Running On Empty

Facebook

2012-02-06T09:55:00.004-06:00

Now that I have a Facebook account, I am not sure how to distinguish between what might be appropriate for the blog and what would fit better on Facebook. I do not remember these philosophical dilemmas twenty, even ten, years ago. Maybe length and depth are the criteria. I also imagine more people follow my Facebook page than read my blog. I have "friended" so many people. (I still have not accepted friend as a verb. I am not too excited about gifting either.)
I guess if I want many people to immediately know I have a hangnail, I will post that to Facebook. If, on the other hand, I want to discuss the philosophy of injuries to the hand, I will add that to the blog.
About the hand. . .

Response

2012-01-31T22:11:00.002-06:00

I was reading propaganda from the community college where I work, and I found myself responding, "Yah, whatever." Maybe I need an attitude adjustment. . . or just less imposed comradery(sp?) and forced school spirit. I enjoy my students and the people with whom I work, and I try to do my best to make the classroom experience a good one. Just don't try to regiment what I do into some formula for bureacracy's sake. There, I've said it.

More Teaching

2012-01-27T17:26:00.004-06:00

I thought, for about a minute, that it would be fun to draw and write a cartoon. If I did, it would be akin to Dilbert and Get Fuzzy, the former because I have some experience with school bureaucracy and the latter just because. Lampooning post-secondary education would be particularly enjoyable. Alas, my drawing skills are subpar. Maybe I could write a book of essays, sort of a Woody Allen tribute, just not as Jewish and depressed.

To Teach

2012-01-19T13:45:00.002-06:00

I never tire of teaching. Of course there is the occasional tedium, and frequently there is the smart ass in the back row, but I love it anyway. Part of the fun is getting to know the quiet students, the shy ones, the angry ones who have been forced to take a class against their will, the men and women who are hungry to learn, and even the smart asses. All of their stories are fascinating to me. I am so fortunate to have fallen into this career.

Computers

2012-01-16T11:09:00.003-06:00

Sometimes it is as though the monitor is a big, gaping mouth swallowing me whole. I go from email to Facebook to internet to blogs I follow. Time does not exist inside the mouth. When I escape, as inevitably I do, the clock that has been in the corner of the screen suddenly surprises me. Will I always escape or will I become like Tron?
I noticed, however, that my sojourns into cyberspace have not included posting to my blog. Hmmm.

Saturday Morning

2011-09-10T11:27:00.002-05:00

It's raining, a good thing for the green turned brown foliage. I am still trying to heal from the oral surgery. I have over 40 essays to grade. I am attending a wedding this evening that my husband will probably not enjoy. Looks like the weather is the high point of the day.

The Dentist Can Be Fun

2011-09-06T13:00:00.003-05:00

I just got home from the dentist. A simple proceedure, they said. I can return to work. But they did not mention the tylenol with codeine--no driving on that. Don't worry the wound with your tongue, another directive. But I am still a bit numb and my tongue feels 3 inches wider than normal since the shots and two hands, a foot, and various equipment pushed it around. How do I control it? Then there is the restricted diet--cold and soft. Suddenly all I can think of is ice cream, which is so not on my diet. What a fun experience:)

Hot

2011-07-19T17:51:00.002-05:00

99 degrees in the shade on the back porch. Need I say more?
Will this be the summer of the national heat wave? People in Houston and Oklahoma are laughing at all us tenderfeet (tenderfoots?) in the Midwest who are complaining after only a week or so of the blistering heat. They have been in the grip of 100 degree days for at least a month. So are Alaska and Canada holding back? They need to share even th weakest of cool fronts.

Dusting

2011-07-08T17:40:00.002-05:00

In this current funk, for months I have not wanted to do housework. One might ask what is wrong with me. I would like to propose that a sane person would ask, "You liked doing housework?"

not much

2011-07-05T13:31:00.002-05:00

Life has been complicated by the bipolar stuff. I don't have the emotional or physical energy to post much, or do much of anything else.
I will say that for a city where fireworks are supposed to be illegal ( in undesignated areas like alleys and yards) there sure was a lot of very close noise well into the night on the 4th. I'm glad the landscape was wet.

A Dance

2011-03-11T12:24:00.004-06:00

I was just reading my eldest daughter's blog and felt inspired. I am actually inspired by all of my daughters in different ways. But about the eldest--I am in awe of all she manages to do and to do well. From quilting to knitting to rearing wonderful children. But sometimes I think she feels the need to justify herself to me. Maybe I make some random comment about some toy in her living room and she says she has not had the time to pick up the entire downstairs, which is where her two year old stays so busy with everything. I don't mean to confront her housekeeping skills. How she keeps her house is up to her, and she has three kids who move from room to room dropping detritus. That' just what it's like to have children, happy children. The funny thing is that in this dance we both join, I feel like I want to justify myself to her. Mentally ill (God, that is a horrible term), I often lack energy, lack the will to be creative. And I want her to understand that I am not lazy so much as very emotionally tired. Maybe she already understands, but I decided to write about this since I doubt I will ever be able to say it out loud.

Flurries

2011-01-07T08:33:00.003-06:00

I am up and dressed early today--a good sign. Some mornings present more demons than others do. But today is cold and gray. Through the window by my computer I can watch white particles of snow float to the ground. It will not accumulate today, a pity. But the black limbs of a naked tree and the stark gray-white sky make the perfect backdrop for the precious few flakes. Others may dread days like this, but I am energized.

Washing Clothes

2011-01-05T11:52:00.003-06:00

I love doing laundry. Years ago, my family and I were visiting the godparents to our third child. They lived in California where we had lived for a second a couple of years previous to the trip. I made some comment about it being easier to be the visitors leaving since we had the goal of driving cross country while Ed and Virginia would have the empty house (possibly a blessing now that I think of it). Virginia answered that she would do laundry, the sheets and whatever else was dirty in the house. She was the mother of seven grown children, none at home or even in the same town but all at least occasional visitors. So I listened as she wisely explained how fulfilling laundry could be, that it was not really hard work but there was so much to show for the effort. She was right, of course. And I have often thought of her as I folded towels or hung shirts on hangers. I guess this all ties in to the new year. No wonder we say things like a "clean" break or a "fresh" start. A wise woman indeed.

A Merry Christmas

2010-12-26T11:54:00.005-06:00

We have survived another Christmas. That is probably not a fair assessment. Survival implies that it could have done us in, and this year has been anything but that--gifts were welcomed; children were happy; adults were tired but pleased. I do not think we could ask for anything more. A high point for me was my immediate family attending Mass together, at least my children and most of the grandchildren. One exception was my six year old granddaughter who became ill and could not quite make it to 10 p.m. Mass. She was sliding into chills and fever, so she and her dad and her 23 month old brother stayed behind at our house napping in anticipation of opening presents. My own children all attended, however, including my son and his family who live in Texas. And we were all together for the grand opening of the gifts. It is interesting to watch how the long anticipated unveiling combined with a post midnight time frame and gobs of sweets can affect nine year olds. At one point, the adults imposed a moment of pause just to keep the two older girls from exploding. I loved it as I did all of the thoughtful gifts that came my way. Christmas day for us meant gathering once again for my husband's delicious pancakes before we all went our separate ways. We all began to decompress, and now this extra rest day, a bonus of a Sunday, should bring us all back to reality in a soft landing kind of way.
Christmas is my favorite time of year, and this year even provided us with a few inches of snow on the ground. I am truly happy.

Listening

2010-11-07T13:20:00.004-06:00

My grandson, at about 20 months, may be having some language delay problems. His mother is on top of it, so I know all will be well (good?), but it has me thinking about language and how it is both precious and dangerous. Language holds us together as family, as a society, as whatever community to which we may belong. But it also can wound or be misunderstood. My reaction, at least to spoken language, is to over explain if people do not seem to get what I have said. That my be the teacher in me. I believe I may also overdo it when I attempt to be neutral and cater to both sides of an issue. This is all the more ironic since I know, as a writing teacher, that language we put on a page can be the best of learning tools. I have no solution or conclusion--just the observations.

This Time Last Year

2010-09-30T22:54:00.003-05:00

I am about one year post now--past the second knee surgery. That six months of recovery was filled with weirdness. For one thing, I was in the middle of manic panic. I did not realize it was mania since I did not go for days without sleeping, but I was crocheting linoleum floors for Christmas. Everyone got crochet or cross stich or both. Crazy times. At the same time, I was so focused on being a good patient that recovery went well. I have a deep need to do something well to garner accolades. Since I prefer not to have any more surgery, I must find some other activity that makes me shine.

Christmas Ideas

2010-08-16T17:51:00.003-05:00

I was stopped in traffic near Walgreens. I read the outside bulletin board: doz eggs on the first line, some kind of lotion on the second, and Flu Shots Gift Cards on the third. The "Flu Shots" posting had no apostrophe, but spelling has deteriorated so badly that it could have been an oversight. I studied the sign and decided that I could get all my Christmas shopping done in one convenient store. After all, who couldn't use some eggs and lotion? My favorite, however, would be gift cards for flu shots.
Does anyone remember when a drug store was a pharmacy, some over the counter medications, and a few toiletries?

House

2010-05-25T14:58:00.003-05:00

I really enjoy my house, a 1904 two family we converted to a large one family. My husband did much of the rennovation and it is lovely. But is is big, and I have been healing from knee surgery, first one replaced and then three months later the other one, for about ten months now. The house is, frankly, dirty. It is not just a little vacuuming. I need to clean windows and baseboards. So I thought I would bitch on my blog rather than attack the obvious. It is such a large job that I am overwhelmed.
I want a maid. There was even a butler on the ship.

Long Time Gone

2010-05-19T09:27:00.003-05:00

I have been to England on the Queen Mary II since last writing. It was an experience of a lifetime. With so many people waiting on me, I was definitely spoiled. Now I have to make my own bed and cook my own meals. It is a let down.

