WHAT??

Seriously, WTF is the deal with Hillary Clinton? I listened to her whole damn speech last night, which first let me say thank you to MSNBC for cutting off John McCain, whom I think has a funny voice, and then Hillary's speech was pretty damn good and then SHE DID NOT CONCEDE. I smacked myself right in the head. And then I fell asleep for Obama's speech, but had one last bit of clarity just before so I set it to record and I'll watch it later. Sheesh.

In other unexpected news, I had such a nice day today, and before you ask, yes, I was at work. For one, I didn't see a single administrator, or speak to one, which is always a good thing. I had relatively little actual work to do today because I had to be at my desk for overdues purposes, but this was happening very sporadically, so I had to find something else to keep me busy.

I began to write.

Now, I write all the time, or at least every day, as you know, but this is a little different. A couple of years ago, I mentioned a book I had written which was a collection of my family stories. I had tried to write my family stories many times over the years but I never had quite the right hook to start it off, until one day, I did. The hook was that I had to write the stories as if I were just telling them. Although I write, I would have to say that I consider myself a storyteller rather than a writer. Once I got that, everything flowed right out of me.

Ahem.

Because it is also said that you should write about what you know about, I always figured that in that magical future time called someday, I would write a novel about Bizarro Town High School. I have the structure of the novel all worked out, I have a series of events I want to write about, all of it. But I could never get it going. Fiction just ain't my bag, baby. I started thinking about it today for some reason and I totally had one of those "I coulda hadda V-8!!" moments. I don't need to try to write fiction. I just have to tell the stories.

I made a list of stories to tell, although I need to get input from a few other people on that, and I need to look through the old yearbooks for inspiration. So far, though, I have a list of nearly 60. Some of them would be very short, maybe a page or two, and some would be longer. Some would probably be funny, and some would not. They are not so much true as they are tru-ish; these are things that I remember because I was there or because someone who was there told me about it. I won't claim that they're true because I don't want to be that Frey-guy who was on Oprah. But I didn't make them up, either.

I wrote three today, I think, although editing will one day be required. This was exciting and fun. I'll let you know how it works out. I'm off to a dinner with E, the Chum, and the Other Chai; I'll post when I get home.

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Home. I'm so glad I went; I almost didn't. I've never really been someone with a group of girlfriends, but that's what this is like. There's a lot of laughing going on at the table. It was lots of fun.

So now I need to post this and *sigh* think about something for lunch tomorrow because I don't think I can eat one more day of school cafeteria food. Maybe I'll just make a turkey sandwich and stuff it into my jacket pocket in the morning; I've really developed this thing about not wanting to carry anything into school except one cup of coffee. And a flash drive.

What day is this anyway, Wednesday? I have no idea what's on TV tonight, but I should probably just watch Obama. As far as I'm concerned, he's okay. He's not my favorite candidate of all time -- who was? Let me think -- but he's okay. There are few things that I specifically do like about him. There used to be things I liked about McCain, but I'm not loving him so much anymore. I also want to see which V.P. candidates each of them picks. If McCain picks that Huckabee guy, I have to buy property in Canada immediately, because if McCain dies and Huckabee becomes president, I'm totally screwed.

Okay, now I'm thinking. I supported Hubert Humphrey in 68, but I was too young to vote. I have voted for McGovern (72), Carter (76, 80), um ... Mondale (84), Dukakis (88), Clinton (92, 96), Gore (00), Kerry (04). Gee, not such a swell bunch, huh? Looking back, I guess I'd have to say my favorite in this group was Bill Clinton. Not so thrilled with him now, but then, yes. And I liked Gore a lot. I will say that I was not terribly, terribly opposed to Bush Sr. either. I also liked Ford, although I didn't think he was particularly effective as president. Johnson and Nixon both scared me, and Reagan was too slick for my taste.

Okay, now I really am posting this because it's already past my bedtime.


WATCHING CNN :: ENTRY #1771

Writing Challenge

[copied from dland]

I'm either going to have to write less often or start making stuff up. Yesterday I chose the first one. I suppose I could make stuff up, but why bother when my real life is so exciting?

[You may snort along with me here.]

I did come up with a major revelation today, which I'm pretty impressed with. There are just lots of people sick around here, some with colds like mine that never really go anywhere, sore throats, itchy eyes and so on. Only yesterday I had to admit that this two-week cold is probably allergies after all. And then I realized why. It's the fucking weather, or rather, the lack thereof.

