money
Money
Laugh
Cry
Money
Money
Live
Die

Money
Money
Sick
Well
Money
Money
Heaven
Hell

Lots of writing about tourism in Chester County (there has to be a prize for the number of forked roads a county can have).
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Lots of teaching and grading about primary sources. (Listen to this one!)
You Begin ~Margaret Atwood
You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.

It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

Lots of time spent in the hospital or on the phone worrying about a sick parent (who will be fine, thankfully!).
Hymn to God, My God, in my Sickness ~John Donne

Since I am coming to that holy room,
Where, with thy choir of saints for evermore,
I shall be made thy music; as I come
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think here before.

Whilst my physicians by their love are grown
Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie
Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown
That this is my south-west discovery,
Per fretum febris, by these straits to die,

I joy, that in these straits I see my west;
For, though their currents yield return to none,
What shall my west hurt me? As west and east
In all flat maps (and I am one) are one,
So death doth touch the resurrection.

Is the Pacific Sea my home? Or are
The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem?
Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar,
All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them,
Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem.

We think that Paradise and Calvary,
Christ's cross, and Adam's tree, stood in one place;
Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me;
As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face,
May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace.

So, in his purple wrapp'd, receive me, Lord;
By these his thorns, give me his other crown;
And as to others' souls I preach'd thy word,
Be this my text, my sermon to mine own:
"Therefore that he may raise, the Lord throws down."

And tomorrow, a tea party.
The Tea Party ~Jessica Nelson North

I had a little tea party
This afternoon at three.
'Twas very small-
Three guest in all-
Just I, myself and me.
Myself ate all the sandwiches,
While I drank up the tea;
'Twas also I who ate the pie
And passed the cake to me.

Be Warm Begins! #2

2010-04-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

Our first meet-up went really well at Besso's last night! Yes, it was made clear to me that, again, I have chosen the most labor intensive way to do things. But in the end, we all agreed to be responsible for one area--like scarves or washcloths--and then pool them all together at the beginning of the fall and see what else we might need or how best to distribute. I took one for the team and agreed to see what could be accomplished in the way of socks. So, I bought my first pair of double pointed needles and sock yarn last night. The needles are shiny and purple and the yarn is soft and white. Think baby blanket soft and white. Sigh of ineffable satisfaction.

Meet ups will be twice monthly in Henderson or in Jackson, alternately. And if you can come, you can come. Soooooo excited!! I can taste it! Some friends here who have friends amongst the homeless of Memphis keep relaying stories to me about how much these folks suffered with the winter cold, especially in want of hats. Maybe, just maybe, we can make a little difference in that this winter?

Venue Change

2010-04-22T11:31:00.000-07:00

Be Warm Meet UP has changed from Green Frog in Jackson to Besso's in Henderson. A lot of our Jackson folks couldn't make it! Also congratulations to Leah, on the birth of Clara Elizabeth--four weeks ahead of schedule! Babies are blessings.

I found some fun baby quotes, that I think Leah and Allen would like:
"The old Irish when immersing a babe at baptism left out the right arm so that it would remain pagan for good fighting."

"It is the nature of babies to be in bliss."--Deepak Chopra

"A baby is God's opinion that life should go on."--Carl Sandburg

"Raising a baby is part joy and part guerilla warfare."--Ed Asner.

Those great goddesses of peace

2010-04-21T08:08:00.000-07:00

Back in ye olde days, I worked as a bridal consultant. Zipping and pinning and steaming, I could, movie-like, anticipate the litany of the remarks a bride or her mother would make: "This will be the happiest day of my life. Today is the day we love each other the most. Today my family means the most to me. Today I love him the most. This is the best time of our lives. The wedding has to be the most perfect day of my life." The air was palpable with the apex of someone's life: the climax in the narrative of their life. I could taste it, and it was bittersweet. I knew beyond knowing that the day had come to resign when I told a bride I had vowed to let my life operate on a ten-best principle.

Of course, accepting a ten-best principle means also adopting a ten-worst principle. On February 13, 2001, on June 24, 2001, on September 11, 2001 on March 20, 2003, on April 17, 2004, on February 16, 2007, on June 1, 2009, on January 30, 2010--I cracked open my well-read copy of The Colossus and Other Poems and reread "Lorelei." So often--I should have it memorized. I don't except the closing line--"Stone, stone. Ferry me down there." Did Plath have a death wish or a peace wish? Probably both. Hearing this expression of the agony, the wish for peace, well. Helps. I wish it had helped Sylvia.

It is no night to drown in:
A full moon, river lapsing
Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,

The blue water-mists dropping
Scrim after scrim like fishnets
Though fishermen are sleeping,

The massive castle turrets
Doubling themselves in a glass
All stillness. Yet these shapes float

Up toward me, troubling the face
Of quiet. From the nadir
They rise, their limbs ponderous

With richness, hair heavier
Than sculptured marble. They sing
Of a world more full and clear

Than can be. Sisters, your song
Bears a burden too weighty
For the whorled ear's listening

Here, in a well-steered country,
Under a balanced ruler.
Deranging by harmony

Beyond the mundane order,
Your voices lay siege. You lodge
On the pitched reefs of nightmare,

Promising sure harborage;
By day, descant from borders
Of hebetude, from the ledge

Also of high windows. Worse
Even than your maddening
Song, your silence. At the source

Of your ice-hearted calling --
Drunkenness of the great depths.
O river, I see drifting

Deep in your flux of silver
Those great goddesses of peace.
Stone, stone, ferry me down there.

Listening to Ray Lamontagne

Be Warm Begins!

2010-04-19T11:14:00.000-07:00

Rosalind Russell in The Women. During this scene, Russell ceaselessly knits as she uncovers that her estranged cousin's ex-husband's mistress-turned-wife is now the mistress-turned-fiancee of the husband of the Contess DeLave, whom she met at the Dude Ranch-Home-For-Divorcing-Wives. They've lost their equilibrium.

Be Warm meets up Thursday at 7:00 at Green Frog Coffee at E. Baltimore Street, Jackson. We're meeting to decide how we want to go about clothing the homeless and needy in our area through our humble needles and a few balls of yarn. (Few balls--giggle.)

Mother by Prabha Raj
Watch her, as she
Sits and knits.

As pair of needles
Criss cross,
I see her thoughts
Setting her wrinkles
To play.

The moment she completes
The picking of stitches,
Her wrinkles
Erase out.

I call it
The juxtaposition of
Mind and sentiment.

A favorite

2010-04-17T09:14:00.000-07:00

My heart, being hungry, feeds on food
The fat of heart despise
Beauty where beauty never stood
And sweet where no sweet lies
I gather to my querulous need
Having a growing heart to feed.

It may be, when my heart is dull,
Having attained its girth
I shall not find so beautiful
The meager shapes of earth
Nor linger in the rain to mark
The smell of tansy through the dark
~Edna St. Vincent Millay

National Poetry Month: Captain Obvious edition

2010-04-14T14:25:00.000-07:00

The President is dead, murdered. Four years of civil war, one family trauma after another, the freaky dream in which he arrived late at his own funeral. Rarely do we see politicians carry their internal strife so clearly on their faces. Walt Whitman thought so too when he penned "O Captain, My Captain." As usual, this poem leaves me with a catch in breath at the speaker's anguish. Rereading this poem recently, I was surprised at the line, "Hear Captain, Dear Father!" For me this poem has often evoked the image of a child staggered by his father's mortality. I just didn't remember the line being in there.

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Listening to The Decemberists "Sons & Daughters"

Dirt, or, How I Spent My Weekend.

2010-04-12T07:00:00.001-07:00

My sisters and I congregated at Nicole's house this weekend for a little digging in the dirt. Each spring, Nicole's gardening plans expand a little more, and this year it involved the planting of trees. Lo, these many trips to Lowe's and back, and a few psuedo-arguments later, a bing sweet cherry is safely transplanted triangularly between the driveway and the front walk. The real challenge--besides getting two people to listen whilst one person talked--was managing the overhead electric lines. Apparently the city thinks it best for lines to run directly over the middle of your front lawn, and not down on the edge along the street. Deep power lines call for short trees. But at the end of the day, we planted a beautiful tree that will have REAL fruit growing on it! We also planted dahlia, fuschia, Mediterranean heather and grasses, started a compost pile, and dug up some ugly old bushes. Yay for spring time!

All this potential for beauty around us made me realize that, in short, I've been limiting my vision to it. Having responsibilities and no money should require that I take time to sit on my front porch and read a book and identify cloud shapes, not the opposite. Why would I do this? Well, the answer is probably one that most adults would give. But I am going to do it--be open to all my surroundings instead of living with blinders on.

Wordsworth is SO NOT my favorite poet. But my favorite English professor loved this poem, and it seems like such an apropos poem for this weekend.

Daffodils
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Songs are kinda like poems, right? I mean, they rhyme.

2010-04-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

I've got reservations
About so many things
But not about you.
Not about you.
~the incomparable Wilco

I see I used the word "incomparable". (I left this post and came back to it about 20 minutes later.) In a moment of silliness I used it. It's the word you throw out when you need to throw a word about a band, an artist, something that moves you. It would be insufferably prideful or at least blindly fallacious to say anything is incomparable. For example, the weather today, albeit blessedly invigorating, I could compare to every other Easter Sunday I've lived through (if I could remember them). My memory is quite faulty these days--purposefully and accidentally. I own it, as I own the names of two people who aren't comparable (certainly not to each other), and of them I was thinking when this song came on.

We're taking requests

2010-03-31T09:14:00.000-07:00

Observation: Riding in a car as the only woman with three men makes for a rather quiet car ride. Yesterday, I took a group of students to visit the Disciples of Christ Historical Society and the Belle Meade Plantation in Nashville. Eventually, one student and I struck up a terrific conversation about books, eras of history we like, what we really think of Cormac McCarthy, etc. It was that kind of conversation that my college experience was built on. I think--no, I'll admit it--I did have a tremendous crush on the student when the trip was over. Afterward...well...I did mull over the ramifications of the absence of a teacher/student dating policy at this university. That's all I'm saying.

Tomorrow begins National Poetry Month. We decided that although we have often been moved by poets and their words, narrative is where it's at for us. Poetry too often harnesses the elegance and beauty of the narrative process without its structure and forms. The beauty but not the story. If, as Wordsworth says, poetry is the overflow of powerful feeling recalled in a moment of tranquility...I could do with a little more of the backstory.

What are your favorite poems, poets, and backstories? That's what I want to explore for April. I'm taking requests. Have a poem you like and want to know a little more about? Let me know.

