Hay evrbody!
This is Radr. Im Gails dog. This is my secind blog intree.
Im writin abut these fat puppis somebuddy dropt off hear. Thay r fat! Thier r 2 of thim & thay r so fat I thank thay wil eat me!
I hat them becuz they whant to play with mee whin I don't want to and also becz Mommi liks them. I'm gellis! I hat is whin she petts the fat puppies. They r evl!
Im tryin to giv them way but if nobuddy wants them i wil run way frum home.
Othr than the fat puppies I'm ok. I wint to c my ant atam and unkil jermy in nort carlina becuz Mommy wint to sea olvr and hiz famly. It wuz fun. I playd wit the cats all day. Thay wer not evl lik theez puppys! I wish Momm wood of takkin me with hur but she sed no.
Mommi seems happy becuz she saw olivr and becz his famly wuz nice. shes stil lookin 4 jobs but shes not shor shes leving after all. Sumthing abut wate an see whut happins. Whut happins with whut? shes so wird. I dont care to much as long as i cen still eat lots of fud and their r no fat puppys!
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Friday, April 07, 2006
The Week in Review
Because those who know me know that I love little more than I love lists:
1. I need only one dental filling after a few years' vacation from that whole dentist thing.
2. My dentist was really, really hot. This made me think of talking to a friend of mine a year ago on his back porch, and he told me a story about his fiancee, and how she felt guilty when she realized that she had developed a crush on a coworker. I wouldn't say that I feel guilty. But if things don't work out with my guy for some unbeknownst reason, I'm going after my dentist.
3. Speaking of the guy, we celebrated our one year anniversary of togetherness this past April 6. We celebrated by IMing at length about why I don't want to wear a hijab, and why I should. I figure that if that's my biggest difficulty in Islam (or my biggest failing), I'm probably not doing so badly.
4. I was thinking earlier in the week (shortly before the accident) that Islam is kind of like jazz. When I first started playing jazz piano in college, I was so abysmally out of my element that our jazz band director called me "Mozart Playing Jazz". Three years later, after practicing and practicing, I had finally developed a semblance of soul. But it was hard, hard work, and it wasn't something that grew naturally in me. It occurs to me also that I would never call myself a jazz pianist, but I don't know that it's accurate to push my analogy quite so far.
5. My sister and brother-in-law got a ton of money for the accident from their insurance company, and the punk's company all but admitted fault to me over the phone.
6. Sister and brother-in-law will be hosting their nephew, Radar, while I go to Ohio to visit the family of afforementioned boyfriend beginning next Wednesday. I'm not yet nervous.
7. Perhaps I'm not nervous about being rejected by boyfriend's family because already this week I've been rejected from a job that I wanted with my entire heart, one poetry magazine, and I received the official announcement that one of my former peers in graduate schools just won a prestigious poetry prize. (I'm not naturally annoyed by such things, but it was a peer whose writing didn't seem worthy of much recognition, much less winning several big prizes.) I live in rejection. It is my invisible skin.
8. But who's complaining? Only one cavity. And I'll go back to the dentist in mid-May.
9. If anyone knows of any English teaching positions in high schools, please contact me. I swear that I am good and smart, even though I'm not especially experienced. I also have good dental hygiene. Thank you.
1. I need only one dental filling after a few years' vacation from that whole dentist thing.
2. My dentist was really, really hot. This made me think of talking to a friend of mine a year ago on his back porch, and he told me a story about his fiancee, and how she felt guilty when she realized that she had developed a crush on a coworker. I wouldn't say that I feel guilty. But if things don't work out with my guy for some unbeknownst reason, I'm going after my dentist.
3. Speaking of the guy, we celebrated our one year anniversary of togetherness this past April 6. We celebrated by IMing at length about why I don't want to wear a hijab, and why I should. I figure that if that's my biggest difficulty in Islam (or my biggest failing), I'm probably not doing so badly.
4. I was thinking earlier in the week (shortly before the accident) that Islam is kind of like jazz. When I first started playing jazz piano in college, I was so abysmally out of my element that our jazz band director called me "Mozart Playing Jazz". Three years later, after practicing and practicing, I had finally developed a semblance of soul. But it was hard, hard work, and it wasn't something that grew naturally in me. It occurs to me also that I would never call myself a jazz pianist, but I don't know that it's accurate to push my analogy quite so far.
