Goldfinch

Sideshows

2008-06-23T06:12:00.002-07:00

I've had some e-mail prickings (submission windows closing and direct invites, etc.) that have led me down a few side streets during this novel rewrite. Last week I rewrote the story that was a finalist for Glimmer Train and resubmitted it to three places. I'm finishing up an essay for this invitation.
I'll recommend this book to anyone!

My novel will make good progress before the end of the month. The ambitiousness of the project expands every time I write it. Imagine writing a book about your racial identity, now imagine including your eating disorder history, now imagine setting it in Africa, giving it two narrators and many people and places that would really like to keep their anonymity. Ironically, the trick to all this is to not think about it while writing it. There is no way you can produce anything that does more than touch an certain aspects of all these topics. The trick is to do justice to the aspects you "choose"

Writing? YES!

2008-06-14T14:23:00.000-07:00

It's moving! Thank God I'm writing again. That's all I can ask . . .that I don't stare at the screen and hate myself and
wish I didn't have this writerly compulsion that brings moodiness, joy, dejection, and happiness. OK, the one emotion being a writer does NOT create in me is apathy. Is that an emotion though? Is that like debating whether white is a color?

Meanwhile, my impending move to New Zealand yields google results such as
this one

How's the Writing Going?

2008-06-07T07:09:00.000-07:00

Generating words has never been a problem. Perhaps the "problem" is that this particular manuscript has already been held by a publisher for a period of time before rejection -- meaning that its well past the insulated pupae stage and more like a winged thing uncomfortably turning around inside a chrysalis. What I have, right now, is 9K words "on deck" and 70+K words in another file waiting to be filtered and attached as I move through with my fine comb. The book was nonfiction for so long that I have to remind myself where I now have liberties . . .like learning the way to key a sticky lock and suddenly having the lock changed. I've also split the narrator into two people. One is a third-person voice and the other a first-person. The implication is that they are the same person. A reader can choose why such a division exists, but each carries a very different voice.

This is my last week working all 7 days at some job or the other. It's also the first week when my New Zealand trip feels 'real'so I get distracted by trying to do lots of little things to prepare for leaving the country.

The Span of Imagination

2008-05-31T07:45:00.000-07:00

Without pulling punches I will be running a "JuNoReWriMo" (without caps that reads Junorewrimo) as reported on this blog. I have a novel that begs for rewriting. My month's goal is 80K--completely doable as the invisible back-work of my hippocampus has been computing all this for months. It's already June 1 in New Zealand, so here goes--

More on process

2008-05-20T06:31:00.000-07:00

While I'm dealing with reality, I need to acknowledge that for me to write personally satisfying work, work that makes me full, corrects my sense of schism, and (from the few accolades I've accrued) is good, I need to drop down to this very obsessive place and then stomp around in it. I don't in anyway believe that writers and good artists require this kind of unhealthy tremble to create. I don't think good writers need to be alcoholics, Emos, or on medication. But I have, in partnering with someone who is so much more 'on the table' about things found that letting the natural process FOR ME take over appears very, very distressful when viewed by someone with a different creativity.

Still, once I'm "inside" a piece it all irons out. But I'm not great company when I'm writing. OK, at moments I am, but I'm disengaged from a lot of things and people.

Who we are

2008-05-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

I haven't hidden much on this blog, though I bounce between funny observations from my daily chaos and soulful renditions of my spiritual health. It's finally ocurred to me that that is my true character: this fragile, cataclysmic, emotional creature, and a jester-like reporter of prickled happines. People like me sometimes earn some non-complimentary terms: unstable, emotionally immature, suffereing Peter Pan syndrome, from poor impulse control, and other caustic and unhelpful descriptors. It can be difficult to remember that everyone who does (or might) use such phrases does so because they wish--in some way--for the freedom to be the type of child I remain. No one has called me names recently. But I feel dealing with truth is more effective than sheilding one's eyes and trying to live otherwise. Kindly spoke, I have an artistic and affective temperament.

There are some young teenagers in my life who are entering the whirlwind course of high school/parental/societal pressures. These are children on whom great hopes are pinned. They are their parent's reasons and redemption. They are tasked with doing what we "failed" to do ourselves. No matter how it is communicated and assured, they know. They carry with them the undone and the unborn. Here, in these developed countries especially, while we say we want them only "to be happy" this is no more true than the idea that college is "years away"--it is true as it is said, and untrue as it is lived. What we risk in this translation with these children is that they "fail" on both counts. They never accomplish what we truly gave them as tasks, and they never find how to create happiness and self-satisfaction in their lives.
What will it take to give them the freedom we truly want to? First, be truthful with ourselves, then forgive ourselves, then set ourselves free.

Foundling

2008-05-16T07:18:00.003-07:00

Some writers consider the rewriting of a draft the most enjoyable part, and I'll admit that some of those "AHA!" moments in terms of narrative arc, voice, and plot come together are thrilling, but I currently sit among the memories and detritus of three separate book manuscripts. They're all ambitious works. But "Foundling" is the one that needs to be finished first. Sure, I've been busy . . .that makes a marvelous excuse. But let's take stock of what this particular book is about and why it's caused such anxiety and growing pains. 1) It's about racial identity, particularly mine 2)It's about class structure 3)It involves writing the emotional truth about people still living 4)It involves revealing myself in my least admirable era, something akin to those 'naked dreams' everyone has had . . .

So why write it? My answer is in the last three words "everyone has had . . ." And besides, people love reading about train-wrecks. And God knows we need some openers for frank discussion about race and class and love and humanity. I think I'll do it.

Currently reading this book which I think I would've benefitted more from had I read it five or six years ago. It would be intersting to read it alongside this one if we are really to discuss the "landscapes of Western minds".

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

2008-05-07T15:32:00.000-07:00

I read this classic book by Eric Carle to my morning group of preschoolers who'd never read it before. Even with their limited attention spans they loved it. The afternoon group is just a little older and most of them had read it before. To enrich the experience for them I like to stop and ask questions while reading. The hungry caterpillar hatches from an egg on a leaf in the moonlight. I asked "What else hatches from eggs?" knowing they'd just finished studying farm animals. The loudest boy in the room shouted "SHEEP!"

Imagine . . .oh, I wish it were true!

Caution

2008-05-06T07:52:00.000-07:00

It's really hard not to raise an eyebrow when you get an e-mail from a government 'animal health' agency that begins "We are pleased to inform you that this week's disease information is listed at . . ." You can go to this web clearinghouse and see every foot-and-mouth-avian-influenza-and-on-and-on outbreak from India to Botswana. How did I get on this e-mail list you may ask? In my application frenzy two months ago I signed up to be part of the on-call "elite special force" (another phrase that elicits a hard blink)for these sorts of things. I actually took a Saturday and did some online FEMA training. I wonder if the gov is reading my blog. I wonder if my economic stimulus kickback will arrive now.

Meanwhile, I'm avidly reading Narrative of the Life Of Frederick Douglass. It was originally published in May of 1845. The literate portion of American society had not yet taken up reading the novel; instead, they were enamoured of reading an embellished form of 'autobiography' that would make that million tiny pieces guy seem honest. To verify his story, Douglass mailed a copy of his manuscript to his former master .

And new life for old tires, as you see here, doesn't look pretty yet but should service well. Here is an example of raised bed gardening. The soil temperature stays warmer longer, the soil environment is more managed with compost and weed shields, and--once things grow--is has a kind of aesthetic to it. I'm not yet sure what kind of aesthetic. . .
I also planted giant sunflowers against the wall. We'll see how they do. Nice to know I drove from Alaska to Upstate NY on these tires and back and now they'll grow me some vegetables.

Today's funnies

2008-05-05T12:53:00.000-07:00

The Feed Store marquee sign today says "Mothers' Day Sale: 15% off all cattle prods and electric fencing"

The Chinese geese goslings have figured out how to unscrew their brooder heat-bulb with their beaks. At first I couldn't figure out why that light was out each day and always loose in its socket. While I was there for several hours yesterday I caught them in the act. They haven't fledged out yet, but I guess they're warm enough. Or perhaps this is their "rage against the machine" for their poultry brethren down the road under the heat lamps at KFC.

2008-05-03T21:40:00.000-07:00

I will correspond with this man before my chance closes. Before we lose him, too.

Ride your yak to work

2008-05-03T18:48:00.000-07:00

Bring your yak to work day could become a national event. I suggest we put Nerf(TM) soccer balls on the tips of their horns. They're really only dangerous when they're scratching the sides of their faces on you . . .

Next Sunday I'll be--finally!-- going out to Sawmill Creek Ranch in Delta to see my friend's herd and tame a few calves down. With gas prices as they are I'm considering commuting on one as well.

See other blog today

2008-05-02T17:03:00.001-07:00

Grammar Beef

2008-04-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

I'm the last person who's (notice the CONTRACTION) allowed to criticize anyone for their grammar, but the recent run on plural nouns punctuated as possesive makes me NUT'S!! (haha)
Meanwhile, those inquiring minds that asked what Polish chicks look like as adults can check here or here depending on how inspired you felt by yesterday's post.

Chicken Saddle

2008-04-27T21:03:00.000-07:00

No, it's not for Barbie(TM) to ride the ol' gal but this chicken saddle will spare her dorsal feathers . . .

Over dinner this evening we were discussing that the local ice cream stand "Hot Licks" has opened for the season. The other seasonal venue across the street is called "Bun on the Run" (cinnamon rolls). Of course, "Bun" is operated out of a kiosk in the Beaver Sports parking lot. So within fifteen walking feet are three local businesses worth punning yourself into a corner over. Steamed milk almost came out of Alexander's nose when we decided that Hot Beaver Bun Licks would cover all the bases.

Now Reading

2008-04-27T17:25:00.000-07:00

1. For my current farmophilia: This book is proof that one doesn't need excellent plotting or exemplary subject matter to create a masterpiece. And remember, "every single skein of wool the whole world 'round begins with a sweaty person and pissed off sheep [shearing]".

2. For social justice: Tim Wise is kindred. We read Affirmative Action as the final book in the FNSB School District's "diversity book club" (and how I've come to loathe that overused, trumped-up, self-satisfied term 'diversity'). If we really, actually believed that POC are no less smart and capable as whites then we would not have silently taken part in an educational system and economy that doesn't represent POC in percentages equivalent to that of the general population. Why aren't more blacks in med school, college, whatever? Either you choose to believe they are incapable, or you choose to "believe" that institutional racism is real. Stop thinking it's the other white guy who's messing up here, folks. And get past the guilt and pandering 'color blindness' cowpies you keep stepping in.

3. For inner dreamscape needs: Antarctic Navigation

Imagine opening a shipment box filled with these (P.S.and a life update)

2008-04-26T07:08:00.001-07:00

I worked with a fun, gregarious fellow last year who called the one adult Polish Crested chicken we had at Overlook "Eighties Rockstar Chicken". Unfortunately, the day we moved the 26 goats and kids to a new pen the crazy chicken was trampled to death. It was my day off that day, I remember that. Anyway, the chick barn at Alaska Feed is almost completely full, and I'm also enjoying some hours on the weekends where I am the unofficial 'poultry info, petting zoo, and chick packaging moderator'--able to i.d. a gosling breed from six feet away while rescuing banty chicks from an untimely death-by-drowning in the water dish. I've asked for higher management responsibilities in this company and The Big Boys are still navel-gazing and wondering "where did SHE come from?" while reading a barrage of recommendation letters from my wonderful friends and staring at my resume. The manager they may or may not replace is great to work with and he believes in me. The Big Boys just need some time, I think. In the meantime I accepted a summer position with the Fairbanks Borough as a 'Summer Youth Supervisor' at Pioneer Park. I get a running crew of young men and women in our city's "Alaska Disneyland" where major public events are held throughout the season. It should be fun. It's not even three miles of my house. Alaska Feed is a ten minute walk from my house. I just got a bike and my commutes are minutes long.

I won't be going to graduate school at UAF this fall. Instead, I'll be getting a dairy science certificate through University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign through their distance ed program. It's sad that until recent years I felt that all things exciting, interesting, and fun were happening at UAF. Now the more I deal with them and hear about their dealings through others employed there, I just get the stark feeling that they are part of the overarching over-mechanized problem in our community. In March I went to a sustainable agriculture conference here in town and the schism was real. UAF researches and CES people were suited and dressed to present grant-funded research on fruit trees that none of the rest of us--namely the growers selling crop shares at the Farmer's Market--could find applicability in. The reality is that real original and creative thinking just isn't finding its place at UAF these days. My rejection from their graduate creative writing program for the second time (after the first time I met with a department member who told me what I could do differently and I did THAT this time) is the personal testament to this. I spent January writing an original critical paper on Toni Morrison that went with my creative writing submission. It was good.

