Guilty Pleasures.

Irredeemably bad sci-fi programs a la SG-1, Andromeda, and Mutant X. Cotton candy for the mind, I know, but a lavish fold-out cot of guilty pleasure on a Saturday afternoon nonetheless.

Circa 1950 romance-adventure novels for ladies. No heaving breasts, no almond-scented hair, just a fun romp through Rome on the trail of a mysterious, handsome stranger. What can I say? I'm an innocent when it comes to romance.

Circa 1950 spy novels. No detailed descriptions of submarines or ray guns. Heaving breasts, well, okay. Here they seem more at home. But lots of car chases and disguises and clever devices.

A cold beer on a sunny deck overlooking St. Charles Avenue before noon.

Expensive perfume with a tempting name like "Evening in Paris" or "Mysterious Woman."

Breaking up.

Sleeping late.

Pretending to be sick so that other people bring food to you while you watch irredeemably bad sci-fi programs.

Heartache.

Childhood Love-Dreams.

When I was a kid, I was pretty certain that I knew what I wanted in a mate.

I say "mate" because I don't know what else to call the person that you spend the rest of your life with. At one point, I would have chosen "boyfriend," but, let's face it, boyfriends and girlfriends are what you have in highschool when you think you want to spend the rest of your life with someone but you're too young to get married.

I might have said "husband" before the divorce brought me to the realization that husbands and wives aren't necessarily the people that you want to spend the rest of your lives with, though you might be inclined to think so when you're standing in city hall in a dress you'll be taking back to the Dress Barn after you're done with it. (Maybe that should have been the first clue.)

"Soul mate," well, it just sounds dumb to me. Something that I might have believed in when I was dating an inadequate guy, like hoping for Superman when you're being held at gunpoint. I mean, it's a nice idea, but it's one that's probably left a good many people wishing for more than is actually possible when dealing with breathing, flawed humans.

But when I was a little girl, I had this image in my mind of what perfection would be when speaking in terms of a mate.

First, I should note, in my vision I was a professor of English literature. Hmhoha. Needless to say, I was far more intellectual in my early imaginings of myself as an adult than I ever became in actuality.

My mate was a mathematical and/or scientific sort of guy. We would sit in front of a fire, and he would explain quarks and fractals and that sort of thing to me with love and patience and kindness. And then I might read a line from a novel or a poem to him, and he would make some insightful comparison with a quote by Einstein or Hawking. And we'd have these beautiful conversations.

It makes me sad now because I've settled for so much less throughout my life. I've settled for people who couldn't have cared less if a thought ever flickered in my head, who weren't the least interested in me. Maybe I was a body or an idea, but I wasn't myself. I wasn't worth a conversation in front of a fire.

And I don't imagine I'm alone in this sense of alone-ness. I wonder how many of us settle for anything or anyone just to keep that fearsome solitude at bay. But harboring, somewhere in dark corners, these childhood dreams of love (in which, I may note, we were better people than we ever turned out to be, too).

I think of the Price is Right. You can have the car, or you can choose one of three doors in the hopes of a more desirable prize. But you were lucky to just get the car in the first place, weren't you? And who knows what, if anything, is behind the door you choose? Shouldn't you just take the car? I don't know anymore. I used to think desperation was a sad state of affairs, but I'm beginning to think that it's the status quo when dealing with human relationships.

Sticky threads of the webs of belief.

I watched the space shuttle punch a hole in the atmosphere last week. A shimmering orange glo-pop whizzing up into a beach blue sky. I tried to imagine people in it, but the shuttle didn't even seem to be man-made, much less man-containing. It just looked like a meteor headed in the wrong direction. After it was out of sight, leaving only an ever-widening strip of white puff in its wake, the sound waves finally reached me where I lay by a pool filled with inflatable ducks and frogs. The noise shook the air, buffeting the peace and relative quiet, forcing us all to look upward, eyes shielded, in anticipation of metallic chunks plummeting seaward and tiny waving astronauts, sommersaulting through pale space.

I couldn't help thinking of Ptolemy and Copernicus. Ptolemy, of course, propounded the geocentric model of the universe. And eveyone was really happy to go along with that. His ideas not only adequately answered any backwards scientific ideas of the time, but they also fit into relgious philosophies that put man at the center of God's world. Obviously if we were the centerpiece of his creation, then our planet would logically be the center of the universe.

