The Stories We Tell

I recently picked up one of my old handwritten journals. It's a thin hardcover blank book style journal that I kept from 1994 to 1999. A record of my college years plus the year before and after. Fascinating. Humiliating. Laughable. Upsetting.

I look at some of the words, stories, memories recorded in the book and I wonder who the hell that person was who wrote it all. Not me. Couldn't be. Because so much of it is too terribly WRONG. But then I look at my blog here, and I think the same thing about some of these entries, even the more recent ones. Oh, I fully believed everything I wrote as I was writing it. 100%, no doubts. But later I'll see an issue in a different light because of something else I read or see or experience, and I'll wonder how I could have ever thought my first thoughts were correct.

We define ourselves by the stories we tell. I'm not talking just about the stories we tell to other people, but the stories we tell ourselves about our own beliefs, ideals, experiences. Television and film has exploited this very curiosity of human nature countless times. Different people/characters experience the same event, and their own role in the event, in very different ways, and those changes in perspective are absolutely fascinating to me. As a writer, I can use this to alter a scene simply by choosing a different view point character to filter the information.

So what am I getting at here.... hmmm.

Sometimes I can't leave a certain subject alone because I haven't found a way to tell the story so that it really makes sense, so that the truth of it is revealed, not only to the people reading, but to myself. Sometimes I realize after posting something that I was so far from the truth of the subject that it's both painful and laughable to read my own words. I see what bullshit I've spewed, and I cringe. Yet I've never deleted a post. (I don't think...)

All the crap stories and flawed journal entries serve as a guidebook of where I've already looked for the story that is me. I think if I every really figured it out, I'd have no reason to keep writing. However, I don't anticipate ever finding that elusive truth, so I'll just have to keep hacking away word by word.

Day to End Sexual Violence

A little while ago I participated in an online survey regarding sexual violence in this country. The results have been posted here. My story is among the many the blogger posted, and is by no means one of the "worst" up there.

The women of the United States do have many more freedoms and protections than women in, say, many Middle Eastern countries, but we've got a long way to go. And we seem to be losing ground... just search the recent abortion debates to read more about that, or go to this blog for a quick run down.

More cheerful posts to come. (Hopefully... just need to catch up with the grading... always with the grading...)

Beans, Beans

Off to Boston for a couple days. Will be catching up with old friends, French and otherwise. I'll be back before you even miss me.

Ta.

File Under: Hobbies>Reading

My reading list from the last six weeks (approximately and in no particular order):

A Monstrous Regiment of Women, A Letter of Mary, and Keeping Watch
by Laurie R. King

A Monstrous Regiment and Men at Arms
by Terry Pratchett

Origin in Death
by JD Robb

The Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and I'm in the middle of A Storm of Swords
by George RR Martin

The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation
by Mark Kurlansky

The Black Jewels Trilogy
by Anne Bishop

Moon Called
by Patricia Briggs

Lover Eternal: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood
by JR Ward

Hmmm... I feel like I'm forgetting one or two more. (Can you tell I don't have children? Yeah, well, got to get in the reading while I can. I have a feeling that in five years, my six week reading list will look like this: )

Anyway, clearly, I like fantasy, urban or high, makes no difference. Also fond of humor, satire, a good mystery, and history. I'd recommend any of the above. The Martin books are slow reading though. Even though I always skim the battle scenes.

Friendship and Anger

Interesting comments on the last post. I'm going to pick on Devan now. Fair warning.

If you value someone's friendship, accept it. They are who they are and their rudeness has nothing to do with their feelings for you. Accepting who someone is and the structure of a particular relationship is EXACTLY what it means to be someone's friend. Just because someone's a "flake" doesn't mean they're not a "friend." And just because you're not priority number one in their lives, doesn't mean that you're not an important part of their life. It's just a matter of perspective. ~ Devan, in comments below

See, this is what I mean by being able to explain away just about any treatment. This is a bunch of rationalizing bullshit that confuses "being a friend" with "being a doormat".

Friendship is a mutual system of support, affection, interests, and respect. Keyword: MUTUAL. I think I allowed that this friend's actions have nothing to do with her feelings for me. I'm pretty sure her actions have much more to do with the value she places on her personal time and other issues stemming from shyness and self-worth considerations. I don't believe I ever mentioned anything about needing to be a number one priority with a friend. HELL, I'm not even a number one priority with my husband. (Though I think I've made it into the top three now.)

Likewise, my admission about being pissed off at her actions has no bearing on my feelings for her as a person. I love her to pieces. She was there for me in a very real way throughout my college years. When she decides that she has time for friends and friendship in her life again, I'll still be here. But for me to be okay with ME, I can't keep holding out my hand only to have it be ignored over and over.

My saying that I'm pissed off has much more to do with me getting over that voice in my head that says "you don't have the right to be angry". Because, honestly, I AM angry, and if I deny that, it's only going to destroy, little-by-little, the friendship that I do feel for her. Simmering anger turns into resentment, and nothing sours a relationship faster than bubbling pools of resentment. If I own up to my anger, I can deal with it, get over it, and move on to something more productive and interesting.

Yes, opening yourself to other people can hurt. I can only assume that's why so many people are so crippled by social interactions. ~ Devan again

What the hell kind of high horse condescending bullshit statement is this? And what does it have to do with the subject at hand? I'm not talking about being unable to "open" myself to people. (And, my, doesn't that sound pornographic?) I'm as open to people as the next person, but I have a lot of interests and a lot of ways to entertain myself, so I see no reason to tolerate disrespectful treatment from others. Just not worth my time. Doesn't make me crippled, just makes me happier and saner.

Don't make me have to smack you. (Metaphorically speaking, of course.)

Fighting the Impulse to be "Reasonable"

So one of the reasons I love Jay, besides the fact that he is NOT a self-loathing alcoholic, is that I am able to be utterly irrational with him at times, and not really have to worry about the results of said irrationality. If you're still with me after that mess of a sentence, I'll try to make it more clear as I go here.

Growing up, I was always the reasonable one. I didn't throw fits, I ate regularly, went to school regularly, did most of my homework, checked in if I wasn't going to be home, stayed out of jail... that sort of thing. After "Kate can handle it", "We knew you wouldn't mind" was the thing I heard from family and friends most often. And, of course, I did mind, but I could make excuses for any kind of behavior.

Dad drinks too much? Well, everyone on that side of the family drinks, and Dad has a lot of stress at work/has a dying friend in the hospital/is celebrating a good football season right now. Mom eats twelve pounds of candy in one day? Well, she's stressed out about Dad's drinking/brother's arrests/taking care of everything around the house/Scouting/church stuff. Brother acting like a fool, treating me like crap, getting arrested? Well, he's not dealing well with our parents' problems/blames me for NOT rebelling/figures if people say he's trouble, he might as well BE trouble. Friends disappearing, not calling when they said they would, blah blah blah? Well, everyone is busy, somethings are more important, I'm sure there's a good reason.

I could go on, but I'll spare us both. Suffice it to say, I could explain away just about any sort of behavior.

I had plans to meet up with a friend this weekend. Made these plans at the beginning of the month. Made these plans to make up for plans that fell through in January AND February. But still, note the use of the past tense "had plans". I got an email yesterday that "gosh, my sister said she was coming with the kids the last week in March, but she goofed and meant the first weekend in April, so I have to cancel".

My reasonable impulse was to be disappointed because I was really looking forward to having a conversation with another woman and to shopping, eating out, and getting away from rural Vermont for the day, but I know that she doesn't get to see her nieces all that often, and that her sister IS a big flake, so I grumbled to myself a bit and shrugged it off. BUT THEN I started to think about it. Last weekend was the last weekend in March. Um, shouldn't she have realized sometime last week that her sister wasn't coming then? I only live about an hour away... couldn't she have called me then? Couldn't we have moved our plans back a week instead? Why, had she called me, then yes, we could have.

And I realize her problems have more to do with her issues than with her feelings toward me, but I'm not going to expend more energy on a "friend" who isn't. She knows where to find me and how to contact me. I think I shall not hold my breath, however, as I just move the hell on with my life. Hmmm? So screw "reasonable". I'm just going to own up to being PISSED OFF. RAHR.

(On a completely unrelated note: Da ALi G Show... painfully funny. Emphasis on the pain. Couldn't stop laughing, but at one point, Jay had the blanket over his head so he wouldn't have to actually SEE it happening.)

Another post about alcoholics

When I was a senior in high school, I had to squeeze health class into my schedule. For most people, this meant giving up a semester elective, but I needed my art classes to stay sane, so I skipped AP European History and took a semester of anthropology opposite the semester of health. Fortunately, my friend Becca had likewise procrastinated, so I wasn't alone among the sophomores and juniors.

Now everything was easy, breezy, common sense type shite for me until we got to alcohol and drug use/abuse. I remember having to read a worksheet describing a bunch of different behaviors in regard to drinking and drugs, being required to decide which were "safe" or just "experimental" and which were signs of deeper problems or addiction. I failed on every count. I had no idea what was normal behavior and what wasn't. I wasn't used to not being able to figure out the answers in school. I remember being deeply puzzled by this failure, though I think this confusion about "normal" attitudes towards alcohol and drugs is fairly common among the children of alcoholics.

Our teacher had a recovering alcoholic come to class to talk about his experiences. Listening to him made me want to cry, so instead I squirmed through his talk, trying not to giggle. I'm a big fan of laughing as a substitute for tears, but I felt like a jerk, like he might have thought I was laughing at him. 12 years later, this still bugs me.

