Retrospect. It can be a lovely as that first kiss you've been waiting for and as ugly as that feeling the morning after.
I'm more than a little guilty of indulging in retrospect. It's hard for me to gauge where I am if I don't look to see where I've been. But it gets really easy for me to romanticize things that weren't all that fond to begin with.
Case in point: 2008.
2008 immediately conjures up memories of 1998. See, there was life before 1998 and then after '98.
Growing up, I always knew I could manipulate my surroundings. There wasn't much I couldn't change to my own will. Whether it was creating a "fort" out of my mom's lilac hedge, creating a new "club" (remember when kids' club were *the* thing in the 80's? good times.) building a theater in my parents' garage, building a replica 19th century herb garden, making the dining room into a restaurant, or tearing out and rebuilding a closet (walls and all.) If I didn't have the means or the knowledge, I found a way. If I didn't have the manpower, I found it.
But until 1998, all I knew how to change was my surroundings. I didn't know how to change myself.
Then one cold January day in 1998, during a gym class that I was pissed I had to take, I discovered something that I didn't know about myself.
I could run a mile.
Being completely astonished by the fact that I could hurtle my 250 lb. body around a 1/10 mile track enough times to finish a mile, I had to try again. And again. And again. Slowing figuring out that I could go a little further each time.
I even started paying attention to what I ate. I had NEVER thought about calories or fat. I didn't even notice that the cafeteria I ate in every day actually had lots of healthy food that didn't taste so bad.
In that same gym class (which I still abhorred at this point) I learned how to lift weights. And discovered that every week I was able to lift more and more.
In reality, I was only continuing to do all this running and weight lifting because I couldn't believe I could actually do it.
Lo and behold, I noticed my clothes weren't fitting anymore. They were LOOSE.
By the summer of 1998, I'd gone down to about 175 lbs and was running almost 10 miles every run.
I did concrete construction that summer. I worked at a gas station. I did landscaping on the campus and detassled corn in real corn fields. All jobs I had previously thought beneath me.
Not only did I look different (WAY different) I felt different. People treated me different. I made friends with people I would have never made friends with.
Everything seemed easier.
That year I realized I could do anything. Not just change what was around me (thought I was, and still am, good at that.) I could change *me.* I realized there was nothing that was beyond me.
Ten years on, I still gauge where I am now by that year. Lots has changed. A few things haven't.
I still have sideburns. (I think I look weird without them.) and the stereo system I bought with that summer money is the same one that's the centerpiece of my entertainment center today.
But sooo much has changed.
In 1998 I hadn't yet realized I was gay, though everyone else already knew. Conservative college...family aspirations...cultural stigma... it's a long story.
I didn't know I would be teaching. I didn't know I would be living in Kansas.
And looking back, 2008 wasn't the best of anniversaries. I've put back on some weight. Going by my pre-christmas weight, I'm at 196. (the holiday pounds will come off when the goodies go away.) My own and my families health hasn't been the best. Financial concerns are more ominous. And I've lost touch with far too many friends.
But I'm alive. The new job is so much harder and so much more rewarding than I'd ever thought. And I have people who love me.
I'm anxious to see where the next year takes me. Let's hope it's only up from here.
Happy New Year.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
equinox me this
I've been too busy to blog. This job is kicking my butt, but in a good way.
However, to show you I haven't forgotten about you, I'm sharing an old story with you. I went to college in northern Iowa and lived there a year after. I was feeling rather literay in those days. In the fall of 2000, when a friend asked what I did with my weekend, this is what I sent him. It fairly sums up my memories of Autumn in Iowa.
__________________________________________
There where many times in basic training when the only thing that could get me through a day was the memory of something beautiful from my past. It was usually the memory of things I'd seen and loved about the Iowa countryside. And while they're fairly cliche sentiments, the Iowa countryside is ripe with cliche sentiments ready to be snapped by a photographer and made into a calendar or motivational poster. Outside of Waverly you can find: an old barn amidst a field of unharvested wheat, a grove of wild apple trees just ripe for the picking or a lazy river, languidly lapping at its banks surrounded by trees gently dipping their branches into its waters.
I've spent countless hours on my bike riding the unpaved back roads around Waverly. The roads aren't straight like the ones I grew up with. They seem to wander around, avoiding certain fields or stands of trees. You never get bored because you can never see very far. There's always a turn coming, or a hill to go over. And while summer never gets as hot as it does back home, fall is the best time to ride these roads. The trees rival anything you'd see in the northwest and the slight chill actually feels good when you've just finishing climbing a mile long hill. (Iowa's NOT flat.)
Yesterday was one of those perfect Iowa fall days. The temperature yesterday afternoon was hovering around 55 degrees and the sun was already heading towards the horizon. I was bored by my moronic roommates and starting to feel as if I was becoming dumber just by being in their presence, so I hopped on my bike and headed to Cedar Bend park. It's a area of land outside of town along the Cedar River, a river, which by any other state's standard, would be a large creek. The park itself isn't very imposing in it's size. It's long, and narrow and situated on the tops of several high, wooded bluffs along the eastern bank of the river.
If you were in a real hurry, it might take you 30 minutes by bike to go from the entrance to the end of the upper ridge trails and back again. The lower trails, however, keep most people from getting in and out too fast. The lower trails, (my personal favorites) run up and down the sides of the bluffs often with a wall of rocks on your right, a sheer cliff to the river below on your left. Racing up and down just isn't an option. While the upper trails might be safer (since they run on the flattened tops of the bluffs) the woods block any kind of view of the western banks. For that, you have to take your chances on the lower trails. I imagined that the lower ridge was carved by painters who were looking for inspirational vistas. And after they'd laid out all the good spots, they somehow connected them with these suicidal trails.
On this day, I traversed my favorite section of trails, the one's that afford the inherent risk of injury. I landed myself at the end of the park on top of one of the bluffs. There was a clearing of trees that looked down to the river about 100 feet below. Beyond the opposite bank were low, rolling hills covered by trees decked out in their full fall colors and setting autumn sun behind it all deepening the reds, oranges and yellows in the tops of the trees.
I found myself suddenly stunned at the sight before me.
The sun was just beginning to settle into the hills. The air was crisp and had that clean, fresh autumn smell. Below me, I could hear the slow churning of the river and the slight rustle of leaves giving the last full measure of their strength. I was the only person around and before me lay miles of land untouched by human hands. I sat there, watching the sun fall behind the hills. And just as the sun fell behind the trees and hills, a flock of geese flew overhead, aiming for somewhere warmer than an Iowa winter could ever afford.
At that moment, I stopped breathing, as if that could make the world stop just as it was. It was perfect, the entire place. At that moment, there was nothing but me and nature and nothing else mattered. At that moment, I could have died
a happy man.
However, to show you I haven't forgotten about you, I'm sharing an old story with you. I went to college in northern Iowa and lived there a year after. I was feeling rather literay in those days. In the fall of 2000, when a friend asked what I did with my weekend, this is what I sent him. It fairly sums up my memories of Autumn in Iowa.
__________________________________________
There where many times in basic training when the only thing that could get me through a day was the memory of something beautiful from my past. It was usually the memory of things I'd seen and loved about the Iowa countryside. And while they're fairly cliche sentiments, the Iowa countryside is ripe with cliche sentiments ready to be snapped by a photographer and made into a calendar or motivational poster. Outside of Waverly you can find: an old barn amidst a field of unharvested wheat, a grove of wild apple trees just ripe for the picking or a lazy river, languidly lapping at its banks surrounded by trees gently dipping their branches into its waters.
I've spent countless hours on my bike riding the unpaved back roads around Waverly. The roads aren't straight like the ones I grew up with. They seem to wander around, avoiding certain fields or stands of trees. You never get bored because you can never see very far. There's always a turn coming, or a hill to go over. And while summer never gets as hot as it does back home, fall is the best time to ride these roads. The trees rival anything you'd see in the northwest and the slight chill actually feels good when you've just finishing climbing a mile long hill. (Iowa's NOT flat.)
Yesterday was one of those perfect Iowa fall days. The temperature yesterday afternoon was hovering around 55 degrees and the sun was already heading towards the horizon. I was bored by my moronic roommates and starting to feel as if I was becoming dumber just by being in their presence, so I hopped on my bike and headed to Cedar Bend park. It's a area of land outside of town along the Cedar River, a river, which by any other state's standard, would be a large creek. The park itself isn't very imposing in it's size. It's long, and narrow and situated on the tops of several high, wooded bluffs along the eastern bank of the river.
If you were in a real hurry, it might take you 30 minutes by bike to go from the entrance to the end of the upper ridge trails and back again. The lower trails, however, keep most people from getting in and out too fast. The lower trails, (my personal favorites) run up and down the sides of the bluffs often with a wall of rocks on your right, a sheer cliff to the river below on your left. Racing up and down just isn't an option. While the upper trails might be safer (since they run on the flattened tops of the bluffs) the woods block any kind of view of the western banks. For that, you have to take your chances on the lower trails. I imagined that the lower ridge was carved by painters who were looking for inspirational vistas. And after they'd laid out all the good spots, they somehow connected them with these suicidal trails.
On this day, I traversed my favorite section of trails, the one's that afford the inherent risk of injury. I landed myself at the end of the park on top of one of the bluffs. There was a clearing of trees that looked down to the river about 100 feet below. Beyond the opposite bank were low, rolling hills covered by trees decked out in their full fall colors and setting autumn sun behind it all deepening the reds, oranges and yellows in the tops of the trees.
I found myself suddenly stunned at the sight before me.
The sun was just beginning to settle into the hills. The air was crisp and had that clean, fresh autumn smell. Below me, I could hear the slow churning of the river and the slight rustle of leaves giving the last full measure of their strength. I was the only person around and before me lay miles of land untouched by human hands. I sat there, watching the sun fall behind the hills. And just as the sun fell behind the trees and hills, a flock of geese flew overhead, aiming for somewhere warmer than an Iowa winter could ever afford.
At that moment, I stopped breathing, as if that could make the world stop just as it was. It was perfect, the entire place. At that moment, there was nothing but me and nature and nothing else mattered. At that moment, I could have died
a happy man.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
entering the 21st century
I actually figured out hot to send picture files from my phone to my e-mail.
I know. I'm a genius.
While I was working in the choral library in at my school, I realized that the only way to show what all I was doing was to photo-document. But, like many of my projects, it didn't dawn on me until about a week in.
When I first walked into the 10x20 room, you couldn't see the floor or the tops of the 14 file cabinets or the tops of two tables. The floor was covered with scattered choir uniforms, tons of octavos (that choir music that looks like a little booklet but without staples so the inside pages easily fall out) and random photo copied hand-outs, worksheets, tests, calendars, text books and student papers. The tables were covered with electric keyboards, all their accessories, random parts of the risers (the steps that choirs stand on) and boxes full of more unsorted music. And the file cabinets and uniform cabinets were blocked in by the 12 large, black aluminum guard rails that go on the back of the risers.
The room looked like the bedroom of a hoarder. The kind of room where you'd open the door, throw things in, then shut the door and forget about it.
First off, it really is a just a storage room. In fact, the choir room and band room are really an old gym that's been wonderfully renovated. The band instrument storage room is the old boys' locker room. The orchestra storage is the old boys' shower room. And my storage room is the old girl's shower room. And as wonderful a job as they did in the actual room, the only complaint I have is that they didn't level out the floor in the shower room. It still slopes toward the center of the room where I imagine there is still a drain under the tile floor. So none of the cabinets sit upright and you feel drunk walking around the room because you're constantly adjusting your center of balance.
But I renamed it the Choral Library (and made a little sign saying thusly) so folks would hopefully not treat it like the room at aunt Millie's that you don't go into.
A couple directors ago sorta filed. She at least threw them into evelopes and then into a WWII era file cabinet that required two people to open. (seriously, it was stamped "U.S. Army Air Force" on the back. It's been 50+ years since the Air Force separated from the Army.)
They weren't in any kind of order and none of them had been stamped with the school stamp or their file number so they all had to come out.
Next they go into piles to be stamped and have a lavender file card with a label indicating the pieces name, composer and arranger made.
This library is on a number system. As new pieces are added to the library, they are not sorted alphabetically. If it were alphabetical, you would have to shift drawers to make room every time you added a new piece. Numerically, you just put it at the back of the last file cabinet and assign the next number.
BUT this only works if you have an updated catalogue that allows you to sort the library by title and composer so you can find what you're looking for.
The file numbers go to 976. The catologue stopped at 781. And the director had only left me a hard copy and no disc.
Thank my lucky stars I ran into the director who made the original catalogue, and was apparently the last one to actually keep the library organized, over the summer. She had a disc copy that stopped at... you guessed it: 781. Which meant I had nearly 200 titles, with an average of 50 copies per title, (1000 pieces of music) to sort, file stamp, school stamp, index, record and file.
THEN I realized that someone over the last few years has been shifting files and reassigning file numbers without updating the hard copy. So I had to go through all 14 file cabinets and basically rewrite the whole damn thing. And in doing so, discovered that the files were all backwards. The highest numbers were on the left, the lowest on the right. So all 14 cabinets were pulled out and reversed.
Finally, I started filing so I would end up with something more OCD compliant like this.
But then I started going through the stacks and stacks of music that weren't even in envelopes and the whole process starts again.
I filled and emptied that table more times than I remember.
But it's so pretty now. I'll take more pictures now that I know how techno savvy I am.
Note on the choral library: Remember that this used to be a shower room. There are windows on two walls. And the third and fourth floors can see into the room. I'm really really hopeful that the old windows were frosted.
