Belated Father's Day Post

Yesterday morning, I read the Father's Day edition of PostSecret and laughed and cried. In addition to father-themed postcards, the site posted several anecdotes detailing funny "lies" fathers told. Reading these made me miss my father who died just over a year ago and was a big teaser. He loved to make us laugh, especially at ourselves.

Here's a good example. In the late 80s/early 90s, I was working in a convenience store about two blocks from our home. One afternoon, my younger sister came into the store, and she was all excited because some guy had called me. I guess she thought someone wanted to date me, which didn't happen very often. She said Dad had told her to come to the store and tell me that I had had a phone call from Ben Gazarra. I started laughing and asked her if she was sure that he said Ben Gazarra. She said yes, and I knew immediately that she had no idea that Ben Gazarra was an old actor. (Dad knew that I would know since he and I shared a love of old movies.) I explained to her who Ben Gazarra was, and I'm sure she left the store cursing Dad but not with any real anger. I'm also certain that when she returned home he met her at the door laughing, his eyes twinkling, and eventually, sooner rather than later, she laughed right alone with him. I'm sure he bragged to everyone at home that day about his success at tricking her. He loved to tease and trick us.

Unfortunately, my dad was sick for a long time before he died, and he had stopped being the Dad that I knew and loved best. So I really mourned him before he actually died. Since his death, I don't think I have really missed him very much. I am ashamed to admit that, but I think it's true. I do think about him often, but I thinking about him and missing him are not the same. Yesterday, Father's Day, I missed him! When I got home from the Astros game, I watched the exciting ending of the US Open golf tournament and missed him even more. My dad loved golf, maybe more than he loved us--not really, but golf was a very close second. ;-)

Belated kudos to all the great dads out there.

Summer Blues 2

What is it about the blue water of a swimming pool on a hot summer day? Their comforting cool wetness just seems to call me. I love to lie on my couch and watch the shadows of their reflection dance on my ceiling. I go to the window several times a day and look down into the pool. I long for a swim each time I walk from up the stairs to my apartment. The really weird thing is that the pool in my apartment complex is within easy reach of my apartment, yet I have resisted the temptation to baptize myself in that cool blue. I'm not sure why I have hesitated, but I'm sure it has something to do with how I look in a swimsuit.

This weekend, I attended my niece's wedding at the old country club in my hometown. When I drove past the swimming pool area, I started thinking about all time I spent at that pool, working on my tan, flirting with boys, and hanging out with my friends. We would even go swimming on Monday when the club was officially closed, and night time swimming was always a summer option. I remember one night sitting on the poolside watching a lunar eclipse with friends.

The summer blues of a swimming pool -- ahhhhhh! Good blues!

Summer Blues 1

It's only the second week of summer school, and I am already tired of doing my course work. So much of it is repetitive, and I can't seem to ever figure out how to not be stressed at deadline times. Despite my plans to do otherwise, I always procrastinate and end up submitting too many assignments just before the deadline. I really should be better at this by now, and it's a good thing that submissions are done electronically. I would hate to think that I had to actually go somewhere and physically turn things in. Man! Think of how the time I would waste driving and walking. ;-)

I can not believe that it has been so long since I posted to this blog. I actually started a post on June 1, but I never finished it, so I deleted it just now and started over. My summer started off with a bang. I got a job offer at the end of my first interview for a librarian position, and my second interview went very well. I had hoped to be an official librarian by the end of this week, but there has been a delay with, of all things, my criminal background check. Despite those salacious news reports of people getting jobs with criminal backgrounds, it seems that some districts do check that before they let you sign a contract. Of course, I know there is nothing in mine to prevent me from getting the job that is being held for me, but I still am a bit discouraged by the delay.

The second job that I interviewed called this morning to tell me that I was still at the top of their list (I had assumed when I didn't hear anything last week that I was out of the running), but they had one more applicant to interview. The woman that I spoke to said this last interview was only being done because the applicant new someone. I'm not sure if I find that comforting to know or not because the school is private and knowing someone might be enough to get a person a job.

In addition to wanting to get a new job nailed down, I am ready to resign from my old job and say my goodbyes. I really don't want to drag that out for another month. :-( I guess I could go ahead and resign since I know the one job is being held for me. However, my parents raised me to believe that it wasn't right to quit a job until you had another one. (Yes, Valerie, I know I encouraged you to not sign your contract.) I guess once I have the word that the background check is completed then I might just go ahead and resign. The school board's approval is only a formality, right?

Poetry Wars and Today's Poem

Every work day of this month, I forward to the faculty and staff on my campus the poem of the day from Poets.org. Usually, nothing happens. Occasionally, someone will reply that the poems are too sad or too hard to understand. Twice this year I have received brief messages from co-workers describing how the day's poem connected to their life, past and present. These messages made me feel so good about being a poetry pusher.

