Why having an editor is a good idea:

At the moment, I'm helping a classroom of 6th grade students create Powerpoint presentations on ancient Africa. They're finishing up the design phase now, creating paper mock-ups of what their finished presentations will look like, including text and picture orientation. The process has awakened them to the importance of teamwork and staying on task, and in some cases, emotions are running high.

I've been checking the mock-ups as the groups finish them, and came across the following sentence fragment on one of the papers: they raped there mommies... It was a test of willpower to soberly suggest to the girl who had written it that she might want to check her spelling. She had no idea what she'd written, having intended to write: they wrapped their mummies...

Yep. Proper spelling is important. That's why we teach it.

I have to admit that, despite not being a morning person, I love the early morning. This morning, I had a few moments between finishing my preparations and the arrival of the first kids, so I stepped outside with my coffee and sat down upon one of the gently curving buttresses juttng out from the circular school building. From my vantage point, I could see the misty foothills magically beckoning. Recent rains have clothed them in green, and the morning veil of moisture added a layer of mystery.

The kids started showing up as I sat there. I asked one of them if he ever spent time in the hills. His reply was, "not really." He then went on to tell me about how his cousin had blown up a tree with an improvised bomb fashioned from several M-80s.

Oh well. Kids are a different kind of magic. Much more unpredictable than the hills and the rains. I guess I wouldn't have it any other way, but I'm always going to enjoy those early morning moments when I can.

This morning, I saw the moon out the crack between the blinds and the edge of the sliding glass door. It inhabited the little slice of sky visible to me, and it was clothed in tattered gray overcast, looking like it wished to be welcomed in for a cup of something warm.

Despite being up much earlier than I would have liked, I smiled.

I'm home after a great day of sand and surf and fine company over the hill.

In fact, this has been a pretty full weekend. Last night, I went to see the latest Central Works play, The Window Age, in which the characters' surface layers are pulled back to reveal their subconscious thoughts. This is fitting because one of the three characters is a thinly-veiled stand-in for Sigmund Freud. Another is Virginia Woolf, here named Valerie Fox. Ha ha.

Friday night, in fine Friday the 13th tradition, we did an improv soundscape/noise show at the 21 Grand. I'll write more about that over at my music blog when I have a moment. Let it suffice to say that I think things went pretty well.

I begin my second solo week of teaching tomorrow morning, and it should be interesting because the regular teacher is still out of town, and I'm not quite sure where things have left off in Language Arts and Math. I'm sure things will turn out okay though. I'm getting there an hour and a half before the kids do. I just hope others get there that early, or I'll be waiting outside.

Right now I'm home, reflecting on questions. I don't often ask questions, either because they don't occur to me, or because I don't want to know the answers. I'm one of those people who usually has to work things out for himself. If somebody explains a process to me, I'll listen, nod, and maybe jot a few things down for later review. If I'm asked if I have any questions, the answer is almost always, "no." Maybe it's because I learn best by reading or doing. I guess that makes me a visual kinesthetic learner or some such. Of course, sometimes I just don't want to know the answer. After all, the answer is always "maybe" until you ask. Sure, some people will tell you that the answer is always "no" until you ask, but they always forget to tell you that it's still sometimes "no" after you ask too. If you don't ask, the possibilities are endless. Asking strips away the mystery.

I'm half joking here. I know that nothing ever gets accomplished if you exist entirely in a world of possibilities. It is necessary to ask questions while moving through life. Asking questions opens doors, and illuminates new paths for us to follow.

It's just that I like imagining possibilities.

Don't be a boiled frog.

Now there's some sound advice.

Once upon a time, there was a sadistic experimenter who discovered that frogs will, of course, leap away if they're dropped into boiling water. On the other hand, frogs will stay put if they're placed in cold water which is then slowly brought to boil.

This is why I have started trying to write daily reflections. I say "trying" because I don't actually manage to do this every day. It's a work in progress, I guess, making this part of my routine. The boiling water is life situations. The frog is us. We sometimes find ourselves stuck in life situations that are bad for us - it may be a bad marriage, a dead-end job, or pretty much any other harmful set of circumstances. If you have arrived at such a situation gradually, in tiny little increments of time over a span of years, it's hard to pinpoint when things went bad. It's easy to tell yourself that everything is okay, because hey - things aren't much different than they were yesterday, or the day before. What you don't realize is that they are markedly different from what they were several years ago. The magic has gone, or the excitement has worn off. You don't jump out of bed in the morning with any enthusiasm. All the while, you keep telling yourself that everything is just the same as ever.

Imagine, however, that all of a sudden you're dropped without warning into a dying marriage or a dead-end job. Ouch! That fucking hurts! Out of the water!

Daily reflections function as a thermometer for the pot of life. If we are honest with ourselves, they will indicate when the temperature is rising to unhealthy levels.

Okay - I have just turned the results of a sadistic experiment into a self-help metaphor. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Still, if nothing else, it's food for thought.

Ouch. There I go with the cliches. And so continues the neverending process of self-review.

The point is: keep things vital and exciting. Find what resonates with you, and stick with it. If life seems to be a chore or an unvarying routine, change something!

There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became,
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.

-WALT WHITMAN

The above poem (not included here in its entirety) is quoted at the beginning of Richard Louv's "Last Child in the Woods". I find myself thinking of my own childhood and reflecting on how my early days on this Earth still resonate within me.

I remember the innocent days of elementary school in that rose-colored way we adults do. Everything was simpler and brighter then. I can remember creating worlds in the little microcosm of my backyard. I'd often look up the spiders there, hanging steadfastly in the centers of their masterpieces - their elegantly constructed meal tickets. I can't remember when my fascination with spiders began, although, knowing me, it probably coincided with my discovery that my mom was terrified of them.

I do remember being aware of natural cycles though, although I would have been hard pressed to put a name to this concept. I would stand there in the backyard, anthropomorphizing away, pretending that the spiders dangled there unaware of the impending doom of Winter. I imagined that they were faced with an apocalypse of wind, cold, and rain, and that they faced it with human-like despair as, one by one, they succumbed. Even then I knew that many of the little creatures, those that last only a season or so, never get to see their second Spring. They don't get to see the big picture as we humans understand it. The advent of Winter does indeed come for them with an ominous thud of finality, leaving the webs hanging bare, glistening with moisture and tattered by the breeze.

Of course, I'm not so arrogant as to suppose that I can see the big picture myself. I'm working on it, as we all must, but the picture is bigger than all of us.

To this day I am still fascinated by spiders and by the changing of the seasons. Last night, I even had a conversation about spiders with a teacher up at camp. We talked about the personalities of Jumping spiders. I'm glad I'm not alone in my fascination.

I'm glad that I can share my fascinations with new generations.

The moon is full tonight. I was just in time to see the bottom edge clear the eastern hills as it rose, bloated and orange, into the fading sky. It's funny how profoundly still it appears, especially when contrasted against the hive-like activity of San Jose freeways, with lines of cars, like huge, phosphorescent ants, whizzing mindlessly along under its pale glow.

What's the hurry?

For me, it was the rush to get my latest assignment electronically submitted. This involved a late evening drive to the school to retrieve a video tape, followed by a slightly later drive to purchase burritos.

I couldn't help thinking that we have much to learn from the moon.

Now, at work, I can relax a bit. The kids are in bed, and there is a library book nearby, waiting for me to continue reading it. I once had a friend note that I look absolutely serene when I'm reading. In this case, looks aren't deceiving.

Currently listening to: Mirror "Islands". Yeah, I digitize my vinyl. What of it?

Here's where daylight savings causes trouble - little girls who aren't tired at bedtime. Willow is on yesterday's time still, and is not even a little bit sleepy.

We spent a good chunk of time with her homework earlier. This is partially my fault because I believed her a couple of days ago when she said her weekly homework was done. Imagine my surprise when I pulled it out to discover that she hadn't started it yet.

It's still strange to me that kindergarteners even have homework. Back when I was her age, we just colored with crayons and threw blocks at each other. I also vividly remember chasing classmates around with an earwig, yelling, "earwigs go in your ears!"

Memories...

Now, my ears are covered with headphones (what a wonderful way to keep out the earwigs!), and I'm listening to the new Neko Case - "Middle Cyclone"

Lots of activity today. Willow has carpeted the apartment with her haul from yesterday's party, and she's got The Wiggles playing on the TV (dvd of course - no actual TV allowed!). We're going to do a cleanup and finish up her homework soon though.

I've been working on my own class assignments while she has been playing, something I wouldn't have been able to do if she didn't have all of this diverting new stuff. We've been out today - once to my mom's to visit and pick up a package (Amebix dvd!), and once to school where I student teach so I could talk with my friend/master teacher. Of course, Willow took advantage of the opportunity to actively investigate the playground equipment there.