When Copernicus found astronomical anomalies that couldn't be explained within the scope of a geocentric model of the universe, he led the campaign for a new view with the sun at the center of the picture. Obviously this sort of thinking just didn't fly.

Promoting a new scientific theory or any sort of theory that has bearing on our ideas about reality and our world is not as simple as promoting the next boy band. (For that matter, I'm sure promoting boy bands is no picnic either. Just look at all the boy band scraps lying lifeless on the MTV cutting room floor.)

My favorite professor in college said that history is the opposite of science because history is the study of the known and science is the study of the unknown.

Herbert Butterfield said that science is "a history of errors."

In philosophy of science, you learn that the honest scientist, in order to prove his proposed theory, must attempt to disprove it.

Attempting to remove one little string in a web of beliefs is precarious because each string touches and impacts the next. Ptolemy was in error about the universe, but his erroneous belief supported dozens of other beliefs taken for granted by his contemporaries. For Copernicus to just expect everyone to abandon geocentric views for the more correct sun-centered views, he must have been as hard-headed as that Egyptian pharoah who wanted to completely switch up the panthology of the day in favor of his preferred sun god worship. And that guy didn't fare too well either.

I guess I was thinking about all of this because I was contemplating how difficult it is to believe even what we know. Even to beleive that men are floating in outer space now requires a stretch of my imagination. And it tugs at all the other little strings of my belief system. Scientists are amazing more for their persistence in the face of the unthinkable than for their sheer brilliance. I think scientists are dreamy.

A Tale of Terror! or Who you callin' a pussy?

This may sound like a funny story, but it is absolutely not! OK. Maybe it's a little funny, but it was definitely not funny as it was unfolding. Well, maybe even in it's atomic phase it was laugable, but I was still upset! So don't laugh, dammit.

It happened this way...

I was minding my own business, tucked quietly in the tiny windowless office of my parents' house, preparing lesson plans. Fain was soundly napping behind closed doors in his own little nursery. I was preparing a lesson plan on literary representations of the various relationships between humanity and the divine - Noah and Yahweh, Utnapishtim and Enlil, etc. I remembered a beautiful copy of the Egyptian Book of Going Forth by Day, or Book of the Dead, with exact replicas of the hieroglyphs on each corresponding page of translations that I had packed into a cardboard box in the attic. Since I had already decided that African spiritual texts were under-represented in the textbook that I had been given by the assistant principal, I thought that this illustrated text would make an interesting supplement. So I decided to unearth it.

(If you read hints of Indian Jones here, it might not be accidental.)

I made my way from the snug office and began to ascend the staircase that leads to the attic door. After three steps upward, I noticed my mother's timid and good-natured cat "Willie" lying on the top step. She raised her head and slit her eyes at me, growling audibly.

"Sorry, Willie," I said, not wanting to alarm her, "I'll come back later."

I began to back down the stairs, straining my hamstring as I stepped over the baby guard. Willie, usually mild and shy, stalked down the stairs after me, her growl growing more and more ferocious, her hackles raised, her teeth bared and gleaming with drool and a dream of human blood. I was puzzled and growing uneasy.

I continued to back into the kitchen, until I was pressed to the sink, my hand reaching back for the water squirter. She continued to stalk towards me, roaring in an unearthly housecat replica of an Asiatic lion on a death patrol. I pointed the squirter at her, my hand trembling, my mind reeling at this sudden change of temperament. I assumed she had gone mad and that now she would not rest atop the stair again until she had drunk the last of my blood and dined savagely on my innards.

I flipped the handle of the faucet, and water began to rush into the sink. I didn't pull the trigger of the squirter because I didn't want to scare her or cause her harm or anger. Instead, as she inched away from me to crouch behind the counter, I tossed treats at her, hoping to undo any diplomatic damage that might have been done, innocently, by me.

She didn't make a move towards the treats. She stared intently at me, waiting for me to move into her line of attack.

There was only one way to go...forward...possibly into the tiny jaws of death!

I eased forward, and we locked gazes. Her keening was intense and thirsty for gore. She moved towards me, and I continued to back rapidly out of the kitchen, never taking my eyes from her demonic face. I made it through the living room and she bounded towards me! She leapt across the room onto the crimson chaise lounge, pouncing to the uppermost point so that she was even with my face. She leapt at me and I scurried, like a 115 pound field mouse into the sanctuary of the office.

Even with the door closed and the computer tower humming, I could hear her menacing howls beyond the door. I peeked through a narrow opening and saw her pacing back and forth.