Last week, state testing week which is always a stressful time, one of my co-workers started a poetry war. He shared a couple of funny poems last April and had shared one at the beginning of this April. Only one other co-worker had answered his initial call with an original poem, so he challenged everyone, complete with a menacing photo. At first, little happened, but then he made a male chauvinist comment in a new poem, and the poems started flying. Thursday and Friday afternoons were filled with volleys of verses. It was great fun! Some of my co-workers are surprisingly good poets and quick thinkers.

Today, things were back to normal. I sent out the poem and got no response at all. I wasn't surprised because I am not sure what to make of today's poem. I'm going to reprint it here and maybe one of my readers, all of whom are smarter than me, can help me figure out what it means or at least offer some suggestions. Maybe it is just a poem about a couple abandoning their baby, but I think there is something more going on here.

(I can't seem to make the spacing work right, so if you want to see how the lines should be formatted, click today's poem above.)

The Baby
by Kate Northrop

The shadows of the couple
enter the dark field, cross
silent as a seam

having left at the center
a white box, white
as a box

for a birthday cake. Inside,
the baby.
Abandoned there

in the tall grass,
in the night wind,

he wants for everything: food, warmth,
a little
baby hope.

But the world
swirls around the box. The world

like a forest goes on

and paths go on through it
each road leading nowhere, leading away

from the baby. Still
in the center of the field,
his breath

rises quietly. Grasses shiver.
Overhead, through trees

a sound approaches, like wings,
or this time, scissors.


From Things Are Disappearing Here, Copyright © 2007 by Kate Northrop. Reprinted with permission of Persea Books.

Ten Favorite Words

A few weeks ago, I got an email about the longlist for the Orange Prize, and I had only heard of a couple of the books on the list. So I spent some time checking out the unfamiliar ones. When I searched for A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo, I learned that it was only available in on Amazon UK. I was so intrigued by the synopsis and the excerpt on Amazon that I decided to splurge and order the book. I have never done that before. So far, I'm glad that I splurged (of course, the book is now available in the U.S.). The shortlist for the prize was announced today, and this book is on the shortlist.

Each chapter (vignette) begins with a word and definition followed by what amounts to a journal entry related to the word/meaning of the word.

In a chapter that begins with "chinese cabbage + english slug" (both cabbage and slug are defined), the narrator Z, a young Chinese immigrant, asks her lover, a much older bi-sexual Englishman, to name his favorite words:

'What your favourite words? Give me ten,' I say when we are sitting in the garden. I want to learn most beautiful English words because you are beautiful. I even not care whether if useful.
A piece of blank paper, a pen.
You writing it down, one by one.
'Sea, breath, sun, body, seeds, bumble bee, insects.' You stop: 'How many are there now?'
'Seven,' I say.
'Hm...blood...' you continue.
'Why you like blood?'
'I don't know. I feel blood is beautiful.'
'Really? But blood violence, and pain.'
'No. Not always. Blood gives you life. It makes you strong.' You speaking with surely voice.
You see things from such different perspective from me. I wonder if we change perspective one day.
'And why breath, then?'
'Because that's where everything is from and how everything starts.'
You are right.
'So, what else? Last favourite word?' I say.
'Suddenly.'
'Suddenly! Why you like suddenly? Suddenly not even noun.' You strange brain, I think.
'Well, I just like it,' you say. 'So what are your favourite ten words?'
I write down one by one:
'Fear, belief, heart, root, challenge, fight, peace, misery, future, solitude...'
'Why solitude?'
'Because a song from Louis Armstrong calling "Solitude". It is so beautiful.' I hear song in my ear now.
'Where did you hear that song?' you ask.
'On your shelfs. A CD, from Louis Armstrong.'
'Really? I didn't even know I had that CD.' You frown.
'Yes, is covering the dust, and look very old.'
'So, you've been through all my CDs?'
'Of course,' I say. 'I read your letters and diaries as well.'
'What?'
'And looked your photo.'
'What? You've looked through all my stuff?' You seeming like suddenly hear the alien from Mars attack the Earth.
'Not all. Parts that diary are make me sad. I can't sleep at night,' I say.

I love how she uses his word suddenly at the end there. This book is very much about language and the power of words (god, I hate it when all I can think of is something trite, but it works here and it's late).

Since I read this chapter late last night, I have been trying to select my 10 favorite/most beautiful words.
rain, solitude, darkness, exacerbate, freedom, sublime, haunting, silence, enigma--that's 9. I think I have to go to bed now, but I'll ponder the 10th word and update this post tomorrow.