It's funny though - perhaps the most vivid moment of the day was discovering a lone ladybug on the sidewalk in front of my mom's house. Willow and I knelt down and watched it make its way into the lawn, climb a weed, and eat an aphid. Nearby, a line of ants marched purposefully by. We talked about what it must be to be bug-sized, and watched the little drama of predator and prey unfold for a few moments before the spell was broken and we reentered the human world of grandmas and dvds.

Spring must be around the corner. The clocks have been forced ahead, and all around us, living things are reawakening.

Willow just kicked my butt at Bingo! She got a little Bingo game, complete with one of those little spinning cages, at her birthday party in the park today. She got lots of other stuff too, and she's still in the process of exploring it all.

We had a blast at the park. Willow and I went over early to stake a claim at a couple of picnic tables, and I was struck by how Spring-like the day was, especially considering the grayness and downpour of the past week. It even briefly hailed on me a couple of days ago. Today though, the uncut grass was full of little Spring flowers, and the crows and hummingbirds competed for attention around us. The park was hopping with visitors, and we added to that number considerably as Willow's party guests showed up.

The kids all stuffed themselves with cake, ice cream, and soda before going home to more sugar-induced havoc-wreaking. I was surprised by how much cake disappeared. Less to tempt me.

Time to go hang out with my girl now. Maybe next time I'll win at Bingo.

Willow (after eating a large bowl of noodles): "I didn't know that I could fit that many noodles in my body!"

The rain is still falling. I've just finished some tea and I'm listening to I-tunes on shuffle. I'm not working tonight, so I'll be sure to be rested for another day of teaching sixth graders tomorrow. So far, the week is going really well. I've just got to find the time to finish the assignments that need finishing.

I'm looking forward to the next few days.

Listening to: Manilla Road "Throne of Lies"

March already! I probably could have told that without looking at the calendar. March always seems like the rainiest month of the year, and this one is no exception. We are two for two so far, with the rain pelting the roof as I type. The wind is strong enough to cause high-profile vehicles to veer dangerously on the freeways, and the sky is churning with dark clouds. I love it!

I'm busy this week. I've taken over the 6th grade classroom for the time being, which means my organizational skills are being put to the test. Today went okay, with things more or less falling into place, sometimes with the help of the kids. The kids, having been students in this class since Autumn, know the routines and are always quick to point out steps I've forgotten. Some people might find that obnoxious, but I find it genuinely helpful. We're all there to help each other, and I'm having fun getting to know the kids even better.

I've definitely got to step up the pace when it comes to grading/correcting papers. I'm slow.

There's other stuff going on in the sidelines too. I find myself happily distracted.

And still the rain falls. I wonder if this will be another March like the one a few years ago when it rained every day. As long as it doesn't rain on Willow's upcoming birthday party, I don't care. In fact, I would welcome it.

I saw the comet Lutin through one of the telescopes at work tonight. It's a small, greenish blur of icy dust making its last orbit of our sun before escaping forever into the blackness beyond. In the eyepiece of the telescope, it looks small and distant, faint and lonely. There's something special about seeing it, knowing that soon nobody will ever see it again. Ever.

I can apply that feeling to many other aspects of my life too. I've always been drawn towards the uncommon, be it music, rarely spotted local wildlife, or... just about anything really.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with Nathan and one of his friends today. We were talking about how words and images lose meaning through endless repetition. If you mindlessly repeat something enough times, it loses its power... (I just remembered - we were talking about Island of the Blue Dolphin, which the kids are reading in the fourth grade, and how each character has a secret name, and how names have power...). This caused me to think about the Pledge of Allegiance, endlessly repeated by school kids across the country. Some days, I actually have to recite this pledge twice (we do it at camp, and then again at the school where I student teach). This has always seemed so pointless to me. I can remember mouthing the words as a kid, and refusing to stand as a teenager and young adult. Now, I have to lead it as part of my job as night supervisor, and as a teacher. This is at odds with my desire to teach children how to think for themselves. The Pledge, endlessly repeated, has no power. It is spoken without thought. In addition to this, the wording presupposes a belief in a single deity above us. Not that anybody ever really thinks about it though...

I propose we rename the Pledge of Allegiance something more accurate - perhaps the Moment of Mindless Mouthing.

Of course, I'd be so fired if I actually did this in class. That's how they get us - economically. It's a good thing there are other ways to help kids think for themselves.

May our experiences always be fresh, and free from the dullness of repetition. May our relationships always be rich, and likewise be free from the atrophy caused by routine and ruts. That is my wish for today.

Go out and see Lutin before it vanishes. It's near Saturn right now. Soon it will be beyond. It will not repeat. I salute it for venturing off the beaten path.

Currently listening to: Fields of Shit "House of Cards"

Willow turns 6 today. I took the day off from student teaching to get her presents wrapped and to get myself napped. People have started to RSVP for her party, to be held a couple of weekends from now, and Willow is excited. Last night, she had a birthday dinner at her house. Tonight, she'll have one with me. She has requested mac'n'cheese and a peanut butter sandwich, voicing some concern as to whether that counted as a dinner or not.

Mac'n'cheese and peanut butter sandwiches it shall be! Happy birthday, Willow!

My birthday wish for Willow is that I hope she always holds on to the imagination she has now, and doesn't let it atrophy like so many other people seem to do as they age.

I left for work at the usual time last night, but was turned back at the bottom of the road leading up to camp. It seems that some trees and mud had conspired to cover the road, leading to a group of brightly-garbed humans having to spend the better part of the day sawing trunks and shoveling mud.

I went back home and watched the movie version of Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and found it a rather harrowing experience. Not quite as harrowing as the book, but well worth watching. The scene where Sitting Bull tells off Senator Dawes was especially well done, I thought. It got me thinking about my own visit to Wounded Knee, but that is a story for another time because I'm tired right now.

I'm tired because when I finally got to work there was a feverish girl waiting for her dad to show up, and because the power had been out at camp for most of the day. There's a backup generator, but it doesn't supply power to the outlying buildings, including the Nature Lab where the reptiles are kept. I ended up having to move the python, using my body heat to warm him back up before putting him to bed in a dog carrier in a heated room.

It's pretty hard to stuff an 8.5 foot python under your jacket. After doing this, I must have resembled Quasimodo, shambling around all lumpy and misshapen. It didn't help that the python looped a coil around one of my legs, affecting my gait. Good thing no homesick kids showed up during this time.

The upshot of all of this is that I got to sleep late.

In the morning, driving back down the hill, I snapped a few photos of the cleared road.

We're being homebodies again today. There's a whole world out there, but today our world is limited by walls, with windows looking out on grayness and rain. I've always liked looking out at rain. There's something nice about having the option to be inside when it rains. Not that I'm unaware of the many who don't have that option, whether it's because of their job, or because they don't have a job... Although, even then, there are options.

My job, for several years there, entailed lots of hiking in the rain. I loved it, but I can remember one March a couple of years ago when it literally rained every day for the whole month. We were all quite sick of the rain at the end of that, and it seemed if our white, prune-like feet would never recover. Now, since I'm working nights, my biggest concern is that the rain and wind will knock the power out. We have a backup generator, of course, but I don't think it supplies the nature lab with needed electricity. So, if there's ever a blackout in the middle of a winter night, I'll be cuddling up with the python to keep him from getting too cold.

While the rain continues to fall, Willow is inside, creating elaborate scenarios with her stuffed animals, blankets, chairs, and whatever else she can move. We've also been working on invitations for her 6th birthday party. Things are happening today. They're just happening inside, and at a leisurely pace.

Currently listening to: Dead Kennedys "Frankenchrist" Willow thinks I should turn it off so she can watch dvds. She's such a little multi-tasker. I am of the opinion that sometimes you just have to listen to Dead Kennedys. This is one of those times.

Today would have benefited from some advance planning. Willow is resistant to all of the old standbys, mostly because the one thing we did do today was go to the library. The stack of books we checked out last week weren't due back yet, so rather than check out more books, we picked up some dvds. That's where the problem lies - now all she wants to do is watch them. You'd think I'd learn...

I'm sitting here with my headphones on, with I-tunes shuffling its little digital heart out. This is partially to drown out the dvds Willow is watching, and partially just because music makes everything better.

It's tough when she doesn't want to do any of the things I suggest. It's almost as if she were a teenager already. The movies are going off after the one she is currently watching though. We are going to go out, whether she wants to or not.

Tomorrow, it is supposed to rain. In fact, the weather forecast calls for rain for the rest of the week. As usual, I'm looking forward to it.

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain.

Currently listening to: Sol Invictus "Sawney Bean"

There's a crow singing up in the tree. It's funny to me, that at least on one occasion, I've heard crowsong followed by the angry yelling of some nearby human. It's as if we thought we owned the world, or something. Where do we get off telling other animals when they can and can't sing? Jeez.

Also up in the tree (I'm talking about one of the huge trees in my ex-backyard) is a butterfly net, apparently dragged there by a squirrel. You gotta hand it to the little varmint. The net is about 40 feet off the ground. I saw the squirrel struggling with it - no doubt trying to drag it into position elsewhere in the tree. Maybe a butterfly net makes good mosquito netting for a squirrel. I didn't ask.