I know. I'm a genius.
While I was working in the choral library in at my school, I realized that the only way to show what all I was doing was to photo-document. But, like many of my projects, it didn't dawn on me until about a week in.
When I first walked into the 10x20 room, you couldn't see the floor or the tops of the 14 file cabinets or the tops of two tables. The floor was covered with scattered choir uniforms, tons of octavos (that choir music that looks like a little booklet but without staples so the inside pages easily fall out) and random photo copied hand-outs, worksheets, tests, calendars, text books and student papers. The tables were covered with electric keyboards, all their accessories, random parts of the risers (the steps that choirs stand on) and boxes full of more unsorted music. And the file cabinets and uniform cabinets were blocked in by the 12 large, black aluminum guard rails that go on the back of the risers.
The room looked like the bedroom of a hoarder. The kind of room where you'd open the door, throw things in, then shut the door and forget about it.
First off, it really is a just a storage room. In fact, the choir room and band room are really an old gym that's been wonderfully renovated. The band instrument storage room is the old boys' locker room. The orchestra storage is the old boys' shower room. And my storage room is the old girl's shower room. And as wonderful a job as they did in the actual room, the only complaint I have is that they didn't level out the floor in the shower room. It still slopes toward the center of the room where I imagine there is still a drain under the tile floor. So none of the cabinets sit upright and you feel drunk walking around the room because you're constantly adjusting your center of balance.
But I renamed it the Choral Library (and made a little sign saying thusly) so folks would hopefully not treat it like the room at aunt Millie's that you don't go into.
A couple directors ago sorta filed. She at least threw them into evelopes and then into a WWII era file cabinet that required two people to open. (seriously, it was stamped "U.S. Army Air Force" on the back. It's been 50+ years since the Air Force separated from the Army.)
They weren't in any kind of order and none of them had been stamped with the school stamp or their file number so they all had to come out.
Next they go into piles to be stamped and have a lavender file card with a label indicating the pieces name, composer and arranger made.
This library is on a number system. As new pieces are added to the library, they are not sorted alphabetically. If it were alphabetical, you would have to shift drawers to make room every time you added a new piece. Numerically, you just put it at the back of the last file cabinet and assign the next number.
BUT this only works if you have an updated catalogue that allows you to sort the library by title and composer so you can find what you're looking for.
The file numbers go to 976. The catologue stopped at 781. And the director had only left me a hard copy and no disc.
Thank my lucky stars I ran into the director who made the original catalogue, and was apparently the last one to actually keep the library organized, over the summer. She had a disc copy that stopped at... you guessed it: 781. Which meant I had nearly 200 titles, with an average of 50 copies per title, (1000 pieces of music) to sort, file stamp, school stamp, index, record and file.
THEN I realized that someone over the last few years has been shifting files and reassigning file numbers without updating the hard copy. So I had to go through all 14 file cabinets and basically rewrite the whole damn thing. And in doing so, discovered that the files were all backwards. The highest numbers were on the left, the lowest on the right. So all 14 cabinets were pulled out and reversed.
Finally, I started filing so I would end up with something more OCD compliant like this.
But then I started going through the stacks and stacks of music that weren't even in envelopes and the whole process starts again.
I filled and emptied that table more times than I remember.
But it's so pretty now. I'll take more pictures now that I know how techno savvy I am.
Note on the choral library: Remember that this used to be a shower room. There are windows on two walls. And the third and fourth floors can see into the room. I'm really really hopeful that the old windows were frosted.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
whew
I was almost worried that I would have to take down this blog if Google didn't get off it's kiester and update their search engine, um, stuff. I don't know the technical term, but I know that I followed all the rules that Google itself laid out in it's "help" section if you don't want your pages to be located in a search. It was actually a pretty simple fix. Just a single line of code had to be changed in the html for this blog.
But I kept doing searches for things that sitemeter had told me were guiding folks to my page. The most popular was the crown moulding stuff from last fall. And my page kept popping up in the results. Like, on the very first page.
Plus an image search for "Kevin Hart gay" gave my picture on the very first image page. (am I really THAT gay??)
So, wanting to be safe from the savvy search skills and peering eyes of junior high kids, I was more than ready to say adieu to the blog. Thus, I haven't been blogging all month.
But, alas, I've been checking for a couple weeks now and my blog seems to have become invisible to Google.
Yea!
I'm still a bit cautious and if you, one day, are eager to find out the latest and most fascinating news on me and discover the blog to be gone, you'll know that I have been infiltrated by nosy kids.
The quick and dirty:
I'm more than surprised to find that I love my new job. Before school began I was at school for 12 hours a day for a few weeks trying to clean up a huge mess of music left by my predecessor. I knew I'd have a challenge in front of me. The choir last year only had 32 kids out of a nearly 500 student school. And they stunk. When I got to the school this summer I realized that the choir was just the scum on top of a very dirty pond. The choir library at the school has nearly 1000 titles of music which add up to about 30,000 individual octavos (pieces of choir music.)
No one has been updating or organizing the library for almost 6 years. And no one had filed any music for most of that time. So I was dealing with hundreds and hundreds of pieces of music that were in piles...and not in piles according to anything. Just piles.
Sort + Make new piles + School stamp + File stamp + File card + Add to Catalogue + Put in cabinet x 3400 = Organized music library.
BUT, it got done. I knew my OCD tendencies and knew I wouldn't be able to do anything else until the library was organized. The choir is meeting already and I've got almost 70 singers this year.
It rocks. And the other classes I teach are very cool. I didn't realize how much I *wouldn't* miss singing "Six little ducks that I once knew."
Sidenote: I've been in the library maybe 3 times since I finished organizing before school started. Tons of work for what seems like nothing. But that's how OCD works.
But I kept doing searches for things that sitemeter had told me were guiding folks to my page. The most popular was the crown moulding stuff from last fall. And my page kept popping up in the results. Like, on the very first page.
Plus an image search for "Kevin Hart gay" gave my picture on the very first image page. (am I really THAT gay??)
So, wanting to be safe from the savvy search skills and peering eyes of junior high kids, I was more than ready to say adieu to the blog. Thus, I haven't been blogging all month.
But, alas, I've been checking for a couple weeks now and my blog seems to have become invisible to Google.
Yea!
I'm still a bit cautious and if you, one day, are eager to find out the latest and most fascinating news on me and discover the blog to be gone, you'll know that I have been infiltrated by nosy kids.
The quick and dirty:
I'm more than surprised to find that I love my new job. Before school began I was at school for 12 hours a day for a few weeks trying to clean up a huge mess of music left by my predecessor. I knew I'd have a challenge in front of me. The choir last year only had 32 kids out of a nearly 500 student school. And they stunk. When I got to the school this summer I realized that the choir was just the scum on top of a very dirty pond. The choir library at the school has nearly 1000 titles of music which add up to about 30,000 individual octavos (pieces of choir music.)
No one has been updating or organizing the library for almost 6 years. And no one had filed any music for most of that time. So I was dealing with hundreds and hundreds of pieces of music that were in piles...and not in piles according to anything. Just piles.
Sort + Make new piles + School stamp + File stamp + File card + Add to Catalogue + Put in cabinet x 3400 = Organized music library.
BUT, it got done. I knew my OCD tendencies and knew I wouldn't be able to do anything else until the library was organized. The choir is meeting already and I've got almost 70 singers this year.
It rocks. And the other classes I teach are very cool. I didn't realize how much I *wouldn't* miss singing "Six little ducks that I once knew."
Sidenote: I've been in the library maybe 3 times since I finished organizing before school started. Tons of work for what seems like nothing. But that's how OCD works.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
short update
I was back in New Baden the week after my last post.
Everything was going swimmingly. Then mom tried to bend over in her wheelchair to get one of the dogs and her right hip dislocated (i.e. popped out of socket). Apparently it's pain that I could never imagine. She was nearly immobile.
Made my first ever 911 call, took her to a hospital in Belleville 20 miles away.
4 hours and two tries of yanking it back in later, they took her to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis where she's had most of her surgeries.
5 more hours later they get the hip back in.
3 more hours and they admit her to the hospital.
Stays in the hospital over the weekend then they admit her to a local nursing home.
After she gets settled in the nursing home the next week, I clean and close up her house, pawn her dog off on my brother, my sister takes back a small dog mom had been watching for her and trades me her other dog, Sebastian. I pack up all my stuff and two dogs and head back to Topeka.
Mom's basically wheelchair bound. She has a cast on her left leg and a huge brace on her right leg. Plus that nerve disease in her legs that means she has no muscle mass. She might be able to use a walker but she's had both shoulders worked on and arthritis in her wrists.
And insurance saw no need for her to stay in the nursing home. So a week later they sent her home to New Baden.
Fucking insurance.
In other news...
I came home to discover that deer apparently love impatiens (pretty annual flowers for you non-gardeners). I had planted over 200 of them along the border of my newly relandscaped front yard. I got a phone call while I was in New Baden saying, "Don't be mad."
I took this to mean that they'd died because he hadn't watered them. I'm the gardener in the house and I only plant things I plan on taking care of. He prefers plants he doesn't have to worry about after they've been planted. But he promised to water the finicky flowers everyday. Because one day without water and they wilt and a day later they're dying.
So of course I thought he'd killed them. But he said "They're all gone. They were there last night and today they're just gone."
"Did you mow them down so you wouldn't have to water them?"
He laughs and says he hadn't thought of that.
It turns out that deer have been raiding our front yard and ate every last one of my flowers down to the ground.
Augh.
But he kept his end of the bargain. Everything else was alive and well.
Sebastian, my sister's dog, is living with us for a while. I like to imagine he's like a kid away at camp. Or visiting his uncle's house for the summer playing with his cousins. Sebastian and Oliver are about the same age so they have the same kind of constant, "Wanna play? Wanna play? Wanna play?" energy. Which is awesome for me because, besides the walks and the feeding, they pretty much take care of themselves. Whereas before it fell on me to keep Oliver constantly entertained.
Sebastian's an awesome dog. He's a shelter dog. About three times bigger than Oliver. But when it's time to play, Sebastian just lays on the floor and rolls around will Ollie. And he hasn't peed or pooped in the house even once! Yea!
While poop jokes are always funny, poop on the carpet is never, ever funny.
Everything was going swimmingly. Then mom tried to bend over in her wheelchair to get one of the dogs and her right hip dislocated (i.e. popped out of socket). Apparently it's pain that I could never imagine. She was nearly immobile.
Made my first ever 911 call, took her to a hospital in Belleville 20 miles away.
4 hours and two tries of yanking it back in later, they took her to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis where she's had most of her surgeries.
5 more hours later they get the hip back in.
3 more hours and they admit her to the hospital.
Stays in the hospital over the weekend then they admit her to a local nursing home.
After she gets settled in the nursing home the next week, I clean and close up her house, pawn her dog off on my brother, my sister takes back a small dog mom had been watching for her and trades me her other dog, Sebastian. I pack up all my stuff and two dogs and head back to Topeka.
Mom's basically wheelchair bound. She has a cast on her left leg and a huge brace on her right leg. Plus that nerve disease in her legs that means she has no muscle mass. She might be able to use a walker but she's had both shoulders worked on and arthritis in her wrists.
And insurance saw no need for her to stay in the nursing home. So a week later they sent her home to New Baden.
Fucking insurance.
In other news...
I came home to discover that deer apparently love impatiens (pretty annual flowers for you non-gardeners). I had planted over 200 of them along the border of my newly relandscaped front yard. I got a phone call while I was in New Baden saying, "Don't be mad."
I took this to mean that they'd died because he hadn't watered them. I'm the gardener in the house and I only plant things I plan on taking care of. He prefers plants he doesn't have to worry about after they've been planted. But he promised to water the finicky flowers everyday. Because one day without water and they wilt and a day later they're dying.
So of course I thought he'd killed them. But he said "They're all gone. They were there last night and today they're just gone."
"Did you mow them down so you wouldn't have to water them?"
He laughs and says he hadn't thought of that.
It turns out that deer have been raiding our front yard and ate every last one of my flowers down to the ground.
Augh.
But he kept his end of the bargain. Everything else was alive and well.
Sebastian, my sister's dog, is living with us for a while. I like to imagine he's like a kid away at camp. Or visiting his uncle's house for the summer playing with his cousins. Sebastian and Oliver are about the same age so they have the same kind of constant, "Wanna play? Wanna play? Wanna play?" energy. Which is awesome for me because, besides the walks and the feeding, they pretty much take care of themselves. Whereas before it fell on me to keep Oliver constantly entertained.
Sebastian's an awesome dog. He's a shelter dog. About three times bigger than Oliver. But when it's time to play, Sebastian just lays on the floor and rolls around will Ollie. And he hasn't peed or pooped in the house even once! Yea!
While poop jokes are always funny, poop on the carpet is never, ever funny.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
bionic woman
My mom rocks. She'll do anything for anyone within her power and try even if it's not. She's the kind of mom that will make a great grandma.
So it sucks that life has dealt her the hand it has. Since 1996 she's had countless surguries trying to fix all the crap that's wrong with her body. In the last year alone she's had 5 surgeries. And even with all the cutting, there's things that can't get fixed. Like this condition called Neuropathy that is slowing robbing her of all sensation below the waist. You can stick her foot with a hundred needles and she can't feel it.
Plus there's the two types of arthritis she can't fix either.
And she's only 62.
The lady who directs the children's choir I work with is also 62. And she complains about her aching muscles after her yoga and pilates classes or after her two hour power walk. I want to smack her and tell her to shut up and be grateful she can even feel the aching muscles.
