Question Me Not

This post is an extention of my previous post. Here are some questions I have been asked today:

Is the old guy's disability that his leg is broken? Is he blind? Is being old a disability?

Can we make Indian headresses? Can we make those turkeys where you trace your hand and glue feathers on? Can I take a nap?

Do you know any gang signs? Does this look like B-L-O-O-D?

Do you want to hear a song I just wrote? Do you want to read my poetry?

Did you watch 'Family Guy' last night? Did you watch 'American Dad'? How about 'The Clevelands'?

Do you have a pencil? Do you have a different pencil? Do you have a different pencil sharpener?

Can I go to the bathroom? I know, I need to go again.

Thankful For Weekends

One of the best things about being a teacher is getting to go away from it all for various increments of time. Such as three-day weekends. Or, in this case, four-day weekends. Now that might seem brusque, but this is an emotional job--dealing with kids every day whose frontal lobes are not yet fully developed, resulting in their making terrible decisions and ridiculous statements such as: "Why was Hoover Jackson responsible for the Great Depression?" Blurgh.

In honor of being away from it all, these are the things I will not do this weekend:

1. Talk about the new 'Twilight' movie.
2. Really, talk about vampires in general.
3. Explain why, actually, that is not a complete sentence.
4. Erase pictures of giant animated mushrooms from table surfaces.
5. Overuse hand-sanitizer.
6. Respond to non-sequiters. (Student:"What day does Christmas Break start?" Me: "George and Lennie don't get a Christmas Break.")
7. Make up crazy stories about my personal life. (I was gone yesterday because I am actually working on a new reality show. It is about cat whispering. I am going to be the Cat Whisperer.)
8. Explain what "pants rabbits" are or why Curley has that glove full of vaseline.

Looking forward to a weekend full of intelligent adult conversation and over-the-top sarcasm. And I am not going to worry about whether or not people get it.

The Heaviest Boots Ever

Sometimes a story is just really, really hard to tell. Often, when this is the case, the story is also really, really hard to read. This is one of those stories. But it is also really, really lovely and wonderful to read as well. It is a conundrum of sorts.

I am in a book club with a group of incredibly loud and extremely close women who also happen to be remarkably intelligent and astonishingly interesting. This is the book we are reading in November and boy oh boy it is so very addicting. In the story, Oskar Schell (shell=a hard outer coating or structure) is a struggling through life as a survivor. His father was killed in the World Trade Center, something Oskar knows to be true, but still Oskar can't stop looking for his father everywhere he goes. He finds a key in an envelope labeled "Black", comes to the conclusion that the key must have something to do with a person whose name is Black, then proceeds to find and interview every person in New York with the last name Black.

Ahhh!!!#@$%*&^@ This book is so good and I am growing increasingly frustrated with my inability to locate time to finish it. My 2009 Top 10 list is going to be a doozy.

Who Reads That Much?

I went to a Young Adult Literature conference this week and the presenter (a high school librarian who does this on the side) told us she reads roughly 400 books a year. Yes, you heard me correctly. That is crazy, right? Now, granted, she reads almost exclusively young adult lit., which means some of the things she reads you could finish in one sitting, but you would have to be able to if you were going to read more than one book a day! I read a lot, but not that much. At one point someone asked her about a movie and she commented on how she doesn't have time to watch TV or movies since she reads so much. This is where she and I parted ways on the Reading Express. I toted my books along to the sitcom car, where I can read during the commercials.

One thing I like to do is read local authors and debut novels. I found both in The Last Town on Earth, a novel by Thomas Mullen. The story takes place in 1918, in a small town called Commonwealth, just northeast of Everett, WA. Commonwealth is a self-sustaining mill town, and it's people are proud of what they have made there. When the Spanish flu breaks out in surrounding areas, the townsfolk are desperate for a strategy to keep it at bay and away from Commonwealth. They decide to set up a reverse quarantine. No one can enter the town and if one wants to leave, he'd better be prepared to stay away until the flu outbreak dies down. The men volunteer to stand guard on the road into town, determined to protect their families and friends. Not long after they start, a soldier wanders toward town, cold and starving, and begs for entry. The men refuse, the soldier persists, and the resulting scuffle ends with a dead soldier and a new plague on the men of Commonwealth.

This book was particularly interesting to read during an "outbreak" of the flu. Worried for the safety of my own children, I have learned to spot a cough or a headache from a distance and carry anti-bacterial hand-sanitizer in every satchel I own. I felt that, on some crazy level, I could relate to the characters' fear, even if I can't relate to their irrational behaviors. This book gave me an interesting historical perspective on a local area too, and I really liked that.

