Rest for the Weary

Thanksgiving has come and gone. Nothing exciting happened – my sister did arrive and we had a lovely lunch together before I took her down to my parents’ house. Thanksgiving Day was busy, busy, busy since Mr. Random ran in the local Turkey Trot 5 Miler that morning and I helped out with race registration. We came home, took showers, then took ourselves and our baked goods down to my parents’ house where we had a lovely dinner, marred by the fact that I was coming down with something, and so spent the last couple of hours asleep in my sister’s room, sprawled on the bed in a stuffy haze. My dad was eager for the chance to spend quality time in conversation with Mr. Random, since he is the only male in the family now . . . at least until my sisters bring some poor sap home that my dad can also share his manly wisdom with. Mr. Random doesn’t mind my father’s speeches too much, but he’s eagerly awaiting the day when there’s someone else too . . .

I made a mini-Thanksgiving dinner on Friday and invited a couple of friends over to play board games and get a home cooked meal. Much fun was had by us all, and many games of Scrabble were played until 1 in the morning.

Saturday was supposed to be spent with my sisters, going to see “Rent: The Movie,” but before they were going to leave to meet me, my parents sort of disappeared for a few hours, and my sisters didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye to them, especially since my Army sister was going to be staying with me and Mr. Random that night before we took her to the airport the next day. Long story short, we missed the movie and had a quick lunch before they went back down to my parents. We were quite disappointed, but what can ya’ do?

Sunday was a lazy day, but I started having problems with my throat, which carried over into work on Monday, where I could barely manage a croak. Tuesday morning, Doctor’s office, where I found out I had some nasty virus and needed to stay home and rest with lots of liquids. However, I did find out that I had lost 8 pounds since early October. Yay! . . . I guess? . . .

I’m at home again today, still feeling quite poorly, but trying to get some work done.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Stay healthy!

We haven’t had a poem in a while . . . and I liked this one today . . .

Traveling Light

By Dabney Stuart

Moving through still time, its opposite,

it creates no friction. They are both gifts,

one the infinite eye of the needle

the other threads. Occupies.

Emptiness is full of itself,

a never air, the lens for being.

In the long way of this place,

the afterthought of gasses becomes

what we tune in, its tickles

preoccupation and amaze our present.

If such light made a sound

it would be as if the wide spacewind

formed a bell of itself,

and a smaller wind within, and rang.

Calm Before the Storm

Sorry for all of the quiet . . . Things are still quite busy with the Randoms, and I just got some happy news that my sister got her leave from the Army approved at the last moment and so she will be able to spend Thanksgiving week at home with us. Yay! Yay!

As you could probaby tell, I was not looking forward to the holiday - neither my sister or grandmother were going to be there this year, and the resulting family dynamics would have been awkward, to say the least. Now things will be a bit more festive and I will really look forward to spending some quality time with my sister.

It's funny, you know. The 15 years that we shared a room when we were little, we could not stand each other. It took us both moving out of the house, and starting our own independent lives, for us to truly appreciate each other as real, cool people - and now that we are far apart, I truly miss having her around and hanging out with her.

There are so few people in my life who know me . . . I mean, the whole, real ME - and who I've been and who I am now - that I am starting to cling to them ever more tightly.

In the area where I live, so many people come from all over the country and the world to reinvent themselves and become successful. They may have not fit in their old hometowns, for one reason or another, and their ambitions led them here to try to do what they love - be it work in the halls of Congress or work for a cause that is dear to them. In that process, a lot of the past gets tucked away . . . you go back home, and you feel different, apart, yet still very much tied to where you are from. It is hard for me to explain . . . there are others who probably say it much better . . . You can take the girl out of Philly, but much of Philly remains in the girl.

So my sister and I are two of a kind . . . taken away from a place we loved and thrust into a new place with new expectations, and twenty years later we both are still struggling to figure out where we each belong. It is not a happy state to be in, but oh how comforting to have someone else to share it with. Welcome home, my dear! So glad to see you!

Tradition . . . Tradition!

Holidays are always wrapped up in traditions . . . all the things that your particular family does and eats during a particular time of year. Thanksgiving is a great example of this, in that everyone has things that they HAVE TO HAVE for the holiday to seem meaningful for them. Have to have macaroni and cheese. Have to have cranberry sauce from the can. Have to have pumpkin pie. Have to have sweet potatoes. Now, “have to have” may be a slight exaggeration, but if we don’t have these things we get pretty disappointed. Why is that?

