Spring Break

Spring break...It ends up being time that's slowed down to reveal all the many things I've not been tending to due to the harried pace of the rest of life. I like these breaks (hey, they are breaks) for they give cause to pause and reflect. I do not know how I would ever regroup or improve without them.

Not all my life's breaks have had this behind them, but I'd say they have over the last ten years....so at least twenty reflective breaks or so....without the life/schedule I lead, I guess I would be much worse off than I am. Then again, reflection is not action. Neither is intention action. I have reams of well-wishing, good goal tending, all that fell fallow. I guess....at least I was that mindful, even some twenty-five years ago, that I wanted to get better, do better, do more, be more...whether I've really applied myself or reached much of all that--at least I did take aim once in a while.

I wonder if its like muscle memory. Had I not taken aim, never gotten in the mode of it all, would I utterly lack ambition. I seem to see a lot of people who have absolutely none. Is that what happened to them? Did they never pause to reflect, aim to improve?

All this aiming seems too often to come to so very little (see recent posts) but at least, I guess, I try.

Wait, wait! Don't tell me!

What a great radio show.

Right now, baby pj's that will issue a text message to your mobile device that tells you why your baby's crying, an "App for crap."

This morning has turned out quite surprisingly well. I slept in until 6. I did not clock in until 7. Then, about 8 I realized I did not bring all my gear, and was bummed. The phone rang, my wife needed the pickup, and I drove home, then went with the family to our favorite donut shop. It was tons of fun.

Then I drove 10 miles back toward the house before I realized I did not have my office keys, so I returned to Newton to find the family (all this w/o mobile phones, mind you) and secure my keys. Then 30 minutes later, I'm back at work.

All through the venture, I've been accompanied by NPR shows, first Car Talk, now Wait! Wait! (I seldom get to hear these because of kids and work.)

Listening to these shows, driving, eating donuts, seeing family--all better than the typical morning of grading papers. It felt like summer. It felt like...leisure. It was really quite nice.

Now, back to grading. *sigh* (Only 6 days to spring break, only 64 days to my summer vaca!)

Busted

[whine alert]

Hand to mouth. Paycheck to paycheck. I looked back through at least six months of this blog, and it's been at least that long since I vented on this subject here. I do recall someone back when who jumped me about such whining, claiming I likely made twice what they did, that I should have no reason to carry on so...

But I do. I venture that I've had good genes, good education, good opportunity, yet here I sit in a job that's got no room for advancement. There's no external, monetary incentive here to do great work. There's no merit pay or even much evaluation of performance. (My peers are up in arms about the prospect of such things, claiming that education cannot be parsed out and calculated like the processing of so many widgets.)

So why don't I just clock out, punch out, go home, shrug off the albatross or noose and just play with the kids more? I guess I just want to do my dead level best. My wife thinks I try too hard. I tell her that if I didn't, then students would see through me and mutiny ("What's he know? He's a farm kid from Ulysses, for cryin' outloud.")

I wouldn't be so moved by money if it were not that we are in dire straights. Nine people live in our house. It's a two bedroom house with a converted garage. Six of us sleep on air mattresses in the basement. We don't even own a car; instead we borrow and mooch vehicles from family. We cannot even pay all our own bills, depending on the fixed income and limited resources of our housemates and family to help round out the utilities and groceries. I feel ill if I pay $10 for a bunch of socks. Most all my wardrobe is from Goodwill. My kids think hand-me-downs and thrift store clothes are just the norm. I don't even own a lap top or mobile device at all. The closest I have is a 5 year old iPod that was given to me by the college for training and deployment.

There's just too much I want to do for my kids to be living like this. I want to give them a good life. I want them to never be embarrassed by our situation. I want them to see the coast, to go on vacations, to be able to afford new shoes sometime.

Just writing all this makes me furious and depressed. GROWL. *sigh*

Out of Control

I have not ever thought of myself as anything of a control freak. I've never considered myself one of those people to shun change or otherwise cling to the safe and known. (Thus spake the born/raised/permanent Kansan?!)

I am finding, however, a particularly sticky wicket in parenting: control. I knew it was coming. I knew it even when my wife was first pregnant. I figured it would spiral out of control the more I was away from the house, the farther the children strayed from the bosom.

I was right. I am still in the early pains of it and I know there is much more to come. That does NOT make it any easier or more palatable.

What's so out of control in my home and fortress? TELEVISION and COMPUTER TIME.