What neither the crow nor the squirrel know is that the tree is slated for removal. Apparently, the last time the tree trimmers came, they killed it with their reckless exuberance. Long time readers of this blog might remember me writing about that particular day - the day everything in the backyard was broken by falling limbs. I'm sure they ended losing money in the long run, because they had to pay us for everything they broke. At the time, we didn't know they'd killed the tree.

Or maybe the yard killed it. I used to jokingly call it the yard of death, because this isn't the first tree to mysteriously die in it. By far the biggest, yes, but not the first.

I've enjoyed the nearly constant pattering of rain on the roof for several days running now. I've been under the weather (so to speak) and hence under the roof since Saturday, feeling sniffly and achey. In fact, I didn't set foot outside on Sunday at all.

During that time, I finished reading one novel, read the entirety of a second, and started a third. I watched a couple of movies too. By Monday, I felt better, and I've managed to crank out quite a bit of schoolwork since then. I seem to get things done in bursts of energy, interspersed with periods of inertia. There are times when I find it hard to get down to business. I wouldn't exactly chalk it up to laziness - it's more to do with the state of my mind lately. I've got a lot on my mind. I've been in a super-reflective state of being, and I find myself picking at the same emotional scabs from different angles, testing them with the fingernail of my intellect to see if there has been any healing underneath, and finding some of the wounds still raw, while others have a fresh layer of pink skin sealing in the hurt, defending against infection.

Following that train of thought, the walls of my personal fortress are still in place too, and the gate is barred. This too is in reaction to being hurt, and who knows how long the walls will stand this time?

As for the real walls, the ones in my apartment. I've spent and inordinate amount of time between them over the last few days (I'm off work this week, and there's no school either), and it makes me feel like a cave dweller. There's a certain comfort in that. Even without the computer, I have enough in the way of entertainment (both productive and otherwise) to last for months. I can get most of my schoolwork done this way too. Still, I get crazy if I stay inside too long. I'm an outside kind of guy.

On the bright side, other than buying groceries, I haven't spent any money since the middle of last week (if one doesn't consider electricity and gas usage). In fact, considering that I finally sold the aquarium, there's been a net gain.

Currently listening to: Silver Summit "Apple Tree"

The fact that I'm spending more time reflecting on love today, on Valentine's Day 2009, than I have over the last few years, should tell me something. This is my first Valentine's Day as a single person in... well, nearly a decade. If I wanted to count my previous, off again on again relationship, I could stretch that amount to closer to two decades.

The lesson is to not take love for granted. I'm just getting to the point where I can start to properly mourn the death of my relationship with Jen. I think it's sad that our love wasn't unconditional. I accepted her flaws, but in the end she couldn't accept mine. Maybe her lack of understanding is partially my fault. I can't always find the words to communicate the important things. Sometimes, the more important something (or somebody) is to me, the more tongue-tied I become. It's kind of ironic then, that I'm sitting here and typing away, communicating to anybody who happens across this page, when there was a pretty serious communication breakdown within the framework of my marriage.

I believe in love. I believe in sticking with people, and with ideas. I consider myself a romantic at heart, and a dreamer (sometimes to the exclusion of practicality). I'm sad today, and lonely. At the same time, I know this will change. I plan on being more careful, and more communicative next time.

Don't we all?

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. Love like there's no tomorrow! Sometimes there isn't.

Currently listening to: Bittova & Fajt "s/t"

It hurts to type right now. Whenever the weather turns cold, my fingers react by becoming too dry, cracking, and bleeding. Irritatingly, the most painful sores are always on the fingertips. I use hand lotion, but apparently not consistently enough to stop the problem.

I can hear the rain on the roof right now. It has been raining off and on since this afternoon. I finally managed to sell the huge (300 gallon?) aquarium that has been taking up space in Jen's garage. Around 5 or 6 years ago, I got it for free from the Children's Museum after the water company stopped subsidizing their salt water fish display. I had planned to eventually use it for reptiles, but with the reptiles living up at camp, and me living in a studio apartment... well, you get the idea.

It took us around 2 hours to get the aquarium out of the garage. The guy who bought it pulled all the decorative rock out, and shoveled all the detritus out of the bottom of it. We got down underneath it and sawed off all the plastic pipes and tubes, so we could more easily slide it off the metal stand. I'm amazed it fit into the small SUV he'd driven down in. Too bad he left the stand behind. That means I still have to figure out how to get rid of that. It won't fit in my van, so I'll probably try to break it into smaller bits. All of the decorative rock will probably end up at camp. Or on my small patio. I'll have to figure out what to do with it.

Still, I have a feeling of accomplishment. It's funny how things (like aquariums in garages) that you seldom think about manage to nag at you nonetheless. Selling the aquarium silenced a nagging voice.

Okay... back to listening to the rain now.

I often awaken feeling overwhelmed. I'm not one to hit the ground running in the mornings. Sometimes it takes me a couple of hours to find my groove. Today, I came home from work and took a two hour nap, waking up slowly and with a feeling of directionlessness. I feel better now that I've cleaned the apartment and listened to some music. I also chatted with an online friend (that would be a friend who was online, not somebody who I met online), talked with a prospective buyer for the aquarium I'm trying to sell, and noticed that my recent review of the Amebix show in S.F. has been linked on the official Amebix myspace page (okay, looking back, it's actually linked from a myspace bulletin they sent out, not on the page itself, but still...). That's nice!

Time to get moving here. The rest of the day awaits.

Currently listening to: Hazy Loper "High in the Murk", and thinking it's just about perfect in that lonesome, melancholy sort of way.

Another brief spattering of rain has ensured that the ground won't dry out quite yet. The clouds have moved on, leaving the cold moon staring down. The rooftops glow with borrowed light.

I'm inside the camp office with the heater on. The vents rattle under the onslaught of the warm air, and the sound sometimes keeps me awake at night. The constant ticking of the clocks no longer does though.

Currently listening to: Sol Invictus "A German Requiem"

The cold rain continues, off and on. I'm over at my ex-residence (or should I say, my ex's residence) with the usual five kids. Some of them are actually doing homework without me having to stand over them. Others need a bit more encouragement.

I've once again placed an ad on Craigslist for the monolithic plexiglass aquarium squatting in the garage here. I've lowered the price, and three people have already responded. We'll see if any of them actually buy the damn thing.

Okay, kid chaos is happening. Time to go.

A storm hit a little while ago. I stood outside and watched the front move in. Clouds scudded across the face of the moon and the wind, like a massive, cold hand, tousled the leafy hair of the hills. The rain, when it finally began to fall in earnest, was cold.

I love this weather. Another good thing is that it took me away from the computer. I've been spending too much time on the computer lately, and it's starting to bother me, so it was good to just stand out in the cold, watching the moon disappear and feeling the wind whip my hair.

Of course, here I am back at the computer. I feel like writing is a constructive thing to be doing though, so it's okay. Random, obsessive surfing, on the other hand, isn't very constructive. Gotta watch that.

Gotta watch a lot of things. I'm trying to become more mindful of the behaviors that hold be back. That's the first step towards changing them. I'm such a backslider sometimes though.

Now the trees are whispering
As I lie here in the grass
Waiting for this long cold night to pass
A thousand eyes are gazing down
Like bullet holes shot into the roof
As I lie here scratching
For a grain of truth

Tod A./Firewater, from "Balaliaka"

I listen to this song at least once a week. With some songs, you've just gotta do that. It's strange that so much of what I like has an Eastern European feel to it. Firewater are mostly from New York, but you'd never guess that if you just had their music to go by.

I'm continuing to think about what really resonates with me. I'm listening to my gut. I'm also listening to beautiful music.

And drinking tea.

And preparing to do some reading.

I'm currently re-watching "Rivers and Tides", the documentary on artist Andy Goldsworthy. I'm planning to use a segment of it in class tomorrow because his profound connection with the land echoes the connection ancient cultures had with the land (the class is studying the Kush and Nok cultures at the moment). It has been a while since I last watched this film, so I was amazed to hear him echo exactly the same sentiments that Rob Miller from Amebix spoke of during the interview of a couple of weeks ago (the one I just mentioned in a post yesterday, as a matter of fact). The sentiment they share is a dislike for traveling because it makes them feel dislocated and uprooted. In our current society, this is something that many of us never think of, especially since many of our families have only been in their current locations for a few generations. Add to this the fact that everything from our architecture to our consumer practices emphasizes disconnection and compartmentalization.

I just went out to get the mail and found myself jarred by the way the landscaping was bisected by walkways, and by the fact that everything exists in unnnatural squares and rectangles. There is no flow. Everything is so artificial... so blocky. Of course, I'm not even going to get into the fact that the landscaping is all non-native plants...

Maybe if we all operated under the influence of art, things would improve.