Catching up

I seem to spend a lot of time catching up lately--catching up on grading, catching up on grad school work, catching up on reading--but I can't seem to get caught up enough to blog regularly. I have so many things that I have wanted to blog about in the last month or so, but I have found little time to do it. Hopefully, I will have more time to blog on a regular basis when I am finished with teaching, and I should be finished on May 26 (May 25 if I'm not required to attend graduation as an honor teacher this year).

Some blog topics that I didn't get caught up enough to post:

• Spring Break in London - I have been to London three times before, but I actually saw some things this time that I had never seen before: Stonehenge, Bath, and the Natural History Museum. The Natural History Museum building is worth seeing for itself, regardless of the exhibits. As a young person, I wanted to be an architect, and this building made me wish that I knew much about architecture. Stonehenge was cool too, but I wish I could had sat in the middle and meditated for a while. Bath was a surprisingly bustling city, but time prevented me from seeing little more than the baths.
  
• Currently reading - A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo. This interesting novel is now available from Amazon.com, but I had to order it from Amazon UK when I first heard of it. I got an email about the Orange Prize longlist and checked out the books on the list. When I read the info on Amazon UK about this book, I decided that I had to have it even if it cost me more than if I waited until it was available in the U.S. I am really enjoying it, so I don't mind that I paid so much for it.
• Kiran Desai and Anita Desai read in Houston a couple of weeks ago. Interesting reading -- they were introduced by another Indian female author (I'll check my notes and fill in the name later) and interviewed after the reading by another Indian female author (must check notes for this name too). I was surprised that the audience was so overwhelmingly white. I expected more Indians to be there. As for the reading, both authors made me want to read her books.
  
• Astros had a bad start to the season. They didn't win until the fifth game of the season and are sitting at 4-6 now. Of course, the baseball season is very long, so I won't give up on them.
• Job hunting - I have applied for one library job so far, but I really plan to apply for as many as possible. I figure if I flood the market that I will have a better chance of getting into a library. Even if I don't get into a library, I seriously will not teach again after this year.
  

I guess that's enough for now. Hopefully, I will find more time to blog this week. Later.

Written on the Body

It's late, and I really should be in bed asleep, but I stayed up late grading papers--YUCK!

Before I go to bed, I have to write something about Jeanette Winterson's novel Written on the Body. I started this short novel after reading Book World's rave review of Winterson's Oranges are Not the Only Fruit. I finished it tonight before I started grading those papers. If I hadn't been so busy lately, I would have finished it much faster--a page-turner of the best kind.

Written on the Body was my first Winterson reading experience, and I will definitely try some of her other novels too. In addition, I may have to start reading Winterson's monthly columns. According to Callie at Counterbalance, there is "always something meaty" in her columns.

Because it's so late, I won't go into detail about why I liked Written on the Body, but I will share two incredible paragraphs:
In a vacuum all photons travel at the same speed. They slow down when traveling through air or water or glass. Photons of different energies are slowed down at different rates. If Tolstoy ahd known this, would he have recognised the terrible untruth at the beginning of Anna Karenina? 'All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own particular way.' In fact it's the other way around. Happiness is specific. Misery is a generalisation. People usually know exactly why they are happy. They very rarely know why they are miserable.
Misery is a vacuum. A space without air, a suffocated dead place, the abode of the miserable. Misery is a tenement block, rooms like battery cages, sit over your own droppings, lie on your own filth. Misery is a no U-turns, no stopping road. Travel down it pushed by those behind, tripped by those in front. Travel down it at furious speed though the days are mummified in lead. It happens so fast once you get started, there's no anchor from the real world to slow you down, nothing to hold on to. Misery pulls away the brackets of life leaving you to free fall. Whatever your private hell, you'll find millions like it in Misery. This is the town where everyone's nightmares come true.

What a great description! I would love to say more, but it's already after 1:00a.m. and the alarm will go off at 5:00a.m. I better go to bed now.

Snow is finished, Finally!

I finally finished reading Snow by Orhan Pamuk. As my regular readers know, last month I was considering giving it up because it was moving so slowly. My stubbornness won out, and I decided not to give up on it. Thanks to Bookbinds, I know that I am not the only person who thought it moved like softly falling snow, but I'm not sure how I feel about the book in the end. I'm not sure that I believe that it was worth my time, which is sad when you think about how many other books I still want to read. I think I will do some reading of blogs and reviews to see how other people reacted to the book. Maybe I will write a more detailed review of the book later.

For now, I will say these three things: 1) In the beginning, I did find some of the descriptions to be quite beautiful, especially the descriptions of the snow. 2) As a wannabe poet, I hated to see poetry portrayed as some kind of effusive burst of creativity as if the poems were handed down by some poetry god--I'm sure there is something more working in this characterization, but it's too late and I'm too tired to articulate it. 3) One sentence near the end of the novel has been added to my collection of the most depressing passages/lines in literature--I think I have blogged about some of these lines before.

