Category Archive

I used to brag about how I never get sick, about how I have an immune system straight out of a science lab thanks to my perpetual exposure to teenagers who leave their snot-soaked tissues on the floor and sneeze on the pencil sharpener for fun. I have probably done some such bragging on this very blog, and if I weren’t sick FOR THE SECOND TIME IN THREE MONTHS I would find an example and include a nice link for reference. That’s right. Sore throat, cough, inability to force air through my nostrils. Mia is also sick. Neither of us has a fever, so the doctor won’t even consider seeing us, and while I can at least get high on decongestant and expectorant, my poor baby has to walk around blowing snot bubbles and wiping them on the furniture. It’s like being in the classroom again.

It should go without saying that this is a horrible time for me to be sick*. I am being observed by my professor tomorrow, so there’s no staying home to recuperate, and I have class tomorrow night. I have a paper due Monday (finished!), and a mammoth group project in the works, and my efforts to convince teachers to use the library have finally paid off–we are full all week! Super. If I manage to get through this week (of course I will, I’m just being dramatic), spring break will be waiting for me in all it’s glory: SEVEN straight days of no work. Just the thought of it makes me feel a little better.

Meanwhile, I am pretty much failing daily at this “I’m a writer” thing. I am trying to figure out what to do about that, and I’m sure after I emerge victorious from my final round of grad school I will have more of a handle on my writing self, but I want you to know–you, with the encouraging comments, you with the daily click only to find the same tired post, you with the email and IM, you who are my biggest fans (hi Mom)–I really appreciate the fact that you’re all still around, still reading, still expecting me to write.

*Even as I type this phrase, a phrase I hear people say often, I have to wonder if there’s really an opposite sentiment. I mean, have you EVER heard anyone say, “I have the runs, but it’s okay, this is a great time for me to be sick”?

Last Monday was the first day of my last semester of graduate school. I should have typed those words with enthusiasm, but I am not at all enthusiastic. I am so over graduate school. Sad, because I am an eager student by nature. But there are so many other things I’d rather be learning right now: how to play guitar, for example, or Italian. There is also so much more I’d rather be doing, like practicing yoga and reading and crawling around on the floor in hot pursuit of a tiny person who growls and then collapses in fit of laughter. That last part I won’t be giving up, not for all the graduate degrees at Harvard, but instead of Downward Dog and Tree, instead of book after book after book I keep discovering right in my own library, I will be “learning how to be a librarian” and “learning how to run a library.” You’re overjoyed for me, I can tell. I view the completion of graduate school in the same way I would view a race, say, a city marathon: at first you are pumped and the adrenaline is flowing as you fly forth from the starting block, but as you get farther and farther away from start you begin to slow down. You are sore and gasping for breath. You are too far in to turn back, but you want to duck into a bar and have a beer or, better yet, you want someone in a car to stop and pick you up and drive you to the finish line. Sadly, the grad school equivalent to having someone drive you to the finish line is called “paying someone to do all your work,” and I would never do that. But I probably wouldn’t argue if it all magically appeared on my desk. Eh.

But amazingly enough, even though I spent almost 30 minutes on that scintillating paragraph, that is not the topic of this post! The topic of this post is my new Best Friend Forever, or BFF, as she will be called henceforth. Some background first. I am a notorious waiting room magazine thief. When I was pregnant I would “accidentally” carry a magazine back to the exam room and then surreptitiously drop it in my bag at the end of the appointment. It was never a new magazine, and usually it was a duplicate. I saw it as a service I provided, a sort of recycling program: one old volume out of the way leaves room for a new one. I was the Masked Recycler. By the late fall, well into the third trimester, I was sick of reading about prenatal health care and gestational horror stories and how much labor was going to hurt, so it was a happy surprise when I discovered a copy of Wondertime in Dr. T’s waiting room. I tried to subscribe to the magazine online the next day, that’s how much I loved it, but I never got a confirmation, never got a bill, never got a magazine. I won’t lie to you: my first four issues of Wondertime were lifted from waiting rooms, first at my OB’s office and later at Mia’s pediatrician. They were not old copies, and there was not always a duplicate, and I am not sorry, because in my humble opinion, Wondertime is the best parenting magazine ever, or at least the best one I’ve come across. It is a smart mom’s magazine, filled with articles by smart moms*. One of those smart moms is Catherine Newman, and she is my new BFF. Catherine, everyone. Everyone, meet Catherine.

When I started reading Wondertime I was immediately drawn to Catherine’s articles. The reason for this can best be explained with a fascinating little story from my past: When I was in college, finding myself and figuring out who I was and blah and blah and blah, I was always amazed to meet someone who “got me.” You know what I mean: you are talking to a potential new friend and she mentions that she likes oatmeal pies, and you say that you also like oatmeal pies, and then she says that her grandmother used to keep them in a cookie jar on the counter, and you gasp and exclaim that your grandmother also kept them in a cookie jar on the counter; and before long you are comparing notes about the indoor/outdoor carpet in your grandmother’s kitchen (green squares for you, gold circles for her), and by the end of the conversation you are astounded to learn that you both imagine yourselves opening your car door while you are riding on the passenger side of a vehicle and tumbling onto the pavement, even though neither of you is remotely suicidal.

Reading Catherine’s writing is like that for me. I am reading along and suddenly I will feel compelled to say out loud, “Oh my God, I have also wondered about topical caffeine!” or “I, too, curse when I attempt to knit!” And as I am going about my life, mentally writing the endless blog entry that chronicles my scintillating existence and mind-boggling brilliance, I will say to myself, “I wonder if Catherine has ever done this,” as I wipe down everything in my bag and wave my coffee-soaked planner around in the air for the millionth time, because I cannot for the life of me remember how to close my travel thermos. Should the little button be in or out? What’s this red line here? Maybe it is significant! Indeed. Not that I think my new BFF is incapable, as I am, of closing a thermos. Not at all. It’s more existential than that. It has to do with connecting on a cosmic level, of finding meaning, and thereby kinship, in the simple act of living. Someone asked me recently why I blogged, and there is my answer: you people help me explain myself to me, to connect with myself, by explaining yourselves, by talking about your days and families and jobs. But I digress. Sort of.

When I first started reading Catherine’s blog, Dalai Mama, I linked to it through one of its two hosts, Disney Family or something like that, and there was much logging in and password remembering involved if you wanted to leave a comment. But I did it, I logged in and (gah!) reset my password every single time,  and even set up a little profile with a picture, and sometime back in November I left a comment, something I hardly ever do unless I know you. Fast-forward to two weeks ago, when, having reset my Disney Family password yet again, I discovered in my little comment profile that Catherine, a published author of books and magazine articles, had RESPONDED TO MY COMMENT! Granted, she did not claim me as her new BFF, but she did compliment my picture, and, did I mention, she is a published author! It was exciting, much in the same way that, years ago when I was just out of college, it was exciting when Dar Williams stepped on my blanket at Lilith Fair during her little visit to the lawn seating area. I take connection in whatever form the universe offers it up to me.

And isn’t that what writing and blogging are all about? Connection? And didn’t I already say that? I think so. I never click through my blogroll without thinking, “Yep. Been there, obsessed over that.” It’s a comfort, even when the mutuality we share is often on the dark side (”Oh, you imagine a plane crashing into your house while you’re getting ready for work every day? Yeah, me too.”). Or even the bizarre side (”Some kid in the library smells like Stetson, which reminds me of my 7th grade boyfriend, who, oddly enough, is now a gay porn star, and now I am thinking about porn. Oh, you too?”). And that’s why Catherine Newman is my new BFF which, I should not even have to remind you, is not an exclusive title, because if you are reading this, you are at the top of my list.

*I am not suggesting that other parenting magazines are dumb, or for moms who are not smart, or whatever. I am just saying that I think this particular magazine is exceptional. I steal those other magazines from work read those other magazines as well.