I awakened at 5:45 this morning to the sound of my name, spoken in a matter-of-fact tone by a female voice, sounding like it was coming over an intercom.

Of course, there was no one there. It sounded so real, this audio hallucination. One is almost tempted to think that there was something more to it.

Who knows?

Willow is asleep. She stayed up later than she should have, but then again we didn't do anything to burn off excess energy today. I had meant to catch the airing of the Amebix interview we took part in. Greg was broadcasting it on KALX at 9 PM, but I didn't tune in (via the internet, since the range of their transmitters doesn't extend this far south) until nearly 10, at which time it was too late. Willow stayed awake until she got to hear Greg talk between songs. If you're reading this, and ever want to listen in, he DJs under the name Carnacki. Not sure what his regular slot is right now, but it often seems like he's there more often than not.

It has been raining off and on today, and I love it. I still get irritated at people who refer to rain as "bad" weather. Especially when the people in question are forecasters, who should know better.

While hanging out inside today, we added another batch of glow-in-the-dark stars to the walls and ceiling. It's beginning to look like the center of the galaxy in here, or like the night sky during a power outage. We're about at the point where I think we have enough stars. Maybe one more batch...

I'm going to let Willow sleep in a bit tomorrow. Technically, she doesn't have to get to school until 11:30. I usually get her there early, at the school's YMCA, but with her cold, she could use a bit of extra sleep. Once she's at school, it's back to work for me. I've got a bunch of lesson plans to work on, as well as other related tasks.

Currently listening to: Windy & Carl "Songs for the Broken Hearted"

We went to the library yesterday, and Willow rode her bike, using her new bike lock to lock her little, purple bike next to all the big bikes. We checked out a pile of books and movies, and this turned out to be a good thing, because today she has a fever. We're inside today with our pile of library materials.

Movies, books, and computers turn studio apartments into mansions. Even better, because one doesn't have to hire a staff to maintain things.

Still, I wish we were going out today. I am not by nature an inside person. I can do it for awhile, but I go stir crazy if I have walls around me for too long. For now, we will huddle inside, with Willow watching a dvd and me continuing my ongoing letter to the world here.

I've been keeping this blog for over six years now - almost six and a half. This represents a lot of time spent writing. I still do it mostly for myself, and for the few people who I know read regularly. In some ways, I think things were stagnant for a number of years in the middle. This may have something to do with the effect of unspoken marital problems - I was stuck without knowing I was stuck. My method of dealing with the problem was to not deal with it, which of course put all the responsibility of dealing with it on Jen, and she sure did that, didn't she? I just didn't want to admit that there was a problem, and by the time I fully committed to trying to work things out, it was too late. Chalk it up to fear of failure. Ironic, huh?

Things are what they are now. In some ways I've moved on, but in other ways I haven't. I'm still full of conflicting emotions, and I'm still trying to maintain as much healing distance from Jen as I can under the circumstances. I need this space to heal, but hope that someday I'll be able to relax around her again. She is truly a caring person - flawed, like we all are, of course, but with many good qualities. In the end though, our flaws weren't compatible. We were too much alike in the wrong ways, and not similar enough in other, equally important ways. Sorry if this sounds vague, but I'm not going to drag the details out here.

It's funny to note that once again I ended up writing about this when I didn't start this post with any intention of doing so. Writing is therapy. At work, when helping homesick kids, I often suggest that they write letters to the people (usually parents) they miss. Some kids do this, and it helps.

As for me, I feel that I need to forgive, but can't quite bring myself to do it yet. Underneath the anger lies sadness, and for some reason I'm still more comfortable with the anger. It feels strange to admit this in writing in such a public forum, but I'm doing it anyway. These posts create a reality all of their own, and allow me to revisit my thoughts when needed. Of course, I could be writing this down in a private journal, but I feel the need to put this out there. Maybe it will help somebody else someday. Maybe a new connection will be started somewhere. I don't know. I still have more questions than answers, and often find myself afraid to ask the questions.

Mistakes were made. Brand new mistakes await. Life goes on.

This might leave one with the impression that I'm miserable. I'm not. I actually feel more alive than I have in quite awhile. I also feel a bit of anxiety. I'm working hard at finishing my teaching credential program, and I'll be doing a couple of solo weeks in a sixth grade classroom in March. I've also got to complete an integrated unit, where I draw together History, Language Arts, and Art. This isn't second nature to me yet. I'm still more used to teaching outside, and my style lends itself more towards "teachable moments" and teaching on the fly. Extensive planning is still hard for me (perhaps that's another reason why our marriage failed, in which case this teacher training stuff will help me in a number of ways), and I'm still weak in certain subjects (I'm going to start teaching the math lessons next week, and I approach this with some trepidation). In short, I'm still learning, and I know that my first year as a teacher is going to be a lot of work, just like my last few months as a student (do we ever really stop being students?) will be.

Life is beautiful, and messy. Sometimes it's even a beautiful mess. Sometimes things just take time, and more importantly, work.

I just opened the sliding glass door to let in the cool air, the smell of rain, and the sound of tires on wet asphalt. Oh, and the lone chirping of a nearby bird.

I love this kind of weather. I spent last night listening to the wind pick up, and awakened in the wee hours to the patter of rain. A nearby Raccoon resolutely ignored the rain, and continued to mop scraps of food off a pie plate some lazy person had left on the table outside the camp office. I love watching them use their little hands. They always look so nervous too. I guess if I was a Raccoon, and some nearby human was sleepily staring at me, I'd be nervous too. Humans are, after all, the most dangerous and unpredictable animals on the planet.

Today, I've been inside working on lesson plans. I've been working on creating a unit based on the ancient African civilizations of the Kush and the Nok. Of course, no lesson on the Nok is complete without a barrage of Nok, Nok jokes. I can justify them because they also help build vocabulary.

Don't worry, I won't subject you to them.

Tomorrow, I start teaching the unit, and the rain continues.

The forecast calls for rain later today, and if find that this news positively colors my mood. Perhaps I spend too much time letting events beyond my control propel me through my days, but there's nothing wrong with allowing these events to induce euphoria, no matter how divorced from any action on my part they might be.

Geez. That sounds convoluted, doesn't it? This was brought on by my realization that I spend too much time anticipating action in others, and not enough time taking action. I check my e-mail too often, waiting for who knows what, and I anticipate the snail mail too. I check Facebook too often as well. Why? Maybe because it's easy to do. Maybe because it's easier than doing.

It's not like I don't have a million things to do, most of which are much more real and satisfying than sitting in front of the computer. Why is it that the computer is by turns so compelling and depressing? I think I know... It allows us to connect with the world, but the connection is filtered through the virtual world. We are hiding in our little isolated worlds, and connecting via keystrokes. None of this is really news to me, but I've been feeling dissatisfied lately, so I'm allowing that to spill over onto this blog, so the ennui can dribble down onto my keyboard.

Currently listening to: Bernardo Devlin "Agio"

The night smells like the promise of Spring, and the moon and stars are unreachably distant, as always.

Up here in the hills, everything makes more sense. The moon and stars are just that much closer. The darkness is more profound.

Currently listening to: Monos "Generators"

It's mid-afternoon on a Monday, and the day is warm and still. I went out earlier to buy a few random things - a stapler, dental floss, a new alarm clock that doesn't make the annoying buzzing noise that the old one has started to do, and a couple of other, even less interesting things. Walking back from the store, I saw a large blimp drifting along in the distance. It's not every day that you see a blimp.

I remember hearing about the blimp - it takes people on aerial sightseeing tours of the Bay Area. I think it costs something in the neighborhood of $500 for the ride. I won't be doing that anytime soon. Still, it would be fun.

This weekend, I went to my last Saturday seminar of the term. In the morning, we learned some P.E. games, and spent a lot of time playing with one of those large, colorful parachutes. In the afternoon, for the Fine Arts portion of the seminar, we drew and made paper mache monsters. The day gets my stamp of approval for being the most fun of the Saturday seminars. They saved the best for last.

I'm also still inspired by the Amebix show I went to last weekend. It reaffirmed for me why they're one of my favorite bands. It was great to meet them too. When I really like a band, it's usually because I feel some sort of kinship with them on an aesthetic and ideological level. Amebix are definitely no exception to this rule. Of course, the same goes for people in general too. Thanks to the internet, we can connect like never before, finding our kindred spirits, but in some ways it's frustrating. We connect from a distance, but the distance remains. The world is smaller, but still just as large as ever.

I yearn for something, but I'm not sure exactly what. Something deeper. I get glimpses of it sometimes, but modern society is so oriented towards the surface - it's as if we're all frantically treading water, trying to stay on the surface, not realizing that we have gills, and slowly suffocating due to our ignorance.

We need depth.

