To start with, a Momentum Update: Okay, the file organizing I wanted to get done this past month didn’t happen, for two legitimate reasons. Reason #1: March was not the greatest month. I’m not complaining about the prolonged winter conditions so much like many people are these days since I come down on the side of trusting it will all end soon, and having something to look forward to is a huge motivational factor for me. But other things happened in the mix of life that I am decidedly not happy about, and sorting through computer files became too trivial to take seriously. Reason #2: There was no real accountability for me to get the files organized other than I kind of wanted to, so I didn’t get it done. What’s going to happen? A monetary fine? Not so much. People are going to point and make fun of me with degrading comments wherever I go? Like I’m not used to that. More time wasted while I look for files that are only sort of easy to find? That’s kind of where I am already. So ultimately, no accountability.
But my plan for April has huge accountability built into it. Long story short -- the idea of a party at my house has recently evolved throughout several randomly connected Facebook postings, and now it’s taking place close to the end of the month. With potentially dozens of people coming to my house (many for the first time since the significant bit of redecorating I had done over the summer) there’s pressure for me to have the place looking its best. So my April goal: Clean the house from top to bottom so anyone who comes and sees it by the end of the month, and probably a two-week window following the party, would be fooled into thinking it always looks like nice before it all goes wrong again.
Anyway. Today’s post isn’t exactly a “Take Out the Trash Day” collection of topics, but it is a two-for-one deal, so let’s move on. I know this is being published on March 31 so it’s a day early, and today is Easter Sunday so very few people will probably notice that this post is even going up, but this is one of those years when April Fool’s Day lands on a school day so I’ll be teaching instead of blogging that day. Instead of once again rehashing the story of my epic prank from so many years ago (though if you’d really like to read about it you could always click right HERE), I thought we could play a fun little game and came up with a list of ten things about me that might be true or might be April Fool’s Day jokes. The one clue I’ll give is that more than one item on this list is actually true, but it’s up to you to determine how many of them aren't and which ones you’ll believe:
1) I’ve never seen any of the “Godfather” movies.
2) I was once tear-gassed during a riot.
3) I’ve never been drunk in my life.
4) I own a Barbie.
5) I once had the same student in my class during four different school years.
6) I haven’t been able to fully extend the ring finger on my right hand since breaking my wrist at six years old.
7) My writing has been published in five different newspapers, including the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
8) I’ve never been the Best Man in a wedding, but I was once the Best Dude and listed as such in the wedding program.
9) Complete strangers have asked for my autograph and sincerely meant it.
10) My music library contains over 15,000 songs, but none of them are by the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan or Michael Jackson.
So... what’s real and what isn’t? Any April Fools out there falling for the jokes?
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
My Life as a Talk Show Host
It occurred to me while falling asleep last night that David Letterman and I could probably step into each other's jobs fairly easily:
1 - Every show he starts off with the same introduction and a brief monologue, usually discussing current events. Every morning I start my day when the 9:30 bell rings, and spend about five minutes joking with my students about current events (the AT&T commercials with the little kids, video game release dates we're excited about, what we did on our weekends, etc.) before bringing my students to their specialist classes.
2 - Dave starts off each show with a lot of the same comedy bits getting mixed into the rotation: Visiting the Hello Deli, Small Town News, the Top Ten list, etc. Each of my math lessons starts out with the students being assigned something from the same pool of introductory activities: Math Boxes from the books, working through a multi-step story problem I've prepared on a half-sheet of paper, converting fractions to decimal values, solving 24 puzzles, etc.
3 - When Dave steps away from his show, people generally expect him to do or say something funny. Not more than two days ago, my principal claimed I almost made her break up laughing while she was presenting information during a school board meeting just because of my facial expression. I promise you I was just standing there and listening.
4 - Dave has frequent musical guests. I commonly have students quietly singing or humming to themselves without even realizing they're doing it until other people point it out to them. I also have a lot of instances of someone "accidentally" giving their recorder a quick toot in the hallway on the way to music class.
5 - Dave's interviews follow a fairly set structure: introduction, playful banter, plugging the guest's latest project, etc. My lessons also follow a fairly set structure: introducing the learning goal and essential vocabulary, leading the students into discovering a new concept, turning them loose on practicing said concept or providing them with extra practice, giving them time to play review games and presenting them with some follow-up practice.
6 - Dave has something of a reputation for being grumpy. My sense of humor has parallels to that, even being described as "caustic" by my eleventh grade journalism teacher. Back then I had to look up the word to understand precisely what she meant. I took it as a compliment.
7 - Dave has Paul Shaffer for a sidekick. In each class I have at least one kid who is so attention-starved, the only way I'm ever going to get she/he to stay focused on what's going on is to play off of them with a few jokes so that "look at me" need is met.
8 - We both receive salaries in the tens of millions of dollars. However since I'll be dropping the school patrol co-advisor position next year, I won't be able to make that claim anymore.
1 - Every show he starts off with the same introduction and a brief monologue, usually discussing current events. Every morning I start my day when the 9:30 bell rings, and spend about five minutes joking with my students about current events (the AT&T commercials with the little kids, video game release dates we're excited about, what we did on our weekends, etc.) before bringing my students to their specialist classes.
2 - Dave starts off each show with a lot of the same comedy bits getting mixed into the rotation: Visiting the Hello Deli, Small Town News, the Top Ten list, etc. Each of my math lessons starts out with the students being assigned something from the same pool of introductory activities: Math Boxes from the books, working through a multi-step story problem I've prepared on a half-sheet of paper, converting fractions to decimal values, solving 24 puzzles, etc.