I've also been doing some vet teching out at North Pole as a temp. Last Wednesday I partnered with Tom from Calypso Farm to bring a sheep, goat kids, chicken, rabbits, and his sheepdog to Arctic Light Elementary to do a day-long ag-ed program. We had great fun. It furthered my dedication to that kind of educational programming and I'll be going back to working on my non-profit farm drafts soon. Of course, there we were with livestock on the playground and it was military firing practice day . . .
Gotta go, chick barn needs to be cleaned before the Saturday rush.

Everything Plays

2008-04-13T11:40:00.000-07:00

There's a "famous" (if you work in those circles ;) children's book Everyone Poops but there should be another called "Everyone Plays". The more species I deal with the more I'm moved by the universal development of 'play' in the young, how parallel we are with puppies, lambs, hamsters, kittens, and now goslings and other poultry. We begin our lives solely focused on nutrition, warmth, ad rest, then our muscles start to exert themselves, start to stretch-stammer into clumsy movement, then we are suddenly intensely interested in toying with the skills that are the hallmark of the species we're a member of. In humans, it seems to be language, co-play, building/creating. In lambs it's flocking, running, nibbling, in kittens it's pouncing and biting. In geese it's water! I was moving between brooding boxes, having just left some week-old goslings with fresh shavings and water, when I heard massive commotion, the muffled thundering of web-feet all astir. I walked back over and the six goslings froze in place, water glistening on their yellow-brown down, dripping off their beaks, and spreading under their feet. I'm told that if they get much larger before being sold we give them swim breaks.

Computer skills I coulda/shoulda learned years ago . . .

2008-04-09T07:51:00.000-07:00

How I wish I could fulfill my continuing education requirement for my vet tech license by going to this instead of the same lame (pun intended) "increase your dental revenue with preventative care" educational fare at our annual state meeting this fall. I have to do 10 CE credits before the end of the year, and I'm considering some online CE, but there still is virtually nothing on farm animal/ruminant health care. Even I am surprised at the dearth of resources. We do have U.S-based American Association of Ruminant Practitioners but I'll still have to do some petitioning to get any CE through them. And I don't think attending the 50th annual sheep-shear-a-thon will count with the Alaska State Board of Professional Licensing.

I'm subbing again today. Tomorrow Suze and I are giving two high school classroom talks--at different schools!-- that's after I take care of the chicks at the feed store and before I go work at North Pole Vet Clinic for the day. "Giblet", our impaired turkey chick, died the morning after we got him, but the guys replaced him with two other bantam chicks. I think they'll grow up to be barred rock chickens, the ones that look dressed in houndstooth cloth. Sexing them is still hard for me. I'm thinking we'll just wait and see who lays eggs. Meanwhile, they are hysterical with worms! They chase each other and fight if you don't give them each one!

I taught myself PowerPoint and am feeling very self-satisfied with that. Tania also schooled me up in html tags, and I'm still enjoying the power and the novelty of that as you can see. . .

Roundup in chick corral!

2008-04-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

In the chick barn at the feed store there's a five-foot-long cattle watering trough in the center of the room set up to be a brooder to nearly 100 yellow-fuzzy Cornish crosses. To clean out the dirty shavings and the water-tower I get to take an enormous peice of corrugated cardboard and "herd" the whole peeping group of alarmed babies into one half of the brooder, then reverse it to clean the other side. A few tough-guy hold-outs get to experience the dreaded HAND -- my human arm lowering, chasing them around, then scoopong them up like a nerf-ball and pitching them back in with the group.

A half-dozen brooders of ducks and geese are set up, and of course the one brooder of bantam chickens. I'm still reading up on my chicken history, but bantams are essentially scaled-down versions of regular chickens. They come in most of he regular "flavors" and varieties (of which there are >130 !!). Why we humans developed miniature chickens may be related to why we created mini poodles . . .? If for no other reason I'd say it's because chicks the size of toothbrush heads are so damn cute you can't stand it. As you might guess, they aren't as popular for purchase as broilers or layers (don't get me wrong, you can broil a bantam, and a bantam hen will lay, Karl suggested humans developed bantams when they were more realistic about portion control!), so when the feed store orders a bath of bantams they usually come in packaged like a Whitman's Sampler, but without the flavor map. A few of every kind. Best guess wins.

Anarchy

2008-04-03T10:34:00.001-07:00

I have time to write this today because, in responding to a request for a sub "teacher's aide" at Lathrop High School my job for the entire day is sitting in the discipline office with a single student taking the HSGQE -- that's the 'high school graduate qualifying exam' (insert eye roll here). Yesterday I was a custodian and, despite doing good work all day, the evening custodian 'ripped me a new one' when he came in and found me checking my e-mail in the custodial office instead of checking the roof drains. I went to the school office in tears, this guy following me, and admin "yelled" at him and the whole thing was a mess. All day I was begging for something to do, the lunch lady said "don't bother cleaning 'cause there's XYZ club in here after school' and I said I would just 'spot mop to keep busy' . . . you get the idea. Today the principal of Lathrop logged me onto the computer "'cause you'll need something to keep busy for 7 hours". AAAAAA!

Independent of this, (I was thinking about this yesterday even before being unfairly verbally attacked as someone 'stealing money by doing nothing') I think this ineffective socialized education system just needs to go. Let's look at this a different way. If you're hauling water up a hill to pour it into a big bucket and HALF the water is draining out of the bucket each time . . .what do you do? Do you keep doing the same thing and pouring into the same vessel? If we are "losing" half our kids -- if half are kids are being left behind in every way spiritually, academically, and functionally -- can't we begin to understand that there is something structurally wrong with public education? OK, so it's the "minorities" being left behind. . . let's pour money into "diversity" programs. No. "Minorities" ARE America. These are OUR children. Let's stop fooling ourselves. The future of a democratic America isn't white. We are continuing to try to function in a system brought over by Europeans that was formally developed in the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth centuries when literacy and the sciences were the property of a moneyed and paternal religion. Every other culture in the world at that time was educating with peer-group oriented apprenticeships and tasks.
It is just so weird for me to stand in these public education rooms and begin every day "pledging allegiance"to a flag "under God" and "indivisible", then starting lessons standing next to globes and "save the earth" while being the person who collects hundreds and hundreds of pounds of plastic lunch trash because we don't cook or wash dishes in the schools. Lunch is sent up from Outside in plastic peel-and-eat packs, of which each child gets two.

On a lighter note, there's a free-to-good-home potty trained house-rabbit in the newspaper today. The catch? "To a snake-free home." Umm . . .

Questions at Woodriver Elementary

2008-04-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

1. Do boys EVER learn to flush?!? Is this a form of creative expression that girls simply don't need? Do we teach them differently?

2. What is a "country steak finger" ??? Does it have anything to do with GMO food and artificial insemination?

apparently it does:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23921668/wid/11915773?GT1=31037

I'm using both blogs

2008-03-31T09:35:00.000-07:00

check out the other one (link at right)

I'm busy

2008-03-28T07:29:00.000-07:00

Essays are building up in my spirit, but it seems that just staying on top of my sub jobs, book groups, canning classes, enterprise development, meetings, liaisons and applications I'm always"ON" in that way needed for public interface. My two days at Denali Elementary as a reading-intensive tutor Monday and Tuesday were very busy. I had groups of students from first through sixth grade all day with 5 minute breaks and a short lunch. Wednesday afternoon I was very happy to take over for the Health Sciences teacher at Hutchison High. She has a great room there, and I still love Hutch. Even though I didn't get a permanent position in the teen parenting program they still call me and have me sub as a tutor and childcare provider. The kudos they give for my work make it worth it. It was "fake an injury day" at Hutch yesterday and today is "backwards day"-should be interesting.

I have SO much more to write, but I need to be there by 7:15 am --

Read this book

2008-03-27T13:36:00.000-07:00

order it here

http://store.tcpress.com/0807746657.shtml

Lathrop HS and Woodriver Elementary

2008-03-18T17:43:00.000-07:00

Monday I was at Lathrop helping some "angry young men" get through the day. We are such fragile people, it seems to me. Here, again, are teenagers struggling with a world too large, too cold, too lost, to be able to give them any echo chamber for who they should be. I had one fellow hand in a sheet that asked him to list "four things you can do to help you meet your goal(s)". In angrily slanted writing, a kind of writing meant to cut through this kind of question, he wrote:
1. nothing
2. nothing
3. nothing
4. nothing

On another sheet, for another question, he said the thing he wished for most was an ability to concentrate.
There's someone in there, I could tell.
I was also sent on an hours-long errand into the Lathrop High School yearbook archives. I was tasked with collecting photos for a retirement party for a teacher who'd been at Lathrop since graduating there in 1966 (minus a few years for college and kids). I snuck a look at a friend of mine's profile from years ago and found out that she had run for the "Miss Teen Alaska Peagant"! She was awfully cute, of course :)

Today I was at an elementary school with the young kids with FAS, ADD, etc. Another good day, but another one for learning and patience.

Dies Docui

2008-03-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

= "a day to instruct"

What I like about this phrase is its lack of subject, its ambiguous 'active' vs. 'passive' voice. I think it connotes that we are just as likely to be the teachers as to be those taught.

Still Life with Dried Cranberries

2008-03-14T07:43:00.000-07:00

It's quite a bit easier to list the myriad of things I've been doing than to tap myself for real reflection this week. There may be a scientific explanation for why some weeks (or months ?) are made for more pragmatic tasks in the world, and other weeks are made for more spiritual gathering and artistic expression. Sure, some of it is the return of sunlight up here. Other factors for me, are the relative return of health after a period of advanced struggling to cope. For whatever reason, the past two weeks have been busy for me "being fully in the world". I've been talking to people about practical concerns. I've been learning about practical tasks.
An assorted list
1. I am learning the legalities of business and government as they pertain to farming. I am reading legislation and talking to 'official' people. I am meeting with business development people, learning about 501(c)3 paperwork, the 'corporate veil' and rewriting business plans.
2. I am becoming a "master food preserver" with the local cooperative extension service. I'm taking a canning class and making cheese. I've learned to home pasteurize milk, and I've re-learned to make bread.
3. I've begun composting with worms, knitting slippers, carding wool, and learning from many, many local farmers about why and how and with what species they make their living.
4. I still have no answers for summer employment and graduate school, but I am allowing myself to hope for the options that I truly want and have applied for.
5. I've begun to accept that what I am truly doing is changing careers, walking into a 'no man's land' of passage that has no clear-cut means of entry. I am, as they admonish us to do, "following my bliss"--not because I think the world is ending (this may be arguable, however:) but because these new tasks and connections bring great satisfaction. I have no idea where 'the money' or even when. I have planned for this as much as I can with the variables as they are.

Of self reflection, I can say that I'm edging up on some useful self-disclosure. We talk about local food supplies and farming. We talk about 'slow-food' USA, becoming a locavore, global politics, farm animal welfare, the disappearance of family farms, the heritage loss of local craftsmanship. I have a personal interest in how we are remediating the loss of connection with farm animals and sublimating much of that "racial memory" into our relationship with pets. And I also have a personal interest in the way the radical change in the American food economy and the clinical rise in eating disorders coincide. As I skirt the issue of penning an essay (not for this website) about "Why eat local? Why remember 'the farm'?" I'm feeling that there is a real dearth of information regarding either of these parallels. I grew up in an area with no active 4-H group. I grew up in an area--and in an era--where every conceivable food item from around the globe was available at any hour of the day. Often, it's dietetic version was also available. Instead of being freed by such a level of food security, by age 11 I was diagnosed by Yale Hospital as anorexic. That began the odyssey of food drama that underscores my life. And I am not alone. At all. But to come to a place, however belated, where there is a personal and finite relationship with food -- because it comes seasonally, because you know the animal that was butchered, the friend who named her chickens and sold you the eggs, because you have worked hard, HARD through the day and have the sensation that you are finally tasting skillet-fried potatoes and onions for the first time, this is a blessing. I wonder if we were to take all the anorexics and bulimics out of the treatment facilities, and take all the "bad kids" out of the high schools, give them each a human buddy, and then a lot of hard work alongside animals and garden rows (I mean TIRE them out) if we might heal? What would happen to the energies behind the 'conservation movement'? It sure takes a lot of energy to maintain an eating disorder as well as an active, antagonistic relationship with school administration -- what if that energy were used to respect themselves and their world?

Here's to idealism, I suppose. Here's to hope.

Lesson plan I did with Pre-K at Arctic Light Elementary

2008-03-05T19:16:00.000-08:00

For three days we "studied" the caribou migration with the 3-and-4-year-old sped kids at school.

