Things I Love

Early October days when one can walk down the city street on mountains of fallen yellow and red leaves; the curbs are covered, and the overarching trees are dancing like preschoolers in their first brightly-colored tutus.

Teenagers. Seriously.  I like the geekiness, the awkwardness, the enthusiasm, the hesitancy, the bravado, the thoughtfulness.  They crack me up and they challenge me, and every time I get to interact positively with one I get to revise a bit of my own truly awkward, truly horrible, truly painful youth.

Coffee. Dark, black, and preferably from a French press so it’s foamy on top and leaves a residue.  I like Turkish coffee, too, for this very reason…with its cardamom.  I like the smell of coffee, the color of coffee, the taste of coffee, and the effects of coffee.  I love the atmosphere of coffee; the intelligent conversation, the mismatched furniture of a coffee shop, the many types of non-mainstream music that goes with coffee. I’ve rid myself of every other addiction, I believe…but this one?  I drink far, far less than I used to–I usually try to limit myself to one cup per day, often two, rarely more than that–but oh, how I love it.

Fires. In fireplaces or in pits outside…not housefires (although still fascinating to watch if one could erase the trauma and emotional despair).  Wood fires.  Not just the aroma and warmth, which most people do, but the time-weaving effect of them.  Everything slows down, lives get dissected at a leisurely pace between passing around the poking stick, histories evolve on wisps of smoke. The moments between the crackling of the twigs hold everything possible, all soothing.  I’m a person who rarely, if ever, truly relaxes, but in front of a good wood fire, I usually get close.

Traveling.  Anywhere, usually, although I gravitate toward places with major history and/or natural beauty (which for me is topography, trees, and water). I love, LOVE how the air feels…changed…in different places.  Not the smell (although that’s there, too) but just the molecules themselves; the interaction between the air and my skin, my eyes.  The excitement of seeing new things, or seeing old things that I’ve been reading about my entire life.  Of touching places that thousands of others have touched over the centuries.  Of following a new road just to see where it goes.  Of looking at the homes of others far different from myself, and those quite similar to myself. Of hearing other languages spoken around me.  But again…that air.  Nothing like it.

Animals.  This is a hard one because this also means that anything that deals with pain of animals, cruelty or accident, is difficult (or impossible) for me to bear. I can handle the abuse of animals far, far less than I can that of most humans, for the simple fact that animals (and small children) will not understand that it’s not their fault.  I can’t get past that.  I’m crying now just thinking of it.  But I love watching different animals, I love eyes and gaits, and I love the wondrous variety.  And, of course, I love my kitties, especially a cute husband and a bunch of cute kitties, all finding room in our big bed with a pile of mismatched blankets and more pillows than creatures, every which way, spending a lazy afternoon in bad weather.

Flannel.  I like the blue-collar, working-man connotations of it.  I like the feel of it, especially old, worn flannel, against my skin.  I like the patterns of it, especially plaid.  I like the usefulness and the strength of it.  I like the associations of coziness and winter and love and comfort that come with every yard of it.  I even love old-fashioned, granny flannel nightgowns, and I don’t care who thinks that’s weird.

Snow Days.  Even more now that I’m a teacher than when I was a student, if that’s possible.  Especially when we get the call before I’ve showered, and I can curl up on the sofa in front of the picture window, coffee beside me and an afghan around me (in my flannel jammies), and a good mystery book in my hand, to watch the sun come up in the periwinkle blue world that is an early-morning snowstorm in Minnesota.  That periwinkle color is my favorite color in the world, and it’s hard to find anywhere but in the sky on a morning such as this.  I love the quiet of a snowfall (not blizzards, mind you, which aren’t quiet), and the whole feeling of stocking up at the store in case it’s going to be a few days, and of making neat edges with the snowblower down the sidewalk, and how everything looks better covered in fresh snow…even Marshall looks pretty, and that’s hard to do.