3 - When Dave steps away from his show, people generally expect him to do or say something funny. Not more than two days ago, my principal claimed I almost made her break up laughing while she was presenting information during a school board meeting just because of my facial expression. I promise you I was just standing there and listening.
4 - Dave has frequent musical guests. I commonly have students quietly singing or humming to themselves without even realizing they're doing it until other people point it out to them. I also have a lot of instances of someone "accidentally" giving their recorder a quick toot in the hallway on the way to music class.
5 - Dave's interviews follow a fairly set structure: introduction, playful banter, plugging the guest's latest project, etc. My lessons also follow a fairly set structure: introducing the learning goal and essential vocabulary, leading the students into discovering a new concept, turning them loose on practicing said concept or providing them with extra practice, giving them time to play review games and presenting them with some follow-up practice.
6 - Dave has something of a reputation for being grumpy. My sense of humor has parallels to that, even being described as "caustic" by my eleventh grade journalism teacher. Back then I had to look up the word to understand precisely what she meant. I took it as a compliment.
7 - Dave has Paul Shaffer for a sidekick. In each class I have at least one kid who is so attention-starved, the only way I'm ever going to get she/he to stay focused on what's going on is to play off of them with a few jokes so that "look at me" need is met.
8 - We both receive salaries in the tens of millions of dollars. However since I'll be dropping the school patrol co-advisor position next year, I won't be able to make that claim anymore.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Shaking off the Dust
About a year and a half ago, a friend of mine who’s been fairly supportive of my writing took it upon herself to read one of my manuscripts to her homeroom class. It was a good fit at the time: A ghost story written for a target audience the age her students were, read right around the same time as Halloween. Some observant students noticed she wasn’t reading a bound paperback but a collection of printed pages, and soon she revealed to them that it was an unpublished manuscript by “a local author,” or some equivalent vague phrase. I’d asked her to keep my identify a secret until she was done since I didn’t want their perception of the book filtered through the perspective of knowing it was written by one of the teachers in their school. She told them by the end, and I even went to her classroom to do some Q and A afterward, which was probably more interesting for me than it was for them.
I’m bringing this up because I believe something similar is about to happen again. One of our specialist blocks is called “Character Education,” during which the students are given experiences that will hopefully encourage them to develop a stronger sense of character as they grow up. One of the more common activities is when the paraprofessional guiding the block reads a book to the class. Unless I’m mistaken, the next book the kids are about to hear is another manuscript of mine.
As self-serving as that might seem to have her read something I did, it wasn’t really my first choice. I have a number of favorite books that would be great Character Ed. reads, but as our para previewed some we weren’t having any luck finding a title that would work. I asked around to get some ideas from other people, but we still couldn’t find a fit. The problem was timing: Since the third trimester began today, there’s only so much time left in the school year, and both our para and I felt it was important that whatever book the students would be hearing was something they’d have time to hear to its conclusion. Running out of ideas, I suggested one of mine that I knew there’d be time for and would be a fit as far as content. After reading most of it she agreed it met the criteria we were looking for. She planned on finishing it over break, and unless she had a serious change of heart since I spoke to her about it last, I’d expect she’s going to begin reading it either this week or next.
Personally, I’m kind of torn on this. From one point of view, I’m hopeful she’s going to read it and I’d be excited to know all three of our 5th grade classes will be hearing it. A copy of a different manuscript has been getting passed around between a couple dozen students this year, and even more have been asking to read it or something else I’ve written. I’m happy they’ll get a chance to hear this now, and I think it could be good closure on the year to share this with them since they’ll get to see a different side of me other than just Mr. Math Class Guy. I’d also like to think that having them see someone they already know from a completely different perspective would be an added level of character education.
However, I’m going to have to leave the room while it’s being read. I would be too distracted to sit at my desk and hear it, thinking about things I could revise or knowing what jokes or emotional markers are coming up and waiting for the reactions, then second-guessing myself when it doesn’t get the reaction I’d hope for and so on. And I would do this, because the manuscript she’s going to read, “Following Infinity,” is the one I’ve decided is my favorite of everything I’ve written. Whenever the self-doubt creeps in (frequently) and I start feeling like some pretender who just pretentiously babbles on about being a writer, this is the manuscript I can dig out and look at and think, “Okay yeah, but I did, in fact, write THIS. So maybe I’ve got some game after all.” This manuscript is so internal for me that I can reread it now and feel memories from the events of story almost as if they really took place. Even though it still needs some polishing before I ever try sending it back into the world (which I’d suspect is going to be my big project this summer), I am as proud of it as anything else I’ve ever written.
So I guess I’m writing this tonight just to put out there that this is going to be happening, probably. I expect I’m going to have some reactions to it along the way and perhaps I’ll be writing about some of that here just to process what I’m thinking and feeling about it. I’m looking forward to being in the middle of having that book read to a group of people who’ve become important to me, many of whom will be genuinely interested in hearing the story. It should be interesting.
And if it turns out that she’s found a different title to read, well, so be it. A big part of being a writer involves shaking off disappointment. No matter what happens, I’m still proud of it.
I’m bringing this up because I believe something similar is about to happen again. One of our specialist blocks is called “Character Education,” during which the students are given experiences that will hopefully encourage them to develop a stronger sense of character as they grow up. One of the more common activities is when the paraprofessional guiding the block reads a book to the class. Unless I’m mistaken, the next book the kids are about to hear is another manuscript of mine.