The ship was wonderful and the week in London was full of museums and pub food. We have over 120 pictures of the vacation. The above is the tower where Big Ben, a bell, is located. My husband keeps calling it Big Bend in honor of a road in St. Louis and also to annoy me. Notice the overcast sky--only occasional sun a couple of mornings. When they give a forecast, they note the degree of overcast, eg. bright, rather than predict sun. And it is the coldest opening of May many natives could remember. In spite of the weather, we had a wonderful time. It will take weeks to digest all we saw.

Human Contact

2010-04-26T12:47:00.003-05:00

Thursday is the big day. We are sailing to England on the Queen Mary II. It should be incredibly exciting. I am afraid of the flying part, but the ship should not be so scary. It is as big as a small town.
The bipolar keeps me by myself more than not. I have to work on this getting out and being sociable thing. Now I did get a call tody from soemone I believe was a Jehovah's Witness. that was a strange interlude. I don't think she agreed with all of my answers to her queries. When she got to the offering of an article, I politely ended the conversation. I may need human contact, but I am not sure she qualified as someone to cheer me.

Still Around

2010-04-22T11:13:00.003-05:00

No, I have not left the country or gone into some cloistered nunnery. I have just been struggling with this bipolar diagnosis. It has been difficult to type even a short entry. Besides racing thoughts, there is the anxiety. I have considered writing about the symptoms and such, something for novices at this journey, but do I really want to frighten the newly initiated?

Hypomania

2010-01-17T13:43:00.002-06:00

Now that I reread that previous entry, I wonder about the sharp edges. I still think there are none when it comes to solutions. No clear route presents itself. However, occasional moments of black and white, extreme contrast, do present themselves. I have recently been told the acute sense of other people's errors is a symptom of hypomania. Irritability does not reach the threshold of true mania. I am curious about the term hypomania. A hyper thyroid is overactive while hypothyroidism means under activity. So is hypomania an underachieving mania? Could there even exist a hypermania?
I have to agree with Eddie Izzard in his observation of dyslexia as a term. He commented that dyslexia is not such a swell choice to label a disorder suffered by people who have trouble with spelling. Why not call it "bonk?" I think that people who come up with some of the labels need to examine their process. Getting back to hypomania, isn't the term mania an extreme already? To me that implies no possibility of hypermania. Consider the derivative maniac. That label plainly describes ultimate behavior and not a continuum. Or am I wrong? Are there classes of extreme? Could someone be hypermanic or even uber manic? Hypo suggests under, less, insufficient. Hypoglycemia is another example. I cannot define that one but I believe it has to do with sugar production and there is the contrasting hyperglycemia.
What this all comes down to is that hypomania is a misnomer. How can there be less that sufficient mania? The set of symptoms delineates a real condition, but call it something else. Otherwise the treatment should aim for increasing the insufficient symptoms until true mania is achieved.

Expectations, Not Great

2010-01-12T21:41:00.003-06:00

In depression there is a disconnect somewhere among expectations, realities, and results. The would-be ballerina expects that she will be a dancer. Reality is that she has two left feet. The result is somewhat short of ballet.
The ballerina example is over simplified since depression goes on in some intangible zone of thought and emotions. So I might expect to weather the storm of a family visit, and the reality is that I survive it. Their departure, however, results in a let down. I do not know why; searching for that reason may not even be the key.
Depression is a foggy place where sharp edges and facile answers recede.

2010-01-11T18:13:00.004-06:00

After having commented on Vick returning to football, I thought it would only be fair to likewise say something about Mark McGwire's confession and his return to a coaching position with the Cardinals. After all, I am a St. Louisan, so I should watch my own backyard first.
There are several differences between Vick's and McGwire's cases, as there are differences between McGwire and , say, a cocaine using athlete.

Steroids were not banned by baseball when McGwire used them.

No animals were harmed by his use.

McGwire did not have t-shirts made advertising any illegal activities.

Steroid use did not hinder his ability to perform in a way the club expected.

Except for the danger to his own health, McGwire did not threaten the safety of his family.

If Vick's case gave hope to out of work felons, the McGwire's example might be one of how to get around congressional scrutiny.

Comedy and God

2010-01-10T15:20:00.002-06:00

We went to see Eddie Izzard last evening. His flight of ideas style is wonderful and something I totally understand. I was thrown a bit by his not believing in God. I wanted to have a theological discussion with him which is what I did in my head. It is a sad comment on much of Europe and so called scientific persons that God does not fit into their world view. Then I realized I was there for the comedy, and that was great--even the pokes at the papacy. I guess I can go as far as the Monty Pythonesque big personage telling King Arthur not to grovel, but I am not cool enough to give up on God. He/She has a sense of humor. Of that I am sure.
If you know me well enough to talk with me, ask about the badger joke.

Snow and No

2010-01-08T04:11:00.004-06:00

We had a "snow event" Wednesday into Thursday with about 5 inches of soft, dry snow followed by strong wind gusts and frigid cold. I swept the front and back walks. The snow was light enough in weight to allow for a broom--not as heart attack inducing as a shovel . I enjoyed the tiny excursion into the cold and was then grateful for a warm house and cats to warm the lap.
I said no to the job, and I feel okay about that. It did occur to me that I was closing one door but am not sure where that damned window might be that I could now open.

Work

2010-01-06T14:51:00.002-06:00

A former employer phoned me this morning and presented me with a dilemma. There is an opening that I could certainly fill. It would include tutoring in math as well as English, but a pretty basic math level. I would only need some brush up on basic algebra. It is just ten minutes from my home, and I would be working with a population I really enjoy. It was kind of them to think of me. I know I could do the work and be happy at it. The pay is also decent although it is a part time job with no benefits as is so often true of community college work. So far it is only funded for this semester with a possibility of a supplemental budget item in the future. No situation is ever perfect, is it? And there is the already paid for cruise at the end of April. I went so far as to look into changing the dates since it would be right before exam time--a necessarily busy time for the tutoring. Change does not look possible. Considering all of this is giving me a headache.

Difference

2010-01-03T15:30:00.002-06:00

I wonder what the difference is between depression and unhappiness. I get anger, something I did not express enough of for much of my life. And I understand resentment that grows out of anger. I try to deal with resentments as they present themselves--work through the anger, pray for the person, do something physical. But I would like to discover what it means to be unhappy compared to depressed. From language use, many people attribute unhappiness to circumstances and such that can be changed. Depression is more of a sentence that has to be commuted by drugs or talk therapy or both.

Sometimes I feel like there is another step that I am not privy to. Today the homily at church included advice about not living so much for the planned future that we miss the here and now. "Everything will be fine once I get the job," or "Things will be good once I retire" were two examples of possibly not getting much out of today. I am willing to grant that living only for a plan is not healthy or holy, but what then is the next step? If God grants me the serenity to know what I can change and what I cannot, what do I then do about the unchanged stuff?

Bird Dream

2009-12-30T00:57:00.003-06:00

This may be a mental process that is unique to me, but I feel like I need to come to a crisis. I am still up and at the computer at 12:58 a.m. That may not sound so late, but I know I will have trouble forcing myself to get up in the morning. I am pretty wired and it will be an hour or more before I can settle into sleep. This morning I let the alarm--tuned to talk radio--run out its hour and I remained in bed. Then I had a dream that woke me to tears. It included the demise of a pet bird--death by reckless treatment at the hands of a member of my family. My thought process did not improve upon waking. I ruminated over resentments, a total waste of time and effort. Something is going on and I cannot recognize what I need to do to get through the current mood. I am staying busy. I plan at least a couple tasks/errands each day and I am reading two books, a mystery and a drawing instruction book. That last involves exercises with pencil and paper that I am enjoying. I fear my current state is one of those situations I will not understand until I have weathered the storm. Why can I not step outside of myself and observe? If a friend were having these difficulties, I would probably be able to offer advice. Now that I write this, I realize that my reaction to the dream was not so much sadness over the bird's death but it was rather my frustration that someone in the dream did not understand my being upset.
So, are birds symbolic? Should I be perusing Jung?

Some More on Christmas P.M.

2009-12-30T00:34:00.004-06:00

With children letting dogs out of cages, fighting over the one oversized Nerf gun, and running in and out of the 20 degree weather with no attention to door closing, Bevin, my 27 year old daughter, who is childless and usually willing to ignore others' children, stood up at the table where she had been seated and asked, " Should I be in charge of applying corporal punishment?" It was so appropriate. Many of the adults in the room had been wishing they could smack one or more of the over stimulated monsters, all except the parents of course. And my 24 year old daughter Colleen, also unmarried and childless, proceeded to drink at least 6 glasses of wine. Her debriefing about the whole situation when we got back to my house was pretty succinct as well. And the gift exchange for the adults was basically reach in the box and pick something. I have to admit we just gave out Bread Company gift cards. Maybe we should rethink the whole concept and go bowling.

Christmas and Blahs

2009-12-28T13:26:00.005-06:00

Now for the post-Christmas blahs. I thought I had some of the holiday rush issues licked this year. While I was recuperating from the second knee surgery, I crocheted and sewed some of the gifts, and I did both early antique mall shopping and timely online purchasing. But I neglected to consider the physical efforts involved with a son graduating on the 18th of December and preparation for the annual Christmas open house which fell this year on the 23rd. Then there was the anxiety of the gift opening. Will everyone be pleased? Were we fair in distribution among the kids? Will the grandkids like what I made? At least Christmas Eve Mass was calming. We sat in the 2nd pew--Terry and I did not fit in the 3rd with the rest of the family. Coats and sleeping children take up lots of room:) No one else sat as far forward as we, so it was very like the Mass and the readings were directed to us. It was a thoughtful high point to the holiday. After Communion, I went to the back of church and took the sleeping Leo to relieve Bridgett for a moment. I could not describe better than she did (in South City Musings) how peaceful the new cry room area is. With child gates instead of glass, it seems less removed than more traditional cry rooms. And it's downright comfy. Then was the frenzy of gift opening at our house and another late night. I have to admit that everyone at least appeared happy with the seasons spoils.