In an ordinary year, we have a good solid first frost absolutely no later than early November. What the first frost does is kill all the mold blowing around out there in the dead and dying vegetation, freezes it and kills it, so after that, the wind can blow, but nobody's breathing in mold. When was our first frost this year?

I'll let you know.

Here it is, January, and so far, no killing frost. They probably have had one as nearby as the northern edge of New Jersey along the New York state border, which is in the same county I live in, but not here. It must be worse farther south. When I talked to the Colleague on the phone last Sunday, she had almost no voice at all, which is the first place her allergies hit her; she said it started as they drove over the state border into the southern state where her son lives. I know I should start using all the nasal sprays I have, but I just hate them, hate doing that. Anyway, it's my eyes stinging all the time, not just the stuffiness. Oh right, eye drops. Yeah, I don't like doing that, either.

My mission for tomorrow morning is yoga, followed by by normal Saturday errands, and then home. R is coming by briefly in the afternoon. She's starting her new job on Monday! And get this: I just stopped writing for a bit to talk to the Sibs, and it seems that Wonderful Niece has also just gotten a job and started today. She was in court like a real lawyer! All these kids growing up, I just don't know. (Yes I do. It's excellent!)

Just took another short break to call OldFriend for her birthday, and left a message. When her birthday dawns, can mine be far behind? You know, we had always planned to get together on the Sunday between our 50th birthdays, but our birthdays fell on Sundays that year, and we were both caught up elsewhere. I have pledged to her that we will spend our birthdays together four years from now, when we turn 58. Why 58? Because then we will have been friends for 50 years. (My parents had already bought the house across the street from hers, but we didn't move in until March. Even so, I was invited to her 8th birthday party and she was to mine, and I was driven over to play with her a few times before we moved.)

Jeez, I'm not saying much, but it sure is taking me hours to say it here. I must have started typing hours ago, but I'm just going in fits and starts. Better post before I fall asleep.


WATCHING INSIDE THE ACTOR'S STUDIO :: ENTRY #1340

Two, At Once!

[copied from dland]

As Bullwinkle said. Wanna see me pull a rabbit out of my hat?

Two entries on the same night. The first one, whiny. There's really no other way to say it, no excuses. Whiny whiny whiny.

Now, more than anything, intrigued. As Mr. Spock would say. Really, if I hadn't been raised a television junkie in the 1950s, I'd never have anything to say to anyone.

After my first entry, about an hour and a half ago, I thought I would spend some time reading other people's diaries, or blogs, or whatever they should be called. Here is what I learned:

1. Some people are really really good at this.

2. I am not so very good at this. I'm working on it.

These seem to be the two essential truths. So I checked to see where they got their guestbooks and counters and all those neat little tricks, and I added a guestbook and a counter to my diary and now it looks so cool.

I guess now I should really work on the writing.

I like to write and I have always written. My earliest efforts at communicating with a mass audience and in written form were when I scribbled with crayons in my mother's hardcover Norman Mailer novels. I thought that if I wrote in the book -- literally -- I would be a writer, I would be writing a book.

Fast forward. For a very long time I thought that being a writer had to mean that there were people somewhere reading what I wrote. So when I wrote stories or novels or whatever, and the only people who read them were my husband and my sister, I was pleased with what I wrote, but felt I hadn't quite gotten it.

So about twelve years ago -- hmm, is that when that pesky old brain tumor started growing? -- I decided to write for myself. No reason, except that I wasn't exactly pulling in an audience, and I guess I had to write. I convinced myself that I was just writing everything down (by then, typing everything in) so that I wouldn't forget it all. Remember, somebody was about to drill a hole in my skull and expose my soft little brain to the open air, just to pull out that little lump of annoying nerve tissue, and it occurred to me that maybe I wouldn't remember my stories at all. This way, I guess, I could have read them as if they were new, the same way I would have had to re-read Shakespeare and Steinbeck. Anyway, happy ending, only the tumor got pulled out (along with all the hearing in my right ear), and I did tend to wobble around a bit and walk into walls for a few years, but all in all, thinking and memory remains in ... in ... intact, that's it.

