The lightness of b

On Obi-wan

2012-02-13T21:42:00.001-05:00

I had a teacher - one of those remarkable teachers that you know at the time is remarkable and know every moment you are in class, you are learning more than you know. She taught us and cared about us: the tough love you need as a high school sophomore and the actual love you need as a graduating senior. She was young, but she got sick during my senior year, when my friends and I had her for AP

Mixed Metaphor Jamboree: What I think about when I think about writing

2012-02-01T23:34:00.000-05:00

I couldn't run for shit five years ago. Despite always being active and relatively in shape, I could not run. That sounds weird, I know. Running is basically fast walking, and people typically nail that down before they can remember. But it's more than that, apparently, and if you're thinking about things like distance running, everything matters. Like how your feet hit the ground and how

This is Major Tom to Ground Control

2012-01-16T00:57:00.001-05:00

Oh right. I had this thing I wrote in once. And then I stopped. Such is my downfall. But thank the gods for technology, eh? Since I apparently can't remember to update from my laptop, Apple's taken care of adding a blogger app (which, annoyingly, is just for iphone...meaning I'm seeing it on a much smaller scale on the ipad, which I also have to sit upright rather than longways, otherwise I'm

Pre-Semester Honesty.

2010-08-03T22:00:00.000-04:00

Process of creating syllabi: Stage 1: Denial (two weeks before classes start). “There’s plenty of summer left! I’ll do it later.” Stage 2: Preliminary Acceptance (one week and 6 days later). “Ah hell, class is tomorrow…I’ll get started now.” Stage 3: Naïve Excitement (upon immediately sitting down at the desk). “This will be the best semester ever! I have so many ideas

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane - Kate DiCamillo

2010-03-11T19:58:00.000-05:00

I have been reading more than I've been writing, but such is the life of a mid-semester-er. Summer's coming - today was the first t-shirt-and-no-sweater day this year. I am a cold-weather person, but even I get excited when I feel that first hint of warmth in the air. It's the same feeling as a good hug, and I always appreciate such changes, even if they also make me sick. Spring, I mean,

1/30 Out of the Pocket

2010-01-30T17:35:00.002-05:00

I swear, I don't know what's going on with the sports literature - specifically, football. I don't keep planning this. And I still skim over the description of the games. I ran across this one via my hometown library's e-book access (and if you use any library in TN, you oughta find out if they're a member of the R.E.A.D.S system). It's about a gay high school quarterback (Bobby) dealing with

1/28 - The Catcher in the Rye

2010-01-28T19:35:00.000-05:00

There are like four or five books I'm wanting to write about - one that's relatively new (published in the fall), and a few that are "older." But I can't let today go by without acknowledging Salinger. I will be honest - the only Salinger book I've ever read is Catcher in the Rye. But it's not the only one I own, and so it's just that whole "scheduling" nightmare that Nine Stories and Franny

1/18/10 "The Rifle" - Gary Paulson

2010-01-18T21:43:00.001-05:00

When I lived in North Carolina, I took a conceal/carry class in Johnson City over Memorial Day weekend. I did it for a few reasons: first, for the hell of it; second, because my dad had recently gone through the class and thought I’d find it interesting; and third, because despite growing up around guns, my parents never had firearms in the house (meaning I had no experience). I took the 8-hour

1/16/10 - "Deadline," Part II.

2010-01-16T14:01:00.003-05:00

Ok. So. As previously mentioned, everyone who can understand the English language by age 15 or so should read Crutcher's Deadline. Yes, I have expanded the original requirement. I have my reasons. Crutcher's novels are generally sports-related, and Deadline is about football. I've already discussed this - I know sports lit means more to team athletes than it does to me. That's not to say I

1/10/10 - Every Soul a Star

2010-01-10T21:08:00.001-05:00

Every Soul a Star (Wendy Mass) This covers about two weeks (leading up to a total solar eclipse) through the perspectives of three teenagers. It’s the old “unlikely friendship” story, though there are actually 6 characters in the group of friends. Mass’ plot is really strong. She jumps back and forth between each character, but the story isn’t 100% linear. For instance, Ally will describe

01/9/10 - Deadline

2010-01-09T10:25:00.000-05:00

1. Deadline - Chris Crutcher I should say a lot about this book. But not now. I tried but everything's fragmented, and not only do the ideas not tie together, they're not complete. And though I'm writing these for myself, I still can't stand fragmentation. (Plus, the last few responses have been hella long. Brevity'll break it up a bit.) All I will say is this: if it were required that

1/7/10 - "Marcelo in the Real World" and "The White Gates."

2010-01-07T20:01:00.003-05:00

Classes start in approx. 5 days (that’s 120 hours, but who’s counting?), which means this whole “two books a day” frenzy will soon be at an end. Until summer. But, for the next few days – excepting the hours that are spent doing laundry and cleaning and cooking and doing what I’m paid to do – I’m trying to knock out as many novels as I can. I went to the library the other day for one book and

01/04/10 - Books.