I had never witnessed anything like this. A mild pussy gone mad with bloodlust.

I didn't know what to do. Even after ten minutes, she would growl and lunge when I attempted to open the door, and otherwise she lay just in front of it.

I had no phone, no communication with the outside world, and, even if I did, who would ever believe that I had been treed by a damnable housecat?!

Finally, as the temperature in the office began to soar and my throat became parched and dry, I sent a instant message to Jack, my hero, in New Orleans, begging him to call one of my parents in North Carolina to apprise them of the situation. Laughing, I am sure, at the unlikeliness of the state of affairs, he proved himself a worthy friend and hero and saved the day by contacting my mother, who in turn contacted my father, who came and scared that wicked pussy cat under a chair.

I stumbled, hoarse and trembling from the office, fell lifelessly into my father's arms, perspiration dampening my forehead. When I had recovered, I found a watergun and vowed never to part with it again when searching for lost Egytian texts.

The end.

Teaching to Learn.

Lesson plans, tentative lesson plans, possible lesson plans, neglected lesson plans, and improbable lesson plans tower and lean and sigh on my desk, my bed, chairs, and the floor. Years have passed since I last taught, and I didn't do it long enough to collect materials or ideas. I didn't expect to ever have the desire to teach again.

Now the last days of summer speed past, adolescents in swimming pools lengthen and tan and bronze and began to mumble about the encroaching scowl of the school year. Teachers other than me tap stacks of reliable old worksheets and projects and guides together into neat rectangles, place them in manila folders, and lie back to soak in the remainder of their limited days of freedom.

But I am starting with nothing. I've never taught World Literature or writing, for that matter. I have no xeroxed and foldered schedules or exams or sundry assignments. I have no clue what other teachers do. I have a vague idea of what I want to accomplish. I have stacks of ideas. Stacks of plans. And, alternatively, no reliable stacks at all. No ideas that I'm sure will work. No plans that aren't liable to be blown over as savagely as a little pig's straw house.

It's nerve-wracking. And it's thrilling. In a way, I imagine this first semester being akin to a soujourn through the wilderness with only my wit and endurance to keep me alive and/or sane. (Hopefully, both.) As neurotic as I am, as enamored with rules and organization, I have an equally strong urge towards chaos and disorder and fear and challenge. I suppose I might change my attitude if I ever get a nasty beating. We'll have to wait and see.

A nerd's nerd.

I sunk into my awkward phase.

Some people blaze through it, and they emerge from the other side in a week or a month as a mob of tall, blonde amazons, perfectly sculpted and glowing. One day in late spring they are adorable baby-faced ten year olds. A summer of roller-skating and bike-riding passes on squeaky wings, and then they arrive at school in the fall with long, tanned limbs and almost-adult smiles.

I sunk into my awkward phase like a nearly-porous rock sinking into a swamp.

I was an energetic and friendly little girl. My second grade teacher moved everyone in her class around me in an attempt to find someone with whom I would not hold a conversation. Even the bullies were not safe from my ramblings. I wasn't ugly. I was even kind of cute. Not curly, blonde hair and rosy cheeks cute, but cute nevertheless.

Then something began to change. First came the braces, then the glasses, and so on - insult piled upon insult - until I was stooped with plastic and metal fixatives. I slowly withdrew into a strange shyness that I can't explain even now. I ate lunch in the English teachers' classrooms, year after year, in order to avoid the horror of seeking acceptance at some cruel adolescent lunch table. God bless the English teachers of the world. We must have all had the same experiences in middle and high school.

I remember once, in the seventh grade, hidden behind a desk as I bent to pick up a book. Two girls, both belonging to the nerd class, were making jokes about me, not realizing that I was there. I remained bent, waiting for them to leave. It remains one of those memories that I revisit unintentionally. Even the nerds thought I was a nerd.

And still, I wouldn't change a moment of it because I'm one helluva woman now.

Measuring smoke.

Sir Walter Raleigh won a bet once by measuring smoke.

His friends scoffed when he said that he could, but there was no denying his method.

He weighed a cigar before it was smoked and then weighed it once he had finished it, along with the leftover pile of feathery gray ashes. He figured that the difference between the weight of the unsmoked cigar and the weight of the smoked cigar and the ashes would be a sound approximation of the weight of the smoke.