Tired and slipping into anticlimax mode, Terry and I took Bevin and Colleen to Terry's sister Paula's house on Christmas afternoon. That was exceedingly uncomfortable for me, and I am still not sure what it was about the gathering that disturbed me. The truth is probably that there were many things. Terry's mom is still recovering from a year of terrible health problems. She is better than in July or September, but she is not nearly back to her level of activity at this time last year. There are also old issues that I believe I am more cognizant of now than ever before. Three of Terry's brothers were MIA, each with personal and family reasons. The children who were there, the under 12 year old set, are not so like the generation before. A couple are feral, and others have so much baggage at a young age that their behavior is bizarre. And the adults all looked more than a year older than they did this time last year. Again, I may just be more aware of the change. My current drug regimen does not numb me as some of the previous cocktails did.

After all of the rest of the pleasant events, including a highly successful party, I keep coming back to the ennui of Christmas afternoon. Maybe it is only fatigue and being alone with my thoughts. I think I will get busy, go to Target, maybe buy a pocket calendar for 2010. That should help.

Karma?

2009-12-15T20:41:00.004-06:00

What exactly was I thinking when I began this blog? I want to be at least a little into the 21st century. I like to write for cathartic reasons. Two of my daughters have blogs. I need one more thing to hang over my head so I can feel uneasy about not getting to it. Maybe I could show off what a swell writer I can be. Is at least one of those a good reason? HMMMMM.
Recovery from knee replacement sucks. Pain fools you and your mind can go to places it probably shouldn't. I have done a lot of thinking about death and about how alone I am in the universe although I have a husband, four children and their spouses or significant others, four grandchildren, various aunts and uncles and cousins, and at least a hand full of friends. Funny thing about pain that keeps you from sleeping is that none of those warm beings bring comfort because they are either not present or irritatingly asleep and thus removed. Self pity, on the other hand, is omnipresent at 3 a.m.
Most of the major experiences, as well as a few minor ones, in my life have come with LESSON written all over them. Whose pain have I not comforted? To whom have I shown impatience rather than sympathy or empathy? The person who leaps to mind is my mom. I cannot fix that now--she is over 10 years dead. Maybe this is what karma means. I get to experience some of the pain I did not acknowledge. I have to deal with my own and it makes me realize I could have been better with her. And now I want to fix it but cannot. Maybe I can reach out to someone else. I will have to be wary. People have reached out to me but I have not trusted enough to believe their sincerity. More family of origin issues.
As I write this, tears well up in my eyes. Some of that is fatigue and some of it is allowing myself to feel.

2009-12-07T12:15:00.003-06:00

I have taken a vacation of sorts from the blog. After this 2nd knee replacement (the 1st was back in July) I have avoided the computer. Its location on the 2nd floor makes it difficult to just casually use when it is so hard to maneuver the steps. I also was feeling a nagging antipathy toward all things technological. I have joined Facebook, have an email account, and I occasionally blog, all of which sound like good ideas. However, Facebook has come with invitations to Mafia Wars and requests for Farmville while the email account includes some newsletters I should probably drop. They tend to aggravate more than inform. At the same time, the blogging began to feel like an obligation. None of that sounds like fun, does it? On the other hand, I suffer from chronic depression and the pain after surgery certainly did not help. Writing would be a possible relief. Anyone out there who has experienced clinical depression knows that opportunities for relief are not necessarily the choices a depressed person makes.
So here I am after being away for awhile. The currently prescribed antidepressant, Pristiq, seems effective as a leveling agent and we are into the cold of winter, something I enjoy. The house has grown messy during my recovery from surgery, so I am plunging into long overdue vacuuming today--things like baseboards. That should cheer me. Maybe after a few hours of housework, technology and computing will look oh-so-much better.

Ex-cons

2009-08-18T18:20:00.002-05:00

I was genuinely pleased to see someone gave Michael Vick a chance. From personal experience with ex-offenders I have taught in college, I know that having a felony record makes job hunting a nightmare. Just imagine what a boost Vick's story will be for this marginalized group. They can look at him and take heart, especially the males. All they have to do is get into really good shape--preliminary planning like playing football in a college setting and maybe being drafted by the NFL before being arrested would be helpful--and then upon release or parole there will be the opportunity for a job with benefits in the NFL. As long as the ex-con can make the franchise money, there is no limit to the possibilities. And what is even better is that this chance is not only for the nonviolent offenders. Heinous crimes like rape, murder, and egregious cruelty to animals do not make make the NFL nor the NBA squeamish. Fame and infamy are blurred in those worlds.
I can see it now. there will be a whole new area of nonprofit training programs in the prisons. Classes like "How to Turn Your Felony into Fasttrack Football" and "Creative Fiction in Sports Resume Writing" will be taught at maximum security institutions. Best of all, the society is finally achieving some real justice. Pulpits and political forums have been the venues for preaching that prisoners can be rehabilitated, so we should all be open to hiring ex-offenders. Practice has never followed the preaching closely until now. The benevolent NFL has stepped up to take the selfless lead.
I can hear the rallying cry: "We don't care what you've done/just so you can catch an' run!" And enrich the franchise, of course.

Six Weeks

2009-08-14T22:50:00.002-05:00

It is already mid-August. How did that happen? Actually, time stood almost still for much of July for me. I had my right knee replaced on the first of July and it has been a rocky road since. I suffer from chronic depression and I am very driven to be the best student (or patient, in this case). That combination made me do everything the doctor and the physical therapist wanted me to do. The trouble is that I do not have any frame of reference. How healed should I be at 6 weeks post-op? The PT said I was doing very well and the doctor says the same when I see him, but are they just humoring me? The suspicion is counterproductive. I might as well bask in their praise and continue my efforts.
I am not working this fall. It will be the first semester since our move in March of 2000 that I will not be teaching or at least tutoring for over 20 hours a week. This should be another interesting journey.

Pain in the . . .

2009-06-20T23:51:00.002-05:00

I have been dealing with chronic pain for a while now. I looked back at my daily calendars and realized this arthritic right knee has been giving me hell for about 2.5 years. The left one had orthoscopic surgery and some relief in 2003, but it too is painful again. I have had a run of poor luck with doctors. Several have hedged further surgery while offering ineffective half measures. That is another story, one that involves the bad mixture of medicine and a business model. The pain, however, has at least been a shadow in my life for a long time. If I am with people or on the phone, I get to forget it for some time. I also take Aleve and ibuprofen which take the edge off the aching. I have a fear that I will become my mother, bless her. She had issues, so I am not throwing blame her way. She did complain of aches and pains for about as long as I could remember. She is no longer physically with us, but her complaints and her managing to be ill for major functions, like weddings and Christmas and Tuesdays, are shadows in my own life. I therefore attempt not to bitch about my own pain. My children and husband might beg to differ, but I really try not to whine. I try so hard that I probably let myself suffer rather than admit to the problem and seek help. Of course this is way more complicated than I am expressing here. For instance, add to the mix that my 82 year old mother-in-law was still cutting her own grass up until this summer, that she grocery shopped on the way home from the hospital after having her 4th or 5th child of 8, and I feel like a wuss if I mention I am suffering from anything less than a major head trauma--and that better be an open wound to impress my ex-emergency room nurse husband.

Life is so interesting. I have fought depression for a couple of decades, and recently the various drugs have not helped much. Could it be the physical aches that constantly nag me? Hmmmm.

More to come, maybe solutions, but at least changes.

2009-06-10T00:08:00.002-05:00

So, it's like this--I don't like my blog or much of anything else right now. There are the kids and grandkids and husband, but not much else is 0f interest. Maybe I will find my way out of the funk soon.

Socrates Don't Work Here

2009-04-10T12:04:00.003-05:00

As I tried to settle in to Good Friday's solemn, sad, but hopeful afternoon, I made the mistake of checking my email and just glanced at a higher education news flash that appeared in the viewing window. A couple of groups, one a community college organization, are announcing a partnership with somebody in Africa to strengthen curriculum and improve job prep, blah blah blah. Having worked in community colleges for the past nine years, I can only laugh at the same old jargon. How about we just teach some concepts, allow the students to prepare themselves to be thinking adults, and then let them find their way in the work force? The idea of an apprenticeship or on the job training is anathema to higher ed now. Think of all that revenue out the window, or off the bottom line. Expectations at the college level have fallen to such a low that we might as well admit that thousands of the students at the Associate Degree level are only glorified high school graduates--finally--after two years of remedial work. They now might be able to understand a conversation with or decipher a note from their counterparts--the high school grads back in the middle of the previous century. I am guessing that an eighth grade graduate of the century before that may have had similar knowledge. When did we decide to relinquish opening minds and preparing critical thinkers to history and instead just train in technology, and not do that all so well? There are some amazing thinkers out there in their early adulthood, and they may have been exposed to some rigorous college courses, but the watered down pabulum available to so many college students today or else the desperate efforts to make up for wasted high school days does not make for an educated work force. Education is learning about how to learn and how to live life. Work is about training. Today's education system is confused and driven by the bottom line and teachers who fear for their jobs if they dare to think out loud. What a shame.
And don't get me started on the nationalization of education.

New Broom Sweeps Clean

2009-04-05T19:42:00.005-05:00

I am not ok with all of the moves we have undertaken during our marriage. Saying that makes me feel like I am somehow betraying my husband. I could have stopped any one of the twenty minor and major changes of address if I had chosen to not allow it. Consequences would have ensued, and then I could have dealt with that. But much of my adult life has been my allowing life to happen to me. There were a couple of exceptions, like going back to graduate school. Use of those graduate degrees has been thwarted and I have allowed that to happen as well. That cannot have been good modeling for my children. I know choosing not to be proactive has not been healthy for me. I am also keenly aware that I am a product of every place I have been, of all the accumulated circumstances. By extension, not turning down one of those roads would have meant different results in me. I have been told that I should be grateful for all of my history because it has made me what I am today. That axiom only works if I am happy with what I am today.