Billy Buckley and defection, or degrees of separation or something

2008-02-29T09:07:00.002-08:00

I last "hung out" with William F. Buckley, Jr. in November of 2003. We were all in black and navy blue. It was my aunt's memorial service at Caramoor in Katonah, NY. My aunt, born in 1912 (a great-aunt, really) , had been pulled from Juliard to be the Buckley's music teacher. She taught Billy piano, harpsichord. He spoke of his crush on her and riding in her car's jump seat when he was not yet 10. My Aunt's best friend was Patricia Buckley Bozell (a younger son), who had two sons. Brent Bozell runs the Conservative Communications Center and his brother, Michael, became a Benedictine monk in France. At Auntie's memorial there was a photo of her with Patricia and Michael at his grounds in France. Michael truly has marmalade colored hair. Thirteen years ago Auntie sent three of my stories to Billy. I may still have the note he sent back in 1994-- in handwriting already tremorous and angular with an aging hand. At nineteen I really didn't know who he was or why he was important. I somehow let the info that he "ran for mayor of NY" dissolve into the red wine and brie cheese conversations around me.

How do we get to where we are in our lives? Like most people, I want to trace the path of familial attachments, ideological evolution, moral coding and inheritance. It is difficult to find the sense for me, especially coming back from a family trip into North Carolina two days ago. I am reading and rereading Wendell Berry, a man grounded in the concept that we are place, that the co-evolution of people and their land is what makes modernity so fractured and sad. I am a product of my time here in Alaska -- my choice fifteen years ago. Or something. Or something else. I'll write another book about this, I suppose.

FARM AND ENTERPRISE NEWS

2008-02-20T18:08:00.000-08:00

"catmilkscows" is active again. Use the link at right to get there.

Writing and Judgement

2008-02-17T10:35:00.000-08:00

I wrote a story three days before New Years' in an attempt to just do something and finish something even if it amounted to just a "fart in the breeze" as most of my zealous endeavors have amounted to lately. I finished the story and described it to my partner as "a real misanthropic wrist-slitter"-- a distasteful peice, something I wanted to shake off. But I had this feeling that the readers at Glimmer Train . . I just had this feeling. Anyway, it was a finalist. That's nice, but the story is a mess technically. Words are actually missing. I was so deep in my funk when I wrote it that the really embarassing "their" instead of "there" and its/it's stuff is wrong. I suppose I'm just kind of confused. We all do want to make sense of what happens to us, to follow the "if . . .then" clause because it's just too difficult to continue to function otherwise. I think I feel pleased, but a little apprehensive that maybe It's True: that valuable/honored literature is mired in the hopeless dismantling of what we think we see, and not filled with the joy and optimism that we all so desperately need.
It's probably just a story. It fit together reasonably well. It got lucky. So it goes.

Making the bed we're lying in

2008-02-15T11:42:00.000-08:00

from the HoughtonMifflin textbook "Economics" 5th edition, 2002

"Market failures may result because of an abscence of private property rights.Consider the pollution caused by auto emissions. Each driver of a car is imposing an externality on you. The problem is that neither you nor the driver owns the airspace in which the emissions occur. If you did you could restrict the driving activity or you could charge the driver a price that would pay for the externality. If the driver owned the airspace you would have to pay the driver not to drive and pollute. In either case, the externality would no longer be external; it would be part of the private costs."

From "Cheif Joseph" of the Nez Peirce, approx. 1830

"The earth was created by the assistance of the sun, and it should be left as it was . . .The country was made without lines of demarcation, and it is no man's business to divide it . . .I see Whites all over the country gaining wealth, and I see their desire o give us lands which are worthless . . .The earth and myself are of one mind. The measure of the land and the measure of our bodies are the same."
--------------------------

This is one of the most distressing parallels I think I've ever come across, in the way it informs my actions. Even the wording in the economics textbook is fairly combative and individual-centered. Frankly, when someone is "imposing an externality" on me I am immediately outraged. Never mind that I'm imposing the very same externality on them. And . . .say I do wish to start my own "learning center farm" -- I still have to hoop-jump through business plans and buying land. We can not go back. But the reality that "the earth and myself" are the same . . .in that, as soon as you cut it up you kill it, is exactly true. Cut of Cheif Joseph's arm and create--say--South Africa, then further divide that country so that it is too worried about ownership within its own boundaries to notice that Cheif Joseph's left leg has been cut off to make--say-- Ecuador and Arizona. Inside all these large cuts are the mini-cuts of alarm systems and 'no-trespassing' and my yard and your yard and my hedges and your tree . . .and the only answer turns out to be lines drawn in terms of who owns airspace and bodies of water and shooting down planes and boats in the wrong spot.

It's time to go to cuteoverload.com for me. . .
This is just how we think. It's so deep.

Of Queens and Spanish speakers

2008-02-11T19:10:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a lot of subbing at the elementary school level, and I've had many chances to go back to the preschool rooms I've enjoyed (at the military base and another one in town). Today I was back where I was around Christmas time. There's a little guy in the morning group (call him Q), not much taller than about 3 ft. 2inch. Around Xmas he and I took to dressing up from the closet of donated clothes that all could've been Demi Moore's red carpet outfits from 1984. I even found us a faux tiara at the reuse area at the dump and brought it in to compliment his favorite dress. So, now it's February and I'm back in this classroom and this little boy is STILL enjoying this one particular outfit with a fitted bodice and lace sleeves. (Remember, these are the sons of military men :!) Apparently, he still chooses the outfit every day. Today, though, right when three of these well-dressed little people began to argue about how many princesses a preschool was allowed to have, Mr. Q yelled "YOU'RE the princesses and I'm the QUEEN!" Mr. Q's speach teacher was standing in the doorway . . .rather than cause him great distress she just took him by the hand and walked through the school to the speach-therapy room with this little boy in a velvet dress and a plastic tiara. During speech they practiced the royal wave. He returned self-satisfied, having done well in his lesson, his tiara firmly planted on his little round head.

Of Spanish? I'll write about that tomorrow.

She's picking up the slack here

2008-02-09T10:19:00.000-08:00

OK, well I'm having serious issues trying to link you to my "wife's" blog. She talks about the Yukon Quest and how it's still cold, and she does it with more color and vivacity than I've been able to muster. I'm currently reading and loving Wendell Berry's "Jayber Crow" and reading "Rethinking Columbus: the next 500 years" for my school district book group. The latter has sent me back into paroxysms of thought on environmental determinism in cultures. How much of it is environment, then overlay religiosity, and then . . . The reality is that in 1492 Europe was a vicious place--Italy, Portugal, Spain, Britian, Denmark--is there any other culture (a very BROAD stroke of the brush is calling all of 'whitey' a culture) that had refined their tortures so heartily? Other cultures have been harsh for certain, have owned slaves etc., but you have to ask why Europe plundered the rest of the world and not the other way around. Can we be surprised that Colmbus didn't "trade" the Indians(*ahem* Native Americans) for gold when he got here but cut the hands off those who didn't bring him gold so they'd bleed to death? It was 1492 for Chris'ake! That part of the "cultured" world didn't START to get its head out of its tush until Elizabeth showed up (don't get me started about testosterone).

Back to environmental determinism, I've even heard that a protein-based diet links back to the pituitary and makes more testosterone and makes a more warlike culture. WHA?? So how come the Native Alaskans didn't go over to New Zealand and claim sheep herds "by right of discovery" and force the people to farm freshies for them?

Good luck with this one, everybody. I wouldn't have written anything if I could've linked to Tania . . .

Full classrooms at 44-below-zero

2008-02-05T20:44:00.000-08:00

It's cold. Yup. And the morning ice fog makes driving on square (read: FROZEN) tires like navigating through a moonscape. But inside the buildings things are buzzing with activity, with lunchboxes and bent homework papers, pink sneakers and crinkle-covered library books. What changes is that recess is held inside at these temperatures. Anything colder than -20 F (wih some wiggle room for wind chill) makes it impossible to guarantee anyone's safety outside. I was in a first grade classroom today when the overhead speaker announced "The fourth graders may now take their walk." A little girl with jelly on her face asked if she could close the classroom door. "They are just so LOUD!" she said.
"When do we get our turn?" I asked. Apparently after the (rolls eyes) sixth graders.

Not long after learning of this hall-walking tactic with cooped-up elementary kids, I was excused to take my own lunch. Eight of us in the lounge were enjoying lunch when one of the teachers on recess duty stuck her head in and asked "Carol, did you tell your class they didn't have to walk?"
'Carol' almost leapt out of her seat "NO! They HAVE to walk! I'll CHASE THEM! They almost killed me yesterday after indoor recess!"

I wonder if we just stopped feeding them on these really cold days if they'd slow down a little.

Fun trivia

2008-02-01T11:10:00.000-08:00

"Urolithiasis [kidney and bladder stones] is a common finding in the captive population of Asian small-clawed otters."

--from the Journal of the American Veterinary Association, an article directly after the titillating "ECG of the Month"

The missing link

2008-01-31T10:36:00.001-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6416735.stm

The things "they" didn't teach us

2008-01-31T10:36:00.000-08:00

The older I get, the more I'm certain that is has nothing to do with what school we go to, but our willingness to be responsible for our own education, to forgive those who didn't/couldn't know it all and were products of their own time and tradition. The great--universal?--heritage of humans is one of curiosity, especially about each other. I found the first glimmer of curiosity that lead me to the link below in NAACP's The Crisis Magazine. None of us are inherently morally superior to others. We are all struggling to honor individuals and groups, to make sense of the global parfait --the "fallout" of human curiosity and migration.

And, if you ever find yourself as the lone white-girl at a gathering to listen to one of Dr. King's comtemporaries and the auditorium opens by rising and belting out the following song -- that you are left standing, silently, in the middle of while your body thrums with the energy around you the . . .here are the words

The Black National Anthem"
by James Weldon Johnson

Lift ev'ry voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring.
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise,
High as the list'ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee,
Shadowed beneath thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

Lathrop shout-out

2008-01-29T15:42:00.000-08:00

I appear to be running Lathrop High School's suspension ward today and tomorrow. We had one gentleman with a reservation and five others as walk-ins. Things are actually going quite well. I finished knitting my first alpaca-roving-lined slipper and taught an angry, 6' hockey player how to finger knit with his left hand. His paperwork came in "expect trouble". Not if he's wound up in alpaca yarn.

Wish me luck tomorrow. It's not all knit-purl-cast-off in here.

Statistics Lie

2008-01-28T08:34:00.000-08:00

We know that pie charts and graphs can be manipulated and are greedy for their own kind of impersonal 'voice', HOWEVER, to look at trends I don't think they're so bad. I don't have time this morning to flesh out the whole essay, but I've been looking very closely at--what heretofore has been the subjective observations of someone in "the animal industry"--some relationship between skyrocketing consumer spending on pets (from 17B$ in 95 to 40+B$ in 04)and a new kind of green revolution . . .the hundreds of blogs and voices and publications and books about the family farm, local ag. Adults and children are literally hungry to know their food in a much deeper way. We are on the cusp of something good here.

The following link broke down US consumer spending,family size, income etc. from 1901 until 2003. Between that time, an American household went from spending nearly 44% of its annual income on food, down to nearly 13%. I know just enough about economics to provide lots of counter arguments (including some to mitigate the 'pet spending' stats above) but, subjectively, Americans now expect food to be really inexpensive, healthful and . . .humane? . . .and they expect this for the fabulous price of $15 out of every $100 they bring home. Friends, do not get your hackles up about how your neighbor is mean to his dog and it lives on a chain. Keep that in mind, but save some of that energy . . . Please, before you buy another snowsuit for your little dog, please, consider how the sun feels warming a chicken's feathers(yup, they're noisy AND messy, too!) consider letting your beef eat grass . . . consider paying a full $5.25 for a gallon of milk that came from a dairy animal with a name. I think humans need to know their farm animals. There was even an article recently in JAVMA about "psycological first aid by veterinarians in rural areas of livestock depopulation". When global economics or the CDC come in and slaughter the family herd, the vets that used to treat the animals are left to explain, console, suggest, help them adapt. It argues a need for grief and crisis counseling for these animal professionals in the broader service of keeping the local community and economy going (the article sites rates of farmer suicides).

There's no perfect answer, and we're all allowed to have fun painting our dog's toenails and sending their photos into funny websites.

