TVGNFTW
Sometimes after I spend some time immersed in someone else’s words (reading, people, reading.) I find it hard to avoid mimicry. This is strange to me because I do not do the Madonna accent thing – ever. Though I have been made aware that my accent changes. Everyone talked about how I over annunciated when I came back from Asia. No shit? That doesn’t make sense to you? Then you should go to Asia. Or more likely not. When I went to Europe on my own for the first time everyone “over there” said they knew I was not only American but Californian. A guy from some other English-speaking place said he knew I was Californian because we are the only people who simultaneously stretch each word out while speaking ridiculously fast. I found that an interesting, accurate and impressive observation. Today I would explain it more simply by saying hypno-diction and hyper-syntax. Or something like that.
This also makes me remember when my entire household was so completely addicted to Tetris that it began to color how we drove, moved… hell, those pieces were permanently falling in my (drug-free… ish) field of vision. It became an element of lifestyle. That happens to me when I read sometimes… I try on these other lifestyles. It is weird to write about it because it is not something I would normally do out loud – or, like, outside of my head. I don’t think. But right now I am acutely aware that I am doing it. This whole little diatribe is quite in the vein of something else I have been reading and I cannot even stop myself from writing this way. I wonder if it reads differently to the people who know me and read this blog normally. Is it plagiarism, do you think? And then that makes me think of a line from my current favorite Noah and the Whale song:
Look at me, calling myself a writer and shit.
But Tetris was the shit, wasn’t it? I love how all of the squares make that cool sound when they land. I was reminded of Tetris earlier today for a totally different reason, which was that I had my television on and as most people know, I am quite likely the shittiest television watcher ever. It find it impossible to stay focused and can’t share the clicker because I am constantly… clicking. There isn’t anything on T.V. anyhow, save for Law & Order of like ten thousand varieties and decades, and now the same could be said of derivative CSIs. Not that I am here to judge. I have tried to find a news program to watch in the morning when I get ready for work because it seems like it is helpful to know about the weather and what the hell is wrong with Bart on any given day. But that whole Sisyphean effort has just really brought out my masochistic tendencies because the Bay Area morning news is seriously so bad it is offensive. I have given up trying to find a good program and have chosen to settle on what is categorically the worst: NBC.
Seriously, they regularly completely enrage me before 6:30 a.m. with their stupidity, vapidity, and often totally inappropriate commentary. It is more energizing than coffee. There was a husband and wife team for a while who constantly talked about how they had triplets, but now the Mr. is gone leaving the Mrs. with the guy I would say is the dullest tool in the shed (yes, Jon Kelly, I mean you), except for they have Christina Loren doing the weather, so there is not really any more room in that category. The jokes are bad, the news is useless and the weather is often wrong. I can’t really comment on the traffic guy because I take Bart, I like his name though, Inouye has gravitas. The Guy-in-the-field Bob Reddell, reminds me of Harry Dunne, and I do not mean Jeff Daniels, I really mean Harry Dunne. The tech guy is so patently conservative and anti-Obama he could make the lost iPhone prototype at Cava-22 the fault of the current administration.
Recently, in my effort to watch anything for more than twenty minutes (aside from baseball or basketball) I even tried to watch the Emmy’s. Talk about useless. I didn’t know anyone on that program. But it got me thinking about some shows I should try to watch, so I made a list. And when I sat down to watch them grading papers became more engaging. Perhaps I shouldn’t have started with Ashton Kutcher’s debut on Two and a Half Men.
In the midst of this predicament, which I am sure makes me un-American somehow, I clicked over to the TV Guide channel. And I watched it. For a really long time. I finally found a channel I like to watch. It doesn’t matter what the audio situation is, I tune it out. There is something one hundred percent satisfying about those blue squares that fit perfectly together and just scroll up your screen. Some are green (sports!) some are purple (movies!) and they are all there, all the time, fitting together seamlessly. All that potential and I never have to ruin it by actually watching any of it. I can just know what is there and what is coming up and how it fits in the schedule and there is even occasionally a gap in the programming.
Just like Tetris.
I finally found a home.
TVGN FTW.
I need a job and you should really hire me. Here’s why:
I am a teacher. I mean, I am a lot of things, but one of the more significant ones is that: Teacher.