The new addition to my collection: "By now it was getting late, so I made my way back to the hotel, plodding slowly through the snow like a traveler without a friend in the world although laden with all its sorrow." I'm not sure how it stacks up against other lines in my collection, especially the one from 1984 or the one from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Maybe I'll post about that later.

Now, it's just after midnight, and I need to go to bed. I hope I can stay awake to read a page or two of my new read, Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss. Desai and her mother are reading next week in Houston. I won't finish in time for the reading, but I will at least have read some of the book.

Bored?

Thursday night I was reading myself to sleep except that I wasn't getting sleepy fast enough. My eyes and head were hurting from my recent fainting spell, so I had to put the book away before I was sleepy. As I lay there, waiting on sleep, I suddenly thought, I think this book is boring me. I've been reading Snow for a few weeks now, and I thought I was enjoying it. Now, I'm not so sure. I think it's moving too slowly--moving like the snow falls, softly, quietly--but I don't read books for plot, so a slow moving books isn't necessarily a loser for me. I wanted to like this book.

I'm not going to give up on it yet. Maybe it's just book lust. Or maybe it's my new bookshelves--moving books around makes one more aware of all the books waiting to be read. Or maybe it's a cultural thing since I know nothing about the Turkish culture described in the book. Or maybe the book is boring to me. I just don't know, but I have trouble giving up on a book. I will give it a few more chapters, I guess.

Two weeks - one hectic and one painful

I can't believe that it has been almost two weeks since I posted to my blog. For the first week, I only have a busy work and grad school schedule to blame. For this last one, the painful one, all I can say is that it is not wise to get into a fight with a tile bathroom floor.

I am always looking for a way out of work, but taking a path through the tile floor with my face leading the way was not a good choice. I am too old for an injured body--middle-aged bodies don't bounce back like young ones do, and my body has had lots of opportunities to bounce back from injuries. Perhaps the problem isn't that my body is too old but that it is too sober.

My life has been filled with accidents but most of the adult ones were accompanied with alcohol, which eased the pain before and after the accident. This one just made me feel stupid and old. Last Saturday I was sick with a bad cold or the flu, and I had very little to eat or drink, and I guess I was dehydrated. Sunday morning, I went to the bathroom and passed out cold on the tile floor, resulting in a busted lip requiring 16 stitches and a slightly fractured nose. Luckily, Valerie had stayed Saturday night to take care of me, or I might still be lying in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor.

So, I had a week off work, but it wasn't fun. It hurt to read for very long, and it hurt to work on the computer for very long, and it hurt to look in the mirror and see my black eyes and fat lip. It's a good thing that I gave up being pretty a long time ago.

I got the stitches out today and my lip is still fat and not in the Angelina Jolie sexy lips way either. The doctor said the swelling would go down, but I'm not sure that I believe her. I know the horrible bruises around my eyes will go away but not before they become a lovely yellow color. My friend Lois said to get some witch hazel to put on the bruises to make them go away faster. Maybe I'll pick some up at the drug store tomorrow and see if it works.

Sunday Snippets

As I sit here procrastinating on my grading and watching the end of the Grammy awards show, I thought I would post a blog. Lately, I have had so many things that I want to post about, but I just can't seem to make the time or find the time to post anything lately. I either need a vacation from work or a vacation from my life--of course, I would choose work. I will have a vacation from work very soon, but I'm going to spend it in London. Maybe I'll find a moment to post a blog or two from there. For now, I'll just post some snippets from possible future blogs.

When I started this blog in March 2005, I said that "I plan to use this blog as a place to talk about literature, art, politics, work, and anything else I can think of." So here are some snippets about all of those things.

• Literature -- I have been reading Snow by Orhan Pahmuk for a few weeks now, and I like it, but I feel like I need to take a day just to wallow in it for a while. One thing I have learned from it is that I have too little knowledge of Turkey and Turkish history. Actually, I have too little knowledge of so many places and their history. I guess that's what happens when you spend too many years as an accounting major because you want to make lots of money then switch to English as a junior and decide to be a teacher. Perhaps if I hadn't been an aspiring yuppie, I would have had a good liberal arts education and not feel so lacking in adequate background knowledge.
  
• Literature 2 -- Even though I am not even halfway through Snow, I have already been thinking about what I will read next. Actually, I'm always thinking about what I will read next. Here are the books that have been put in the queue: Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (current choice), The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst, Evil in Modern Thought by Susan Neiman, and Written on the Body by Jeanette Witherspoon. Feel free to place your votes to help me decide. Of course, as slow as I read, you have plenty of time to weight in.
  
