No Telling

All You Do Is Blink

2010-08-30T22:11:00.001-05:00

Nothing makes you feel older and younger like standing in front of teenagers all day. I teach in the very high school I graduated from thirty years ago, and while the physical building has changed very little, I am reminded every minute that everything else has changed a great deal.

It seems like just weeks ago I was stomping the halls of this high school in platform shoes and bell bottoms, peasant blouse flapping.

At the same time, the wild-eyed possibility of these teenagers is catching. Makes me feel like the world is round again, that the orbits are infinite and the end is not near. That's a lovely bonus.

The mad pace is eating into my writing time right now, although I can see a time soon when I'll be caught up and - with luck - trot a little ahead. Just not in wooden platform shoes.

A Last Minute Change of Plans

2010-08-15T23:26:00.002-05:00

Today I finished packing up book boxes and moved out of my university office. With four more days until the students flood in, I'm going back to public school teaching. Yes I am.

I left high school teaching five years ago for this academic adventure, and now it's time to go back. I miss the students who aren't there because they want to be. I miss the feeling that every day I might say or do the very thing that sets a young person on course. I miss gut-wrenching teen angst poetry. I even miss the frustration of staying up late at night to find one more way to make the magic happen for students who don't believe it matters.

So last Monday when I discovered a last minute opening/chance to go back, I applied and was hired in a day. That was that. My Ivory Tower career didn't turn out to be a career anyway, just a job. There are important things I'll miss there as well. My heart hurts when I think about the literary magazine staff I'm leaving behind. These students are grown-ups, though, seniors in college standing at the edge of the jumping-off place, capable and in control. I'm going to miss their triumphs.

To be honest, there wasn't a day during those five university years that I didn't look around and wonder which students weren't there. The students who didn't make it to the show always haunted me.

Because I know I made the right decision, it was surprising to find I was more than a little jangled as I loaded the last box in my car this afternoon. Resignation and keys turned in, I let the front door of Thompson Hall close behind me and the world spun a bit. Maybe all this moving was too fast, maybe it was simply too damn hot out to be lugging heavy boxes across fiery asphalt.

Maybe it was that I'd spent most of my life on that campus, sneaking cigarettes and listening in on medieval lit night classes when I was supposed to be in the library. My mom was a dorm mother and my daddy coached football there on that campus. It was my home and the school where I later earned two degrees. I remember the odd vacancy of the whole campus leaving for Christmas or summer break, the ghost-town silence the university left behind at such times. It was like someone had sucked all of air out of my walking-around world and left me dangling there alone. Can you hear me Major Tom?

It felt like that again today. A Sunday afternoon between terms, empty parking lots and still buildings. Maybe it was that this time, I left too. That's a lot of history to walk away from.

Tomorrow morning I'll be in workshops and dragging furniture around my classroom. On Thursday, the halls will be filled with nervous and swaggering teenagers. It makes me smile to imagine them, all possibility and emotion, filing into rooms unaware that these rooms are too small to hold them long.

I can't wait to begin.

photo, George Eastman House via Flickr Commons

Be Careful What You Wish For

2010-08-06T22:45:00.000-05:00

It's been the hottest summer I can remember. Day after day with a heat index of 110+ and the whole world feeling like it's on fire. Not a drop of rain in weeks, no matter who's doing the rain dance or how fancy. Those liars on the Weather Channel had promised rain for days. Yes, Jim, even you. Still nothing.

This afternoon the lie became the truth and in less than half an hour Em was outside sweeping water furiously away from the back door.

We needed sandbags, but sandbags are an emergency purchase that seems all-important when you can't drive through flooded streets to buy them. To make matters worse, the place selling bags doesn't have sand, and vice-versa. Somehow, I always put those on the to-do list after a hard rain and then forget about them entirely. It might be time to break that cycle.

Better yet, we might want to put in a french drain so we'll need neither sandbags nor spare flood brooms. There's an idea.

