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.

I'm celebrating Buy Nothing Day today. This in response to the annual gearing up of the Corporate Christmas Machine. Besides, the stores are full of rampaging herds of shoppers. Who wants to get tangled up in that? In fact, one Smallwart (uh... I mean Walmart) employee has already been trampled to death. That's just plain tragic.

Of course, I could buy things online, but I can just as easily do that tomorrow. Or the day after. Or not at all. In fact, I might make some gifts this year, time allowing...

There are other ways to celebrate the season and tell people you love them than buying plastic crap. It's another of those quality versus quantity situations. As a nation, it seems we continuously focus on quantity.

It's hurting us.

Due to scheduling necessities, I'm having Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, and Saturday, but not today. Willow gets to have Thanksgiving dinner on 3 consecutive days. Hope she doesn't burn out on food.

Today, I'm going to do schoolwork and reflect on what I'm thankful for. I'm not particularly thankful for schoolwork, but am thankful for all of the usual things - family, friends, the fact that I'm healthy and have all my basic needs met, etc. Sure, this year didn't turn out as I would have planned it - not by a long shot, but it's during periods like this when I do the most growing. Sometimes I need outside forces to shake me out of whatever rut I've dug for myself. The lesson here is to either not dig the rut or know when to climb out on my own. Right now, I'm looking forward to 2009. I know there's not a magical temporal division that happens at midnight on New Year's Eve, but mentally I'm ready to imagine one and leave this year behind. 2009 will involve some hard work. I've got one more term of school to finish, and with it comes increased time in a classroom for me, and an increased load of assignments. 2009 will also be the year I get a job as a teacher. Who knows what else it will bring?

I'm thankful that I live on a beautiful planet, and that the future is full of possibilities...

Well, apparently my theory about the astronaut's toolbag burning up in the atmosphere was way off base (so to speak). The bag has been spotted in orbit over Canada.

Still could happen though.

I've come to the realization that a "week off" is no such thing. Nearly all of my daytime obligations are in place for most of the week. I still have one last group of assignments to finish for school, and I have a pretty major test (the RICA) coming up in a couple of weeks. Especially major is the fact that, like with the CSET, I actually had to pay for the dubious honor of taking the damn thing.

Right now, I'm resting on my laurels (funny expression, that - but look what happened to Caesar while he rested on his laurels) after finishing the last batch of assignments. Willow is over for dinner, although I'm surprised she's hungry after the Friendship Feast at her school earlier. She wanted me to bring mac'n'cheese for the event, so I whipped up a double batch. Every last bite vanished, leaving many other, much more classy, dishes unfinished, and in some cases, seemingly unstarted. There was a lot of good food there, including a chocolate-topped pumpkin pie. Yum. The kids, like kids have done for pretty much forever, all dressed up like pilgrims and Native Americans.

I'm going out to another gig later with an old friend. Good thing I got the ticket in advance, because I sure don't have the money to spare at the moment.

I should sleep. Really. I stayed up really late (2:30 AM) and got up really early (7 AM) again. The staying up late was because I had to go see O'death play in San Francisco, and the getting up early was because I volunteered to help a friend move. Rents are going up, and people trickle away to places of lowest rent, like water down a rocky hillside. Although, I guess if that were actually true there'd be nobody living in California, or anywhere else near a shore.

I have the coming week off. Well, not really, I have school work that needs finishing, and a test to start studying for. Instead, let me just say that I have the night off. I'm officially giving myself the night off. I might even sleep.

I'm tired, after all.

Right now though, I'm listening to Last FM. La la la la.

As I was waiting in the van with Willow and Alex in the darkened parking lot of the soccer field where Alex had just finished practicing, we saw a rather substantial shooting star streak horizontally across the sky above the northern horizon. It appeared almost greenish, and seemed to throw off sparks before it fizzled away to nothingness.

