Katherine Owens

Being Nice makes you Happier

2012-02-14T14:06:00.000-05:00

Another flash fiction challenge offered up by Chuck Wendig enticed me to play. The game this time is to write an unlikable protagonist who remains compelling and readable, 1000 words or less. Mine comes in at 747. Enjoy.

Being Nice makes you Happier
Condoms? Yeah, good luck with that, buddy.

Out loud, “Big date, tonight?”

The teenager flushed underneath his zits. “No, but you can’t be too prepared, right?” He reached for a nonchalant smile and failed. “That’s what they taught me in boy scouts.”

Boy scouts don’t get laid.

Brody examined the box before bagging it. “Ribbed for her pleasure,” he read. “Very considerate. You are a boy scout.”

The boy laughed nervously, shifting his weight and clutching his wallet with white knuckles. The soccer mom unloading groceries on the belt behind him radiated disapproval.

Beautiful.

Brody grinned and totaled the order. “Okay, box of condoms, pack of gum. That’ll be $4.78 with tax.”

The kid threw his money at Brody, grabbed the bag like he stole it, and hurried out the exit.

“You embarrassed that boy on purpose.”

Brody fixed an impassive stare on the woman. She stared back.

He shrugged, “If you’re man enough to have sex, you ought to be man enough to buy a condom without turning five shades of red.”

“It was unkind.”

“So it was.”

And speaking of Trojans…

Brody typed a code into the register before he scanned the first item. The display screen dimmed slightly, indicating his program was running in the background. He swallowed another grin and scanned silently.

Vegetables, fruit, chicken. Damn, this chick needed some red meat in her diet or something. Whatever. Produce was easy to hide behind.

“Being nice would make you happier.”

Your money will make me happier.

He allowed the grin to show. “I couldn’t resist teasing him. He reminded me of my little brother. But you’re right. I should’ve been nicer.”

The muscles in her face relaxed, but not enough to produce a smile. He slid a box of tampons across the scanner. Bitch must be on the rag. The bag of Oreos confirmed it.

“Those cookies were marked on sale. That’s not the sale price.”

“I’m sorry. Do you remember the price? I can send someone to check.”

“$2.99.”

He voided the cookies at $3.78 and punched in $2.99. He considered killing the worm. She didn’t fit the profile. She was paying attention and confident, and he had nullified his native charm dicking around with condom boy.

Would she go home and examine the receipt?

“Shouldn’t you tell someone those cookies are ringing up wrong? A manager or something?”

“Technically, the sale starts at midnight. The guys on the floor got a jump on the signage.” He pointed to the plastic pinned to his chest. “I am a manager.”

“Oh.”

She kept her voice neutral, but the raised eyebrow told Brody exactly what she thought of his managerial skills.

Game on.

He scanned her organic milk. The shit was expensive, and the worm left it alone. People paid attention to the pricier items on their ticket. Her eyes were glued to the display screen.

The block of cheddar cheese rang up .30 higher than the correct price.

She didn’t blink. Neither did he.

Cheerios, .20 higher. No reaction.

A loaf of fresh-baked bread, a nickel higher. She flicked her eyes from the display screen to his face. He smiled pleasantly.

Antiperspirant, a full dollar higher. I’ve got a Secret too.

Her eyes returned to the display as he scanned a two-pack of toothbrushes, .20 higher. Toothpaste, razors, and a bottle of Midol.

“Your total comes to $76.42.”

Her brows knitted together, and she stood frozen, debit card in hand.

Come on Mama. Scan your card for Snakebyte.

Deliberately, she returned the debit card to her wallet and pulled out her checkbook. Brody ran the check and handed over her receipt.

“You have a wonderful day, ma’am.”

She slid the receipt into her checkbook, eyed him suspiciously one last time, and walked away silently.

“Being nice makes you happier,” he called after her.

She kept walking and Brody chuckled. The cash drawer popped open of its own volition, and he removed $5.20 and slid it into his pocket. A grain of sand in his rapidly growing sand castle, and undoubtedly, the best $5.20 he would earn today.

His gleeful meditation was interrupted by the sound of screaming children. A woman in sweats threw her credit card at him and struggled to unload an overflowing cart. The toddler on her hip crushed a fistful of goldfish and reached for the opened bag on the belt. A red-faced infant screamed from its seat in the cart.

Snakebyte smiled sympathetically and punched in the code.

Beautiful.

Youth and Beauty

2012-02-06T23:57:00.000-05:00

I’ve enjoyed the hell out of the last several weeks in my classroom reading To Kill a Mockingbird. The kids have enjoyed it too. Every day, we challenge a different stereotype. What does it mean to be black? White? Southern? A girl? Poor? Educated? Mentally healthy? Religious? Old? Young?

Our discussions have been rich, and the kids seemed to embrace Atticus’ philosophy. You never really know a person until you get inside his skin and walk around in it. I was energized. Attitudes were adjusting, including mine. One book really can change people’s lives.

Cut to today.

“Who were you rooting for yesterday, Ms. Owens?”

“The Giants.”

“Really? Why?”

“Well, normally I’m not a fan of either team, but we have a couple of connections to the Giants, and that seemed like a good reason to root for them. Plus, I’m over the Patriots, and yeah, that’s probably sour grapes from when they beat teams I like, but whatever.”

“But Tom Brady’s hot! You have to root for him.”

“So is David Beckham, but I’m not buying his underwear.”

I watch a girl’s eyes glaze over. “I totally would.”

I realize my eyes have glazed over, and I shake myself back to reality. “Come on people. You do not have inferior minds. Surely, you base decisions like which team to root for and what products to buy on more than just physical beauty?”

Beavis and Butthead in the back of the room, “huhuhuhuhuh…Go Daddy!”

“I bought M&Ms this morning, but I based that on humor. They had the best commercial. Plus, I like M&Ms.”

“OH! It’s that kind of party!" Everyone laughed amidst general agreement that M&Ms had the best commercial. (This was the first commercial mentioned by students in every class. Good job M&M/Mars! You reached your target audience.)

“What about that half-time show? How old is Madonna anyway. She’s like my grandma’s age or something?”

“Yeah, seriously. Why do they keep getting old people?”

Ouch. This one hit home, and my knee jerked.

“Madonna hit the charts when I was in high school. She has adapted for thirty years. How many of your favorite artists will still be relevant when you’re in your forties?”

“Justin Bieber.”

I’m not making that up. I might have thrown up a little in my mouth. I resisted the urge to make a snide remark and further pigeon-hole myself. I had already planted a flag in “old people” land.

“Who says Madonna is still relevant?”

“We’re talking about her aren’t we? She played to a billion people last night. A lot of them are talking about her too. Plus, that awful song she just put out is on the radio every five minutes.”

“SEE!! You don’t even like her anymore! She’s old!”

“I don’t like that song because it’s stupid. Let’s see if I can sum up this discussion…Only hot people are worthy of our attention and fandom, and old people need to get out of our faces because they aren’t relevant anymore. Is that about right?”

Beavis and Butthead, “hehehehehehe….yeah.”

Everyone else backpedals warily, smelling a trap.

“Betty White is old, and we like her. She’s funny.”

“So old people are good for a laugh in a commercial, but leave the half-time show to us young, relevant folks?”

“You are totally twisting our words, Ms. Owens!”

“Then, please, tell me what you really mean.”

Several false starts, then, “Nevermind.”

“Uh huh…get out your homework.”

I’d like to say victory was mine, but it was hollow at best. I’d like to blame it on the fact that these kids are 15 years old, but I saw the same discussion on Facebook and Twitter last night.

We are only willing to get inside someone else’s skin and walk around in it as long as we can go back to our own young, beautiful skin to live.

My favorite commercial? The Audi headlights that blew up those eternally young, eternally beautiful vampires.

Zen and the Art of Teaching

2012-01-19T00:33:00.001-05:00

American Idol returned tonight, and while they highlight some good singers, the audition shows are all about the delusional. I'm not throwing stones. Sometimes, I think delusional might be a nice place to live. Think about it. To be blissfully unaware, clueless, secure in the profound belief that you are awesome would be liberating.

Don’t get me wrong. Some days I actually am awesome, but I know when I’m not. Today, a bit of delusion would have been useful, but I just couldn't muster any. So in lieu of delusion, I’m going to indulge in a little public therapy.

Over the years, I’ve invited a lot of visitors into my classroom: principals, other teachers, college kids, guests from foreign countries. I've had them all. As a general rule, visitors, announced or otherwise, don’t shake me. I learned I was hosting today’s visitors, teachers in my district in a leadership program, during class change, five minutes before they walked into my classroom. I knew most of them. One was a former student. Another was a close friend.

No worries. Right?

My colleagues would be observing an honors class with no real behavior issues. My lesson plan was a little loose, but when we’re discussing a reading assignment, it often is. I have five or six points I want to be sure to hit, but mostly, I let the discussion go where it goes. When kids work through their own questions about the text, pinging ideas off of each other, extending the text into their own experiences and drawing conclusions about culture and life and everything in the world that matters…that’s when the magic happens.

Except when it doesn’t.

The bell rang. I simultaneously tried to find seats for my guests and get my kids started on their journals, a bell ringer activity that keeps them busy while I’m dealing with housekeeping issues and gets them thinking about the discussion for the day. I usually go over it before they start writing, but teachers kept filing into the room. The original group of four guests turned into six, then seven, then ten. Okaaaay. Third hour was now standing room only.

The kids couldn’t get settled because several of my guests were elementary and middle school teachers they knew and loved. Lots of excited waving and even some hugging ensued. In hindsight, always 20-20, I should have just stopped, acknowledged the unusual situation, and let the excitement play out before I moved on. Instead, I tried to play it cool. Why? Beats the hell out of me. Maybe because my class wouldn’t settle, and I was beginning to feel like a rat in a science experiment.

Just as I finally started talking, two boys who sit right in front of me began to gag and spit. Brown sludge coated their tongue and brown drool ran down their chins.

“ACK! UGH! Oh my GOD! You said this was chocolate!”

A girl two rows over replied, “It is. Dark chocolate.”

“YOU GAVE US DARK CHOCOLATE?!? I need a drink! Ms. Owens! I’m gonna die!”

The class erupted. Tweedledee and Tweedledum basked in the glow of the spotlight even as they spat chocolate into their hands and knocked over a chair trying to get to the door and the water fountain beyond.

I rolled my eyes and called for quiet, but my deep reservoir of zen had sprung a leak. I reminded myself that my guests were actual teachers who deal with craziness on a regular basis. Onward and upward. I threw out my first question and got a tepid response. This was the same question that had generated 30 minutes of rich discussion in my first hour class. Different class, different kids. I mixed it up and tried again. Instead of waiting for a volunteer, I called on specific students. Lukewarm. One word. No response. Flat out wrong. My reservoir was draining fast.

Like a bad American Idol contestant, when things went wrong, I just started singing louder and more off key. Instead of letting the kids make the connections, I started making them myself. Instead of facilitating discussion, I lectured.

Sigh.

Tweedledee was still wiping dark chocolate off his tongue with his sleeve, but he had his book open and seemed to be reading furiously.

Ah ha. The light dawned.

When I’m flummoxed, I’m slow on the uptake. A third of the class was either studiously avoiding eye contact with me or reading as fast as their little eyes could scan the page. I’m mean when I’m embarrassed and pissed off, so I targeted those kids with laser precision, forcing them to say it out loud in front of the company. “I don’t know. I didn’t do the reading.” And no, I’m not particularly proud of that either.

I had a conversation later with my friend. She assured me it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was, but she’s my friend, and I don’t think she would say anything to make me feel worse than I did. Turns out, the group was supposed to be making notes about rigor in the classroom. My friend told me I asked rigorous questions.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at that.

My guests left after 20 inglorious minutes, and I had a come-to-Jesus meeting with the class. Tomorrow is a new day, and I’ll bet my next paycheck that the kids who didn’t read last night will be prepared tomorrow. They’re not bad kids. They’re just kids. And a wrench in the works (or dark chocolate streaming from a boy’s mouth) is not usually enough to turn me into a babbling Cruella DeVille, but I’m not delusional enough to make that claim today.

Margaritas, Snow, and Black Sludge

2012-01-14T21:59:00.000-05:00

I've had an interesting week. It began with a margarita tour of San Antonio, included one day with freshman drunk on the prospect of the year's first snow day, and ended underneath my bathroom sink clearing that which shall not be named from my pipes.

Why a margarita tour? Why San Antonio? Bruce had to go to San Antonio for the AFCA convention, but since I'm not a football coach, I went for the margaritas. I was not disappointed.

Sunday: Patron Mango Mint Margarita at the Iron Cactus paired with lobster tacos and tortilla soup.

The Iron Cactus boasts the largest selection of tequila in San Antonio. The menu listed more than 80. My margarita had two different kinds of Patron, along with fresh-squeezed agave, mango, and a mint leaf. To say that this margarita was good would be like saying Michelangelo was a decent sculptor, Mount Everest is fairly tall, Eric Clapton doesn’t suck. I would order this margarita as part of my last meal. If I was stupidly rich, I would fill a swimming pool with this margarita and dive into it like Scrooge McDuck. Not being stupidly rich is the only thing that kept me from drinking them until I slid out of my chair and into the river. At $10 a pop, moderation was a given.

Monday: Prickly Pear Margarita at Boudro’s Texas Bistro paired with blackened prime rib.

This was the only frozen margarita I sampled. I’m a rocks girl as a general rule, but sometimes decadence trumps the rules. The real star of this meal, though, was the steak, spicy and crunchy on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside. I ate everything on my plate. If I hadn’t been in a fancy restaurant with the entire Vanderbilt coaching staff at the next table, I would have picked up my plate and licked it clean. Being full of prime rib and prickly pear margarita made me all warm and fuzzy, and I actually dozed off at the BCS Championship party we went to afterwards. In my defense, it wasn’t a very exciting game.

Tuesday: Traditional margarita rocks at the Lone Star Café paired with a thinly sliced brisket sandwich slathered in barbecue sauce. No picture on this one, but it was good, reasonably priced, and within walking distance of our hotel. I ordered the second (and third) guilt-free.

Lest you think all I did in San Antonio was eat and drink margaritas, here is some photographic evidence to the contrary.

We explored the Riverwalk…

Visited the Alamo….

Stayed at the historic and beautiful Menger Hotel (OMG, their breakfast buffet!)…

Hung out at the Menger Bar where Teddy Roosevelt recruited the Rough Riders…

And even did some actual AFCA convention things like pose with the Heismann…

…and study current marketing trends. This is how they sell shoulder pads.

Wednesday was a travel day. We returned home to find that the boys had not trashed the house in Risky Business fashion (if you don’t count the pile of dishes in the sink and laundry on their respective floors). The dog wasn‘t languishing. The cat had food in his bowl. The neighbors hadn’t left nasty notes in the mailbox.

Being able to trust your kids -- priceless.

Thursday: I realized I need to leave for three straight days more often, so I can hear this when I return. “Ms. Owens! You’re back! We missed you!” The kids were genuinely happy to see me which was nice and completely manic because of the snow predicted for that afternoon which wasn't as nice. I have no windows in my classroom, and they invented every excuse in the book to walk down the hall and see if it was snowing. Talk of snow seemed to bleed into everything.

Consider this: At the end of chapter 17 in To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem is pleased with Atticus’ questioning of Bob Ewell, but Scout thinks Jem is counting his chickens.

“What does Scout mean by Jem counting his chickens?”

Crickets.

“The whole idiom is ‘Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.’ Think it through. What does that mean?

Crickets.

“Okay, it’s like this. Snow is predicted, but it’s not here yet. You decide not to do your math homework because you just know we’re getting a snow day. See? That’s counting your chickens before they hatch. You might get a snow day, but you might end up in Ms. Bleuel’s class tomorrow with no math homework. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”

“Ms. Owens, I don’t know anything about chickens, but I’m definitely not doing my math homework tonight CAUSE WE‘RE GETTING A SNOW DAY TOMORROW!”

Friday: We get a snow day. The snow day coincides nicely with the exact moment my frustration with the slow-draining sinks in my bathroom reaches critical mass. Armed only with rubber gloves, I remove the curvy pipe underneath and clear a foul mass of methane-infused, hair-clotted, slimy, black sludge from each. Eldest son came looking for a roll of toilet paper and ran screaming from the room. Youngest son squatted down next to me, fascinated, and asked me where it came from.

Happy thought for the day: All the lotions, potions, unguents, and sprays I use become black, hair-clotted sludge in my drain.

So there you have it. The week that started with a Patron Mango Mint Margarita ended with black sludge, apparently run-off from my face. I’m pretty sure there’s a profound metaphor in there somewhere, or maybe it was just a really weird week.

When Just Right is Just Wrong

2011-12-17T17:23:00.005-05:00

If Chuck Wendig's TerribleMinds is not already on your daily blog roll, it should be. Among other interesting tidbits, he hosts regular flash fiction contests on his blog. Each week a specific set of parameters is given and everyone is invited to play. You post your story of no more than 1000 words on your blog and link to it in the comment section of his.

This week, I couldn't resist. He linked to a set of 50 Unexplainable black and white photos on Buzzfeed. Many of the photos were disturbing. They were all weird. Perfect story material, right? Here's mine, along with the photo that inspired it.

Just Right

Onyx had never found Papa B’s bed too hard, but when her subversive sister, Goldie, uploaded her first self-produced video to YouTube, it had inexplicably gone viral. Papa may have been cast as a lumbering oaf who slept on an iron mattress, but he was no fool. He turned the den into a B&B and charged extra for Baby B’s room.

Mama B left when Papa sold the movie rights to Hollywood. No one was surprised. After all, they slept in separate beds. While Papa had laughed off the caricature Goldie made of him, Mama hated being seen as a frumpy housewife eating cold porridge and driving Papa off to his hard, lonely bed. The prospect of a nationwide movie release sent her over the edge. She took her share of the advance and hit the road.

Secretly, Onyx was glad. Other than the separate beds, she couldn’t speak to Mama’s relationship with Papa, but she had been best friends with Baby since the third grade. Baby was sad when Mama left, but truth be told, she had been motherless for years. Her real mom had died in childbirth, and a desperate, broken-hearted Papa had remarried, hoping to give Baby a mother.

Desperate and broken-hearted is no way to begin a relationship. Everything about Mama B had been wrong. She was bi-polar, and while Onyx would never fault a person for having an illness, she could fault them for refusing to treat it. Mama only took her meds about half the time which made her highs and lows even worse.

She was too happy or too sad, too mellow or too angry, too trusting or too paranoid. Goldie’s video had, in fact, been an homage to Mama’s earth-moving shifts. Unfortunately, one character trait was constant. She was too freaking critical, and it was all aimed at Baby.

Baby was beautiful, but you wouldn’t have known it if you heard Mama talk. She told Baby one day, that she was too fat to fit in the den and the next, that she was too skinny to survive the winter. Mama railed over Baby’s lush, perfect hair. It was too long, too short, too thick, too thin, too dull, too shiny, too, too, too…it was Mama’s favorite word.

Everyone knew Baby B was just right. Onyx knew it better than most, and she reminded Baby at every possible opportunity. She spent a lot of time in the B’s den working the desk, cleaning, cooking for the guests, and anything else Papa needed done. Goldie was off at film school on Papa’s dime, so her own house felt cold and empty.

Baby had gone into the new family business as well, giving tours and having her picture made with the guests. At night the two of them would curl up on Papa B’s big, very comfortable bed (Papa had taken to sleeping outside) and whisper their dreams for the future.

Onyx’s dreams had not included getting pregnant, but Brad had been so handsome when he checked in late on a cold February afternoon. The fire had roared cheerfully, warm porridge steamed on the stove, and Onyx had been alone. Reservations were light in the winter. People came to B’s B&B to see big Papa and just right Baby, not Goldie’s homely sister.

Brad had been different. He didn’t seem to care that he was in a celebrity’s den. He had eyes only for her. They had shared a bottle of wine over a bowl of just-right porridge, and before she could say, “My what big teeth you have,” Onyx found herself wrapped in Brad’s arms.

The magic of the night had been washed away the next morning when she woke alone in Baby’s bed to the sound of Papa B’s booming voice.

“Onyx! Where are you?”

Wearing her disheveled clothing from the night before, she had slunk out of Baby’s room. Brad sat grinning in front of the fire, and Papa caught on immediately.

“Oh Onyx, I thought you had more sense than this.”

Brad fist-pumped like the frat boy he was. “Big Brad Wolfe strikes again!”

“Get out and don’t come back!”

When Papa B roared, one ignored it at his own peril. Brad made a quick exit, but the damage had been done. When the stick turned pink, Onyx’s shame was complete.

Good friends make all things bear-able and no matter how low Onyx sank, Baby B was there with a kind word and gentle touch which of course was just right.

We were There!

2011-12-03T12:13:00.007-05:00

Last night my son played in the Kentucky 6A Championship game. They played #1 in the nation Trinity High School. I wish I could report that we rose up in feel-good sports movie fashion and knocked off the giant, but as we all know, in real life, sometimes Goliath wins.

You might think that my son and his teammates are crushed. Certainly, they are disappointed, but crushed? Not even a little bit.

We lost and the score was ugly. I'm not even going to post it. You can look it up on the KHSAA website if you want to know. They were bigger and stronger than we were, and their speed? Holy cow...we're talking SEC speed. I say without exaggeration, at least three of their players could start for Kentucky right now. Watching them was a sight to behold.

A bigger sight to behold? Us.

I heard some talk around school last week from both freshmen and upper classmen. "Why would I want to go all the way to Bowling Green (it's a 3 hour drive) and watch us get killed?" "Half of Trinity's roster has already committed to D1 schools." "We have no chance."

You know what I heard from my son? "They're ranked #1, so if we win, we can call ourselves National Champions." That was the last thing he said to me before he went to school yesterday morning. He wasn't being ironic.

Our kids took the field with that attitude. Trinity has this whole gladiator-like routine they run through before the game. They walk out on the field two-by-two like an army. They have twice as many kids on their roster, so it's impressive. They do this call and response thing as they go through stretches like something out of 300.

Our kids didn't even know Trinity was on the field.

I took some pics of my son and his good friend during snap warm-ups. My son is the short snapper, and his friend is the long snapper. They were doing what they always do, getting loose, smiling, taking care of business. When they did look around, it wasn't at Trinity, but at the stadium. I could almost read their minds.

"Man, we are here!"

Our kids played with joy, recognizing that the moment they were in was huge. Those kind of moments come very few times in a person's life. Some of those kids will never again run out of a college tunnel in a big university stadium, but they did last night. The coach pulled a rabbit out of his hat on the first drive and sprung something on Trinity they hadn't seen in our film. Our David may have been ultimately defeated, but we drew first blood on Goliath. We showed them we wouldn't fall on our sword, and the kids were on top of the moon when we took it into the end zone. Whatever the final score, no one on our side of the stadium would have traded that moment for anything.

Our kids played hard. They went up against those mammoth linemen and kept their feet moving and strained with all of their might to make the block or the tackle. I was close enough to see our biggest offensive lineman's muscles straining with the effort on every single play.

Our kids played with heart. Several of our senior leaders went above and beyond the call, playing after they were hurt and inspiring their teammates to play hard. Our quarterback played after he was spitting up blood, and eventually had to be forced off the field by the coach. A senior defensive lineman and our best senior running back played on old injuries that should have kept them on the sidelines, but didn't. Trinity scored, and they went back out and played the next play hard.

When it was over, and I picked up my son and his friend at the school in the middle of the night, I didn't know what mood to expect. What I got was exuberance. Both of them had made blocks on kick returns that took a kid who has already committed to Alabama out of the play. (They had a lot of chances, because we had a lot of kick returns...lol.) They got to measure themselves against the best of the best, and they won the play a couple of times.

They even gloried in some of the ugly moments, in the way that only a true lover of the game can.

"Did you see that punt where I got laid out? Damn!" And they high fived. "Dude, that one d-tackle shooting the A gap..." They both shook their heads and grinned. It's like getting to go one on one with Michael Jordan. You take your licks, but man you're there!

They were there. They were on the field, and even when face down, staring at turf, they were having fun. And no matter how many times they were face down on the turf, they never quit. Not once. They. Never. Quit.

Through the first four games of the playoffs, Trinity had a total of 12 points scored on them. We scored 21.

There are two kinds of people in the world. The kind that say, "Why bother? We can't win." And the kind that say, "We have a chance to knock off the #1 team in the nation."

I'm inspired by my son and his team. You can't win if you don't show up and play. If these kids take that attitude into the rest of their lives, they will win more than they lose. Their lives will be rich with experiences that take them places other folks fear to go, and that, my friends, is a game worth playing.

Mojo

2011-11-30T21:25:00.004-05:00

Bruce leaves tomorrow for Montana to play in the NAIA national semi-finals. Young son leaves Friday for Bowling Green to play in the Kentucky 6A State Championship game. Bruce's undefeated season of glory will either end or stretch to one more game, the National Championship. Young son's undefeated season of glory will end either way, hopefully with a state championship ring.

Me? I'm a wreck just thinking about it.

Both of my guys have a significant challenge ahead of them. My son's team is playing powerhouse, Trinity High School out of Louisville. They are the #1 ranked high school football team in the nation. Bruce's team is playing Carroll College in Helena, Montana. They are the defending national champions and have never lost at home.

What am I doing? The only thing I can...cheering from the sidelines and pulling together every positive bit of mojo available to me. I obviously can't be in Bowling Green, Kentucky and Helena, Montana at the same time. Where do I go? Well, let's examine the mojo.

I haven't missed a single one of my son's games all year, and they haven't lost. I have watched Bruce play via live Internet streaming twice this year, once when they played in Kansas and once when they played in Mississippi. They won both games. The only logical conclusion is that I have to be at my son's game and root for Bruce from afar. (yeah, yeah...this was the only conclusion anyway, but it is supported by the mojo)

What will I be wearing on Friday night? The mojo says I need to wear blue jeans, my red Scott County hoodie, and my Georgetown football stadium jacket sized XXL. It's huge, but it's warm, and best of all, it's LUCKY. My only concern with Friday's wardrobe is my gloves. I have worn my black suede gloves with the faux fur trim for every cold weather game. Unfortunately, I lost one of them two weeks ago after the quarter final game in Louisville. Quite frankly, this worries me. I may very well go gloveless regardless of the temperature.

You think I'm kidding? Not even a little bit.

Saturday's wardrobe will include black jeans, a long sleeved Georgetown football t-shirt under either my orange or black Georgetown hoodie. Both have proved equally strong with the mojo as long as the t-shirt is underneath. I will also be wearing black underwear. Again, really not kidding. I would hate to jinx the whole damn thing by wearing the wrong pair of panties.

It could happen.

I will sit with my son's girlfriend at his game. She will sit on my right. I will hold my phone in my hand throughout the game. I might nervously check Facebook or post from time to time, but that's not where the mojo is. The mojo is in the phone itself. At no time during the game will it go into my purse.

Saturday, I will sit or pace nervously in my kitchen with the computer on the island. I will hold my clicker pom-pom from the 1999 National Championship game in my right hand, clicking furiously at pivotal moments in the game. I can't overstate the mojo that resides in that pom-pom. I've held onto it for 12 years, and bad things happen when it doesn't make it to a game with me. I've even withheld it from small children during close games.

I will yell a lot, prompting the dog to hide from me. My son might join me for a bit, but he generally can't be around me when I get like that, and that's okay. He and I never sit together at Bruce's games, and the mojo is good with that.

Bruce and my son have watched hours of film, practiced in every conceivable weather condition, absorbed their respective game plans until they know them better than their own names. Executing their game day responsibilities is as natural to them as breathing. In the end, do I really think that my clothing, what I'm holding, where I eat, what I eat, who I'm sitting with has anything to do with whether we win or lose?

You better believe it.

Go Cards!

Go Tigers!

What I know about your Thanksgiving

2011-11-28T21:44:00.001-05:00

Kids are honest, sometimes painfully so. If I have your kid in my class, I may have learned more about your Thanksgiving than you want me to know.

My Monday-after-Thanksgiving journal prompt is always the same. "Write about your Thanksgiving Break." We don't always share journals. It depends on what's going on in class that day and how relevant the prompt is to the lesson. I generally try to make them relevant, but sometimes, like today, the journal is an island unto itself.

The kids were in a sharing mood today...or more accurately, an oversharing mood. This is what I learned.

Alcohol creates interesting holiday situations

Aunt B's sister went Black Friday shopping wasted. She thought having a few drinks with friends before she went out would make the shopping more fun. My student said it was quite entertaining watching her list to the left as she pushed a cart through Walmart at 2am. Concerned, I asked if Aunt B's sister was driving.

"Only the cart in Walmart, but she ran into three people and knocked over a display of Pillow Pets."

There is no TV or laptop cheap enough to make me fight with drunk, crazy people in the middle of the night at Walmart. I don't think I would go if they were giving them away.

Speaking of Black Friday...

Another student and her mother were standing in line at Bath and Body Works when a rude woman pushed ahead of them and cut line. Not wanting to force a confrontation, my student's mother contented herself with taking the chewed gum out of her mouth and tossing it into the offender's purse. Following Mom's lead, the student also added her ABC gum to the lady's purse. That's keeping it classy.

One young man bragged that his grandmother called the salesman at Best Buy an asshole loud enough for everyone close by to hear. Again, keeping it classy. Anyone tempted to apply for a job in retail?

Thanksgiving dinner can be a minefield.

Getting political during the blessing is just gonna piss everyone off before they take their first bite of turkey.

Says a kid gleefully, "My dad thanked God for Rand Paul during the prayer. He went on so long my aunt slammed her silverware down and left the table. After she was gone, my dad said, Amen!"

The kid was very expressive as he recounted the story, making me think his imitation of his dad is probably spot on. I'm sure his dad would be amused...or not. I was amused.

Another kid, "My mom and her sister both brought corn pudding to my grandma's house. They were mad and yelled at you if you ate the wrong one."