I'm So Vain

2010-08-02T11:46:00.000-05:00

The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize.
(Clairee from Steel Magnolias)

Well, this should be interesting. I had a little surgery (nothing serious) to smooth out my lumpy head. Fifty stitches later, my head has been slap-dash shaved and I look like a cur dog with the mange. That's nothing. When Tina sees this, I'm pretty sure she'll go after the surgeon with a pair of clippers set on zero.

I'm hiding out for now wearing various loud scrub caps, but in a couple of weeks I'll be back in the classroom looking like this. It's time for some creative solutions. Unless anyone out there has another alternative, it looks like I'm sentenced to hats or fake hair for at least four months. Lindsay Lohan will be back on the street and re-incarcerated before I can use a teasing comb again.

I know this is whiny, but hair is a Big Deal here in the South. This is mysterious and (for some reason) irritating to Those Who Aren't From Around Here, especially the academics I share the halls with. It's as if big hair and intelligence were an either/or proposition. Well-educated Southern women find this amusing, because we've always known that real power down here requires both. Just ask Blanche Lincoln whose local senatorial approval ratings rise and fall with the flick of a teasing comb.

For now, I'm in loose caps. While I've always enjoyed a nice hat, wearing anything on my head in 110+ degree weather makes me want to burst into tears. Besides, they don't make hats like they used to. I'll compromise, of course, and find a nice cotton or linen something-or-other. Accessorizing is next to Godliness and all that. Any suggestions are welcome.

Em found a little something at the local beauty supply, but it may be a few weeks before I can test drive it. Maybe by then my vanity can overcome the idea of wearing Paris Hilton fake-hair-on-a-headband. I don't know.

I'll think about that tomorrow.

Relax! You can't screw up her hair. Just tease it and make it look like a brown football helmet. (Shelby, from Steel Magnolias)

Teachers, Start Your Blogs: Free Snazzy Blogger Templates

2010-07-25T18:56:00.002-05:00

Blackboard
See the demo page / Download the template

My biggest secret is that - despite my overall coolness and snappy Southern vernacular - I'm a little bit of a tech geek. Just a little, though, and only as it relates to Making Things Pretty. Many times I've run across a techie this-or-that and decided not to bore you all to death, but this time I've just got to show you a few things I've run across.

Teachers need to blog for a variety of reasons: blogs instead of emailed parent newsletters, blogging with students, and connecting to the larger educational community by both writing and reading blogs about best practices. There are scads of blogging platforms out there for these purposes. I use Blogger because it's free and easy to customize.

Click on the demo pages to get a good look at each of these templates. None of these require a fancy header and all of them are friendly. I chose graphics-heavy templates for a reason - teachers on the run will be entering mainly text. You can show off to your students and make believe you know as much as they do about technology. Besides, they're just so stinkin' cute.

I scooped up these templates from BTemplates, but there are many other sites as well. Just google "Blogger Templates" and plan to kill an hour or so. Instructions for uploading are below.

Children and Toys
See the demo page / Download the template

Imagination
See the demo page / Download the template

Newspaper 02
See the demo page / Download the template

Reckless
See the demo page / Download the template

Desktop Chaos
See the demo page / Download the template

Tintin
See the demo page / Download the template

Penciling
See the demo page / Download the template

Book Tree
See the demo page / Download the template

Education Style
See the demo page / Download the template

Now, I know Blogger has come out with all manner of new ways to configure and reconfigure your blogs into loveliness. It's a marvel to be able to whip through the new design feature and make a blog look like you without using those tired templates they had for years. Bully for Blogger, I say!

But if you want something snazzier, it's out there and it's ridiculously easy to install. Here's how:

Pick a template and download it onto your computer. Unzip it and remember where you put it.
Go to your Blogger dashboard and click on Design, then the Edit HTML tab.
Click on Download Full Template. This saves the template you already have and will put it back just like it was should you change your mind. Always back up your template.
Click on the Browse button and choose the new template. There may be several items there - your template will be an .xml file. Once the file name is showing in the box, click Upload .
You'll get a warning box about deleting widgets. Clicking Keep Widgets will leave all your previous widgets intact. I suggest choosing that option so you don't start again from scratch. You may have to move them around a bit later, though.
Done! Click View Blog and enjoy!

