"Handle with Care"

31 October 2017:

"Been beat up and battered 'round
Been sent up, and I've been shot down
You're the best thing that I've ever found
Handle me with care

Reputations changeable
Situations tolerable
Baby, you're adorable
Handle me with care" --The Travelling Wilbury's, "Handle with Care"

The latest episode of Hit Parade, which I listened to today while I mowed the lawn, talked about this song a bit. It's one I've always loved.

Some Halloween pics...

Bing loves costumes. He kept this one on all day. 

TFW you are the only one dressed up but you don't care because you know you look good. 

With my friends Jeff and Carol (a man and his beer) at trivia tonight. 

Jonah...

30 October 2017: “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” --Jonah 4: 2-3

We talked about the book of Jonah in the "Bible as Lit" class today and, as a student read them out loud, I found myself especially interested in these lines from near the book's conclusion. Here Jonah is angry that God has been merciful to the people of Ninevah. It's an astounding moment, a late-in-the-text revelation of just why Jonah (maybe) ran away at the start of the book.

On reflection, it's worth thinking about times I have felt this way--angry about good things happening to people who don't seem to deserve it. God's response--basically asking Jonah "who do you think you are?--is a nice reminder to be humble and grateful for anyone who receives grace. Lord knows I am more blessed than I deserve.

Unanticipated questions...

29 October 2017: "Have we talked yet about the smell in Dollar General?" Amy asked me this question today as we were driving back from grabbing dinner after working on a conference presentation. My response: "No, but let's!"

"This Awful Side of Me"

28 October 2017: "We do not have adequate language to cover everything we need to say or do or talk about." --Sarah, the grandmother in this fantastic episode of Nancy. 

Snake stories...

27 October 2017: "See: this is why you don't go to a hobo tent." --a student in my 312 class, quoting her mother, who said this memorable line to her child after she went "exploring" in the woods by her house and accidentally put her hand on a snake. Said child ran back home screaming. And yes: apparently there was a "hobo tent" where they were exploring.

This was just one of the snake stories students felt compelled to share in the closing minutes of our class today, while we rushed through a discussion of "A narrow Fellow in the Grass."

People love sharing snake stories. Here's another gem: "Senior year, my teacher told us not to eat in the classroom or snakes would come out of the ceiling." WHAT???

SkyTruth

26 October 2017: "I want to grab people by the heart and soul and given them a good shake...Imagery is a really effective tool for doing this." --John Amos, from SkyTruth, speaking at the Humanities and the Environment Symposium.

A little Millay...

25 October 2017:

"Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would." --Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Love Is Not All" (Sonnet 30)

You can sort of see the ending of this poem coming from the start--you realize that it probably will turn its back on its title. The real tension (filled with a kind of anticipatory pleasure) is finding out how it will happen. And that line does it so effortlessly. (Makes me think of this song/post, too.)

Listen to a nice reading here.

Strangers

24 October 2017: "Do you like my little lie?" --the narrator's father on this episode of Strangers. 

I started this episode this morning while getting ready and quickly found myself riveted. Though I kind of sensed the plot twist coming, I didn't see the real twist--the meditations on the father's character and on justice. It's definitely worth a listen.

Deconstruction, again...

23 October 2017: "It seems like an a-hole's way of doing criticism." --a student in my ENGL 301 class, talking about deconstruction. She's not entirely wrong.

It's worth remembering that at this point last semester, a student was sharing another precious insight into deconstruction.

"Ours"

22 October 2017: "So don't you worry your pretty little mind. / People throw rocks at things that shine." --Taylor Swift, "Ours"

Other than generally wishing her well and being impressed by her success, I don't have strong feelings about Taylor Swift. But I've always loved this song and the lines above may be among the best she has ever written. (The video, featuring Matt Saracen, is sweet, too.)

Today was a good day that just made me happy, so this song, that achieves the same effect, work for today's post.

Real vs. feeling real...

21 October 2017:  “Is there a difference in the end in something being real and something feeling real? Not for me when I am inside it.” --John Green on The Hilarious World of Depression.

I know I post about this podcast a lot, but it so consistently features smart and moving insights on artists/creators and their struggles. I just love it.

American Vandal

20 October 2017: "Tank Top Todd can back me up." --one of the million lines from American Vandal that made me laugh out loud. What a treat this series is!

BabyCat agrees/is accurately represented.

The (Other) (First) Washington Monument

19 October 2017: "He'll lead a blind person into a beehive." --Amy talking about Vosco (the new Guiding Eyes puppy she is raising) today on our visit the the original Washington Monument in Middletown, Maryland.