Teaching.  I came to it late in life–I started teaching at age 35–but it was worth the wait.  I love lesson-planning; the fact that anything I hear on the radio, anything I see as I go through my day, anything in print I stumble on, likely becomes possible lesson material and I tend to look at it in just that way.  I love the smell of floor wax.  I love the anticipation of a new year.  I love the performance aspect, the theatre of it.  I love the give-and-take aspect of class.  I love, LOVE when I can make a class laugh, or they make me totally lose it and laugh.  I love the kids, the books, the possibilities. I can’t imagine doing anything else, ever.

My friend Beth also wrote that she loves “containing multitudes” in the Whitman manner, and I have to agree with that.  I love that I can be a frumpy, middle-aged schoolteacher but also love some rather shocking music.  I love that I can dress in tie-dye but yet listen to hiphop.  I love that I can play Frank Sinatra back-to-back with Steely Dan and Green Day.  I love that I read Whitman and Gaiman, Chaucer and Anne Tyler.  I love that I can use some lingo of my parents from the 1920s as well as understand much of the current teenager slang. I love that I’m not easily pegged, and that those I gravitate toward are always full of surprises.  That we’re all jigsaw puzzles–the hard kind–and we take lifetimes to solve.

That, perhaps, we’ve not solvable, but that doesn’t keep any of us from attempting it.

I just started my Master’s in late August, and even though college isn’t something new to me (I have a B.A. and a B.S.), I’m learning a lot about what it’s like being a student.  This is the first time I’ve taken long-term classes since becoming a teacher, and it’s quite enlightening.

First and foremost?  I get to see how well I, myself, implement all the study tools I’ve been suggesting or mandating to students all these years.  Review notes each day, use Cornell notetaking, organizing binders, highlighting efficiently, SQ3R text reading, working on assignments over time rather than four minutes before they’re due, effective listening techniques…all of it.

And how am I doing?  Well, averaging them all out?  About a C.  Maybe a C-.

I do very well in listening…I’m one of those people who is horribly, terribly, immensely annoyed with students talking while the teacher or other students are, whether it’s my own classroom or I’m in another’s.  I’ve noticed over the years at teacher in-services that teachers are the worst offenders in this regard–behavior they never would allow in their rooms they partake in regularly, talking to neighbors, carrying on full conversations while a presenter is speaking.  Drives me crazy.  So, in that regard, I’m doing well…and probably annoying classmates by occasionally shushing them when the Prof is trying to talk.

On the notetaking, I’m doing well.  On the daily note reviewing?  Not so much.  For many reasons, none of them reasons that most of my own students couldn’t claim, themselves, which is important for me as a teacher, I believe.

Secondly, it’s a new wrinkle on studenthood that I’m looking at my courses and wondering how I would present the same material, and with which resources, and in what order.  I guess once a teacher, always a teacher; the planning, the assessing, the absolute absorbing, is always with me, just as it is whenever I’m hearing the news or waltzing through my regular blogreading and having “I could use that in class….” moments all the time.

And, thirdly?  It’s damned hard to sit in one place for two hours at a time, even with a little break.  I’m a pacer in my classroom–unless the fibro is biting me big time (which happens, and in which case I’m liable to hurt myself if I move too much as it brings dizziness, too).  I often give my own students “stretch time” even in our 50-minute classes because I hate sitting for that long, and yeppers…it’s not any easier for me these days, which could be the spinal arthritis and two bad discs which I’m also lucky enough to be blessed with.

I do often wear my TENS unit during class for this last reason, which led to yet a fourth reason why teachers should be students more often.  To experience the embarrassment.

I was giving a presentation the other night, and not only did I have to squash a half-hour’s worth of information and slides that I’d worked hard on into ten minutes (don’t ask), but the electrodes from my TENS unit came unattached as I bent for something (were on my lower back) and fell to the floor, still connected to the unit on my waistband.  I had to scoop all the wires up and stuff them in my pocket, while trying to explain it briefly to a classroom full of onlookers who thought, no doubt, that I was Frankenstein.

Which is something far different from when I was a student before…in my younger years, I was not only unable to speak publicly, but if pressed to and something like that had happened?  I would have lost it, completely, never to show my face again.  Now?  Make a joke, move on, whatever.