"Whose did you eat?"

"My aunt's. My mom will get over it, and my aunt buys really good Christmas presents."

Mercenary or just good business?

My favorite line of the day..."I'm still sitting at the kid's table. Somebody's gonna have to die before I see the big table on Thanksgiving."

If I was that kid's grandma, I'd be looking over my shoulder.

And now for the good news..

"My aunt found out her cancer is in remission."

"My grandpa was released from the hospital."

"I got to see my cousins."

"I won the guitar I wanted on eBay."

"My mom got me a smartphone for free...well except for the data plan."

"My sister asked me to be the maid of honor in her wedding."

And finally, a cautionary tale

"My stepmom had a meltdown while she was cooking and cussed at everybody in the house. I thought it was hilarious. She apologized later."

Whatever you do or say in front of your kids or your family's kids will make it back to a teacher somewhere. And if I'm that teacher, I'm going to be thinking about it the next time we meet at an open house or a parent/teacher conference. Just saying...

I've Come a Long Way, Baby!

2011-11-22T16:11:00.004-05:00

This week marks the two year anniversary of my gall bladder attack. What a lovely thing to celebrate, huh? In fact, there was nothing lovely about the event. I went down on Thanksgiving night. My gall bladder was stone-riddled and so inflamed, I was admitted to the hospital for two days of intraveneous antibiotics. The following week, I was in surgery having it removed. If you're interested, you can read about it here.

I'm not actually celebrating the anniversary of getting sick. I'm celebrating the anniversary of deciding to get healthy.

Spending Thanksgiving break in the hospital and missing the following week and a half of school messed with my psyche in a big way. Compounding my angst was the bout with vertigo I had earlier that same year which caused me to miss the last two days of school. I wasn't even OLD yet, and I felt like I was falling apart.

Yeah, screw that.

Something clearly had to change, starting with my attitude. I was depressed. I had become extremely sedentary over the years, and while not obese by any stretch, I had packed on some extra pounds. I had no outlet for stress beyond chocolate and the occasional night out with friends.

The following January, a friend invited a whole group of us at school to go to Jazzercise with her on their annual One Day Sale. I've waxed lyrical about Jazzercise on several occasions, but I can't overstate how big a difference it has made in my life. I kept going back to class even when I was wheezing, sore, out of breath, out of shape, and just plain pathetic. Why? Because it was fun.

In any given class, you might dance to Britney, J.Lo, Rascal Flatts, an orchestral version of "Kashmir" with Slash on guitar, a Fall Out Boy cover of "Beat It", or "Put the Bass in your Walk" with RuPaul. I dare you to dance to that and not smile!

I did smile...a lot. The mental/emotional results were almost immediate. No matter how out of breath or sore I was, I felt better afterwards. My head was clearer. I slept better. I had more patience, and I pulled myself out of that "I'm falling apart" funk. The physical results weren't far behind the mental. Even without changing my eating habits, I started dropping weight. Burning more calories will do that. When I started dropping weight, I changed my eating habits. Success breeds success.

The strength training component of Jazzercise began to reshape my body and my self image. Feeling physically strong made me feel mentally strong. The rush that came with each milestone has stayed with me. I remember the first time I did a side plank without cheating. I remember the first real push-up I did. I can string together several in a row now. I've increased my hand weights by a total of 10 pounds since I started. Each success makes me want to push harder to get to the next milestone.

Last spring, I started running. The first time, it was because my son asked me to run with him. When my son requests my company with no strings attached, I try to oblige because it doesn't happen very often. Plus, it was cool that my son thought I could hang with him on a run. Honestly, I didn't hang very well, but I finished. I liked that I was in shape enough to finish, so I ran again. And again. And again.

In October, I ran the Race for the Cure in Lexington. It was my first 5K, and I finished under my goal time. Last week, I ran the Southern Lights Stroll, another local 5K. I ran two full minutes faster than my Race for the Cure time, and I did a happy dance in front of God and everybody when I crossed the finish line. I have set two long-term running goals for myself. I'm definitely going to run a 10K in the Spring, and maybe even do the Triple Crown in Louisville. That's a 5K, a 10K, and a 10 mile race each 2 weeks apart. I'd like to do a half marathon within a year.

Those goals are lofty, and I will have to work hard to achieve them, but here's the thing. I'm closer to those goals today than I was to where I am now two years ago. I've gone from sedentary, depressed, overweight, out-of-shape, in the hospital having organs removed to training for a half marathon.

The change came because I decided to make it. I'm a bit hard-headed, and it took a Thanksgiving in the hospital to get me there. This Thanksgiving, I will run before I sit down at the table with my family. I will go to Jazzercise on Friday morning and dance with my friends. I'm healthy and in shape, and for that, I am truly thankful.

Behind and Ahead

2011-11-14T22:26:00.002-05:00

I'm frustrated because I am behind on my NaNoWriMo word count. Seriously. I should be at 25,000 words tomorrow, and I'm at 17,043. Do the math. It's not pretty.

I'm thrilled because I've written 17,043 words in 13 days. That's 17,043 more new words than I've written in 6 months. AND I'm not stuck. I know what happens next. My characters are alive in my head and talking to me.

So why am I so far behind in my word count?

Let me show you my Monday...

5:20am -- Roll out of bed, throw on my workout clothes and head to 5:45 Jazzercise. Workout time is absolutely non-negotiable. It is my sanity. Sanity is worth losing a little sleep.

7:00am -- Home again. Shower, dress, attempt to wake the living dead, otherwise known as my sleeping son. The living dead is extra grumpy today. Hello Monday. He's congested, hacking up a lung, and dealing with a souvenir from Friday night's game in the form of a strained back muscle.

7:50am -- Leave for school without the living dead. Call doctor in route and make an appointment. This reminds me to call the vet to get Biscuit's insulin refilled. As soon as I hang up, I forget all about the insulin. WalMart's pharmacy will be closed when I remember it again.

8:05am -- Arrive at school where I immediately make arrangements for coverage of my third hour class as I will be taking the living dead to the doctor during that time. Answer emails, make copies, get bellringer and agenda on the board all while mainlining a 32 oz Diet Dr. Pepper.

8:45am -- Teach first hour.

9:45am -- My much needed planning period, but am I planning? No. I'm sprinting out the door to go raise the living dead. Drag him out of bed, yell repeatedly through the bathroom door that we are going to be late.

10:26am -- Arrive 6 min late to the doctor. They graciously get us in asap because they know I'm a teacher who should be teaching. In fact, the doctor's daughter is in my third hour class which is being covered by someone else. Negative strep test is good. Viral crud that can only be toughed out is not as good.

11:15am -- Arrive back at school where living dead shuffles off like he's walking the Green Mile. I sprint to the library and ask my colleague covering my class if we're still friends. Thankfully, we are.

11:15am - 3:45pm -- Teach my little heart out. My two sections of regular English were particularly awesome with a poignant reading on Emmett Till as we prepare for TKAM.

4:00pm -- Meet and greet in the library for our new interim principal.

4:30pm - 6:00pm -- Plan tomorrow's lesson because I was dealing with the living dead during my planning period. Didn't mind too much as I am ridiculously excited about starting TKAM.

6:00pm -- Pick up son at football practice. Yes, he is my son again. Nothing raises the dead like knocking the crap out of his teammates. Playoff round 3 is this week, so practice goes long. I catch up on Facebook and blog reading while I wait and wish I had my netbook in the car.

6:30pm -- Drive son from field house to trainer's office to get his back iced.

7:00pm -- Pull into my driveway where son realizes he doesn't have his phone. I call his phone, and one of his teammates answers. He's still in the trainer's office.

7:05pm -- Drive back to school. I know, I know. I should have made him wait until tomorrow to get the damn phone, but some battles aren't worth fighting. There's no glory in victory. Driving back was less hassle than living with a teenager who couldn't text or talk to his girlfriend for 12 hours.

7:06pm -- Call from Bruce who saw me pull into the driveway and then pull back out. He's starting dinner. There is a reason I love that man.

7:30pm -- Finally arrive back home. I actually get out of the car and into the house before I realize I haven't picked up the OTC meds the doctor recommended for the viral crud. I decide I can't face getting back into the car just yet. Help Bruce finish dinner and eat.

8:45pm -- WalMart to get meds. Remember I haven't picked up Biscuit's insulin, and the pharmacy is closed. Sigh.

9:15pm -- Do a load of laundry, read blogs, open my WIP.

10:00pm -- Close my WIP upon realizing my brain is totally fried. In an effort to write something, anything...compose a blog post complaining about being behind on my NaNo novel.

There you have it. I'm behind on my word count. I may or may not make it to 50,000 by November 30. Doesn't matter. I've written 17,043 words in 13 days. I know what comes next. I'm gonna finish this mother.

Victory is sweet indeed!

2011-11-12T23:48:00.008-05:00

We are a football family, and this weekend we are celebrating accomplishments worth bragging about.

My youngest son is a junior in high school. He plays guard on the offensive line and does all the short snapping for PAT's and field goals. He also long snaps on occasion. You don't think about the short or long snapper very often. His name doesn't get called. In fact, he's invisible unless he messes up. Then, everyone in the stadium knows who he is. I can say with pride, my son doesn't mess up very often.

Like any good football mom, I beam with pride every Friday night. However, my game day pride goes much deeper than my son's accomplishments on the gridiron. His success on the field every week is a visible, tangible marker of how far he's come in the last six months.

Suffice it to say, young son created some very big problems for himself last school year. Teenagers are wont to do that. Mothers of teenagers are wont to gray hair and bouts of stomach-turning anxiety. Up until the first practice in July, I didn't think I'd ever see him in a football uniform again, and honestly, that would have been okay if that's what he had wanted and not the mess he had made for himself.

To my son's credit, he accepted the consequences of his actions and cleaned up his mess. Things aren't perfect, but he's so far from where he was that I can only be thankful. Every Friday night when he runs out of that tunnel, my heart soars. The cherry on this wonderful cake is that his team is 12-0 and heading into the third round of the playoffs for the state championship. Regardless of whether the team reaches that goal, my family has already won.

An undefeated regular season is a rare, rare thing. I've been married to a football coach for 22 years, so I can say that with some authority. We have been blessed in that the losing seasons have come less often than the winning ones, but we went 2-9 four years straight and suffered the humiliation of losing a job over it. And yes, I do mean "we." Losing a job happens to the whole family.

I'm not complaining. Bruce chose to be a coach, and I chose to marry him. As our son learned this year, we live with the choices we make. And truly, being a football family has brought so much more joy than pain.

And an undefeated season is a rare, rare thing. Not only did my son get to experience that joy this year, but so did my husband. It's almost scary how long the odds are on that happening. I've been afraid to say it out loud up to this point out of fear that I might jinx something. Football families are a superstitious lot for sure.

I can say it now though, because tonight my husband's team won their final regular season game. 10-0.

You want to hear something even scarier?? My son played on the JV team all season as he earned his place in the rotation on the Varsity team. The JV team went 10-0.

My family has not experienced the sting of a loss on the football field since 2010.

It could come next week. After 22 years, I know that. There are only 16 6A teams still playing high school football in the state of Kentucky, so every game gets tougher, every win harder to come by.

Likewise, there are only 16 NAIA teams still playing football nationwide. Georgetown is ranked #3, but at this level of competition, everyone is good.

Tonight, I'm thankful for my football family. I'm thankful for what seeing my son in Cardinal red and white represents. I'm thankful for the blessing of winning, and the chance to play at least one more week.

Go Cards!

Go Tigers!

Oh, the humiliation...and other interesting stuff

2011-11-06T11:05:00.006-05:00

I'm cheating a little bit. I've pledged to post at least once a week, but instead of a full blown blog post, I'm mostly just giving you some links to follow. As expected, football on Friday night and Saturday pulled me out of writing mode. I'm behind on my NaNo word count, so I have some ground to make up today.

I did spend some time yesterday catching up on the 200+ blog posts and articles sitting in my Google Reader. I skimmed over a bunch of posts I might have read with more time on my hands, but in my NaNo frenzy, mostly just deleted. Two blogs are noteworthy, however, and if they aren't already in your daily blog roll, I highly recommend them.

For writers: Janice Hardy's "The Other Side of the Story" blog is amazingly helpful and instructive. Janice is the best kind of teacher. She takes difficult subject matter and makes it easy to understand. She discusses the nuts and bolts of writing, and I used her pre-NaNo series to plan my NaNo novel.

For everyone: John Scalzi's "Whatever" always entertains. He is a science fiction writer, but his blog is exactly what the title would imply, whatever is on his mind. He is a tremendously talented writer. I frequently laugh out loud while reading his posts, and when he wrote about the death of a beloved dog, wept unabashedly. I read a piece he wrote about September 11 to a couple of my classes who were getting ready to write personal narratives, and almost couldn't get through it because I choked up. In November, he has a series of Thanksgiving Advent posts where he blogs each day about what he's thankful for. He has written about air-conditioning, his ukulele, people who are good at what they do, and being a goofball, among other topics. He's worth a stop on your daily Internet wandering.

Last, but not least, is a link to article that actually made me stop, read closely, and think. The Rumpus solicited readers to send in short vignettes on the subject of humiliation. This article is a compilation of the best submissions. The pieces are in turn, funny, poignant and downright painful.

I considered writing my own companion vignette, but changed my mind. My excuse is that I need the time and writing energy for my NaNo book, but the true reason is I'm not willing to be as real as the writers who submitted were. Strangely, the compilation is not depressing. The editors were intentional in the way they ordered the pieces, and there is humor sprinkled liberally with the pain. The last piece is almost triumphant in that the author realizes she is only humiliated if she chooses to be.

Enjoy the links, and enjoy your Sunday!

I must be out of my mind!

2011-10-31T17:58:00.002-04:00

NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow, and as I map out a plan, I've decided I must be out of my mind. I've committed to write 50,000 words in one month.

The two novels I actually completed took 8 and 13 months respectively. Granted they were both in the 100,000 word range, but still...

To hit the 50,000 word mark by November 30, I'll have to average 1,667 words a day. That's the equivalent of about 6 1/2 pages. As I step up to the plate, my internal naysayer is chattering away like a Little Leaguer in the outfield.

November is not only football season, it's freaking playoff season! My son's high school team finished their regular season 10-0 and has a strong chance of making it all the way to the state championship game. My husband's college team is 8-0 with two regular season games remaining and expects to make a deep run in the NAIA championship series.

These are not problems. In fact, November looks to be an exciting month for my family. I plan to carry my netbook around like an extra appendage.

I'll still be going to work every day. School is funny like that. They expect teachers to show up every day prepared to teach. And in about a week, I'm starting a novel with two of my classes that I haven't taught since I was a student teacher many moons ago. I've already done a ton of prep work for the unit, but daily lesson planning will still take time.

Honestly, this concerns me less than the football time suck. My NaNo plan already has the work day blocked out as non-writing time, and discussing a great book (To Kill a Mockingbird) with my kids gets the creative juices flowing and puts me in a writing frame of mind.

In spite of my ever-present internal naysayer, I'm excited about the challenge. I've got a rough plot outline I LOVE, characters I want to get to know better, and a world to create. I view NaNo as a kick in the butt to get me back on a regular writing schedule. The final product will be longer than 50,000 words, so I'm not stressed about finishing the whole thing. A solid start will be enough to knock me out of this slump.

My word count meter is over there on the right, so you can follow my progress and cheer me on. So...on your mark....get set...

GO!

Lies of the Beautiful People

2011-10-27T07:56:00.010-04:00

I run because it makes me feel strong. It keeps me sane.

As I've increased my distance, I've had to add songs to my running playlist. This isn't something I take lightly. Both the tempo and the tone have to be just right, and the song has to fit with the rest of the playlist. I recently added Sixx:A.M's "Lies of the Beautiful People."

The tempo is perfect. Jazzercise has conditioned me...right foot on the downbeat...so, too fast or too slow, and a song is counterproductive because it drives me crazy. The tone of "Lies" is perfect as well. I need motivation when I run. My songs all have an in-your-face quality to them. The guitar provides that in this song.

I ran to this song for the first time on Tuesday. I put it third on my playlist. By then, I have a comfortable pace going. I'm not tired yet, and my mind is either processing the day or chewing on a writing idea. I'm still breathing easy enough that I can sing, and I do. The song started with that driving guitar, my right foot landed perfectly on the downbeat, and I felt pure synchronicity. I sang because I felt good and because the chorus has a strong enough hook that you almost have to sing along.

I probably should have kept mentally chewing on the writing idea. The words to the song (which I knew, but hadn't thought too much about) pulled me almost completely out of my zone.

Here's the song if you want to take a minute to listen.

If you think real beauty's on the outside,
well that's a far cry from the truth.

I run because it makes me feel strong. It keeps me sane.

Running also keeps me from indulging my frustrations in fried food and chocolate. I'm losing weight. The jeans that thrilled my soul when I bought them last winter because they were a size smaller won't stay in place now without a belt. I'm so close to dropping another size, I can almost taste it.

Maybe all the information you received
You should not believe
There's no proof

My natural hair color is brown. I was a brunette until I was in my mid-twenties. I started dying it then because I wanted to see if blondes really had more fun. (I can only speak for myself, but I've had more fun as a blonde.) I still dye it because it hides the gray strands that would contrast too sharply with brown. And I like being blonde.

Save Yourself
From all the lies of the beautiful people

I'm religious about moisturizing my face, morning and night. I spring for expensive under-eye cream. I'm not ready for baggy eyes and crow's feet.

It's time to run
From all the lies of the beautiful people

I write romance. My heroines are strong, independent women, and while I don't focus too much on their physical appearance, it's easy to infer they are attractive. In my head they are anyway. My Raphael in Sapphire Sins was from the Italian Renaissance, and so I described him as the living incarnation of something Michelangelo would have sculpted.

And if you think real beauty's on the outside,
well that's a far cry from the truth.

I can rationalize. I'm rather good at it actually. Romance is about selling fantasy. You want to touch real life enough to sell it, but not close enough that the story is mundane. We're all pretty in our fantasies, right? Men are strong alpha males who respect our independence, defeat evil, and rock our worlds all at the same time. And they're not ugly.

Besides...the men I find sexy in real life aren't the living incarnation of something Michelangelo would have sculpted. Sexiness starts with intelligence. You can see it in a person's eyes, hear it in their wit. Sexiness lives in confidence. A man who knows who he is, even if strange or different, is sexy.

But we've got these ugly scars
On our infected hearts
Maybe it's time for a change

So yeah, I am working to be thinner. I will remain blonde for the foreseeable future and wrinkle-free for as long as possible. Saying anything else would be a lie. But I'm working on the inside too. The inside is where those years I'm hiding in my hair and on my face really live.

I have used those years to build relationships. I struggle daily to be a good mother to my boys. I never stop trying to improve as a teacher. I've taken on challenges that scare me, both as a teacher and a writer.

The driving guitar stops abruptly. Eminem shakes me out of my mental self-flagellation, admonishing me to keep running "Till I Collapse."

And I run because it makes me feel strong. And it keeps me sane.

Straight, but not Narrow

2011-10-23T13:51:00.004-04:00

Happy Sunday! As promised...new content on the blog!

So what have I been doing with all this time I haven't been writing? Lounging on the couch eating bon-bons and watching soap operas? I'm not even sure what a bon-bon is, and I think all the old soaps my mom used to watch have been cancelled, so no, but I've found there are tons of things to do when you're avoiding something, and some of them are even worthwhile.

Our high school offers a wide variety of clubs...Youth Impact, Rocket Club, Spanish, German, French, and Japanese Clubs, Drama, Key Club, Young Democrats, Young Republicans, Chess Club, Art Explorers, Psychology Club, and the alphabet soup clubs, FFA, FCA, FCCLA, BETA, DECA, FBLA, FEA. There are more, but I honestly can't remember them all. Our school is even more accommodating in that we provide time during the school day once a month for these clubs to meet. Participation isn't limited to those who can stay after school and get a ride home.

The club list keeps growing because students are continually thinking of new ones to add, and as long as they can find a teacher to be the club sponsor, they're good to go. This year we added a Hantis club. (Yeah, I didn't know what Hantis was either until the club produced a promotional video. Imagine ping-pong on steroids.) A group of kids discovered it, rounded up a teacher-sponsor, and now play Hantis on club day.

Another group of kids wanted to form a club at the end of last year, but they had a more difficult time getting it off the ground. They wanted to create a local GSA, or Gay-Straight Alliance. The group was small at first. Pop culture messages notwithstanding, it's hard to be gay or even a vocal supporter of gay rights in high school.

The administration told them the same thing they tell every group of students who want to form a school-sanctioned club. Find a teacher willing to be your sponsor, and this is where they ran into trouble. Many teachers supported the idea, but for various and sundry reasons said no.

Some were simply too busy. Club sponsorship is one more demand on a teacher's time.

Some were too new. Regardless of how you feel about tenure, it does provide a measure of protection. Without it, a teacher can be dismissed without cause. I like to believe in the better angels of human nature and in the people I know to be of good character in our administration, but yeah, it's easier to believe in those things because I have tenure.

The group was unsuccessful in finding a willing teacher before school ended, but they were undaunted. Over the summer, they grew in number. They elected officers and determined to meet in the evenings at the public library if they couldn't find a sponsor. The leaders of the group are honors students taking AP classes and involved in a variety of other activities including band, chorus, drama, and sports. They even contacted the local newspaper.

Meanwhile, a couple of teachers who had declined sponsorship quietly sent the students in my direction. "Mrs. Owens has tenure and would probably be supportive of your cause." They came to see me the day the newspaper printed the article about their plight.

I didn't say yes immediately. I knew the club was a good thing. I knew the student leaders were exceptional kids. I also knew I was busy. I meet myself coming and going on a regular basis, but if I'm being honest, busy wasn't the reason I hesitated. I wasn't afraid for myself. I knew I might take some heat, but I'm a big girl. I have a good reputation as a teacher, support from administration, and yes, tenure. I can take the heat. I hesitated for 24 hours because my youngest son is still in high school. I wondered if he would have to take heat for my decision, if he could handle it, and if it was even fair for him to have to handle it.

In the end, I decided I wasn't doing my son or anyone else a favor by saying no when my conscience knew the only answer was yes. Studies vary on the suicide rate among gay teens, but most indicate that it is higher among gay teens than their straight peers. I don't need the statistics.

Darren Hall is not a statistic. He was my friend. We both played trumpet in our high school band, and we battled every year for first chair. He always won, and even with my psychotically competitive nature, I was okay with that. He was flat out better than me. He never rubbed it in though. In fact, he gave me helpful hints on how to improve.

We were in school plays together. He played my dad in our senior production of "The Rainmaker." He had to shake his finger at me, and it took everything both of us had to stay in character. Neither of us could take that pretend relationship seriously.

At 17, he totalled his Honda. I was sitting right next to him, straddling the gearshift because we had way too many people in that tiny car. His car was trashed, but his only concern was whether I was okay.

Our senior year, we went to prom together. We had a ball...way more fun than I had with the guy I was actually dating my sophomore and junior years. Darren and I were best friends.

We mostly ran with a whole pack of friends, but we went on "dates" sometimes too. The one kiss we shared ended with both of us laughing hysterically. It was so obviously wrong. We never used the word "gay." It was 1983, and coming out of the closet in our Kentucky town just wasn't done. I took a lot of heat off of him our senior year. Most people thought we were dating. I was fine with that. He was good-looking, smart, hilarious, and easy to be with. Heck, I wanted him to be straight. He would have been the perfect boyfriend.

His parents wanted him to be straight too. They were evangelical Christians. They viewed homosexuality as a burn-in-hell sin. Our last year in high school, I took the heat off with them. They loved me because they thought I had "fixed" Darren. I will never forgive them for believing that Darren needed to be fixed. He was one of the best people I have ever known, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did not choose to be gay.

Before we went off to different colleges, Darren and I made a pact. If we were both still single at 30, we'd get married. He was nervous about leaving. I had been a safety net in high school, and I think he imagined me being a safety net for the rest of his life. I wasn't, and our pact was never realized. I wasn't single when I reached 30, and Darren was dead. He put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger long before he reached that milestone.

Darren's upbringing and his own parents taught him that his very existence was an abomination. The love of his friends wasn't enough to overcome that message. Writing this many years later, I still feel the weight of that guilt.

I feel guilty that it took me 24 hours to say yes to the awesome kids in our school's GSA. I did say yes, though. We currently have almost 80 members and we're still growing. My kids have created a support network for their peers who are feeling alone and lost. They are planning an "It gets Better" video and a "Straight, but not Narrow" video. They have big plans for "Day of Silence" in the spring. And on top of all of that, they are giving back to the community. They are collecting cans for our school's big Thanksgiving food drive and have a Toys for Tots plan in the works.

I am proud of my kids, especially the brave few that stepped out on a limb and made this club happen by sheer force of will. I can't change the past. I can't bring Darren back. I can honor his memory by doing everything in my power to make kids see their value as human beings. If someone has a problem with that, I have three words.

Bring it on.

Evolution of an Idea and NaNoWriMo

2011-10-16T11:39:00.006-04:00

Change has been on my mind a lot lately. Personal struggles in my life have dictated changes. You either change or you keep struggling. In the past six months, I've been a fan of change. Then, last week I discovered I was losing my boss to another school.

I was in turn, angry, sad, and a little scared. Anyone who's ever worked for an incompetent leader knows the value of a good one. My principal was a good one. I don't know who his replacement is yet. I can only hope it's another good one, but yeah, I'm a little scared.

His departure got me thinking. Maybe something's wrong with me. I've stayed in the same place and the same job for 13 years.

I don't feel stagnant. I have a different set of kids every year, and while I've essentially taught the same pieces of literature, I've changed it up with new approaches. And every single year, without fail, a kid has said something in class that makes me step back, blink, and think, "Damn, I've never thought about it that way."

Those moments make me realize that yes, some changes are necessary, but others would not only be counterproductive, but just plain wrong. I'm a teacher. It's not merely a label describing how I make my living. It's who I am as a human being, an unalterable link in the chain of my DNA.

So change, or the lack thereof, has been on my mind. I sat down Thursday thinking I wanted to write a short story about change. Broad, I know, and honestly, isn't EVERY story about change? So maybe my story was going to be about resisting necessary change...you know, the kind that addresses those personal struggles I mentioned earlier.

You don't hook readers with a theme. You hook them with a good story. I needed characters. I needed conflict. I needed a story.

One of my favorite places to go for ideas is a list of famous quotations. You can search by theme or topic. I searched "change." This jumped off the page.

He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects change is the cemetery. ~Harold Wilson

Yes! My story would be set in a cemetery.

One of the changes I've made recently in response to my personal struggles is running. Ironic really, since an utter distaste for running in high school threatened my PE grade and subsequently, my GPA. In middle age, I've found solace, mental health, and the confidence to handle a myriad of problems in running. Some evenings, I literally run until the day's frustration is gone.

My protagonist is running in a cemetery. She does this regularly. At night.

Who runs in a graveyard at night? I needed to write to discover the answer to that question, so I opened a new Word document. My pulse always speeds up when I have the seed of an idea and a blank page. New and exciting...anything is possible.

This is what I wrote:

The hair stood up on the back of Heather's neck as she jogged through a pocket of cold air. Running through the cemetery made her feel like a horror movie bimbo. All she needed was high heels and a poorly-timed ankle twist, and the zombies would descend on her for a midnight snack of brains and girl flesh.

Right on cue, a melodious voice broke the silence of the dead.

"High heels would be a nice change of pace. I've grown bored with your
Nikes and t-shirt du jour."

Heather maintained a steady rhythm. "Zombies would be a nice change of
pace."

"You've never met a real zombie. They're an unruly lot."

OH SNAP!!

I wrote three more pages without stopping. I finally did stop because while I had a fun scene going, I needed to think about what happened next. I discover my characters by actually writing them, but I don't plot well that way. I end up following dead ends. I have a folder full of unfinished manuscripts as a testament to that approach.

As I sketched out a plot, I realized I wasn't planning a short story. It was going to be longer than that. Okay...

My mind wandered back to the aforementioned folder of unfinished manuscripts, some of them 15,000 words or more. I have not finished a manuscript since my agent went out of the agent business and said, "You have a good book. Sorry I couldn't place it with the right publisher."

That was the precipitating event, but I'm not blaming him. I'm the one who slumped.

It's time to get unslumped. I'm going to run with my new idea as part of NaNoWriMo in November. Honestly, I'm starting now, and I don't expect to be finished by the end of November. I have work and family responsibilities that preclude the daily word count necessary to do that. HOWEVER, I am using NaNo to hold me responsible for sitting down and getting words on the page.

As part of holding my writer self accountable, I'm also getting regular content back up on the blog. Nowhere is my slump more evident than in the long gaps between posts. I pledge to you faithful blog reader who cared enough to read this far, I will post a minimum of once a week. I hope to do more than that, but I have to start with an achievable goal.

This is the NaNoWriMo badge that I will be posting to the blog, along with a word count widget.

I'm taking a big, deep breath. A journey of 1000 miles starts with the first step.

Rock on!

2011-09-25T12:15:00.009-04:00

So I've neglected the blog for a couple of months, but this past week I had an experience that was awesome enough that I'm inspired to share.

I saw the Foo Fighters live!!

I know. I know. You're thinking, "Big whoop, Kathy," or some approximation of that.

Except, I SAW THE FOO FIGHTERS LIVE!!

Concerts are outrageously expensive these days. Several times over the last couple of years, Bruce and I have talked about going to this concert or that, and then we saw the ticket prices. We weighed dropping a bundle of cash on tickets, parking, gas (the best shows are never close), food and drink, and of course, the requisite concert t-shirt. Every single time, we decided the show would probably be good, but we just weren't big enough fans to do it.

None of those bands were The Foo Fighters.