I actually snickered audibly when I typed the words “living a balanced life” in the title, because the whole thing suggests that I am about to write knowledgeably about those topics. Let me assure you right here at the beginning that nothing of the sort is going to happen. It might as well read, “More on quadratic equations, speaking Persian, and splitting atoms with an eyelash curler and some WD-40.” What’s really going to happen here is this: I am going to pour the rinse-water from my brainwash out onto this screen, and then I am going to ask you all some questions, and then you are going to leave your honest, heartfelt answers in the comments section. Or not, whatever, you know, it’s fine with me.

I’ve got myself really thinking about the writer’s life and what that means to me. I’ve been thinking about how I want that life to look. I’ve been wondering what it is I really want to do. Work from home? Write a book? Work for a magazine or a publisher? All of the above? And how am I supposed to achieve any or all of those things? Yeah, yeah, I know that yesterday I was all “I’m a writer, I’m going to write every day,” but how does a person really get published? How do you even begin to start writing a book? How? (There, right there, those are your first questions.)

And what do I ultimately want to write, anyway? I joke all the time about writing a novel, but I’m not sure that will ever happen. Not because I lack confidence, but because I don’t really believe in fiction. Don’t get me wrong, I love fiction, but deep down I am convinced that there’s really no such thing as fiction. I don’t think it’s possible to separate your own experiences from your creativity, so nothing is truly “made up.” Even if your main character is a dog, a dog who talks. In Italian. Even if this is your protagonist, this smooth-talking Italian pooch, he will inevitably wear a bowler hat like your great-Uncle Howard and call everyone “Darlin’” like your grandfather and drink coffee black with raw sugar like that nice old man who used to ask for your section at the diner where you worked in college. And anyway, reality is more interesting. I can’t imagine trying to make stuff up when I have such a rich store of material, compliments of real people, like this, and also this, which is an actual note my great-aunt wrote to my grandmother:

Hi Sister,

Sorry I wasn’t here when you called, I’m on jury duty and was serving on a criminal case all this week. It was a child abuse by father. It took a lot out of me. We found him guilty. He is to be sentenced in April. Hope I don’t serve on a case like that anymore. Seems as though everyone is doing okay right now. Hope you get compensated for what they did to your hair. Take care of yourself and let us hear from you.

Love, Shirley

Admit it. You started out sort of creeped out by the whole jury duty story, but now you are wondering what on earth it was they did to her hair. Priceless. Still, I think about writing a novel. Some of you talk about writing a novel, too. Tell me about that. How will you begin? What will you write about and how long do you think it will take you? How will you write a novel and not a mostly true story where only the names are changed?

As for reading, it shouldn’t surprise you that most of what I read is online and of the blog variety. My regular reads range from trying-to-conceive struggles, pregnancy stories, and family updates to edgy humor and political banter. Some of my favorite bloggers are famous; most of them are not. Occasionally I get to read a book, a real grown-up book with chapters and no pictures. But no matter what I’m reading, even when I’m having a little battle in my head, that little battle I told you about yesterday (This is brilliant. It makes me feel like I too could be brilliant….Brilliant? Ha! You can’t write like this. This is real, this is published!) I am still profoundly inspired. I used to tell my students all the time that the more they read, the better they would write. I believe that. So who inspires you? What have you read lately (or ever) that made you want to go immediately to the computer or trusty notebook and start creating? Whose writing would you like to emulate?

In the end, of course, it’s all about balance. Life is full, and we spend most of our time on the items at the top of the list: making money to pay the bills, caring for our families, keeping up with details. At the end of a long day of work and groceries and laundry and dinner and bath time and the bedtime routine, there isn’t a lot of time for creativity (case in point: I have been writing this post in 5-10 minute increments since 9:30 this morning–12 hours!). We don’t leave our creative selves much breathing room. My friend P., who is also looking to make more room for creativity in her life, reminded me recently that I don’t have to quit my job to write, that I just need to write something and put it out there. She is right, of course, but what she’s talking about requires balance, finding a middle ground. Even if I don’t get a single answer to any question I’ve asked so far, I’m hoping for some insight about how to move into that middle ground. How do you do it? How do you find balance? How do you make sure the writing (or painting or whatever it is you do) doesn’t get the shaft? How do you live a balanced life?

Talk to me.

Elvis and my good friend Steph were born on this day. I’m happy to say Steph has fared much better than The King and is thriving a few miles down the road from me. Even so, we never see each other, so I’m resorting to a nice nice virtual birthday cupcake in her honor.

Happy Birthday, old friend.

Erm, I mean ”friend who is not OLD but has been my friend for a long, long time.”

Hi. You’ve reached HD at One Small Corner of the Universe. I’m not available to post right now because, thanks to a misunderstanding following a trip to the grocery store wherein I said to myself, “That needs to go into the freezer,” but I misunderstood myself and thought I said, “That needs to go right into my mouth,” I am spending the rest of the evening with a carton of Edy’s Peppermint Ice Cream. Any complaints about my lack of NaBloPoMo participation today can be directed to Cali; this Peppermint Ice Cream thing is All. Her. Fault.

And I would, for once in my freakin’ life, be on time instead of all paranoid the night before (where IS everyone? is this the right day?) or straggling in at the last minute on the day-of (oh, THERE you are–am I late?).

Sometimes when I daydream about living in London, jaunting around town on the tube, walking the crowded streets and shopping at outdoor markets, I get a nice clear picture in my mind of myself as a city dweller. Bri is always in that picture. Bri doesn’t live in London, but when she talks of her life in Brooklyn, a place I have never been, I imagine London. Somehow the two images have merged, and Wes and Bri are my fantasy London neighbors, and we run into each other at Portabello Road some Saturdays. We are all drinking coffee, and Bri and I are pushing strollers, and that is the point here. Soon, when the weather starts to turn a little cooler and TK is a little older, Bri will talk of pushing her boy in his stroller to the market (or the storage facility, as the case may be), and that image will make me as happy as picturing myself people watching in Trafalgar Square.

I’ve mentioned this before, but there are people–”in real life” people–whose brows furrow skeptically when I talk of my Blog Friends. “But…you don’t really…KNOW those people.” I always just shrug and change the subject, but as anyone who blogs knows, I do know “those people.” And they know me. It is a different kind of friendship, but it is not a lesser one. So thinking about Bri and Wes and GMB as they await the arrival of one more makes me very happy, the kind of happy you feel for your friends. I smile even now to imagine TK in his little designer clothes, crawling madly toward a wary chiuaua, saying “shit!” repeatedly from his high chair and laughing at the admiring gazes of his family. Ah, the joys of parenthood.

Today my daughter fell asleep with her head on my lap. I could smell the Johnson’s baby shampoo mingling with sweat in her wild curls, and there was a Cheerio stuck to her chubby thigh. When she woke she immediately looked up at me and her whole face lit up in a smile, as if my presence somehow surprised and delighted her. She lay there for a few minutes playing with my hands and grabbing my chin, and I relished the cuddle–she prefers the floor over my lap these days. And sure enough, she started squirming so I put her down among the stuffed animals and blocks and such, and she set off. And then she stopped and turned around to face me, a smile still playing on her face, and she lifted her little hand in her version of a wave before she turned and dove at her favorite ball. It was a lifetime in a moment, and today I wish you a lifetime of these moments.

Congratulations, friends. It’s going to be a wild ride.

WANTED: This Stuffed Animal

Off white fur, black and white oval eyes, short arms and legs, long tail, 10.5 inches tall.

Often mistaken for misshapen dachshund, elephant, prairie dog.

Goes by the name “Wee Hairy Beastie”; also answers to “WHB” and “Beastie.”

Resides in suburban neighborhood with almost-6-month-old who cannot sleep without clutching its stubby arms, legs, or ears.

Seriously. I need help. My daughter is attached to this…creature. I got it at Ikea the summer before she was born. Last summer. Just a mere 12 months ago. And today when I went to the Ikea website to purchase a backup or two THEY WEREN’T THERE. Now, I don’t know if they no longer exist, or if they just aren’t marketing them any longer. Now they have all these NEW toys that actually LOOK LIKE REAL ANIMALS. But my kid, she likes this animal. This animal that’s already starting to look like it lives under a car tire. This animal that smells like baby saliva and Johnson’s nighttime lotion. This animal with the perpetual wet ears.