Listening to traffic, steps on the stairs, typing, The Best of Leonard Cohen

RIP Beezus Smudge

2010-03-29T06:59:00.001-07:00

You was always an angel in our eyes. ~The tombstone of a young girl in a local cemetery.

A little more about the Kibs. Beezus was one year old, an insistent stray who kept darting in my kitchen door every time it opened. I have yet to assign the proper gender pronoun to him. I'm pretty sure he was a him. Beezus was sweet, never getting quite as much cuddling as he wanted. If I were his cat-wife, I would laud his skills as a provider. As a human, I can appreciate that the moles and squirrels left dead at my doorstep were touching, if bloody, reminders that he loved me. In a year that saw two of the most important people in my life come and go (and come and go), it was a blessing to know he saw my home as his home. As I had to remind myself on the day I stepped, barefooted, on a sharp and bloody beak. (No, not a dead bird. Just a dead beak.) Rachel so graciously did the honors of picking his body up off the street, whilst I dug the grave.

We planted him with the daffodils. He sleeps in the sunbeams of heaven and frolics with the cats of yore.

Listening to Kathleen Edwards, "Asking for Flowers."

I'm a joiner

2010-03-22T07:16:00.000-07:00

I was gifted with the opportunity to update my CV recently. Groan with me, now.

It occurred to me that I've paid a lot of dues, when it comes to my chosen profession. And that's okay. I loooove what I do for a living.

Now, just maybe, it's time for me to do something else. A couple of me-things. The 20s are so much about just figuring out which way is up in the world, and how to get on that incline. But I'm 31, now. Now I want to figure out what is to the left and right of me...before I get stuck in the middle. With or without you.

And two big, huge, wonderful happymaking things have happened! One, I started a group for fiber artists at two local churches called "Be Warm". We knit and crochet items for the homeless to be distributed through our churches. We're just in the starting phase. You'll hear more about it as we go. (If you are a knitter or crocheter, and are looking for a way to get involved in this much-needed work, just drop me a comment! You will be appreciated!)

Two, I joined the West TN Outdoors Club. I need to meet people outside of my work/church life. And I need to hike. The feeling of striding along powerfully on my own two legs, arms swinging, climbing up and over and around, navigating overflowing riverbanks, staring down that hill and laughing at it from the top. Yeah, I'm pretty psyched. If you live in the area, and want a cool group of people to hang outside with, come!

Listening to Patty Griffin, "Virgen de Guadalupe"

Tammy Donna

2010-03-18T13:51:00.000-07:00

The washing machine has been named Tammy Donna. It was inspired by a woman on the news last night, who has worked in a hotel laundry, and is now in jail for bad checks. She works multiple jobs trying to feed two children and get her life back on track. The machine, likewise, is not a quitter. Like Tammy, it's pretty battered around the edges--lots of nicks and scrapes and dents-- and much has been asked and will be asked of it. But it's done 8 consecutive loads of laundry with nary a squeak nor a shudder. And, it doesn't walk across my kitchen.

Tammy Donna, welcome home.

Metablog Monday

2010-03-15T06:44:00.000-07:00

How could I not have a label for coffee? Added.

You might have noticed I added a logo for an organization, "Just Love Coffee." Should you desire to explore their website, you will also observe that clicking on the logo takes you to a "storefront" page for the Osburns. This kind, creative, loving, stable, neat family is part of my church family. Oliver, the youngest, is in my Wednesday night Bible class. He can sing the words to all the songs now, and make the arm motions. When I tell them that "God did" or "God made" he tilts his head down, cuts his eyes to the side, and says, "Aaaaaand Jesus." I swear, he even once put his hand on his hip while saying this. Ellis, the oldest, made me lip balm for Christmas last year. Julie's Etsy shop has all sorts of warm, colorful happymakers. Wade says a mean prayer. Just an all-around great family.

Now for the link. A couple in Nashville adopted two daughters from Ethiopia. Mr. Couple (name? sorry) grew up around his father's coffee-importing business. In studying Ethiopian culture to help understand their children and the adoption process, Mr. Couple knew that the strong role coffee has played in Ethopia, its relatively cheap availability, partnered with Americans' love affair with delicious, rich, exotic coffees, and families facing significant adoption-related expenses: Win-win-win.

These delicious, fair-trade, organic coffees are purchased by the pound. You can sign up for a one-time sale, a 1lb/month year-long "coffee club", or even a 2lb/month year-long coffee club! You probably got there already: About 45% of the profits from any type of purchase goes back to the Osburns to help raise a little money for the newest family member to come home safely

More-than-awesome coffee (sign up for Ethiopian Sidamo and Sumatran) and a more-more-than-awesome-and-deserving family and one very lucky little kid? Bliss you can sip on.

Yarn love

2010-03-12T13:54:00.001-08:00

Knitting makes me happy. It's also a way to solve other people's problems. More on that in the future. For now, have a swell weekend. A friend put this in her blog once, and I've been thinking today is the type of day that was made for this song:

She blew me away in concert with Ray Lamontagne at the Ryman Auditorium. Her voice is very...frosty. In a shimmery, silvery way.

My family...sigh

2010-03-09T14:23:00.001-08:00

Are awesome! My brother just found me a washing machine for a ridiculously low price, and is hauling it over to me tomorrow. (Which is a hint, of course, for him to haul it over to me tomorrow!) It's a little scuffed, but smaller than my Carter-era Gigantor! And it's white. Believe me, the hours spent being annoyed by the white stove next to the beige washer have been...well, superficial. I make it up to myself by saying that the white machine will set off the green of Layla's fingerpaintings better. Whew, better. I feel the need to name it Betty. We'll see it when it arrives.

But I have to tell you this first.

2010-03-08T07:09:00.000-08:00

For the last several nights, I've been having horror-show-proportion dreams.

Last night, I dreamed that I was with a friend and her mom wedding dress shopping. With us was a toddler who could barely walk, but we had no stroller or other type of carrier. The child kept falling into potholes, or entangling himself, or being dragged off by strangers. His mother would just leave him alone in whatever quandary he was in, until he figured out how to help himself. Out of desperation I would step in and rescue the child, usually waiting till the last possible moment, thinking surely the child's mother would do something. The grandmother was clueless, floating along in a sea of oblivion, wondering aloud if the sleeves on that one mother's-gown were too puffy, or too lacy. I felt so bad for the child, yet so impotent to help him. At one point, we were all standing around the parking lot of a dreary strip mall, when I heard crying, and looked up to see the mother walking away saying, "You didn't give me your arm. I told you to give me your arm." I couldn't see any sign of the child, so I kneeled down and started stroking a wet, oily patch of pavement, saying "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. When she walks away, I'll help. But where are you?" I turned to see a pothole that had formed around a manhole cover. I peeked in, and sure enough, the baby was lying in the hole with one ear and the side of his head exposed. He was face down in thick mud. I reached for his arm, but he jerked it away from me. I let him drown.

Interpretation?

Listening to Leonard Cohen, "Suzanne"

2010-03-07T14:36:00.000-08:00

I'm probably going to take a little break from LftAI for a little while. Working out some other ideas for the other three blogs! You can catch up at:
http://www.eea49thinkjournal.blogspot.com/
www.erinadams.tumblr.com
http://wiki.fhu.edu/users/eadams/

Listening to: traffic, birds, laughter, steps

Hi, kids.

2010-03-04T14:36:00.000-08:00

Facebook is temporarily deactivated. If you need me, you probably know how else to contact me. Twitter, email and blog are still active.

Later. Go check out this great eschatalogical harbinger of awesomeness: http://www.loveinstereo.com/

Listening to Jeff Buckley's "You & I"

Two days in

2010-03-02T07:26:00.000-08:00

to the post-funk, and life is busssssssy! The class I teach is improving weekly, and I'm beginning to see some real strengths come out in my students. Today, one kid raised the issue of historiography in the 1930s, and another one actually knew what he was talking about. Also, another one used the term "interiority." I don't only love smart kids, but yeah, I love smart kids.

But I don't love this new slate of responsibilities I couldn't say no to for the Historical Society. More on these folks, later. I'm too shell-shocked from the experience to formulate much. If you are of the praying sort, let me just go ahead and say...get started.

The end

2010-02-26T14:11:00.000-08:00

I've scheduled the end of the life-funk to coincide with the end of February. Watch out, March!

2010-02-26T07:13:00.000-08:00

So Layla and I had a parade in which she dressed up as a unicorn, and I dressed up as a lion. Metaphorically, be it understood. My costume consisted of a penguin costume hanging from my head and I roared a lot. Instead of a crown, we fought for the green hole-plugger stick from Starbucks. It makes a great baton for a parade marshall.

Tom reminded me of this song, which I used to have memorized. The Adamses had a silly childhood. I was always afraid of the Unicorn. The Lion looks like a lion and has a human face. The Unicorn looks medicated, and he has cloven hooves. I feel a dark underbelly of bloated evil hidden by a shiny costume. However, I'm super excited about the new movie, in which every dark underbelly of bloated evil will be artfully done. And have Johnny Depp.

Sing with me now:

2010-02-24T14:08:00.001-08:00

"And if you're only half way up....you're neither up nor down!"

Slap a label on me

2010-02-24T12:44:00.001-08:00

See, I've been confronted with this problem. The problem of putting a label on, and campaigning on behalf of that label. Despite my visceral drawback from categorical appropriations of human beings, I wonder if the thing to do here is step in. Step waaay on in.

A group of friends and I were talking about some students we have taught here, and how their work is often dissatisfying to us as instructors because of their lack of clarity. Their inability to distill their thinking into clear statements of belief or rejection. Ahhh...college years. Chasing one thought and then another because they all sound so right. Not yet possessing quite enough self-actualization to realize that we can call out the inaccuracies of someone else's thinking, or otherwise just acknowledge that we aren't bound to embrace the so-called experts' conclusions. Not having enough mental space to let the answers begin making themselves.

Hence--labels. Labels require you to embrace the school of thought the "experts" have stitched together. One particular label--Democrat--I am not ready to embrace. I have plenty of liberal leanings, I suppose, but I see the vagaries of accepting "Democrat" as my political identity. Since 2001, I have eaten politics like dinner. At times, the Republicans have made as much sense to me as the Democrats, but sure as soon as I get going, then I like the look of libertarianism. Then my smart voice chimes in and says but libertarianism is so worthless, like the Tea Party. But fiscal conservatism looks like a good idea so maybe...But then again, conservatism means people without health care or education...but then if people can't take personal responsibility for their own care...