There are all sorts of teachers. In fact, some of my most influential teachers have not been found in school. But I was lucky enough to have a few teachers in school who were all that, and in so being, mildly altered the course of my life. I have also had some really unfortunate teachers. Mostly those were people who didn’t want to teach because they didn’t like kids and/or what they were teaching. I am not sure what it was that sucked me into teaching, but the result has certainly made my life a lot more interesting. Teaching in Asia has also taught me a tremendous amount. In Asia lots of people are teachers who might not be teachers in other places. They are teaching their native language to people who want to learn that language and they make good money doing it. Those facts apply to me as well, but I happen to also love teaching, not because I speak (a derivative of ) English, but because… well, why exactly I am not sure. It just fits for me. I think it is the non-static nature of it, for better or for worse (I’m talking to you Texas.) I have been teaching high school Social Studies since 1995 and in many (most?) ways my work has defined who I am. I guess I think that is pretty cool. I have always worked in public schools and philosophically completely advocate for public education. This in spite of NCLB (education reform categorically opposed by teacher organizations and unions across the country) and offensive budget cuts and California laying off 22 thousand teachers this spring (after 26 k got pink slips last year…) So, philosophy aside, I may need to look elsewhere, but that’s cool.
So, considering the dismal job outlook, the untold numbers of teachers looking for work, and the apparent dearth of funds to educate our citizenry because the budget is “just not that into you,” why should you hire me instead of… well, all those other people? Here’s why:
Essay requirement from the Oxford Gods goes to the dogs
Since 1932, and on and off prior to that, Oxford has been requiring as essay as part of a multi-day assessment [it consists of 12 hours of essays over two days. Half are on the applicants’ academic specialties, the other half on general subjects, with questions like: “Do the innocent have nothing to fear?” “Isn’t global warming preferable to global cooling?” “How many people should there be?” and the surprisingly relevant, because this is Britain: “Does the moral character of an orgy change when the participants wear Nazi uniforms?"] for entrance to All Souls College that some have called the hardest exam in the world. It is the “One Word Essay.” Now don’t get excited kids… it is not the answer that is one word; it is the prompt. You get a single noun and three hours to work your magic. Water. Bias. Innocence. Style. Censorship. Charity. Reproduction. Corruption. Novelty. Chaos. Mercy. Harmony. Miracle. Conversion.
Oh. My. God.
I cannot imagine a more enjoyable task, and my hyperbole is absolutely sincere. This would be something that I would love so much, I am filing it away for my imminent return to the classroom (beware…) I would love to see what students would come up with and I think the results, no matter the quality would be so telling. It’s brilliant. I mean, even if it is, as one person describes in the article, “an exercise in showmanship to avoid answering the question,” doesn’t that demonstrate certain skill sets (or a lack thereof)? No matter, it has been scrapped.
And I think that is a crying shame. Seriously. I know that some of my former students would say that this is the assignment of a lazy teacher… ‘can’t even put a real question together,’ ‘just want to give the students something that takes up a lot of time…’ But I disagree. For a student who is willing to think about their word and really mentally consider the scope of the lexis, the context, the power of the word itself, the possibilities are endless.
But therein lies the rub.
It’s beginning to look a little kung hei fat choi-ish
Inevitably, I’ve been thinking a lot about the upcoming Lunar New Year. The idea of a lunar new year is appealing to me because it seems less arbitrary than one based on the numbers assigned by [Hail!] Caesar. Plus, I take issue with the whole 0.25 of a day thing that leads to Leap year. Paradoxically, I love the idea of a leap year, just not the required accounting to arrive at one.
But, I digress.
The Chinese Lunar New Year is based on the lunisolar Chinese Calendar, generally falling between the last half of January and the first half of February. This means you have to do a little research on your animal sign if you birthday falls early in the Julian year. [However, in spite of your astrological ambiguity, according to Malcolm Gladwell, you are far more likely to end up one of those superlative outliers.] Chinese New Year is the main holiday here and not only for lai see. [Lai see is supposed to be handed out to "young people" be married people. I think this is a grand tradition. Except for the fact that according the Chinese standards I am no longer young and therefor the offer of lai see to me is a suggestion that I need to get my shit together and get married. Bummer.] It is known as the Golden Week and this is a great benefit for all of us as the factories in Guangzhou shut down and so we usually have a week of really nice, relatively unpolluted weather. Some of the other things that I love about the Chinese New Year festival include the flowers, the orange trees, the lights… vacation… and of course all the superstitions. Meet me, the Dog:
To this end I get a kick out of looking into my Chinese astrological predictions for the upcoming year. Several of my local Chinese friends are absolutely fanatical about seeing their astrologer or fortune tellers prior to the start of the new lunar year. [This spills over into business too as everyone makes a very concerted effort to conclude all business dealings initiated in the current year before the new one begins regardless of it having nothing to do with the fiscal calendar at all.] I think astrology is great fun and sometimes I get a little uncomfortable with its accuracy (one reason I have not yet deigned to see a fortune teller – do I really wanna know?) Looking at my horoscope, because I’m a Dog – which always reminds me of Peter Venkman, going, “So… she’s a dog…” – I am pretty excited for this year. According to one site, for Dogs, the year of the white metal Tiger is:
Hell yeah. That sounds like a year to behold. (Or be old, as one of my students just said… Nice one, kid.) We used Chinese horoscopes as fodder for creative writing today – we have been studying superstition, allegories and Gothic traditions in literature – and so we all got look at our horoscopes and determine what we though of the accuracy. Most people thought they were more accurate than not… for me.. I found it absolutely spot on.
