hpayp nwe yaer

yet again i wonder how i've spent my year.
have i made the most of it?
my resolutions weren't fully met.
but i did become certified teacher man.
i put two plays together from scratch and produced them with my students.
in some ways i may have increased the love and beauty in the world, and i'm sure about a few ways i've taken love and beauty out.
new resolution: i am free, nothing fetters me.

PS. favorite album of 2006:
joanna newsom, YS

advice

if your foot falls asleep, shake it violently before standing up.
if your ballpoint pen is broken, buy seven more and hide them under your bed. use them one at a time, only as needed.
if you become jealous frequently of persons living or dead, stare in the mirror and repeat to yourself "I'll soon be dead," over and over.
if your legs are wooden, cut them off and burn them in the woodstove downstairs. make sure they burn completely. sit nearby and feel the heat.
if your hair is greasy, wash it in the sink.
if the music you listen to depresses you, stick your head out the window and watch the droplets from your wet hair fall down to the sidewalk below, making little splatters on the concrete.

break

officially on holiday till january 2.
i'll be doing some sleeping, some drawing, some movie-watching. today i will watch the devil & daniel johnston -- finally! i will also be cutting sam shepard's a lie of the mind into a 40-minute UIL one-act play.
how do i deal with the holidays? do as little shopping as possible, and quickly. look at pretty lights. eat cakes.
can you tell i just woke up?

big

it's been a big week. long days packed with events. every day i was at school till at least 9 pm.
orchestra concert, choir concert, band concert, play.
a local actor killed himself this week. he was excessively talented, funny and charming, and was a close friend of one of my students. she was quite torn up about it. her birthday was our closing night, so her parents brought a huge cake and everyone sang to her afterwards.
then this weekend we went to austin for a speech tournament.
if i got paid by the hour... well, i won't go there.
today i'm lying in bed with my cat and my computer.

flying art

it was a glorious closing night. i sat in the audience. finally we had an audience that wasn't afraid to laugh-- and it made such a difference in the play!
no wonder chekhov called it a comedy-- that's how it works best.
what a revelation!
interesting people came, too... mikki's mom (for the second half), my fine arts supervisor, one of the middle school theatre teachers that many of the kids had, some good parents, a nice little group of high school teachers,...
anyway, it was a satisfying ending to the adventure. the kids gave me one of the posters that they all signed. i am glad it's over, but i think i'm really gonna miss this one.

art

i bought a painting today.
about a month ago i noticed a flyer hanging outside the school library, and it pointed to a small area inside the building where students exhibit their work. these paintings struck me. i don't think i have the words to describe them at the moment that wouldn't seem reductive... but i could say the following: graffiti, oils that look like spray paint, tendrils, chaos.
the painting i bought is called "the trip," and features close-ups of two robot-like creatures with flailing arms, from one's mouth there's an electical cord spiralling, and behind the other one there's a proliferation of flowers, a couple with sad faces similar to the robot they're growing behind. it's painted on a canvas that has been layered with pages from a phone book, so that's the background. i have it up on my wall where the kandinsky was, and even though it's a drastic change from those peaceful, mellifluous circles, i think it's a good place for the painting.
the artist's name is gilbert martinez, and he's a high school senior. i tracked him down through a couple of my students and finally met him for the first time two days ago. he's kind of small and quiet with a very round, listening face and round eyes. olive complexion. he's planning to go to the art institute of chicago next year. he reminded me of, as silly as this sounds, a little picasso. when he handed me the painting today, he said it was his first masterpiece, and that he was having some trouble parting with it. that's when i told him that the painting would always be his; i was just keeping it for him.
in the meantime i'm thrilled to have it.
the play was strange tonight, but the kids seemed happy. so important to keep in mind what ET told me about letting it go, letting them do what they will. when it comes right down to it, the students' experiences are what really matter. tomorrow is closing night.

drama teacher speaks

terocious, thanks for asking.
the students are doing a wonderful job. we've had three shows now and each audience is a little larger than the last. everyone in the cast seems to be enjoying the performances. nina and constantin get better each night. last night i saw nina incorporate some nuances that were really stunning. the actor playing trigorin told me yesterday this was his favorite play he's ever done.
i'm straining against something, some wall i'm not sure how to get through. i don't understand it quite yet, but i think it has to do with my ego. my self-involvement factor is pretty lethal, in many imaginable ways. and there's a degree of perfectionism that blinds me.
i need to wake up!
barry, i remember once when your brother and i put up some siding on the schoolhouse. we did it poorly just to get through it, some of the panels were crooked. when you came out and saw it your face showed confusion and disappointment. i didn't understand why it mattered. i'm sorry.

opening night again

i love theatre. tonight our seagull opened. there were a few flubs, it wasn't perfect, everyone did a wonderful job, and i went home feeling really empty.
why?
maybe just the first pangs of post-partum depression. after working on this play for so long it may be difficult for me to come to terms with this phase of the process.
but sitting in the audience, giving up control, hearing reactions of those around me, wincing through the mistakes, smiling at the surprises... i wouldn't trade this experience for anything.
one of the moms was even crying at the end, because she was moved by the play.
i wish i were better at publicity, and could fill a theatre. seagull isn't much of a crowd-pleaser, at least not on this side of the atlantic... but i'm hoping we'll have fuller houses these next five performances.

pascal

"If there are not infinite chances of losing compared to winning, do not hesitate. Stake it all. You're obliged to play, so renounce reason if you value your life."

-Blaise Pascal

dad thing

freda paws me gently for attention.
tonight my dad said something to me that he'd never said before. in the restaurant parking lot, he emphatically said, "you're doing good. you're doing good." i believe he meant i was doing well, but grammar nitpicking aside, i think he was exhorting me, and the slightly declarative way he said it made me do a double-take.
i had to agree with him. "yeah, i am," i said, raising my eyebrows in disbelief. despite my hellish second period class, various chemical dependencies, still being single at 38, and increasing bitterness against humanity, i'm doing great. my job is the most rewarding and challenging (and painful) job i've ever had. i'm learning like crazy. there's an active dynamic going on.
but there's also a feeling that a foundation is being laid for me right now-- not career-wise, necessarily, but a personal stability i'm beginning to find on a day-to-day basis. i'm not sure if i truly believe this last statement. maybe i'm trying to convince myself of it by writing it down.
my dad grows emotionally softer with each passing year. he has begun speaking about his feelings more. but the directness and sureness he spoke with tonight was something different, and i think the way i listened to him was different too. better.
today i like growing up.

fey

i've been walking to work more because the weather is finally cool. it feels great, and i live so close that even if i'm tired after school i still enjoy the little jaunt home. the ipod helps spice things up of course. yesterday while walking i felt very youthful.
later, after my bones had a chance to settle and i had filled my belly with tacos, i lit a smoke (yes, occasionally) and went to get my mail. as i walked from the mail kiosk back to my apartment i felt very old.
a friend told me when i was nineteen that i seemed more like forty. she didn't go into detail about that comment, so i've never known what she meant. maturity? restraint? early mid-life depression? i did take it as a compliment at the time, not sure why. now that i'm almost forty (have about a year and a half to go) i should know what it feels like to be forty. or does that mean i'm sixty now?
my second period class was eerily well-behaved this week. maybe they slashed my tires.
on an interview, dick cavett referred to john huston as fey. my aunt used that word to describe me once, so i looked it up. interesting.

2:17

waking up at one-thirty in a cold sweat
angry and confused and cursing
shirt soaked
in need of urination
as i crawl back into bed
it's cold in my room
and i remember my mortality
at first with complete horror
where is my cat?
i remember my solitude
at first with desperation
i lay quiet and exhausted
i almost go back to sleep
but stay awake
comfort myself with a tapestry
of entertaining computer images
until my eyes begin to close...

marginal and primary

seems i spend quite a bit of time thinking (not to say worrying) about how to get through to my second period class. found a new way of dealing recently which has seemed to help so far -- approaching students individually and quietly instead of spending too much time speaking to the entire class in a loud voice. tonight i watched a movie called OT: our town about a compton high school putting on the first play done in twenty years. i thought about all the advantages i have, working in a relatively well-to-do school in a hifalutin texas school district; but i also recognize the apathy that comes along with this money and privilege. something about the compton school is much more clear, much more black-and-white, whereas i am working every day with a lot of grey areas. the leisure time and the catering that my students have access to cheats them out of a sense of urgency or vitality for most of their activities and actions. there are rarely any severe repercussions; there is rarely anything very interesting. watching OT: our town sets my wheels in motion about how i can inspire my own particular clientele. updates to follow.
SEAGULL is going well. i managed to block acts one and two this week, and today we ran through both acts, working and reworking scenes and "beats." it was a blast.
this weekend i am going to fran's pumpkin-carving party.

patchen poem

here is a kenneth patchen poem i chose at random.

The Continual Ministry of Thy Anger

The kill of loose-voiced reason...
Oil of heaven falling
On the sweat of towns...
What cold is,
Grass,
The ages of mankind, what gains light
And is a prey in my tusky sleep, what puts
Me at rage
Or to love
And to die.