Despite all of this, I nearly forgot about it until I read the news story today about the astronaut who dropped some tools while spacewalking outside the space station. It occurred to me that what we'd witnessed last night might have been the spectacular demise of those fumbled tools.

This, in turn, reminded me of an incident that happened while Willow and I were driving from her pizza party to the barbeque at my friend's house. We were on the freeway, passing the soccer field, when all of a sudden there was a soccer ball bouncing across the lanes of traffic. Amazingly, it didn't hit any cars. Still more amazingly, somebody had to have kicked that ball damn hard to get it over the netting erected between field and freeway to prevent just this kind of accident.

People just have to learn to hold on to their stuff.

While rushing up to work for dinner, I saw two coyotes by the side of the road. It's funny how, even out of the corner of my eye in the dark, I instantly know they're coyotes. Their ears stick out in a way that makes their heads appear triangular, and they exude a wildness that sets them apart from mere domestic animals. These two seemed to be digging in the drifts of Maple and Sycamore leaves that line the roadsides this time of year.

They looked for all the world like they were up to some sort of trick, which is as it should be.

Right now, this kind of sighting is therapy. There is magic in these encounters, but only if we are open to it.

The weekend was as full as I could make it. This is partially because I'm dealing with an emptiness inside - one that I'm trying to fill in meaningful ways. For the most part, I'm finding success, although there's still an angry part of me that won't be denied. I don't want to feel angry. I really don't. Anger is draining, and I'm not even going to waste space here explaining why I feel angry. This part of me will grow smaller in time, I hope. The emptiness will be filled. Life will go on.

In some ways, I feel like I've found new purpose, and new strength. The only problem is I don't consistently feel this way yet. Changes are being made though, and things are happening.

The damn computer died today too. It refuses to boot up, so it looks like I'm going to be spending more time at work so I can use the computers there (or should I say "here"?).

Willow had her last soccer game this weekend, and a pizza party afterwards. She also went on a playdate with her friend, H. Between those two events, we went to a barbeque at a friend's house on one of those lonely hills rising above Highway 87 in San Jose, and Willow got to meet a cat who was part Bobcat. The cat had never seen anybody Willow's size before, and spent most of the time peering at her with widened eyes from behind some conveniently placed piece of furniture.

Slightly less successful, from Willow's point of view, was the potluck at Sempervirons Outdoor School. She wasn't too excited about the food (excluding the fudge, which we made) and was on the verge of turning into a pumpkin by 6 PM. We left early, and she fell asleep in the car on the way home. We didn't really have anytime to relax this weekend, but I'm noticing that Willow isn't doing much better with down time than I am. She has a tendency to get weepy and ask questions about why I'm no longer living with her mom. My heart goes out to her, so I hold her close and comfort her.

It makes us both feel better.

We're doing our version of Saturday morning cartoons this morning. We don't watch TV, and I don't plan on ever having cable, so Willow is watching a dvd.

There's something to be said for starting the day slowly. When left to my own devices, I'm a slow starter in the morning. Back when we lived together, Jen used to get really pissed at me for taking the time to read the paper in the morning. I can kind of see her point. Mornings were always full of chaos and complaining kids who couldn't find essential things. Add that to the fact that these same kids were often reluctant to get up at all, and you didn't have a happy scene. It kind of ironic that, now that I live alone, I don't read the paper. When I moved, I decided not to order it at the new place, mostly for financial reasons. I don't miss it as much as I thought I would. This made me wonder why I was so insistent on reading it in the first place. The only answer I have is because it was there, and because I form habits easily. Back then, with the paper, I would often be grouchy all day if I didn't get to read it. Now that I never read it, I'm fine.

I still have a computer habit though.

I've been journaling, in one form or another, for over 13 years now. I was a bit of a late bloomer as far as this kind of record-keeping is concerned, starting at 27. I didn't start blogging until 2002, at which time I virtually abandoned the more traditional hand-written journaling I had been doing up until then. A recent comment by a reader of this site, L, has prompted me to reflect on the nature of public journaling for a moment.

