My favorite season, when the smoggy, sun-burnt brown, dead vistas of the Southwest give rise to life. Our summers look in a sense like winter, anything not profusely watered withers and browns and looks like a Canadian winter, sans snow. But our early spring becomew shangri-la.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
spring
Meteorological Spring begins tomorrow. There may be bits of snow in my yard, bare branches above, possible snowstorm next week, but a half hour away, the fields are green, trees blossoming, poppies blooming.
My favorite season, when the smoggy, sun-burnt brown, dead vistas of the Southwest give rise to life. Our summers look in a sense like winter, anything not profusely watered withers and browns and looks like a Canadian winter, sans snow. But our early spring becomew shangri-la.
My favorite season, when the smoggy, sun-burnt brown, dead vistas of the Southwest give rise to life. Our summers look in a sense like winter, anything not profusely watered withers and browns and looks like a Canadian winter, sans snow. But our early spring becomew shangri-la.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Dark of dawn, dark of mind
It's not quite 6 am, I am not a pre dawn person, and I dread waking my son so is the same way.
I dread going to work. I do not like my job. There. I said it to the world. My last job in education was pretty awesome, even with some major bumps along the way. I was eager most every day to teach some great lessons; I woke excited to go to work, or at least enough that if I got there in a bad mood, it would lift quickly.
I feel powerless where I am at, no one listens to me and I'm drowning in despair. I've tried every classroom management trick in the book but it is me. Me. I am the flaw. Plus just so many other not-classroom management things factor in and paint my day a murky puddle of brown.
And this is me after pep talking myself every work day. I CFO to work with a smile, I did zillions of hours of theater in my past, I can act the part and do, minus the whole the kids won't actually. Be quiet part. I give it my all but I am tired of giving.
Am I done with teaching? Lord no. I love all that is education, I plan someday to write books on the subject, to try and. E a change agent for the betterment of education, of learning. This is just a set back. Summer is two days after Memorial Day. It seems so far away but I can get there. Without a breakdown. Okay with some emotional upsets but I can do it. If only I fully believed myself, if only I could really embrace that and say lets do this! Carpe diem! They can't take our freedom! I am Sparta! Or whatever. But I cannot shake this cloud that I carry with y, murky dread hidden behind a theatrical smile, trying to claw it's way out, tearing me up inside.
Sigh.
I dread going to work. I do not like my job. There. I said it to the world. My last job in education was pretty awesome, even with some major bumps along the way. I was eager most every day to teach some great lessons; I woke excited to go to work, or at least enough that if I got there in a bad mood, it would lift quickly.
I feel powerless where I am at, no one listens to me and I'm drowning in despair. I've tried every classroom management trick in the book but it is me. Me. I am the flaw. Plus just so many other not-classroom management things factor in and paint my day a murky puddle of brown.
And this is me after pep talking myself every work day. I CFO to work with a smile, I did zillions of hours of theater in my past, I can act the part and do, minus the whole the kids won't actually. Be quiet part. I give it my all but I am tired of giving.
Am I done with teaching? Lord no. I love all that is education, I plan someday to write books on the subject, to try and. E a change agent for the betterment of education, of learning. This is just a set back. Summer is two days after Memorial Day. It seems so far away but I can get there. Without a breakdown. Okay with some emotional upsets but I can do it. If only I fully believed myself, if only I could really embrace that and say lets do this! Carpe diem! They can't take our freedom! I am Sparta! Or whatever. But I cannot shake this cloud that I carry with y, murky dread hidden behind a theatrical smile, trying to claw it's way out, tearing me up inside.
Sigh.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Fear the Ear
My son has constant ear infections. He had an unrelenting double ear infection from 6 months old to a year, when he got tubes put in. I had a clingy, don't leave me, miserable child for 6 months straight.