Is it because when we are around our families, we sort of want to keep that continuity going . . . the unbroken chain of canned cranberry sauce going through the years?

Every year, Mr. Random and I go to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner. They live less than 30 miles away and they have a big enough house, and there are usually other family members there so they are going to be cooking anyway. However, one year my youngest sister’s marching band got into the Macy’s parade. Mr. Random and I were so excited because that meant that my parents would be going to New York to see her on that day. Thanksgiving by ourselves! We can do whatever we want! We can stay home in our PJ’s! Yay!

But of course, this was in 2001. And then September 11 happened. And then my parents got weird about going, even though my sister still was going to do it. So my parents didn’t go, and they had Thanksgiving at their house, and Mr. Random and I went, like the dutiful folks we are. I was ultimately quite bummed, but pulled through.

Thanksgiving dinner holds no joy for me . . . the whole ritual seems rather forced. When I was little, our family would go to my father’s parents’ house, where because he was one of more than 10 siblings, there were lots and lots of uncles and aunts and cousins there. I always hated the crowds and the noise and the paper plate that always ended up falling into my lap . . . I always wanted to just sit quietly in a corner with a book and be left alone. When my family moved down here, we started having Thanksgiving at home, which always seemed random and odd, because instead of eating in the kitchen, like we did every other day of the year, we moved into the dining room with the good plates. The dynamic changed . . . usually we would eat dinner watching TV and making random funny comments about the news or Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune, or whatever random TV show was on. But now we were suck in this oddly formal room, in the stiff chairs and dressed up . . . and it just felt wrong . . . feels wrong . . .

I guess I am an informal person at heart – I hate stuffy ceremony, just for ceremony’s sake. I am afraid that if I had Thanksgiving at our condo, there would be all of these expectations . . . we must sit around our cramped little dining table and have turkey and stuffing and blah, blah, blah . . . and I would be freaked out and hate it, and everyone else would be uncomfortable and hate it.

However, if I just did my usual easy, breezy entertaining style – buffet on the table, random yummy side dishes that may or may not have anything to do with Thanksgiving, no turkey, everyone sit wherever with your plate and just hang out – people would be like, “What the . . .?”

Or they might really like it. I don’t know . . .

But holidays are so fraught with the baggage of tradition . . . it’s so hard to let those expectations go . . . but sometimes you want to make up your own traditions, but feel stifled, like you are going to let the universe down in some way . . .

I guess, part of growing up is eventually making that break - ultimately YOU will be happier forging your own path and doing things that will be meaningful to you. And once you do that, you actually will be carrying on the tradition of the true reason for the holiday, whatever the holiday may be . . .

Because holidays are ultimately about spending time with the people you care about the most and enjoying each other’s presence for the short time we all have on this earth. Not freaking out about turkeys and pies and the good china and centerpieces . . . just loving each other and being happy just being together . . .

That’s one tradition I’ll happily pass down to future generations . . .

Out to Lunch

I didn't realize that it has been DAYS since I wrote on the blog . . . it's been quite busy at both the Random household and at work, so I haven't had much time to catch my breath and write. My NaNoWriMo output has been just dreadful too, unless I spend Thanksgiving weekend writing down just any random thoughts and phrases.

Re: The Apprentice - Was so bummed that Marshawn was fired, but she totally deserved it. I spent the second half of the show going, "what the . . . what's wrong with you? Suck it up and do it! . . . oh, you are going to be so fired!" and I was really sad, because I had imagined her in the final four. Brian needed to be fired for being an idiot . . . yeah, you can go 10 blocks in NYC in 15 minutes, uh-huh. My new final four: Randal, Alla, Rebecca and Adam . . . unless someone else does something really stupid this week too . . . oh, I hope it isn't Randal!

Last night, I tried out a recipe from Bon Appetit that I am going to bring to my parents' house for Thanksgiving - Parmesian cheese and green onion popovers. They are real easy to make and taste heavenly right out of the oven . . . they aren't health food, though . . . you have to use 8 large eggs and almost 3 cups of whole milk. I am also going to bring my favorite Cooking Light recipe - sweet potato cheesecake, made with fat free cream cheese - along with the usual green bean casserole, since my sister can't be there.

By the way, I am not a fan of turkey meat . . . horrible, I know, but there are so many other foods I would much rather eat before I stuff down some turkey voluntarily. If I ever get to have Thanksgiving my way, I'll definitely have a ham . . . or make it all side dishes . . .