Here are some of the high points from the site we used:
The Dog is the most likeable sign in the Chinese zodiac… loyal with a capital “L”… the one who people are most likely to turn to when they need help… will come through every time… sensitive to others and empathizes with them, particularly if someone has suffered an injustice, reacting quickly with the same feeling, as though he/she had been personally offended… honest, intelligent and straightforward… will take on any responsibility that is given to them and you can be sure that they will do their job conscientiously and well.
Dog people are often born old and get younger as they age.
… a great sense of integrity and fair play… idealistic, and dreamers to the core… tend to be easily upset and shocked more often than the other more realistic zodiac types… a pessimistic side to their character… their spirit is drained when they hear of situations beyond their control, such as natural or human disasters… natural to long for everything to be done in the best possible way and is often anxious about the potential problems that may occur… a strong sense of duty and responsibility…
If you need anymore proof that I am a total Dog… check out what they say my positive and negative traits are:
attentive, well-meaning, helpful, warm-hearted, altruistic, modest, devoted, philosophical, dutiful, discreet, intelligent and enthusiastic.
but also can be…
nasty, mean-spirited, disagreeable, bad-tempered, self-righteous, judgmental, quarrelsome, accusing, nervous, anxious and impossible to live with.
Freaky.
I would certainly be curious to see how accurate you found these lunar renderings (mine or yours…) Until then, I leave you with these fabulous lyrical stylings à la Survivor, straight outta 1982… which was, for the record, the year of the D-O-G.
(Tiger photo from here.)
Fog, Full Moons and Obituaries.
Tonight will be a perigee moon. Perigee means the point in the orbit of a heavenly body, especially the moon, or of an artificial satellite at which it is nearest to the earth. However, it is unlikely I will have a clear view of it because of the fog that has settled over Hong Kong in the past couple of days. I am going to call it fog – though it is far more likely some variant of the pollution that we inhale on a daily basis over here, a nice dose of Nitrogen Dioxide. Yesterday it appeared that the sky had fallen. When I got home I was unable to see the bright lights of CyberPort, or even the ambient light of Hong Kong island, which generally creates my nocturnal backdrop. It was eerie. I could see some of the lights on the loaders and ships that were not too far off the shore , but even those were pretty diffuse, and the fog horns were going all night long – always spooky in spite of being a beacons. It was kinda like this, for real.
This morning when I was walking towards my yogic destination, the sky actually did fall. It wasn’t rain. It was like suspended wet that just sort of enveloped me as I walked towards the tram stop near Times Square. It was dark and quiet and damp. My students are always asking me what exactly “dank” means when they read Donald Justice’s poem, The Tourist From Syracuse. This would be it. Dank.
It is the kind of weather that sort of makes you want to hole up in bed with a good book and something tasty to drink; even if it is pollution and not really weather, it has the semblance of a blustery day. It’s not holing up because you are in a bad mood, but just because it seems more friendly inside. This weather matches the literary news of the last few days. I woke up yesterday to hear that Howard Zinn had died. I have been reading Howard Zinn since the days I was just discovering that I loved history. A People’s History of the United States may be one of the best books I have ever read, any of the editions, and it has always served as one of the best teaching tools for dealing with US History, a class that cannot be effectively broached in a single academic year (Go high school curriculum! Don’t even get me started on the idea of teaching World History in a year… No wonder everyone is bugged by history as adolescents.) It sucks to lose such a voice, but perhaps the irony of [modern?] death will prevail and more people will listen now that he has died.