I've been a fan for a long time. Before Wasting Light was released in April, I already had more Foo Fighters' songs on my iPod than any other artist's. I haven't bought an artist's whole album since digital download happened, and I wasn't forced to buy the whole thing to get the songs I wanted. Consequently, I didn't have whole Foo Fighters albums, although I did have bits and pieces from every album they had ever released. I saw a documentary on the making of Wasting Light a week before it dropped and promptly bought it on April 12. I don't even remember the last whole album I bought before that.

I rediscovered why buying a whole album is awesome. Some of the best songs aren't the ones released on the radio. "Rope" was the first song released for radio and it's not close to my favorite on the album. I love "Bridge Burning," "Arlandria," "I Should Have Known" and my current favorite "Dear Rosemary."

But I digress...

After I fell head over heels in love with the album, I knew I HAD to see them live. The first tour dates released were big festivals and European dates, however, on Facebook, they kept promising more US dates. I checked back almost every day. (Yes, I'm obsessive when I like something.) Finally, FINALLY, they announced a series of dates in the Midwest that included Columbus, Ohio, only three hours away. Yeah, it was on a Thursday and in the middle of football season (I am a teacher married to a college football coach), but I didn't care.

I found one awesome friend who was willing to throw caution and responsibility to the wind and drive to Columbus with me on a school night. We drove the three hours to Columbus blaring Foo Fighters the whole way, and even fighting construction traffic in Cincinnati, it didn't feel like three hours. We got there early and hit the sports bar across the street for appetizers and drinks. Everyone in the place was going to the concert, and the bar was rockin. I was giddy, euphoric, a kid on Christmas.

Sometimes the anticipation of something is better than the thing itself.

Not this time. Oh hell, no. Not this time.

Holy cow...holy smoke...holy shit! They were everything I wanted them to be. From the first chords of "Bridge Burning" to the last dying chords of "Everlong" (yes, they closed with "Everlong"...goosebumps!), the music was Oh my freaking God AWESOME!

They played for three plus hours. They played every single song I wanted to hear, both old and new. Dave Grohl's voice was perfect in spite of being on tour for months already. The band rocked! The Foo Fighters are no record-company-studio-synthesized-Frankenstein's monster. They can PLAY!

I sang until I was hoarse. I danced like a crazy woman. The next day, I felt like I had been in a car wreck. I know I had a mild case of self-inflicted whiplash. I danced my credit card right out of my pocket and lost it. I danced with my friend. I danced with total strangers...except in that moment, they weren't strangers. They were kindred spirits riding a rock and roll high with me.

That high has lasted. It carried us through the wrong turn that took us to Dayton at 1:30 in the morning instead of south to Cincinnati. It sustained me through the annoyance of cancelling my credit card, apparently right before some moron tried to pay his cell phone bill with it. It gave me the strength to teach my classes the next day on three hours sleep. Yeah, I went to work. I'm badass like that...lol.

For one glorious evening, I let every worry and responsibility go and rocked. I'm including a video I took of "Times Like These." There are better ones on YouTube, but this is mine. Dave starts out acoustically at the back of the arena and then runs back to the main stage. At that point, I kinda forgot I was recording and started dancing again, so I apologize for the camera work. It doesn't really matter though...all that matters is the music.

Rock on!

Inspiration, Perspiration and Beginnings

2011-07-29T14:36:00.006-04:00

Before I write I let my mind go blind and let the lord do his thing. ~~Tupac

I admire Tupac's writing, and I have had those glorious moments where the world dissolves around me and I'm in the writing zone. More often though, I've found myself in Thomas Edison's camp. Writing, like genius, is more perspiration than divine inspiration, and nothing requires more work than a good beginning.

Do you read the first page of a book before you decide to buy it or check it out of the library? Without a recommendation from someone whose taste I trust, I do. Either the writer is going to hook me right away, or I’m going to choose something else. I might miss a few good stories, but usually, a meandering opening is the beginning of a meandering plot.

Rooting around in my old files, I found a story I wrote in 2002. The title was “Jumping Rails,” and honestly, the beginning wasn’t good. I described the weather. It was raining.

It was raining outside again. For almost a week now, it had been dark and dreary. The only variation in the weather had been in the intensity of the rain. Yesterday’s cold drizzle had become today’s blinding downpour. Abby peered out of the store’s plate glass window, but could see no farther than the edge of the sidewalk. There was nothing to see anyway. No one was coming out in this mess.

Good ole mood-setting description. If it’s done well, it can work, but honestly, this is meh. The problem here is that not only does nothing happen, but we also get no sense of who Abby is. A beginning should draw you into the story immediately. All we have here is a girl staring into the rain.

I wrote this story for a creative writing class, and when I started, I was drawing a blank, so I described the rain. I do this a lot actually. I describe my way into a story, establishing setting, mood and character until I find a plot thread to follow. My beginnings change dramatically during the revision process, and this story clearly needs more work.

Sometimes I don’t find a plot thread, or I hit a dead end. My files are littered with false starts. I got 15,000 words into Wish Fulfillment before becoming hopelessly stuck.

Rose stared at the clock on the wall. It mocked her, refusing to move. Maybe the batteries were dead. Maybe the gears had frozen. Maybe time had stopped, and she would be trapped in her cubicle forever, locked with her computer in a 3x2 teal fabric prison cell.

Her computer chimed, interrupting her macabre fantasy and informing her she had a new email. She clicked it open and winced. Shit. Rose had promised Solomon a week ago she would have lunch with him, but she had put him off several times since then, citing work as an excuse.

He was apparently tired of her excuses.

Even unedited, this is better than the first example. I’ve included mood-setting description, but it’s interwoven with characterization and a bit of the conflict is introduced immediately.

The opening to Sapphire Sins got full manuscript requests and ultimately an agent.

The rickety staircase spiraled down into the gloom. Diana hesitated. Heading deeper into the darkness seemed foolish now. She glanced over her shoulder at the exit and considered slipping back through it. The crisp night air beckoned, the lights of Manhattan tantalizingly close on the other side of the river. Those lights might as well have been 1,000 miles away.

Her pursuer lurked somewhere in the maze of old warehouses. His soft laughter had echoed between the abandoned buildings, an acoustic anomaly making it seem as though he was right beside her. She shivered at the memory, grateful now for the darkness.

Discretion is the better part of valor, Di. Hide until morning.

Mood setting description, characterization, conflict and action make an appearance in the first three paragraphs. I lost count of how many times I rewrote them. I do remember the first incarnation was a long paragraph juxtaposing the rickety staircase against the lights of Manhattan. I knew my heroine was being chased, but I didn’t know her yet, and I didn’t know who she was running from and why. Once I answered those questions, I eliminated the blind searching I was doing on the page and moved the story forward.

The first two paragraphs of my untitled WIP contain…you guessed it…mood-setting description.

The dim light of the bar suited her. The corner table suited her even more. She was virtually invisible, drinking her margarita rocks in almost solitude.

Almost solitude was perfect, exactly what she wanted. She could sling back tequila, triple sec, and a smidge of sweet flavoring and convince herself she wasn’t drinking alone without the bother of conversing with actual people.

I realize this is my fall back position when I start a story. I’m not concerned at this point, though. I have a firm grasp on the plot thread, and I’m making forward progress. When I have a completed draft, I’ll circle back around and rewrite it. Starting strong is so much easier when you know where the finish line is.

Guess which part of this blog post I wrote last? Yep...the first three paragraphs.

The Divine Self

2011-06-30T13:54:00.005-04:00

Real life and my WIP inspired me to write a poem. Read it left to right and then read each column top to bottom.

We create

our own

Heaven

We create

our own

Hell

Turn not

in anger
But

with patience
Meet

hate

with love
Face

pain

with compassion

In strength
Fight

despair

In hope
Resist

bitterness

Know peace

Sucky Solstice

2011-06-22T17:21:00.004-04:00

The Solstice was rough this year. I felt like I was in one of Jessica Andersen's Nightkeeper books where major shit hits the fan on cardinal days. The first day of summer began with a dispute involving my car and a deer. Both believed they had right-of-way. The deer won, crossing safely while my car got up close and personal with a tree.

You haven't really lived until you've experienced airbag deployment. For a pure adrenaline rush, not much comes close. They should make it a ride at King's Island or something. I'll bet people would line up to experience that life-flashing-before-your-eyes sensation.

Other than a headache and a bit of psychological trauma, everyone is fine. My car...not so much. The body shop guy doesn't think it's totaled, but the insurance adjuster hasn't made his determination yet. If my guy is correct, I'll be waiting 2-3 weeks for my car to be repaired.

Sigh.

I've been driving my son's car for the last 24 hours. It's been a year since I've driven it, and I forgot how to turn his subs off. (If you're new to my blog, you need to read this post and this post about my son's massive sub-woofers.) I created quite a stir this morning at Chick-fil-A when I hit the wrong button in an attempt to mute the stereo. I'm pretty sure I rattled the plate glass windows.

I also discovered the A/C isn't working. When I asked my son about it, he just shrugged and said, "I roll down the windows."

Of course he does. How else would the rest of the world get to experience "that sick drop on the Waka Flocka Flame song." Young son was with me today and made certain everyone on the east side of town felt it. He wants to ride everywhere with me now so he can play with his brother's system. I'm usually glad to have his company. Now I'm finding reasons why he should stay home.

"And oh yeah, Mom, the brake lights are out on my car."

So I get to fix his A/C and brake lights in addition to the $500 deductible on my car.

Sigh.

So yeah, I had my very own Solstice drama. In Jessica's Nightkeeper books, a badass hero helps the badass heroine find the power to defeat whatever demon is threatening. Bruce helped me get the car to the body shop, but I dealt with the actual accident myself. I didn't panic in the face of airbags and a tree. I made sure everyone was okay and got my car back home. All things considered, I'd call that badass.

If you're snooty, you lose

2011-06-17T15:02:00.003-04:00

I attended The Festival of the Bluegrass last weekend. My friend, Linda, has been trying to get me there for years. Her family organizes and operates the whole shebang. As much as I love Linda, I don’t love bluegrass music, so I’ve always begged off. This year, I caved, mostly because I decided it would be fun to hang with my friends regardless of the music playing in the background. And it was. This particular group of friends makes any Saturday night fun.

The sun was setting when we arrived, and the hot day softened into a warm June night. We set up our lawn chairs close to the back of the concert area and relaxed with our favorite beverages. Someone succumbed to the aroma and bought a funnel cake, and we took turns brushing powdered sugar off our clothes. (Those things smell so much better than they taste.) We laughed, shared stories, and made friends with the folks around us.

A funny thing happened while we were sitting there. The music became more than background noise. Bluegrass musicians are storytellers, and I love a good story. A good storyteller compels you to sit up and pay attention. I started paying attention when the lyrics made me laugh.

Grandma bought a hog
Grandma bought a hog
If yer thinkin’ bout bacon
Yer sadly mistaken
Grandma bought a riding hog

How can you not pay attention to a song about a Harley-ridin’ grandma? That gem was followed by “I Met My Baby in the Port-a-John Line.”

My eyes were a-floatin’ with love on my mind
I met my baby in the Port-o-John line.

As we were chuckling about the lyrics, Rachel told us her dad had been in a bluegrass band, and so she has a warm place in her heart for bluegrass music. She told us stories about traveling to gigs all over with him when she was a kid. Not a bad way to grow up, meeting new people and listening to amazing musicians.

The lyrics weren’t all silly. The bands I heard played songs about love and loss, joy and pain, faith and hope. The crowd loved them, and if I didn’t love them, I certainly let go of the snooty disdain I had secretly fostered when we first set our chairs down.

Then Mountain Heart took the stage. Holy cow! To say that I enjoyed their music would be a huge understatement. They were flippin’ incredible! Their music was as high octane as anything I’ve ever heard. I couldn’t sit still. I had to dance. On Linda’s suggestion, I moved with her to her reserved seats on the front row. Bluegrass fans are different from rock fans in that the staid old people have the front row seats and aren’t much for dancing. Security insisted that we stay seated so the staid old people could see. (Maybe they weren’t all old, but their insistence on church-like decorum made them seem that way.) Luckily, there were plenty of fans of all ages in the middle aisle who felt the music like I did and needed to dance. I was embraced by those folks and danced my little heart out.

Linda told me later that Mountain Heart wouldn’t be back next year. Their music is just different enough from traditional bluegrass that a lot of the hard core Festival-goers don’t like them, so they are rotating them out, and then bringing them back the following year. Apparently, some of the fans actually left the concert area in protest and didn’t return until their set was finished.

I was dumbfounded. While I heard other good bands, none of them brought it like Mountain Heart did. They actually made me say out loud, “I think maybe I do like bluegrass music.”

I let go of my snooty attitude when I sat and listened to live bluegrass, and then I embraced the music when I heard Mountain Heart play. Unfortunately, the next person won’t get that chance, at least for a couple of years, because a core group of fans has an equally snooty idea about what bluegrass should be.

How often do unyielding, preconceived ideas about what is good get in our way? As a romance reader and writer, I run into it all the time. If it’s romance it must be trashy and poorly-written. Romance fans know that snooty idea is wrong-headed on so many levels, and yet it persists.

My friend, Nick, posted an Esquire Magazine article on Facebook that listed Kentucky as one of the most stylish states in the Union. The comments on his post ranged from incredulous to derisive, and we live in Kentucky. The snooty stereotype that we’re all a bunch of overall-wearing rubes runs so deep, we’ve internalized it ourselves. I haven’t worn overalls since the 80’s when they were stylish for five minutes.

I’ve resolved to be less snooty about things I think I don’t like, especially if I don‘t really know anything about them. What else have I missed out on because it doesn’t fall into a Kathy-approved category?

If you don’t know Mountain Heart, check out the video below. It’s good, but it doesn’t hold a candle to hearing them live. For my Owensboro friends and family, they are playing this Friday night at Yellow Creek Park. Go check them out. I promise you won’t regret it.

Are you a Back Row Joe?

2011-06-11T16:47:00.002-04:00

I had a moment of self-awareness this week. I suppose it’s something I’ve always known about myself, but I saw it in terms I’d never thought about before.

I am a front row person.

I realized this in a Jazzercise class. My spot is on the front row and has been since the second or third month I started taking classes. I generally don’t look behind me once class starts because I’m focused on my own workout, but Amanda, the instructor, made a comment that caused me to turn around.

“You guys crack me up. Why is there always a huge gap in the middle of the floor?”

When I turned around, I laughed too. Seven or eight of us were at the front of the long narrow studio, followed by an open space, and then 15-20 more people in the back. It almost looked like we were segregated, and in a sense, I guess we were. Except in this case, the segregation was self-imposed and not based on any external trait.

Some people are front row people. You know if you're one of them. Do you hate being a nameless faceless member of the crowd? Do you want to interact with whomever is in the lead? Do you need to feel like you are part of the action? If you answered yes to these questions, then you are a front row person.

Don’t give me this line. “I like the front row just fine, but I’m not very good, so I stay in the back.” Sorry. You are not a front row person.

A true front row person wants the front row even when she’s not the best in the room. I make regular mistakes in the choreography, but I’m not worried about what the people behind me think. I honestly don’t care. I can’t focus on my workout and the writing I’m always doing in my head if I’m looking past people to see the instructor.

There is a gal with whom I frequently share the front row. She’s hilarious, and I love working out with her, but holy cow, she couldn’t find the beat if it bit her on the ass. I say this affectionately because she knows this about herself. When she can’t get the choreography, she makes it up. She has a glorious time working out and doesn’t give a rat’s patoot about the people behind her. She is a front row person.

Given the choice, from Kindergarten through grad school, I always sat in the front row in class. I wanted to hear what the teacher had to say, see the board, be noticed when I raised my hand. And no, I wasn’t that obnoxious kid who always kept asking questions when everyone else wanted to go. I had social skills. I wanted friends. I knew when to shut up, but I felt disengaged in the back. When I chose a back row seat, it was because the class was so boring being disengaged was a natural extension of being in the room.

The front row students in my classes always make themselves known. When the luck of the seating chart puts them in the back, they quietly come to me and ask my permission to sit closer to the front. I try to accommodate them because I understand their frustration. Unless I arrive late and have to sit in the back, I don't. Usually though, showing up late guarantees a front row seat because the world is filled with back row people.

Back row people fall into two general categories: Don’t wanna be noticed or Don’t wanna be caught. When I voluntarily sit in the back row, it’s because I don’t wanna be caught. If I’ve become disengaged enough that I don’t care anymore, I want to daydream, text, write, grade papers, plan lessons, plan blogs, etc., etc. without getting caught. The one place I always sat in the back row as a kid was in church. Speaks volumes, doesn’t it?

Other back row people don’t want to be noticed. These folks are not necessarily disengaged. They just don’t have the confidence to actively participate. The kid who struggles or is simply unprepared sits on the back row as does the kid who would rather eat glass than have the bright light of the class’ attention focused on him. I’ve seen kids in my class and fellow jazzercisers drift closer to the front as they gain confidence in their abilities.

I know I’m not the best at everything I do. In some areas, it’s not even a close thing, but I have always been driven to try. I’m a competitive, self-driven, type A personality. I hate to fail. It just pisses me off and pushes me harder. I’m pretty sure these qualities are what make me a front row person.

So I guess I’ve outed myself to my friends and colleagues. If they see me on the back row, I’m either late or I’m trying to get away with something.

Yeah, I'm a Fangirl. So what?

2011-06-07T22:00:00.005-04:00

Jessica Andersen, paranormal romance author, molecular geneticist, and all around rock star, has a new book out. Storm Kissed is the next Nightkeepers book, a paranormal series built around the Mayan 2012 Doomsday Prophecy. In honor of her release day today, I'm reprinting part of my Day Four blog from last summer's RWA conference.

I met Jessica three different times that day and actually had a real conversation with her at the Rita awards dinner. So, yeah, I'm a total fangirl, and I make no apologies. She's awesome.

from RWA Day Four
The coolest part of the NAL/Signet autograph session was meeting Jessica Andersen. She writes the NightKeepers, a paranormal series about the Mayan 2012 myth. I already had the book she was giving away at home, but I took another copy because I wanted her autograph. I gushed like the fangirl I am and asked specific questions about the book. I knew Jessica was a good writer, but I didn't know she was a freakin' rock star. Seriously, she looks like Joan Jett, but prettier.

I was more impressed when I went to her workshop called "Crime Scene Imagination." Jessica has a PhD in molecular genetics. She is not only a rock star, but she can run a DNA test. The heading I wrote across the top of my notes said "Cool. As. Hell." And oh my god, she is. My Jessica story gets even better. At the Rita Awards, I discovered I was sitting next to her publicist. Jessica stopped by and we talked again.

I'm willing to put this not-so-great picture of me out here because she just rocked. I wish you could see the pants she was wearing. Cut-outs ran all the way up both legs. A molecular geneticist who writes steaming hot paranormals and dresses like a rock star...freakin' awesome!

Jessica did the crime scene workshop with her best friend's daughter who is a senior at Sam Houston State. She is a biology/criminal justice major and works on the body farm there, one of only four in the US. A body farm is where scientists study how the human body decomposes in a variety of situations. So we learned tons about decomp and DNA. Guess what? CSI is a pack of lies. They get almost everything wrong. On some level, I knew it wasn't realistic, but I didn't realize how wrong they got it.

So go buy Jessica's new book! Heck, buy them all! Her heroines are strong. Her heroes are hot, and her stories engage both the heart and the head. It doesn't get better than that.

Running

2011-06-02T20:52:00.003-04:00

I might have mentioned once or twice that teenage boys are wonderful and terrible, responsible for my proudest moments and my most painful, the joy of my life and frustrating as hell. Just today, I was mimicking the grunts and shoulder shrugs that pass for conversation in my house. So when my youngest asked me this evening if I wanted to run with him, it made me happy, and I jumped at the opportunity.

My thought process went something like this. "How cool! My son respects my fitness level enough to want to run with me. And hey, I jazzercise four or five times a week. I am in pretty good shape. I can do this."

I ignored the voice whispering, "Hey dumbass, you just spent the last 3 1/2 hours hanging with your friends, and you used that social time to consume multiple glasses of wine and an order of nacho potato skins."

We ran two miles. In my head, I thought two miles would be roughly equivalent to the 40 minutes of cardio in a typical jazzercise class.

Maybe it is when I'm not full of potato skins and chardonnay. But today?? Not so much.

I did it though. I made that two miles, and I mostly kept up. Granted, my son ran slower than he usually does, but he is 16 and I'm...not. When we returned home and the burning in my lungs and the spots dancing in front of my eyes cleared, I felt a real sense of accomplishment.

I'm not a runner. Never have been. I've always seen it as a form of self-imposed torture, but my son and I have already decided to be running partners this summer. From where I'm standing, it's a total win. I add something new to my fitness regimen, but the real benefit is the time spent with my son.

We had a real conversation involving actual polysyllabic words. We talked about school. We talked about his friends. We talked about some things he was worried about. Sarcasm, frustration and anger did not raise their ugly heads in our conversation. We just talked. Chardonnay and potato skins be damned. I kept up because I wouldn't have missed that conversation for anything.

Towards the end of the run, our conversation waned. I was breathing hard and focused on finishing. Did my kid mock me? No he did not. He encouraged me.

"You got this, Mom. We're almost there."

On Tuesday, I was so frustrated with this kid, I was shaking my fist at the heavens. Today, he ran in lockstep with me, making sure we reached our destination together.

So I'm a runner now, chasing that elusive finish line where my son is happy, healthy, and mature. Lord knows it's painful, a long distance endurance run with stretches that hurt so much I just want to quit. But I know he won't let me any more than I would let him. We'll get there together.

Next time, though, I'm skipping the potato skins.

Entropy

2011-06-01T06:13:00.002-04:00

Today is the last day of school. Actually, it's the last day with students. I still have a week or so of contract days to fulfill because of the voodoo the Board worked with the calendar to make up snow days. But today is the last day I will have this group of kids in my classroom to impart some last bit of wisdom.

I will tell them what I always tell them on the last day. Go forth into the world and be awesome. "You have brains in your head and feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose."

I hope they've learned something from me this year. I have learned from them. I always do. I've had a preponderance of thinkers this year...kids who don't simply regurgitate the information I give them, but who synthesize it with their existing knowledge and beliefs and create brand new ideas. I love those kids. They are always my favorites because they make me think about things I've taught for years in new and different ways.

Professionally, I've had a wonderful year. Some of the brightest kids I've ever had the privilege of teaching have made class discussion stimulating and fun. Seriously, I have some kids this year who are scary smart. My toughest class, the one with five EBD kids and no collaborator, has come so far it almost makes me want to cry just thinking about it. A particularly squirrelly boy in that class told me last week he's learned more in my class than he ever has in a language arts class. That's the good stuff, the reason we teach.

Conversely, this year has been hard personally...really hard. Teenage boys will always give you a run for your money, and this year, mine almost took me out a couple of times. I have asked myself repeatedly, "How can I be so successful as a teacher and struggle so mightily as a parent?" The jury is still out on my ultimate success or failure, but this year has been the hardest in my 19 years as a mother.

The law of entropy says that the universe seeks balance in all things, and this year has been an illustration of that law's truth.

Today is an ending, but every ending is a new beginning, right? I'll miss my students, but after a much-needed break, I'll get a whole new crop, and the challenge will start all over again. As for my own kid, a fresh start is the hope we both need right now.

Happy Last Day of School! I hope your day is as good as mine is going to be. :)

13 Reasons to Smile

2011-05-13T17:13:00.007-04:00

When I have a particularly rough week, I make a list to remind myself there are reasons to smile. I really needed that list this week, so here goes...

Little things that made me happy this week:

1. Changing the wallpaper on my phone to Dave Grohl rocking out on his guitar.

2. Speaking of Dave Grohl…The Foo Fighters’ Wasting Light album which I have played over and over and over. "Bridge Burning" is my ring tone.

3. Student saying, “You’re a good storyteller, Mrs. Owens. You should write a book or something.”

4. This comment on Facebook when James got voted off of American Idol.

crooked mouth slang singing howdy doody looking still on and not James Omg!!

5. This slogan on a student's t-shirt.
6. Increasing my hand weights at Jazzercise by 6 pounds.

7. Reading Romeo’s dying words for the 70th time.

“Eyes look your last. Arms take your last embrace. And lips, o you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing death.”

And the dead (no pun intended) silence in my squirreliest class when we watched that part of the movie.

8. School board voting no school on Memorial Day.

9. The Dove dark chocolate bunny Bruce knew I would surely need this week. He’s half gone (the bunny, not Bruce). And yes, I ate his ears first.

10. The email telling me there were doughnuts in the workroom, and my friend, Linda, subsequently crediting the “f’n doughnut” for her sudden burst of inspiration.

11. The brownie that came with my lunch today. (I know, I know. I’m drowning my sorrows in sugar…but when you add the cocoa bean to it, sorrows do abate.)

12. A boy screaming “SPIDER!” and the girl next to him rolling her eyes and killing it.

13. The text message from my bff, Pam, which always seems to come at exactly the right moment.

Eye Candy and Car Porn

2011-05-10T20:36:00.007-04:00

Is it possible to willingly suspend your disbelief in the face of a sketchy plot, eye-rolling dialogue, implausible stunts, and a total disrespect for the laws of physics?

Abso-freakin-lutely!

Fast Five is two hours of totally ridiculous awesomeness. It seems to defy all the rules of good storytelling, and yet I left the theater happy and thoroughly entertained. Why? Fast Five has at least one story element working on all cylinders.

This movie has fun characters, and hidden underneath all that flash and silliness is a good old-fashioned buddy story.

Dom Toretto and Brian O'Connor are likable tough guys. Sure, they're criminals, but they do have a code. Loyalty to each other and to "family" supercedes everything, and they manage to make their law-breaking seem almost righteous. Their criminal activities are aimed at an evil supervillain (okay, a drug dealer, but he's cartoonish in his evilness), and they avoid hurting the innocent, even the federal agents chasing them (unless they get behind the wheel of a car, in which case, whole city blocks full of innocent people are fair game).

Toretto and O'Connor's friendship is believable even if nothing else in the movie is. You can't help but root for their crazy-ass schemes. Their friends are likable as well. Roman is still talking smack, and apparently Ludacris has become an expert in safe-cracking since the second movie. Even more surprising, Han, the cool Japanese drifter, is back from the dead. In fact, unless you see someone take a bullet to the head, dead is relative in this series.

The funniest addition to the cast is The Rock. He strides across the tarmac when his plane lands in Rio looking like he just finished curling 50 lb dumbbells, slathering himself in baby oil, and then liberally spritzing water over his face. He probably needed the baby oil to get his shirt on because it was at least 2 sizes too small. He says very little, and when he does speak, it's something like, "I want to know everything about Toretto, including how many times he shakes it."

O'Connor describes The Rock (Special Agent Hobbs in the movie) as Old Testament Wrath of God -- the guy the government sends in when they just gotta get their man. And in fact, his character is a cross between Tommy Lee Jones' character in The Fugitive and Conan the Barbarian.

And yes....that is exactly as hilarious as it sounds.

Fun characters and a believable buddy story keep Fast Five from being nothing but unadulterated eye candy and car porn. But honestly, maybe that's the real appeal anyway. Of the five movies in the series (Yeah, I've seen them all. Don't judge me), this has the thinnest plot.

It is, however, set in Rio where beautiful bodies abound, and those beautiful bodies are wrapped around the sweetest cars in the world.

Whether you like American muscle or high performance European road rockets, you'll get an eyeful in this movie. I tend to gravitate toward American muscle. The first car I bought with my own money was a red Mustang with a manual transmission. I loved shifting through the gears and making the engine scream. I think I got three speeding tickets in the first six months I had it. Kids happened, and I had to start driving more sensible cars more sensibly, but oh how I loved that car.

Do you see why I like these movies so much? Yeah, the guys are hot, but for me, it's all about the cars. To harness and control a barely contained engine growling underneath me for a 10 second quarter mile...now that's a fantasy.

The next movie may have no plot at all, but as long as Vin Diesel and Paul Walker are driving sexy cars like maniacs, I'm there.

A Rose by Any Other Name?

2011-04-21T08:35:00.003-04:00

Do you know the story of your name? Your parents went through a process and maybe even a long list to arrive at the eventual winner. If you've had the privilege of naming a child, then you know it is a huge responsibility. The story of your child's name may be more dear to you than the story of your own.

The story of your name is special, not only because it makes you feel loved and connected, but also because you carry that name with you the rest of your life.

Why am I thinking about names? It's that time of year when I ask my students, "What's in a name? Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Would you still retain that dear perfection which you own without the title affixed to you at birth?"

Juliet wants to believe that names don't matter, that they don't define us in any meaningful way other than to keep us from being referred to as Hey You.

My students and I beg to differ. Our names matter. They matter a lot. I might go so far as to say we are defined by our names.

Family Ties
Our names connect us to our families, and while this is problematic for Juliet, it's a positive thing for most of us. More than half of my students have first or middle names they would describe as family names. A few of them cringe at something archaic or unusual, but most like the connection the name gives them to their heritage.

Both of my sons have family names. My oldest carries the name of his father, his uncle, and both his grandfathers. We Irished it up, but it's essentially the same name. My youngest carries a version of my maiden name. Both of them know the origins of their names, and both are proud of those origins.

It's not unusual for a student to have a different last name than his or her parents. In fact, I NEVER assume a parent I meet has the same last name as the kid. The kids deal with it, but my discussion of names always reveals their hyper-awareness of it. One of my eldest son's best friends was at the courthouse on his 18th birthday to change his surname. That need to be identified as kith and kin is powerful.

Get it Right!
It is a universal annoyance to have your name spelled or pronounced wrong. I grind my teeth when people spell my name with a "C." That's not my name. It's not who I am. I can't identify with the word when I see it written out. (Notice that I refused to even write it out.)

The same goes for Brittany and Britney, Sarah and Sara, John and Jon, Kirsten and Kristen, Lucas and Lukas. And oh holy cow, if I say Brianna like fawn instead of like fan, I get my head bitten off and handed to me.