Being a teacher has also been good for my being a student, you see.

Here’s the result.

That’s all for now.  New school year, teaching on overload, and going to Grad School is keeping me far too busy, and throw in lots of personal things (Mom fell and broke her hip, this, that, some more o’ this) and I’m tapped.

For now.  I’m never silent for long, however. 

This summer is no different, but I have another item on my agenda.  One that isn’t about teaching, or education, or even my profession at all (although it impacts that, as well as everything else).  It’s about re-integrating my mind and body.

No, I’m not on some new-agey kick (not that I have anything against that, it’s just not me).  I’m not trying to find myself, and it’s not even a midlife crisis (although, come to think of it…).  It’s simply that over the last four years of medical comedy in my life, diagnoses and treatments and surgeries and prescriptions, I’ve lost track of my body.

More than that, I’m realizing that I not only have separated my body from “me” in such a way that it’s a foreign object, but that I absolutely hate this foreign object.  It causes me pain, and frustration, and it won’t do what I tell it to, and it keeps failing, and it interferes with everything I want to do.

I’ve been finding myself, more and more, watching commercials or programs or people in real life doing things that I used to do–simple things–and more and more I find I resent them, and hate my body, because I can’t do that.  Running, walking, canoeing, bending, reading, doing handicrafts.

I’m finding myself using language that highlights this separation, that labels my body a traitor, and I use metaphor that is violent (”I want a chainsaw to cut off these arms right now”).

I’m resentful–angry–over my eyes failing me when I’m an English teacher.  My reading has decreased an immense amount over the last three years or so, and it’s because I literally cannot see well enough to read at times–and it’s becoming more and more common. So many doctors, so many different “solutions”, and none of them have worked.  Meanwhile, my eyes get worse (and I had better than 20-20 vision for all of my adult life until recently).

I’m saddened and betrayed by the miscarriages.

I’m loathing of the autoimmune diseases that are killing parts of my own body, but it’s my own body that’s doing it.  I hate the pain, and I really, truly, hate the fatigue that keeps me from living the way I used to, from working as hard and as much as I used to.

I don’t like looking at myself–these conditions have done their damage on my appearance (weight, skin, etc.)–and all this resentment has built up so that, as Esperanza says regarding her environment vis-a-vis her *potential* at the beginning of The House on Mango Street, I feel like I’m a red balloon tied to an anchor.

And the key point there is that the “I” has nothing whatsoever to do with the body.  Separate entities, working against each other.

So, from discussions with my husband and a good friend–one who’s editing a book by a woman with a very similar journey–I’m realizing that this summer, along with setting up my Moodle courses, and finding a new novel for LA 8, and planning my new classroom, I have to re-integrate myself into a whole.  A flawed whole, granted, a whole with many parts missing and many parts not working properly, but a whole individual.

I need to learn to love this body again, and then perhaps I can heal.  And it’s not going to be easy.

My first steps?

• I am trying to nourish it better.
• I am starting T’ai Chi; I want strength, and I want to trust my limbs.
• I am trying to visualize positivity.
• I am starting acupuncture for the pain and meditation and integration.

And, since I’ll be teaching on overload this upcoming year *plus* going to grad school, I’m thinking now what I can realistically say “yes” to and what I will have to give up; I’m only one person, and one person with limited physical resources.

Of course, at the same time this is happening, I’ve managed another incurable diagnosis (spinal arthritis) to add to the Hashimoto’s, the Fibromyalgia, the Asthma, the (continue long, boring list here).  Also, my incision from a minor surgery on my back a couple of weeks ago has become, as happens often with me (weird immune system I have), infected.

But I’m trying very hard to not resent; accept, find the lessons, and adapt.  The resentment and hatred I’ve been carrying is contributing to the fatigue, I can only imagine, so it’s a mighty fine place to start.

That’s still a new feeling, for me; until recently, it had been a long time.  Today, I have a crush on President Obama not only because he can speak beautifully, but because he’s willing to (in Rachel Maddow’s words) “grab the third rail” and discuss the hard stuff.   To cut through the layers of pseudo-patriotic pseudo-rhetoric, to cut through what may be priggish hand-to-mouth shock by some on all sides, to cut through the supposed necessity of euphemism, and carefully expose the chewy center.