This is worse than losing the battle on pop, on bed time, on co-sleeping, on toys....because to me, these are stealing the very childhood right from under the kids. They are exposed to such horrors through television that I won't even write about them here (again). Computer time is now so charming it is winning them from the great outdoors, even from board games and 'rasslin' with daddy.

I hate those two elements in my home. I think they should be regulated (not by the gov't!) very strictly, frankly even as cautiously as PORN. (Maybe even more rigorously, if you really want to know my opinion.)

I know and believe in the educational powers of these media. One can make great gains with Mavis Beacon or the History Channel. I'm all for those. I'm just hating on everything ELSE.

You know I'm miffed as much as I've used ALL CAPS in this post.

(sorry for the rant)

listening to Daft Punk "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger."

Ladle Rat Rotten Hut

Anguished English



This is a dynamic exercise for anyone, to use 'real' words to substitute for actual words of a fairy tale, poem, etc. They must sound similar. It's a great practice to stretch one's language skills to the extreme.

I first encountered this when in Linguistics class.
I also was exposed to it when learning to teach others to read.

I find it intriguing, and I like to commit passages of it to memory.

Oil ketchup wetter letter!
(I'll catch up with you later)

I see you

So, yes, I turned 50 this last week.

The thing is (and everyone says something like this) I feel like a kid inside. I mean, at the risk of being too vulnerable, I have the same insecurities, the same marvels, even some of the same social constructs I had as a kid. This, of course, makes me wonder...

Does that all important public leader still feel (like I do sometimes) that he is just fooling everyone, that he's not really all that important or empowered? This happens to me sometimes in every role from teacher to parent, from good citizen being wrongfully pulled over to man moving peers to be better servant-leaders. Underneath it all, I'm still wondering if they like my kewl shirt, man.

Does that intimidating clerk, that authoritative banker, that omniscient doctor, that brilliant researcher--fret over whether people like them? Do such people fuss with their smile in the mirror and get all anxious over a little zit? Do they try to hide farts? Do they fantasize they are Indiana Jones?

Sometimes (just for a split second) I think I can see through the veneer, the mask, and identify the wee person inside who is just as sensitive as my pre-teen self. We are on opposite sides of a big desk, both of us suited in our meet-the-attorney fatigues, both of us frowning just-so at the paperwork between us...but I catch a glimpse of a kid who loved Spaghetti-O's and comic books and racing a bicycle through puddles. I see a wounded spirit just wanting to be good pals, if only we didn't have to work and pay bills and pretend to be all grown up. On the inside he's saying, "I think you're hair's cool." On the outside, tapping his pen on the foreclosure forms, raising a practiced eyebrow, he's saying, "The confluence of your amortization matrix suggests imminent capitulation of all fiscal holdings."

I just want to say, "I see you. I have a frog in my pocket. I like girls because they taste like cotton candy."

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Cotton Candy!

What's in there?

I seem to be bristling with pseudo-psychology and paranormal poop lately--must be a sign of old age. Then again, it could be my listening habits. This morning on early morning AM radio, I heard a person talking about Jungian psychology and a well-documented line of thinking I'd never entertained before. In that broadcast they were describing young children who accurately reported images and icons that they had never been exposed to. These kids had seen such things in their dreams, then analysts had recorded descriptions from the children (even sketches) of hieroglyphics, runes, petrographic phenomena, even mathematical symbology. The theory is that we have a collective conscious that spans generations. We are all subject to these thoughts-not-ours, but children are less likely to be blinded by limited thinking, thus making them more receptive and more likely to remember the stuff of dreams.

I wonder, when my kids have tried to tell me things, what's happening in the old noggin. I think they are trying to find ways to connect with me, so they may be telling me more of what I respond to, less of what I never acknowledge in life (dust bunnies, for instance, are present, but never a major topic of discussion). I wonder what all they are seeing and remembering and picking up on in general that they have no schema to communicate. It's sad because all that may get left in the dust as their little brains are bombarded with commerce and otherwise as they scramble to be accepted into the 'norm.'

I do a lot of outside thinking, and I am commonly struggling for the words or associations to communicate what I'm wanting to share. I've seen this a good deal in my kids, too, as they are searching for words or ways to express. I've marveled at it when they are at a peak of emotion (sadly, usually wrath) and I try to get them to articulate just what they are experiencing. Maybe this not-yet-words-for-it syndrome I see in my kids is partly due to a stream of content that is never finding traction in the western world we are residing in. They cannot tell me about their encounter with a sphinx because they do not have any way to articulate it. Hmmmmm.