Please. Someone. Someone who is fortunate enough to live near an Ikea. If you happen by the place any time soon, would you mind checking out the kids department for me, and if they have these animals, would you purchase a back-up or two for us. I will send you money, and I will make it up to you, I swear.

Everyone, this is Kim. Kim, everyone.

Kim is my friend MJ’s niece. Kim has breast cancer. Kim is going to beat breast cancer. Kim would like for all of us to avoid breast cancer, or to conquer it before it has a chance. Go here, read this and this, and take her wise advice. And while you’re at it, send her some of your amazing light.

I’ve always been a lover of irony. Today is just full of it, though, and I’m starting to rethink my love. For one thing, today’s message from the Universe–on spot, no? Especially that part about the challenges. Yeah. I assumed The Almighty was talking about the challenges I already knew about–the 14-year-old ones who occupy my days and suck out my patience like so many multi-colored Pixie Sticks. Remember those? You think you have so much, and yet, when you turn up the paper tube there’s hardly anything in there at all. Much like my patience level these days. But I digress. I spent the morning scoffing at my lack of patience, ignoring my students’ antics, smiling serenely, knowing that in a few short hours I’d get to go home and spend the afternoon with my daughter. Home. Yes. Home, where, within 30 minutes of my arrival, water started pouring from an as yet undetermined source in the vicinity of my hot water heater. I am waiting for the plumber, and I have turned off my water at its main source, and I am all the hell out of Pixie Sticks. I mean patience. I took the Universe’s reference to challenges to mean the ordinary ones. The Universe said nothing about plumbing. And all that talk about spending the afternoon at the park? Yeah. Ironic, isn’t it? No more half days for me.

Also ironic about the Universe’s message: that part about getting plenty of sleep. My child, my sleeps-all-night-and-has-since-9-weeks child, has taken to waking up anywhere between 3 and 5 a.m. She doesn’t cry, she just makes noise. Loud noise. Sometimes she fusses, sometimes she just talks to herself. It lasts around 30 minutes and then she goes back to sleep. But. I. Don’t.

There is good news, however. Last night I created these:

I know they sort of look like giant coconut macaroons, but they are, indeed, bagels. I almost didn’t make them because of the whole boiling thing, which sort of freaked me out, but it was SO easy and now I am fascinated by the whole process. The best part of all–and if you are stressed out, take note–was the kneading of the dough. I kicked that dough’s ASS. I am talking slamming, punching, squeezing–it was so satisfying. I could have just thrown the whole thing away and had a beer at that point, but I like to see things through. I made 8 bagels–2 plain and 6 garlic and onion. I even mixed some chopped green olives into my cream cheese. I had one for dinner and it was okay, but this morning they tasted even better, more bagel-like. Hot out of the oven they had a strange taste. I’ll remember that next time. I also won’t make them on a “school night” again, because there at the end I was running from the kitchen to wherever Mia happened to be at the moment (swing, bouncer, floor, high chair) and when it was all over she was hungry, and by the time I finally sat down to eat a bagel I was exhausted.

So thanks, Cali, for the excellent suggestion–I highly recommend it!

Tomorrow I’m making pineapple salsa. I can’t wait!

I should really be putting the finishing touches on a poetry test and making sure I know what the hell I’m teaching in less than an hour, but I promised a report on Friday’s “good thing,” and besides, I’d rather talk to the internet than work anyway.

On Friday after dinner I filled up the bathtub, poured some of Mia’s lavender nighttime bath into the water, and tossed in the waterproof books and rubber fish. Mia has always liked the water, but I was not prepared for how much she liked being in deep water. We’re talking ecstatic–arms waving, legs kicking every which way, face simply glowing with excitement. It was not the most relaxing bath I’ve ever taken, but it was possibly the most entertaining. We’ll definitely be taking more “big baths.” 

Today I’m going to attempt to make my own bagels. I’m nervously excited. Bagels have to be boiled. Did you know? I’ll let you know how it goes.

By the way, thanks for the continued great suggestions (new ones are in red, edits are in blue). I’m going to gain back some of these pounds I’ve been trying to get rid of, but it’s SO going to be worth it.

Monday, May 21: Calliope suggested making my own bagels, so I found a recipe and plan to buy the ingredients and try it out on Monday night.

Tuesday, May 22: EDITED: I am taking Tuesday afternoon off, so I get to look forward to having a whole afternoon with Mia. I am thinking we might go to the park and then have dinner at P@nera with the giftcard I got for Mother’s Day. Or we might just hang out at home and play, which is something I look forward to every day.

Wednesday, May 23: Trista suggested making a cool recipe and eating it on my screened porch with a friend. I’m going to make pineapple salsa, and I will eat it with Hint o’Lime chips on my screened porch. I will think about sharing it with someone.

Thursday, May 24: Jen suggested chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. On Thursday I’ll go somewhere and buy something really sinfully chocolate and eat it all by myself.

Friday, May 25: Laguilia suggested lots of great things, so on Friday morning I’m going to stop at Panera for breakfast on the way to work, and then, weather permitting, plan a Friday afternoon visit to one of my city’s cool parks. EDITED: I just found out that our newest park, which is downtown–very cool, lots of fountains and benches and free Wi-Fi–has free music on Friday evenings!

Tuesday, May 29: EDITED: Rescheduled Scrabble and beer with my sister.

Wednesday, May 30: My college friendRosemary (Hey, Bud!) suggested I have London Night. We spent a semester there sophomore year, and it was one of the very best times of my life. We used to buy these huge chocolate gateau cakes and sit around the table eating the cake right out of the box.* Good times. So on Wednesday I’m going to buy the closest thing to that cake I can find and eat it while flipping through my London scrapbook.

Thursday, May 31: Lo suggested watching movies, and on Thursday evening I’ll watch whatever is in from Netflix. I’ve been keeping light, humorous titles at the top of my queue, so I’ll pop some popcorn and be entertained.

Friday, June 1: J suggested an Evening of Sin. Excellent! I usually eat out with Gayle on Friday nights, so I’m going to suggest Red Robin for burgers and fries and one of my few vices, a fountain Diet Coke. Then, once at home (if I can still swallow food), I’ll have a cocktail (hey J, can I get that recipe?) and one of those Betty Crocker mini chocolate cakes (YUM!).

Monday, June 4

Tuesday, June 5

Wednesday, June 6

Thursday, June

Friday, June 8

*Lest you think Rosemary and I ate the cake alone, there were four, sometimes five, occasionally six people gathered around with spoons in hand. Just so you know.

Yesterday I looked forward to spending the evening with my friends Joy and Charlie. It was a splendid ending to a Sucks Average* day. Today’s pleasant goals included dinner at Tripp’s with Gayle and Mia, and a warm lavender bath (perhaps with the kid in tow) as suggested by twonymoms. My shoulders are crawling quite a bit today, and also hurting–today has been Sucks Worse Than Average (see below) day– so the bath is definitely something I’m looking forward to.

When I started this post it was 2:30 in the afternoon. It is now 8:52 p.m. Dinner was great, and I’m still looking forward to that bath.

So far I’ve received several additional suggestions and have assigned them a date.  I’m not entirely sure, but I think Bri suggested that I hit my students with a cane. This was the best I received overall, and plan to spend my whole lunch every day fantasizing about it. There are still several open days if you’d like to suggest something else. 

Monday, May 21: Calliope suggested making my own bagels, so I found a recipe and plan to buy the ingredients and try it out on Monday night.

Tuesday, May 22: SCRABBLE with my sister, my 19-year-old sister who also suggested we drink alcoholic beverages!**

Wednesday, May 23: Trista suggested making a cool recipe and eating it on my screened porch with a friend. I’m going to make pineapple salsa, and I will eat it with Hint o’Lime chips on my screened porch. I will think about sharing it with someone.

Thursday, May 24: Jen suggested chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. On Thursday I’ll go somewhere and buy something really sinfully chocolate and eat it all by myself.

Friday, May 25: Laguilia suggested lots of great things, so on Friday morning I’m going to stop at Panera for breakfast on the way to work, and then, weather permitting, plan a Friday afternoon visit to one of my city’s cool parks.