5. My sister and brother-in-law got a ton of money for the accident from their insurance company, and the punk's company all but admitted fault to me over the phone.
6. Sister and brother-in-law will be hosting their nephew, Radar, while I go to Ohio to visit the family of afforementioned boyfriend beginning next Wednesday. I'm not yet nervous.
7. Perhaps I'm not nervous about being rejected by boyfriend's family because already this week I've been rejected from a job that I wanted with my entire heart, one poetry magazine, and I received the official announcement that one of my former peers in graduate schools just won a prestigious poetry prize. (I'm not naturally annoyed by such things, but it was a peer whose writing didn't seem worthy of much recognition, much less winning several big prizes.) I live in rejection. It is my invisible skin.
8. But who's complaining? Only one cavity. And I'll go back to the dentist in mid-May.
9. If anyone knows of any English teaching positions in high schools, please contact me. I swear that I am good and smart, even though I'm not especially experienced. I also have good dental hygiene. Thank you.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Strange Light and a Vertical Rainbow, or How We Wrecked My Sister's Car
The good news is, nobody got hurt, unless you count my really sore neck, which I do.
This is especially good news because, knowing my sister and the fact that she did very little but learn karate for two years, there would have been some butt-kicking going on.
How did we wreck the car? That depends entirely on whom you're asking. Either I had "no idea where I was going" because I'm from "out of town," and I used a right turn signal and began to turn right when suddenly I veered to the left, and that's why the backwards-baseball-cap-wearing guy hit us.
Or.
I was turning left, which I've done probably a hundred times in going to either Pittsburgh or Virginia from my parents' house, and he hit us.
Regardless, the punk was trying to pass me in an intersection, which strikes me as perhaps the wrong thing.
However, on the way back from the scene of the incident (the car was still driveable), we did see the sky turn the darkest shade of blue I've ever seen, forefronted with white clouds; the trees turning red with their first budding leaves; the landscape turning pale orange with the strange light from the gathering storms; one perfect rainbow curving across the sky; another, later, shooting straight up into the clouds.
I would never have imagined feeling so content while driving in a damaged car. Grateful, maybe, but not content. But I was. I wouldn't have traded it for anything.
Except maybe a new car for my sister.
This is especially good news because, knowing my sister and the fact that she did very little but learn karate for two years, there would have been some butt-kicking going on.
How did we wreck the car? That depends entirely on whom you're asking. Either I had "no idea where I was going" because I'm from "out of town," and I used a right turn signal and began to turn right when suddenly I veered to the left, and that's why the backwards-baseball-cap-wearing guy hit us.
Or.
I was turning left, which I've done probably a hundred times in going to either Pittsburgh or Virginia from my parents' house, and he hit us.
Regardless, the punk was trying to pass me in an intersection, which strikes me as perhaps the wrong thing.
However, on the way back from the scene of the incident (the car was still driveable), we did see the sky turn the darkest shade of blue I've ever seen, forefronted with white clouds; the trees turning red with their first budding leaves; the landscape turning pale orange with the strange light from the gathering storms; one perfect rainbow curving across the sky; another, later, shooting straight up into the clouds.
I would never have imagined feeling so content while driving in a damaged car. Grateful, maybe, but not content. But I was. I wouldn't have traded it for anything.
Except maybe a new car for my sister.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Hire Me
As I was sitting here, nibbling at cheddar-flavored Chex Mix (actually pretty good) and scanning news headlines for something of interest, I thought, "You could blog."
This little blog--or, more aptly, my adventure in blogging, since I've moved it--is reaching its one year anniversary. What more appropriate way of celebrating than actually writing in it?
Honestly, I haven't been writing because whatever is happening in my life seems completely insignificant when I think about what's going on in the lives of those close to me. There are new children being born, about to be born. I sit here and throw tennis balls for the dog, dread returning to work. I've been practicing the piano more, since I'm accompanying the Floyd T. Binns choirs. I've missed it. I'm still good at it.
One of my students wrote an essay about why I am the best teacher she has ever had. She says that I am a strong person because being alone, without my boyfriend here, has made me independent. She writes that she can see the sorrow in me that I hide from everyone. I don't know what any of that has to do with being a good teacher, but she is far more eloquently discussing the elements of my life than I ever could these days.