I wish we could get a mind tap that worked without cultural bias. Like portrayed in so many bad '70's movies, it would be a device that showed the imagery of dreams and deep sub-consciousness. I'd really like that!

Maybe that's what poetry can do?

Old writing

A few weeks ago, I pulled out a ream of stuff I'd written in grade school and high school. It was not your standard fare, essays and assignments, but it was a good sampling of creative writing I'd churned out back in the day. It was nothing spectacular, no evidence of being a child prodigy or anything, but it had something...some level of confidence that I really was going to be a writer or something. Oh, to be young again, to not know too much about the publishing world or the stiff competition, to never doubt yourself, to dream big...

I had that file out to share with my kids, to inspire them to write down the stories and ideas that they have just oozing from every pore right now. (I was also hoping that writing would help them with their horrific penmanship, but they saw through my guise.)

I still find some nuggets in my old writing, whether it's from grade school or just last year's blog post. I surprise myself all too often, say to myself, "humph, I didn't know I could write that!" I wonder if anyone else is impressed with Themselves Past, like I tend to be? I don't think much of the present person now blogging, but when I review his work years later, it's got potential, man.

Chance?

Most of the time, I am on the fence on all things supernatural. So much can be explained away. I know many of my friends and family are so very faith-based they find even this commentary offensive, and to them, I apologize.

However, take heart! I have been more aware recently of situations coming up that are just too spot-on to be coincidental. These are generally some sort of collective conscience, some group think, that then manifests itself in reality. I am very raw on this right now, I admit, and I'm going to do much better at documenting these as they roll up in my life. I'll also give some attention to the official terminology for such things as time/interest allow.

Here's just one, from today. I was enjoying a donut today, at the Donut Whole in Wichita, talking with my lovely wife about a former student who had worked at the establishment some time back. I was idly curious as to her well-being, wondering if she had continued writing songs and poetry. Well, whaddya know, unbeknown to me, she'd written to me 15 hours prior to my musings, asking how I'd been, if I could recommend any good poets, telling me all about her current creative writing class at KU. That's just bizarre, and that's just one of what seems to be a weekly happening in my life/times. I know its small and seemingly inconsequential, but it was startling to me.

Another: a little over a month ago, we were chatting and wishing Kyle and his wife (Kyle, my former little brother from Big Bros/Sisters, since then one of my best friends) would move back to Kansas. Within the week, we received word that, indeed, they ARE moving back, within this quarter!

Chance?

I don't think so.

I'm going to re-tune my instrument to more and more positive thoughts and manifest some more goodness.

Way to go...

It's 4am and I'm up with a biological issue (nuff said).

My faithful beagle is at my side. If I were blind, I'd still know, for he's NOISY.

Roger is 8, and he's never had a full complement of lung capacity (one doc said he was working on just 1/2 of his lungs, the other collapsed and never to restore). He was born into this, and he's always coped.

However, in the winter, in particular, he has a horrible hacking cough that's complemented by some gross mucus excretions. I think he has a horrible infection in his respiratory system. One vet gave us some pills but that dog's so smart he will NOT ingest them (and for his size, he's quite the fighter).

I wish I could get a fix, for sometimes he will get on a coughing/hacking fit that lasts thirty minutes. Some nights he's panting, gurgling, etc. all night long. I've seen him sleep through some days after nights like that. Poor guy.

It does bring up another question worth entertaining: how would you like to die? My kids asked me this yesterday, and I said: suddenly. That's an easy answer, but it's not too complete.

I know that I would NOT want to cough to death, like my poor beagle. I would not want to die of dysentery. I don't want to be a nuisance when I'm dying (hospital, home care, etc.) I would rather die in any of these ways than on-the-job, unless it meant better payoff for insurance.

My dad died in his sleep, but that would rob me of any famous last word opportunity.

I'd say I'd like to die in my wife's arms, but that seems burdensome and unpleasant for her.

Good ways to go:

1. traveling
2. doing something heroic
3. on good terms
   

....I thought I'd have more....I dunno. NOT eating a heart attack hamburger.

Just one food?

I've told my family and friends that variety in food is not important to me. Usually this comes up when I am feeding the beagle, and I note that, like him, I could eat exactly the same kibble every day for the rest of my life, for to me, food is just sustenance.

This raises the question, however, of just what one food I might want to eat every day for the rest of my days...

If there were no digestive/nutritional issues, this is an interesting question, indeed.