I can't really get mad when Brianna corrects me. What I said isn't who she is. The incorrect pronunciation is as foreign to her as that "C" name is to me. Most of us are outwardly polite about it, but it bothers us. Almost every student I polled has received an award or a trophy or a jersey with their name spelled wrong. They may have smiled, but it was a bitter disappointment. When someone gets your name wrong, they get you wrong.

A student with a particularly unusual name believes she has become more assertive over the years as a result of correcting authority figures in the spelling and pronunciation of her name. Her name has shaped her personality.

Last but not Least
Some students believe the placement of their last name in the alphabet has some bearing on their personality. What happens when you are perpetually last? Perpetually first? Does it inform self-perception? One student whose last name begins with a "W" said he works harder to stand out because he doesn't want to be perceived as last or at the bottom. When a list of names for awards or recognition is called, no one listens past the F's or G's, so he makes sure his name is called often. People eventually notice.

My maiden name was a "W," so I can identify. I hated always being at the end or in the back. Subsequently, I arrange my own seating chart so that a student has an equal chance of being in the front or the back regardless of the alphabet.

So yeah, Juliet was wrong. I don't think we would perceive a rose as smelling as sweet if we named it cat poop, and I don't think our self-perception would be the same if we had a different name. We experience the world through language, and the names we assign both objects and people are the means through which we understand them.

Shakespeare thought so too. Romeo and Juliet couldn't escape the definitions placed on them by their names. And really...neither can we.

The Beaver

2011-04-12T17:13:00.002-04:00

Are you intrigued by the title of this post? If so, then you might be interested in Mel Gibson's new movie. I honestly can't imagine myself interested in anything Mel Gibson does ever again, and considering I once loved Lethal Weapon and Braveheart Mel, that's kinda sad. In spite of my disgust, the trailer for his upcoming movie made me do a spit take.

Context first: Bruce and I saw Jake Gyllenhal's Source Code this past weekend. Big action flick...some plot holes, but not so big they detracted from my enjoyment of the movie. Overall...entertaining.

Also entertaining...the previews before the movie. You get a pretty good feel for the kind of movie you're about to see from the trailers at the beginning. We saw five trailers before Source Code started, and the experience was a blog post in the making. I actually pulled out my phone after Mel's trailer and made notes. I need to tell you a little about each one to give you some sense of how Mel's fit in. Or didn't.

Thor -- The Norse god of thunder is bringing his big ole hammer to earth, falling in love with a puny earth woman, defying his fellow gods, and blowing some really scary-looking monsters all to hell. The guy playing Thor is cute and all, but unless I'm looking to spend time with my boys, I don't imagine I'll race out to see this one.

Conan -- Oh yeah! He's back and he's bigger than ever! (Seriously, this guy looks like he's done some heavy duty steroids.) Conan beats some really scary-looking barbarians all to hell. His sword is almost as massive as his muscles. The production values appear much better than the original. In fact, it looks like they've eschewed the camp altogether and made an earnest action movie, and that's a shame. I suppose it doesn't really matter. Without Ah-nold, how good can it be anyway? This will also be a pass for me.

X-Men -- There was probably a subtitle on this one since it's the fourth or fifth in the series, but I didn't write it down. This installment takes the audience back to Professor X's and Magneto's beginnings. They used to be friends, but Magneto became bitter when the world rejected him. He acts on his hurt feelings by blowing some not-particularly-scary-looking ships and airplanes all to hell. Meh...the X-Men never were my favorite superheroes.

Mel's Movie -- Do you remember this from your childhood?

I love Cookie monster! And yeah, Mel's movie doesn't have the right number of cookies. I'm pretty sure Mel doesn't have the right number of cookies, but I digress.

His trailer was wildly out of place after the previous three. The only things that get blown all to hell are his relationships and whatever was left of his acting career. Every scene in the trailer is an intense relationship scene. His character is a screw-up (a real stretch for him), and his wife, played by Jodie Foster, and children have walked away. He's apparently hit rock bottom. Then, he finds redemption in a hand puppet, (I swear I'm not making this up) and it's not just any ole hand puppet.

It's a beaver!

He quits talking to people except through the beaver who explains that it creates emotional distance.

Okaaaaaay.

Several gut-wrenching scenes ensue after which Mel is finally able to talk without the beaver on his hand. The title scrolls across the screen while the deep voiced announcer says, The Beaver.

Very dramatic, right?

Yeah, not so much. Everyone, and I mean everyone, in the theater laughed. A few snickers turned into guffaws, and then we belly laughed like Mel had mined comedy gold. I'm thinking this wasn't the emotional reaction Mel was going for, but it should have been because, oh holy cow, the beaver jokes I heard all around. I can't even begin to imagine what the late nite comics will do with Mel's hand inside a beaver puppet.

And not only no, but Oh Hell No, I will not be paying 8 bucks to see this mess.

The Three Musketeers -- I have no idea what's going on in this movie besides the obvious, and neither does anyone else who was in the theater. This trailer had the misfortune of coming after The Beaver. I am pretty sure people got beat all to hell, but I was too busy exchanging ribald remarks about The Beaver. I like Dumas, so this one has the best chance of getting my summer movie dollar even though I missed the preview.

So, let's recap...and a pictorial recap might be useful here. One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just isn't the same.

Riding in Cars with Boys...for just a little longer

2011-04-06T22:54:00.004-04:00

Earlier this evening, I had to chauffeur my son and two of his friends all over the county. And no, I'm not exaggerating. I picked them up at one kid's house, took them to the other kid's house, so he could get a change of clothes, swung back by my house, so my kid could get a change of clothes, ran through Micky D's because all that riding around makes a young man hungry, and then took them to a fourth kid's house where I happily left them.

I was tempted to be aggravated by the whole ordeal. It was a lot of driving, and gas ain't cheap, my friends. And HELLO! American Idol was on. If not for DVR, their sorry butts would have been stuck. Even so, I groused. Why me? The other kids have moms and dads. Why am I always the sucker that says yes? Why do these kids not have their licenses yet? Why? Why? Why?

Because I was aggravated, I said no when my son asked if he could drive. He has his permit and is a week away from his road test. Mostly, I say yes because I want to give him all the experience I can before I turn him loose without me. But I was aggravated. And there were two other boys in the car. A teenage boy's IQ drops as the number of them in an enclosed space increases. So I stayed behind the wheel.

This, of course, aggravated my son, so he hooked his iPod up to the stereo and cranked it. My sons and I have an agreement when it comes to their music. I will listen to any song once, but if my not-so-delicate sensibilities are upset, then it goes away and does not grace my stereo again. My dear sweet boy, looking to impress his friends or pick a fight or just be an annoying punk, selected the foulest, most misogynistic song on his iPod.

The rapper waxed lyrical about getting wasted at the club with his bitches and ho's (The spelling of this word stumped me. It's not possessive, but hos just looks wrong.), and I'm pretty sure he managed to drop the F-bomb at least every third word. I turned wordlessly to my son because speaking would have been futile over the deafening filth spewing from my speakers and gave him a cold stare.

"What?"

I read his lips, but didn't answer. My cold stare is pretty frigid, so he turned down the noise.

"That's offensive."

"Really? You like Eminem, and he cusses."

"It's not the profanity that offends me. It's the total lack of originality."

"Huh?"

I could see his friends' faces in the rearview mirror. They had been snickering quietly, hoping to see mother-son drama I guess, but they stopped laughing and listened.

"Profanity can serve a useful purpose in a story or a song, but to serve a purpose, it has to be used purposefully. This guy uses the F-bomb because it's all he's got. He's got no story, no message other than 'Oooooo...I'm awesome. I get drunk and high and treat women like crap. Go me.' Total lack of originality, no creativity, no artistry, and yes, I find that offensive. At least Eminem is saying something."

My son was defensive. "There are plenty of rap songs with a real message."

"I know, but this isn't one of them, and since you all like it, I have to question your taste in music altogether. Clearly, you'll accept any stupid lyric if there is an interesting beat behind it."

Yeah, yeah. I know. I've loved many a stupid song over the years. Some of my favorite Aerosmith songs are completely inane, but I didn't tell them that. My son had picked a fight, and I was giving him one.

The three of them went to their iPods to gather evidence that rap had meaningful social value. I had already agreed that it did, but I had dissed their song, so they felt the need to redeem a whole genre. They played several current songs, including Lupe Fiasco's "The Show Goes on." I like that one, and I told them so.

Then one of the boys in the back said, "Oh Wait! This one is awesome!"

I recognized the opening riff immediately. "It's Tupac. Changes. And yes, it's good."

"You know Tupac?"

"I open my poetry unit with Tupac."

My son piped up, "Tupac is cool, but Biggie's better."

So we listened to Biggie. The volume was back at a reasonable level, and the car was otherwise quiet.

When it was over, my son said, "Now that's real."

I grinned at him. "You do realize you're a middle class white kid living in a small town? How real can it be?"

"It was real for him."

Hard to argue with that logic. "Yeah, I guess it was."

At that point, the boys declared themselves vindicated. Their musical sensibilities didn't totally suck. My son surprised me with some old school Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, and the conversation turned to other things.

When we finally reached our destination, I realized I wasn't aggravated anymore. In one short week, assuming he passes, my son will no longer need me to chauffeur him hither and yon. While a part of me is thrilled about that, I'm a little sad as well. I'm gaining freedom, but I'm losing something more precious, time spent with my son.

If Your Nerve Deny You...

2011-04-05T13:22:00.005-04:00

Warning: I generally try to keep the language in my blog posts PG-13, but I'm quoting another source which I refuse to censor, so today, it's R.

Twitter is a great place for discovering interesting tidbits, and today, I came across a wonderful new place to lose a few hours. The Rumpus is a place for all things literary. You will find the usual book reviews and author interviews alongside several columns, comic strips and news of the weird. Two features in particular proved to be a worthwhile time suck this morning.

The National Poetry Month Project: Each day in April, The Rumpus will post a previously unpublished poem solicited from a wide range of current poets. If you click through, you will find a link for last year's collection as well. I read, re-read, and then sat and stared at the Day #3 poem, "Why I did not Make Love to your Dead Body," by Kirsten Kaschock for a long time. Wow.... I'll be adding this site to my Interesting Reads links on the the right side of the blog.

Dear Sugar: This is an advice column for writers. The first two entries I read blew me away. You should definitely click through and read the whole question and answer, especially if you are an artist of any kind, but I felt compelled to post a couple of her comments below.

From "We are all Savages Inside"

I know it’s not easy being an artist. I know the gulf between creation and commerce is so tremendously wide that it’s sometimes impossible not to feel annihilated by it. A lot of artists give up because it’s just too damn hard to go on making art in a culture that by and large does not support its artists. But the people who don’t give up are the people who find a way to believe in abundance rather than scarcity. They’ve taken into their hearts the idea that there is enough for all of us, that success will manifest itself in different ways for different sorts of artists, that keeping the faith is more important than cashing the check, that being genuinely happy for someone else who got something you hope to get makes you genuinely happier too.

From "Write like a Motherfucker"

How many women wrote beautiful novels and stories and poems and essays and plays and scripts and songs in spite of all the crap they endured. How many of them didn’t collapse in a heap of “I could have been better than this” and instead went right ahead and became better than anyone would have predicted or allowed them to be. The unifying theme is resilience and faith. The unifying theme is being a warrior and a motherfucker. It is not fragility. It’s strength. It’s nerve. And “if your Nerve, deny you –,” as Emily Dickinson wrote, “go above your Nerve.” Writing is hard for every last one of us—straight white men included. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig.

Go...read, explore, be inspired by this site. As for me? I'm off to write like a motherfucker.

Appsolewdly

2011-03-26T17:35:00.004-04:00

I won't tell you what year (or even what decade) my fascination with Steven Tyler first blossomed. Let's just say the roots run deep. I heard him screaming those climactic last bars of "Dream On", and something inside me shifted and whispered, "yes...."

His first appearance on Idol this year reacquainted me with my inner 14 year old girl. I screamed a lot, eliciting much head shaking and muttering from my husband, and texted my bff, Pam, thru the whole show. She gets it.

His big ten inch...record incites sweet emotion. Some folks say the dude looks like a lady but I'd walk his way anytime. It's a monkey on my back. I'd ask what it takes to let it go, but I don't want to miss a thing. So the train keeps a rollin' and I'm still crazy, crazy, crazy for ya baby.

And speaking of crazy...guess what I discovered today??? A Steven Tyler app for my iPhone!!! I kid you not. It's called "Appsolewdly." (Of course it is. What else would it possibly be called. It's Steven freakin' Tyler.) It costs $2.99 at the app store, and yes, I ponied up the cash.

What did I get for my 3 bucks?

A trivia game...meh.
Some pics...nice.
Steven's home video which is updated daily...now we're talking!
And the absolute best feature??? SOUND EFFECTS!!

OMG...I can press a button and get "Yakakakau!" Or a cackle. Or "Oh yeah." If I want more than a scream, though I can't imagine why I would, I can push a button to hear advice from Steven.

I've waited all my life for pearls of wisdom like, "Who knows where the nose goes when the do's closed" and "You know I'd rather be sittin' all by myself on a pumpkin than be crowded on a velvet pillow."

Tru dat, Steven. Tru dat.

I decided to end this post with a video of Dream On, the song that started it all for me. YouTube has a veritable buffet of Dream On video. I waffled between a version performed at Fenway Park where Steven begins on a white baby grand way up over the scoreboard and the version I posted. The video below features a performance in Rio in which Steven and Joe Perry are shirtless. A no-brainer in the end.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious...

2011-03-20T10:09:00.006-04:00

Ok, I'm a long way from glorious, and discontent is still skulking about waiting to rear its ugly head, but winter is over.

Winter is over.

Take a deep breath. Fill your lungs with oxygen, and then let it out slowly. Now do it again. And again. Winter is over.

Spring is more than a date on the calendar. It is embedded in our consciousness as humans. Whether we acknowledge it consciously or not, we feel the movement from death to rebirth.

Our pagan ancestors couldn't run to Wal-Mart in January and buy fresh strawberries from Guatemala or wherever they come from in the dead of winter. Spring was a big deal. They ate what they could grow or kill. When the earth became fertile again, they could eat. So they celebrated big. They danced and feasted and re-enacted the most ancient and enduring fertility rite.

The pagan world gave way to religion, but Spring still loomed large. Easter, Passover, the birth of the Buddha...birth, rebirth, escape from death...all celebrated in Spring.

I've performed my own Rites of Spring this weekend. I took 95 kids to the University of Kentucky library, an annual event I love. I drove with my windows down. I got my first pedicure of the season and wore open-toed shoes. I feasted with my family and sang and danced with my friends.

I feel lighter. In spite of the chaos in the world at large and in my own world, I feel the rebirth of hope. After today, the scale measuring the darkness and the light shifts, tipping to the light. The problems aren't fixed, but I can face them.

Winter is over.

Welcome Spring! Damn glad to see you!

After we genuflect, do ya wanna exfoliate?

2011-03-07T19:18:00.004-05:00

Tonight was scheduling orientation for next year's freshmen. Nothing freaks out eighth graders and their parents like the thought of making a scheduling misstep that will potentially screw up THE REST OF THEIR LIVES!

Seriously.

So I'm standing behind a table with my compadres in the the English department on one side and my Social Studies buddy, Linda, on the other. Linda and I team teach an Honors Social Studies/Honors English Block class. We get tons of questions about that class at orientation, so we hang together. (Side note: 95% of parents at scheduling orientation are parents of kids interested in honors classes.)

The only male member of the English department excuses himself from the parent he's speaking with and leans over to me.

"Excuse me, oh queen, but I have a question." (I'm the department head, and as such, insist on being referred to as "oh queen" or "your royal highness.")

Ok, not really. I generally respond to smartassery with more of the same.

"If you're gonna call me 'queen,' I expect you to genuflect."

My colleague's eyebrows raise, and he looks at me like he can't believe I've just said that out loud. People are waiting, so I answer his question, and we both get back to the business of reassuring parents.

After the crowd clears, another one of my fellow English teachers leans in and whispers, "He thinks you said something dirty."

"Huh?"

"He doesn't know what genuflect means. He thinks you made a suggestive comment."

Well, hell. I'm not sure whether to laugh or be horrified. Linda, who has overheard the whole exchange, solves my problem. She calls out to him by name.

"Hey!"

He joins us with obvious trepidation. Linda bats her eyelashes at him and adopts a breathy Marilyn Monroe voice.

"After we genuflect, do ya wanna exfoliate?"

My abused colleague rolls his eyes, realizing he is being mocked. To his credit, he dishes it right back.

"Should we exfoliate on the table or underneath it?"

We are all laughing riotously at this point, and it is good. Stress relief at the end of a long day. I left the orientation thinking A) We all spend too much time with 15 year olds. And B) It's surely difficult to be the only man in a group of smartass women.

A Good Beginning

2011-02-11T21:13:00.002-05:00

Fade in...thumping music...Ne-Yo...Beautiful Monster. Camera pans up a pair of legs that go on forever and then pulls back to the gorgeous woman attached to them. She sits at a bar and nurses a martini, two olives. Close-up of the glass...then her face...then the glass.

Images of a club. Camera flits between patrons, and then rests for a long moment on a bearded man alone at a table. He drinks a beer in a tall pilsner glass. Close-up of the glass...then his face...then the glass. Camera searches the patrons again, this time stopping on another lone man, blonde, drinking something pink. Close-up of the glass...his face...the glass.

Back to the woman. She scans the room as if looking for someone...plays with the olives in her drink. Close-up of the drink and her long, manicured fingers stroking an olive.

A handsome black man enters the club. His clothes suggest money, lots of it. He wears a hat and slides his finger down the brim. The beautiful woman at the bar watches him all the way over.

"You waiting on someone?"

"I think he cancelled."

"His loss."

His eyes follow her fingers on the olive. The bartender sets a straight bourbon on the bar. Close-up of the glass. The amber liquid reflects the club's funky lighting.

"Classical or R&B? Fate or Free Will?"

She smiles with the glass at her lips. "Neither. Hard core rock."

He shrugs. "R&B. Free will."

"What if I had said classical?"

"Then I would say you believe in fate. Very structured. Each note and chord building to an inevitable end."

"Isn't that all music?"

He shakes his head, almost in annoyance. "R&B follows its own path..." His eyes follow a path down her long legs. Then he looks up suddenly.

"Excuse me for a moment."

He takes two steps forward, levels a 9mm at the bearded man. Two shots...head, heart. Turns amid screams to the blonde man. Finger on the trigger...camera follows the bullet to the heart, then the head. Changing it up. Whirls around to the bartender. Head, heart.

Finally, he turns to the woman, now cowering under the bar. Change to her perspective, looking up the barrel of the gun to his face. His finger moves almost imperceptibly.

Cue theme music."Out here in the field..."

The rest of the show was meh...Adrienne Barbeau was the villain...but it was still meh.

I watched the whole thing, though. A good beginning will do that.

Why I'm a Steelers' Fan

2011-02-06T09:07:00.002-05:00

Here in Central Kentucky, most of us don't have a dog in the Super Bowl fight. We have a few transplants here and there from Western Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, but by and large, most of us are just rooting for the team whose players we like...or whose attitude we like...or whose city we like...or whose colors we like.

I was in that boat last year when the Colts played the Saints. I love Peyton Manning, but I wanted New Orleans to win after all they'd been through in recent years. You can read my dithering here. In the end, I was thrilled for the Saints.

No dithering this year. I'm a Steelers' fan through and through. The third entry I ever posted on this blog was on Super Bowl Sunday two years ago. Here's to you, Pittsburgh!

You can click on the link, but I've gained enough new readers in the last two years that it's worth recapping here.

My fandom comes not from the team itself, but from a community.

A Neighborhood called Speers Hill
Bruce coached for the California University of PA Vulcans from 1993-1997. (You need to click on that link just to see Vulcan, god of the forge, hammering the big V...lol) This necessitated a move from Kentucky to southwestern Pennsylvania. We bought our first house together in a neighborhood overlooking the Monongahela River called Speers Hill.

Cal U was a losing program when Bruce was hired. If you've never lived with a professional coach, you don't know that losing programs require way more hours at the office than winning programs. Bruce often worked 18-20 hour days.

I was six hours from anyone I knew. It snowed 96 inches that first winter. I was alone 20 hours a day with a baby and a toddler. Yep...Bruce had moved me to hell and it had frozen over.

Sometimes, it really did feel like hell when young son was howling in my arms and eldest was running in circles around me repeating, "Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama" and there was no hope of relief. Bruce wasn't coming home for hours, and my own mama was eight hours away. I remember sitting in the floor crying, wondering what I had done to deserve my fate.

Then, I met Tim and Carrie who lived next door. And Billy and Sandy who lived down the street. And Shelley across the street. And Shelley's eccentric dad who lived down the street. (He had "sweet" and "sour" tattooed over his nipples during the Vietnam War. He had a pool, so he displayed his tats on a regular basis.)

Suddenly, I wasn't alone anymore. Carrie's teenage daughters babysat when I needed a break. She and I worked in her garden. All the kids in the neighborhood, including mine, swam in her pool. I went back to school to get my teaching certificate, and Shelley gave me a break at the daycare she ran.

Billy and Sandy had Steeler-watching parties every single Sunday during football season. I went to the parties alone until the college season was over. The adults passed my youngest around and my eldest toddled after the older kids. I got to interact with grown-ups. When Bruce's season was over, he joined the party.

My social life revolved around the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Steeler (the correct pronunciation is actually "Stiller") fans are the most rabid fans I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. I'm sorry Kentucky basketball fans. Your devotion is but a pale imitation of theirs. I have seen furniture thrown off a deck when the Steelers lost. I have seen my neighbor mow down his wife's rose bushes in the middle of the night because he was in a fugue state over their Super Bowl loss (f'n Neil O'Donnell and his four f'n interceptions). I have seen guns fired into the night sky after wins.

My neighbors foamed at the mouth over their Steelers. And because I had grown to love and rely on my neighbors, I began foaming a little bit. The infamous night of f'n Neil O'Donnell's four f'n interceptions, I was screaming like a lunatic at the television right along with everyone else.

Tonight, I will be screaming like a lunatic in support of my Steelers. Bruce will call Tim and Billy to make man-noises in support of the black and yellow. My heart will be with my good friends in Speers Hill, and at the end of the day, it will be a fun Super Bowl because I care about the outcome.

Here's a little video enjoyment, made more even more awesome by the fact they start with DEFENSIVE highlights! Here we go, Stillers, here we go!

Karaoke Dreams

2011-01-30T20:55:00.008-05:00

I love American Idol this year. Steven Tyler is such a fun addition to the judges panel that I don't miss Simon telling people they should be singing on a cruise ship or a theme park or telling them their performance was bad karaoke.

Besides, if Simon told one of the kids in the top 12 they were doing bad karaoke, I might get delusions of grandeur. Cause, Baby, I can do some bad karaoke!

Don't believe me? Consider my friend, Pam's, assessment of my most recent performance.

"It wasn't awful, but I would be a true friend and stop you if you tried to go on American Idol. No, WAIT! I would totally let you go on American Idol, so you could meet Steven!!"

True friends are hard to come by. Thank you, Pam.

Karaoke is a newfound diversion. Last fall, my friends and I were invited by Linda's daughter and her friends to a karaoke bar to celebrate a birthday. I sang Eminem's "Lose Yourself" with former student, Chad, and I've been hooked ever since.

I have noticed some things and learned some lessons the hard way, so I thought I'd share some tips for karaoke success.

Unless you have real chops, don't choose a slow, serious song. If you can't wow 'em with your vocals, you're just gonna bring the room down. This mistake is compounded if your downer immediately follows a crowd-pleaser.

Find a partner. Even better? Find a partner who sings better than you. You get the rush of performing in front of a crowd while they do all the heavy lifting.

(Guess who's doing the heavy lifting?)

The later in the evening your performance, the more likely you are to please the crowd. Folks are more forgiving of bad vocals several drinks in.

(No appropriate pic here. ;)

Choose something everybody knows. When the whole crowd is singing along, they are happy, and it just doesn't matter how off-key you are. "Sweet Caroline" and surprisingly, "Ice Ice Baby" are excellent choices.

(Or just look extremely cute while you're singing.)

Whatever you choose, sing it right. Someone in the crowd might take offense and snatch the mic right out of your hand. Case in point: Some poor schmuck was singing Seal's "Kiss from a Rose." Linda decided he was doing it wrong and pulled me onto the stage where we promptly commandeered the poor guy's song.

(My eyes are fixed on the screen, terrified of botching the lyrics after Linda ripped the mic out of someone's hand.)

The best advice?? Don't take yourself too seriously. Have fun, and the audience will have fun. Now, get out there and live your Karaoke Dreams!

Moths to the Happy Light

2011-01-27T21:30:00.005-05:00

Humans are much like moths. Clarification. Adolescent male humans are much like moths. And no...I'm not speaking in metaphors. Literally. Adolescent male humans are much like moths.

I finally plugged in my Happy Light, a Christmas gift intended to combat the winter blues. My classroom is a fluorescent box with no windows. The light quality is horrible, but I haven't spent much time in the room since Christmas break. Snow days piled on interminably, and on the random days school was in session, I was in the computer lab trying to finish a writing project we started before the break.

Today, I was in my classroom, and the Happy Light made its debut. I initially sat it on my desk which put it at eye level with every kid in the room.

My fourth hour class, comprised of 20 boys and 8 girls, was the first group to enjoy the Happy Light. They became happy as soon as they entered the room.

"Ooooooooooh! It's so bright!"

"What is it?"

They danced around it but didn't get too close. The tardy bell rang, and I had to herd the mob of 10 or so boys around my desk into seats. The Happy Light required immediate explanation. Nothing else was going to happen until they understood the new addition to our classroom.

I explained Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Some of the kids already knew about it, but the ones who didn't bought into it immediately. We even spent five minutes trading stories about how the perpetual gloom of January got us down. Yeah, they got it. They knew about SAD, but now we had our class Happy Light and all would be well.

See? This is why I love teaching freshman. In spite of their squirreliness and desperate attempts to prove they're grown up, they aren't jaded yet. They loved the Happy Light.

"Can I get a tan?"

"No. There are no UV rays being emitted."

"The sun'll blind you. Will I go blind if I stare into it?"

"Don't stare into it."

"Oh my god, Ms. Owens! I can't stop staring into it. I'm gonna go blind!"

And so it went. I finally got everyone settled down and working...for about a minute.

"Move!"

"I'm not moving! This is my seat."

"Just scoot to the side!"

"Why?"

"You're blocking my happy!"

I stood in front of the room and watched four kids maneuver so they were all receiving maximum Happy Light distribution.

Later, the same group of kids returned from lunch. I was standing in the hall trying manage the post-lunch chaos and didn't return to my room immediately. When I did, I found 15 of the 20 boys in the class crowded around my desk.

One kid had his eyeball pressed against the Happy Light, doing his best imitation of a horror movie victim. "AAAAAAGGGGGHHHH! I'm blind! I'm blind!"

Another kid was licking it. Actually licking it.

The rest of them were dancing around, encouraging the geniuses with body parts against the light.

"Get your tongue off my Happy Light!"

The class exploded in laughter, and the moths...I mean boys...scattered and fluttered back to their seats. All except for the one whose eyeball had been pressed against the light. He held his hand over his eye and staggered dramatically around the room.

One of the long suffering girls fixed him with a look of utter disdain, the kind of disdain that only a teenage girl can affect.

"You. Are. Stupid."

He ignored her and collapsed smugly into his seat, oblivious to the fact that he won't have a date before he graduates high school. He had entertained the room. He was happy. Really, teenage girl notwithstanding, most of the room was happy.

All hail the power of the light.

For safety's sake, I moved the Happy Light up high on a cabinet, so it shines down on us instead of hitting us at eye level. I briefly contemplated what would happen if I brought an actual bug zapper in the room and decided against it. Mass electrocution isn't conducive to learning.

Because adolescent male humans are much like moths.

Relationship

2011-01-26T14:31:00.004-05:00

When William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for literature, he said there were only six things worth writing about: love, honor, pity, pride, compassion, and sacrifice. These are the pieces of the human spirit, and these pieces allow the human spirit to not only endure, but to prevail. (The whole speech is here. It's short, but wonderful.)

We find the Faulkner six, first within ourselves, and then in relationship with other people. Those six pieces define our relationships, first with ourselves, and then with everyone else. If our spirits are not only to endure, but to prevail, then those relationships with ourselves and with other people are everything.

Relationship is everything.

Everything.

Every. Thing.

Most of us understand this on some level, but take it for granted until something big and overwhelming happens. I will carry the image of my family standing, sitting, and kneeling around my mother's death bed to my own. We held each other, and we held my mother in love, and her passing was easier because of relationship.

Sometimes clarity comes in the small, quiet moments. I was blessed with two such moments today. Early this morning, when school had been called off and no one was awake but me and young son, we sat and talked while he played with the dog. The snow outside and the cozy darkness inside lulled us into real conversation.

At lunch, I sat around a table with my two best friends, and we shared the pieces of our lives that matter.

Love, honor, pity, pride, compassion and sacrifice...they are the only things worth writing about because in the end, they are the only things.

Plotting, oh yes, I'm plotting...

2011-01-21T21:07:00.003-05:00

Today was a good writing day. Interesting, because I started my day by going 10 rounds with my 16 year old. I was brooding as I opened my writing laptop, a glorified typewriter with no Internet connection. I avoid the Internet when I write because it's a distraction, and I really didn't need any more distractions today. Besides, I spent most of yesterday on buddhanet learning all about the Buddhist theory of Karma. (It's interesting. You should click through and read it.)

I opened my file and read some of the notes I had taken.

We ourselves are responsible for our own happiness and misery. We create our own heaven. We create our own hell. We are the architects of our fate.

Right. I decided to be the architect of my own fate and quit brooding. I put my issues with young son on the back burner and began outlining.