2010-01-04T19:33:00.003-05:00

Ten years ago I was thinking that I knew Y2K was a crock, but also sort of disappointed it didn’t follow through. I think I could survive in social anarchy – my reading preferences as a young adult prepped me for it. On that topic, last January I started a list of all the books I read during the year. The main purpose was a memory-jogger for years down the road: if I was reading a book and a plot

12.1.09

2009-12-01T22:30:00.004-05:00

Just now. Not a poem. Maybe soon: Summer, and you protect your ears Against the lawnmower's roar With music. Your iPod skips a song, Landing on one you downloaded Long ago. And have not Listened to since. And in that instant, you are What you claim you can never be: Two places at once. As the music pours in, As sweat pours out, You are in your car. Parked, in the snow. The song playing For

Death is a doorknob made of flesh.

2009-08-06T02:20:00.004-04:00

Only once at LMC did I leave my office keys at home. As such luck works, of course, no one was around to unlock the door, so I had to go back. That's the only reason why I caught "The Writer's Almanac" on NPR. Listening with half an ear, I was passing Lowe's headed quickly back to the school when Garrison Keillor read Jim Harrison's poem "Larson's Holstein Bull" - Death waits inside us for a

More proof my primary education didn't prepare me for academia

2008-12-12T18:15:00.005-05:00

Back in grade school, we called the act of someone pulling someone else's pants down in public "shanking." I thought that was the typical slang until I went on to college or watched a movie and heard the term "pantsing" for the first time. (Seriously, I was at least 18 before I heard it called that.) And I then learned that a "shank" was synonymous with shiv - a weapon fashioned in a prison,

Hazy Shade of Winter

2008-11-19T09:27:00.002-05:00

I love the cold.It’s strange, because most people I know dislike winter. They’re summer people. I guess living in TN you have to be, because once summer hits, it’s HOT and you’d better be ready. But I hate the heat the way most people dislike the cold.There’s this thing called seasonal affective disorder, where you get depressed (either slightly or majorly) in the winter. Less sunlight, less

Google This.

2008-10-30T09:54:00.002-04:00

The moment I switched my search engine preferences was well after Google became a verb. I heard it on a movie—Maid in Manhattan, I think it was: “You can Google it when you get to school.” I hadn’t heard Google used like that before, and I loved it, so I made the decision to stop using Yahoo! and start using Google for my online researching needs. Yes, this online-life

Adulthood and stuff.

2008-10-22T21:26:00.004-04:00

I was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for my lunch the other day--well, it would have been a PB&J if I had any jelly. Which I did not. I scavenged through my cupboards to find something to go with the PB and came up with a container of honey. Mmmmm, peanut butter and honey...so I'm standing in my kitchen, , drizzling honey over the bread, and I start to wonder about how much sugar is

Goin' whichever way the wind blows

2008-05-12T18:10:00.003-04:00

I spent the past 10 days elsewhere. It was temporary but fantastic, which just reiterates the fact that my four years are up and it’s time to move on. If I really belonged somewhere, I would miss it when I was gone. But I didn’t, so I don’t. So…another year (or less!) and it’ll be time to go somewhere else. I don’t know where. I have no idea what’s there, or who will be there, or what I’ll

The stone-cold, honest-to-god, absolute, slightly ineffable truth.

2008-04-24T10:56:00.004-04:00

"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody." ---J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Diet Advice

2008-04-21T14:00:00.004-04:00

I work for a medical journal; therefore, I find it necessary to post medical advice occasionally. Like medical advice that comes from an email forward. That doesn't make it any less credible, especially that part about the alcohol or the calculating one's BMI...Diet Questions AnsweredQ: I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life; is this true?A: Your heart is only good for so many

Thirteen Ways of Looking at an iPod

2008-04-17T13:04:00.004-04:00

I Among two teenage siblingsThe only speaking thingWas the sound of the iPod. II I was of three minds,Like an iPodIn which there are three playlists. III The iPod whirled in the washing machine.It was part of the small tragedy. IV A man and a womanAre one.A man and a woman and an iPodAre one and a half.V I do not know which to prefer,The beauty of bassOr the beauty of treble,The iPod

They know I'm something to be caught

2008-04-09T11:55:00.003-04:00

I go out at night on this motorcycle I bought about 6 weeks ago, on my 25th birthday. I love this bike. We seemed to be made for one another. Even the license plate (which has long since expired) says "1983"--the year I was born. I don't believe in fate, but at times I wonder.In order to legally ride the bike, I need 1) current tags and 2) a motorcycle license. I have neither. I have the

Postmodern Faulkner

2008-04-05T15:27:00.003-04:00

Maybe I've been out of school for too long, or maybe I've been watching too much TV, but I'm almost through season 2 of Arrested Development and I'm thinking you can make direct parallels between the show/story/characters and The Sound and the Fury.Check it: the decay of a prominent family. Three sons, one daughter...youngest is completely dependant, one son is selfish and self-centered,

My former self and me

2008-03-18T23:09:00.007-04:00

I lost my jump drive last year, which sucked. It had virtually everything on it--many years' worth of papers, lesson plans, ramblings, articles, etc. Fortunately, I am not entirely stupid: I backed it up sometime in December of 2006. Yeah, I lost stuff from my final semester of grad school (including my thesis, and I can't think of that too long or I feel sick). But at least I had the files of