Well sometimes you have to create space and sometimes you have to eliminate space to see the conclusion. Plus, I really want to stop swallowing my tail. I was approached to be "team captain" for the county I live in and conduct campaign activities for a candidate who is trying to unseat an incumbent representative. I don't have to be a card-carrying member of this party. Apparently a desire to see the incumbent unseated is enough qualification. The new guy looks pretty good, and I think he will wage a worthy campaign. But if I do the job, which looks interesting, then do I take on this label? What if he does something for which I am ashamed later? What will that say about me? What will I learn by stepping in?

Listening to: Alejandro Escovedo, "Rosalie"

Formspring post #1

2010-02-12T07:28:00.000-08:00

What do you want to give the world?

I've never posed this question to myself. So...this is a 24-hour pass at it. When I know I've made the right decision, I depend on two key indicators to confirm that. One, my gut. If it doesn't clench then it means my body has accepted my decision and won't fight it. Two, my mind. The double-think lays down and goes to sleep. When I thought through the answer to this question, both of these checkpoints signaled their acceptance. I slept well last night.

What would I like to give the world? Add recognition and acceptance, subtract unqualified tolerance, skim off a little nostalgia, multiply by dignity, and round up to the nearest affirmation.

Professionally, I get to do this every day. A plaque on the wall of my grad school department read, "Within these hallowed halls are the future stewards of our national and cultural heritage." I go to work and take care of the material and archival evidence that human beings lived, worked, aspired, failed, loved, and fought. I devise and implement organizational systems that will keep historical information relevant, accessible, and complete. I tell stories. All day long, I tell stories. And I love to tell stories. I often wish I could have a spot on the evening news, reading a story. I would read the story Sarah Carlyle tells her Uncle George about her "dear Mamma's" passing and how she feels about taking on the management of her father's house at age 12, "which is, as yet, too much for me." We would talk about two male college students trying to heft a rather overweight (but beautiful, I am assured) woman through a window to escape the college president who was pursuing them after some infraction.

Okay, I would pretty much invent StoryCorps.

I've been thinking a lot lately about losing and gaining people. What it means to have someone in your life and then for them to be gone. Doesn't matter how, the result is often the same. Your routines alter, and you cast about looking for someone else to be "the one solid the spaces lean on. " When we are gone, where are we? Let's face it. No one really knows. When we add people, where do we put them? Do we make new spaces and categories, or can we fit them into old molds?

Museums get to do a little something about that, true. But what do I want to do about it in my non-work life? Look people in the eyes, acknowledge when they serve me in some way, and treat their contributions to my life with the respect that created beings ought to have for one another.

It pleases me that I don't know who asked this question. It frees me from manipulating the answer. I would give this to you, Asker, as I would to you, Reader.

http://www.formspring.me/hiimerin

Thinking out all the ramifications of this

2010-02-10T19:00:00.000-08:00

It's one thing for the boat to be in the water. It's another thing for the water to be in the boat. Amen?

formspring.me

2010-02-09T09:16:00.001-08:00

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/hiimerin

2010-02-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

JL Gerhardt is a good writer, and a better thinker. I recommend this post of hers:
http://jlgerhardt.tumblr.com/post/370894461

My niece has learned a new song about the Fruits of the Spirit:
The fruit of the spirit's not a kiwi.
The fruit of the spirit's not a kiwi.
So if you wanna be a kiwi, you better hear it.
You can't be a fruit of the spirit.

The fruits of the spirit are:
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control
The fruits of the spirit are:
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.

I told Layla that I was proud of her for knowing them and for being able to count them all on her fingers. And then I went home before I started crying.

Lately, I'm the kiwi.

2010-02-03T08:13:00.000-08:00

I am heartily sick of dim lights and night time. I want bright lights, bracing winds. To be awake all the time and never sleep. To be bold and daring, chiseled, with wings and a voice that would raise the dead. To be thinking and talking. To be talked to and questioned. To be interested and interesting, in the present, able to measure the past and carry it with me. Able to charge into the future.

I can't do that under these circumstances. Fortunately, these circumstances have come to an end, which is the real meaning of the dream I had last night.

2010-01-29T08:48:00.000-08:00

This was one hour ago.

This was thirty minutes ago.

I think I may head over to Peggy's and sit in her picture window.

Birthday Cards

2010-01-26T07:39:00.000-08:00

Layla says: "Aun Terin, I made you a birthday card. Open it and read it!"
Inside of the card, it says: "Aunt Erin, I made you a birthday card."

Me, in a music store and Last Night

2010-01-12T14:16:00.000-08:00

Walk in. Stand in the doorway like some giant gap-mouthed obstacle and get my bearings. Then dive in. I float from sorter to sorter, gathering everything that looks good to me until my hands overflow, and I am forced to actually absorb the sheer fact of cds in my hand. I begin to weed them out, first putting back the clearly impulse selections. Next goes the ones I think will be one-album wonders. Eventually, I'm down to two types: the cds I need to fill crucial gaps in a collection or the ones I need to replace old, scratched cds. A couple of weeks ago with Erin at Louisville's Ear X-tacy, I followed the standard pattern, except for standing in the doorway. (Someone else was trying to get out.) I picked up some Gillian Welch, some My Morning Jacket, maybe a Wilco. They didn't have any new Lucinda Williams. And then my eye fell on Leonard Cohen.

Apparently I've been a fan of LC for sometime, mostly unawares. The first time I heard Jeff Buckley's version of "Hallelujah", I had to pull over to the side of the road. I could not speak. I remember staring at this same plant for quite some time until the song was over. I played it through once more and then got back on the road. Even now, whenever I hear this song, I have to stop what I'm doing, listen, process, before I can continue. I bought two incredible CDs that I've been listening to non-stop since, "The Future" and "the Best of Leonard Cohen."

2009 was tough, for some obvious and intensely personal reasons. And despite whatever changes 2010 brings about, the year will be different because I will be different. I will be less critical of myself, banishing "should" and "sorry" from my vocabulary. I will excuse myself from those relationships where tyranny has raised its head. I will be more in the moment with those around me, and foster relationships that are going to be incredible. I can see it now. I will say goodbye to past relationships I am sorry to see go, mostly because of how they ended. I will remove should and sorry from my vocabulary unless I really am sorry, about things that I should be sorry about. (And these resolves don't fit that distinction.) I will succumb to the ebb and flow of the universe with a little more grace than I have heretofore exhibited, with a little less of a sense of personal wrong. I'm going to stop now.

Of course, it all comes with a prayer...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MDlMdu2gjw&feature=related

Better give your heart to God...

2010-01-04T07:53:00.000-08:00

because your ass is going someplace else. Let's start there.

The Adams Family Christmas Extravaganza was pretty awesome and this quote from a visitor to the snack-stand-of-fun sums it up well. We served a lot of people--no one counted--and generated lots of cheer. Enjoy the pictures. Layla spoke Spanish to a little girl who was driving with her family from Pennsylvania to Mexico. We were prayed over, thanked effusively by a grandma from Jersey, lectured on the benefits of working Alaska for only 6 months of the year, and bemused by the trucker who hauled nuclear waste and other chemical products between government facilities all over the US. He has been shot and he has shot folks, folks. I could tell you his name and trucking outfit, but I won't. I won't sleep well at night.

The trucker's statement was born from a discussion on the nature of the work he does and the extent of training he has undergone and the protocol he has to follow. Everyday, tractor trailers across the US are hauling teddy bears, running shoes, cars, and nuclear waste. I guess what I"m saying is we all have a job to do, and a role to fill, and some of them will kill you.

The holiday season had serious ups and downs, but I'm going to take this event away as my Christmas memory for 2009.

Layla is silly.

Mom and Layla advertising the wares.

Family driving from Jersey to OKC.

The goods. And the grandma.

Rachel--useful in her own way.

You know something has changed when...

2009-12-31T10:05:00.000-08:00

You write a poem. And it was the easiest poem I ever wrote, which is saying a heck of a lot. Even that awful stuff I wrote in high school didn't come this easy. There's got to be a lit-class lecture in there somewhere.

Okay, so I'm really excited about tomorrow

2009-12-23T08:53:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the 3rd Annual Adams Holiday Extravaganza, also known as the annual Christmas project. Each year we take turns choosing the project and the recipient. Last year, Mom chose. She picked this group, and we all went out hunting down warm pajamas and creative books. This project was great for two reasons. One, we could each purchase individually what we could afford and had budgeted for. Two, I had a coupon, two gift certificates, and LB had just put everything on "final clearance." Don't judge. The cheaper it is, the more you can buy. I got lots of super pairs of pajamas for $16. On Christmas Eve, we delivered them to Lorrie Shadko, who directs the Memphis chapter of the program. For me, comfort in its most primal level comes in comfy pajamas, bedsheets, and good stories. It was a joy and an honor to get to pass that on to children whose lives are desperately short on comfort and joy.

This year, Tom picked. It has a funny backstory. Tom called me at work one day to bounce the idea, and I confess I thought it...not likely to come to much. Frankly, though a good idea, I was pretty sure the State was going to shut it down. But I liked the idea at heart, and I'm really glad he decided to go through with it. Adamses are workers, and we love a project. But usually our projects don't always bring us into much contact with the beneficiaries. Like with the pajama recipients. Thanks to Tom's idea, this year we will.

With Vanessa's family joining in, we are going to set up shop tomorrow at the I-40 westbound Jackson rest stop to distribute more Christmas cheer, this time in the form of coffee and snacks. We have decorations, drinks, snacks, music--the works. I'm very excited about doing this, and although the weather will be miserable, hopefully we'll be a little spot of brightness. There are a few people who won't be there with us, but whose past generosity and openness of spirit will be with us:

Charlene Brown gave me a metal table-top Christmas tree last year that is lit with candles instead of string lights. Anticlimactic. But TDOT won't allow us to plug in any type of electrical cord, so her gift solves the problem!

Hope Shull got onto me once as a student about bringing food and drinks into her library. When I returned as an employee, I discovered she had actually purchased a coffee bar and was encouraging students to eat, drink, and be merry. In the library. She is letting us use all of the urns to keep the coffee and other drinks hot.

The State of Tennessee--inefficient, a "bottom ten-er", and run by good ol' boys--really liked the idea. That is, the guy at the Jackson TDOT headquarters did. And as long as we avoid the power cords aforementioned, don't solicit, and don't block entrances and exits, then they will support our efforts at Christmas cheer. They could have said no.

And I hope that our visitors will enjoy the Christmas cheer, too. I've thought a lot this year about what it means to put good things out into the world. You may call it karma or kismet or good vibes or whatever. How does our Christmas party for strangers at a rest stop ripple out into the rest of the world? I don't know, but it is my prayer that it does. I know you will put good things into the world.

Pictures to follow!