As an aside, the AVMA is still embroiled in the fois gras debate . . .hotly counter-contested by Connecticut, saying it's production is NOT cruel. Hmmm . . .couldn't we just make fois gras like, once every five years, and savor the taste and the sacrifice of it . . .or . . .did I even spell that correctly? FOY GRA? tehe

http://www.bls.gov/opub/uscs/report991.pdf

At this time, I'd like to honour them

2008-01-26T20:17:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm thinking about leaving the country.
----
OH WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT
NO, WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT
OH WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE

WE'VE GOT THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE AND
THERE AIN'T NO WAY WE'LL LOSE IT
THIS IS OUR LIFE, THIS IS OUR SONG
WE'LL FIGHT THE POWERS THAT BE JUST
DON'T PICK OUR DESTINY 'CAUSE
YOU DON'T KNOW US, YOU DON'T BELONG

OH WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT
NO, WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT
OH WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE

OH YOU'RE SO CONDESCENDING
YOUR GALL IS NEVER ENDING
WE DON'T WANT NOTHIN', NOT A THING FROM YOU
YOUR LIFE IS TRITE AND JADED
BORING AND CONFISCATED
IF THAT'S YOUR BEST, YOUR BEST WON'T DO

OH.....................
OH.....................
WE'RE RIGHT/YEAH
WE'RE FREE/YEAH
WE'LL FIGHT/YEAH
YOU'LL SEE/YEAH

OH WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT
NO, WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT
OH WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE

OH WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT
NO, WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT
OH WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE
NO WAY!

OH.....................
OH.....................
WE'RE RIGHT/YEAH
WE'RE FREE/YEAH
WE'LL FIGHT/YEAH
YOU'LL SEE/YEAH

WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT
NO, WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT
WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE

WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT, NO!
NO, WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT
WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE

JUST YOU TRY AND MAKE US
WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT
COME ON
NO, WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT
YOU'RE ALL WORTHLESS AND WEAK
WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE
NOW DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY
WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT
A PLEDGE PIN
NO, WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT
OH YOU ON YOUR UNIFORM
WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE

--Twisted Sister "We're not gonna take it" off the STAY HUNGRY album

BTW, 1984 was a really, really good year for me

What happened to JaNoWriMo?

2008-01-24T16:28:00.000-08:00

I had fun and "success" with November's NaNoWriMo, so I decided to try and rewrite the manuscript closest to my heart, the one that's been rewritten a few times, the one that matters too much sometimes, for the smaller and less celebrated JaNoWriMo. With everything going on and the depth of life-sorting I've been doing this has proved an unrealistic goal for this month. Last year I told myself not to expect heavy writing production in January . . .and here I went against my own vow. What future Januaries (ever seen that month pluralized?!) will hold in store is what comes more rhythmically to this Alaskan season: reading. This is the month for reading all those books you would LIKE to write. It's an intake and processing time. I've been able to see more of how to change this manuscript. I even wrote my first critical paper in 8 years on Morrison's

The Bluest Eye

in my attempt to apply to graduate school AND write something that would help me with 'Foundling'.
What I am looking to do in the next week is rewrite the first 50 pages so I can send that out and share it with a writing buddy.

Random Acts

2008-01-24T08:20:00.000-08:00

While house sitting I have a different commute into town. Carved in the snow, against a long fence next to Chena Pump Road, in letters three-feet high to be readable from the road was the phrase: YOU ARE NOT UGLY.
Yesterday, I really needed to see that.

I am wondering, though, if it had anything at all (Karma-wise) to do with my action on MLKing day of writing King quotes on note cards and putting them on car windshields in the F. Meyer parking lot. I didn't distribute too many. He was such a brilliant humanist, and he gets lost in the woo-hoo-day-off sometimes.

Things of note, in unaffective sentence fragments

2008-01-22T18:37:00.000-08:00

1. Watched Michael Moore's "Sicko" and nearly wept with gratitude at his expression and plea in favor community-minded health care. Funny. Rational. Full of heart.

2. Bought 27# of ground yak in the Sears parking lot from a nice man with a small heard in Delta. Planning to go for a visit to his ranch soon . . .Asked if he'd ever heard of dzo-- a yak/cow hybrid that gets ten gallons to the square mile [of pasture] (crossing a heifer with a yak bull yields much higher milk production, they're both bovids, but male offspring are sterile.)

3. Finished Annie Dillard "The Living"--almost 'plotless,' but immersive . .

4. Writing a little, not so much. Working on taking care of mind, body, spirit instead of coming up with flashing, "soap-bubble-grabbing" plans. Trying to take my time to think things through, talk to people. Applications and manuscripts are flying around or have been submitted . . .hopefully, mistakes have not been made.

5. Looking forward to the school district's "Diversity Book Club" starting next week. (Titles include: Rethinking Columbus, We can't teach what we don't know, The kids Behind the Label, Affirmative Action. ) Maybe there'll be folks who don't want to disband and we can keep reading through the summer and fall.

Housesitting Adventures--chapter 89

2008-01-18T08:35:00.000-08:00

I couldn't figure out why someone who so conscientiously left me folded towels on the end of the beautifully quilted guest bedroom could forget to put toilet paper on the roller in BOTH bathrooms. I found the paper, put in on, and woke up to find each bathroom had a massive cumulus-cloud like structure of mauled white tissue.

There are two orange kitties that came with this job: Willie Wag and Jack Wabbit. I suspect the one with the nub-tail (Manx) is defending me from the Charmin. Turns out that the TP is in firmly-lidded Tupperware behind the bowl.

We had a huge snowstorm the night I took my friend to the airport. They have a beautiful, multi-level house in the Rosie Creek area, with lots of steps and a looooong driveway. My snow blower skills still work, that's always good to know. I am here for two weeks while they're in Florida. That should give me enough time to try all the different kinds of wild game and fish in their freezer . . .
Wish me luck with ALL the many plants. Fortunately, they all have sticky notes that specify how much water each week. (Did I mention my friend is a veterinarian used to calculating micrograms of meds?)

One last image from my two days at Hutch: one of the infants in the daycare has both parents finishing HS at Hutch. At break time and lunch, "Daddy" carries the little slumped four-month-old on his shoulder through the crowd of teenagers and down he hall to the vending machine. They are back at daycare by the next bell for the next class.

Cottage Cheese

2008-01-14T22:09:00.000-08:00

It was enough of a religious experience that it belongs on the blog.

"Nancy's organic cultured cottage cheese". . .

what was that other stuff I was eating for 30 years? plastic?!?!?!?

" . . .bottles of beer on the wall"

2008-01-14T17:14:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned Hutch high school before, but they are a "vo-tech" school with about 350 students and a very strong teen-parenting program. Their daycare center and the curriculum for young mothers really gets them launched (in my opinion). I was cleaning up after the lunch-bomb went off in the commons and one of the daycare workers, a woman with a fabulous singing voice and a long-gray braid down her back, came wheeling through with a six pack of one-year-olds. They were in three rows of two in this specialized stroller gizmo. I kept cleaning and she wheeled around the corner. A little later and she showed up again, singing a different song, and now with five tots on board. I kept cleaning. Then she came around again, with four tots. Yup, she was still singing. I cleaned. Then three tots. Then I figured out what was happening. The next time I saw her round the corner she had two on board, and the one in the very front was about to keel forward onto her big head, she was so fast asleep. I looked up. "You're about to lose that one in the front." I said.

"Finally! She hates to nap."
I don't know this woman's name, but she said she was happy to see me again (I was there in October for a week.)

Also, though I knew one of my writing teachers from 1995 did some supplemental classes at Hutch, I wasn't prepared for how much it helped to see her "office"-- a door on the other side of the library with the embossed words "storage" and her name typed onto a piece of paper and taped just below. I thought she was God when I took classes from her when I was twenty. I thought writers were creatures that would receive accolades for being profound, for being sensitive, that, if they worked hard and were really smart, people would recognize them somehow. We are, so much more often than not, quiet people, in storage closets and basements, still writing because we just can't do anything else, nothing else flames in that particular way.

Thanks Mr. Nick. And thank you, Mom.

2008-01-12T10:34:00.000-08:00

I was writing with great abandon AND concentration yesterday when I stopped to login to the sub teaching webcenter to pick up available jobs for next week. (checking between 11am and 4pm sure beats getting NINETEEN weird phone messages if you aren't home between 5pm and 11pm, the call-out times). It turned out that 'S', the custodian at Hutch HS was going to be out M-W of next week. The woman is a saint . . .to spend her days picking up squashed lunch leftovers from surly teenagers and deal with plugged toilets. She's friendly, but quiet. She is not "white"--as most of the employees at the school are. I mention this to touch on all our buried suppositions of economic/social/racial class that we like to pretend aren't there. Hutch is a school I know pretty well, and I place a like very much. Directly after accepting the position my preschool friends e-mailed wanting me to work the next two Wednesdays, plugged into the system as a classroom teacher, something that garners a slightly higher wage than other temp work. I called the office at Hutch to see how they felt about me being there only 2 days instead of 3. "You know you took a custodial position with S's job, right?"

To be fair, I think the inquirer had my best interests at heart . . .why not play roulette that I'd get a different 'classroom' call out for Monday and Tuesday and make a little more money for a days work. The answer is that I like Hutch, I like 'S', it's close to home, the workday runs from 715am-3pm, and I don't have to be "on" the way a classroom teacher does. And the custodial wage is not that far from what I made as a vet tech for most of my years . . and is FAR better(like DOUBLE) than what I made as a housekeeper in the mid nineties. I was in preschool this past Wed, and will be for the next two. Good enough.

My family (mom especially) enabled me to go to a private elementary school in Connecticut in the early eighties that was very small and community-based. You ascended from kindergarten through grade 8, with the same core group of kids. We were white and black, Jewish and Catholic, European and Japanese, Taiwanese, PuertoRican, red-haired, curly-haired, blond-haired, and braided. The only visible sign of cohesion I see in my mind when I remember the line of us passing through the hall to go to music or art, was our height (until 7th grade or so) and our green-blue plaid uniform. And, if we were lucky, we got to see Mr. Nick on his rounds. We would sometimes get so excited in waving and greeting him you'd think we'd spotted a gazelle in the woods. For decades "Mr. Nick" was the sole caretaker of buildings and grounds. I think he had minions in the summer for repainting and stuff. His face would light up when we greeted him. You knew he was kind right away. Sometimes he rescued us . . .in bathrooms when we felt sick, when the milk spilled inside the fish tank. He hugged us when school started up again in the fall. Come to think of it, though, he didn't talk to us much either. Was he Italian? Does it matter? These "categories" or far more stark in places just outside of New York -- where we were.

I hope Mr. Nick is enjoying retirement, and crawling with grand kids. Wonder if he could imagine that a girl in Alaska will be thinking of him with her hip-radio and spray bottle come Monday --

Of paychecks and stage fright

2008-01-10T09:58:00.000-08:00

Some wonderful people I do temp vet work for recently forgot to pay me (I finally got brave enough to ask about it and they felt terrible) and then my FNSB (Fairbanks North Star Borough)School District paycheck for the Dec.2-21 got lost in the mail. Yesterday -- January 9th-- I opened my p.o. box to find it dog-eared and crumpled, its perforated edges ripped off. They sent it from an office three miles from my house on the morning of Friday, Decemeber 21.
So I can
A. Feel sorry for myself some more, or
B. get on with it
. . .option 'b' comes complete with the imagery of my hand reaching into the postal sorting machine in Anchorage and yanking my paycheck out of the gears. Thanks. That's two months of rent right there.

I've read this book before, but picked it up again and opened it to the exact page I needed:

The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain
by Alice Weaver Flaherty

I've long known that the more emotionally invested I am in a project, and the further along in its revision I am, the harder it is to get the work done without trashing my body with coffee, sugar, and lousy self-talk. Which then looks like, volume-wise, writers' "block". Flaherty spends much of her book discussing temporal lobe epilepsy, hypergraphia, the neurology of hormones and the infamous Ann Sexton. But the page I opened to said "[something, something, something else] for this type of block, psychologists must look at stage fright as a model . . .".

Bingo.
And it's helping so far, this "feeling the fear" and green tea and other sensory distractors and stuff.
The book I am writing "Foundling" is a creation myth, and it opens with the biblical genesis followed the creation of a strong interracial friendship (a meta-discourse of Afro-Europeanism) I'm "copying" Toni Morrison in the way she used the "Dick and Jane" myth as signalment in The Bluest Eye. Did I mention you should read that book . . .

The function of Despair?

2008-01-06T10:57:00.000-08:00

Upon receiving the book "Of Earth and Sky, Spiritual Lessons from Nature" I sent my distant friend a message of great thanks. He said he felt unworthy of such praise, but it occurred to me that Despair functions to soften us into far more affective people. Instead of being created by a "hammer and an anvil" we have a juncture where we are like pulpy fruit in a toddler's fist. Our receptivity is profound.

My friend has since sent more readings, and though I'm not despairing anymore, I am equally filled with gratitude.

