Flakes

It's snowing--the thick wet stuff. If I could, I'd sit in my front room all night with the lights off, and watch through the picture windows as it comes down. I'd spend the time thinking.

**
We all went to the basketball game tonight--or at least half of it. The general routine is to get there at 5, roughly halftime of the women's game, and stay until halftime of the men's game, which gives us time to get Andrew in bed at something approaching his normal bedtime. The deal tonight: the team for our Local Educational Institution was playing for their first ever outright conference championship. There was a good, vocal crowd there, which made it especially fun. Evidently, according to the intarwebs, the team representing our Local Institution in fact won the game--and the conference.

**
My uncle who lives in North Carolina was laid off from his job this past week. His company is probably in its death throes, so this is not unexpected. Still, I think of all the hardworking, pleasant people I know, and he's at the top of the list. I hate for him and his family to suffer this kind of misfortune.

**
On Monday, I shall attempt the impossible. I shall try to be in two places, at two separate Important Occasions, at once. Results will be shared at a later time. I anticipate only moderate success.

**
Little Red was most interested in helping me with my work this morning. The Little Boy just wanted me to play Star Wars with him.

**
It's easy to fall into old habits of thought.

What would I tell him?

Don't be afraid.
Take some chances.

Incognito

Those who have seen me regularly over the past six months would probably never notice, but I look a bit different now: hair growing out for the first time in about a decade, and 20 or so pounds lighter. Which means skinnier, in my case.

One of the interesting things that has happened as a result: students from last academic year do not recognize me. I've walked by three separate students, remembered their names (which for me was a major victory), greeted them . . . and gotten the "I don't know you but I'll give you the polite 'finehowareyou' anyway" in response.

Oooh, it sends a dart through my heart, it does!

(picture from Ben Johnson, Travelblog)

Ashes

I'm snazzy! So says one of my female students yesterday. Got badly-needed new clothes this past weekend. They fit better, which is always nice. “Fitting,” that is. So is “new.”

**
Nothing happened, but everything was different. Nothing has changed, but everything is now not the way it was.

**
Herbert and Vaughan: not my students' favorites. Too obscure, too religious. Or something.

**
Enormous amounts of reading to be done between now and Friday; actually, I've been climbing “Mt. Paper” since Monday. There was a near-miss with an avalanche on Monday, but the weather looks good from here.

**
One of the things I'm doing is reading applications for the university's honors program, specifically the University Scholars program. The applications are for the most part interchangeable, really. Some students show some creativity in their personal statements; most resort to that petrified “application-ese”--featuring blandness and banality. I'm really looking for some student to show me that they have a spark of some kind. And lord, someone needs to tell some of these teachers how to write a damn recommendation letter.

**
Little Red has a proto-vocabulary: ba-ba (bye-bye), ma-ma (more-more, asking for food), da-da (daddy, naturally), and his usual assortment of “MUH” and grunts.

Meanwhile, The Little Boy has gotten awfully good at Gamecube Lego Star Wars. He's now playing through some levels all on his own. I'm not sure this is a good thing, but it is pretty impressive to see how easily he figured out all the buttons and screen cues, etc.

**
Wii update: WiiFit getting heavy use. Wii Sports getting moderate use. Lego Batman is the current game in the rotation. Verdict: some interesting new features, but somehow not as fun as Lego Star Wars. The scenes are much more cluttered for one thing. Okay, enough of that. I'm still hoping to get my hands on a WWII shooter.

**
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

(from “Ash Wednesday,” T.S. Eliot)

Hold your fire

It went right by me--at the time it went over my head. . .

I can't tell you how many people have tried to tell me; nor can I say exactly why it has taken so long for it to sink in.

Closed for my protection, open to your scorn, between these two directions, my heart is sometimes torn . . .

I did in fact treat life as a threat--the present as an obstacle or inconvenience--and wondered why I felt lonely.

I find no absolution in my rational point of view . . .

But let's face it, all the intelligence and preparedness in the world isn't worth a fig if every day is a burden.

I'm not looking back but I want to look around me now . . .

Farewell regret! Even abject failure and pain has had its share in making me what I am. Isn't there enough for today to occupy my attention?