I love blog redesigns. For me it's the equivalent of buying a fresh Moleskine and a new pen, only much cheaper.

UPDATE: Just found another cute template!

Kinder Garden (from Blogger Template Blog)
See the demo page / Download the template

Gathering Audience: Blackbird Academy's Coffeehouse Reading

2010-07-22T23:15:00.003-05:00

In the beginning is the word, and we write for ourselves. Secret notebooks stashed in backpacks, odd scribbles on napkins or the back of a shopping list. Sometimes a string of words so bright we repeat and repeat them hoping the glamor of it won't fly off before we can net the wild thing on paper. That's how it begins.

Then we gather large stories in small rooms, tentatively sharing what we've written. That's the next step, and the one that binds us to each other as writers. We grow into our voices and become fearless on the page.

Finally, we go out into the world. This time, family and friends in a familiar place so all this bravery has elbow-room and a soft place to land. There's a certain alchemy in hearing your voice read aloud the words you've written, and to see an audience rapt. For you.

Next time, we'll fling poems and stories even wider, because we can.

Top, left to right: Jennie Strange - Blackbird Academy executive director, Amy Ness - art instructor. Middle, left to right: Laura Craig, Hannah Laws, Mary Margaret Hambuchen. Bottom, left to right: Amy Ness, Tara Walls - dance instructor, Jennie Strange, Pam James.

Special thanks to Something Brewing for welcoming us and for having iced coffee on such a hot evening.

Singing in the Dead of Night

2010-07-12T23:00:00.003-05:00

I spend my Monday nights at Blackbird Academy. It's a non-profit arts school here in town dreamed up by Jennie McNulty Strange offering dance, music, visual art, theater, and creative writing. I teach creative writing workshops to high school students and adults there.

It's magical, really. all that creative energy in one place. Week after week I'm audience to these amazing writers who, having found a safe haven, literally pour the words out each week.

Next week my two classes will meet at the local coffee shop to give a public reading. What does this mean? Group poems as well as individual readings of poetry and prose. They are everyone of them nervous and excited because we're moving a few blocks out of our nest and into the world. Writing does that. It makes us brave in increments until we're standing on top of some picnic table shouting fresh poems scribbled on paper napkins.

While all of my students are trying their hands at online public writing right now, the high school folk are the most eager to find an audience. They're fearless, I tell you. At their request, you are cordially invited to read their summer scribblings. You all know the importance of encouragement, so do please drop by their blogs, enjoy a read, and leave an inspirational note here and there.

Just imagine - they're launching their writing lives and you're here to watch. It's like the moon landing, only more important. Enjoy!

This is Not a Book Review: John Fergus Ryan and The Redneck Bride

2010-07-03T20:00:00.002-05:00

I'm sorry. I really am. I'm about to tell you not to live another hour without reading this novel, and you're never going to find it. The Redneck Bride by John Fergus Ryan is pure southern Gothic, out of print and mighty scarce.

I got lucky. This book (literally) lept off the shelf and into my hands in the used book basement at the Cox Creative Center the other day. I caught it before it hit the floor and - call me crazy - I'm convinced Ryan's rapscallion ghost was responsible. Probably smoking contraband cigars in the afterlife, right there in the basement. I don't blame the haint - the book was misshelved in with the general fiction population rather than the special "Southern Lit" or "Arkansas" shelves. Five dollars later, I had a first edition hardback filled with illustrations and wearing a pristine dust jacket.

Don't look for this to be Faulknerian. The Redneck Bride's narrator has poetic Attention Deficit Disorder, with a healthy dose of descriptive OCD - that's part of its charm. But the one-liners hit hard. Sometimes hard enough to put the book down and walk away for a minute just to catch your breath.

Some years ago, Billy Bob Thornton attempted to produce a movie based on the book. No amount of research has turned up what happened to the project, and Billy Bob hasn't yet returned my call/tweet. Ryan's novel The Little Brothers of St. Mortimer did make it, but straight to DVD. It's called The White River Kid and has quite a cast of stars. His novel Watching came out in 1998 and it looks like I'm going to have one hell of a time finding any copies of that one.