I think one of the smartest choices I accidentally made was to avoid contact with drinking and drugs until I did understand the difference between use and abuse. Other than an occasional glass of wine at a family dinner, I didn't touch alcohol until my sophomore year of college. Still under the legal drinking age here in the US, but not by much. Had a minor bout of overdrinking during my junior winter, but blacking out and puking in bushes got pretty old pretty fast. Was back to the mostly sober life during my last year of college.

But even then, after I had gotten my own issues under control, I still had to work out the relationship-with-alcoholics problems. Jay and I were watching Walk the Line the other night. Good movie, really enjoyed it, loved Reese Witherspoon's role. But there's a scene in the movie where Johnny Cash is all fucked up, in withdrawal, moaning about what an awful person he is. And I think this was maybe intended to evoke sympathy, but my reaction was: "Oh shut it. Yeah, you suck. I've seen this before, I know how it ends." But of course, this time, the ending was different... happy, instead of the same old thing all over again.

And the instant anger of my reaction surprised me. Watching the portrayal of a very talented individual fuck up his life with drugs and self-loathing just seemed a little too familiar. In 1996 - not coincidently just before I started smoking and drinking heavily - I met Dave. We worked together, we flirted, we hung out with some of the same people. Because of the "D" plan - the flexible "trimester" system at Dartmouth that allows for multiple terms abroad, internships, ski training, etc. we hadn't really been on campus at the same time before. When we met, I was dating someone else, and he was dating several someone elses. But something just clicked and by the end of the term, we were a couple. (I think that something was the unstoppable force called "charming alcoholic meets child-of-alcoholic with unresolved issues". Or "self-loathing male meets would-be-martyr female". Take your pick.)

We both loved to read, to go to movies, to travel - especially to travel... we always had things to talk about. But more and more often I was finding him at parties drunk off his ass, either groping some other chick or else quietly crying in the corner about how he should just walk off naked into the wilderness and let himself die. (Yeah, so maybe he read too much Literature.) And usually I would gather him up, escort him back to his place or mine, and take care of his sorry ass. We would break up, get back together, break up again. We decided to see other people. I didn't understand that meant "see other people naked", though I caught on pretty quickly. This led up to the Infamous Sugar Packet Conversation one night in West Lebanon, NH. Good god, I wish I could go back in time and smack myself. Hard. Repeatedly.

And it just gets worse. One night I had gone to a party at one of the frats to meet up with him - because he asked me to - and he showed up with SkankyHo (I can't remember her real name). He was drunk off his ass. As was she. Probably a bit high as well. He stopped to give me a kiss, almost knocked me over he was so out of it. Told me that he really wanted to stop seeing SkankyHo, but he couldn't do that to her tonight because it was her birthday, so he'd probably have to fuck her, too.

Oh yeah. I couldn't make this shite up.

God, I'm still pissed off about that. And why? Not because of what he did, but because I still talked to him after that. And because I still did more than just talk to him after that.

We went on to torment each other for another four years, off and on, but distance helped keep the idiocy to a minimum. He moved to Italy for a while, I visited briefly. He was in Massachusetts while I was finishing at Dartmouth. There was talk of engagement. I said no. He moved to Oregon. I visited on a road trip. I TA'd in Lyon. We met up in Paris for a week. I dated a few other people; he fucked a lot of other people. I moved to Arizona. He visited me at the Grand Canyon. Then nothing. I moved to Salt Lake and he vanished. I needed a friend to talk to, and he never returned my calls or my emails. I threw away the stuff he left behind. When he did get in touch, I told him I had thrown away his stuff. Never heard from him again. Hallelujah, praise god.

I still sometimes wonder what happened to him. But somewhere down the line, I realized that it doesn't matter. I'm pretty sure he's still alive. I think he's back on the east coast. Maybe he's gotten over the self-loathing routine. Maybe not. The important thing is that I've gotten over the self-loathing thing.

I look back on that relationship now and just shake my head. Because like that long ago health class worksheet, it was another classic example of my not understanding the differences between "normal" and abusive behavior. I wonder if alcoholics have any understanding of the far-reaching effects their drinking has on their children. I wonder if most children of alcoholics do. Somehow I doubt it.

bleh bleh bleh

Yeah, I know, I never update anymore. Thing is, I've been making an effort to spend less time in the cement box that is my office, and more time writing, reading, knitting, editing, critting, and all that. And we still haven't caved to the outrageous price demands of the local Internet providers. So the only time I'm on here is when I'm at work. (No, I'm not paid by the hour, so I'm only wasting my free time.)

I swear that I have brilliant ideas for blog entries at night, at home, as I'm trying ever unsuccessfully to fall asleep... but I wake up in the morning, putz around for an hour or so, come to work, and the mediocrity that pervades this place just sucks away my will to write. Well, that and reading two dozen freshman English papers... Good God.

This week I've been trying to be a bit more conscientious about lesson plans and whatnot - my semester observation and evaluation is this afternoon. About 45 minutes from now, actually. Yippee. Thank god my second class has their library tour and introduction after that. I don't think I could deal with them (troublemakers, every last one) after the icky adrenaline rush of being watched wears off. Bleh.

Perhaps a last run through my notes would be wise...

Nouvelles Hyper Bonnes!

Fred is coming to visit! Yay!

Fred is my French younger brother - I lived with his family in Blois in the Spring of 1996, and I've been back to visit 4 or 5 times since, though not since 2002. He's way too smart for his own good, and last time I visited, he was off being brilliant in Chile or something like that. But since then, he's graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique (aka: X, aka: place for super smart people who end up running the world) and is off working in London. And he'll be in New York during my spring break vacation! Yay!

I'm so psyched. Either he'll figure out how to get up here, or I'll go down there (though I hate NYC) and I'm so excited to see him again.

Yay!

(And now I feel the need to get my ass in gear, dust off the French, and write the Cognys a long overdue letter.)

Signs accepted, signs ignored

I've been trying to make a hat from a skein of Manos Del Uruguay color: bramble. I say "trying" because I've now knitted it up three different ways (and frogged it back three different times). Only explanation I can figure: this yarn does not want to be a hat.

So while I figure out what exactly it does want to be, I'm knitting up a nice, cabled hat in my still currently favorite yarn: Malabrigo in a leftover skein of burgundy.

But while I'm willing to accept the occasional message from the universe regarding knitting projects, there are others I steadfastly ignore.

For example, I might believe that the fact that only one of my readers acknowledged my birthday last week means that I am unloved. Instead, I choose to believe that people are either sick or busy or otherwise away from their computers, and therefore, from this blog.

I might believe that the reason my former college roommate hasn't followed through on any of our plans for monthly visits since November is because I am way low on her list of priorities. Instead, I choose to believe that she is mired in her martyrdom and requires extra harassment from me to remember that life isn't all about what she can do for everyone else. Why do so many people have trouble taking care of themselves? Holy Jebus.

I might believe that this atrocious weather is merely a result of the coming spring, warming temperatures, gentle rains, melting snow. Instead, I choose to believe that it's a personal insult from the weather gods, who my husband clearly needs to worship with more intensity so that we get some crisp, clear days and another few weeks of xcountry skiing. (I miss the intermountain west. sigh.)

As a final thought... Mud season: cruel joke, or necessary evil?

Finally!

Finally uploaded pictures to the Flickr account - should have more transferred there soon. Click on the "badge" at the left to see some of my recent knitting projects.

Wheeeee!

I am on a massive high today. Not sure why, but I'm happy to ride it out. I've been slack about updating, but you are required to forgive me because today is my birthday. Three Zero. And I have to say I am really looking forward to my thirties, because my twenties were an improvement over my teens, and things are still looking up.

Things that I am looking forward to in the coming decade? Little Jay-Kate Hybrids, publication, a return to peak fitness levels, more creative endeavors, books to be discovered, yarn to be knit up, people to meet, places to go...

This past week, as I mentioned, we got over to Newcomb, NY to hang out with Fred and Morrie (Fred's fiance). Skied the 9 hole golf course the first afternoon - lots of fluffy powder and some fun hills. Next day did a ten mile (16 km) ski up an old road... in 8 degree Fahrenheit (-13 C) weather. Fun, but crazy cold. Day after that, Morrie and I hung out at the cabin and sent the boys out to play. Chatted, knitted, cooked up a big ol' turkey dinner. Good times.

Spent a few days in town after that, catching up on grading and work stuff (though I mostly just surfed the web while Jay was all responsible - slacker is spelled K-A-T-E). Skied about 15 K (didn't have the GPS, so just an estimated distance) at Burke xcountry Saturday afternoon. Great snow. About time.

For Saturday night, we got a fabulous invitation to a colleague's house for dinner and sauna-ing. Great food - every summer the dad and 13 yr old daughter go hunting/fishing in Alaska (where they lived for 5 years), so the salmon was amazing. Jay had fun playing with the younger daughter, who has Down's Syndrome, and he might have gotten her just a bit riled up. Then we got to experience the sauna that they built this past year on their property. Amazing. I miss the dry heat of the desert climes, and this was just wonderful. And funny - naked men going out to rub snow on themselves is inherently funny somehow. And I'm glad to hear via Jay that they enjoyed us as much as we enjoyed them.

