"Once again, the Hellmouth puts the special in special occasion."

Halloween is an appropriate time to bring out yet another Buffy quote, I think. I'm not sure Halloween means what it used to mean, and this makes me more than a little sad. Don't worry; I'm not going to go all "these kids today," probably, but I do have to wonder if I missed an update in our popular culture somewhere.

Halloween has always been sort of a neutral holiday to me. My folks were never the type to get down to their kids' level and roll around playing on the carpet. My sister and I were usually treated like little barely functioning adults (with no real choices, mind you). They never dressed up with my sister and I or even seemed to enjoy the trick-or-treating experience. My mom dutifully took my sister and I every year, but I don't think her heart was ever really in it. This, coupled with the fact that I grew up in Fundie-Fundamentalist-Wonderland where Halloween is often eyed with suspicion (like perhaps my $9.99 store-bought witch costume would somehow consume me. Until it actually happened to Buffy the Vampire Slayer years later, it wasn't even a possibility on my radar. Maybe Joss knows some Fundies.) means that I understand kids who look at the holiday as a candy gathering event. For me, it was a quick trip to a dozen or so houses and then on to town for a visit with the Joberts so the evening wouldn't totally blow for my Mom or theirs.

This was fine with me. Free candy was its own reward, and I enjoyed getting to stay up a little late and hang with a friend on a school night.

I've lived in a big city where people are panicky and frightened and convinced everyone is out to get them (that might actually be the tourism logo for Boston: Come to Boston and screw someone before they screw you, cause you know they want to!) for the past eight Halloweens, so we never got trick-or-treaters. When you never get trick-or-treaters, you buy the cool candy you like and pretend it's "just in case." This suited me all right, but this year I was excited to finally be in a place where ghosts and goblins come to the door with visions of chocolate dancing in their eyes. At first, I wasn't disappointed.

As the sun began to go down, the kids started showing up in waves. At first, it was as I expected -- downright adorable. No shockingly cute costumes, but then again I was always in a K-Mart pre-made myself, so I don't judge. The kids were very earnest and quite cute. They were ecstatic that I had actual chocolate (I HATE people who cheap out on Halloween candy and don't splurge for real stuff -- especially since most of those people have children and should give what they expect to get). Their parents were wonderful too. These were mostly children I don't know but do recognize as they are the ones who play with Boogie on our walks. Even my partner in crime, not a fan of children on the whole and flat on his back from a backyard-work-pulled-muscle injury a few days ago, was charmed.

He warned me it wouldn't last, and he was right. Something happened at about 8 o'clock.

"Scary" Halloween costumes got replaced by truly scary events. Around eight, the kids got older and the costumes disappeared. "Trick-or-treat" stopped and I opened the door to find teenagers without costumes shoving pillow cases at me with grunts or no sound at all.

The hell?

This is when I realized that a cute fun holiday tradition I remember fondly had turned into extortion. See, I'm not naive nor was I a traditionally "good" child throughout my adolescence. I work with late stage adolescents and young adults every day. I know what they think, and I think I remember what they are going through. I was probably almost as mad at the world as the grunters on my front porch. Still, I wondered as they shoved their greedy hands into what was left of my candy and grabbed handfuls despite my cheery offer for them to take only two because I was running low and it didn't look like the night was ending any time soon.

I found myself a little nervous. Part of me wanted to rail on these kids with their vaguely threatening looks and their friends not old enough to be out alone but far too old to be trick or treating hanging out in the bushes. Then again, maybe it's because I don't have children of my own, but I don't feel like a grown-up, and I really hate acting like one. When you don't have the future of the world on your shoulders, as you do when you have kids, you don't really ever have to act like an adult, and I choose not to, most of the time. I actually didn't say anything to the kids, because, in the midst of my quandry, I could almost see the outlines of their egg cartons. Few things I'm sure about, but one is that egg does not come easily out of vinyl siding, especially when the person in charge of the outside of the house is partially crippled in pain on the couch.

All at once I stopped being mad or frustrated at the Boston attitude. I understood. Halloween has stopped being a neat way for neighbors to get to know each other and give each other's children a special treat. It's no longer a way to celebrate the future generations of a community.

It's a payoff to a pimply, vaguely obese teenage mafia.

And I am powerless to stop it. What can I do? Times are tough and children are desperate. Candy is expensive, and they just gotta have it.

I did what any responsible, intelligent adult would do. I loaded up my tattered boyfriend, turned off the lights, and took him out for a beer.

I'll worry about the vinyl siding tomorrow.

"So I told him that I loved him... and I kissed him... and I killed him"

Pardon the Buffy quote, but I just finished reading Twilight, and I needed to remember when vampire stuff was cool to me.So..... the magic that is Twilight...... hmmmm.....

Oh my gentle Jesus..... I heard much about this book from people I actually respect. How romantic it is. How wonderful the love story is. What a triumph in the art of teenage angst and romance.

Clearly, my friends have been doing drugs behind my back.

OK, it is an easy read, and perhaps my friends have difficult and stressful lives and spend their days reading big words, so they want something easy to read. This, a young adult novel, is indeed that. I'll even concede that it's a compelling read. I finished it in about two medium to long reading sessions -- about three days total on account of it was a busy week.
That said.... romance? Try stalking. I get the whole vampire genre. I know what I'm getting when I peel into Laurell K. Hamilton (who has jumped way into the deep end of the S&M pool -- farther than I'm willing to follow anyway. Her books now make me get phantom pain), and I don't mind a good Charlaine Harris every now and again. I lived for Buffy and even read a few comics after the show went off the air.

But Edward Cullen? As my buddy, Ryan, would say, hell to the no.

This is a teenage (albeit teenage vampire) boy who tells his teenage girlfriend that he will follow her anywhere whether she wants him to or not. He climbs into her bedroom window and watches her sleep without her knowledge. Their communication throughout is peppered with reminders of how he can kill her or hurt her at any time. To put the cherry on top, he tells her that he won't WANT to, but something in her smell and manner of being might MAKE him do it.
I have loved many men in my lifetime, one right now, but if any of them climbed in my bedroom window when I wasn't expecting them to, I would do my damndest to push them right back out. And if they EVER reminded me that they could hurt or kill me and then had the damned audacity to tell me it would be my fault due to my unwitting olefactory assault upon them, the fan would be ever so dirty from the shit that hit it. I would be a notion.