Like some pilgrim who learns to transcend--learns to live as if each step was the end . . .

Each day is a gift.

Freeze this moment a little bit longer, make each sensation a little bit stronger. . .

If I don't see today in its fullness, then why am I alive? Or am I?

A lesson

Received some guidance today in the art of positive thinking. Not pollyannish thinking, or vapid thinking, but guided, deliberate, positive thinking. The hardest part of the exercise was coming up with positive nouns and adjectives to replace negative ones. It's quite illuminating to examine one's own vocabulary and see just how thoroughly the language shapes everything else.

I'll gladly admit: once I described things differently, it was like someone shoved a load of bricks off my shoulders. Now to make it last.

"Don't take it personally"

Where can a teacher go?
Wherever she thinks people need the things she knows
Hey those books you gave us look good on the shelves at home
And they'll burn warm in the fireplace, teacher, when in Rome
Grab a blanket, sister, we'll make smoke signals
Bring in some new blood it feels like we're alone
Grab a blanket, brother, so we don't catch cold from one another
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.
(Nickel Creek)

Happy to say that things are going better than they were at this time last week.

All signs are positive: spouse's work is progressing, children are healthy and thriving. The Little Boy even played through a whole level of Lego Star Wars (mostly) by himself. I'm not sure whether or not that should qualify as a good thing. And tonight is Lost! huzzah! I generally only get really into one show at a time: X-Files, Alias, DS9, and now Lost. hmmm. Some pretty clear connections there. I better not start watching Fringe.

Received quotes on the roof: wow. The insurance company will now come take a look, so we'll see if everyone agrees. Homeownership! Bah! Getting a house is like signing up for a never-ending 'to-do' list. On the upside, I'm better with tools now than I've ever been. Which still isn't good, but you know.

I received some of the hardest advice I've ever received today. It sounds simple, but it's not: "don't take it personally." In retrospect, I've made far too many things about "me" when they're not at all about me. You'd be surprised to know what falls under this little rubric, and how piercing it is. Time to see with unblinded eyes.

I got some other good advice last week--"don't think so much; just act." It's true that I'm one of those types that will hide behind thought to avoid actual action (see "quiet," below). This is as terrifying as "don't take it personally." Why doesn't someone give me some advice that I can either easily ignore or just follow real easily?

As the previous post indicates, I taught Shakespeare's sonnets today. It's interesting to me that the students prefer Shakespeare's to Sidney's (I'm more partial to the latter). They don't see much in Astrophil other than a whiner. Oh well--they're both most impressive, especially given how hard it is to write even one decent sonnet. (fifteen years ago, when I was a 20-year-old junior in college, I would have scoffed to think I could ever write a sentence like the above.)

Evidently, the president of my university system resigned today. Talk about timing--here we are in the midst of a potentially catastrophic budget situation (if it isn't already there), and now, no president. hmmmm.

"Others have excuses; I have my reasons why."

87

Farewell: thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate.
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in the are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgment making.
Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter:
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

(Wm. Shakspere, 1609)

Image from Alexostrowski.com

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

In a committee meeting a few months back, we were skimming through dozens of proposals, each of which had to be formally 'moved' on and 'seconded.' Midway through the meeting, I was in a position to second a motion, so I did: "second." There's a pause. The chair of the committee growls, "I need a second." Prof. W, who serves on more than one committee with me, speaks up in his 250-pounds-of-muscle voice: "[Piers] seconded it. He's just quiet."

Quiet. I guess it can have all kinds of connotations: thoughtfulness, serenity, fear, pride, and so on. I've preferred to think my quiet came from a combination of thoughtfulness and humility, of not valuing my voice over others'. After all, how many exhortations to listen are we subjected to as children (and adults)? And it's been the case--still is--that I sit mostly silently through meetings of any kind, unless I have some role to play.

It has also, I admit, been a mask. And it needn't mean that I am mute--it can mean that there are things that go unsaid, for any number of reasons. It can also mean that I'm not actually honest in expressing my mind, in responding to other people. Most of those reasons have to do with my wanting to limit the exposure of my flanks: one of the best ways to do that is be just equivocal enough to avoid making a strong position to defend. The other way to do that is to perceive what people want to hear and then appear to offer it to them.