As self-serving as that might seem to have her read something I did, it wasn’t really my first choice. I have a number of favorite books that would be great Character Ed. reads, but as our para previewed some we weren’t having any luck finding a title that would work. I asked around to get some ideas from other people, but we still couldn’t find a fit. The problem was timing: Since the third trimester began today, there’s only so much time left in the school year, and both our para and I felt it was important that whatever book the students would be hearing was something they’d have time to hear to its conclusion. Running out of ideas, I suggested one of mine that I knew there’d be time for and would be a fit as far as content. After reading most of it she agreed it met the criteria we were looking for. She planned on finishing it over break, and unless she had a serious change of heart since I spoke to her about it last, I’d expect she’s going to begin reading it either this week or next.
Personally, I’m kind of torn on this. From one point of view, I’m hopeful she’s going to read it and I’d be excited to know all three of our 5th grade classes will be hearing it. A copy of a different manuscript has been getting passed around between a couple dozen students this year, and even more have been asking to read it or something else I’ve written. I’m happy they’ll get a chance to hear this now, and I think it could be good closure on the year to share this with them since they’ll get to see a different side of me other than just Mr. Math Class Guy. I’d also like to think that having them see someone they already know from a completely different perspective would be an added level of character education.
However, I’m going to have to leave the room while it’s being read. I would be too distracted to sit at my desk and hear it, thinking about things I could revise or knowing what jokes or emotional markers are coming up and waiting for the reactions, then second-guessing myself when it doesn’t get the reaction I’d hope for and so on. And I would do this, because the manuscript she’s going to read, “Following Infinity,” is the one I’ve decided is my favorite of everything I’ve written. Whenever the self-doubt creeps in (frequently) and I start feeling like some pretender who just pretentiously babbles on about being a writer, this is the manuscript I can dig out and look at and think, “Okay yeah, but I did, in fact, write THIS. So maybe I’ve got some game after all.” This manuscript is so internal for me that I can reread it now and feel memories from the events of story almost as if they really took place. Even though it still needs some polishing before I ever try sending it back into the world (which I’d suspect is going to be my big project this summer), I am as proud of it as anything else I’ve ever written.
So I guess I’m writing this tonight just to put out there that this is going to be happening, probably. I expect I’m going to have some reactions to it along the way and perhaps I’ll be writing about some of that here just to process what I’m thinking and feeling about it. I’m looking forward to being in the middle of having that book read to a group of people who’ve become important to me, many of whom will be genuinely interested in hearing the story. It should be interesting.
And if it turns out that she’s found a different title to read, well, so be it. A big part of being a writer involves shaking off disappointment. No matter what happens, I’m still proud of it.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Adventurer or Victim
My cousin’s husband has to travel a lot for work. A group of us were talking once when he gave his philosophy of airport travel: It’s all in how you choose to perceive what happens. Missed a connecting flight? Had an electric razor confiscated in security? Experienced any of the multitude of things that can go wrong? You can either be an adventurer or a victim.
I always think back to this when I fly anywhere now, as I did this past week to visit my parents in their temporary winter vacation home just outside of Phoenix. Usually it doesn’t take much before I put myself in the victim category, but this time I decided to see the trip down as more of an adventure. I don’t have a problem with flying and I actually kind of like airports: Most of the time I have this drive that makes it hard for me to not be doing something while thinking of the next thing to do at the same time. But usually at an airport the only thing you’re supposed to do is wait, as long as there isn’t some domino effect of inconvenience knocking your flight schedule around, and thankfully that’s never happened to me. I figured as long as I kept track of my wallet and phone and iPod and boarding pass, I’d be good. After all, there have to be some upsides to trading in thirty-one degrees and freezing rain for eighty-two degrees and sunblock, right?
The trip to Arizona was uneventful in the sense that everything about flying went exactly like it was supposed to. I got out of Minneapolis on time and got to St. Louis in plenty of time to make my connecting flight since I had a cinema-length layover, during which I enjoyed some iPod and reading time. Listening to the vaguely critical social commentary of Muse turned out to be a fitting soundtrack for spending time in a heavily trafficked terminal. The day was going well.
But just before my flight began to board... they arrived.
I first saw the family in the terminal, a toddler boy and his pseudo-intellectual hipster parents who, judging from the insipid conversation they were broadcasting throughout the gate, were living a life that enabled them to constantly celebrate their excellence for having everything about life figured out by the ripe old age of twenty-seven. I could see these two sitting down in their favorite alternative coffeehouse and discussing the merits of having a baby as an interesting social experiment before committing to the familial path. I wasn’t excited about having a toddler on the plane, and was much less excited when they turned out to occupy the two seats beside me when we boarded. Albert Einstein once said, “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.” I think a better way to illustrate the first part of this would be “Fly for three hours sitting beside a mother with a toddler on her lap and it seems like an eternal nightmare from which there is no escape.” It’s not a good thing when the overstimulated cries of a toddler running up and down the aisle of the airplane sound like someone trying to play the trumpet for the very first time. It’s worse when the same kid returns to his mother’s lap in the seat beside you. Her arsenal of organic snacks and hypoallergenic, anti-bacterial, brain-research approved toys did little to calm him. I have to admit I found it somewhat gratifying when she was reduced to letting him play with the empty airline water cup he had already spilled and knocked to the floor. For the record, the flight from St. Louis to Phoenix is almost the exact length of Dream Theater’s three-disc 20th anniversary live album “Score” recorded at Radio City Music Hall; the iPod was both my escape and my connection to the normal world until I rejoined it in Arizona.