And if I were Bella with the monster truck, I would run them over a few times on my way to wherever the hell I knew they would never find me.

Meyer could take a lesson from Joss (creator of Buffy, for those not in the know. Also, one of the not-so-minor deities in my personal pantheon). He encompassed the whole obsessed vampire "if I can't have you no one can" thing. He addressed the issue of how a 243 year old and a 17 year old might have different ideas about forever. He captured the smoldering, all-encompassing, seems like it's soul devouring wretched world that is teenage love and specifically first love. Still, when things got dicey and violent for Buffy, that was CLEARLY A BAD THING. When Buffy dreams of becoming a vampire so she can be with Angel forever, she gets that THAT WOULD BE A NIGHTMARE. When she has to decide between living the life she was given and chucking it all for a boy, she opts to face the world and reality even though that means getting old and not always being better than everyone else. She gives up being special to have a life.

Bella, on the other hand, is readily willing to give up her parents, her life, her future for Edward. She begs him to turn her. She knows (from seeing him and his siblings) that this means she has to move back and forth from place to place going through high school again and again until people start noticing she's not aging. At least Carlisle and Esme were a little older when they turned and can have careers and a little more longevity wherever they go. The young vampires can never hold jobs or be more than high school students. It's Groundhog Day for these undead.

In short, I don't find creepy to be endearing or romantic. I guess for some girls male beauty means the difference between stalking and a beautiful relationship, but not this girl.

Just Another Spin around the Sun

Well, another birthday has come and gone and no one showed up to tell me I'm a wizard (I would have said "witch," but I think that might have happened a time or two, and not for good reasons, so...). Oh well, maybe next year.

It was a mediocre birthday to say the least. Some nice things happened, like finally getting to try the swanky place in town (I can honestly say I've tasted a pork chop I would willingly and happily pay $30 for) with my partner in crime, and discovering that we had become grandparents (two of our cichlids had at least one baby we saw -- it subsequently became dinner for one of the other fish, but both Darwin and Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom told us that nature was cruel). Still, the overwhelming part of the day was negative as Boogie tested positive for heartworms. We're waiting on additional tests, and we're kind of thinking false positive because about the only chore I am excellent at is maintaining my dog's health. I don't remember to unload the dishwasher or switch the clothes into the dryer all the time, but I freak if Boogie's monthly heartworm or flea/tick/mosquito stuff is an hour overdue. I even give him the f/t/m stuff in the dead of winter. So, we're wondering how our formerly heartworm negative boy turns up with the stuff, I wait on a second opinion before I begin plotting my texas chainsaw massacre style revenge on the company that makes Heartgard.

I did wage a bit of an internal war with myself on Friday, and I wound up giving into peer pressure. I bought Twilight. I think I might have actually been speaking my internal struggle out loud in the Target (which had the book on sale) because people might have been giving me funny looks (or they could have noticed how clueless I was in the boys' clothing section when I was trying to guess the right size Star Wars pajamas to get for the Crimefighter's nephew for his birthday and followed me to see what other displays I would mutter at).

See, on the surface, I pretend to hate all fad books. My official line is that anything that gets people, and especially kids, reading is OK by me. Don't get me started on all the folks who have issues with the sorcery in Harry Potter since the theme of every book resonates strongly with Christianity (specifically Anglican teaching because Rowling is English). Still, I pretend to hate fad literature and place myself "above" the masses.

But I have come to realize that, sometimes, fad books are crazily popular for a reason. I don't think this is true in non-fiction where I really do find most wildly popular books to be quick fix solutions to real life problems or promises that internal weaknesses are never "your fault." Fiction, however, has proven to be a whole nother bag of tricks.

I held out on Harry Potter for a very long time. A combination of being recommended by someone whose taste in books I admire (and the fact that she loaned me the book and its sequel) and a long snowy Christmas break in Clemson with no one around to play with made me give in and finally pick it up. Three days later, the pretense of checking on the aforementioned friends' house "since the weather had been awful and they were away" had me driving in a massive ice storm and rooting around until I found the third book under a pile of clothes. I devoured all three in less than five days and was hooked. Books four through 7 saw me in line at midnight with friends or alone surrounded by children way younger but no more excited than myself.

Similarly, I have tried to start my own fad. Over the past five years or so, I have purchased no less than 15 copies of JD Robb's Naked in Death to pass along to my friends who are readers. Without exception, every one of them has picked up the series, caught up, and is waiting with baited breath for the next one (#26 with six additional novellas through the years). Nora Roberts (JD Robb's real name) has been adament in her hatred of people who sell used books online (therefore denying authors royalties) but I think she's wrong on this one. My moderate investment in her first book has given her at least 15 customers for 25 of her books each. She should fund a mass market printing of Naked in Death and hand them out on the street to strangers. When you are that entertaining, your work speaks for itself. Plus, she has hundreds of books in print -- when comes the time that your previous work has paid you enough?

So, my point and I do have one, is that I sucked it up and bought Twilight. So far, it's no Harry Potter, and Edward Cullen is no Roarke (from the In Death series). I'll read it, along with Jane Eyre (which I'm making slow but steady progress with) until November 4. If I haven't finished it by then, it will (I can already tell) have to take a backseat for at least 2 days (the time it takes me to devour Robb's books). Sorry, kiddos. High school angst has nothing on a cool New York Cop of the future and her smokin' hot Irish husband.

Join in on the fun

This is, so far, one of those weeks where it isn't hard to come up with a long list of reasons I like my job. I have a really neat group of students this year. We're having better discussions (read: I don't have to lead every question to an answer) than I've had in several semesters of teaching, essentially, the same thing. Still, while they are bright and inquisitive, their views sometimes make me feel..... well.... not necessarily old, but definitely "of a different generation."