2009-03-24T23:54:00.001-05:00

I have been avoiding my blog. I have pretty much been avoiding my life the last couple of weeks. I would explain more except that 1) there is just too much, and 2) I really do not understand the funk myself.

A Tree in the Forest

2009-03-10T01:39:00.003-05:00

So, if I post a blog and nobody reads it, does it still use up ink? How about space? Is there any limit to cyber space? What about gravitational pull?

Tell Me Why This Can't Work

2009-03-02T23:17:00.004-06:00

I am not an economist, nor am I a financial wizard, but I wonder sometimes if the simplest solution might just be the best. Some of the people in trouble with their mortgages may have overextended themselves thinking their house value would go up or their income would increase. What then happened is an adjustable rate mortgage adjusted and the payments are too much. At the same time, they cannot sell since they would have to come up with money at closing. Maybe they even anticipated refinancing but could not since they owe more than what the house is now worth in this market. Why could they not re-amortize what is still owed over 35 or 40 years? Payments would go down at least a little, and if they stay in the house for ten years or more, they may be able to eventually sell at better than a loss. The lenders would continue to have income and the collateral, the homes, would have an opportunity to gain in value so that the loan to value ratio might actually improve over time. The only place I see in this scheme for any government bailing would be to bring some of the ridiculous A.R.M.s down a point or two.
Folks who invested in houses just to flip them in a year or so for a profit would not gain by this plan, but they are really in business rather than occupying a primary residence. They are not my concern.
People might have to stay in "starter" houses a decade instead of a couple of years, but wouldn't that be better than suffering foreclosure or spending my tax money to save them from bad decisions they may have made?
Then we look closely at when and how we got into this mess. Who thought that 100% financing was a good idea? And about this bundling of mortgages to spread risk. . . it got spread right into all of our living rooms. Let's look long and hard at the regulations over the past 10+ years and make sure the congresspeople and other decision makers who were in the lobbyists' pockets have to look for other work soon.

Time Marches

2009-02-27T22:34:00.003-06:00

Almost March. . . I can't believe it. One of the Denver newspapers bit the dust this week, makes me sad. Will the internet really take up the slack? Slack, hmmmm. Slacking in their responsibility to report the news could have been what killed the newspaper business. Trying to be everything to everyone is not a successful business plan.

Sleepy

2009-02-13T22:28:00.003-06:00

I am at about stage three of exhaustion. That's when I become what I refer to as "honest." Friends and relatives have pointed out that "cruel" or "nasty" might be more appropriate. I will be making some offhand comment like, "This bitch who sits in the last row in class had the audacity to say. . ." and I catch myself. Whomever I was addressing either has assumed an expression of horror or just stopped listening.
I really need sleep. Most other deprivations do not phase me, but lack of sleep drives me crazy, or should I say crazier? But here I am at 10:30 at night finding so many ways to occupy my time.

3rd Rock

2009-02-11T23:52:00.003-06:00

So I was watching Third Rock From the Sun. Yeh, I admit I watch way too much late night, rerun TV. Anyway, as an alien, Dick (John Lithgow) is able to spout such pearls of wisdom. What freedom with a character. And Jane Curtain's character is such a perfect foil. She was angry at Dick for his having been honest at a meeting he attended in her stead. So she says, "Since you value honesty, I'll be brutally frank." He replies, "All right. I'll be Genuine Dick." I need to watch that show more often.

On the Information Highway

2009-02-11T00:16:00.003-06:00

I just watched a video on one of my daughters' blogs and it occurred to me that we bloggers are really street musicians. Instead of making music for passers-by, we throw down words for readers-by. We are all just hoping to find an audience who clicks, someone who understands. . .

Fine Whines

2009-01-31T20:55:00.003-06:00

My, my, poor whiny me. I need to write more in the middle of the day. When I am alone and cold after midnight in the big hallway where the computer sits and I feel the weight of the day on my shoulders, I am often not hysterically happy. Go figure,

Pay Attention to ME

2009-01-31T00:09:00.003-06:00

OK--I am having one of those moments when I am sad because everyone just does not see the world the way I do. I think the sadness comes from their suggesting I am too old, too Catholic, too conservative, too out of touch to really understand the world today. So far I am sad. Sometimes I want to scream. No homicidal thoughts. . .yet.

No Two Alike

2009-01-27T23:16:00.006-06:00

Snow has always held some magical power over me. The muffling of sound, the purification of the landscape, the ceasing of mindless bustle combine to quell any and all misgivings. St. Louis is enough of a stranger to the stuff, with only sporadic storms, that life is different when the white stuff falls in quantity. Most of life fails the litmus test of importance against the crystalline accumulation. As though we realize we cannot fight Nature, we join her celebration armed with sleds and warming fires, abandoning modern conveyances in favor of boots or snow shoes. Flowing with Nature's choices feels strange but exhilarating.

Tired

2009-01-19T00:22:00.003-06:00

I have to remember to do this blog thing earlier in the day. I get sucked in late at night reading my daughters' blogs and then I forget to go to bed or I start fighting back tears or I just think too much to sleep. I should know better.

Inertia

2009-01-13T23:09:00.002-06:00

I am lonely tonight, missing some people and places and circumstances, feeling guilty about others. I do not know how this cloud develops over me sometimes, but I realize, often suddenly, that I am sad. Maybe the cloud metaphor is all wrong. Quicksand would be more appropriate.
Of course, I have no right to own this self pity. My life is full of wonder and light. People are good to me. I have wonderful, talented children. My grandchildren are perfect.
The quicksand doesn't care. So I try to move through the day mired and foggy. Movement, especially emotional, comes slowly and only with great exertion. And that cloud or fog makes perception impossible.

Soap Box

2009-01-10T00:02:00.003-06:00

Colleen mentioned, in a comment, the Vietnam era and the anti-war movement. I remember being anti-war, but I never understood the people who spit on returning soldiers. So many were young draftees, changed forever by a tour of duty in hell. I was angry at the government's mismanagement. Initially, and remember I was very young, I thought that we entered wars to win, but we would not do what was necessary to triumph in Southeast Asia. Then I saw pictures like the famous one of a man (North Vietnamese sympathizer?) being shot in the head by someone in charge (a South Vietnamese officer?). The details of who was shooting whom did not strike me, but the frame of the moment of impact is indelible. For whom or what were we fighting? The domino theory fell woefully short. Then there was the picture of the young girl running naked down the street toward the camera holder. She had been struck with napalm and had peeled her clothing away from the seared flesh. I now realize such pictures were published by people who probably had agendas of their own, but does that matter? War is an excuse for human beings to revert to inhumane acts. Now we use terms like collateral damage. I cannot weep for crazy men like Saddam Husein or terrorists we have detained. I would like to see us uphold our standards of justice no matter who the offender, but I prefer to see the names and possibly the faces of the now dead who were only last year or the year before walking in a village in Iraq or down a mountainside in Afganistan. Names make people real, no matter the side. I believe the president, when he or she asks young people to fight/defend/die for their country, should be the one to make the personal phone call to the surviving family. A few "Hello, Mrs. Jones, this is the president of the United States. I put your son (or daughter or spouse) in harm's way. I regret to inform you. . ." conversations would be very sobering. That conversation, however, must be the priority each day, before fixing the economy and selling senate seats and ordering lobster from room service and getting together with chums in the oil business. If I were president, that is what I would do. And as long as our troops are dying in any part of the world, I would wear a black arm band.
More about Vietnam later. . .

Memories and Showers

2009-01-08T11:46:00.005-06:00

I just commented on my eldest daughter's blog. There had been a reference to being a hippie, and I was reminded of a complaint I have. Today, when a ratty haired, jeans wearing, smelly, young person walks down the street, besides jaywalking to avoid the specimen, many people classify him or her as a hippie. Just when did that become the categorization of "I'm too lazy to shower or comb my hair"? When I was young (yeesh, I am my parents), going braless, growing hair long, and sporting badly patched jeans all went with a political, or possibly an apolitical, world view. And even when we stayed the night in some old trailer with a bunch of ski patrol members, everybody showered. Hippie had a lot to do with freedom, but not necessarily freedom from personal hygiene. I still have beads, for god's sake. I refuse to let current day, so called hippies defile my memories. So there.

First

2009-01-06T22:37:00.003-06:00

The first post of 2009. I begin with a fragment. Why exactly are fragments such anathema to English teachers? In and of themselves, fragments are just bits and pieces, not quite finished but often bearing meaning. Then there is the infamous comma splice, an unpardonable sin of stringing independent clauses together with only the meager comma to separate them. So I guess stringing fragments together using commas as barriers would not constitute the comma splice error. This situation would only be compounded fragmentation. All of this grammatical sifting appears to be elitist fantasy, and making fun of the grammar police provides a few fun moments. I must, however, continue to defend the rules because they give us order and allow our musings to make sense to others. Readers bring so much to the text that can color their understanding. Writers might as well strive for clarity so at least some of their meaning will survive.

West of Feminism

2008-12-21T15:19:00.003-06:00

Have I missed blogging? Obviously not enough to make me even visit. Today, however, I saw the following quote in The Writer's Almanac, a newsletter I receive via email.
"Rebecca West said, 'I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.'" She wrote in the early 1900s, but the sentiment is so current. I can think of several conversation possibilities in my life in 2008 when her observation would fit my frustration.

Trebuchet

2008-11-19T23:59:00.003-06:00

I could not resist this font--it is named trebuchet. Isn't that some kind of Medieval weapon? With a French sounding name, I would think there would be curls or at least serif. Funny, it doesn't look snotty.
I am trying to catch up on school work: correcting papers, entering grades, prepping lessons at least one day ahead. I am almost there. Other areas of life are not quite so neatly delineated. 'Tis the problem. I need assignments and deadlines for housework and relationships and such.