Mom had yet another surgery last week. So after coming home from St. Louis I headed back to take care of her for a couple days.
While I love her to death, she's completely frustrating to try to take care of. She doesn't want anyone to help her.
Even when people are there and offering she refuses the help which leads to more injuries. And she lives in a hundred year old house that wasn't ever meant to be handicap friendly. Not to mention that the house is almost an hour from any family.
I can understand that she's been in the house almost 40 years and doesn't want to leave. It's what she knows. It's what she's comfortable with.
And, honestly, it's the last bastian of what her life used to be: A woman who would take care of herself, her family and her home.
She's only 62, an age when most people are just about to pay off their house and look forward to enjoying that house in a few years when they retire.
But the house isn't paid off because of left-over crap from my dad's bad business deals that fell on my mom's shoulders (beware the co-sign) and she can't retire because she's been forced to go on disability.
Most of the burden has fallen on my sister since she's the closest and most willing to help. I'm sure it pisses her off because I live far away. But no one could have forseen just 12 years ago when I moved away that mom would be where she is now.
I wish there was good news for mom, but there isn't. I just wish she'd take the help being offered, and stop being depressed over her state in life.
Honestly, she needs counseling but refuses to admit she needs it. Damn stubborn independence.
I couldn't stay long in New Baden. There was a conference in Topeka of Choral Directors. I could have skipped it, but I was told by all my new collegues that I needed to go.
Especially since it was right here in Topeka.
All the Lawrence directors were there. I got overwhelmed by the information and the music presented and realized I hadn't read music in the bass clef for over 7 years.
But it was nice, for once, to go to a conference where I wasn't one of, maybe, three guys in a room like at the elementary conferences. And there were no denim jumpers with an "apple" iron-on and no cheesy vests covered with treble clefs.
More than anything, though, the conference felt like a giant pep talk for me.
When I heard about the opening for this job I have now, I wasn't even thinking of going for it. But the other secondary (that's j.h. and h.s. in lay terms) folks were pressuring me to go for it. And the only reason I went for it was because I wondered if I would *ever* have this kind of support at a new job again.
Going into the conference and even at this very moment, I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to do it (and no, I'm not fishing for anymore pep-talking here) I've never taught J.H. Not even student teaching. It's been 8 years since I've had to teach SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) music. But this week they (the Lawrence teachers) all reiterated that "you" are the one to fix this school and that anytime I needed any help of any kind that they would be at my side. It was almost surreal. I've never had this kind of offering of support at either of my last two jobs. But I still wondered if they did this for every new teacher. But I realized they didn't when a straight-talking H.S. teacher told me that I was the only one in that district who could do it. (this is the same teacher I met at Ted and Phil's several years ago.)
I made some awesome contacts. Not least of which is the new director of choral activities at KU. He offered to come in and help me recruit and come in and observe and give me pointers. And then he asked if I would be interested in his new three-summer conducting program at KU where I could get my Master's in choral conducting.
He's only taking 10 students.
Seriously. Surreal.
Friend Ted was right. Life starts at 30.
But tomorrow I head back to St. Louis. Mom, of course, doesn't want me to, but someone needs to be there in case something happens.
So shut-up, mom, and take the damn help.
So it sucks that life has dealt her the hand it has. Since 1996 she's had countless surguries trying to fix all the crap that's wrong with her body. In the last year alone she's had 5 surgeries. And even with all the cutting, there's things that can't get fixed. Like this condition called Neuropathy that is slowing robbing her of all sensation below the waist. You can stick her foot with a hundred needles and she can't feel it.
Plus there's the two types of arthritis she can't fix either.
And she's only 62.
The lady who directs the children's choir I work with is also 62. And she complains about her aching muscles after her yoga and pilates classes or after her two hour power walk. I want to smack her and tell her to shut up and be grateful she can even feel the aching muscles.
Mom had yet another surgery last week. So after coming home from St. Louis I headed back to take care of her for a couple days.
While I love her to death, she's completely frustrating to try to take care of. She doesn't want anyone to help her.
Even when people are there and offering she refuses the help which leads to more injuries. And she lives in a hundred year old house that wasn't ever meant to be handicap friendly. Not to mention that the house is almost an hour from any family.
I can understand that she's been in the house almost 40 years and doesn't want to leave. It's what she knows. It's what she's comfortable with.
And, honestly, it's the last bastian of what her life used to be: A woman who would take care of herself, her family and her home.
She's only 62, an age when most people are just about to pay off their house and look forward to enjoying that house in a few years when they retire.
But the house isn't paid off because of left-over crap from my dad's bad business deals that fell on my mom's shoulders (beware the co-sign) and she can't retire because she's been forced to go on disability.
Most of the burden has fallen on my sister since she's the closest and most willing to help. I'm sure it pisses her off because I live far away. But no one could have forseen just 12 years ago when I moved away that mom would be where she is now.
I wish there was good news for mom, but there isn't. I just wish she'd take the help being offered, and stop being depressed over her state in life.
Honestly, she needs counseling but refuses to admit she needs it. Damn stubborn independence.
I couldn't stay long in New Baden. There was a conference in Topeka of Choral Directors. I could have skipped it, but I was told by all my new collegues that I needed to go.
Especially since it was right here in Topeka.
All the Lawrence directors were there. I got overwhelmed by the information and the music presented and realized I hadn't read music in the bass clef for over 7 years.
But it was nice, for once, to go to a conference where I wasn't one of, maybe, three guys in a room like at the elementary conferences. And there were no denim jumpers with an "apple" iron-on and no cheesy vests covered with treble clefs.
More than anything, though, the conference felt like a giant pep talk for me.
When I heard about the opening for this job I have now, I wasn't even thinking of going for it. But the other secondary (that's j.h. and h.s. in lay terms) folks were pressuring me to go for it. And the only reason I went for it was because I wondered if I would *ever* have this kind of support at a new job again.
Going into the conference and even at this very moment, I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to do it (and no, I'm not fishing for anymore pep-talking here) I've never taught J.H. Not even student teaching. It's been 8 years since I've had to teach SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) music. But this week they (the Lawrence teachers) all reiterated that "you" are the one to fix this school and that anytime I needed any help of any kind that they would be at my side. It was almost surreal. I've never had this kind of offering of support at either of my last two jobs. But I still wondered if they did this for every new teacher. But I realized they didn't when a straight-talking H.S. teacher told me that I was the only one in that district who could do it. (this is the same teacher I met at Ted and Phil's several years ago.)
I made some awesome contacts. Not least of which is the new director of choral activities at KU. He offered to come in and help me recruit and come in and observe and give me pointers. And then he asked if I would be interested in his new three-summer conducting program at KU where I could get my Master's in choral conducting.
He's only taking 10 students.
Seriously. Surreal.
Friend Ted was right. Life starts at 30.
But tomorrow I head back to St. Louis. Mom, of course, doesn't want me to, but someone needs to be there in case something happens.
So shut-up, mom, and take the damn help.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
staycation
Friend Jill has a new word she hates: Webinar.
My new word that I hate: staycation.
I hate it because it's what I've always done because I normally can't afford vacations. I've always joked that I live in our vacation. But that's always been a conscience choice. I'm fully aware that if I spend money in one place, I can't spend it somewhere else. And, frankly, I'm tired of spending it on the house.
But it makes me sad that a lot of Americans are being forced to stay home when they usually don't have to. Almost like the media pundits are saying, "Be good little sheep. Don't raise a ruckus now. Just go with it."
I do, however, get to take mini-vacations to see my mom every once in a while. Though that's gotten more difficult since we figured it costs $200 just to get there and back. And though I love my mom, New Baden is no oasis. Especially for the queer folk. A Google search finds that 0.02% of the households in New Baden are gay or lesbian. And though that translates to around 50 people, they're tough to locate unless they're wearing too much expensive cologne and have freshly highlighted hair.
Trenton, our neighboring town, has 0.00% gay and lesbian households.
Homophobes.
Last week I headed to Big Mama's. I lucked out because it was gay pride in St. Louis last weekend. And, ironically, I ran into one of New Baden's gays at the gas station in New Baden. I didn't know each other nor did I really speak but he was a very very, um, obvious gay.
Then I saw him at pride and pretended I'd never seen him before. I can be pretentious like that.
Lots of people in the gay community look down at Pride saying things like, "Those people don't represent me" or "The people who go to pride are the people who perpetuate the stereotypes about gays and lesbians."
Honestly, both of those statements could be true. If all I did was glance at pride, I wouldn't see many people who look like me. And the pictures of the parades that make it into newspapers usually show drag-queens, men dressed all in leather, and uber-skinny boys in girls' jeans. And I'm none of those things.
Stay awhile at pride and you'd notice lots of couples that look just like us. In fact, I sat next too a couple at the parade that reminded me of us.
But here's what I'm proud of. All those people that you see *in* the parade (the cross-dresser, the leatherfolk) are mirrored in the heterosexual community. Hetero's do just as much freaky shit as the gays. The Hetero's just don't have a parade. I'm proud that gays are out there saying, "Hey, this is who I am. Deal with it." and not hiding it in the bedroom where conservatives would like to keep it.
And just as I'm sure most straight people would agree that the people who join swinger's clubs or like to be stepped on by stilettos don't represent them, I'm sure they wouldn't dare suggest those people shouldn't be allowed to get married just because they enjoy something different from them.
OK, soapbox done.
I've been wanting to get up to Springfield, IL for a while to see all the Lincoln sites. I spent a day touring the *amazing* new Lincoln museum, Lincoln house, Lincoln law office, Old State Capitol and Lincoln Tomb.
For the past several summers I've been to Springfield to volunteer at a camp there. But I'd never gotten to see the sites. I'd seen them on an elementary field trip. But I remember being more concerned with photo-ops than learning anything on that field trip.
I'm a sucker for architecture and history. And I learned some fascinating things about what I saw in Springfield.
1. What you see inside the old state capitol building is only about 40 years old. The original interior (where Lincoln had been a legislator and laid in state) had actually been demolished over a hundred years ago for a building remodel into a courthouse. When the courts moved out, the state once again demolished the interior and put it back the way it was in Lincoln's day.
2. 2/3 of the building that Lincoln had his offices in is now gone. Luckily, the 1/3 that remains is the part in which Lincoln had his law offices. It was the most original of the buildings I saw. It still had the original plaster on the walls and original floors.
3. While the Lincoln home really is the house where Lincoln lived, very little of what you see today is original to Lincoln's time. Over the last 140 years, most of the siding has been replaced, the walls replastered, the wall paper recreated, the floors replaced and reinforced with steel (almost 250,000 people walk through the house every year.) and the furnishings approximated. When Lincoln left for Washington, he sold almost everything to a man who moved the furniture to Chicago... where it was destroyed in the great Chicago fire of 1871. The house is in such pristine condition now it looks like a giant doll house.
4. The Lincoln tomb is much grander now than when it was originally built. But it's still shy of what Mary Todd wanted. Mary wanted something larger, more grand, more ornate. But there just wasn't money. Instead of a marble interior, they had to use sandstone. Bronze statues that stand today were originally painted plaster. The marble and bronze were added as money allowed.
Believe it or not, I'm a sucker for patriotism. I still get goosebumps during the Star-Spangled Banner.
I spent the whole day learning about and walking in the steps of Lincoln. And then there I was, entering his final resting place. There was a group of what looked like junior high kids in the foyer of the tomb. After when the volunteer tomb guide was done with her spiel someone asks if the kids would sing again.
I wasn't in the mood to stand and watch them so I headed down the curving, marble-lined corridor towards the tomb.
Apparently marble is great at carrying the sound. Because as I slowly walked the red marbled hall, I could hear the echoing of the Battle Hymn of the Republic being sung in unison behind us. As I made our way towards the tomb, the choir was changing from unison, to two part harmony, then three part and so on.
Finally I stood in front of his sarcophagus, the choir, now in full harmony by the third verse, was echoing through the chamber.
I was the only one in the tomb and for no reason at all, I started tearing up. I stared at his name on the sarcophagus thinking how the man behind that name had changed the world so dramatically and about how many people had died for the cause of that change.
I headed down the other hall leading back to the foyer as the choir was finishing up the fourth verse.
I hate to admit it, but it was amazing.
I've always thought we all need a soundtrack to accompany us everywhere we go. This just proved it.
My new word that I hate: staycation.
I hate it because it's what I've always done because I normally can't afford vacations. I've always joked that I live in our vacation. But that's always been a conscience choice. I'm fully aware that if I spend money in one place, I can't spend it somewhere else. And, frankly, I'm tired of spending it on the house.
But it makes me sad that a lot of Americans are being forced to stay home when they usually don't have to. Almost like the media pundits are saying, "Be good little sheep. Don't raise a ruckus now. Just go with it."
I do, however, get to take mini-vacations to see my mom every once in a while. Though that's gotten more difficult since we figured it costs $200 just to get there and back. And though I love my mom, New Baden is no oasis. Especially for the queer folk. A Google search finds that 0.02% of the households in New Baden are gay or lesbian. And though that translates to around 50 people, they're tough to locate unless they're wearing too much expensive cologne and have freshly highlighted hair.
Trenton, our neighboring town, has 0.00% gay and lesbian households.
Homophobes.
Last week I headed to Big Mama's. I lucked out because it was gay pride in St. Louis last weekend. And, ironically, I ran into one of New Baden's gays at the gas station in New Baden. I didn't know each other nor did I really speak but he was a very very, um, obvious gay.
Then I saw him at pride and pretended I'd never seen him before. I can be pretentious like that.