I had planned to stay pretty much the whole day at the Children's museum today, but Willow uncharacteristically decided to be done only after a couple of hours. We drove home via a route that took us past the hospital where she was born - a detour that she thought was pretty cool. Of course, it also took us past Streetlight records, and she came away with a couple of used dvds. We spent some time at the listening stations too. Willow likes putting on the headphones and pushing buttons, and giving me little mini-reviews of the music she is listening to. She described High on Fire as "catchy", which made me chuckle.

Of course, the new dvds made her reluctant to have any other outdoor adventures this afternoon, so while she watched them, I used the time to whip together a Powerpoint presentation on weathering for next week. Apparently Powerpoint is already considered dinosaur-like, but being a Luddite, I know no better, so I'm still going to use it, dammit!

Speaking of dinosaur-like, last night Willow and I ended up at the local Savers (thrift store) in the company of Leslili Lala and Nebula Girl. We all wandered around in awe of the pickings - especially the dinosaur technology. Willow went for the stuffed animals. I grabbed a Harris tweed jacket. Leslili filled her cart with strange pictures of Jesus and other ephemera. Nebula Girl picked out a long-haired mechanical dog who made distressed, rhythmic mechanical woofing noises. As usual, the objects we didn't buy offered the most amusement.

It was nice to meet Nebula Girl. She's cool. You've gotta love a person who is both a circuit bender and a chemist.

I got in about 4 hours of student teaching time this morning, although truth be told, I didn't actually do any teaching. We all gathered in the library and watched the inauguration instead. This is just as well, because that's what I would have done had I stayed home. It was amazing to see the footage of the reported 2 million people there to see the event, and I actually found Obama's short speech inspiring. I loved his comment about science - a subtle dig at the previous administration's purposeful ignorance of the subject. I hope he can back up his words with some right action.

And oh yes, I was quite happy to see Bush fly away. I'm tossing my shoes in jubilation! Too bad Senator Kennedy had to seize up though.

I like the school too. The library is the hub of a round building, with the classrooms and offices around the periphery. More architects should use circles in their planning. The kids remembered me, of course. There were even three girls wearing their camp sweat-jackets. Good to see.

Now, I'm home. I figured out how to make my old scanner work on my laptop. I'm drinking coffee. I'm wondering where the cds I ordered nearly a month ago are. I've got to leave in a few minutes to go pick up Willow. We have a date with the library today.

Happy Martin Luther King day! I'm glad he came, and so very sorry he went.

It's clear and still outside, with the persistent haze still plaguing us. I've been doing little tasks around the apartment today, gearing up for a week of student teaching, night hosting, and other things less necessary but equally interesting. No work tonight in honor of the holiday, but I'll have Willow for a few hours. She'll probably want to watch her library movies because they're due tomorrow. I think I'll see if I can divert her away from the screen - maybe go out for dinner or something. I can't really afford it, but I'm not going to let that stop me. I've been inside most of the day as it is. Time to get out there.

Currently listening to the El Topo soundtrack.

Today was a "spare the air" day, which apparently means that people aren't supposed to have fires in their fireplaces. Not that anybody would want a fire when it's almost summer-like outside, although the whitish haze made it look wintery. Probably isn't doing our lungs much good either.

I took my sweet time deciding on whether or not to go on a hike today, but finally went. Good thing, too. I could feel the knot in my gut loosen as I walked into the hills. I wasn't really thinking of much of anything, just concentrating on my surroundings. My mind cleared as I walked, shedding layers of needless complications, becoming serene. Call it wilderness therapy, if you will, although the nearby hills aren't exactly wilderness. Despite the official air-quality warnings, lots of people hit the trails today. The city below was made indistinct by the all encompassing haze, and the hills beyond seemed almost ghostlike. I tried out some new trails, and found myself at a little pond tucked away beyond the reservoir. I could hear the Chorus frogs chorusing somewhere nearby, and all manner of birds burst from the undergrowth at my approach. Other than that, silence reigned. I had left the crowds of hikers behind on the more popular loop trails. I used the solitude to just let my emotions wash over me, without complicating them with thoughts. That's sometimes harder than I would like it to be. I am, I think, prone to overthinking things; for making excuses and justifications. Sometimes I forget to just *be*. Solo hiking gives me time to just hang out with myself, away from the siren call of the computer and the other mundane obligations of my days. It really has been awhile since I've gone hiking alone. Over the last few years, I've done more hiking than many people do in a lifetime, but that's all been at the head of a line of students. Definitely not solo hiking.

On the way back, I was so content with just being that I didn't stop to correct a moment of millipede/centipede confusion I overheard. That's usually a hard thing for a naturalist to ignore.

Currently listening to Goblin "Deep Red"

I went and saw Loretta Lynch play at Slim's on Friday night, and wrote about it here. 2009 looks to be a good year for music, at least. Lots of other good bands are coming to town over the next few months.

The upcoming week will be one to remember as well. Bush leaves office, and I imagine him fleeing under a hail of virtual shoes, mentally tossed by people all over the world. Enter Obama! Even if he proves to be less than great, he'll be better than Bush. It's a win-win situation. I, for one, choose to be optimistic.

For the second week back after the holiday break, we had a camp full of well behaved kids, and the nights were easy.

In fact, there was really only one girl who visited. She came into the camp office after bedtime with lots of minor problems. On the first night, it was a stomach ache and a mild case of homesickness. On the last night, it was pain on her leg from an earlier encounter with Stinging Nettle. The first time she came in, I gave her a hot water bottle for her stomach, and distracted her from her homesickness by showing her the photos of camp I'd posted on Flickr over the years (one of the advantages of having my laptop with me in the office). She didn't want to go back to bed afterwards. She just wanted to hang out and talk.

During the week, I heard from other staff members about how she often visited the camp office. Most of the time, her reasons for visiting were minor enough to be considered excuses. She just wanted to hang out and talk with the staff. Over the years, I can remember campers like her. Words like "high-maintenance", and "needy" come to mind, although I'm always willing to listen when kids want to talk. Often, the primary adults in kids' lives don't take the time to really listen. I even had a girl once tell me that I was the only one who really listened to her. It's sad. It's too bad that so many of us are so disconnected. I think I get that way myself when I spend too much time in front of the computer, or in front of any other electronic device for that matter. It's kind of ironic really, because I've been spending a lot of time on Facebook lately, supposedly "connecting". In the end though, nothing we do on the computer is a good substitute for doing it in person. To be fair, the computer does allow us to reach out and make contact with like-minded people around the world, or reconnect with old friends who live far away, so it's not all bad.

I went off on a bit of a tangent there. Sorry. The reason I chose to write about this particular girl this week isn't because I wanted to make a point about electronic alienation. I chose to write about her because, as I was leaving camp this morning, I found out from one of her teachers that she probably does get a lot of good attention from her parents at home. This is because she has cystic fibrosis, and probably won't live much past young adulthood. She doesn't have a real understanding of this yet, and is sheltered from it by her innocence. For me, the news was crushing, and it made me wish that I'd spent more time with her than I did. I hope she lives as much life in the time she has available as others who live out normal lifespans do.

This reminded me of a bad week from nearly five years ago, when a docter told us that Willow might have cystic fibrosis. I remember being terrified, but determined to make sure that she had the best life possible no matter how much time she was destined to have here. If she had turned out to have it, I'm not sure, now that I'm thinking about it again, how much we would have told her. I think it's probably best not to tell a young child that they're not going to live past college age. But then, when do you tell them? It would be like handing out a death sentence. As a parent, I can't imagine being the bearer of that news.

There is a library near my apartment, and I've been meaning to go check it out for months now. Yesterday, in keeping with my present determination to do things now rather than later, I took Willow over to have a look around. It's a nice little library, with two stories full of stories. We had a look around, I read a book to Willow, and we checked out a stack of books and movies. Willow wanted more, but I set a limit because I knew we'd never have the time to make our way though too big a stack. Besides, I didn't bring any sort of bag to carry them all home in.

Later, I read her How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Before bedtime, she asked where Dr. Seuss was buried. I told her I wasn't sure, but with a little help from the internet I discovered that he'd been cremated, like our friend Sea Turtle who had requested his ashes be scattered out at sea.

This morning, on the way to school, Willow grumbled that she wished Dr. Seuss had a grave so we could go visit him. I told her that the best way to visit him is to read his books, because that's where his mind and heart are. She thought about that for a moment.

Looking up at me, she asked, "well, can we go out on the ocean and look at his mist?"

The moon was absolutely stunning last night. It was rising just as I was leaving for work, an enormous yellow globe crisscrossed with spindly tree branches, and seeming to take up much more of the sky than usual.

As the night wore on, the moon continued its journey across the compromised blackness above, and I watched the color leach away and the illusion of size vanish, leaving a shrunken, bleached orb, cold and alone.

In the morning, I was on hand to witness the mist encircled moon sink in the west.

A strange sense of well-being just washed over me. Outside, the weather is almost Spring-like, and I'm going to take it as an omen. Spring is, after all, a time of rebirth and rejuvenation.

I'm going to go make pizza now. Well-being is even better if it is coupled with pizza.