I've been thinking about the things that we lose along the way that can't be measured in tangible terms. Moments, memories, loves. And it's occured to me that they must be measured in a similar manner.

By measuring who we were before the loss and comparing that with who were are after the loss, we can safely calculate what and how much is missing from us.

In some cases, I don't even think that we're aware of all the parts of us until they go missing. Those parts must be x or y variable.

I think Henry VIII would've liked me.

When moments go unfinished.

Moments go unfinished sometimes.

If you love someone and lose them before their idiosynchracies have ceased to be the minutae upon which your love feeds and have become the irritating habits that breed discontent, then a moment has been left undone. Had the relationship continued on its natural course, perhaps the love would have diminished as you became more conscious of a particularly hairy belly or nasal clickings or butt-scratchings, and you would have been relieved to be relieved of the frog who was once your true love.

An unfinished moment, however, can be like a peach hidden behind Tupperware bowls and gallons of Vitamin D milk and tubs of butter in the refrigerator of your head. For a while, the peach sits in a suspended state of ripening. Of course, it wasn't ripe when you bought it, so it has some time. After a while, it begins to decay and wither and slime and smell. The pungent aroma overtakes the innocent sweetness of the Florida orange juice and the forceful bite of the loose garlic cloves. And even once you've discoverd the source of the odor and removed it, the memory of it clings to the white walls and the plastic containers.

When a moment is incomplete, the memory of it ripens in the back of you mind behind to do lists and worries about massacres and spelling bees. The moment itself never had the chance to reach its fruition, and now, in your mind, it becomes hyper-ripe. All of its possibilites make it plump and rich-smelling. But then it begins to smell too strongly. Initially, perhaps you have to throw out a cd and a few photos in the hopes of ridding yourself of the memory. But it clings to other songs and photos and even other passing and unrelated memories.

I don't know what to do about left-over memories.

Remembering how to dance.

I hated ballet lessons when I was a little girl, and I quit at the first given opportunity. My teacher, Miss Bobbie Jean, was a bony, little old woman with jet black hair piled high atop her head and a grinning jaw that popped far away from her face. She wasn't fond of me, I think. She thought that I was a klutz, which is true, and not bendable and stretchy and blonde enough, I imagine. I couldn't do a split, and I was always out of step with the rest of the girls. I did like the costumes, but I hated everything else about it.

Which is a shame. I think that I would have liked dancing if I hadn't been forced to stay in line and do what everyone else was doing.

At least one of the people who reads this entry has seen me dance, which is a rarity and generally involves copious amounts of hard liquor. And he is probably shuddering from the memory because I'm not very good at it. In the right state of mind (read: intoxicated), I begin to feel like dancing is the appropriate and even mandatory thing to do. I spin out of control like a whirling dervish and generally make a spectacle of myself. This sort of behavior is now far in the past as I don't drink copious amounts of hard liquor anymore, and I think that a part of me misses the excuse to whirl.

Lately, I've been dancing when no one but my little boy is at home. He, of course, thinks that I'm the next best thing to Mata Hari or Paula Abdul or Zorba the Greek. I have a particular skirt that I like to wear that fans out around me, and I forego shoes altogether. My style is a combination of slow-witted ballet and mentally-challenged modern dance. Klezmer music with accordians and violins and clarinets is my favorite accompaniment. I can really kick up my heels to that - though I still can't do a split. I'm not good at it - that hasn't changed - but, since my only audience is a kid who isn't even two and can't walk yet (read: escape) much less dance, I don't have to be good at it. I only have to like the way that it feels. Which I do. It's a lot of fun, and it's another one of those things that I forgot about with age.

I think that I forgot about a lot of fun things that didn't involve bars or...well, bars. And it's nice to rediscover them. I've even taken up somersaults and standing on my head for no good reason.

Learning to dance. 

Noticing things.

Some days I am aware of the skin between my toes, while most days this area goes unattended. One day, I'll suddenly feel that there are eight distinct little cul de sacs down there, awash in sprinkler water at times, dry and bare at other times, mostly hidden in a perpetual stuffy night of tennis shoes or heels, and then I'll think about my toes all day. I'll notice that they feel cool and wiggly and soft, and I'll wonder why I don't pay more attention to them.

I saw a large yellow and black butterfly today in my father's verbena, and I felt like I was seeing a butterfly for the first time. It seemed so strange and unnatural, more like origami sprung to life or eerily animated tissue paper than an actual bug. I had to stop and stare at it and remind myself that I'm not visiting a foreign planet. This is earth, and butterflies are mundane occurences here. But sometimes they seem alien and new.