You must try this

2009-12-22T13:24:00.000-08:00

A while back, I blogged about the albatross. Go here and buy the Aloe & Comfrey Lotion. Always happy to find an improvement! Drop the heavy duty foot creams. Most of them are just petroleum-based anyway. Maggie's Pharm (hah-get it?) is a lovely little hidden gem in Midtown Memphis that sells dried herbs, concoctions, lotions, shampoos, and all sorts of other good-smelling things (coffees, teas, spices, etc.)

It is smooth, cool, absorbs instantly (even on eczema), and heals heels within a few applications. A perfect addition to my regimen!

Grumble, grumble

2009-12-21T08:38:00.000-08:00

Put the Christmas spirit on hold for a few minutes. Students that were terrible students should not be allowed to evaluate their instructors. If you didn't come to class more than half the time, and actually posed the question "How seriously do you want us to take this assignment?" then just shut up. PS--This is student performance unworthy of honors students.

Part the Second:
To balance out the above grumble, here's an article to avenge the put-upon and bring a smile to your face:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091221/ap_on_re_us/us_brooke_astor
At least some poor b-----d got what he deserved.

Woke up with this on the heart

2009-12-16T06:56:00.000-08:00

For my family, my friends, present and erstwhile. For Will. For deliciously soft yarns and clicky needles. For cityscapes and beaches. For the color red. For Christmas lights. For 3yos. For hills to hike up. Even the really, really hard ones. For JustLove Coffee. For new babies coming in January. For Brooklyn, NY and Nashville, TN and Alexandria, VA. For handmade paper. For Lucinda Williams. For kitties. For The Med. For a paycheck. For my church family. For dreams to dream. For vernacular architecture. For books, books, books. For a healing thyroid.

Santa's Not Real: A Cautionary Tale

2009-12-11T07:32:00.000-08:00

Sitting around with several old and dear friends this weekend, the question of how to talk to young children about Santa came up. Santa--ubiquitious, inescapable, lovable, fictional. Some said their parents made a big deal of it, even punishing older children for "outing" the secret to younger siblings. Some said their parents didn't encourage a belief in Santa, but acknowledged that he was a useful tool (an implement, an implement!) for spreading all the sentiments of the holiday. Others still expressed belief that since Santa is, at heart, fictional then to perpetuate (you have no idea how long that took to type!) the story is a lie, plain and simple. My parents used Santa as a way to talk about sex.

Okay, my mom did. I will never need to know how Dad brought it up with Tom. At the tender age of 8, ah...I remember the event as if it were yesterday. My 10yo sister and I were taken to her room, which had two windows. One looking on to the front yard, the other looking onto the driveway. Beige curtains with blue and orange flowers matched the bedspread we were sitting on (being 1987 and all). On that sunny, cold day with the smell of ironing in the air, my mother asks, "Do either of you know what sex is?" After a suppressed giggle, Nicole says, "It's when men and women get in bed and kiss a lot." I come back with, "Nuh-uh. It's when men and women get in bed and take their clothes off and kiss a lot." And from there, the conversation becomes a collection of strobe-like images and words. Pictures of conception from the 1960s-era book her mother doubtless used to teach her about babies and growing changes. Mostly I remember the laughter of my sister and I as we were being fed the single-most ridiculous set facts of our young lives. More than once, Mom said if we couldn't get it together, we were going to go back downstairs.

But it's the end of the conversation I've never been able to get away from. Mom assured Nicole and I she was always available and open for conversations about sex, changes, confusion, even showing us where she kept these books so we could go back to them if we didn't want to talk. (Yeah, right. I wasn't going back to that!) Then she turns to me and says, "And by the way, Erin? Santa isn't real. Neither is the Tooth Fairy,the Easter Bunny, or the Great Pumpkin. Your Dad and I do it. Don't tell Rachel."

Puh-lease. You've sat here and fed me this clearly-unbelievable story about...sehhhxxx...and now you expect me to believe you about Santa? I love Santa--the idea of Santa. How there is someone in the world so devoted to the joy and reward of others that he makes impossible stretches of time, culture, religion, socioeconomics to bring that joy to all. Because of "Santa" we stand outside grocery stores and ring bells, or work in soup kitchens, or be nice to our neighbors, or create an atmosphere of peace and joy and beauty. Sex was weird. Sure it's the way the universe propagates itself, and it unites people in marriage as the "one flesh" the Bible speaks of. But it generates a lot of hurt in the world--infidelity, prostitution, sin, addiction, abuse, emotional distress, financial irresponsibility. But, but...Santa? Sometimes I wish the had story ended with Santa being real and sex being false.

Crying over broken ornaments: A Christmas fable

2009-12-01T08:27:00.000-08:00

Layla: Aun Terin ("Aunt Erin"), come look at my Chwistmas tree!
Erin: Ooh, how pretty! Did you put it up all by yourself?
Layla: NO, me and mama and daddy. See this snowman's funny legs jiggle? But you can't touch. Right, Daddy? We can't touch the Chwistmas ownaments off the twee?
Daddy: Right, baby. Thank you for following directions. You can touch them, but don't take them off.
Layla: Ow ownaments have a stowy. Mama got this one at wook. We got this howse at the dewby in Kenkucky.
Erin: Do all of the ornaments have a story? What about this one? (Pointing to a large jingle bell. Located far to the inside of the tree. One would have to reach over other more fragile ornaments to get to it. Stupid Aunt Erin.)
Layla: No, but it makes a stowy! Wisten? (jingle, jingle.)
Vanessa: Layla, are you showing off our tree? (Reaches to straighten up jingle bell. Sends Layla's first christmas ornament to the floor, shattering in about a million pieces of glass.)
Vanessa: Oh, no! Not that one!
Layla: (Immediately clenching and unclenching her legs around my waist and her fists.) No, Mama! No, Mama! Don't tell Daddy. Don't tell Daddy!
Vanessa: Layla, it's not your fault. Mama dropped it because she wasn't being careful with it. It's Mama's fault.
Layla: (Now with tears in her eyes.) NO! NO! NO! Don't tell Daddy! Don't tell Daddy!
Vanessa: But Layla? You're not in trouble!

Narrator's note: My brother does not beat his child or wife. No need to get nervous here.

Layla: (Unintelligble words mixed with sobs and flailing arms.)
Vanessa: Layla, come here. It's okay.
Layla: (Something that sounds like) "Don't...Daddy...know...bwoken!"
Daddy: I'm not mad about the ornament. Let's have a hug. We're all okay. (Family group hug.)

And the three wise adults stand around looking shocked, trying to account for meaning in Layla's meltdown. We were almost crying, still mystified at the cause of such unfettered grief. Tom retrieved the broom and dustpan, and Vanessa began sweeping up the mess. Layla's defeated retreat to the fireplace was accompanied by more shuddering sobs and finally a meek little, "but ow twee is still pwetty, isn't it Aun Tewin?"

Was that the key? She knew she wasn't responsible for the broken ornament. She knew Mama would clean it up. She knew she wasn't cut. Layla was grieving the loss of perfection in her beautiful Christmas. I like to think she was mourning the loss of one part of the story her Christmas tree tells. "Environment" as a concept fascinates me: how it's created and how people respond to it. T&V's Christmas decorations create an environment not just of physical appeal, but of story, of tradition, and even a three-year old responds to it.

2009-10-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

Tonight, it's jacket and scarf weather. This means I need to go look at holiday decorations (Halloween through New Year's), buy Starbucks in a red cup. Are the red cups out yet? Browse bookshelves that I'm not going to justify purchasing off of. Stimulate the economy and the like. Oh, especially the like.

Kudos to Will for fulfilling the American Dream and buying a house. Too bad it previously was owned by his adorable grandfather, and thus not eligible for Mr. Obama's stimulus package. Seriously, are all things attempted by the middle class exempt from the stimulus?

And yet, the sight of a three year old with mud half way up her jeans and a round orange pumpkin in her hand offering me candy corns makes the rest of the world seem as fine as nothing.

Crash, un homage

2009-10-16T13:16:00.001-07:00

Because I just found out a cover has been done of DMB's song.and I don't know how to feel about that. I'm still reeling from the original.
Sorry about the sentimentality. It was the only video where embedding was not disabled.

Really should learn: to proofread

2009-10-15T08:38:00.000-07:00

"I love that which has meaning." is not what I meant at all.

I love the meaning which is in a thing.

A love

2009-10-13T10:55:00.001-07:00

I love that which has meaning.

Pulsing Wilco

2009-10-13T10:55:00.000-07:00

First of all, I would like to say thanks to Rachel for getting in a car crash and breaking both of her legs so we could park for free in handicapped parking and sit in handicapped seating. The handicapped seating at the Orpheum is beyond words. Even if people stand up and jump and down (which they did, cuz it's Wilco) you still have an unobstructed view.

Second of all, I would like to say thank you to the people who recruited the opening act, some Britishspeakers named Eliza Jane and Liam Finn. Not making that up. Not since the Felice Brothers have I so...listened to the opening act. It wasn't just noise. There was writhing and growling, musical cleverness, a good rapport with the audience and Margaret, the gold shirt. Oh--and they are terrific singers and musicians. Eliza Jane came across like someone's kid sister giving a helping hand. And not in a Meg White "sister" sort of way. Her voice is airy and sweet and powerful and she doesn't look like an indie-waif. She gently swayed side to side as Liam turned did the Worm, the Hendrix kneel and burn, and that guy who always climbed on the drum kit. Clever turns of phrase. And oh, just generally eager to see them again. I hope that piques your interest. If not, just go check out the website and be impressed on your own terms. I can't satisfy all of you.

And now for the interactive portion of the blog. Someone suggest a synonym for "tight." As in, "Wilco is a really _____ band." You can just leave it in the inbox, thanks.

I don't remember ever thinking this about a band before, so it must be true: Wilco is the single most connected band I ever heard. The way six musicians move together it was like ocean waves or, or, something else that moves seamlessly back and forth together. Lifelong lovers, maybe. The sound bounces. Bounces. For everyone who ever took choir or voice knows that when a director says "give it a bounce" he really means pulse the sound with a tiny push of extra energy that gives vibrancy and richness to the note. Wilco sustained that tiny push of extra energy that recalls the runner's high, the yogi's flow, the pump and cycle of a piston, and leaves the listener oh, so satisfied. They played a lot off the new album, which, I am ashamed to say I have not heard yet. But they filled it in with crowd favorites off YHF and SBS. Next payday, probably.

But the highlight of the evening? At the end of "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" Jeff Tweedy broke off the music to make a request that audience members not film or record the concert. Not because they want to control distribution, etc. Rather, because "you should live your life and not live it based on an imperfect medium."