So, I want to pose the question to my adult readers and see if it's me or if it's my generation.

We read a philosopher named Appiah who deconstructs various other thinkers' writings on the battle between individuality and collective responsibility. In short, sometimes our desires are at war with each other (I want to make an A on my exam, but I don't want to stay inside studying when it's pretty outside and my friends are playing.) Our parents told us "We just want you to be happy," but there was the unspoken, "Provided whatever makes you happy comes with dental insurance and allows you to move out of our basement soon." Appiah refers to this as the human's quest for individuality as defined by the scripts given to him by his environment. In other words, to use my own example, I followed my passion to learn straight into college, but it's fortunate that I WANTED to go to college because I'm not sure any other option would have been tolerated by Ron and Cathy. So while I feel I've made the choice I wanted to make, perhaps that was only because I was told that college was the choice I wanted to make (my parents' "script" for my life).

Also, many of the things we want as individuals require group effort to produce, distribute, and enjoy, so we may have a responsibility to allow others to do what needs to be done to achieve our own ends.

By law of each land, there are also ways we collectively find inappropriate ways of "expressing individuality" such as predatory behavior against children, taking of things which deprive another of their life, etc.

So, I asked them the following:

By law, you are obligated to follow the law of the land and pay your taxes. That's it. This entitles you to live freely (meaning not incarcerated, at least). But is there more?

What do you owe yourself? What do you owe your parents? What do you owe your race, your gender, your religion, your socioeconomic peers, your country, humanity?

What about if you take your specific circumstances out of the mix? What does every child owe its parent, regardless of the quality level of the parenting received? What does every American owe their country? What does every human owe to other humans by virtue of an understood "contract with humanity?" Are you under any obligation to make the world a better place?

I'll keep what they said to myself, but it was universally different than what I expected. What say any of you?

I'm off to watch "Living with Ed" on the Green channel -- I sympathize with Ed Begley Jr.'s wife sometimes..... but just so I've got it on record, the day Gerry expects me to go out on the porch and ride an exercise bicycle long enough to generate enough electricity to make toast and coffee in the morning..... well, that's the day I may need to crash on your couch for a while.

I'm a cheater.....

There comes a time in even the most mouthy person's life when they find themselves speechless. Sated from a day of doing next to nothing and a yummy dinner I cooked myself, I have nothing to say tonight.

So I thought I would post something I sent to a former student who asked me about teaching. I'd be interested to hear if anyone finds my view of the profession (teaching on the college level) accurate or would add any other advice.

My old student, now my buddy, Tom hates working in the corporate world. He came to me for some advice because the ivory tower looks really good when you work in a cubicle and deal with TPS reports. Here's what I said. Tom reads the blog so, fellow teachers, comment away.

Tom,

Want an old 35 year old's life lesson? Here goes -- want it or not. At certain times, every job sucks. They just suck in new and exciting ways. Do I think college professoring is the bees knees? Yep, except when it isn't.

1) You don't want a Masters in Education unless you want to teach K-12. To teach at the college level, you need a masters in your field. If you want a shot at being full time somewhere and tenured, you need a PhD. Even then, it's no guarantee you will ever get off the adjunct soup line. Most of the people I work with (other adjunct professors) already have their PhDs and can't advance. I have my job because (not to toot my own horn) I'm pretty good at what I do.

2) It's less stable. This semester I'm teaching 7 courses which is about the equivalent of what two full professors would teach in any given semester. That's a lot of grading. Some semesters, I can't work out a given schedule, and I teach (and am therefore paid) a lot less. It's a trade-off. Even with seven, I make about half what a full professor with 4 would make.

3) People don't always understand how hard you work. Outside of my home, I work two 13 hour days and two 4 hour days a week. My boyfriend and his friends hear that and think "Wow! a 34 hour work week" so they cite that as how "easy" my job is. The time you spend actually in the classroom is about a third of your workload. You also have to create course content, prepare for lectures, grade papers, and meet with students, often at their convenience rather than yours. No one sees this but you because it often happens in your car while commuting (well, except for the meeting the students -- they fire people for doing that).

4) Expect a few years of really having to tighten your belt. I went back in because I was so miserable at John Hancock that my roommate at the time told me she was worried about my mental health if I didn't. I can't work in a corporate environment. I knew the financial realities and organized a pre-crisis bailout. She covered most of my money for a year and a half while I made a name for myself. In my first year of teaching, I made less than $30K -- and that was in Boston where the salaries are higher. Even now, with all I work, I usually make right at or under $50K. You might find that lack of stability a difficult environment. She did, and that's why she stayed teaching in high school. I could not be where I am today without her help and the fact that she never once threw it back in my face. Oh, and I did pay her back, albeit slowly. Do you have that kind of cushion on your own or from someone else?

5) Say you get your PhD and you land a full time job and earn $100K for 20 hours a week. Great, right? Except now, your job is no longer focused on teaching. Now, you have to pick up committee work and advise students officially. Also, to maintain your job, you are expected to continue your research from school for the rest of your life. If you publish like crazy, you get to keep your job. If you don't, it's back to the drawing board.

6) Academia is political. Sure, the folks there aren't as good at it as your IBM counterparts, but still it's there.

So, the good news? You don't have to be a part of politics if you choose not to. There are a lot of people at both schools where I work that I murmur pleasantries to and don't speak to otherwise. When someone pisses me off, I go in my office and close my door and no one bothers me. My colleagues and I do have a shared mission, even though we choose to fulfill it different ways. I get to present my material as I see fit with very little interference and no micro managing from above. I meet interesting students who stimulate my brain more than I ever thought possible. When I teach upper level students, I get to advise on projects so I'm always learning cool stuff, in my field and out of it. When students suck, I can keep my cool because they are gone in four months regardless. (Of course this is true when they rock as well).