Thanks.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank anyone who reads this and enjoys it and tells me so.

I was pretty sure that my readership consisted solely of my mom and my best friend, and I wasn't expecting or hoping for more than that. So when I do hear from another reader, I can't tell you how nice it is for me.

I have an email alert that notifies me whenever someone leaves a comment, and I'd almost forgotten about it because comments are so rare. But when I do get one, I am gripped by a dual emotion of excitement and anxiety. (Again, I am neurotic. That has been established.) I'm excited because someone has read what I've written, but I'm anxious because I fear that whoever read it has left some horrible, cruel comment like: "You suck and shouldn't be allowed to own a computer." That would probably sting.

So when I got a lovely comment from a guy named Scott, I just felt compelled to tell him that I appreciate the response. So, Scott, thanks.

And thanks mom and Jack for reading, too. It means a lot.

There's no good way to pick someone else's nose.

This may seem a departure from my usual topics, but I think that somewhere in this sentence lies a basic tenet that should be embraced by someone somewhere. I don't know who. I don't know why. But there seems to be something deeper lying dormant in this somewhat obvious and yet also unintelligible statment.

If you have a small child, then you may have guessed where the thought originated. My son, not yet 19 months, has a head cold that involves gross quantites of...well...snot and boogers. Someone has to get in there and clear the passages, and he doesn't have quite the coordination yet. That leaves me. And, as I pin him to the floor, attempting vainly to simultaneously capture his flailing arms and subdue his writhing head, in order to stick the cottony tip of a Q-tip up there and dislodge a booger that's been making a death-rattle-type noise all morning, it occurs to me that I can't think of a nicer way to do this heinous thing that is obviously causing him no end of grief.

But if I leave the booger, he can't breathe.

Of course, the minute the booger is undone and buried in a pile of tissues, a Niagra of baby snot pours down his little snot path headed directly for his mouth, which can't improve the state of his cold.

This is the definition of a conundrum, I think.

Which leads me back to my initial premise that there is just no good way to pick someone else's nose. Furthermore, there is no good reason to do so, it seems.

How does this apply to the war in Iraq? World hunger? Global warming?

I don't know. But I'm sure it must.

Neurotic Tendencies.

I have other, more physical, manifestations of neuroses than just the incessant mental quandries that I dump here.

For example, closing my car door causes me extreme anguish and can take several minutes on a bad day. I have a mortifying fear of locking the keys inside. I stand with the car door in one hand and the ring of keys in the other, my heart pounding. I look at the keys and begin to close the door and stop in a moment of panic, look again at the keys again, attempt once more to close the door...finally, I force myself to just slam it shut, keys be damned. On a positive note, I never lock my keys in my car, and, consequently, I never lock my son in the car. I'm just so afraid that I've somehow imagined holding the keys, when they're really tossed negligently on the driver's side seat. I have a real issue with my own carelessness.

Another...er...development centers around my little boy's bookshelf. When I begin to put books away, I find myself becoming ritualistic in the placement of the chubby board books. I try to resist the compulsion to put the books in a particular order - usually in decreasing size and arranged in neat little compatible groups. But I find the desire to arrange them nearly impossible to combat. Some nights I force myself to just throw them on the shelf in no particular order, not evenly aligned, not even standing upright, just to assure myself that I'm not certifiable. But I do feel a mild sense of dread on these nights. As though the haphazard chaos of the bookshelf might contribute to civil unrest in Cambodia or Rwanda.

This isn't entirely new. Once, years ago, while staying with a friend, I removed all of her books from her bookshelves and stacked them in strange Stonehengian columns on her floor. I was asleep when I did it. She thought it was some sort of weird prank, and I went along with her. But I have no idea why I did it.

And years before that, when I was a little girl, I would shower in my sleep. My great-grandmother, Dearie, would follow along behind me to make sure that I didn't scald myself, which I never did. I'd shower, scrub, pull my nightgown back on, and climb back into bed without ever waking. Like a little Lady Macbeth.

At least I'm consistent.

Regarding Romeo.

An interesting side note to my earlier thoughts on Romeo and Juliet. OK. It's interesting to me.