Yes, you read that right. This pantser is outlining.

Writers fall somewhere on the continuum of pantser and plotter. It's an easy inference. Pantsers write by the seat of their pants and plotters, well, plot...meticulously. I was a straight-up pantser on my first two novels. It worked beautifully on Sapphire Sins and not at all on Crimson Crimes.

Hindsight is 20/20, and as I look back, I realize that I did kinda sorta plot Sapphire Sins in my head. I knew what the characters wanted and who wanted to stop them. The result was a briefly agented first novel. I dived into Crimson Crimes with only the vaguest idea of what the characters wanted, and the result is a broken novel that might never see the light of day.

What have we learned from these two experiences? Plot more, dumbass!

So I'm developing characters, setting the rules for my paranormal world, and fixing the 5 points of my story arc. The five points are a road map. This is point A. I have to pass through B, C, and D before finally ending up at E. I followed this model almost unconsciously on Sapphire Sins.

Collision
Attempted Solution
Solution fails
Climax
Validation/Resolution

I have collision completely outlined. I know the beginning. I have yet to set the other four points, but I'm not turning the key and stepping on the gas without my GPS in place. I make mistakes, but I'd like to think I learn from them. Hello, habitual karma, sometimes I make the same one over and over. But not this time.

I experienced a moment of abject fear when I realized I couldn't write this book in my safe, comfortable 3rd person, limited POV. To do it right, I have to let my male protagonist tell part of the story. EEK! Switching points of view is a skill. Head hopping is one of the hallmarks of bad writing. When a writer jumps between characters' heads without appropriate transitions, she leaves her reader dazed and confused. I'm going to send the first chapter to my beta reader before I write the second and have her read solely for POV issues. I'm excited about the challenge because I'm excited about my story.

The best part of today, the part that has me over the moon, is the backstory I wrote. I needed to know the genesis of my paranormal world before I could plot past collision. To know what happens next, I had to know what happened before.

For the first time in AGES, I rode that high that comes when the words are flowing and I'm creating something out of nothing. I was so giddy, I actually read what I wrote to Bruce. I NEVER do that. I hold my writing close until it's edited and polished and ready to face the world all shiny. He recognized the moment for what it was. When I finished, he repeated a description I had written and told me what it made him think of. It was exactly the imagery I was trying to create.

Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy!

The 2,000 words I cranked out today may or may not find their way into the actual manuscript, but I needed the information. And I needed to remind myself I can write. And I needed to remind myself writing can be a glorious, heady experience.

The day will come when the shiny wears off this wonderful new relationship between me and my story. It's inevitable. There will be moments when I wonder what I ever saw in it, and I will have to power through because I have too much invested to quit. With my character map, my plot GPS, and my backstory as reference tools, I feel confident the two of us will make it through the long haul to resolution.

I'm chomping at the bit to start writing the beginning, but I'm exercising self-discipline and waiting until the other four plot points are fixed. I create my own heaven. I am the architect of my own fate.

At least where my story is concerned. The 16 year old? Oy vey...thank god I'm a pantser at heart because that kid refuses to adhere to my plot points.

Art, Influence, Sensuality, and Soul

2011-01-17T01:10:00.005-05:00

Words! Mere Words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet, what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of the viol or lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?

Oscar Wilde celebrated the power of words in one breath even as he brushed it away in the next. In the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, he scoffs at the idea that books could influence anyone. “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” Regardless of what he believed, he wielded words like the sharp edge of a sword or like an artist, remaking the world in his image.

I first read this book when I was in high school. I know…a long time ago, but the book made an impression. We had a rousing debate in class. Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? It’s a debate that can make you crazy because it’s circular, like the chicken/egg question. There are good arguments on both sides, but neither can be proved. Of course Wilde said it is the spectator, and not life, that art really imitates.

He would.

I re-read the book after a conversation with my friend and beta reader, Amanda. My recent blog on Karma created the seed of a story that was pinging around in my head. I asked her if she could think of another story based on the idea I outlined (albeit vaguely) to her. She mentioned a movie, but the movie’s premise was different from what I had in my head. When I tried to articulate it on paper, I found myself writing in block letters, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY.

No. I’m not rewriting the story, modernizing it, romanticizing it or any other equally bad idea. Oscar Wilde has done it already. However, I couldn’t quit thinking about it, and it became clear I wasn’t going to conceptualize my idea or get words on the page until I re-read it.

Wow.

All I really remembered from high school was the whole art/life debate and Dorian staying young and hot while his picture got old and ugly. I forgot all about Harry and Basil which is to say I forgot the most interesting characters in the story.

Basil and Harry are the artists. Together they “create” Dorian, but they separate his body and his soul. Basil, the painter, is morality. His painting becomes Dorian’s soul, but Harry is the real artist. He molds and shapes Dorian in a way Basil can’t. Basil wants Dorian to be as good and pure as the painting initially reveals him to be. Harry wants to dominate Dorian…to remake Dorian’s spirit in his image. Harry indoctrinates Dorian to his Philosophy of Hedonism. “Nothing can cure the soul but the senses.”

Harry (Lord Henry Wotton) is the voice of the novel. His cynicism permeates the story. I hesitate to call him evil. He’s more amoral than immoral, but then, amoral can be scary as hell. He espouses hedonism, but doesn’t leave the trail of ruined lives in his wake that Dorian does. Harry grows old, but not hideous like Dorian. Of course, Dorian might be a reflection of his soul just as the painting is a reflection of Dorian’s.

Harry is smart and cynical and somehow damaged. Those qualities make him the most interesting character in the novel. He is certainly the most quotable. My Kindle app has a feature where you can highlight bits of text you find interesting. I highlighted the shit out of this book, and when I went back and re-read the highlighted quotes, they were all Harry’s. Here are some of my favorites.

On beauty and sensuality

It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But it is better to be good than to be ugly.

It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.

As a bonafide member of the he-man woman hater’s club.

My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

A woman will flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on.

And in reference to the only woman in the book with a brain -- Her clever tongue gets on one’s nerves.

On romance and marriage

The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.

Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love; it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.

The people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect - simply a confession of failure.

The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true. That is the fatality of faith and the lesson of romance.

Oscar would roll over in his grave, and I’m proving Harry’s point about women loving men more for their faults, but I think he would make a great romantic hero given the right catalyst. He has a past that has molded him as surely as he molded Dorian. No one is born a cynic. It would be so much fun to see him eat his words. He is absolutely certain in his cynicism, and as he says, “The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true.”

I’m not planning a romanticized version of Wilde’s story. Harry was consistent in his cynical hedonism from beginning to end, so as much as I would like to change him, I’ll let him be.

I could care less about changing Dorian. He is flat and ultimately uninteresting because he suffers nothing. He leaves a trail of shattered lives in his wake, but never experiences his own external consequences. The only internal consequence is being forced to suffer the painting’s existence, the fear that it will be discovered. How many sins can you commit with impunity before you become boring? There has to be something at stake for us to care about a character.

Dorian does serve an important purpose, though. He is the work of art, and through him, Wilde both emphasizes and contradicts his statements about art. Dorian emphasizes the “all art is useless” philosophy. Harry notes that Dorian has never done anything or produced anything outside himself. Dorian also emphasizes the idea that art is sterile. He loves a woman only in the context of her art, when she is on stage as Juliet, Rosalind, or Imogen. The moment the woman becomes real and the art/artifice is gone, he loses interest.

Ironically, as Dorian emphasizes the sterility of art, he simultaneously contradicts it. He no longer loves Sybil because she is real. His callous words destroy her, and the painting changes for the first time.

The idea that “Art has no influence upon action” is convenient, but Dorian’s influence ripples across his sphere like something poisonous being thrown into a pond. The work of art experiences no consequences, but everyone it touches does.

I think Wilde enjoyed yanking his audience’s chain with his comments about art as surely as Harry enjoyed yanking Dorian's. He doesn’t care if it’s true or not or if we believe him or not. He just wants a reaction.

The real truth is in his story. The very soul of his protagonist resides in a painting. “Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.” Wilde paints a portrait of art as both inspiration and corruption.

Oscar Wilde is a cynic, and I am a romantic, and yet I am inspired. The Picture of Dorian Gray sparked my intellect and my imagination. Wilde’s story is not my story, but my story will be better because I read his.

Authority and Conviction

2011-01-15T16:45:00.005-05:00

I've posted this video on my blog before, but I thought about it again today in a different context.

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

This man spoke with authority and with conviction.

And these are declarative sentences.

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

And this man was aggressively articulate.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Karma

2011-01-11T22:21:00.003-05:00

What goes around comes back around. ~~ Justin Timberlake

For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. ~~ Galations 6:7

You get what you put in, and people get what they deserve. ~~ Kid Rock

He had it comin’. ~~Cell Block Tango, Chicago

John Lennon, the Bhagavad Gita, Boy George…I could quote versions of this idea ad infinitum. Although it is kinda fun to keep listing incarnations of the concept, I’ll illustrate it instead.

Last Friday night, Bruce and I stopped by our local Hibbett Sports store. I needed a new pair of athletic shoes. My shins and calves recently started hurting during Jazzercise, cluing me in that my shoes were dead. You only have 100 hours of workouts in any pair of athletic shoes. I had surpassed that mark and then some.

My shoes are Rykas, and I love them…or I did before my legs started hurting. I order them through Jazzercise and getting a new pair takes a while. After Friday night’s workout and pain shooting down my shins, I was unwilling to wait.

I tried on two pair of Nikes and a pair of Asics. My reaction to all three pair…meh. They were okay, but not as good as my Rykas when they were new. I refused to even try on the pair touted as “the best.” They were traffic-cone orange, yellow and gray. Call me superficial, but I don’t care if they made it possible to walk on water. I’m not wearing ugly shoes. The three pair I did try cost as much or more than the Rykas. The cheapest pair, $60.

The salesperson was also the store manager. He could tell I was less than thrilled, so he started asking questions. Based on my answers, he decided I might not need new shoes. Gel heel inserts or new insoles might do the trick. I left the store with the gel heel inserts after he told me I could bring them back if they didn’t work.

And holy cow! They did! Saturday morning’s workout was all it took. I felt like I was wearing a brand new pair of shoes. Instead of paying $60 for a pair of meh shoes, I paid $12 for a pair of inserts. I’m still ordering new Rykas, but the inserts will hold me over until they get here.

What do new shoes have to do with the price of tea in China? Two days later, when my eldest needed a new backpack for school, I went back to Hibbett’s. No shopping around…no off-brands…I walked in and paid for an insanely overpriced Under Armour model.

They had it comin’.

I don’t know if the sales guy’s helpfulness was part of Hibbett’s corporate culture or his own moral compass, but because he/they didn’t take advantage of me on the shoes, I was willing to pay their price on the book bag.

Shoes and a book bag are small in the grand scheme, but what if we felt like we were getting a fair shake on a bigger scale? Would we be more willing to pony up when we had to? What if our discourse was civil and respectful? Would we be more willing to listen and really hear each other?

Karma means “deed” or “act” and is one name for that idea of cause and effect, action and reaction. Every action has a consequence. Every positive word and deed lands somewhere. Affects somebody.

And so does every negative word and deed.

In spite of my snarky writing voice, I am an optimist at heart. I see good in people every day. I see a student lean over and help the new girl log on to the computer for the first time. I hear women of all shapes and sizes encouraging each other at Jazzercise. I see my colleagues staying after school and working with students when they aren’t getting paid.

Positive discourse is alive and well, and we all have a responsibility to see that it rings louder than the inevitable negativity.

Karma is a beautiful thing.

Karma is a bitch.

Words with Friends

2011-01-08T14:11:00.003-05:00

I've recently had words with friends....

Okay, actually, I've been playing Words with Friends. I'm a bit addicted. (Can you be a bit addicted? Probably not...kind of like being a bit pregnant.)

If you don't know, Words with Friends is an app available for iPhone, iPad, and iTouch. It might be available on other platforms, but everyone I play has one of the aforementioned devices. It's basically an online Scrabble game. You and your opponent see the same board, and you take turns playing a word. As long as someone makes a move within 7 days, the game remains active and continues until all the letter tiles are gone. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins.

I hate Scrabble. Always have. When I played it as a kid, I don't think I ever finished a game. Adding up the points got tiresome and always seemed to spark an argument. Debating whether or not the string of letters someone played was actually a word sparked even bigger arguments. Somebody would bump the board, the tiles would go everywhere, and we would just say the heck with it.

So when Pam asked me to download the app and play her, I hemmed and hawed and dragged my feet. I hate Scrabble. Besides, Pam was apparently really good at it. She listed a group of people she played regularly, and she regularly kicked their ass. And we all know how well I lose at anything. Yeah. No thanks.

Pam is nothing if not persistent. She continued to harass me, and I continued to smile and ignore her. Then, a couple of weeks ago, at my pre-holiday girls' dinner, Amanda mentioned being tired because she had stayed up late playing Words with Friends. Pam perked up, and while I watched in mild amusement, they traded usernames and set up a game with each other.

"You could play with Kathy, but she still hasn't downloaded it." The look that accompanied this comment was less than friendly.

Amanda's expression was incredulous. "Oh my gosh! You don't have Words with Friends?!?"

Before I could formulate a response, she snatched my phone off the table and started clicking buttons. She thrust the phone back in my face.

"Enter your iTunes password."

"I don't really...I'm not sure..."

"Enter your password!"

If Pam or Linda had snatched my phone and demanded I enter my password, I would have laughed and said something unrepeatable. Amanda is my rainbows and unicorns friend....never speaks a cross word...never raises her voice. I was so taken aback by her bossiness I entered my password. Within minutes, I had a username, and Amanda had created a game.

She used my phone to play the first word..."nut." Pam rolled her eyes.

"Nut? Good god! You're playing a 3-letter word?"

"I'm easing her into it."

And that pretty much sums up the difference in my games with Pam and Amanda. I've had a game going with both of them since that night. Amanda and I play words that are in our actual working vocabulary. We trade wins and losses pretty evenly. Often, it comes down to whoever plays the last letter because we are so evenly matched.

Pam, on the other hand, is a shark. I can't beat her. I suspected she was cheating when she played the word "aedile." I used the instant messaging function in the game to ask her "wtf is an aedile?" Her response looked suspiciously cut and pasted from her dictionary app, followed by the word "duh."

Duh? Okay. Fine. It was on. I used a scrabble solver website and played the word "azoted." I had no idea what the word meant, but it had a Z in it, and Z's are worth 10 points. Pam merely laughed and said she didn't know I was a chemist. She won that game by at least 50 points. Even cheating, I couldn't beat her. **

I quit cheating. It wasn't helping and it kinda sucked all the fun out of the game. Upon reflection, I've figured out why Pam is so good. She is a math teacher, and Scrabble is really a math game in disguise. While I'm creating interesting words, Pam is racking up points. She plays a 3-letter word worth 40 points while my 6-letter word is only 6 points. The day I beat her will be a glorious day indeed.

I recently started a game with my youngest son, and it's been more fun than I can say. His username is ridiculous, and I laugh every time I get the notification that it's my turn. Even the words he plays are funny. I'm winning, and after getting my ass handed to me by Pam, it's good to win, even against a kid. (Yes, I love to win even at the expense of my own kid. Don't judge me.) Plus, it's kind of awesome that my 16 year-old wants to play me in a word game.

Win or lose, the game is fun and even kind of relaxing. When I'm focused on making a word with six weird consonants and one vowel, I'm not thinking about the stress in my life. It's not really intrusive. I play while I'm watching TV or reading, even while I'm writing this blog. On the weekends, we play at night until one of us falls asleep.

I recommend Words with Friends. Communication makes any relationship stronger. :)

**For the record, when I spell-checked this blog entry, the blogger dictionary didn't recognize aedile or azoted. Figures.

So long 2010! I won't miss ya!

2010-12-31T13:51:00.009-05:00

The end of the year creates an opportunity to look back and see what you've accomplished. I would rather look ahead than behind, but sometimes you need the behind to move ahead. So with only a few short hours left in 2010, I guess it’s time to take stock of the year.

Winter
I outlined this post before I started writing it, and I could see on paper what I already knew. Fall and winter are the hardest seasons for me. Some very practical concerns might explain this. Football season requires an enormous amount of energy, and my biggest work responsibilities fall during this time frame. However, I know a more fundamental, metaphysical reason exists. The cold gloomy weather of late fall and winter bring me down. Always have. The evidence would suggest I need to move to South Florida or a Caribbean Island.

While I’m waiting for the money fairy and the moving truck, I’ll keep on Jazzercising. I went to my first Jazzercise class January 25. Today’s class will be number 233 for the year. Jazzercise has been life-changing for me. The physical benefits are wonderful. My pants are a size smaller than they were 11 months ago. I don’t find myself breathing hard and sweating doing stupid things like carrying in groceries or climbing up and down the stairs. The real life changer, though, was in my mental and emotional health.

I weathered a particularly difficult personal storm last winter, and every time I thought I would fall into despair, I would go to Jazzercise and find the strength to get through another day. I had always heard about the endorphin high that comes with regular exercise, but I hated exercise so much, I’d never experienced it. I promise you, that high is real. I know because I’m addicted to it. I can actually identify the moment the extra oxygen hits my brain and those endorphins are released. And the benefits snowball. I can do actual push-ups now and hold a full plank. Feeling strong makes me feel confident which in turn makes me feel happy.

Beyond that, it’s just fun. I get to dance every day. This is how I feel when I dance.

Last winter was as cold and gloomy as winters get in Kentucky.

This pic was taken from my deck in January or February. I don’t remember exactly when, but there was a three-week stretch in which we only went to school for three days. Subsequently, we were in school until June 9th. You can read my philosophy on snow days here. Suffice it to say, I don’t love them.

The only positive thing about snow days is that I have more time to write. Last winter I finished my second novel, Crimson Crimes, during that long icy run with no school. It took me longer to write the second book than it did the first. I had cohesion problems with the second that have made me take a hard look at the way I approach plot. Sapphire Sins, my first, played out in my head like film rolling across a movie projector. The film broke midway through the sequel, and when I spliced it together, you could see the gap. The whole process was part of the learning experience. You have problems. You work through them. Your writing improves.

Of course, writing a sequel when you haven’t sold the first book is a mistake so common, it's a cliche. I know why writers do it…at least I know why I did it. It’s easier to keep writing characters you know than to invent new ones. I suppose if I was hell bent on making lots of writing mistakes, at least, they were all wrapped up in a book I feel quite confident will never sell. Only my beta reader has seen Crimson Crimes, and she was honest with me, thank goodness.

“It didn’t suck, but it didn’t keep me turning the pages like the first one did.”

Yeah, I know. That one will probably go in a box under the bed, never to see the light of day again. Unless…I sell Sapphire Sins, and then maybe I’ll rework the whole thing and who knows?

Spring
Spring brought exciting news on that front. I acquired a literary agent in March. Anyone who has queried knows it’s hard as hell to get an agent to even ask for pages, let alone offer representation. After 18 months of querying Sapphire Sins, I finally had both in one fell swoop. The day he called and offered was a glorious day. I was validated. I really could write. A professional in the shrinking publishing industry believed in my work.

I signed a contract. I made a few minor edits on his recommendation. I rewrote my synopsis, as well as a two paragraph back-cover blurb, and then he began submitting. Almost immediately, an editor at HarperCollins wanted to see it. That email ushered in another string of glorious days. I could already see the cover art in my head. I mentally ran my fingers across the raised letters of my name. I imagined the trip to Italy I would take with my fat advance. I dropped the new project I was working on and began tinkering with the broken sequel, thinking a two-book deal would really launch my career.

And then…the editor passed. The writing was good, but they were looking for the next big thing in paranormal romance. Vampires had seen their day and were on the way out. Honestly, this had been my problem in getting an agent. I was on the wrong side of the vampire curve. Timing is everything. We got several more bites, but traditional publishers didn’t want any more vampires, and the book is too long for most e-publishers. So it languished.

Then, in late October, my agent informed me he was getting out of the agenting business. Too hard to make money in a shrinking industry. Tomorrow, on January 1, all the rights to Sapphire Sins revert back to me. I’ve been thinking hard about what to do next, but I’m going to save those musings for another blog post.

Spring brought other happy occasions. I love spring. As the weather warms, I feel lighter. Even the end-of-the-school-year deadlines don’t stress me too much. Light and warmth and lots of natural vitamin D make all the difference in the world.

My brother married his soul mate on May Day in Nashville. If you live in Nashville, I’m certain you remember that weekend. It started raining in the wee hours of the morning Saturday and didn’t stop until the city was underwater. But many waters cannot quench love. It was a great day for my family in spite of the natural disaster.

Another glorious spring day brought my son’s high school graduation.

He’s handsome isn’t he? He’s starting college this January. He worked through the fall at UPS and realized maybe he could stand to go back to school. I have faith that he’ll find his way, but I’ll worry constantly until he does.

Summer
Summer brought my bff, Pam, home from Iraq. Oh Happy Day! Life is so much more fun with her around. If there is a party, she will find it. If there’s not, she’ll create it. The girls’ weekend I blogged about recently? Totally her brainchild. And if you need someone to have your back, no one will have it better than Pam. I’m putting the U.S. Army on notice. I know she’s a damn good soldier, but you may not deploy her overseas again. I forbid it.

Yeah, I’m sure that will work. Speaking of patriotism, I felt it over the July 4th weekend in Ocean City. You can read about that here.

July was memorable in all sorts of ways, not the least of which was my first national writing convention. I attended RWA in Orlando. It was supposed to be in Nashville, but the Opryland Hotel had water halfway up the second floor on May Day weekend, so we went to Disney World instead. The experience was awesome, and you can read about each day's adventure here, here, here, and here. My after-the-conference post is here. As I reread my post conference goals, I realize I haven't done everything I said I would. I've got six months to do better. The 2011 convention in New York is one of my most anticipated plans for the coming year.

August brought a new school year. I love being a teacher. It is my second career, and I’ve never once regretted leaving the business world for the classroom. Teaching is a calling for me. Every school year has its ups and downs, and standing at the halfway point of this year, I’ve experienced both. I have some of the brightest kids I’ve ever taught this year, and they never fail to make me feel optimistic about the future. I also have some challenging students. That’s part and parcel of the job. I hope when the school year is over, I can say I reached these kids and enriched their lives.

Fall
Somewhere in the middle of football season, fall happens. It’s summer, and I’m carting my youngest to camps and practices, saying hello and goodbye to Bruce like ships passing in the night, and suddenly I realize the leaves have turned and it’s not hot anymore. Football season rules our world in the fall. Bruce’s team plays on Saturday (this year on Thursday night several times…what’s up with that?), and my youngest plays on Friday night. Being a sophomore, he also played JV on Monday nights. I logged a lot of hours on metal bleachers this year.

I’m not complaining (at least most of the time). A long season means you’re winning, and having been married to a football coach for 21 years, I can say with authority that winning is better than losing. My son’s team went all the way to the final four in the state tournament this year, and Bruce’s team made the playoffs again after a four year dry spell. Nope…not complaining about that at all.

I guess if I had a complaint about the fall, it would be that my writing stalled. I should qualify…my blogging and novel writing stalled. I’ve written several short stories. One, I posted on the blog and you can read it here. Others were more personal and therapeutic and not for public consumption. If you’re a writer, you know what I mean.

Winter has rolled around again, and I’m focused on not letting it get me down. The weather has already been crappy, and it’s only December. I’m hoping that means the worst is out of the way, and it’s smooth sailing from here on out. (Yeah, I’m delusional sometimes, but it gets me through.) If not, my stepmom. Patricia, bought me a happy light for my desk at work. I’ll let you know if it works.

I know Jazzercise works, and I know spending time with my friends and family works. I know that putting my butt in the chair and my fingers on the keyboard works. So I plan on doing all three as frequently as possible in 2011. I’m a no resolutions person. Don’t resolve to do something. Just freakin’ do it.

So long 2010. I won’t miss ya.

Bring it on 2011! I’m ready.

In the eye of the beholder

2010-12-21T11:34:00.003-05:00

My eldest son is an artist. The stack of sketchbooks on his desk show the progression of his art from imitation to innovation.

Some of his sketchbooks are thematic. One of my favorites is centered around William Ernst Henley's "Invictus." The images are surreal and grotesque and perfectly capture the juxtaposition of persecution and defiance in the poem. He's not ready to publicly share those images because they are intensely personal. I get that. I've written stories I'll probably never share because they are too personal.

Lately, my son has been playing with sound and images. Inspired by Dubstep (Go look it up. I couldn't begin to describe what it is.), he used a simple video editing program to combine still images and short sound clips to create what I like to think of as abstract video art.

The viewer brings their own experience to any work of art and uses that experience to create meaning, but abstract art allows even more room for interpretation than other forms. Impose whatever meaning you like on this, or none at all, but I thought it was cool.

Boys and Girls

2010-12-14T13:31:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, I wrote about my girls' outing to The Connection. It was a night of many firsts, not the least of which was my introduction to the unisex bathroom. Sometimes, the smallest moments are the most memorable, so I thought I'd share.

My friends and I arrived at the club an hour and a half before the show started, so we chilled in the upstairs bar until it was time to go into the theater. For a while, we were the only people upstairs. This turned out to be a good thing for a couple of reasons. First, we had a great time with Justin, the bartender, who was bored by the lack of customers and hung out at our table with us. Good bartenders are also good conversationalists, and Justin was no exception. And second, we were introduced to the unisex bathrooms before we actually had to share them with members of the opposite sex.

Never have I been more grateful for the female mentality of going to the bathroom in packs. Three of us went in search of the bathroom. I was glad I had company. I might not have gone in by myself.

When we found it, I said, "Is it the men's or the women's?"

It had not previously occurred to me that a club hosting one of the premier drag shows in the country would not want to make gender distinctions. Amanda was more on the ball.

"It says boys and girls. I guess it's both."

"Huh? Really?"

We walked in wide-eyed, or at least I did. Amanda and Tammy perused the place like they were looking at exhibits in a museum. I ducked into the nearest stall, hoping to get in and out before a boy came in. I don't know why it freaked me out at first. I live in a house with three men, but I guess my conservative upbringing rears its head in unfamiliar situations.

When I went to sit down...or rather hover over...I was momentarily blinded. The stall contained a spotlight embedded in the floor right in front of the toilet.

"Oh my god! I'm blind!"

I could hear Amanda laughing. "I can see your silhouette on the wall."

This is where I have to pause and ask WHY?? I get the unisex bathrooms. Really, I do. But why do you need your giant urinating shadow splayed across the wall for everyone in the bathroom to see? If the locked door isn't enough of a clue that the stall is occupied, then install one of those latches that says "occupied." Don't display my hunkered down, slightly panicked crouch to the general public.

I peed as fast as humanly possible and got the hell out of the stall. Amanda was standing in front of the wall between the two stalls. It was tiled with a trench at the bottom.

"Do you think it's a urinal or just decorative?"

At this point, the ridiculousness of the whole thing hit me, and I doubled over. I laughed so hard I thought I was going to have to make another trip into the light fantastic to pee again.

We resolved to go to the bathroom in pairs and to wait until both parties were finished to leave. We borrowed a page from Pam's army book. Don't leave a man...or woman...behind. The rule was adhered to for a while, but after the show started, the bathrooms became crowded and the wait was longer. Going in pairs became inconvenient. Besides, the only lighting was in the floor in the stalls, so it was pretty dark. Half the time, I couldn't tell if the person in line beside me was a boy or a girl, and it just quit mattering very much anyway.

Pam talked to some boys in line for the stalls who told her they didn't like the urinal wall. It looked chic and trendy, but in reality was exactly like peeing on a wall, and they didn't like it. I don't want to stereotype, but I wonder if this is a gay thing. The straight men I live with have peed on a wall when necessity dictated and didn't seem particularly bothered by it. Maybe I just live with gross straight men. Cleaning up after my teenagers would suggest this is the case.

I'd like to say I'm all sophisticated and cosmopolitan now, that the next time I encounter a unisex bathroom, I'll be completely nonchalant. But in truth, a conservative upbringing is a hard thing to overcome. Unless the lighting is low and the gender lines blurred, I'll probably duck into the stall like I've committed a crime and hope my shadow doesn't give me away.

What Have You Done Today to Make You Feel Proud?

2010-12-13T10:03:00.004-05:00

I posted this as my status Saturday night on Facebook, and several of my friends responded, telling me about the random acts of kindness they had performed that day. The things they had done ranged from humorous to sweet, and I was reminded again why social networking is fun.

I had to chuckle, though, because when I posted it, I was watching the finale of my very first drag show. The evening had been a revelation, an adventure, inspirational even, and without a doubt the most fun I've had in a very long time.

Four of my good friends, all teachers, and I decided about a month ago that it had been a long stressful semester, and that we needed a girls' weekend to blow off steam. So we planned a shopping excursion to a large outlet mall in southern Indiana. Then Pam, who seems to have a nose for sniffing out a good time, suggested we hit a drag show in Louisville. None of us had ever been to one before, but The Connection's show came highly recommended by several of Pam's Louisville-based friends.

The five of us are all open-minded, but as soon as we told folks our plans, our motives came under fire. Were we going to laugh at the drag queens? To mock them?

When I told one friend that paying my money to see the show was actually a form of support, he said, "Kathy, you are not going to a drag show to make the world a better place."

I responded, "I'm on the front lines of making the world a better place EVERY DAY!"

Regardless of the questions, our motives were pure. We were admittedly curious, but we were going to be entertained, to have a good time. And oh holy cow! We were, and we did!

We shopped for seven hours, so when we arrived at our hotel in Louisville, we were already on a post-shopping high. We were actually giddy, like twelve year old girls having a slumber party. We had momentarily escaped the pressures and stress of our daily lives. Nothing seemed over the top, not even being carded at the front door. (A couple of us have kids old enough to get into the place.)