The tubes helped but helped is relative. His ear infection would be just...one ear, then both, every month or two. He had a terrible bout over the summer, and we saw the doctor three times, the last time she said "wow, the worst case I have seen in a while" and we ended up staying out f state, extending our vacation and pocketbooks because there was no way my amazingly ill boy would do a 2,000 mile road trip.
This January he got croup which morphed into an ear infection. Then a double ear infection. Then an ear oozing blood from the infected ear being so swollen.
Guess what? He has napped two hours today (he is usually a brief napper) and I look over to see his ear glistening in waxy orange. I grab the pen light and look into his ear to see...blood. Not oozing out, not staining the pillow, but freshly dried blood coating the ear canal.
His January ear infections did go away, as he saw the ENT specialist last week who said he looked great, but that the tubes had turned, ready to fall out, time for new tubes and an adenoidectomy, the adenoids likely spewing germs into his eustacian tube and causing never ending infections.
So now I hold my sweet napping guy, it's three weeks till his surgery (gosh I hate surgery, surgeries freak me out like no other) wishing he could be well. Always. Heck, I will happily settle for more often.
The tubes helped but helped is relative. His ear infection would be just...one ear, then both, every month or two. He had a terrible bout over the summer, and we saw the doctor three times, the last time she said "wow, the worst case I have seen in a while" and we ended up staying out f state, extending our vacation and pocketbooks because there was no way my amazingly ill boy would do a 2,000 mile road trip.
This January he got croup which morphed into an ear infection. Then a double ear infection. Then an ear oozing blood from the infected ear being so swollen.
Guess what? He has napped two hours today (he is usually a brief napper) and I look over to see his ear glistening in waxy orange. I grab the pen light and look into his ear to see...blood. Not oozing out, not staining the pillow, but freshly dried blood coating the ear canal.
His January ear infections did go away, as he saw the ENT specialist last week who said he looked great, but that the tubes had turned, ready to fall out, time for new tubes and an adenoidectomy, the adenoids likely spewing germs into his eustacian tube and causing never ending infections.
So now I hold my sweet napping guy, it's three weeks till his surgery (gosh I hate surgery, surgeries freak me out like no other) wishing he could be well. Always. Heck, I will happily settle for more often.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Everyone Knew
Everyone knew to stay away from 1200 Clover Street. Jehovah's Witnesses, vacuum salesmen, even the police seemed to turn away at the sight of the white Victorian missing the picket fence.
Those who dared visit were subject to mum's promiscuity; she'd answer the door in lingerie, that hollow look in her eyes, searching you for life, love, attention.
If pop answered, he'd spew out some Irish-twanged curses and likely clock your temple if you weren't already running towards the street at the second "fucker" drunkenly expelled in your direction.
The children ran wild, breaking neighbors' windows and picking on the weak just like pop.
Inside the dim house, mum and pop would kneel down at night and pray to God, taking sips of whiskey after each breath.
Come Sunday, if they remembered, they'd hop in the car and enter the hallowed grounds of Saint Mary's Catholic Church, asking for forgiveness, performing Hail Mary's, walking the walk and talking the talk. They'd leave with haste and return to their ways at home.
Little Kathy didn't understand the church and why her family transformed for a few hours a week. She didn't understand prayer when mum and pop just kept drinking and cursing. Of all things religious, she most hated mum's bedside figurine of Mother Mary, how she held Baby Jesus and looked so happy, so peaceful. What a juxtaposition to mum, kneeling in prayer, bra strap showing, bags under her eyes, shooing Kathy away, paying the whiskey bottle more attention. Kathy envied that little Baby Jesus, yet she yearned to break him to little pieces.
One dark night, she heard a car screech into the driveway and a haunting rat-tat-tat of gunfire. Mum didn't unbutton her shirt, dad didn't even curse, and no one answered the door. Pop and mum merely grabbed Kathy and her brothers and ran to the car to hopefully escape with their lives. it was a rare close moment that seemed to last forever, the family holding hands. The last thing Kathy remembered, etched into her skull, was Mother Mary, the figurine, her serene smile that was trying to tell Kathy something, something she could not decipher through the panic of the situation, something it seemed, everyone else already knew.