Since "Cinnamon Girl" was apparently not YouTubed, enjoy this instead. Particularly the guy's really big nose. You'll see what I mean.

Facebook Day Two

2009-09-29T06:55:00.000-07:00

So yesterday after my half-articulated rail against FB, I actually checked it twice. That's improvement, in my opinion. You won't make me think less of myself for having done it, okay?

Here's my routine: Since I moved inward, I have not had the internet at home or through my phone or any other device I possess. Well, at least no internet I'm going to pay for. (Of course, ATT would allow me to access it through my phone at a "modest fee." Of course they would.) Friday night about 5:30 through Monday morning about 8:30--no problem. If there is an urgent need to be online--check a banking issue, order concert tickets, find out some info--well, I live two blocks from the office. Problem solved. Monday I come in, catch up on the email, scan Twitter and done--off to do the work I get paid to do.

Being so FB-needy has led me to spend more time at work than I care to admit, checking up on things. Why? What things? Instead of using FB as a tool to appreciate other people's family pictures, and catch up on life news, and exchange witty banter with friends, I've used it as a tool of self-flagellation. Why didn't I think to say this? Why didn't I think to post this? Why don't my pictures seem to get as many comments as XY&Z's? Ruh-diculous. Seriously.

Although saying this aloud may actually prove the opposite, I once thought I was a reasonably self-actualized person. Not that I didn't have moments of quavering or second-guessing. (And I'm pretty convinced even Gandhi had one or two.)

What happened and why did I let it? Huh.

"The time has come," the Oyster said

2009-09-28T07:13:00.000-07:00

...to talk of many things." Like saying goodbye to Facebook for a little while. See, I've been thinking about making this experiment, wherein I determine if I could be a happier person, a richer person as it were, without the constant news stream. The constant comparison between my life and the lives of others.

I do not desire to live my life as Comparative Cathy and that's what I have been turning into lately. From a very early age, I always felt that distance between myself and others that comes with...well. I don't know. I think this explains it. Maybe.

Arrghh...I can't say just what I mean.

I Have a Dream

2009-09-17T15:36:00.000-07:00

That I live in a small, four-room house with a tiny bathroom and a half-finished upstairs combo attic/bonus room. You walk up a small stone walkway through my tiny but lush yard, past the bottle tree, and up onto a brick-walled porch with small groupings of tables and chairs. Curtains are hung if you want the privacy, but are usually tied back to let air and light in. Open the front door into a wide center passage that runs the full depth of the house. And from the front door, you can either walk into any room you choose (all doors open into the passage) or you can join the rest of us on the back screened porch. Of course, the screened porch is also used occasionally for sleeping, so just be prepared for that.

If you choose to walk into the living room, you will make a left inside the door. On a rainy day, your umbrella will go into a big ceramic pot that probably looks like a cactus or something naturalistic Layla made for me in her after-school pottery class. You can hang your sweater on a hook in the wall. Feel free to throw your shoes off. Come in and browse the built-in bookshelves, flop down on a pile of big fluffy pillows on the floor and appreciate the atelier-style art arrangements, or lounge in the wide seat attached to the picture window with leaded panes.

After some time talking or watching a movie or listening to music, you will need sustenance, so I invite you to step on into my kitchen, which is through a small door in the back of the room. You probably almost missed the door because the bookcases go across the top of the door, and there are things hanging off of them. But the kitchen is through there, with checkerboard tile floors in white and black, and cool grey walls. You can sit at my red & white hoosier table while I fill the coffeepot from the enamel sink and I will tell you the story of the chair you are sitting on. It came from a Memphis brothel. If that creeps you out, you are welcome to move over to the faded green velour chaise. Make yourself at home. Please excuse the trashcans lining the back wall. Recycling doesn't come easy, sometimes. Nor does composting. Or cat care, for that matter.

We will drink much coffee, so just help yourself to the bathroom that opens off the central hallway. It is a little small, but the pedestal sink and tall linen cupboard in the corner help things fit more comfortably. The tile floors get cold in here, so I hope the fluffy bath rug will help.

I like a little private time in my office, so make yourself at home upstairs in the bonus room while I finish writing my masterpiece. The tiny windows at the front, sides, and rear of the big attic let in a little light, and you can see the moon and stars through them at night. But you will be very comfortable up here in the guest bed and you can put all your things away in the chifferobe. There is a record player up here, and records, so you will not be alone. Don't trip on the toys lying about that are supposed to be in the toybox and the dress-up bin. The nieces and nephews forget to put things away! Be careful on the stairs when you come down because they are wooden and quite steep. The original owner must have been shorter and skinnier and much stronger of leg than I am!

Join me in my office, and we'll talk and then go outside to enjoy a nice dinner around the fire pit. We'll watch the stars come out and the moon rise and watch the neighborhood kids catch fireflies. You can help me weed the flowerbeds, since I do a really bad job of it. In fact, I'll turn it all over to you if like. I get so ambitious and I like to have a nice view from the bedroom windows.

We will talk and laugh and discuss and reminisce and listen to music and eat and drink and be silent. Then we will go into the house and I will go to sleep in my bedroom where the bed is practically never made and clothes are hanging on the back of the vanity table chair. But the quilt above me is warm and snuggly and my family pictures are on the walls and a pile of books is on the nightstand waiting to be read. The cat's claws tap-tap on the wooden floors of the hallway and I hear him knock over some books that were sitting on a table. As long as he doesn't find the knitting and pull all the yarn off the needles--fine.

Good night.

Today is the day

2009-09-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

And baby, isn't this your chance
To make a break with circumstance...
Today I declare No News Day. Today I declare No Politics Day. Today I invite 5 incredible people to my house for dinner and laughs about how a vegetarian just put 5 types of meat into one cassoulet that is going to be served to at least 2 other vegetarians. Today, I call the 'rents just to say hello. Today I read SACS compliance reports and type up minutes from the committee meeting and introduce a student worker the beauty that is PastPerfect. Today I have coffee with Lisa and laugh and gripe about work and all its idiosyncracies. Today I pet Beezus and go to work. Tonight, I will eat Leah's caramel apple sticky buns and laugh at Tom's oddly-appropriate-but-slightly-vulgar-sounding blog title and think for the millionth time how pretty Vanessa is and wish I was as well-versed in medieval literature and technology as Allen and hold Will.

It's going to be a good day.

Rejoicing when others rejoice

2009-08-27T13:16:00.001-07:00

Kim McMillan is running for governor. Good for her. Tennessee recently came in 49th (that's forty-ninth, folks) in women's government participation. In 2000, we were 46th, and in 2004 we were 47th. Only South Carolina has consistently come in below Tennessee in this very important category. Please. Let me just stop you before you get there--No. I do not believe every word of these reports. Yes, I'm quite sure the IWRP has some sort of agenda that I would not subscribe to 100%. I do believe they uncover a larger trend that is worth looking at. Most of all, I'm just glad that at least one woman in TN is giving it the old college-try!

So...back to Kim. I met her briefly at an event Union University hosted in April to bring the (then) three Democratic gubernatorial candidates together. Ms. McMillan is cordial and down-to-earth and seems to listen when you talk. I look forward to her campaign with interest and will be eager to see if she can keep her focus on politics and carry herself with intelligence and integrity throughout the campaign, without degenerating on us, a la Sarah Palin.

But this post isn't even about Kim McMillan. It is about her campaign video.

McMillan held a contest allowing people to submit names for her first campaign video. Someone who could describe, in a few words what her campaign is about and what she represents. How to do this without being terribly cliche and slogany, but being honest and refreshing? The award goes to (drum roll) Will! Of course, you and I know that he is talented with words and is passionately commited to Democratic politics in Tennessee, but now Tennessee knows that, too. I admire his ability to be a particpant in the political process in ways that are only productive and grounded in principles. Not loud, aggressive, fact-bemused, angry politics. Just...politics.

It's nice to see the side of a person you enjoy daily validated by others, to see those people shine at their brightest, to see how they shine when someone else turns a light on them. (And I'm not even the least bit envious that his mother gets to go with him to the big celebratory shin-dig instead of me...)

Words are my love language.

2009-08-24T15:05:00.000-07:00

Your words run through me like the blood in my veins
I could swear I knew your love Before I knew your name
Before I knew your name.~Lucinda Williams

Conor Oberst's cover. My insides sort of want to explode violently.

Happy anniversary

2009-08-20T13:07:00.000-07:00

Monday, a man from the local community stopped by my office to ask my advice about caring for some photos he found in his late wife's...
Now I stopped counting after 15 minutes, but it took several more minutes before Mr. Cook recovered his voice and resumed speaking, apologizing because it "had only been a month" since her death.

The day Will and I left for Washington, I was with a group of senior citizens on an outing to historical places in West TN. At one stop, several people got out of the bus but I did not, nor did the two couples in front of me. The two women were exchanging news of people they had gone to college with (cause everyone, just everyone, in this town goes to one college). Mrs. R mentioned one man, and how he had finally retired from his second career at the age of 80. Mrs. M asked Mrs. R if he and his wife "were still together." Only half listening, that statement jerked back my full attention. What would an 80 year old man accomplish by getting a divorce? Surely at 80 you would know to stay single if you couldn't pick the right person to live your life with! 80 years ago, the divorce rate was much lower than it is today. Our generation may be spoiled for lifelong marriage by the example of our peers and our parents, but really? He's 80?!

Is his wife still living? That was what Mrs. M meant by "still together."

After 38 years, my folks are "still together" both in the modern and antique sense. They have their ups and downs. Kids, job losses, chronic health conditions, financial burdens aside, they are still together. I've been using the expression "human endeavor is bound to fail" a lot lately. While it's true that my folks' marriage isn't perfect, it hasn't failed. Maybe one function of marriage is to show that despite human endeavor's proclivity for accidents, obstacles and imperfections, it doesn't have to fail. Maybe marriage can be good for things not related to marriage at all. Maybe this is the one place where we are supposed to see that it is possible to accomplish most things. Because my folks' marriage can last 38 years, then I can do the job I was hired to do. If Mom and Dad can stick it out this long, then I can tough it out too, in my job, my place of residence, my church, my financial situation, my relationships.

I reject the idea that this encourages or fosters a spirit of passivity or mediocrity. Accepting a less-than-best partner or fostering a sense of submission to what is an untenable situation is misguided and ought to be avoided. You fight for a marriage because you believe, on the atomic level, in the person you took those vows with. Failure is off the table. It just means I will work a little harder. To undertake serious things less lightly. And to stand ready to reap enormous blessings and to be part of a blessing for someone else. I want to marry, but more importantly, I want my life to stand for what marriage means.