It needs to stop. I've been trying to be more genuine, but when things have gotten a little tense, I've fallen back on old habits of hiding. The cost: I'm lonely, because I'm passive in my approach to other people. Fear keeps me silent. Is there a cost to honesty? Of course: I'll be exposed. But it's a change that needs to happen:

Speak what is actually in my mind, not what I think is desired of me.

Fifty-Four

Because I breathe not love to everyone,
Nor do not use set colors for to wear,
Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair,
Nor give each speech a full point of a groan,
The courtly nymphs, acquainted with the moan
Of them who in their lips Love's standard bear,
"What, he?" say they of me, "now I dare swear
He cannot love; no, no, let him alone!"
And think so still, so Stella know my mind.
Profess indeed I do not Cupid's art;
But you, fair maids, at length this true shall find,
That his right badge is but worn in the heart:
Dumb swans, not chattering pies, do lovers prove;
They love indeed, who quake to say they love.

(Sir Philip Sidney, 1591)

to Moto 1986

I hear you loud and clear, and am sorry to have been so harsh in my assessment of what I was hearing. Yet another lesson in not knowing the full story. Please accept my apologies for venting without knowing the whole story. I more than most should know better than that. And hey, Tudor and Stuart history--that's pretty awesome.

stubble

This was the week of the 12-hour workday. I know there are people that spend that kind of time at work every week, but it's a new experience for me. And then on Saturday I put in an 8-5. Needless to say, I took an especially long nap today.

**
I love those Sunday afternoon naps. Never took naps until I started taking Zoloft a few years ago--now, I can nap long and hard any day, given the chance.

**
Yesterday's project was conducting interviews for Honors Program and University Scholars applicants. Actually, we did some work on Friday afternoon and then the interviews all day on Valentine's day. The main purpose of the exercise was to see how the students would respond to questions that challenged them in various ways. Well, we learned that. They were all smart, of course--but that's just the beginning. Some students really look unpromising, but they turn out to be thoughtful and articulate. Then there are those who look so impressive, but clam up and say hardly a word--which isn't necessarily a problem. You just never know.

**
Some students make it easy. For instance: there was one young man, with incredible "preacher hair," who quickly made a jerk out of himself by a series of harsh and vain outbursts. By the second day, after he did it yet again in the interview session, we came to the conclusion that there's something actually wrong there--narcissism, or perhaps an anxiety issue.

I wanted to take him aside and say, "look, you need to give some thought to seeing somebody. . . because I'll tell you--if you come here and expect to succeed this way, you'll flame out of here in short order."

But you can't say that. He would scorn the advice anyway.

**
Questions involving the "morning-after pill," evolution, and the definition of "morality" were the most productive. And most students didn't know how to even begin theorizing about the last item.

You may be surprised to note that I asked few questions. Well, maybe not all that surprised.

**
Roofer Madness. Meanwhile, during a particularly windy day recently, we had some singles come loose. Well, it was supposed to rain this week, so I climbed up on the roof with the hammer, nails, glue, & mismatched replacement shingles, and did the best I could. Then came Wednesday, when the wind really started blowing, and big piles of shingles started peeling off the roof (not the ones I put down, thankyouverymuch!). So: time for the professionals.

On Friday, my wife is standing in the kitchen and watches a man walk across the back yard to disappear behind our shed. Well, he comes back soon enough, and she begins to hear all kinds of thumping around on the roof. Out she goes, noting an invoice stuck in the door. This confuses her, since she had not even been spoken to by the gentlemen from the roofing company from which she had requested an estimate. She finds them repairing the shingles that had been damaged. There was a good deal of discussion about whether or not she would be paying said invoice, since she had not given them the authority to do any actual work.

There will be no payment.

**
Gonna try doing a couple of things differently this week, to see if I like the result a bit better than I did this past week.

**
Also not give answers I think are wanted, but the answers that are true.

Let us not talk falsely now

I need time and space to think.