And about Arizona. I’m curious: Was there some nationwide contest about fifty years ago to see which city could design the most convoluted traffic system surrounding their airport? Because if there was, I’m certain Phoenix would have at least medaled. The roadways leading from Sky Harbor were something like a surrealist would have imagined while suffering from a high fever. Luckily my cousin Kathy, whom I haven’t seen in at least ten years, had volunteered to rescue me and bring me out to where my parents were staying. On the way she gave me a landmark tour of her stomping grounds and took me to a Mexican restaurant with great food where half of the dining area was an outdoor patio. We had some good time to catch up, which was all the better for me since I was eating out in short sleeves and there were more insects in the air than snowflakes. And there weren’t even that many insects.
Something that struck me about the Phoenix area: Almost everything is colored in a shade of earth tone that would fall somewhere in the range between a severe maroon and a mild tan. I’ve never seen so many variations of brown. I’m pretty sure there are specific shades of brown that must be considered native to Arizona. It was difficult for me to tell if the southwestern themes in so much of the decor throughout Phoenix and its suburbs is legitimate cultural stamping or touristy snowbird labeling. And while I’m on the subject -- tangentially, at least -- exactly how many varieties of cacti are there?
Visiting my parents in their temporary vacation spot was a little discombobulating at first. When you visit someone in a home where you haven’t been before, you need to get your bearings about everything before you feel at ease: You have to learn how light travels in and out of the house throughout the day, you need to adjust to the sounds and smells of the place, you need to become familiar with the local landmarks and street names and adjust to a different rhythm. Your vacation isn’t at some resort where everything has been laid out for you, but you are being inserted into someone else’s life. This point wasn’t made any clearer than by watching my father spend so much time coughing and recliner-napping his way through the remnants of his bout with flu. I didn’t enjoy seeing him weakened from the illness and fighting to recover, but was heartened to see him starting to improve by the time I left.
I still had my mother and my aunt to show me around though, and my father would join us when he felt up to it. We took walks through the neighborhood, which was populated by at least as many dogs as people. We knocked out a few games of Scrabble and spent time sitting in the sun by the orange tree in the backyard. We had lunch at the Paradise Bakery, which is eerily like an parallel universe version of Panera. We went out for dinner one night at Organ Stop Pizza, which is one of the most unique pizza places I’ve been to since they have a guy playing requests on this huge pipe organ up on a stage throughout the evening, giving it all a carnival-like atmosphere. We also visited the Superstition Mountain Museum (is there possibly a cooler name for a mountain, by the way? I think not), which gave some interesting history on the mountain itself and the surrounding area. The guy running a small “general store” gift shop annex in one of the museum’s outer buildings -- he was easily in his sixties -- was talking with two customers who were also seniors. To illustrate a point in a story he was telling them, he nodded in my direction when I walked in and worked the phrase “...and then twenty-five year olds like this guy,” into what he was saying. “Whoa, twenty-five?” I interjected with amusement, but he just kept on talking. I was taken aback by this because (a) it demonstrated just how tragically outmatched he would’ve been working at an amusement park “I’ll Guess Your Age!” booth, and (b) whatever he was saying about twenty-five year olds was being said with derision, and he was lumping me in like I was one of those know-it-all little punks.
On the morning I left I took a shuttle back to Sky Harbor, where I spent three hours at the gate since my flight had been delayed. This gave me some time to notice a few things about airports that I hadn’t caught earlier. First off, the iPhones: In airports they are more ubiquitous than bottled water. I now believe it when financial reports say that millions of them are sold immediately after each time a new model is launched. Secondly, the televisions: They are NEVER turned on at whatever gate I’m departing from but are always one two or three gates down and are usually broadcast CNN. The big story being overanalyzed on all of them during this trip? The selection of Pope Francis I. The big story from the last time I was traveling through an airport? The Casey Anthony verdict. There has to be some irony buried in that comparison. Third, I learned that college students in Arizona don’t stay in Arizona for spring break. I know this because there were several packs of college girls wearing ASU clothing queueing up in the next gate over to depart for Fort Lauderdale. I think fell in love at least seven times.
Once the delay issue was resolved and the flight was underway, it was equally uneventful and considerably quieter than the previous one. I could tell when we nearly home by looking out the airplane window: The snow covering the perfect rural grid of southern Minnesota was only broken up by dark, random patches of interruption from tree lines or residences. The whole of the Earth below look like tiles used by incomprehensibly large beings in some kind of logic puzzle with a scope too vast to perceive all at once.
It was a slight jolt returning from eight-three degrees to thirty-eight degrees, but coming back home felt right. As far as vacations go it was a bit too relaxed to be called an adventure, but I was just fine with relaxed when it came to a break between two trimesters. And at least I managed to get through it all without ever falling victim to anything.
Except for that noisy little kid from St. Louis and his parents....
I always think back to this when I fly anywhere now, as I did this past week to visit my parents in their temporary winter vacation home just outside of Phoenix. Usually it doesn’t take much before I put myself in the victim category, but this time I decided to see the trip down as more of an adventure. I don’t have a problem with flying and I actually kind of like airports: Most of the time I have this drive that makes it hard for me to not be doing something while thinking of the next thing to do at the same time. But usually at an airport the only thing you’re supposed to do is wait, as long as there isn’t some domino effect of inconvenience knocking your flight schedule around, and thankfully that’s never happened to me. I figured as long as I kept track of my wallet and phone and iPod and boarding pass, I’d be good. After all, there have to be some upsides to trading in thirty-one degrees and freezing rain for eighty-two degrees and sunblock, right?