Are there any usual Thanksgiving dishes that you absolutely HATE? Any that you absolutely MUST HAVE? I've already started . . . I hate turkey and I must have my mom's homemade macaroni and cheese . . . it is not a holiday, unless I have her macaroni and cheese. I tried to reproduce it, and it just wasn't the same . . .

"Old School" Autumn Poem

Have lots to do today, so I'll share this Keats poem with you all . . .

To Autumn
by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

. . . florid and bright and magnificent . . .

Election Day in Virginia and New Jersey! If you live in either place, get off your duffs and go vote!

I have to teach tonight, and I am pretty excited about it. We are starting our unit on Citizenship and Laws. It’s always awesome to discuss how our government is set up and what Election Day means . . . and how it relates to how things are done in people’s home countries. It always makes for such interesting, thoughtful discussions . . . a lot of times more thoughtful than many of my native speaker friends can muster . . .

I only have a thousand words done so far for NaNoWriMo. I hope to do some more this week. I am not daunted . . . yet. I have the ideas in my head. I just have to type them . . . I am just going to write what I am thinking, things that have happened, and then worry about making them fiction later. Otherwise, I won’t write a word. I am excited! One thousand words are more than 340, so that is a good start . . .

Problem is that I most want to write during the day while at work, since that’s when I feel most inspired, and that’s not good . . . I need to feel the same urge to procrastinate at home, I guess . . .

Today’s poem is from Poetry Daily . . . and fits in with the autumn theme. Hope everyone is doing well . . .

Autumn Passage
By Elizabeth Alexander


On suffering, which is real.
On the mouth that never closes,
the air that dries the mouth.

On the miraculous dying body,
its greens and purples.
On the beauty of hair itself.

On the dazzling toddler:
"Like eggplant," he says,
when you say "Vegetable,"

"Chrysanthemum" to "Flower."
On his grandmother's suffering, larger
than vanished skyscrapers,

September zucchini,
other things too big. For her glory
that goes along with it,

glory of grown children's vigil,
communal fealty, glory
of the body that operates

even as it falls apart, the body
that can no longer even make fever
but nonetheless burns

florid and bright and magnificent
as it dims, as it shrinks,
as it turns to something else.

Ready for Our Close-Up, Mr. DeMille

Mr. Random may be on TV sometime soon! One of the players on his soccer team has an artificial leg, and on Saturday, the Discovery Health Channel was filming her, while the team was playing, for a show they are going to do on people with disabilities who are still active. Everyone on the team had to sign release forms and everything. They are going to let us know when the show goes on the air . . . so when we hear, I’ll let you guys know too, so you can try to figure out who he is. I’ll give you a hint . . . he’ll be wearing an orange shirt . . .

That’s one of the things I love about the DC area . . . all of the random cool stuff that can happen. Of course, there’s all of the random BAD stuff that can happen too . . .

Spent the weekend with a horrid headache, and I stayed home today, despite the mounds of work I have to do . . . sometimes, I just need a day to just sit and rest . . . I’ve been getting very stressed out lately, and this may be my body telling me to take a break . . .

I only noticed today that the blog looks different depending on where I am accessing it. Yes, I can be pretty clueless sometimes . . . When I read it during the day, it looks all jumbled and clunky. If I read it on the weekend, the layout is much cleaner and the words are not running together. I guess it has to do with the resolution on both computers . . . I must think about the redesign a bit more . . .

Mr. Random and I actually watched the live West Wing debate last night . . . and it actually was pretty good. Like all the critics are saying, a “real” presidential debate would never be set up like that, but it would be quite awesome if it ever was . . .

This poem was featured on Jodiferous’ (http://www.jodiferous.com/) site today – (http://transit.metrokc.gov/prog/poetry/2005/41_pagh.html) . . . and I like it! Also check out her November 6 entry, with the competing versions of Wonderwall . . . I think I like the Cat Power version best, too . . .

Today’s poem is a great Fall-like poem, even though it doesn’t mention the season at all:

First Breath Last Breath

By Antler

When a baby boy is born

and the midwife

holds him up

as he takes

his first breath,

Place him over

the mother's face

so when the baby exhales

his first breath on Earth

the mother breathes it.