And God, it’s refreshing.

It’s about time someone on top realized that there’s great–massive–strength in admitting to errors in judgement, mistakes in handling.  Anything else leads to mistrust and no respect.  Ask any teacher: those of us in the profession who refuse to admit to marking a paper wrong, or who can’t own up to not knowing something or misspeaking something, will immediately lose the kids’ respect.

As well we should.

For a country such as ours who, we keep making schoolchildren repeat, is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, we sure have done a fabulous job of forgetting that we are, indeed, just *people*…and humanity is the same everywhere.  People screw up.  People choose badly.

And, at times, people choose wisely, and bravely, and with great sacrifice.

And all sides–ALL SIDES–have all of these people.  All of the time.

Namaste.

There are no sides to any of the mess involving the U.S., Israel, and the Arab world that are able to show clean hands.  None.  And the quicker we get over that hurdle of posturing that we can (or someone else can), the quicker we can actually get down to finding solutions.  Critics are right to point out that Obama’s Cairo speech yesterday didn’t offer solutions; however, to that, I would say (speaking as a teacher) “We cannot do the assignment until we’ve studied concepts.”

I do not go to my class, without any preparation in formulating a persuasive speech, say they’ll be delivering speeches the next day.  We discuss what makes a good speech; how to organize, research, cite; appeals, conventions.

I’m reading a collection of essays right now that has been restoring my faith in humanity.  It is The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, edited by Paul Rogat Loeb (author of Soul of a Citizen).  This collection is moving me, making me cry, making me laugh, making me gasp in joy and…hope.  Yesterday, I read both Starhawk’s “Next Year in Mas’Ha” and Amos Oz’s “The Gruntwork of Peace.” Both essays deal with the Israel-Palestinian conflict, on the surface.  Both are beautifully and hauntingly, passionately, written.  Both recognize humanity on all sides.  They take, on the surface, different sides on the Conflict, but “sides” is far too precise a word, here.  The reason these essays, while retaining their points of view and passion and arguments, are moving is because they recognize the light in the other side as they do their own.  They look at the face across the concrete barrier and see someone human, someone with the same desires and dreams.

Namaste.

We cannot move forward–in the U.S., in the Gaza Strip, in Iran, in Saudi Arabia, in Iraq, heck, in China, in North Korea–until those who have the power realize that our words matter, our posturing matters, and schoolyard bully self-aggrandizement only makes us look silly and adolescent.

Our leaders need to grab the third rail–need to address the hard truths, not just the pretty patriotic-sounding ones–and stop dancing around the olive tree.  Adults, and adult psyches, should be able to differentiate between Al Quaeda terrorists and a Muslim family in Riyadh, or Gaza, or Detroit, just as adult psyches should be able to differentiate between Christian assassins in Kansas and a Christian family in Topeka, or Chicago, or Italy.

We need to start thinking in nuances and truth, and that’s what I heard yesterday.  I saw great strength yesterday.  My President spoke for me, yesterday.

I am proud to be American, today, and I am hopeful that perhaps–just perhaps–with time, honor, dignity, and a lot of growing up–we all might just fix a few things.

Thank you, Mr. President, for allowing me to have a crush on you today and the beginnings of what might just be a love affair with my country again.

The score was 253 to 245.  Yes, we lost by only eight points (and one of the judges had us dead even).

However, we also won.  Here’s how:

First of all, it was the Minneota kids—especially Casey—who stayed behind and put the courtroom back together and made sure everything of ours (including some papers left behind by the other team) was removed, and all chairs put back, etc. as we’re instructed (and which is only common sense).  They double-checked the jury room where we all store our stuff and change, as usual.

Secondly, before the trial today (which started an hour late because the second judge couldn’t make it, but that’s another story), Pam, our attorney coach, called and made reservations at the Pizza Ranch in Pipestone for our team afterward.  When we did show up—and our kids were in great spirits even in disappointment—the other (winning) team had, uh, taken our reservation.