Sunday we drove over into New Hampshire to see friends who recently left Salt Lake to return to the Wrong Side of the Mississippi. Skied another 15 K on crappy snow at one of the resorts, but had a great time with the friends. I confess that I was pretty destroyed by two 15K skis in 2 days. Feel great today though. Except for the bright blue bruises around my left knee from when I fell testing out my skate skiing skills (which are decent, but still very beginner-esque).

And now back to grading... Ugh.

Disclaimers and "Just Being Honest"

Have you ever noticed that whenever someone utters the words "No offense, but..." or "Nothing against you, but..." the most rude, tactless, arrogant, offensive, hurtful things follow? Why do people think that the weak, and often insincere, statement that their words aren't intended to hurt makes this behavior acceptable? And why, oh why, is it always followed with the excuse "I'm just trying to be honest"?

I have a student in one of my classes who does this repeatedly. Makes me nuts, because I have an immediate, emotional reaction to her words, even though I know they are intended to be manipulative - giving her the illusion of power and control. I've severed ties with (former) friends because of this kind of behavior. Hate it. Hate it.

And yet... I've been guilty of the same behavior. Of course, that was in HIGH SCHOOL, when I was fantastically unhappy and pretty much oozing that misery wherever I went. So, I've been thinking about why people act this way - why they shield their abusive talk behind the words "just being honest". For me, I think it was a reaction to all the things that were never talked about in my house growing up (like my father's alcoholism and denial about it), and my reaction to the way my mother handled it (very passive-agressive). Being brutally honest was a way to distance myself from that mess - I wasn't going to pretend things weren't what they were. I wasn't going to say one thing when I meant another.

And so, knowing this about myself, I wonder what's going on with people who couch their harsh comments with pillows of "No offense, but" and "Nothing against, you personally". What pain are they in to stab other people with tactless barbs? What relief do they get from seeing their listener flush with embarrassment and/or defensiveness? I don't know. With friends or acquaintances, I can either probe for details, or run for the hills. With students... I'm stuck. The ones who say stuff like this are usually the ones who aren't interested in conversing outside of class oriented information. I can't get rid of them - often they're among the brighter students in the class - so I don't necessarily want to get rid of them. But.


Anywho.


Heading out tomorrow morning for a long weekend in New York state at Jay's dad's "cabin". "Cabin" because the so-called cabin is at least twice as big as our apartment. Next week is winter break, so I won't be in the office late next week. Yay!

It's contagious

My students are giving me ADD. That's Attention Deficit Disorder, for the acronymically challenged. I used to be able to work on one thing until it was finished, and then move onto the next thing until that was finished, and so on. Now? Notsomuch.

Let's see... my current projects in progress....

1. Book on tape (currently - The Blue Nowhere by Jeffery Deaver), to be listened to at the gym while on the boring cardio machines so I don't have to listen to the grunting of students/staff/faculty in the tiny campus gym, or to the questionable musical selections that the work study student puts on.

2. Nonfiction book - Salt: A World History read before bed to make me want to be sleeping, and also as an interesting research into how economies are formed. (Good for realistic fantasy worldbuilding)

3. Fiction book - been doing a little researchy type fiction reading - other epic fantasy novels and whathaveyou. Just finished A Game of Thrones and have started The Black Jewels trilogy.

4. Turtleneck Shrug, my most recently started knitting project. I'm using Cascade 220 in the color "Provence". So far, I've got one sleeve done. Started this on Tuesday, expect to have it done by Sunday.

5. Felted bag - no pattern, just used some of the techniques from Folk Bags and Felted Knits to piece it together. This still needs to have buttons attached, but it only finished drying out this morning. It's made in Lamb's Pride Bulky in the colors "limeade" and "brite blue". I cringe at the spelling, but love the color anyway. Someday I will get my act together and post pictures.

6. Cozy wrap using Cherry Tree Hill in blues and greens. I started this at the beginning of the month. Have about 18 inches done. Finished length should be about 65 inches. No idea when it will be finished.

7. Shamefully abandoned projects - long, skinny, sport weight baby alpaca scarf for me. The yarn makes me sneeze. I started it in October, have picked it up a few times since then, and am about 2/3 of the way through. Will finish it some day. Probably. Also, 1 sock. I will probably never make the second sock. I should just tear out the first one and do something else with the yarn. Someday.

8. Add in a sprinkling of working on my own writing, completing critiques for other people, and that pesky thing called "a job", and it's small wonder that I don't really notice my lack of a social life most of the time. And why I sometimes don't update the blog for days and days at a time...

Anyway... it is getting dark and I am still at work. So not what I intended for this evening.

(OH - and that package finally did make its appearance to K2. I will have to ask her to take pictures and send them to me, because I forgot to photograph them before sending them...)

A few thoughts

I don't have the patience, attention span, or desire to spend much time at the computer just now, so I'll just say this:

The Vagina Monologues - funny, fabulous, highly memorable.

Jay's reaction to The Vagina Monologues - priceless.

If it's going to be this damn cold, at least we could get some snow, eh? Just sayin.

"Vermonter" seems to be a close synonym to "wildly eccentric". I think I like that about Vermont.

I dreamt about a trip to the yarn store near Burlington. It was a good dream. Yarn... mmmmmm.

Marital Static, or Yes, Electroshock Therapy Does Work

Things have been so dry up here lately that I am constantly getting little shocks during the day. ZAP. Ouch. Dammit. Shock my hand, okay, I can cope. But some parts are just a little more sensitive than others. (Get your minds out of the gutter - it's getting crowded enough with just me here.)

So Jay, an oddly cuddly man considering his utter lack of body fat, loves to just kiss me all the time. (No, I'm not really complaining.) Just a little peck on the lips, just a "you love me, right?" sort of validation, I suppose. Unfortunately, static and little smootches on the lips don't really go all that well together. About 80% of the time, I get a little current discharged into my tender, and usually chapped, lips. ZAP. Ouch. Dammit. It's gotten so bad that the second he leans in, I instinctively lean away. Last night he leaned over and said "Gimme a kish" (because he was already puckered up), and I shuddered and ducked my head. This can't be healthy.

Anyone know a good static buster for the house?

ZAP. Ouch. Dammit.

As excuses go

So today I was thinking I would finally see how many of my pictures I could load onto my USB drive to bring to work to upload to my new Flickr account. However, as I stood behind my dear, sweet husband at his computer, looking at pictures, he showed me a few from the holidays that I hadn't seen yet.

*looking at a picture of me on xcountry skis in really odd lighting*

Me: Gah. Delete that one, will you. I look deformed.

Jay: Okay, but you kind of are.

Me: Kind of are what?

Jay: Deformed.

*silence*

Jay: What? Where are you going?

Timing

My father, hard core Pittsburgher, longtime Steelers fan, won the lottery at his work for the chance to buy two Super Bowl tickets. He and one of his best friends (my godfather) got to go to Detroit to see the game. And the Steelers won.

I'm guessing now would be a good time to ask the man for just about anything... how much better could his mood get, I ask you?

Too bad I can't think of a darn thing...

A fan by any other name?

I have never really considered myself a "fan" of anything in particular. Fandom, in my mind, has always been linked to mindless adulation, especially the kind that includes lots of squealing or body painting... I always had an extremely hard time writing essays about "what are you a fan of?" or "who is your idol?" or other such nonesense. I think my favorite essay was one I had to write in CCD back in 3rd or 4th grade. The subject was "Is Jesus your hero, why or why not?" I, of course, said I didn't think he was, and went on to give reasons why he wasn't particularly relevant to the things I was interested in. Heh. My poor catechism teacher. I found that essay this past summer while digging through a stash of my old papers in my parents' attic.

Of course, I didn't think the fact that I read every single Trixie Belden book or all of Lois Duncan's work, etc. had anything to do with being a fan. I read them because I liked them, and I liked them because they were good. Fans were people who got all excited about some sports team or tv show, even if the team always lost or the show was stupid. Clearly, I didn't have a very good opinion of fans, so there was no way I could clas myself as a fan of anything. Anyway. I think I'm becoming less jaded as I age. Thank goodness, I know, I know.

Last month, while Jay was off doing something crazy like climbing a mountain in the rain, I rented the movie Serenity - the SF movie by Joss Whedon based off the series Firefly that got cancelled before I had a chance to see it. I. Loved. This. Movie. I'm not even sure I can explain what I loved about it. It just got so many things right - the pacing, the backstory, the characters. I loved it so much that I did something that I have never done before and can't really imagine doing again. I put on the director's commentary and watched the whole thing again. And then I wouldn't let Jay watch it when he got home because I didn't want him to ruin it for me.

But it doesn't end there. I decided that I was clearly missing some pretty good stuff by cutting off TV wholesale. So I signed up for Netflix. (Yes, finally.) And I've got the Firefly tv series in my queue so I can see more. Once the floodgates opened, I found myself queuing up all sorts of TV shows - Band of Brothers, from HBO, South Park from Comedy Central, The Office from the BBC... the list goes on.

So maybe, just a little bit, I might, possibly, sort of, I suppose, understand what the whole "fan" thing is about.

Rated for Language

Not too long ago, I received a critique for a chapter of my current work in progress in which the critter took offense to my "salty" language. (Yes, that's how he described it.) The grounds for his objection were that fantasy worlds shouldn't include swearing and that fantasy publishers didn't want foul language in the books they published. CS Lewis and Tolkien were cited as examples. (Because they're current, and all. *cough cough*) He claimed that he read fantasy to read about pure and noble characters who made sacrifices for the greater good, and not for lowbrow swearing.