Tuesday, May 29

Wednesday, May 30

Thursday, May 31

Friday, June 1

Monday, June 4

Tuesday, June 5

Wednesday, June 6

Thursday, June 7

Friday, June 8

*I judge work on a Sucks More or Less basis. If a day is really horrible, it Sucks More than Average. If it’s a decent day, it Sucks Less Than Average. A typical day Sucks Average.

**Maybe I’ll let her use Mia’s fake ID.

Not counting today there are 15 school days remaining on my work calendar. I tried to post a nifty little ticker to commemorate the countdown, but it didn’t go over so well. So I thought I’d try something a little different.

My mantra has always been a combination of “I can do anything for a limited amount of time” and “Someday I’ll be looking BACK at this instead of staring it in the face.” And to help myself cope I’ve always operated on the “Something To Look Forward To” theory. I often plan things–happy, fun, relaxing things–in advance during difficult times so that I can look at my calendar and think, “Sure, this sucks, but in 9 days I’m getting a pedicure,” or, “I may not be enjoying myself now, but I will certainly enjoy spending the weekend in the mountains next month.” It isn’t exactly the same as wishing my life away…more like working toward a pleasant goal. And right now my “pleasant goal” is getting rid of these cretins seeing these children off for the summer.

I know I often talk about how intensely this time of year sucks in the schools. The kids think we should stop doing work, and their behavior is at an all time low. It is actually an expenditure of energy for me not to curse at them. I fantasize about hitting them. I look at my countdown on the board–”T-minus 15 days until the last day of school”–and it feels like 15 years. The end result, that shining last day marked with a huge star on the calendar, just isn’t quite enough. I need some mini-goals–a small shining star for each of the next 15 days.

Here’s where you come in. In the comments, please suggest something I could do in the evenings that I can look forward to while I am at work. Please do not suggest that I go out to a local bar and get drunk; Mia’s fake ID hasn’t come in yet, and even though she has more hair than I do, I don’t think I can pass her off as an unusually short 21-year-old just yet. However, suggesting that I stay home and get drunk is perfectly acceptable.

Kidding. I kid (although new cocktail recipes are always welcome). But seriously. Please share some glimmers of happiness with me. I will do what you suggest each day, and sometime the next morning I’ll blog about how wonderful your suggestion was and how it helped me survive one. more. day. 

I have finally caved and purchased Photoshop. I don’t understand Photoshop, really, but during my 30-day free trial I discovered a few cool features by accident, and I decided that with some instruction I could make excellent use of the program.

Please, if you are a Photoshop user, explain your favorite features and how you use them. I am especially interested in and baffled by the whole concept of layers.

And if I don’t get any comments, which has been the case around here lately, I’m going to start wondering a la 7th grade if you people aren’t my friends anymore, and then I’ll have to act out or start hanging with the wrong crowd just to get your attention, and you wouldn’t want that now would you?

I have attempted to comment on your blog several times in the past few days, and every single time, one of two things happens:

1. The little word verification box has a giant red “X” in it, so I can’t get past security.

2. A blank white screen with “done” at the bottom loads onto my browser, and no matter how many times I attempt to reload and post my comment, nothing happens. Nothing.

I’m sure there is some setting on my computer or something I’m doing wrong that could be amended, but thanks to my first day back on the job I am SO. FREAKING. TIRED so the only thing I can think of to do is post my comment here. And it is:

YAY! YES! WOO! HOO! I am so happy for the three of you! Mia and I are doing the dance of joy on your behalf!
 

Mia received this in the mail last week, and while she’s worn part of it a few times already, I’ve just now gotten around to documenting it. I’m really disgusted with my digital camera, which seems to be capable of taking only blurry pictures indoors. While I’m sure it would perform better outside, it’s a little chilly and I don’t want to use up all my Bad Mommy points in the name of good photography.

Anyway…behold the cutest baby hat and scarf ever:

Um, Bri?

My friend Steph is compiling a list of great things about being 30 for her sister-in-law, who is apparently freaking out about her upcoming thirtieth birthday. Since most of my readership is in the 30s range, I thought I’d enlist all of you to contribute to the list. Leave your “what’s great about being 30″ contribution in the comments, and feel free to include more than one if you are so inclined. I’ll start:

1. I no longer worry so much about looking or feeling stupid in front of others, because who really gives a crap as long as I am content with how I look or feel?

2. I no longer obsess about that weekly pumpkin cream cheese muffin or that extra handful of Peanut M&Ms, because I’ve developed a close enough relationship with my body to understand that moderation is acceptable.

3. I leased a car at 21, and after the lease was up I financed the car; I never managed to pay off the loan for that car. The car I bought less than three years ago will be paid off in 18 months.

4. I have grown up furniture now.

5. I am much more interested in what a person stands for than in what a person is wearing (or what size a person is wearing), and I find it to be a much healthier interest.

Your turn.

Due to the fire, our 9th and 10th grade students missed six regular school days and the 11th and 12th graders missed three. We are, of course, being required to make those days up because everyone knows if a child receives 174 days of instruction instead of 180, he or she will be scarred for life, will fail all standardized tests for the rest of time (oh no!), and will be doomed to a life of ignorance and ineptitude. Pardon me while I pry my tongue out of my cheek.

Anyway, today is one of those make-up days. We normally have a teacher workday the day before Thanksgiving, which means we come in for an hour, sign the book, go to lunch at 9:30 and never return. But today was officially declared a regular student day for us, and since I’m not really allowed to travel to my regular holiday destinations this year, it was no big deal for me. Apparently that was not the case for most of my students. My first class, which averages 9-10 out of 15 students, had 3 students today. Out of 19 in my next class I had a group of 11, my largest class of the day. And in my last class, normally my biggest group, I marked 17 absent, which left 7. I had a quiz scheduled for today. Silly me, I actually attempted to give said quiz to the middle group. It did not go well. Have I mentioned that my classroom has no doors and a shared ceiling space? What was I thinking?

So now I am sitting at my desk staring at my seven students, who are writing thank-you notes to the PTSA, local university, and fire departments for everything they have done on our behalf in the past three weeks, and it occurs to me that I should do the same.

***

Dear Mystery Hero,

In these emotionally harrowing weeks following the loss of our school building, I’ve heard countless stories of loss from my colleagues. Robin lost the hand-painted wooden murals her students have added to year after year. Kim lost the laptop her husband bought her for their anniversary less than two months ago. Tina lost the scrapbook she made as a high school junior when her basketball team won the national championship. Craig, Lisa, and Charlie lost over 20 years of teaching materials. Tim’s small classroom zoo–Darwin the lizard, Monty the ball python, two other snakes, the turtle, several fish–probably suffocated before the flames reached them. Numerous people lost phones, purses, wallets, checkbooks, credit cards.

I was lucky enough not to be one of those people. Sure, I regret the loss of my teaching materials and the handful of personal books, videos and CDs I kept in my classroom. I will miss the posters I collected on my trip across the country 10 years ago, and that “Reserved Parking For Joan Baez Band and Crew” sign I took from a concert last fall. I’m a little wistful about my trophies from 6 years of coaching soccer, as well as that folder full of notes from students I’ve collected over the past decade. But the losses that were hardest for me to stomach–the ones that would have the biggest impact on me–were my jump drive and the school laptop I’ve been using for the past year. Five, almost six semesters of my life were on that jump drive, and almost every digital picture I’ve ever taken was saved on either the jump drive or the laptop. Ditto for everything I wrote for that creative writing class I took three years ago, as well as several assignments I created for my classes. For me, those were the toughest losses.

And then there was the brass bell. Mrs. Black, my 7th and 8th grade math teacher, gave me that bell when I “graduated” from junior high. She told me she knew I’d be a teacher someday, and that I could keep that bell on my desk and use it with my own students. It sat on my desk for about one month before I got tired of every hyperactive 9th grader ringing it as they walked by, so I put it in my top drawer. It served the same purpose there, though–to remind me that someone, once upon a time, believed that I had the potential to do this job well.