I contemplated Howard a lot yesterday. I had only one history lesson to teach but was imbued with Theory of Knowledge lessons, which forces one to consider all the aspects of good history/historiography. Not to mention, I am 40 pages away from the conclusion of Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 and it is a novel of quite literal epic proportions, which I cannot imagine gleaning much from without some understanding the historical context against which it is set. History matters, and it is relevant in ways that few have been able to articulate as well as Howard Zinn. He always had much to say on how we choose to learn/study/use history, and I know I will be revisiting much of his work again in the near to immediate future.
When I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning the fog had not lifted even a little, in fact was far more substantial as I mentioned above. Walking placidly, if not a bit fuzzily out the door to catch the ferry I read that J.D. Salinger had died. Damn. Not like he made a habit of being around anyhow, but, damn. I will never read The Catcher in the Rye and not think of two of my most favorite humans to have ever walked the earth: Willy Oaks and Jason Baucom. Both of these guys embodied so much of what Holden Caulfield meant to me. I think Willy probably gave me my first copy of the book. And then, it was the reason I developed such a crush on a certain freshman at UCSD; Marshall’s favorite book, so prominently displayed in that charming college freshman way, was, of course, The Catcher in the Rye.
Two days and two big guns – gone. I started to wonder why it seems like certain people go on living forever, ever when we are sure they are going to die any moment. [Or we just want them to.] I have never written an obituary, well, I sort of wrote one once… But in reality, I wouldn’t know how to capture the way I feel when I hear about guys like this passing. It’s like a another little light, somewhere, has gone out. And even if that light is not readily accessible, or even one we need to have access to on a regular basis, we are poorer for having lost the illumination.
I hope I will see the moon tonight, though the fog will be here a little longer I think.
May we all find a beacon in the mist.
Word of the day: DEICTIC
Known Fact #1: Context is everything.
Known Fact #2: Context is variable.Consequential Fact: That makes things very complicated.
A deictic [pronounced dyke- tic or dake- tic] is a word specifying identity or spatial or temporal location from the perspective of one or more of the participants in an act of speech or writing, in the context of either an external situation or the surrounding discourse. In other words, it suggests the phenomenon wherein understanding the meaning of certain words and phrases in an utterance requires contextual information. So a deictic is a word that has a fixed semantic meaning, but has a denotational meaning that constantly changes depending on time and/or place.
You know, like I, now, here.
How cool is that? A whole class of words to promote ambiguity. Wholly contextually-dependent references. Sort of like: I was there. Now I am here. Soon I will be somewhere else. I think I have a natural inclination towards deixis. At least that sounds better than saying I am ambiguous…
As if there was any doubt that it has always depended one’s context/schema/perspective/metacognition. Like, duh. Get with the here and now.
Travel (Writing).
Every time I have the opportunity to take a trip – big, small, exotic, mundane, work-related, totally frivolous, near, far – I am grateful. I am grateful for the opportunity, the variety and the inherent surprises that come even when you think for sure they will not. And I am grateful for the chance to share my experiences with others. Whether or not they are grateful is something that apparently very few travelers actually consider, but I would like to consider it.
Since I have been living in Asia and traveling in Asia I have found, in sharing my experiences, I rely heavily on words like myriad and juxtaposition. But these words do so little to actually communicate what I mean. Or at least they seem ineffective in comparison to what I see around me. How can I really demonstrate what I mean when I say there are myriad subtleties in the art of multilingual (or non-lingual) communication in Asia, or that Asia is replete with the most incongruously wonderful juxtapositions I have ever seen? Just saying it seems limited.
And why would it matter? Because, of course, with traveling comes the requisite sharing of said experiences, either with other travelers, or maybe with those who would, but can’t and those who could, but don’t. Ihave a great audience in my classroom for sharing, though I was reluctant to share my trips with my students in the US at first, a result of scars from having to endure my own Freshman English teacher’s every vacation to Hawaii (Mark Reischling I know you loved it, but us? Not so much.) Eventually I did begin to share and whether or not it had the Reischling effect on the kids, it totally changed how I traveled. I began to look around the world in a wholly new way; trying to see everything through the eyes of my students gave my trips a completely new focus. I brought back Vegemite and didgeridoos and boomerangs from Australia and let my students try all of them when we studied the region in Geography. I shared my photo essay of the street people and permanent protesters from D.C. when we covered Civil Rights and Liberties in Government class. I brought in albums from Italy when we studied the Renaissance in World History and the photos for my graduate thesis on Area 51 when we covered the Cold War in US History. Photos of the Ancient Agora and the Theater of Dionysus were passed around when we covered mythology and Ancient Greece. From Russia to Alaska to the Baltic States to Mexico and Jamaica – I wondered: What would my students find interesting, or surprising or bizarre… what might shock them? How could I impart what it was like to be in all these places… How could I create the sense of place in a way that they could relate to and provide context for what they were studying?