Again, the book he originally sent expounds on the seven virtues: Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, Justice, Faith, Hope, and Charity. And, as the book admits, the most troubling one for most of us in America is the one labelled archaically "Temperance". I just now deleted an entire paragraph about twentieth century American economics, generations, and culture. I do not believe that capitalism AND the virtue of Temperance are incapable of co-existing. The idea of Temperance, I think, is to set free the soul of ourselves, to loosen the tethers just enough to grow.

Here is an example question that has helped me immensely.
"Make a list of specific things in your life that serve to limit your personal freedom. Choose one of those specific limitations, and consider the freedom that you enjoy within those limits. Consider the advantages you enjoy. Pray for the ability to see your limitations as a natural definition to your life, and not as a restraining straitjacket."

I bet, every one of us, no matter where we are in our life's journey, would say that lack of money limits our personal freedom.
Can we answer the rest of the question?

oh, and the carrot--

2008-01-04T23:02:00.002-08:00

http://www.cezannescarrot.org/vol3iss1/index.html

Foundling

2008-01-04T22:42:00.000-08:00

This month I am doing fewer things with more energy. I sent off a new fiction piece on New Years' Day. I am doing a variation of NaNoWriMo for January that will rewrite "Mother Africa" into a beautiful novel that I'm actually PROUD of. Despite my despair over job-related news, I sure seem to be working a lot, both as a vet tech and as a sub teacher. My exercise routine has been going strong for two weeks now, and I'm feeling physically much better. There's a lot more to write here . . .about spirituality, patience, sifting through all the advice and well-meaning words from friends and family . . .about stopping the scramble in order to hear The Voice.

2008

2007-12-30T06:51:00.000-08:00

I can't keep a secret. Life has been hard this week. Those who know me well know that reflection is part of my personality, not something I do only at the close of the year. It may well be the density of winter, the holiday busy-ness and distraction ending, and the encouragement to "re-invent" oneselfat the close of another year. I will be thirty-four in 2008. Who did I think I would be at this juncture in my life? What did I think I would be doing? I have been focusing on the pile-up of rejections and closed doors, of me bounding against opportunities like a happy puppy and the turned-face silence of a locked door. I can not think of a "success" I can name from this last year. A poetry award that no one's ever heard of, perhaps, an unpaid Internet "publication" maybe. I read stories by writers who've won XYZ, been a resident at QRS colony and retreat. I think I want health insurance and paid personal days. Then I think all I want is safety. I want some external source to say 'Yes, you have gifts. We want to put the to USE.' I am exhausted by applications and still feel a great frenzy to applyapplyapply againagainagain. I am sorting poorly, sleeping too much, and crying at useless things. For more than a week now I have been following a scheduled work-out routine on Mon, Wed, Fri. I have a light box that I use most days. I take vitamins. I cultivate gratitude. If you're out there, Angie (in Denver) you said the best thing to me once "Things change. They always do."

I sent a DVD about the migration of the Porcupine Caribou Herd out to a friend I met only briefly while working at Overlook Farm this year. Thank God for John, a man with such vibrancy and love and faith and endurance--as he enters his seventh decade-- that I can't help but learn. He sent me a book entitled "Of Earth and Sky, spiritual lessons from nature" compiled by Thomas Becknell. The book organizes writings about nature from poets, naturalists, clergy, and biologists into seven chapters. The chapters are: Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, Justice, Faith, Hope, Charity. At the back of each chapter are seven "practicing questions". I have begun with the chapter on

FORTITUDE

p. 48 of the above book OEAS
" . . .Margo Morgan admires the kangaroo because it can not go backwards, but must always move forwards. Consider particular animals or plants you admire and choose one as your "totem," a model you can keep in mind when life brings you face-to-face with obstacles or predators . . ."

me --
Because it was such a unique environment, the few months I worked at Cornell Vet Hospital in Ithaca, New York in 2004-2005, still yields intense memories. After the first few months I worked primarily alone, through the darkest pre-dawn hours of 1-2-3-4-5-6 am. At those times my job was to comfort and protect the patients in the hospital, to write down little notes on a square, gridded sheet littered with abbreviated phrases, "alphabet soup" I've called it. A patient is BAR, QAR, WNL, EUP, TACHY and on and on. I treated a kangaroo named Helen for two nights in a row. She was three or four feet tall. She had a pink dog collar with a large bell on it. An IV line went into the cephalic vein of her stunted, dinosaur-like forearm. She had big liquid eyes and was placid with a human's calm voice. Her tail was a wonder . . .like a bent, balancing limb made of muscle. It had no "give" at all, the way a muscled leg does. I do not know if it can unilaterally be said about kangaroos, but I would venture to say that--yes--they can NOT go backwards, but nor do they lie down. When Helen finally died (I was not there to see it) I wonder if she truly "fell over" or slumped against the side of her cage. I remember the feel of her joey. She had a joey in her pouch, that she let me feel one evening, like a little swimming squirrel under her pouch skin.
I would like to see kangaroos in the wild.

And while you might guess I would choose a lion, or a tiger, or a leopard as my animal totem (the only tattoo I have is of a tiger over my right breast:). I choose, at this time in my life, the caribou. I will read more about them. What I know now is that they may migrate up to 800 miles in a year, the pregnant cows leading, the most gravid females in front. They single file through deep snow and rivers, over mountains, to get to the calving place where the food is good and the insects are limited. They drop a calf that weighs thirteen pounds and may double his weight in a week on her rich milk. They are ruminants, they are reindeer, they are intricately tied to the lifestyles and lore of Alaska's real people. They taste good. They make the warmest boots you will ever wear. They are steadfast, strong, and they have an inner metronome for the seasons that we will never fully understand. They are that mix of familiar and mysterious, definable and elusive, social and solitary.

I'm on my trek.

December 24

2007-12-24T07:49:00.000-08:00

The picture? I was getting a little tired of seeing my "sweet" face at that head-cocked angle stuck on the right side of the blog. The new computer has a built-in camera and I'd just stepped out of the shower . . . I thought about taking another shot that reduced my forehead wrinkles, but I believe I earned those at the equator while not wearing sunscreen. I'm writing and reading about Africa again. It's calling. There's a big show-production coming to Fairbanks in mid-January called "African Footprint" and while the music swells and compels you to buy the 53$ ticket while you're driving through -40F, the reality of the show makes me angry. Here again, is Africa as Westernized myth, as glossed and groomed Broadway, every black-man's step rehearsed and rehearsed to be perfectly in time, costumes impeccably matched and none of the dancers missing fingers or sporting scars. It isn't WRONG, these portrayals, but it is not COMPLETE, and it doesn't raise the bar on how we as human beings connect with human beings of other cultures who are the same mix of confused tradition and globalized culture that we are. The same way Christmas (as a tradition) is a wonderful mash of Celtic, Scandinavian, judeo-christian, pagan what-not, if you are watching (East) African song and dance you are likely to hear Christian hymns about Jesus Christ ululated to incredible, foot stomping heights by men who may have multiple wives (like their fathers and grandfathers) but make sure none of them know about each other. At the end of the "service" you'll be offered a 'donut'(square, greasy sweet bread) and a 'pop', whose slender-glass neck you'll drink out of with a straw (the old-fashioned bottles you can buy at Williams-Sonoma) and then return to the vendor to recycle the glass bottle out of necessity and not civic duty.

Smell the morning. Hear the cock crow. The sounds of the night. The taxi park! *sigh*

"Casting with a Fragile Thread" by Wendy Kann, sent to me by my father for Christmas. A MUST READ. Unsentimental, unapologetic, and the woman now lives in Westport, CT.

Let's see . . .I'll have some photos up of the marzipan pig I made for our Danish Christmas dinner tonight. If you're the one to get the almond in your rice pudding you win the pig (and her graham cracker, Necco-wafer tiled shed :)
Veterinary work through the 5th of January.

First lessons in holding your licker

2007-12-20T07:21:00.000-08:00

In the deepest sense, I've been doing some end-of-year gathering and sorting lately-- hence the silence. Being quite sick didn't help, nor does the current cold snap. Deep winter: -40F at night, 3 hours of daylight . . . perfect days for warm cabins, purring kitties, fresh sheets and books.

Preschool is winding down for the winter break. Today and tomorrow we just have our morning group until 1130. They are the smallest kids, some of them barely 3 years, and most of them with only variably-pitched wailing as a form of communication. Christmas is a high-stress time even for these little people. It's been too cold to spend real time on the playground, but we went through the play equipment on the way to the bus the other day. . .and suddenly noticed that one fellow was spending a little too long standing right in front of the slide ladder. . . his chin right in front of a metal step-bar. His face was just beginning that scrunch-cry that he usually uses as "a warning call".
"He's stuck!!" Miss C. called
Without thinking I said "Oh Shit!" and ran into ER mode.
"Get the water!" Miss C. Called
I was running to the sink inside in a flash, thinking about the first law of animal impalement injuries: don't remove the offending object before medical assessment!!
By the time I got back out she was trying to haul his backpack onto him (the bus driver was there). "I blew on it" Miss C. said. Our small friend was eerily silent, his little wet mouth in an unbelieving 'o' around a pink tongue with a little tip of blood.
I knelt down to look at his tongue more closely. Then I stood up, patted him on the back, "Fastest healing tissue in the body, my friend, you'll be fine."

Let's see . . . there's also been cookie decorating, ornament making, gingerbread house creations with graham crackers and frosting with those little-bitty milk cartons as the structural base --and tootsie-roll chimneys. There was the day when EVERYONE in the morning group was crying and I suddenly decided to run an impromptu "AA" meeting with a circle of tiny plastic chairs and the hokey-pokey instead of the serenity prayer. I forgot my extension cord to plug in my car one day and everyone in the building was so kind . . .the librarian lent me one of her AV cords, and I recognized her because I've treated her Yorkie dogs.

Merry holidays all--

Week in Review

2007-12-14T16:33:00.000-08:00

I made it all the way until last night/ this morning before breaking with a florid head cold. I bypassed the "sniffles" phase and went right to shocking-pain-between-ears sinus infection. I worked this morning and am now experimenting with decongestants hoping one will work without turning me into a someone unworthy of operating heavy equipment (do blogs count?)

It's been a fun, tiring week. Yesterday I did an abbreviated "veterinary" lesson with the kids that involved balloon animals. We also had a fire drill yesterday--standing out in the cold and snow for a long time, perhaps contributing to my current woes.

I got a new iMac. It counts as "the basic" 1199$ model, but it still does everything except make my bed and feed the cat. It was a little tricky in that it came equipped for bluetooth, ethernet, DSL, airport/wireless. . .everything except the dial-up I can only use in my apartment here. Karl saved the day by finding me a thumb-sized external modem for now.

Due to some frightening spelling errors and feeling generally lousy, I'm going to keep this short. The dose of preschool humor that's worth chuckling over here was from our afternoon group this week. A little girl was finishing her lunch at the table, eating an open-faced "Lunchables" pizza with the sauce you squeeze onto the round bread. One of our boys had already built a "flying alien" out of bright colored plastic gears and Leggo-type toys. As the alien flew over the girl's table, one of its huge, round, glow-in-the-dark eyes uncorked from the rest of its body and fell onto her pizza. I was sitting across from her at the table. Part of the genuine humor was that she just stared at it, then looked up at me. In slow silence I walked over, plucked it off her pizza, patted her on the back and rinsed the eyeball in the sink. That little person is a "typical peer" and a very fine sport about everything that goes on in or afternoon room.

Just a warning to my friends: don't ask me to listen or sing "Up on the Rooftop" for at least two years. I am SO over that friggin song . . . the school concert/Xmas performance was today.

Everything I needed to know I learned in . . .

2007-12-07T18:57:00.000-08:00

. . . Preschool special ed??

1) Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer is actually a Shakespearean morality play about individuation.
2) If you think a four-year-old with a speech impediment is calling you an asshole -- he's actually telling you he's building you a castle.
3) Red finger paint does actually come out of the knees khaki pants . . .but you should tell your co-teachers the day before the project "goes down" so they can dress in crayola-paint-camo
4) It will not make children's feet "grow funny" when the shoes and boots are on the wrong foot.
5) Though the appear vibrant and durable, children actually have no bones. To test this theory, show your three-year-old a snowsuit, boots, scarf, mittens, hat and tell them the bus is leaving. While feeling goofy at the end of a Friday, we all sat the tots down to a central pile of peanut butter crackers and told them it was "reverse strip poker". Each person that took a cracker had to put on an article of outdoor gear. It didn't work, but no one ended up wailing this afternoon . . .that was a definite A+.

How do they know?

2007-12-04T21:48:00.000-08:00

At 3 pm every day at Arctic Light Elementary on Ft. Wainwright military base the school bell rings and the hall floods with snowsuits trying to find the right daddy in camouflage and combat boots. Like penguins, they each find their own young and tiny pink and blue snowsuits are hauled out by the hand into idling cars.

