Preludes And Nocturnes

While Mal climbed the stairs/seats in the kid’s section of the library, I stood and started looking at the shelves.  How had I forgotten about YA books?  As I stood there I pulled out five books to bring home.

And, like a $20 in a winter jacket long forgotten but then found - I looked up to see a Robin McKinley I didn’t even know existed.  Chalice.  I read it in two days.  Two days of wanting to read and read and read.. but then also wanting to stop as I saw the pages coming closer and close to the end.  With her books I make a note of the last page of text so I’m not crushed when it is over. So I’m ready.

You know what I love the most about this very beautiful fun book?  Not once did it go on about how she (the heroine) looked.  It went on about her bees and the different kinds of honey she had. It talked about her family. It talked about her cottage and her furniture. But nothing about how she looked - because that didn’t matter.

SO GOOD!

I have also got here an Ursula K Le Guin by the name of Powers.  I will keep you posted.  As we’re all home sick with the stomach flu, lots of reading time.  Thank the sweet baby jesus for that PVR thing we bought last week.  It, too, is awesome.  But in a very different non-high culture kind of way.  In a “I recorded project runway, top chef masters, and BONES to watch tomorrow” kind of way.

And it is my mom’s birthday today!  Happy Birthday Mom!

I’ve wondered how it would go when this first happened.  Malcolm and I were at the mall on the little play corner.  There is a little “london bus” and a train set up with the idea being you’ll plug in $1 and let the kids ride.  Most of us (and Jim and I in particular) don’t ever plug the dollar and just let the kids climb on and off the bus, sit in the seats, use the steering wheel, etc.

Malcolm has interacted with other kids there before.  Shawn and I take the boys there often (her little guy is 6 months older than Mal) and they play very well on there. M has gotten used to some bigger kids and that there might be some bumps along the way of getting on and off bus/train.  Shawn obviously makes it clear to her little guy that M is a smaller kid esp as her guy is big for his age.  But, in all, they work out well together.

Today there was a whole bunch of kids. Two around M’s size and age, a girl about 4, and a boy around 3.5 or 4.  All was fine, M was holding his own, until the others left and the one boy (3.5ish) was the only other kid.  He was not very verbal, so I can’t get a handle on age. But he was a fair bit bigger than M and did a couple shoves.

So I’m watching and then decide to go stand right in between the toys as M was going up/down from other to the other and the other kid (J) was not … very aware.  It was the first time I’m having to really think about another kid who will not in any way listen. His mom told him a few times to be careful as he went by M and gave him an unnecessary shove. M didn’t fall, just stepped back. J could have gotten around him, but wanted to go through instead. M was having fun and laughing and jumping and doing what I want him to do - have some time out of the house playing!

So J is getting worked up. The mom told him again to be careful, and I moved over thinking we might just have to go.  At this point M goes to get on the bus and J (who has been getting more and more hyper) shoves M into the side of the doorway and M is squished as J forces himself past/over Malcolm onto the bus first. Malcolm’s face got a bang on the metal bus doorway, I rushed over because he was also unable to get away as this kid climbs over him - getting his face pressed against the side, and the mom came over too.  I pick up M, he is screaming (but there was a slight bit of drama queen in the scream) and the mom then *sigh* smacked J and shook him.

All I can think is I don’t want to be a party to how this kid is handled.  She is shaking him and yelling, I’m just getting M calmed down, and then J has to say sorry to M.  Fine.  I want M to feel better so I know that he needs to play for a minute more, she says they are leaving, I figure it is fine to let Malcolm climb drive the bus one more time so he leaves on a better note.  Wipe the tears, a kiss, and he toddles over to climb the bus again.  J comes racing over and the same thing is about to happen.  He grabs M’s coat and is about to yank him off the bus (about 1.5 feet up from the ground), I am right there… and I hold out my hand so J cannot pull him down or get on top of Malcolm.  I am there, holding his kid back from me and Malcolm, the mom is yelling, and the kid is paying no attention at all.

Very weird.  I say calmly to J “you just need to wait one minute, Malcolm will climb up, and then you can get on.” But there is no recognition I’m even talking - he is totally shoving against me as hard as he can trying to get to Malcolm. I’ve never had to hold back someone else’s kid before and it was somewhat off-putting.  Again, all I can think is that I can’t let him go or he’ll thump on Malcolm. I want M to have time to get up out of the way before this kids rams past him.  So then the mom grabs J’s hood and yanks him backward.  Blah!  So he won’t stop pulling forward, he is being choked by his jacket/hood, and I’m in crazy-land. Srsly.  She just keeps yanking him back, he is totally ADD hyper land, M is trying to just climb on the bus, and I’m not sure what to do except try to get Malcolm out of there.

So the kid is pulled back, she’s yelling, M climbs on the bus, looks out, climbs down, takes my hand, and walks off.  Too funny, but he was done with it all.

Four places I go regularly: uni, gym (not as regularly as I wish.. but I’m going in the morning), grocery store where we let Malcolm run like a madmad as one of us shops and the other chases a giggling toddler through the produce, and the crack craft store.

Four favorite smells: morning coffee with vanilla soy added, the oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookies I made the other day, Malcolm (all the time, even when he smells like milk or poop or just like a stinky baby), Jim (I got him this new body wash for christmas and it reminds me of what he used to use when we first started seeing each other.. I love smelling him!)