Because I try not to scare off the newbies, I merely thanked the critter for his effort and mentioned that he might not enjoy my work if he was looking for purity and nobility of mind and spirit.** I'm more interested in how people react under pressure and how human beings cope with horrible events. Because I'm evil, that's why. Because purity of spirit bores me to tears, for another.

This is not to say that my characters (or I) curse incessantly. I'd say there's a few who never curse at all. But to say that cursing is always wrong is utterly asinine. Few things are always wrong, just as few are always right. It's about context.

I'm not the type to go around saying (or writing) "effing this, effing that" just for shock value or because I can. (Though I've always liked "because I can" as a reason.) I worked at Scout camp for five summers without once swearing in front of the campers or parents. Sometimes, swearing is not appropriate. Sometimes it is. If I look down and see that I'm about to put my foot on a big fat desert hairy scorpion on the hiking trail in the middle of the night, you can rest assured that I'm going to being saying "motherfucker" before I jump off the path and succumb to the willies. The key is knowing the difference between appropriate and inappropriate times/places/audiences.

This is why I try not to swear in front of small children. They've got no idea about when and where different language is appropriate. So if I slip and say "shit" in front of them, they think it's a cool new word and just suck it up into their little brains along with "b'bye" and "more". And once it slips in.... you just never know where it's going to slip out. With my own (hypothetical) kids, I don't think I'll worry about it too much, but you can't get other people's children to forget something they heard, or the fact that they heard it from you. And some people don't much like that. And I don't much like pissing people off for no good reason. So.

It's not about some language being "bad", it's about knowing when and why to apply all kinds of language. In the academic world (at least the parts I've experienced), they use the term "discourse areas" to describe the different worlds of communication we live in. For example - a kid growing up in a working class family with parents who speak English as a second language if at all, is going to need to speak very differently at home than he does while at school. For such a student, "school language" may be a whole new code to be broken, and is too often one that defeats him. In reverse, take a upper middle class white kid and stick him in the ESL household and see how well he survives. Each culture and sub-culture has its own code of language. One is not better than the other. It's all about context.

Language is control. Language is power. Language gives you the power to create, the power to move through this world, the power to control how people perceive you. I wish my students would grasp this concept.

**Of course, what originally wrote after reading this crit was something a little more explicit and a little less tactful. Of course, since I do have some measure of impulse control, and I realize he's new to this critting business, and I don't like to burn my own house (or crit circle) down, I deleted all that and put in the "thanks for the effort" post as mentioned above.

Where you can put that stick

So, as you may recall, in December we got a brand new, shiny, beautiful, Atlantic Blue Pearl, 2006 Subaru Outback. Standard transmission.

As you may also recall, I once learned how to drive stick, but only briefly, and not for any extended period of time, so my skills withered away before they got a chance to develop.

Here's an update:

The scene: me behind the wheel, Jay in the passenger seat, various college parking lots

me: *concentrating really hard, doing the 1st gear, stop, 1st gear, stop, 1st gear, park, reverse, 1st gear boogie.* I think I hate this.

Jay: You're doing fine.

*lurch*

Jay: Too fast on the clutch.

*rev*

Jay: Too much gas.

*stall*

Jay: Not enough gas.

*rev*

Jay:Too much gas.

*rev* *stall*

Jay: When in doubt, step on the clutch.

*evil glare*

Jay:You didn't even look when you backed up that time.

me: Yes I did. They're called mirrors.

Jay:You can't see everything in a mirror.

me: Right. You can tell because I back into people all the time.

Jay:That's not the point.

*rude hand gesture* *rev*

Jay:Too much gas.

*lurch*

Jay:No, you're still too fast on the clutch.

*stall* *rev*

me: Fuck

Jay:More gas.

me:Fuck you.

Jay:More gas, more gas.

*gives it more gas* *stalls*

Jay:If you think you're going to lose it, just press the clutch.

me:But you said more gas.

Jay:It's okay, just press the clutch.

*extremely evil glare* *stall*

Jay:More gas.

*stall*

Jay:Just press the clutch.

*stall*

Jay:More--

me:No, Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

*ebrake on, door open, lesson over*

Jay:Yeah, I think Nimbus has had enough of you. (said in extremely snotty tone while sniffing for clutch burn)

*slam* *slam*

me:YOU. AND. THE. HORSE.

*silence*

Jay:You're kind of cute when you're mad.

*evil glare plus rude gesture*

Jay:No, I mean it.

So. I think we're pretty much done with lessons. I can drive the damn thing. I just need practice. Real practice. Not in a parking lot practice. Preferably without Jay and his helpful comments. The World's Worst Passenger should not ever be a driving instructor.

Good thing he is cute.

Brain Backlog

I have about four new posts I want to write, and a dozen or so knitting pictures to post, and I haven't had a chance to get to any of it. Gah.

The trip to Maryland and Virginia was mahvelous. My sister does indeed seem to know every single person on the Washington and Lee campus, and they all know her in return. Eerie. Like visiting a movie star on set or something. Heh. I'm so proud of her, and mad jealous of her people skills.

The wedding was very very nice, even though Jay and I did have to refrain from laughing during the vows. Fortunately, Karen, the hottie bride, assured me that she had to get all her giggles out during the rehearsal, so I don't feel too bad. Saw a few people I had lost touch with post-graduation and am thrilled to have been able to spend time with again. I will totally be harassing them via email because they are awesome people and make me laugh constantly. And, as usual, even though it had been more than a year since Karen and I were in the same room, it felt like no time had passed at all once we got together. Thanks for reminding me how much I love you, chica. Mwah.

And now I must go prep for my 3pm class. This back to work thing really gets in the way of my free time, I must say.

the issue with no Internet chez moi

I have just spent the last 9 hours in front of the computer. Mostly online. I processed the submissions for the latest short story contest over at Writing Monkeys, transferred a crap load of debt from one nasty, pain in the a$$ credit card to one with a much friendlier online interface, caught up with email, read blogs, found a new blog, caught up with my crit group at Forward Motion, answer more email, searched restaurants and directions for the upcoming trip, read blogs, ogled yarn, checked back in at the two writing sites, did more email stuff, fooled with Yahoo!'s new beta maps, and at last, updated the blog.

No wonder I have a headache. Gah.

Creative Energy Elsewhere

I have been doing a lot of writing, just not in blog format. Several more email between the motherperson and myself... issues not entirely resolved, of course, but at least on steadier ground. My mom says that communication will be her project for the year.

I've finished the last of the in-laws gifts. Finally. Scarves for the women, hats for the men. Fortunately, as I mentioned, I love love love me some Malabrigo yarn, so it wasn't exactly torture to keep working with it. AND, as a bonus, Jay's dad wears silly hats. He put on this military-style black beret over the Turkeyday holiday... and it was just a wee bit too small... and I just about peed my pants laughing. And then I found out it really was HIS hat, and that he was wearing it on purpose... and then I just fell over I was laughing so hard. Heh. I laugh just thinking about it.

But anyway. Point is, I got to experiment with hat-making while doing Fred's hat, and I think it's pretty damn funny. Kind of has a Dr. Seuss vibe, with ear flaps ending in i-cord (like yarn rope) that curls outward, and a narrow cone on top with a tassel on the end... and the cone will stand up unless you knock it down on purpose... Like a chulla gone wrong. Heh.

I love clothing that makes me laugh.

I've also been working on my more serious endeavor of finishing the fantasy books. I'm making good progress on book 2, and have gone back to fix a few things in book 1. And yes, I know I should forget about book 1 until I finish book 2, but there were some details I needed to look up, and then there were some glaring mistakes I had to fix, and... you know how it goes. Maybe. I am working more on book 2, and only switching over to book 1 when I get stuck. Enh, whatever.

I have also got to find some 2006 calendars. We've still got the 2005 ones up all around the house and it's downright disorientating. Gah. We're leaving on Thursday for a wedding down in Baltimore. Though we're actually going to spend the first two nights in Lexington at K2's college. She's been asking me to come visit forever, and this is the first chance we've had to get there. Since she's a senior, I figured I didn't have any time to waste. So I'll be missing the bachelorette party, but I'll be there for the wedding. And that's the important part, right? Right? Hope so.

Education and Entertainments

Been enjoying the time to read and watch movies and knit stuff with school being out until January 17th. (Don't hate me... because I'm poor.) A brief review with recommendations:

The Forty Year Old Virgin: Oh. My. God. I had no idea this movie was so damn funny. I'd heard a little bit about it, but not much. So when I saw it in our local gas station/movie rental place, I picked it up with relatively low expectations. I don't think I've laughed so much at a movie since... well, can't remember when I've laughed so hard. Unless you find men offensive, you must see this movie. Totally could watch this three or four times more. Might even buy the DVD.

Malabrigo Yarn: I am so in love with this yarn, it's just not funny. It's like buttuh. So soft in my hands, such pretty colors, warm, soft, light weight. Gorgeous. After I finish off the rest of the xmas presents, I'm totally going to make myself a sweater out of this stuff. Love it.

Talyn, by Holly Lisle: Such a kick ass book. Holly's books are so complex, and her fantasy work is always so complete. Though I've found some of her past books (like Vincalis) to be a bit skeletal, I have to conclude that this was a result of publishing word count limits, and not her natural storytelling talents. In worlds as complex as the ones she creates, subtlety cannot be accomplished in 100,000 words. Talyn is one of those books that really makes me look at my own beliefs about the world, and what I think is right and wrong; it makes me shuffle through all that, rearranging a few bits here and there, and then helps me put it all back together again. So, if you're looking for a book that will challenge you to examine your own beliefs by way of reading an amazingly good story, check this one out.