The trip to Arizona was uneventful in the sense that everything about flying went exactly like it was supposed to. I got out of Minneapolis on time and got to St. Louis in plenty of time to make my connecting flight since I had a cinema-length layover, during which I enjoyed some iPod and reading time. Listening to the vaguely critical social commentary of Muse turned out to be a fitting soundtrack for spending time in a heavily trafficked terminal. The day was going well.
But just before my flight began to board... they arrived.
I first saw the family in the terminal, a toddler boy and his pseudo-intellectual hipster parents who, judging from the insipid conversation they were broadcasting throughout the gate, were living a life that enabled them to constantly celebrate their excellence for having everything about life figured out by the ripe old age of twenty-seven. I could see these two sitting down in their favorite alternative coffeehouse and discussing the merits of having a baby as an interesting social experiment before committing to the familial path. I wasn’t excited about having a toddler on the plane, and was much less excited when they turned out to occupy the two seats beside me when we boarded. Albert Einstein once said, “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.” I think a better way to illustrate the first part of this would be “Fly for three hours sitting beside a mother with a toddler on her lap and it seems like an eternal nightmare from which there is no escape.” It’s not a good thing when the overstimulated cries of a toddler running up and down the aisle of the airplane sound like someone trying to play the trumpet for the very first time. It’s worse when the same kid returns to his mother’s lap in the seat beside you. Her arsenal of organic snacks and hypoallergenic, anti-bacterial, brain-research approved toys did little to calm him. I have to admit I found it somewhat gratifying when she was reduced to letting him play with the empty airline water cup he had already spilled and knocked to the floor. For the record, the flight from St. Louis to Phoenix is almost the exact length of Dream Theater’s three-disc 20th anniversary live album “Score” recorded at Radio City Music Hall; the iPod was both my escape and my connection to the normal world until I rejoined it in Arizona.
And about Arizona. I’m curious: Was there some nationwide contest about fifty years ago to see which city could design the most convoluted traffic system surrounding their airport? Because if there was, I’m certain Phoenix would have at least medaled. The roadways leading from Sky Harbor were something like a surrealist would have imagined while suffering from a high fever. Luckily my cousin Kathy, whom I haven’t seen in at least ten years, had volunteered to rescue me and bring me out to where my parents were staying. On the way she gave me a landmark tour of her stomping grounds and took me to a Mexican restaurant with great food where half of the dining area was an outdoor patio. We had some good time to catch up, which was all the better for me since I was eating out in short sleeves and there were more insects in the air than snowflakes. And there weren’t even that many insects.
Something that struck me about the Phoenix area: Almost everything is colored in a shade of earth tone that would fall somewhere in the range between a severe maroon and a mild tan. I’ve never seen so many variations of brown. I’m pretty sure there are specific shades of brown that must be considered native to Arizona. It was difficult for me to tell if the southwestern themes in so much of the decor throughout Phoenix and its suburbs is legitimate cultural stamping or touristy snowbird labeling. And while I’m on the subject -- tangentially, at least -- exactly how many varieties of cacti are there?
Visiting my parents in their temporary vacation spot was a little discombobulating at first. When you visit someone in a home where you haven’t been before, you need to get your bearings about everything before you feel at ease: You have to learn how light travels in and out of the house throughout the day, you need to adjust to the sounds and smells of the place, you need to become familiar with the local landmarks and street names and adjust to a different rhythm. Your vacation isn’t at some resort where everything has been laid out for you, but you are being inserted into someone else’s life. This point wasn’t made any clearer than by watching my father spend so much time coughing and recliner-napping his way through the remnants of his bout with flu. I didn’t enjoy seeing him weakened from the illness and fighting to recover, but was heartened to see him starting to improve by the time I left.
I still had my mother and my aunt to show me around though, and my father would join us when he felt up to it. We took walks through the neighborhood, which was populated by at least as many dogs as people. We knocked out a few games of Scrabble and spent time sitting in the sun by the orange tree in the backyard. We had lunch at the Paradise Bakery, which is eerily like an parallel universe version of Panera. We went out for dinner one night at Organ Stop Pizza, which is one of the most unique pizza places I’ve been to since they have a guy playing requests on this huge pipe organ up on a stage throughout the evening, giving it all a carnival-like atmosphere. We also visited the Superstition Mountain Museum (is there possibly a cooler name for a mountain, by the way? I think not), which gave some interesting history on the mountain itself and the surrounding area. The guy running a small “general store” gift shop annex in one of the museum’s outer buildings -- he was easily in his sixties -- was talking with two customers who were also seniors. To illustrate a point in a story he was telling them, he nodded in my direction when I walked in and worked the phrase “...and then twenty-five year olds like this guy,” into what he was saying. “Whoa, twenty-five?” I interjected with amusement, but he just kept on talking. I was taken aback by this because (a) it demonstrated just how tragically outmatched he would’ve been working at an amusement park “I’ll Guess Your Age!” booth, and (b) whatever he was saying about twenty-five year olds was being said with derision, and he was lumping me in like I was one of those know-it-all little punks.