Dysinspiration

2008-11-18T11:07:00.004-06:00

I am at school feeling pretty uninspired. Class did not go as well as I had hoped. I think I had too little planned, and then some woman dominated the conversation--me. It is always better if I can get them to discuss and discover. Maybe some pumpkin spice cookies would help.

Pumpkin, Anyone?

2008-11-17T22:09:00.003-06:00

I feel perfectly safe confessing my indiscretions in this space. My husband would probably never venture into this part of the Internet anyway. He was not home this evening, so I was left to my own devices (is that the expression?), literally. A rather large pumpkin graced our front porch for Halloween. I did not go to the trouble of carving it but instead drew a black cat and wrote a greeting, both with magic marker. It is two weeks past Trick-or-Treat, and the nightly temperature is reaching down into the 20's, so I concluded it was time to bring in the pumpkin and cook it. We have done this before, either boiling or baking until soft enough to peel and mash for use in pies, cookies, and bread. I think my husband must have cut and gutted the pumpkin in previous encounters because I do not remember fighting through that tough flesh before. Naturally, I took what my husband would refer to as a woman's approach. I tried the largest of the carving knives in his set--probably over $100 per knife--and could not get enough leverage to even halve the vegetable (or is it a fruit?). Then I tried the more expensive cleaver. No luck. So I inserted the cleaver or the carving knife by turn and used the other, butt end of the handle, to ever so gently tap the sharp object into the seed cavity. Had poor Terry walked in during the process, he would have surely lost consciousness. I was successful, of course, but I doubt I will share the story with the owner of the knives.

Feliz Navidad

2008-11-17T21:52:00.002-06:00

There is a radio station coming out of East St. Louis, 101.2 FM I think, that is changing formats the first of the year. In the meantime, they have chosen to play all Christmas and have been for about a month. I used to be irritated by commercial pushes of Christmas into November and even October, but with age has come a desire to live outside of reality occasionally. So I am hooked on Christmas songs and Halloween is barely over. Who knows--next year I may get out the Christmas albums, as in vinyl records, in July.
Yesterday I had dropped my husband at an appointment and was listening to my guilty pleasure when some little gremlins almost spoiled my mood. First there was a rendition of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" not by Karen Carpenter (That rendition gives me a chill when I think that she probably wanted to eat the sheet music even without condiments) but by Gloria Estefan, or maybe it was Mariah Carey. It was awful and breathy and left a sour taste in my mouth. I am obviously learning disabled when it comes to pop divas, but the song that followed the above atrocity could have been redeeming if sung by the right artist. It was "Feliz Navidad" by--are you sitting down?--Celine Dion. Isn't she French Canadian or something? I felt I was in some previously undiscovered space warp. Would I ever find Christmas again? Finally there was an instrumental of "The Carol of the Bells" and I was able to breathe again.

Election Night

2008-11-04T23:09:00.002-06:00

I voted and my choice at the top of the ticket has been declared first runner-up. Never have I felt so dangerously disconnected from what has become the majority. Well, I will have four years to examine my current state of mind. Maybe it is more environmental than core belief. I wonder if Sarah Palin's family think it was worth the trouble.

Voting

2008-11-01T13:30:00.002-05:00

I am voting for McCain. He is not my hero, but as I mature, I find that politics and heroics rarely mix. He is just closer to my way of thinking on several fronts. I fully understand that there will be people who vote for Senator McCain whom I would never consider inviting into my home. They may be mixed up in various special interest groups that I would rather not support. Recognizing strange bedfellows, however, does not make me hesitate to cast my precious vote for the Republican. I also admit that he was not my choice for the Republican ticket. Now I have but two choices, McCain and Senator Obama. Other possibilities will not actually win the electoral votes, so it is down to these two men and their policies. I am probably more conservative than McCain on some fiscal issues, and I am more liberal on some social issues. He still better represents my way of thinking, as far as I can tell in this imperfect world of media and campaigning, than Obama ever would. I have to add that at least a small percentage of my decision is based on gut. There you have it. Please do not assume this is a knee jerk reaction or that my thinking is necessarily flawed by racism or succumbing to rumor. I have not abandoned thought or hope. I have merely decided.

Shocking

2008-10-22T00:30:00.002-05:00

So I was mentally congratulating myself as I walked up the stairs to the 2nd floor. Today went well. I didn't accomplish all I wanted to get done, but I managed to get through the day pretty well. It also occurred to me that no one had suggested EST for me, something a woman I know had been prescribed. Is that the sum of what life has become? I did a few chores, talked to a few people, and did not have to face electric shock treatments, so I was satisfied, almost elated. Is this pathetic or is this "good enough" living?

One more query--why is it so much easier to recognize sadness and joy and true discernment in someone else"s life?

Listen and Learn

2008-10-14T17:52:00.003-05:00

Recently I have noticed that the more I say, the more I am misunderstood. It has happened in several venues, and I am concerned. There was a time that I would have immediately countered with a "but. . . ." Now I hesitate wrapped in the fear that I only respond or correct in order to enjoy my own spoken or written voice. Resorting to silence, at least politically, frees me to observe and learn. The anger in the current political atmosphere stifles discussion anyway. Why should I take the trouble to comment if no one is attempting to really listen to me?

Rhetorical Musings

2008-10-11T01:44:00.002-05:00

I just sent a comment to my eldest daughter's blog. In it, I referred to the vituperative rhetoric in the current presidential campaign. I am somewhere in this awful middle ground which is worse than any limbo. I am conservative when it comes to finances, but I support some social programs. As I get older, I believe more and more that government is not the answer, so socialism is not my cup of tea.
My daughter is frustrated and angered by the "Kill him" comment made by an audience member at a Sarah Palin rally. I found some media coverage of the incident, coverage that I felt was not conservative b.s., and I included the link. In the article and linked videos, discerning the audience shouts is not so simple. Of course Palin attempts to elicit response--that is her job. I also pointed out some negative campaigning in which the democrats have engaged, and I closed suggesting neither side nor any politician is particularly innocent. Now I worry that she will only see my comment as some challenge to her ability to interpret her world.
I too am upset by the election and the statistics and half truths we Americans are fed every four years. I am tired of making voting decisions on the basis of the lesser evil. Looking for info on the Florida rally, I came across a local article on my mother-in-law's parish and a sermon their new priest gave this past Sunday. A union leader, a lifelong Catholic and a democrat, accused the priest of comparing Obama to Hitler in a reference to the pro-life issue. According to this man, the priest also said that people who vote for Obama would be condemned by the church. The union man was so angered that he stood up and challenged the priest and then left the service. Later in the article, the writer reports that the printed copy of the sermon did not make that particular reference. The reporter in turn asked the priest if he wavered from the written text, and the priest claimed he did not. He also added that he would not make the statement about church condemnation because it is not true. The original accuser stuck by his story. I know a little about the priest, a convert from Judaism and a latecomer to the vocation--39 and just ordained. My mother-in-law really likes him. I noticed that the reporter did not interview other parishioners, so all that we have is a "he said; he said." There was more to the article. Of course I pick out what suits my purpose, but then EVERYBODY DOES. I keep thinking of incidents I have witnessed and then read about in some media outlet. I am always amazed at how skewed the story becomes.
Now I am rambling and I have only 4 hours left to sleep tonight. No solution to this uneasiness right now.

More Synthetic Stuff

2008-10-10T00:18:00.002-05:00

I have had a gradual med change over the past year or so. Other changes have ensued. So I wonder what is correlation; what is cause and effect? What might only be coincidence? There are no definitive answers, and I am not consumed by the questions. They just cross through my range of thought occasionally.
Now I have had two doses of the synvisc--the medication that does not actually cushion the bones in my knee joints but somehow magically encourages my body to do that work. That is, if it works which is only about a 50-50 possibility. I think my knees feel a little better. Maybe that is a placebo effect. Again, there are more questions than answers, a current theme in my life. On the other hand, I may just enjoy the needles in the knees experience and want to encourage that behavior among medical professionals I encounter.

Too Tired

2008-10-04T00:30:00.002-05:00

I am so tired. It is almost a soul tired. Physically I need sleep, but emotionally and spiritually I need some R&R as well. Now if I will only allow myself the indulgence of revitalization. . .

Not So Funny

2008-10-03T01:05:00.004-05:00

Some reduction in squirrel activity today. Maybe they read my blog. I lay in bed the other night and I processed through some hilarious stuff before drifting. I wish I could remember what was so funny. I could have used some good stand-up in class today. It was classic underprepared death spiral. I was running late and could not find the calendar I wanted to copy. Then the journal entry put most of the students in a bad mood. I finally topped it off with too little to do to fill the time. I am usually better at ad libbing. But I salvaged the rest of the day with a meditative visit to the art museum. Yummmmm. I even purchased a couple of art sticker books to share with my granddaughters. So we will be discussing Cassatt and Vermeer. And maybe I will locate my sense of humor again.

The Squirrel Wars

2008-10-01T23:25:00.005-05:00

About the squirrels. . .We have a small fountain on our back, outside wall next to the door that leads from the kitchen to a small deck of about 10X10 square feet. The fountain has a pump that circulates water through a lions mouth into a semi circular bowl that overfills into a second, larger bowl. It provides a pleasant water trickling sound and is visually pleasing as well. Occasionally we add a little bleach to the water to cut down on algae growth. Chlorine or no, the local squirrel population has deemed the fountain their watering hole. I do not begrudge them the fluid refreshment, but washing squirrel excrement from our only path back to our parking area on the alley has become a daily chore. This is not a few stray turds. I can only conclude that the water has a laxative effect. The first few feet out our back door is liberally sprinkled with poop every morning. It is unsanitary and dragging the stuff in on our shoes is an added feature.
We have upped the chlorine content to no avail. My husband added Joy to the mix which created a sudsy sculpture between the bowls but did not reduce the squirrel droppings. I would think that they are only coming to make use of the facility as a restroom, but if we disconnect the pump and allow the fountain to run dry, we are left no little gifts.
We own two cats who are completely useless in this instance. Not only are they indoor cats, they also show no inclination to even want to venture outside. I have considered leaving the back door open at night to expose the nocturnal poop distributors to the meows through the screens, but we sleep on the second floor and the cats offer no security.
There is a neighbor cat who likes to sun on our back walk, but she finds her home each night, so my plan to feed her and assure her loyalty is not going to help.
I have considered a perigrine falcon. I am just not sure I could deal with any extra squirrel carcasses, and the neighbors who own small dogs might complain. I know I could turn off the fountain, but then they win. I even tried a liberal distribution of chili powder around the periphery of the apparatus. There were squirrel prints in the powder the following day. All of this makes me look forward to a hard freeze and winterizing the fountain: cleaning and drying it.
There is a nesting pair of redtailed hawks over in Tower Grove Park, but how to entice. . .