Cunt: a declaration of independence, by Inga Muscio Okay, strange title, I agree. Catchy, though, neh? My sister, the women's studies major, gave me this book for christmas. It is not the kind of book you should swallow whole, by any means. (I won't give it to my BIL's GF for that reason... she thinks The Da Vinci Code was a major breakthrough for women... I'm not sure what she would do if she read this one.) I don't think the author intends this to be a guide to living life. She never says, "You should believe this. This is Truth." I rather thought that the purpose was to make the reader question their own beliefs, to really look around and think. It's funny and compeletely irreverent, and written in a conversational style that makes the book very accessible. I also like the way she includes references to other works in the manner of - Did that idea blow your mind? Well, check these sources for more. So many of the negative reviews on Amazon aim from stances of either intellectual indignation or else focus in one one or two statements, ignoring everything else. Muscio makes statements about abortion and religion that others may disagree with. But for the love... why the hell does everyone have to agree? No matter what your stance on christianity, if you look at the history and development of the Church, you have to acknowledge that the Church absorbed other "native" religions and supressed the worship of other deities. Looking at the objective historical/anthropological record doesn't seem to me to be "dissing" christianity. I took it as a "hey, look what came before this" challenge to the common perception of "this is the way it has always been and always should be" so prevalent in the arguments about rights for women, gays, lesbians, bis, trannys, etc. Anyway. Another mind opening book to consider.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by JK Rowling, read by Jim Dale No she did not end it that way. Oh my god. So had to happen, I see that. But oh my goodness. Love listening to the story while I knit.

Okay, I could go on... but I have other things to do before we go back to the Internetless refuge we call home.

Reprinted: a commentary on family communications

I was going to write a post on this subject, but I spent all my energy on an email reply to my mother instead. And then I realized that everything I had to say is pretty much in the email anyway. My sisters read this blog, but I was going to send them a copy of my email anyway.

So... an insight into my family relations:

-----------------

Thanks Momma

Yes, if you had said that you wanted to come to REI, we would have said, "Okay woman, then get your ass in gear and come with." But you said, "Well, I could take you down if you want." And since you always seem to have fifty other things going, we figured that we could take care of this by ourselves and not take up your time. When I called from the store, I asked, "Are there any plans for dinner? Because we're getting hungry and we don't want to go out if there are plans." And you told me to go ahead, whatever we wanted to do. So we did. Yet I am the rotten, exclusionary one here.

I am not used to getting your undivided attention - not since I can remember, in fact. Generally, I feel like I'm pretty far down on your list of priorities. Because I'm so used to hearing Kathy/Kate/othernickname can handle it, I just go ahead and do exactly that instead of waiting for you/anyone else to help out. I realized that you weren't going to figure out that I needed help with stuff about the time I was 14 or 15 and had exactly 3 pairs of raggedy underwear... for about 3 months. Finally took myself shopping and bought my own. I don't ask for help, because just like it doesn't occur to you to offer it to me, it doesn't occur to me to ask. Back in elementary school I used to be totally bewildered about how all the other kids would have these fantastic, professional-looking projects. I mean, how the hell did they manage to all be so good? The thought that maybe their parents were helping them never even occurred to me. Not once. And I'm not mentioning these things as a point of blame, but just to establish the pattern.

I think that's partly the reason that none of us can truly accept [my half-sister's daughter]'s presence. We know that it is the right thing for her, certainly. And we don't begrudge her the escape from the Churl. Objectively, I think [niece] is a pretty cool kid. But she's ahead of all of us on Mom's List of Priorities, and it's hard not to resent that.

With K3 - I look at it and think - hmmm... well, I asked her repeatedly to come out and visit me in Utah while she was still in high school, and somehow she never thought there would be anything to do, and so always put me off. From my perspective, this says "hanging out with my sister isn't enough to keep me entertained" and therefore, I figure that K3 prefers to be elsewhere rather than spend time in my company. Not an unreasonable conclusion, I think. When I am around her, she's either lighting up - smoking in a circle of non-smokers, which is incredibly rude and something that I was told (by other smoker friends) never to do when I was a smoker - or she is on her cell phone. Again giving the message that the people around her are less interesting and important than her friends. Yet if I say either of these things, I am judgmental and a bitch.

I feel like I hear you tell me how wonderful I am, how mature and capable, etcetera soforth and so on, but just as I really am starting to feel good about myself, you aim some low karate chop at my knees and I'm back on the floor in pain again. I don't like it. So next time you have a thought about what an ungrateful, stuck up, cruel and unusual daughter I am, can it. Keep it to yourself. Because I'm not taking that BS anymore. We pretend that you are the reasonable parent, but sometimes I am more wary of you than I am of father.

And I'm not too hard on Jay. I give him a lot of credit for returning year after year to a place and family full of bipolar-acting freaks. His family dynamic is so utterly different, it's just alien. But I don't take shit from him either. I didn't want him to feel more under attack than he already does around the Fam, so I try to conduct most of our personal business just between the two of us. And we had some talking to do at the airport, and I didn't want to put it off any longer, so that's why I didn't say, "Yeah, mom, come in and let's try to talk in the loud, crowded places this side of security." Also, I don't like crying in airports, and I was close enough as it was.

I don't understand how you think I am in the position to be hard on the rest of you. The only judgement I make is that I don't like to feel like crap, yet somehow I always do after spending time with some members of the family. I feel like I'm being held to some bizarre standard that no one takes the time to explain. You presented the wedding guest book with the explanation of don't worry if you don't like it, it's just something I picked up. So when I tell you that it's not really Jay's or my style, it's a little too girly, you snipe that I've always been so hard to please. I feel like I was set up. If you told me that you really liked this guest book and hoped it would work out for me, I would have said, "Hey, you know, I think this will do just fine."

With Christmas this year, I emailed you fairly early on with my specific preferences and an explanation about them - I wanted to spend time with the family, not watch everyone run in their own directions again. And at first, it seemed like you were on the same page. But then I get this list of all the people who just can't live without you, and so what I suggested simply wasn't possible. You don't include me on the list of people who couldn't live without you, so somewhere down the line, I stopped including myself on that list, too. Yet somehow, I end up being the judgemental bitch again. I don't get it.

I don't know what you think I'm like, or what you think I do in my "real" life. I can tell you that there are people who make fun of me for smiling all the time. Most of the time I'm a pretty happy, positive person. Don't know what else to tell you. I'm sorry that you don't know this about me, and that you seem to think I'm someone I'm not. But for as much as I might bitch about our cold, frozen north, and Jay's being sometimes clueless, I'm pretty happy with the way things are. I'm not you. Jay is not Dad. Please don't think we are.

I love you, and everyone else in the family, and I hope we figure out how to communicate as a family some day. You are all welcome to come visit whenever you like.

Happy New Year

-k1


---------------

It's taken me a long time to be able to write that letter. I'm at peace with every sentiment in it. And I've looked inward, and really thought about things, and I'm not angry about any of it. Some of it makes me a little sad. And I don't want to give the impression that my whole vacation was awful, because parts of it were very fun. Playing pool with my sisters and Jay and playing cards with my sisters and my mom figure quite high on my list of things I look forward to doing again. I just can't do the mental illness dance any more. I can't cope with the guilt trips and sulk fests. If you want to talk to me and tell me how you feel, we can communicate. But as I tell my students, I am not a psychic. If you want me to know something, you have to communicate it to me, either in conversation or in writing.

It's not as difficult as we were raised to believe.

Occupied

With the completion of the term, I've actucally had energy for other pursuits. Wrote another 6000 words on the trilogy, completed three critiques over at Forward Motion, and baked three new kinds of cookies from the Eating Well magazine recipes. Gingerbread bears/rocking horses/candy canes, thumbprint cookies (w/cherry and strawberry jams), and mandelbrot, which are evidently like yiddish biscotti. They all turned out pretty well, I think. Now they just have to survive the flight down to Pittsburgh. Figured I'd do a batch of brownies tonight.

D'oh... and I was supposed to write down the recipe for Jay to send to his grandmother. She took some home with her from Thanksgiving and evidently they went over well. Heh. Mental note: tonight, write down a copy of the recipe. It's one that I found in a cookbook that we picked up in Alaska in 2002 and I've been tweaking it ever since. I've been using measurements like "one of the small blue bowls full of sugar" and "a handful of..." so tonight actual measuring will need to happen.

So far for christmas presents, I've knit 4 scarves (well, 3 and a half) and 2 hats. Still need to do two more scarves and three more hats, but those can mostly wait until the New Year. Or rather, they are going to wait until the New Year, because there's no way I can get all that done this week. Mmm. No.

Skiing has been most lovely. Lots of fluffy cold white stuff over the last week or two. Jay's already been out... six or seven days. I think he's up to 128K for the season already. Sicko. Me? I'm at 3 days and about 24-25km total. I think. I don't really keep track of things like that. I'll leave that to Doctor Charts and Graphs.

Okay. Yes, I'm boring even myself with this stuff. Perhaps I'll be interesting again after the holidays. We leave tomorrow afternoon. Don't know if we'll have web access during the week we're gone.

Happy Holiday of Choice! I'm outta here.

Let it Snow

Many inches of the white stuff are falling outside my window. Bliss. Skiing this weekend will ROCK. We live a couple miles (about a 5 minute drive) from a kicking nordic center. If this keeps up, all the trails will be open.