Sadly, John Fergus Ryan died in 2003. His obituary in the Memphis Flyer, eloquently written by Jackson Baker, is worth reading start to finish, especially the section on his writing process. In fact, someone out there needs to write Ryan's life. His son, John Jr., illustrated The Redneck Bride, and I understand makes his living as an artist. Strangely enough, both father and son appeared in the film The People vs. Larry Flynt. Ryan Sr. was a firecracker for sure.

You know, I might just head to President Clinton Avenue and crawl back down into the used book basement again. Maybe ol' John will sling another one out of the shelf for me. It could happen.

Scribbling a River

2010-07-02T13:02:00.001-05:00

Table at the Cox Creative Center

The Great Bear Writing Project made its yearly trek to Little Rock yesterday. An all-day writing marathon, a gaggle of teachers, and damn near perfect weather - it doesn't get much better than this.

We met at the River Market, then then headed out with notebooks on the ready to wander and scribble. I've written about these marathons here before - the County Line Barn Sale marathon and the Harmony Grove/El Dorado marathon are two on-the-road examples. Last year's Little Rock marathon was a little bittersweet, as our local Micheal Jackson street mime found himself a little lost. Sadly, he wasn't there this year.

During the Great Bear Writing Project summer institute, we always head to the River Market District in Little Rock. On one small stretch of road, writers can walk and scribble from the Bill Clinton Library to the Capitol (if they're ambitious). In between there are art galleries, museums, shops, food, crazy southern people, and a river runs through it. Literally.

I spent my time scribbling on the edge of the Arkansas River and in the Cox Creative Center - the water because I've always suffered from River Rapture, and the CCC because because they have thousands of cheap books in the basement. And because John Malkovich sat there. Once. I'll post some of these pieces as soon as I can make out my handwriting.

The day ended in the basement at the Flying Saucer, a local joint known for interesting beer and waitresses who need to cover themselves. I love it in that basement. It's dank and dark, full of couches and pool tables. Why there's even an honest-to-God functioning cigarette machine down there. Ah, memories...

The basement is where we meet back up and take turns reading the day's scribbling out loud. With their backs to the pool tables, these school teachers threw down some serious writing. Earlier in the day, my compadre Stephanie said marathon writing works because we've given ourselves permission to do it. She's right about that. A little permission and these Arkansas teachers wrote fearlessly.

This is why I live for our writing marathons. If I ever win the lottery, I'll give myself permission to throw one of these every single day of my life.

(Update: Debra Hale-Shelton at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette wrote a lovely piece on our writing marathon. The Great Bear Writing Project enjoyed having her along for the ride.)

Kindles and Nooks and iPads. Oh my.

2010-06-27T23:58:00.012-05:00

Before I start getting all middle-aged-scrappy, let me fess up about my level of techno-intelligence. Like many Generation Jonesers (1955 to 1965), I know enough to be moderately tech-cool, but not enough to keep those damn Gen Y kids from making fun of me.

Well, they won't be laughing at me here, because I'm about to launch into a full-blown I Told You So about e-readers. Everyone knows Gen Y isn't reading anything that doesn't flash through on their cell phones. That's a shame, too, because they could save a fortune on textbooks.

E-readers were never meant for them anyway. Kindle, Nook, and the Sony E-Reader were meant for geezers like us who still read books and who can't see well enough to read Eat, Pray, Love on a tiny iPhone screen without two pairs of reading glasses.

Then the iPad happened and sent all those overpriced e-readers scrambling. Prices are dropping like mad. Rumor has it they'll be giving them away with book-bundle purchases soon. How many times did you look at your Kindle and say, Hey. I wish I could get online with this thing -?

Not me. I've got a laptop and a Blackberry-like phone and about two thousand real books. I'll only consider an e-reader if, 1) the price drops down below fifty bucks, or 2) someone gives me one as a gift. After Christmas #1 might make it easier for #2 to happen. I can wait.

And the iPad? Well, it doesn't have any actual keys, so probably not. I might be willing to play fast and loose with my tactile reading experience, but not with the punch and click of writing. The price ($499-$899) is too dear for just trolling the internet. I'd rather use a laptop or one of my old manual typewriters anyway. Don't judge.