On the morning I left I took a shuttle back to Sky Harbor, where I spent three hours at the gate since my flight had been delayed. This gave me some time to notice a few things about airports that I hadn’t caught earlier. First off, the iPhones: In airports they are more ubiquitous than bottled water. I now believe it when financial reports say that millions of them are sold immediately after each time a new model is launched. Secondly, the televisions: They are NEVER turned on at whatever gate I’m departing from but are always one two or three gates down and are usually broadcast CNN. The big story being overanalyzed on all of them during this trip? The selection of Pope Francis I. The big story from the last time I was traveling through an airport? The Casey Anthony verdict. There has to be some irony buried in that comparison. Third, I learned that college students in Arizona don’t stay in Arizona for spring break. I know this because there were several packs of college girls wearing ASU clothing queueing up in the next gate over to depart for Fort Lauderdale. I think fell in love at least seven times.
Once the delay issue was resolved and the flight was underway, it was equally uneventful and considerably quieter than the previous one. I could tell when we nearly home by looking out the airplane window: The snow covering the perfect rural grid of southern Minnesota was only broken up by dark, random patches of interruption from tree lines or residences. The whole of the Earth below look like tiles used by incomprehensibly large beings in some kind of logic puzzle with a scope too vast to perceive all at once.
It was a slight jolt returning from eight-three degrees to thirty-eight degrees, but coming back home felt right. As far as vacations go it was a bit too relaxed to be called an adventure, but I was just fine with relaxed when it came to a break between two trimesters. And at least I managed to get through it all without ever falling victim to anything.
Except for that noisy little kid from St. Louis and his parents....
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
God Save the Muse
If you ever wondered why I titled one of my blog labels “music nerd,” you’re about to find out....
I can’t give a simple answer if I’m asked who my favorite band or musical artist is. The handful of acts I feel the most passionate about are so different from each other it would be impossible for me to make a true comparison. But I can say that Queen has owned one of the top two or three spots since the summer of 1985.
I’ve made the point in a few music-related conversations over recent years that the band Muse sounds amazingly like Queen. From my observation the comparison is unavoidable: The vocal cadence of the singer; the choral background harmonies; the percussive rhythm guitar and piercing melodic solos; the experimental electronic touches; the self-indulgent bombastic flourishes that can sometimes drag an entire song into ridiculousness... it’s all there in both bands.
Muse is a really good band on their own, but for them to draw influence so heavily from Queen only makes me like them more. In fact I’d argue there are several songs by Muse that sound a lot like the music Queen would likely still be making today if The Greatest Singer In The History of Popular Music hadn’t died nearly twenty-two years ago. To help prove my point, I have another in my series of Top 10s today: The Top 10 songs by Muse that sound a lot like songs by Queen. I’m not saying they sound exactly alike, but if you were to listen any of these pairs back to back, I’m sure you’d hear the similarities. Categorized by the Titles of Muse songs, in alphabetical order:
“Apocalypse Please” by Muse, from the album Absolution / “Death on Two Legs” by Queen, from the album A Night at the Opera. Both dark, aggressive and somewhat angry.
“Falling Away with You” by Muse, from Absolution / “Long Away” by Queen from A Day at the Races. Mid-tempo songs that are fairly gentle compared to the signature sound of each band.
“Knights of Cydonia” by Muse from Black Holes and Revelations / “Ogre Battle” from Queen II. Loud and hard guitar epic fight songs.
“Madness” by Muse, from The 2nd Law / “I Want to Break Free” by Queen, from The Works. Similar cadences, similar melodies, similar instrumental solos bursting in out of nowhere.
“Panic Station” by Muse from The 2nd Law / “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen from The Game. Listen to the first five seconds of each and tell me I’m wrong.
“Soldier’s Poem” by Muse from Black Holes and Revelations / “My Melancholy Blues” by Queen from News of the World. A strength of both bands is that even if they have a definitive sound, they aren’t afraid to deviate from it. This pair of quiet ballads illustrates that well.
“Survival” by Muse from The 2nd Law / “The Show Must Go On” by Queen from Innuendo. It’s worth mentioning the irony of a song titled “Survival” sounding so much like the closing song on the last Queen album released before Freddie Mercury’s death. Musically and thematically, they are very much alike.
“Supermassive Black Hole” by Muse from Black Holes and Revelations / “Body Language” by Queen from Hot Space. Two bass-driven dance songs. If Brian May had remembered to plug in his guitar when “Body Language” was recorded, these songs would be almost interchangeable.
“Undisclosed Desires” by Muse from The Resistance / “You Don’t Fool Me” by Queen from Made in Heaven. Again with two songs a little outside of the box, and both with driving bass lines.
“United States of Eurasia / Collateral Damage” by Muse, from The Resistance. If you’ve ever heard this song before -- come on. Do I really need to offer a comparison to make the point?
I'm planning on seeing Muse perform later in the week and I'm looking forward to it. Their live shows are supposed to be huge spectacles and they have a depth of great songs. But you can bet I'll be digging out my old Queen t-shirt to wear that night.
I can’t give a simple answer if I’m asked who my favorite band or musical artist is. The handful of acts I feel the most passionate about are so different from each other it would be impossible for me to make a true comparison. But I can say that Queen has owned one of the top two or three spots since the summer of 1985.
I’ve made the point in a few music-related conversations over recent years that the band Muse sounds amazingly like Queen. From my observation the comparison is unavoidable: The vocal cadence of the singer; the choral background harmonies; the percussive rhythm guitar and piercing melodic solos; the experimental electronic touches; the self-indulgent bombastic flourishes that can sometimes drag an entire song into ridiculousness... it’s all there in both bands.
