Reading the Tag ...

“While a thing of beauty is a joy forever, it doesn’t hurt to have inherent function, seductive deign, and smoldering charisma under your lid …”

no. unfortunately I can’t claim this quote, but the little tag banded around the top of the new travel mug I got Lauren for her birthday can.

“You’re not slowing down, so we’ve designed our drinkware to keep up. With our functionality and good looks, we’ll easily become your favorite mode of self-expression. We look forward to being your friend for life.”

Is anyone else detecting a little “Budweiser presents Real American Heroes” action going on here? Mmmmmm.

miGo, with your non-leakage lids, witty marketing people, and your strikingly smart exterior (sincerely) … I will support you.

I salute you, Mr. miGo Travel Mug Maker.


“Warranty does not apply to damages caused by typical wear and tear, unreasonable use or neglect. This warranty gives you specific legal rights, and you may also have other rights which vary from state to state.”
huh, good to know.

Happy Thanksgiving-ish

At the airport, getting ready to fly home.
Good vacation. Very Good. Thanks Dad.



I posted some pictures from the week on Picasa (to the right).
Check 'em out if you want. Happy Thanksgiving!

I Thought I Was Just Gonna Tutor Some Kid

Putting on the Teacher Uniform, I had flashbacks of getting ready in the darkness of the early morning before settling in for the long drive to Danville. Something felt so familiar, nice even, about The Uniform; the pressed dress pants, the conservative but fashionable chenille cardigan, the reasonable pink high heels with the little bows on the sides, pinning my hair up to seem just a little more "professional "… the modest couple rows of necklaces (hey, I had to put a little flare into it somewhere). Looking in the mirror, I saw the teacher whose summer break was going on five months now.

Realization: This would be my first time back in a school since student teaching last year. Huh.

Walking through the halls to classroom #611, my heels clicking on the tile. The floors marked with black tape in a way that’s reminiscent of the track circling the football field at the high school across the parking lot – taped to remind our kids that we always walk on the right side of the hallway.

Approaching my friend Chyla’s classroom, a tidal wave of pre-pubescent, high-pitched laughter crashes through the hall (I was later to find out that it was over a joke of someone liking someone else … some poor kid, shuffling to gym class, probably mortified at the notion that someone could actually think he’s cute.)

Entering the classroom – colorful bulletin boards, graphic organizers, and trapper-keepers pop up into view. Strangely enough, its here, with the taped floors, students’ artwork lining the hallways, rows of desks, the shiny overhead up front, that I feel at home. Safe. Comfortable. Crescendo-ing Passion.

There’s something about being surrounded by a mob of eleven year olds just beginning to try to figure out life, how to be loved, that makes things not about me, my time, my unmet needs, my apathy.

Driving back down Springfield Ave … passing Grainger, professors wearing suit coats with the patches on the elbows, the girl in pajamas, the guy with the hangover.

Jaded from my last high school placement, buried in the cynical theories of burnt out adults on how not to solve America’s problems, buried in a community often solely fixated on all the social injustices and ignorance of the world and how no one but post-doc students could ever possibly do anything about it anyway.

There’s a sinking as the weight of “academia” drops back down on me, like those old-fashioned heavy velvet curtains that go around a canopy bed to shut out the light – ya know, like they always have in movie versions of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol when the ghosts are appearing to Scrooge. Don’t get me wrong, I love this campus … but sometimes it just feels like that heavy curtain -- keeping everything in as to keep ourselves comfortable, satisfied, able to sleep soundly; hiding in our enlightenment; out of touch.

Mmmmm. Middle-schoolers.

I’m refreshed.

I’m so ready to be a teacher. Not necessarily ready to grow up; but ready for my life not to be about myself.

So, here's a thing ...

(sigh, smile)

A Guilt Offering

ok. i suck at keeping this guy updated lately. sorry.
out of guilt i'm felt like i needed to throw something up here. since i don't feel like creating right now ... i'll borrow.

so earlier this week, in one of my education classes, we were told to spend a couple minutes writing about our day, as sorta a "let's focus" exercise -- ya know, a story or something interesting that happened to you that day. Here's what i wrote...

Writing. Writing into space. Thoughts. So many. Blowing by, like leaves in the wind. Which ones should I reach out and catch? Which ones do I let fly by me and settle on the ground in some undetermined spot; Time and Space to be determined.

Focus. Closing my eyes to let the dark settle around me softly. Using my ears to hear the leaves themselves rather than the vibrancy of their color, shape and speed as they swirl around in the untamable Wind of Idea. Exhale. Think. Focus. Listen. Quiet. Listen.

I'm hearing the sounds of school work to be done, social activism, a call for the rest and comfort of home, the changing of seasons, my need to find a job, my fears about leaving town, growing up; the instruction to write and all the Unspoken Expectation and Freedom that comes with that -- these are all the leaves blowing around me.

And yet, my hand doesn't rise. Doesn't reach out. Doesn't catch. My fingers twitch, but my hands remain steadily down at sides, like the long weights inside an old grandfather clock, slowly swinging back and forth. keeping Time. Unthreatening.

More silence. More thought.

It's getting late now. I should have something significant written down -- something started. Though nagged, I don't worry too much.

Because I know, I know that by not securing down topic or direction I'm still capturing thought; thought that is perhaps more lovely and free and true than re-spitting someone else's thoughts or opinions or something that I once heard said somewhere.

Peeping through my eyelashes I've noticed that my hands aren't down by my sides anymore -- nor are they holding on to anything. The leaves and the Wind are still twirling about me, but my arms are extended, my hands open -- not clutching a thought, but perhaps letting one go.

Exhale.