Symply Synthetic

2008-10-01T00:48:00.005-05:00

Needles in the knees yesterday. Placebo effect today. I walked at the Botanical Gardens as though I had no arthritis. That was only the first of three injections in each knee. I asked about where the artificial substance went. Is it somehow absorbed into my system? Will I wake up one day with enlarged breasts or possibly a quaint goiter-like growth on my neck? The Dr. was so reassuring. He said the medical community does not even know exactly how the synthetic stuff works much less where it eventually goes.

The squirrel wars continue. Film at eleven.

Ike,Yikes!

2008-09-10T18:30:00.002-05:00

My daughter sent me to www.wunderground.com where I viewed various maps of the current hurricane's progress. Ike looks as though it is a storm to be reckoned with. We kid about emptying the grocery store of eggs, milk, and bread when there is a prediction of a few inches of snow in St. Louis. We are never stranded for more than a day, so it seems kind of silly. If I were in Houston, however, I'd be scrounging for plywood and packing the van. We were there for six years, in Pearland, which is a suburb south of Houston. Never did we experience a hurricane and only once I remember our street flooding after some tropical storm. Sometimes we had to reroute ourselves to get to work or school due to flooding, but our house was never in danger. Since we moved away, my son had to once abandon a car because of flooding. I think that too was the aftermath of a tropical storm. But Ike looks serious and headed for Victoria. That is close enough to Houston to dump buckets of rain on the whole metropolitan area. I would think my son, who is in Cypress nortwest of the city, will experience torrential rains and pretty impressive rains even the 70 or so miles he is on shore. I guess it all depends on how fast the storm is moving. The slower it progresses, the more water it will get to pull in from the Gulf.

A Warning

2008-08-29T20:15:00.003-05:00

Having been reared in a family that thrived on secrets, I am no stranger to denial. If the lie can be sustained, why bother with the truth? Let's pretend everything is wonderful. Such a rejection of unpleasant reality might be mistaken for optimism, but denial is more sinister than that. Regularly ignoring truth infects all involved with an insidious loss of equilibrium. Like looking through the wrong prescription of eye glasses, denial leaves some participants, especially the unwilling ones, always on the brink of nausea, straining to make sense of the distorted view.

2008-08-23T23:12:00.003-05:00

I love your comments, Burton. I also know what you mean about various states of undress. Little kids don't have too much modesty or too much interest except out of curiosity. I never worried as much about nudity in a movie my children might see as much as I was concerned over violence. I do worry about how young some of the current models are. There were some ads in Rolling Stone back in the 90s that could have only appealed to pedophiles. It was Calvin Klein in the heroin chic era and there were a couple of half clothed about 12 year-olds as models. I stopped my subscription to the magazine and wrote to them about why. That particular campaign was discontinued--many people wrote--but lately I've noticed the same tendency creeping into various areas of advertising. Super thin models were in the news last year after a couple of deaths with global attempts to encourage actual caloric intake. Now more and more images seem to be just barely pubescent. Or else there are the role model celebs like Paris Hilton. Her visit to a local Macy's makes me question their quality as well as taste. Maybe mine is a larger resistance to the Madison Avenue attempt to hand me some prepackaged image I am to portray. I can only speak from a woman's point of view, but if this is liberation, I want nothing to do with it.
More on the whole feminism issue later.

Changes

2008-08-07T01:42:00.003-05:00

I am attempting to make some changes in my life. At my age, cynicism tends to set in. You know, thoughts like "I've tried this before" or "what's the use?" pepper my world view. But I have found it is harder to give up on possibilities than it is to believe in them.

Another thought: Walking through Macy's today, I was accosted by lifesized picture advertisements hawking some new fragrance for Estee Lauder. They were artistic photos of women--one very, very young--half clothed in suggestively opened dress shirts. Eroticism oozed from the poses, which in and of itself does not offend me. But I read a commentor on my daughter's blog today who was puzzled by someone who wore a Tshirt blazened with MAN WHORE to a children's tourist site. I likewise was concerned about children like the eight year old boy shopping with grandma for school clothes or the ten year old little girl who is cutting through the department store with her mom to get to the mall and a book store. There was no channel changer or on-off switch, no way to close the magazine, and no way to avoid the EL display on that particular floor. As a composition teacher, I emphasize the importance of audience. I wonder to whom EL is attempting to appeal and if their marketers have forgotten that their displays appear in stores where families shop. Of course, I don't understand fragrance ads on TV with all their meaningful pauses either. Maybe I am just not an ideal consumer.

It is not a really big deal. But so many small changes in society have the effect of desensitizing us. I believe what I most resent is that media and advertisements and social mores are being refashioned by people, some nebulous group, who not only do not care about my opinion but also flat out refuse to consider what I think. They recreate the world in their images and I have to go along or drop out?

The Blahs

2008-07-16T00:57:00.002-05:00

Blahhhhh. Much of today did not reach even that level of dissatisfaction. I am too tired to go to bed and too bummed to do much of anything else.
Faith, hope, love. . . all choices, huh? Must try, which reminds me of "must control fist of death." Anger is easier and so much more satisfying than blahhhh.
I did read a column in Newsweek today about making teachers accountable. I understand the theory, but like much of life, applying general standards and measurements nationally can not address the nuances of the advancement of the particular people involved in education. On the other hand, I think the SAT or something like it is necessary since students leave Wyoming to attend college in New Hampshire. It's the old apple and orange problem. Part of the trouble with measuring teacher success is the uncontrolled variable of the student. More about that another time. This is still rumbling around in my brain.

About Control

2008-07-15T00:02:00.003-05:00

My daughter Colleen was musing about control of her life in her blog today. I still occasionally wonder whether I have control over my fate. The rest of the time I realize randomness rules which is maybe best. But maybe I don't believe in random. There has to be some plan along with reasons we all land where we do. It's just that no one has taken the time to send me the itinerary.

As I was looking at clip art circles to decorate this entry, I was reminded of conch shells and Fibonacci numbers. Maybe nothing is random, and that is why there is hope.

discovery

2008-07-12T23:51:00.002-05:00

I wonder how many of us blog writers are sitting at metaphorical drugstore counters waiting to be discovered.

My Agenda Is . . .

2008-07-07T13:42:00.003-05:00

I would be so refreshed and grateful to meet more people who either have no agenda or who immediately make their agendas known. I try hard to travel through life not second guessing motives of others and thus taking them at face value. I find myself often surprised at what they really mean or expect of me. Yet I believe the face value point of view works the best. I do not have the time or energy to spend on all that guessing. Walking on egg shells is no longer an option.

Favorites

2008-07-06T16:29:00.004-05:00

Utilizing my Favorites when I opened the internet in order to get to this blog, I noticed the range of sites I have accumulated. Included on my list of Favorites are the following:

my married daughter's blog
a site about needlework
something called Insurgent Country
a site about Missouri sales/use taxes
a source for Soduko

That's only a sampling. What would a shrink have to say about the combination? First of all, with so many, I obviously do not have the concept of "favorite" down. Then there is the proclivity toward both government and insurrection. Hmmm.

I must remember to smile. It's along the lines of the "acting as if" of 12 Step programs.

Against the Darkness

2008-07-01T17:26:00.003-05:00

What happens when you write a blog that almost nobody reads? I have a blogger daughter who faithfully peruses my copy, and occasionally she will send her readers my way. She has made some wonderful connections via her blog, but alas I am a lone voice in a cyberspace wilderness. Is it my attitude? Could it be my personality creeping into the lines of prose? I have chosen not to lose sleep over this puzzle. I will instead read a few fellow posters and continue to rail against the darkness.

Let Us Pray

2008-06-27T08:18:00.004-05:00

Awakening this morning to the new Killer B's: Bush, Breach, and Burke. It may not be the end of the world, but pessimism and change are in the air. Anheuser Bush may succumb to InBev. The Pin Oak Levy has been breached and Winfield is inundated. Archbishop Burke, the archnemesis of Catholics who think beyond legalism, is off to the Vatican. So many bishops, so few thinking men--who will be next to lead us back to pre-Vatican II? OOPS, my pessimism is showing. Maybe the gene pool of choices holds another mutation like Gregory. I must pray and be hopeful.

2008-06-24T01:50:00.003-05:00

Ok, that was fun. My daughter created a mosaic in her blog and suggested readers try the same. It involves searches for key words on FLICKER. This is my result. The pics represent answers to 12 questions (my answers in blue):
1. What is your first name? Cheryl 2. What is your favorite food? popcorn 3. What high school did you attend? Notre Dame 4. What is your favorite color? red 5. Who is your celebrity crush? S.C. 6. What is your favorite drink? hot apple cider 7. Where would you go on your dream vacation? Strawberry Resevoir 8. What is your favorite dessert? spice cake 9. What do you want to be when you grow up? writer 10. What do you love most in life? learning 11. Choose one word to describe you? complicated 12. Your Flickr name? Wibbenmeyer--don't ask

Hum a Few Bars

2008-06-20T03:54:00.001-05:00

Then there is music, something I need to incorporate into my daily life. Like praying and poetry, music helps me get in touch with myself. Music actually is praying and poetry, isn’t it?

Depressed?

