bugsii

Yesterday, we only went out to go to the mall for a bit.  It was good.  And, for some reason there was a power outage at midnight that finally forced me to stop reading.  Also good.

Today, Dan and I headed home.  It was chilly and there was some snow on the ground, which hadn’t been typical of the week.  Dan usually drives the whole ten hours, but he had a work call around lunch time, so I took over for awhile.  When I drive long distances, I like to use cruise control.  I like to get in the right hand land, set the cruise to 70mph and then just let my feet rest while I steer.  This is a fine idea, but it doesn’t last long because, inevitably, someone is going slower than I am and then someone else is in the left lane going too fast for me to pass without turning off the cruise for a bit.  Or, traffic increases and cruise is just impossible.  Or, a cop is monitoring traffic and everyone slams on their brakes.  I don’t know why, then, I keep on setting the cruise hoping that I’ll be able to rest easy, because it’s never going to happen.

I get it from my Dad.  Although, he set his cruise at 72mph because he heard from his state patrol friend that he could go up to 7mph over the speed limit without getting pulled over.  And, that was gospel, let me tell you.  It was a funny thing, the way my dad would use cruise (and by funny, I mean irritating, death-defying, unpredictable, as was most driving with him).  He was so intent on keeping the cruise on, on never having to veer from that perfect 72mph, that he would nearly hit cars in front of him before varying his speed.  He would yell, he would get all worked up because, gosh darnit, he wanted to maintain a level speed.  He would also criticize anyone who was incapable of maintaining speed.  If he were going to pass them and they sped up, that was outrageous.  If he got behind them and they slowed down, they were imbeciles.  Maintaining a perfect speed on long highway trips was, to my Dad, perfection.

As I was trying to use my cruise today, perhaps in a slightly toned down mode, I started to think about that idea of wanting to be able to maintain some set speed and not to be interfered with.  It’s like life, right?  We’re all on this road, thinking that things are going well, wanting to check things off of our list, wanting things to go as planned, when bam, someone slows down right in front of you and severely impedes your progress.  Maybe you have this plan that you’ll get a fellowship to prepare you for your dissertation, the fellowship is perfect, the category is so aligned with your dissertation that it couldn’t be any better, you spend hours preparing the application, it is honed, it is spotless, and then, rejection.  Bah, you brake, cancel cruise, and figure out how to get around this car before you start cursing life.

As I was walking to a cafe this afternoon to do some work (and loving it).  I started to think about how when I lived in the suburbs, I had to drive to get everywhere and I started thinking about the differences between a city and a suburb.  Here’s what I came up with so far.

There are things I miss about my old house… space, a garage, a quiet deck.  I also miss the safety.  I miss my group of friends, the comfort and familiarity of similarity.  Right now though, today (and tomorrow I’m sure since it’s warming up), I am loving the city.  Even the dirty, cramped noisiness is nice.  It’s less contrived than a suburb.  It’s a beautiful bricolage of people, buildings, and eras past and present.  I love to walk around and notice the different architectures of the buildings and watch the hum of the buses, crosswalks and cyclists.  A city feels more alive and I feel like it has something to teach me.

What else am I missing though…

In my Vegetarian Times that I picked up the other day, they interview their contributors with a few fun questions.  One of them, I like very much: Write your memoir in six words.  Here is what the various contributors said:

She thought, she cooked, she entertained.

A man who suffered from wanderlust.

Row, row, row your boat gently.

At first this was fun to think about, but it quickly became poetic.  I thought of three so far (which I realize is now 18 words, but oh well).

Just one girl, too many dreams.

Gray world turns pink and purple.

Lots of cracks, finally broken open.

Leave your memoir in the comments.  Come on, you know you want to! 

Yesterday in my Ed Philosophy class, we were talking about a court case from the 60s where this woman was on unemployment and refused to take any job that required her to work on Saturday.  She was a Seventh Day Adventist and they celebrate the sabbath on Saturday.  She was going to stop receiving unemployment because she had refused possible jobs, but she sued because she was basically saying that if she were forced to take a job that required her to work on her sabbath, then that was a infringement on the free exercise clause.  The courts were on her side in this case.  Since then, there have been a few more cases reversed this and then called it into question again.  But, what this made me think (and this is sort of a stupid tangent) is, what if no one worked the weekend, ever?  I know most of us don’t, but what if no one else did either?  So then we couldn’t really go anywhere or do much.  What would we do?  We’d kind of have to stay home, cook for ourselves, hang out, maybe go to a park, watch movies… it sounds kind of awesome.  It would be like Christmas day, when everything is shut down, but every weekend.  I wonder if it would make the week too busy though, like if we would have to cram our grocery shopping in in the evening or whatever.  I don’t know.  It’s not a profound thought, I know, but it’s fun to think about.