In a way, online courses are strange. When the term starts, you don't have to get up early and go to a classroom somewhere. You can stay home. The only difference is that you are filled with the vague feeling that perhaps you should be reading a textbook or doing an assignment.

The 4th and last term of my teacher credentialing program started today. I did some online reading and jotted down some ideas for the integrated unit I'm supposed to plan. I also sent off a couple of e-mails in an attempt to start organizing my time and planning for the next few months. I'm going to be student teaching in a fifth grade classroom this time. The teacher is a friend of mine, and we seem to see eye to eye on most things, so it should be a good term. Right now though, sitting at home, I find that none of it is a reality yet. I'm like that with vacations too. None of it seems real until the night before, when all of a sudden it hits me that I'm about to go on a trip or go do something fun and new. Of course, I was like that when my marriage ended too. It didn't seem real at first - not even after I'd moved out. Jen had told me that she wanted a separation, but not a divorce, so I took that to heart and was planning on trying to work through our differences. It wasn't until a couple of weeks after I'd moved out that she dropped the bomb. Not only did she want a divorce, but she was already dating somebody else. This particular moment still stands as the worst single moment I can remember having (with the exception of that Christmas 6 years ago when we thought Willow was going to be born nearly five months early). It was such a shitty moment that I haven't even written about it until now. In fact, I started this post with no intention of writing about it, but it just kind of came out - it just seemed to fit here. That moment still overshadows all of my interactions with her, and probably will for a long time. She has her own problems and resentments too, of course, or it wouldn't have ever come to this, but still... I don't know. It makes my sorrow over the dissolution of our marriage less pure than it might be otherwise, because now it's mixed up with less noble emotions like anger and jealousy. My protective wall has come up and where she is concerned, I've been more or less living behind it. I don't know if she still reads my blog or not, but I haven't read hers since that night in early October. The kids are still sad too. When they're all together, they seem fine, but whenever I spend one on one time with them, the sadness seems to rise to the surface. Just the other day, Sophie was in tears about not getting to see me enough - this inspired me to stay through most of her Brownie meeting with her, which ended up being fun. It kept me away from the house (I still watch the older kids there a couple of times a week), which is good for my state of mind. Nate continues to be more affectionate than he was when we all lived together, and I can tell he's sad. Alex is a little harder to read, being in middle school and all, and I've had less one on one time with him. Willow, like the other kids used to do when they would go to their dad's, is having a hard time with transitions. She tends to be weepy at the beginnings and endings of the weekends I have her, and it's sometimes hard to snap her out of it. My solution has been to spend lots of time cuddling her, and an equal amount of time getting out and doing fun things. She has even discovered e-mail, and spends time e-mailing her mom and friends. We talk a lot too, and it's really cool watching her start to figure out her world. I just wish that her world didn't have to have this trauma in it. Hopefully this will be a year of healing for all of us. Jen too - although I find that I just don't understand her sometimes, and she doesn't understand me. I think that's what got us to where we are today. So much for unconditional love.

Jeez. So much for a lighthearted little post. I guess I needed to get some of that stuff off my chest. It actually made me feel little better too.

Onwards.

Another weekend draws to a close. Willow has been having a hard time with transitions ever since I moved out, and this weekend was no exception. She gets moody and weepy from time to time, and I have been trying to avoid these episodes by keeping her busy.

This weekend, thanks to a friend who sent me a free family pass, I took her to the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, where we marveled at the view of the bay, pretended to be astronauts in the planetarium, interacted with animals in the biology lab, and tried to stem an avalanche of internal organs from an old life-sized model of a human torso. Willow had fun, which made me have fun - I love seeing her smile and get excited about new things.

Afterwards, we went and spent some time with Uncle Greg, first at Dark Carnival, home of good books and strange (but equally good) toys, and then at KALX, where Greg DJs on at least 12 different shows (at least it seems that way). Willow got to hang out in the studio (see evidence above) for an hour or so before we decided to hit the road.

On the way home, illuminated by an amazingly large (biggest of the year, sez the news) full moon, we listened to Greg on the radio. The signal decayed as we hurtled southward, and bursts of static and sudden intrusions of other radio stations soon made it hard to hear Greg. The last song played, before the static finally ruled the day, was Conspiracy of Beards' choral take on Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat" (at least I think it was Conspiracy of Beards - you never know, there may be another men's chorus exclusively singing Leonard Cohen songs). At any rate, it was a surreal way to experience one of my favorite Cohen songs - a full chorus belting it out, competing with static, freeway noise, and other nearby stations, and eventually losing the battle.

Meanwhile, Willow, unimpressed by such things, had fallen asleep.

I turned to the Stanford radio station, where coincidentally enough, my friend Justin was in the middle of his heavy metal show. I turned down the volume so as not to wake Willow.

Currently listening to: Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band "God Bless Our Dead Marines" live 2008.11.01 @ Cinema Passos Manuel

I've fixed the financial aid problem. It turns out my financial aid adviser was only pretending to be out of the office. That means I should be able to register for classes in a day or so. Just in time too.

Almost time to go get my Thursday night bowl of ice cream.

It's a gray afternoon, and the wind is animating the trees, making the remaining leaves flutter and causing branches to gesture wildly. We're right at the edge of a storm system, but the rain is supposed to pass us by. Pity.

I'm inside with some Earl Grey Tea. There's Portuguese music drifting from the stereo, and Tibetan incense wafting from the bathroom. I actually took a nap earlier, enjoying the lull before the upcoming term starts at the beginning of next week. The term isn't paid for yet though. It seems there's a bit a financial aid snafu that needs to be ironed out first. Somewhere, the wheels of bureaucracy slowly turn, and the relevant information is sent from one entity to another. While these wheels turn, my assigned financial aid adviser is out of the office for the week, and I am left with little recourse but to wait.

I'm hoping this year is better than the last one. To that end, I've been working at changing habits that I think are holding me back. I've got a way to go, but the year is young.

The fog is rolling in. I can see it billowing around the camp lights and turning the outside world opaque. The moon is a vague, whitish patch above. the fog is comforting, like an old blanket, shielding and protecting me from the harsh clarity of the pinpoint stars and the alien blackness. Not that there's anything wrong with the stars and the night sky, but if there were, the fog would allows us to move unseen beneath it.

I've always liked fog. I've always liked the night too. I'm inside though, listening to the rattling of the heater and the out-of-sync tickings of several clocks. That and the music pouring from my computer.

There must always be music pouring from somewhere. It's what makes it all worthwhile. Music and fog. And night. I celebrate it.

This past weekend marked the end of the holiday season for me. Tonight is my first night back to work.

I spent my last holiday weekend watching beer getting brewed (which is interesting even if you, like me, don't actually drink beer), attending a memorial/cabin dedication for Sea Turtle, hanging out with an old friend & meeting her boyfriend, buying music and books, and listening to three actors (including my brother, who actually more a sound designer than an actor) reading stories to a packed room at the Berkeley City Club, and cleaning up around the house (can you say "around the house" if you live in a studio apartment?).

I've got some financial aid issues that need straightening out, but I know where I'm going to be student teaching when the 4th and last term of my teacher credentialing program starts at the beginning of next week. It's going to be a lot of work, done on not enough sleep, but by mid-April it will be behind me.

I'm looking forward to the year ahead.

"You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget"

Cormac McCarthy - The Road

In general, resolutions that involve trying to hit the ground running at the first of the year are somewhat deflated by the fact that the very first day of the year is a damn holiday. I face this year with an improved sense of irony, and a better appreciation for the concept of karma. I also face the year with a somewhat reduced amount of naivety and innocence, as well as some residual anger and tension.

On the bright side, I find that I feel more alive than I have in awhile. Despite evidence to the contrary (blame my dark sense of humor, if you must), I'm an optimist. I just have to learn to pair my optimism with effort. Things turn out even better if I take action.

Lot's of people in my neighborhood have their clocks set slightly fast, or they're by now too drunk to care. An amazing number of fireworks are going off, as well as at least one car alarm. I can hear wordless voices raised in celebration or inebriation, or inebriated celebration.

Sounds like a war out there, but a joyful one.

I've come to a chapter break in the book I'm reading, Joe R. Lansdale's Lost Echoes, and written down my New Year's vow (resolution has always sounded a bit wimpy somehow).

I'm ready for the new year.

Willow, as predicted, has been asleep for hours. I hope all the damn fireworks don't wake her up.

In some ways, I feel like I'm limping to the finish line as far as 2008 is concerned. I can feel the strength inside, the kind of strength that helps me eventually overcome trauma, but I still count this as one of the crappiest years in recent memory. I'm hoping that I grow past all of this in 2009, but it's a slow process at best.

That said, I'm optimistic about the coming year. We've finally got somebody who is apparently both sane and intelligent moving into the White House, and if everything goes according to plan, I'll have my teaching credentials and get a job in a classroom this year.