You had no way of knowing any of this when you went into my room last week, even though the fire marshall and the police deparment have condemned the building and threatened arrest to anyone who enters. You could have picked up any number of things, or nothing at all, for that matter, but you looked around my room and decided to salvage a few items. One of them was the school laptop. Another was my bag, and inside was my jump drive. And the other was my brass bell. When I walked into my classroom last Friday and saw the black trash bag next to my desk containing these blackened, smoky, soggy things, I couldn’t have been happier if Santa himself had walked in and handed me a new car and a million bucks.

I know I’m not really allowed to know who you are, because my knowing your identity could get you into some serious trouble. So I can’t thank you personally, but I send my thanks out into the Universe and hope they reach you somehow, in some cosmic way. I’ll miss those other things left behind in my room, and I’ll be eternally grateful for the things that you rescued, but mostly I am thankful for your willingness to put yourself on the line for me, and for many of my colleagues who also found mysterious bags next to their desks last week. Many heroes have emerged in the past few weeks, but today, you are mine.

Friday, November 10th was not one of my better days. I had spent the week in chaotic staff meetings, at other schools, or in public places with wireless internet access, desperately trying to resume some semblance of normalcy in my professional life. It wasn’t going well. I was tired, and the images of what used to be my lovely classroom (I complained, yes, but I never mentioned here that my classroom was pleasant, colorful, a happy place to go even when I wasn’t happy to be in the building) kept crowding my thoughts. People kept asking me if I was enjoying my time off, or what I thought about my “new” school, or if it wasn’t about time for me to have that baby. I was on the verge of something–tears, a tantrum, an ass-kicking–and I was ready for something pleasant, something unrelated to school, to occur.

It did. When I arrived home that afternoon there was a package on my front step. I was afraid I had (once again) forgotten to return the “no, I don’t want anything this month” slip to my book club, but when I glanced at the return address I saw a familiar handwritten name. I sat down on the floor and opened the package eagerly. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine how wonderful its contents could be. There were chocolate pretzels. Gum drops. Gummy things. Blue corn chips (my favorite!). Homemade cookies. There were cool magnets and a personalized t-shirt. There were fun handwritten things. There was music. Mostly there was sincere thought and a show of friendship I have been grateful for for many, many months but have never found the right words to express.

After hearing me refer to “one of my blog girls” recently, an in-real-life friend asked me if I actually knew any of the people whose blogs I read regularly, if I had ever met any of you. When I replied, “no,” she asked me, “How can you say they are your friends, and how can you share so much about your personal life with complete strangers?” I think most people who do not have a support group like the one that exists here in these blogs would have the same question, but even if I attempted to explain it, they wouldn’t understand. Many of you have said this more eloquently than I am about to say it, but there is definitley some connection here, some unique likeness that bonds us all together. I knew it without a doubt before, and after reading about the “convention” that occurred in NYC a few weeks ago, and after being a part of said convention even though I wasn’t actually there, I knew it even more deeply. Not only have we basked in the safety of the written word, but we have also opened our “real” selves up for each other, put our faces and bodies and hearts out there for others to see. If that’s not friendship I don’t know what is.

So thank you, my friends–thanks for the goodies and momentos, and most of all, the thoughts and the peace you sent me. You’ll never know how dramatically the course of my day shifted with the discovery of that box and all the goodness it contained.

It’s been boring here lately. Even I am bored with my blogging, or not blogging, whatever you want to call it. It would be easy for me to tell you that I’ve been quiet because I’ve been busy with work (which is true) and graduate school (also true), but I wouldn’t be telling you the whole truth, and the whole truth is something I’ve been struggling with lately.

Four months ago I announced my pregnancy on this blog. That announcement followed a long period of silence and short, silly nothing posts, and not much of significance has followed since. Or perhaps more accurately, not much mention of the pregnancy has followed. I know that some women resent the sudden cease in blogging when a fellow infertile or TTCer finally gets pregnant. I don’t remember the blog where I read it, but I remember reading that just disappearing after you get those two pink lines is inconsiderate, a snub to your comrades who supported you through all the RE appointments, negative HPTs, painful IUIs, hormone tests, HSGs, HCG blood draws, and crack-of-dawn temp checks. On one hand I agree. But I also know that some women, the ones who are still trying, don’t want to hear about every pregnant woman’s expanding waistline, cravings, morning sickness, first fetal movements, baby showers, nursery preparations, doctor visits, and name deliberations. I’ve been racking my brain to figure out the middle ground.

Right after my miscarriage last July, I discovered that some of my favorite people were pregnant. I was immensely happy for them–and immensely sad for me. I would go days without reading their blog, and then I would spend an hour catching up, and at the end of that hour I was still both happy and sad, but life went on, and by the time the Cutest Baby in the DC Area was born, I was newly pregnant and scared shitless and happy beyond belief. I wanted to tell everyone–and no one. I was afraid that putting it out into the Universe might jinx me somehow. I still have this creeping fear, even now at this moment as I type these words with my child’s foot planted firmly in my ribcage. But lately that fear, that something-could-still-go-wrong voice that nags me daily, is not why I haven’t mentioned the pregnancy much.

When I was in high school I got lots of positive attention from my instructors because I was a good writer. Writing has always come easily to me, much like playing sports comes easily to some people and music comes easily to others. My friends always wanted to talk about why I got As on my papers and they got Bs and B-minuses and Cs. I avoided these talks, which made me feel bad, guilty, like being good at writing was wrong of me and I should stop it and be more like everyone else. Never mind that I got Cs in math and later almost failed college calculus AND college biology. Hell, we can’t all be good at everything. But for some reason my being a good writer irritated my peers. I made it a permanent practice never to discuss papers with my classmates–I was afraid of alienation, and making friends was hard enough for me already, so I kept my grades to myself, pretended they didn’t exist.

And now I find myself doing it again, except now I can’t exactly slip the evidence of my success discreetly into my bag and slide out of the classroom. I’m pregnant. Eventually, if I’m lucky, there’s going to be a baby. I’m going to have to talk about the kid because it’s going to take up all of my time, my energy, my attention. I’ve been deliberately talking about other things, or talking about nothing at all, not because I’m so wrapped up in my own good fortune, but because I don’t want my good fortune to pain others.

Let me stop now and say this: no one has made me feel this way. I feel this way all by myself without assistance or influence from others. It’s just who I am. I worry about these things. I internalize everything. Many things are my fault (or so I say). If someone I know and care about is acting strangely, I wonder what I’ve done. If I don’t hear from people, I start wondering if they’re avoiding me. So. I’ve been practicing a form of self-censorship, the act of deliberately omitting subject matter in order to avoid conflict or distress from other parties. (Sad, isn’t it, how work and school creep into everything?)

And all of that is a preface to this: my period of self-censorship is over. I have allowed myself to be silent about something really big and important, something I want to remember always, and I have only myself to blame. This is not going to become a pregnancy blog, but from now on I will blog about my pregnancy. I plan to go back to the beginning. I want to have a record of these months in some form other than the scribbles on my weekly planner. I realize that some of you who have been gone might come back, and some of you who have been around might drift away, and some of you will be firmly where you’ve been all along, right here reading whatever inspired or incredibly dull drivel I post. In the end, though, I’m doing this for me, so that I might remain here; this is, after all, a corner I created for myself, and I need it to be an honest place where I can say whatever I need to say–or not. Many of you have let it be that kind of place all along–for me, and for the countless others on this road–and to you I am eternally grateful. I’m glad to finally be catching up to your bold wisdom, your integrity, your beautiful, funny, graceful, souls (and also yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours). And also Lorem’s. Thanks for the support, chicas.

Note: This post has been in the works for 20 years, and it shows. You might want to order a sandwich and a beer and put your feet up.