I read somewhere recently that the abundance of travel writing was getting simply ridiculous. Something to the effect that people live under the misconception that everyone wants to read about their every trial and tribulation on the road and that somehow a well-inked passport makes one the next great… well, you know, travel writer. And I had to admit, it is kind of true. There are more travel blogs out there everyday, and in some ways, this might kind of be one. I do not read many of the travel blogs that profess to be the “key” to any sort of wisdom, and I love the idea that something one reads on the internet could in any way be “off the beaten track…” [Sorry Lonely Planet, I still love you and I turn to you often, but yo, you are way mainstream.]
Still, I have a certain love for travel literature.
Mojo Rising.
The phases of life are pretty interesting. We are really into one thing, then another then another. Could be maturation. Could be capriciousness or dilettantism. Lately I am less concerned with micromanaging these phases, but I get a little bothered when they impede my ability to do things I like. For instance, I have had the hardest time writing these past few days. My brain is full and my eyes are open. But – nothing seems to be happening. I mean, lots of things are happening, just absent of words.
I feel like I have lost my mojo.
I better take a look around, see which way the wind blows….
He thinks I am The Shit, I know because he told me so.
A soul mate’s purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life… they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.
~ Elizabeth Gilbert
I don’t really write about much personal stuff on here. I mean, I know I write a lot about stuff that I like, or I am interested in, or that is important to me… but I generally do not get too personal. That should not surprise people who know me well. While outwardly quite forward, I keep the real stuff, the stuff that is fragile, dirty, imperfect, fucked up, embarrassing, tender, most precious… locked up pretty tightly. I often giggle to myself when I hear people say they know me. Very few do. I understand that this is a fundamentally flawed way to live. I also understand that it can make being close to me – err…. tedious, to say the least. I cannot say that I know where it comes from. Perhaps from being an only child with a very tightly wound up perfectionist psyche. I think it has to do with the experiences I have considered EPIC FAILURES when I have shared myself with people only to be totally disappointed in the outcome. Perhaps it is something else altogether. Sometimes when I watch my LBFF I see parts of myself so clearly in him [throwing the picture away because he made a 'mistake,' wanting to be alone and sullen because something that he did had unintended consequences that he could not control and did not like] and I so want to free him from the burden that I know these behaviors can become. But those will be his struggles, they cannot be faced by anyone else. This is one thing I know.
It is easier to be angry. Or funny. Or sarcastic. Or witty. Or pretty much anything else besides being vulnerable or lost. This becomes obvious with just a cursory look at the way people act all around us. In the news, in politics, in Hollywood… everywhere. People go to a lot of trouble to project the person they want to be to the world and the ultimate cost of that is losing who they really are down to the core. We do not consider that cost because we are looking at the sort term expenditures of appearing foolish or naive or pathetic or needy if we are more true to ourselves. This is one thing I have learned.
SAT I Writing: If I knew then what I know now.
Does being ethical make it hard to be successful? Is it sometimes necessary to be impolite? Is conscience a more powerful motivator than money, fame or power? Is the way something seems to be not always the same as it actually is? Do people learn who they are only when they are forced into action? Do closed doors make us creative? Are bad choices and good choices equally likely to have negative consequences? Are people’s lives the result of the choices they make? Do people have to be highly competitive in order to succeed?
The English language part of the College Board’s “Scholastic Aptitude Test” now incorporates a writing component. [Back before electricity when I took this exam there was no such thing - and for shame! Because I definitely would have outscored my BFF if there had been. As it stands he got me by 10 points - while sleeping through half the exam.] The above are all actual examples of the essay prompts from the exam. They also provide some brief polemical quotation, generally from a lesser (read = UN) known source to preface the question. As I spend an extraordinary amount of time helping students prepare for this segment of the SAT (another thing we did not do back in the day… where we took the test once and then – you know, whatever) I have started writing essay responses with them recently to demonstrate that in fact, they are not exactly “Yes” or “No” questions as one of my students insists.