Health to the lonely one,
Art in his teeth
Like a flaming star.
Death to the profane,
Who wears his art like a shoe
To take him into easier places.
For what the cold is, and grass, and men,
And to sleep, and to be angry, and to love,
And to die,
Artists do not know;
But art knows,
And is always waiting, and clean.

loss of steam

i allowed more than a week to go by without posting, and that's irritating.
SEAGULL auditions start today after school.
i had a long weekend, but managed to not do laundry or the dishes.
i don't feel rested.
i did finish my translation, and i changed the litter box, and i watered the plants.
i saw THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP a second time.
there is so much to be done at work-- one-act play manual to be read, play to be cut, letters to be written, lesson plans to be lesson planned, children to be educated...
last friday i stood backstage during the production of TWELFTH NIGHT and watched the backstage action for a while. quiet, energized movements, careful whispering, preparations, entrances and exits... to me it was so much more interesting to watch them backstage than it was to watch the play. there was so much more going on. it was like the audience was seeing the play version and i was seeing the movie version. i still love theatre, but there's a hidden cinematic element to it that i appreciate more and more. like the backstage scenes in cassavetes' OPENING NIGHT: actors preparing, scenery getting moved, curtains rising, the sounds of the audience, the artificiality of the stage voice juxtaposed with the real whispers of those waiting in the wings. those are the best scenes in that movie.
i looked at the wikipedia entry for georges perec, the author of LIFE: A USER'S MANUAL, which i excerpted in my first entry. this picture is killin' me.

chaika

auditions for my school production of chekhov's seagull will happen in just over a week, on october 10. the play has thirteen characters, two of which have no lines (the cook and the maid), and one of which has several lines that go something like this: "yes, sir." (yakov.)
with the help of an original russian script, my russian-english dictionary, and tom stoppard's translation (which starred meryl streep, philip seymour hoffman, natalie portman and kevin kline in central park several years ago), i am making my own translation/adaptation of the play. i have translated russian poems before, but i've never undertaken a project like this. though my russian vocabulary is okay, my grammar leaves more to be desired, so it often takes a while to figure things out. that's where stoppard's translation comes in handy. usually what i do is take a guess, then check myself against his version.
i started out with act four and went backwards. like, i started with the last speech of the play and actually worked backwards speech by speech or line by line. why did i do that? for fun, and also to throw myself off, so i would be less tempted to fabricate lines i knew were coming. backwards, i was translating it with less anticipation. i finished acts four and three like that. yesterday i finished act one. now all that remains is the eleven pages of act two.
the "adaptation" part comes in with my idea to bring the seagull into suburbia 2006. i don't usually care for plays which are taken out of their proper time and put into a modern context, but with this particular play, i feel like i know it well enough to experiment with it. names of russian towns ("yelets") are being changed ("jersey city"). all references to living in "the country" are being changed to living in "the suburbs." because chekhov's characters are mostly intelligentsia, this change from semi-luxurious summer home (complete with parks, avenues and servants) to run-down apartment building (complete with ambulance sirens and planes flying over) does actually make a big difference in how the characters interact. rather than boredom caused by excess, the contemporary version posits boredom caused by sheer suburban banality. it also changes some of the language so that it doesn't sound so dated (though don't get me wrong-- i love dated), so that students of this generation are more able to identify with it. i was going to provide an example, but when i started trying to find one it struck me as presumptuous.
maybe the whole thing is presumptuous. purists--if there are any left, and i doubt they would come see this anyway--would shudder. on the other hand, i love chekhov just as much or more than anyone i've ever met. so why not try it? so far it's a blast.

class, and no class

i don't want to put limitations on anyone. i may draw conclusions about you based on your behavior, but i am more than ready to be surprised by you.
on friday my second period theatre class challenged me. they challenged me all week by not doing their assignment, the conflict-objective monologue, which was due monday. i think only six of them did it on time. on wednesday quite a few more monologues trickled in, for partial credit. on friday there were six to eight more. one of them was david, a classic case of ADHD, who in one of his journals hypothesized that i must be on drugs ("no one is that calm"), and in his conflict-objective monologue not only pointed out one student's jewishness in a semi-offensive way, but also inferred that i was gay. i took it with a grain of salt and gave a little speech about having a classroom where it is safe to be exactly who you are, regardless of color, disability, religion, or sexual orientation-- but the dynamic in that class is complicated. a lot of apathy, a lot of chaotic energy, some good students who are mostly quiet. it could be an amazing class if i could figure out how to orchestrate it. a bit after david's monologue, i saw that joe was listening to his ipod. when i asked him to hand it over, he was resistant and questioned me. i said, "i'm the teacher, you're the student, it's the rules, hand it over." he eventualy gave it to me, muttering "fucking asshole" under his breath. i don't think anyone else heard it. my way of dealing with that was to open up a discussion about our class and to ask them for comments on what was going on. i quickly learned that this was a mistake on my part, as the critical comments began to fly. "why are we spending so much time on these monologues?" "you're too uptight." "why can't we sit where we want to?" "why can't we chew gum?" "you're not strict enough." tons of conflicting messages began to soar through the air like arrows carelessly aimed at my heart. i eventually called the conversation to a halt, in order to get back to the business at hand. toward the end of class i talked to joe about his comment and how unfair and damaging it was. he apologized, and i will be semi-interested to see if he changes at all.
it took me a while to detox after class. maybe my willingness to hear their critiques (as misguided and infuriating as most of them were) will have some positive effect on those in the class who actually do care. one kid john gave me a letter stating that he thought the way i was running the class was perfect just as it was. that was appreciated.
how will i handle them on tuesday? i have some ideas-- a time at the beginning of class to let out hidden aggressions physically-- to engage these emotions and express them through bodies and voices. maybe some music during warm-ups would help, though i've found that music usually just opens up more possibilities for offensive critiques. maybe i can relate more personal stories, things that happened to me when i was their age that they'll be able to relate to. as always, i relucantly accept the challenge.
i want to be surprised by them. i find myself in that difficult place between severity and submission. i have already drawn judgments on the ones who have shown resistance in the mask of apathy. but god, how i would love it if something in my class allowed them to drop that mask and they just surprised the hell out of me.

where is the line?

today i slept in. got up around 10? didn't have to look at the clock so didn't really pay attention to the time. watched a back issue of "project runway" where they're in paris. then i went to see my brother play tennis. he's in a tennis league and was in a tournament. it was fun watching him play, even though he lost. later we met our parents for dinner, then went to half price books. i got a play by horton foote called the last of the thorntons i think. couldn't pass it up.
then we went and saw a movie called half nelson. it's about a high school history teacher who has a drug problem. he becomes close to a student after she finds him high on crack. my brother and i are both high school teachers. he teaches math and i teach theatre. the film struck us each in different ways. as we left my brother said "i wouldn't want to sit through that again. it was too realistic for me." i felt a little indignant at this statement, not really understanding what "too realistic" means, especially when applied to this movie. not long ago i had the realization that my personality is partly based on things that i have to suppress. i wondered what i would be like if there had been less suppressions in myself and my life. a different person in many ways. being a teacher means you have a certain responsibility to be "upstanding" or "virtuous" for your students. there is merit in this thought. but half nelson speaks of a wholeness in people and specifically in one teacher, a wholeness which ironically reveals brokenness.
i thought of a conversation i had with fran last week about brokenness, and how that seemed to be one of the most integral human qualities you could possibly identify. how much of my brokenness am i allowed to show my students? how much of my wholeness (brokenness) is helpful for them, and where is the line when it becomes too much wholeness (brokenness) and it is no longer helpful for them? in the film there's a short scene in the classroom where the teacher is teaching yin/yang, duality within the whole. strangely, the concept of yin/yang came up in my class this past week too, in response to a journal prompt we had called "things that annoy me." why is conflict important?, i asked. someone said, if there were no sadness, there would be no possibility for happiness. as a teacher i have been put in a position to hide myself. i think that i reveal more of myself than most, but i also have fears about misleading the students, or being too much a "friend" instead of a teacher.
i have no answers for any of this, but i was inspired by half nelson and would recommend it for any teacher who wants to strive to bring his or her authentic truth to the classroom. i will continue to understand what this means, and i will strive to be honest and as true as i can, because anything less is a cheat.
this link was at the end of the credits for half nelson: www.dialectics4kids.com

new shoes and unfunny comedy

one of my students works at a shoe store in an outdoor mall here. i went to visit him at work last night because he told me he was saving a pair of shoes for me that he thought i might like. he even went so far as to photograph the shoes on his phone so that i could see them. so, last evening when i left school at 6:30, i went to his store and tried the shoes on. they're dark tan leather, very plain, with the seam down the center, with a flat rubber sole. there's something hilarious about them, because of their sheer unassuming utility. i bought them. he used his employee discount.
that same student had loaned me a cd: david cross's "it's not funny," long ago, before the summer, and it had sat on my desk for months. when i got home with my new shoes last night, i listened to it, finally. cross's humor is designed chiefly to shock (racism, abortion and poverty jokes), but he also expresses himself very well in regards to our government, putting into words a certain level of incredulity about the current administration that i think we all feel. it was satisfying to listen to him. i did laugh out loud two or three times while listening to the cd, but mostly i sat and quietly appreciated it, feeling vicariously vindicated in some small way. cross's unfettered criticism of our country, though i wouldn't say it gives me hope, makes me appreciate freedom of speech, and how important and precious it is.