Words Abound

I've been experimenting with wordle.net. Lots of fun, but difficult to manipulate. This is one I intend to share with my 9th graders currently reading Of Mice and Men. The whole exercise could potentially become addicting.

Some Favorite Firsts

First impressions are important. They are often the glue by which we stick to something. At times they are Super Glue (the strength of which should not be underestimated) and other times they are the generic brand glue sticks that, upon removing the cap, you find empty.

What follows is a list of first lines (or two) from a sampling of some of my favorite books. To say that they ARE my favorite books would be wrong. Like when I tell James he is my favorite boy (something he loves to no end). I do not love him more than his brother. It is just that, simply put, he happens to be my favorite boy that I can see at that moment. So it is with these books. They, like the fruit of my womb, do not appear in any sort of ranked order. They just so happen to be books that I love that I can see at this moment.

1. "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

2. "When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him."

3. "My suffering left me sad and gloomy. Academic study and the steady, mindful practice of religion slowly brought me back to life."

4. "The library is cool and smells like carpet cleaner, although all I can see is marble."

5. "A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green."

6. "Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."

7. "My father’s name being Pirrip, and my christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip."

8. "It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shears’s house."

9. "My brain was drowning in grease."

10. "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow."

There is something special about seeing these lines out of the context of the story. They are both wholly representative and entirely wrong. Some of them I want to change, to say, "No, that's not how the story goes!" Others I want to cuddle like a baby (which, in case you were wondering, is the time when Griffin gets to hear about how HE is, indeed, my favorite boy). But they are what they are--an entrance to a strange and wonderful land where you just never know what will happen next.

An Answer Key (what's that? You didn't know this was a quiz?)
1. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
2. McCormac, The Road
3. Martel, Life of Pi
4. Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife
5. Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
6. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
7. Dickens, Great Expectations
8. Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime
9. Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
10. Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

The World Through Someone Else's Camera

I wish I saw the world the way this woman does. I'm pretty sure she is the most incredible artist ever to have graced a camera with her lovely dainty fingers. It just so happens that she actually photographed our wedding (all those years ago!). I have been wanting to have her take some family photos of us for a while now, but I would have to plan about two years in advance to book her and to save up for the experience. I stumbled upon her blog again today and couldn't resist sharing it.

BEWARE! Before you click on the link, make sure you have enough time to get completely lost in the images. The entire experience with suck you in and leave you breathless.

You can learn a lot about a person...

Yesterday I had to rush out of school quickly, due to an emergency call about my 9-month-old. He is fine, don't worry. But in my wake, a colleague stepped in to watch my class. Here is the note he left me:

Things I Learned in Your Class:
1. You love yourself some Harry Potter.
2. Gnomes are creepy.
3. Alfred Higgins is a thief (at least according to pg. 1--I didn't get past the 1st page).
4. I should have brought a laptop.

Looking at my desk now, I am surprised the list didn't go something like this:

1. You hide coupons for free Junior Frosties under your keyboard.
2. It doesn't seem to bother you that there are cords running amuck every which way. Some do not even seem to be going anywhere.
3. You have three water bottles and four used coffee mugs.
4. You write your name on pretty much everything that is not glued or nailed to the floor.

In my defense, Alfred Higgins is not the only thief out there. And I am planning on giving those coupons out to students who do good deeds. Someday.

Turning in my (expired) passport

Ever since I finished reading The Poisonwood Bible last week, I can't stop feeling guilty for being American. All that beautiful prose and heart-slaying imagery has got me in a rut.

Turns out I bought the book almost ten years ago. I found the original reciept, keeping my place on page 36, with the purchase date of January 12, 2000. How do I know it was me that bought the book and not my mom (who, let's face it, still bought most things for me in the first year of the new millenium, regardless of the fact that I was 20)? Because the receipt was for one single item purchased from Costco. A paperback copy of The Poisonwood Bible. And what mother, let me ask you, goes to Costco and leaves with only one book? Huh? No mother, that's who.

And what, did I have better things to do that required me to put the book down after a meager 36 pages and not get back to it for 10 YEARS? Apparently. Maybe I was turned off by all the motherhood and whatnot. It's true that this book pricked me in a place that didn't exist ten years ago. Becoming a mother has changed me, you know. Given me emotions I did not previously have. Like the exasperation when my child refuses to do something I know is best for him (currently, that thing is pooping on the toilet. JUST DO IT ALREADY!). Or the pain I feel when my child is sick or hurting. Those are tough emotions to tap into when you don't have them. Not that you can't empathize with another person's pain unless you have children, but still.