Right now, on New Year's Eve, I'm with Willow. She's sad and missing her mom, who she gets to see even less than she sees me. Her mom is out having her first kid-free New Year's Eve in over a decade. I'm typing away and realizing that I've been spending too much time staring into my computer screen, as if willing it to provide me answers. I've been using Facebook as the socializing tool it is meant to be, and reconnecting with all manner of folks there. This is good, but it still means that I spend an inordinate amount of time in front of the computer. That said, in the past week, I've been out hiking with a friend from the Yosemite Institute, spent time with other old friends, and in general been more socially active that I have in quite awhile. Marriage did tend to cause me to focus on, well.. marriage.

I think in time that all of this will be revealed as necessary. I can sort of see it now. That doesn't mean that it's not sad though. It is sad.

Here's to a wonderful coming year. Willow is determined to stay up until midnight. I'll believe it when I see it.

Be safe. Be well. Tread lightly.

The last couple of the weeks of the year are always kind of strange. Nothing really happens during this period. Many businesses shut down between Christmas and New Year's Day, while others just seem to tread water. Maybe I look at it the way I do because I'm in an industry that truly shuts down during this time. This causes me to forget that a lot of people actually have to go to work this week.

As for me, I took Willow up to the California Academy of Sciences again, meeting an old friend, J, there - J had a museum membership, which meant we got in free. That was really nice of her. The museum was just as crowded as it was the last time Willow and I went, but that didn't stop us from having fun. Willow is small enough to squeeze her way to the front of the crowds in most situations, getting front row seats to watch strangely diurnal bats flutter around, and to watch penguin hijinks (just one out of the multitude of penguins seemed interested in entertaining visitors - the rest just stood up on the rocks and vibrated their hindquarters at us). We'd somehow managed to miss the penguins last time, along with the African hall and its taxidermied specimens. Checking out the African exhibit, we noticed that there was some subtle digital trickery in at least one of the backdrops behind the dioramas - what used to be static savannah had a little herd of elephants marching across it. Hi tech!

Later, I had the perfect mocha. Sometimes it's the little things that help us along the road of life.

Sunday, Willow and I buried my iguana in the garden at work, and Willow handled the process very well, helping dig the hole and pat the claylike soil down afterwards. We talked as we worked, and she seemed to have a pretty good handle on the whole dying thing.

I had figured the iguana would be dead when we went and checked. It had been getting steadily more decrepit over the last year, so it was kind of a blessing that it finally passed on. A quick bit of internet research (which, admittedly, isn't always reliable) showed that it had lived well past the usual expiring point for members of its species. The internet sources I found gave me a big range - anywhere between around 7 and 19 years for iguana life expectancy. My iguana died at 23. Now he will nourish the garden.

Rain is beating down on the roof as I type. Willow is sitting nearby, engrossed in her new Pokemon video. Her new bike awaits its first ride. Maybe the rain will let up later.

This is my first post-marriage Christmas, and it is a bittersweet one. I'm still getting used to things as they stand now. We went to my mom's last night, and opened presents around the tree there. Afterward, I took Willow home and waited for her to go to sleep so "Santa" could get to work. This morning, I sat back and basked in her excitement as she ripped away the wrappings. She gets to do the same thing again at her house later on.

I guess all is well.

Peace be with you.

Merry Christmas.

I feel almost obligated to reflect on the year now that 2008 is days away from becoming history. Sure, there will be the music and event lists, but there will also be personal lists of lessons learned, and maybe some thoughts about what I want to accomplish next year. This year has been tough for me, and I'm not sure what the next year will bring. Of course, the possibilities often outshine the realities, so I will go into 2009 with high expectations and good spirits. Let's hear it for possibilities!

Right now, I'm hanging out with all four of the kids. The girls are making a hot chocolate mess, and the boys are parked on the couch playing a video game. I can understand the hot chocolate more than I can understand the video game. Hot chocolate is more real. But then again, I've been biased against video games my entire adult life. I almost said "always", but then I remembered I used to play Asteroids and other similar games when I was a kid. Of course, I had to go to the local 7-ll and use quarters to do it (or, I might say "quarter", because at some point we discovered the trick of taping a string to a coin and fishing it back out again).

Anyway, Christmas descends in a couple of days. Willow is spending Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with me, and the other kids are going to be at their dad's.

Willow is calling me. Time to go...

Happy Solstice! At 12:04 AM (or so), the light starts to return. I envision a pendulum reaching the end of its great solar arc, and smoothly reversing direction. Sure, I know that it's the tilt of Earth's axis, coupled with our revolution around the sun, that causes it, but sometimes I just feel like telling stories. Stories have been with us forever, and before there was science, stories were all we had.

May whatever story you happen to subscribe to bring you peace and goodwill this season. The Great Mystery knows we need more of that around here.

Currently listening to Bohren & der Club of Gore "Midnight Radio".

I've worked my last night for the year. The kids were only up at camp for four days, which meant only three nights of work for me. It has been unseasonably cold all week, with the snow (!) and frost giving way to rain as things wound down.

Of course, not being one to actually relax, I agreed to supervise the weekend work crew on both Saturday and Sunday. I haven't done this in awhile, but it's a pretty easy job as long as nothing goes wrong. The weekend work crew consists of people who made poor choices (DUI, etc.) and are working it off. It sure beats going to jail. I think they generally prefer working at our site to picking up trash on the freeway. When you work away from the freeway, there's less chance of getting hit by somebody with a similar lack of judgement. Wouldn't it be ironic though, to be doing community service because of a DUI conviction and get hit by a drunk driver? I'm sure it has happened at least once.

Today, I'm hanging out with the boys, who are both sick, and watching movies. Movies can be healing.

I'm loving the rainy weather too. It looks like it's going to rain on Christmas this year.

In the camp office, homesick kids clustered together in little groups of misery last night. I wonder if the fact that they're away from home only a week before Christmas had anything to do with it. Then again, it could be because they're fifth graders instead of sixth.

It snowed during the day at camp yesterday. Overnight, it was really cold, and the night air covered everything with a rime of frost. In the morning, there were two ravens, looking somewhat bedraggled, perched close together at the apex of the lodge roof. I watched them for awhile as they groomed each other.

They flew away when I went to get my camera.

I'm simultaneously reading a book of ghost stories and a book on Buddhist mindfulness practice. OK, I'm not reading them at exactly the same time - that is beyond my limited ability to multitask, but I'm trading off as my mood changes. The ghost stories appeal to me aesthetically, and the Buddhist book is interesting in a spiritual way. I especially like the point that our suffering is caused by craving (are yearning and craving the same thing? - these are the kinds of questions I ask). It also has a lot to say about being really here - being in the present. Or, you could say, being present in the present. This is the time of year to be thinking about presents, after all... except presently, I'm a little short on cash. Oops. My mind is wandering again. This reminds me of something a psychic coworker once said to me long ago - "sometimes you're just not there."

This is true. I must work on being here. It's harder than it sounds. My mind often slides sideways into elsewhere. Maybe it's a defense mechanism. Who knows?

At the Station

At the Station, originally uploaded by Corbie.

What do you get when you take a 106-year-old train, dress it up with holiday lights, load it up with holiday characters, a guitarist playing Christmas songs, songbooks so the passengers can sing along, and a guy giving away free hot cider?

You get fun. Willow could hardly contain herself. She hassled Santa, sang songs, jumped up and down, rang bells, excitedly pointed at the (fake) snow swirling around outside, and generally wore herself out. I had fun just watching her, although I think I would have had fun anyway, because it was really cool to take a ride on an old-fashioned train through the rainy streets of Santa Cruz. I guess I never really noticed the train tracks there before. I had forgotten, for instance, that there were tracks right in front of the Boardwalk.

The city was ablaze with holiday lights, and the rain-slick rails and streets mirrored them. We had the option of being inside enclosed train cars, or out in the tarp and vinyl enclosed cars. I think we spent more time outside, under the swaying holiday lights, taking in the crisp night air.

We also played miniature golf, and Willow sat on Santa's lap. She's been feeling shy lately though, so it was hard for Santa to get any information out of her. I guess she'd make a good secret agent.

So, that's how the weekend ended. It began with a trip up to my work so Nathan could gather some plants to make Ohlone tea with. He's in the fourth grade, so they're doing Native American projects, which of course triggered his memory of making Ohlone tea with me at summer camp. Six kids ended up coming along - the usual four, plus the boys' friend C, and a friend of Willow's from her class. After we gathered the plants, I showed them the Rattlesnake hiding under a board near camp (where it will probably be all winter), and got them all back in the van. We were treated to another, unplanned, wildlife sighting on the way back to town - a Bobcat crossed the road in front of us, and we slowed down to watch it vanish up the hill. This was pretty exciting, because of the animals I've actually seen in this area, this is one of the less common ones. I'm still waiting to have a Mountain Lion sighting, but I'm sure it will happen sooner or later.

