Me So Cranky

It’s Sunday.

*pause for effect*

Here is where I ought to publish technicolor Western-themed photos and launch into exciting anecdotes about grizzly bats, however-

I woke. The problem is, I woke at 5:30am, and the waking was so jarring and unpleasant, I could have sworn it was a Tuesday.

My mouth, it seems, has been up to very bad things in my sleep. I think another damn tooth is trying to surface in a mouth where too many teeth have already made their sparkling debut. Either that or something crept into my slumbering yaw and stung bitter poisons into my right lower gum/cheek meeting place to make it swell up sorely-like. I’m slumping around this morning making noises closer to sasquatch than human.

This situation has been a cranky-maker.

One thing about my pretty awesome trip is: I hardly slept. I was sharing a room, and that’s not something I do. Plus, I sleep in a sub-level bedroom at home,  so I’m used to sepulchral temperatures and a sort of humid, coastal climate. Wyoming is arid. And those I had to cohabitate with seemed to believe arctic temperatures were not the proper thing for sleepy time.

So weird.

An adult can totally get by with little sleep for a while- once a person gets tired enough they’ll crash but proper, even in a baking desert of a rustic resort getaway. I had two sleep nights on the trip, and managed to usually black out by 4am on other mornings for a 2-3 hour nap.

But it is possible… not probable, mind you, but possible that the lack of sleep could have slightly tarnished my bubbly good nature.

In fact, my sugarbear-of-love actually accused me of being difficult this morning. This struck me as bitingly unfair- or unbitingly unfair, considering the state of my lower jaw. I contemplated the accusation in a thoughtful and reasonable manner, and then tortured him for 20 minutes over the comment.

Me? Difficult? 

Preposterous.

Anyway, like I mentioned, I’m home and cranky. Perhaps blimps and fanfare were too much to expect, but in the famous words of John T. Ijustmadehimup: “Where’s mah bitches?”

Someone should be hand-feeding me grapes and carrying me around on a rickshaw, dammit. I am crippled, wounded, and sorely lacking a clamoring throng. This world-weary adventurer has come home to the cold comforts of low resolution hentai and improperly frosted German Chocolate Cake.

Where’s the love?

Perhaps I will find it in the treasure chest at the dentist’s office, (if they still let 31 year olds pick out a toy for being ‘good’).

They freakin’ better have lollipops.

Home

We are back from Yellowstone. Great trip, many adventures. There were such a number of experiences, angles, photos, geological and artistic discoveries, that I’m a little overwhelmed about how to describe the trip. I think I’ll just take my time and try to chronicle the vacation little by little on here.

And then there are  the mixed feelings of coming home.  It’s always kinda weird to travel- you go somewhere else, and sometimes you actually are someone else for awhile. There’s different expectations of your time, a different setting.  I actually find I meet my old confusions coming home, and I wish they weren’t here waiting for me. But there are compensations, like getting to spend time with someone I missed terribly.

(Next time, I take you with me.)

Stay tuned- photos and adventures soon- and Oh, what a pile of laundry.

Psychic Projections

We’re headed out. My last day home will be taken up with packing and last minute administrator safe-checks to keep my Hot Dwarf Sex Site running smoothly during our absence.

(Of course I’m kidding…. or am I? Am I?)

Since I’ll be tromping for a week in Yellowstone and won’t have time to visit blogs, I’ve decided to psychically project what a few of the weebles will post about ahead of time. This idea isn’t mine, btw; I stole it from another website, but it seems like a good sort of idea to robberize. Here goes:

Bountiful Healing: While I’m gone, Robin will post a stunning picture with a thoughtful, relevant quote. If I had to guess on the subject matter, hm… it will be the silhouette of a bird perched in a tree at twilight, with the accompanying words,

“The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.”

-H.W. Longfellow, from ‘The Day is Done’.

Either that or she’ll post gratuitous salad porn with accompanying quote from Bugs Bunny. Robin’s sneaky like that.

Not Quite Right: Bob will write a post about yetis and redneck romance that strikes a universal chord and makes you spurt coffee out your nose at the same time. The post will be titled, “Now Pucker-Up the Other End“

Quotidian Vicissitudes: David’s post this week will be numbered and have two or three parts. Here’s a sample of what he will write:

Two Random Dreams About My Therapist, Plus: Cracker Complaint

In the last week I have woken twice from vivid dreams that prominently featured my current therapist. While I would generally find this sort of pattern troubling, I think it is perhaps not unusual to incorporate those people into your subconscious whom you are exploring your subconscious motivations with. No, it is not the subject of the dreams that troubled me so much as the cryptic tenor of the plot lines.