• Art -- The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800-1920 -- I am so excited about this new exhibit at the The Museum of Fine Arts Houston (well, it opened last Sunday, SuperBowl Sunday, but I was too busy with football watching to blog about it then). I'm such an arts nerd that I find it truly exciting to think that I will get to see some of the most famous paintings in the history of painting--I want to say that I will get to see them in person, but the English teacher in me won't let me say it. I haven't seen it yet, but I will see it very soon. If you are in Houston anytime between now and May 6, you should see this exhibit.
  
• Politics -- The 2008 Presidential Race -- I am so excited about the chances of being able to cast a meaningful vote for a woman and/or an African American. AND I am already so sick of the press worrying about whether America is ready for a woman and/or an African American. Americans need to wake up in the 21st century and get over the whole white man bias.
  
• Work -- I hate working for a school district that blatantly censors students for no legal reason. First, last year, I had to tell a student that he had to take a sentence out of his short story or not get it published in the district's online literary magazine. The sentence said something about a boy sitting around with "his thumb up his butt" instead of doing his class assignment. Then this year, two students posted something to myspace about a district administrator, something negative, but not threatening or libelous as I understand it. Finally, in the most recent issue of the school paper, the article about the myspace incident and another recent incident on campus had the district administrator's name blacked out. From what I gathered, our principal made the newspaper staff black out the name or not distribute the paper. The article in the school paper is slanted toward the school's point of view, and I believe it lies to students about their rights, so, for me, the censorship, in this case is needless.
  
• Anything else? Just before the beginning of the year, I blogged about wanting to eat better. Surprisingly, I have been eating better, but mainly because I am commiserating with Valerie in her quest to get her very high cholesterol down. I have found it much easier to eat healthy than I thought. I have even eaten healthy breakfasts out on occasion and liked it. My healthy breakfast of choice has become oatmael with brown sugar and blueberries. I love eating breakfast out, especially omelets, hash browns, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, bacon--all a bunch of artery cloggers but yummy nonetheless. I would have never ordered oatmeal in a restaurant in the past, but now, it is my first choice for breakfast out.
  

Okay, I think that is all the procrastinating that I can do for tonight. Later.

Real news or a big non-story?

Insurgents getting hands on your car

Someone please explain how this is a story? I can be stupid sometimes, and I am trying to do my homework while I watch the local news. Also, I do realize what a big seller the fear of terrorism is, but I just think this story was a complete waste.

Two statements that I have a problem with in the story in the story, first, the point that the reporter makes about the U.S.-Mexico border being a sieve--not a new idea and one that sounds like anti-immigration propaganda to me. Second, this quote from the end of the story, "...the common perception of auto theft as a victimless crime. 'Right now, it’s report it to the insurance company, get my money and go out and get another car. But if I know that something happened to one of our guys? People feel it,' Bimonte said." Please! Give me a break! I'm supposed to feel bad if my car gets stolen and is used to hurt some soldier. Even for a guilt-plagued person like me, I find this statement ridiculous.

Okay, back to my homework now.

I hope I don't get fired for posting this from work, but I just couldn't wait.

I know that some might find this hard to believe, but I have not always been such a "serious" reader. Yes, I used to read trash, lots of trash, and I enjoyed it. :-)

This morning on the way to work, I heard that the author Sidney Sheldon had died. The NPR story highlighted his writing for I Dream of Jeannie. However, when I hear his name I think about all the excellent trash that he wrote and that I gorged myself on in the 80s and early 90s. His books were page-turners, full of love, lust, sex, intrigue--soap operas in print. As a teenager and a twenty-something, I loved his novels like Bloodline, The Other Side of Midnight, Rage of Angels, and If Tomorrow Comes. His trash took place on a grand scale, all over the world--a world that a girl from a small East Texas town couldn't possible know except through books. His books were a great vehicle when I needed an escape from the mundanity of my life. And any miniseries made from his books were just as tasty and even less intellectually nutritious. What fun!

While I don't read this kind of novel anymore, I do sometimes long to escape into formulaic, mind candy, but my brain just won't let me enjoy it anymore. The closest I can come is to read some kind of mystery or suspense novel, and those have to be better than the formulaic ones produced by most of the writers whose works can be found on grocery store and Walmart shelves and even on today's bestseller lists.

