I Can Be Dis Kat . . . . Who Can Uz Be?

Your Score: Ceiling Cat

45% Affectionate, 31% Excitable, 33% Hungry

You are a master of stealth. They never see you coming. But you always see them coming. HEY-O!



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Link: The Which Lolcat Are You? Test written by on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for . . .

• my sons
• my honey
• my corporation that is growing and thriving even though it is not self sustaining yet
• the fact that I am writing again
• my students
• my advisory board
• my life that challenges me and makes me tired, but makes me feel more alive than I have in a long time
• my parents who are finally proud of me again
• the Chicago Writers Association
• my motorcycle

For my Honey

Which Reminds Me . . .

Obviously JK Rowling has enough money.

The whole stunt at Carnegie Hall that she pulled by announcing that Dumbledore is gay! He may or may not be, and frankly I don't care.

However, I am assuming there were children at her reading. The account I read, made the announcement seem non-provoked, just an answer to a question about whether Dumbledore will find his true love. When my seventh grade son heard the news he was outraged.

A back story like that is fine for an author to have and it probably gives the character some depth and mysteriousness of motivation that works very well, but since the fact had no place in the novels, it has no place in official, author led discussion outside of the novels either.

Rowling has forgotten what her readers are going through. The Potter series appeals to readers of all levels. Students who won't read any book will at least give the Potter books a try. She has now taken a book that students have sought out to read as "cool" on at least some level and has given that student another excuse not to read. Imagine our not so hypothetical student taking this book out to read in front of their equally alliterate friends to hear, "Why are you reading that? Dumbledore is gay!" and down the book will go.

You've made your money, JK. And you are probably looking for new things to talk about because you have been discussing these books for years, and you surely have an active and creative mind, but this tidbit was a really bad choice to reveal. And as far as I can see, revealing some back story to a character's profile that did not even make it into the book does nothing for toterance. It just causes another sensation and fans the flames of ignorance.

Oh, well.

Wild Girl Howling at the Halloween Moon

It is Halloween again soon. Yay! One of my favorite holidays. Getting rather pissed though.

Maybe Halloween wasn't the greatest holiday when I was a kid. I sure thought it was. You went to school in your costume. You came home and trick or treated from the moment your mother would let you out until way after dark. (If you were lucky and the weather wasn't so horrible you couldn't go out at all, or so cold you had to wear your coat over you costume. (How lame can you be, Mom!)

I just received my kid's school newsletter. Luckily, they will still be having a Halloween parade and party. I know quite a few communities have canceled theirs, so I'm glad that still stands. But this year the newsletter came with express requests for no scary masks or costumes. I guess you might need some background to understand how I feel about that request.

My son is in fourth grade. For most of his life he has been afraid to wear a mask or even go down the Halloween aisle with masks. This year (in September, no less) he demanded that I take him to the party store so that he could purchase his costume: a scary, bloody, rotting zombie. I was so proud because he asked for what he wanted and has taken such big steps toward overcoming his fears.

So here I sit, knowing how the karma train runs for me. If I tell the boy that he can't wear his costume, or he can only wear the clothes (which still have rotting flesh visible) 7 other boys will have the same costume and will wear it without any consequences. If I count on that and tell him to wear the costume and damn the Man, he will call me from the principal's office.

My son is still afraid of clowns. Can I demand that all students planning to come to school dressed as clowns be asked to refrain? I know a lot of people are freaked out by clowns so I would be doing everyone a favor, right?

Or I could just learn to deal with myself and let others be and do what they want?

Hmm.

It makes a person almost want to take the school up on their offer to send him to their "awesome library" to read a book or play on the computer during the Halloween festivities. Except then they would mistake me for someone else.

Just getting tired of all the watering down and catering to the timid and the vanilla among us. It strips life of its flavor.

How did I ever survive my childhood?

Sometimes I feel like I have done wrong

Sometimes I feel like I have done my children a dis-service by raising them to believe that people are to respect each other, have empathy for each other, and behave properly toward each other. Because then they go to school.

There they meet the real world. They discover that people will hurt you for no reason. They would rather shove you out of the way than wait their turn when the goal is desirable. They will speak out of turn and put you down to make themselves feel better.

None of this is news.

My home is a safe haven. On the bus the kid that sits next to my nine-year-old calls him a "Mother Fucker" and another little girl tells him "suck my dick." We don't know who these children are so we can't complain. When I complain to the bus driver, my son tells me that he announces to all the children on the bus the next day that they should not mention what happens on the bus because it gets him in trouble. I tell my son the man is a bully and kids should never trust adults that tell them to keep secrets from their parents. He begs me not to complain again.

I have a dream that if I raise young men that know how to treat other people, I will contribute some decency to the world. I just don't know how to protect them from the fact that the world does not live up to the goals that we aim for. How do I give them armor, but make sure they remain open and peaceable?