1) In the first dream, my therapist and I are walking through the J.C. Penny Department Store in Lloyd Center which closed down three years ago. The store is still open in the dream, but it seems deserted. I am watching our feet as we walk down one of those endless, waxed tile aisles that go around the perimeter of department stores. I am troubled by the harsh fluorescent lighting, and confused as to the purpose of our journey. My therapist looks at me very severely every time I look up. I finally ask if we are looking for anything specific, and she replies that she will not allow me into her car again until I replace her socks. I want to request clarification, but suddenly realize that I have an orange bicycle clip on one leg, and leather loafers with absolutely no socks on underneath. I understand immediately that this is what she is referring to, and there the dream should have ended except we are making the same fruitless lap over and over, and I can’t find a sock to save my life.

Asian Ramblings: Stevo will begin to post pictures from his trips to other provinces or other countries, I’m not really sure which, but it all sounds terribly exotic. He will also hold a contest which challenges other bloggers to guess which item of clothing he is not wearing. The goal-posts may keep changing on this one, but eventually the winning blogger will score a pre-paid personality hosted by The Disney Channel. Keep your eyes peeled for a newly-fledged princess complex on one of your favorite blogs.

Stumbling along the path: Lazy Buddhist will post adorable, giant cat pictures, (eek!) but she will make up for it by incorporating funny dialogue and buddhist wisdom into her blog entry. This is the sort of picture she would be posting if this picture happened to be 1. a cat and 2. totally gigantic.

florescence: Jo will write a poem with lovely turns of phrase and precise, imaginative language. I will try to create a pre-sample of her poem, despite the fact that this is wholly impossible.

Woman Under Waterfall

She steps past the curtain
and becomes different, somehow.
She can part water, sing stone music;
shed herself for naiad.
Her voice becomes wavy,
her hair turns the colors
of a green rainbow.
Boys look, but can’t really see her-
which is a darn good thing cus
their eyeballs would melt
and slide out their eyesockets
like non-viral loogies.
They perceive only a flash, a sparkle,
something they want
but can’t grip properly.
She slips past their outstretched palms
like green jello.

(I cannot imitate her style or language, alas. Do give her a click, and see the real thing.)

The Most High and Holy Church of Jaynova: Jay will not write any posts this week. His cat will be eaten mauled by a transient zombie on Monday, and he will spend the rest of the week trying to chase it down and destroy it while relying on erratic public transportation schedules.

Mad Haiku: Mad might write a poem using specific stylistic parameters that dictate syllable and line count. I’m guessing a cinquain or a tanka. Perhaps a villanelle.

UU Deist in Texas: Jules will tease his readers with an opening that seems to allude to his blossoming relationship to the deistette in Texas, but will turn out to actually be an ode to his childhood sock monkey, Oodles. Here’s a sample:

I got used to holding you in my arms…

Today you’re in my head, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I keep thinking about your button nose, your soft, cuddly body, the way you’ve been there when I needed you. I wonder where you’re at today. Are you making someone else happy, or are you waiting for me to take you out again and treat you the way you deserve…?

(click to view post below page break)

 

Oodles the sock monkey was my steadfast friend growing up. He got a little worn around the edges, and I drooled on him constantly, but that just made him more personal to me… (con.)

Life in Midstream: Dan will write about fishing. You can take that one to the bank.

New Bad Blog Awards

I couldn’t find a Very Bad Blogger award. In fact, I couldn’t find any blogger awards of a less than complimentary nature. Isn’t that unbelievable? Aren’t bloggers nice???  Of course I immediately set to work fixing that. Hey, it was a golden opportunity to leave my mark on the information super highway. I’m not intending to hand them out, but feel free to borrow if you wish.

Which do you like best:

 

The Donkeyball Award

 

The Dum-Dum Certificate

The ‘Oscar’ Award

The Illustrious Blabberwocky

            

 

Or the “Ain’t No Descartes” Award

There should be a very bad blogger award…

…but then, there probably is one, somewhere.

We’ve been a little busy over here. That’s excuse number one. It isn’t like I’ve had *no* time to read or write though, I sit down to do it and nothing really comes out. It all sounds overdone.

I don’t like what I have to say.

Turn the page, turn the page.

I often have this dilemma when I’m happy. It wreaks hell on my writing habit. 

You know how people do their New Years resolution things in January?  Isn’t it weird to do it right then? The ground is frozen solid, there’s weeks more of winter left- it isn’t really a season that shrieks ‘TRANSITION!’ It’s more like a season that murmurs- “Go curl up in a sweater, drink hot stuff and brood.”

This time of year-  this is my new year. When the school year is about to  start, when the summer is in its final act. When people talk about the season, this is it. Now. Autumn. 

And what an exciting season. It thundered and lightninged all freakin’ night.  Can you tell that the writing isn’t coming easily? Just curious. There’s no rolling thing, but choppy starts and stops. 