letting go now, letting go now, letting everything go now

going to budiful buda this weekend for another speech tournament.
a lot of the kids aren't prepared. many of them started memorizing their pieces on wednesday.
so much for my new hackneyed motto: quality over quantity.
i'm seeing it as an opportunity to ... (deep breath in through nostrils, then out) let go.
one duet team is doing lanford wilson's burn this, the eighties vehicle for joan allen and john malkovich. when i was in college the rumor was that the joan allen part was written for one of our guest teachers, who was a close friend of lanford wilson's. she was a movement teacher who did weird esoteric exercises with us, like sitting completely still while saying "now you get taller and now you get shorter and now you get taller and now you get shorter..." there was another one where you'd have to stand at the bottom of an imaginary pit and look up at the sky. and of course the soothing voice of relaxation, which is the title of today's entry.

confession

bless me father for i have sinned. it's been two weeks since my last posting.
1. there's a low hum in my apartment this morning. i thought it was the fridge, but it wasn't. i put my ear up close to every possible appliance. i'm still not convinced it's not the fridge. i'm weird.
2. yesterday fran, marc and i saw leonard cohen: i'm your man. i liked it. it was basically a tribute concert for cohen interspersed with interviews with him, images of him. all three of us agreed that antony's song was probably the best, with martha wainwright coming in a close second. the only part i didn't really like was toward the end when leonard finally sang, backed up by the ever-narcissistic u2. poor guys. their music is probably fine, but their images are so overcooked. i'd like to see them put on some cone-shaped devolution hats and stop taking themselves so fuckin seriously for a change.
3. i caught a cold last week which is still slightly lingering and kept me home on friday for some much-needed rest. as yesterday was labor day holiday, this will be a short week.
4. school is going well. i'm really enjoying my new schedule, more time with the advanced students. one of my theatre arts I classes is rambunctious, but i'm jivin with it. yes, you heard me right. uh, excuse me miss, i speak jive.
5. finally, i had a pulchritudinous massage yesterday. it's rockin my chakras.

cat and lizard

freda tracked down a tiny pink salamander this morning and was terrorizing it next to the trash can. as i cleaned her catbox i debated as to what i should do. why is it that when she kills roaches i applaud her and when she kills salamanders i squirm and feel like murder is being committed?
i scooped up the wounded, tailless little lizard in a spoon and gently deposited him outside on the concrete. seeing as the tail was disposable, i disposed of it.

es eh

school started up again this past week. summers used to be longer; we didn't start school till september-- remember? try to remember the kind of sep--... no, i won't go there.
first week of school was not too sweaty. i only had to put on my drill sergeant helmet (do drill sergeants have helmets?) once or twice. though i'm still gradually morphing from summer mode into school mode, i feel like the transition is coming along just fine. i spent a good amount of time this summer in my office getting rid of some filing cabinets that had been useful for the previous teacher and absolutely bogus for me. basically they served as receptacles for detritus. so i got them out of there. rearranged things. put in a rug that joey helped me pick out. organized papers into files. as far as the first week of school, i spent most of my time getting to know the students, asking them questions, learning their names. the advanced students did opening week monologues. i'll see the beginning students do short monologues starting on tuesday. so far, so good.
the two plays i directed have had two weekends of performance now; the last two shows are tomorrow. i am glad that they will be over tomorrow, and at the same time i will be sad to see them be over. during the performances i sit upstairs in the booth of the church theatre running sound and watching the action. i love theatre, i love seeing the actors work, i love seeing the audience, i love making the lights and music change. if i had my way, that's all i'd do-- direct plays and watch them every night. sam, paige, brendan, jordan and anthony have done an excellent job. though some of our audiences have been paltry, people have been very positive and responsive. tonight's production had a large audience. though the air conditioning wasn't working, it didn't seem to bother people too much. we got a good article in the newspaper, which can be viewed here. san antonio, SA, they say, is ready for an arts renaissance. only time will tell.
this morning i brushed my cat and attempted to undo a fur tangle embedded in her chest. i got rid of almost all of it.
i took a few old shirts to goodwill, and bought some candy at the dollar store.

el eh

i went to los angeles for a weekend to visit my friend yulia. los angeles has always had a sort of loaded, semi-sinister connotation for me. whenever i've been there previously, i've felt like it was all about ego and money. it's the place where people go and mostly have their dreams broken. it's where you sell out, obsess about your body fat, and end up in porn. those were my broad and shallow preconceptions.
my weekend however was really interesting. i told yulia that even though i'd been to los angeles before, i felt like this was the first time i was really seeing it. she said that was because i was with her, someone i knew and trusted, so i was able to see it without feeling like i was in hostile territory.
my impression was that los angeles is like ten cities rolled into one. the diversity makes you unable to pigeonhole the city as any one thing. i didn't experience the entire city, but driving on sunset from west hollywood to the ocean gave me a good idea of several distinct neighborhoods and how different they are from one another.
activities: we ate russian food that yulia made, went to the park of five religions, went to a jazz club, sat on the beach, visited the getty center.
being with yulia, i was obliged to speak russian, which reactivated a part of my brain that hasn't been used in a long time. as a result of this renewed brain activity, my first night there was almost a sleepless one. i couldn't stop my brain, and the thoughts were mostly about breaking out-- breaking out of patterns, restrictions, comfort zones, suppositions. my life in san antonio seemed semi-dead and in need of examination. i needed to rid myself of all these possessions. i needed to make a change.
what's happened now that i'm back? i'm not sure yet. i need to continue preparing for the upcoming school year, and i need to keep reevaluating and writing about what i really want. it's scary how hard it is, the older i get, to break out of my comfort. though it was a nice feeling to know that coming back to san antonio felt like coming home, at the same time i feel a push to challenge my complacency here.

it was just so beautiful

why has my whole life taught me to hide the things that make me most unique, most myself?
why am i afraid of capriciousness and inconsistency, when i contain multitudes? (cf. yoes - whitman)
why am i afraid of destroying things, ruining things, by talking, by writing about them?
why am i afraid at all?
while i was in college i read a book called emmanuel's book, and it was the transcript of a woman speaking while channeling a spirit named emmanuel, who said that the universe was safe, that nothing could ever happen that would not lead to something better, denser, richer. emmanuel said that the entire life experience was a classroom and that everything we did here was best interpreted as learning, on the path to something great and wonderful.
it made me feel happy and gave me a sense of potential to believe that what emmanuel said was true. this happiness i felt encouraged me to live life more completely, less fearfully, feeling that everything i did had some positive resonance. regardless of the truth or falsity of emmanuel, the idea expressed caused me to live life more fully. this increase in fullness lent a truth to the idea that the idea may not have had before i believed in it.
but when you believe in a truth that no one else believes in, that makes believing in the truth more difficult. you have to concentrate on the truth and your pure response to it, as opposed to paying attention to others' responses to it.
fear, though it seems very real, is bogus.
i met joey online during the early part of june. we met face-to-face a few weeks later. our second date was the first day of a three-week getting-to-know-you relationship marathon. our relationship is continuing over a certain distance which we are able to bridge through phone calls, e-mail, and intuitive telepathic currencies. we have discussed all kinds of issues-- art, film, music, gays, straights, public displays of affection, war, drugs, and much more...
i have been reluctant to record my interaction with joey, for superstitious fears that actualization and sharing = demise of whatever was acutalized and shared. but i don't believe in this superstition anymore, as of today. and i am crazy about joey, and i want to say that out loud.

bashfulness

it's not that nothing's been going on. it's that so much's been going on i haven't known where to begin. i haven't even written in my journal. i'm at an impasse, because i don't really want to record on this blog the most important things that are happening. i'm not eager to share anything with anyone. i want to keep it all to myself.
besides, i've been neglecting daily duties: cleaning, preparing for the fall.
i hope this period of bashfulness passes soon.

girls of show

last night joey and i drove to austin to the alamo drafthouse to see SHOWGIRLS with commentary by david schmader. it was very fun. the last time i heard the SHOWGIRLS commentary by dave was in cathy's living room in truckee. last night's commentary was different-- not quite as thorough, due to time constraints, considering a movie theatre full of people. but it was fun.
dave's SHOWGIRLS commentary is available on a special deluxe edition of the movie, which comes with shot glasses and pasties. i think it's $19.99. i've never had the gumption to actually purchase it... but i may try to find it on half.com.

man's best friend?