Teaching is a way of life. It isn't a job that goes away at five o'clock. That said, do your old professor a favor and never refer to it as your "calling" and don't let anyone else either. You don't take vows of chastity and poverty (although it might feel that way) and you don't have to pull a sword out of a stone. It's a profession, and one that requires a lot of hard work, constant nurturing, and specific learned professional skills that not everyone has or can learn. Some people are NOT capable of teaching. So long as people talk about teachers being "called" to work, we'll never get paid what corporate people are. If you think you are moving into an easier line of work, don't go. The frustrations with IBM you cite will go away, but new ones will emerge -- they always do.

I find it immensely pleasurable, but not everyone does. Students question you and insult you and drive you to the end of your rope at times. You are signing on to work with late-stage adolescents for the rest of your life -- think about that. Remember how crappy you and some of your classmates were (I do.)? Remember the blond guy who loved to tell me how naive and stupid I was in class? You get that all the time. If you are looking for a 100% approval rating, this isn't the job for you. That said, if you love to spend your life defending your principles and thinking about things in ways it never occurred to you to think about them, this really is the life.

Original content will, hopefully, return another time.

How did I get here?.... my god, what have I done?

What is it about Mondays that channels the Talking Heads? Something.... it's gotta be.

I definitely asked myself that question today when I discovered something quite disturbing. I no longer hate Michael Moore. I still think, more often than not, that he's a ridiculous blowhard trying to carve out a Hollywood name and image for himself by mocking the time honored tradition of the documentary. He might make what must be termed documentary, but his soul is all Hollywood. Here's the problem -- assholes aren't necessarily wrong.

I actually teach Michael Moore every semester. His movies are one of those glorious devices where teachers actually teach two lessons in one. Prior to this semester, I had a wonderful unit at Northeastern on Americans' conceptions of themselves versus their reality with a focus on our culture of fear (short version: you play like you are afraid, but you know no real fear.... you think you are scared because the media tells you you should be frightened, but you aren't truly scared for your safety. If you were, you would modify your behavior.) In this unit, I showed "Bowling for Columbine." Since a lot of people share my (prior) opinion of Moore, it made for an interesting discussion not only about the content but also about the presentation as in knowing your audience and monitoring your tone in writing. Good stuff.

Then, my publisher went and made a new addition to the text that excluded EVERYTHING I taught and added new stuff. So we shifted and read an entry on the Ethics of Individuality -- the question now is what do you owe to yourself versus what do you owe to humanity? I posed the question to my students, "Are you under any obligation to make the world a better place?"

And they highjacked class. Totally took it over and threw all my class discussion plans out the window. They are consumed by the presidential election and the question of healthcare in this country. I love it when this happens. The better the teacher in college, the less she actually does. When you do your job right, they, literally, do all the work. I'm so proud I could cry.

To further my contention that I am a participant and not a judge, I went out and bought the only recent documentary I knew about health care in America -- Michael Moore's Sicko. I delivered it to class still in shrink wrap. I welcomed them to the dilemma of teaching -- thinking something will work doesn't mean it will. I submitted that we watch the movie for the first time together and hope for the best. They jumped at the chance.

And Michael Moore changed my opinions and the opinions of many of my die hard Republican students. We had a moment in class where we admitted being converted by someone not many of us even liked. It's that powerful. My brother in law is a doctor, and I do respect his knowledge and abilities. We don't see eye to eye on much politically, but I have never questioned his commitment and smarts. I do now. Simply put, he's wrong.

Unlike many Americans who seem to feel strongly that our current system is the best (whatever that system is), I have lived under socialized (or national, to be more correct) health care, and it is better than what we have. Sure, the French pay 50% of their money in taxes. That sounds like an astronomical percentage, but I pay 40% of my wages to the government and another full 10% of my pre-tax wages to Harvard Pilgrim, and I don't get 24 hour guaranteed free house calls. I don't get prescriptions for less that $5 a pop. And, if I ever have a child, I don't foresee George Bush offering to send me a helper for two hours two times a week to make sure I'm OK until my baby is a year old. The French get all that. Last time I did the math, 40% of my wages plus 10% of my pre-tax earnings is exactly 50% of my wages (not to mention what I still have to give to my doctors and the pharmacy), and I get shit. And so do you.

They also live longer than we do, and they have a significantly lower infant mortality rate than we do. We don't like to admit it, but the World Health Organization -- a group the US belongs to -- rated France #1 in health care. We were 37. The greatest nation on Earth (I do believe that) and we can't get into the top ten in the industry most crucial to our lives -- the one that determines the length and quality of our lives?

Still, this isn't what really makes me mad. A colleague in another department (someone I don't know personally, mind you) today saw what I was showing and heard what we were talking about. He told me that I was a communist, and that I should be fired for being unpatriotic. I asked him to tell me what I had done that was unpatriotic, and he told me that I had no right to question the government (despite the fact that I was more questioning the motives of Kaiser Permanente and all the rest instead of, in fact, the government, but what's a few major details when someone has already made up their mind, right?).

This pisses me off not because I don't like to be questioned. I thrive on having my motives and beliefs challenged. I did choose to spend my life around late stage adolescents. I'd kind of be a fool if stuff like that got to me. Instead, I'm mad because he's wrong, and he'll never admit it because closed minded assholes like him never do, even when faced with overwhelming evidence. He's the one who isn't being a patriot. I'm only doing the duty laid out to me by our forefathers. Let me prove it to you:

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

Translation: If you want to break up with your government, or any government, don't be a weenie and do it by sitting there saying, "I think you know why." Instead, know why you are dissolving your union and speak your truth (as my new age students tell me).

But wait -- there's more:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --"

Translation: Government doesn't give us power. WE give IT power, and it is only in charge by our continued consent. Furthermore, we should NEVER fear it, and it should ALWAYS fear us. It does owe us -- it owes us life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and it has to work it's very hardest to give us that to the BEST of its ability. No other goal is more important.

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--"

Translation of the highlights: When a government forgets its fundamental role of promoting LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by its constituents, I not only have the RIGHT to question George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the rest of those I see caring more about themselves than anyone else; instead I have the DUTY to do so. If I don't speak my mind and allow others to do the same, I'm being unpatriotic and unamerican. In this land, it is wrong to let shit just happen to you.

