Back to School: What Would Ted Lasso Do?

School starts for real in just over two weeks. The Delta Variant is still making its presence in our lives widely known. Too much of society seems intent on using school as a catalyst for inventing new varieties of division to make everyone feel as angry and uncomfortable as possible. This isn’t really the environment anyone wants to see in the schools as we start another academic year. In the words of one particularly wise songwriter, “We all need some light.”

One of the most currently recognized sources of light, optimism, and comfort is the TV show “Ted Lasso.” Yes, it’s on Apple TV+ which not many people seem to have. It’s a little tragic that more people aren’t able to enjoy this show, because it takes a fairly typical fish out of water premise and turns it into something remarkable. Since the character of Ted Lasso is a coach, and with a little imagination it’s easy to see the connections between being a coach and being a teacher, I’ve collected some moments from the show that I think would be good things for teachers to keep in mind as they begin this potentially hairy, but still possibly great, school year. 

For the uninitiated: “Ted Lasso” is a show about a college football coach who was hired to coach a professional football/soccer team in England without any knowledge of the game. I won’t go into much more detail about it since I’ll be spoiling a few things along the way as it is. I’ve listed ten points because ten has always been a good round number to fall back on for lists since the days of David Letterman. As always, in no particular order….

(1) “Biscuits with the Boss.” Ted brings team owner Rebecca shortbread biscuits (cookies) every morning as an icebreaker. As he says, “We can’t be good partners unless we get to know each other.”

Everything about success in education begins with relationships. This goes for both teachers and students. Students won’t learn as much from someone they don’t know or respect, so it’s important to win them over by demonstrating they’re important to you. Find a way to connect so you can be good partners.

(2) “Be a goldfish.”

Sam, one of the players, is down on himself for making a mistake at practice. Ted points out that a goldfish is the happiest animal in the world because it has a ten second memory. He tells Sam to be a goldfish.

Don’t dwell on the failures and mistakes. They will always be a part of what you do, and overthinking your way through them won’t change what happened, whether it was a kid who did something foolish or a test that went poorly, or a time you lost your temper. Take what you need from the situation to move forward and find a way to try again. 

(3) “One of eleven.” After one of Ted’s first games, he calls his best scorer, Jamie, into the office to talk. Jamie’s expecting to be dressed down by a new coach he doesn’t respect. Instead, Ted calls him the most talented athlete he’s ever coached. Jamie’s caught slightly off guard. Ted then tells him the one thing he can do better is to remember not to think of himself as one in a million, but one of eleven, and how much of a difference it would make if he played as part of the team instead of trying to be the star.

Teachers work on several different kinds of teams. Looking ahead this year, I’ve got a grade level team, my class, language arts teachers, math teachers, building leadership, special education, English language learners, specialists, and that’s off the top of my head. Each team works toward the same goal of achievement. If minimal professional respect for the people you work with is the best you can do, fine. Not everyone will become best friends. If you’re able to become friends, even better. If you’re bossy or arrogant or aloof or refuse to listen to anyone, you won’t get as far as you otherwise could. Communication and collaboration are important parts of making any team work effectively. If the team is working, as Ted points out to Jamie, “the sky’s the limit.”

(4) “Wins and Losses.” Ted says while being interviewed by a somewhat contentious reporter that he doesn’t care about wins and losses. He later clarifies that it’s more important to him “to help these young fellas be the best versions of themselves.”

Wins and losses do matter, often more than they should. Pro sports? Yeah. Student test scores being used to measure some aspect of progress for the student, the teacher, the grade level team, or the building? Hell yes. Student progress has to be monitored so learning needs can be addressed and serviced effectively, but at the end of the year I’m usually happier to reflect on the personal growth my students made than worrying about how many percentage points above or below a dictated proficiency level they were. Outside of the overdone data jockeys that are too commonly found in 21st Century education, I’d speculate most teachers would feel the same way. 

(5) “Na na na na na na na na Dani Rojas.” Dani Rojas, a player injured for the first part of the season, makes his first appearance. He’s so consistently joyful that Ted compares him to a golden retriever. He even turns his own name into a song, and somehow there’s nothing arrogant about it. He’s respectful to the coaches, friendly with his teammates, and it turns out he’s incredibly talented.

Dani is that student who loves to learn. The one who always raises their hand, gets everything right and still works hard. The one wants to know what else they can do after they finish the test they just completed with a perfect score. Every teacher loves having a Dani Rojas in class, but if you have a class made up of other challenges, it can be too easy to set Dani aside and figure since they’re going to take care of themselves, you can devote energy to the kids who need more of your attention. That’s not really true, though. As a teacher, you can either waste that drive or find a way to encourage it. What could Ted do to make Dani the best version of himself when there’s already so much about him that’s good? What can you do as a teacher to bring more learning out of that student, at a level with appropriate challenge?

(6) “We can’t change the past. We can choose to honor it.” The training room is cursed, as everyone on the team knows. It's said to be haunted by the ghosts of four hundred WWI soldiers who took their military physicals in that room. Ted’s solution for breaking the curse is for each player on the team to sacrifice something personally important as a tribute. The team collectively and verbally rolls their eyes at this until Roy Kent, captain of the team, stands up and yells, “We’re all gonna ________ do it!” (Roy swears so much in this show he owes his eight-year-old niece about one thousand pounds each month in her swear notebook.)