Muse is a really good band on their own, but for them to draw influence so heavily from Queen only makes me like them more. In fact I’d argue there are several songs by Muse that sound a lot like the music Queen would likely still be making today if The Greatest Singer In The History of Popular Music hadn’t died nearly twenty-two years ago. To help prove my point, I have another in my series of Top 10s today: The Top 10 songs by Muse that sound a lot like songs by Queen. I’m not saying they sound exactly alike, but if you were to listen any of these pairs back to back, I’m sure you’d hear the similarities. Categorized by the Titles of Muse songs, in alphabetical order:
“Apocalypse Please” by Muse, from the album Absolution / “Death on Two Legs” by Queen, from the album A Night at the Opera. Both dark, aggressive and somewhat angry.
“Falling Away with You” by Muse, from Absolution / “Long Away” by Queen from A Day at the Races. Mid-tempo songs that are fairly gentle compared to the signature sound of each band.
“Knights of Cydonia” by Muse from Black Holes and Revelations / “Ogre Battle” from Queen II. Loud and hard guitar epic fight songs.
“Madness” by Muse, from The 2nd Law / “I Want to Break Free” by Queen, from The Works. Similar cadences, similar melodies, similar instrumental solos bursting in out of nowhere.
“Panic Station” by Muse from The 2nd Law / “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen from The Game. Listen to the first five seconds of each and tell me I’m wrong.
“Soldier’s Poem” by Muse from Black Holes and Revelations / “My Melancholy Blues” by Queen from News of the World. A strength of both bands is that even if they have a definitive sound, they aren’t afraid to deviate from it. This pair of quiet ballads illustrates that well.
“Survival” by Muse from The 2nd Law / “The Show Must Go On” by Queen from Innuendo. It’s worth mentioning the irony of a song titled “Survival” sounding so much like the closing song on the last Queen album released before Freddie Mercury’s death. Musically and thematically, they are very much alike.
“Supermassive Black Hole” by Muse from Black Holes and Revelations / “Body Language” by Queen from Hot Space. Two bass-driven dance songs. If Brian May had remembered to plug in his guitar when “Body Language” was recorded, these songs would be almost interchangeable.
“Undisclosed Desires” by Muse from The Resistance / “You Don’t Fool Me” by Queen from Made in Heaven. Again with two songs a little outside of the box, and both with driving bass lines.
“United States of Eurasia / Collateral Damage” by Muse, from The Resistance. If you’ve ever heard this song before -- come on. Do I really need to offer a comparison to make the point?
I'm planning on seeing Muse perform later in the week and I'm looking forward to it. Their live shows are supposed to be huge spectacles and they have a depth of great songs. But you can bet I'll be digging out my old Queen t-shirt to wear that night.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Two Down
I was having an e-mail conversation with one of my cousins years ago. I don’t remember exactly how it came up, but she said something about how she admired that whenever we had the chance to get together or talk (which isn’t that often since we live on opposite sides of the country), I would say something about some project I was working on how I was trying to improve myself. To which my internal monologue replied, “Well okay, sure, but isn’t that also a comment on exactly how much needs to be improved?” Suffice it to say my internal monologue isn’t always one of my biggest supporters and that my sense of humor has a darker edge to it -- two things that will surprise few people who know me well. This doesn’t necessarily mean I see myself as broken, but I do have a tendency to feel the need to prove myself. Which I suppose leads to this drive to set goals and reach them, if only to know that I can.
And now that we’ve reached March, I’m still moving forward with this series of monthly resolutions to discover how much impact short bursts of concentrated effort can really have on my life. To recap: January was a misfire. I thought I’d take shot at reclaiming my writing momentum from November and push to finish the current WIP (work in progress, for writer nerds) but it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen in February either, but I decided to let myself off the hook and respect the process instead of push for some kind of arbitrary finish line. (And for the record, you cannot possibly know how happy I am to use the word “arbitrary” here; it’s been a tip-of-the-tongue word for about a week now as I’ve been mentally outlining this post and it just came to me RIGHT NOW.)
But my main goal in February was to take the decision-making out of daily life and any time I was faced with a choice that could make a difference to my health in someway, I would choose the healthier option. Now that February is over I can call that experiment a qualified success. Would you like to guess how many health-related decisions need to be made in the course of a month, big or small? I didn’t keep track, but I’d easily put it in the thousands. Or how about how many different ways there are to interpret what makes a healthy decision? Lot of definitions here: Physical, nutritional, financial, mental, spiritual, social, professional, emotional, intellectual... I knew in a matter of days there was no way I’d be able to pull this off in the manner I’d originally intended, so I tweaked things a bit. Instead of seeking out things to change or improve, I started waiting to see what choices naturally presented themselves and went from there. I knew I wouldn’t be perfect, and to preserve my mental health I gave myself permission for that to be okay.
If I got home one night and had an overwhelming pile of school work that HAD to be done for me to get through the next day, sometimes I would choose to skip going to the Y in favor of taking the time to just get the work over with (mental). If I got home and was just tired and didn’t want to do anything, I’d make myself go to the Y because I knew there would likely be days later in the week when I wouldn’t (physical). I usually buy school lunch out of convenience (mental), and if I saw the menu had some nasty vegetable (school lunch, after all) I’d either bring a healthy snack for the morning or plan to eat something better for dinner to make up for it (nutritional). If someone made me angry, I’d force myself put it aside and move on instead letting my stress and anger build (emotional). If I saw something could do for somebody else that might give them an unexpected happy moment, then I just went ahead and did it (social, emotional). And so on. Little things adding up along the way. Overall I feel it went okay and I’m optimistic that it’s a habit I could maintain.
Which brings us to March and a new goal to set. This is my favorite one so far because it’s probably the easiest to achieve and I know what a huge difference it will make once I reach it: During March I am going to completely organize all of my electronic school files.
