loose framing

yeah, i’m being bad, like my students. i’m bored in a meeting, like they get bored in my class, and so am cruising the web. at least i turned my cruising into writing. they just facebook (yes, it’s a verb — so says the writing teacher). which can be like writing, sometimes. i guess. maybe.

ok, not really.
just some linky fun. this woman actually plays her brainwaves — and check out the last lines: she’s actually recorded a film score using the actors’ brainwaves. totally. cool.

how hard is it to set aside a day to write? to read? to fed and nurture the muse, to take a break from the regular work pressures and let yourself moodle about and create?

stupidly hard, it turns out. really, this is dumb.

i had all of yesterday open. no grading to do. i had set up my schedule so that the work that would need to be done by monday would be, even with out my doing any of it on friday. i had a great and inspiring meeting with an author i am editing for, was all jazzed about getting home afterwards and settling into some reading, and then some writing…

and what do i do? i vacuum. i load and run the dishwasher. do laundry. put some random shit away. realize i’m hungry and make lunch. eat lunch while watching the food network (brain death sets in here).

i get frustrated with myself, as the book just sits on my lap and the journal stays closed… so i turn off the tv and pick up the book. and read a paragraph. then watch the dogs faux-fight for a bit. go put one load of clothes in the dryer, the other one into the washer. water the newly planted stuff in my yard. wander back in, decide to shower, and to shave while i’m in there, so that takes a good bit of time.

i get out, spend time deciding what lotion i want to use, what i want to wear, since i’m meeting my partner for dinner on campus and want to look and smell cute for her. i get all that decided, then sit down to read again, or to write in the journal, both on my lap and open… i go from one to the other, not really doing anything with either. i manage to waste the hour i had between the shower and needing to go to get to campus, getting nothing written or read.

i had an entire day and managed to waste it all. it’s like i couldn’t settle into just hanging out with my own head. i felt compelled in this scary kind of way to be Doing Something - it’s like, if i’m not buried in work for my students,  or editing, i have to do housework in order to feel right. it’s a weird kind of guilt, i guess — i’ve managed to convince myself that taking time to write, and to feed my muse by reading or whatever, is somehow dirty, wrong, not to be indulged in.

this is pathetic.

i want to give myself that time today. carve out today, give myself another chance to play and rejuvenate my brain. but i’m feeling overwhelmed by “shoulds”: i should be doing that editing, i should be sticking to the work schedule i set for myself on thursday because i obviously don’t deserve to give myself that second chance at a work-free day since i just waste it anyhow.

i am just amazed at this. and annoyed. in some ways, i am responding to feeling overwhelmed by shutting down. i am so far behind on the poetry i want to read, the books i want to read, the poems i want to revise/edit/create, the photos i want to take, the photos i have and want to edit, the hikes  and bike rides i want to go on… i don’t even know where to begin. i also feel i will simply burst if i don’t begin doing some of this kind of thing soon - but feel about to burst at the thought of how much i want/need to do.

so i let inertia settle in and watch chick basketball tournaments. and bitch on my blog. and get frazzled thinking about how i have forgotten how to do everything i had taught myself with my blog, all the editing of the pages and stuff.

how does one stop cat-waxing and just get at it? i suppose you just get at it, yes? erg.

my friend chris (yeah, another chris — do you have any idea how many chrises there are in my life? ) surprised the heck out of me last week. he sent me a letter. yup, a letter. you know the ones, don’t you? those things that come in envelopes, that you have to put a stamp on and give to the mailperson who carries it about through sleet and snow and such and plops into your mailbox?

even weirder, this one was, gasp, actually written by hand.

whoa. i had forgotten such things existed.

i used to letter-write a lot. by hand. on pretty stationary when i was younger, then yellow legal pads in college. to pen pals (one in trinidad/tobago, one in japan, one in south africa). to my grandparents (thank you notes, regular updates on my life). to my mom and brother once i was in college and far from them and too broke to call as much as i wanted. in christmas letters, with the “we haven’t spoke in ages but here’s how cool my life is” news flash. do comment to students on papers count? i wrote LOTS to them, letters at the end of their papers tllignthem what i saw and thought. and i wrote them by hand when i was a new teacher.

but the last time i hand wrote a letter? man, i can’t even remember. heck, when did i even last write a letter of any kind, typed or not? i write gazillions of emails, oodles of texts and instant messages, updates on facebook and myspace… and i still write oodles to my students, it just gets typed now (much to my students’ relief, i’m sure, given how hideous my handwriting is). there’s a lot of text exchange happening, that’s for sure. but not your basic, regular ole letter.