2008-06-18T15:38:00.005-05:00

Have you ever tried to convince yourself that you are not depressed? Such a loaded question. . .Obviously I have been depressed, so by admitting that, I may deny my own ability to recognize the condition in myself. Mental illness, you know. "Those" people do not always have all of their faculties intact, to loosely and badly quote J.D. Salinger. There is the conundrum. I begin to feel eerily drawn into Yossarian's world in Catch 22. And I detect a theme of not being able to win, no matter what (see June 5 below).

But I do not feel the inability to feel that accompanies depression. I am alternately sad, angry, stuck, even happy. Therefore, I declare myself not depressed. Now to work on that stuck thing, I need to motivate myself. Which should I choose, the carrot or the stick?

Some may jump to the conclusion that I am schizophrenic with so much talking to and about myself, but of course that diagnosis would be wrong on two counts. First of all, multiple personalities do not equate to schizophrenia. It was once called MPD for multiple personality disorder, but the latest label is Dissociative Identity Disorder. Secondly, I do not have more than one distinct personality. I have known people who have, and I am not that interesting.

Tuesday's Class

2008-06-18T00:44:00.005-05:00

Tonight's class sucked. Maybe there is a more polite word but I doubt it would be as accurate. As a teacher, I need to take ownership of the classes I teach and that has not happened this quarter, at least not on Tuesday evenings. Not wanting to embarrass anyone involved (except myself), I will leave the description vague: I did little; some students likewise did little; a couple of students tried but fell short of expectations; some students did too much and respected too little; some students performed well in spite of the rest of us. All in all, it was mediocre but only in the sense of averages. Sometimes I think I do better as a student. It is a freer role.
Late night television, on the other hand, has cheered me on to throw myself back into life full throttle. Botox and a stomach band should do the trick. I am particularly drawn to the diagram of a stomach with the constricting band at the top. And it's adjustable, in case I were to lose height, I'm guessing.

Just Choose

2008-06-10T11:45:00.005-05:00

There is so much I could do, but instead I live this life. Some days I just choose not to choose. I glance at the small artist's print on the shelf of St. Francis contemplating a skull and I consider his intensity. Maybe I should ask him to pray for me that I be likewise inspired. Then the slogan "Be careful what you ask for. . ." comes to mind.
I have been reading higher education propaganda again. It's enough to wring any passion right out of me.

And the Winner Is. . .Never Me

2008-06-05T00:47:00.005-05:00

It occurred to me today that when I fight myself, I am always the loser. I have been doing a lot of that lately--fighting myself. I need to either find some other worthy adversary or else take up a less pugilistic hobby.

Some days just feel like I am trying to fill this bathtub. I know better but there it is.

Sunday

2008-06-01T22:14:00.004-05:00

Father Cavanaugh was the homilist today. We get published authors, music writers, and all kinds of learned, sometimes famous Jesuits telling us what's on their minds. Today was about building on stone versus sand. Father introduced the homily by saying he had been thinking about this for a long time and he might not make sense. It would be stream of consciousness. I understood him perfectly. We were in sync, even with the slight overlay of fear that he would go somewhere political Terry would not want to go. It was a little like closing my eyes and and swaying while humming the tune to a familiar song. Later in the day I tried to share the thoughts, if not the feeling, with Terry, but I fell flat. The tune was just beyond my reach, so I stopped trying to hum lest I lose it all together. Maybe I will be able to sing it later after it bumps around in my head a while longer.

Charter is a Bad Word?

2008-05-31T16:14:00.002-05:00

Two posts in one day. Better check to see if the sky is falling.
A nice young woman came to the door today and asked for my vote. She is running for local committeeperson in the Democratic Party. (For anyone who is unfamiliar with St. Louis politics, it is a one party system so everything is decided at the Democratic primary. Republicans and Independents basically do not count.) So this woman wants my vote in the primary in August. She was friendly and I appreciate her coming to my door. Part of her credentials included her children attending St. Louis Public Schools. (For anyone unfamiliar with the St. Louis School District. . .oh, never mind.) I told her my granddaughters attend City Garden that is becoming a charter school next year. She said that was a shame--not that they attended but that City Garden chose to go for the charter. She further explained that she is just so pro-public schools. So am I, sister, but the district sucks and the political atmosphere will not allow it to change for the better. Yeah, charter schools! Boo, entrenched and union saddled public schools where job security trumps student needs every time.

Fraud and Other College Opportunities

2008-05-31T16:08:00.003-05:00

I read a blog today that is connected to a newsletter I receive about higher education. The woman was commenting students unprepared for college and she hit a nerve for (in?) me. Here is the comment I sent.
There are so many inherent problems in the school systems in the U.S. that I find it hard to focus on just one. First, when we talk about preparing high school students for college, we assume correctly that their earning potential will be severely limited without at least a two year degree. What good then is a high school diploma? If human resource people were honest, they might admit that the college requirement attached to some jobs is just a filtering agent rather than a true necessity for that level of employment. On the other hand, the high school diploma means so little today that employers want to know that a college experience has brought prospective employees to the point of at least being able to write complete sentences and to tie their own shoes. Second, as an adjunct and tutor at a community college, I have witnessed the repetition of courses in an attempt to remedy twelve years of bad schooling or else alleviate cultural and mental limitations often to no avail. I do not think I am exaggerating to call the developmental (read remedial) course load for some of the students a thinly disguised fraud. They are actively recruited and offered promises of being able to transfer to a four year school and complete a bachelor’s degree. All along, the community college willingly eats up the Pell Grants and other credit hour limited financial aid so that if a transfer ever does occur, there will be little monetary assistance left. It is not unusual for a student to have to pass five remedial courses, the two developmental composition classes and three levels of mathematics. That is a full semester of nontransferable credits (15 hours), and that number assumes none of the courses need be repeated. I am not even considering the returning students who take GED classes through the college and eat up some of the financial aid before ever being regarded as a college student. When the powers that be are confronted with the problem of the student who can not pass the developmental classes, the suggested panacea is either increased bandwidth or workshops to address learning styles. (I sat in on the process of sacrificing a new full time faculty position to buy the next best bandwidth package. At least the students will be able to check their hotmail accounts so the composition course will not be a total loss.) We even offer a freshman seminar that teaches students something about being in college, but the administration refuses to require the two hour class fearing the developmental students will complain about more nontransferable credit hours. Complaints=drop in retention numbers. So students already on the fringe of academic life are left to struggle on their own while some of us try to offer helpful hints about college life and responsibility during precious class time. Some who would have flourished or at least passed if exposed to the study skills and time management exercises in the freshman seminar class flail about for a semester or more failing two or more courses. Let’s see, two hours of preparation versus six or nine hours of repeated classes. It’s quite a system. Third (yes, I was enumerating issues), instead of a cell phone, get a library card, and instead of investing time and money in a bigger, flat screen television, read a book to a child. This is the toughest issue to address. We have full book cases in half the rooms in our home, so it is difficult to imagine a child who has no books to hold, no pictures to see, no text to hear so often it becomes rote. I cannot go into other people’s houses and force them to enjoy reading. I have some ideas, but I have rambled long enough. I just wanted to attest to the fact that at least some ill prepared college students were once blank slates upon which little was written by parents or by teachers in inadequate schools.
Boy, did you hit a nerve. . .

metaphor

2008-05-29T02:06:00.004-05:00

Sitting in church this previous Sunday, it occurred to me that to be a Catholic, a person has to buy into metaphor. Think about how many gospel stories are just steeped in metaphor. Sunday's readings included a letter from Paul that spoke of the bread and wine being the Body and Blood of Christ but that also the participants in the Mass form the Body of Christ. so I was sitting there musing about how I am very willing to believe the Body and Blood of Christ is real in the Mass--no representation here but the actual physical reality. Then I started to question myself a bit. My take on the Mystical Body of Christ on earth in the physical reality of the Church is more to the metaphor side. And metaphor is representational. Some man says a woman is a fox and he means she has qualities of a fox. He knows she is not really the animal. So is Paul telling us that we are the Body, that as a group we do not just have qualities of Christness? If I say I am Christ to the world, I do not think of myself as God. We are trying to become divine. That is humanity's evolutionary path, but aren't we approaching that state rather than being in it? I think; therefore, I am confused.

2008-05-05T11:07:00.003-05:00

I viewed some very conservative Catholic writing yesterday and was sharing something with my husband last night. One of the articles referenced some canon law and basically said that women should still be covering their heads in church. Through a series of illogical connections, the author asserted that the priest could be considered an angel in his role at Mass. So 1) out of respect, women should cover their hair, and 2) the covering serves to steer the priest away from concupiscence. My husband suggested we then need to cover the children. It took me a minute before pedophilia crossed my mind. I had to admit that was a pretty good observation.

It is maybe odd that I have never been angry at the Catholic Church over that scandal. I have reserved my ire for the specific fools involved in the illicit activity and then the cover-up. I even know the family of a young man who was eventually driven to suicide years after unresolved abuse. It saddens me and I think we, the Church, need to do everything we can to ease the suffering and correct the injustices. We have much penance to perform and prayers for healing. But I wonder if I am just not very surprised by portions of a hierarchy I have come to distrust in general.

There have been some particular nuns, priests, and bishops I have known who have been inspiring to me, but in the case of the bureaucracy as a whole, I have been unimpressed. Deaf and out-of-touch are two terms that come to mind. Do I sound arrogant? I don't know. But somewhere in my education in Catholic schools and a Catholic family, I concluded that each member is as much the Church as the next member. There are absolutes when it comes to morality, and I need an institution or at least a community to which to cling and in which to flourish. So being Catholic is woven into my life in a way that I would find leaving the Church almost impossible. However, bureaucratic corruption is also a reality. If pointing out that flaw in the Church makes me arrogant, so be it. Of course, I have a problem with authority in general. I'll save that issue for another post.

priorities

2008-05-03T01:17:00.004-05:00

I just read my daughter Bridgett's blog entry http://south-city-musings.blogspot.com/and others' comments about Mt.Carmel High School's closing. It is a Catholic school in South Houston that Bridgett, her brother Ian, and I shared for a few years. They attended; I taught. It is one of those special bubbles in my life when I learned so much about myself. Bridgett caught the spirit of the place, as did a couple of her commentors: safe, diverse, imperfect. It was a wonderful incubator in so many ways for me and, I believe, for my children. It was the kind of place where lives could be nurtured and grown. Now that I have written that last statement, I wonder at how trite it sounds. I think the commentor who said he was left alone, not being ignored but in the sense of being allowed to stumble and find his way, was more on target. What a sad reflection of our church's priorities that such a place would not be worth saving.