It's a different world, teaching preschool. We got new play-doh yesterday. WOWee!! Have you seen those colors lately? There is also plenty of whining and major melt-downs to help us all appreciate a good George Winston CD and a hot bath at the end of the day.

One young gentleman was so excited to be chosen to help hand out snack to the other children that he forgot something. . . and we'd noticed he was a little extra "wiggly" . . . moments later from the bathroom could be heard "Misssss Caaaaat!" Not only were his pants, shirt, socks and sneakers wet, but a visible stream lead along the tiled floor to the central drain in the small bathroom with the toilet 12 inches off the ground (it's like a "squat toilet" in UGanda!).

There's more to type, but I'm just trying to keep up with sleep and Xmas and everything. Just wanted to let you know I'm surviving.

Why are toddlers like cell phones?

2007-12-02T12:29:00.000-08:00

Because if you put them on 'silence' they vibrate.

Worms!

2007-11-29T17:51:00.001-08:00

So here's the e-zine with the solstice issue I'll have some fiction in. (I don't know if I can make it 'link' just now, however.)
http://www.cezannescarrot.org/

I got lucky with the long-term sub position I accepted last night. Instead of "intensive resource"--a very challenging position I summarized a few weeks back-- this position turned out to be a pre-kindergarden special ed assistant. I've done this before and it's just plain fun! The kids are between 3 and 5. They are in the class for language immersion/motor skills and socialization--how do you deal with "share" when you don't have great language?? :( It's a day about snowsuits and goldfish crackers, sandbox time and 'name that color/texture/taste'. There's a group from 830 until 11:15 and then a group from noon to 3pm. I will be working for the only school in the district actually ON Ft. Wainwright military base. I got the pass for my vehicle today . . . the vehicle with the bumper stickers that say "Love your mother [earth]" "Make coffee not war" "Buy local" and "Support the troops, bring them home". Because it's military this elementary school is one of the most racially diverse and culturally unique (military? as a culture?) places to be. On the way home, leaving the base I got to drive by the digital sign that flashes "2K bonus for each service person who refers someone who enlists to serve their country!" It is an exceptionally difficult time to be a military family. This job runs unti Dec. 21, unless I hear from UAF that they want me and need me sooner.

But back to worms. For these pre-K tots the school district does a brilliant thing. It "enriches" these small classes with a few "typical peers"-- the kids who DO have the language we expect of a 4-year-old. The Typical Peer Program helps the kids that are there and it helps us as play-instructors (most of the class time is spent on the floor talking to the kids as we play) see what the little guys are reaching for, what's possible for someone of their age group. First thing this morning I'd just finished telling the two other teachers that I normally work with cats and dogs, that dealing with much of the noise, chaos, peepee, doo-doo and crisis (and the appropriate adult response of a quiet, calm voice) is a transferable skill set. At that moment the first child of the day, a "typical peer", a tiny pale-skinned blue-eyed child with hands the size of Nilla Wafers came running into the room in her outdoor gear and announced "I have WORMS!" before stopping in front of me to demand "Who are YOU?"

"See, it is just like a vet clinic!" I said. At least she didn't come running in and stick her nose in my crotch.

Unfortunately, we were unable to ascertain what KIND of worms she has. We are hoping her parents are into vermiculture.

2007-11-28T19:58:00.000-08:00

You Won!

So it's official.

Our word-counting robots have analyzed your November novel, and they've delivered their final, binding assessment: Winner.
-------------------------------------
I should be super-stoked over this but I just have a headache now. I finally got word today that I was approved for the Alaska Dividend this year (other Alaskans got theirs in October) . . . but how can I complain about $1600, even if it is 2 months late? UAF HR is still trying to find itself . . .and then maybe they'll find me . . .I'm starting a long-term sub position at the elementary school military base tomorrow. It's a special ed resource position that is supposed to go until Dec. 20. One of my short stories will be published in an online journal Cezanne's Carrot, which I'll link to later. I was rejected from Hedgebrook writers colony for the second year in a row. I have other things that are keeping me from looking on the bright side right now. Just feeling blah. Oh well.

43K

2007-11-27T19:27:00.000-08:00

. . .everything else in my life is going very, very slowly . . .

Good-bye left brain!

2007-11-24T08:44:00.000-08:00

My mind is swimming with milligrams, kilograms, micrograms, fluid rates, radiograph settings, capnograph readings and blood pressures. It was a very full day at the clinic yesterday, complete with an "emergency" visit from Rocky the raspy rooster. Every dog in the place looked up when Rocky crowed up in reception. There was a "doo" missing from his cock-a-doodle--
It felt good to be sent into the room to weigh the bird 'cause I would know "what kind it was". It was a barred rock. Thank you Overlook Farm :) Rocky also came with three dozen eggs from the girls to leave with us.

There were lots of emergencies yesterday, and every machine in the place was having trouble. You know --surgery light bulbs went out, the copier wouldn't work. We needed bloodwork results PRONTO and I had to get on the phone with tech support in Maine and take the blood analyzer apart and flush it with alcohol and talk dirty to it. After lots of other "elective" surgeries (spays, neuters, etc.) we went into an orthopedic surgery around 4pm. A nine-month old cat had broken his femur by "falling off the entertainment center". We were working with a newly licensed vet, so she was rightfully very nervous, cautious and stressed. There were lots of intra-op xrays involved. Another example of why I can't spend any energy judging veterinary clients: the owners of this kitty were ADAMANT that we NOT neuter him. On every xray his fuzzy little kitty testicles showed up like holiday pompoms. Oh well. Whatever you people want. Good luck selling your house after he sprays eveything.

OK, time to right out the rest of that novel . . .

This Sunday Night . . .

2007-11-23T08:51:00.000-08:00

. . .I am released from some pretty intense obligations and am looking forward to reporting "Niagara: a novel" as a 'finished' mss. I'm only at 33K right now, and I'm about to head out to work to run anesthesia on some difficult surgeries all day. I didn't write yesterday. I just enjoyed myself. Organic Prairie makes a truly tasty T-bird.
Take care all!!

at 30K

2007-11-18T16:25:00.001-08:00

Still kicking

2007-11-16T08:10:00.000-08:00

I'm only at 25K words for NaNoWriMo. I'll do some catching up this weekend and see about frantic morning writing next week.

Through Nov 25 I'm housesitting and working full time at North Pole Vet Hospital. The heated garage makes the morning commute out there VERY nice. And the clinic has been nice and busy. It's amazing to me to remember that in a single year's time this clinic has gone from 1 doctor to 3, from four employees to eight. I worked out there last December and it was sooo slow. . . now it's a nice pace. For the field of veterinary technology I definitely count as a "senior tech". While I hardly have answers to all questions, I get a lot of "I dunno, ask Cat" stuff during the day. Someone was shaving the belly of an anesthetized 2-yr-old fuzzy lap dog for a spay.

"Cat, what do blue nipples mean?"
I think they expected a lecture about heat cycles, pregnancy or psuedocyesis (false preggo in small dogs).

"It means it's gonna be a bad year for the Mets" I said.
The dog had pale, white skin and had just ended a heat cycle, so once the belly was shaved you could really see the mammary blood supply.

There's also an amazing tech out there who said "Lately I've been going into rooms and forgetting what I came in for!"
Before editing myself I said "Yeah, that starts at about twenty-five".
"But I'm two years early!" she said.

I promised myself I would NEVER be one of those people that made age generalizations to younger coworkers . . . having found it so grating during my life . . . and here I am!!! Is that how we try and make ourselves feel better about being older?

All the employees are women currently. And quite a few of them are pregnant. I bring bottled water.

Blog Spectuation

2007-11-11T14:21:00.001-08:00

My spelling and punctuation on this blog is dismal.
Knowing is half the battle ;)

20K & The Girls Next Door

2007-11-11T11:34:00.000-08:00

So, it's 1030 am and I've hit my 20K word mark. 22 by the end of today, hopefully.

While house sitting I usually let myself go on a cable TV binge. I let it count as "cultural research". The binging happens once a year . . .when I'm at this particular house. In ten months I'd forgotten how much I love the reality show "The Girls Next Door". Every other reality show leaves me so bored and uncomfortable I flip back to E! Hollywood news or the "Praisathon" channel (c-u-l-t ural research . . .) But, y'know, I feel like I have a personal relationship with Hugh Hefner (sp?) and those three girls! They're so unabashedly THERE, doing what they do. And it feels like Hef is a genuinely kind and tempered fellow. He's so old he's mostly admiring and patting and hugging his 20-year-old minions . . .who are all clearly, and without reservation, on the rich-and-famous circuit because they're proud of their T & A and what Daddy Hef has done for them. The whole show feels far less perverted and twisted than say "The Bachelor" or "The last bride standing" or whatever else is on. I've seen one episode of each and would rather be subjected to CNN than return to them.

The TV binge may be getting a little out of hand as I had a dream two nights ago that I came upon a weeping Brittany Spears at the Fireplace in the local Barnes & Noble ands actually ended up becoming her first real friend and role model. This is wrong. It's just wrong. It's as wrong as receiving a ten page flyer from Leonardo DiCaprio about saving drowning polar bears and enclosed are your five pages of sticky address labels made out of compressed petroleum. And if you send 20 bucks NOW you get a free tote bag, too!

Something that's RIGHT? I'm searching to balance this blog entry . . . OK. Online bill pay is a good invention in modern America. The fact that oil prices are insane is a really good thing because it gets people thinking and acting. The fact that fart humor is cross-cultural is wonderful. King crab is also "right". And I ate an entire 2 lbs of it last night while enjoying the movie "Ratatouille"
Enough. Go off and find your own "Right". Namaste

"There's got to be more Fukuokans!"

2007-11-10T00:37:00.000-08:00

So while waiting to pick my friend up from the airport I finally got a chance to look at ALL the NaNoWriMo message boards from all the regions around the whole world!!! The above quote is the title of a post from two people in 'Fukuo' Japan looking to organize a write-in. Someone on another part of Japan is announcing a "temple visit and write-in" South Africa has actually pitted its cities against each other with graphs . . .i.e. "Durban is bananas!" "Go Jo'burg!" The Denmark region advertises:"Where Danes congregate to write stories about ugly ducklings and new clothes for the emperor." Unfortunately, the rest of he posts are written in Danish
:( (Damn insular Scandinavians! JOKE!)
Imagine if this writerly spirit kept up year round! A whole world of writers supporting each other . . .imagine . . .(insert John Lennon lyics here)
sheesh, I'm tired!

16.5K

2007-11-09T22:29:00.000-08:00

The next shout-out will be at 20K. Looking at my calender for the rest of the month fills me with panic and fear . . . close cousins and motivators. Yeah. Panic and Fear. Like I NEED that in my life.

ha!!

Umm . . . .NO . . .

2007-11-09T11:15:00.000-08:00

Warning! A rant about Ameican culture is coming on!!

From the back of a Windows 95 CD-Rom
"Catz II! The next generation of PF. Magic's Virtual Petz have been born! A whole new litter of living, purring, animated and intelligent Catz can't wait to pounce onto your computer desktop! And now they can even play with each other! Catz II has more breedz, more toyz, more trickz, and more fun! All the fun of owning lots of pets without needing kitty litter!"

My thoughts are mostly circling the cost/benefit balance of accepting that the world is made NOT of melodrama, but of a true mixture of good and bad and everything in between. The human body perspires and has an odor. Cats can get annoying and smelly and expensive. Real milk has carbs. Real eggs have cholesterol. Real tomatoes and oranges go bad much more quickly than their genetically enhanced counterparts. Cotton is not flame-retardant, wood-flooring isn't waterproof. Relationships don't just happen because heaven blew the soul mate whistle.

I don't have any of this "figured out" but I do wonder if it is spiritually wise for us to believe that we can sift out all the 'goodness' of something and leave the 'bad'. By what yardstick are we then measuring ourselves? While breast milk is excellent food for your baby, if your unique body and bond with your baby isn't conducive . . .is that completely bad? Obviously, that's an issue I'm unqualified to really weigh-in on, but I wonder--as Americans--if we are loosing a dexterity of thinking that impoverishes the growth of our spiritual lives. I think we are becoming more and more inpatient with a world that can't be bent to our bidding . . .missing the great wonder that something grander than ourselves is at work.

12 thousand at 4 pm

2007-11-08T16:11:00.000-08:00

I haven't been "slow and steady" with this novel writing, but when am I ever with anything? I have my hopes for this book, as I have for all of them. But at least this story will stop following me around.