is this the same kind of thing? we live in the same city, can see each other or text or email each other easily. but he sends me a handwritten letter. why? chris says he likes the paper letter. he has written quite a bit about the joys of handwriting (and many other fun things) on his own blog. are emails letters? i’ve sent a lot of long emails over the last year or so, updating folks on the many changes in my life, and catching up with people i hadn’t talked to in ages. i love the quick exchange of little emails with people, keeping them in my life and me in theirs on a weekly basis, almost like we’re together talking.

i cannot imagine handwriting a letter anymore. but i do handwrite in my journal — i hate the idea of typing a journal as much as i hate the idea of handwriting a letter, actually. and i prefer to use my fountain pen with its snazzy green ink for this. what’s that all about? my poems get handwritten first. i revise once or twice that way, then type them up to do the rest of the revisions. papers, essays — those i write on the computer from the get-go — but the outlines and brainstorms are all handwritten (i love legal pads for that — and green ink ballpoint pens — not the fountain pen).

weirder and weirder. why does the medium matter? what do we get out of our various choices? what does one over the other do for us, give us as we compose?

i am going nowhere with this. just thinking on the page, letting thoughts sparked by the cool surprise of a chris’ handwriting showing up in my mailbox flow out…

comment away. whatcha’ all think?

i have been feeling bored with teaching lately. not just bummed i have to grade; not just frazzled over my workload; not just flipping over disengaged students.

no, my students are as cool as always, full of potential and responding to my antics and encouragement; grading is no more horrid than usual; my workload is still crazy, but shit, i have a job and it’s not as bad as many i hear about.

so, what’s the deal? i am truly burnt out. I BORE MYSELF. i have no intrinsic motivation for the teaching thing right now. i have great lesson plans, engaged students, interesting projects they’re working seriously on… and yet i flinch when thinking about planning for class or starting class or dealing with student emails and papers… i yawn a lot when reading student work.

that’s sad. because i really do still get why i do/should love my work. i do. it’s endlessly creative, all about engaging with humans as they discover their expressive powers, and i ge to start over every 16 weeks. and get july totally off. really, totally. i can weed my yard for all of july and am still considered a real teacher.

what is this?

some of it is the depressive bullshit going on in arizona at large, playing out in horrendous budget cuts and pressures on my beloved writing program and the people i work with. it gets hard to give a shit when your state is telling you in no uncertain terms that what you do DOES. NOT. MATTER. period. education in arizona = less important than… everything.

so.

but there’s also this thing i can control. my own creative well.  i have been waaaaaaay caught up in Many Things recently. work, the changes in my life, work, work, work. (-; and i have let all that take me away from other things i used to do, albeit badly: taking pics, WRITING (bloggy things, poetry-like bits), acting like i have control over words that others might find at least vaguely interesting…

basically, i am trying to teach that which i no longer do. writing is a Thing to Convey to Others Only right now for me. and that is killing my fire. i have love for my kids and their potential. i have love for the hope that teaching leads to real change for the world. but that through which i do all this? the writing thing? i’m not doing it. even when i do it poorly, i am at least engaged in the beautiful mess of composition and the personal vulnerability and growth that it demands. and THAT is what fuels the fire — that reality. that experience of the dirt and sweat of it. the opening of my heart that way  — to you all (my two readers), to my students (with whom i share my blog), to ME. me me me.

writing is important, i teach. struggling with it is important and worth it, i teach. so important… that i don’t do it? really? wow. i have to do it, too. if i don’t, what kind of message am i sending myself, and thus, my students?

so i’m back. want to set aside fridays for creative days. which means a blog post and other fun. keep me honest, people. if i’m not on myself getting it done, love me enough to bitch at me about it ok? (-;

peace, y’all.

so the spacing is off,and i don’t know how to make it not be. (-; you’ll have to deal with the less than perfect version. i’m posting. that alone is good, yes? lol!

Construction Project

We gather

A hardness
A softness
A quietness
A loudness

And come
together

In wetness and
Sweatness and
Yelping.

We take space,
Fill space,
Build space.

Move in a rhythm that molds peace
out of chaos,

and constructs us back whole into our worlds.

Chris Hamel
February 2009

I get that from the fact that McCain, a man running to lead our country, could ever think this ad was a good idea.

sigh

…this would have clinched it for me.  read and weep.

yeah, i’m reading and listening to a lot of election stuff.  it’s the theme for my freshman comp course this fall.  hopefully, i’ll be up to blogging about the experience.  it’s pretty wild so far.  (-;

but it all depends on how much energy my house hunting drains out of me… lol!

Yup, Paris Hilton has just “made McCain her bitch”, as Seth Grahame-Smith notes.

He shoulda’ been a preacher.