Oh, this makes me happy. Sigh.

I am the devil

At least, that's what a few of my students are no doubt thinking right now.

But honestly, do they think I ENJOYED failing them? God no. Passing a student is much easier and less traumatic to all parties involved. But it would be absolutely irresponsible to do that.

Of the people who did not pass the class, I had a few very different reactions. One exploded at me, saying that the class was stupid, my assessment methods were unreasonable, no one else was looking for improvement as one of the criteria, that she was never taking this class again because it was a waste of her time... it went on. I showed her her objective score which was failing by all standards, but she went off in a huff before I could tell her that I was only looking for improvement as a last ditch effort to find a reason for her to pass. I didn't find it.

Another sat there quietly, turning red and then pale by turns. I wanted to pass her, I really did. And if grades were based purely on attendance and turning things in on time, then she would have had an A++. Sadly, I was more concerned with the writing quality and ability to revise and integrate information. In my syllabus, I state that students will not pass unless they participate meaningfully in the class. Not by any stretch of the imagination did she fulfil that requirement. But she just agreed with me, nodding, calm, and then went off to cry somewhere. (I know about the crying because another student told me.) I feel bad about this one, but she would have drowned in the next level. She's just not ready.

The last student listened to what I had to say as we looked over his final paper. He didn't bring any of his previous work with him as stated both in a handout, verbally, and online,(But I thought you had copies of all of it... No, I only made a copy of the paper you massively plagiarized.) and never completed the final essay because he missed the last day of class and evidently didn't check his email or the class webpage after that. I told him - three times - that there was no way I could give him credit based on the work that he had turned in, he just stared at me. Then he got up, muttered, "Whatever", and walked out.

Two students who had poor final papers, but who had clearly improved all term and who had been very active and commented intelligently during discussions, I gave a second chance. They have until Wednesday afternoon to rewrite the final paper and resubmit. If they fix the biggest errors, proving their ability to revise, they will pass.

However, I just heard today that one of those students self-mutilates to deal with stress, and evidently, she's been cutting. Some time last night, she was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and her bathroom was covered in blood. She cut more than she intended, it seems. Shit shit shit. Shit. I don't think she was stressed over my class, but I just feel sick. My other students said that they tried to visit but were turned away, or I'd see if I could go visit her. She's such a bright star of a person, but I know she's had a rough time getting to where she is.

This entry has kind of morphed here. I didn't start out planning to mention her. I'm just worried. And wishing I had finished the day with one of the students who thought I was great, instead of one who thinks I'm Satan. Shit.

New car - Yay! Old car - oops...

This morning we picked up our brand new Subaru Outback. Pretty. Atlantic Blue Pearl. We have named her Nimbus. (Jay's cloud fetish showing.) And thanks to my dad, the bank owns very little of it. It's a manual transmission, so I have to relearn how to drive a stick. I learned in 2004 on Jay's old Subaru, but I haven't actually driven a manual since that summer, so I need a major refresher.

And I realize that I sound like a student essay here... been reading for grading all morning and the pattern starts to stick after a while. Gah. Shoot me.

Of course, we've been getting snow up here... looking out the window, I see it's just now stopped. Now, I like snow. It's very handy for xcountry skiing, makes the dark Vermont evenings look a little less dark, and looks so pretty on the trees and all that. However, I don't really care for the white stuff when it's on the freezy roads. And of course, that brings us to "old car... oops".

I generally don't drive in the snow. Jay is a borderline (ha! more like TOTAL) control freak, and it's easier for me to let him drive than it is to listen to him freaking out in the passenger seat. As a result, I haven't driven much in bad weather for a really long time. Sadly out of practice.

Roads didn't seem too bad on the way to the dealership this morning. I kept an eye on Jay's speeds to gauge how fast I could go on the way home. Unfortunately, it kept snowing while we were inside signing papers and making nice, and the conditions didn't exactly improve.

Because of my long lapse in manual driving, Jay had to drive the new car home, and I had to take my poor old Oldsmobile with its crap tires and faulty heat system (low traction and an icy windshield - Lucky me). I made it through the first intersection and up the hill to the Interstate on-ramp. And then... wheel turned, tires facing one way but continuing to slide instead of turn... sliding very gracefully, very gently, off the snow-covered pavement and onto the embankment. Thought for a moment that I would be lucky and the edge of snow and grass would stop me, but after a slight pause, I slid down the hill sideways.

Crap.

I will say this for Vermont. No fewer than 5 people stopped to see if we needed help. One guy even got some boards and things out of his truck to try to give my car some traction, and then helped push from behind, but no dice. Had to call the tow truck. Our only consolation was that we were definitely not alone in sliding off the road today. Tow truck comanies are raking in the bucks. Fifty from us, in fact. Sigh.

But we have out lovely new Nimbus, complete with the standard All Weather package that includes heated seats and heated windshield wipers. Oooh ahhhh. But I think we're still going to need to invest in snow tires.

I miss my mild western winters. Sniff.

Money - Tact + Alcohol = Aunt Ethel

So. Back to the neglected blog. Understandably, I think, I just couldn't string any sentences together last week after I finished. My fingers are just now regaining their feeling. But I'm back, and I will make an attempt to be slightly more interesting than I have been. (Sadly, this should be all that hard.)

As the title suggests, Aunt Ethel is not, perhaps, the most charming of women. Her husband left her millions when he died, and her son now manages the family fortunes, leaving Ethel to do... hell, I have no idea how the woman fills her days. Not doing charity work, I'm pretty sure.

She is a hardcore Republican, not because she believes in the values and ideology of the party, but because rich people are republicans and poor people are democrats. In Ethel's world, anyway. She is unabashedly racist, and treats us to her views on all those of non-western-european descent. There's no arguing with her, because the intake valve on her brain is entirely faulty. She only hears the things that you don't want her to hear. Usually things that start with "She's &*@^! nuts. Did you hear what she just said?!?!"

This year, she had us all write our initials on our plastic cups so we wouldn't waste so many. Good idea, I thought. However, when she looked at my initials (which are KEG, by the way... my students think that's hilarious), she says "But jayslastname doesn't start with "G"!" And when I replied with the usual comments about "married not adopted" and "decided not to change his name, so I decided that I wouldn't either..." She came back with "Well, I'm not saying that you're less of a person if you don't change your name...." If she weren't so comically over-the-top, I might have been offended. As it was, I just had to leave the room so I could laugh and not fall over in the kitchen. Heh.

Oh, and then when she found out what the "G" stands for, she busts out with "What? Are you a Jew or something?" Followed by a lovely rant on some of the Jewish people she knows and how dreadful they all are. I wish I could recreate the exchange, but my mind was so busy going :holy crap, she IS nuts. totally wacked. good lord, can I get in a word here?: that I wasn't paying close enough attention to retain the random insults she came up with. I do recall telling her that as far as I knew, I didn't have any Jewish ancestors, but that there were plenty of drunks and fools in the bunch, which was probably why I fit in so well with Jay's extended family. I don't think she really processed that, but Jean (her sister, Jay's g-ma) thought it was pretty funny.

And so Ethel's legend grows. We'll add this year's comedy to the time that she slurped some spilled King Louis Cognac from the counter "because it's too expensive to waste", the time that she commented on evil women who leave their husbands and steal other people's men while Jay's father's girlfriend was at the table, and countless other drunken and tactless comments that she's made over the years.

Ah, Ethel, just keep on telling it like it is. The Jersey gatherings wouldn't be the same without you.

Finished

With more than 4 hours to spare.

I don't know why I do this to myself. Just because I can write 23K in three days sure as hell doesn't mean I should.

I'm going home.

Last Chance...

...for me to bore you with NaNo stuff.

I have a killer headache from too many hours in front of the screen, but I am so gonna finish this sucker.

Time: 9:09am
Count: 42,088 words
Goal: 50,000 words.

Color Me Bitter

Of all the nights for a blackout, it just had to be this one.

I'm back at school.

Time: 7:09pm
Count: 38,762

*insert many expletives here*

Countdown

I can't write all day... I do have two classes to teach, but I intend to get as much done today as I possible can.

Starting: 34,124
Goal: 50,000 words

Updates in comments.

All Very Entertaining

The holidays were interesting down in Jersey, as was expected. The holiday itself featured Aunt Ethel, Jay's great aunt, a woman without a scrap of tact or liberal sentiment in her body. But liquor? Oh, there's liquor in them thar veins. She really deserves an entry all to herself, so I'll just save that for later.

We ended up renting a car down in White River Junction because my poor car is a bit sporadic with the heating thing, and we were just about frozen by the time we got down there. Likewise on the drive home from WRJ on the way back Saturday afternoon. Rented a beauty of a Passat - leather interior, sunroof, sport drive, etc. - and cheaper than usual because of some holiday deal - definitely worth it.

There was knitting (by me), playing of the black keys (by Jay's dad), soup cooking (by Jay's sister), antipasta eating (by all), and much laughter and insults (again, by all). And of course, because my laptop battery is deader than dead, I didn't write a word for the four days we were gone. This is going to be interesting. I've got a little over 19K to go. In three days. Not as bad as last year... I'm sure I'll finish. I hope.

Time Out

This week is Thanksgiving break - one whole week! What this really means is that I need to get cracking on that NaNo project. I'm only at 20K right now, which means I need to write 30K in 11 days. Doable, very doable.

But I'm banning myself from the blog world until the end is in sight. Also, we're heading to New Jersey for Turkey Day... so things will be more quiet than usual around here.

