Happy? Halloween

Now Halloween is just a great holiday. Yes? Here's my celebration:



I enjoyed tonight. But I have one complaint. And I am not alone. Why should I give candy to people who don't bother to dress? I mean, really. Why is it okay for a bunch of 13 year olds to grab a grocery bag and go door to door asking for candy without at least having taken the trouble to throw a little make up on their faces? It is not okay.

Parents: Don't let your children go trick or treating without a costume. Now that I am adult, I enjoy Halloween by looking at children in costume. I spend $20-30 on candy so that I can see costumes. I don't spend that money to give candy away to fat kids in no costume.

Okay, I know. I should be generous. And I am. Several times tonight I looked at a group and figured, okay, they can't afford the costumes. I gave them the candy. But when the fat kids in their department store sweatshirts came to my door and didn't even say trick or treat (they just opened up their grocery bags expectantly), I nearly told them to go to hell.

But I didn't. I gave them candy too.

I'm such a sucker.

I know A and the neighbors are with me. Anyone else?

not quite dancing...

I'm feeling a little better, although, I am not 100% just yet.

However, I almost did a little jig tonight as I purchased two tickets for A and I to go see Bright Eyes in B'ham next week. This is my second concert on the Cassadega tour.

A modified jig will have to do the trick. But I hope by the concert date I'll be up to a full body dance because when he (they) plays Hot Knives, I want to dance like there is no tomorrow.

OOooooooooo ooo

More on Gated Communities

One of my colleagues sent me this article from the Montgomery Advertiser. She was pointing out how obvious the problems are with it, and how we don't even have to work anymore to see all of the underlying implications of class (and, in this case, race).

I've always hated gated communities. We lived in one once, and I hated it even though it was a great apartment. Now I find myself wondering why are we becoming more and more obsessed with exclusivity. Has it always been this way and I am just now noticing? God forbid someone who can't afford a house be able to walk by it.

starting fires

Because I like metaphors, many times I hear stories and I think about them as metaphors.

Today, I'm listening to stories of people being questioned about starting fires that caused/added to the California fire storm. That is the extent of my knowledge of the real story.

But in my brain, I see a father and son camping. Simultaneously, I see two college age kids throwing a cigarette out of the window. When we tell stories, we like to blame the people who have erred. Therefore, it would be the cigarette, not the camp fire, that destroys people's homes. But, even with my short number of years, I have learned that it is not always as simple as that. Blame is a sticky business.

Not coincidentally, I have my students writing their "cause and effect" paper (a requirement that I am following -- not a paper I would choose to do). The problem with the paper is that it is not always easy (or even helpful) to trace things to their causes. And sometimes, we find out that the cause was not malicious. It was two people attempting to spend a weekend together in the woods.

So, I imagine a story. A story where no one is to blame for natural disasters.

Then I wonder about global warming and arson and FEMA and looting and and and.

I find myself attempting to sort out ethical behaviors from others. I drive a better car, but I don't do anywhere near everything I could to lighten my footprint.

I don't know where I am going with this. I just keep thinking about two people enjoying a campfire. I imagine something going wrong, and the fire gets out of control. But, then I hear people on the news: they want to "have time alone" with these suspected arsonists. As if beating him/her senseless could rebuild their homes.

I don't know. I just think we could be so much better than this.

why wait for t-day

And while I'm going down the thankfulness path:

I took a quick trip by the giant grocery store today, picked up anything and everything that I felt like eating, paid for it without worry, and drove to my home where I could flip a switch to turn on lights, heating, and a microwave oven.

My telephone rang several times today. Friends called me to just say hello.

I spent the afternoon "working" by reading literature and thinking about it.

When a car door slams outside my home, my sweet little (spoiled) pup barks in a really cute way.

Abundance is abundant in my life.

I am thankful.

"I don't always feel lucky, but I'm smart enough to try. Because humility has buoyancy, and above us only sky" (Ani from "Grand Canyon")

San Diego

There is always a reason to be thankful.

Today I am thankful that our friends/family in San Diego have safely evacuated their place and are resting easy at a hotel in Arizona. No word as to how their stuff is -- or their residence.

I have a tendency to get caught up in the petty crap. Today, I'd like to abandon that. Instead, I am happy that the Teem-Wall clan is safe. I am thankful for the incarcerated men in my class who read one of my poems today and voiced their appreciation of my feminist view of the world. I am thankful that a little cold is not the breast cancer for which my close friend's mother started chemotherapy today.