i have so many fears and so much hope.
i went to dallas with our students who qualified for the national tournament. i had to leave the tournament early to come back for more of my certification training. these classes, which i started last summer, will be over this week. then i will only have to complete two book studies and fill out a little more paperwork and i'll be a certified teacher.
i was disappointed in the class we took today. the content was worthwhile-- working with disabled students-- but the teacher was not prepared. it seemed like she was just thrown into the classroom and had to fend on the spur of the moment. i felt angry because it seemed like a waste of time. i wanted to learn, but nothing was being taught.
through my colleague, i have learned that all our kids have been eliminated from the competition except one young woman. i have high hopes for her. i was disappointed that some of the others didn't do as well as we expected.
i have so many fears and so much hope. sometimes when i tell my friends about my fears, they discount what i'm saying as unnecessary self-deprecation, or they assuage me. but i realize today that it's important to somehow express these fears, put them in real time, so that they're not abusively banging around in my head and heart. so i wrote a lot of them down. that felt healthy. i go through day-to-day thinking i'm pretty fearless, but when i really think about it, and when i really feel about it, there are a lot of fears to work through in here.

dust and sweat

just got back from kerrville. saw and heard some good musicians. somehow not as satisfying as last year. either the musicians there didn't interest me as much or i just wasn't as into it this year.
i had forgotten about the emotional toll taken, i guess as a result of my sponge-like nature. i sit back and absorb everyone in the camp and rarely am an active participant. this particular camp i'm privileged to camp with is full of stories and emotions on all levels, and i think maybe i underestimate the level of energy it takes to come into it from the outside as i have. my friend ET is a little more integrated because of her strong connection to the center of the camp; i'm more of an outsider. the people are very accepting, but sometimes i have flashbacks of junior high camp, sitting alone in the corner wishing the cute boy would ask me to sit next to him during song time. it's probably all the dust and sweat bringing up this visceral sense memory.
anyway, i'm glad to be back home, and tomorrow i'll start the final leg of my teaching certification training! yea!

management 101

first i should say it's kind of silly what i did on that last entry-- said "sprint, don't run," when the material has been out there for almost twenty years... but if you haven't been exposed to the dynamics of tomlin and wagner, you really should check it out.
i'm embroiled in a theatricality of my own. a couple months ago, one of my ex-students e-mailed me asking me to direct two plays this summer in san antonio. i considered it and wrote back to him saying i would love to direct, but wanted nothing to do with anything else-- venue searches, management, finances, etc.. he said fine, let's do it.
today i found myself in my second meeting with the artistic director of the church bistro and theatre on south alamo street downtown. what did i find myself doing? oh, negotiating venues. managing. discussing finances.
it seems like this is one of my lessons to learn in life-- how to expand my idea of myself. last summer it was "but i can't be a teacher!" and there were various viable yet lame reasons to back up this assertion. not till i somehow embraced the idea of being a teacher as appropriate and acceptable did i actually enjoy and succeed in that capacity. similarly, not till i embrace the idea of the business side of theatre (which i never did while in our theatre company, KITUS) will i ever succeed in that capacity.
negotiations are going well. it's all quite positive, pleasant, and even empowering. i'm not so bad at this!

recommendation-- no, requirement!

EXTRA! EXTRA!
sprint, don't run, to your nearest dvd vendor and purchase jane wagner's and lily tomlin's work of genius, the search for signs of intelligent life in the universe. my only response at the end was to stand up and jump up and down with my arms in the air, hair flopping wildly. i laughed, cried and sweated through this two-hour extravaganza of love, pain, incisive wit and transcendental street philosophy. not to mention the mind-blowing vigor and technique of a consummate actress. DON'T MISS THIS.

percolators

even though school was over last thursday, i've been at school friday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday and saturday since then. roger the way-cool custodian asked me if i wanted to get the skanky carpet taken out of my office a while back. i said yes. so on tuesday i came in and with the help of a few special students took all my stuff out of the office and put it into the classroom. since then i've been going through the copious amounts of papers in the filing cabinets, left over from the last drama director's regime. he saved e-ver-y-th-in-g. it's been disconcertingly depressing to go through all that stuff, too-- there are some feelings coming up that i hadn't expected. resentment, jealousy, and the ever-faithful self-doubt. ah, what would a day be without a dose of that? ...sarcasm, people. i'm getting better. i'm much nicer to myself than i used to be.
one of the great students who graduated this year sold me a bike. he won it in a contest. he entered a contest where you make a short film having to do with bikes. he won, thereby winning a bike, which he sold to me. he's such a great kid, for a few hours i considered buying the bike from him, then giving the bike back to him as a graduation present. but alas, i am too in love with the bike. it is an old-school electric blue tradewind del sol. i have been riding it to school the past few days. it is a joy and a thrill to ride. i l-o-v-e it.
today i bought two cocteau twins albums which are both double albums-- singles, extended versions and b-sides, called lullabies to violaine, volumes one and two. so far it is gorgeousness. i also bought a solo piano album by lang lang called memory. it is also beautiful. i also bought a dvd version of lily tomlin and jane wagner's the search for signs of intelligent life in the universe, which i can't wait to watch. and last, i bought a graphic memoir by miriam katin, called we are on our own. i have started a little graphic novel collection, which is pleasing on many levels. so far i have both volumes of marjane satrapi's persepolis, the aforementioned epileptic by david b., craig thompson's blankets, la perdida by jessica abel, and the classic maus collection by art spiegelman, among a few others. my history with graphic novels is not extensive; i'm something of a dilettante. but i still enjoy the hell out of them, and i've been drawing and doodling for as long as i can remember, and have not forgotten my new year resolutions...
1. to create more love and beauty in the world
2. to finish my first graphic novel

multitudinous

he said he wished he was me.
someone expressed confidence in my ability.
you don't know how people see you.
they all slipped through my fingers.
like when you have your hand out the window of a moving car.
if you grasp the wind, you lose it.
the only way to hold it is to keep your hand open.
i rode my bike home from school.
a student passed and yelled, "see you in hell!"
which was f-ing hilarious and kept me smiling all the way home.
i walked back to school to pick up my car.
today was frustrating.
i felt angry and there was no potential for anything good to happen.
sushi lunch helped.
fran dinged the man's car next to us and he rolled his window down.
that was right after she said "i usually can't stand handsome men."
or something to that degree.
everyone ate spaghetti and left fast.
there was no closure.
no one even gave a speech.
a girl thanked me.
she said she wanted to go abroad.
i said, "you'll blossom there."
i'm sweating.
i finished my online book studies about an hour ago.
next challenge.

last

last day of school today. sixth period. one exam. chairs. gum wrappers. abandoned folders. goodbyes. announcements. deadlines. meetings.
tomorrow night is our department banquet. tomorrow day all my grades have to be turned in. i'm pretty caught up with those, just have to enter today's after the exam.
i was talking to fran about it. i said i thought i'd feel more of a sense of closure. she said there's never any closure, it's like you're running on a treadmill, faster, faster, then it just stops. so, no real satisfaction. but when i think about the year i feel a sense of accomplishment. i know the things that worked and the things i need to do differently.
summer plans starting to get solidified.
i'm going to re-do my office.
kerrville folk festival with ET.
dallas national speech tournament.
finish certification.
direct ex-students in two plays.
drive mikki to austin in july.
hang out with pals.

last week of school

the final performance of one hundred demons! was friday night. it was the best performance out of the three, in my opinion. the audience wasn't overwhelming (as it was on thursday), the energy wasn't frenetic (ditto), and everyone onstage was relaxed, ready, understandable, and having fun. the video tech teacher and two of our drama students filmed the performance on thursday and already had a copy to me by friday. even though "video kills theatre," i'm glad to have this document, and i'm sure all the cast will be happy to have it also.
unfortunately, lynda never showed. oh well.
friend beth, who is moving out of colorado and into some as yet unknown territory, visited me on her way through texas. she came to see the play, which was fun for me, since beth and i share such a rich theatrical history; then we had time to hang out all of yesterday and most of today. we ate, drank, talked, smoked, cooked, saw a movie, and went to a museum. it was so much fun to spend a little time with her. also, we visited marcus at work. (maybe that link will inspire him to update his postings.)
right now i'm making copies of the one hundred demons! soundtrack for everyone in the cast and crew. here's the song list:
1. lovely day - bill withers
2. sunny afternoon - the kinks
3. brand new key - melanie
4. papa was a rollin' stone - the temptations
5. twist and shout - ike & tina turner
6. my little grass shack - amy hanaiali'i
7. one-sided love affair - elvis presley
8. time of the season - the zombies
9. dusty - daniel lanois
10. life on mars - david bowie
11. god only knows - the beach boys
12. pet sounds - the beach boys
13. do you believe in magic? - the lovin' spoonful
14. white rabbit - jefferson airplane
15. san francisco - 1 voice
16. hello it's me - todd rundgren
17. can't you see - waylon jennings
18. coconut - harry nilsson
19. bennie & the jets - elton john
20. (they long to be) close to you - the carpenters
21. bring the house down - s club 7
22. with a little help from my friends - beatles
23. love is the answer - todd rundgren
i would like to point out that s club 7 wasn't my idea. several girls said it would be appropriate for a certain transition. and it certainly was. but as opposed to the other songs on this cd, i would never listen to "bring the house down" in my spare time.
one more week of school. all i'm doing is exams. it has been a very good year. when i think of my first year of teaching there's something completely detached about it, as if i'm looking at another person in another place. it was so different this year. and thank the lord for that...
this year i learned about letting go of things students say, things they don't realize they're saying that hurt your feelings. i learned that it's not always good to be the "director of the department" when all that means is paperwork and bureaucracy. i learned that i love directing plays and that's what matters. red noses, the wake of jamey foster, and one hundred demons! were wonderful learning experiences. i learned that magic can happen in a classroom, but i actually have very little to no control over that (so far it seems mostly to hinge on chemistry).
now if i can just get through this week of exams, grades, papers, details, loose ends, deadlines... yeah, i'm sure i'll be just fine.