When I made the jump from the written page to the glowing screen, I had to decide what I was comfortable sharing with the world. A lot of my paper journaling concerned itself with personal growth, and a lot of my desire for personal growth was prompted by the relationship I was in at the time I started journaling. It was a relationship that, for a number of reasons, was never really meant to be, but it was definitely an interesting experience and I learned a lot. I ended my attempts to make that relationship work when Jen came into my life, and a couple of years later, following in Jen's footsteps, started this blog.

At the beginning, the blog stayed at the surface - social commentary, strange humor, and at its worst, mere reporting of the events of my days. One of the reasons for this, of course, was that I was happy, and there wasn't any pain to reveal. Sure, there were moments of pain, such as Willow's premature birth and other health problems, and Jen's own hospital stays, but for the most part, I kept the mask on. Even as our marital problems grew, I didn't let on that there was anything wrong, and I'm not just talking about my blog posts - I didn't talk about it either. If you go back into the archives and read between the lines, noticing that the frequency and quality of the posts dipped a bit, perhaps you might, in retrospect, see the unhappiness there. I was stuck, and didn't know quite what to do. I didn't know how to fix things. At the end, I did my best, but at that point, it wasn't enough.

Back in September (or was it August?) I actually started another blog in which I dug more deeply into the core of my being than I ever have on these pages. I didn't tell anybody about it, and I'm not going to include a link now. That increased level of anonymity was liberating. The self-imposed boundaries of public writing slipped away. I kept it up for a month or so, until about the time I went public with the dissolution of our marriage on this site. That in itself was another liberating moment. It was a public airing of pain, which is something I'm not used to doing. I think it was the fact that at the same time I was writing about it, I was talking about it. My family, friends, and co-workers all offered support. New friends and new-old friends came into my life and supported me. People shared their own divorce stories with me, and listened to mine. I found that I had more friends than I thought I did.

For me, at least, this public airing of my feelings is part of the healing process. I am humbled by my experience - taken down a notch, if you will, and that has allowed me to more fully connect with those around me. Another reason I chose to put this all out there on the internet is that I've always had a tremendous amount of respect for artists, authors, and musicians who publicly voice their pain (look at Frida Kahlo, or Michael Gira, for example). Real emotions make for powerful art. True artists dig deeply. I'm inspired by that.

I hope that clarifies things for those, like L, who wonder why I do this. I don't dig as deeply here as I do in my more traditional journal (which I have also taken up writing in again), but my recent experiences have certainly broadened the scope of what I'm willing to write about in public.

We're all in this together, after all.

I must have a touch of lunacy, because I'm feeling a weird, directionless energy right now. Outside, the full moon hangs in the sky like it owns it. There's just enough moisture in the air to soften its edges a bit, lending a touch of unreality to the scene.

I'm going to try and hang onto this energy and utilize it somehow.

I just realized that I've been living in my apartment for exactly 2 months now. I suppose that doesn't really mean anything, but like it or not, we're all slaves to numbers to a certain extent, so I thought I'd mark this numerical milestone with some words.

In some ways, it seems like I've lived here longer. I have new routines, some of which are due to school, and some of which are due to my reduced time with the kids. I have a new neighborhood, which I'm still exploring. For example, last night when I was on a quest for a jumbo-sized rat, I found out that the pet store down the street just sells fish. I also discovered that there's a vegetarian cafe within walking distance. The next step is to see if the food there is palatable. I'm also enjoying the fact that I can have music playing all the time because there are no nearby kids trying to watch movies.