On a poignant note not related to Sheldon's novels, the newspaper article that I read to remind myself of the titles of some of his novels included a mention of The Patty Duke show that he produced and wrote. I'm too young to have watched the show when it aired originally, but I do have some fond memories of watching it on Nick at Night with my dad. He really liked to watch those old sitcoms. In the show, Patty called her dad Pops, and I used to call my dad Pops too. My dad was a great Pops! :-)

Winter Stacks Challenge

Over a week ago, I finished Pale Horse, Pale Rider, a very short novel by Katherine Anne Porter. Last October, I posted about hearing about this novel on NPR's You Must Read This. As planned, I only read the one short novel in the from the book of the same name that contains three short novels. It was my third book in the five-book Winter Stacks Challenge.

The novel is set during World War I and an influenza epidemic--fear is pervasive, which makes this book very relevant today. The main character Miranda, a reporter, has fallen in love with Adam, a soldier waiting to be shipped out. She fears that he will never return from the war, but she is stricken with the flu, and he nurses her until she can get a room at one of the overcrowded hospitals. Porter's descriptions of Miranda's delirious thoughts are amazingly unsettling. I will have to find the time to read more of Porter's novels in the future, especially the other two in the book Pale Horse, Pale Rider.

I have started Snow by Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist who won the Nobel Prize this year. If the blurbs on the back cover and inside the front cover are accurate, I should enjoy this book immensely. It is a political thriller, and I usually like those kinds of books. So far, I have found it very interesting, but I have not found enough time to read it--work and now grad school are keeping me too busy.

I spent a solitary Monday, grading papers for hours, and I am still not caught up. I have much reading to do between now and Wednesday, when I have to submit a response to my reading before midnight. I haven't even started on the assignment that is due next week, and, unfortunately, I have to go to work the rest of the week. I can't call in sick every day, but I wish I could.

I guess I better go to bed now though. It's late, and I can't be late in the morning. Maybe I can read a page or two of Snow before I go to sleep.

Silly Teenage Boy!

Because of my library science classes' face-to-face meetings and my unwillingness to brave the cold on Wednesday, I only worked two days last week. I seldom have to truly battle discipline problems in my class; I have a reputation for not putting up with students' bullshit. However, I do occasionally provoke students' ire with my "dark sarcasm in the classroom" (any Pink Floyd fans out there?). Friday was apparently one of those days.

One of the boys, let's call him STB, in my class got pissed off about my answer to his very stupid question (yes, there are stupid questions) and walked out of the room without permission. I didn't even react except to quickly fill out a discipline referral that I would turn in later in the day. I proceeded with the class as if nothing had happened. Except that when I looked for the paper that he had turned in, the only student in three classes who didn't follow my written directions, I made a smart-ass comment about how odd it was that the sub had told everyone to turn in the assignment, but he was only one who did. The class laughed and another boy volunteered that he had refrained from saying to STB that he didn't hear the sub say to turn anything in, but he decided to stay quiet--not sure of his motivation. So the class progressed through the vocabulary check, did our fifteen minutes of silent reading, and started on the main assignment for the day.

Later in the class period, the guidance office called my room and requested that I send another boy (AB) to see his counselor, which I did immediately. AB wasn't gone very long, but when he returned, he had a vocabulary workbook in his hand. I asked if he gone to his locker and retrieved his workbook, which he had not had when I checked vocabulary work earlier in the period. He said in a rather sheepish voice that STB had asked him to bring his workbook back to class and ask me if I would check it for him. I wasn't able to hide my mirth from the class, many of whom joined me in amusement. Of course, I am not a total bitch of a teacher, and I did check his vocabulary work, and I will collude with him tomorrow to act like nothing happened on Friday. Too bad, teaching doesn't amuse me everyday. :-)

2 Books Down & 3 to Go

On Saturday, I finished the second book on my From the Stacks Winter Challenge list. Moral Disorder is Margaret Atwood's latest book of short stories. Until a couple of years ago, I seldom read books of short stories, but then I read and loved Jumpher Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies. Since then, I have tried to keep a book of short stories going while I read a novel. It's hard for me to read more than one book at a time, but if one is short stories, I don't feel like I'm neglecting one for the other. I wouldn't want to hurt a book's feelings. :-)

Okay, enough babbling. I was not surprised to find Moral Disorder an enjoyable read. I am a big Atwood fan. The Handmaid's Tale is one of my all-time favorite books, a book that I push on students every spring. Moral Disorder is a book of connected stories that tell the story of a couple's relationship. It begins with old age, goes back to the woman's childhood through adulthood and their relationship then ends with old age and childhood. All of these stories have Atwood's very enjoyable and intelligent biting satire.