Translation of the other stuff: The founding fathers insist that people won't do this lightly because people are lazy and will put up with all kinds of stuff in lieu of getting involved. So much for us thinking that everyone in 1776 was better than everyone now..... most of them were lazy about their country then as well, and the FF had the foresight and intelligence to see this.

In short: Mr. Colleague and everyone who agrees with him -- BITE ME.

And for those who don't know the quotes, they are from a little (according to my colleague communist) document called the Declaration of Independence.

For those who would say that I'll wind up having to give up some of what I've worked for to people who don't work as hard as me, you may be right. My response is "OK." So I have to take a summer vacation every other year and take a Staycation at home every other year. This means you get the cancer treatment you need without having to sell your house? Sign me up. I have to spend a few more years saving before I can move to a bigger home, but I can rest assured that when the guy down the street gets his arm ripped off in an industrial accident, he gets it sewn back on and can return to his job and his life whole? Fine. I'm willing to give a little more and have a little less for the peace of mind of knowing my fellow man is protected. It's not completely altruistic, though. I also get to go to sleep and night with the peace of knowing that if any of these things happen to me, I'm not going to have to become a burden on my loved ones because I'm going to get fixed up.

My life is better when my fellow man's is better. The good parts of my life, the truly good stuff, isn't what I can buy but what I can do -- I can live, I can live free, and I can pursue Happiness. Or at least I could eight years ago. I got that from the Declaration of Independence as well. It's a nice, tidy read, and far better than most of what I've come across. It's clear, it's concise, and it's right.

What kills me is the number of people I know who profess to be Christians and go to church far more regularly than I do who don't agree with me. I don't doubt whether they go every Sunday, but I do wonder if they listen and comprehend. I do believe God helps those who help themselves, but I also think sometimes he does this by putting you or me in their path.

If someone can explain to me how this isn't complete hypocrisy and a bastardization of Christian principles in the worst way, I'm open to hearing it. Be warned that people from every major religion (many with divinity degrees) have tried and I've pulled more over the fence than have ever nudged me. Stuff like this is why I left the church in the first place. It wasn't the theology; it was the people who used it like a cudgel over other people's heads and practiced nothing they expected from others. Not much has changed, so my Sunday mornings are still open.

We got rid of one King George because he neglected his mission. Thank goodness the system is about to kick out the new one. Let's hope whoever takes his place isn't a carbon copy. If he is, let's go back and read about our duties to this land again.

And in case I didn't make myself clear to my colleague: Bite me again.

Is Sunday the appropriate day to cheat on your blog?

I'm feeling very lethargic tonight. The Red Sox are on, the weather has officially gone from "fall is in the air" to "where's that sweater I have that's big enough to fit over two others," and I'm snuggling with Mr. Boogie (that's my dog, not a euphemism) watching my 6 new cherry barbs become acclimated to their new tank. Since it's hard to snuggle and watch with a laptop on my lap, I'm choosing them.

I did have a question from someone who read the blog (I have readers -- like, 3 of them!) about the title of this blog. Some of my fellow Raiders might recognize the title from my years on the school paper in Laurens. This was the name of the Editorial column that got me in a lot of trouble (or as much trouble as a girl like me could get into in Laurens in the late 80's). My fellow English majors, I hope, will forgive the bastardization of a poet's images.

In high school journalism, everything gets a by-line because everything is included in college portfolios (yes, Mr. College Admissions man! I can prove I didn't spend my time slacking off or enjoying myself AT ALL in high school. I worked all day and all night to prove myself to you and to show you I'm ready to spend an 85 hour week in service to a company RIGHT NOW. Here's my name! Now let me go to college, so I can spend it in a four year drunken haze I'll barely remember!). Still, the column was the thing that had not just your name but your picture (for me it was a big decision between ponytail scrunchie Suz and way over hot rollered Suz, but it WAS the eighties). You, grinning wickedly and hoping to hell the first picture comes out all right because you don't have to go back into the classroom for 20 minutes before Mr. Corley gets suspicious and you just might have time to streak by the other senior English class and flip someone the happy bird.

But I digress. The editorial staff decided on the name because we were still fresh faced in AP English (we hadn't had our heart dashed by Hamlet or our souls scarred by Crime and Punishment yet. Existentialism was just a speck on the horizon at that point). We loved Ferlinghetti, and I for one still do. So, instead of writing anything of merit tonight, I'll leave you with his image, much better than anything else you'll find here:


Constantly Risking Absurdity

Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of the day
performing entrachats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

stolen from: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/constantly-risking-absurdity/ *
*If you have money, give it to them. If you don't have money, give them some anyway, even if they don't ask for it.

Saturday in Suburbia

Yes, I skipped last night. It was Friday, and I had a thing. By "a thing" I mean, of course, that the week was over, I was tired, and I blew it off.

I've re-read some of my blog posts, and it would appear that I seem to have some unexplored issues with moving to suburbia. In actuality, I don't. I kind of like living in the burbs, especially on Saturday.

Saturdays in the burbs are perfect for me. My partner in crime is on a big conservation/ environmental kick lately. Over the past few weeks, we've installed a rainwater catch system to water the lawn and a composting pile to fertilize it. (NOTE FROM THE CRIMEFIGHTER: By "we" I mean him) Now, we just need it to rain before it freezes to test the viability. In Massachusetts at this time of year, it's a close race. The weather is turning as we speak. A month ago, we were lying around like third base in tank tops and shorts praying to any God who would listen for a little bit of a breeze. Today, we're switching from regular socks to the heavy ones in the evening and getting ready to hit the LL Bean outlet for winter provisions. I guess all of this would have been possible in my little fourth floor walkup I shared with The Manda, but not very likely (and more than a little smelly).

While I support the Crimefighter (as I was the one who pushed recycling when I moved in), I have to smile a little when he has the look of a new kid at Christmas because I have been into recycling for a long time -- I'm a yard saler. In fact, I furnished my first two apartments with other people's stuff. I still have a wonderful rocking chair I found just before it was thrown out of the old furniture store on Main Street in Laurens. It was wobbly (which was why they couldn't sell it) but a little wood glue and the expertise of dear old dad turned it into one of the nicest pieces I had during my starving student days.