I'm having a hard time reconciling my old life with the new. It's still hard to be over at the old house when I'm taking care of the kids, and it's often hard for me to talk to Jen. This tends to make all the memories (good and bad) and the pain come rushing back in. At times like this, I'm reminded that I'm still very much in transition. It has been a long while since I was last truly single - around 15 years, in fact. There were virtually no gaps between my last three relationships, although the one in the middle was so off-again-on-again that I'm still not sure how to classify it. I wasn't really single though - just confused. As for the future, I'm trying to keep busy and work on maintenance, which is always something I've been lax with. I need to be better at following through with the choices I make, rather than starting strongly and losing my way as time wears on.

In another month it will be almost Christmas, and my 41st birthday will have come and gone. I'm not sure what the holiday season is going to be like for me yet. It may be hard, but then again if I focus my energies in the right way, it might be okay. Time will tell.

Today, I've got to go get my TB test read in a couple of hours. I don't have TB, of course, but the world runs on bits of official paper - at least until all the trees are gone.

Tomorrow, I'm going to the dentist for the first time in over a decade.

Right now, I'm listening to the soundtrack to Frida. Great film. Great music. Great artist.

My work week began with vomit. This is actually not that uncommon. If you're in charge of nearly 200 kids, there's always going to be at least 1 or 2 of them vomiting, or peeing, or doing something else equally objectionable. The first kid vomited out of sheer homesickness. The second, a cabin leader, emptied the contents of his dinner into the camp office's recycling basket at about 2 AM. At least he made it into some sort of container. I'm thankful for that.

Other than that, it looks like it's shaping up to be pretty good week.

Of course, this morning I drove nearly all the way to the school where I student teach before being tipped off by the lack of rush-hour traffic that something was amiss. That's when it hit me. It's Veteran's Day. Shit. No school. I turned around and went home. There's a lesson in this somewhere. I think the lesson is, "get more sleep." Wish I could.

I'm loving the cloudy, breezy weather. Most of the music in my collection lends itself to these kinds of weather conditions, so I'm getting the full aesthetic effect at the moment.

At the moment, Mondays have become my "get shit done" days. I don't have to be at work until the evening, so I have a whole day to catch up on schoolwork, clean the apartment, and tie up any other loose ends that need attention. Today's loose end involved getting a TB test, something I have to get done every four years if I want to continue working with children. Apparently, TB is on the rise in this area, so I guess it's good to get checked out occasionally. Still, the chances of picking something else up while languishing in a crowded waiting-room are probably pretty high. I forgot to bring a book too, so had to stare at the wall and lose myself in my thoughts. Not completely pretty in there yet.

I've got less than a month to go in the second-to-last term of my teaching credential program, and less than a month until my 41st birthday. At the moment, my emotions are a confusing mixture of sadness, anger, optimism, and pretty much everything in between. It's strange to be single again after so many years, but in some ways it's good for me (or so I keep telling myself). It's almost as if I've had to re-learn how to be single. I'm still learning the ins and outs of the new neighborhood too, and marveling at the number of places within easy walking distance.

Currently listening to: Grey Force Wakeford "Marble Heart"

I went out to take in some live music last night, but since it was music, I wrote about it on my music blog. The show was in San Francisco, a city where I used to spend a lot more time than I do now. There's something to be said for city life though - unlike the suburbs, everything is so compact. Unlike in suburbia, walking makes sense. Groups of people in animated discussion with each other barrel along on the sidewalks (true, much of the discussion seems to deal with what bar to hit up next, or getting laid, or some such), lights paint the surroundings with color and shadow, cars, bikes, and pedestrians weave in and out, and high above, the lonely moon looks down. There's an edge to the proceedings that is wholly missing in suburbia. Also, the city is where the majority of the interesting (to me, anyway) cultural events take place.

Of course, the city sucks away money. Getting to the city sucks away money too. That's a problem. I have to remind myself that the money gets sucked away no matter where I am, and not worry so much about it.

Now, back in suburbia, I'm going to go be a soccer dad for a bit. Willow is developing into a good little soccer player (as are the other kids). I watched her and Sophie run around with a soccer ball at Alex's practice yesterday, and it was great to see how skilled they've become. It's good to see the kids running around outside. The forecast says it might rain, and currently the sky is a uniform gray.