I mean, right now, she isn't wrong about the little guy. He is a bundle of pure energy. And that comment made me chortle. It's so fun and interesting to see them interact and see him grow, learn, and change. I couldn't do half of what she does for him.

As for the monument, it's kind of cool. I can't believe it took me over ten years to actually go there. (Amy, too: she had never been there, though she moved to the area a year after me.)

"A Rose for [Named Redacted]"

18 October 2017: "I think I have the sass." --a [male] student, comparing himself to Emily in Faulkner's famous story. He isn't wrong.

Once again, they make me laugh.

Sliding x...

17 October 2017: "I've been watching videos about self-rescue with a sliding x." --my friend/former student, Katie, quoting her ex-boyfriend in a recent conversation they had.

They are still friendly and dealing with their recent decision to go their separate ways. They are both into climbing were each other's frequent climbing partners. Katie assures me that climbers would know what those terms in the quotation mean. But come on: separated climbing partners/members of couple, figuring out how to function alone, and something called a "sliding x"? It's almost too much. She says they both realized as soon as he said it what a gem it was. Another example of how poetry finds us, right?

When an "A" is more than an "A"

16 October 2017: "You don't know how long I've been trying to get an A on an English paper." --one of my hardest working students today, getting her midterm essay back and seeing she earned a 90 on it. The thing is, I do know how hard she's worked and how much this would mean to her. That's why I was so thrilled to write that grade on her essay.

Women's health event...

15 October 2017: "Back then, you starting getting one [a pap smear] the first time you looked at a guy." --the fabulous Anna Kent, who led this fantastic event sponsored by Women for Shepherd University today. She was talking about how policies and procedures have changed over the years as part of a larger discussion about what you should expect from your health care professional at any age. Anna was really wonderful--informed, reassuring, hilarious, and just perfect.

"Song"

14 October 2017:

"The world is full of loss; bring, wind, my love,
         my home is where we make our meeting-place,
         and love whatever I shall touch and read
         within that face.

Lift, wind, my exile from my eyes;
         peace to look, life to listen and confess,
         freedom to find to find to find
         that nakedness." --Muriel Rukeyser, "Song ('The World is Full of Loss')"

Heard this poem on my walk tonight and listened to a couple of times. Quite lovely.

Midterm Grading: Done!

Submitted my last set of midterm grades at around 6:15 today.

Cue chair dancing, this time a 90s country hit that always makes me happy.

The best thing...

13 October 2017: "My brother's lizard pooped on my dad and he called the lizard an a-hole." --a student in my ENGL 312 class in response to the last "reading quiz" question I gave them today. The question was this: "What is the best thing that has happened this week?"

Look, these students are stressed and tired this week. It's midterm week, after all. So as I was writing their reading quiz, I felt like I should throw them this bone--a freebie of sorts that might make them smile a bit before we got down to business. I forced them to think about something--anything--that wasn't bad or stressful.

And I think it worked. Their answers were sweet, hilarious, and just fun. Everything from "I had pancakes for breakfast every morning" to "My friend called me when I was having a bad day at just the right moment" to "I took a nap yesterday." I shared all the answers with the class, too.

And the obvious bonus? I loved it, too.

"Turn to Stone"

12 October 2017:

"I know that I am nothing new.
There's so much more than me and you.
But brother how we must atone
Before we turn to stone." --Ingrid Michaelson, "Turn to Stone"

When you go on a little rant...

11 October 2017: "So that's what nightmares are." --a student in my ENGL 312 class, responding to a mini-rant I went on about other students not following instructions. It made me laugh and also kind of listen to my own ridiculousness--often a good thing to do for some perspective.

"Twin Beds in Rome"

"The Maples had talked and thought about separation so long, it seemed it would never come. For their conversations, increasingly ambivalent and ruthless, as accusation, retraction, blow, and caress alternated and canceled, had the final effect of knitting them ever tighter together in a painful, helpless, degrading intimacy...Bleeding, mangled, reverently laid in its tomb a dozen times, their marriage could not die. Burning to leave one another, they left, out of marital habit, together. They took a trip to Rome." --the opening paragraph from John Updike's "Twin Beds in Rome"

Four posts in a row from New Yorker fiction podcasts! I will have to find something different for tomorrow as I have burned through my stash, but man...this is a great story. A fantastic portrait of marriage.

