Spring cleaning

You know how some people can live in total squalor and not see it? My band plays shows in the residences of lots of those people. Last Friday we played what turned out to be a fun show (despite my early misgivings and the many get-me-out-of-here text messages) in a transcendently filthy loft. We played in a bedroom that was, seriously, smaller than a Ford Explorer. It contained nothing but a big homemade bunk bed, draped for privacy with a kids bedsheet with fighter jets on it. We were the first people to arrive, and I watched the guy who lived there halfheartedly pick up a dirty sock, toss it behind the bed, and then look right past a whole bunch of wrapper scraps and other bits of trash.

These shows always make me think about how there is, I think, a capacity to see dirt that most people develop at some point as they reach adulthood. I remember its arrival for me, when I was helping my mom to get our house ready to sell. I would think a room was fine, ready to go, and then she would point out all kinds of chaotic or disgusting nooks and crannies that I hadn't even registered.

So yesterday I spent the whole day trying to eliminate all hidden pockets of clutter and dirtiness from my apartment. It was hard, and I didn't finish, despite spending all day on it. It was fun, too, though; I listened several times to the Dvorak cello concerto (which my new orchestra will start rehearsing on Tuesday), several times to my new Massachusetts songs mix CD, and to a bunch of NPR shows online. And then I invented a dish and named it "chicken with deliciousness." Fruit and olives--so good!

Ipod 8Ball

At the gym today I discovered a new game, probably already enjoyed by many. I called it Ipod 8Ball. Basically, you ask your ipod a question and then shuffle it to a new song and interpret that song as the answer. Today my ipod told me all kinds of interesting things about my love life. For instance, it informed me quite insistently that I would not be meeting any interesting men at the first rehearsal of my new orchestra, but I would find a good female friend (or lover? not clear). It also predicted, and wouldn't be swayed over several songs, that an ex and I would only ever get back together somewhere out of the country. Hmmm.

Hail

Let's all move to a civilized climate, please.

Tuxedos On, Heads Held High

There's just something so resolute about these penguins marching back into the sea after getting stranded in Brazil and being flown back to the coast by animal rights activists in a military plane. It's amazing the way strength comes flooding back when you understand your place and your purpose.

Full Circle

A couple of years ago, I wrote this:

Last night I had an odd nightmare. I was walking with my favorite professor from last quarter on the way for him to observe me teaching my class (though I don't actually have a class right now). He showed me how to whip my head around in a weird way, and then said, "Your class will think that's really funny."

I said, "I'm not the kind of teacher who does tricks."

He said, "Doesn't your class have any social interaction?"

I said, "The social interaction occurs in connection with learning. I have them do group work . . ."

Now I'm actually taking a pedagogy class with that professor, and he will be observing my class! I remembered this dream in the middle of the first class meeting, but somehow managed not to raise my hand and tell the story then and there.

Huskies

So yesterday I went to a football game. It was a good game, but we lost, which is apparently disastrous for the team's fortunes, and which apparently means that my student-athletes are going to be very glum this coming week. There was also this huge display of high school marching bands, which was my favorite thing, even though it turned out to be kind of anti-climactic since they just stood in the middle of the field in a big uniformed blob and played softly. I think I am starting to kind of understand football a little. Other than glum students, the other major negative upshot is that the temporary tattoos turn out not to be so temporary.

Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens

Today was the first day of school, and it was the usual circus of people comparing classes, of first-time teachers huddled around the copy machine, and of huge hordes of students surging everywhere. As I navigated through it, and said hi and how was your summer and how are your students to various people all day long, I got happier and happier not to be new. I was remembering how alien all this was when I first got here (but alien in a twilight-zone-ish, familiar way), remembering all my jaunty blog posts and the disorientation I was trying to stave off. I would have to say that on the list of a few of my favorite things, "not being new" would rank high.

Red Bike, Blue State

I've been thinking I need to get an Obama sticker for my car (and tried to get one today, but the campus democrats were all out--c'mon, kids!). As I was biking home today, I started wondering whether I need one for my bike, too, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed that no one with a hot bike like mine could possibly be supporting John McCain. (Other kinds of hot bikes are a different story, but my awesome Cannondale seems solidly Democratic, despite the color and its Reagan-era origins.)

My Weakness

Yesterday I went to Half Price Books to see if I could get some books that I need to read for my exams.



So far so good, right? So I get the books home, and I discover . . . this.



Honestly, I have no idea what happened, but I think it symbolizes the whole process pretty nicely.

I was for it before I was against it

Josh sent me this funny article: National Endowment For The Arts Funds Construction Of $1.3 Billion Poem. My favorite line: "In addition, the tenuous line that was being drawn between the narrator's mortality and winter unexpectedly collapsed on itself Monday. Two poets were killed in the incident."