Bring it on.

Another work week has been consigned to the dust-bin of history. The kids this week presented a multitude of disciplinary challenges, and at one point, even some of the teachers had issues with each other. The mice are still rampant, but more of them got snapped up in traps, including at least a couple in one of the boys' cabins. Oh, and there was another lice outbreak, but all of the buggy kids had already been driven home by the time I got to work.

The weekend is just around the corner. I leave in a few minutes to pick up the kids from school. I look forward to seeing them, but don't look forward to spending time at my old house. I find that it's easiest for me when I'm doing things that don't have any relation to my old life. I've always been one of those people who needs to retreat to heal, but in my present situation, I can't completely do that, so I'm left with trying to juggle emotions.

Sometimes I drop them.

I have some plans for the rest of the weekend, but not as many as I would like. I've been trying to plan the weekends in advance, because if I don't do that, I often just stay home. Not that staying home is all bad. There is always plenty to keep me occupied at home.

Mice continue to be a problem up at camp. They skitter around inside the cabins at night, and I've seen them a number of times in the camp office and in the staff room. I've already mentioned the fact that they fill my shoes with pilfered nuts at night, but I haven't yet mentioned the measures that have been taken to eradicate them. Apparently, a couple of feral cats have been brought in to handle mouse control. These cats replace the ones who originally had the job. Those cats dwindled in number over the years, possibly becoming coyote snacks (speaking of which, I saw a dead coyote on the road the other day too - things are tough all over, I guess). At least one of those original cats came to a gruesome end when its warm, dry sleeping place inside the emergency generator came to an abrupt end one night when the power went out. Raccoons ate the pieces.

I have yet to see the cats, but I have seen the mousetraps. We're talking old-school, baited traps that snap down and kill mice. I'm not sure why they didn't look into getting live traps, but I guess then somebody would have to release all the mice somewhere, and we've already trapped nearly 20 of the little buggers, including one who had the trap snap down on its hind leg. That one I had to kill, which since I'm a reptile owner, I've had some practice doing. I still hate to do it though. After all, we're all just trying to survive as best we can on this small planet. Mice are disease carriers though, and the kids take priority in this case.

In a way, I blame myself for the mouse problem. Over the last few years, I've probably removed around 20 Rattlesnakes from the site, relocating them to less-frequented areas. Of course, fewer Rattlesnakes means more mice. Still, most people would rather have to deal with mice than Rattlesnakes.

Not that it's news any longer, but Obama did win, which is great. Prop 8 passed here in California, which isn't great at all. It's funny (by "funny", I mean "sad") that at the same time we finally have a president-elect who breaks the mold, there are still enough assholes in the world to continue denying rights to a group who apparently it's still okay to hate.

There are still a lot of racists in the world, but they're usually shot down pretty effectively when they open their ignorant mouths. I wish the same thing would happen to the homophobes. The success of Prop 8 serves as a reminder that we still have a long way to go as a society.

This is what happens when people continue to look to a 2000 year old book to tell them how to live their lives here in the 21st century. Or worse yet, when they listen to a person with an agenda interpret said book for his/her own nefarious purposes. Even so, they manage to pick and choose. Why do some people just seem to need to hate and/or fear other groups of people? It's not because it's in the Bible. People just use the Bible as an excuse. Still, I wish I could find the article that outlined all of the other crazy, outmoded ideas one can find within the pages of the Bible - such as the proper circumference of the switch husbands must use to beat their wives. I'll have to look around for it...

In the second grade classroom where I student teach, we had a mock election as part of a social studies lesson. Obama won. I can only hope that this microcosm will reflect reality.

I left early so I could go vote. Now, the waiting truly begins.