I'm house sitting for some friends who have a heated garage for my truck and a love of indulgent snack foods that I can never stay away from. It's really amazing how you can feel the difference in your body when you start eating stuff with chemically-named ingredients that you don't normally eat, how even our health food (egg beaters, Danon one-shot yogurt drinks,etc.) have travelled so far from nature to get into out bodies. Just a non-novelistic thought. I may spend a day or two eating foods with ingredients I can pronounce. But that involves shopping. Yuck.

The Third Graders Kicked My Caboose!

2007-11-06T19:18:00.001-08:00

Who ARE these people who can go into a room of 25 nine/ten-year-olds for four hours at a time as the only adult and emerge at the end of the day still capable of quality interaction with other human beings???!? Well . . .we all know there's nothing like having a a sub teacher to make it even more fun to steal your neighbor's Cheez-its during snack time and create warring classroom factions that make Animal Farm/Lord of the Flies look poorly plotted. No, really, it was fun. I was just WIPED and my throat hurt and my arm was sore from giving the "SHUT UP" signal. Crazy little humans. It's the equivalent of 12 5-month-old Labrador puppies . . .

I was at Hutchison HS today as a journalism teacher. Not much teaching but a lot of test administration. I was looking over a 300-page journalism textbook published in 2005 and was surprised to see the word "blog" not even indexed. "Internet" was mentioned in passing--a single page here, another mention 150-pages later. What IS the face of journalism, and journalism as a paying career choice, in this age? I certainly don't think newspapers will disappear, nor will interview skills change that much . . . but what is 'public media' and what is its power and saturation?

Back to the novel-a-thon tonight and tomorrow. UAF job interview Monday. *SURPRISE* its really dark and cold and snowy here again! It's the perfect time of year to see people driving around dragging the extension cord they used to plug in their car (oil pan, battery, engine block heater) overnight and then forgot to unplug when they drove out in the am. I, uh, have done that . . . oh, one or two times ;)

The Little Prince

2007-11-04T14:13:00.000-08:00

. . .I never understood that book, or liked it much, or found it wise. Someone I knew swore it reminded them of me. Perhaps I'll understand some day. Today is not that day. Yesterday wasn't, either. If anyone wants to weigh in on what I'm missing with it, be my guest.
7K words on the middle of Sunday afternoon here. I'm teaching third grade at Anne Wein Elementary tomorrow. The whole house here on Goldfinch smells like fried SPAM today. We tried to go to the Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre's rendition of "Bunnicula" last night but it was sold out. What other staccato sentences can I throw in here? Yes, I bought the cat her 'whirley mouse jr.' as detailed several entries back. I've signed the Goldfinch house up for Netflix and I can now order outrageous films exactly when I think of them (like "Shaft"<-- I never saw it!! OR the 1934 Tarzan movies, or weird cinema versions of Aristophanes plays). I'll be house sitting starting Wednesday, and K will be out of town until Saturday am, so I hope to be writing in lockdown Thurs-Fri with (hope! hope!) perhaps a UAF interview coming up.

Fresh snow today. I love living here. I recently heard, from a couple different sources, Fairbanks described as "the Athens of the North".

When you just read that you either rolled your eyes or sighed knowingly.

Finding Releif

2007-11-03T11:28:00.000-07:00

Ah, the great whole-body-mind *sigh* of letting the fingers think for me! Not only am I having great fun with this write-a-novel-in-a-month challenge, but--just as I thought--once I stopped groaning and pushing at that mean, ugly Internal Editor, he just got carried downstream and out to sea! While I am working on this new novel project, I've suddenly realized how to make sense of "structure" for the former non-fiction "stinging anemone" manuscript (four posts ago?) And there is also happiness for me in finding that I can actually WAIT to go back and implement my new insights until this one is done.

There's great fanfair about posting word counts under an entrant's name on the NaNoWriMo website. There's a bar that automatically turns it into percents. I only have about 4300 words, which is, like 8%. I started yesterday, when the official start was Thursday. I suppose I could feel more self-concious or make more excuses . . . but it's fun and I'm getting somethign out of it so who cares if someone else already has 12 thousand or something. I will keep letting you know how it goes.

I'm re-reading Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" and I can not tell you with how much conviction I beleive the ENTIRE ENGLISH SPEAKING WORLD SHOULD READ, REREAD, perhaps MEMORIZE this book if they want to see what prose can do with subject, form, acuity, and stark raving beauty.

I'm also drinking a lot of coffee. Can you tell?

Faster Pussycat, Kill [the editor]! Kill!

2007-11-02T15:34:00.000-07:00

Uh. . .mm . . .yeah, I'm doing this this year. The manuscript that has begun to flagellate me has been put on hold in pursuit of old-fashioned fun. If I get 50K words by midnight on Nov. 30 then I win. That sounds like a solvable problem! The goal--for me--is to dash the internal editor and trade up fear for exuberance. . . for a little while anyway.

The website for this is currently getting 20K hits a day, so it's a little slow if you visit it right now. Around 80K people all over the world start this. About a third actually 'win'. There's extensive regional networking, parties and other inanities. Tomorrow I'll look to meet some other caffeinated, pimpled, writer-types at Lulu's bakery.

"The Freaks are here!"

2007-10-31T17:24:00.000-07:00

Nine years ago, when Dr. Rodger was struggling to begin Fairbanks' first independent after hours emergency vet (instead of having each vet answer their own phone in the wee hours) she decided that "reverse trick-or-treating" during other vets' regular business hours would be a good way to network and find out how all those sick patients did after they left her care and went back to their regualr DVMs. The treats she brought were her now-famous Moravian spice cookies. Nine years later, she hasn't missed a year of this reverse-trick-or-treat. And she still bakes all the treats. Some clinics get a cake in addition to cookies, truffles, pumpkin creme brulee. There are at least 11 veterinary clinics to stop at.

This group photo was taken at Chena Ridge Clinic, where Dr. Battig was expecting us and had both the pets and staff already in costume. In our gang: The guy in the back holding up the metallic tubing claimed to be a "fecal loop"-- a collection 'wand' for . . . .yeah, you guessed it. Not only did he get to ride in the back of the SUV, but he lead us into every vet clinic through the exit door.
Dr. Love, front, kneeling, used two battery operated leg-humping dogs that someone purchased from Skinny Dick's Bar off the Parks Highway. I was the overly cerebral platelet. . . more on this soon.

2007-10-31T14:48:00.000-07:00

Omega Paw Whirly Mouse Jr.

2007-10-30T19:12:00.000-07:00

I has Issue MomCat is housesit for won hole month and me wil bee h0me alone. IM usual roll the covers, carpet, open trash empty tape dizpencr, eat bugz. I haz a wish on list on momCAts hed
up theyr

"The Whirly Mouse Jr. expands on the fun of the Mouse Pom Pom by adding a whirling track ball base. This mouse shaped toy is made of durable carpet and plastic, including a spring and jingle pom pom tail that moves at the slightest bat. The brightly colored track ball spins wildly with each whack, keeping cats entertained for hours on end. With it's many playing features, the Whirly Mouse Jr. is a "must have" toy for cats."

Righting write threw it

2007-10-29T19:56:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a book manuscript that feels like a physical disfigurement, something that you can NOT escape and that continues to bring both horribly painful and joyous attention to you in equal measure? In graduate school I "completed" (a generous term from my advisor) a 550 page novel that was relatively easy to walk away from. Oh well. It's just like practicing your trumpet in the basement: a good, loud, warm-up. And I've always written. By the eighth grade my projects would be 30 or 40 pages before their completion was interrupted by interest in something else. High school had me writing in my dorm room on Friday and Saturday nights instead of socializing.
But THIS ONE, she is THE one. . .and it's not even about the loss of the friendship that originally characterized this non-fiction project. It's about the gifts of dichotomy, the elasticity of the world. It's about starting awake in the middle of the night--even 2+ years later-- smelling the dusty linoleum of the Kategaya compound as it smelled precisely between the hours of 8 and 10 each morning (too hot by noon). But I continue to trouble with the actual SHAPE of this project. Any thread/image of several dozen could start the manuscript. I can't choose. And it's not linear (jeeezus, is ANYTHING of mine EVER?) The shape of this manuscript reminds me of a sea anemone . . .and there's a small, orange fish is snuggled at the heart of the animal beneath all the stingers.

It's only fair. And it's chocolate. And it's only asking for 5%.

2007-10-28T00:13:00.000-07:00

and did you know that leopard slugs--despite being hermaphrodytic--spend about an hour 'chasing' each other up a tree by "nibbling" on each other's hind parts then twirling together until they make a mucous cord that dangles from a tree branch where they THEN extrude their really ugly male tubule-thingys from BEHIND THEIR EYES and twist this into some kind of parachute and exchange sperm to fertilizer each other's eggs?? Thank you David Attenborough and BBC for INSOMNIA!!!!!
If you'd like more (TRULY) breathtaking examples of what modern mini-cameras (and a good old guy with a chamomile voice;) can capture, look up "Life in the Undergrowth" on DVD at the Fbx library.

http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/gx/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6571&t=ActionCenter.dwt

Thank You

2007-10-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

Thank you to the anonymous friend who took the time and effort to put an illustrated magnet on my metal door: "Artists and Writers alone in their chairs changing the world (one line at a time)"
You've inspired me to push farther, faster.

I saw a plaque the other day in the "Signals" catalogue that said: "You are the friend everyone wishes they had".

Of bodily limitations: After a "sea change" of night sweats and sodden pillowcases I'm back down to 98.6 F! It no longer hurts to move my eyes!!! I think the flu may exist (in first-world countries, at least) to redeem our pleasure in the simplest things.

Alaskan playground games

2007-10-26T10:47:00.001-07:00

Last week I was watching several elementary classes enjoy afternoon recess on a broad playground. While most children were on the play equipment, a set of six snowsuit-clad little people were on hands and knees, in three pairs of two, swish-swishing their knees over the cripsy snow while staying shoulder-to-shoulder with a partner. A little boy was standing and walking behind them. I wondered what they were doing and then the boy yelled "Gee!" (turn right) then a little later "Haw!" (turn left). He was mushing a dog team --of course!

At least I got a kernel of amusement out of last week's subbing because I also got the most horrific GI flu. Wish me luck with my first saltine today.

Two of Note

2007-10-25T17:49:00.000-07:00

"My friends are my estate." --Emily Dickinson

"No person is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow." --Alice Walker

"Hopped up on goofballs"

2007-10-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

Someone used the above phrase about me several years ago to describe what I was like after working a double veterinary shift and returning to an early am job the following day. The night before usualy involved massive quantities of refined sugar and caffeine. I am, apparently, extra funny when I free-associate with that level of fatique.

I wrote yesterday's post on my ten-minute lunch break in a sped ED classroom. I hit 'post' just as the bell rang. My lunch was shorter than usual because I had to sit with a little fellow while he stared at his half PB&J on white bread sandwich. He couldn't go out to recess until he took a bite. Other food offerings in the room included a ketchup sandwich, lunchables, m&ms, graham goldfish, pre-packaged jello (in those little plastic cups) and a baggy of those mint-pastel squares that the boy actually decided to spit out all over the room. There were lots of other things in colorful, crinkly wrappers, but suffice it to say none were fruit/veg or non-Wonder breaad. Hot lunch yesterday was chicken-fried steak, french fries, pizza. Salad was available. I did go to the school district's community "Wellness Forum" two weeks ago. They ARE trying. Food services was there, as was the new curricula for 'health education' and P.E.
Effie Kochran charter school does a summer gardening program and they do take some students on moose hunting expeditions (I subbed last week for a teacher who was leading one . . .getting ready for the AFN Potlach). But the reality of eating locally grown up here in Alaska, I think, is particularly difficult AND poignant-- when we think about natural resources used to get our Outside food supply up here. In the lower forty-eight, the average school lunch has travelled 1500 miles from where it was produced. How much oil does it take to send our food 2500+ miles? The products are, as most large scale food products are, from feedlots and monoculture farms. A wonderful friend with farming in his 1970's childhood reminded me that family farms DO exist!! They do! But . . .
I ran a google search "Where does your school lunch come from?" and mused over even setting up an adjunt blog to trace this kind of thing . . .with Fairbanks, Alaska at the center. I'd like to list the restaurants that buy local food products, etc.

I can not rant anymore until I have some suggestions besides farmers' markets, hunting, trapping, buying local (Delta, Mat-Su) for our personal use and trying to minimally take part in industrial agriculture. And yes, I am meeting a friend for lunch at Quizno's.

More soon.