At ODE we receive an email everyday with all the news clips from around the state that have to do with education.  Today, there was a story about how the state is considering allowing school districts to make up snow days online.  There have been lots of stories about this lately.  People are sort of excited about it, but there was one article where a state congresswoman said, “Hey, what about the kids without computers at home?”  This is always something that’s hard to keep in mind when you start to get excited about the capabilities of technology, but it’s a huge problem.  So, here’s my solution (and it’s not really a new one).  Every kid should be handed a laptop in Kindergarten.  They should get free maintenance, upgrades, replacements, etc. all the way through twelfth grade.  It’s just too big of a disadvantage not to have access to a computer at home.  Oh, and there should be free wireless EVERYWHERE.  What do you all think?  One laptop per child?  (Say yes.)

This morning, Dan and I got up and went to Stauf’s for awhile.  I worked on school stuff, and Dan was doing his regular work.  Around lunch time we came home.  I did a bit more work, then needed to run to to campus to drop off some papers and work out.  There’s this one street on campus, where there are lots of crosswalks and yield signs.  It’s right in the middle of campus, so there are always students criss-crossing the street and, as a driver, it is very slow going.  Over time, I’ve noticed that there are three types of street-crossers.  The typical street-crosser looks up at the car to make sure the car is going to stop and then sort of half waves and hurries across the street.  A second type of street-crosser, the passive aggressive type, just walks right out into the street, sometimes on a cell phone, sometimes not, almost challenging you to hit them, but still walking briskly and in a hurry.  The third type is my favorite type.  They stare at the ground, and walk slowly across the street, barely realizing that they are standing in a place of some danger, a place where walkers really don’t belong, a street (!).  The one I saw today was so slow about her pace, that I thought that she might actually enjoy being in the street.

I started to think about these three types of street-crossers.  I think I’m mostly the first; when I was younger I was the second, but never have I been the third.  Although I kind of like the idea of the third.  It reminds me of this quote from Gloria Anzaldua:

Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a state of constant transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants.

The street is a borderland of sorts, a place dividing up where “pedestrians” walk.  The street is a place where pedestrians shouldn’t be, or should only be for a short amount of time in certain places (crosswalks).  The street is only safe for cars, not people.  Even the term pedestrian is sort of strange.  One who travels on foot… we’re all really pedestrians, but we are restricted in this space made for one who travels by car.  The arbitrary boundary of the street is constantly in transition, cars coming and going, people hurrying or putzing through the crosswalks, some even darting, forbidden, outside of the designated crosswalks.  So, those ones who don’t acknowledge that they are in a borderland, who wander freely, enjoy the forbidden nature of the street, a place that’s not for people on foot, I kind of like them.

One time when I was walking downtown, there was a man, clearly out of his mind, who began to play a sort of hopscotch in the middle of High Street.  He was jumping on one leg, trying not to land on any cracks.  Cars started coming, but he paid no attention.  It could have been ugly, but instead, cars slowed to a stop, watching, in awe.  It makes me wonder what we’re so afraid of, in those borderland spaces.  What happens if we stay in the borderland for awhile, disregarding rules of typical behavior?  What if we discovered that instead of getting hurt, you might find that you change the borderland in an unexpected way?  What if the borderland changed you?

So, I finally left the house today after two lovely days all snowed in.  I was going to take a picture of the snow piled on my car, but was feeling cold and lazy.  Instead, you can visit this blog and see some cool snow figures some students made around campus.  Awesome right?

And a final tidbit I wanted to share with you (well, Uncle Ray mostly).  If you send in a video, you have a chance to be in a commercial with Flo, the Progressive lady!  Check it out here.  I could totally see Ray on one of those commercials!

I got up and ran this morning.  Then, I got a haircut.  It had been almost four months and I thought my hairdresser might be disgusted with me, but she seemed pleasant enough.  I don’t know why I always put off getting my hair cut.  I think it might be because I think it takes too long, or maybe it’s because I think it’s kind of expensive, or maybe I just don’t care that much.  Either way, my hair felt so much nicer after having the grizzly ends chopped.  Ahh.