The problem is that technology is changing so quickly it's tripping all over itself. No one wants to believe the $300 e-reader they bought last Christmas will be obsolete before the next one. Gamers are used to this sort of nonsense, but book buyers aren't.

Which reminds me of my last trip to Barnes & Noble in west Little Rock. The joint was filled to the gills with folks strolling through the shelves, drinking coffee, flipping through magazines, and generally having a fine literary afternoon. Inside the front door was a Nook kiosk complete with a smiling and knowledgeable B&N employee.

Everyone walked right past him. Just sayin'.

This Rant's Been Coming for a While

2010-06-12T14:15:00.002-05:00

There's been too much tragedy around here without reasonable explanation, and I think it's time for a few answers. In the stages of grieving this would be #3 - Anger and Bargaining. Clearly I'm on the upper end of of it and a good four stages away from anything close to Acceptance or Hope.

I guess the horror of Thursday's campground flood here in Arkansas is the last straw for me. If I were a church-going woman there might be words to comfort during such an event. Here in the South we've been inundated by disasters natural and unnatural, and I refuse to believe it's part of some plan, punishment, or reward orchestrated by a God arranging and rearranging our fates like a macabre puppet master. If That Televangelist (he knows who he is) chimes in to blame us all for homosexuality, Obama, or using the wrong dinner fork, my head will explode. Better yet, I'll go fetch him so he can dig barehanded in the muddy bank of the Little Missouri River for other people's children.

The tornadoes, the oil, the flooding. Hurricane season just began and we're all waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it probably will. When Katrina turned New Orleans into a scene from Dante, we pushed the boundaries of English attempting to create language to describe it. Tragedy, disaster, catastrophe - these won't be enough to describe what could happen when hurricane meets oil, two, three, maybe four times. People will leave the coast forever.

My heart hurts and I'm angry. The Southern religious litany that makes reasons for unreasonable tragedies is too much for me to hear right now. All that "God's plan" and "gone to a better place" business only makes it worse. I need to avoid all my Fundamentalist friends for a while - at least until I get to one of those other stages of grief.

I Love Her Despite Those Janky Ballpoint Pens

2010-06-08T22:20:00.003-05:00

My only daughter has disappointed me. Nature vs. nurture? I know I didn't teach her this, and I'm convinced my genetic code was pristine on this matter. Clearly there is some throw-back DNA from her father's side. And bad friends. There's that. Why else would Em prefer trashy, generic ballpoint pens?

It's not my fault. I come from a long and distinguished line of scribblers who appreciate fine writing instruments. Since my baby was able to make a little biscuit-fist I've given her only the sharpest of new crayons, the slickest Ticonderogas. At my writing desk, she's had a life-long cotillion class of paper and pen.

Montblanc, Parker, Waterman - where did I go wrong?

The preacher's kid rebels by breaking Commandments. A teacher's kid skips school. My girl flaunts the cheapest of ballpoint stick pens and leaves them everywhere just to watch me cringe.

I've tried to pretend they don't bother me so I won't feed the monster. This is a parental smoke screen I used with a particularly unsavory beau she wouldn't shake. It didn't work then, either.

(Honestly, I'd rather spend the rest of my writing life with a nasty ballpoint in hand than see that particular young man again. Things could be worse. It's all about perspective and deciding which hill to die on. Don't tell Em.)

The upshot here is The Perfect Grandson. Our hours at the desk together give me hope. Lay out one fine pen next to the trash his mother scribbles with - he'll choose the Waterman every time. He may grow up to wreck cars and young girls' hearts, but I'm guessing he'll do both with a decent pen in his pocket.

He has to. I'm counting on him.

Note on the Fridge to BP

2010-05-26T19:00:00.003-05:00

Dear BP,

I don't know where to begin. Clearly, neither do you. There's no point in telling you how appalled I am at your corporate behavior and misbehavior. There are more than enough talking heads on every news channel and politicians running for re-election telling you that, and they've articulated this much better than I ever could. Besides, who am I to tell an oil conglomerate what to do?