summatime

i have two students who are graduating summa cum laude this year. that means they have a GPA of 100 or higher. i was honored to be asked by both of them to attend tonight's summa reception, which consisted of 200-some-odd summa students from our school district and their chosen teachers, sitting in an auditorium together along with principals, school board members, and family. i thought it would just be teachers briskly walking across the stage with their students, getting certificates. i thought it would take an hour and a half, maybe two at the most. when the superintendent of our school district got up at the beginning and said, "tonight we will honor our summa students, and we'll hear from each of them a little bit about the teacher they've brought with them," i was a little dismayed, thinking, ugh, we'll be here forever, listening to a lot of brainiacs ramble on about their teachers. i looked at my watch-- seven o'clock. see you again at midnight, i told it, and braced myself.
the two summa students who invited me are both precious people. robyn transferred to our school as a junior. she is not the kind of person who is demonstrative about her thoughts or feelings. she's relatively quiet, and when i first directed her in a play i couldn't understand how she worked. her process of discovering the character was very slow, almost imperceptible. at first this translated as "she's not taking my notes! she's not doing anything!" but when it came time for dress rehearsals and performance, i realized that there had been a very subtle, interesting evolution at work. i am always pleasantly surprised and satisfied with her work. last week she left a sweet note of appreciation in my mailbox at school. it brought tears to my eyes, partly because it was a surprise-- i'd never known i'd helped her, or made any impression on her at all. it was a joy being onstage with her tonight. she finished her short speech with something like, "and he makes me very happy!"
jared was in the first play i directed in the black box, a pirandello piece about gossip. he came in during the last two weeks of rehearsal, replacing the old mayor, who found himself unable to pass latin. jared had a sort of awkward, reedy voice and an incredibly bright attitude about everything. in the two years since that first play he has worked on my tech crew for just about every show. when i give him a job he is meticulous about it-- like painting cracks on the sidewalk in the exact way they were rendered in the sketches. he is very sensitive and perceptive, and picks up on people's vibes. he also says hilarious things like, "that makes me feel happier than a mug full of unicorn giggles!" his tongue is in his cheek, but at the same time there's an innocence to him that is brilliantly refreshing.
the evening of summa students giving little speeches about their teachers wasn't dull or distressing in the least. i didn't even get tired of clapping every two minutes. some of the speeches were funny, some were tear-jerkers, some were both. some were memorized, some read off note cards, and some improvised. expressions on teachers' faces were anything from stolid to giddy to embarrassed to anxious. i saw a lot of beauty going on up there. and once again, i felt blessed to be asked to stand next to my students and support them, and to receive the beautiful gift of their appreciation.
i forgot to check my watch to see when it was over. must have been around ten. i've got another nice memory to store in my banks.

monday

well, it was fun. we had a small house, about 45 people in an 86-seat black box. but the crowd was appreciative and the kids had fun. a couple of props were forgotten, a couple of lines were flubbed, but i never felt crazy about it, like i have with other plays. somehow this one came easy, and i'm sure it's because i had such a love affair with the material. lynda barry is a goddess.
i get so much love in this job. sometimes i can't believe how fortunate i am to have been dragged into it. it's more of a blessing than i ever bargained for.
we got the terrible news today that one of our drama students who graduated last year, jonathan dolan, died in a car wreck on I-35 on sunday. he was on his way to surprise his mom for mother's day. that put a pall over our morning, a sort of unbelieving stunnedness. hard to process the human condition of now you're here, now you're gone. we are going to dedicate the show to him on friday. jonathan's sister is a freshman in our program and she won't be back for the last two weeks of school. she is in my theatre II class; ironically, she was in a final exam scene that had to do with grieving over a lost family member...

show

haven't posted in too long.
busy busy busy!
our show opens on monday. tomorrow we have a long saturday rehearsal. everyone's exhausted by the end-of-the-school-year chaos. one of my actors came to rehearsal with a pinkeye diagnosis today. but the show seems to be coming together pretty well. there are so many tiny details in this show, and it flows so fast, with short scenes, kind of like a movie. if everyone will remember their props, costumes, and entrances, we'll be in excellent shape. i think it will be good for the kids to have a day off on sunday so that they can come back on monday fresh and rarin' to go.
i'm very proud of the work we've done. it has been a blast working on this material, and i think it will be even more fun in performance.

bad fortune

sometimes, without my conscious permission, i enter into a blackened state. char-grilled swordfish. i don't usually realize this is happening until i go to work, where i must interact. when people speak to me, they're speaking into a vaccuum. there's something violent about it. everything they say to me, everything they're saying that requires a response, which is everything, is a nuisance to me, because i don't have any good responses, they've all been taken, or everything i would think of to say would sound horrible coming out of my mouth, and people tend to observe me as "tired," which makes matters worse, because i must then respond to a judgement of the state i'm in that i had no awareness of. because when i was by myself i seemed completely fine. in an environment where i was the only one i had to answer to, there was no need to answer, and therefore no effort and no reflection, and no tiredness. but when i have to start responding, reflecting, it all turns hopelessly stale, futile, exhausted and angry. kind words are seen as judgemental attacks, observations turn into indictments. it's sucky.
monday and most of today were like that. during monday's rehearsal i quietly attacked one of my students, terribly hurting her feelings, because of her seeming lack of preparation. when another student showed concern, i said it was nothing and that i didn't know he was talking about.
this morning i talked with the girl i'd flayed for being unprepared. i apologized, looked at her sad eyes and listened to her feelings of being overwhelmed by all the end-of-the-year tasks in which she's required to excel. at the end of rehearsal today, interacting with that same student who had shown concern, i felt myself beginning to emerge, through no effort of my own, back into some sort of tangible daylight.
i am pretty sure that these dark states are primarily physical in origin-- something's going on in my body that is causing these strained emotional reactions. if i were watching my diet better, if i were exercising regularly, if i were getting enough good rest, these states would become non-existent, or at least manageable. i believe that's true because when i am more in touch with my body, these states have been less able to dominate me.
it's not good fortune, it's not bad fortune. it's a natural fluctuation that i can either be prepared for, or not.
one thing my physical state might have made me susceptible to was the news, yesterday morning, through e-mail, that the theatre where we were going to perform the pillowman rejected the script because of its provocatively negative portrayal of christ. will we find another space? maybe. but performing in the space we had counted on was one of the things making me so excited about that production. that news might have pushed me further into the crappy blank gaze.
conversely, one of the things that may have aided me in my eventual turn towards daylight today was the visa bill that came in the mail. eh? you may say. a visa bill caused joy? well, in this case, yes, for you see, i cut up my visa card with scissors back in january, after being sick to death of my balance hovering around the unpayable $1500 zone. i cut it with scissors into the trash can, immediately thereafter feeling the ability to take the first deep breath of the new year. since then i've been paying it off slowly, bit by bit, without accruing much debt in the meantime, so that now i'm set to make my last payment of $400 which will bring my balance down to $0 for the first time in years. (ah, the vapid joys of a consumer in overseas-wartime america.)
so yes, there are little factors that may push me in one direction or another, but at bottom, it's up to me how i react to them, and it's up to my mind to keep my body in mind.

good fortune

i went to a fun birthday party.
i had interesting conversations.
i had lunch with my friend.
i ate chocolate and strawberries for dinner.
i got nuzzled by my cat.
i took a nap.
i sweated.

one of my favorite movies is wings of desire. one thing i like about it is the way the angels notice the tiny things people do.

nothing is wasted.

april 28

happy birthday frances.

NO TITLE REQUIRED
by Wislawa Szymborska

It has come to this: I'm sitting under a tree
beside a river
on a sunny morning.
It's an insignificant event
and won't go down in history.
It's not battles and pacts,
where motives are scrutinized,
or noteworthy tyrranicides.

And yet I'm sitting by this river, that's a fact.
And since I'm here
I must have come from somewhere,
and before that
I must have turned up in many other places,
exactly like the conquerors of nations
before setting sail.

Even a passing moment has its fertile past,
its Friday before Saturday,
its May before June.
Its horizons are no less real
than those that a marshal's field glasses might scan.

This tree is a poplar that's been rooted here for years.
The river is the Raba; it didn't spring up yesterday.
The path leading through the bushes
wasn't beaten last week.
The wind had to blow the clouds here
before it could blow them away.

And though nothing much is going on nearby,
the world is no poorer in details for that.
It's just as grounded, just as definite
as when migrating races held it captive.