Lots of people in the gay community look down at Pride saying things like, "Those people don't represent me" or "The people who go to pride are the people who perpetuate the stereotypes about gays and lesbians."
Honestly, both of those statements could be true. If all I did was glance at pride, I wouldn't see many people who look like me. And the pictures of the parades that make it into newspapers usually show drag-queens, men dressed all in leather, and uber-skinny boys in girls' jeans. And I'm none of those things.
Stay awhile at pride and you'd notice lots of couples that look just like us. In fact, I sat next too a couple at the parade that reminded me of us.
But here's what I'm proud of. All those people that you see *in* the parade (the cross-dresser, the leatherfolk) are mirrored in the heterosexual community. Hetero's do just as much freaky shit as the gays. The Hetero's just don't have a parade. I'm proud that gays are out there saying, "Hey, this is who I am. Deal with it." and not hiding it in the bedroom where conservatives would like to keep it.
And just as I'm sure most straight people would agree that the people who join swinger's clubs or like to be stepped on by stilettos don't represent them, I'm sure they wouldn't dare suggest those people shouldn't be allowed to get married just because they enjoy something different from them.
OK, soapbox done.
I've been wanting to get up to Springfield, IL for a while to see all the Lincoln sites. I spent a day touring the *amazing* new Lincoln museum, Lincoln house, Lincoln law office, Old State Capitol and Lincoln Tomb.
For the past several summers I've been to Springfield to volunteer at a camp there. But I'd never gotten to see the sites. I'd seen them on an elementary field trip. But I remember being more concerned with photo-ops than learning anything on that field trip.
I'm a sucker for architecture and history. And I learned some fascinating things about what I saw in Springfield.
1. What you see inside the old state capitol building is only about 40 years old. The original interior (where Lincoln had been a legislator and laid in state) had actually been demolished over a hundred years ago for a building remodel into a courthouse. When the courts moved out, the state once again demolished the interior and put it back the way it was in Lincoln's day.
2. 2/3 of the building that Lincoln had his offices in is now gone. Luckily, the 1/3 that remains is the part in which Lincoln had his law offices. It was the most original of the buildings I saw. It still had the original plaster on the walls and original floors.
3. While the Lincoln home really is the house where Lincoln lived, very little of what you see today is original to Lincoln's time. Over the last 140 years, most of the siding has been replaced, the walls replastered, the wall paper recreated, the floors replaced and reinforced with steel (almost 250,000 people walk through the house every year.) and the furnishings approximated. When Lincoln left for Washington, he sold almost everything to a man who moved the furniture to Chicago... where it was destroyed in the great Chicago fire of 1871. The house is in such pristine condition now it looks like a giant doll house.
4. The Lincoln tomb is much grander now than when it was originally built. But it's still shy of what Mary Todd wanted. Mary wanted something larger, more grand, more ornate. But there just wasn't money. Instead of a marble interior, they had to use sandstone. Bronze statues that stand today were originally painted plaster. The marble and bronze were added as money allowed.
Believe it or not, I'm a sucker for patriotism. I still get goosebumps during the Star-Spangled Banner.
I spent the whole day learning about and walking in the steps of Lincoln. And then there I was, entering his final resting place. There was a group of what looked like junior high kids in the foyer of the tomb. After when the volunteer tomb guide was done with her spiel someone asks if the kids would sing again.
I wasn't in the mood to stand and watch them so I headed down the curving, marble-lined corridor towards the tomb.
Apparently marble is great at carrying the sound. Because as I slowly walked the red marbled hall, I could hear the echoing of the Battle Hymn of the Republic being sung in unison behind us. As I made our way towards the tomb, the choir was changing from unison, to two part harmony, then three part and so on.
Finally I stood in front of his sarcophagus, the choir, now in full harmony by the third verse, was echoing through the chamber.
I was the only one in the tomb and for no reason at all, I started tearing up. I stared at his name on the sarcophagus thinking how the man behind that name had changed the world so dramatically and about how many people had died for the cause of that change.
I headed down the other hall leading back to the foyer as the choir was finishing up the fourth verse.
I hate to admit it, but it was amazing.
I've always thought we all need a soundtrack to accompany us everywhere we go. This just proved it.
Friday, June 27, 2008
friend ted
Has a birthday today!!!
I only tell you this because in all the years I've known him he has not acknowledged it. But I will.
It dawned on me today that my two dearest friends from the last decade are not only both grammar geeks, but both have birthdays eerily close to mine. And neither has met the other and at times both have doubted the existence of the other.
If they ever get in the same room at the same time I might just pee my pants.
Happy Birthday, Ted!!
I only tell you this because in all the years I've known him he has not acknowledged it. But I will.
It dawned on me today that my two dearest friends from the last decade are not only both grammar geeks, but both have birthdays eerily close to mine. And neither has met the other and at times both have doubted the existence of the other.
If they ever get in the same room at the same time I might just pee my pants.
Happy Birthday, Ted!!
Thursday, June 26, 2008
the better bread
10 years is not such a long time in a the scheme of things. But most of us, hopefully, are in different, better places than we were 10 years ago.
Everyone talks about that one, amazing summer they've had.
Mine was 1998. I'd just lost a ton-o-weight, was working four jobs, and didn't have a car. First I was living on my college's tiny campus with a guy WAY too into WWF and then off campus with the most awesomest roommate ever, Mory.
Dustin hates hearing about it. I've judged every summer since to the contentment I had that summer. Maybe it was the fact that when you don't have a car it makes you prioritize your needs. Or maybe it was the fact that the weather that summer was just about perfect while living in a bucolic setting. (Yes. Bucolic. You haven't seen magical beauty until you've seen an entire wheat field at dusk covered with lighting bugs.) Or maybe it was that I had more energy and happiness because the weight was gone. Or because I learned to drive stickshift after I convinced a friend to let me borrow his car by saying I already knew how to drive a stick shift.
Or maybe it's that for the first time in my life I fully embraced the new technology of e-mail to forge a friendship that, today, I couldn't imagine my life without.
Jill was different from all my other friends. It wasn't just that she was smart or that she was the first person who found me truly entertaining. Or that she was my first, and only girlfriend. Or that we were both Geminis.
She somehow knew me. And I mean *KNEW* me. I'd shared more with her and she with I than anyone in either of our lives. And insomuch I'd tell her, "you're the only one who really gets me."
When I came out after college, her phone number was the first one I dialed. It was a strange circle considering that we initially met my freshman year when I was evading a gangly boy who was pseudo-pursuing me.
See, it wasn't *just* that she 'got' me, she taught me more than most professors did. Mostly how to live and understand my own life.
Plus, as a good english major, she politely corrected and guided my writing.
And see these little paragraph breaks that conveniently separate my thoughts?
Thank Jill for those.
That summer of '98 we e-mailed daily. Often multiple times. I would sneak away from my jobs on campus to head to a computer lab. I'd type a few lines and scoot back to work. She was a summer temp for corporate America in Des Moines.
For some reason I can't remember, probably missing each other, she came to Waverly for the weekend of July fourth. She, with her car, rescued me from campus. We dressed up. We ate out. We lit sparklers. We crashed a tiny towns 'days.'
But things didn't stay wonderful forever. The summer ended. We both got back to being college students. We stayed close until shortly after college.
Then life happened. She went her way to live her life. I went mine.
It's been at least 6 or 7 years since I've seen her.
Until this last weekend.
I went to Denver this weekend for a choir festival with the Lawrence Children's Choir. I actually wasn't feeling well before the trip and didn't know if 12 hours on a bus with 75 kids would make me feel any better. But someone had paid my way for the trip (since I couldn't afford it) so I sort of had to go.
On Sunday my choir collegues and I were sitting at the Denver zoo arguing over the grammatical appropriateness of the phrase "me and Bob."
I knew only one person who would know the answer.
Jill.
I gave her a ring and in the middle of the call realized she was in Colorado. I didn't know where. But when she answered, I found out she had just bought a suburban Barbie Dream Home outside of Denver.
Once again, almost 10 years to the day, I was stuck on a campus with no car. And Jill was coming to rescue me.
We went to a fabulous Mediterranean restaurant for a four hour meal.
She still laughs at my jokes. I still think she's one of the smartest people I know. And while we're both in very different places than we thought we'd be 10 years ago, we're both, oddly, much happier people.
We've both got rockin' husbands now. My career is moving forward. She's finally out of the book business and able to relax.
And she still knows me and I still know her. Even after 10 years.
p.s. I've done my research on this "Me and Bob" question and am still not satisfied. Some have suggested that you take "Bob" of the sentence to see if it still makes sense. But that doesn't always work.
Like if I said, "Bob and I are going to the movies." You wouldn't say "I are going to the movies."
And the fact that you put the other person first is simple polite formality. That part I get and can accept.
But why can't I say "Bob and me??"
As Jill pointed out, I can only except change if I have a logical answer.
Everyone talks about that one, amazing summer they've had.
Mine was 1998. I'd just lost a ton-o-weight, was working four jobs, and didn't have a car. First I was living on my college's tiny campus with a guy WAY too into WWF and then off campus with the most awesomest roommate ever, Mory.
Dustin hates hearing about it. I've judged every summer since to the contentment I had that summer. Maybe it was the fact that when you don't have a car it makes you prioritize your needs. Or maybe it was the fact that the weather that summer was just about perfect while living in a bucolic setting. (Yes. Bucolic. You haven't seen magical beauty until you've seen an entire wheat field at dusk covered with lighting bugs.) Or maybe it was that I had more energy and happiness because the weight was gone. Or because I learned to drive stickshift after I convinced a friend to let me borrow his car by saying I already knew how to drive a stick shift.
Or maybe it's that for the first time in my life I fully embraced the new technology of e-mail to forge a friendship that, today, I couldn't imagine my life without.
Jill was different from all my other friends. It wasn't just that she was smart or that she was the first person who found me truly entertaining. Or that she was my first, and only girlfriend. Or that we were both Geminis.
She somehow knew me. And I mean *KNEW* me. I'd shared more with her and she with I than anyone in either of our lives. And insomuch I'd tell her, "you're the only one who really gets me."
When I came out after college, her phone number was the first one I dialed. It was a strange circle considering that we initially met my freshman year when I was evading a gangly boy who was pseudo-pursuing me.
See, it wasn't *just* that she 'got' me, she taught me more than most professors did. Mostly how to live and understand my own life.
Plus, as a good english major, she politely corrected and guided my writing.
And see these little paragraph breaks that conveniently separate my thoughts?
Thank Jill for those.
That summer of '98 we e-mailed daily. Often multiple times. I would sneak away from my jobs on campus to head to a computer lab. I'd type a few lines and scoot back to work. She was a summer temp for corporate America in Des Moines.
For some reason I can't remember, probably missing each other, she came to Waverly for the weekend of July fourth. She, with her car, rescued me from campus. We dressed up. We ate out. We lit sparklers. We crashed a tiny towns 'days.'
But things didn't stay wonderful forever. The summer ended. We both got back to being college students. We stayed close until shortly after college.
Then life happened. She went her way to live her life. I went mine.
It's been at least 6 or 7 years since I've seen her.
Until this last weekend.
I went to Denver this weekend for a choir festival with the Lawrence Children's Choir. I actually wasn't feeling well before the trip and didn't know if 12 hours on a bus with 75 kids would make me feel any better. But someone had paid my way for the trip (since I couldn't afford it) so I sort of had to go.
On Sunday my choir collegues and I were sitting at the Denver zoo arguing over the grammatical appropriateness of the phrase "me and Bob."
I knew only one person who would know the answer.
Jill.
I gave her a ring and in the middle of the call realized she was in Colorado. I didn't know where. But when she answered, I found out she had just bought a suburban Barbie Dream Home outside of Denver.
Once again, almost 10 years to the day, I was stuck on a campus with no car. And Jill was coming to rescue me.
We went to a fabulous Mediterranean restaurant for a four hour meal.
She still laughs at my jokes. I still think she's one of the smartest people I know. And while we're both in very different places than we thought we'd be 10 years ago, we're both, oddly, much happier people.
We've both got rockin' husbands now. My career is moving forward. She's finally out of the book business and able to relax.
And she still knows me and I still know her. Even after 10 years.
p.s. I've done my research on this "Me and Bob" question and am still not satisfied. Some have suggested that you take "Bob" of the sentence to see if it still makes sense. But that doesn't always work.
Like if I said, "Bob and I are going to the movies." You wouldn't say "I are going to the movies."
And the fact that you put the other person first is simple polite formality. That part I get and can accept.
But why can't I say "Bob and me??"
As Jill pointed out, I can only except change if I have a logical answer.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
30 is purdy
It's my birthday.
30 years ago today I was pushed forth from my mother's vaginal canal. And the world has never been the same since. (not saying I had anything to do with it. Just saying.)
I'm happy about a couple things.
1. My more veteran colleagues at school may no longer refer to me as just a 'pup' or just a 'baby' (not in the crying sort of way.) For the last 7 years of teaching I've heard, more than I can count, scores of my fellow teachers ask how old I am then follow it with , "Oh, you're just a pup." Or, "I could be your mother." Or, "You're just a baby." I'm hoping that stops at 30.
2. My gray hair is more justifiable now.
I know a lot of people make a big deal out of 30. I distinctly remember my ex-boyfriend fretting over it. At 26 he was freaking out because he's "on the down-hill slide to 30!"
But there will be no party. No big gifts. (we's too po) No saccharine slide shows.
However, birthdays are a good time to take stock of life.