"The Farm" as educational myth

2007-10-23T13:42:00.000-07:00

So this post is not meant to be as depressing as the last! In the last several weeks I've been amazed to notice the ubiquity of "farm" in education -- toys of every variety, animals that make every sound, BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS about farm life and animals, electronic toys that quack and moo and bleat like sheep. Eyewitness (R) books make a whole series about farms. And what we are portraying and teaching NO LONGER EXISTS. We are portraying it as if this type of pre-1950s farm were as universal as the golden arches and KFC. If we are to ever talk seriously about our food supply here in the States, if we are ever to make changes to the welfare of farm animals and responsible agriculture . . .we need to stop lying to our children about where eggs and milk come from. From an Eyewitness book : "The cows come to the gate. It is milking time! The farmer milks the cows. He will sell the milk for people to drink. The cows go back to the field to munch grass"
Most dairy cows never see pasture. The don't come to the gate. The farmer doesn't sell the milk because he is an employee.
Think about it. Then do something about it (CAT).

Do they have ANY idea?

2007-10-22T18:53:00.000-07:00

The upside to waiting and watching for this UAF vet tech job to coalesce is that I have gotten to take enough sub jobs with the school district to actually get a feel for individual school character and district procedure. Every discipline has its own in-speak and every workplace has its own abbreviations that make absolute sense to the initiated. Consider the abbreviated OCD. In the school district this is the student who's been placed in Sped-ED for obsessive compulsive disorder. In the veterinary world this is a dog that needs elbow surgery because he has osteochondritis dessicans. For the most part I've been taking the extremely hard to fill "special education AID" positions. There IS a classroom teacher with specialized training and years of experience. I am "merely" a facilitator, minion, pal, humorist, and quasi-nurse. There are usually two or three aids to each teacher in a single special ed classroom of anywhere from 5 to 12 students. Special ed breaks down into two sections (from what I can tell): Special ed, emotionally disturbed (ED), or special ed intensive resource. "Intensive resource" is the integration of individuals with such profound alterations to 'normal' that daily bodily functions and basic language is a challenge. Until today, I hadn't done it at the high school level. I do pretty well with almost anything you totally throw me into, but my actual spirit fell a little today. After lunch, when all the other 800 (a thousand?) teenagers went into their classrooms -- English and algebra and life sciences and U.S history -- we, the motley assortment of us, ambled, wheeled, drooled, sauntered through every hallway of the building picking up the trash left behind from lunch. Granola bars(whole) and french fries, wrapper after wrapper, bottle caps and "Wendy's" drink cups left, half-filled, under the water fountain. Most of the classroom doors were open. You could peer inside to a brightly lit hub of activity where 'normals' were working on higher level tasks that might take them to college . . . or anywhere but into the hallways with us. And, by the time the class bell rang, we were gone from the hallways, just as ALL the trash was, every absentminded bit of 'entitlement' left where it was for the invisible retards to pick up. And they don't even know it. Those kids in those rooms whining and complaining and waiting for the bell to ring don't even know that THIS is what we do for an entire eighty-minute class period. After that we went and learned to wash potatoes for baking.

Tomorrow I've accepted an elementary level special ed aid- ED job. I think I'll stay with the ED jobs for now on. The 'intensive resource' is, in-truth, just too much for me. There isn't enough of me to give to them.

Helen, Calvin, Hobbes

2007-10-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

The snow is really here this time. If anyone has any pointers on Internet copywrite issues--as related to this blog-- please share. Otherwise, you should know that the Helen Reddy lyrics are included because my best friend just realized that her husband has them memorized! This is another reason I've spent so much time on their couch recently. You'll need to click on the cartoon to actually read it. Sorry

-Artist: Helen Reddy from "Helen Reddy's Greatest Hits": EMI ST 11467
-peak Billboard position # 1 for 1 week in 1972
-Words and Music by Helen Reddy and Ray Burton

I am woman, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much to go back an' pretend
'cause I've heard it all before
And I've been down there on the floor
No one's ever gonna keep me down again

CHORUS
Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman

You can bend but never break me
'cause it only serves to make me
More determined to achieve my final goal
And I come back even stronger
Not a novice any longer
'cause you've deepened the conviction in my soul

CHORUS

I am woman watch me grow
See me standing toe to toe
As I spread my lovin' arms across the land
But I'm still an embryo
With a long long way to go
Until I make my brother understand

Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to I can face anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman
Oh, I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong

FADE
I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong
I am woman

Another thing to love about where I live

2007-10-16T08:24:00.000-07:00

Where else could one of my doctor-friends come running into my house in her scrubs, right before her shift, "You still want a sewing machine? My husband says I have to get rid of it in this move and it's in the car."
I will unbox the machine today. I hope it's basic enough for this private-school-girl who never had home economics. My half-finished Halloween costume for our annual "veterinary trick-or-treat" is also begging to be finished.

It looks very much like my non-literary article "Volunteering for the Heifer Project: Farming for a better world" will go to print in Vet Tech magazine with some photo credits from Alexander (maybe he'll write a paragraph of two, but 9th grade is heating up for him;). That's a nice ego boost after a dry spell.

I've been tooling around on a dating site for the last few days, and I feel prompted to remark on how many portraits actually take the time to say "I like a woman who looks good." This sentiment is often encapsulated in things like "want someone who dresses nicely" "works on their body" "takes pride in their appearance". The other thing that is sooo common is the overly cliche "No Games" disclaimer. Not even Scrabble, gentlemen?? I know what they MEAN, of course. . . handle with care and wrap up your own issues first.
OK . . .to be totally crass, looking at these dating sites reminds me of looking at bovine sperm catalogs on the farm! You get this glossy 20 page brochure with glowing photos of muscled black Angus bulls standing square on lush pasture. You get their "stats" --how many daughters vs. sons they have "thrown", you get thee milk production stats on their daughters (including butterfat percentage), and the "carcass weight" of their sons, you get to see the MOTILITY coefficient of the sperm! In each catalogue there's usually a "featured bull" (like the 'match member of the month'). You can then order a tiny dry-iced straw of genetic material from New Zealand. . . or Australia . . .or Ireland . . .and pin lots of hopes on things that are too often beyond our own control.

I'm off to show preschoolers xrays of "doggies"!

Waiting for a "Little"!

2007-10-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

I had an hour-and-a-half long interview with the "matchmaker" at Big Brothers/Big Sisters yesterday that went very, very well. It was wonderful, especially right now in my life, to hear how much I had to offer and how they felt --even with a "rocky" residential history on the app ("a lot of people in Fairbanks have this kind of 'address' page")--that I was a super-good candidate. The next step is for her to call all the refs, make sure I'm not a criminal on the run, and set up a meeting with a family and a future "little" ***note to everyone** Big Brothers/Big Sisters needs MEN!! If you've EVER considered trying this organization, go for it! I made it clear that I enjoy working with boys as well girls, but understand a boy wanting a male "big".

I'm really excited!! It may take a while for it all to happen, but hopefully not as long as it takes UAF's HR to get me hired to develope their vet tech program (haha. Wry, overdrawn$ laughter)

Sushi Interval

2007-10-11T15:26:00.000-07:00

It feels funny to eat be eating sushi with friends on a snowy day in Fairbanks Alaska . . .but lucky, too. Like fondling pineapples in the store in January when it's -50.

Back to preschool tomorrow. They'll be something funny to report on, I'm sure.
namaste--

=^..^=

Untangled

2007-10-11T14:29:00.000-07:00

Oh friends, these have been painful days. I'm sorry this blog has taken on such a "personal" quality--but good writing IS personal. And "mistakes" of the heart and voice could not be more universal. I deleted an earlier entry today, and realized that the harm I continue to do to myself IS IN RESCINDING MY VOICE, buckling to someone else's anger and denial. Letting myself be silenced because I'm afraid of how someone else will take it is the WORST form of editing. And I have been editing myself for far too long. I hurt myself most, and others second, when I am not totally honest. Grow [back] up, Cat. The others might follow. Or they might not. It's none of my business anymore. Speak the truth, because that is the love.

I got moved yesterday

2007-10-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

Instead of the preschool class yesterday, they REALLY needed me down the hall in "Intensive Resource". Friends, the men and women that work with these kids EVERY DAY are iron-spirited faith-based saints! Diapers and tube feedings and braces and violent fits, each child so drastically different in their needs you wonder if you are doing anything but passing the time with them, covering your ears for the screaming and washing your hands of spittle . . .they EACH need one/one and you just can't provide it. I was asked back and told I did a good job, but I'm dissapointed to discover I can't give them even a fraction of the spirit-lead optimism that they deserve. *Sigh*

"This is your life" . . .but just for now

2007-10-10T07:11:00.000-07:00

I'm going back to preschool at Ladd Elementary today, Friday and Monday. One of their three classroom teachers got called on a family crisis. Again, this qualifies as a "special ed" classroom, but it's hard for me to pick out the developmental delays in this group. I'm sooo cool with playing blocks, balloon toss and circle time. Because we have a minor dusting of snow this week, school policy mandates that--even though it's still +30 outside--everybody has to don their Dora Explorer/Hot Wheels snow suits for just "crossing the street" outside. With three and four-year-olds you can guess that THIS procedure of dress/undress actually IS almost the entire class. It is handy, however, that if a kid starts to slip on the ice you can just grab the crown of their hood and tote them along to safety.

To take this job at Ladd Elem. I had to reschedule a pro-bono "vet talk" I was going to do with an in-home daycare. Next week I'll do it with xrays of birds, snakes, puppies and some coloring books. Kids. kids, kids is the "theme" this week. I have A LOT more vet work on the horizon in the next few months, so I'm just trying to enjoy this.

I also have to return a call to Big-Brothers-Big-Sisters . . .a lengthy application process I'm both excited and nervous about, just because of the way my life is "cobbled together". 'Cause I'm in the schools already, though, that means I passed the borough's background check and they have my fingerprints on file and I don't have TB. Woohoo! There's at least one thing to be really grateful for this week! I don't have TB!
OK. TRULY. enough self-gratifying self pity, Cat. Put on your big girl panties and get on with it.
Writing. Book contracts. Still working on it, but not getting paid while working on it. . .

Where I'm subbing next week!

2007-10-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

I will be the school secretary for a few days. STILL waiting on UAF. Have an article pending in Vet Tech Journal
http://www.northstar.k12.ak.us/index.php?i_page=250

Preschool!

2007-10-09T13:02:00.000-07:00

I am a preschool techer today! Today is YELLOW day! We made lemonade with real lemons! Sparky the fire dog came today and the fire-guys dressed up in their gear and told us not to be afraid of them when they come to rescue us! Boys are yucky, but sending angry e-mails is a bad choice! Make better choices!

"An Imaginative Supposal"

2007-10-08T07:49:00.000-07:00

This entry's quoted title is C.S. Lewis' phrase from his introduction to "The Great Divorce" which -BTW- if you're going to listen to as a book-on-tape from the library you should NOT do while cleaning the house (why is my hairbrush in the freezer??).
The actual book "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" by ZZ Packer is a satisfying fiction read about human beings,racial identity, the state of the world and the intersection of the two. The movie I saw yesterday "310 to Yuma" was a cowboy western set in 1868 where one of the most memorable details (not it's BEST, however) was a man killing another around the campfire with the fork he used for his beans. After that matinee I tried "The Jane Austen Book Club" but walked out after the first fifteen minutes when it was clear that the movie was about seven down-on-their-romantic-luck women . . .and I've only read one Jane Austen book . . .I'm apparently missing the gene that makes them interesting.

**that's the end of weekend-eclectic-media-recap! Tune in next Monday!**

The coral of an ice cream cone

2007-10-06T11:18:00.000-07:00

At a table of eight people last night I misheard "the curl of an ice cream cone" (soft serve) as "the coral of an ice cream cone"-- an image that immediately evoked the 'petticoat' that fluffles from under the scoop-shape of hard ice cream.

Well, that's not really as FUNNY as I promised . . .
You could tell by the muted-blue quality of the light this morning, even before looking outside, that the snow is here. Not much. We'll see if it stays. Still have the creepy feeling that I should've woken up somewhere else for this event.

Here's a funny photo from the farm archives I like to subtitle: How come I smell rotten eggs every time I hit the gas peddle??

Gray Day

2007-10-05T12:45:00.000-07:00

It's the kind of day that requires aphorisms and faith to get through. Growth is painful, but it IS growth.
I was supposed to teach at Pearl Creek Elementary but the job was cancelled. Snow looks likely, judging from the tin-spoon color of the sky. There is some good news in my world, just not in this blog entry.

Anonymous lessons on change (I didn't write these). I am on chapter 2 in my particular growth curve. Thank you to D'NAH for these!!! The next blog entry will be FUNNY--promise!!

Chapter 1.
I walk down a street and there's a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. It takes forever to get out. It's my fault.

Chapter 2.
I walk down the same street. I fall in the hole again. It still takes a long time to get out. It's not my fault.

Chapter 3.
I walk down the same street. I fall in the hole again. It's becoming a habit. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

Chapter 4.
I walk down the same street and see the deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

Chapter 5.
I walk down a different street.