I love a good steak. If it's properly grilled, just the right cut....well, I think I could eat my weight in steak. Just writing about it makes my mouth water. Then again, if it were an everyday food, would I soon tire of it?

Mashed potatoes seem to me like manna from heaven. I especially crave the twice baked potatoes my wife makes with a little cream, butter, garlic...mmmmmmmmmmmm. Hungry.

I did not think of myself as a meat and potatoes man until I started this entry.

I could live on Sugar Crisp cereal. That's a certainty. I would eat it every morning if I could, even now.

I could likely eat anything at all, if it were piled high with Cool Whip.

I just cannot decide, but I think perhaps the almost perfect food would be watermelon. I just might try that this summer!

10 days ago

A lot can happen in 10 days. In my world, it seems my kids can grow an inch in that amount of time. They can move from utter innocence to stupifying awareness in just 10 days.

In KS, of course, one can have all the seasons of the year in the span of just 10 days. In my last entry, ten days ago, it was raining. Just these last two days, it's been snowing and freezing. Who knows what the next 10 will hold--maybe I'll get a sunburn.

We cycle through a graduation, Valentine's day, and two birthdays w/n this 10 day period.

Surprisingly, my count down clock for the term tells me it's only 2 months and 28 days until grades are due again--and it seems I've just met this semester's students!

Maybe more than any other unit of measure, I can note growth and change by keeping an eye on our puppy. She's grown exponentially since we adopted her in July. Amazing.

Growth and change.

Airn

I used to work for a guy who had a speech impediment. Words that started with "r" for us, did not for him. This usually tripped him up most at the beginning of a sentence:

Can you run to the store? = simple enough to say
Run right over there. = NOT something he could auh-r-angle

--not that any of that is relevant, but he was a farmer, so we talked a lot about a'irn.

Just this last couple of days, we've received an official, welcomed two inches of precipitation! EVERYONE in my realm has been writing about the rain, but I thought I'd let it soak in a bit before I tried to write my ode to it.

I'd forgotten how a fresh rain makes it seem so much like spring. I'd taken for granted the calming effect the sound of falling rain has on me. I'd not paid much attention to the way rain runs off tree trunks, nor how run-off from a field can really tear through a dike or berm. At my place, a fairly flat plat of land, the water just stood and said, "Hey-a!" The whole property, well, the west 1/2 of it, anyway, where my house is, looked like a lake. I had to put down pallets to get to the chicken coop. All the jokes people make about my pirate ship ("he he, you're ready, you know, like Noah, if ever there's a flood") seemed not so out-there anymore.

I wish it were snow. Whenever I say this aloud, people stare daggers at me. Really, though, this rain is beautiful, soothing, all that---but it's too much too fast. Snow would have blanketed things a while, gradually melted into the soil rather than beer-bonging it. (I've never entertained using "beer-bong" as a verb before, and it didn't really work, but....you get a vivid picture, so I'm running with it.) This rain is a wild one-nighter, while the snow would have been more like going steady.

Now, I am all for fun and excess (I am an American, after all) but when it comes to my precipitation, I like it slow. Like my food and my dancing.

1/31/12

And so it ends, the first month of this new year. I usually save my lamenting for the end of semesters or the end of years, but nuts--I am going to miss this January. Maybe having a monthly reflection is not such a bad idea, if I can keep it out of the mire of regret.

This January was the warmest I can recall (but then again, I do not know where I parked my truck). It's been a month of resettling into my office (my now glammed-out office, complete with paint and pictures and--well, you get the idea). It's a new term with new faces and that's always refreshing and motivating. We're just now starting to dig in for the long haul (already at the 3rd week mark). I've ALMOST kept my poem-a-day pledge, falling short only here in the last few days as I've battled this virus. I've recorded stories told to my kids faithfully. I've harnessed my wrath, my anxiety, my enthusiasm....

....but then, I've not been the ideal dad (not a reasonable goal, I know). I've not been exercising, even though I continue to pay for it and continue to envy my friends' reports on Facebook of 80 lbs lost here/there. I've not read much of a stimulating nature (outside of some great poems). I've not done anything special for myself or my wife.

So there's room to grow, I suppose. Nothing substantial to bemoan or regret--yet.

Farewell, January. I leave you without too many resolutions broken.

Down with the Sickness

Well, what's worse than a winter without winter? Answer: winter cold and flu without winter. Ohhhh I hates me a bad cold/flu, regardless of season, but when the whole family is plagued with it, I find it ten times more aggravating when it's so nice, so warm, so dry outside--yet inside where we're harbored, it's sticky and slimy with the mucus of wet coughs. Ugh.