Check back after the 28th.

Relief is in sight... but I'm not quite coherent yet

Next week we have the whole week off for Thanksgiving break. Thank god. My students are all sick and look like they haven't sleep in months. I certainly can think of a few things to do with my days when I don't have to be here at the college.

I could catch up on my NaNo writing. So far I'm at about 15,000 words. Seeing as today is the halfway mark, I'd prefer to be at 25,000 words, but I'm not out of the running yet. Last year I had to write the last 29,000 words in three days, and I managed. Somehow. If need be, I can do it again.

I could speed knit my second sweater. I started it this past weekend and I'd like to have it done in time to wear for the holiday. We shall see. It would probably be easier if I would just follow the pattern, but I just can't do that. No. I look at it and say, well, sure, that's cute. But it could be so much better if...

ohmigod. I just had a flashback to my high school art teacher, Mr. Schenefelt. He would stand next to us while we were working, just watching for a while, asking a few questions maybe. Then he would say, "That's not bad, but it would be so much better if you..." and then he would lop off a clay arm, or punch a hole in the side of a vase or splash some strange color on the side of a sculpture. We hated it and thought it was hilarious anyway.

One of the guys who was also taking the film studies class.. or television production.. or something like that... (Yes, I went to a high school with a primo arts program.) produced a short clip called "Art wiiiiith.... MISTER SCHENEFELT!!!!" The actors were all puppets. Two students puppets are very ernestly working away on two clay figurative sculptures when the Mr. Schenefelt puppet comes up behind them. He speaks his trademark phrase, and the camera zeros in on his face. Then the puppet throws its hands in the air and the camera pans upward. Chunks of clay fly through the air and you can hear the student puppets sputtering and Mr. Schenefelt humming to himself. Camera pans back down. Two lumps, barely recognizable as figures remain. One student puppet faints. The other covers its face and sobs. Mr. Schenefelt pats him on the shoulder and says, "There, much better, don't you agree?" and then bops off screen happy as can be.

I still laugh thinking about it.

The Good Stuff

Some of the recent comments reminded me that I've only been writing about the crappy stuff lately. Mostly, I think, it's because this crap stuff is so shocking to me. I mean, my students' issues, the general idiocy of institutional politics and regulations, and my tangle with the law are not what I've become accustomed to.

So, some of the good things:

• 70% of my meals cooked by Jay, often with leftover privileges granted.
  
  
• Both time and money enough to indulge in my reading and knitting habits. Seriously - since September I've knitted 8 1/2 scarves, 2 hats, and a sweater. Read upwards of two dozen books, plus listened to a handful of books on tape.
  
  
• A ridiculously nice sex life. (perhaps too much info, but you'll live.)
  
  
• Parents who only scarred me for life in interesting ways, and not in ways that left me crippled in any sense.
  
  
• Siblings who understand what it is like to deal with our parents.
  
  
• Internet access, my link to the outside world.
  
  
• My 3rd year of NaNo, progressing in a respectible manner, if a few thousand words behind schedule.
  

So while I may mention the outrages and headbanging idiot bits more often, things are pretty damn good in my life, and I do count my blessings daily.

Such a Criminal

So, I admit it. I was slack about getting my vehicle registration changed over to Vermont. And, yes, my Utah registration expired in August - the month we moved here. However, first time registration needs to be done in person, and here this involves no less than 2 hours of driving round trip to get to the DMV (department of motor vehicles). There is a "mobile unit" that stops once a week in a nearby town, but not on a day I can make it.

This weekend I drove down to Windsor, Vermont to visit my old roomie, and on the way home, I encountered Officer Vigilent. Man berates me for no less than 30 minutes, accuses me of having no insurance because the card I had in the car expired a few days prior (new card was waiting on the table when I finally did get home...), and forces me to park my car in a nearby parking lot, and tells me that I better not try to sneak away until I register the car. When I asked how I was supposed to register the car if I couldn't take it to the DMV, he barked, "Do it online!"

Well, hate to break it to you, Officer Ass, but as a new resident of Vermont, I cannot register online. See, there's this little clause about "visual verification" of the VIN (vehicle identification number). And the DMV employees... they don't usually have psychic powers. Else why would they be at the DMV?

I ended up calling my friend on the last juice of my cell phone. (And I told him before he left that I thought my cell phone was dead.) She picked me up and helped me find a car rental place that was open on Sunday, and I rented a car and drove home.

So yesterday, I printed out and completed all the forms, grabbed the title from the filing cabinet, took the correct insurance card, and went back down to Windsor, returned the damn car, took a taxi back to the parking lot, and drove to the state capital. Nearly had a heart attack every time I saw a state trooper. Now that's just great, eh? What a brilliant reaction to have ingrained at the sight of someone who is supposed to "protect and serve".

Of course, to accomplish all this, I had to cancel my afternoon class yesterday. I left home around 9:30am and didn't return until 4:30pm. But he sure taught me a lesson, didn't he? I don't mind paying the citation. I earned it. But to make my life a living hell for committing a crime of lazy paperwork? Holy shit. So wrong.

Yesterday = worst afternoon in a long time

Details later, after I get it all resolved.

"WELL WHAT DID YOU THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?" Imagine an extremely militaryesque patrolman asking me this question over and over while also telling me that I better not dare try to drive that vehicle anywhere, and you'd have a grasp of why yesterday sucked.

Suffice to say... Utah registration expired + visiting a friend in Windsor + ultra-hardcore State Trooper = misery and stress.

Oh, Vermont, how you continue to disappoint.

Gah

I hate evaulation time. Department chairs have to observe the part time faculty. Always makes me so nervous, I'm sure I sound like a raving idiot. That is, more so than usual.

Alas.

Killing me

My student mentioned in the alcohol debacle below will be finishing out this term and then leaving the college, but his own decision. I can't blame him.

Another student recently lost both her jobs as a result of a car accident (long story) and since her mother was just laid off as well, they are facing eviction.

Yet another broke down in my office, apologizing for his jerky behavior this last week... he's stressed out because two different girls on campus are claiming to be pregnant with his kid.

Holy Jesus.

I'm stressed out just hearing these things. No wonder so many of these students don't make it to graduation.

Heads up

If you start out writing words of one or two syllables, often without bothering to check your subject-verb agreement (commercials is), and largely without regard to punctuation, and then you throw out a paragraph full of words like "sophistication" and "deregulation" complete with perfect semicolon use... better believe I'm going to Google that sucker.

We call this plagiarism. This will get you kicked out of school. See: Academic Honesty, chapter 2.

Sigh.

Thoughts from Kate's brain

• Now I recall why it's called an insitution of higher learning. And the inmates are definitely running things.
  
  
• Can you really expect people to act like adults when you insist on treating them like children?



• I really like to knit, but I'm not sure what about it I really like. Maybe yarn really is a drug.



• I still don't understand rhythm and meter, but I really enjoy poetry now that I found
this collection.


• God, I miss sunshine.



• You really can't learn anything until you admit that you don't have all the answers. I'm glad I've learned this, but I wish my students would pick up on it soon.



• No, for real about the sunshine.



• Maybe I'll knit something yellow....

Don't know WHAT to think

Today, one of my better students told me that he's not sure if he will still be enrolled after this week.

He really screwed up a couple weeks ago, landing himself in the hospital with both alcohol poisoning and a concussion. Now, this is clearly a Bad Thing. He knows it, he owns it, he has expressed both regret and deep disgust with himself. Either he's the best liar I've ever met, or he really gets it.

He has told me that a member of the administration has repeatedly demanded to know the names of the people who supplied him with alcohol, threatening him with expulsion if the information is not forthcoming. He refuses to name names, feeling that it is not his place to participate in a type of "witch hunt", especially in light of the fact that while he knows who he started the evening with, he does not clearly remember the particulars. Excess alcohol consumption combined with a mild head injury do not usually contribute to perfect recall.

Perhaps the administrator has a very good reason to be concerned about the student's behavior, and also with finding out who is leading these freshmen into temptation, as it were. And perhaps the student is exaggerating the threat. But I still have a few problems with the situation. I'll try to explain.

Our college has a code of conduct that all students, faculty, and staff are expected to adhere to. It includes requirements of speaking "honestly" and "respectfully" to others. Threats and intimidation don't seem to fit into that. It includes the practice of "personal integrity". How does encourgaging a student to testify against his friends fit into that? It includes learning from other's experiences. But don't we learn more from our own experiences? The student seems to have learned the right lesson from his experience - that drinking to excess is a really bad idea, one not to be repeated, as it threatens his chances of survival and success. What is to be gained by threatening him and treating him like a criminal? What happened to that final component of the code: demonstrate compassion?

I'm not talking about a kid who mouths the appropriate apologies and goes on doing exactly the same things that got him into trouble in the first place. I'm not talking about a kid who is failing most of his classes for lack of effort. I'm not talking about a kid who ignores every chance given to him to make a change. As I said before, some students are not ready, or even interested in college. But even the ones who are make dumb choices occasionally. And neither should be treated with such disrespect. Bitch in private. (I do) But when that student is in front of you, maybe listening would serve better than lecturing.

I don't know. Maybe I'm naive. Maybe I'm being inconsistent. I don't know.

Thoughts?

Can't win

So now that I'm healthy again, I was all excited to teach this morning because my early class is a bit behind and I thought we could catch up today. Fifteen minutes into class, I twist around and bedn over my notes for a moment, and PING - back goes out. Out, out, brutally and irretrievably out. Feels like a spike being driven through my spinal cord about three inches above my tail bone. Nauseating, sickening pain shoots through me every time I move. I thought I was going to throw up right there in class.