“Amanda, that question is stupid.”
“Well, okay, yeah, probably. But the point is you can’t control that, you still need to answer it.”
“But how can I write an essay about it? It is a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question.”
“You have to explain your position – say why it is yes or no.”
“But that is stupid.”
“Uh-huh, right. So, are you ready then?”
To be fair, the SAT is stupid, but I think the writing part may be the least stupid element. If there is a categorical weakness in my students, it is in their written expression. One of my other students came in the other day with this epiphany:
“I know why I can’t write.”
“Really? Why is that?”
“Because I hate doing it.”
“Yes, I thought we had established that.”
“But I hate doing it because I hate to read. I don’t read, so how can I write?”
On blow drying and book writing.
“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show…”
I decided to blow dry my hair this morning after yoga. I realize this is not really worthy of a blog in its own right… but bear with me. I decided to dry my hair because:
1) I am sort of lazy and it takes about 40 minutes to totally dry my hair.
2) Blow drying my hair is usually a futile exercise because I live in 70% humidity on average.
3) It is really cold here right now so it feels better to have dry hair regardless of #1 and #2 above.
4) It would prolong my early arrival at the Office.
5) I had finished the book that had been my recent obsession on the way to yoga
So, there I was. Drying. It wasn’t so bad really.
I thought a lot about the book I had just finished reading… Divisadero, by Michael Ondaatje. I have read two of his other books, The English Patient and Anil’s Ghost, both of which I realize I was supposed to like more than I actually did. But this one I loved. I loved how he made these three totally separate stories make sense as layers of a larger idea. More than loved it, I wondered how he did it. Because it works and serves to really strengthen the more subtle themes of all the stories.
The book is set in places intimately familiar to me, save for rural France (but that is on my list) and I am not sure if that played into my enjoyment of the novel, but it certainly added a level of texture that I was ready to take in at this time.
I thought about all the characters and I wound my hair around the scratchy round hairbrush I carry in my yoga bag. I wanted to know some of them better and some a lttle less, but not for lack of knowing as much as just wanting. Maybe that is a good strategy: always leave them wanting more.
I thought about when I will actually write my book(s). I wished my hair was longer as I watched it starting to go dry, almost time to see my favorite Frenchman again and pretend that my hair is actually the color it claims to be. Watching the whole blow drying process makes me notice that my hair used to be longer, and blonder, but I guess one thing will take care of itself and the other will be handled by the Frenchman. Who would I include in my story?
I have a lot of ideas for books, but then I guess everyone who ever puts words to paper regularly says that. I am especially good with coming up with titles. I wonder if an entire book of book titles would be interesting. For people aside from me that is…
I also think a lot about chapters. Like how I would organize everything in each chapter… chronologically? By subject? By concept? Completely anachronistically? Alphabetically? I thought again about the book I had just read. Ondaatje said, with no shortage of brilliance:
“There is the hidden presence of others in us, even those we have known briefly. We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border that we cross.”
And thinking on that, I wrote an entire book in my head as I blow dried. Chapter by chapter. Each one a person, with an epigraph to set the mood. Then there were just a few thrown in the mix to serve as an interlude. It told the story of me with other people. It worked. I like this approach because, frankly, in the words of Holden Caulfield:
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it.”
Then my hair was dry and I had to go. Maybe tomorrow I will craft another masterpiece.
As long as I still need to dry my hair.
Mail (as in, you’ve really got mail, like real mail you can touch)
The advent and maturity of email, texting, on-line photosharing (is that even a real word? Can you have compound verbs?), even blogging, has permanently altered the way we communicate. I don’t condemn these changes by and large, and in fact rely on the modern convenience of them daily to maintain my ties to people near and far. Still there is something really great about receiving real mail.
As part of the Thirty Voices cadre for the past year I was personally introduced to blogging, as well as a really interesting group of women from a lot of interesting places doing a lot of interesting things. I had never really considered having my own blog before, and now… well, now we all know what has happened (a home for my garrulous verbosity!)
As the T.V. project came to an end, one of the originators of the idea had another idea… would it be fun to do a gift swap with the other writers… send something(s), not too extravagant, but somehow meaningful and representative of the friendships forged and the places physically occupied by our on-line community. I thought it was a great idea… and while I have yet to send my package off (I will meet the deadline – that is a promise…) I received mine a week ago, and what a joy to behold!
Amanda