TPB spans the lives of Orleanna Price and her four daughters. The Price girls travel to the Congo as children and leave (or don't) as much more. Their father is a Baptist preacher from Georgia on a mission to save the Dark Continent. At the expense of, well, anything really.

My favorite character in this story goes by the name of Brother Fowles. He is a former missionary who was kicked out of the Missionary League for too much "consorting with the natives". In other words, he fell in love with and married a local. He is only ever referred to for most of the story as the guy who "messed things up around here" and it is a well-known fact that Reverend Price is spending most of his time cleaning up the messes of Brother Fowles (which include a swearing and blaspheming parrot). Then one day Brother Fowles shows up in the village, having come along the river with his wife to deliver medication, food and vaccinations to people they pass by. Brother Fowles's perspective on "doing God's work" in the Congo stands out in stark contrast to Reverend Price's--whose primary goal is to dunk as many African children into the river as possible, a thought that terrifies the Africans on account of the many crocodile-related deaths that occur each year. It is Brother Fowles, I think, that changes the Price girls' feelings about Africa.

Needless to say, this book moved me.

There Goes the Unicorn's Horn

SO, I started off with a whole character/theme analysis comparison between MM and The Glass Menagerie (hence the title, which stands) and then I realized something about "Shut the Door. Have a Seat.": everyone is getting a divorce! So I changed courses. Plus, the first one was getting kind of boring. Here's my breakdown:

Divorce #1: Don and Betty. (Don + Betty forever!)

I don't really want to talk about this one. The whole scene where Don was wearing that V-neck sweater and the kids were begging him not to go. Actual real tears came out of me. I have to say I am holding out hope for their reconciliation. I don't see how the narrative can survive if Don doesn't have Betty from whom to conceal his many mysterious secrets. But then, she already knows so much. Way more than I thought she ever would. It's like the facade of Don has faded and now he is a fuzzy Dick/Don hybrid (Dick when he's telling the kids he has to leave, Don when he concocts the crazy plan to steal Sterling Cooper, but more on that later). The Betty/Don split is devastating, no doubt, but it serves as a springboard into Inspiration Lake for Don, who, like always, is determined to rise from the ashes of tragedy. It's like he thought, "You want a divorce? Now wait a minute, that gives me an idea..." Which leads me to:

Divorce #2: Sterling Cooper and the British

If Sterling Cooper was Don's first love--the one he stumbled upon when he was young and ignorant--then Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is going to be his hot second trophy wife. It's a relationship founded on sneaking around at night, stealing other people's stuff, and hiding out in a hotel room ordering room service. Everyone is frenzied, fresh, and coming up with fantastic ideas--I loved the part where Roger (who we see actually working for the first time ever) says, "I'm so tired!" Divorce looks good on Work Don.

True to MM, we see one aspect of the theme protrayed in a positive light, while the other aspect is destroying Don's/Betty's/Peggy's/Joan's life. Home Don (Dick?) is distraught, fumbling, stuttering and OUT OF WORDS. While Work Don (there he is!) is thriving, glowing, well-kempt and all shiny-toothed. Betty's emotions, however, seem static regardless of her surroundings: quiet and stoic at home, passive and subdued at the lawyer's office, silent and pensive on the train* to Reno...with an empty seat** between she and Henry Francis. My guess? That seat may look empty, but it is really stuffed full of a whole lot of extra baggage.

And I'm a bit confused about Bobby and Sally--are we to assume they are staying home with Carla while their mom goes to Reno for six weeks?! I suppose Betty is not really angling for any Mother of the Year awards.

* and ** OK, so I have just been schooled about a couple of things. 1. They are on a plane not a train. Duh! They are going to Reno! What was I thinking? And 2. They don't have a seat between them, they are in first class and they just have really big seats. But for the sake of arguing, let's just say they have a metaphorical seat between them on the train to Reno.

Poetry for Tiny People

Finally, after three years, we are not bound (no pun intended!) to books made entirely of cardboard. We can read stories with pages made from paper, and boy howdy, do we ever. This is one I am particularly in love with. Polkabats and Octopus Slacks is a collection of 14 story-poems that are instantly endearing. Like when somebody makes really tasty tiny cookies and you eat like thirty because they are so good you just can't stop (plus, they're tiny!). Calef Brown is great at pairing word sounds made for out-loud recitation. Such as:

Fantastic plastic stretch elastic...

AND

...a sweet-smelling, soap-selling, tub dwelling guy and his one-legged duck named Alphonso...

AND

...a flapping flock of flying fury...

Trust me, it is fun for the whole family.