Times change, and most of my original treasures are gone. They either wore out or were redistributed to new starving students along the way. My furniture now is very beautiful (mostly due to the influence and wallet of The Crimefighter), but part of me misses the old days -- going without a couch for weeks until I found the perfect one for $20 sitting on someone's front lawn, then cajoling one of the sweet southern boys I knew into loaning me the use of his pickup truck in exchange for lunch at some man-approved restaurant in town. The tendency is still in me -- I have the cutest little side table you ever saw in my bathroom rescued from yet another suburbanite's front yard for $5, sanded and lovingly painted by The Crimefighter to match my tasteful Ralph Lauren towels.

There are lots of reasons why I spend Saturday mornings going to yard sales. I won't say the primary reason is my environmental leanings, although that is a nice side bennie. I won't even say I need things, because the Crimefighter would tell you (loudly and emphatically) that I definitely do not. I go because it means driving through all the neighborhoods in town and learning the lay of the land in ways you can't if you only travel to and from work and the grocery store. Getting to point B from point A is a lot easier since I started maneuvering through the streets for a few hours every Saturday morning. I haven't had to wait through the traffic on Dilla Road once since the middle of the summer (when a Saturday morning spin yielded no goods but a delightful plan B for getting home).

My Saturday mornings are also my time to let myself miss the Crimefighter. I've discovered that when you live with someone, you aren't ever alone, and I really miss my alone time, as does he. Time spent at work doesn't really count since you are concerned with other people's problems and working other people's solutions. Commuting is horrible, and doesn't count for anything pleasant.

So, out I go. This summer, I got everything I will need to decorate the house for Christmas, and I probably spent less than $50. I go home and decorate my parents' house every year as my Mom doesn't care for it, and my Dad claims he doesn't have the eye (code for "I paid for five years of Wake Forest. YOU do it."), but living in a fourth floor walkup with no storage doesn't lend itself to decking the halls, so this will be my first Christmas in my own place where I can make things Merry and Bright. The Crimefighter is terrified, and he might have reason to be.

I average a couple of new books a week. With a habit like mine, the savings easily run into the thousands. I buy every GameBoy Advance game I can find and ship them to my sister's kids who haven't yet moved into the Nintendo DS age, as I have. All in all, it's my zen time -- mapquest directions all over town, a cool audio CD telling me a story, and a Dunkin Donuts coffee (don't tell the Crimefighter -- next week he'll ask me to bring him one home first.).

I've begun to love other things about the burbs as well. The crazy old lady across the street who sweeps the street in front of her house at midnight and washes the outside of the first floor windows naked is actually kind of funny, once you get over the shock. You get more diverse neighbors in the city, but you rarely get ones like Marge one street down who doesn't own a dog but buys dog treats for mine and gives him one every day when I walk him by her house. Even though they are kind of crappy treats compared to the vet-inspired high tech food he eats, and often cause what can only be called shocking amounts of diarrhea, her heart is in the right place, and dogs don't require a litterbox I have to clean. There's also Sal who lives on the other end of the dog walk (evening circuit) who sits outside on his porch playing the banjo every evening in the summer. We stop and listen until he finishes whatever old classic he's playing. He lifts one hand in the air and launches into the next one. As the grandchild of an old-time fiddler, his songs are a little piece of my past jumping into my present.

Then, there's the best part of the burbs -- my Pitt-Jolie sized menagerie. Tonight, I've got the dog warming my feet while the Crimefighter screams at the Red Sox on TV. I have 130 gallons of fish swimming on either side of me, including my 6 newest additions purchased just a few hours ago. I even had my first three hours of peaceful interaction between my boy cat and the dog this morning, so there's hope for even more good stuff on the horizon. All in all, as Edina and Patsy used to say, "A good life."

Book update: I've made it through about 75 pages of Jane Eyre. She's arrived at her school and met what is now appearing to be her first friend. We've ascertained she's a scholarship girl, as they all are. I would go into another rant about the similarities in British schooling I've seen depicted in so many works both from this time period and today; instead, I'll just say PS #55 isn't looking so bad anymore. We might not have graduated as well-bred ladies and gentleman, but when they burned the lunch, they let you buy cheetos instead.

Ah Thursdays.

For a long time, Thursdays have been my favorite day. Mitch Albom and Morrie can be Tuesday people all they want, but I'm definitely a Thursday girl. I no longer live in the halcyon days of the Thirsty Thursdays of college and graduate school or in the golden evenings of grading papers while chuckling at Friends with the Manda, but Thursdays are still pretty good.

Tonight, I'm alone. I'm not alone often these days, and alone must be qualified (alone with the dog, two cats, and a partridge in a pear tree), but the dog is nailing peanut butter in his kong and the cats are having their nightly cat meeting, so it's as close as I get, and I like it. Gerry is out to dinner with a friend who might one day be a boss, and he won't be home for a while. For all intents and purposes, I'm as zen as my life gets. A little My Name is Earl, a little Gray's Anatomy, and nothing to worry about until Monday.

Although I work tomorrow, I've carefully crafted my semester so that, in Professor Richard's classes, on Friday we read. I've come to enjoy wearing jeans, sitting indian style on my lecture table, and chatting about books with students just learning that they can be fun.

Background: In developmental writing, I am surrounded by reluctant readers. I discovered, through trial and error, that many of my students are actually frightened of books. So being the caring professor I am (though they would call me sadistic) I make them free read every week. Just 25 pages, anything they want.

They are always nervous at first. They are terrified they will pick the wrong book and look at me aghast when I suggest tossing it out and choosing something else. Are there people out there who feel obligated to finish any book they start? That's amazing to me. The only way I ever finish a book is by allowing myself to start a half dozen completely different ones at the same time so I never run the risk of getting bored. Even then, there are many I bet are on permanent hiatus.

Anyway, tomorrow is chat about your books day. I'm constantly amazed at the range of books my students choose. A football player from one of the worst school districts in Boston chose to tackle The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (pretty good read) and a wealthy international student from a private school in Geneva chose a fairly gruesome work on serial killers. I never know, but I agree with Oscar Wilde who says, "It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it." I love that I see my students' other sides, be they dark or light.