Somehow I pulled it off, mostly by allowing them to work together in pairs on the practice assignment. We're still trying to master the identification and repair of fragments, run ons, and comma splices. (If it's not a complete, independent clause, it's a fragment. If there are more than one independent clauses separated by only a comma, it's a comma splice. If there are more than one independent clauses without any punctuation between them, it's a run on.)

Been grading the other class's rough drafts since then. It's not pretty. Some of them are only lacking specifics in their supporting examples. Some of them seem to be utterly unacquainted with the priciples of logic. The worst of them are a jumble of apparently unrelated, yet repetitive statements. No, I don't know how that's possible either, but it is.

Yesterday some members of the class accused me of making them feel stupid. I told them that they would feel less stupid if they did the assigned work beforehand instead of trying to do it as we corrected it. Also, paraphrasing Phil,my psychologist uncle, I said, "I can't make you anything. You choose your own reaction to my words." Which, when you think about it, is just another way of saying "I don't make monkeys, I only train them." But I don't think they would have appreciated the Pee Wee Herman reference as much.

But thinking more about their complaints, I realize that my problem is that I see these kids more than I see anyone else besides Jay. I have been talking to them as if they were my peers, and they are not. They are my students. So I guess I need to cut back on the sarcasm, and save it for people who appreciate it. Bah.

Meme 2

1. Delve into your blog archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions. Ponder it for meaning, subtext or hidden agendas…
5. Tag five people to do the same.


From October 26, 2002:

"I have to admit, there aren't many things as satisfying as stabbing a big ol' knife into the top of a pumpkin and scooping out the guts."

How can you argue with that statement? I stand behind it one hundred percent.

As for tagging others... most everyone has done this by now, or has decided that it wasn't worth the effort, so let's just let it slip quietly into the blogosphere.

Filler

Memories:

If you are reading this, leave one memory of you and I together. It doesn't matter if I know you a little or a lot, anything you remember. Next, post this in your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you.

**stolen from Devan

And for all those people who have never met me... how did you find me and why in the world do you keep coming back?

Three years

There's been a spate of "blogoversaries" lately, so I thought I would mention mine. I started this in October of 2002, just as I was starting my masters program and mere weeks before Jay and I moved in together.

I don't think anyone but me read it during the first year, but I wasn't writing for an audience. I've always kept a journal, either handwritten or on my computer, so taking that a step further and blogging didn't seem like much of a stretch.

I had some of my grandmother's journals, handwritten and filled with clippings, and I feel like I got to know her a bit that way. Otherwise my memories of her would have been limited to her weaving/crocheting my baby blanket and singing "Old McDonald" because she died when I was only two years old. So the thought of someone reading about my thoughts and experiences didn't really phase me... why write if not to allow the words to be read?

But I've also always been rather introverted. And by that I don't necessarily mean shy, though I definitely can be in some situations. I mean more that it generally doesn't occur to me to reach out or communicate with other people most of the time. I find it awkward to leave messages on other people's blogs, because I can't imagine that they would care what I have to say. Though once someone else comments on my blog, I feel obligated to return the exchange. No, not obligated. Pleased, rather. I enjoy the interaction, but it would never occur to me to initiate it. Does that make sense?

In any case, I've blathered on here, more-or-less continuously for the last 36 months and expect to keep on for many months more... because I like to.

They got me

My students finally broke through my immune defenses and passed along their colds. Started out Tuesday with a raw, scratchy throat... Now the sore throat is mostly gone, but I'm fevery and weak. Tried to teach class this morning and gave up after 15 minutes. I just couldn't form a coherent sentence. So I collected their homework, assigned more for next week, and sent them back to their beds. And now I'm going back to mine.

Bleh.

Crankypants

Or, Why Jay is Like a Puppy

The Jersey grandparents were in town this weekend, this unendingly rainy weekend. I love Jean and Lou, but I also love my free time on the weekends, something that doesn't happen when you have guests. But at least they weren't crammed into our apartment... living in B&Bland does have its benefits.

I actually did get a break on Saturday, when Jay played tour guide and drove up around the lakes with them. Poor Jay Puppy didn't get any downtime, though, and certainly no exercise. And when Jay doesn't get exercise, he becomes very, very cranky. Sulky, whiny, snippy, cranky. I must have threatened to kill him in his sleep at least twenty times. (He is still alive and mostly well, thanks.)

See, my eleven mile trip to the town to the south of us was silly. Just silly. All that way for yarn and Earth Balance was just too ridiculous.

And my car? My car is awful. It smells, it's starting to overheat, it's running rough. WHY oh WHY haven't I done something about it? Don't I KNOW how to take care of my car. (Note: when it's running, it's OUR car. When there's something wrong, it's mine.) (Also Note: the car did overheat and is currently at the garage for repairs and maintenance... so what he's saying isn't untrue, just unkind.)

But mostly, besides the idle death threats, I mostly just laugh at him when he gets like that. First, because sometimes I can be a cranky wench as well, but also because I know he's just venting some of his stress. Normally he goes out and runs for five or ten miles, or hikes up a mountain, or bikes the trails around us, etc. When he doesn't get a chance to exercise until his brain shuts down, however, all the work stress and perfectionism explode outwards in bursts of nastiness. Puppies chew slippers, Jay snipes at me. Both problems can be prevented by forcing the creature in question to run back and forth until he can't run no mo'.

The grandparents left this morning after we dropped off "my" car, dropped Jay at work and me at the car rental place. So maybe I'll get my sweet, lovable puppy back soon... and trade in the hellhound.

Headcase update

Mr. Smartass violated some school rule (drug-related) and is getting kicked out. He, of course, thinks it's vastly unfair. (I mean, what do they really expect from him? He's young and having FUN.) :shaking head and rolling eyes:

I do not think I will shed any tears over this. I do hope, however, that he figures out why he got kicked out... because he is a bright guy with the potential to do a lot of impressive things in this world. If only it weren't for the extreme Narcissism. Ah well.

And he's cute, too

So for anyone listening to VPR (Vermont Public Radio) yesterday around 12:30pm, the "expert" commentator discussing the forecasting of last week's storm was my lovely husband. Gasp. So proud. After he stopped heavy breathing into the receiver, he did quite well, I thought.

Good job, sweetie.

Bits and pieces

Holly has an interesting link to commentary about the Red Cross and New Orleans and where all the donated money is going. I think I'll have to find a new charity.

Word of my outburst spread to the students who were not in class. (We heard you really FLIPPED OUT.) And I had a little "come to Jesus" meeting, as one of my colleagues last year used to call them, with my biggest head case. I don't think he will pass the class, but I told him that if he turned in absolutely everything from now on, he still had a chance. I doubt he will take it. I doubt that I still care one way or the other.

After listening to the news this week, I've decided that my NaNo project this year will be an apocalyptic tale, set in Pittsburgh and elsewhere, featuring a romantic subplot. Heh. I don't know how it will turn out, but it should be interesting to write.

Lost my shit

Consider that Pittsburghese for flipping out on my students.

But really, in terms of flipping out, it was really pretty mild, following a two step progression.

1. Smart ass student who has missed 6 classes, complains that he doesn't understand something that should be simple review. When I tell him that he must have missed it when he was absent, he makes a face and turns around in his seat to talk to the guy behind him. (neither are passing at the moment) He continues to talk to the guy, distracting from the quick grammar lecture I'm giving. I tell him to stop talking. He says, "I'm sorry, Kate. I'm really sorry." To which I reply, "You're always sorry, but what you really need to be is quiet."

Startled silence from the class, a few surprised looks. Lots of "ooooooh"ing.

2. Smart ass comments continue. More general talking while I'm at the board. I lose my train of thought and become so furious with the blatent disrespect that I can't continue. I turn to the class and hiss, "I am soooooo furious with you!" which I quickly amend to "Well, not all of you, but... Just check your grades. Just check your grades and see how you're doing, eh?"

Dead, stunned silence.

Silence continues and I am shocked to find how easy it is to get the lecture done now. A few students continue to ask relevant questions and I answer them. The rest of the class remains quiet.

SO.... clearly I have been way too nice to these kids. As a result, they've become disrespectful and smug. That's my fault. I own it. And even though it's hard to shift from being "easy" to being strict, I know it can be done. My other education books insist that it's never too late to fix your classroom. I hope they're right.

As much as I hate losing control like I did today, I think it might be just what this class needed.

We shall see.

NaNo is upon us

Sign ups for National Novel Writing Month started Saturday, October 1st. Everyone ready? Right, me neither. Not quite, anyway. I'm trying to decide whether I should start the third book in my fantasy trilogy, even though the second one still isn't quite finished, or if I should do a romance (maybe with a contemporary fantasy spin) set in Pittsburgh, which we've all agreed is populated by rather odd characters to begin with.

I'm leaning towards option #2. Mostly because, while I THINK I know how book two ends, stories have a way of changing (usually for the better) in the process of writing them. So.

And just to sabotage myself further in the actually-getting-writing-done department, I just bought Diana Gabaldon's new book. And on top of that, I bought Neil Gaiman's new book. And on top of that I bought new yarn and a new knitting book... well, I suppose I better finish those before November 1st rolls around and I have to get back into the habit of writing 1667 words per day (on average).

But, strangely, all that doesn't sound so bad, eh? Heh.