I'm not gonna lie, though. In spite of our spirit of adventure, my jaw dropped several times during the show. Then, since my mouth was already open, I screamed my approval. Seriously, is there anything more fun than the outrageous? My friends were right there with me. We might have been the loudest group at the show.

At one point, Hurricane Summers, the hostess of the show, invited all the birthdays and brides to the front. She interviewed one young bride-to-be who said she was in school, studying to be a teacher. Almost as if choreographed in advance, my friends and I yelled, "NOOOOOOO!" (I wasn't joking about the stressful semester...lol) Hurricane turned her attention our way and asked if we were all teachers. "Yes! High school teachers!"

Once we outed ourselves as educators, we had a steady stream of people stop by to talk to us, shake our hands, or hug us.

"Thank you so much for coming!"

"We really appreciate your support."

"High school sucked for me. I wish I had teachers like you guys who would've had my back."

Wow. Just wow. I hope I deserve that. I don't tolerate bullying of any kind in my classroom, but I hope I deserve that. When the gals did a rendition of Heather Small's "Proud," I felt compelled to post the lyrics.

We made a lot of new friends, danced our butts off, and laughed so hard I felt like I had done sit-ups the next day. I could write a whole blog post on the unisex bathrooms. The first time I used them, I was wide-eyed and a little uncomfortable. By the end of the night, I was standing in line chatting casually with both boys and girls.

Sunday morning, the five of us curled up in our pj's and shared pictures and stories...and laughed some more. Pam has photographic evidence that I literally danced all night...in front of the stage, in my chair, with the waiter...and I apparently can't dance unless my arms are in the air. Linda was horrified to remember that she ate a whole Jimmie John's sub at 3:30 in the morning. Tammy was pleased that the boots she bought at the outlet mall received high praise in the unisex bathroom.

When the snow melts and we get back to school, I will be reinvigorated...ready to face the last crazy days until the winter break. Nothing like a girls' weekend to recharge the batteries. We're already planning the next one. I'm leaving you with Heather Small's song. Imagine a tall, leggy blonde pointing into the crowd and asking, "What have you done today to make you feel proud?"

Fun with words...or another awesome Internet distraction

2010-12-05T11:36:00.010-05:00

Do you need another awesome Internet distraction? Yeah, me neither, but this is waaay cool.

Tagxedo! (Thanks Criss for the link!)

Tagxedo is Wordle on steroids. I've played with Wordle and used it in my classroom. Last year, I had kids create a whole wall of Wordles out of their controversial issues papers. It stopped traffic in the hall for several days.

Oh, the possibilities I see with Tagxedo...

The following two clouds are made up of words from the first chapter of Sapphire Sins.

These were both created using Tagxedo's pre-loaded shapes, but you can upload any image and use it to create a word cloud. I've played with my face, my friends' faces, and my dog, and that was just messing around. Can you imagine what my students will create out of their papers on animal testing, gun control, smoking bans, urban sprawl, gay marriage, cloning, school uniforms, and drivers' licensing laws? I can't wait to find out, and I hope one or two of them will give me permission to share.

As a writer, the shaped word clouds made me stop and think about my first chapter in a different way. I haven't re-visited that manuscript in a while, and as I looked at the word cloud in a heart shape, I thought, "Wow, she really can't decide how to feel about the predicament in which she's found herself." The frequency and placement of the words highlighted my heroine's confusion.

I think I'm going to play with an abandoned manuscript. I stopped because I never could "hear" the characters in my head the way I did with Diana and Raphael. Maybe the word clouds will help me find them. If not, it'll still be a fun distraction on this snowy Sunday afternoon.

Black Friday Fun

2010-11-27T13:56:00.004-05:00

Overheard at Target circa 11:30 am on Black Friday...

"Wo-man, I'm like to sit down righ-chere in the middle of this aisle and go to sleep. You've had me up since two am."

"Oh suck it up you big wuss. I've sat up in a tree with you for eighteen hours straight. I don't wanna hear it."

That's why I go out on Black Friday.

It's all about the entertainment for me. Sure, I buy a few things. Some deals are just too good to pass up (like a copy of The Princess Bride for $2), but the real fun is meandering through the store and alternately watching a sleep-deprived shopper pulling the last portable DVD player off the shelf and my shopping partner, Patricia, happy-dancing over a Pink Floyd t-shirt in the right size.

I only see Patricia three or four times a year, and somehow, we always end up shopping. Well, she shops, and I mostly travel behind in her wake, awed at her ability to find a deal. We have a good time, though. Her enthusiasm is infectious, and neither of us take ourselves too seriously (as evidenced by the modeling we did in the dressing room of a department store).

We ninja'd through traffic, spent an inordinate amount of time in the bookstore, undressed a mannequin, tried unsuccessfully to tip the guy at Steak-n-Shake's drive thru, bought matching leopard-print sleep pants, and laughed uproariously...a lot. As entertainment goes, it was a lot of bang for my buck.

It beats the hell out of staring at football all day in a tryptophan coma...or sitting up in a tree for eighteen hours straight.

I hope your Thanksgiving was happy and your Black Friday shopping productive. :)

Stress

2010-11-25T23:12:00.004-05:00

I recently asked my Facebook friends to suggest possible blog topics. The last month or so has been particularly stressful, leaving me creatively dry. A few of my friends openly commented, but more messaged or texted me with their ideas. One of the first suggestions I received was to write about the stress that was bogging me down. I liked the idea, but I'm not willing to publicly share all of my life, and I didn't want to write a whiny "poor me" post.

I sometimes start a writing session by playing word association. I'll type a word, usually the topic I'm considering, and then I'll type whatever word jumps into my mind as a result. After a few minutes the random words get in line in my brain, and I'm in business.

This time, the words refused to form neat prosaic lines. I've learned that fighting the words is futile, so I let them have their way. As a writing exercise, it was fun, and I learned some new html code playing with the indentation. Enjoy.

Stress

stress

wears

tears
repress

pain

disdain
less

yields
distress

builds

wins
impress

no one
mess

goes on

spins
guess

ing game
assess

ing blame
redress

abuse

excuse

begins
confess

fears

tears

sins
press

ure eases
duress

releases
bless

new leases

friends
stress

hammering coal

forging soul

diamonds
yes

Thank You J.K. Rowling

2010-11-21T09:02:00.005-05:00

Yesterday, I took my son to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, a fact that seems fairly mundane given that literally millions of other parents did the same. But for me, it was special, a not-quite-final step on a journey my son and I have traveled together.

Ask anyone with a 19 year old son. Having him choose his mother as a movie date is a rare thing. A young man of 19 generally prefers his friends, his girlfriend, even his younger brother for an evening at the multiplex.

But this was Harry, and Harry is ours.

I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone eight years ago when a student recommended it. I remember thinking the characters were vivid and likable and the plot was original, but most importantly, I remember thinking my eldest son, then 11, would like it. I had not come to grips with the fact that he didn't enjoy reading fiction. I love fiction passionately. I had read stories to him since he was in the womb. How was it possible he didn't feel the same way I did?

The only fiction my son ever enjoyed was fantasy. He had a collection of books about dragons and the origin of dragon myths. He liked stories about magic. Harry seemed the perfect vehicle to show him the the joys of reading fiction for pleasure.

I bought him the book and then watched it sit on the floor next to his bed, untouched. When it disappeared under the pile of various and sundry crap that always seems to litter his floor, I changed tactics. I offered to read it aloud to him at night. He has always enjoyed being read to...it's how we got through Jane Eyre, so he could pass Senior English.

We started with chapter one, "The Boy Who Lived," and I could see the interest on his face, but then as we read chapter two and the first part of chapter three, I lost him. He was the same age as Harry, and he hated the way the Dursleys treated Harry, so much so, he wanted to stop. The effect of that mistreatment is mitigated in the movies by making the Dursleys objects of derision, but in print, with nothing but an 11 year old's imagination, it was powerful.

We stopped reading for a week. He refused to read a story where the character he identified with was so powerless. I begged him to persevere, swore to him it would get better, and promised the Dursleys would get their comeuppance. And he finally, albeit reluctantly, agreed. Once Hagrid arrived and whisked Harry away to Hogwarts, he was hooked.

Interestingly, Voldemort never seemed as threatening to my son as those abusive, neglectful Dursleys. There is a poignant moment early in the Deathly Hallows where Harry takes one last look at the cupboard under the stairs. My son and I turned to each other, and he smiled. Both he and Harry had moved past those bad times early in the story. The Dursleys no longer held any power over either of them. It was one of those transformative moments the best kind of stories bring, where you feel what the character is feeling.

After the first book, my son read the rest of the series on his own. The summer the fifth book, The Order of the Phoenix, was released, we went to a midnight release party. He was a piece in a game of wizard's chess. We drank butterbeer and ate lots of foul-tasting Bertie Botts every flavor beans. Then, we both stayed up all night with the book. Yes, we each had a copy.

We have seen all of the movies together. Even as he got older, got his driver's license, and became more independent, we still shared Harry. He never considered seeing any of the movies with anyone else. We discussed the different directors' visions, the minute changes in plot, the choice of actors. (Neither of us got over the loss of Sir Richard Harris and his Dumbledore. The new guy never measured up.)

I'm glad the producers decided to break the last book into two movies. Even though my son and I both groaned after the last scene in part one, I have at least one more Harry Potter experience to share with my son. I'm glad it's not over yet.

I sobbed, yes, literally sobbed, through the last twenty pages of The Deathly Hallows, and I know I will cry at the end of the last movie. I love those characters that much. They are real to me. That final sacrificial walk Harry takes into the forest is archetypal and so well-written, I was there with him. And so was my son. He walked that journey with Harry, and he cared as much as I did.

Thank you J.K. Rowling. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Never, Ever Piss Off a Writer

2010-11-04T22:17:00.002-04:00

I texted the title of this post to my friend, Pam, just last week. I was being facetious at the time, but the story I just stumbled across via Liana Brooks' blog is proof positive that it's true.

Cooks Source Magazine, a for-profit publication, lifted a post from this writer's blog and printed it without her knowledge or permission. She contacted the magazine and got this response from the editor:

But honestly Monica, the web is considered "public domain" and you should be happy we just didn't "lift" your whole article and put someone else's name on it!

Wrong answer. Aside from the fact that lifting someone's writing and putting your name on it is plagiarism, my blog and everyone's blog is protected under copyright law. While most folks don't mind being quoted or linked...we do want readers...you may not take my writing and print it for profit without my permission.

Writers on the web are an interconnected bunch, and this gem of a response from Cooks Source bounced around from blog to blog, including John Scalzi's blog (one of my personal favs) which gets approximately 10,000 hits per day. Blog readers reported it to several watchdog organizations, and then it blew up on twitter.

@neilhimself (Neil Gaiman) retweeted it. He has 1.5 million followers.

People found the Cooks Source Facebook page and flamed it mercilessly. I'm sure they'll be taking that page down any moment now, but check it out if it's still there. Wow...just wow...

Edward Champion did some investigating and discovered that Cooks Source has made a fine living reprinting content from the Internet without permission.

Any money Cooks Source might have saved by stealing from mostly unknown writers will probably now be paid ten thousand times over to lawyers. Honestly, after following this thread from link to link, I'll be surprised if they're still in business this time next month.

Never, ever piss off a writer.

Lies, Damn Lies, and well, you know the rest...

2010-11-01T21:00:00.007-04:00

I hated my statistics class in college with a blue passion. The words "standard deviation" still make me shudder. Ironically, though, I find reading statistics someone else has generated endlessly interesting.

For instance:

E-book sales comprise 9% of all trade book sales year-to-date in 2010, up from 3.3% in the same period in 2009.

Between 2000 and 2009, four-year institutions of higher learning raised tuition an average of 46%.

By the end of the day tomorrow, $3.7 billion will have been spent on campaign ads, up 75% from 2008.

Almost 85% of people who snore exceed 38 decibels of sound, the equivalent of light highway traffic.

The average American eats 10-12 pounds of chocolate per year.

Lord knows, I'm doing my part on that last one.

Recently, I've become fascinated with the statistics for my blog. Blogger tracks your page views by blog post, time of day, geographic place, referring URL's, and the search terms that got people there. Some of the statistics are illuminating, but most leave me bemused.

The United States is naturally the country in which most people view my blog, but just this week alone I had 19 views from the Netherlands and 14 views from Russia. Really? What am I saying that interests the Dutch? Or the Russians? I even had four views from Slovenia. Wow...

I normally have the biggest viewing spikes when I put up a new post which makes sense, right? But occasionally, I get these crazy spikes on old posts. My post on Self Doubt contains a Diana Ross video. 457 people viewed that one in one day, a month after the original post. My readership is modest, so I'm attributing that spike to Diana and not my own words of wisdom.

Posts which share titles with something more famous get lots of views as well. My Invictus post has been very popular, although I suspect some folks are disappointed when they find me instead of Matt Damon. Expectation is the Root of all Heartache has also gotten mad hits. Again, some poor high school student looking for help with his English homework is probably frustrated when he finds me.

Embedded pictures lead people to me. Twice, I have included pictures of buffalo in my posts. (Here and here.) Both have brought people my way. I wonder if any of them stayed after looking at my buffalo?

The most entertaining statistic is the list of most popular search terms which connected people with my blog. My name is at the top of that list...no big surprise...but once you get past the obvious, I find myself in WTF country. Just this week, people found me by googling "he makes my cherry pop" and "Jazzercise with colostomy." Last month, someone used "I never sit on a toilet." Granted, I have actually used the words "he makes my cherry pop" and "I never sit on a toilet," but why would you google those phrases? I've used "Jazzercise" multiple times, but this is the first time the word "colostomy" has graced my blog.

The big dumb eighth grader inside of me wants to let loose a string of random, unrelated words just to see what kind of bizarre Slovenian (no disrespect to Slovenians intended, it's just...Slovenia?) traffic I get. So here goes...

I would expect Dutch apple pie and Russian dressing to make my cherry pop, but expectation is the root of all heartache. Mark Twain knows I don't wear a colostomy bag, even if I never sit on a toilet. It's all lies, damn lies, and well, you know the rest...

I am the master of my fate, Diana Ross, I am the captain of my soul.

Lessons My Son Learned at the Track (and other good parenting tips)

2010-10-24T13:04:00.008-04:00

Yesterday, my son learned three important lessons about sport.

Any sporting event can be turned into a social event when you spend more time in the parking lot outside the venue eating, drinking, and playing games than you do inside watching.
A sporting event in which you are generally disinterested becomes all-consuming for two minutes when you have cold hard cash riding on it (pun intended).
Mocking overdressed twenty-somethings as they stagger back to the parking lot, carrying their ties and stilettos, is a sport unto itself.

My Kentucky friends know all about Keeneland, but for those of you in places where thoroughbred horse racing is merely an interesting setting in a movie (Secretariat was filmed at Keeneland), let me enlighten you. We have two major tracks in Kentucky: Louisville's Churchill Downs (of Kentucky Derby fame) and Lexington's Keeneland. Keeneland is open year round for off-track betting, but they only hold races on site twice a year, a three week meet in the spring and another in the fall.

The Keeneland Fall Meet is in full swing. Because it is a limited engagement, people flock to the track in the thousands, and because many young Kentuckians fancy themselves members of the horsey set, they dress to the nines. Then, they get ground-level grandstand seats and drink themselves stupid. The real horsey set is up in the exclusive boxes and party rooms far removed from the unwashed masses.

Although I'm not a serious racing fan (could you tell?), going to Keeneland on a gorgeous October day is a good time. Yesterday, I was invited by my restaurateur friend, Mike, to his first annual Keeneland tailgate party. (We had several moments of debate as to whether something could be called an annual event until it's held for the second time a year later.) Our kids are all good friends, so they came as well, and it was the first time for several of them, including my younger son.

A young man's first trip to the track is nothing if not educational.

Pam's husband, Mike B., walked him through the betting process. He explained how the odds work and how you determine the payoff on a bet. I worried for a moment, and then shrugged it off as a math lesson. My son listened intently, asked a few pertinent questions, and then made his pick...based solely on the name of the horse (which honestly, is how I pick my Derby horse every year). He liked Cajun Pride, and so did I...I think I might have read a romance novel with that name.

I placed a $2 bet for Cajun Pride to win in the fifth and gave my son the ticket. We made our way through the crush in the grandstands to get as close to the rail as we could. The horses are beautiful, and I like to be close enough to hear the pounding of the hooves when they pass.

Again...educational. By the fifth race, the horsey set wannabes had consumed enough beer and Kentucky bourbon to throw conventional standards of appropriate behavior out the window. It's a bit like a frat party with horses and designer clothes. In true sixteen year-old fashion, my son thought it was hilarious.

His attention was diverted by the horses and their jockeys bedecked in their racing silks parading down the track and being loaded into the gates. In spite of my general disinterest in racing, that part is pretty cool. As is that moment when the bell rings, the gates open, and the horses charge down the track. Cajun Pride took the lead with authority. My son found himself screaming right along with the inebriated folk as we watched our horse barrel around the first turn and down the backstretch. Unfortunately, I knew what was going to happen. Very few horses have the endurance to lead wire to wire, and poor ole Cajun Pride was no exception.

Cajun Pride faded in the final turn and came in fourth. Pam's pick, Sudden War, crossed the line first, netting her a whopping $3.80 on a $2 bet. My son looked around, saw the well-heeled drunks throwing their tickets on the ground, and followed suit. It was the only bet we made all day, and we were both fine with that. Another lesson learned.

Our tailgate was set up just outside the rail on the final turn, and we watched the rest of the races from that more peaceful vantage point. The kids played corn hole and tossed a ball around, and the adults kicked back and enjoyed the incredible fall day. Mike worked magic on three small grills, and we feasted on clams, shrimp skewers, rack of lamb, and filet mignon. My educational moment was realizing one should always take a bonafide chef to a tailgate party.

The day wound down with the now disheveled, but still overdressed kids returning to the parking lot. I pointed out a guy in a shirt and tie standing in the bed of his pick-up and attempting to swing from a tree limb to my son.

"You never, ever want to be that guy."

The fellow's friends were trying to coax him into the truck so they could leave. My son pointed at them.

"I never want to be those guys either. I'd wait til he was hanging from the limb and drive off."

I think his friends were contemplating doing just that. Luckily, Security came along, and the guy changed his tune and got in the truck.

So in addition to the aforementioned lessons about sport, my son learned some life lessons as well.

Unless you have been invited to the horsey set's private boxes, you should wear comfortable clothing to the track. Corn hole is difficult in stilettos and you don't have to dry clean beer stains out of blue jeans.
You might as well bet the horse with the cool name because the payout on the favorite sucks.
If you plan to act like an idiot, make sure your friends really like you.

Smart People Rule the World

2010-10-14T10:15:00.007-04:00

I had a head-spinning, fly-completely-off-the-rails moment in my classroom yesterday.

Not because students were misbehaving. No...the students in that class are awesome kids. I went berserk because more than half of the students in the class said they don't think of themselves as "smart people." Then, they went further and said they don't want to be labeled as "smart people." It's just not cool.

This from advanced English students...pre-AP kids who jumped through rigorous hoops to be in the class...kids who are reading and discussing Plato's Republic.

Are you kidding me? Are you FREAKING kidding me?

Let me take a few deep breaths and back up.

As I said, we are reading Plato. After each reading assignment, I prepare three or four questions that serve to illuminate the reading and bring the concepts into the 21st century. I lob those questions into my classroom like conversational grenades. These kids are tremendous readers and thinkers, and they lob their responses right back at me. The discussion is always vigorous, and one of my goals is to teach them how to listen to a different point of view and disagree respectfully (a lost art these days).

So yesterday, we reached the section in which Socrates says that philosophers should be kings. The first grenade I tossed out there was this: Should the smartest people in a group or community be the leaders? Turns out that question wasn't a grenade. It was a thermonuclear weapon of mass destruction.

Overwhelmingly, the kids said no, the smartest people shouldn't necessarily be the leaders of any given group or community. I pointed out that a room full of smart people were arguing against smart people being in charge. That's when they started denying being smart.

"Oh, Ms. Owens, there's lots of people smarter than us."

"We're not really that smart."

"I don't think of myself as a smart person."

WTF? My goal of teaching respectful disagreement went out my nonexistent window, and I flipped.

"What do you mean you don't think of yourself as a smart person?"

I heard myself getting loud, and I knew my tone had changed from calm facilitation to righteous indignation.

"It's not cool to be smart."

"Says who!?!"

Shrugs all around. "You know...everybody."

"Oh. Everybody. Of course. Everybody says it."

Yes...now we were firmly in the land of derisive sarcasm.

"I've got news for Everybody. Everybody is going to wake up when he graduates from high school and realize he needs the smart people. Everybody is going to need a smart person when he gets sick. Everybody is going to show up in a smart person's office with his hat in his hands when he needs legal help. Everybody is going to be a slave to the next must-have gadget that a smart person designed. Everybody is going to be punching the clock in a company a smart person runs. Everybody is going to realize that he is just a cog in a big machine that has a smart person at the controls."

I think I might have slammed my copy of Plato on a kid's desk at this point.

"Or even worse...maybe Everybody will never figure it out. Maybe he'll just be an ineffectual, frustrated underachiever who stays stuck in a rut his whole life and never figures out why he's so unhappy. Or he'll find a scapegoat to blame for his stupid choices...the government, his boss, his teachers...and the BEST part...he won't even be cool anymore. Because while Everybody has power in the halls of a high school where he preys on the inherent insecurity of his fellow students, once he graduates, he realizes the smart people have moved on. They are doing important smart people things, and he is nothing more than a dim, unpleasant memory."

A moment of silence descended when I stopped to breathe. I knew my blood pressure was up because I could feel my pulse in my forehead.

The kid sitting right in front of me said, "You really don't like stupid people, do you Ms. Owens?"

The class erupted in laughter, and so did I. The tension was broken, and I was able to answer his question like a reasonable person.

"I have no problem with people who are ignorant because they haven't been taught yet. I'm a teacher. That's what I do. My problem is with people who not only choose to remain ignorant, but who revel in their ignorance...wear it like a badge of honor."

The dumbass has become a staple of American TV and movies. Watch one episode of The Jersey Shore, and you'll believe with certainty we are doomed. Really. Is it any wonder kids think stupid is cool? But I didn't say that to my class.

I told them to be happy they could be counted among the smart people. I told them to believe it and to own it. Philosophers might not be kings, but smart people are captains of industry. The big problems our country faces will be solved by smart people, not pundits, talking heads, or self-serving politicians. Smart people are doing all the work that truly matters.

Like it or not, smart people rule the world.

No Music? No Thanks.

2010-10-10T20:18:00.006-04:00

In my first piece of posted fiction, I imagined a scenario in which music is unwittingly traded away by my protagonist. I called it horror because a life without music sounds pretty darn horrible to me. It got me thinking about what I would lose if I made that bargain.

Without music, I would not have sung Eminem's "Lose Yourself" with one of my former students at a karaoke party last week. He's all grown up now, a college graduate and contributing member of society (Yeah, I've been teaching that long), but there was definitely an "Oh, Snap!" moment when I agreed to be his hype man...er, woman on stage. How many people get to rap in public with their ninth grade English teacher? The crowd, of course, went wild...me, Chad, Eminem...why wouldn't they?

A high moment. A good night. Music was at the center of it.

Without music, I would not be addicted to working out. I would still be carrying around extra pounds and huffing and puffing when I climbed more than one flight of stairs. Jazzercise is exercise choreographed to music, and I love it. Most of the time it feels more like fun than work, and when it does get tough, I sing to distract myself from the pain. Subsequently, I know every word to Lady Gaga and Beyonce's "Telephone".

Sometimes, I sing for the sheer joy of endorphins kicking and oxygen hitting my brain like a drug. And that's my excuse for knowing every word to Christina's "Candyman." Why wouldn't you want to know lyrics that include "He's a one stop shop. He makes my cherry pop?"I like singing along to that one because the music sounds so 1940s wholesome, and the lyrics are...not.

I've discovered new songs I love at Jazzercise....Madonna's newer stuff, Melanie Fiona's "Bang Bang," Idina Menzel's "I Stand," One Eskimo's "Kandi"...and so on and so on. Today, we did new routines to covers of two old songs. LeAnn Rimes' version of "Swingin" is fun. The remake of Jefferson Airplane's "Don't You Want Somebody to Love" is strange. The link is to the original. Some songs should just be left alone.

Without music, sports would lose something. "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Back in Black" will always make me think about football. Kid Rock's "All Summer Long" came out one summer when I was driving Eldest all over the state to baseball games, so it's a baseball song in my head.

Bruce and his colleagues have XM radio in the football offices. Not surprisingly, they listen to the headbanger channel on game day. What did surprise me (and cracked me up) was finding out they listen to the reggae channel during the week. According to Bruce, the Jamaican vibe chills everybody out. Whatever works, right?

Without music, driving wouldn't be nearly as much fun. Who among us doesn't like to roll down the windows and crank the stereo on a beautiful sunny day. I tested the speakers on my new car today with the Foo Fighters' "Let it Die." While not on par with my son's massive subs, I found them sufficient to my needs. :)

Ironically, the one thing I cannot do to music is write. I follow many writers who say they use music as a way into their stories. I find that music almost always pulls me out of my story. The story of the song is usually pervasive enough that it interferes with the plot thread in my head. I do use music during non-writing activities to get me started when I sit down later to write. A song can solidify a character in my head or help me establish the mood of a scene. So without music, my writing would suffer.

I can think of situations where I might be tempted to make a deal with Erebus. To magically attain those things that seem very far out of reach, I might give up something. The problem with those deals is that you always lose something precious. In a classic deal with the devil, you lose your soul. Losing music might seem tame by comparison, but I wonder. What kind of soul would you have without it?

Something Gained. Something Lost.

2010-10-07T10:25:00.004-04:00

This is a first for me. I've never posted my fiction on the blog, mostly because I don't tend to write short. I write long, and posting even bits and pieces of my novels would diminish their chances of being published traditionally. I like long story arcs and rich character development. Writing short stories is about packing a lot of story and character into just a few words. What follows is just under 2k words. By contrast, my agented novel is 105k.

I'm a romance writer, but this is a horror story inspired by a quote from The Merchant of Venice that popped up on my iPhone Shakespeare quote of the day app. Sooooo...I'm posting my first fiction in a genre I don't write and a form I don't write. What could possibly be wrong with that? :)

Enjoy.

Something Gained. Something Lost.

“Light thinks it travels faster than anything, but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” ~~Terry Pratchett

A shadow flitted across Mina’s peripheral vision, but when she turned her head, nothing was there. She peered out from her hiding place. Traffic was sparse, but a kaleidoscope of light strobed down the block. Club-goers milled outside the entrance.

In between, darkness wove a pattern around a pair of streetlights. It filled the space she occupied, surrounding her. When she had ducked into the recess just a few minutes earlier, the darkness had seemed welcoming, an ally. Now, it felt heavy.

As if fueled by her fearful thoughts, the darkness grew deeper, suffocating her, suffocating the sounds of the city. She imagined herself underwater as even the pounding bass from the nearby club was silenced. A chill worked its way down her back, and she pulled her jacket tighter around her shoulders. It wasn’t much help.

She dropped her cigarette, stepped on it, and quickly emerged from the recessed entryway of the closed shop…the same secondhand shop in which she’d found the cute little bolero jacket. She smiled ruefully.

Should have bought the leather bomber. Would’ve been warmer.

Her heels clicked on the concrete in time to the steady thump escaping the club down the street. She reached into her bag and pulled out a stick of gum.

Or maybe I should just quit smoking.

She followed the gum with a small bottle and spritzed a light perfume over her clothes and into her hair. Jasmine and sandalwood.

Jack loved it. To date, she had been stealthy enough that he hadn’t noticed it masked Eau de Marlboro Light. After three dates, four counting tonight, she was getting dangerously close to lying to a guy that had potential long-term written all over him.

He’s never technically asked if I smoked.

She rolled her eyes. Even she wasn’t buying that crap. Inventing a phone call and sneaking out to smoke was not the way to start an honest relationship.

She fumbled the perfume bottle while putting it away, and ended up dumping half the contents of her bag into the street.

“Shit.”

Her voice was strangely muted, and she looked around for the first time since leaving her hiding place. The street was empty. The lights still strobed outside the club, but everyone had gone inside. Not a single car moved up or down the long stretch of asphalt.

Mina knelt down nervously and threw her stuff back into her bag. She felt around for stray items she might have missed. A hand closed over hers, and she rocked back on her heels, then fell on her ass with a shriek.

“I’m sorry.” The voice was behind her. “I did not mean to startle you. I saw you drop your things, and I wished to assist you.”

She scrambled to her feet and backed away from the hand at her elbow offering to help. Caught between the two streetlights, those golden pools of light were miles away.

She turned on her heel, heart pounding, to get a look at her Good Samaritan. The darkness was so thick, she could only see his silhouette. He reached out, and she instinctively backed away.

“I believe this belongs to you.”

Her cell phone lay in his outstretched hand. She snatched it up without regard to good manners and found it in two pieces.

“The battery fell out when it hit the ground.”

His accent was thick and unfamiliar.

“Thank you.” Her own voice sounded strange, like she had cotton in her ears.

Her fingers were thick and uncoordinated as she forced the battery back into place.

“Why were you hiding in the dark?”

She looked up sharply. “I wasn’t hiding.”

She couldn’t make out the features of his face, but she felt his amusement, heard it in his voice. “Why, then, did you seek shelter in the darkness?”

He had obviously seen her sneak out of the recessed doorway. Realizing he had been watching her, a new frisson of fear kicked her pulse higher.

“I stepped out of the club for a smoke.”

“You walked all the way down the block to smoke?”

Adrenaline already poured through her, and fear morphed into anger.

“Yes, and I don’t think it’s any of your business.”

She turned and stalked toward the club, toward the streetlight, toward that golden pool that seemed to get farther away with every stride. He fell in step beside her, a shadow superimposed on the darkness.

“Smoking is a common habit. Why are you ashamed?”

