Vince Vance’s music video, I am New Orleans, is a musical collage of sights and sounds of the city released for the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Vance, who has lived in New Orleans for most of his life attempts to honor the city and showcase its beauty and its uniqueness.
These arrived at the beginning of my 7th hour class on Friday:
This was the card:
“Thank you for being my Mom and giving birth to me on this day 25 years ago. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, and I love you so very much. I hope you have a wonderful day.”
School started Monday. MONDAY. Good grief.
For years and years, we’ve attended professional development on Wednesday and Thursday, then the students show up on Friday. After an interminable homeroom, there’s a shortened schedule. This gives students an opportunity to sashay down the halls in their new frocks or funk, scope out the new kids, reunite with the old ones, and, oh, meet their teachers in all seven classes.
Just enough time in class for me to hand out my syllabus, give them their supply lists, and reassure them that not every rumor they’ve heard about me is true. They’ll have an opportunity to decide for themselves in the next few days or weeks or months.
Then, that weekend, parents and students would swarm the local WalMart, Target, and Office Depot casting shadows over anything related to school supplies.
Not this year.
I just finished day three, and I’m wondering why the calendar isn’t saying October…
But, in another surprising development:
Sunday night, the husband and I and our fun friends, Billy and Carrie, actually ventured out of our comfort zones. We went to the Cyndi Lauper concert at the House of Blues. On the night before the first official day of school. Yep. We did it.
But had I known that one STANDS UP for the ENTIRE CONCERT at the House of Blues, I probably would not have signed on to see Cyndi. This girl just wanted to have the kind of fun that didn’t involve tiptoeing to share five inches of a stair with another 4′11″ chick because inevitably every tall person in the place stood in front of us. It was as if the universe kept trying to achieve some vertical balance by planting these towering humans of every shape between us and the stage.
What follows is entirely random:
A nice surprise today to find my “How I Found My Agent” story featured on Chuck Sambuchino’s Guide to Literary Agents blog.
Alanis Morissette just announced that she and her husband, who goes by the name of Souleye (seriously) are going to have a baby. Is that ironic? No, Alanis, it’s not.
Oh, and a few more headlines from momlogic that I found riveting:
Okay, to stay on my self-imposed schedule of dividing my at home time between school and writing, I have to wind down. So far, my class load is over 160 students. If they have two assignments a week, that’s 320 pieces to grade. If I spend three minutes (ha!) on each paper, I’ll need 16 hours to grade.
Is it June yet?
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
I recently began contributing to Adding Zest to Your Nest, a blog that explores women’s sexuality as Christians. If you’ve not had a chance to visit, please do.
In researching my upcoming blog post for Adding Zest, I found Be the Smart Wife, and promptly decided to add Carin Goldstein to my BFF list. Her blog’s subhead is: how to take care of yourself and your marriage without killing your husband.
What’s not to love about a woman who, in two minute video vignettes, addresses dilemmas such as
“WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU COME HOME TO THIS?” When you come home from an afternoon of errands, are you baffled by the fact that your husband is completely unaware of the disarray throughout the house? If you find yourself biting your lip and trying oh so hard to not say “What the HELL is this?!?” then watch my video below and I will guide you to a muuuuuch better place:
“ARE YOU KIDDING??? I CAN’T BELIEVE HE’S STILL UPSET WITH ME!” Just when you thought the argument was over, you were wrong, wrong, wrong. How do you know this? Because your husband is acting as if you just ran over his cat and he wants little to nothing to do with you.Watch the video below to hear how we answered YOUR question on how to handle the above…
And there’s more…just visit her blog. You’ll laugh and learn.
Carin is a wife, a mother of two, and a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with over 10 years of experience. And she’s witty. And honest. And real.
A Nation’s Strength |
|
| by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1904) | |
What makes a nation’s pillars high And its foundations strong? What makes it mighty to defy The foes that round it throng?It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand Go down in battle shock; Its shafts are laid on sinking sand, Not on abiding rock. Is it the sword? Ask the red dust And is it pride? Ah, that bright crown Not gold but only men can make Brave men who work while others sleep, |
(With my 40 year high school reunion nipping at my heels, I thought about this post.It’s a re-run, but I hope you enjoy it.)
In the introduction she wrote to Lee Gutkind’s anthology, In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction, Annie Dillard suggests new writers “follow their own weirdness.”
Fortunately, for me, that’s a short trip.
In fact, my mother always used to say that I attracted quirky, weird friends. [But, of course, not any of you who happen to be my friends reading this.] Perhaps that’s why I became a teacher. Now, I’m not only surrounded by weirdness, I invite it. Not creepy weird, like the character in the Austin Powers movie who saved his flaky skin in a box. But weird as defined by those unafraid to be themselves.
Society’s bullhorn message is “walk this way, work this job, wear these clothes.” Bravo to those who choose not to be the best of the worst or the worst of the best; in other words, average.
I realize that, to some–okay, maybe to many–I’m slightly off center. Which proves I have no sense of direction. Oddly, though, in high school I was an introvert. I rarely spoke in class, never joined clubs or played any sports. I spent four years in self-exile in the land of insecure. I was perpetually self-conscious about my hair, my body, my clothes, my everything-or lack of it. So, why am I shocked when I meet women in my graduation class, and they can’t remember my name?
Finally, I guess, I’m old enough, tired enough, experienced enough to, frankly, not give a Hoover’s Dam what everyone else thinks of me [well, I do care what Jesus thinks of me...]
I spent too many years compromising myself. I have a lot of time to make up.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=698c6ff7-198a-4874-afde-4c26fff12b92)
|
|
 |
|