Pizza Ranch apologized profusely for the mistake—anyone could make it, we assured them—and worked their butts off to make room for us during their rush.  They wound up putting some tables together in the back hallway for most of the kids, and none of our kids complained at all even after waiting along a wall for room.

In fact, the manager came up to Pam and me later and said that she’d gone back to apologize to the kids for making them sit back there.  Our kids all said it wasn’t a big deal, and one of them said, “Oh, it’s okay…this way we can bond!” and the manager was so impressed by this good attitude that she sent them back a dessert pizza all their own.

Jon made a point of thanking the manager for the extra work, adding that because his family runs a bar and restaurant he knows what it’s like to have large groups come in and cause problems—to which the manager said our kids were a class act.

Our kids were so well-behaved that the Pizza Ranch sent them away with frisbees *and* discount coupons for their next visit (and Pam, who paid for ALL our meals, was given a discount).

As I told the kids on the bus home, they may have lost the trial, but they won all our hearts (yeah, yeah, too sweet, but really…I’m so very, very impressed with these kids!)

This was a group of 19 teenagers who’d just lost a heartbreaking competition after months of work (and two weather-related postponements), in a packed public restaurant *not* in their town.  Yet, they chose to smile, be polite to those around them (especially the hardworking folks at the restaurant), and have a good time without bothering anyone else.  And I wasn’t surprised in the least–I’m used to this from them.

I absolutely could not be prouder of these kids.

*  And yes, the blog title is supposed to be somewhat satirical of soi-disant silliness, but the rest of the blog is serious.

The rope in the water,

the cleat on the cliff,

do them no good anymore.

Let them fall, sink, go away,

become invisible as they tried

so hard to do in their own dying.

We needed to bother them

with what we called help.

We were the needy ones.

The dying do their own work with

tidiness, just the right speed,

sometimes even a little

satisfaction.  So quiet down.

Let them go.  Practice

your own song.  Now.

–”Letting Go of What Cannot Be Held Back”, from Playing the Black Piano, Bill Holm, 2004

I first heard of–and met–the large, ebullient, red-faced Icelander over twenty years ago when I signed up for some poetry/creative writing workshop at my St. Cloud, Minnesota, college.  Bill Holm had just published Boxelder Bug Variations, and I was intrigued by the freshness, the humor, the seriousness, the twinkle.

Many years later, I suddenly found myself teaching English at a tiny little school in a tiny little town that just happened to be not only Bill Holm’s hometown–and current residence–but his muse, his tether, his theme, his kingdom.

It wasn’t completely accidental, of course.  During my interview for the teaching job, his name and acclaim were brought up as a way of sweetening the deal.

It worked.

For the nearly seven years I’ve worked here, I’ve seen Bill Holm speak in a variety of contexts, spoken to him in awe as he peeked into my classroom, driven by his house with a sense of fan-girl curiosity, and admired both reading and teaching his printed word.  While I’ve never–and will never–share his appreciation for the desolate prairie (I’m a “tree person” as he would say), I do share a Scandinavian Lutheran background, a Liberal mindset, and a love for wit, humor, and travel.

And a love of Walt Whitman.

Reading his essays, his poems, is like looking in a mirror and finding I share part of myself with a middle-aged bearded man with a hearty voice and a love of ale and chat.

It’s not a bad place to be.  Ever.

When I began teaching my Advanced Placement Language course one of his books of essays (The Heart Can Be Found Anywhere on Earth) centered around the very town in which I spend the vast majority of my time, three schoolyears ago, I was nearly giddy when reading certain of his pieces.  My class teased me the entire year about my schoolgirlish crush on the man, and kept threatening to stop by his house to tell him of my undying love.  Since I had thought about getting up the courage to ask him to speak to my class, this was a major problem.

I never did ask him–he spoke about the same essays in another English course taught by another English teacher (Aaron Cheadle, who also happens to live across the street from Bill)–and now I never will be able to.