30 facts in 30 years:
1. Held 19 paying jobs (20 if you count my new position)
2. Had 10 addresses
3. Moved 14 times
4. Lived in 4 states
5. Lived through cancer
6. Had 3 lumps and my tonsils removed
7. Had 4 dogs (two still living)
8. Ran 1 marathon
9. Ran 4 Triathlons
10. Sang in 4 operas
11. Had 5 voice teachers
12. Watched 1 grandparent die
13. Been to 7 countries besides our own (8 if you include Disney World)
14. Had 3 piercings (two of which I regret*)
15. Gotten two tattoos
16. Owned 5 cars (my latest was my birthday present to myself last year and my favorite)
17. Had two long-term relationships
18. Lost, gained, lost and gained a total of 200 lbs.
19. Volunteered at three different camps
20. Stopped believing in the Christian idea of "God."
21. Learned how to tile, cut crown moulding, wire a circuit breaker, change outlets and switches, hang light fixtures, replace faucets and cut trim.
22. Had 3 gardens
23. Discovered that weird feeling wasn't inadequacy, it was queerness.
24. Had 1 personal trainer.
25. Had and have been estranged from 3 best friends.
26. Became an uncle twice over. (Hi Big Mike! Hi Lil Jim!)
27. Learned that people don't all suck.
28. Discovered that I can't always be right.
29. Realized that there are things I can't fix.
30. (and my favorite) Taught over 700 kids about music.
So celebrate in any way you deem appropriate. If you know me from my early years, you may choose to drink jungle juice from a trash can. If you know me from my early-mid 20's, have a beer. If you've known me the last few years, have some wine (but not Merlot. I hate Merlot.)
*A note about those regrettable piercings. They were my nipples. I was going through a phase. They were only in a about year. But they've left my nipples with permanent bumps on the sides of them, like little testes on the sides of my nipples. And they still get infected. At this very moment, my left nipple is swollen and throbbing. Just thought you should know.
30 years ago today I was pushed forth from my mother's vaginal canal. And the world has never been the same since. (not saying I had anything to do with it. Just saying.)
I'm happy about a couple things.
1. My more veteran colleagues at school may no longer refer to me as just a 'pup' or just a 'baby' (not in the crying sort of way.) For the last 7 years of teaching I've heard, more than I can count, scores of my fellow teachers ask how old I am then follow it with , "Oh, you're just a pup." Or, "I could be your mother." Or, "You're just a baby." I'm hoping that stops at 30.
2. My gray hair is more justifiable now.
I know a lot of people make a big deal out of 30. I distinctly remember my ex-boyfriend fretting over it. At 26 he was freaking out because he's "on the down-hill slide to 30!"
But there will be no party. No big gifts. (we's too po) No saccharine slide shows.
However, birthdays are a good time to take stock of life.
30 facts in 30 years:
1. Held 19 paying jobs (20 if you count my new position)
2. Had 10 addresses
3. Moved 14 times
4. Lived in 4 states
5. Lived through cancer
6. Had 3 lumps and my tonsils removed
7. Had 4 dogs (two still living)
8. Ran 1 marathon
9. Ran 4 Triathlons
10. Sang in 4 operas
11. Had 5 voice teachers
12. Watched 1 grandparent die
13. Been to 7 countries besides our own (8 if you include Disney World)
14. Had 3 piercings (two of which I regret*)
15. Gotten two tattoos
16. Owned 5 cars (my latest was my birthday present to myself last year and my favorite)
17. Had two long-term relationships
18. Lost, gained, lost and gained a total of 200 lbs.
19. Volunteered at three different camps
20. Stopped believing in the Christian idea of "God."
21. Learned how to tile, cut crown moulding, wire a circuit breaker, change outlets and switches, hang light fixtures, replace faucets and cut trim.
22. Had 3 gardens
23. Discovered that weird feeling wasn't inadequacy, it was queerness.
24. Had 1 personal trainer.
25. Had and have been estranged from 3 best friends.
26. Became an uncle twice over. (Hi Big Mike! Hi Lil Jim!)
27. Learned that people don't all suck.
28. Discovered that I can't always be right.
29. Realized that there are things I can't fix.
30. (and my favorite) Taught over 700 kids about music.
So celebrate in any way you deem appropriate. If you know me from my early years, you may choose to drink jungle juice from a trash can. If you know me from my early-mid 20's, have a beer. If you've known me the last few years, have some wine (but not Merlot. I hate Merlot.)
*A note about those regrettable piercings. They were my nipples. I was going through a phase. They were only in a about year. But they've left my nipples with permanent bumps on the sides of them, like little testes on the sides of my nipples. And they still get infected. At this very moment, my left nipple is swollen and throbbing. Just thought you should know.
Friday, June 6, 2008
just pretend
like nothing happened.
It has been a very rough few months.
First Dustin lost his job. Then got it back.
When he went back to work they gave him an hours-long dress-down.
Then told him, "You're our guy. You're the one we count on." And handed him his raise.
And people wonder why I won't work in corporate America?
The house is still on the market and I continue to obsess over it. I just don't know how someone hasn't fallen in love with it like we did and pay asking price.
More projects have happened. Projects I couldn't do myself. (Drat!) I've learned that I hate working with contractors.
A window was rotting out of it's sill. Mind you, this house is 15 years old. (don't get me started on the "craftsmanship" that went into my beloved home.) When the window came out the entire bottom of the window crumbled, sill and all. I've heard it said about other things, and never believed it, but paint was literally the only thing holding it together.
However, like in the movie "Money Pit" every contractor said "Two weeks!"
Actual time until work was completed:
Window- 7 weeks
Mudjacking- 6 weeks
Chimney repair- 6 weeks
Well, the chimney is still not fixed. The guy pointed out that it had been leaking from the top for some time and the entire thing needed to be replaced. New estimate on completion- 3 weeks.
I wish I could do all that myself, but I don't do siding. Yet.
But I did replace the vanity in the master bedroom. I had tried to get around replacing the scratched, dull and yellowed double sink vanity by spray painting it.
Yes. I know it sounds a bit white-trash. But the stuff was supposed to end up with a factory finish.
The first coat looked like spray paint. I held the can too far away and it ended up with a rough finish. Not smooth. So I removed the paint, but in the process removed some of the vanity's top. And the second coat of white paint just made it look like a topographical map of a frozen tundra. So a new, custom ordered, vanity had to go in. Apparently the one thing that WAS custom in our contractor-standard house was the one thing I didn't want to replace. It was one inch shy of a standard size. I thought about buying the one inch longer piece and cutting it down. But I really couldn't afford to replace a replacement.
Augh.
However, I learned from that mistake and did the hall-way bathroom vanity correctly. And, no, you can't tell it's spray paint.
Then, right at the end of school, Dustin was having some major health issues. We thought it was cancer. And I was fretting the entire last week of school.
Oh, and applying for a new job while packing up my entire classroom because new carpet was going in the room the day after school was out while trying to plan and rehearse for a last-day-of-school concert with the 6th graders while finishing up grade cards and writing assessments (read- standardized tests) for next school year.
When the last day of school rolled around I was burned out. Physically, mentally, emotionally *done*. And don't think my principal didn't mention it to me. I didn't make excuses. I apologized but pointed out that there's still music in "musical chairs."
Turns out he has a bone-marrow disorder similar to cancer but not cancer. It's not curable but with treatment it's not fatal. He'll have to be on medication the rest of his life for it, though. Edit: This turned out to be a lie.
[side bar: I'm about to be vague with some of my terminology. All I can say is that kids are very internet savvy these days. A few well-placed key words into google and this blog would pop up. And I don't need kids, especially twelve to fourteen year-olds, reading this stuff. So I'm avoiding certain "key words" here.]
I applied for a new job teaching a level higher than I am now in the same district I teach in now (read- no pay raise). I've actually said that I'd never teach adolescents. Too many hormones. And this school, in particular, is over half economically-disadvantaged kids. (new term for "poor.") It's considered a "rough" school by this town's standards. Teachers either stay for a year or stay for a lifetime.
The program has been decimated by a series of three bad choral directors in a row. Each staying 1-2 years at the school. While the other three mid-level schools in town averaged 50-60 kids in their ensembles, this school had 28. And they stunk to high heaven. It was PAINFUL watching them perform.
Seriously, I had to keep from cringing. I felt like I was watching their adolescent pain being played out in front of me.
But I was approached by two of the other mid-level baton-wavers and one of the high school baton-wavers and asked if I would apply.
I turned them down flat.
And then thought about it.
1. There's no better program to walk into than the decimated one. It's better than building a program from scratch because at least there's SOME infrastructure and it's better than following 'god' because they'd hate me for not being 'god.'
2. I'd really like to have my own ch*r*l program again.
3. I'd like to teach a higher level ensemble some day. And they don't usually hand out those positions to low-level teachers.
4. I don't know if I'd ever have this kind of support from my peers again.
I had to go for it.
I applied. And got it.
Starting June 1st, I'm officially a teacher at a higher grade level. (did you get all that??)
Some bonuses:
I have a HUGE brand-new room with a 7-foot grand. They carved the room out of the old gymnasium. There's still holes in the floor for volley ball nets.
Plus it's in a very cool historic building. Built in 1923 as a high school to honor the local men who died in WWI.
AND I have a huge, beautifully restored 1923 auditorium. (sorry, no good picture yet) It was to be the centerpiece of the High School (my, how times have changed) so great care was taken in decorating it. When it was built it was the largest auditorium in Kansas. The windows in the auditorium have stained glass from Belgium. The same sculpture who did the plaster reliefs in the state capitol designed the plaster adornments for this auditorium. Very cool stuff.
In other good news...
I re-relandscaped the front yard. I dug up everything I'd planted, scraped away the mulch, strung a level line and discovered I'd accidentally sloped it towards the house.
My bad.
So I got out the shovel and regraded the whole mess AWAY from the house. And redid the contraption I'd put on the gutters so now it actually takes the water away from the house.
5+ inches of rain later and the basement is dry.
Tomorrow I risk my life on the roof trying to paint the new window.
It's been quite a month.
It has been a very rough few months.
First Dustin lost his job. Then got it back.
When he went back to work they gave him an hours-long dress-down.
Then told him, "You're our guy. You're the one we count on." And handed him his raise.
And people wonder why I won't work in corporate America?
The house is still on the market and I continue to obsess over it. I just don't know how someone hasn't fallen in love with it like we did and pay asking price.
More projects have happened. Projects I couldn't do myself. (Drat!) I've learned that I hate working with contractors.
A window was rotting out of it's sill. Mind you, this house is 15 years old. (don't get me started on the "craftsmanship" that went into my beloved home.) When the window came out the entire bottom of the window crumbled, sill and all. I've heard it said about other things, and never believed it, but paint was literally the only thing holding it together.
However, like in the movie "Money Pit" every contractor said "Two weeks!"
Actual time until work was completed:
Window- 7 weeks
Mudjacking- 6 weeks
Chimney repair- 6 weeks
Well, the chimney is still not fixed. The guy pointed out that it had been leaking from the top for some time and the entire thing needed to be replaced. New estimate on completion- 3 weeks.
I wish I could do all that myself, but I don't do siding. Yet.
But I did replace the vanity in the master bedroom. I had tried to get around replacing the scratched, dull and yellowed double sink vanity by spray painting it.
Yes. I know it sounds a bit white-trash. But the stuff was supposed to end up with a factory finish.
The first coat looked like spray paint. I held the can too far away and it ended up with a rough finish. Not smooth. So I removed the paint, but in the process removed some of the vanity's top. And the second coat of white paint just made it look like a topographical map of a frozen tundra. So a new, custom ordered, vanity had to go in. Apparently the one thing that WAS custom in our contractor-standard house was the one thing I didn't want to replace. It was one inch shy of a standard size. I thought about buying the one inch longer piece and cutting it down. But I really couldn't afford to replace a replacement.
Augh.
However, I learned from that mistake and did the hall-way bathroom vanity correctly. And, no, you can't tell it's spray paint.
Then, right at the end of school, Dustin was having some major health issues. We thought it was cancer. And I was fretting the entire last week of school.
Oh, and applying for a new job while packing up my entire classroom because new carpet was going in the room the day after school was out while trying to plan and rehearse for a last-day-of-school concert with the 6th graders while finishing up grade cards and writing assessments (read- standardized tests) for next school year.
When the last day of school rolled around I was burned out. Physically, mentally, emotionally *done*. And don't think my principal didn't mention it to me. I didn't make excuses. I apologized but pointed out that there's still music in "musical chairs."
[side bar: I'm about to be vague with some of my terminology. All I can say is that kids are very internet savvy these days. A few well-placed key words into google and this blog would pop up. And I don't need kids, especially twelve to fourteen year-olds, reading this stuff. So I'm avoiding certain "key words" here.]
I applied for a new job teaching a level higher than I am now in the same district I teach in now (read- no pay raise). I've actually said that I'd never teach adolescents. Too many hormones. And this school, in particular, is over half economically-disadvantaged kids. (new term for "poor.") It's considered a "rough" school by this town's standards. Teachers either stay for a year or stay for a lifetime.
The program has been decimated by a series of three bad choral directors in a row. Each staying 1-2 years at the school. While the other three mid-level schools in town averaged 50-60 kids in their ensembles, this school had 28. And they stunk to high heaven. It was PAINFUL watching them perform.
Seriously, I had to keep from cringing. I felt like I was watching their adolescent pain being played out in front of me.
But I was approached by two of the other mid-level baton-wavers and one of the high school baton-wavers and asked if I would apply.
I turned them down flat.
And then thought about it.