A little anniversary present for Mom & Dad: At their wedding, my grandparents refused to let Mom have an Elvis song in the wedding. Something about "the sobriety of the event." So here it is Mom, 38 years later.

Score one for the hippies

2009-07-20T14:08:00.000-07:00

**Disclaimer: It hardly ought to need saying, but I will: you can only choose the right treatment for you. Consult many sources before deciding how you want to go about being your own doctor.

Since freshman year of college, I have suffered from what my family delicately phrases as "gross feet." After several dermatological consultations, and attempts at adjusting my diet to determine a food allergy, I have come to the conclusion that those attempts were a waste of my time. The first dermatologist, Dr. Turner, took a couple of skin samples and diagnosed eczema. He came into the room to deliver the results, looked at me for a couple of seconds, and then left. He never came back, so eventually I just left. I called back the next day to be told there was nothing to do about it, except to keep it clean. Feet. Clean. I had a gp once tell me that it was a whole new type of disorder, and quizzed me on my overseas traveling (I hadn't done any). What he thought was an algae-bloom (no lie) was really the residue of red toenail polish that did not come off entirely. That ought to be adequate explanation of Why Modern Medicine Doesn't Work For This Problem.

What to do? When I started seeing Will, I thought nothing could embarass me more than having him see my naked feet. CS Lewis once described a character in my favorite book by saying "It would have shamed me no more to go naked." Exposed feet caused me more moments of soul-crushing torture than I like to admit. I finally took the challenge thrown down by our earth-hugging social clime, and researched some herbal alternatives. Score one for the hippies.

Every other night, I soak my feet for 20 minutes in a tea made of:
2 c. epsom salts
several drops pure tea tree oil
1/4 oz. dried calendula
1/4 oz. dried comfrey leaf

Bring a large stock pot of water to boil (mine is 6 qt.). When boiling happily, drop in the salts and stir till (absolved? resolved?) dissolved (that's the word I was looking for). Drop in the calendula and the comfrey leaf, and sprinkle drops of tea tree oil over all. Stir just enough to get everything under the water. Leave the lid on the pot for 10 minutes or so whilst steeping. Let the tea cool to a bearable temperature, and soak, soak, soak!

I've done this procedure for 2 weeks now, and it has almost literally performed a miracle--even the nails look healthier. Last night, I used a callus shaver about 10 minutes into the soak, and then popped the feet back to finish another 10 minutes of soaking. Follow up with a heavy duty foot cream and you just might be on your way to what my boyfriend now calls "less scaly feet"!

Quick thought...and then to work

2009-07-13T07:18:00.000-07:00

Last night, I picked up a new CD--something I haven't done in a loooong time. Okay, okay. You caught me: I have friends who engage in a little illicit burning. I will never give up their names. Do your worst.

The White Stripes self-titled album. Amazing. The album itself is no White Blood Cells, and definitely no De Stijl (my personal fave of their catalogue). An illustration, Reader. My friends Dave and Leslie liked to strap their toddler into her car seat for long rides, and then show her nothing but Tom and Jerry cartoons on the portable DVD. By the time they turned her loose, she was a whirling dervish of frenzied action and speech. She would turn in circles, generating her own electricity in a flurry of flying barrettes, sliding glasses, and impossibly slurred speech. Jack White, metaphorically, is that toddler locked up and fed Tom & Jerry for hours. The fury with which he attacks each track stuns the listener into a rapture that is akin to addiction. No wonder these people got a record deal.

My current favorite track:

New Thoughts Thursday

2009-06-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time I had kept a notebook of facts that I learned each day. No complicated descriptions or anything especially philosophical--just something that I knew by bedtime that I didn't know at waking. For example, one day I learned that the Jonathan Edwards (notable historical contribution: "Sinners in the Hands of Angry God") was the grandfather of Aaron Burr (notable historical contribution: dying by the "unintended" shot of Alexander Hamilton's gun). Makes sense. Another time it was that my car's backseat folded down so that I could expand the storage room of the trunk. Yes, I had owned the car almost 3 years before I knew this. Judge me.

Grand visions of a Samuel Johnson-esque diary aside, I thought the notebook could be useful as a tool to review the facts of life (no, not those facts) or at least provide a little humor one day in the nebulous distant future when I thought I knew all there was to know.

Today's new thought went a little something like this: Disagreements and misunderstanding suck the joy from living. Starting over is happiness.

Nostalgia

2009-05-06T13:51:00.000-07:00

For a museum curator, I don't get into nostalgia in a big way. I rarely use my camera to capture events like birthday parties or Christmases. My photos are either still in their original paper sleeves, or thrown around in a box somewhere (maybe). I prefer to live my life and archive someone else's. But today, walking across campus during my break, I got a strong, powerful reminder of one of my favorite childhood moments. You must now read about it. Yay for you.

If you live in the Mid-South/Southeast, you know it has rained for 10 out of the last 11 days. Today, the sun peeked out for a few moments, as if to say, "Hello! I didn't forget you. We'll meet again." The temperature, which has been hovering at a cool-but-comfortable 70 spiked upwards like all mid-south Mays are wont to do. 11 minutes of humid, sunny wonderfulness reigned. As the day sat upon its brief throne, I caught the strong scent of water, grass, and a whiff of chlorine. Instantly transported to being 7 in my red plastic kiddie pool, still small enough to get all the way under the water. It is the first time I remember being brave enough to open my eyes underwater. Things went fine until I snorted in water, trying not to laugh at how my sister's toes looked like hotdogs.

Hee hee! Thanks for that, Mother Nature.

2009-04-29T10:42:00.000-07:00

I was eating lunch and thinking about poems. Here is a poem from Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems about 1960s New York. O'Hara was a curator at MOMA during its formative years. Curators, poetry, sugar-free peach pie--sounds like a lunch break well spent.

Ave Maria
by Frank O'Hara

Mothers of America
let your kids go to the movies!
get them out of the house so they won't know what you're up to
it's true that fresh air is good for the body
but what about the soul
that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images
and when you grow old as grow old you must
they won't hate you
they won't criticize you they won't know
they'll be in some glamorous country
they first saw on a Saturday afternoon or playing hookey
they may even be grateful to you
for their first sexual experience
which only cost you a quarter
and didn't upset the peaceful home
they will know where candy bars come from
and gratuitous bags of popcorn
as gratuitous as leaving the movie before it's over
with a pleasant stranger whose apartment is in the Heaven on Earth Bldg
near the Williamsburg Bridge
oh mothers you will have made the little tykes
so happy because if nobody does pick them up in the movies
they won't know the difference
and if somebody does it'll be sheer gravy
and they'll have been truly entertained either way
instead of hanging around the yard
or up in their room
hating you
prematurely since you won't have done anything horribly mean yet
except keeping them from the darker joys
it's unforgivable the latter
so don't blame me if you won't take this advice
and the family breaks up
and your children grow old and blind in front of a TV set
seeing movies you wouldn't let them see when they were young

Immigrant blues

2009-04-17T10:36:00.000-07:00

Will introduced me to Li-Young Lee not long after we started dating. The immigrant experience in America fascinates me, and this poem does a lovely job of encapsulating one man's experience.

Immigrant Blues
by Li-Young Lee

People have been trying to kill me since I was born,
a man tells his son, trying to explain
the wisdom of learning a second tongue.

It's the same old story from the previous century
about my father and me.

The same old story from yesterday morning
about me and my son.

It's called "Survival Strategies
and the Melancholy of Racial Assimilation."

It's called "Psychological Paradigms of Displaced Persons,"

called "The Child Who'd Rather Play than Study."

Practice until you feel
the language inside you, says the man.

But what does he know about inside and outside,
my father who was spared nothing
in spite of the languages he used?

And me, confused about the flesh and soul,
who asked once into a telephone,
Am I inside you?

You're always inside me, a woman answered,
at peace with the body's finitude,
at peace with the soul's disregard
of space and time.

Am I inside you? I asked once
lying between her legs, confused
about the body and the heart.

If you don't believe you're inside me, you're not,
she answered, at peace with the body's greed,
at peace with the heart's bewilderment.

It's an ancient story from yesterday evening

called "Patterns of Love in Peoples of Diaspora,"

called "Loss of the Homeplace
and the Defilement of the Beloved,"

called "I Want to Sing but I Don’t Know Any Songs."

2009-04-16T06:54:00.000-07:00

Another long poem. sorry. Tried steering away from them, but this is a good one. A colleague and I are instituting a new walking plan today. Since my thyroid has been overactive, I have felt terrible, both mentally and physically. I have stopped walking places entirely, because it caused my heart to beat a little too hard for comfort. But after a week of medications, I feel better enough to tackle the 2-mile round trip to work and back. I miss the feeling of striding along at a comfortable pace, the slight stretch up the back of my hamstring, the swing of my arms. I'm ready to have that back. It's also amazing how much your thyroid controls feelings like irritation which can be bottled in, and produced by the most unlikely of sources. Cracks in the sidewalk? Really?! I've almost been brought to tears because of it.

Pablo Neruda is best known for his sensual poems of "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair" and the open sexuality of "The Body of a Woman." Freud would probably have plenty to say about our eagerness to identify Neruda as a purely sexual poet. But readers often miss what Neruda's hallmark as a poet really is: his mastery of describing all sensory experiences. Enjoy this one about a walk through his neighborhood.

Walking Around
It so happens I am sick of being a man.
And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie houses
dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt
steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.

The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs.
The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.
The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,
no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.

It so happens that I am sick of my feet and my nails
and my hair and my shadow.
It so happens I am sick of being a man.

Still it would be marvelous
to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold.

I don't want to go on being a root in the dark,
insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,
taking in and thinking, eating every day.

I don't want so much misery.
I don't want to go on as a root and a tomb,
alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,
half frozen, dying of grief.

That's why Monday, when it sees me coming
with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.

And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses,
into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,
into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,
and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.

There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines
hanging over the doors of houses that I hate,
and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
there are mirrors
that ought to have wept from shame and terror,
there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords.

I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,
my rage, forgetting everything,
I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic shops,
and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:
underwear, towels and shirts from which slow
dirty tears are falling.

Translated by Robert Bly

Because today is that day.

2009-04-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

Everybody Tells Me Everything

I find it very difficult to enthuse
Over the current news.
Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens,
And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.

Ogden Nash

I cannot grow flowers.

