Ward and June Christmas.

I realize that in this modern world referring back to Ward and June Cleaver's wedded bliss is a joke, but didn't it look great? Is it wrong to wish for something that ridiculously cheesy? Of course, it wouldn't be ridiculously cheesy if this wasn't such a jaded, angst-ridden era. Why is it laughable to want a happy relationship? One where the husband comes home and comments on the wife's hairdo? Plays a little catch in the front yard with the kid before dinner? Everyone sits down to dinner together? They talk about the day, laugh, encourage one another. Why is it silly to admire that today? Because I can't have it? Is it quioxtic to dream about sitting in front of a Christmas tree with a kind, funny man who reads the newspaper, a book every once in a while? Maybe he's a little musical, too. Well, if I'm being preposterous, I may as well go all the way with it. He could strum a few notes on a guitar. Maybe a Christmas carol or two. He'd leave the putting together of toys to me because I enjoy that sort of thing. But he'd put the Christmas lights up and the tacky holiday yard art. In the spring, we'd work together in the yard until the whole thing was a giant garden. OK. I realize I'm treading into the realm of the highly unlikely, but I don't think I'll get married again unless the man is holding a sign that reads: From the realm of the highly unlikely. Your house or bust.

Another benefit of not writing a novel.

I didn't realize until I'd done the novel-in-a-month-thing how much "free time" I have available to me in the wee small hours of the morning. I've been searching high and low for an hour to call my own, but someone lays claim to every one that I stumble across. The kid who wants me to teach her to write in cursive. The teacher who wants me to help her find a deal on a computer. The administrator who wants me to fulfill yet another non-educational duty. The little boy who wants me to read a book or play train. And I love these people. And I want to help. But that really cuts into my opportunities to do things just for my own pleasure. And, I know, there are some schools that would say that we shouldn't be focused on doing things for our own pleasure anyway. I don't know what to say to those people. Right or wrong, I need to occasionally do something for myself. So here I am. OK. I'm not going to get up at 4 am anymore; however, even from 5 to 6 am, I can get a little reading and a little writing done. I have a list of books to read. A few minutes each day with each would be wonderful. If you can think of any other suggestions, I'm always looking for a few more good books. (Fiction or non-fiction.)

Everthing is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
Saving Fish From Drowning, Amy Tan
The Girl Who Walked Home Alone, Charlotte Chandler (This one's a Bette Davis biography that my grandmother recommended.)
The Book of J, Harold Bloom

I've got a few more that I'm getting from "Santa Claus." OK. That's a cheaters way of saying that I'm buying it for myself and putting it under the tree so that I don't LOOK so lonesome at Christmas.

All I want for Christmas is a few good novels.

I've decided not to write a novel. Ever. So there. I just want to free myself from that expectation or hope or dream or whatever. Free myself for more time to do something less strenuous, more enjoyable - reading novels. And also reading non-fiction, which is what I really enjoy. There are plenty of great novelists out there without me. And I've got other talents that are probably more useful, though less glamorous, in the long run.

For instance, I'm quite a nice mother. I'm highly entertaining to the two and three year old set. I hardly ever give spankings, though I often threaten to give spankings. To be as little as I am, I've got a strong back for giving horsie rides. And I microwave good pancakes.

Also, I'm a fine teacher. Well, I'm good at teaching the 10th grade, anyway. Some of us have very specialized skills. I'm lousy at teaching English 9, 11, and 12, but I've got English 10 down to a science. I even enjoy it. I love studying sacred texts and heroic epics, and I think that I manage to get the kids interested.

I'm not very good at bus duty or lunch duty, but I don't put forth much effort either.

I'm also a pretty lousy house-keeper, but I say that with a certain amount of pride. What kind of person wants to be remembered for cleaning hairs off of the bathroom floor, anyway?

So for Christmas, I just want a few good novels to sit back and enjoy. Sitting back and enjoying things is going to be my New Year's resolution this year.

Duty Tree Microcosm

My duty partner has gone away for a couple of weeks to visit his daughter in London, which leaves me alone under the duty tree - a giant willow oak.

Having just finished a unit on the Transcendentalists, I decided to take this opportunity to Thoreau-ly (sorry, had to go there) study the tree's microcosm. In fact, today I want to borrow a camera from the library to capture some of the more interesting specimen that I have found in order to identify them.

Some of my observations -

Contrary to depictions created by most pre-schoolers, the trunk of my willow oak is not brown. In fact, it is various shades of gray - from a dark, slate gray to a pale, dirty, shell gray. Now, to be entirely truthful, if you peer into one of the cracks in the gray bark, you will see some shades of chocolatey brown. Perhaps that is the brown that has perpetuated the myth of the brown trunk. Something like a hybrid of moss and sea coral covers some of the bark; it is sometimes lime green and sometimes very nearly white. I'm not sure what it is, though I've probably been told before in a Biology class in high school. Obviously, I didn't get it. Don't worry. I'll uncover the mystery. I'm on top of it.

The narrow, finger-like leaves of the willow oak have turned rusty brown and have fallen into mass graves at the roots of the tree, where they neatly stacked themselves with crop-circle-like regularity due to a run-off of water from the eastern curb to the lower western curb. (I may have to alter that guesstimation of the directions later; however I am sure of the reason for the odd stacking of the leaf decks. I pulled the horticulture teacher from grading papers to come and answer my questions. I think that he thought that I, the crazy English teacher, suspected that someone might have come in the night to arrange them into orderly, canyon-like formations to disturb my fragile mental state. He put my mind to rest and went back to grading papers. To be perfectly frank, however, I will confess that my very first, though very brief, thought was, "Who in the world did this?")

It's time to go back to school and to my duty, where I will further investigate the world of the willow oak. I'll report back to you tomorrow.