Twenty years ago, on a clear blue day much like this one, I sat in a sunny social studies classroom at Central Junior High and stared raptly at a TV screen that mirrored the sky beyond the 10-foot windows just a few feet from my desk. I was eleven years old, and my fellow 6th graders and I had been preparing for this day for weeks. For the first time in the history of space travel, a teacher was on the shuttle that was to depart Cape Canaveral on that frigid January afternoon. In the days leading up to the Challenger’s liftoff with Christa McAuliffe on board, we had erected a 7-foot tall paper mache shuttle in one corner of the science classroom; we had studied the sky and all its parts: clouds, stars, planets, air; we had planned our days around Ms. McAuliffe’s lessons from space. Looking back, I can imagine that NASA’s educational endeavor was a science teacher’s dream. It certainly seemed to be Joy’s.

I’ve mentioned here that I’ve known my friend Joy for 20 years. Have I mentioned that our first meeting was as student and teacher? She was THE teacher–the first whose opinion about my efforts and abilities truly mattered to me. It was my brief semester-long stay in her class that marked the beginning of my life as a student. It was then that I stopped doing mediocre work and started engaging. You might say Joy inspired me to set my sights higher, to look up. That’s certainly what we were all doing on January 28, 1986–looking up.

I wasn’t in Joy’s classroom as the Challenger sat gleaming in the Florida sun awaiting takeoff. I was in social studies with her good friend Donna, but on that afternoon the subjects had united for the event, and I’m sure, although I don’t remember, that we’d been anticipating Christa McAuliffe’s foray into space with activities and discussions in social studies as well. When the shuttle finally took to the sky we were awed. We cheered and clapped, even though no one really knew what was happening, even when the screen went silent and the plumes of smoke split into multiple directions and plummeted toward the ocean. After what seemed like an eternity of silence–no sound from the sky, the crowd watching with us on television, the announcer who had recently been narrating the event–the door of Donna’s classroom flew open and Joy ran into the room.

When I think about the Challenger two images come to mind: the forked white smoke against the blue sky, which played over and over on the news for days; and Joy standing in the doorway of Donna’s classroom. I think she might have been crying, and I think she said something like, “It’s over! It’s over, turn off the television.” While I’m sure they must have talked to us about the explosion, made efforts to help us deal with the horror, and attempted to bring closure to the chaos that was once our biggest class project, what they said has faded to static, and all the minutes after have dimmed. For me the end of the Challenger lies in that single moment, that open door, my teacher standing there. It is one of my saddest memories.

Tonight as I listen to rebroadcasts of Christa McAuliffe’s flight preparation, interviews with the crew, and the doomed flight itself, I cannot escape the image of Joy standing in the doorway of the social studies classroom. She was 32 years old–just a few months older than I am now–and had been teaching for 10 years, just as I have. I wonder what was going through her mind as she looked at us, if she was thinking about what she would say to us when the smoke cleared, and if she was so overcome by her own grief and disappointment that she didn’t even know if she had room for ours. I find myself thinking about a morning in my own classroom, 15 years after the Challenger went down, when I stood in a similar doorway and looked at the worried faces of my students who had heard rumors that our country was under attack, and I remember the dread that filled me as I braced myself and walked into that room wondering what the hell I could possibly say or do to ease my own fears, much less theirs, as the twin towers fell in New York. For the first time in 20 years as I see these familiar images once again–the ominous fork of white smoke, the smiling face of Christa McAuliffe, the worried figure of my friend in the classroom door–my heart breaks in a new way because I suddenly see these tragic events through new eyes…a teacher’s eyes. It is a profoundly emotional moment for me, because the view from the other side of the classroom door is all promise and potential and possibility, and it is staring back with a look of expectation that says, “All that I hope to be is in your hands. Teach me. Tell me what comes next.”

I complain a lot about my school, but I don’t say enough that I keep going back every day because I love the ridiculously daunting but always entertaining adventure that is teaching. I look at my kids–awkward, wide-eyed, and clueless, trying to be grown-ups but failing miserably, reflections of all that is good and frightening and right and terribly wrong with the world–and I know I picked the right profession. I may not stay in the classroom for the next 20 years, but I will maintain contact with it, because there is no more important task than uniting children with the tools and resources they need to make informed, educated decisions about the world in which they live. We haven’t discussed it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Joy feels the same way.

When I was a high school senior Joy left the classroom for a job at our state’s zoo. At the time I was bummed that she wouldn’t be teaching anymore. What was I thinking? That was almost 15 years ago, and since then she has traveled to six continents and numerous countries, promoting and observing education; has lead educational trips to Africa and Australia; and has co-founded UNITE (Uganda and North Carolina’s International Teaching for the Environment). I have always been impressed by her job, but UNITE makes me proud of Joy, not only as a friend but also as a fellow educator. Her efforts at bringing together American and Ugandan students and teachers in order to raise awareness of conservation issues and the importance of education are remarkable. Each fall a small team of Ugandan teachers visits NC, and on Tuesday, January 31, Joy and a team of teachers from NC will spend three weeks conducting workshops and visiting schools in Uganda for the fourth year in a row. Joy is proof that being a teacher does not necessarily mean being in a classroom.

Joy and I have a great deal in common as friends. I’d like to think we have some things in common as educators. Back in 1986, as teacher and student, we had the sky in common. When I look at the clouds, or remember the order of the planets, or wonder at the stars, I think of Joy, who helped me navigate and name the parts of the universe when I was just a child, and who now inspires me to be an active and aware part of the universe myself. On Tuesday night when I walk my dog under the night sky I’ll wonder if each plane I see is heading for Uganda, and each morning, in spite of the fears and worries that accompany working in my school, I will try to be the teacher who makes my students want to set their sights higher.

Somewhere in the Universe the Challenger crew applauds us both. Buon viaggio, my friend.

I have known Joy for almost 20 years. She is the person I’ve known the longest outside my family, and I have known her in every stage of my life from age 11 to the present. She is a light, a life force, and a bearer of…well…joy. When I was younger I was lucky; I got to see her often, sometimes every day, but now I see her three, maybe four times a year, and my luck runs in the lines of long letters and Hallmark cards and unusual gifts. That’s right, Joy and I write to each other. Think about the last time you actually wrote a letter to someone you care about. If you can’t even remember when you last communicated with pen and paper (e-mail does not count), take it from me–there is something deeply spiritual and meditative about writing a letter to a good friend. Even though Joy lives in the next town over, a mere 30 minutes away, our busy lives keep our paths running parallel, rarely perpendicular, and yet our mail correspondence connects us in unique ways. Consider this: on Saturday night I dreamed that Joy and I were sitting in my living room talking. Of what? I have no idea, but it was very peaceful, one of those dreams that sits pleasantly in the mind long after the waking. On Tuesday, October 18th I mailed a note to Joy to let her know she’d been in my thoughts. Today when I got home from work there was a flat square package in my mailbox–a CD Joy had made for me–postmarked…Tuesday, October 18th. Ironic? Yes, perhaps. Coincidence? I think not. I think there are some people whose lives are meant to be woven into ours, and I think the Universe (or God, or Fate) gently but deliberately pulls the threads between us until they form rows and rows of beautiful stitches…like the lines of a letter.

When I got your voice mail messages this afternoon, dated March 11 and May 19, requesting work for that damn Dior kid who must have spent more time in detention with you than she did with any of her regular teachers, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I wasn’t expecting to hear your voice. You startled me. I’m glad I was sitting down, because the bones suddenly left my legs, and I actually felt the blood drain from my face. I smiled, though, smiled without even realizing it at first. I’ve missed your voice. Right after you left us I heard you all the time, but lately I’ve just sensed you on the periphery of the whirlwind that is our school. You’ve invaded my thoughts, kids have mentioned you, a vocabulary word I was teaching described you to a tee. But you hadn’t spoken to me in a while. Until today.

I’m sure you wondered why the hell I never sent you that detention work, why I made you walk all the way down to my room just to get a novel and a few worksheets. If you must know, I didn’t know how to check my voice mail until today, and when I finally got in I had 18 new messages. I kept hoping there would be a way to delete them all at once without having to listen to them, but there isn’t, and now I’m glad. I might have missed you. I know what you must be thinking–fat lot of good it does me now. Maybe so, but it did me a lot of good to hear from you today.