2009-04-13T11:11:00.001-07:00

I cannot grow flowers. I can keep them from dying, but only just barely. My sister's miraculous touch with all things verdant is legendary in our family: I envy the peaceful charm and sense of life that emanates from her balcony, her living room, and the tree she once planted in the backyard of the house we grew up in. Her connection to the earth and its creatures extends to the animal kingdom, as demonstrated by that we once lost her on a walking tour of Cades Cove. When someone in the group finally spotted her, she was standing in the middle of a misty field surrounded by grazing deer, who nibbled around her like she was an expected guest. Everyone started snapping pictures, which frightened the deer, who ran away. She is pure of heart. This is what it takes to foster life in all its forms. (And she will see God.)

I do not mean to draw the parallel that I have an inferior spirit or an uglier soul than she, although I sometimes am convinced of it. It just means that fostering life, this time in my plants, does not come naturally to me. But I believe in it to the utmost extent of my being. I am trying to do better. Being in love with a kind, generous, funny, smart, loving man has helped, as has my newly-revived committment to spend more time with God's word. I will falter and be human, and not do my best on plenty of occasions. I will be awkward and probably say the wrong things but with the right intentions. And then maybe, after plenty of stumbles and errors, I just might start to look like this:

Nothing to Save
by D. H. Lawrence

There is nothing to save, now all is lost,
but a tiny core of stillness in the heart
like the eye of a violet.

I sometimes forget its message

2009-04-09T12:45:00.001-07:00

I'm thinking about the future quite a bit, lately. Langston Hughes' tiny poem is more like a jewel box instead of a jewel. The jewel--the dream--I'm not ready to wear yet. The poem will keep it safe.

Dreams
by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

The first poem I ever memorized

2009-04-07T10:42:00.000-07:00

Part Three: Love, by Emily Dickinson
If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn
As housewives do a fly.

If could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I'd count them on my hand
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen's Land.

If certain when this life was out
That yours and mind should be
I'd toss it yonder like a rind
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time's uncertain wing,
It goads me like the goblin bee
That will not state its sting.

National Poetry Month: About today's weather

2009-04-06T11:06:00.000-07:00

Snow-Bound [The sun that brief December day]
by John Greenleaf Whittier

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east: we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.
Meanwhile we did your nightly chores,--
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch,
The cock his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro
Crossed and recrossed the wingèd snow:
And ere the early bed-time came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

*

As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back,--
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art
The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: "Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea."
The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the somber green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed where'er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

Happy National Poetry Month

2009-04-01T11:43:00.001-07:00

anyone lived in a pretty how town by E. E. Cummingsanyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

song lyrics

2009-03-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

Something about hearing the opening riff of "Round Here" by Counting Crows floors me. Each and everytime.

wow!

2009-03-24T13:57:00.001-07:00

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/tenlapse.html?npu=1&mbid=yhp

Thoughts over Cantaloupe

2009-03-24T10:32:00.000-07:00

Using my lunch break to do some blogging, and realizing that my blog is a crazy hodge-podge of this and that. Usually half-articulate and meaningful to no one but myself. Oh, and there is the occasional posting of urban legends that were reported to me as fact. But I think I made a new friend in Pet Snakes--that is, as long as he/she is not offended that I was only slightly miffed at his/her comment. I don't like to be corrected, even when it is totally warranted. Enough of this.

The last three weeks have been very tumultous weeks for me, mentally. I'm starting to feel like...well. Not me, anyway. I do believe my malfunctioning (but inconclusive) thyroid is contributing to this problem. I am looking forward to having it back on track again. New experiences, new problems, old problems, yada yada yada.

I am grateful for two things today, specifically. Room temperature fruit salad. Humans were not meant to eat cold strawberries that don't taste like themselves and make my teeth hurt. And Pandora Radio. The bff could probably clue me into several other internet-based entertainment sources for the indie-hipster crowd, which would be awesome. But there's nothing quite like making up my own station. Right now, White Stripes Radio is playing "Saint John" by the Cold War Kids. I find it interesting but not enough to want to hunt down their other works. I'll just take it as it comes and be thankful when it's done.

True Story

2009-03-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

This story comes third hand, but I have a great deal of confidence in its veracity. Sitting on a diner stool, sharing fried pickles with ranch dressing, friend Leah shared the following gem. The friend who shared this with me knows a couple that I also know from college. This couple has a couple-friend to whom the following event really happened. This second couple also went to the same college we did, and therefore are inherently believable. If this can be believed:

So this couple lives in (small Middle Tennessee town). They keep a boa constrictor as a pet. Yes, as a pet! Sleeps in the bed with them--pet! They decided something was not right with the boa constrictor, so they take him to the vet. The vet asks what's going on with the snake, and they answer that he is "acting weird." Meaning? He's stopped eating for the last two days. And at night, he normally sleeps curled up at the foot of the bed, but lately he has been stretching out at full length between the woman and her husband. The vet responds by telling them the time has come to get rid of the pet. Get rid of the pet! Why? BECAUSE HE'S ABOUT TO EAT YOU! The vet responds. WHEN BOA CONSTRICTORS STOP EATING, IT MEANS THEY'RE PREPARING TO DIGEST A REALLY LARGE KILL. AND BY STRETCHING OUT FULL LENGTH, HE'S MEASURING YOU TO SEE IF HE CAN REALLY INGEST ALL OF YOU.

Editorial comment: At least they haven't allowed their affection for the pet to cloud their better judgment (?) and they got rid of him.

I believe the word you are looking for here is wha?

Ryan Adams in Nashville

2009-03-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals would always be a soul-shaking, credit-card-charging worthy experience. Listening to him wail out "Beautiful Sorta," or anthemize "Rescue Blues" is always worth it. Dare I say? It would be just about worth having my guts kicked out and my soul shredded by love just to respond to "Peaceful Valley" sung like that, resonating down into my very soul and releasing streams of emotion so powerful that every fiber of the universe must quiver speechlessly until the wonder of it subsides.

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals in Nashville, at the War Memorial Building must be the quintessential Nashville music-scene experience. There are plenty of you Bloggy McBloggertons (to quote the bff) who are immeasurably more qualified to talk about the NMS than I, but I know that concert wouldn't have sounded the same in Alexandria or Silver Spring. Maybe in Brooklyn, though...

For a pretty adequate story of the concert the way it actually happened I recommend:
http://www.interference.com/9519-9519/

I want to live here

2009-02-10T14:01:00.000-08:00

2009-02-02T07:03:00.000-08:00

Since last posting, I turned thirty! I'm looking forward to my thirties, hoping to avoid some of the roller coasters that the twenties involved. Since many of my classmates and peers are turning thirty this year as well, I dedicate this to all of you:

A Lady Who Thinks She is Thirty
~Ogden Nash

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.
Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then--
How old is Spring, Miranda?

Possession(s)

2009-01-19T12:33:00.001-08:00

I passionately love AS Byatt's works. I own almost all of them, and have read them multiple times. Her words evoke scenes in which all the details are imagined and meaningful, from the characters themselves to the art on their walls, the books on their shelves, and height of the grass on their lawns. One scene she constructed in her novel Possession has stayed with me like few other images from a book ever has. Literary scholar Roland Michell imagines a perfect home to be white. White walls, floors, fixtures, towels. Clean, free of stimulations, peaceful. My mind needs to feel like that for a little while, I think.

I have felt entirely too cluttered over the last 7 or 8 months. Therapy helped, to some extent, allowing me to repackage one particularly traumatic event into smaller, bite-sized pieces. That experience is something that will always hurt, but finally talking it through has freed up a great deal of mental energy to devote to other thoughts. But what other thoughts? I had forgotten a time once existed when I didn't have to think about it at all, and I could use that space to analyze poetry, figure out how to rearrange my closets, plan for the future.

Over the last little bit, work has had many ups and downs, and I have felt unequal to the task. Everything needs to be done right now, and everything depends on everything else getting finished first. My finances do not withstand my own scrutiny. They would wilt under my mother's, and be positively charred to cinders under the eyes of Dave Ramsey. Because of some health issues, my nutrition is all over the map, and I feel a little like I'm backpedaling at the idea of having to get back in the habit of meal planning, etc. Exploring a relationship with a man with whom I have many, many common interests and thoughts on life and the living of it is truly a blessing and a very pleasant distraction (but still a distraction) from more tedious things like, oh say, personal finances, that are desparate for my attention.

Here's where all this is leading: I have to organize. To streamline. To declutter. The kind of decluttering that gets down into my soul and stays there. Reducing my possessions, limiting my consumption of goods, decreasing my debt load, purging my facebook page. Setting boundaries and following them so that I can fulfill my obligations not only with adequacy but with an extra measure of personal satisfaction in a job well done. I would be interested in hearing what other people are doing. I am a little daunted by this task, but think I know where I am going to begin.

Oy vey

2009-01-11T13:14:00.001-08:00

Ignore last post. I am now keeping a list of all stupid things done this week that could have been avoided with a little proper attention. Or new glasses.

1. Sunday: Entered wrong website to respond to a Newscoma post. By not putting in the "blogspot" segment, I sent her to an architectural firm instead. While architecture (esp. vernacular American) is one of my abiding passions, I can't take credit for that site. Although I would like to make some suggestions...

2. Tuesday: I replied to an email sent from a "no reply" address. I got back an email from IT that said "THIS EMAIL WAS MARKED NO REPLY. THERE IS NO ONE AT THIS ADDRESS TO ANSWER EMAIL!" For the vision impaired who might have missed their tongue lashing, the sentence was in bold, 48 pt. font highlighted in yellow. They did do that for the vision-impaired, right?

Starting the week off right

2009-01-11T12:17:00.000-08:00

Blessings are due to Will for realizing that receiving two rambling phone calls within a 5 minute span qualifies as a "need for coffee" night.

This now-past week was an idiot sandwich. And I was every layer in it. But let us be fair: A thin spread of idiot-mustard should be credited to the IT department. When I follow directions for a project I expect to be met, at the very least, with apathetic acceptance. Being bawled out over following directions goes against every principle fostered by my American public school education.

I exaggerate slightly. There's no medicine quite like hyperbole. This week, here's to not being an idiot. Here's to thoughtful meditation on constructing a class syllabus. Here's to consistent organization of inventory records. Here's to the smooth introduction of my department's website. Here's to fruitful discussion over archiving audiovisual records. Here's to the death of overanalysis.

Cheers!

So that's what you do with that...

2009-01-08T13:54:00.000-08:00

Since moving to West TN, I have become THAT vegetarian. I stalk the bean aisle (unintended pun). I mow down the grains aisle (that pun was). I rack up at the spices aisle. We do, after all, have to eat from other sections of the grocery store than just the produce section. Did I say aisle? More like section of one row. The selection at stores is more limited (reasonably so) in these areas. A typical glance across the bean selection is: bags of black, pinto and blackeyed peas. Cans of black, lima, red, and baked. (Cause why would you ever need plain ol' pork & beans?) Grains--What isn't Zatarain's or Rice-a-Roni is long grain, medium grain, brown or white rice.