So I've been writing for me, to save what I want to remember, or because I had no other choice but to write. For everything I've written in these last ten or eleven years, I am quite certain that I have no intention of showing any of it to anyone ever. Unless, of course, my therapist twists an arm hard.

And then I started doing this diary thing, for just about a week now. And I have written every day (I think), and I'm writing mostly because I have to. But if I have no intention of showing it to anyone, then why don't I just type it out and save it on my hard drive and password protect the file? Why do I have to keep a diary site, and tinker with the colors and fonts and links and check the code every day to make sure it's just perfectly what I want it to be?

If I don't expect anyone to read it, what the hell do I need a counter and a guestbook for?

Again, who would bother even to care about little insignificant me? Looks like the whole attraction of this project is to see if anyone reads it, cares at all, will notice that I even bother to do this. Considering my previous entry, it would certainly be best if my colleague at work didn't stumble across it.

But I will check my counter and my guestbook and see what happens. How does anyone find anyone else's diary to read, anyway? I'm not even sure how I found the few that I've started to read.

Fascinating. It's like having a penpal who doesn't even know she or he is writing to you. So far ... intriguing. Yes, Spock; intriguing.


ENTRY #9

And the child shall lead

Although I had tried keeping a blog once before, over a year ago, I gave it up about a week later when buildings fell down in New York, about ten miles from here, and the world changed. I came back to it this week unexpectedly, and in an unexpected way.

Testing out a new search engine someone told me about, I put in the name of the high school where I work and got more results than I ever had seen before with any other search engine. Exploring some of these results, I came across two blogs that are written by girls who are students at the school.

It was revealing on many levels. Of course it was revealing of them as individuals. Although I can't tell who one of the girls is -- a generic first name, the expected lack of spelling, grammar, and punctuation, nothing written that would indicate who this unique individual might be -- the other is someone I know. I've run into her where she works, I know which clubs she belongs to at school. She is the only girl at school with her name. And so, she is revealed.

I have known her as a reasonably good student, a responsible girl, a good worker. I know her brothers, her parents from past years. She is pleasant and good-natured. I once taught her to make a web-page.

But her diary tells me that she is passionate, most especially about her friends and about someone she loves, or might love. Her diary tells me that she feels art and beauty. Her diary tells me that she writes with depth, not about James K. Polk or some other school-type thing. Her diary tells me that she knows the passion of living and can make that passion live in her words, and the way she makes her words do what she wants them to do. She writes with beauty and grace, and a style that is her own.

She has been revealed to me as a person of warmth, and depth, and of love and hurt, and of the fullness of what people are meant to be. And in so revealing herself, she has brought about something in me that is connected to that.

What do we reveal when we write? When we write in a diary or blog such as this, what do we hope to reveal to ourselves, and of course, to anyone else? Can my young writer from school know that I, one of her teachers, now knows the feelings she has chosen to reveal? Would she be embarrassed if she knew? Would she change what she has done, or do things differently from now on? I hope not.

I wish I could tell her that just reading her diary has revealed in me the seed of the thought that this is something that might work for me too. That I feel priveleged to have been allowed this look into her soul. That I admire what she has done, what she can do, and that I have learned from her.

In the first blog I looked at, I saw a 14 year old girl who was bored by school, annoyed by her f--ing math teacher, and who was killing time in Biology by writing a blog entry. I liked her honesty, and I respect her feelings. I remember those feelings, too. But I wish she would capitalize the word I, and throw in a comma here or there. Not because I want her writing to be correct, whatever that means; I just want it to be easier for me to read.

Both blogs expressed a more raw kind of revelation than I've ever really written myself, although I've been writing for almost all of my nearly 50 years. It is good to know that there is something I still need to learn, want to learn. One of things I like most about teaching is that I get to learn things from students, sometimes. It doesn't come up as often as I'd like it to, but it's a good thing, when it happens.

Thanks, girls.

entry #3

I still don't have a column of my own

Since it doesn't look like USA Today is giving me my own column anytime soon, and I'm unlikely to see myself sprawled across the side of a bus like Carrie on Sex and the City, if I want to write a column and whine about everything around me everywhere, it's going to have to be here. Since I tend to waver between crankiness and life-affirmation, sometimes minute-to-minute, what I put here is likely to be somewhat random, not to mention too wordy and perhaps not such a pleasure to read. This last sentence is probably the best description of myself I have ever put together. So here I go, blogging on.

entry #1