Afterward, I went grocery shopping and then Dan’s family dropped by to pick up our old TV.  Dan got a new one and his sister bought the (still perfectly good, ahem) “old” one.  I guess I lost that battle.  I spent the evening watching Dan calibrate the TV (well, I guess I was technically reading for class, but I looked up every now and then).  He’s the only person I know that has this calibration device that suctions to the TV and checks the levels of red, blue, and geek, I mean green.  To me, the process was tedious and incredibly dull.  Dan, on the other hand, worked intently for a few hours.  Do I need to tell you again that I have the best geek ever?

P.S. The week you give up watching TV is not the best week to get a new one. 

Dan got home tonight!  After a day spent reading, cooking, eating, reading, cooking eating, I was so glad to get out of the house and pick up my hubby!  As soon as he got in the car, I talked nonstop, and then even when we got home I chattered away until I ran out of things to say (which took awhile).  See, without TV, I’ve been reading a lot more and bored a lot more and thinking a lot more, so I’ve stored up more to talk about and since that store hasn’t been released since Monday, well, you can imagine.  I feel like I’ve been on the computer for days.  In fact, today, just to take a break, I decided to outline my paper on PAPER.  Whoa.  Check it out.  I feel like I’m getting back to my non-digital roots.

Now if I could just turn that in...

Is it just me or are flight attendants usually pretty cranky lately?  I flew home today from Arizona and was excited about a straight flight right into Columbus.  All was pretty smooth, I can’t complain too much.  But, when I got to my gate, there was a really grumpy woman manning the loudspeaker, announcing over and over again that you could only have two bags with you on the flight, and then to be extra snarky and demeaning, she would say, “1+1 is 2 NOT 3,” in this bored, sing-songy voice.  I wanted to ask her if she lived in a trashcan on Sesame Street, but I feared a random bag search or bad peanuts (turns out I didn’t need to worry about peanuts because you have to pay for ALL snacks on the plane, even on a 3.5 hour flight.  Sigh.).  Then, when we were boarding another cheerful lady barked at a guy that had an oversized bag without even looking him in the eye; another guy wasn’t sure which half of the ticket to give her and she gave Oscar a mutually grouchy/annoyed look.  When we got halfway down the port to the plane, we were informed that there was no more room in the overhead bins and any of us with two bags would have to check one piece (so apparently 1+1=1).  The people taking our bags weren’t especially grouchy, but not friendly either.  However, when I finally got on the plane and to my seat, there were PLENTY of overhead bins available.  Perplexing.  Not that I’m never grouchy because God knows I am, but it just seems to me lately that flight attendants are in especially bad moods.  I don’t know why that is.  I’m sure it’s annoying dealing with the same problems day in and day out.  I’m sure that travelers get pretty annoyingly predictable.  But, really, if you hate your job, you should look into other things and if you can’t look into other things, you should try to be content with the job you have.  It would probably be more pleasant for you if you took joy in even the repetitive tasks that start to get dull.  Being grumpy, I am sure, hurts you more than it hurts anyone else.  They should take a note from my mom who deals with the same customers day in and day out, has done so for the past 15 years, and remains a darn cheery waitress.

I remember some time in my third or fourth year teaching I learned this same lesson (though I often forget).  I would get annoyed being asked the same questions over and over again by kids, especially when I had just addressed it.  You can’t really get angry in these circumstances (kinda like the flight attendants and waitresses), but you can sort of shut off and answer the question in a tone that clearly articulates annoyance.  I started doing this more often than I would like to admit and then one day I realized that I didn’t like myself when I did that (I don’t know what brought me to that conclusion).  So, what I noticed was that if I just accepted that kids were ALWAYS going to ask questions that they just heard the answer to and they were ALWAYS going to forget homework and they were ALWAYS going to run in the hallway (etc., etc., etc., I mean, they are KIDS for crying out loud), then I could quit trying to think that if I was clear enough, or organized enough, or scary enough that I was going to change their behavior.  Instead, I tried to see the child as the little unique person that they were and respond to each situation with as much love as I could manage.  This made my day so much more pleasurable and the relationships with my students so much better, and all I had to do was let go.  Let go of the crazy idea that things could ever go exactly as planned.  So, flight attendants… let go.  And, thanks for reminding me to that I need to practice this more often in my daily life.  And, thanks for making me miss teaching again.