On Wednesday night, I went home a little early ahead of the others, and sat down in my chair, and realized that it never happens that way. Meanwhile, the books and journals pile up, unread, while I try to concentrate on updating this thing and my other e-endeavors.

I need time and space to think.

Every time I try to actually grasp a true or real idea, it squiggles out of my grasp. I've felt quite unmoored this past week, and when I've tried to find anchorage it just hasn't been there. Mentally, that is.

I need time and space to think.

I'm not planning, or setting goals, or anything. I'm just reacting to the fastballs that keep getting zinged my way. I'm gonna miss one here shortly.

I need time and space to think.

Because you deserve better.

(picture from No Days Off)

Soul and Body Know No Bounds

To my mistress in Absence:

THOUGH I must live here, and by force
Of your command suffer divorce ;
Though I am parted, yet my mind,
That's more myself, still stays behind.
I breathe in you, you keep my heart,
'Twas but a carcase that did part.
Then though our bodies are disjoin'd,
As things that are to place confined,
Yet let our boundless spirits meet,
And in love's sphere each other greet ;
There let us work a mystic wreath,
Unknown unto the world beneath :
There let our clasp'd loves sweetly twin,
There let our secret thoughts unseen
Like nets be weaved and inter-twined,
Wherewith we'll catch each other's mind.
There, whilst our souls do sit and kiss,
Tasting a sweet and subtle bliss
(Such as gross lovers cannot know
Whose hands and lips meet here below),
Let us look down, and mark what pain
Our absent bodies here sustain,
And smile to see how far away
The one doth from the other stray ;
Yet burn and languish with desire
To join and quench their mutual fire ;
There let us joy to see from far
Our emulous flames at loving war,
Whilst both with equal lustre shine,
Mine bright as yours, yours bright as mine.
There, seated in those heavenly bowers,
We'll cheat the lag and ling'ring hours,
Making our bitter absence sweet,
Till souls and bodies both may meet.

(Thomas Carew, 1640)

You better look out below!

5:30: awake.
7:00 - 8:00: prepping for the day's class. check up on email & news.
8:00 - 9:15: class #1. Comments on my shirt. We discuss Gulliver. Nerdy reference: Tolkien
9:15 - 9:30: in the office. Student comes by to pick up a document.
9:30 - 10:45: class #2. Comments about my hair, including one student who has seen via Fb some pictures from my hair farmer days. Yes, I really had curly hair. We discuss Gulliver, with a few more rabbits chased than in the first period. Nerdy reference: Rowling. Bonus nerdy reference: Star Trek.
10:45 - 12:00: Office work. Taking care of correspondence, some other busy work.
12:00 - 2:00: emergency trip home to take care of some problems that came up unexpectedly (not involving Little Boy or Little Red, who were at day care anyway).
2:00 - 3:00: read agenda for upcoming meeting. Conversation with friend.
3:00 - 5:30: Longest Faculty Senate Meeting Ever. Cookies much appreciated.
5:30 - 6:20: Snappy Tomato with spouse and boys. Other customers charmed by Little Red and Little Boy.
6:20 - 7:00: In office, figuring out how I'm going to spend the rest of the evening.
7:00 - 8:20: Phi Kappa Phi Muriel Tomlinson Lecture, including a defiant introductory statement by the chair of a department in my college. Cookie I grab on the way out: satisfactory.
8:30: home.
9:00: Wii.
10:00: class prep for Wednesday.

Please don't look at this as a "look at me and how busy I am." It's just a way to say "this was my day, during the busiest week (so far) of the year." What's not on here that I wish were on here: an extended period of reading.

(picture: gary taxali dot com)

A bent nail

I spent time up on the roof today. I was neither contemplating flight nor looking for a frisbee, and I wasn't sulking. I was repairing some shingles in advance of the rain we're supposed to get tomorrow. I'll be amazed if my repair job lasts the night, given the way it's blowing out there. There's a lesson in there somewhere--something about the futility of human action, that we're doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over. Or something like that. I've not the energy to tease it out. On the upside, I didn't fall off the roof. I was also much better with the caulking gun this time when I set down the adhesive. I also learned that I need a heavier hammer if I'm going to keep doing that. It was a fitting end to yet another challenging Monday (which isn't over yet). In reference to which, here's a set of words that I'm pondering: sot, fool, gull, dolt, dunderhead.