A fiction piece for the Speakeasy
Those who dared visit were subject to mum's promiscuity; she'd answer the door in lingerie, that hollow look in her eyes, searching you for life, love, attention.
If pop answered, he'd spew out some Irish-twanged curses and likely clock your temple if you weren't already running towards the street at the second "fucker" drunkenly expelled in your direction.
The children ran wild, breaking neighbors' windows and picking on the weak just like pop.
Inside the dim house, mum and pop would kneel down at night and pray to God, taking sips of whiskey after each breath.
Come Sunday, if they remembered, they'd hop in the car and enter the hallowed grounds of Saint Mary's Catholic Church, asking for forgiveness, performing Hail Mary's, walking the walk and talking the talk. They'd leave with haste and return to their ways at home.
Little Kathy didn't understand the church and why her family transformed for a few hours a week. She didn't understand prayer when mum and pop just kept drinking and cursing. Of all things religious, she most hated mum's bedside figurine of Mother Mary, how she held Baby Jesus and looked so happy, so peaceful. What a juxtaposition to mum, kneeling in prayer, bra strap showing, bags under her eyes, shooing Kathy away, paying the whiskey bottle more attention. Kathy envied that little Baby Jesus, yet she yearned to break him to little pieces.
One dark night, she heard a car screech into the driveway and a haunting rat-tat-tat of gunfire. Mum didn't unbutton her shirt, dad didn't even curse, and no one answered the door. Pop and mum merely grabbed Kathy and her brothers and ran to the car to hopefully escape with their lives. it was a rare close moment that seemed to last forever, the family holding hands. The last thing Kathy remembered, etched into her skull, was Mother Mary, the figurine, her serene smile that was trying to tell Kathy something, something she could not decipher through the panic of the situation, something it seemed, everyone else already knew.
A fiction piece for the Speakeasy
Sunday, February 24, 2013
A view worth viewing
Today we had sustained winds over 39mph and gusts to 70mph (the joys of living on a ridge in Santa Ana wind territory) and our power went out for two hours. That meant, since it was daytime, that we could see but no surfing the net, no Sesame Street, no opening the fridge for a snack. So we went for an aimless drive and ended up somewhere gorgeous.
Strawberry Peak rises 6,000 feet with a view over the basin and probably a 360 degree view in spots. A fire lookout tower is there, open to scaffold in the summer for a better view. However, in snow...it is not accessible by car, even though it is along a paved road...mostly because it is not plowed. We traversed the snowy terrain as far as our SUV could take us.
This meant we did not reach the tower, but did get to see a view worth seeing. It was one of those times where I wished I brought my camera, but I did have my iPhone so that is a camera, just not an artsy fartsy one, so I did what I could, blindly shooting as my phone was drowned in glare.
I think I did pretty well. I liked the juxtaposition of dead, burnt trees and live. yet dormant oaks , the snow, sun, and semi-desert urban sprawl thousands of feet below. I miss exploring my mountain and I miss photography, but with a much too adventuresome toddler and a cumbersome "baby bump", all the adventures I yearn for are on hold...as you cannot just go all "mountain goat" and climb a steep rock for a dazzling thousand foot drop view. But today was a simple trail, not exactly "adventure" but exploration never the less, and quite worth my time. It made my day. On the way home, I saw the Pacific shimmering pink in the distance, a view I could have seen from the inaccessible tower. Enjoy my photos!
you can see the shimmer of the Pacific, above.
Where the road got too hairy to keep going....the tower is around the bend
yeah. My thumb is in the may of my favorite, best, most awesome shot.
burnt trees and live, dormant trees with the valley below.
Strawberry Peak rises 6,000 feet with a view over the basin and probably a 360 degree view in spots. A fire lookout tower is there, open to scaffold in the summer for a better view. However, in snow...it is not accessible by car, even though it is along a paved road...mostly because it is not plowed. We traversed the snowy terrain as far as our SUV could take us.