Ultimately, this book of short stories is about how our lives are stories and, sadly, all stories and lives end. This passage is at the end of one of the later stories in the book: "But what else could I do with all that? thinks Nell, wending her way back to her own house. All that anxiety and anger, those dubious good intentions, those tangled lives, that blood. I can tell about it or I can bury it. In the end, we'll all become stories. Or else we'll become entities. Maybe it's the same." In the final stories of the book, Atwood shows vividly the effects of aging on our life stories. The main male character in the book's stories has had a stroke and his daughter, the narrator of his final story, tries to read him a story, but for him, "Stories are no good, not even short ones, because by the time you get to the second page he's forgotten the beginning. Where are we without our plots?" Such a simple question, but if you equate plots with life, that simple question becomes extremely poignant. I think Atwood has explored a relatively new theme--loss of identity through aging--or maybe it's just one that I noticed more because of my father's recent passing and his condition for the last few years of his life. The last story in the book is so sad. A mother, bedridden, deaf in one hear, is in the final pages of her life story and all that remains of her younger self is some remnants of stories that she told her daughter. Her story is ending as the book is ending.

Some miscellaneous passages that I liked:

• In one of the early stories, the main character, a young girl, said, "We read detective stories and bought women's magazines, which we leafed through in order to rearrange ourselves, though only in theory." In this sentence, Atwood has definitely captured the appeal of women's magazines.
  
• "She'd been in love, a state of being she thought of as wiping the mind clean of any of the soothsaying abilities or even ordinary common sense it might otherwise have had." I just love Atwood's humor, especially when it bites perfectly.
  
• In one of the later stories, Atwood introduces Lillie, a real estate agent who seems to become a mother figure to her customers. The narrator of one story shares this about the way Lillie thinks: "Dead was not an absolute concept to her. Some people were more dead than others, and finally it was a matter of opinion who was dead and who was alive, so it was best not to discuss such a thing." Lillie is very much alive in this page. She is a great character!

I know that my review is not doing this book justice, but I really liked it and recommend it, especially if you like Atwood's other works.

Hopefully, I will be able to finish at least two other books on my Winter Stacks Challenge list. My grad school courses started this week, so I probably have no chance of getting all five done, but I will try.

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

Last weekend, I finished the first book on my From the Stacks Challenge list, but the business of starting back to work kept me from finding time to post my review of it. Well, here it is.

The Night Watch begins just after WWII in 1947 then goes back in time to 1944 then goes further back to 1941. While I enjoyed some of the characters and the stories of their relationships, I was not satisfied by the outcome of this book. Usually when a story is structured in reverse chronological order, there is some significant event in the present of the story that is explained with the past events. I didn't feel that the past of these characters and their relationships lived up to the promise of the structure of this novel. I thought the past left too many questions in the present unanswered.

While I wasn't impressed with the plot of the novel, I was extremely impressed with the mood of the novel. I felt the uncertainty and fear of living in a war zone with the very real threat of being killed by a bomb night after night. The description of the devastation to people and buildings is particularly vivid.

I have never read any of Waters's other novels, and I am not a big fan of historical fiction, but I don't think either of these facts are what kept me from being satisfied with this novel. I never felt drawn in enough by the characters or events. Maybe the distance was intentional or necessary to create the fragmentary feeling of living in a place literally being torn apart by war. Except for the 1947 section, most of the events of the novel occur at night, hence the title, and I think that might have had something to do with the distant feeling, but I can't quite articulate why.

I have read a bit more than half of the next book on my challenge list, Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood. I hope to be finished with it in a day or two and be faster with my review of it.

A Beautiful Beginning to a New Year

I hope today's weather is a good omen for the year to come. It is absolutely gorgeous!--55 degrees, light wind, clear blue sky. If I had a patio with a chaise lounge, I probably would have donned a light sweater or jacket and read all day long. Instead, I did laundry and read some blogs, semi-watched a couple of movies. I did all this in my living room, which does have a big picture window, so I kind of feel like I'm out on a patio with the blinds open and the sun shining in.

I finished one of my Stacks Reading Challenge books yesterday, The Night Watch by Sarah Waters. I'll post a review tonight. I might also post about moviest that I have seen during my holidays, which haven't been as many as I had hoped to see. I'm off to see Dreamgirls now. I wanted to see it on Christmas day, but it wasn't showing at the my East Texas hometown's local theater or the closest larger theaters.

"Fish and visitors stink in three days."--Poor Richard's Almanack

I'm feeling smelly this morning. Although I am not staying with relatives, I do feel like I have overstayed my welcome on this Christmas vacation. I think I might have started smelling yesterday--my room didn't get cleaned completely. It was like the housekeeper started to clean, emptied trash and replaced dirty towels, but took a break or was kidnapped by aliens before cleaning out the coffee pot or making my bed. The desk clerk offered to move me to another room, but after three nights here, I felt like I couldn't imagine packing up to move for one more night--if I packed I was moving home. Besides, I don't make my bed at home every day anyway, and I could rinse the coffeepot out myself like I do at home. Still, I can't help but wonder if that wasn't a hint that it was time for me to leave.