Conspiracies aren't the only things shrouded in silence.
Retinues of reasons don't trail coronations alone.
Anniversaries of revolutions may roll around,
but so do oval pebbles encircling the bay.

The tapestry of circumstance is intricate and dense.
Ants stitching in the grass.
The grass sewn into the ground.
The pattern of a wave being needled by a twig.

So it happens that I am and look.
Above me a white butterfly is fluttering through the air
on wings that are its alone,
and a shadow skims through my hands
that is none other than itself, no one else's but its own.

When I see such things, I'm no longer sure
that what's important
is more important than what's not.

drainage

i decided to stay in bed today.
there's something going on in my throat, probably caused by some drainage (eww, drainage), probably caused by some allergy or other. all i know is, whatever's going on, i'm tired and prone to crankiness.
i'll go to school at noon and have a fabulous half-day.
rehearsals are going well. everyone is having fun. we finished blocking on tuesday so now it's time to fill in all the little blanks with color. i wish i had heard back from lynda or her publisher; it would have been nice to have had some contact with them.
two of my seniors have very good grades and have asked me to attend the summa banquet with them. i think that's really cool.
i need to buy distilled water to put in my... radiator? gah, i'm so ignorant about my car.

tuesday

i didn't want to get up today.
my birthday brought me some nice presents, both figurative and literal ones. nic sent me a dvd. friends marc, fran and zoe ate dinner with me at la fogata, which was lovely. i got a daniel lanois cd, chocolate, two poems, a massage gift certificate, a book, and a handmade card.
on saturday at the UIL region contest, my fine arts boss gave me a little boost by telling me that she had absolute confidence in my directing abilities. yesterday my sixth period class sang to me. and one of my favorite students gave me a woody allen book and wrote a note in the front that i will turn to for strength in future days.
i am a blessed and fortunate man. so why is it so hard to get out of bed?

poetry

last night fran gave me a poem by yevgeny yevtushenko:

People

No people are uninteresting.
Their fate is like the chronicle of planets.

Nothing in them is not particular,
and planet is dissimilar from planet.

And if a man lived in obscurity,
making his friends in that obscurity,
obscurity is not uninteresting.

To each his world is private,
and in that world one excellent minute.

And in that world one tragic minute.
These are private.

In any man who dies there dies with him
his first snow and kiss and fight.
It goes with him.

They are left books and bridges
and painted canvas and machinery.

Whose fate is to survive.
But what has gone is also not nothing:

By the rule of the game something has gone.
Not people die but worlds die in them.

Whom we knew as faulty, the earth's creatures,
Of whom, essentially, what did we know?

Brother of a brother? Friend of friends?
Lover of lover?

We who knew our fathers
in everything, in nothing.

They perish. They cannot be brought back.
The secret worlds are not regenerated.

And every time again and again
I make my lament against destruction.

a three and an eight

i have lived 38 years.
not very long.
fifteen years ago i was in moscow and the american kids were visiting from north carolina. i was hanging out with them in their hotel, eating their pot brownies, smelling their sweet incense, looking at their fresh faces. it was truly wonderful to see them from that perspective-- like getting a glimpse of myself from the other side of the glass.
on the eve of my birthday i was sitting in the lobby of a hotel discussing life with cigdem, one of our acting teachers. she was reading joseph campbell and expounding on myth. interesting, on my trip to moscow in '96 i took his book myths to live by and finished it while i was there.
i told my friend beth i was feeling haggard and unattractive and she said she went through that phase too-- the pre-forties puberty phase, but now she feels sexy again. so there's hope. :-)

rock 'n' roll is not dead yet

the first time i went to russia my friends there gave me this tape. it was music by boris grebenshikov, a russian rock star. it changed my life in the sense that it cemented my love affair with those friends and that place and time. as we flew home i listened to that tape and had a deep gratitude and a thrill of excitement that i had discovered something i was meant to discover, that something very right had happened. when i returned to moscow to live there for 3/4ths of a year that feeling continued, expanded, grew roots and spread. i ended up speaking the language with some facility and promising my friends i'd be back every five years. i went back in '96, five years later. now it's 2006 and i haven't been back again yet.
one of the people in that apartment where i heard grebenshikov for the first time was yulia, who now lives in los angeles, has a green card, and has a daughter who is a US citizen. yulia recently went back to moscow to see family. her ex-partner sergei, the father of her son and my close friend (also part of my first moscow experience) is an alcoholic. the last time i spoke to him he asked me for money. i said, "when?" he said, "tomorrow."
i didn't send it, and i haven't spoken to him in over a year. my russian has become so lame that it automatically becomes even worse while i'm speaking it because i realize in the process how bad it is and that stilts it further. but i spoke to yulia on thursday and was relaxed enough to actually express myself on a basic level as well as understand most of what she said. i didn't quite understand the details of some medicine sergei is taking for his alcoholism, something you take which keeps you from drinking because if you drink while on this medicine you die. i didn't catch the details on that.
when i came back from my 9 month stay in moscow i was really happy to be back in the united states. i felt that something had sunk in and i could continue life. i sometimes wonder how it would have been if i had stayed. i wonder when i'll go back, and how long i'll stay there. i wonder how it's changed. when i work with my students on chekhov scenes i think about going to chekhov's house in moscow, not far from the american embassy. it's all museum-ized and almost impossible to imagine chekhov there. yet something still moved around in that house. or maybe i was projecting.
i sat on a park bench on tverskoy boulevard and read a book, snapping it shut on russian flies. i let my hair and beard grow long. i tried to disappear into the muscovites. i tried to eradicate all trace of an accent. i avoided my mom's american bible study friend whose husband was working construction at the embassy. it was fifteen years ago.
i have transferred the grebenshikov tape to cd. it is crackly, with truncated songs and awkward transitions. i have lost the visceral thrill of that music, but i remember the way my heart beat differently when i heard it, all that spring and fall until i went back.

wednesday

rehearsals for one hundred demons are going well. around monday i was worried that we weren't going to have enough time, because it was taking forever to block these intricate, tightly-woven scenes. but tuesday was a little more efficient, and today we actually got a lot done. i'm thinking we'll already be halfway through blocking act II by the middle of next week.
i feel so good coming home when i know i've had a productive day.
the students involved in the play are a pleasure to work with. my students in classes are a slightly different story. while reviewing vocabulary during 2nd period, everyone kept talking. i gave them several chances to simmer down before i finally just stopped. i figure if they're not interested in reviewing the vocabulary (thereby making a good grade on their semester written final), i'm not going to force them.

my mechanic, my fiancee

i wanna marry my mechanic.
he's polish, late 40's, named stan. he's got a big fat black and white cat. he's got a thick accent and you can't really understand him over the phone very well. he's matter-of-fact and gives me discounts on oil changes. he actually wants to help. he works alone. he loves his job. he knows everything about my car, and that kind of intimacy turns me on.
when somebody has such a depth of knowledge in a field where i am almost completely ignorant, that person immediately becomes attractive. well, it's also his kindness and soft-spoken manner, and let's face it, he's polish. i'm a sucker for eastern europeans.
i'll never marry stan, in this world or any other. i'll never feel his rough thick hands caress my delicate piano player's fingers. i'll never have to wash his oily trousers. i'll never gaze, mechanic at my side, upon warsaw spires. but ain't it nice to fantasize...

brief time out

monday i held auditions for our upcoming black box production, my adaptation of lynda barry's ONE HUNDRED DEMONS. 42 students auditioned for a 13-member ensemble cast. during auditions i decided to make it a 15-member ensemble cast. after auditions, when i got home, i upped it to 20. from 8 pm until 3:30 am i shuffled the audition sheets, considered the possibilities, juggled the roles, until finally i came up with a workable ensemble. yesterday i posted the results. someone is always going to be let down.
being sleep deprived at school yesterday was interesting. it made things slower. or it made me slower within things. i'm not sure which. i like the way my life is unfolding. i like being able to handle things better, and how i'm not as afraid as i used to be. what was i afraid of? i never wanted to go to school as a kid, or go to parties, or go to events. i always just wanted to stay home with my mom. venturing out of the nest was not a pleasant thought. i faked being sick.
today i am staying home from school. i'm not faking being sick. i am liking my job more and more each day. but i am taking a personal day today, to read and work on ONE HUNDRED DEMONS and watch MARAT/SADE.
yesterday mr. stevens and i talked about what shows we want to do next year. he's thinking about doing a version of bulgakov's HEART OF A DOG, which is exciting. he suggested we do shaw's SAINT JOAN, which i need to read anyway.

mom's day

well, it's been a nice cool winter and spring. until yesterday. when i got in my car it was 99 degrees. let the profuse sweating begin.
today is my mom's 70th birthday. last night we had a party for her at my sister's house. mom was surprised to see a few of her old friends there, friends she hadn't expected. my brother and sis-in-law wrote a song for mom to the tune of "leavin' on a jet plane" and we sang it to her. we ate fajitas and cake and gave her gifts. we sat around her and reminisced. my dad kept making sentimental speeches-- he's become a real softie in his old age (he's 73). my mom's closest friend, who just recently turned 80, is starting to lose her memory. sometimes she will say "where are we?" when she's in a familiar place. the good thing is that she still realizes she's losing her memory. but it's a little depressing to think about the deterioration ahead of her...
but back to my mom. she's cute. happy birthday mom.