As a mother and grandmother I am qualified to say this:

When you break something you must fix it.

We're watching you, BP.

Live feed from BP.com

Growing a Writer

2010-05-23T23:52:00.000-05:00

The Perfect Grandson loves a good story. Always has. And it's a good thing, because he's surrounded by women who write and love to tell tales. Until recently, he's been an appreciative audience when he could sit still long enough to hear the end of something. But that's all changed now. The Perfect Grandson has learned the power of telling, and now we are the audience.

That picture, for example, is not an errant scribble. It's an epic story of good versus evil, the treachery of power, of fighting snakes and roly pollies. The insects win, of course, because they are balled up and patient while the snakes ultimately turn on each other. There is no love interest in The Perfect Grandson's story, but there is a great deal of grimacing and growling. I took this picture quickly, since his stories (much like his block-towers) are made to be erased/wadded up/knocked down. The MagnaDoodle is a perfect medium for such a writer.

Two days ago a bunny wandered into our yard and he spent the better part of five minutes talking to it from the window in a very personal way. The next five minutes, and until the bunny was frightened off, he made a story of how the rabbit came to be there, what he was planning, and where he was going after bounding off into the azaleas.

He's figured out that everyone has a story. Some of these begin as nonfiction, take a left at creative non, eventually throttling full-down into the fictional straightaway. The Perfect Grandson went to the zoo yesterday, where he saw a few impressive snakes. Later, he and I poked around in our small garden where more than a few roly pollies scattered from under the clay pots. Voila.

I haven't heard a serpent vs. rabbit story yet, but I will. I can count on it.

His mama started out this way, though not with erasable, bloody epics. Em sang her stories, playing fearlessly with sound and word combinations. Sometimes she'd stop suddenly, then begin again singing the song with alterations both verbal and melodic. I spent hours in the yard scribbling down her Singing on a Swing creations, knowing she was in full experimental/editing mode. One afternoon she slid triumphantly out of the swing, looked at me, and lisped "Princesses don't have days like these." Em pushed her hair out of her eyes and fell back into song. I understood completely.

Now she follows The Perfect Grandson around, taking notes because it's her turn. Not long ago he came home from preschool crushing on a new girl. "I love Lilly," he said, "She's pretty like butterflies." Em always seems a little gut-punched by his casual poetry, although some of that is an irrational fear concerning garage bands and hidden tattoos. He's not yet three. God knows what he'll do to break her heart by the time he's sixteen, but I'm sure it will be something ridiculous she never saw coming. Better to relax while you can, I say.

When he's not busy trying to put a baseball through my china cabinet, The Perfect Grandson and I spend time at my desk, writing. Already he has an eye for fine pens and reams of unlined paper. All he needs now is power over the alphabet and a some hand-eye coordination. A few days ago I was labeling his latest art story as he sat in my lap. Scads of carefully constructed diagonal lines.

"Put a name here, Mimi."

"Okay, what's this one about?"

"Snakes inna Rain."

So I wrote down the title in big capital letters. He looked at one and pointed.

"Whas dat, Mimi?"

"That's an 'S', punkin. It goes 'sssssssssssssss'"

"Like a snake."

"Exactly," I said. And so it begins.

Off the Page

2010-05-19T11:57:00.006-05:00

This has been an unanticipated, extended blog break, hasn't it? The thing is, the dozens of times I sat down to write, I came up blank. I firmly believe there's no such thing as writer's block, but I do believe in a kind of swirling madness that keeps writers unfocused and off the page.

There's simply been too much going on and most of it was bad. Writing about unhappy events day after day feels too much like a junior high diary flashback, and we all know that's no place to park a healthy psyche. Besides, there are enough Whiner Blogs out there who do this sadness-and-sorry thing much better than I ever could. I did a great deal of scribbling with fountain pens and Moleskines, not that I'll ever want to read back over any of that maudlin crap. The beauty of a notebook is that 1) you can close it, and 2) you can throw the whole mess in the forgettable top of a closet or sling it into a fireplace.