But yesterday...I found couscous. Yup. A little yellow package shoved back behind two other packages of pearl barley (also a find!). I slapped that package in my buggy so fast the lady down the aisle jerked her head up. Feeling a little like Lewis & Clark viewing the Pacific, I stocked up on some other goodies and headed to the check out. The manager stopped me as I was helping the girl bag everything and said, "Ma'am. I've been meaning to ask. What do you do with that?" Glad you asked! Couscous is the food of the gods, and I was happy to share with him my favorite "summer" version:

10 oz. couscous (whole wheat or regular)
2 cups water (or use 1 & 1/2 parts water to 1 part couscous)
1 tablespoon butter

**Salt the water and allow water and butter to come to a boil. Pour in couscous and immediately remove from heat. Cover pot and allow to sit 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork. If you ruin it, you're probably already pretty challenged in the kitchen.

Serve with:
Cucumber Raita
*Mix 1 cup plain, non-fat yogurt with 1 tsp. cumin, 1 peeled and grated cucumber, and 1/2 t. salt. Add more cumin to taste.
Feta Cheese
Sliced Cherry Tomatoes
Chopped Cilantro

Still working on my favorite "winter" version, but last night I ate it with 1/2 c. red beans cooked with garlic, cumin, and chipotle and a sprinkle of cheese on top!Couscous bliss ensued.

And then I knocked over the pot, and 3 cups of freshly-cooked couscous ended up all over my kitchen floor. Note to self: turn pot handle other direction when stumbling all over kitchen. Note to reader: allow couscous to dry and cool before attempting to sweep up. Wet, it just sticks to everything.

2009 and all's well

2009-01-01T11:29:00.000-08:00

2009 woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in West Tennessee. Sunny and about...well, not freezing...50 degrees. (Whew. Thanks, Yahoo!) I however, did not wake up quite like the new year, and am just now hitting my stride for the day. I spent New Year's Eve hanging out with the coolest new friend I made this year--who, consequently, I got to kiss at midnight. So starting the new year with such a special "first"--I'm childishly eager to watch the way the rest of the year goes. I'm employed, with friends, healthy family, kissing beautiful boys, and happy. And just think of this: we get a new president in 19 days!

Being Jane

2008-12-26T15:35:00.000-08:00

I always liked the name Jane. If I ever have a daughter, I just might name her that. Conjures up images of Demi Moore doing one-armed push-ups and a woman in a bandana emerging from underneath a car, covered in grime. Today, I repaired a curtain rod, assembled a vaccuum cleaner and changed the headlight in my car, all before cleaning house and hosting coffee-talk with a good friend. (Changed headlights with the help of my oh-so-awesome brother: Even though I kept saying "Are you sure you're supposed to do that?" he knew exactly what to do, and I drove home safely with bright lights going before me.) Stand back, Rosie the Riveter! I like self-sufficiency.

But I also think of Austen's Jane Bennett, a sweet golden girl who exudes pureness of heart and is loved by a lovely man. I like being in love with another person. This has ony sort of happened to me before now, and I find myself stumbling all over the balance between myself and me-with-him. Naturally, I want to always be thinking of him--what he wants, needs, feels--and adjusting accordingly. Is that so wrong, to want to accomodate a loved person before yourself?

Jane is not a mirror, a mother, or a wishing well. And I know that I am not pure of heart. I like to think I can be very sweet, but I'm definitely not golden. I wish I had a better way to reconcile the two, sometimes. Maybe, I should just aim for bronze?

I Want: Christmas Edition

2008-12-25T09:37:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, all! I hope everyone is healthy, peaceful, and fulfilled (or some combination thereof) on this day. I've never really had a lot of committed feelings about Christmas--meaning, I don't have many personal rituals about gift giving, decorating, or card-sending. I like doing all those things, but some years are more fruitful in this way than others. Because of travel plans or transportation issues, I rarely participated in caroling or visiting. Parties were usually confined to the work day or after church. All this to say, I've never made a substantial committment of time or labor to make the holidays a festive wonderment.

This year has been one of ups and downs, and I feel a little differently this time than the last. Thanksgiving always felt a little more my speed--a small, yet vital holiday on which I could count my many blessings, naming them one by one. Christmas has often felt like it called on resources I did not have banked--inner peace, abiding faith, joy, financial strength, unmitigated positiveness, joyous creativity.

My resolution today is to spend this next year banking Christmas spirit. I want to be more loving, more creative, more content, more thoughtful. I want to make people laugh--really laugh. Not just with sarcasm or irony. I want to make things for people and not feel self-conscious about giving them. I want to verbalize my best feelings and share them, unafraid of the consequences. I want to work disclaimers out of my repetoire of things to say. I want to memorize poetry and be ready to quote it. I want to use terms of endearment. I want to be self-controlled in my financial habits, and untiringly generous with my love.

It may be very selfish to say "I want" on Christmas. But this is my wish list for the next holiday season. If I can spend even a moment making those around me happy, fulfilled, peaceful, joyous, healthy, then that will be a tremendous present to myself. No one may be reading this, and I could be saying it all to myself. But today and for this year, I love you, and everyone like you.

Oh crap

2008-12-23T07:43:00.000-08:00

ROUSes are alive and living amongst us.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081223/sc_afp/indonesiawildlifeanimalspeciesrhino_081223120759

Me-ness run amok.

2008-12-08T09:15:00.000-08:00

Holly extends a tag like a scepter, and I must bow to my liege's will:

Top seven signs of me-ness run amok:

1. Whenever I wash my hair, I apply conditioner, then wash my face, then rinse conditioner. Even if my face doesn't need washing. Even if I'm not taking a full shower. I time the length of leaving conditioner on my hair by the time it takes to wash my face. No exceptions. If I do not do this, then I am confused by what my conditioner has accomplished, convinced my hair will begin to break off or fall flat the minute I begin toweling it dry.

2. I walk up and down escalators. Even in West TN. People stare, but I get where I'm going twice as fast as they are.

3. Closet doors must stay shut at all times when not in immediate use. Daylight, dark, messy room, clean room, doesn't matter. I'm sure there is a Freudian explanation for this. All I am willing to commit to is that the closet door must stay shut. Period. I often find myself wanting to shut them when in other people's houses.

4. Whenever I drive to or through Nashville, and I first see the skyline, I say "Hello, Nashville!" or "Goodbye, Nashville!" outloud, depending on whether or not I am coming or going. I always have a good time when I'm there.

5. Whenever I see my 2-year-old niece, I pick her up under her arms and swing her like a bell saying "Ding, dong. Ding, dong." It has conditioned her to run up at me saying "ding dong" whenever she sees me.

6. I don't like visiting museums with other people, for the most part. I want to be left alone to look at things and read all the labels without people talking to me, or making demands on my time or attention. Of course, I tend to point out all kinds of things that are wrong or design choices I don't like, which annoys my companions. They usually prefer to let me go on my own. PS--to all the museum professionals reading this: Please don't sway the opinions of your visitors by using boldface type on your labels. We all know Andrew Jackson was a racist pig for signing the Trail of Tears legislation, but it is not a museum's function to pot-stir at the sacrifice of honest dialogue. End of diatribe.

7. I obsessively love Lucinda Williams' music. Surprise.

Make it an amendment

2008-12-04T07:38:00.000-08:00

Jason Mraz's song "I'm Yours". I'm not necessarily a fan of his, but today a lyric struck me. Probably because my Christian university radio station usually bleeps out the word "God" in the expression God-forsaken. First time I heard it was a little jarring, like hitting the bottom step of a staircase wrong. "It's our (big silent space) forsaken right to be loved." Trust me, I don't believe in censorship, but it occured to me just now that bleeping out that word is probably a good thing. Why?

Our right to be loved is not God-forsaken. God created us with the right to be loved. If we are not loved, it's man-forsaken. Either because we won't or can't commit ourselves to caring for each other. As the producers of Love Actually reminded us, true love comes in many forms--from sex to colleagues. I went to school with a brilliant guy who once uttered this brilliant statement:

"The whole problem with the world is that there is only one word in the English language for love."

A funny thing happened on the way to gift giving

2008-12-02T07:16:00.001-08:00

It's not needed now. Thanks for the feedback anyway.

Gifts, gifting and giftiness

2008-11-30T15:16:00.000-08:00

Spoiler alert--Christmas is coming. I know, I hate to be surprised, too.

What do you do when you are trying to choose a gift for an incredibly special person in your life, and your approach to gift-giving is completely different from theirs? In my family, we always choose useful gifts. We like useful gifts, like gift cards, sheet sets, kitchen knives, iPods. My special person believes in giving useless gifts. But no gift is really useless, is it?

When I receive something that had no other purpose than to make me happy, it would be useful. That's the way I see it. And after all, isn't gift giving--at least partially--about what the gift says about the giver? You see, I've already decided what to give this person for the holidays. I decided this based on things he has said he enjoys having and using, and partly on things I want to give him. He hasn't said he wants these things. I didn't check them off his wish list. I think he will like them. I'm not worried about the quality of the gifts, so to speak. But what if he isn't so interested in them because they are "useful"? Perhaps some "useless" gift should be waiting in the wings? Are they going to be perceived as boring or pedantic?

To be perfectly honest (and if you can't tell the truth at Christmas, when can you, eh?) I am a little intimidated by "useless" gifts. Especially if you haven't known the person for years and years. I feel like giving these sorts of gifts takes some warming up to. Maybe my love language is acts of service, so that translates into the type of gift I naturally lean towards.

I'll figure this out. But I think I'll have a useless gift or two around just in cases.

New opportunities

2008-11-28T13:48:00.001-08:00

Exciting news! I have been asked to teach a class for the spring semester on curatorial research & planning. I'm going to start small--only one student, actually. We are going to learn all about locating and interpreting primary source material and using them to reinterpret a historic home owned by the university. I'm so proud of this particular student. This project--like all projects you could propose to me--need to be done. Everything about my job screams "do me now." Which sounds racier than it really is. Not going back to edit.

This kid reminds me of the student I wish I had been--and was, in some ways. She has these huge circles under her eyes, and always comes in with a scraggly ponytail, toting books by hand and backpack. Me, too. She also has all these plans that she can't yet articulate with sentences full of "I'm kinda thinking of..." or "Something to do with historic preservation and art. Maybe?" Yep--me again. While I don't think everything about my college experience was a wash (clearly), I hope I can provide her with some more focused guidance I wish I had been given.