roots

cold snap today.
hard for me to get intimate with people. sense of shame in self-disclosure. maybe because of the initial satisfaction followed by the feeling of emptiness. like the less you tell, the heavier your burden, the more solid your feet on the ground. ...?
satisfaction with one's own secrets.
fear of disappointment, vulnerability, dizziness. fear of being pulled up by the roots.

my friend eileen lost her brother michael yesterday. he suffered from an infection caused by his compromised immunity, due to chemotherapy.
...
eileen and i first met in volcanoes and earthquakes class during college. she was studying sound design. we started hanging out in the spring of our junior year and our friendship blossomed. she has had a very successful career in sound design. i made her tell me all about her experience designing for the opening of an arthur miller play. this past summer we went to the kerrville folk festival together and camped out with eileen's friends.

memories you didn't know you'd cherish

for a while, around 1995-96, i worked at ken's bayside, a pizza and sub shop on fenwick island in delaware. my friend brent got me the job. we would make pizzas and cheesesteaks. on the night shifts we'd close up the shop and go next door for a fifth of jose cuervo before heading back to the schoolhouse, where we lived. then we'd sit in the schoolhouse and smoke and drink tequila and watch tv. usually we'd watch the late late show with tom snyder, and we'd laugh at his inane questions and random observations.
it's weird how you never know what you're gonna cherish as a memory. but i have a special place in my memory for our tequila and cigarettes.
the next morning i would often take barry to work early in the morning at difebo's, and i'd get a coffee and muffin and come back to the schoolhouse to enjoy my little breakfast in my flea-infested cubbyhole with my cat, peeps. one summer i was reading war and peace, which was a wonderful way to start the day, before it got too hot, and while the house was still quiet... i remember loving that routine.
ahh, the days of squalor. i had no idea i'd look back so fondly. and yet at the time i think i did realize that there was a certain quiet blessing on those moments...

results

i passed my PPR exam with a "total scaled score" of 255. i have no idea what that means, but to have passed is a little relief. now i must get down to work on these irritating book studies!
i was asked to be in a play in the summer. i'm excited about it. (the link is representative of the play, not the location.) :-)
happy spring break.

squids 'n' squirrels

various tidbits:
took 27 students to the state speech tournament in pharr-san juan-alamo. we did well, getting many students to semi-finals in various events, several to finals, and had a state champ in two categories (humorous interpretation and original oratory). we took a big charter bus, which was fun. on the way back we watched STAR WARS and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. i sort of slept through most of it, as we were driving home in the wee hours of the morn. but it was cool to wake up occasionally to the comfortingly familiar snippets of dialogue and to the loveable gargle of chewy's voice.
left my car with my parents over the weekend and they gave me an early birthday present: new tires, an oil change, and an inspection sticker. seeing as i got a $250 speeding ticket on tuesday, i was extremely grateful to have some assistance in the automotive area. when i went out to my parents' house to pick up my car this afternoon, my mom told me that my sister is worried about her. apparently mom gave my nieces each a pez dispenser, telling them she'd wished she'd given them their presents before easter. this was an odd comment, said my sis, since easter hasn't happened yet. mom laughed to me that it was just a slip in holidays, that the pezes were valentines presents, and besides, they were shaped like bunnies, so the slip-up wasn't all that alzheimeresque. later, dad commented to me privately that mom has been forgetting things lately, like the name of the school where my brother teaches. dad thought maybe the anaesthesia from mom's recent operations has had a negative effect on her memory. i've never heard of anaesthesia causing memory lapses. has anyone else ever heard of this happening? to me, mom has always been a little scatterbrained in terms of her memory of proper names and inconsequential details; it seems like nothing new. but dad seemed to think that she's been worse lately...
how 'bout those oscars? my favorite part was lily tomlin and meryl streep introducing robert altman, and altman's speech. my least favorite part was CRASH winning best picture.
on wednesday i have jury duty. i've never had to serve before. we'll see if i get any good, postable stories from the experience.
next week is spring break!
to people who pray, in whatever form that prayer takes: send out some healing vibes to floridian friend ET and her brother mike, who is struggling with cancer. all possible positive energy to you, my friends!!!

the death of passive

a phrase in my mind: "because of my inherent passive nature." but it's not inherent. as a kid i was demanding, prone to tantrums. what broke me?

what broke me: my dawning awareness (right around fifth-sixth grade) of the unacceptability of my attractions; my upbringing with an emphasis on decorum and politeness; my dad's and brother's harsh judgements on me and my consequent hyper-sensitive reaction of withdrawal from any position that might open me to criticism...

but on an unbroken level, a positive level, i became aware around age twenty of the beauty of quietness, of humility, of the power in observation. i began to prioritize. less and less seemed worth fighting for. when something is taken away, something else always replaces it. there is a lot of loss in this life, yes, but we keep losing things because there are always more things to have. and by things, i mean Things, everything-- joy, pride, shame, grief, contentment, jobs, friends, creations. it's all temporary and it's all in a state of flux, so why hold on so tight? why fight for something that's going to go away? ...this is not cynicism, not complacency or giving up. i see it as wise evolution.

at my best, i am internally expansive. i am large enough to step back and let your largeness through.

this is complicated. as i try to write about it i find myself stymied by all the definitions my thoughts are branching out with, like the word "sublimate." i thought of myself sublimating. i looked it up: 1. Chemistry. To cause (a solid or a gas) to change state without becoming a liquid. 2. Psychology. To modify the natural expresssion of (an instinctual impulse) in a socially acceptable manner.

does my quiescence (a prettier word than passivity) have to do with social acceptance? i don't think so; if anything, being assertive is more socially acceptable. kind of like going to war is more acceptable than going to peace.

fran has pointed out that passive people get their way more often than aggressive people. that there's something selfish about their self-sacrificing posture. it's been true for me-- the idea that you catch more bees with honey. but it seems more true that the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

what i do, what i am, is not adequately defined by passive or quiescent, because in those words there is a component of inaction. my position, my positivity, is fluid; it doesn't change from a solid to a gas without becoming liquid; it does not sublimate. let me redefine: i am adaptive, creative, thoughtful, cooperative, blessed with increasingly graceful flexibility.

it's not all pretty. at my worst i feel overlooked, ignored, misjudged, disrespected. i may feel i'm missing out on opportunities as a result of my cooperativeness. i may have repressed things that would have been better coming out into the open.

so...

i am redefining according to my standards during this 38th year of life. i am by all means creating the most ideal person i can imagine. i am defining what i am specifically, and without the aid of others. i am becoming conscious of definitions i have accepted, and i am now redefining. i am remembering how i have been defined and how i have defined things and i am making a beautiful move to consciously redefine.

competency

the pedagagy and professional responsibilities test (PPR), which i took yesterday, includes questions like the following:
A number of students arrive in Mr. Fitch's government class one morning debating the results of a federal election that are being contested nationwide. The class is due to study election-related content later in the semester as part of a carefully planned instructional sequence. Which of the following would be Mr. Fitch's best response in this situation?
A. Begin the class by praising students for
their interest in the election and urging
them to continue pursuing that interest;
then have them turn their attention to the
planned lesson.
B. Devote this class period, and additional
periods as appropriate, to addressing principles
and issues related to the current public debate.
C. Assure students that the class will address
the election in depth after they have progressed
through a series of prerequisite lessons.
D. Encourage interested students to begin
collecting election-related information in
preparation for writing their final term paper.
does anyone have a guess?
usually, all the answers are at least feasible. sometimes they seem ridiculously similar. sometimes they are so verbosely worded, so full of jargon and so awkwardly phrased, that they are completely flummoxing. the above question is pretty reasonable, though you can imagine how any of the answers might be the correct answer. it all depends on who's asking. sometimes flexibility is the answer. sometimes sticking with the plan is all that matters. sometimes you should listen to parents, sometimes to kids. sometimes you should close your ears to everything and simply follow the rules.
i still don't understand who's asking, exactly. all i can tell is that it's someone who is trying to improve the state of our educational system in texas, and they think this will help.
did i pass? it's hard to say. i left the classroom feeling positive about it. but i took a practice test two weeks ago and came up short of passing, with a grade of 80 (you need an 84).
but i realized one concrete flaw in these standardized tests-- the SAT, the TAKS, the PPR. there is no chance to review the test after it's been graded. how is anyone supposed to actually learn anything if he can't see which questions he missed?
isn't that important? according to the current set-up, the priority is to measure what you've learned, your "competency." the priority is not to teach you anything useful, resonant or worthwhile.
if anyone would like to take a guess at the above question, i will be glad to hear your guess and then i will tell you the guess the PPR people would approve of. maybe it will teach you something.