And when the mother dies

her middle-aged son

the baby grew up to be,

by her side

his head next to her head,

Follows her breathing with his breath

as it becomes shorter

and as the dying mother

exhales her last breath

her son inhales it.

Because It Pours Color in Its Path . . .

Thanks for the comments on my Blog readability . . . I probably am going to change the format soon, just need to find a format I like enough to change it to . . .

Last night, Mr. Random and I went to “Brat Night” at That Custard Place. The owners of the custard shop are from Wisconsin, and once a month they pay homage to all things Wisconsin by serving bratwurst sandwiches, German potato salad and sauerkraut, along with a Wisconsin brand of bottled root beers, orange sodas and cream sodas. The place was packed, and they had an accordion player playing polka music all evening . . . or rather, what sounded like polka music because all the accordion music seemed the same to me. We went with a friend of ours who was born and raised in Milwaukee, and a good time was had by all . . . and the bratwurst was really delicious – we may do this again next month.

Of course since we were out, we missed watching Trump’s Apprentice this week, although we caught the last bit where Markus was nattering on and on in the cab. I read the quick recap in Television Without Pity today, and it sounds like this week's episode was as good as last week's so I’ll have to watch the rerun this weekend. I’m sure all those people fired last week breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that Markus was finally fired . . . he so lucked out by being on winning teams all of the time . . .

I haven’t written any more on my NaNoWriMo project this week. [Hangs head in shame] But I will work on it this weekend, promise!

Today’s poem is by Rebecca Aronson. I hope you all have a wonderful autumn weekend!

The Question of Fire

Because it pours color in its path.
Because all things in it come down to the bones of bones, some particles
more fundamental that dirt.
Because its roar reminds us of nothing.
Imagine a basket of flame: always emptying, always full.
Because it was begun from one word (tree) held too close
to another (lightning).
Because of the embers, those handfuls of history, and the potential of matches—
a future that any careless carrying might ignite.
Because there is no net, no cure, no promise.
Because we have been captured.

Rapture: the first curl of smoke quickening into blue and how it grows up
the way a kiss surprises (only lips on lips yet
the body suffused with tickling)
so that suddenly it’s a real engine-red.

The fingers of grass along the alley know it
but lean in anyway and are consumed.
Because it calls to be fed and feeding will never surfeit.
Because to live is to hunger and nothing is more alien
and more familiar than the hunger of another.

Question for My Faithful Readers

I have a question for you guys . . . do you like the template of this blog? Is it hard for you to read? Would you mind a change?

The layout and font are driving me bats . . . I barely like to look at it, and I'm the one writing it!

I was thinking of trying to exchange it for another Blogger template this weekend . . . a cleaner layout and a text font that is easier to read.

However, I do like the white background, the width of the text column on the page, and the image of the lighthouse. Otherwise, everything else can change . . .

I would try to learn some HTML and fix it myself, but I'm not sure I have either the time or patience to do so right now.

What do you all think? Inquiring minds want to know . . .

Only 49,660 More Words to Go!

Wouldn’t you know that yesterday, for the blog, I wrote 923 words. For NaNoWriMo, I wrote about 340 words.

What is wrong with this picture?

Yes, I know, it is still early. But can the blog count towards my output? Please? Pretty please? Oh, well . . . I’ll try to do better tonight . . .

I‘ve been seeing some pretty stylish blog redesigns this week. Now I want one! Whine! Whine! For an awesome one, go check out Jo(e)’s blog at (http://writingasjoe.blogspot.com/). I am in LOVE with both the picture and the blue . . .

Did I already tell you how much I hate funder reports? . . . Actually, I really don’t mind doing them, except my boss then tends to sit on them forever and not turn them in on time, and then I quickly have to do another one updating the old one when the funder ends up wondering where it is. If not for any other reason, this screwed-up-ed-ness (Hey, I made up a word!)
is why I need to leave the Random Non-Profit . . .

My concentration is still shot to heck today. However, I haven’t had insomnia in a while and I’ve actually been able to plow through a few books, so my outlook is improving somewhat . . .

Election Day in Virginia is less than a week away. This is the first year that I haven’t done anything with any campaign, and the view from here looks pretty bleak. The candidates have been lousy at putting out any sort of positive messages or giving me any sort of reason to want to vote for them. However, as a Democrat in the Old Dominion, beggars can’t be choosers. So . . . Kaine for Governor, Bryne for Lt. Governor, Deeds for Attorney General.

Hope everyone’s weeks are going well.