Four people I think will respond: er, respond with their own four or just reply to my blog?  People who will say hi here are mom, leone, laura, and julia.  People who might just do this themselves are - I don’t know!  I have busy friends. I’m just glad when you guys say hi!

Four shows I watch: Glee, Castle, Bones, Top Chef (Masters right now).  Silly Glee not on right now. Blah.  So we’ve ordered Bones season three because we just finished two and we already have four (thank you pre-Christmas sales) AND we ordered first season Castle.  I have Prison Break from the library right now (season one) as I had heard good things… but, um, I dunno.  We’re at episode four and it might be too much of a bummer.

Should I teach the idea that Imagery within poetry must only mean the description of concrete items OR that it can also include similes and metaphors?

*Is* the A&P a social critique on suburbia or just a silly story about girls in a bathing suit?

Can I find time to make grandma and grandpa’s invites and mail them out this week?

Should I create essay topics for my two lit classes or just let them make their own and risk plagiarisms galore?

Why don’t we all get nap-time?

Why can’t I find more time to read?

Got my braces tightened this morning and they gave me praise!

Oh how I live for praise. It is quite pitiful, actually.

She said that I have been doing an excellent job at flossing and brushing with the wires.  With that said, she took the wires off, I got to do a brush and floss without all the rigaramole (rig-a-romole?  Rigga-Romole?).  And let me tell you, I’ll never fuss about regular flossing again.

Well, I will. But it will be years after I get my braces off and I’ll have forgotten about all this. Just saying.

Who got it from http://subliminal.lunanina.com

Free association - ten words and I gave my one word reply. I don’t know if it was supposed to just be one word. I am probably then supposed to talk about what I said, but I’m kinda busy… so hey, yay for me blogging.

1. 365 :: minutes
2. Tombstone :: pizza
3. Dumb :: ass
4. Intrusive :: ass
5. Fat :: ass (I seem to have hit a skip)
6. Axe ::el (er, axel)
7. Planned ::parenthood
8. Spike ::spawnkitty
9. Bleach ::moustache
10. Shopkeeper ::Wilson (no, I have no idea who that would be)

I need to just start typing posts and nothing will feel right after a post like that - so I’ll just move forward knowing all of that and being okay.

I am back to work today. This term I’m teaching 3 different classes and two I’ve not taught before. This makes my tummy do upset rumbling things and my heart to race. I start today, I have most of this week ready to go, we will see how it all works out. I’ll be posting random questions here for you all, and please feel free to add in *anything* you like as I’m looking for lots of input.

First week of poems are Ars Poetica and Adrienne Rich’s Living in Sin.

Living in Sin
by Adrienne Rich

She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat
stalking the picturesque amusing mouse
had risen at his urging.
Not that at five each separate stair would writhe
under the milkman’s tramp; that morning light
so coldly would delineate the scraps
of last night’s cheese and three sepulchral bottles;
that on the kitchen shelf among the saucers
a pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own—
envoy from some village in the moldings. . .
Meanwhile, he, with a yawn,
sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard,
declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror,
rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes;
while she, jeered by the minor demons,
pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found
a towel to dust the table-top,
and let the coffee-pot boil over on the stove.
By evening she was back in love again,
though not so wholly but throughout the night
she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming
like a relentless milkman up the stairs.

Ars Poetica
by Archibald MacLeish

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

*

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

*

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean
But be.

My mom’s bestfriend died last night from cancer. She is young, her kids are my and my sisters’ ages, she used to make the costumes for my high school drama productions. She worked with my mom as a teacher.

But I’m just kinda shattered right now.

On a site I’m on, someone mentioned doing a book challenge for 2010.  The idea is to read 50 books in the year. He suggested a page count so we would not be motivated to pick shorter books or avoid the huge-o-rama books.  If we think of 400 pages per book and 50 books - 20,100 ends up being a great page count (2010 - 20,100).

I’m going to start right away and I’ve got The Book Theif on my table right now as well as two books from the lovely Laura (how much do I love books for Christmas?) and another (Nurture Shock) from Julia and Jason.  Oh, I also got one from the Bones Lady from Jim. Kathy whats-her-face’s book.

Yeah yeah, I should look her up but I’m just so happy I’m blogging. I don’t want blogging to die out.  Do you know that blogging makes us smarter and that tweeting and facebook make us dumber?  Study released last year talking about the shorter status/writing involved in the latter two and the fact that is has started to train our brains to think in shorter less complex thoughts.  Blogging (ie: writing) makes us think up longer ideas and more complex relationships between words and stories.

I hope you all will stick around with my blog for another year. And I hope that I will keep updating and keeping you interested.

We had a lovely Christmas. It was magical.  I hope in two weeks time well find out it was super magical as I should be ovulating right around now.  Fingers crossed, yes?

Much love xoxo

Someone stole the liscence plate off the back of my car today while we were shopping downtown.  Cops said they then either stole a car or removed the insurance tags to put them on their own car.  Given the choice, I’ll take the missing plate over the missing car. So, funny enough, I’ll call it a win.  (Aside from the $20 for new plates. Blah.)