This meant we did not reach the tower, but did get to see a view worth seeing. It was one of those times where I wished I brought my camera, but I did have my iPhone so that is a camera, just not an artsy fartsy one, so I did what I could, blindly shooting as my phone was drowned in glare.
I think I did pretty well. I liked the juxtaposition of dead, burnt trees and live. yet dormant oaks , the snow, sun, and semi-desert urban sprawl thousands of feet below. I miss exploring my mountain and I miss photography, but with a much too adventuresome toddler and a cumbersome "baby bump", all the adventures I yearn for are on hold...as you cannot just go all "mountain goat" and climb a steep rock for a dazzling thousand foot drop view. But today was a simple trail, not exactly "adventure" but exploration never the less, and quite worth my time. It made my day. On the way home, I saw the Pacific shimmering pink in the distance, a view I could have seen from the inaccessible tower. Enjoy my photos!
you can see the shimmer of the Pacific, above.
The theater
About a month ago, my students had to go to the theater at school to meet en masse about SAT testing, scheduling for next year, and the like. I walked in and it was like heaven meets a time machine.
I spent hundreds of hours (if not more) in the school theater in high school. I began high school without theater, and came home crying every day. I might have been a too student but I hated hated hated high school and wanted to drop out because I couldn't wait until age 16 to enroll in community college. It was theater that saved me.
As a painfully shy child, one wouldn't expect me to want to act in front if a crowd, and due to type casting, I never had a speaking part in all of my four years there. Regardless, as an extra, a background person in the crowd in stage, I still got my "fix". The exhilaration of the bright lights, holding your breath for a extra second as you walk on stage and see hundreds of strangers...it was addictive.
I also worked on the set sometimes, helping paint scenes and the like. Tear down was the best and worst, staying till the wee hours of the morning destructing things, tearing down all the hard work.
I remember scrounging together change to give to someone going on a Burger King run, as during hell week (the week before the performance) we could be at school from 7am to 2pm, and the theater until midnight without sustenance.
I recall munching on a burger, sitting outside the theater, looking towards the valley 5,900 feet below. I recall roaming the halls when I had to attend "extracurricular drama" for credit but yet was not needed for the day. I remember walking the cat walk, the concessions lobby, the green room, sitting in the choir or band room waiting for my part, slathering on goopy stage makeup and dressing as a slutty fairy or young boy (that sounds weird.
So when I walked into the theater at work/school, it was déjà vu for me. The theater smelled like the theater, a smell I forgot over ten years ago. The rows of folding chairs like a coliseum, the dark curtains, backstage, the lighting... It was like returning home after a long journey away.
I spent hundreds of hours (if not more) in the school theater in high school. I began high school without theater, and came home crying every day. I might have been a too student but I hated hated hated high school and wanted to drop out because I couldn't wait until age 16 to enroll in community college. It was theater that saved me.
As a painfully shy child, one wouldn't expect me to want to act in front if a crowd, and due to type casting, I never had a speaking part in all of my four years there. Regardless, as an extra, a background person in the crowd in stage, I still got my "fix". The exhilaration of the bright lights, holding your breath for a extra second as you walk on stage and see hundreds of strangers...it was addictive.
I also worked on the set sometimes, helping paint scenes and the like. Tear down was the best and worst, staying till the wee hours of the morning destructing things, tearing down all the hard work.
I remember scrounging together change to give to someone going on a Burger King run, as during hell week (the week before the performance) we could be at school from 7am to 2pm, and the theater until midnight without sustenance.
I recall munching on a burger, sitting outside the theater, looking towards the valley 5,900 feet below. I recall roaming the halls when I had to attend "extracurricular drama" for credit but yet was not needed for the day. I remember walking the cat walk, the concessions lobby, the green room, sitting in the choir or band room waiting for my part, slathering on goopy stage makeup and dressing as a slutty fairy or young boy (that sounds weird.