I’m kinda happy. There is that anticipatory air… ha! anticipatory air, yup- of knowing what I want but not having arrived at it yet.

What’s different this year from years past=

1. I know what I wanna do. It sure isn’t the direction I was floundering towards for years, but that’s kinda cool. Like a surprise. A twist. A ’startling realization’, thunder crash now…. thanks, that was more of a rumble, but anyway.

2. I have a who that seems to know how to protect and take care of us without taking over me. He’s an awesome who and I love him a lot.

That’s all I have to say about that.

Maybe that’s the key. Without explanation, description, apology, without going to the extreme of holing up with my happiness till it blows up, or denying my happiness for fear of looking foolish in the future, maybe that’s the way for me to show a little faith in myself, and my happiness, which has been hanging around gently for quite awhile.  

It would be nice to be able to write and be happy at the same time.  So guess what?

I’m kinda happy.

How ’bout that.

Dial’s New Skin Line: A minor observation

I’ve just seen the new Dial body wash commercial.

Whomever the ad exec was that approved this copy: “Leaving your skin feeling not only Dial clean, but also yogurty-soft!”, should probably be hospitalized for acute head injuries.

Yogurty soft? Yogurty soft?

I donno, is it just me? Odd, for one, that the ’skin conditioning wonder of yoghurt protein’ has never been tapped into before. According to an article in Brandweek, “a company spokesperson said putting yogurt in the soap’s name gives it the appearance of being natural and healthy.” (Entrepreneur.com)

As opposed to, I guess, bringing to mind bacteria-ridden fermented milk. But if you can get past the idea of the copy, there’s still aesthetics to be considered. ‘Yogurt’ is not a pretty word. ‘Yogurt’ sounds like Ozark slang to describe suspicious bodily discharge.

Not quite the image I’d be shooting for on a national advertisement spot.

Andromeda

Waking the way wind wakes the surface of mottled stone,

I feel the rust, and grate of something 

beneath my tongue.

Back there it’s broken, where my teeth meet, where my smile starts.

I’ll remember your murder song this first time;

that the salt howled into my wound tonight as

I clung to a cavern wall, looking at the toil, dread ocean;

that I watched you row away with your oars just so in the water:

A man who makes up his mind.

But others didn’t listen; dolphins came to me

when you went. I swam and was still standing

when morning found the shore.

Perhaps I swallowed sand. My tongue finds now the gap

where your hinges were, where we hung on tight.

I ask you to remember, because someday when I’m strong

and you’re nobody, clinging for life on your crag of justice,

I want you to recall: I would have offered my hand.

I would have offered you forever. 

But you will stand alone; no one will save you.

Grace by morning? Not her-

She remembers who the children are,

and who the gatesman, with his gory step.

I would have followed you to ordained disaster

and lent my boat to sink, if you wanted to.

But I live, and you will die every night you recall this night:

The sound of my blood rushing out, your fury;

the cold and calculating way that you went.

No, they won’t come for you.

The night will plunge, reel, echo thunder-

Perhaps you’ll swallow sand.

How the oat rolls

The trouble with with-holding yourself in order to prove a point, or to hold the power in a situation is that, too often, the other person learns from that experience all too well.

They learn they *can* live without you; they learn there’s an alternative to feeling as unimportant as you made them feel by going away, and they might learn you’re not nearly as great as they thought you were back when they were pouring energy into being your friend.

An educational experience, all ’round.

 

More Search Terms!

Loopy search terms: A happy weeble staple. Here ya go! This week’s bestest.

 

am i weird if i stuff my bra - I’m confident that you’re weird irregardless.

how to catch cockles - Just tell me there isn’t a hook involved.

what candy choice has t do with your penis - I’ll admit, I’m intrigued.

sugar dead skull - well heavens, don’t sugar the live ones!

foghorn von leghorn - What is he, a chicken or a baronet?

naked nudity japanese - from the asian chapter of the department of redundancy department

site:bugbear.wordpress.com amuirin blog – Somebody wants me. Somebody wants me bad.

a picture of a fat guy in g string – No access to a Wal-Mart, eh?

why bra off? - *grunts* Itchy titties. Oog.

anal floss - Give it up! This idea will never catch on.

how to stop voices in my head - Blunt trauma is said to do wonders.

yes, stranger i know who you are, –  Well? I’m on tenterhooks. 

in my womb, sharks eat – Okay, okay, your cramps are worse than mine.

how many calories in 1 root beer barrel - I don’t know but I bet your name is ‘Tiff’ or ‘Kimberly’, and I bet you’re in dire need of a cheeseburger and some comfortable shoes.

animated dancing/singing frogs - That sums up my blog in a nutshell, really.

