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...