1. There's no better program to walk into than the decimated one. It's better than building a program from scratch because at least there's SOME infrastructure and it's better than following 'god' because they'd hate me for not being 'god.'
2. I'd really like to have my own ch*r*l program again.
3. I'd like to teach a higher level ensemble some day. And they don't usually hand out those positions to low-level teachers.
4. I don't know if I'd ever have this kind of support from my peers again.
I had to go for it.
I applied. And got it.
Starting June 1st, I'm officially a teacher at a higher grade level. (did you get all that??)
Some bonuses:
I have a HUGE brand-new room with a 7-foot grand. They carved the room out of the old gymnasium. There's still holes in the floor for volley ball nets.
Plus it's in a very cool historic building. Built in 1923 as a high school to honor the local men who died in WWI.
AND I have a huge, beautifully restored 1923 auditorium. (sorry, no good picture yet) It was to be the centerpiece of the High School (my, how times have changed) so great care was taken in decorating it. When it was built it was the largest auditorium in Kansas. The windows in the auditorium have stained glass from Belgium. The same sculpture who did the plaster reliefs in the state capitol designed the plaster adornments for this auditorium. Very cool stuff.
In other good news...
I re-relandscaped the front yard. I dug up everything I'd planted, scraped away the mulch, strung a level line and discovered I'd accidentally sloped it towards the house.
My bad.
So I got out the shovel and regraded the whole mess AWAY from the house. And redid the contraption I'd put on the gutters so now it actually takes the water away from the house.
5+ inches of rain later and the basement is dry.
Tomorrow I risk my life on the roof trying to paint the new window.
It's been quite a month.
Friday, May 2, 2008
one dark and stormy night
I believe I either have really bad karma or my entertainment center is cursed.
Three weeks ago the basement leaked again. Right behind the entertainment center. We moved the entertainment center to discover that it's apparently been leaking for a while now because the bottom of the cabinets were rotting away and the carpet was stained with mold.
So after disassembling the mess of stereo wires that connect all our little entertainment components (because everything is better in digital surround sound) and look like something out of one of those warning pictures of fire hazards, we disassemble the 500 lb cabinets and begin scrubbing the carpet.
I probably doused the carpet with a 1/2 gallon of bleach.
No way in hell was I going to dish out thousands of dollars to replace something that has the potential to get ruined... again.
And lo and behold, the stains came out, the mold was killed and the entertainment center (which will have to be trashed after we sell) looked good enough from the front that you couldn't tell that barely anything was supporting it.
See, I say it might be cursed because at our old house the basement leaked.
Only behind the entertainment center.
And now this basement leaks.
Only behind the entertainment center.
I relandscaped the front yard to direct the water away from the front of the house where the wall is leaking. And I put a long drain tube on the downspout to keep all that water away also.
Last night I was awoken around 1 a.m. by a huge storm. I put on a bathrobe. Only a bathrobe. And headed downstairs and out the front door.
I wanted to make sure my contraption was working on the downspout (it was a bit rigged).
It wasn't. The tube I put on the downspout was too small to support the amount of water coming off the roof and it pouring water around the spout/tube connection.
I could see the water pooling by the house. Apparently my landscaping didn't help.
The lightning and thunder were constant. The water shooting out of the downspout looking like someone had opened a fire hydrant.
Something had to be done and be done fast if I didn't want all that water in my basement.
Thinking that a shovel wouldn't be a good idea with all the lighting, I began to furiously claw at the dirt making a trench to get the water away from the house.
Within seconds the robe is drenched. I'm drenched.
It's 1:00 in the morning and I'm digging in the mud with my hands during a huge thunderstorm.
Oh what a proud moment. It's times like these that I'm glad that we don't have security cameras anywhere nearby.
I probably looked like I was trying to bury a body or something.
The trench got dug, er, clawed to the point that the water was going away from the house.
And just at the moment I got done with that, the tornado sirens went off.
To say I freaked would be an understatement. I didn't quite scream out loud, but there were lots of "oh shits". Very quickly my mind wondered if that dull roaring sound I heard was rolling thunder or a funnel cloud about to pick up my body and throw it down the street.
Just what I need. My naked body (because the robe wasn't tied very well) tossed down the street and the neighbors wondering what the hell I was doing outside during a tornado.
I had no idea what that roar was so I dashed into the house, wet and muddy (over carpets we'd just had cleaned, but who cares. it's all about to get blown away anyway) Ran upstairs and scared the shit out of my dog when I grabbed his covered kennel with him in it. Grabbed a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that were on the bed (because I'll be damned if I'm going to repeat the "being-found-dead-and-naked" mistake.) and dashed back downstairs. Grabbed Oliver's leash as I headed around the corner and down the stairs into the leaky basement.
It's been a long time since I've really felt a true adrenaline rush. I'd forgotten what it was like.
The kennel with the dog in it felt like nothing.
And the stuffed nose that was keeping me awake? Completely clear.
Oliver was shaking when I took him out of his cage. My freaking out freaked him out. I put on the shorts and shirt and realized I had no shoes. If the storm didn't kill me, I was going to bleed to death walking over the tattered remains of our house.
At that moment I also realized that there's no safe place in the basement.
It's really one big room with a bathroom and small storage area. But the big room has two windows. The bathroom has plate glass doors on the shower and two large, mirrored closet doors. And the storage room is accessed through two more large, mirrored closet doors.
So my plan, if need be, was to head to the corner by the stairs and cower, with Oliver, under an overturned recliner.
But as I get the TV turned on, I find out that the tornado is already past.
However, my body has not been informed of this. And neither has Ollie. We stay in the basement for the next 45 minutes.
I try to get to sleep but I've still got that shaky feeling.
I'm not worried though because Friday is "field day" at school. No teaching. I don't really even need to be there.
This morning, Friday morning, I head right to the basement.
The carpet's wet again. The entertainment center will once again need to be disconnected, disassembled and the carpet cleaned.
And field day is cancelled.
Seriously. Does anyone know any rituals here? I'd be willing to sling a chicken head around the yard if I thought it would help.
Three weeks ago the basement leaked again. Right behind the entertainment center. We moved the entertainment center to discover that it's apparently been leaking for a while now because the bottom of the cabinets were rotting away and the carpet was stained with mold.
So after disassembling the mess of stereo wires that connect all our little entertainment components (because everything is better in digital surround sound) and look like something out of one of those warning pictures of fire hazards, we disassemble the 500 lb cabinets and begin scrubbing the carpet.
I probably doused the carpet with a 1/2 gallon of bleach.
No way in hell was I going to dish out thousands of dollars to replace something that has the potential to get ruined... again.
And lo and behold, the stains came out, the mold was killed and the entertainment center (which will have to be trashed after we sell) looked good enough from the front that you couldn't tell that barely anything was supporting it.
See, I say it might be cursed because at our old house the basement leaked.
Only behind the entertainment center.
And now this basement leaks.
Only behind the entertainment center.
I relandscaped the front yard to direct the water away from the front of the house where the wall is leaking. And I put a long drain tube on the downspout to keep all that water away also.
Last night I was awoken around 1 a.m. by a huge storm. I put on a bathrobe. Only a bathrobe. And headed downstairs and out the front door.
I wanted to make sure my contraption was working on the downspout (it was a bit rigged).
It wasn't. The tube I put on the downspout was too small to support the amount of water coming off the roof and it pouring water around the spout/tube connection.
I could see the water pooling by the house. Apparently my landscaping didn't help.
The lightning and thunder were constant. The water shooting out of the downspout looking like someone had opened a fire hydrant.
Something had to be done and be done fast if I didn't want all that water in my basement.
Thinking that a shovel wouldn't be a good idea with all the lighting, I began to furiously claw at the dirt making a trench to get the water away from the house.
Within seconds the robe is drenched. I'm drenched.
It's 1:00 in the morning and I'm digging in the mud with my hands during a huge thunderstorm.
Oh what a proud moment. It's times like these that I'm glad that we don't have security cameras anywhere nearby.
I probably looked like I was trying to bury a body or something.
The trench got dug, er, clawed to the point that the water was going away from the house.
And just at the moment I got done with that, the tornado sirens went off.
To say I freaked would be an understatement. I didn't quite scream out loud, but there were lots of "oh shits". Very quickly my mind wondered if that dull roaring sound I heard was rolling thunder or a funnel cloud about to pick up my body and throw it down the street.
Just what I need. My naked body (because the robe wasn't tied very well) tossed down the street and the neighbors wondering what the hell I was doing outside during a tornado.
I had no idea what that roar was so I dashed into the house, wet and muddy (over carpets we'd just had cleaned, but who cares. it's all about to get blown away anyway) Ran upstairs and scared the shit out of my dog when I grabbed his covered kennel with him in it. Grabbed a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that were on the bed (because I'll be damned if I'm going to repeat the "being-found-dead-and-naked" mistake.) and dashed back downstairs. Grabbed Oliver's leash as I headed around the corner and down the stairs into the leaky basement.
It's been a long time since I've really felt a true adrenaline rush. I'd forgotten what it was like.
The kennel with the dog in it felt like nothing.
And the stuffed nose that was keeping me awake? Completely clear.
Oliver was shaking when I took him out of his cage. My freaking out freaked him out. I put on the shorts and shirt and realized I had no shoes. If the storm didn't kill me, I was going to bleed to death walking over the tattered remains of our house.
At that moment I also realized that there's no safe place in the basement.
It's really one big room with a bathroom and small storage area. But the big room has two windows. The bathroom has plate glass doors on the shower and two large, mirrored closet doors. And the storage room is accessed through two more large, mirrored closet doors.
So my plan, if need be, was to head to the corner by the stairs and cower, with Oliver, under an overturned recliner.
But as I get the TV turned on, I find out that the tornado is already past.
However, my body has not been informed of this. And neither has Ollie. We stay in the basement for the next 45 minutes.
I try to get to sleep but I've still got that shaky feeling.
I'm not worried though because Friday is "field day" at school. No teaching. I don't really even need to be there.
This morning, Friday morning, I head right to the basement.
The carpet's wet again. The entertainment center will once again need to be disconnected, disassembled and the carpet cleaned.
And field day is cancelled.
Seriously. Does anyone know any rituals here? I'd be willing to sling a chicken head around the yard if I thought it would help.
Monday, April 28, 2008
why i love my job
I know I'm lucky. I actually love my job. And I also know it baffles some folks why I love what I do.
If you didn't know, I teach elementary music to kindergarten through 6th grade. No band or orchestra. Not even a choir. Just general music.
This is a half note. This is an eighth note.
I teach singing skills, music history, (yes my students can give you a detailed story on any number of composers' lives.) and music theory.
And yes, I teach recorders. But I refuse to teach them the song "Hot Cross Buns." If there's one thing I don't want it's for my students to grow up and have the only recollection of their elementary music days be that they could play "hot cross buns."
Ew.
But I love what I do because I love knowing the fact that I'm helping inspire the next generation of musicians and music appreciators. And maybe the occasional future music teacher.
Every once in a while, music makes it into something the students are doing in their regular classroom. The teachers are kind enough to share with me.
The first grade has been reading "The Caterpillar." Then they had to write a story using the same style and structure.
Today, a first grader personally handed me an autographed copy of his story.
What follows is a slightly edited (there were some words I had to have him translate) version of his story.
By: Wyatt
On Sunday Wyatt sang one song but he stil wonted to be a moosikel teacher.
On Monday Wyatt played two songs on peanow [piano] but he stil wonted to be a moosikel teacher.
On Tuesday Wyatt got to play three songs on the drums but he stil wonted to be a moosikel teacher.
On Wednesday Wyatt played four songs on the floot but he still wonted to be a moosikel teacher.
On Thursday Wyatt played five pop songs on a radeyo but he stil wonted to be a moosikel teacher.
On Friday Wyatt got to play six toons on the orgen but he still wonted to be a moosikel teacher.
On Saturday Wyatt did a hole moosik show with his kids and he WAS a moosikel teacher.
So, Mr. Makes-10-times-the-money-of-a-teacher-Bigshot, how many kids did YOU inspire today?
If you didn't know, I teach elementary music to kindergarten through 6th grade. No band or orchestra. Not even a choir. Just general music.
This is a half note. This is an eighth note.
I teach singing skills, music history, (yes my students can give you a detailed story on any number of composers' lives.) and music theory.
And yes, I teach recorders. But I refuse to teach them the song "Hot Cross Buns." If there's one thing I don't want it's for my students to grow up and have the only recollection of their elementary music days be that they could play "hot cross buns."
Ew.
But I love what I do because I love knowing the fact that I'm helping inspire the next generation of musicians and music appreciators. And maybe the occasional future music teacher.
Every once in a while, music makes it into something the students are doing in their regular classroom. The teachers are kind enough to share with me.
The first grade has been reading "The Caterpillar." Then they had to write a story using the same style and structure.
Today, a first grader personally handed me an autographed copy of his story.
What follows is a slightly edited (there were some words I had to have him translate) version of his story.
By: Wyatt
On Sunday Wyatt sang one song but he stil wonted to be a moosikel teacher.
On Monday Wyatt played two songs on peanow [piano] but he stil wonted to be a moosikel teacher.
On Tuesday Wyatt got to play three songs on the drums but he stil wonted to be a moosikel teacher.
On Wednesday Wyatt played four songs on the floot but he still wonted to be a moosikel teacher.
On Thursday Wyatt played five pop songs on a radeyo but he stil wonted to be a moosikel teacher.
On Friday Wyatt got to play six toons on the orgen but he still wonted to be a moosikel teacher.