“I’m not ashamed.”

“You hide to smoke. You mask the scent.” He shrugged. “You are ashamed.”

Mina whirled to face him. “I’m with this guy, okay? And he doesn’t approve, and I haven’t figured out how to tell him or even better, how to quit.” she crossed her arms. “So there it is, Mr. Nosy. Happy?”

Mina leaned in, trying to see his face. His hair was shoulder-length, and judging by its silhouette, unkempt, ala Kurt Cobain. The contour of his jaw line suggested he was clean shaven, and the sudden flash of white teeth suggested he was smiling. Beyond that, she couldn’t see a thing.

“Yes. I am happy. Thank you.”

She shook her head, convinced he was crazy, but harmless. If he was going to hurt her, he would have done it already. He had given her phone back and watched her replace the battery.

She turned once again toward the strobing lights of the club.

“Would you like to quit?”

“Quit?”

“Smoking.”

“Well, yeah.”

Her eye roll was evident in her tone.

“I can help you.”

She stopped again and sighed. “I tried the gum. Nothing. I tried the patch. Smoked while I was wearing it and got so dizzy, I passed out. I even tried hypnosis from a guy doing a demonstration at the mall. Nada.”

His voice grew deeper and softer, as if he didn’t want to disturb the silence. Almost hypnotic. More so than the guy at the mall anyway, and Mina smiled.

“If you will agree to payment terms, you will be cured before you walk back inside.” He nodded toward the club.

Mina threw her head back and laughed. “Let me guess. You came out of a magic lamp?”

“I do not grant wishes. I make bargains.”

His voice held no humor, and her amusement faded as well.

“And I don’t make deals with the devil. Sorry.”

“I am not the devil.”

No shit, Sherlock.

Out loud, she said, “Who exactly are you?”

“Erebus.”

The R trilled exotically off his tongue, and Mina shivered. She had never heard the name before.

“Ariboos?” she repeated, mimicking his pronunciation.

“You sought shelter in the darkness, and the darkness can provide…for a price”

“Erebus,” she repeated again, this time with recognition. She raised her eyebrows. “You’re the god of darkness?”

“I am the darkness.”

Something in his tone stifled her laugh. He believed what he was saying, and they were still alone on a dark street. Probably best to play along.

“Okay…and you’ll cure my smoking…in return for what?”

“Something you have temporarily lost in this time you spent with me.”

Fear again. This guy was crazy. What had he done? Who had he hurt?

Seeming to read her mind, he continued, “What you have lost you carry with you all the time. It affects only you. You gain something. You lose something.”

“And you’re not going to tell me what it is before I agree to it?” She crossed her arms. “I would be stupid to make that bargain.”

“You would give up something you have lost and have not even noticed.” His voice dropped, hypnotic again. “And look at what you will gain. You will no longer have to sneak away from this man to do something you do not enjoy.”

She hated smoking. Even worse, she hated lying about smoking. Jack was a great guy…funny, smart, hot as hell. Everything she wanted, and she knew, she just instinctively knew that smoking would be a deal-breaker for him.

She stared at the pulsing lights of the club, then shrugged. This guy was full of crap anyway. She felt exactly the same as she did when she snuck out into the cold ten minutes ago. Nothing was different. What did she have to lose?

“Okay, Erebus.” She grinned when she said his name. “You have a deal.”

“You must be sure, Mina. Once the bargain is struck, it cannot be undone.”

Her name sounded foreign on his lips, and her grin faded. She peered into the dark, suddenly desperate to see his face. A man-shaped ink blot stood in front of her. Only his unkempt hair blowing in the wind gave him depth. She reached out to touch him, to assure herself he was real and solid. He reached out simultaneously and grasped her hand.

“Do we have a bargain?”

His hand was warm and strong, and her childish fear evanesced.

No guts, no glory…

“Yes. We have a deal.”

She saw a flash of white, and his smile made her shiver.

“What was yours is now mine. What you wished to lose is gone. Goodbye, Mina.”

A horn blared, and Mina jumped out of the way of a city bus she hadn’t seen coming.

“Damn, buddy! Slow down!” She looked around. “You okay, Erebus?”

She turned in a circle.

“Erebus?”

She was standing alone on the street. Well, not entirely alone. There were people outside the club again. Traffic moved along briskly, and she hustled over to the sidewalk.

She stopped short of the streetlight. The pool of light had lost it’s golden quality, only marginally brighter now than the street around it. The suffocating darkness was gone, almost as if a blanket had been lifted off the block.

The light did not cheer Mina. Erebus’ parting words still rang in her ears. Everything about them was wrong. Even the way he said her name was wrong with his emphasis on the second syllable.

Bile rose in her throat.

When did I tell him my name?

Never. She had never told him. She had a hard and fast policy regarding her name. She only gave it to a man after she decided she liked him. She had disliked Erebus from the moment she met him.

She stumbled through a small group of smokers outside the doors of the club, breathing in a lungful of secondhand smoke as she passed. She coughed until she gagged and, in that moment, knew she would never smoke again.

No joy came with that knowledge. Dread lay on her chest like a lead weight.

The club was crowded, more so now than when she stepped out. The lights pulsed and strobed wildly, rhythmically. She stopped just inside the entrance.

People leaned in close and shouted at each other. Couples gyrated wildly on the dance floor, grinding against each other in time to the pulsing lights.

Mina heard their shouted conversations, felt the vibration of the bass in sync with the lights, and Erebus’ words echoed in the awful accompanying silence.

You gain something. You lose something.

The music was gone.

“The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. The motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted.”
~~William Shakespeare

Confessions of a Gas Guzzler

2010-10-05T09:34:00.004-04:00

Today, I'm coming clean. I'm confessing my environmental sins in the hopes of virtual absolution from my friends and blog readers, but first.....

Like any legitimate media outlet (grin), I have a responsibility to correct errors in reporting. In my last blog post, Horses, International Guests, and ...Buffalo, I reported that Henry the buffalo would jump through a ring of fire. In fact, the buffalo's name is Harvey Wallbanger.

Seriously. I couldn't make that up if I tried.

My friends who have paid to see Harvey say he is massive and a sight to behold. I'll just have to take their word for it. I find the whole thing mildly disturbing, and my conscience won't allow me to fork over the money to see poor old, flammable Harvey driven through that ring of fire.

And yes...I'm stalling. My conscience is a fickle thing, especially as it relates to environmental issues, but I'm here today as the former owner of a gas guzzler, a big honkin' SUV that left a Sasquatch-sized carbon footprint. I'm trying to reform, to get with the program, to do my part to avoid environmental apocalypse, but the first step to overcoming an addiction is to admit you have it, right? So, here goes.

Hi. I'm Kathy, and I liked my big, wasteful, gas-guzzling SUV.

Okay...I loved it. I really, really loved it. Like anyone who's ever had an unhealthy guilty pleasure, I knew I was doing wrong by the planet. I knew even when I was hauling my boys and their friends and their baseball bags and shoulder pads that we could have crammed everyone into an environmentally friendly tin can, but I just didn't want to.

My dad has a running beef with women who drive SUVs. "These damn women in their SUVS! They drive right up on you...try to intimidate you!"

I hate to admit it, but OH MY GOD, he's totally right! I felt powerful when I drove my SUV. When I stepped on the gas, that big V-8 roared, and I passed everyone who got in my way. If I couldn't pass them, I put the nose of that monster right on their bumper, and they got the hell out of my way.

I became this whole other person when I drove the vehicle Bruce affectionately called Moby Dick. Yes, it was white, and it was big. The only thing bigger available to civilians might be a Hummer.

When my friend Linda climbed into it once, she ranted, "Getting into this car is like climbing *@#! Mount Everest. You need a *@#! Sherpa to get in the thing."

I've carried as many as eight teenage boys at a time, hauled furniture, lumber, six people and luggage, a lab-sized dog crate complete with 100lb lab, anything big my friends needed moved from point A to point B. I was the go-to gal for road trips...or trips across town for lunch. Wherever we were going, we fit in my big, gas guzzling SUV.

But those days are over.

My massive, hairy Sasquatch carbon footprint has been replaced with something smaller, not dainty like a ballet slipper or sexy like a stiletto pump...more like a sturdy hiking shoe. I couldn't go cold turkey, and downsize all the way to a car, so I'm still driving an SUV...a small 4-passenger baby SUV.

I'm taking deep breaths and trying to adjust.

I'm still getting used to looking up at drive-thru windows, and when I parked next to a full-sized pickup, I was annoyed that I couldn't see over it. It's strange to step out of my vehicle and have my foot touch the ground instead of the running board.

Yes, it's fuel efficient. I'm sure I'll be happy the first time I fill it up and don't spend $60. (I know...ridiculous) And I do like how agile the thing feels. My old SUV was powerful, but not particularly aerodynamic. Lumbering might even be a reasonable descriptor. Instead of bullying my way through traffic, maybe I'll just ninja through it.

The best part of my new car is the guilt I'm shedding. Not only the environmental guilt I felt every time I pulled up next to a Prius (and quickly got over when I blew past it), but the guilt of driving a big, expensive car while Bruce drove a POS, mostly without complaint.

He has a sleek new Camry, complete with Satellite radio and sunroof. It's nice, but I have to admit to feeling twitchy when he suggested switching cars for the day so we could each try out the other's car.

There's only so much change this recovering gas guzzler can handle.

Horses, International Guests, and....Buffalo?

2010-09-25T15:46:00.005-04:00

My part of Kentucky is all aflutter. The World Equestrian Games start today. The opening ceremonies are tonight, and according to the local hype, promise to be pretty amazing. While not as well known in the U.S., the games are a big deal in other parts of the world that revere the horse. It's fitting that Kentucky welcome the first ever U.S.-hosted Games. No one reveres the horse more than we do.

But this is not a blog post about the glory of the horse, or the pageantry and history of the Games, or even the new international flavor of my small town (Team Belgium was in WalMart the other day.) No. This post is about a different kind of glory, a strange pageantry all its own, and the flavor...Wild West meets small town USA.

Important, prestigious events like the WEG attract important, prestigious people. They also attract less important, less prestigious hangers-on, much like barnacles on the underside of a majestic ocean liner.

While the finishing touches were being put on all the shiny, new venues at the Kentucky Horse Park, my local outlet mall was preparing for a very special guest as well. Unlike the guests down the road at the Horse Park, this guest was neither equine nor international.

Enter Henry the Buffalo. Yes...a buffalo.

The buffalo (actually the American bison) once roamed the open plains, and according to the National Park Service numbered 60 millon when Columbus landed. They were hunted almost to extinction in the 19th century. Now only 15,000 live free in the wild. Another 350,000 are held in herds by private farmers. And, of course, Henry, now in residence at my local outlet mall.

Georgetown is home to a small outlet mall whose fortunes have declined in recent years. Most of the good outlets have closed, and only a few thriving businesses remain. Jazzercise is among those thriving businesses, and so I have been privy to the preparations for Henry.

Grandstands and stalls line the small grassy area between the parking lot and I-75. Actually, after a long, hot, dry summer, the grassy area is more of a dirt lot. A large section of the parking lot has been painted green. I wonder if it's supposed to represent grass. I wonder if it has been so long since Henry has seen grass that he wouldn't know the difference.

Large, wedding-style tents have been erected in the parking lot as well. I have no idea what's inside, but the "Fat Man's Barbeque" booth between the tents leads me to believe it involves fat men and barbecue.

Henry arrived yesterday. One of my fellow Jazzercisers said he was accompanied by what looked like a SWAT team. Really. Visitors from all over the world, and the buffalo gets a SWAT team escort.

Our instructor, Leanne, was invited to a meeting of outlet mall business owners to let them know about the disruption to parking and such. It was from her that I learned why a buffalo is taking up residence in the parking lot of a struggling outlet mall.

Henry is going to jump through a ring of fire every night for the duration of the World Equestrian Games.

Buffalo are shaggy, and in my mind, more flammable than your average mammal. I said as much when Leanne was telling us about it. I just felt sorry for Henry. Imagine tying several large mops to your head and then being forced to jump through a ring of fire.

In an attempt to make us all feel better about it, Leanne said, "Oh no! It's okay. Henry's trained. Apparently, he was in Dances with Wolves or something."

Dances with Wolves??? Really? Do you know how old that movie is? I do. I was seven months pregnant with my oldest son when that movie hit the theaters, and he'll be 19 in two weeks. (Funny story about a crazy, hormonal, pregnant me and that movie that I'll save for another day.)

Doing the math, Henry would have to be more than 20 years old. What the heck is the life span of a buffalo anyway? I looked it up, and the sources vary, but it's anywhere from 15-20 years in the wild, and 25-30 years in captivity. Either way, Henry is freakin' old.

So...They are not just making a ponderous, more-than-normally flammable beast jump through a ring of fire....they are making an old, ponderous, more-than-normally flammable beast jump through a ring of fire.

Oh, the glory and pageantry of sport! Let the Games begin!

Speak Loudly

2010-09-19T12:55:00.004-04:00

Banned Books Week starts in six days. Read about it here and here.

If you think we live in a world where a celebration of the freedom to read freely is an anachronism...ancient history...a problem long solved, you are sadly mistaken. I've posted about this ad naseum, I know. But censorship just won't die. It keeps raising its ugly head.

Laure Halse Anderson's young adult novel, Speak, has been called "pornography" by a man in Missouri, Wesley Scroggins, who is looking to remove it from classrooms and school libraries.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

For those who haven't read Anderson's novel, it is the story of a girl who is raped in the summer before she enters her freshman year of high school. She spends her freshman year struggling with the physical, psychological, and social aftermath. She struggles to find her voice so she can SPEAK about what happened to her.

Because of the two rape scenes in the book, Scroggins says the book is filthy and immoral. Anderson responded better than I could when she says:

The fact that he sees rape as sexually exciting (pornographic) is disturbing, if not horrifying. It gets worse, if that’s possible, when he goes on to completely mischaracterize the book.

Click here to read Laurie Halse Anderson's entire post on the issue. She includes links for her readers and supporters to speak loudly against Scroggins' efforts.

My students love this book. Anderson writes realistic fiction with which real teenagers identify. (Heck...I identified with it. I know the teachers she creates in this book. I am one of them.) Anderson SPEAKs to teenage readers, especially a certain kind of reluctant reader. Our library almost always has a waiting list for this book, and we have multiple copies. Kids are lining up to read it.

I want to shake people who advocate pulling high-interest books off the shelf. Their political/religious/social agenda is more important than creating a society of readers and thinkers. They are the modern day equivalent of High Inquisitors.

Even worse than the potential loss of a high-interest book is the potential loss of a book that might help a kid who has been raped. Anderson wrote an amazing poem pulled almost entirely from the letters of kids who have read her book. I've pulled the video from her blog. It's powerful, and it demonstrates that books can give kids the courage to SPEAK and to heal.

Guest Blog -- In Remembrance: My Story of 9/11

2010-09-12T10:09:00.011-04:00

September 11, 2001 was a day none of use will ever forget. We all remember where we were when we heard the news. We all have a story. My sister-in-law, Emily Happell Williams, who was living in New York at the time, graciously agreed to let me repost hers here. Following is her account of that day.

I loved my brief time as a New Yorker. I was totally out of place there having been raised in the south, but I seemed to fit right in, or else I just wanted to fit in so badly because I absolutely fell in love with the city. It was everything I wanted Nashville to be. The concerts/clubs, culture, food, attitude, subways, etc. After a few months, I considered myself a New Yorker & never wanted to go back to the south. I suddenly had no fear, a confidence I had never had before, & often wouldn't think twice about riding the subway & walking through dark alleys at 3 or 4 in the morning. I definitely put myself in situations that my mother would have had a heart attack if she'd known.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

In the summer of 2001, I went on tour with some friends of mine in a band called BOTTOM. I sold merchandise & helped roadie. They were on the second stage at the Vans Warped Tour & also played clubs at night, sometimes playing 2 shows a day. We lived in a van & traveled all around the country. It was truly one of the best times of my life. I saw some great sights, great bands, met some awesome people, and especially loved hanging out with the girls in the band. The scenery was incredible. It made me miss TN a little.

When we got back, I was in between jobs & places to live, couch-surfing in different places. On the morning of September 11, I was staying at my friend Dan's apt. in Brooklyn. He was a Tower friend & dated a good friend of mine. He lived very near the foot of the Manhattan Bridge. I had a part time job that a friend hooked me up with & was getting ready for work when I started hearing sirens. Dan lived right across from the fire station, so this was normal, but the sirens had been going off for what seemed to be like 10 or 15 minutes. After realizing that this was really odd, I turned on the tv just to see if there was something going on. Boy, was there. A picture of the World Trade Center with a plane sticking out of it. As I stood there dumbfounded, a second plane hit. I didn't even know what to think. I went into Dan's room & woke him up, saying, "Dude, 2 planes just hit the WTC!" He turned over, rubbed his eyes & mumbled, "wow, they held up well" (I'll never forget that line!) It just DID NOT dawn on us what was happening. I watched the TV for a couple more minutes, then went back in there & said, "dude- really... you better get up... this is fucked up!"

Well, for some reason, we decided to go check it out. I realized I was probably not going to have to go to work. As it turned out, the subway that I would've taken runs directly under the WTC. It is a very good thing I was running late. So, Dan grabs his camera, and as we're getting ready to leave, we look over at the tv before we walked out the door- the first building fell. HOLY. SHIT.

I'm thinking, OK, it's probably not a good idea to go down there... But we'll just walk down to where we can see from the foot of the bridge. And it's our duty as amateur photographers to document whatever the hell is going on, right? And we still had NO IDEA what was going on.

So we're walking, as Dan snaps pictures here & there of the flooding of people coming into Brooklyn. You can see the Brooklyn Bridge from the Manhattan Bridge, and both were packed with people with a look on their faces of, well, I'm not sure how to describe it. Like I said, no one knew what happened yet, the severity had not sunk in. At least for me- and yeah, I admit I'm a little spacey, but in my mind I was thinking- surely with all these people in front me- SURELY everyone got out in time, right? Right?... It was just so surreal. People were eerily calm. We walked up onto the bridge about 1/4 the way up. We were the only ones walking against the flow. There was one other person there taking pictures. We felt bad taking pictures of such a horrible event. But we did anyhow. We knew we weren't doing it for money or anything (and it still sickens me that people did and still do). We stood there quietly watching when the second building started to fall & I heard the biggest, loudest, simultaneous GASP... I just stood with my hand over my mouth in shock. And then I heard some weeping here & there. Dan didn't want to take a picture of it, but I said "just take one & we'll go back". So he did & we did.

Walking back- a blank look on faces, some worried about how they were going to get home & what a bother it was. No trains, no cabs, no cell phones, nothing. Lines at every pay phone. Ironically, the voting places were still open for some local election. We went to the grocery store, bought some beer & went back to his apt. where we filled a buch of pots up with water, still not knowing what the hell had happened, or what was going to happen next. We climbed up to the rooftop & just sat there. We watched the trail of smoke drift closer & closer to us until we could smell it. Indescribable. Disgusting. Sad.

I finally got a hold of my Mom. It was her birthday. "Uh, happy birthday Mom..." :( She said, "Are you ready to come home yet?" I said, "yeah- maybe". I didn't really want to leave NYC. I had been struggling the whole time there, but I loved it so much & I didn't want to give up. I had put my Mom & Dad through so much worrying. I owe them everything for putting up with my ass & loving me unconditionally throughout the whole time I was a mess. So, after a couple of days, I realized there was nothing there for me except my friends. No real job, no place to live, negative amounts of $, and an asshole named Sean who... was really mean to me a few days before the 11th & I never wanted to see again unless he was dead (that's another story). So as much as I loved my friends there, I gave in & decided to move back to Nashville.

I took a Southwest flight out that next Saturday with one my best ex-boyfriends & good friend, Fernando seeing me off after going to the hospital to say goodbye to his beautiful mother, Aida (RIP- much love). I cried so hard on the plane flying by the tip of the island. The smoke trail still burning. The Southwest girl handing me kleenex. They were so sweet. I got home & didn't talk to anyone except a few close friends for 2 months. Just sat in my mom's garden & cried. And sat. And cried. Couldn't watch TV- it was all over the place. Couldn't even look at the magazines in the grocery checkout.

I'm very glad that I moved back. After all, I wouldn't have met Allen if I hadn't! And Tennessee's not such a bad place after all. I've discovered all kinds of cool places I never knew were here. Fall Creek Falls for one. That place is incredibly beautiful!

I still sorely miss NYC, but I have a new appreciation for Nashville. It's getting better here. Night life is slowly getting better, more bands are playing here, and I got back in touch with some old friends. But most importantly, I'm with my family & I got to be with my grandparents before they died. Pop was so cool. Great stories he told me when we were alone, but unfortunately in my state of mind & having been given all kinds of happy pills from a shrink, my brain did not think to write them down. I am still kicking myself for not recording my family history.

Below are the pictures that Dan took that day. They are not easy for me to look at still & my heart continues to go out to all those affected, especially a sweet girl named Joyce Carpeneto, who worked at Tower & had just gotten a job in one of the towers. I'm sure some of you reading this knew her & how wonderful of a person she was. I wish I could have gotten to know her better. She was one of the good ones.

And there you have it

Looking across to the Brooklyn Bridge. If you look closely, you can see the people walking across into Brooklyn.
looking across to the Brooklyn Bridge
me on the Manhattan Bridge
on the Manhattan Bridge
after the 2nd building fell
outside of a church
She was waving for people to come into the church.
outside a church
Brooklyn intersection
waiting to use the pay phone

On the rooftop watching the trail...
On the rooftop. And yes- I used to smoke.
...

Summer's End

2010-09-04T13:42:00.002-04:00

I woke this morning feeling melancholy.

Maybe because the college football season is starting without me this year. The Tigers open in Florida today, and I stayed home to watch my youngest play last night in his high school game.

Maybe because my youngest lost last night.

Maybe because I let my youngest go to an after-game party, I got up at 3:45am to go get him, and I'm really freakin' tired.

Then, I turned my iPod on shuffle while I was messing around the house this morning. The Foo Fighters (who I love) began to sing about summer's end, and I realized that was it.

I'm mourning the end of summer.

"But, Kathy?" You say. "School started four weeks ago. Your summer ended then."

Not really. School or no school, August is still summer, especially when the temps are hitting the 90 degree mark every day. I was working, but it still felt like summer. Plus, I started back to work the week after RWA. I was still on a high from my Orlando adventure.

Labor Day weekend and the opening of the college football season mark the end of summer for me. Warm summer nights spent with friends are swept away by autumn's cool breezes, and I can't help thinking that cold winter winds aren't that far behind.

Change is inevitable, and every ending marks a new beginning. I am tired of the suffocating heat, and you can't truly appreciate summer's carefree days without living through the responsibilities of winter.

I wish you a happy Labor Day. It's beautiful here, so I'm going to leave you with the Foo Fighters while I go out to enjoy the last weekend of summer.

Overcompensation

2010-08-31T21:25:00.003-04:00

Some people just aren't happy unless they're in charge of something. You know the ones I'm talking about...the folks who wear even the smallest bit of authority on their sleeve like they're a five star general. We've all had the misfortune to cross into the kingdoms to which these tyrants hold the keys. The guy at the convenience store who literally holds the key to the restroom...the crossing guard who puts on a dayglo vest and believes herself the newest member of Homeland Security...the bureaucrat whose spiel you must listen to once a year because the law requires it.

Like the man for whom their complex was named, these little Napoleons are clearly overcompensating for something. Maybe their mama didn't love them enough, maybe they have small...feet, or maybe the good Lord just didn't bless them with fabulous hair. Judging by the abundance of hair gel on the asshat I ran into yesterday, I'd say the latter was at least one of his problems.

Hair Gel Dude (HGD) was in charge of reading some information off of a powerpoint, and then testing his captive audience over the information. Yesterday marked the 13th time I have had the information imparted to me (although it was the first time via powerpoint). He presented the powerpoint, looking bored and only leaving his seat when absolutely necessary. Then, he strutted across the room like a smug Ken doll in a too-tight shirt that stank of Dapper Dan or whatever brand of gel gives hair an artfully mussed appearance.

Normally, I would roll my eyes at HGD, suffer through his presentation, take my legally-required test, and go on my merry way. In fact, that is exactly what I tried to do. I was in a hurry because a very nice person was covering another obligation for me until I arrived, so I was trying to be considerate by getting there asap. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of leaving when I was finished with the test instead of waiting for HGD to dismiss me.

HGD slung Dapper Dan all over the room trying to get to the door before I left. Cause see? He hadn't dismissed me yet, and I was being rude and imposing on him by leaving.

Wow. Yeah.

I was so stunned by his nasty tone that I didn't use any of the really awesome and clever comebacks I thought of later. Actually, I probably wouldn't have anyway. In spite of being addressed as if I were a child, I never forgot that I was a professional person in a professional setting. I actually apologized and tried to explain. He wasn't interested in anything but making sure I understood that he was IN CHARGE.

I finally just left. I waited until the door closed and called him something excessively nasty and not clever at all. Only the four walls heard me, so I suppose I retained my dignity.

The thing that bothers me the most about the encounter is that I let it get to me. I stewed about it the rest of the evening. Even Jazzercise didn't help. I looked for fault in myself. Was I rude in the way that I left? I didn't think so, but clearly HGD and I don't perceive reality in the same way, so maybe he thought I was.

I share this story to vent a little and offer it as a cautionary tale. When you meet someone who has obvious compensation issues, remember it's his problem. You can't fix it, and being nice won't get you anywhere. Just put on your professional armor, shake him off like toilet paper stuck to your shoe, and walk away.

Stealing is stealing

2010-08-26T10:12:00.005-04:00

Plagiarism is an ugly word. Heck, it even looks ugly, reminiscent of the word, "plague." Like some contagious and dread disease that that bleeds, blackens, bloats, and ultimately negates the host. One would think those images would cause writers to avoid plagiarism like...the plague.

In fact, plagiarism and plague have different etymologies. Plagiarism comes from the Latin plagiarius which means "kidnapper, seducer, plunderer." While plague comes from the Latin plaga which means to "stroke, wound." Both seem appropriate to me.

A plagiarist is a thief, a plunderer of words and ideas.

Analyzing bits of information from various sources, breaking it down, combining your own experiences, synthesizing it all back together in the form of an original idea, and then communicating your new idea coherently in writing is HARD. The process requires time and brain power. You have to work for it.

A sketchy work ethic can get a young writer in trouble. Honestly, a sketchy work ethic probably gets older writers in trouble, but I'm not reading their unpubbed work, so I can't speak to how big a problem it is. I do know of one young college student who lost a $37,000 scholarship to a prestigious university because of plagiarism...so it does get older writers in trouble.

I ran into a particularly blatant bit of plagiarism recently...an entire section of a paper lifted directly from a source that it took me all of two minutes to locate. The student did something like this...type the topic into Google, click on the first link, copy, paste, print, DONE BABY!

Terrible, right? At least, I think it is. The teacher in me thinks it's terrible because that student lost the opportunity to read and think critically. No learning happened, so the assignment was a waste of everyone's time. The experience was an educational failure for that student.

The writer in me thinks it's terrible for an entirely different reason. Somewhere out there, a writer did do some reading and some thinking and subsequently, produced one of those original ideas we were talking about. And then the plagiarist, the thief, the kidnapper, the plunderer of words STOLE it. If you think my idea is brilliant and want to share it as you work your way to your idea....great! Credit me, and we're copacetic.

Explaining to a young writer why plagiarism is wrong is getting more difficult. We live in a world where any work of art can be reduced to bits and bytes and ripped off the Internet and on to your personal computer. And while we pay lip service to stopping it, the genie is out of the bottle, and the only thing stopping illegal downloads is personal integrity. Even that becomes problematic when the downloaders see themselves as having integrity.

Our society does not respect intellectual property. We just don't. I'd like to say it's only the kids downloading music, books, and computer programs without paying for them, but it's not. Adults are just as bad. I was at a friend's house recently where an intelligent, educated guy tried to defend the practice.

Stealing is stealing. You wouldn't defend slipping a book or a CD out of Wal-Mart without paying for it, so how do you defend stealing it electronically? How do you chastise your child for plagiarizing when you haven't paid for anything on your iPod?

Maybe you don't. But I promise you this...they'll get a failing grade in English.

Make like your cat, and get happy

2010-08-22T09:59:00.003-04:00

Several pizza joints in my town have adopted an interesting marketing strategy. They find an enthusiastic young man (I suppose it could be a young woman, but I haven't seen any), put him close to a busy thoroughfare with a big sign, and have him garner attention by any means necessary. And boy howdy, can these guys get attention.

The guy in charge of the CiCi's sign raps. He puts his sign against a telephone pole, and using a mic unconnected to any power source, makes like Eminem. Sometimes, he accompanies himself with his Guitar Hero guitar, also unplugged. If you roll your window down, as almost everyone stopped at the light does, you can hear that he's not rapping someone else's lyrics. He's freestylin' baby!

I was with my eldest and his friend a while back, and when we pulled up beside him, they hung out the windows yelling, "Woooo! Go baby! Yeah!"

When we pulled away, my son's friend said, "I love that guy!"

A lot of people feel the same way. The kid gets heckled, but he also gets those appreciative shout-outs. Either way, he just keeps on rapping. I don't think he hears any of it. He's in the moment. Over time as I've been stopped at that light, I've heard fewer heckles and more appreciative shout-outs. It's hard to dis someone who is experiencing so much joy and who doesn't care what anyone else thinks.

Honestly, there are days when I envy that kid rapping on the corner. His corner is next to Wal-Mart, so usually when I see him, I've either just finished grocery shopping, or I'm on my way. I hate that particular chore, so I'm not in my joyful place when I'm coming or going. I like seeing him because he reminds me that joy can be found in anything...even advertising pizza with a giant sign in 100 degree weather.