Then the heavens opened up, remembered all that karma/balance business, and dropped something lovely in my lap. One of my other blogs, Easy Street Prompts, was listed on Writer's Digest's 101 Best Websites for Writers. I danced, I twirled, I made up celebratory songs and sang them with the Perfect Grandson. Then I ran away with friends to Branson so we could do the post-final-exams shopping trip. We drank wine, ate sushi, and stormed the outlet malls. Glorious, I tell you.

Not until I returned did I remember the Easy Street site was kind of a forgotten mess. It took a little paint and html coding, but all is right with the world there now. In the process I found that making up prompts for others helped to get me back on the (nonflammable) page.

While I still don't feel like writing up the sad things just yet, I've decided angry and funny are perfectly comfortable right now. There are plenty of fist-waving disasters and head-shaking crazies out there to keep me on the page while I work through those other things.

I believe I'm mostly cured now. Between inclusion on the Writer's Digest list and that Liz Claiborne bag I fount at 70% off, I'm golden.

I've Moved, Sorta

2010-03-22T19:05:00.002-05:00

Still in the same Blogspotty place, of course. The only difference is a new address:

www.notelling.net

This is nothing drastic, and Blogger promises to redirect everyone quite nicely should they use the old http://ohtheresjustnotelling.blogspot.com address in feed readers and bookmarks and such. I tell you, the whole move has been ridiculously easy (and inexpensive) through Blogger.

I tried to snag the .com, but apparently there's this unfriendly gentleman in Argentina who bought it years ago and wants to sell it like a bag of diamonds. Since I'm neither a conglomerate nor a Rockerfeller, he can keep it.

I like "net" anyway. Reminds me of mama's Aquanet hairspray, a miracle right up there with electricity and the virgin birth.

Accidental Tourists

2010-03-21T12:30:00.000-05:00

Whew. It's Spring Break.

The days have been slamming into each other at such a fast clip, and suddenly there's a bit of stillness. It's nice. I'm actually faced with a day when I don't have to be anywhere at any particular time, and the only pressing item on the to-do list is housework.

I'd go outside and spend the day in the sun, but there's been some meteorological confusion recently and the high here will be in the low 40s today. There's a bizarre chance of snow tonight. I'm sure the weather will right itself in a few days, though. It's not like Arkansas is anyone's Spring Break Destination, so there's no danger of losing the college-boy tourism dollar.

The danger is when the ground warms back up. That's when the creepy crawlies set up housekeeping in the garage and odd high corners. Spiders - as long as they're not furry or unduly large - I can deal with. It's the snake situation that's making me nervous. In the fall, there was a local phenomenon that somehow introduced scads of baby copperheads into neighborhoods where they'd not previously visited. Em killed one, a neighbor lady had an incident, and we saw two flattened in the road. I'm not convinced we've seen the whole family yet, is all I'm saying.

Since Aruba is out this year (well, every year) it looks like I'll be close to home. I'm itching to throw a soul-cleansing yard sale, even though it means braving creepy crawlies in both the garage and the attic. Anything's better than a surprise snake, though. Anything.

I'm praying for this funky-cold weather to continue through Friday, just for good measure. If anyone out there is an expert on the seasonal behavior of Arkansas copperheads, please give me a heads up.

Waiting for the Tsunami

2010-02-28T09:21:00.001-06:00

It's a funny thing, all this science predicting natural occurrences. Historically, acts of God came on suddenly, randomly. Now we can watch numbers bounce off of carefully placed buoys bobbing about in the ocean, those numbers singing to satellites which turn them into warnings, a chance to gather supplies, find higher ground. There is time, now, to evade the Great Wave.

On Tuesday, my friend Olive Hilliard did not hear the singing. She died the next day from the massive stroke that never bothered to give her warning. Olive was 52, a mother, a sister, a teacher, a light.

For three years, Olive and I shared a windowless office and our lives. We nursed each other's wounds, bragged, cursed, ate chocolate and dieted. We traded the secrets of teaching and wept over our children. Two women talking in an enclosed space, we decided, could eventually repair all the broken things in the world. I still believe that's true.