Do you know that I don’t really think of you as dead? In my mind you are just elsewhere, and you are dealing out wry jokes and a hard time to anyone whose path you cross. In my mind you are carrying on in some realm where there are teenagers and football and cats and beer and hot wings and plenty of flat screen TVs, and you are happy. Some might call this denial, but it isn’t. I’m not expecting you to show up at work or pull up next to me in the grocery store parking lot or anything of the sort, but there are times when the lines of my horizon blur and I can almost see you off in the distance, strolling down some hallway, whistling, waving, smiling with your eyes. Or hear you, like today. I know you left those messages for me months ago, but there’s no denying you spoke to me today.

Thinking of you is like–I know you’ll love this–visiting Gettysburg Battlefield, or walking the smooth streets of Pompeii. As far as the eye can see–nothing. The only sounds are birds, rain, distant traffic. But in between all of that is a life force so powerful it seems to seep into my skin and flow through my bones like electricity. There, under the thin veil that is time, is every soldier who fell, every citizen who worked and lived and died in the shadow of the volcano. And there is you, Charlie. The spaces you inhabited appear empty, but you’re there somewhere; I can feel it in my bones. There is no fuller emptiness.

I know I haven’t heard the last of you, Charlie Griffin. I know it, and I’m glad. Until next time, turn up the volume on that Notre Dame game and drink a cold one for me.

It’s been almost two weeks since Charlie died. I’m still taking it pretty hard. For days after I got the news I could hear Charlie’s voice in my head, and I started dreaming about my grandfather again, who has been dead for 16 years and to whom I was very close. Obscure moments from the past school year kept popping unbidden into my head: Charlie coming to my room to get work for one of my students who was in his detention, Charlie emailing the whole staff a hilarious email about animal torture after the marine biology teacher and another coach captured a rogue bat in the gym one afternoon, Charlie wearing the coolest college team sweatshirts (I was always threatening to mug him and steal the Notre Dame one). You might say Charlie has been invading my psyche.

I hadn’t been to my school building since Charlie’s death, but today I had to go pick up some things I need for one of my grad classes, and all the way there I had this feeling of dread in my chest. You see, in some part of my mind, I’m still expecting all of this to be a mistake, still expecting to sit next to Charlie at the first faculty meeting of the year, still expecting to enjoy his dry, mischievous wit on a daily basis. But the rest of my mind knows that’s only going to happen in dreams, like the one my friend Cheryl had recently: the gang from school was having lunch on a teacher workday and in walks Charlie. Just as we had hoped, he hadn’t died after all, but had faked his death to escape some students who were after him. Cheryl threw her knife at him and screamed, “Do you know how many tears we’ve cried for you?” and Charlie just shrugged and grinned (which is exactly what he would do, were any of this remotely possible).

As soon as my feet hit the sidewalk, the one Charlie and I sometimes walked together on our way into the building because we often arrived at around the same time (late), I had to choke back a sob. When I checked my box in the mailroom, Charlie’s empty box, his name already removed, looked like a black hole. Tears flooded my eyes. I escaped to my classroom, which, after nine years, will belong to someone else come August when my department relocates to another wing. I managed to pull myself together and then made my way to the library across the hall. Out of nowhere the sob I’d suppressed and the tears I’d dammed came pouring out. Most of my encounters with Charlie were in the library. We shared a planning period and he often spent his in the media center checking his email or working on grades or, during football season, looking at game stats and plays. We often sat at the same table during meetings, and by the luck of the draw, were often grouped together for staff development activities. At the last inservice he and I would suffer together I got mad at him because he blatantly refused to help with the group writing assignment we’d been given. “I teach P.E., you teach English. I think our jobs here are clear,” he said matter-of-factly, and when I protested he just crossed his arms, leaned back in his chair, and flashed me that shit-eating grin he’s so famous for. It was impossible–always–not to smile back.

At Charlie’s funeral on Independence Day I watched as people poured into the church, mostly young guys and older men–players and coaches–and by the time the service started there were folding chairs at both ends of every row and people standing ten deep in the foyer. Some boys I taught sat in front of me, and a girl who spent hour upon hour in detention with Charlie came in by herself. After the service ended she told me about how she’s no longer dating the deadbeat who got her into so much trouble last year, how she’d wasted a whole school year and planned to do things differently in the fall. “Mr. Griffin would be proud of me,” she’d said, and she was right. Listening to people speak of Charlie during the funeral was enlightening. He did things for kids that few people knew about–made sacrifices of time and money and heart that incited the pastor, who went on and on about Charlie’s spirituality, to compare him to Jesus. Later that day Gayle, who worked with Charlie at another school for several years, and I talked about the Jesus comparison after I asked if Charlie had actually been the spiritual man the minister insisted he was, or if he’d just been exaggerating the way people frequently do about someone who has died. Her response was simply, “Well, he certainly wasn’t Jesus.”

I think I understood what the minister meant, though, and it had nothing to do with Charlie being some kind of holy saint. I think he was just saying Charlie was a good guy, in the same way Jesus the Human was a good guy. He was kind. He did nice things for people. People liked being around him. He gave large amounts of his life to helping others become better at things like living a decent life and football. He loved children and saw the future in them and knew that by devoting his life to them he was making the world a little better. I wonder if he knew just how much. I wonder if he knew he left a hell of a legacy.

But I guess it goes without saying that sitting in that church listening to strangers tell stories about Charlie made me intensely sad. I left feeling more than a little cheated. Things I never knew about him, like his avid love of history, weighed heavily on me. I love history, too, and I kept wondering if he’d read The Killer Angels or visited the obscure Chickamauga Battlefield in Georgia. I wanted to ask him. I wanted to compare notes. I thought about all the kids whose lives would go untouched by his influence. I thought about the empty chair beside me at the next staff development. For days my least favorite Joni Mitchell song of all time–maybe my least favorite song, period–played ad nauseum in my head: Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone….I hadn’t known Charlie long–we worked together a mere two years–but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d lost something irreplaceable, something I hadn’t valued enough when it was within reach.

On my way home from the school, I got a little wakeup call in the form of Sarah Vowell’s book-on-CD, Assassination Vacation. She was talking about monuments, about what they really mean to us, about how they are simply symbols of our connection to their deeper meaning. She said that people put up statues of dead guys and build great monuments in their memory to honor what they did, what they contributed to the world. It got me thinking. The Lincoln Memorial wasn’t erected to showcase what ceased to occur after Lincoln fell, but to remind us of what took place while he walked among the living. For days I’ve been fretting over what we’re all going to miss in Charlie’s absence. I have, as we probably all do when someone dies, forgotten to be grateful for what time I had to enjoy his presence. At a stoplight I glanced out the car window and saw a pee wee football team practicing, and the real truth hit me: those are Charlie’s monuments. Kids and The Team and kindness, not to mention a good prank and hot wings and a toast to friendship at the sports bar–these are the monuments we’ll build in Charlie’s honor. These are the monuments that last.

“Above all rivers they river hath renown,
Whose beryl streames, pleasant and preclare,
Under thy lusty walles runneth down;
Where many a swan doth swim with winges fair,
Where many a barge doth sail, and row with oar,
Where many a ship doth rest with top-royal.
O town of townes, patron and not compare,
London, thou art the flower of Cities all.”
–William Dunbar, c. 1500

I lived in London for four months in 1994 during my sophomore year of college. It was the very best time of my life, hands down, and I have never stopped longing for that city. Eleven years have passed, and still I get sentimental over the smell of diesel fumes or the taste of bread baked well. I have long considered London my spiritual home, the place where my true soul was born. Ask me why, and I can’t give you an intelligent sounding answer. Most likely I’ll just stand there and turn all starry-eyed, staring off in the distance, trying to assign words to the way it felt just to walk from my flat to the tube station on the corner every morning. So why do I love London? As some old torch song goes, “I don’t know why, I just do.”