So when I walked into the theater at work/school, it was déjà vu for me. The theater smelled like the theater, a smell I forgot over ten years ago. The rows of folding chairs like a coliseum, the dark curtains, backstage, the lighting... It was like returning home after a long journey away.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
book nerd
I am a book nerd. There. I said it. I was reading Dr. Seuss in pre-school and was able to go to the 3rd-5th grade section of the school library in first grade. I am not bragging here, just saying I was a voracious reader and while I sucked at math (okay I still do; I still count and do multiplication with my fingers) reading was my "thing".
As a child I read everything. Sure, I had my favorites...anything by Beverly Cleary (esp the Ramona series), Roald Dahl (esp BFG and Matilda).....but you would catch me reading the cereal box or even browsing my dad's hunting or guns and ammo magazines. I read the entire Audobo nencyclopedia in 4th grade since I loved animals, and I also read every Nationak Geographic I could get my hands on. Okay, I still read every National Geographic I get my hands on. I recall in college my first boyfriend and I walked past a yard sale that had National Geographics and they sold us probably three or four dozen, at a canadian quarter's amount each. My home ,as a child, was filled to the brim with books, mostly about Native American history, weapons, art, edible plants, flora and fauna...and whatever book for children that was at a yard sale. One of my parents (usually my dad, my mom worked her butt off) was always reading it seemed.
I lived at the library every summer, trying to read the most books in town to win a small prize...a goal I never quite met because I might read longer and fewer books or get "stuck" re-reading a good one. Reading exposed me to new viewpoints, places, knowledge.
Nowadays I read less, what with a busy life and all, but a lot of my reading is farting around on the internet, researching various "I wonder" moments throughout the day. I am a more selective reader now, with varied but picky interests...if a few pages in, I don't itch to turn the nsxt page! I stop reading. If it is a certain genre ie romance, I stay away. But I am always on the hunt for a new book to read and could very easily spend my yearly eaenings all and solely at bookstores. I love Barnes and Nobles for their expansive selections, coffee, and comfy chairs where I can grab a book off the shelf and dissapear for hours....you know, back before I had kids. I like some ma and pa book stores.....one in Seaport Village in San Diego seems to just have unique reads as does some bookstore (forget the name) in Portsmouth, NH. And one can not forget the behemouth of awesome, Powells in Portland ,Oregon- a block long and wide plethora of books that is also a curse as I get a headache when I visit because I get overstimulated.
Recently I have struggled for a good read. Within the past two years though, I read a few books that I loved. As in, they need to be recreated as different but similar, just as awesome books.
Salt by Mark Kurlansky was an impulse buy (I mean who wants to read a huge huge book about Salt?) Yet it was chock full of history, food, and my favorite thing....completely random facts.
Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown...real life story of a girl who descended into drugs and prostitution, homelessness and foster homes, a real tell-it-like-it-is book. Despite all the sugary references in title and author, nothing was sugar coated and it was raw and real.
The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto is one I have read more than once. It is my...I don't even know. It was an epiphany, a transformation for me, a new goal and drive and passion all came out of this kind of jumbled format of an educational manifesto. It changed my life. Seriously.
Quiet by Susan Cain. Let's just say, if you meet me and say, I don't get this chick. She needs a users manual... This book is a damned good start. I think I highlighted more of the book than not, exclaiming "yes, that's soooo me!" But to add to my users manual you can read The Highly Sensitive Person by Eliane Aron. It wasn't an earth shaking page turning read but it did really explain part of me.
Lets Pretend this Never Happened by Jenny Lawson... This is my favorite book and she is my pretend best friend since, well, I don't actually know her. But if I did I bet we'd be best friends. She is eccentric and "real" and who else had dead animals in their freezer as a child? I mean, we are soul mates right there. This book is beyond hilarious.