There's a storm moving in from the north today. It rained last night, with more slated to follow. The air is biting cold, and the leaves are leaving the trees in massive flurries. Willow and I ran around the park earlier, grabbing up big handfuls of leaves and watching them whip away in the wind. We could see them forming drifts against the houses across the street.

It feels good to be outside. It cleans out the cobwebs that form when I sit in front of the computer for too long.

Speaking of which, I'll end this post here.

Today started with the perfect moonset. I watched the full moon sink slowly down beyond the distant, tree covered hills. The golden moonlight illuminated the valley-bound mist as the moon sank. As the silhouettes of trees eclipsed the golden globe, a raven's cry echoed through the valley.
As the sky lightened, the mist lost its definition, spreading outwards and upwards.

You've gotta love a day that starts this way.

Willow is currently playing with the Land of the Dinosaurs Prehistoric Play Set that she saw in a little vintage toy/memorabilia store last week. The lady working the register didn't know the price then, and the guy who knew was onstage with his band at the time, so we just had her put it aside until today.

I have fond memories of playing with the same set when I was a kid. The thing is old enough to have a Brontosaurus in it. Of course, it also has cavemen. At least there's a little "scientific" note inside reporting that cavemen and dinosaurs never coexisted. Let's hear it for imagination! Right now I'm enjoying reliving my childhood through Willow. It's hard to put into words the sense of nostalgia that washed through me as we pulled the little plastic dinosaurs, cave, plants, and cavemen out of the original box and spread them out on the floor. Maybe she'll have that same feeling some day...

And on an unrelated note:

Earlier, Willow and Sophie were introduced to a couple of whippets, who had listening vocabulary that included words like "squirrel", "rat", and "bird". All the nearby squirrels had the good sense to make themselves scarce for awhile.

There is a gap between how I handle certain situations, and how I'd like to be able to handle them. For the time being, I guess I'm going to live with that. We are who we are, after all.

Don't get me wrong. I love myself. I just have to work on showing that love in a way that doesn't involve buying myself presents.

I'll just keep in mind that it's our flaws that make us interesting.

I'm feeling restless and dissatisfied today, but temporarily powerless to do anything about it.

Outside, the Autumn leaves seem to shine with their own light. The air is crisp and tinged with the smell of smoke.

I think part of the problem is that I've finished all of my schoolwork for the term, and the apartment is clean. I've run out of busywork, and I've run low on money. I feel like a retiree, cast out of a comfortable job.

I know this mood is temporary, but it's still strange to feel this way. The next term, and the next paycheck, will come soon enough. The strangeness will pass.

I've got to plan for times like this. Or maybe I should just relax and enjoy the downtime. I used to be able to do that.

I think I'm spending too much time on the computer too. That's what happens when you have a new laptop, I guess... It's just so damn convenient to use.

I'm having a memory of a dream I had some time ago, back when Jen and I still lived under the same roof. In the dream, I was living in an apartment. We had split up.

Now, that dream is reality, and I'm not sure if I ever really dreamed it, or if it's a false memory - kind of a dream deja-vu. But not.

Still, the situation I'm currently in doesn't always seem quite real to me. Not even after several months have gone by. On the other hand, it's hard to remember what things were like before I moved out. Part of the reason that it's hard to remember is because I try not to think too much about it.

Outside, dogs are barking. I almost sounds rhythmic, like one of those Christmas carols sung by canines. There's no melody though. Just insistent barking.

Inside, it's quiet. The apartment is clean. The cd I was listening to just finished. I think I'll go get Willow. I miss her.

I've finished all of my school work for term 3 now. One more term to go. It sure has gone quickly. That said, things only speed up from here...

I just got back from taking the RICA (that's the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment), and I think I did pretty well.

Nothing like sitting in a room with a number two pencil for nearly four hours on a Saturday!

I got taken out to dinner at a nice little Japanese restaurant last night for my birthday. Had the tofu steak, followed by fried ice cream. Plus singing of the birthday song. Gotta love that.

The camp week ended with more vomit. No more poop though, fortunately. For some reason, I'd much rather clean up vomit.

As I was showing the remaining lost and found items to the assembled kids on Friday morning, I held up a shirt that I thought read, "life is good", basing this thought on the fact that there's a whole line of similarly emblazoned positive apparel out there on the market. As I read it out loud to the group, I had to do a sort of verbal double-take.

The shirt actually read, "life is crap!"

A sweet-looking little girl divorced herself from the throng and stepped up to retrieve it. She was smiling.

I turned 41 today, which in some ways means nothing. I'm still the same person I was yesterday, and the same person I will be tomorrow. Despite this, I'm sometimes tempted to impose temporal boundaries on my existence. I note the passing of birthdays, and the changing of one calendar year to the next, even though the changing seasons, with their attendant equinoxes and solstices, are important on a deeper level.

Still, it's my birthday, and I'm glad. I spent the first few minutes of it cleaning up vomit, and several hours later, being overwhelmed by the stinky mess glopping up the floor in the boys' bathroom. This was followed by a sweet moment when the whole camp sang "hoppy birdy" to me (that would be the science camp version of "happy birthday", in case you hadn't figured it out). Later, the second graders I student teach sang the more traditional version.

Since then, I've been alone at home, being kept company by an influx of birthday wishes via Facebook. A bit different from past birthdays, to be sure, but this year has been all about change, so I must embrace it and look forward to another year during which more changes will happen.

Still, I'm glad to put this year of my existence behind me, and I'll be equally glad when the calendar year changes. Sometimes I need arbitrariness to help adjust my attitude. It helps somehow.

Currently listening to Last FM again, on shuffle.

It's cold at night now, and wonderfully foggy in the mornings. This morning, the freeway was wreathed in fog, but as I drove home, I could see the sun shining through up ahead, creating an almost mystical "move towards the light" moment. My first instinct was to paw through my backpack for my camera, but the moment passed too quickly, and I knew that my camera wouldn't have done it justice anyway.

I moved into the light and then back into the comforting dimness of the next patch of fog.

Let's not forget the boy who woke up at 12:30 AM this morning covered in vomit. It is reported that his first words upon awakening were, "I woke up and found this in my bed!"

Don't mess with the Vomit Fairy.

I have one last week of studying and finishing up before this school term grinds to a halt. This weekend, I take the RICA (Reading Instruction Competence Assessment) test, so I've been studying over the last few weeks (this counts as a study break). Then, I have roughly a month off before things start up again. When they do start up, they start up with a vengeance. I'll be in a different classroom (as yet undetermined, but probably a fifth grade classroom), and there will be an increased load of work. I've been trying to find a way to get paid for my classroom time, but apparently I haven't been trying hard enough because it hasn't happened yet. We'll just have to wait and see...

Today, as I walked out of the classroom I'm currently teaching in, my Master Teacher (that's what they call the teacher one student teaches under) commented on this year's class:

"They have no personality. They're flat."

She was mainly referring to their writing efforts, which show no inventiveness. This teacher is constantly exposing the class to literature, in all of its forms. The kids in the class, for the most part, seem to appear at school each day in a state of tabula rasa, as if their minds were wiped clean by the previous evening's TV watching and video game playing, or whatever else it is that they do. Nor do they make connections across the curriculum. For example, today during a math lesson, a girl apparently figured that since it was Math, and not Language Arts, capitalization was not required.

As we walked, we talked about how she has seen a downward trend in the capabilities of the students who move through her classroom every year. This is worrying. I wonder if this is something that is happening everywhere. I've heard other teachers report similar trends, but haven't, as of yet, seen any scientific studies on the phenomenon.

The kids definitely do have personality. I really like them, and enjoy hanging out with them, but they definitely can't translate this personality into academic work. That said, if this is indeed a trend, the future scares me. That's why I'm becoming a teacher.

Willow and Nils Contemplating A Drive

Willow and Nils Contemplating A Drive, originally uploaded by Corbie.

After the semi-traditional Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's place, my brother and I, with Willow in tow, went up to Cloverdale to participate in a "leftover" Thanksgiving feast. The whole idea was that everybody was supposed to bring their leftovers. Having none, we brought fudge and drinks.

For the record, Cloverdale is approximately 50 are-we-there-yets away.

Our friends' new place is a house set amongst the vinyards, with its own adjoining vinyard. They have a new baby to keep them company there, and this house, like the other ones they've lived in, has taken on the character of its residents, which in this case means old-timey and interesting, with drifts of literature, music, and musical instruments vying for space with sculpture, bones, lichen, and other natural items gathered from the wild areas beyond. Through the afternoon and evening, many more people showed up with leftovers. Fortunately, at least one family showed up with another kid. Willow and the other kid, a little boy, played the "hide behind dad" game for awhile before overcoming that sweet little-kid shyness and playing. A bunch of us went for a walk too, climbing a hill and bushwacking our way back down as the sky darkened.

We stayed until Willow threatened to turn into a pumpkin. Once in her car seat, she stayed awake just long enough to take in the glittering starscape above, and glimpse the Grey Fox darting out of headlight range ahead.

I needed that.