"The Surrogate"

9 October 2017: “Which just goes to show that you mustn’t trust a scrupulous realism— that sometimes sloppy fantasy comes closer to the true state of things.” –Tessa Hadley’s “The Surrogate”

Three posts in a row on New Yorker fiction podcast stories. Since I tend to save these for when I have big blocks of uninterrupted time, this is a sure sign that I’ve been spending a lot of time in my own head-space. Perhaps that latter fact is why this particular story’s theme—a kind of exploration of fantasy—stood out to me. In the discussion of the story after she’s done reading it out loud, Curtis Sittenfeld says of the piece’s main character, “Her fantasies…hinge on being unrealized, which I think it not that unusual.” I like that thought a lot, too--or at least I like thinking about it.

"The Frog Prince"

8 October 2017: "And they found a certain contentment, living more or less happily ever after, which is what now is when one's in it." --the closing lines of Robert Coover's "The Frog Prince"

What a strange little story this is. And what a strange twist and unexpectedly upbeat ending. (I think?) Listen to it here.

"In the Middle of the Fields"

7 October 2017: “‘You thought you could forget her,’ she said, ‘but see what she did to you when she got the chance.’” --the main character in Mary Lavin's "In the Middle of the Fields," almost at the very end of the piece.

Finally got around to listening to this story this evening, finishing it up on a drive I took just because. It's such a smart meditation on love, loss, and grief.

"Lose Your Way"

6 October 2017:

"I have no confidence
And I can't see why I should.
But I could do most anything for you,
And you know I would.
I try too hard
And then I give up way too easily.
I'm the runner-up inside of you
And you're the winner inside of me" --Sophie B. Hawkins, "Lose Your Way"

A good day but a kind of...sad night. Feeling these lyrics tonight.

Little cranes...

5 October 2017: "When you make a thousand, you get one wish." --my friend/former student, Katie, quoting a friend of hers who makes little origami cranes at work, hiding them in his desk. So far, he has (I think?) just over 130.

Katie shared this little story with me when we met for coffee this morning and it blew me away. She used it as an example of how she (a creative writer, specifically a poet) actively listens for these kinds of gems from other people. (Also kind of one of the points of this year's blog theme, right?) After she heard the story, she thought about it all night and then wrote about it the next morning. Then she sent the piece she wrote off to a literary magazine and it's being published. Amazing.

The Queen of Sheba

4 October 2017: "She sounds like a hair flip and a half." --a student in my Bible as Literature class talking about the Queen of Sheba and her visit to Solomon. We all enjoyed this, as you might imagine. It's perfect and hilarious.

They make me laugh. I am always grateful for that.

"American Girl"

3 October 2017:

"Well she was an American girl
Raised on promises
She couldn't help thinkin' that there
Was a little more to life
Somewhere else
After all it was a great big world
With lots of places to run to" --Tom Petty, "American Girl"

Some days the "listening" post for the day is just plainly obvious.

A bit of light on a dark day...

2 October 2017: "I have to be twice as Colombian as my friends in Colombia. I have to be twice as American as Americans...It's hard work." --a member of the panel discussion on Latinx student issues that I attended this evening.

Today has been so hard. Waking up to the news out of Las Vegas. Not being able to stop thinking about it and how dark things seem to be in our country right now. And Shannon's loss hangs over everything. It's a lot. Seems like too much at times.

But this panel discussion tonight, featuring one of my favorite departmental colleagues and three Latinx students (all four born in other countries and now thriving at Shepherd), was such a bright spot in this dark day. This isn't to say their comments were uniformly uplifting; they weren't. Because, boy, do we have work to do. But their mere presence there tonight and their willingness to share their experiences was uplifting.

The young lady who shared the quotation above really moved me. We sometimes forget--even the most open-minded among us--how hard these students have to work and all the directions from which they feel pulled. Hearing her words will (I hope) make me remember that and exercise even more compassion.

"I'll Be Seeing You"

1 October 2017:

"I'll be seeing you
In every lovely summer's day
In everything that's light and gay
I'll always think of you that way" --Billie Holiday

After I got back home today, I laid down on the couch and sort of half drifted off. Bing and Wes were kind enough to join me. And this song came on...kind of a perfect song to half drift off to while thinking about the loss of a dear friend and remembering good memories.

Saying goodbye...

30 September 2017: "We are gathered here not because Shannon died, but because she lived." --the celebrant at Shannon's service yesterday. I found those words very comforting on what was a very difficult day. Also more comforting than I can put into words: spending the day with my dear friends Jane, Beth, Allison, and Kate.