In related news, I love the way that "Bridge to Nowhere" has started working its way into the common lexicon as a metaphor. Recently I've heard it used to describe a relationship, grad school, etc. We need to take our wry chuckles where we can get them is my theory. I also just confessed to my fellow teachers that I want to use election-related materials in my class, but I am carefully scheduling things so that all that is over by election day, just in case.

Also, having considered the lobster, I feel sad about David Foster Wallace.

Relief

It turns out hospitals these days have wireless internet, so I am posting from my mom's room, while she is napping in anticipation of a delicious lunch of broth and jello. The surgery is over and went well, and I'm very relieved.



(Goatie was a hospital goat originally)

Milestone

Tonight, for the first time ever, I got paid for playing my cello. I got $12, my share of "the door." It was the band's CD release party and a fun show. The ensemble tonight was me, the baritone ukelele player/singer, the guy who bangs on a suitcase (and sometimes plays a Little Tykes xylophone, which everyone calls a glockenspiel), and the beatboxer. The CD is pretty good too.



In other news, I'm leaving for NYC on Monday.

Go Ahead and Puke

Funny headline juxtaposition from CNN.



It's odd having a famous vice-presidential candidate with my name. Really surprisingly odd.

Bleep from My Bleep

Pondering the small selection of books at the Dallas airport, I decided to buy "Dreams from My Father." What really sold me was that Obama uses the word "shit" casually, gratuitously, right on the second page. Bold, huh? I thought this was a family program!

Mexico!

So, by the way, I went to Mexico last week. With my sister. It was really, really great. We went to the Oaxaca coast and then drove to Oaxaca (the drive involved getting lost on foggy one-lane mountain roads, driving the rental car through a creek three times, and getting rescued by a banana man--but more on that when I get the pictures).

On our last day in Oaxaca, we went to Monte Alban, site of incredible ruins, where a Mexican child delighted in hitting us with her Sponge Bob Square Pants. In typical adventurous spirit, we decided to walk there, even though it's well out of town and we couldn't find a good map anywhere. (We made it about 3/4 of the way and then there was no shoulder on the road, so we took a rattly bus and then a cab.) Right before we got on the bus, we stopped at a chicken stand, where I had a long conversation in Spanish (long for me, as a non-Spanish speaker) with a man with a cleaver who thought we were French.

Here I am with the pollo man:


Here is Jane at the site contemplating the ages, as we were advised to by our guidebook writer (whose information was so spotty and inaccurate that we started calling him Jayson Blair):


We stayed at a really nice hotel in Oaxaca, and every afternoon we
had a work/chat/cerveza session on the roofdeck right outside our room. Here is Jane on the deck, with an impending thunderstorm in the background:


The hotel had a resident rabbit, and after the impending rainstorm struck he hopped out toward us totally waterlogged:

A few minutes later, two hotel employees, separately, came out with a towel and tried to dry him off. They looked like boxing coaches toweling down their fighters, so we started calling the rabbit "Champ."

Daemon

One of my friends has recently become interested in the concept of daemons from The Golden Compass, etc. Daemons are sort of animal familiars, who are both separate from you and somehow part of you too, like the childhood dream of having a twin who would be your best friend. So I was asked what my daemon would be, and I knew immediately that it would be a small silver-gray animal, a cross between Kitcat and Lambie, with some miniature mammoth (a la Madeline L'Engle) and a dash of the Spaceship (my old small silver-gray car) thrown in. I've just always felt that this was the right look and feel for things.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:


I wonder what this says about me.

Baby steps back to blogging

It turns out it's hard to start blogging again if you fall out of the habit. It's similar to the problem of wanting to call someone you haven't talked to in a long time, but wanting to have a regular conversation and not a summarize-what-you've-been-up-to-for-the-last-six-months kind of conversation. For some reason, on the phone I often give an account of my doings that's gloomier than I really feel about them, but in a blog post I always feel compelled to say that everything is so awesome, and there is something about that that feels weird.

Anyway, now I'm off to go teach sailing in the rain. I'm not dealing all that well with having mostly 15-year-old co-workers, is the truth about that.

My perfect life

I'm red as a tomato, surrounded by teenagers, and not making much headway on my interview. But if I can work out the kinks, it still really is my perfect life.

In the morning, I bike along the water to the CWB and teach sailing classes till 1, then I bike home and work on my reading and writing projects. My cat is great, my garden is growing, it's still light at 10:00 pm, B&R are safely married despite all my crying, I know more people in Seattle than ever before, I'm doing no work but work I love, and I'm going to Mexico! Still, I've been feeling a little sad, and missing people from the other parts of my life. I wish I were better at long-distance communication. If anyone I haven't talked to in a long time is reading this--well, I have probably been thinking about you and missing you.

This is where I work

I had my first day today, which was just training and set-up for the festival. Next week we start teaching. I feel like I stumbled on something pretty close to what I would create if I got to make up my dream sailing program; don't want to jinx anything, but so far I love it. This part of me has long been dormant.