I read the first act at a little coffee shop called Java Mott's. It just opened, and it's quiet and comfortable. The owner and his teenage daughter were both working today, and after about an hour of poring over every line I was interrupted by the gregarious proprietor who was concerned that I might be studying too much. He asked what I was reading, and I told him. We began to discuss the finer points of the play, and I mentioned the way that my reading of it had changed over the years. I brought up the point about Romeo being in love with Rosalyn at the beginning, and he nodded his head sagely.

Here's the part that interests me.

His daughter, who was perhaps 14 or 15, widened her eyes and wrinkled her forehead and said, "Really? I just read it last year and I don't remember that at all." My point exactly.

Neurotic thoughts on love.

I promised in my last entry that I would detail some of my idiosyncratic (read: neurotic) thoughts, and I am a woman of my word. Today I am re-reading Romeo and Juliet in order to prepare for the licensure exam that I have to take in August, so I figured now would be an ideal time to discuss my maladjustments when it comes to matters of the heart.

When I first read Romeo and Juliet, I didn't get it. I thought I got it. Young, unrequited love. Star-crossed lovers. Romance. Sigh.

That was in high school. That was back in the days when I was the girl leaned against the boy leaned against the locker.

Years later, the first time I taught high school, I read Romeo and Juliet again. The first thing that I noticed upon the re-reading is that Romeo was in love with someone other than Juliet in Act One. He was hung up on this chick named Rosalin. And we're not talking about a little amorous. The boy was just foaming at the mouth about "fair Rosalin" who won't give him the time of day. He even swears that he's going to die from heartbreak.

You might be wondering why this strikes me as such a big deal. Let me explain my thoughts.

Upon the first reading, I somehow completely missed that Juliet was a rebound. I thought that these were two kids whose innocent, virginal eyes met across the room and just fell head over heels at first sight for the first time. But you have to wonder about Romeo, considering he was only at the party to get over this Rosalyn broad. I mean, did he really ever love Juliet?

Juliet has remained somewhat unmolested in my mind. She was only fourteen, after all. And she probably hadn't been around too many boys. Here comes Romeo with all of these left-over, hand-me-down metaphors about pilgrims and moons and all that jazz that he's probably been saving up for Rosalyn, and now he's just throwing them haphazardly at Juliet because she was young and cute and available and obviously an easy target.

I guess my point is that how you read something is influenced by your own experiences. I was a different person the second time I read Romeo and Juliet. And so Romeo and Juliet were different people, too.

And, in regards to love, I think some sad realization develops as we grow older and realize that we are not the first love of the ones we love and that we may not be their last love. And that makes me much more neurotic when I love, though you might feel just fine about the whole thing. It makes me think one minute, "Oh, pshaw, of course this is true love and he'll love me as much tomorrow as he did last year." And then the next minute I might think, "Oh, hell, he never loved me anyway."

Consider Overcompensation and Cheer Up!

I discovered an old self-help book that had been written in the 1950s while perusing the cluttered shelves of a bookstore in the Quarter several years ago. The title is Be Glad You're Neurotic. Of course, I had to buy it.

I don't assume that many people read this blog, but the ones who do might have picked up on a certain neurotic quality to my thoughts. My American history teacher in high school warned the mother of a friend of mine that I was "unstable." I was particularly offended because this teacher had been something of a mentor to me. And she wasn't a fount of sanity herself. A Sunday school teacher onced asked out of nowhere if I had suicidal thoughts or had ever considered running away from home. I asked her if she was being inquisitive or if she was making a suggestion. If I had any doubts about my inability to Belong, they were erased by adults who seemed to have some sixth sense regarding my weirdness.

Back to the self-help book...

This cat, a certified doctor of psychology by the name of Louis E. Bisch, was just my kind of man. I give you a list of some of his chapter headings. Alone and without further reading, they might appease the shame and misery of my fellow neurotics.

Chapter 1 I'm a Neurotic Myself and Delighted
Chapter 2 To Be Normal Is Nothing to Brag About
Chapter 3 You Hate Yourself. No Wonder!
Chapter 8 Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Insomnia and Dreams?
Chapter 9 Of Course Your Sex Life is Far from Satisfactory
Chapter 14 Consider Overcompensation and Cheer Up!

I feel better already.

Next entry:

Some of the neurotic things that I think every day.

Not even a back-handed compliment.

I was boring my dad last night with the details of plans that I have for my future classroom - things like current events and creative writing. Pretty innocuous stuff, in my eyes. He said, "Yep. You're the kind of teacher I hated when I was a kid." Oh.