For all those in shelters and hotels, for those sleeping in cramped cell bunks, and for those hurting in their hospital rooms, I send you my love and support.

Missing Bikram

When I did Bikram 5 or 6 times each week, I went for 18 months without being sick. Now that I don't have access to it, I have a cold.

I'm pissed about that.

The tally marks are being counted.

cute and sharp

I was looking around in the cobwebbed corners of my brain for something cute and intelligent to say here.

I didn't find much. That happens a lot.

I was thinking today about how inadequate my vocabulary is, about how no matter how hard I try and how educated I become, I don't seem to know as many words as I need/want/ought to know. I've always blamed that on Alabama. But it isn't just Alabama; it is that I never read the right stuff (books with "higher" vocabulary levels) until I was older and my core vocabulary was already set in stone. Not that you can't learn words when you're older, it is just that it is harder to maintain them when you don't use them often. My point? Sometimes I feel like an idiot when I have to go look up a word that I'm pretty sure a person with a Ph.D. in English should already know. But, I'm not alone. One of my colleagues asked me the other day what "prosody" is. Since I am into poetry, I know that one. I guess we all have our specializations.

Someone in my class today asked what "felicity" is. We started with "happiness" but then agreed that it was more than just happy, or having fun. Another student offered "fulfilled" as an addition to happiness. Not exactly, but closer. Yes, to be happy is one thing, but to be both happy and fulfilled is something quite different. After class, I looked it up: bliss...yes, that would have been the right thing to say. It didn't come to me during class though. That is always frustrating. However, in discussing the definition, I had a rare moment when the class said that there was a difference between pleasure and fulfillment. Oh yes, I said. Quite an important difference.

I wonder much these days about fulfillment. Bliss seems like a fantasy.

Words are cute and sharp little things, aren't they? I just don't know enough of them.

Quickly

Over the past four days, I have had several amazing conversations with great friends that I miss deeply. In times of real stress, I tend to reach out to others (one of the good things I learned in therapy). Those conversations have been incredible.

Thanks to Houston, San Diego, Suwanee, and Kimberly for all your amazing support.

:)

What else

When I consider, like he said, what I should do with my time and money, I do sometimes wonder if I could be doing more good.

I mean, we don't need my income, so I could spend my hours doing something else:

teaching writing classes in inner city schools
teaching poetry in prisons
preparing meals at soup kitchens
raising children
cleaning runs at a humane society

The list could just keep going.

Not that teaching college isn't rewarding...it is, and I love doing it. I just wonder sometimes, what if...

More about the sky

And once I figured out that the sky was never just up there...that it had always been falling, that "sky" itself was a myth created by those wishing for the world to be other than it is...

I was better.

Or, maybe I was worse, but I felt better.

Or, maybe I just didn't mind all of the pieces of "sky" scattered around on the "ground."

Similar to when I figured out that it wasn't Jesus who screwed me over...I could look at Buddha and Jesus and Jupiter and I could appreciate them for who they are. Or at least for what they might offer me.

So, I'm trying that...for now.

Perfect t-shirt that speaks to me

Check out the black shirt on the far right: XXX

Okay, so the sky is falling

The thing is, Chicken Little, I think it has been falling for years. When I saw little strangely clear/blue pieces of it all around me, I pretended it was rain or sunshine or my imagination. I told other people that they were wrong too. And we all sat together, arms linked in a human chain, and we lived in a land of make believe.

I can see why I did it. Looking up was not nearly as scary when I believed that the sky would stay up there. Now that I can see how the pieces are piling up, how the world looks like a blizzard landscape without the white to make it pure, I wonder at how much more sky there is up there to fall. I reach out to Chicken Little and I tell her that we can make it through this. She shivers and looks at me with a mixture of doubt and contempt. She doesn't say, "I told you so," but I know that she did.

I really thought I could sweep it up, keep it in a pile, "manage" it.

Now I contemplate exits and doors. I wonder about The Truman Show. Maybe it is all some sick joke/experiment. The pieces of sky are quite odd, after all.

Refuse to Justify

I have found myself lately doing a lot of refusing, as if finally I have reached limits that I thought would never come.

I went to Tuscaloosa last night to hear Adrienne Rich read. I must refuse to justify my silence any longer. I wrote two poems. I am blogging here today.

Here is an amazing link to a piece, "Permeable Membrane," she wrote in which she suggests we should refuse to justify. Politics and poetry are connected. The personal and the political are inseparable:

http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2006/spring/rich-permeable-membrane/