Progress--meaningful progress--is painfully slow, shot through with missteps and stumbles. One of the continuing projects is the painful self-examination, the laying bare of my heart and soul to myself. No anesthesia, no distractions, no reprieves. The conclusion that's hard for me to avoid: I've just got to do better, somehow. Yet how that can happen when I'm mystified by myself and my own decisions is beyond me.

There will be no miracles, no fairy-tale endings...each triumph will be bought with tears & sweat.

Yet: the boys are in bed, the house is warm, the lights are on, and in the morning I'll have a job to go to. I have loyal friends and family who, despite my maundering here, will find things about me to appreciate, and will connect their lives with mine somehow. And that will be enough for tomorrow. Maybe to ask more is just being greedy.

kernels

Little Red is 11 months old today. I'm not going to be a tiresome father, but I will say that it's amazing to see how much he is unlike his older brother.

**
The only conversation that matters at work these days: where are the further budget cuts coming, and now: who's going to lose their job? I know my job is pretty secure--but the question is, what kind of institution will I be working in once it's all over?

**
Simon was outside again yesterday, snooping around in an unauthorized fashion. It's like he knows his coming fate and just wants to get a head start on it.

**
I'm surprised, but Ben Jonson appeared to draw more out of my students than John Donne. Maybe I'm just not remembering my first real stab at Donne, but I thought it would have been the opposite.

**
One of my projects this past week was to recover a means for getting work done in a somewhat efficient and timely fashion. My skills in that area had slipped, and quite frankly I'm more distracted than I've ever been. I find it really hard to concentrate on anything for a long period of time. I think I actually did alright, especially for the first couple of days (the rest of the week was nuts on its own terms). Still, I need to do even more things differently--I'm looking for places where the crowbar and hammer need to be applied.

**
I was standing outside yesterday afternoon, and yes, it happened: I began thinking about what work needs to happen with the yard. And the roof, blast it.

**
I walk around every day certain that I'm an open book.

Little Red and Little Boy, with Guest Star Piers

pwned!

Student comes in for a quick chat.

Conversation turns to the Diet Pepsi can on my desk, and the absurdity of my drinking a diet anything in my current condition.

I protest: "you know, after drinking diet drinks for so long, the regular ones taste too sweet!"

Student says not a word, but turns slightly and looks at the empty cans of Cheerwine on my bookshelf, and then back at me.

"yup," I say, after guffawing, "you got me."

O rare Ben

Exercitatio. To this perfection of nature in our poet, we require exercise of those parts and frequent. If his wit will not arrive suddenly at the dignity of the ancients, let him not yet fall out with it, quarrel, or be over-hastily angry: offer, to turn it away from study, in a humor; but come to it again upon better cogitation; try another time, with labor. If then it succeed not, cast not away the quills, yet: nor scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk; but bring all to the forge, and file, again; turn it anew. There is no statue law of the kingdom bids you be a poet, against your will; or the first quarter. If it come, in a year, or two, it is well.
(from Timber, or Discoveries, 1640)


Well, with mine own frail pitcher, what to do
I have decreed: keep it from waves, and press,
Lest it be jostled, cracked, made nought or less;
Live to that point I will for which I am man,
And dwell as in my center as I can.
(from "An Epistle Answering to One That Asked to be Sealed of the Tribe of Ben")

There is no way around it

...shall we get to it, then?

image from indexed.

As sparks fly upward

Take a moment to list (not exhaustively) some things that are unabashedly, unreservedly good:

1. brownies
2. cinnamon rolls
3. coffee
4. feeding a bottle to a baby
5. purring
6. football
7. an afternoon nap
8. playing games with your little boy
   
9. 501's
10. barbecue
11. the feeling of opening a new book
12. chocolate milk
13. a freshly-mowed yard
14. the poetry of Auden, Donne, or Herbert
15. pie

Because part of learning how to live is learning to pay attention to things that actually matter, that bring smiles, that bring joy--even the transient kind. And tonight, I need it.

Goodness, I've not got much material for this blog these days! Apologies.