Being Catholic

2008-04-26T23:11:00.003-05:00

Although I have not been a faithful blogger, which has led to almost no comments, I wanted to share the following info in case anyone might be interested. I responded to a request by Speaking of Faith (NPR) for reflections on Catholicism. They have chosen to use some part of my interview on their program to be aired via broadcasting and podcasting beginning on May 1st.
My written comments from 1 April follow.
Today is my 57th birthday, and I am what some refer to as a cradle Catholic. So I have been through almost silent Masses, meatless Fridays, Latin readings, Communion by mouth only, Latin responses, to vernacular and guitar Masses with home baked unleavened bread and a shared cup of consecrated wine, the latter of which I believe to be Christ’s body and blood. One of the issues facing this church is whether I, as laity and woman, have the right to be even peripherally involved in our primary rite of Eucharist. I know I do, whether or not the male hierarchy has the grace yet to understand that. This issue, however, is only symptomatic of a centuries old conflict between legalism and love. Of course that is an over simplification, but there are those who go by the letter of the law, be it Biblical or church-made, and there are those who depend more on God’s mercy. We all call ourselves Catholic. My belief is in the mercy camp, and I envision God’s being puzzled over some of our squabbles about who can do what or whether sexual orientation or lack of Catholic Baptism might preclude holiness.
The reason I am still churched within the Catholic faith is community. Although individually we are imperfect, yes even the hierarchy, as a group we can be so much more and sometimes are. Today at Mass, the priest offered his thoughts about how each of us can be backed by community. That connected so well with what I had been considering for this reflection. He offered an example of a selfless act he had witnessed but would probably not have performed. Yet the attempt at the ideal happened and touched him. Maybe each of us cannot achieve ongoing perfection, but there may be an occasional ideal moment. I am not doing his homily justice, but I want to somehow explain what it means to be part of this group. The rotten apple analogy comes to mind—one spoils the bushel. But in the case of the Church community, the apple of a selfless act, a positive impetus, perfects the bushel, an imperfect group. So this sense of my community, one that is always becoming better than we defective members are, allows me to travel to a strange city and find some out of the way Catholic Church, and be at home. It does not matter if the priest preaches well or even if the congregants are friendly. I still belong and I know that deep in my bones.
I have seen beautiful cathedrals, representations of God’s Kingdom on earth, where wonderful choirs have filled the archways and resounded off the mosaics. My favorite image, however, of celebrating Catholic Mass is one my father shared with me. He was stationed in the South Pacific during World War II where accommodations were canvas rather than brick and mortar. He described acting as an altar server for a priest chaplain who celebrated the Eucharist on what was probably a mess tent table. Here was my shy dad thousands of miles from home, under threat of air attack, with men he hadn’t known at all just months before. Yet he was able to comfortably share in the rite. I find comfort in that same rite, the Eucharist, which makes me at home in some remote town, and in the community that is more than the sum of its parts. Thus I am assured that my being Catholic makes me Church, with a capital “C,” as much as any other member. Nor can I be very discouraged by any particular Catholic, no matter how egregious his sins or flawed thinking. My hope is that we continue perfecting. Although I am not well versed in the thought of the Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, my understanding is that he believed we humans are evolving toward the divine. Now that’s Hope.

Energizers

2008-03-17T14:58:00.004-05:00

Things that energize me:

rainy days

unexpected snow

real conversations

tear-wringing movies

a child's belly laugh

discovery of a connection

some poetry
crocus

Photo is by Ori Fragman Sapir and can be seen on www.treknature.com

Almost Two Months

2008-03-14T00:05:00.002-05:00

Life just is not what one expects. Allow me to be more specific: life is seldom what I expect. Saturday will be three full months since I worked as a tutor 30 hours a week, taught a freshman writing class 3 hours a week and added the necessary hours of prep and essay critiques, and devoted every other Saturday morning to a job with no future and no chance for advancement. I wonder if I have recovered. The voice in this entry still sounds lost.

Too Bad

2008-01-23T22:41:00.000-06:00

I am sorry that Fred Thompson has decided to bow out of the race. He was the one person who came close to my own beliefs. I had to be careful not to confuse his Law and Order persona with his political one, but I think I had it pretty straight. The media did not give him a very fair hearing. They did not seem to understand the more-than-sound-bite sentences he would use to explain himself. I guess no one told him about considering audience. Grade school children can only tolerate sentences of a certain length. Maybe the audiences created by media have the same limitations. So sad. There was a bit of Willie Stark (Talos) about Thompson in this race, the good, sincere part when Willie started out, before he began compromising himself. Now I can only guess if Thompson could have remained corruption free.

To Bee. . .

2008-01-16T22:48:00.000-06:00

My daughter has a blog in which she has mentioned Bishop Braxton of the Belleville, Illinois, Diocese on a couple of occasions. He is not exactly Mr. Friendly and he has a way of spending on lavish surroundings. She has personal experience of the man at a Confirmation. I know him only by reputation. Two other men I know by their reputations are our current leader, Pope Benedict XVI, and the St. Louis Archbishop, Raymond Burke. I am frankly not sure about the pope. Take his recent cancellation of a talk at a secular university in Italy. Does he place faith above reason as the university's physicists, and an earlier speech when the pope was a cardinal, suggested? I would have to look into that further and count on translations. Then there is Burke and his excommunicating of Catholics who would not surrender their parish and its funds to the diocese, a tricky legal question. All three men irritate me. I have always seen myself as just as much the church as any of the hierarchy, but such letter of the law leaders still prove to be an irritation. They are just below the surface of my skin only occasionally flaring into break-outs. Braxton's most recent is his possible misuse of missions funds. Of course, that is not letter of the law, but I think the behavior exemplifies the problems we Catholics must face in our traditionally hierarchical organization.
I like what a nun told my daughter she had nicknamed the three men to whom I refer above: the Killer Bees. How fitting.

Inadequacy at Any Age

2008-01-14T00:58:00.000-06:00

This evening Brain, from the televised cartoon Pinky and the Brain, pretty much summed up what I have been feeling lately: "I am middle aged and all I have to show for it is a sagging waist line and a roommate who thinks lint is a delicacy."

Higher Ed

2008-01-10T18:03:00.000-06:00

I was reading an article on the Inside Higher Ed--Daily Update about the abundance of PhDs in the arts and sciences and the dearth of tenure track teaching positions. Once again, I am of two minds.
There is something about tenure that rubs against the grain. It is the permanence of the achievement that bothers me. At the community college I just left, I saw newly hired full time instructors (assistant professors? terminology may vary from institution to institution) working diligently to get noticed by longer termed faculty. The newbies would serve on various committees, offer the fresh insights, come up with ideas and follow through with same, infuse lessons with excitement, experiment with technology, and generally keep their departments moving. Personally, I always saw all the activity as partly inspired by the new opportunity and partly driven by the requirements of their tenure committees. The stark disparity between the newbies and some of the seasoned faculty was striking. Whining about committee work, oft expressed despair at students' inability to perform, entrenched philosophies, bullying, and worn lessons or the infamous newspaper-reading-while-students-work-on-their-own approach characterized at least a few of the tenured folks. Like unions, I am sure there was a good reason for tenure at one time, but I wonder if there is at least some abuse. When I read someone's complaint about not enough tenure track positions at the university level, I tend to think of what that protective bubble can produce, and the article begins to sound whiny.
On the other hand, or in my other mind, I comprehend the probems created by the ratio of full to part time faculty. Where I worked, that was 80% to 20% in both faculty and support staff. From what I have seen, that is not atypical. So a student at that community college had an 8 in 10 chance of getting an adjunct instructor after being advised by a part time counselor. The student might then check on financial aid and be helped by a thirty hour a week clerk who depends and a woman in accounting, a man in IT, and a registration clerk who are all part time. Once the student gets into the semester and needs help, she will get tutoring from a math specialist and do research with a library aide who are also limited in weekly hours. There is no such thing as prorated benefits for the adjuncts and only leave accrues for the part time employees. Of course there are wonderfully motivated people in all of the positions mentioned, but the chance of burn out, leading to poor performance and high turn over, has to be omnipresent. So the system is definitely broken. I'm just not convinced more of the same, more tenure track positions, would be the cure.

Impact

2008-01-07T15:52:00.000-06:00

Just when did impact become a verb for anything outside of medical/dental circles? I had a professor in grad school back in the '90s who was already disgruntled by the word's use, so it has been working its way into everyday conversation for a while. You know what I mean. "The shooting impacted the neighbors." I get this mental picture of neighbors all shoved together in a garage for safety--like teeth in a jaw with nowhere to go. The use of impact as a verb, really shorthand for make an impact, has to be directly attributed to news anchors. Again, like transparency and closure, the word impact sounds just a little more important that it really is, like the speaker knows just a little more than the listener or at least is in the know. He or she is in the club. It is similar to all the academic types who loved shifting paradigms back in the '90s. But, back to impact, I think I would like to coin a term ala Bucky of Darby Conley's Get Fuzzy when he came up with "verbify." In his case, he was talking about just what I am, the misuse, creation, or manipulation of words into roles where they do not belong. I would like to add the term mediafy. The definition is to verbify but only when done by, or at least lead by, the media. So this whole impact thing falls under mediafication. I feel really smart and smug right now, but my head hurts. I think I'll have a lie down.