revolution

i believe that many people, inherently and unconsciously sponge-like, can pick up energy and vibrations from unknown sources. maybe i was tuning in to some remote source during my day of emotion (see last entry).
last night i watched a movie called i am cuba. i have started writing brief reviews of movies i watch, both as a writing/comprehension exercise as well as an effort to remember and catalog them. i had put my whole review on this blog, but have thought better of it. instead, i'll just say that the movie disturbed me, especially the final vignette, where a cuban worker, mariano, comes home to his family in the mountains to find a revolutionary, hungry and exhausted, sharing his meal. soon after mariano disagrees with the revolutionary’s ideals (which include a rifle) and throws him out of his house, the house is bombed and mariano’s family is left to wander in the ruins. mariano, previously peaceful, joins the uprising, fights for his own rifle, and finds his place as a revolutionary. though the film may be dismissed as propaganda, and though the russian-language overdubs are often distracting, i found myself immersed in this film, and ultimately, questioning my level of comfort and ignorance as an american. when i look at images of cuba now, it seems it has been utterly crushed. were all the revolutionaries killed? what can I do to fight injustice? these questions are left burning in my mind. the final message of the film grates against my complacent pacifism. apparently, guns are necessary, despite my ongoing hope that they will become obsolete.
there is so much wrong with the world. sometimes, when i read friends' blogs, i feel like an ignorant american, burying his head in the sand of consumerism and petty personal issues. i don't think it's enough to be indignant. like i've said before, i made a resolution to create more love and beauty in the world. but when it comes to picking up a gun, like mariano had to, i don't think i would make the grade.

the visceral gush

my impulse all day was to cry. there were many moments when i did let the emotion swell and let my eyes well up. it wasn't sadness, exactly. i would be sitting somewhere, maybe in fran's classroom watching her interact with a student, or alone in my office during lunch, or sitting in the dark audience watching our kids rehearse onstage, and a depth would swell inside me. it didn't feel weird or uncomfortable. something about it was wonderful. when i tried to describe it to fran, she said sometimes she liked crying because it reminded her she was alive. it felt that way for me. i was reminded of my reserves, maybe, in an emotional sense; and it felt nice to be sensitive to seemingly random stimuli.
our one-act play, an adaptation of euripides' bacchae, is going well. my teaching colleague has blocked some kick-ass speeches with our seven chorus members. and i am learning how to collaborate with him, to bring in my strengths and allow myself to step in when i get the impulse. he has been really great about giving me the permission to do that, because at this early stage in my path as an assertive person, i need that permission.
i wanted my high school speech mentor, mr. naegelin, to help me today. his picture is in my office. when i looked at him he was grinning.
i'm a sucker for this one song by tuck & patti called "tears of joy":
i can see the trace that sorrow
has left upon your face
and being realistic
i know there are some things that time
just won't erase
and so i'm coming to you gently
and there's one promise i can make
beside every tear that sorrow has left you
tears of joy will take its place

departure

nic leaves san antonio tomorrow. today i helped him pack up the remains of his stuff. some of it needed to go into storage in a friend's garage, some of it got thrown away, some of it is now in my living room. in fact, he has now given me sufficient furniture to completely redecorate my small condominium. it is bittersweet to see him go: i am glad he is getting on with his life (he wasn't very happy in san antonio), but i will also miss him.
yesterday was a beautiful cool day and we went down to the riverwalk. we ate and strolled, i had a couple of margaritas. we saw some ducks and took some pictures. had some cocoa. there was a traffic jam in the parking garage, which was dumb. then we saw transamerica. felicity huffman's performance is inspiring. there are a few weird spots in the movie, some hokey sentiment and plot-driven incongruities; but her performance makes it all more than worth it. actually the only moment i actively winced on was the point in the movie where it's the morning after bree's surgery. she talks to her therapist and starts to cry, saying, "it hurts so much." the therapist responds, "that's what hearts are for." did i hear that correctly? i wish i hadn't.
hurting isn't what hearts are for, elizabeth pena!

suzzy

my mom is doing really well, recovering.
i thought it would be nice to do something cool for her 70th birthday which is coming up in april. one of our favorite bands is the roches. i went to their website and clicked on a link that said "bookings." i sent an e-mail saying that my mom was turning 70 and was there any chance we could book the roches to play at the birthday party. i expected maybe to hear back from an agent or an assistant-- in a week or two.
the next day i got an e-mail from suzzy saying she loved texas but it was expensive to travel there and that they weren't really a "party band." then she said, by the way, when is your mom's birthday?
i was awestruck to have an e-mail from suzzy roche in my mailbox. i mean, this is the woman who wrote "the train" ! (among many others.)
i wrote back and said that mom's birthday was april 2 and there were four of us siblings to split the cost and that we'd really love to have them and could she give me an estimate.
within about 15 minutes, she wrote back to say they'd be in england on april 2, and besides, it would break her heart to have me and my siblings pay to have the roches come down and play for us.
not exactly the happiest ending of a story, but an exciting story nonetheless. and maybe, just maybe, we're not at the ending of the story yet. who knows?

emotional

at school, we have started working on our one-act play, an adaptation of euripides' bacchae. on tuesday we had an especially emotional rehearsal. when i asked the students to think about their own experiences in relation to what these characters experience, some intense stuff came up. i wasn't expecting that to happen in such vivid color, wasn't prepared, and felt a little dumbfounded with my responses to their depth. as a teacher, how much emotion am i allowed to show? how much do i need to hold back? what is the best way to impart my experience? i am learning!
yesterday i felt like an inverted noodle all day. what do inverted noodles feel like? irritable, tired, wimpy, volatile, and somewhat negative. nic took me to lunch which was nice. since he's moving away he's giving me some of his stuff that he can't take with him, like a very cool chair and some very cool shelves. he is such a generous person. as for my inverted noodle status, there are two possible explanations, both of which may be working in entropic concordance with each other:
*i'm on some new allergy pills my mom gave me, and i do not underestimate the power of new medication on my sensitive brain;
*i've fallen behind on several things i need to accomplish, like an online book study (again!) and my classroom assignments.
it's ok, it's gonna all work out. it's a little valley, a little mini-valley of doom, but they come up every so often and i'm fully aware of that. just keep walkin'.

bladders

this morning i stuck on my headphones immediately upon getting out of bed. "rebel rebel" was the first song i heard, hilariously. it was a good way to wake up; the music seemed to sort of invigorate me immediately, like a better version of coffee. the other thing that propelled me out of bed was my need to wizz (sp?).
mom is doing well, re-learning how to void her bladder now that it's repositioned in her body. last night when i got home from the second performance of the smash-hit guys and dolls, i turned on the television and was a little disappointed that the only thing on was a show called distraction, where people have to answer questions under distracting circumstances. bladders: two guys, competing against each other, would be called on to answer a question only after they had peed into a computerized toilet. hidden discreetly behind screens with only their heads showing. this kind of tacky competition doesn't really bother me; i'm not one of those people who says "what is the world coming to?"... but it did make me think about my mom and her struggle to learn how to urinate.
today i will go to the region 20 training center for another six-hour training. i think today we're taking a practice test to prepare us for the PPR which is coming up later this month.

personal and political

mom is well.
i got to the hospital last night around 8:30 and she drifted in and out (much like the nurses) all through the night and into the morning. i took my sketchbook and she oohed and ahhed over the pictures; morphine must make those mandalas i've been drawing look pretty cool. :-)
iPod in ear (just one ear, so that i'd have one open in case she said anything or made noise), i sketched her sleeping face. i thought about reincarnation. i slept a little. i drank two cups of hospital coffee (surprisingly tasty) and ate some chocolate-covered cranberries nic gave me a long time ago. at about 7 this morning she suddenly said, "need to get up! day's half over!" and fumbled her way out of the covers. she brushed her teeth and combed her hair, and was even about to use her curling iron, upon which i told her that her hair looked fine already. (yes, my mom began her motherly tenure in the 1950's.)
dad showed up around 8:30, and mom's doctor came in a little after that. they discussed catheters and urethras for a while. i asked about the cancer cells they found and mom informed me that they found only one cancer cell in her uterine tissue, and that it would be several days before we'd get the biopsy on the current sample, but that everything looks good so far. that was nice news.
i hit the road around 9. i took the day off from school, so i'll take a little nap now and have lunch with nic this afternoon.
now, then, in regards to the state of the union address:
*in this morning's paper i already noticed that bush's spokespeople are backpedalling on all his promises of switching our dependence on oil over to more sustainable means; i'm not sure what to make of this, but my first reaction is a pre-upchucking sneer.
*there was lots of annoying clapping, like always, though i noticed there were more people not clapping this year than i've ever noticed before.
*his overuse of the word "isolationism" in reference to american dissent regarding our presence in iraq smacks of bad speech writing. he has dubbed those who disagree with the iraqi invasion "isolationists;" but who was it that sent troops into iraq against the votes of the UN? if that's not deliberate isolationism, tell me what is.
*it seems i detected the phrase "redefinition of marriage" as a pejorative term.
nik is offering a prize to anyone who uses eight words from his list to write his or her own state of the union address. this could be fun...