I would already be on the road this morning if I weren't going to do some cleaning out of my parents' house. Since my father passed away in May, my siblings and I have decided to sell the house, but no one can find the time to get it ready to sell. I'm the only one who doesn't live here and had intended to work in the house during Thanksgiving vacation, but I was a lazy cow then and reneged. Then I had planned to work there on Sunday, but it was raining and very cold (no electricity in the house now), and I kept finding Christmas errands to run for myself and family members. Yesterday, I could have worked, but I had to go to the bookstore to get my nephew another book since he had already read that one.

Now, my sister just called and she's ready to go work, so I will take a shower now--get rid of some of that visitor smell and go do some manual labor and work up another smell, I'm sure. :-)

It is a beautiful day here. Maybe I'll make a trip to the cemetery on the way out of town this afternoon and tell my mom happy birthday. For now, I have to go.

Christmas Eve Miscellany

What a difference a year makes. Last year, I waited until Christmas day to drive to my east Texas hometown for family Christmas festivities. After having spent Thanksgiving in a hotel, I had decided that I couldn't stand to wake up alone in a hotel on Christmas morning. This year, I didn't have any misgivings about hotel holidays. I spent 3 nights here at Thanksgiving, and I'm staying 4 this week.

I left yesterday about 2:30p.m.--several hours later than I had initially planned to leave. I always leave packing to the last minute for my trips to east Texas. It's not like I really have to think about what to bring. There's no fancy places to go here, and my family has fairly low expectations for holiday dress. When I stopped for gas an hour outside of Houston, I was quite astounded to realize that I had forgotten to pack panties. Of course, I didn't panic--Walmart is ubiquitous after all. Still, it was rather odd that I would pack bras and socks but no panties. I'm sure there's something freudian in the forgetting, but I won't waste time analyzing it. I just thought it was terribly funny, too funny to keep to myself. One problem with traveling solo is that you don't have anyone to laugh with you at yourself in situations like this.

Since I arrived here, I have been to the mall, Target twice, and Walmart three times, and I had done all my shopping before I arrived here. I don't know if I just have had good timing or the crowds around here aren't that bad, but I never had to wait in line for long and didn't have to push and/or shove anyone out of my way.

Tonight, my sister and I had a nice quiet dinner in one of the only two non-fast food restaurants open after 6:00. Her teenage daughter was at home with a friend, and her teenage son was doing last minute shopping with my sister's man. She's been working two jobs this holiday season, one in a factory and one in a retail store, and she needed a break tonight. So after dinner, she came back to the hotel with me, ostensibly to use my computer and to wait for her man and her son to pick her up after they finished their shopping. Once we got into the room, she decided that she was going to take a hot bubble bath, which she did using hotel shampoo for the bubble element. Then she laid on my bed and dozed while I watched television and played computer games. She might still be here sleeping if her cell phone hadn't rung. I started not to tell her that it was ringing, but I didn't want to be the cause of any unnecessary stress for her.

I feel kind of bad because she left here over two hours ago to go home and do some holiday cooking while I sit here, relaxing, chatting, and blogging. One of the perks of traveling solo for the holidays is that no one really expects you to contribute significant items to the family meal. I did pay for much of her holiday food purchases, and I bought a Sara Lee Poundcake, Cool Whip, and strawberries to take to our brother's tomorrow. I'm not a completely lame member of the family. Plus, I bought books for babies and children even though I only had to buy one gift for the person whose name I drew.

Buying only one gift is a great idea economically, but it sucks emotionally when you're used to buying for four siblings and their significant others and children. Also, right now, I only have one friend that I buy for--Valerie, who bought me two really GREAT gifts: 80s Trivial Pursuit, which I can't wait to play with her, and a fancy corkscrew, which will get used when we play Trivial Pursuit. :-) My friend Lois and I exchange gifts for birthdays instead of Christmas. My birthday was Friday, the 22nd, and Lois's is in February. I'm not sure how our birthday exchange started, but we only do birthday presents.

Speaking of my birthday, I have say a big thank you to Valerie and to Ryan for helping me to celebrate my birthday. Last year, I wanted to celebrate it, but this year, I wanted to ignore it. First, Valerie and I went to see Ryan's new townhouse, which is so perfect and has a great view of downtown from his rooftop patio. I'm so jealous!!! Then we went out for a low-key dinner at Azteca's. We had lots of fun, talking and laughing, and no one sang happy birthday or anything embarrassing like that.

Well, it's almost Christmas Day, so I think I will sign off and read for a long as I can. I am in the middle of The Night Watch by Sarah Waters, and I would like to finish it before I leave here on Wednesday.

I wish everyone an enjoyable Christmas day.