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 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.

You’re in a darkened, metal box.  Someone–someone evil, mind you–has set up a laser-and-mirrors gig so there are constantly-moving red lights around you in the dark, but you can’t quite find their source or track them easily.

It’s far too warm in the box.  And you don’t have room to lie down; you can lean against the walls, but they’re rough and spiky.

Your stomach is unsettled and you know you’re mere nanseconds away from losing your sandwich-and-yogurt lunch (one your awesome husband lovingly made and packed for you this morning).

While you’re enjoying all of these sensations, someone (again, someone evil) has loosened several sharp-toothed weasels to leap and crawl around (they have claws, as well) inside the metal box, and outside, several evil someones are pounding on the metal walls, with hammers, in various asynchronous, unrelenting rhythms.

In short, this is a day teaching while having a migraine after not being able to sleep the night before.

Just so you know. 

So, after that, I have to ask: What classic movies (or books) have you been hearing about your entire life but haven’t seen or read?  How much of the classic could you actually speak to, however, simply be living in the culture that has produced it?

I just finished The Odyssey with tenth graders, and one of the reasons I teach it is because it’s the foundation of so much of Western literary culture; allusions and references to it are unavoidable.  Even without having read it, many could pick out these allusions and references (without full understanding, of course).

I know that I could tell you the motif song of Casablanca before I ever saw it, and I can pick up on students’ catch-phrases and T-shirts from Napolean Dynamite though I still haven’t seen it (but I want to).

How about you?

He chose the Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford.  He’s pre-med.

I don’t mean to say that playing for the NFL is for slackers, or that it doesn’t require discipline.  It most certainly does, and I do have great respect for athletes who do it for the right reasons, have fun with it, and play fair while working hard.

I only mean that many of us, especially today, think fame and fortune is everything.  “If only I could be in People magazine/ SI, and make millions of dollars, and be beautiful and athletic, my life would be perfect!”  I hear variations on that theme from a great many students.

Heck, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that once or twice in my life, I’d entertained daydreams of writing the Great American Novel and seeing my work in bookshop windows.

I’m impressed with Mr. Rolle for a great many reasons, as I delineated earlier; I’m further impressed that he chose to change the world and improve his brain, his long-range future, and work out others of his talents.

I hope he also manages to find fame and fortune on the grid, if that’s what he chooses later (as he believes he will).  I suspect he’ll manage to be a success–however he measures it–in whatever he chooses to do.  My hat’s again off to him, and he inspires me.

So, when did I start?  Two hours ago.

Am I surprised?  Nope.

Here’s the deal…I do have honest-to-goodness reasons why it’s been hard getting everything done the last couple of years.  I’ve spent more time in hospitals and doctors’ offices than I have with friends, I’ve had eight surgical procedures done in, what, the last two years, and my chronic illnesses leave me exhausted, in pain, with cognition and vision issues that make it very hard to do much beyond my teaching and Mock Trial–and even then, some days I’m barely functional by 4:00 or 5:00 p.m.

However–and I must be honest–I cannot, in good conscience, blame all this procrastination on that.

I am, and have always been, the kind of person who, instead of getting more done on days off, needs the external push-in-the-rear to really get going.  Once I’m off and running, I’m fine and can accomplish a great deal (until the vision or body gives out).  So while I may fantasize about all the time I’ll have during vacations, that’s not really true.  What will happen is that I will shut down, recharge my batteries, and get very little done.

And hate myself for it.

In college, I was the person finishing (er…starting?) my papers the night before the due date…and actually usually doing quite well with them.

I’m the teacher who wishes–oh, how I wish–for a one-month summer break and longer breaks throughout the school year, because summers are wasted on me.  I’m bored after a couple of weeks, I become a vegetable, and I hate hot weather anyway (I’m so Scandinavian in biology it’s ridiculuous).  I can’t wait for school to start again and I’m not afraid to admit it.

I do my best work under pressure, even if it does take years off my life.  At my age, I should accept this.

So, while I did have a really bad flare this week that kept me unable to do much, and I did spent many, MANY constructive hours doing online planning and networking and self-education, I haven’t accomplished my goals for this break at all.  And I go back on Monday.

And that’s who I am, I guess, and perhaps I can understand my students who are the same way a bit more because of this, too; be a little more forgiving, a little more flexible.

Okay, break’s over.  I’m finished with the bathroom (sparkly clean with an open vanity sans bottles and dispensers) and partly done with the kitchen, and I may as well continue now that I’m already rather hot and smelling of bleach and Comet™.

I am who I am. 

I, too, am a Franti fan, and I, too, am reassured about the human condition by listening to his music, hearing his kindness.

That wouldn’t be a problem–I like putting together presentations–except for two things:

1)  I hate, loathe, detest, and am flattened by having to present to colleagues.  I can only teach teenagers.  That’s it.  My repertoire is quite…small.  I can do 8th grade, and I can do seniors, and I can do everything in between, but beyond that?  I either come across like a total imbecile or, in trying to avoid that, I assume far too much and end up speaking babble in Greek.

and…

2)  In deciding what to include, I’ve been spending hours reading edtech blogs, following links, adding to my bookmarks, and exclaiming, “Oh, hey, another way to use Twitter!” and “Wow, that’s so freaking cool!” a lot.

Neither of these points are very helpful, you might notice.

Perhaps as an act of exorcism, I’ll lay out some of the cool things I’ve been finding for #2.  (If any of you have ideas on fixing #1, please comment or e-mail!)

• Wordia.  I’m having visions of some very fun and creative vocabulary lessons for kids.
• Search Cube.  Cool for visual learners, I suspect.  You can view an example here.
• Twitter Venn tools.  Very cool.  Visually interesting and fun.  (Not to mention an awesome woman whose blog I need to watch closely so it’s already added to my RSS feed!)
• Speaking of new bloggers I’m following, here’s a great idea for Movie Trailers for Books with a very cool resource for keeping track of visual sources.  Woot!

Where did most of these come from?  Tweets on Twitter posted by other educators or edtechs.

So…back to that presentation.  Maybe after following links to just a couple of more sites…and checking my tweets another time…oh, and yeah, that new Wiki I joined for educators, that might have something new…and…and…and…

Friends of ours, Doug and Neil, are fostering a newborn baby boy, born 12/18/08 and placed in their care a day later, and hope to adopt him after six months!  They fostered a teenaged boy last year and hoped to adopt him, but with the stupid laws (he was from out of state, which was the problem) they weren’t able to.  I hope this one goes much better!

Neil and I have been friends since the Dawn of Time (okay, more like 1988 or so) and Doug since they began dating ten or eleven years ago.  Since they live in the Marshall area (Doug’s a professor here at the college), they helped us find a house when we moved here seven years ago, and I served on a city commission with Doug for a year.

Anyway, yay for more families!  As an adoptee from foster care myself (back in 1968, when I was 2 1/2 years old) placed in a non-traditional family (my parents were childless and in their late forties and told they’d make terrible parents because of it), I salute them and support them and am thrilled for all three of them!

(I’ll add a picture if I get permission from them to post it!)

In the meantime, a picture of me shortly after my own adoption.