What is Going On Around Here?

I scratched my cornea with my contact the other day. I am the kind of person who believes that I am a weakling and a whiner, so I would not give in to the high amount of discomfort that I felt when inserting my left contact on Thursday morning. As I toughed my way through the day, adjusting and readjusting my contact, I did a real number on myself.

The doctor was able to see it with the dye and the funky light. He described it as a small but deep cut on the center of my cornea. (The attached graphic is not picture of my eye, but I think it is pretty dramatic so I'm using it.)

I had been a "big, brave, dog" until then but I absolutely melted down upon hearing the news. As I sat crying into my Honey's shoulder, my main concern was not the damage to my eye. (Well, not directly.) It was with the possibility that I might never be able to wear my contacts again.

You see this year I have become extremely vain. My glasses easily add ten years to my face, and I can't handle that. So my contacts are a Godsend and a real boost to my self confidence.

No one ever said that knowing I was forty would affect me so much. I always thought age was just a number, but I am constantly having to fight stereotypes of what is proper for a woman my age. What is that all about and when did that start? And why can't I make it stop?

I look great most of the time, especially when I have my contacts in. My Honey is 10 years younger than I am. I am progressive, adventurous, and fun. So how did I end up worried about being so old?

An Astounding Proposal

I wonder what education would be like if teachers were given a paid sabbatical every four years?

I was just pondering the idea after my son, who is in the fourth grade, announced that he hates to read (when what he really means is he doesn't want to read this particular book at this particular moment).

However, that announcement, after spending the day with several individuals who feel the same and are very unafraid to state their opinions on the matter, seems to basically negate who I am and what I stand for. And I don't have the energy to deal with it. All I want to do is cry, not teach my son the strategies I taught his older brother when he was in fourth grade and none of his teachers was rising to the occasion.

I have been told that one of my strengths as a teacher is my great faith that all my students can do a particular skill. They just haven't been shown the proper reason to do it yet. But today I stand contemplating the fact that maybe I should just stop paying attention to the more reticent and belligerent students that tax my soul and send them to sit in the corner staring at the back wall, while I conduct class with my more eager students. Then maybe I would be able to stand up when my own 9 year old announces that everything that I stand for is everything that makes his life horrible.

I want to shout, "My children do NOT hate to read! I am a writer and an English teacher and you are not even allowed to pretend that you have that attitude!"

I believe that graphic novels are pathways to literacy, and my son loves graphic novels, but my arteries are starting to harden, and I am beginning to want to scream, and dig my feet in, and demand that literacy be achieved by my dictates. . . And that is exactly where I will fail.

That is why I believe that teachers should be given a paid sabbatical every four years. One can only take four years of emotional attack before one begins to harden and begins to perceive all students as the same. Before I decide that I must give in to the adversarial game that so many have made the school system into: resistant students force fed by teachers who no longer believe that anyone knows the joy of learning. If we teachers had one year in which it was mandatory to sit and intellectually rejuvenate, it might keep us all pliable and remind us that we love what we are doing and are here because we (hopefully) have answered a higher calling.

I am crazy and Utopian most of the time, but it just might work

Chuck Vs. Reaper

Here's something edgy: Fall TV

Ever think that Chuck and Reaper are very close to the same program with some names changed and situations slightly altered?

A slacker who still lives with his parents and works a dead end job at a ______ super store becomes embroiled in a situation he could not avoid (possesses limitless government secrets/has had his soul sold to the Devil) that requires him to perform at levels that he had previously not considered possible to save the world (one national crisis/demonic soul at a time).

I know you all (and by you all, I mean me) realized this. I'm not terribly insightful to have figured it out. I enjoy both shows. They give me a break from all my medical shows and titillating relationship series. They remind me of whatever impulse brought us The Greatest American Hero so many years ago. Someone I know called Reaper: Buffy before it went bad and started taking itself too seriously.

I give Kevin Smith his props (do we say props anymore?) for portraying the slacker life style and the low key humor, but I like the wacky (I'll get better with my adjectives someday. . . I hope.) Mission Impossible moments in Chuck too.

So I'm still wishy washy. Not truly strong enough? I like them both what can I say? Looking forward to watching Pushing Daisies later this week.

What is Wrong With Me?

I don't know what's wrong with me.

I have no energy for anything right now. I am dizzy and I don't want to move.

Someone at work was sure I had suffered the loss of a loved one and was relieved to discover that my woes were merely physical.

My woes involve the fact that I am. . .

Why did I start this? Just to complain? I don't think so.

I am quite sure I wanted to explore deep and meaningful issues. I just can't remember what they are. I wanted to talk about stuff that might get me in trouble like sex and sexuality. I wanted to verbally live on the edge, but all I can think to discuss are my own petty problems with someone who won't matter after June.