The fact that she is gone now feels like a lie. Her beautiful children, the reflection of her goodness and bottomless love, had no chance to gather reserves, find higher ground before losing their mother. Their lives now are split into two chapters, and they have to figure out how to live in this new story. I ache for them.

The rest of us, her friends and women of a certain age, are hugging our children more closely. Whether we talk about it or not, we're suddenly listening to our internals for signs of the singing, hoping we'll be able to predict The Wave where Olive could not. And we grieve.

Olive M. Hilliard

What the Moon Is

2010-02-16T22:32:00.001-06:00

"The moon is not luminous in itself, but it is well fitted to take the characteristics of light after the manner of the mirror or of water or any other shining body; and it grows larger in the east and in the west like the sun and the other planets, and the reason of this is that every luminous body grows larger as it becomes more remote." ~ from The Notebooks of Leonardo DaVinci.

DaVinci did a great deal of scribbling. I love to sift through his notebooks now and then - my fat copy is always on the bedside table - just to find a piece of truth to carry around with me. I try to imagine a mind so recursive and fearless, so mathematically poetic, dipping quill after quill into ink. Who did he imagine might read all these random thoughts?

DaVinci's moon is the simple metaphor of teaching and parenting and grandparenting, always reflecting some brighter light. I think of the students I run into at the grocery store or the bank, those who never said much when they sat in my classes, but who gush and say the loveliest things now that classes are years over.

My Grandma Monda, who died when I was nine but has become for me the largest definition of love - there's a moon.

Old sweethearts we immortalize and who sanctify us - there's another.

In his mad scribbling, I suspect our man Leo couldn't help himself. The scientist's observation and the poet's metaphor were clearly simultaneous for him. His mind processed like a synaptic pinball machine. What a gift.

O Captain, My Captain

2010-02-10T20:26:00.010-06:00

Captain Phil Harris of the Cornelia Marie has died. If you've never watched Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel, then you probably don't understand the enormity of such news. Captain Phil was a Bering Sea crab fisherman, a roughneck, a superstitious seafarer, a treasure hunter, a pirate with a heart as big as a refrigerator. He died Tuesday at 53.

This series began on the Discovery Channel about the time The Perfect Grandson was born. Our little guy had some scary reflux, and for the first three months of his life he slept in an upright position under the watchful eyes of either his mother or me. One of us was always awake with him. We slept in shifts, and my night shift was from 10 pm to 3 am. The Discovery Channel and those crab fisherman on Deadliest Catch were my salvation in the wee hours. No matter how much sleep I lost, those boys on the Cornelia Marie lost more. When The Perfect Grandson woke fretfully, we cuddled and watched the boats rise out of the waves and snatch crabs from the freezing bottom of the sea, the Cornelia Marie crew dangling like bait from their own boat.

In fact, I made a list at one time of Things The Perfect Grandson Can Never Be. A Crab Fisherman in the Bering Sea came in at #2, just behind A Prisoner of Any Kind and several ahead of A Republican.

But that's not why I'm heartbroken over the passing of a man I only know from a reality TV series on the Discovery Channel. Captain Phil was every boy I went to high school with who drove muscle cars too fast and partied too hard, who screeched into the school parking lot with a Marlboro clenched in his smile and a warm roach-clip tucked in the ashtray. Phil was every rough boy playing pool with his paycheck on Fridays and sporting a two-day shiner on Monday mornings. The kind of boy who made you laugh despite yourself, who winked and called you darlin' in front of your boyfriend. The kind of boy who fell in love, hard, every time.

Captain Phil was every unapologetic charming rascal I've ever known. They defy geography and time, those fellas. For the most part, these boys are bulletproof - you can't kill them and they can't kill themselves, no matter how hard they seem to try.

So I was understandably gut-punched to hear that the good captain died, of a stroke no less, at 53. While I've come to some sort of hand-shaking terms with my own mortality, it's trickier to see the charming rascals of my youth as human enough to die. At least not from something like a stroke. A crash or overdose or barroom fight gone south, maybe, but not from some old man's disease. There's no hero in a story like that.

A man who rode the Bering Sea like a wild horse for thirty years needs a stronger ending.

(Photo via CorneliaMarie.com)