IQ84 by Haruki Murakami. Really, any if his books. I say he is my favorite author but I love all the authors I have mentioned (and more) but he has what, a dozen books? So there's more to love. A bit if a dystopian view, with lots of it could be real magical realism. He spins his magical realism like no other in my opinion, and I cannot put any of his books down and read them all more than once. I think I read this book in three days and it is not a quick read.
As a child I read everything. Sure, I had my favorites...anything by Beverly Cleary (esp the Ramona series), Roald Dahl (esp BFG and Matilda).....but you would catch me reading the cereal box or even browsing my dad's hunting or guns and ammo magazines. I read the entire Audobo nencyclopedia in 4th grade since I loved animals, and I also read every Nationak Geographic I could get my hands on. Okay, I still read every National Geographic I get my hands on. I recall in college my first boyfriend and I walked past a yard sale that had National Geographics and they sold us probably three or four dozen, at a canadian quarter's amount each. My home ,as a child, was filled to the brim with books, mostly about Native American history, weapons, art, edible plants, flora and fauna...and whatever book for children that was at a yard sale. One of my parents (usually my dad, my mom worked her butt off) was always reading it seemed.
I lived at the library every summer, trying to read the most books in town to win a small prize...a goal I never quite met because I might read longer and fewer books or get "stuck" re-reading a good one. Reading exposed me to new viewpoints, places, knowledge.
Nowadays I read less, what with a busy life and all, but a lot of my reading is farting around on the internet, researching various "I wonder" moments throughout the day. I am a more selective reader now, with varied but picky interests...if a few pages in, I don't itch to turn the nsxt page! I stop reading. If it is a certain genre ie romance, I stay away. But I am always on the hunt for a new book to read and could very easily spend my yearly eaenings all and solely at bookstores. I love Barnes and Nobles for their expansive selections, coffee, and comfy chairs where I can grab a book off the shelf and dissapear for hours....you know, back before I had kids. I like some ma and pa book stores.....one in Seaport Village in San Diego seems to just have unique reads as does some bookstore (forget the name) in Portsmouth, NH. And one can not forget the behemouth of awesome, Powells in Portland ,Oregon- a block long and wide plethora of books that is also a curse as I get a headache when I visit because I get overstimulated.
Recently I have struggled for a good read. Within the past two years though, I read a few books that I loved. As in, they need to be recreated as different but similar, just as awesome books.
Salt by Mark Kurlansky was an impulse buy (I mean who wants to read a huge huge book about Salt?) Yet it was chock full of history, food, and my favorite thing....completely random facts.
Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown...real life story of a girl who descended into drugs and prostitution, homelessness and foster homes, a real tell-it-like-it-is book. Despite all the sugary references in title and author, nothing was sugar coated and it was raw and real.
The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto is one I have read more than once. It is my...I don't even know. It was an epiphany, a transformation for me, a new goal and drive and passion all came out of this kind of jumbled format of an educational manifesto. It changed my life. Seriously.
Quiet by Susan Cain. Let's just say, if you meet me and say, I don't get this chick. She needs a users manual... This book is a damned good start. I think I highlighted more of the book than not, exclaiming "yes, that's soooo me!" But to add to my users manual you can read The Highly Sensitive Person by Eliane Aron. It wasn't an earth shaking page turning read but it did really explain part of me.
Lets Pretend this Never Happened by Jenny Lawson... This is my favorite book and she is my pretend best friend since, well, I don't actually know her. But if I did I bet we'd be best friends. She is eccentric and "real" and who else had dead animals in their freezer as a child? I mean, we are soul mates right there. This book is beyond hilarious.
IQ84 by Haruki Murakami. Really, any if his books. I say he is my favorite author but I love all the authors I have mentioned (and more) but he has what, a dozen books? So there's more to love. A bit if a dystopian view, with lots of it could be real magical realism. He spins his magical realism like no other in my opinion, and I cannot put any of his books down and read them all more than once. I think I read this book in three days and it is not a quick read.
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