Bill Holm died last night, in Sioux Falls.  We thought we’d lost him a couple of years back when he suffered major heart trouble, but he pulled through to keep carrying around Walt Whitman and leading Boxelder Bug Days, and even kept teaching at the local University until retiring this past year.

Every summer, he conducted an Icelandic travel and writing seminar, and I always wanted to come up with the money to go.  It was a dream of mine.

And last night…he left us.

And, like he wrote above, I still want to bother him and call it help.

Goodbye, Bill.  I will look for you in the grass.

Soon after I sat down at the first station, a young couple–maybe 28, 30 years old each–sat next to me.  Man and woman.

I heard them before I saw them, and my first impression was that they were an adolescent boy and his mother; unfortunately, in hindsight, I see that I was, for all intents and purposes, correct, even if this was, in reality, a romantic couple (living together or married).

The, uh, “man” of the couple was engrossed in his cell phone, playing games and checking things without looking up.  He was complaining, in a very annoying high and whiny voice (hence my first thought of his age) about something not coming in on time at Wal*Mart.  He was very short with his partner.  She was very quiet and trying to be soothing.  He ended his little pity fest by saying, “Why do we always have to wait for things at this Wal*Mart?”

Waaaaaah.  I assumed, by his chat, some electronic gadget or movie release–he knew what date something was supposed to be released.

This couple’s conversation–if you could call it that, as not once did he look at his partner or stop playing with his toy–soon devolved into petty bickering.  The female half of the couple was, at least, attempting to be discreet, but the guy?  He was, it seems, one of those persons who desperately needs an audience for everything he says and does, and expects not only his wife but random strangers to notice his every move.

I suspect strongly that if there had not been a waiting room full of uncomfortable strangers desperately wishing for the ability to turn off hearing as one closes one’s eyes, his little snit wouldn’t have happened at all.

The disagreement ended with the man saying, “You never listen to me” (oh, the irony…we all had to listen to him, Dear God) and his wife replying, timidly and oh-so-quietly, “You never listen to me.”  To which he replied, “So, why are we talking?”

I had to ask myself, “So, why are you two together?”  It was obvious that this was their normal means of communicating.  Neither was upset in the least.  This was exactly how they normally relate to each other.

How horrifying.  But it gets worse.

After we’d been there awhile, a nurse came out to speak to them.  She told them, very discreetly, that they’d have to wait for results a little while longer.  The patient–the woman of the couple–thanked the nurse and the nurse left.

Immediately, the man began complaining.  He said he had better things to do than to sit there and wait.

He then listed the things he had to do, loudly, intermixing the catalog with repeated choruses of “I’ve got a busy day!”  He had to go to the bank, he had to go home and check his mail, and he had to run one more errand. All of these were things that were within ten blocks of this clinic.

It was, at this time, about 11:30 in the morning.

“I got a busy day!” pout, petulant whine, pout.  I wanted to turn around, desperately, and say, “Oh, grow up, you pathetic loser.”  But I held back.

But it got still worse.

A couple of minutes later, he asked his wife–loudly, of course, and while he was still playing his phone (and accidentally taking photos with it that he didn’t mean to do)–”Did you get your shot yet?”

She answered in the negative, and that they had to wait for results on this test before she got her shot.  Her husband began to laugh annoyingly.  Finally showing some spunk, she turned to him and said, “What’s so funn!” in a strong voice.

His response?  I kid you not…it was, “Ha ha, you still have to get poked in the arm!  Ha ha!”

Not two minutes after this, Sir I’m-So-Great needed a Kleenex, and there was a box about five feet away on a railing.  He asked her to get him one or two, which she dutifully did.  Obviously, getting the Kleenex was a task too menial for him.  Then…oh, man, I really wish I were kidding…without even words, she took his used Kleenex and found a waste receptacle for it.

The way this was done showed that this was always the way it was; no words were exchanged.

But it still gets worse.

Just before I got called to leave the waiting room, it became clear what the couple was there for–and not because I was eavesdropping but because the man refused to speak in lower tones.  Indeed, as I said before, he wanted an audience.  He was that arrogant, that needy of adoring attention.  This came about because he asked her, point blank, “What’ll you do if you’re pregnant?  Put off the rest of college until it’s, what, two?”

