I should write here more. I was just reading through my old posts, marveling at them; they instantly bring me back to wherever I was at the time I wrote them. I am well now, though a bit worried about writing my thesis. I must use it as a learning experience: I feel about this like my students must feel about their work. I can work on my empathy. Much is going on here in the dead of winter. Patricia and I are well, along with Dulcinea and Bell. We holidayed in San Diego, where it was warm and lovely. We stayed in a Super 8 overlooking a valley filled with palms and roads and hotels. We hung out with Patty;s madre and played endless rounds of Shanghai, and I took very long walks. I had a profound moment at a little donut shop, watching it rain. It's funny where we break through a touch the magic, isn't it? I have also, at Patricia's behest, started meditating. Every night, I put on the thunderstorm CD she bought me, and will my mind to stob yammering at itself. I ...
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My annual end of year post... My eighth year of teaching done. I'd like to say it's been a fun, productive year, but it really has not. The environment at Calumet is, to put it lightly, positively cancerous - and there are people actively working to make things more so. It's the type of place (now) where one is judged not on what they do in their classroom (nor on how they do it) but rather on how enthusiastic he or she is about whatever it is the powers-that-be want them to be enthusiastic about...I'll leave it there lest I say too much and incriminate myself, but suffice to say I am astounded by the small-mindedness of some of those around me. That being said, however, it is time to look ahead with wonderment at the summer that lies ahead. Tonight: Patricia and I shall make our annual pilgrimage to La Pena . Tomorrow, I will begin the process of slowing-down...perhaps a double espresso (with creamer), a book of ghost stories by M.R. James (the man who made ...
Mornings like this are why I love Spring in the Midwest: a glowing sky, filled with orange light yet threatening rain, o'erspreading the new green trees...it makes up for the fact that I had an absolutely ICY shower this morning. The sky is wide through my windows. (I'm sad I shal'n't have this room next year.) It makes me think of/ pine for travel. Below are a few pictures from my recent trip to the hill country of central Florida. I backpacked (solo) the state's longest loop trail and rode (both ways) its longest bike trail (with a stop at a strange, distant hotel between legs) and, in between these two jaunts, scorched myself on Clearwater Beach...I have hardly any skin left on me. Enjoy!
Once again, the last day of the year is upon me. Though not unhappy, I'm sort of limping into summer this time around. I've been so terribly busy and want nothing more than to just be for a spell, but I shalln't get that chance. Jeremy and I are speeding off on Sunday to conquer the Buffalo National Scenic River (backpacking) and then I'll get home just in time to start the Northwest Indiana Writer's Project (my month-long intensive graduate course). And then, later in July, Patricia and I are off for a fortnight en Madrid, Spain . Sounds great, but in my exhausted state, it feels overwhelming. So, this entry may be a bit disjuncted; if so, I apologize. Just some random thoughts: I'm reading World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks...utterly phenomenal. Literary, intelligent (featured on NPR's Talk of the Nation !) allegorical, political, and genuinely scary - it's one of the best books I've read, and is helping to lessen the awf...
Say goodbye to Alexandria leaving... Sitting in a cafe on a balmy Easter night...I am established at a hotel, prepared to embark tomorrow morning on a solo exploration of Louisiana's longest trail . Being down in the Deep South is like visiting a very good friend, like a homecoming. There is something about the Springtime here, especially in central Louisiana, where I came four long years ago to lick my wounds and find solace in solitude (and accomplished both). I am here again to lick my wounds, though they are wounds of a different sort now. I am not sad and forlorn this time (Patricia and I are well, and I wish fervently that she were here beside me) but I am so tightly wound up over pointless crap, I've found it to be increasingly difficult to just be in the moment. Teaching (and all the accompanying BS related to the No Child Left Behind Act), the pursuit of the Master's Degree (90% of what I have to learn and do is dross) and the constant struggle of the yearboo...
Four years ago, on the day after election day, I quoted Bob Marley's "Natural Mystic" to sum up what I felt: "Did you hear the first trumpet? Might as well be the last. Many more will have to die. Many more will have to cry. Don't ask me why." Last night, as Patricia and I moved through the massive crowd in Grant Park, through throngs of revelers, still basking in the afterglow of Barack Obama's wonderful speech and the enormous joy and history of the moment, another Bob Marley lyric came to me, and I nearly wept with the rightness of it. The song is "Put It On": "Feel them spirit. Lord I thank you." That about sums it all up this time. Although I must admit that I like George Bush on a personal level, his regime has come to epitomize the sense of malaise, the sense of spiritual dullness, the sense of divisiveness, the sense of slow, blind, lazy inertia that has enveloped our country. And last night, all that changed. And the peasants...
I just thought this was cool - my first review. From the Internet Review of Science Fiction : (Reviewed by Lois Tilton) "Roaring Seraph, Singing Thunder" by Daniel Brugioni The narrator and his wife once promised each other that they would never forego any opportunity to travel. Thus they found themselves accepting the offer of the Reverend Benjamin Garza to be his companions in his Equatorial Africa mission, deep in the jungle at the edge of the Mbini River. But instead of the Reverend, they are met with a note: "I am restless and blind. I sing! Death sings within my very depths." This is an ambiguous fantasy, as the narrator who sees the ghosts of the local boatmen is blind. If this were science fiction, I would question how the disease has spread so rapidly in a region where it is supposed to be near eradication, and how it could have killed so quickly. Only on the assumption of madness does any of this make literal sense, but the images, in their madness, are co...