And they do read them. I once thought I was being hosed when a student chose Beowulf (required reading in high school english here) until he came tearing into class one morning screaming, "There's a DRAGON in here. Where the hell did the dragon come from?!?" which I remember being my first reaction on getting towards the end.

Another time, a student ran behind my car just as I was pulling out of my parking space just to give me a book. He'd read it and it reminded him of something I said in class -- the previous semester. It sits in a proud place on my bookshelf. That's what makes teaching worthwhile.

So far, it's only happened once. But once was enough to keep me going for a year..... at least.

Like my students, I managed to trudge my way through 25 pages of my "assigned" book this week. Even though Phantom looked invitingly shorter, I dove into Jane Eyre and am liking it immensely. So far, it's sort of like watching Jerry Springer or reading the first 25 pages of a Harry Potter novel. Jane's suffering in a comparable situation. What is it about so many British novels that depict such horrid upbringings? I understand the literary device of home - away - home again, but I also can't help wondering what being a kid in Britain is like that breeds such a common device in so many of its writers. Perhaps Jane was hoping to wake up with magical powers on her 11th birthday.

One thing I had forgotten (or it didn't make so much of an impression on me in earlier readings) is that Jane is immediately separated from her adopted family, the only peers we have met so far, because she is a reader. Within two pages, we see her sneak off to a secluded bay window behind a curtain to lose herself in a book. Although I was never an orphan and although my parents encouraged reading, I know from furtive glances I've received all my life, comments from friends and partners, some of the feelings she's having. Sometimes, books are preferable to reality. Call it our drug that doesn't tax the system or cause us to wreck our car (although there was that one time when I was listening to Primal Fear after midnight as I cruised into the dark Georgia night on my way to Alabama..... but surely that was an isolated incident).

Bronte makes reference, through Jane, to a concept called "fellow feeling" meaning that we are drawn to those most like us and repelled by those we can't understand. I know opposites are supposed to attract, but I wonder if Bronte didn't have the right of it, at least in most circumstances.

So now, Gray's Anatomy is over, the animals are settling in for the night and, like Jane, I must go find myself a secluded spot to be, at least for a little while, alone. Yep. I'm a Thursday girl.

Deconstructing the Debate

Well, it's over. No TKOs, but at least we return to regularly scheduled programming (to our younger viewers, I inform you that there was a time when, if the President or the President hopeful was talking on TV, NOTHING else was on and you might as well do your homework or read a book, if you weren't interested).

Honestly, I have little to say about tonight because I didn't learn anything new. At times, I wondered if I were hearing actual recordings (word for darn word) or the previous two debates. Yes, I include the VP debate because Sarah Palin actually used McCain's wording in her responses too. Then again, she was only chosen because of McCain's belief that feminists who wanted Hillary Clinton would accept any woman over any man -- a typical belief found in many ignorant circles in society which, to me, highlights just how out of touch McCain is in more area than his real estate. I see an underlying misogyny in the whole decision. I mean, c'mon, he had never met her before the announcement, and I can't see him as the criminal in Great Expectations quietly following her career from the backstage of beauty pageants to the point where she ran a whole town hall in a strip mall.

Frankly, both candidates pissed me off a little. Obama talked about funding education (which rocked) but then had to add the coda "specifically in the areas of math and science" and made a vague reference to these subjects being more difficult and mroe important (which is the part where he was kind of a wank). He acknowledged that the wage gap still exists (which is cool) but didn't seem to want to risk any votes by suggesting we do any more than acknowledge it.

McCain referred to Obama as "pro-abortion." OK, old man. Listen up. No one in this galaxy is "pro-abortion." There is not one person sitting in their living room on the 40th floor of Cabrini Green thinking, "My life is pretty good right now but what would REALLY rock is if I could get pregnant! Then I could have a super cool procedure!" NO ONE wants abortions to happen. What we ALSO don't want to happen is losing the ability to control when and if we bring children into the world. The term is pro-choice or, in Republican terminology (for any of my current students, this is me going all autoethnorgraph-al!) advocating for deregulation of the ovary industry. A free trade agreement between women and their reproductive organs. I, for one, am tickled pink that Bristol Palin chose to have her baby. Good on her. I like the fact that she's marrying her sweetheart -- I too was raised on sappy romantic comedies and chick lit and I love it when the ending is happy (and I don't have to see or read about the bad stuff because the story is over -- which this one will be after the election). But the point is that she had a choice.

There's more -- there's a lot more. The Other Crimefighter needs to use the computer, though, so this will have to be all at this moment. After 9 hours of straight teaching today, it should be enough. On to Bronte and my big bed.....

Manifesto, Redux

So I wrote a manifesto. Now what?

Today was gargantuan, to say the least. As always, I left my grading and other teaching administrivia until the last day of vacation, instead preferring to spend most of my vacation lolling around, catching a few beers at Oktoberfest, visiting Uncle Ned's Fish Factory way more than is healthy, pretending I don't start teaching my seventh class of the semester one week from today, and ignoring the fact that Midterm Warnings are due at Ida on Friday. I did get my warnings out at NU, but that's mainly because my students this semester rock the Casbah and "No Warnings, no warnings, no warnings" is an easy three click process. I admit I did not check to see if I'm teaching student athletes (who get progress reports regardless) but I'm sure their coaches will hunt me down in the street soon enough. Still, it's nowhere near as bad as getting a call from one of Rick Barnes' cronies on a cellphone whose number I didn't give out. Ah, memories. Clemson tucked into the corner of my mind..... and oozing out.

Although I don't have any reading to expound on today (I have one chapter left on "No Man's Lands: One Man's Odyssey through The Odyssey, and will finish it as my last damn business of the day while my crimefighting partner gnashes his teeth over the Red Sox), I did take step one on my journey back into reading and writing about it. I went to the bookstore.

I just heard a thousand publishers catch their breath in anticipation and a thousand of my friends groaning.