I glimpsed the headlines about today’s bombing in much the same way you might look right past the person you’re meeting at the theater: I looked directly at it, but it didn’t register. During my time in London IRA bomb threats and store front explosions were not unheard of, and I guess I glossed over the news with the same attitude I had early on the morning of 9/11–it’s probably nothing. I spent all day in my Charlotte class, fretting over an assignment that took enormous amounts of time and concentration. Just before I left I checked my email, and there was a message from my best friend, P., who shared those glorious months abroad with me and who understands firsthand the significance London holds in my life. Assuming I’d heard the news (and had fully grasped its import), she said she was glad it had not worked out for me to spend part of the summer in London after all, a possibility I’d been plotting and pondering for most of the spring. I immediately clicked from my email to the news, and had I been standing I might have collapsed. Oh my God, I may or may not have said out loud. Steve is in London.

I have known Steve since my freshman year of college; he was my College Writing professor August through December. I knew immediately that he was someone I wanted to know for a long time. All these years later we are still friends, more like family, and if friendship operated on a contract basis I would be renewing mine. Steve is still someone I want to know for a long time. His family is like family to me, his wife one of my closest friends, his daughters like surrogate children. Just this past Tuesday I videotaped the girls’ swim meet, and before I left I made sure he knew how jealous I was of his upcoming trip to London where he would be presenting at a conference. He left on Wednesday morning.

I was in London when Steve’s oldest daughter was born eleven Aprils ago. Back then technology was such that we had to schedule a time to use one of two computers sanctioned by the university for checking email. There was no Internet to speak of. We would go in pairs once a week and spend our entire allotted hour reading and rapidly responding to our telnet messages. It was awesome. On April 10 I got an email from Steve announcing the arrival of his first child. She had been born on the 9th, on the very same day my mother, sister, aunt, and grandmother, who were visiting for spring break, accompanied me to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. While we were there I purchased a tiny HRC t-shirt for the baby who, unbeknownst to me, had been born just hours before I saw that little shirt hanging in the window of the restaurant that faced Piccadilly Circus.

Five years later Steve and his family, now two daughters strong, left the day after Christmas to spend an entire semester in London with students who would have the same life-changing experience I’d once had. I drove to the airport to see them off and stood with my face pressed against the glass until the plane was a speck in the blue winter sky. It was a simpler time, a time when it was okay to accompany your family to the platform and hug them one last time before they vanished into the gangway. I still remember how sad and heavy I felt as they disappeared one by one, the youngest, then three, lagging behind to deliver one last dramatic wave with her tiny pink carry-on in tow. Gayle and I went to visit them that spring, and one of the most vivid memories I have of that trip is the very first day, just after we arrived outside their flat. I pressed the buzzer to announce our arrival, and they didn’t even answer, they just ran down the three flights of stairs to greet us. I’m not sure what felt more like home–being back in London, or being with Steve and his family.

So it’s understandable that my hands were shaking and my knees were practically nonexistent and my heart was in my throat when I read–really read–the news this afternoon. I gathered enough composure to call Gayle and blurt, “You need to call L. right now. Steve is in London.” She said, simply, “Okay,” and disconnected. Somehow I couldn’t bear to make that call myself. If I am ever a tribal woman in another life my name will be Shit of the Chicken. If I’m truly honest with myself, though, I’ll admit that my psyche is fragile this week and I just could not conceptualize more bad news. I am not yet over last Thursday’s bombshell–the death of my friend and co-worker–and really, I’m not over the crises from the Thursday before that. I was in need of a buffer, a conduit to keep me from overloading my circuits and blowing all my fuses.

My phone rang in the elevator. If you’ve ever tried to use a cell phone in an elevator you know what happened as I ding-dinged down the elevator shaft of Charlotte’s Mint Museum of Craft and Design: “I——–Steve——-plane——–tube——–flat——–chaos——–.” WHAT? WAIT! I screamed, just as the elevator landed and the doors slid open to reveal a sizeable crowd of people. “I was on an elevator!” I muttered as I slinked through the crowd. “Say all of that again.”

I haven’t actually turned on the television this evening, but surfing the web has told me all I need to know. Many of the places damaged today were places I frequented when I lived in London, and seeing them broken and torn gives me a feeling similar to the one I experienced when the people who bought my grandparents’ house cut down the blue spruce and willow trees that served as a backdrop for the scenery of my childhood. The new King’s Cross Station was being constructed in 1994; when I returned in 2000 I saw it in all its completed glory. Scenes from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Glenn Close’s The 101 Dalmations were filmed there. I rode the tube to the Russell Square stop on the Piccadilly line at least three days a week; the building where our classes were held was right around the corner from the Russell Hotel, and I liked to sit in the square and read on those rare occasions when I was early for class. I never felt awkward or out of place among those people, always felt at ease in the shoulder to shoulder crowds moving in unison down Edgware Road.

The call went like this: “I talked to L. She has heard from Steve, and he is okay. He said he thinks it all happened before his plane ever touched the ground. He said the tube was closed so he had to walk to his flat, where he plans to stay until the chaos has settled.” As I fought to regain feeling in my limbs and negotiated with my heart for a slower pulse, I resisted the urge to start spitting curses at the likes of Tony Blair and George Bush for inviting this kind of tragedy, for I’m convinced that they do, they invite it right in and then pound their fists in outrage and start shouting words like “retribution” and “justice” and “somebody will pay.” Somebody will pay? Yeah, and it’s us. I am still resisting, or trying to, anyway, because in a world that is truly (sorry, Mom) fucked up, I have my family, and my extended family, and my friends, and for one more miraculous day we are all intact.

(That’s my oldest sister in the picture. She was 8 at the time.)

Guess it doesn’t get any more real than this.

God, I’m going to miss that man. I hope there’s football wherever he is today.

All afternoon I was sure I would sit down and write something eloquent here, but it’s not going to happen. My friend and colleague Charlie Griffin died today. He was not sick. There was no accident. He was jogging, and he collapsed, and by the time a stranger found him he was gone. Charlie was the most even-tempered person I’ve ever known. When times were hard and work was shit he could still crack a joke and get a laugh. He told the damnedest stories–made you believe the biggest pile of BS without cracking a hint of a smile. There was always a smile in his eyes, though, so you always had to wonder if he was pulling one over on you. I keep hoping to find out that he’s pulling one over on us all today, that he’s going to return to school in August with stories about going toward the light and bargaining with the devil, that there’s somebody else in town named Charles Griffin, and the one we know and love is at home in his recliner watching baseball with his cat in his lap. I know there’s not much use in that line of thinking, but I just can’t wrap my mind around the reality. I’m stuck in the surreal place.

There is a reason I did not go into some sort of computer-based career. Well, there are a few–calculus and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, for example. But I do not want to write about those. I want to write about how I have spent around five hours today in front of a screen making edits, creating links, learning HTML codes, uploading and resizing images, and republishing my blog ad nauseum. FIVE. HOURS. Mind you, I like the results. I now have a nice array of photos and links in my sidebar, and I have learned some quick tips for future reference (i.e., a digital photo directly from the camera will not FIT into the average blog). On the downside, however, my neck is frozen in a forward-craning position, my eyes are blurred, and I’ve had to pee for the last two hours. Thank God there is Yoga class tonight.

Now, about those changes. I’m a teacher, and I’m pretty sure all teachers are born with the borrowers gene. You know the one–you hear abut something cool another teacher is doing so you “borrow” it, adapt it, and make it your own. That’s kinda what I did with my blog. So in the fashion of an Academy Award winner speech, I’d like to thank the following:

Bri, for the idea of putting up links to cool books and music
Emilin, for the idea of putting images in the sidebar
Jen, for pointing me in the right direction (read: the dark, confusing, mathmatical-looking underbelly of other people’s webpages)
All of the above, plus other cool bloggers like Julie, for providing me with witty inspiration to write about…well, anything.
And finally, to Laura the Amazing Yoga Teacher who, in just a few hours, will make it possible for me to lift my head and read all of these blogs in the morning.

Namaste!

…Jen, who was the only one of my [now] three readers to correctly guess the Employee of the Month irony. In fact, she was the only person to guess correctly period. C’mon people–a cafeteria lady named Lettace? I couldn’t make that kind of thing up…truth is WAY stranger than fiction.

And what does Jen win? Well, I’m hoping for something Big, Fat, and Positive in about two weeks!