Return
Sara Michas Martin

I walk to make certain I was ever there.
To find the car I once discovered

buried in the pines. As if it were left
for the mushrooms to affix. For crows

to pull batting from its seats. Small
when I see it. Body rubbed free of paint,

roof caved like a chocolate egg left in the rain.
And the myths are gone: the witch

I thought placed it here, the silver horses
that drag cars from many roads.

Now I imagine, before trees filled in,
someone drove it just this far

and parked. Up here the water
driving against the northern shore

is just one layer of silence
spread thin inside another.

Random Book Report

Last night I finished the book, The Day I Became an Autodidact, by Kendall Hailey. You can tell it was written by someone who was still in her teen years. – I was alternately impressed by it and incredibly annoyed by it. I mean, it is an amazing luxury to have two parents who will allow you to finish high school a year early, and then let you spend several years just reading whatever books you want . . . after week 3 of being at home, my Dad would have ordered me to get off my lazy butt and get a job if I wasn’t going to school. It also is incredibly uncommon to have a well-to-do playwright and a famous author as parents who can indulge said autodidact-ism. Ms. Hailey’s voice sounded like someone very well-educated, extremely privileged, and quite naïve. She had a lot of good to say, and I think it would be great reading for a teen or anyone who doesn’t quite know what to do with themselves.

A friend of mine recommended it and said the book changed his life. I need to ask him how old he was when he started it . . . and it what way did it change him? It does make a compelling case to read all of the classics and anything else you can get your hands on – that to truly educate yourself you don’t need to sit in a classroom – but at the same time, I was taken aback at how Ms. Hailey basically made herself a hermit – disconnected a great deal from the outside world, except for interacting with her family and her dad’s playwriting group. Her old school friends write her letters and share a lot of what is going on in their lives at college and elsewhere, and it seems that she feels above the fray – like she’s glad not to be sullied by getting these tacky life experiences. People are actually out interacting with life and she is only still sitting in her room observing it, living through others’ writings.

You can’t educate yourself by just sitting and reading and observing, you have to actually go out and get your hands dirty and heart broken . . . You need to walk down different paths and see which one fits you best . . . Ms. Hailey may have learned a lot intellectually, but did she ever learn what it means to be an individual in the world, making her own way, figuring out her place in it? That is the story I’d really like to read – how did she find real life, once she left her parents’ house?

I also notice that some homeschooling organizations love the book and recommend it (love that Google) . . . to me, this book doesn't quite fit that model. Ms. Hailey actual went to school up through 11th grade, and her lack of meaningful interactions with the outside world once she stopped going to school is not something that I personally would recommend.

Here is the Amazon review for it: (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0440550130/102-7834869-9985742?v=glance&n=283155&v=glance). It seems to have a number of admirers . . . the jury is still out for me . . .

Did you ever e-mail some old friends that you haven’t talked to in a while, and then wait for them to answer and get really anxious as days pass by without a response? That’s where I am right now. I always feel like it is my fault if we don’t stay in touch with someone, although, you know, they can send an e-mail once in a while, too. Then you think, “am I not cool enough anymore? Do they not want to talk to me?” . . . Boy, am I neurotic . . .

I’ve been in a cranky, horrible mood today – getting irritated at, well, irritating things – but more so than usual. It is autumn. I am antsy. I am ready for change. I want to work on my NaNoWriMo stuff and not do funder reports and conference planning, which I hate. I am ready for a rest, to be a homebody and drink cocoa and look out on the changing leaves. I want to bake some cookies. I want to not have to worry about irritating details which only a small subset of a small subset of humanity would even care about. I want . . . a nap . . .

I have to teach tonight, so I need to suspend the horrible mood and give my all. My students work all day, too. They are also tired and cranky. They drag themselves to class because they want to improve their English, want to expand their opportunities. The least I can do is make the experience pleasant for them and be engaged in what’s going on . . . I can fume more when I get home . . .

Today, I leave you with another poem from The New Yorker . . . very powerful imagery . . .

A Choice

by Ryszard Kapuscinski

(Translated, from the Polish, by Diana Kuprel and Marek Kusiba.)

To walk away

to slam behind the lid of silence

or yet again

to take up the effort anew

to free the throat from the strangle

to fight to breathe

to pronounce a word

to utter a whole sentence

to speak up

in haste

before they once again apply the gag

I know you’re waiting

you

who listen intently

who put your ear

to a deaf wall