On Saturday Wyatt did a hole moosik show with his kids and he WAS a moosikel teacher.
So, Mr. Makes-10-times-the-money-of-a-teacher-Bigshot, how many kids did YOU inspire today?
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
buy me
Just when you're getting up, life kicks you in the nads. (and I'm not referring to that ingenious Australian hair removal syrup)
The main source of income, Dustin's job, disappeared last week when they let him go.
Within a couple days we called a fabulous real-estate agent named Deb Mcfarland. This is the woman who sold our last house out from under us for a ridiculously high price. We're hoping she can do the same for us again.
Like the last house, we've updated almost every detail of this house. There's literally nothing else to do to this house except start doing major renovations like a new kitchen.
Here's my little list of upgrades that I've done:
New-
outlets and switches w/ dimmers (the gays need soft light)
plantation blinds
draperies
every ceiling and wall painted in decorator colors (to perfection, I might add, you should see how perfect my wall/ceiling corners are.)
faucets
door handles and hinges
cabinet pulls and hinges
ceiling fans
lighting fixtures
toilet seats
shower heads and handles
garage door opener
Italian ceramic tile in the entry, back hall, laundry and 1/2 bath
Turkish travertine on the fireplace and in the master bath
breast plate on the fire place
Refinished all the hardwood floors and trim throughout the house.
Refinished deck.
TO BE DONE:
Landscaping front yard
Mudjacking the driveway
Replacing a rotting window.
The realtor sent out a lackey to take pictures. But she didn't know angles or lighting. And we hadn't "staged" the house yet. (which is a remarkably difficult thing to do.) So I took some new ones to send to her.
Tell me if you think anyone will pay $199,877. We're basically asking for our money back on what we did and a little more to cover the realtor fees.
Here's the link to the realtors listing. With the old pictures. She hasn't put mine up yet.
The main source of income, Dustin's job, disappeared last week when they let him go.
Within a couple days we called a fabulous real-estate agent named Deb Mcfarland. This is the woman who sold our last house out from under us for a ridiculously high price. We're hoping she can do the same for us again.
Like the last house, we've updated almost every detail of this house. There's literally nothing else to do to this house except start doing major renovations like a new kitchen.
Here's my little list of upgrades that I've done:
New-
outlets and switches w/ dimmers (the gays need soft light)
plantation blinds
draperies
every ceiling and wall painted in decorator colors (to perfection, I might add, you should see how perfect my wall/ceiling corners are.)
faucets
door handles and hinges
cabinet pulls and hinges
ceiling fans
lighting fixtures
toilet seats
shower heads and handles
garage door opener
Italian ceramic tile in the entry, back hall, laundry and 1/2 bath
Turkish travertine on the fireplace and in the master bath
breast plate on the fire place
Refinished all the hardwood floors and trim throughout the house.
Refinished deck.
TO BE DONE:
Landscaping front yard
Mudjacking the driveway
Replacing a rotting window.
The realtor sent out a lackey to take pictures. But she didn't know angles or lighting. And we hadn't "staged" the house yet. (which is a remarkably difficult thing to do.) So I took some new ones to send to her.
Tell me if you think anyone will pay $199,877. We're basically asking for our money back on what we did and a little more to cover the realtor fees.
Here's the link to the realtors listing. With the old pictures. She hasn't put mine up yet.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
yea
University of Kansas (KU) won the NCAA national basketball championship.
Whoopee.
I admit that I am glad that this win means that the nation will be mentioning Kansas in a positive spin. It's better than hearing about Fred Phelps picketing another soldier's funeral (it's OK if he still pickets gay funerals) or about how our state board of education admonishes the teaching of evolution in Kansas Schools or how our state legislature is trying to make sure that the state spends more money on coal-fired power plants rather than wind energy.
Have you been to Western Kansas? It's freakin' windy out there. But there's more money in coal.
And I appreciated that I don't have to hear my collegues complaining about a loss for weeks on end. When the Jayhawks win, they talk about it, slap eachother on the back (they really do believe that their yelling at the TV helped win the game) and move on.
I teach in Lawrence, home of KU, but I could care less about KU or it's sports. KU hasn't done a whole lot for me besides make a drive across the little town take 20 minutes. And I have little interest in sports.
This shocks my co-workers.
"How can you NOT support KU? How could you NOT watch the game? Are you really that gay?"
I keep telling them, "I JUST DON'T CARE."
"HOW???"
I ask them, "Did you catch the Met's highly anticipated new production of 'Die Zauberflote' by Julie Taymore starring the brilliant and dashing Nathan Gunn on PBS?"
"Um, no."
"How could you miss that? It's one of the first German languange productions that the Met has actually done in English!"
"I'm not a fan of opera."
Exactly. I don't talk to you about opera. Don't talk to me about sports.
Instead of spending my weekend getting drunk and watching some boys dribble a ball, I refinished six deck chairs and a six-foot table.
I bought the set 5 years ago. And it hasn't really been taken care of since then. It's been sitting outside the whole time and besides the finish flaking off, it's held up remarkable well.
We bought a little electric palm sander last year just for this job. But I just got around to using it.
It's amazing. What would have taken days to sand by hand took a mere 8 hours with the palm sander.
The only problem is that for the last three days my hands have been tingly. Like I'm still holding the sander.
Weird.
I'd show pictures, but it's all still in the garage. Once we removed the table and chairs from the deck we realized that the deck needs repainting. And until Mother Nature decided we've had enough rain, the deck shall remain naked.
Whoopee.
I admit that I am glad that this win means that the nation will be mentioning Kansas in a positive spin. It's better than hearing about Fred Phelps picketing another soldier's funeral (it's OK if he still pickets gay funerals) or about how our state board of education admonishes the teaching of evolution in Kansas Schools or how our state legislature is trying to make sure that the state spends more money on coal-fired power plants rather than wind energy.
Have you been to Western Kansas? It's freakin' windy out there. But there's more money in coal.
And I appreciated that I don't have to hear my collegues complaining about a loss for weeks on end. When the Jayhawks win, they talk about it, slap eachother on the back (they really do believe that their yelling at the TV helped win the game) and move on.
I teach in Lawrence, home of KU, but I could care less about KU or it's sports. KU hasn't done a whole lot for me besides make a drive across the little town take 20 minutes. And I have little interest in sports.
This shocks my co-workers.
"How can you NOT support KU? How could you NOT watch the game? Are you really that gay?"
I keep telling them, "I JUST DON'T CARE."
"HOW???"
I ask them, "Did you catch the Met's highly anticipated new production of 'Die Zauberflote' by Julie Taymore starring the brilliant and dashing Nathan Gunn on PBS?"
"Um, no."
"How could you miss that? It's one of the first German languange productions that the Met has actually done in English!"
"I'm not a fan of opera."
Exactly. I don't talk to you about opera. Don't talk to me about sports.
Instead of spending my weekend getting drunk and watching some boys dribble a ball, I refinished six deck chairs and a six-foot table.
I bought the set 5 years ago. And it hasn't really been taken care of since then. It's been sitting outside the whole time and besides the finish flaking off, it's held up remarkable well.
We bought a little electric palm sander last year just for this job. But I just got around to using it.
It's amazing. What would have taken days to sand by hand took a mere 8 hours with the palm sander.
The only problem is that for the last three days my hands have been tingly. Like I'm still holding the sander.
Weird.
I'd show pictures, but it's all still in the garage. Once we removed the table and chairs from the deck we realized that the deck needs repainting. And until Mother Nature decided we've had enough rain, the deck shall remain naked.
Friday, April 4, 2008
long time gone
OK, I know. It's been forever since I updated.
I've never understood folks with Seasonal Affective Disorder. It's never seemd to "affective" me.
But that flooded basement must have put me over the edge. It hit me big and bad after that. The weight gain was the biggest sign that something was up. Even though I'm not back to previous weights, it's up and all my new clothes don't fit anymore. And that just sucks.
But since it's been warming up and we officially have 12 hours of sun again, it feels like things are picking back up.
So I'm back to the home projects front. The biggest project I've been putting off is the master bath. I thought it might take me a week. It took two. I had completely forgotten how much sitting around and waiting there is. And how freaking hard it is so stay bent over for hours at a time.
The demolition was the fun part. The linoleum and it's luan-wood backer came out in one big piece. The tile around the tub came out in big chunks because they'd just put the tile onto drywall. And the drywall under the towels (which had no tile) came out in one big piece.
Easy stuff. One day.
Then I started cutting the concrete backerboard that would go under and behind all the new tile. Cutting the stuff can be therapeutic. I'm sure there's some kind of electric saw that will whiz right through the stuff. But I'm cheap. So I used the scoring method. You have to make repeated marks on the board before you can snap it. And by repeated, I mean HUNDREDS of marks. I looked like someone with OCD. And the only way to fall asleep was to make this scratch 100 times.
That was Two days.
Now onto the tile. I found an awesome deal on travertine, (the same stone they used to build the pyramids and Roman aquaducts) for the floor. But I wanted a brick pattern 1"x2" travertine mosaic for the wall. And I couldn't find anything for less than $10.00/sq. ft. And with 50 sq. ft. to cover that was way above my budget.
Then I found Oracle Stone on ebay and they got me the stuff for $4.50 sq. ft. plus shipping. The final costs were $6.00 sq/ft.
Since we're not made of money and that's still expensive, I decided to liquidate some assets on craigslist. I sold a desk, desk chair, coffee table, scanner, dog kennel... well, the list is long.
Here's the bonus: The craigslist sale paid for all the tile.
OK. So floor tile cutting: One day.
Wall tile installation: Three days.
Waiting for everything to cure: Three days.
Waiting for grout to set: Three days.
My mini-spa.
Ahhhh.
I've never understood folks with Seasonal Affective Disorder. It's never seemd to "affective" me.
But that flooded basement must have put me over the edge. It hit me big and bad after that. The weight gain was the biggest sign that something was up. Even though I'm not back to previous weights, it's up and all my new clothes don't fit anymore. And that just sucks.
But since it's been warming up and we officially have 12 hours of sun again, it feels like things are picking back up.
So I'm back to the home projects front. The biggest project I've been putting off is the master bath. I thought it might take me a week. It took two. I had completely forgotten how much sitting around and waiting there is. And how freaking hard it is so stay bent over for hours at a time.
The demolition was the fun part. The linoleum and it's luan-wood backer came out in one big piece. The tile around the tub came out in big chunks because they'd just put the tile onto drywall. And the drywall under the towels (which had no tile) came out in one big piece.
Easy stuff. One day.
Then I started cutting the concrete backerboard that would go under and behind all the new tile. Cutting the stuff can be therapeutic. I'm sure there's some kind of electric saw that will whiz right through the stuff. But I'm cheap. So I used the scoring method. You have to make repeated marks on the board before you can snap it. And by repeated, I mean HUNDREDS of marks. I looked like someone with OCD. And the only way to fall asleep was to make this scratch 100 times.
That was Two days.
Now onto the tile. I found an awesome deal on travertine, (the same stone they used to build the pyramids and Roman aquaducts) for the floor. But I wanted a brick pattern 1"x2" travertine mosaic for the wall. And I couldn't find anything for less than $10.00/sq. ft. And with 50 sq. ft. to cover that was way above my budget.
Then I found Oracle Stone on ebay and they got me the stuff for $4.50 sq. ft. plus shipping. The final costs were $6.00 sq/ft.
Since we're not made of money and that's still expensive, I decided to liquidate some assets on craigslist. I sold a desk, desk chair, coffee table, scanner, dog kennel... well, the list is long.
Here's the bonus: The craigslist sale paid for all the tile.
OK. So floor tile cutting: One day.
Wall tile installation: Three days.
Waiting for everything to cure: Three days.
Waiting for grout to set: Three days.
My mini-spa.
Ahhhh.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
not much
Went to St. Louis. Visited with my terribly cute nephews. Yelled at my aunt. (she's partially deaf)
Came home to water in our basement/family room.
The one thing that's made all the home improvements and debt we've incurred in this house is my mantra, "At least the basement is dry."
At our last house the basement flooded twice. I'd tried to seal off the basement before I finished. But not two months after we'd finished a year's worth of work, water came up through the drain. We replaced the carpet and it flooded again.
It wasn't a difficult decision to move.
But apparently now it's time to move again.
I've been grumpy about it all week wondering what we can do.
The only thing that cheers me up is this:
Came home to water in our basement/family room.
The one thing that's made all the home improvements and debt we've incurred in this house is my mantra, "At least the basement is dry."
At our last house the basement flooded twice. I'd tried to seal off the basement before I finished. But not two months after we'd finished a year's worth of work, water came up through the drain. We replaced the carpet and it flooded again.
It wasn't a difficult decision to move.
But apparently now it's time to move again.
I've been grumpy about it all week wondering what we can do.
The only thing that cheers me up is this:
Monday, January 28, 2008
yukon, ho
That title would have been more humorous had I left out the comma. But I try to be a stickler about those things. Just last week the director of the Lawrence Children's Choir had her picture on the cover of a women's magazine along with a different photo of children-made snowmen. The caption read, "Director of the Lawrence Children's Choir Janeal Krehbiel, a festive and rotund snowman."
For the record, Janeal is about as big as my little finger.
Moving on.
It doesn't seem that long ago, but this summer marks 7 years since I've moved to the great (ahem) state of Kansas. I've been back to my old college stomping grounds of Iowa about three times in those seven years. Once was shortly after I actually left Iowa, I went back for a college roommates wedding. Then it was several years, and I went up for Wartburg's Homecoming. BIG mistake. Lots of rehashed memories of why I wanted out of Wartburg so bad.