I've noticed that people fall into one of two general categories: those who look for the joy in life and those who look for the pain. Everything contains it's opposite, so it's easy to find either one in any given day.

My job as a teacher holds the potential for joy or for aggravation. I usually find which ever I'm looking for when I walk into my classroom. The same goes for my writing. If I sit down with the attitude that I'm going to find the words, I usually do. I might change them later, but I don't come up empty. When I expect to struggle, I do.

People are trickier. Sometimes, even when I'm looking for the best in them, they let me down. Hello? Anyone else trying to raise kids? The fact remains that I control my reaction to that disappointment. Do I beat them over the head with their shortcomings? Or do I lift them up and move forward? What reaction do I want when I let someone down?

I've been thinking a lot about the joy and passion in life. It's so easy to let outside factors control our attitudes. In the end, I have control over whether I find joy or pain, passion or ennui, in the everyday moments in life.

We can all take a lesson from the CiCi's sign guy....or from our pets. I found this video Criss Cox's blog. It illustrates my point beautifully.

Dissent

2010-08-19T20:27:00.003-04:00

I started my Pre-AP classes today with a quote from chapter II of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty.

But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

Dissent is such an important component of a free society. The majority is not always right, even though it believes it is because it's the majority, and majority rules. Sometimes, the majority has a nasty habit of painting dissenters as wrong-headed, frightening, immoral, even evil.

Cool discussion starter, huh?

I love teaching Fahrenheit 451. This is the 12th time I've started the school year with Bradbury's classic. The book never stops being relevant because the day-to-day living out of our constitutional ideals never stops being a struggle. Watch the news. You'll see that struggle playing out within the first five minutes.

In his "Coda" to Fahrenheit, Bradbury said, "There is more than one way to burn a book, and the world is full of people running around with lit matches."

I've posted this link before, but it bears repeating. The ALA keeps data on all formal challenges to public libraries, school libraries, and classrooms. This is their most challenged/banned list for the last decade. They also sort the data by year and by author, or you can see which classics are the most challenged/banned. For the most recent years, they also post the reasons why a particular book was challenged.

I gave the lists for the last two years and for the decade to my students. They were flabbergasted that books like the Junie B. Jones children's series are on the list. That particular series is beloved by a lot of kids because they discovered their love of reading with Junie. Goosebumps and Captain Underpants are on the list too.

Some of my more naive students were surprised to find the Harry Potter series at the top of the decade list. I explained that Harry Potter is challenged because of religious viewpoint. One confused student said, "But it's about how love is the most powerful force in the universe."

Out of the mouths of babes...

Interestingly, J.K. Rowling falls off the author list after 2003. I interpret this to mean that most of the challenges came early in the decade and that people have cooled down a little over Harry and the gang. One can only hope.

I asked students to tally the number of books they had read on the banned lists. The competition became fierce as students tried to add books to their tally they had started, but not finished. Or they wanted to count every Junie B. Jones they had ever read separately. One student had legitimately read 35 books on the combined lists. I've only read 44, so I was impressed. I'm challenging them to add to their tally before their freshman year is over, and we're going to count again at the end.

My favorite moment came when one young man asked me with wide eyes, "What happens if you read a banned book?"

I responded solemnly, "You burst into flames."

The poor kid doesn't know me yet, and "Oh my god...my teacher is crazy" crossed his face. Then, he realized I must be joking and laughed. I did have to explain that he would not be committing a crime if he read a banned book. I went further and said I believed the people who had the books removed from a library had committed a crime against every patron of that library.

I'm subversive like that.

But I'm not the only one. Mills said that suppressing ideas robs all of humanity of the opportunity to pursue the truth. President Eisenhower said, "Freedom cannot be censored into existence."

If we can't respect our neighbor's dissenting idea, then we have to find a way to respect his right to have a dissenting idea without limiting access to it. Censorship is a society killer.

You don't have to take my word for it. Read Fahrenheit 451.

Raised Eyebrows

2010-08-16T22:21:00.003-04:00

Overheard in the teacher workroom this morning:

Colleague 1: They’re paying him 10 million dollars to suck.

Colleague 2: I’d suck for 10 million dollars.

A momentary pause as we all digested that statement followed by uproarious laughter.

Colleague 2: I guess I could have worded that better.

We’ve all made an innocent statement that would raise an eyebrow when taken out of context. But how many of us are throwing out intentional eyebrow raisers everyday in professional situations? As I’ve sifted through parent information in the last several days to set up distribution lists, I’ve spent a lot of time with my eyebrows raised.

Yes people…I’m talking about your email addresses.

Most folks have a fairly innocuous email address consisting of some version of their name. I’d say this group accounts for 75% or so of all the emails I entered. I'm in this group. Both my work and my personal email are my name with punctuation thrown in the middle to make it unique.

Some people need something snazzier than punctuation to make them unique, so they create clever “handles.” Their appellations fall on a continuum moving from silly to ridiculous to Oh My God. As I entered the addresses into my distribution lists, I discerned a pattern.

If you’re using something other than your name, your email address generally says one of three things. “I think I’m cute,” “I think I’m a badass,” or “I’m trolling the Internet for sex.” I came across one or two outliers that don’t fall into an obvious category, and there might be a fourth category called “I’m really serious about my religion,” but mostly it’s those three.

Note: I have enough sense not to post someone’s actual email address, so none of the examples I’m using are real. But they do retain the spirit of the actual names.

The “I think I’m cute” category includes handles like fuzzywuzzy, whatsupdoc, and any derivation of the word angel. Really, lots of people think they are angels. (Some people think they're devils, but they don’t fall into this category.) Mostly, these addresses just make me roll my eyes.

The "I think I'm a badass" email addresses make me laugh which I'm pretty sure is not what the authors of these handles were going for. Not to stereotype, but more men than women have "I think I'm a badass" names. Some brag about their car...ferrari_man, myrimsarehuge, monster.truckin. Others, their military career...sniper007...although, maybe the guy just plays a lot of video games. Some are reliving the glory days of their athletic careers...linebacker1985. One creative fellow had a reference to a bodily function combined with a military term I can't even begin to mimic. I stared at it for a full minute before typing it into my list. I was convinced I had read it wrong.

Blowing all of the previous email addresses out of the water are the "I'm trolling the Internet for sex" handles, and I hate to say it, but these are all women. It boggles the mind that mothers actually wrote these names down on a form for their child's teacher. Names like hotchick4U and sexy_secretary. Seriously, the actual names really are this bad. I feel sorry for the kids who had to hand the forms to me. They had to be embarrassed.

The lesson my friends is that you should all have at least one reasonably professional sounding email address. If you want to troll the Internet for sex, have at it. I don't care what you do in the privacy of your own home, but for Pete's sake, don't make that the email address you give to people who actually know you and have to look you in the face. Your nifty email handle puts a visual in my imaginative writer's brain that I can't unsee.

Structure, Football, and Three Amazing Girls

2010-08-14T10:35:00.003-04:00

The first week of a new school year has come and gone, and I'm relearning how to keep myself on a schedule. The artist in me chafes at rigid structure. I've always been a go-with-the-flow kind of gal, and because of that, flying by the seat of my pants comes easily to me. That modus operandi works just fine if your life is uncomplicated by multiple plot threads.

Mine is not. In fact, I've got more unresolved issues than an episode of Lost. Hence, the need for some structure. I'm experimenting with where to schedule my writing. I have time late in the evening, but my brain has usually turned to mush by then. Early in the morning, I'm firing on all cylinders, but I'm limited in time. Nothing is worse than having the muse sitting on your shoulder, whispering sweet nothings in your ear, and having to close the computer and take care of another responsibility.

We make time for the things that are important to us, so I'll figure it out.

Time is even more critical now because football season is upon us. I LOVE football season. For real. It's my favorite thing about the fall. You can read my post from the start of last year's football season here. While I still have a few weeks before the college season starts and my Saturdays are booked, my Friday nights are already accounted for until sometime in November.

Last night, my young son, now a sophomore, played in his first varsity game. It was just a scrimmage, but the excitement of the first snap, the adrenaline rush at the sound of pads meeting in the first hits of the season, the euphoria of the first touchdown were all there.

The scrimmage was in Louisville, and much to my son's dismay, Bruce couldn't be there because of his own three-a-days, so I was the family representative. Not wanting to go alone, I dragged Pam along with me...although, not having been to a football game in two years (there's no football in Iraq), there wasn't much dragging involved. Even better, all three of Pam's girls went with us. Her daughters are 22, 19, and 17.

You haven't lived until you've gone on a road trip with three smart, opinionated, loud, sometimes ditsy young women. Remember, I have boys, and though I've done the road trip with a car load of testosterone, it's a whole different ballgame with girls.

Boys will go for miles without saying a word. They pop in their ear buds and disappear into their own thoughts. Not so with girls. We all listened to the same thing on the radio, and the talking never stopped. The conversation was entirely stream of consciousness. We moved from one subject to another with no apparent transition. Case in point...

Girl 1: Vitamin D is good for your colon.

Girl 2: Ewww.

Girl 1: Hey, I'm all about taking care of my butt. I'm not doing colostomy bags or having my butt hole sewn up.

She said something else, but I was choking at this point and missed it. When I regained control of myself, they were talking about tanning.

Girl 2: You get vitamin D from the sun. I wonder if you tanned your butt hole if it would help your colon?

Girl 3: How would you tan your butt hole? Tape your cheeks open?

Pam interjected at this point, like she couldn't take it anymore: Oh my god! When you get sun anywhere, the vitamin D is absorbed and your whole body gets the benefit.

Girl 2: Okay, I'm not a doctor.

I was laughing so hard, my stomach hurt. I can say with absolute authority that you would never hear this conversation in a car full of boys. I may actually lift this entire conversation and use it in a story somewhere. Really...you can't make this stuff up.

Lest you think these girls completely silly, there was another memorable conversation on the way home. We had the radio on loud, and we were all singing. This also never happens with boys. When I sing loud with the radio, my boys politely (sarcasm, sarcasm) ask me to stop. Not so with the girls.

Eminem's "Love the Way You Lie" came on. Pam's oldest daughter asked us to change the station. She hates the song, believing it glorifies and glamorizes domestic violence. Her other two girls disagreed completely. They believe the song graphically depicts domestic violence to show how both men and women fall into that ugly cycle...the idea that art sometimes shines an uncomfortable light on the grotesque. The conversation was intense and heated and came from a place of passion and belief in all three girls.

I was proud of them. They are strong, intelligent young women who know how to express themselves. Pam has raised self-confident daughters who, regardless of how they interpreted that song, would never stay with a man who abused them. The three of them are as different as they could possibly be, but I see Pam in all of them.

It was a great first night of football. My son played well, and I got to hang with my best friend and her three amazing daughters. I thought I'd end by posting Eminem's video, and letting you guys decide. Art shining a light on the ugly? Or glorification of domestic violence? (Warning: This is the unedited version.)

Happy First Day of School!

2010-08-10T05:39:00.003-04:00

Today is the first day of school. This summer has been ridiculously short, and although it just seems as if I was posting Alice Cooper's anthem to the end of school, already we're back again. The past eight weeks have been fast and full.

My son graduated from high school. Pam came home from Iraq. I've done a ton of professional development for school. Had a little time with the family in Ocean City and enjoyed spending the Fourth of July on the beach with a million (that might be an exaggeration) of my fellow Americans. Did I mention Pam was home? (A lot of time spent chillin' with her). Although I haven't done my "What I read this Summer" post yet, I have plowed through some books, and I managed to get some writing done as well.

And the highlight of my summer? I went to RWA in Orlando.

The positive residual effects of my busy summer are still making waves in my life like ripples in a pond. I'm starting school today with a positive attitude. I'm excited to meet my new students, and I'm excited about new opportunities as a teacher. My classroom is shiny and welcoming. I've even put up a new bulletin board. (I hate doing bulletin boards and rarely change them, so this is a milestone.)

My lovely new bulletin board sports several pictures of gorillas and chimps. In large letters running vertically down the left side, it says APE. APE is the acronym I use to help students start thinking more analytically.

A = Assertion
P = Proof
E = Evaluation

When students discuss what they've read or seen on the news or how they believe life to be in general, they lob opinions into the discussion like grenades. (Adults do this too, by the way. Where do you think the kids learned it?) Rather than let those grenades confuse my class, I will teach the lobbers to APE their opinions. You've made an assertion, so where is your evidence? Find the piece of text or the fact that supports your assertion. Then, connect that evidence to your assertion with good commentary.

I will model the process for you.

My assertion: This school year will be my most rewarding to date.

My proof: Last night at Open House, I had approximately 100 parents and students come in and visit with me. I have sign-in sheets and email addresses as hard evidence.

My evaluation: When two-thirds of your students' parents make the effort to walk through the doors of the school to shake your hand, you know you have parents who are engaged. When parents are engaged in their child's education, the child is more engaged. Engaged students create dynamic classrooms. Dynamic classrooms are fun places to be.

Happy First Day of School! It's gonna be a great year!

Fading Light

2010-08-07T21:10:00.004-04:00

Light, or the lack thereof, is the lens through which we view the world. My favorite lens is the hour just before sunset.

Driving on a narrow country road, the landscape, having baked all day under the unforgiving August sun, becomes pastoral. The yellow-gold light transforms everything. Green is deeper and richer, the tassels on the corn gold instead of brown. Even the rusting hulk of an old trailer becomes aged and venerable instead of the monument to rural poverty it was in the bright light of day.

I slow as a deer crosses the road and watch her white tail disappear into the woods. In these golden moments before the light glows orange, the softness of the world outside my window is mirrored in my heart.

"It's beautiful."

But even as the words cross my lips, a wistful longing tempers my happiness. Nothing gold can stay. The light is already changing, the yellow tinged with orange. The shadows have stretched out stealthily while no one was watching and the spaces between the light, the low places where it can't reach, have grown dimmer.

I sigh with relief when I top the hill, but it is short-lived. The sinking sun catches in the windows of a white clapboard house and blinds me. Fire shimmers in the glass.

This red-orange lens is different, less friendly...not the harsh reality of midday, but the precursor of the darkness to come. Red is passion, anger, lust, pain burning up the light, extinguishing it, so they can perform their rites in the dark.

I reach the end of the country road at true dusk. Headlights dot the interstate, artificial light to ward off the night. The effort is futile. The false light can't bring back the green or the gold or the orange. Technicolor has reverted to black and white like the Wizard of Oz gone horribly wrong.

The darkness should inspire dread, and in fact, before the light disappeared, the deepening shadows made my heart beat faster...in anticipation.

I used to be afraid of the dark. Now, I find myself embracing it, using it to tease out an idea or a story. The gold light softens the world, but the darkness hides it, morphing it into indistinguishable shapes, or blotting it out altogether. When the world outside my window is unclear, I can impose my will on it and remake it into whatever I want. Sometimes, that's not a bad thing at all.

Is Younger Better?

2010-08-06T13:31:00.003-04:00

I was watching the Today show this morning when a segment came on about "emotional age." The editor of Self Magazine was plugging a book she had written about being emotionally young even if your birth certificate says you're not. The segment intrigued me enough that I went to the website and used the handy dandy emotional age calculator.

Click here for the magazine article and here for the calculator.

According to the calculator, my emotional age is 33.6. My birth certificate says I'm a smidge older than that. (Okay, more than a smidge, but who's counting?) My first reaction is to say "Yay! I feel younger than my age!"

But what does that really mean?

Instead of asking you questions and assigning a value to your responses, the calculator simply asks you how old you feel when it comes to different aspects of your life. It's up to you to be honest in your answers.

My problem wasn't dishonestly. I simply didn't know what the honest answer was. For instance, the first category is Career. You're supposed to plug in a number that represents how old you feel in your career. I had no idea what to put there. I still feel energized when a new set of kids comes into my classroom, but I also feel older and wiser and a better manager of both instruction and behavior. So what number do I put there? And then there is the second career I'm working on. As a writer, I feel like I'm still growing and learning, and I'm definitely a newbie to the publishing world.

The program doesn't allow for WTF as a response. I ended up putting my actual age in that box. I was trying to be honest, but I have no idea if it was the correct response.

The second box was Finances. I left a more lucrative career 15 years ago to be a teacher. Money is always an issue. As long as my boys are on the family payroll, it will continue to be an issue. So does that make me old or young in the finances category? I put a low number here because it seems like someone my actual age should be more financially stable. This brought my overall emotional age down, but it's not something I'm bragging about.

Family was the next box. I put a number higher than my actual age. My teenage boys made me old this year. If you've raised teenagers, I don't need to elaborate.

The Fitness box worked in my favor. My Jazzercise obsession makes me feel younger in this aspect of my life. I've lost weight. I feel physically fit, and I even eat healthier. I answered this box without a struggle...it was the only box I answered without a struggle.

I have no idea if the number in the Social box is accurate. I have a core group of friends I love. We have a blast when we're together. I'm not a fuddy duddy who sits around the house never doing anything. At the same time, I'm not a barhopping party girl. I put a number very close to my actual age.

The last box was Style. What does that mean in terms of age? I've met fabulously stylish older women and young women who have none. I know who I am when I'm shopping, not frumpy, but not ultra-hip either. They seriously needed a WTF option on this quiz. Again, I put a number close to my actual age.

All of which brings us back to my aggregate emotional age...33.6. The two categories that dropped the average lower than my actual age were Finances and Fitness. I'm happy about the one and resigned to the other, so I'm calling it a wash.

If you take the quiz and your emotional age is lower than your actual age, examine the data. Think about why. I don't think younger is necessarily better. Sure, we would all like to have the bodies of our 20 year old selves, but do we really want the emotional maturity of our 20 year old selves?

I don't. I couldn't write anything worth reading. I see the years I've accumulated as good thing most of the time. I like being confident in myself and my choices, and I just wasn't when I was younger.

My Really Awesome Concert Tour

2010-08-04T23:56:00.003-04:00

News of the weird: Justin Bieber has a deal with HarperCollins to publish his memoir. When I heard this from a friend, I had to shake my head. For those of you who don't know (and if you don't know, my respect for you has skyrocketed), Justin Bieber is the 16 year old singer who makes 12 year old girls swoon and who dominates the trending topics on Twitter (although strangely, none of the people I follow ever mention him).

I cannot be counted among the legion of Justin's fans. I'm not 12, and it kind of squicks me out when I hear him talking to his "baby." When the 19 year old daughter of a friend told me she liked Justin, she lost all her cool points with me. (Seriously, Steph, just say no.) I heard Justin do a radio interview, and he was so precious it made my teeth hurt.

I'm not hatin' on boy singers (okay, maybe a little). I have a son Justin's age. I teach kids who are Justin's age. Nothing makes me happier than seeing teenagers excel at what they love...especially artistic endeavors...especially writing endeavors. I have to be honest, though, after hearing Justin's interview, I have doubts about his ability to pen an entire memoir.

I have some experience with teenagers and memoirs. Part of my core content is personal expressive writing. Every year, I read between 120-150 personal narratives written by teenagers.

It's painful, people. Really, really painful. Ask any English teacher.

The pain starts when a student has to decide what moments in their short lives are meaningful enough to share with someone else. Many of them swear they have experienced no such moments, and sometimes, I'm inclined to believe them.

I get vacation stories which are kind of like looking at your friend's vacation slide show, and that's if you're lucky because sometimes, they're about a whole day at King's Island. Kids frequently fall off of things...bikes, horses, ATV's, motorcycles, fences, rooftops, skateboards, tree limbs, someone's shoulders, and so on and so on. There's always a coming of age moment in the woods with a gun and some poor dead animal, usually Bambi.

Worse than the mundane, cliched stories, are the death stories. Death is by far the most frequent topic, and these stories are the hardest to read. Even when the writing is not great, you feel the child's pain. The loss of grandparents, parents, siblings, best friends, and even beloved pets have made me cry. It can be emotionally exhausting. These stories force me to put the stack of papers down and walk away for a bit. These stories also make the teaching of personal narratives worthwhile. When a student finds an outlet for their pain through the writing of it, then I feel like I've made a difference.

A few glorious exceptions to the painful personal narrative stand out in my mind. The young lady who wrote about her dad stopping on a Himalayan road in the middle of the night just to show her the mountains in the moonlight was so good it made the hair on my arms stand up. Another student wrote an almost Hemingway-esque piece on the unbearable ennui of writing a personal narrative. Brilliant. Then, there was the story of a hiccup during a trombone audition that had me laughing from beginning to end. Unfortunately, those memorable pieces are few and far between.

All of which brings me back to Justin's memoir. I realize what I heard on the radio might not be indicative of the real Justin, but he doesn't seem to have the emotional or intellectual heft to write a publishable piece at this stage in the game. I envisioned an endless version of the vacation story..."My Really Awesome Concert Tour."

I did some more investigating, and my unpublished writer's envy is assuaged (because honestly, isn't that what this is really about?). As it turns out, Justin is publishing a "photographic memoir." It's a picture book...and he didn't even take the pictures.

Justin is in all the pictures, so I'm sure his "memoir" will sell like hotcakes. They should call it "My Really Awesome Concert Tour" and give me royalties on the title.

RWA -- After the Conference

2010-08-02T21:43:00.007-04:00

My RWA experience ended when I checked out of the Swan at 3:30 am to make my shuttle to the airport. By the time I staggered onto the plane, any trepidation I had about the flight was overshadowed by delirious exhaustion. We were barely airborne before I passed out cold. I woke as we landed, groggy and with a crick in my neck.

I would say the ball was over, and I had turned back into a pumpkin, but there was no glass slipper, no prince, and I never was Cinderella. And in truth, as exciting as the conference was, the good stuff is just getting started. I have opportunities to explore, new writer friends already touching base with me, 43 new romances to read, and most importantly, new stories to write. We are each responsible for our own happily ever after, and I'm chasing mine.

Here's what I'm going to do.

I will set a strict writing schedule. School is starting next week, and I'm carving time out of every day to write. I'm setting a writing goal for each day, and no matter what else is going on, I'm laying down words. Cause I don't need no stinkin' muse.

I will continue to study my craft. I've barely begun to explore the resources I acquired. The conference flash drive has the handouts from every session, plus the audio is available online.

I will post new content on this blog on a regular basis.

I will foster the contacts I've made with other writers. I met so many accomplished women from all walks of life who write extraordinary stories. I want to be in that sorority.

I will continue to read widely. Every good writer is a reader first.

I will remain positive and soldier on in the face of rejection. The common denominator for every published writer I met was perseverance.

This is the big one...

I will never again hide the cover of whatever romance novel I'm currently reading.

I admit it. I've done this my whole life. For a while, I bought into the popular notion that romance novels are somehow sub-par to other works of fiction and that a serious reader should read serious books. I've been over that prejudice for a while now. Do crappy romances exist? Sure. No genre has a license on bad writing. If a book doesn't grab me in the first ten or twenty pages, I put it down, whether it's a too-cliched romance or a dense, pretentious, stick-up-your-ass piece of literary fiction. I just want a good story, well-written.

So if you see me at a ballgame, in line at Wal-Mart, or waiting to pick up my kid, and I have a book in my hand, I won't be hiding the cover...no matter how hot the sculpted man or how flushed the bosomy woman.

These are the two I'm reading now.

Jessica Andersen and Claudia Dain are amazing writers and amazing women. They are established bestsellers. They don't need to present writer workshops to sell books, and yet they are committed to helping other writers hone their craft.

Hiding the cover of their books would mean I'm embarrassed to be reading them.

I'm not. In fact, I recommend that you read them. You can borrow them when I'm done.

Next year's conference is in New York, the center of the publishing universe. I'm already excited about it. This year, my conference badge had a ribbon attached that said "first timer." My goal for next year is to have the ribbon that says "first sale."

RWA Day Four

2010-07-31T22:40:00.004-04:00

My RWA adventure ended with a bang today. I had a great pitch session with an editor, attended three more information-packed workshops, got more free books (after shipping 35 home), and attended my first ever red carpet event (not counting FROM).

I've acquired a new respect for anyone who auditions for American Idol because that's what the editor pitch sessions reminded me of. An unpretentious sign points the way to an escalator. I'm not sure what I imagined in my head, but it wasn't the cavernous exhibition hall that opened up dramatically in front of me about halfway down. The hall was full of tables spread out at regular intervals with a chair on each side. The editor or agent sat on one side, and the hot seat on the other was for the pitching author.

RWA is nothing if not efficient. They had a system in place that kept the appointments on-time and moving. Once I checked in, they herded me over to a designated holding area. Have you watched the Idol audition shows? The holding area looked just like that. Instead of nervous singers practicing or rocking back and forth, you had nervous authors practicing or rocking back and forth.

I was okay until I sat down in that holding area. I thought I had a zen attitude about the whole thing. "I've had a great conference. This will be good practice. This editor is just a person who is looking for good content."

I don't know if it was the intimidating setup, the nervous energy in the holding area, or the lady practicing her pitch in what can only be described as a sort of whispering moan, but suddenly I was scared shitless. My friend, Linda, told me to tell myself that nobody there was smarter than me and to imagine them in their underwear. Yeah, Linda...that didn't work.

Five minutes before go-time, they lined us up in alphabetical order by who we were pitching. Then a tone sounded, signaling time was up for the previous appointments, and we were led to our person. You know the really bad singer on Idol they put in front of the judges just for entertainment value? Or even worse, the good singer who forgets the lyrics? I will NEVER make fun of those people again. I marched across the hall in a panic, trying to remember what my book was about. I had spent months writing, editing, revising, polishing, querying, blurbing, and breathing that book, and for a moment I had no clue.

Then I sat down, shook the lady's hand, and started talking. I'm pretty sure I babbled at first. At least, that's how I remember it. But at a certain point, she started nodding her head, and then instead of me giving a speech, we were having a conversation. I can pinpoint the moment in the pitch where I became Kathy again. I'm glad I found myself. I'm not a fan of scared, babbling girl. The pitch ended on a very positive note, so we'll see what happens.

I rode back up the escalator in a daze. It was almost time for the first workshop I had marked, so I went in and sat down. The session was called "Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know." The presenter, whose name I did not write down, but who has a PhD in English lit, traced the characteristics of the Gothic Villain Hero...you know, the bad boys to whom women are perpetually attracted. I took a bunch of notes and it was interesting, but the adrenaline was still pumping, so that session is a bit of a blur.

The part that did stick was her theory that all bad boy heroes trace their roots to Prometheus (the over-reacher who does good through rebellious acts, but is chained inside himself), Lord Byron (aristocratic, suave, moody, sexually dangerous, secret wound), or Satan (from the Romantics misreading of Paradise Lost...obsessive, brooding, egotistical, flirts with the dark side). Most romance heroes are Byronic. My Raphael is Byronic. A pop culture example of a Promethean hero would be Batman, and a Satanic hero would be Anakin Skywalker. Interesting stuff, but like I said, I spent a good bit of that workshop replaying my pitch session in my head.

I skipped the next group of sessions to ship my books. I had to lug 35 books, weighing 20 pounds, all the way from my room in the Swan to the conference shipping center in the Dolphin. Thank god for Jazzercise, or I never would have made it. As soon as I sent my package off, I got in line for the NAL/Signet book signing. Yeah, I know, I'm a lost cause. I did exercise some self-discipline and only helped myself to 8 more books, bringing my grand total to 43. I paid for 5 of them and spent $20 shipping them home, so I'm thinking I came out ahead. Factor in the autographs on over half of them, and I really did come out on top.

The coolest part of the autograph session was meeting Jessica Andersen. She writes the NightKeepers, a paranormal series about the Mayan 2012 myth. I already had the book she was giving away at home, but I took another copy because I wanted her autograph. I gushed like the fangirl I am and asked specific questions about the book. I knew Jessica was a good writer, but I didn't know she was a freakin' rock star. Seriously, she looks like Joan Jett, but prettier.

I was more impressed when I went to her workshop called "Crime Scene Imagination." Jessica has a PhD in molecular genetics. She is not only a rock star, but she can run a DNA test. The heading I wrote across the top of my notes said "Cool. As. Hell." And oh my god, she is. My Jessica story gets even better. At the Rita Awards, I discovered I was sitting next to her publicist. Jessica stopped by and we talked again.

I'm willing to put this not-so-great picture of me out here because she just rocked. I wish you could see the pants she was wearing. Cut-outs ran all the way up both legs. A molecular geneticist who writes steaming hot paranormals and dresses like a rock star...freakin' awesome!

Jessica did the crime scene workshop with her best friend's daughter who is a senior at Sam Houston State. She is a biology/criminal justice major and works on the body farm there, one of only four in the U.S. A body farm is where scientists study how the human body decomposes in a variety of situations. So we learned tons about decomp and DNA. Guess what? CSI is a pack of lies. They get almost everything wrong. On some level, I knew it wasn't realistic, but I didn't realize how wrong they got it.

My last workshop of the conference was on point of view...ten pages of notes. It's not a sexy subject, but if you screw it up, you screw the whole book up. The session made me feel good about choosing third person, limited for my book.

The Rita and Golden Heart Awards closed the conference. I knew it was a dressy event, but I didn't realize just how dressy. About half the attendees wore ball gowns. I didn't really feel out of place in my regular ole dress because that's what the other half of the attendees were wearing. I wouldn't have gone out and bought a ball gown anyway.

It was quite the fashion show. I played a game in my head where I guessed who wrote big sweeping historicals and who wrote gothic paranormals by what they were wearing. I'd like to know what my accuracy rate was.

My table was fun. I was with Jessica Andersen's publicist after all. Her name is Leann Lessard, and she's Canadian. I also had a good conversation with a writer from Chicago named Elizabeth Harmon. She is a journalist, but currently unpubbed in fiction. She had a successful pitch session as well. It was interesting to compare notes.

So that's my conference. I'll probably do a wrap-up blog in the next couple of days. There is so much I haven't said because these blogs have already been long. Tomorrow (actually later today at this point), I have to get back on a plane. I'm not fired up about that after my near-death experience on Wednesday. Say a little prayer for me, and I'll see you on the other side.