This numbness in my brain really is getting to me.

I needed a picture

Ecstasy by Maxfield Parrish

So I Got Sick on Friday . . .

So I got sick on Friday and they sent me home from work. I haven't been feeling really healthy since early September when I came down with a cold followed by a sinus infection.

I just haven't been able to get my feet back under me. And I have steadily begun to return to my old ways of eating. and my skin is becoming dull, and my mind is dull, and my energy levels are way down. If it weren't for my Dance Workout class, I wouldn't move at all.

And I hate the thought of facing the terrible Bungee Cord, and I hate the fact that I am so cowardly. But as Max Ehrmann said in the Desiderata: "Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit." Amen, Max. But what do you do to disarm those people?

Maybe it doesn't matter. I love his words at the end of the piece:

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

These words got me over so many of the rough parts of my life when I was younger and I wanted to blame myself for not having control of the events that happened in my world. So maybe I should just flow with the events, try to control them the best I can, and forgive myself when I don't get the perfect results I need.

But what I really started to write about was how I am beginning to believe that now that my body has experienced good treatment, good health, good care, that it will not accept less from me. I read a quote last night from a writer whose name I can't remember, and of course I can't remember the exact wording of the quote either, but this person said that everything that happens springs from self love (or something like that). I am beginning to believe that this is true because when you love yourself you will make sure you get the things and the life that is right for you. When you don't make love and care for yourself a top priority, you will settle for much less than what is right for you.

I have a non-profit to run and grow. I need to make sure that it is up and running well and that I am well on my way to living my dreams within the next couple of years for a couple of reasons. One: Because I know what I was created to do and it is to run this non-profit and bring its services to the world. Two: because I am afraid my dad is going to die in the next couple years, and I want him to see that the years I spent lost, and the time I squandered on a person who was not worth it, will not keep me from successfully living my dream. He finally said that he was proud of me over the summer. This followed so many years that he spent watching me seemingly crash and burn a promising life, giving up what could have been a good career as a journalist. I want him to see that there is so much more to me than that.

Let me know if my reasoning is selfish, if I am making my dad's possibly returning cancer all about me. I like to think that I am trying to use it as a force for good. I would actually like to see him live for 20 more years and find out that this has just been a scare that became the spur to my own ass, to all of our asses, an event designed to make sure that we don't waste anymore time.

Nobody ever told me that I would get old while I was still so young. Why didn't somebody say that you still need your parents so much, even when you are in your 40's? The time is so tenuous. I need to rush and get my thing done before my parents begin to need me like I have always needed them because I want to be there for them as they have been there for me since my escape from Hell.

Anonymity

I guess it feels pretty nice. I can finally talk and say the things that no one is waiting around to hear. I can admit that I am poisoning myself from the outside in with chemicals that I used to think fueled me, but I now realized were slowing me down. (Stop whatever glamorous and expensive thoughts you're having. I'm talking High Fructose Corn Syrup here, nothing snazzy. I'm a mother for heaven's sake!)

But here I don't plan to talk like a mother (unless that is who I am that day.)

Today I plan to talk like I am helpless because that is what I am. One of my functions is leading others to wisdom, kicking and screaming if need be, whether they want to get wise or not. Every other day I deal with an individual that is succeeding in blocking the path to wisdom for others in the room because he is a Grade A Bung-(ee Cord). You know the type, always pulling the endeavor to the ground before it ever gets a chance to start up. This person will not win, but I may have to nuke the whole landscape before I've cut us free.

(This feels good. I like being able to say what I think, especially since I am quite sure no one is listening. I could get used to this.)

I'm just upset because some people in the room with that Bungee Cord want to hear what I have to say (impossible to believe but true none the less) and would prefer to journey with me, not be tied to the ground for the duration. I feel helpless and am desperate not to lose their respect, but I feel like control is my responsibility and if I do not have it, and someone's experience suffers, I am the only one to blame.

And no one understands but me . . .

Maybe anonymity will be good. I will try to be who I really am. That's the point.

Funny how I need to go underground to display my true self.

As to why I am poisoning myself? . . . Comfort for today. Probably to activate my creativity tomorrow. Not enough energy to battle myself after battling the Bungee Cord. (Can't blame it on the Cord. The only thing it is responsible for is its own behavior: I am responsible for the reactions to that behavior.) I must get control of my urges to harm myself. Otherwise I will never be able to take over the world and make it do my bidding.

Seditious moon

I wish I could believe in
my body clock,
(tick tock)
the seasons,
(they change for a reason)
and the pull of the moon

How to listen
to them
as they make me seditious

And tell me
to stand
for what I am
and be
what I need

And let society see
the error of their ways
and the path to self acceptance
is the way
to the rejectance
(will you allow me
the liberty?)

of all that's unjust

in our world