And the last time was a couple weekends ago.
Of all the friendships I've made in my life, the longest in-contact friend has been Vic. This year marks our 10-year anniversary. (you can send gifts for us to my home.) It's one of those great friendships where we won't see each other for literally years and pick back up where we left off. But we call each other every month or so just to check in.
I picked a helluva weekend to head to northern Iowa. I watched my cars thermometer drop from 27 degrees all the way to 4 degrees, in sunlight, over the 6 hour drive.
The high on Saturday was -1. Yea, Iowa winters!
It was an awesome three day visit. We traveled to Cedar Falls and visited the mall where I worked at Von Maur. Ate at Hu Hot. (mmmmm) And spent a couple hours visiting an old college roommate, Chad, and his wife and kids.
Speaking of kids...
I love Vic to death. He's a great guy. Great friend. But he's no Rhodes scholar. He was a jock growing up. (funny. both these guys I visited are former jocks. And I'm as far from jock as you get. hm.)
But his 5 y/o son is some sort of genius. I know everyone thinks their kid is the smartest kid ever. But I seriously think this kid's the real deal. He has a memory for facts like I've never seen in a 5 y/o. He knows all the presidents, their vice presidents, where they're from and little details about their life. You can give him any number between 1 and 43 and he can tell you what president that is. He knows all the states, their capitals and their state mottos. For *fun* this kid likes to do math.
How this kid came from Vic I had NO idea. Maybe it's karma's way of giving back to Vic. He's a special ed teacher.
Here's a few pics.
Having breakfast at his wife's parent's house:
His in-laws are the best. Vic and Katie didn't have room for me in their house so the in-laws let me shack up there. It was the same bed I slept in while I was homeless for about two-weeks before I left for the Army.
Playing our favorite game Cathedral. (for some reason, no one else has ever heard of this game.)
While I was there, they hounded me for decorating advice. And apparently Katie couldn't wait to get started once I helped her pick out new colors.
I'm telling you, cream or beige walls and white trim will transform any room. Vic later called to tell me he was in the middle of redecorating hell. (you'll thank me later.)
And official pose. I look fat in this pic and my hair was smashed down. But at least I still have my hair. (it gives you a look of maturity, Vic)
And I got to drive through a blizzard on the way home. A proper send off. When it started letting up I snapped this.
Just for fun's sake, here's a Vic and Kevin pose at my first marathon that he convinced me I could run back in '99. (and yes, I finished.)
Here's one of Chad corrupting me in '98.
Here's was the one weird part (in my head only) of the whole trip.
See, Vic is married, has two kids a wife and dog. Chad has two kids a wife and a dog. Both of them have good jobs and live in nice ranch style houses they own.
That was supposed to be my life.
Before I came out, I had built up this fantasy of what I should do in life.
I should get married to a nice gal. Settle down in a nice ranch style house. Have two kids and get a dog.
Be "normal."
And while I understand there's no "normal," it was just odd seeing old friends living the life I had completely sold myself on. And though I'm glad I came to the understanding of who I am and understand how miserable I would have been being married to a woman, it sure would save on awkward situations like that last post.
For the record, Janeal is about as big as my little finger.
Moving on.
It doesn't seem that long ago, but this summer marks 7 years since I've moved to the great (ahem) state of Kansas. I've been back to my old college stomping grounds of Iowa about three times in those seven years. Once was shortly after I actually left Iowa, I went back for a college roommates wedding. Then it was several years, and I went up for Wartburg's Homecoming. BIG mistake. Lots of rehashed memories of why I wanted out of Wartburg so bad.
And the last time was a couple weekends ago.
Of all the friendships I've made in my life, the longest in-contact friend has been Vic. This year marks our 10-year anniversary. (you can send gifts for us to my home.) It's one of those great friendships where we won't see each other for literally years and pick back up where we left off. But we call each other every month or so just to check in.
I picked a helluva weekend to head to northern Iowa. I watched my cars thermometer drop from 27 degrees all the way to 4 degrees, in sunlight, over the 6 hour drive.
The high on Saturday was -1. Yea, Iowa winters!
It was an awesome three day visit. We traveled to Cedar Falls and visited the mall where I worked at Von Maur. Ate at Hu Hot. (mmmmm) And spent a couple hours visiting an old college roommate, Chad, and his wife and kids.
Speaking of kids...
I love Vic to death. He's a great guy. Great friend. But he's no Rhodes scholar. He was a jock growing up. (funny. both these guys I visited are former jocks. And I'm as far from jock as you get. hm.)
But his 5 y/o son is some sort of genius. I know everyone thinks their kid is the smartest kid ever. But I seriously think this kid's the real deal. He has a memory for facts like I've never seen in a 5 y/o. He knows all the presidents, their vice presidents, where they're from and little details about their life. You can give him any number between 1 and 43 and he can tell you what president that is. He knows all the states, their capitals and their state mottos. For *fun* this kid likes to do math.
How this kid came from Vic I had NO idea. Maybe it's karma's way of giving back to Vic. He's a special ed teacher.
Here's a few pics.
Having breakfast at his wife's parent's house:
His in-laws are the best. Vic and Katie didn't have room for me in their house so the in-laws let me shack up there. It was the same bed I slept in while I was homeless for about two-weeks before I left for the Army.
Playing our favorite game Cathedral. (for some reason, no one else has ever heard of this game.)
While I was there, they hounded me for decorating advice. And apparently Katie couldn't wait to get started once I helped her pick out new colors.
I'm telling you, cream or beige walls and white trim will transform any room. Vic later called to tell me he was in the middle of redecorating hell. (you'll thank me later.)
And official pose. I look fat in this pic and my hair was smashed down. But at least I still have my hair. (it gives you a look of maturity, Vic)
And I got to drive through a blizzard on the way home. A proper send off. When it started letting up I snapped this.
Just for fun's sake, here's a Vic and Kevin pose at my first marathon that he convinced me I could run back in '99. (and yes, I finished.)
Here's one of Chad corrupting me in '98.
Here's was the one weird part (in my head only) of the whole trip.
See, Vic is married, has two kids a wife and dog. Chad has two kids a wife and a dog. Both of them have good jobs and live in nice ranch style houses they own.
That was supposed to be my life.
Before I came out, I had built up this fantasy of what I should do in life.
I should get married to a nice gal. Settle down in a nice ranch style house. Have two kids and get a dog.
Be "normal."
And while I understand there's no "normal," it was just odd seeing old friends living the life I had completely sold myself on. And though I'm glad I came to the understanding of who I am and understand how miserable I would have been being married to a woman, it sure would save on awkward situations like that last post.
Monday, January 14, 2008
outting
I'm very excited. This is the first post I've gotten to use a double entendre in the title.
I teach between two schools. One is in the middle of Lawrence straddling the hipster/artist and old professor neighborhoods. At parent teacher conferences you'll see a dad in a tweed jacket waiting next to a gothish, dread-locked mom. I guess what I'm saying is that it's liberal.
The other school it way out in the country. Until the 90's, it was it's own district. All the farmers' property taxes went right to that little school. Then when the farmers started leaving, the school was strapped for cash and sucked in by the much larger Lawrence Public School system. The families around that school are the kind of families who have grandparents who went to that school. And the teachers there taught those grandparents. I guess what I'm saying is that they're not big on change.
It probably goes without saying that I feel more comfortable opening up about my personal life at one school more than the other.
I've only discussed my private life with exactly three co-teachers at the country school. And apparently it was enough to scare two of them away.
The community is so close knit out there that you can't drop a pin without the rest of the school and every parent knowing about it. So mums the word. Especially when nosy parents who are well-enough intentioned, and from whom I need support, get to asking questions like, "So when am I ever gonna meet this wife of yours? It's been four years now and still haven't seen her!"
This only tells me that they're talking about it when I'm not around.
Well, last week, they were given something else to talk about.
The beginning of this school year I came out to one other colleague. She's a traveling social worker for the district. She reminds me of my friend Jill from college. So I immediately liked her. And when I found out her best friend was as gay-as-a-picnic, I felt OK coming out to her and sharing a bit about my life.
Then, last week after school, I was cornered on the playground by a nosy parent and a couple teachers. We were basically talking shop when one of the parents shared that she was working as a para educator at another school. She mentioned something about a music colleague of mine whom I co-teach with occasionally. But instead of using the word colleague, she chose the word "Partner."
The social worker was close by and only overheard a bit of the conversation. She comes over and says, "You're partner works in the Lawrence Schools? I thought he had a good job at Goodyear and that's why you too stayed in Topeka?"
My eyes got big as I looked at her and said, "Um, my MUSIC partner at PINCKNEY. SETH."
She could tell by the horrified looks on everyone faces that she'd just accidentally outted me and then quickly found something she needed to be doing leaving me to worm my way out.
After a second of silence I said something about needing to get to the gym. I'm sure they interpreted that to mean "Have anal sex with a man."
Coincidentally, earlier that week I scheduled hetero on Friday with Trainer/Friend Beth. An 'outting' if you will to celebrate her new job (Yea Beth! You're a big girl now!) And oh, the things you straight boys could learn from us fags.
Beth to Kevin: "That was the best date I've had in over a year."
Here's my date rules:
1. Pick her up.
2. Bring flowers. Tulips are always classic.
3. Open her car door.
4. If you're going casual, sit at the tables by the bar. Usually faster service anyway.
5. The conversation should be 30% about you, 70% about her. Of you're 30%, you need to spend at least 5% on compliments. But not more than 10%. Then you seem desperate.
6. Alcohol is good.
7. Don't stare at the other girls (or boys) in the restaurant.
8. Eat like a lady.
9. Casual touching is OK in the restaurant. But save the drunken groping till you're in private.
10. Pay for the meal. (sorry Beth, I broke this rule. But you're rich now.)
11. Take her home. Don't go in unless you're invited. And don't go in at all if it's the first date.
12. Wait till she's safely inside before you drive off.
13. If you had a good time, screw the "wait three days till you call" rule.
If you boys could just follow these rules, you'd get a LOT more call backs.
sidenote: works for gay men too. Just replace "girl" and "her" with "gurl" or "the queen"
I teach between two schools. One is in the middle of Lawrence straddling the hipster/artist and old professor neighborhoods. At parent teacher conferences you'll see a dad in a tweed jacket waiting next to a gothish, dread-locked mom. I guess what I'm saying is that it's liberal.
The other school it way out in the country. Until the 90's, it was it's own district. All the farmers' property taxes went right to that little school. Then when the farmers started leaving, the school was strapped for cash and sucked in by the much larger Lawrence Public School system. The families around that school are the kind of families who have grandparents who went to that school. And the teachers there taught those grandparents. I guess what I'm saying is that they're not big on change.
It probably goes without saying that I feel more comfortable opening up about my personal life at one school more than the other.
I've only discussed my private life with exactly three co-teachers at the country school. And apparently it was enough to scare two of them away.
The community is so close knit out there that you can't drop a pin without the rest of the school and every parent knowing about it. So mums the word. Especially when nosy parents who are well-enough intentioned, and from whom I need support, get to asking questions like, "So when am I ever gonna meet this wife of yours? It's been four years now and still haven't seen her!"
This only tells me that they're talking about it when I'm not around.
Well, last week, they were given something else to talk about.
The beginning of this school year I came out to one other colleague. She's a traveling social worker for the district. She reminds me of my friend Jill from college. So I immediately liked her. And when I found out her best friend was as gay-as-a-picnic, I felt OK coming out to her and sharing a bit about my life.
Then, last week after school, I was cornered on the playground by a nosy parent and a couple teachers. We were basically talking shop when one of the parents shared that she was working as a para educator at another school. She mentioned something about a music colleague of mine whom I co-teach with occasionally. But instead of using the word colleague, she chose the word "Partner."
The social worker was close by and only overheard a bit of the conversation. She comes over and says, "You're partner works in the Lawrence Schools? I thought he had a good job at Goodyear and that's why you too stayed in Topeka?"
My eyes got big as I looked at her and said, "Um, my MUSIC partner at PINCKNEY. SETH."
She could tell by the horrified looks on everyone faces that she'd just accidentally outted me and then quickly found something she needed to be doing leaving me to worm my way out.
After a second of silence I said something about needing to get to the gym. I'm sure they interpreted that to mean "Have anal sex with a man."
Coincidentally, earlier that week I scheduled hetero on Friday with Trainer/Friend Beth. An 'outting' if you will to celebrate her new job (Yea Beth! You're a big girl now!) And oh, the things you straight boys could learn from us fags.
Beth to Kevin: "That was the best date I've had in over a year."
Here's my date rules:
1. Pick her up.
2. Bring flowers. Tulips are always classic.
3. Open her car door.
4. If you're going casual, sit at the tables by the bar. Usually faster service anyway.
5. The conversation should be 30% about you, 70% about her. Of you're 30%, you need to spend at least 5% on compliments. But not more than 10%. Then you seem desperate.
6. Alcohol is good.
7. Don't stare at the other girls (or boys) in the restaurant.
8. Eat like a lady.
9. Casual touching is OK in the restaurant. But save the drunken groping till you're in private.
10. Pay for the meal. (sorry Beth, I broke this rule. But you're rich now.)
11. Take her home. Don't go in unless you're invited. And don't go in at all if it's the first date.
12. Wait till she's safely inside before you drive off.
13. If you had a good time, screw the "wait three days till you call" rule.
If you boys could just follow these rules, you'd get a LOT more call backs.
sidenote: works for gay men too. Just replace "girl" and "her" with "gurl" or "the queen"
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