Sometimes the wind blows through the trees outside my window in a way that reminds me what joy is.
For those of you who are wondering what's happening in the news, there's a pending investigation into Pat Tillman's death; a beautiful young graduate student was murdered in New York and everyone is mourning her; a young woman who was not as beautiful died horrifically somewhere and no one reported it; the war on terror continues; I am still afraid.
My new hobby these days is looking for jobs. On my table is an unsigned letter of intent for Loudoun County Public Schools. I have had seven interviews in three weeks. All have gone well. I'm left with the impression that I could get a job just about anywhere that I wanted to. It's a little unnerving when someone looks at your resume and says, "Wow." I don't know how to respond to that.
You can't really say, "I know. I don't how I live with myself, being this amazing."
If any Virginians stumble across this: if you could live in the DC or Charlottesville areas, which would you choose, and why? I have no idea where I want to be. Except, probably not in Loudoun, because even with the bazillion dollar salary, I don't know how I would afford to live there. That, and the "Gang Free School Zone" signs made me a little suspicious.
Otherwise, I'm planning on jaunting out to Pittsburgh the weekend of March 18. There is allegedly going to be someone else coming to meet me there from the west. I'm giving enough advance warning this time that I can find people without relentlessly and creepily stalking them.
This little blog--or, more aptly, my adventure in blogging, since I've moved it--is reaching its one year anniversary. What more appropriate way of celebrating than actually writing in it?
Honestly, I haven't been writing because whatever is happening in my life seems completely insignificant when I think about what's going on in the lives of those close to me. There are new children being born, about to be born. I sit here and throw tennis balls for the dog, dread returning to work. I've been practicing the piano more, since I'm accompanying the Floyd T. Binns choirs. I've missed it. I'm still good at it.
One of my students wrote an essay about why I am the best teacher she has ever had. She says that I am a strong person because being alone, without my boyfriend here, has made me independent. She writes that she can see the sorrow in me that I hide from everyone. I don't know what any of that has to do with being a good teacher, but she is far more eloquently discussing the elements of my life than I ever could these days.
Sometimes the wind blows through the trees outside my window in a way that reminds me what joy is.
For those of you who are wondering what's happening in the news, there's a pending investigation into Pat Tillman's death; a beautiful young graduate student was murdered in New York and everyone is mourning her; a young woman who was not as beautiful died horrifically somewhere and no one reported it; the war on terror continues; I am still afraid.
My new hobby these days is looking for jobs. On my table is an unsigned letter of intent for Loudoun County Public Schools. I have had seven interviews in three weeks. All have gone well. I'm left with the impression that I could get a job just about anywhere that I wanted to. It's a little unnerving when someone looks at your resume and says, "Wow." I don't know how to respond to that.
You can't really say, "I know. I don't how I live with myself, being this amazing."
If any Virginians stumble across this: if you could live in the DC or Charlottesville areas, which would you choose, and why? I have no idea where I want to be. Except, probably not in Loudoun, because even with the bazillion dollar salary, I don't know how I would afford to live there. That, and the "Gang Free School Zone" signs made me a little suspicious.
Otherwise, I'm planning on jaunting out to Pittsburgh the weekend of March 18. There is allegedly going to be someone else coming to meet me there from the west. I'm giving enough advance warning this time that I can find people without relentlessly and creepily stalking them.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Here We Go
A little tumult in the brain today.
And what else to do but publicize it to everyone? (To Lynn's confusion, which is, of course, a valid reason to do it.)
A history of a mild panic attack:
My teacher of all things Islamic asked me to meet her at a forum she was presenting at this morning on cross-religion communication, since she knew she would be late to Sunday school. I hopped into my little car and drove the hour into Charlottesville, and followed the directions until I arrived at an Episcopal Church where the parishioners were shifting between services.
I sat in my car, paralyzed.
From my musical experiences in high school, I've been in countless different denominations (and non-denominations) of churches. Everyone in their dressy clothes, dragging the children off to church, was about the most normal scene I could imagine.
Except that I now had no place in it. I watched a woman in a knee-length skirt walk by. A woman with her dark hair tied up in a pony tail. All the while, I stared at the hijab, carefully folded on the passenger seat (I haven't figured out how to actually drive a car and see while wearing one.) I don't normally wear the hijab, except to prayer and Sunday school. In some way, this has made me feel increasingly like a fraud, as if this particular part of my life is compartmentalized into a few hours here and there.