I was good. Well, good for me in my own little version of the crackhouse, anyway.

I did start the morning with a 1000 word treatise to a friend on teaching. I was proud of it (finished it in less than 2 smokes which, when I'm inspired, is a feat). I thought about publishing it here, but decided instead to save it for a day I have this much grading to do and no holiday to fall back on. It's my free pass of the future.

Back to No Man's Lands -- I won't critique yet in case something drastically changes, but I will point out an interesting section that led to my voyage to the crackhouse that is Barnes & Noble. The author, Scott Huler, discovers early on that, while he's actually spoken on The Odyssey in some fairly hefty academic circles throughout his career, it comes to his attention that, in fact, he doesn't think he's actually read it. He remembers being assigned the book in ninth grade, but the language now appears new to him. He writes this as a testament to the book's lasting appeal and staggering impact on society, but to me it seemed like a call to action and a point of pondering. Was that true of me as well? Possibly.

I can say with all honesty that I HAVE read Moby Dick. I can also promise you I won't be revisiting it. I remember the pain and the frustration, and it would be counterproductive. My judgements on that one are in. Still, perhaps there are others I never read or that I think I read and answered questions about during my oral exams, but actually didn't. Maybe there are some I wasn't ready to start a relationship with at the time but now might be open to do so (after all, The Odyssey is an unlikely choice for a ninth grade class since it concerns a middle aged man facing his own mortality).

I didn't choose The Odyssey. Too much too soon after No Man's Lands. I did peruse the cheap classics section, though, and selected two which caught my eye. (You can't buy just one book -- it will get lonely.)

One I have not read -- Phantom of the Opera. One I definitely think I read and liked but might be deluding myself -- Jane Eyre. This begins tomorrow when I'm not just off 38 freshmen papers. Gaston Leroux and Charlotte Bronte deserve as much.

So now it's off to bed -- papers graded, email answered, blackboard checked. I'm off to Ithaca with Huler and Odysseus.

Diving In

Perhaps what keeps folks from starting a blog is a lack of having anything to talk about. I contemplated starting one a few months ago when I moved from the largest city in New England (Boston is, isn't it?) to the burbs, but what could I say about killing the soul of my 20 year old self that hasn't been repeated ad infinitum all over the internet? Then, two things happened.

1) I got over myself. (Who's really going to read my blog out of millions anyway, right?) and
2) I got shamed.....

Let's explain that second part and then we can get to my newly decided mission. (Did I mention I have a mission?)

See, about two weeks ago, I was dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century by opening a facebook account. I've been computer literate since learning Logo on a Commodore 64 in the fifth grade, but for the past decade or so, computer literacy has meant a mean way with the Microsoft Word and a more than stumbling ability to navigate various virtual classrooms adopted by the universities I work for. My friends laughed, and I hid behind a veneer of academic/ literary superiority which is often code for "I fear the future."

But I did it. I dove into facebook. I even put up a picture and made comments about what I was doing.

And, as is often the case, my past jumped up and bit me..... hard..... right in the backside. Friends from elementary school, high shool, college, graduate school all came out to say hello. Some thought I had fallen into a big hole 20 years ago, and some knew better. I even had to come to grips with the fact that some of my earliest 17 year old students were know staring down the business end of 30. Ouch.

While I don't allow current students to be my "friend" on facebook, I was happy to see many of my old charges from my days down south at Clemson, until each and every one of them started asking me where they could find my writing. See, they knew me in grad school when I had secondary office hours in Nick's and could usually be found in the back booth, hidden behind a book, recognizable only by the cloud of smoke drifting upwards from behind the book and the non-Budweiser, non-Coors, non-Miller beer propped alongside. There was invariably a yellow legal pad filled with incomprehensible scrawling only tangentially related to any course I was teaching.

We had conversations that had nothing to do with our classes. I was researching dating, marriage, and sexual rituals of the middle ages at the time and trying to point out how things haven't changed all that much. Come to think of it, an offhand comment from one of them led me down that dirty little road to my research in the first place. Imagine my surprise when more than a few of them met up with me more than a decade later in the vast morass that is facebook and said they missed me.

This shamed me in more than one way. First, I have no writing to direct them to. As will happen, "life" seems to have taken over my life, and writing has been one of the casualties. I have decided that that has to change. I have often looked at friends and relatives with a certain disdain for their dismissal of what was once so important to them. How many times have I seen people giving up their careers for a multitude of reasons and felt silently superior. I must admit, with a more than slightly red face, that I have done the opposite -- I've given up what once mattered more than anything for a job.

See, I'm a teacher. An adjunct professor, but that's just a fancy term for a teacher who doesn't have to turn in her attendance book and lesson plans these days. Like many teachers in the trenches, I've hung onto the Academy I attended and looked with chagrin on what it has become -- a career factory. Maybe, though, it isn't the Academy that's changed. Perhaps somewhere along the way, I am the one who stopped being a part of the Academy and become instead what I never wanted to be -- a grader. Perhaps the fact that my students don't seem to seek out the fantastical and the mundane in creative ways isn't because the system has failed them or because they are different. Perhaps, just perhaps, it's me. Perhaps when I gave up what I once loved above all else, I shut their gate to those realms where the unbelievable is realized and the unachievable is mastered.

Oh, my mission. I'm going back to the basics. I found my brain in reading the classics and in writing about them. More importantly, I found my fight and my drive in discussing them with those around me. So that's where I'll begin. I think I owe my current students that much -- to give them the chance to see the me that helped create some of the coolest people ever to graduate from Clemson -- students who still think and still read and got big enough in their britches to shame their old professor who should have been smart enough to know better than to get old -- because in books, we don't have to.

I'm luckier than most bloggers -- there are a few people who want to read what I have to say. Not many (perhaps fewer after a post or two) but some. For now, that will be enough.

So, in the spirit of a dark rainy night at Nick's, here I go -- like Ferlinghetti's poet, climbing on a highwire of my own making and balancing on eyebeams, diving in. There might be beer; there will almost certainly be a haze of smoke, and there will be writing. At last.