Rain Dream It's so lovely outside, so rainy and beautiful. I'm trying to find a core of peace. Having sat through the duration of the Guiliani/ Palin speeches last night, I felt, as one writer put it, that I had eaten something rotten. Patricia, who is liberal but not very political, summed it all up perfectly: "It's just mean, and it's not true." If anyone wants me to, I'll go through Palin's speech point by point and tell what is not true - back my junk up. Until then, suffice to say, I thought attacking Barack Obama's character and intergrity (under the guise of genuineness) was...well, depressing. I guess I expected more of the Republicans this time around. Guess I was wrong. The new Coldplay album, by the way, is a masterpiece. Didn't see that coming at all. Bye!
It's the last day of the school year, again, my sixth, and I am in a high place and filled with light. Good and big things afoot. Barack Obama, despite facing six months of vehement rhetoric and underhanded machine-candidate opposition, is the nominee of the Democratic Party. Though last night was somewhat anticlimactic (I feel he actually clinched it on May 6), I was able to enjoy it. Can one fathom how truly unprecendented this is? That being said, I must stop watching six hours of pundits talking of nothing every night. I usually get mad and accomplish nothing. The Cubs have won nine in a row, and have the best record in all of baseball. Zahir Tales has just published one of my stories. "Roaring Seraph, Singing Thunder." It's available on Amazon ! Summer vacation starts tonight. Patricia and I are going to one of our favorite restaurants, an Ecuadorian place in north Chicago. And then I will sleep and awake into a world where I get paid to lie on the beach and read...
An Indiana Teacher's Opinion on the Democratic Primary I felt the need to write this after learning of the AFT’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton, and, essentially, hearing only one side of the story. She has come out (in several speeches) against the No Child Left Behind Act, something I find very commendable, but I wonder if anyone is looking more deeply at the issues of this campaign. After carefully pondering these issues, I have decided to write, as a teacher, in support of Barack Obama. While he has not openly mentioned or repudiated NCLB, he has promised to restore education from its abyss of “teaching to the test” and has vowed to help teachers focus more on art, literature, drama, math, etc…So, while he has not condemned the act by name, I feel his policies are similar, if not as concrete. Additionally, he plans to make student aid affordable for everyone (in return for community-based services like tutoring and volunteer work). But this election goes much more deeply than t...
The east wind sighs, the fine rains come. "Brutus, thou sleeps’t. Awake. Brutus, thou sleeps’t. Awake." - William Shakespeare The above comes from an anonymous letter (actually written by Cassius) to Brutus, in the play Julius Caesar, warning him of the dangers of his obliviousness in a time of great political turmoil. The same might be addressed to us, now. You are sleeping. Awake. A certain candidate for President (who shall henceforth go nameless) has been running adverts warning of the perils inherent in voting for a "less experienced" candidate, relying on the old standby - fear - to carry her message, intimating that, were one to vote for, say, Barack Obama, the Iraqis would come to this country and feast upon the brains of our babies. And, just like the Rove bilge of the past seven years, they have been successful. Why are Democrats falling for the same tactics that helped George Bush win two elections? Why should fear trump hope and intelligence? Tha...
The last words of the dying, or the first of the dead. Thought for the day: "The snow has gone from Chung-nan; spring is almost come. Lovely in the distance its blue colors, against the brown of the streets. A thousand coaches, ten thousand horsemen pass down the Nine Roads; Turns his head and looks at the mountains,--not one man!" - Po Chü-i (772-846) That poem stirs something deeply within me. One must open one's eyes before the dawning can begin. For the first time in years, I am taking to the road alone, to lie at the edge of a swamp, amidst alligators . My thoughts will slow to the rhythm of rain in Florida. Herbie is a new dad. Congratulations! Have an expansive twilight!
Sitting in the computer lab at Purdue Calumet, about to begin my first class in nearly six years...Is that possible? I'm happy to say I don't wonder where the time has gone, for I've been fully aware of its passing, though six years does seem a bit much. Have you seen Salad Fingers ? I think it's rather brilliant actually! G'day! It's twilight, and the light that falls in the high windows is thin and foggy.
Below are some random pictures from our honeymoon - in no particular order. Sorry about the date in the corner, by the way. Click on the pictures - they get wicked huge. :) From top, down. 1. Patricia and I at a bus stop in Halifax, Nova Scotia 2. Contemplating the rain, Halifax. 3. The best picture we have ever taken? Halifax. 4. Fountain, Quebec City. 5. Ghost in the footlights, Quebec City. 6. Backpacking, Cape Fundy, New Brunswick. 7. Just before a truly massive thunderstorm, Montreal. 8. Old cemetery, Halifax. 9. Patricia in a cool diner, Halifax. 10. Campsite, Fundy National Park. 11. Holding hands in a coffee shop, Montreal. 12. Breaking camp, Fundy. 13. Our own private lake, twilight; Fundy. 14. Patricia looking cute at Fundy. 15. The view from our hotel, Montreal. I can hear Leonard Cohen singing... 16. Preparing for a hike, Pointe Pelee National Park, Ontario. 17. The southernmost people in Canda...