I didn't know exactly where I was supposed to meet my teacher. And I couldn't decide whether I should put on the hijab and go out into a crowd of Christians and, in some sense, publicly expose myself, or if I should keep my hair uncovered and demonstrate how I truly act in the world.
In the end, I pulled up the hood of my coat tightly, so that I could fit in as anyone, and walked up to the church to investigate. I didn't find my teacher after all, and drove off relatively unscathed to school--unless, of course, you consider that I started crying so much that I had to actually pull off to the side of the road on the way there. I've always been one for melodrama, but in that moment I had absolutely no idea who I was and where I fit into the world.
I'm still floating a bit in that stratosphere, hours later.
I thought certainly that watching the Steelers game would help, but it didn't.
I'm sure that it does not goes without saying--so I'll say it--that a certain object of my affections did finally drag himself home about two weeks ago. I don't know how to make that into a newsflash that's worthy of your reading time (both of you). And it's hard to be truly excited, since the only pleasure I've extracted from it has been talking to him on the phone. A sweet luxury to hear his voice after five months, but no substitute for actually seeing him. And I have no idea when that will happen.
At the very least, I'm less of a mess than I would be if I had not intrepidly ventured to Pittsburgh last weekend, camping out on the floors of various kind friends, and partaking of a marvelous dinner at sster's home. For a moment, I looked out at the world around me--a world of writers and familiar streets--and I could see, if only for a few days, somewhere that I belonged without question.
Possible commentary starters:
1. Do I need a therapist?
2. Do you think the Steelers will win the Super Bowl?
3. Am I overreacting to my own sense of displacement?
And what else to do but publicize it to everyone? (To Lynn's confusion, which is, of course, a valid reason to do it.)
A history of a mild panic attack:
My teacher of all things Islamic asked me to meet her at a forum she was presenting at this morning on cross-religion communication, since she knew she would be late to Sunday school. I hopped into my little car and drove the hour into Charlottesville, and followed the directions until I arrived at an Episcopal Church where the parishioners were shifting between services.
I sat in my car, paralyzed.
From my musical experiences in high school, I've been in countless different denominations (and non-denominations) of churches. Everyone in their dressy clothes, dragging the children off to church, was about the most normal scene I could imagine.
Except that I now had no place in it. I watched a woman in a knee-length skirt walk by. A woman with her dark hair tied up in a pony tail. All the while, I stared at the hijab, carefully folded on the passenger seat (I haven't figured out how to actually drive a car and see while wearing one.) I don't normally wear the hijab, except to prayer and Sunday school. In some way, this has made me feel increasingly like a fraud, as if this particular part of my life is compartmentalized into a few hours here and there.
I didn't know exactly where I was supposed to meet my teacher. And I couldn't decide whether I should put on the hijab and go out into a crowd of Christians and, in some sense, publicly expose myself, or if I should keep my hair uncovered and demonstrate how I truly act in the world.
In the end, I pulled up the hood of my coat tightly, so that I could fit in as anyone, and walked up to the church to investigate. I didn't find my teacher after all, and drove off relatively unscathed to school--unless, of course, you consider that I started crying so much that I had to actually pull off to the side of the road on the way there. I've always been one for melodrama, but in that moment I had absolutely no idea who I was and where I fit into the world.
I'm still floating a bit in that stratosphere, hours later.
I thought certainly that watching the Steelers game would help, but it didn't.
I'm sure that it does not goes without saying--so I'll say it--that a certain object of my affections did finally drag himself home about two weeks ago. I don't know how to make that into a newsflash that's worthy of your reading time (both of you). And it's hard to be truly excited, since the only pleasure I've extracted from it has been talking to him on the phone. A sweet luxury to hear his voice after five months, but no substitute for actually seeing him. And I have no idea when that will happen.
At the very least, I'm less of a mess than I would be if I had not intrepidly ventured to Pittsburgh last weekend, camping out on the floors of various kind friends, and partaking of a marvelous dinner at sster's home. For a moment, I looked out at the world around me--a world of writers and familiar streets--and I could see, if only for a few days, somewhere that I belonged without question.
Possible commentary starters:
1. Do I need a therapist?
2. Do you think the Steelers will win the Super Bowl?
3. Am I overreacting to my own sense of displacement?
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