Just when I think that I've got a good idea...

I taught Emerson's "Self-Reliance" while I was working as a student teacher in college. The classroom consisted of about 30 kids from a rural Appalachian background. I was young and full of ideas about inspiring kids to think big thoughts.

Some of the kids even looked intrigued when I began to broach the subject of Transcendentalism - Emerson's philosophy, not a weird new-age cult, bear in mind - and when I opened a discussion on the ideas of "self" and "mind" many of the students began waxing philosophical. I was thrilled by this sense of success and well-being that came over me when I saw the fruits of my labor...

And then...

There were these two girls sitting towards the back of the classroom, filing their nails the way that Carol Burnett used to do when she played the telephone operator, smacking gum, looking distracted. One girl looked at the other and hissed, with a dramatic roll of her eyes, "You know what she's trying to do, don't you? She's trying to make us think."

"Trying to make us think." She said it with the exact tone that a person might say, "She's trying to make us burn the flag." Or "she's trying to make us kill our parents." Or "she's trying to make us burn down Santa Claus' house."

"Trying to make us think." Those words went through me and made contact with that part of my brain that had been filled with exuberance just ten seconds earlier. Was I doing something wicked? Was I doing something against the laws of man and God?

Not "she's trying to make us learn algebra" or "she's trying to make us memorize vocabulary words."

Not that there's anything inherently wrong with those things either, but they rank, in my eyes, with the mundane tasks of paper-filing and file-management. I can see how they might be met with little enthusiasm.

However, I would hardly call attempting to allow teenagers to ask questions and to speculate on possible answers a seditious activity. But I could be wrong.

I guess my point is that the exciting part of teaching to me, the part that has always drawn me to the profession, is the Socratic part. The role that the teacher can play (if she chooses) in encouraging free and extraordinary thought. And I forget sometimes that a lot of students just want to get through the day with a minimum of exertion.

I suppose that it's a good thing to be reminded of before I go back in with those high hopes of lighting the fuse of the next John Steinbeck or Adrienne Rich or Toni Morrison.

The Red Badge of Courage.

I remember reading The Red Badge of Courage during my Junior year of high school and liking it. I'm re-reading it now as part of my preparation for the PRAXIS exam that I have to take in order to be licensed as an English teacher. Reading as a teacher is entirely different than reading as a regular reader. I pause at every line and think, make notes, look up words, write questions. Maybe I go overboard. Last night I looked for Civil War photos at the Library of Congress website photo archives. I feel compelled to add visuals to every lesson that I write, whether it's contemporary artwork or photographs. I guess it's the thwarted artist in me struggling to find an outlet. There were hundreds of photos of soldiers and campsites and battle fields. They were in excellent condition - sharp and detailed. I made a PowerPoint presentation, which just shows how overboard I go, considering I haven't got a job yet.

I'm surprised to find myself excited about the prospect of teaching. But I am. Not just a little excited. I've been possessed of that sort of zealous, manic excitement. Joan of Arc excitement. Change the world excitement. I know it's crazy.

Anyway, I'm a little ashamed of how under-read I am. I have a list of twenty-something books that I should have read by now, and I know that some of them will come into play on the PRAXIS. I just don't know which ones. So I'm reading them all and making lesson plans for them, just to be safe. Couldn't hurt. The Red Badge of Courage is the first, and I'm feeling a whole new appreciation for it now that I'm older. It's a great idea to read those mandatory high school books again after you've gotten older. I highly recommend it.

Ain't it funny how time slips away.

Billions of years pass from nothing to the universe. Little accidents become planets and stars and galaxies and fish and dumplings and works of art. Little momentary mishaps trip along with the air of pig-tailed girls who couldn't imagine being otherwise. Things that can't be predicted or planned happen as if they had every right in the world to do so.

Some mornings I am excited to see what the next moment will be. I try to imagine. I am a child eyeing a wrapped gift beneath a Christmas tree, analyzing the size, the shape, the aura of the mysterious box in a vain attempt to deduce the contents.

Some nights I am gripped with fear wondering what the next moment will be. There are so few things that I love and any moment could be the one that steals those treasures from me. I think of stars that have died a million years ago - massive, glowing, powerful sailors who simply cease to be. What a weak light my passions are beside those and how easily they would be diminished.

Then again there are stars that I see every night that may have died years ago. And yet there they shine. Bold and shrugging and not going quietly into that dark night.