Chaos is come again!

Sometimes, I feel like I am suspended over a cavernous yawn of chaos, that it is there, ever-present, just squirming to devour me. I feel like the thread I'm hanging from is more frail than a spider's web. It's a filament of the most fragile material known to nature, and it's stretching to a breaking point, soon, yes very soon.

It's coming in around me, at my peripheral vision now, so close and dark I fear turning my head to look right at it. It's beneath me, and I keep my chin up, though I know it is there. I can see it through the tears I force back. Sometimes it's what they might call depression. Sometimes it's a feeling of dread or overwhelm. Usually it's foreboding unfettered, and after time, it's often unfounded.

This time, however, it seems so tangible, so unavoidable.

Eeek.

What can I do to thwart it? No amount of list making seems to affect it. There's not a prescription to ward it off or fight its infectious jaundicing of my day. It seems that the best in planning (and planning tools) just seems to irritate chaos, to stir it up from the bottom of the pond even more violently.

I clench my fists and brace for it.

Televised = mesmerized

Well, this one is hard to explain. I loved the x-files. I've enjoyed Heroes. Now, a new low? I dunno. I really have a great time watching Warehouse 13. It's tons of fun and nothing but a good hearted romp into sci-fi/fantasy. The cast is quirky and witty. The scenarios per week are nuts, but enjoyable escape.

The general premise is that there is a vast collection of dangerous artifacts supercharged with paranormal power, everything from Timothy Leary's glasses to HG Wells' pen. There's a super-secret team of curators who attempt to track and secure these artifacts. There's humor. There's history. There's a steampunk motif....and oodles of science fiction fruitiness. I'm hooked.

Saddle-up.

The picture above is of my four kids in their new boots.

It's that time of year again, when I tuck in my shirt, shave regularly, and try to be somewhere on time--I really get spoiled over the summer!

Students are such a positive force in my life. I hope they realize how much inspiration I draw from them, how much enthusiasm I siphon off of their collective juice. If I did not get my regular, semesterly fix from them, I wonder what I'd do for a charge... I watch my collection of "teacher films" every year, but they do not compare to the thermonuclear white-hot glow of a room full of real, live college folk.

Goofy said it best: "I've got a yearnin' for learnin'" and truly I do. I hope my students can also share in this yearning, if they do not currently have it within them yet.

So now to wax on about my children. In the boot picture, the trained eye can actually see a lot of personality. The kid with the red boots? obviously a wildcat. The one on the far left, a nurturer helping to hold up little sister (she with the tiny boots and ruffled jeans). That bow-legged fellow with the Ostrich skin boots off to the right--truly an individual who is just as happy to go it alone, like Batman (only without the baggage...or utilty belt).

We're going to get this picture blown up big and hang it over a doorway somewhere. It really captures the personalities of my kids--at that moment when their boots were new.

Raaaaaaaiiin!

So I was merrily whittling away on my work this afternoon when I heard--though I found it hard to believe--thunder! My office has no windows, is burrowed deep in the bowels of a Wal-mart sized building...so when I did find a window, I was shocked! The rain is coming down sideways, just like home (western Kansas, where we did not know precipitation fell from above, for it was always windy).

I surely hope it is raining like this at my property, some 20+ miles north, for we need it on the garden and grass. (I guess, on the bright side, I've not had to mow for a month.)

Rain is so invigorating. Have I ever tired of it? I cannot fathom such a thought, not right now, when I'm so happy to have it again. I am acting like we've been in some horrible drought, but it's not even been a month, honestly, since we had a shower. (Back home, it was often 6 weeks w/o a drop.)

If I did not have so much work to do, I'd kick off my shoes and go run in the rain, right now!

For better or worse

Well, I had 3 days of something-like-summer recently. I was able to take each one of my boys out and spoil him for a day. Jax, the oldest, liked video games, air conditioning, and a movie at the Palace. Carson, on the other hand, wanted a tour of regional lakes (we hit 6). Edison, age 3, was thrilled to spend the morning at the zoo, then ask to share the afternoon with his brothers swimming in a lake and playing at a splash park.

My wife and I even had 1/2 a morning together out on the town. We even got to eat at a restaurant with silverware and plates!

All this after the big, annual back-to-school camp out bonanza we always do at our farm. (I think, now, that we should just call it that: the bonanza!)

That's all the "for better" part of the post, all an improvement on last post's "un-summer" woes. I have since eclipsed all the sorrows of that post with my current state of affairs, tuning up classes with all new books and online content. I was hoping to finish today, but it looks like a long weekend ahead. *sigh* Eventually, it will all be worth it.

I have withdrawal symptoms when away from my family. I also get a nervous tick in my eye when I work this much on the computer non-stop.

The un-summer

This summer has seemed to be lackluster. There have been no exotic family trips (though I did go to NYC, it was not the same and not w/family). No kids were born (though Ella did celebrate her first birthday). We've had no major construction projects, where in past years it was remodeling the house, building the carport, etc. I have, of course been working on the pirate ship steadily, I guess, but that is not yet a milestone project.

I should not belly ache. My best friends are in more complicated straits:

• wife battling and recovering from cancer
• being deported to Afghanistan
• enduring a liver transplant

...while I am just boo-hooing being bored and overworked.

Nonetheless, things have seemed humdrum. Yes, I taught 3 extra summer sections. Yes, I've kept the farm mowed and maintained. Yes, I've been home most of the time for people. Yes, I have my health.

I just feel like 1/2 a guy, like I'm running on battery backup and not full-charge. I look around at all that I've not done, all that I'm not doing, and I get more and more undone. I think of how I longed for summer, but that now that it's waning, I'm realizing (as I do with every season and semester change, everyone's birthday, every turn of the calendar) the moment is passing.

Summer....it escapes me.