What's even worse than that? Answer: when little kids get sick.

Before I made babies, I did not know how they worked. I was so distant that I had never held one until (at the age of 40) I held my own. I had no idea how very dependent they are, how very ignorant they can be. A kid can be startled by their own cough. They can toss their cookies all over themselves and not even realize they have (some) control of the outcome.

So it is in my house. The two year old cries because she does not know how to whine about being sick. The four year old (just turned five, technically) whines because he's uncomfortable. The six year old pretends he isn't sick, which compounds his ill health when he wears himself down. The nine year old curses the heavens and suppresses his cough until he nigh bursts. Ma in her kerchief and I in my cap--well, we just groan and feebly smile at each other.

Hmm, what's worse than all the above? Answer: going to work by day, nursing said cold/flu among the family by night. I don't know how super heroes do it.

Hoping for an awakening

Some days are so dismal, so pedestrian--or worse--so obviously void of any come-uppance whatsoever. I think, on these days which are increasingly common, that there might some day be a great awakening. I hope that I might roll out of bed a new man, responsible for myself and my surroundings. I wish I were suddenly inoculated with the will and wisdom to act uprightly and take the reins, to reinvent myself overnight. This is what I need--a suddenness as sharp as a tornado tip that could flip this house on the witch that is misguiding me.

Instead I blog and bog and mulk and mire, drowning in my misspent desire and burned out fire. I think, therefore I am, but what exactly am I besides tired?

George Washington

I just finished reading my first serious biography in some too many years. I feel like a complete ninny when it comes to history. Why? Because when I was in high school and college, I did not take such subjects seriously. (This is funny b/c my son, only 9, knows more about history than I ever did!)

George Washington was not only a great president, he also had the fate of the republic in his hands. He was repeatedly extended the offer of King, but he was absolutely against it, even if it might have made for smoother sailing in the short run, it would have undermined all he and those fighting the revolution had worked for. (I don't think I could turn down a throne, personally.)

I also learned much of how Hamilton, Arnold, Jefferson and others worked together (and sometimes at odds).

I was such an idiot, I guess I thought it was all said-and-done with 1776 and the Declaration of Independence. I now know it was prolonged, and I'm going to learn much more on my new history quest!

Annual reaming

As per the circadian rhythms of the digital realm, my PC died last week, as often happens to me at these most critical times. I have not gotten any smarter. I have not backed up content well. I did not even take a screen cap of all the program files I'd found and downloaded. *sigh*

Fortunately this is not my home PC, so there are genius-level tech support people here who restored the files I'd created (thousands).

Regardless, I feel nauseous every time this happens to me. I resolve to put more in the cloud, to back up content faithfully, etc. This time, I've already outsmarted all download and save functions to toss it all to the cloud and/or to an external hard drive. All my bookmarks are in the cloud via several tools (diigo, delicious, google bookmarks, evernote, etc.).

I'm sure glad nothing like this happens to me, personally. Imagine if your memory were wiped. This did happen to a friend of mine who suffered a brain aneurysm. She did not even remember how to eat, how to tie her shoes, etc.

At least my PC can still tie its shoes.

Poetry Challenge

I'm embarking on a new year's resolution to emulate a published poet every day. None of what I've cranked out so far bears even honorable mention, but I may, someday, put one up here or ship one out to a lit mag....who knows.

I'm posting this here to keep myself accountable. If I look back on this post in months to come, and I hang my head, well, that will just stink. Hopefully I will be able to keep imitating. They say if one can practice something for a month, it can become habitual.

Here's to habitual poetry!

Things I learned today

Frozen shrimp grouped neatly on a circular serving tray would make a great weapon--my wife asked me to break the arrangement up, and I grasped it only to learn all those little pointy shrimp tails were ever-more firm and lethal when frozen in position. It was like grabbing a cactus.

Working with play-dough, I was able to craft many things in 3D. I think I'm a frustrated 3D sculptor with no training, no context, just a simmering passion for it every time I encounter it in a museum or piddle with anything 3D, myself, in person.

My son tells me it's possible to swim in syrup--this from Myth-busters.

I liked hanging out with my wife (sewing) and 3 of my kids (engaged in crafts ranging from scrap booking to performing plays with cut out pirate figures). I was working on some online work alongside their very rambunctious ramblings. All five of us were in a 9x12 room, but we fit comfortably and had a great afternoon together.