 

For fans of freaky search terms, stop & wander’s  former googlefests:

07/08

05/08

04/08

03/08

01/08

Conceptual Failing

My daughter and I have been bullied into doing math. While it was the united force of her teacher and her grandmother who set these wheels in motion, I’m not cowed by my mother or even the squat, Jabba the Hutesque countenance of her 4th grade school missus, but rather by the haunting worry any parent has that my child won’t keep up. She will fall behind, be hopelessly lost, take a bus to New York at age 17 to pursue a far-fetched career in the arts, and I will only hear from her once every six months with pleas for drug money or to co-sign a loan for her new boyfriend from Qatar.

How did my adolescent daydreams of adventure become the nightmares of parenthood? 

So we do math. That’s right, fractions and decimals are my puny safeguards against an uncertain future. And gosh we hate it. I never used to do homework during the summer. I have always entered a math-class confident that the teacher would re-teach any concepts I was rusty on before the rest of the crap commenced.

And aside from three heart rending terms in high-school geometry (for what, I ask you? A final grade of ‘D’ and three sessions of grounding?) this approach has played out decently well for me.

But it turns out school isn’t the same now as it was then. It’s just not. Not only are they learning more stuff earlier, they don’t learn it the same way we did then. I’m finding out that my daughter is really good at quickly absorbing the process to arrive at an answer, but when I talk to her about the underlying concepts in our math-sheets, she doesn’t understand.  

I’m not even sure I understand what I’m trying to explain. It’s almost like they have taught math in a linear way. There has been conscientious drilling of the times tables, she knows all the small number multiplication and division, but her understanding of the numbers seems to halt somewhere around the symbol level.

It seems to me she hasn’t retained a lot of the concepts because the conceptual understanding was never  in place. Decimals? Decimals she treats as numbers where you have the added step of conscientiously placing a period. I took for granted that she would understand how decimals and fractions were related, that they both symbolize a portion of a whole.

Blank look. Blank stare. Weeks I’ve been seeing this. So I go to the cupboard, and get out the beans, break them in half, sort them into piles. We bought an awful Safeway pie so I could try to convey some understanding of fractions. My daughter’s grades in the last report-card were good. I find this lack of understanding depressing.

So I’ve asked around. Is there something wrong with her cognitive development? Is she in some sort of twilight zone of linear thinking? Is there any commonality between Sierra and her classmates in this seeming failure to wrap her mind around abstract reasoning?

And the answers I’ve gotten, from other parents and the internet seem to match up. There’s nothing wrong with my daughter’s cognitive tools- always a bit slow to each development stage, Sierra nonetheless masters things in her own time, and usually she turns out to be where she ought to be. She talked late, but when she did it was rapid vocabulary. Same with walking: Slow to take that first step, she followed the first with an oddly graceful second, and tripped up far less after learning to walk than most of her contemporaries.

She’s a perfectionist.

But the reason she isn’t ‘getting’ the underlying concepts of math, is because they are largely not being taught. Sierra probably hasn’t been offered concept based math principles since the first, possibly the 2nd grade. Now they teach math in a result oriented fashion- the curriculum, the whole learning process is engaged in one initiative: Make them pass the test.

No Child Left Behind did a number on teachers and students alike. Teachers were once sought out and valued for creativity in the classroom, but now they are rewarded for a stream-lined and highly documented approach that equals ‘best in test’. Long before No Child Left Behind, though, paranoia was taking the teaching experience to newly austere levels. 

From my year in Americorps I understand just how much exhaustive red tape has to be navigated to take a classroom of children to an Education Board approved field trip. Parties are no longer permitted in our local district unless a teacher can prove ahead of time that there is an educational focus. Activities that require hands on, student interaction usually die at the conception point because we are all so scared of germs, touching, possible cuts or bruises, fights erupting, freak lawsuits or ‘wasting time’ that could be spent on the three R’s.

Talk about wasting time- what’s scary to me is that teachers might learn to engage their students in the watered down, mass manufacturing approach that we call education today. 

Is it possible, as my father has long speculated, that those in charge are actually orchestrating a ‘dumbing down’ of America’s children? One of the most common ways through history for the rich and powerful to maintain the status quo has been to deny education to the masses. Ideas and problem solving skills are the flint and powder that have sparked countless uprisings by the proletariat,- but I wonder if the current state of education isn’t more of a communal failing.

We are a fear based society in so many ways. Afraid that our children won’t compete in world markets, we may be siphoning away the most important resources for a bright future in favor of so called ‘marketable skills’. Afraid of a handful of terrorists, we have made choices as a community that favor leaders who promise safety and deliver instead legislation that will damage the heartblood of our nation: Our children and our natural resources. 

Fearing the social stigma that accompanies the outcast, we’ve forgotten to speak out, to demand a better quality of life for the people left in our charge. It isn’t acceptable to accept education the way it’s being delivered in our country.

Perhaps the fault for my daughter’s struggle rests with me.