With the ending of daylight savings time, darkness falls early. It seems like it has been dark for hours already, with a light rain swirling down out of the blackness. It's dark inside my apartment too, because the bulb in the lamp just burned out. The voice of Lhasa de Sela drifts smokily from the speakers, accompanying me as I drink coffee in preparation for going to work.

Tomorrow, a new president will be elected. I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to go vote, but I am sure that I will vote sometime tomorrow. I keep thinking of an old punk 7" by a band called A State of Mind (I think it was a split 7" with Chumbawamba, or was that their other record?). It was called, "If Voting Changed Anything, They'd Make It Illegal!" That's a jaded thought, but perhaps there's a grain of truth in it. We never get to vote for exactly who we want. We just get to decide amongst the choices presented to us. Sometimes that doesn't even work. Look at how George Bush snuck into the White House.

That said, I'm still going to fucking vote. I have to. We have to. Apathy kills.

Dia de los Muertos

Dia de los Muertos, originally uploaded by Corbie.

The San Jose Museum of Art was a happening place today. For starters, admission was free. Secondly, it was day 2 of a dia de los muertos themed celebration. While there, I discovered that there was an Andy Goldsworthy piece on display - a floor covered with pine branches, with a circular pattern of burnt branches in the middle. If that wasn't enough, there was a whole wing filled with photographs of Frida Kahlo. I'm not sure if these were the same photos displayed at the recent Kahlo exhibit in S.F., since I missed that one, but I guess it doesn't matter. It was good to get a little peek into her life, although I think one is offered a deeper glimpse by her paintings.

Willow powered her way from room to room in true 5-year-old fashion. She sat through one song by the mariachi band playing in the lobby before declaring the music unworthy of further attention. Too bad. I was really getting into the music. She did hover around the craft tables long enough to make a butterfly and a paper flower, decorate a sugar skull, and color a tin butterfly I'd traced for her. Pictured here is my tracing effort. To achieve this effect, I put a picture of a skeleton over a cardboard-backed piece of tin, and traced the lines of the drawing with a pointed piece of wood, digging into the tin. I decided not to color it because I thought rubbing marker over it would ruin it. I'm happy enough with the result that I'm thinking about doing some original art this way.

The rain held off today, and the weather was cool and cloudy. I'm hoping more rain hits us soon. It clears away the cobwebs.

I finally got a chance to hear the rain pattering down on the roof at my new place. The sky has been gray since Thursday, with heavy wind whipping through the area Thursday night/Friday morning. Of course, during the wind, I was up at camp, listening to small wind-bourne objects skittering across the cement and banging into walls. Friday evening, I took Willow trick-or-treating with her friend H. We hit a gated condo complex and cleaned up on the treats, although Willow was pretty wiped out by the time we finished.

She has been a bit under the weather this weekend, but I think this is in part due to her unhappiness at the fact that I no longer live with her. At one point, she said to me, "I don't like having two houses!"

Speaking of houses, we did get out yesterday, to a birthday party for one of Willow's friends. The party was at the house of the girl's grandparents. It was a huge place, up in the hills above the reservoir, with a proliferation of skylights and a deck commanding a view of the Santa Cruz Mountains. There was even an attached barn, and the kids got to go on a tractor ride in the rain. The fireplace was enormous, with a fire burning warmly away. I'm of two minds about this kind of house. Part of me finds them horribly extravagant. A house like that is just too big for one nuclear family. Owning a house like that is like taking the whole pie and leaving crumbs for the neighbors. On the other hand, it was beautiful, and I loved the way the architecture blended in with the surrounding forest. The stone work was very nice too. I could probably get used to living in such a place, but from my present perspective it would be overwhelming. You'd have to hire a staff to maintain things. From a person who is used to doing everything for himself, and not asking for help even when he should, I don't think I'd like that. Not that I'll ever have to worry about this. There's no way I'd ever be able to afford such a house.

Willow had a blast though, and in this situation, that's what counts.

Today we're going to attempt to attend the ongoing Dia de los Muertos celebration at the art museum.