It’s easy to get in a habit of saving a document you create because you might use it again, or an e-mail attachment that might be a valuable resource someday. And as time goes on and these files accumulate, eventually there’s a tipping point when everything is buried in a ridiculous mental labyrinth of pathways and folders and it takes longer to find the thing than it would to just make a new one. After many years of saving work with mostly compatible operating systems, I now have hundreds if not thousands of school related files spread out over a district server folder, a school hard drive, a school e-mail account, two flash drives, an external hard drive, a home hard drive, and a smart phone.
Last year I took the bold step of actually saving and organizing a set of files -- electronic flipcharts of my weekly spelling lists and related activities. Consequently I’ve been able to reuse them this year with only a few small tweaks, which has been a great time saver. I was even able to share them with my teaching partner who was new to the grade this year. It made me think how great it would be to have that same kind of quick access to any other useful files I have if I weeded out the redundancies and got rid of the ones that haven’t been opened since 2008.
And before anyone tries to tell me about the 3-5 applications I could download that would do all of this for me? First off, yeah, I know. Secondly, that’s not entirely the point. I need to do this myself if I want it to work. I need to know where everything is, how the naming conventions are planned and related, which folders go inside of other folders... all that fun business, to say nothing of the feeling of accomplishment that follows a good spring cleaning purge. I’m the one who dug this whole, so I have to prove to myself I can climb my way back out.
I’m just not sure what I’m going to do with the hours of free time I’ll reclaim when I finish. Maybe that will wind up suggesting something for me to do in April....
And now that we’ve reached March, I’m still moving forward with this series of monthly resolutions to discover how much impact short bursts of concentrated effort can really have on my life. To recap: January was a misfire. I thought I’d take shot at reclaiming my writing momentum from November and push to finish the current WIP (work in progress, for writer nerds) but it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen in February either, but I decided to let myself off the hook and respect the process instead of push for some kind of arbitrary finish line. (And for the record, you cannot possibly know how happy I am to use the word “arbitrary” here; it’s been a tip-of-the-tongue word for about a week now as I’ve been mentally outlining this post and it just came to me RIGHT NOW.)
But my main goal in February was to take the decision-making out of daily life and any time I was faced with a choice that could make a difference to my health in someway, I would choose the healthier option. Now that February is over I can call that experiment a qualified success. Would you like to guess how many health-related decisions need to be made in the course of a month, big or small? I didn’t keep track, but I’d easily put it in the thousands. Or how about how many different ways there are to interpret what makes a healthy decision? Lot of definitions here: Physical, nutritional, financial, mental, spiritual, social, professional, emotional, intellectual... I knew in a matter of days there was no way I’d be able to pull this off in the manner I’d originally intended, so I tweaked things a bit. Instead of seeking out things to change or improve, I started waiting to see what choices naturally presented themselves and went from there. I knew I wouldn’t be perfect, and to preserve my mental health I gave myself permission for that to be okay.
If I got home one night and had an overwhelming pile of school work that HAD to be done for me to get through the next day, sometimes I would choose to skip going to the Y in favor of taking the time to just get the work over with (mental). If I got home and was just tired and didn’t want to do anything, I’d make myself go to the Y because I knew there would likely be days later in the week when I wouldn’t (physical). I usually buy school lunch out of convenience (mental), and if I saw the menu had some nasty vegetable (school lunch, after all) I’d either bring a healthy snack for the morning or plan to eat something better for dinner to make up for it (nutritional). If someone made me angry, I’d force myself put it aside and move on instead letting my stress and anger build (emotional). If I saw something could do for somebody else that might give them an unexpected happy moment, then I just went ahead and did it (social, emotional). And so on. Little things adding up along the way. Overall I feel it went okay and I’m optimistic that it’s a habit I could maintain.
Which brings us to March and a new goal to set. This is my favorite one so far because it’s probably the easiest to achieve and I know what a huge difference it will make once I reach it: During March I am going to completely organize all of my electronic school files.
It’s easy to get in a habit of saving a document you create because you might use it again, or an e-mail attachment that might be a valuable resource someday. And as time goes on and these files accumulate, eventually there’s a tipping point when everything is buried in a ridiculous mental labyrinth of pathways and folders and it takes longer to find the thing than it would to just make a new one. After many years of saving work with mostly compatible operating systems, I now have hundreds if not thousands of school related files spread out over a district server folder, a school hard drive, a school e-mail account, two flash drives, an external hard drive, a home hard drive, and a smart phone.
Last year I took the bold step of actually saving and organizing a set of files -- electronic flipcharts of my weekly spelling lists and related activities. Consequently I’ve been able to reuse them this year with only a few small tweaks, which has been a great time saver. I was even able to share them with my teaching partner who was new to the grade this year. It made me think how great it would be to have that same kind of quick access to any other useful files I have if I weeded out the redundancies and got rid of the ones that haven’t been opened since 2008.
And before anyone tries to tell me about the 3-5 applications I could download that would do all of this for me? First off, yeah, I know. Secondly, that’s not entirely the point. I need to do this myself if I want it to work. I need to know where everything is, how the naming conventions are planned and related, which folders go inside of other folders... all that fun business, to say nothing of the feeling of accomplishment that follows a good spring cleaning purge. I’m the one who dug this whole, so I have to prove to myself I can climb my way back out.
I’m just not sure what I’m going to do with the hours of free time I’ll reclaim when I finish. Maybe that will wind up suggesting something for me to do in April....
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