It was obvious she was there for her regular Depo (contraceptive) shot, and before she could get it, she had to have a negative pregnancy test.  Simple.  Not a big deal…unless you’re this guy.

They were a couple.  His earlier conversation proved to me that these two were at least living together, if not married, and shared at least bank accounts.  Therefore, any contraceptive measures were *theirs*, not *hers*, and, dear God, any child would be *theirs* and not *hers*.

But, no.  He asked, “What’ll YOU do if you’re pregnant.”  In a tone that suggested that none of this was his concern, and for the love of God, did she think he could spend a half-hour in a damn waiting room (laughing at her getting a shot) while there was mail to be retrieved?!?

This guy was not handsome.  Quite the opposite.  He was fairly…let’s be generous and say “unattractive, physically.”  The woman wasn’t magazine-cover beautiful, but she was an attractive young woman with a bright, friendly face.

Why are they together?  I sat there and tried to figure that out.  Tried to figure out what would have drawn this woman to this man–it wasn’t his looks.  It wasn’t his personality.  I doubt he was wealthy by the way he talked (and his older-model cell phone), not that I think wealth is a good reason to date/marry someone.  He had, as far as I witnessed, absolutely nothing going for him, and many marks against him.

Yet, he had a wife who was willing to be berated while waiting for a pregnancy test, to be belittled in public, to throw away used Kleenexes, and to be what appeared receptacle for his sexual pleasure (since all the repurcussions would be hers alone).

I had to leave before they did (or I’m sure I would have heard, loudly, any test results broadcast by him), but since then, I’ve just been hoping that her test was negative.  That dynamic between them?

Shouldn’t be raising children.

If that makes me elitist, so be it.  I can accept that.

And, also?  Thank God for my husband.  The contrast between these two men couldn’t be more marked.  I would expect from a true partner neither overbearing strength nor chronic weakness (and I hope to exhibit neither myself but I’ll refrain from saying I manage this), and I am so very, very happy to have a strong, decent, kind, adult husband.

Because commitment should always be supported.

Because I’m in love with my best friend, and he and I enjoy benefits by legally marrying, and others should have the same.

For my stepdaughter, my friends, my family members who should have every right to happiness, joy, and family that I have.

This.  Video.

Don\’t Divorce Us

Dear Mr. Governor:

I’m writing to let you know that your continued vetoing of statewide health insurance for Minnesota’s teachers, and your general non-support for Minnesota teachers and education, is forcing me to choose between continuing to teach or putting my life at risk without health coverage.

I live in outstate Minnesota (Marshall), and I teach in a small district.  My health insurance currently costs me over $500/month (after my district’s contribution) for individual coverage.

I’ve recently married, and my husband is without insurance.  To put him on my policy, I would be paying $1230/month–out of pocket.

Before we ever saw a doctor.

Worse, our rates are going to increase in July by at least 20%.  I will be paying just under $1500/month for insurance for the two of us–and I only make $28,000 (2008 W-2) to begin with (and my husband makes less than $15,000 a year at the same district, without any benefits, as a paraprofessional).

We cannot live like this.  And I blame you.  We Minnesota teachers have tried, repeatedly, to pool our insurance resources, only to be thwarted by you and/or the Legislature time and again.  This past year’s veto was absolutely a kick in the teeth for each one of us.

We are already pooling through our local service cooperative, and I had to laugh, bitterly, at your recent call for all districts to pool for resources—you only call for that until it comes to statewide insurance.  That, you will not LET us pool!

My income will not increase for next year, but my insurance will—dramatically.  I have two college degrees and seven years experience as a teacher who regularly works ten-, twelve-, and fourteen-hour days.

I deserve to be able to keep my job and get health care and I shouldn’t have to choose between them.

Shame on you.

–Karla Olson
Marshall, MN

Right now, I’m unsure what to do.  I have pre-existing conditions that would make it impossible to find alternative insurance for me.  This also means I cannot go without coverage.

Oy.