Every class has an effective leader somewhere in the group, someone who has the respect of the others. If you get 25-30 kids spending ten months together, chances that leader will emerge. I had a Roy Kent in my class last year. He didn’t swear like the character Roy Kent, but he was absolutely a leader, and acknowledged by the others as such. He didn’t aspire to lead; it’s just who he naturally was. Luckily my Roy Kent was an incredibly positive influence on the rest of the class -- I suppose he was more like half Roy Kent and half Dani Rojas. Unfortunately, some leaders can also bring negativity to the group and drag the class down. It’s important to try and recognize who these kids are and to win them over for the good of the class.

(7) “Football is life.” The mantra of Dani Rojas; he says it at least five times an episode. Any of us would be lucky to find something in life we love as much as Dani loves playing.

Teaching? Oh, wow. It is far too easy for teaching to become life. Too easy to get pulled into the wins and losses and dramas that define a school year. Too easy to lose sleep over at-risk students. Too easy to bring three stacks of papers home and tell yourself you're doing it just so you can keep up. Too easy to get lost in so many different rabbit holes that you don’t completely emerge from until a week after the last day of the school year. Teaching can’t be life, and this is coming from someone who has let that happen to him far, far too many times. You have to find a balance between what you are and what you do. 

(8) “Be curious, not judgmental.” Rebecca’s ex shows up at the local pub with a date, mostly to push her buttons like the a-hole he clearly is. He and Ted decide to play a game of darts with reasonably high stakes. They think they’re each hustling the other guy. Before winning, Ted gives a little speech based around the aforementioned Walt Whitman quote, explaining why it’s more beneficial to be curious instead of judgmental.

What assumptions do you make about your students based on first impressions? As time goes on, are you looking for ways to reinforce those assumptions, or do you let your opinion evolve as you learn more about who they truly are? What about the people you work with? Our school is in the unique position of having experienced nearly unprecedented staff turnover in the past three years. That’s a lot of new colleagues trying to figure each other out at once. I’ll be the first to say there are still a number of people I don’t know well enough to have a normal conversation with that would go beyond simple “How was your summer?” small talk. This should be more of a long-term project instead of something done during a twenty-minute team building, ice breaking activity in the middle of a staff meeting.  

(9) “It’s the hope that kills you.” The last game of the season is an important one for the team. The players, and the fans, all subscribe to this philosophy, feeling that getting your hopes up only to have them dashed away on the rocks is a bad thing. Ted, unsurprisingly, disagrees. He thinks it’s the lack of hope. 

How do you approach teaching a new skill? Or reviewing one before an assessment? Are there students you habitually write off because you don’t expect them to accomplish anything? Sadly, most of us probably have. We hope they’ll do well, but things don’t always work out that way. It’s important to remember that blind hope is nothing but a joke people play on themselves. However, hope with action behind it always stands a chance.

(10) “Tear it Up.” Jamie returns to the pitch in Season 2 after events have led to him having a contentious relationship with nearly the entire Richmond team. In the scene when he returns, “Tear it Up,” a particularly rocking song found as the second track of Side 1 on Queen’s 1984 album “The Works” is used as the soundtrack to his return. It’s a perfect fit for the tension and drama that we see taking place. It’s also one of the songs that much younger Tom actually listened to while getting pumped up before soccer games in high school. 

This, in my view, is easily a good enough reason to include that moment on this list. Maybe it’d be a good idea to have a go-to song or two in your back pocket to start the school day, even if you listen to it during your commute. Trust me, it can make all the difference.

Now go out there and get them, team! Just be sure you have your mask. And you've been vaccinated. Because you know Ted would be vaccinated, and would probably say, "Vaccines will keep me and my team safe? Well, I'd say to that the same thing I'd say to the bartender in my favorite barbecue spot in Kansas City -- I'll take a double shot of that, please and thank you!"

Day 27: The Questions for My Future Self

 I feel like I’ve written about this topic before, but since I can’t find that other hypothetical post I think I’m clear to use it tonight.

My 5th graders, distance learners or not, are now in the single digits as far as days remaining in their elementary school careers. An activity our social worker has done with 5th graders toward the end of many past school years has been to get each of them to write a letter to their future self, in a time capsule sort of way. It gets them thinking about the person they are right now, and who they might become by the end of middle school, or high school, or later in life -- whenever they choose to read the letter they wrote. He gives them a list of ten questions to write about, then has them choose four. This year I wrote down the ten questions. I’ll be answering them tonight, thinking ahead to the day that will come in ten years or so, when all of this school business will finally reach an end for me. So here we go. Just remember these were originally questions for children, so I may go outside the lines on a few of them.

#1: List three words to describe yourself. 

The best description I’ve ever heard about myself actually came from a former principal. I don’t remember the context, but she said, “I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone so willing to take too much credit for things and not enough credit at the same time.” I heard that and thought: Wow. That is entirely fair, and I like how complex it makes me seem.

#2: What are your hobbies?

Hobbies are interests you pursue during your idle time, so it doesn’t seem like they can have anything to do with professional pursuits. Unfortunately, that doesn’t leave too much for me once teaching and writing are taken off the table. I like playing games and solving puzzles. Relaxing in front of the TV with some shows or movies to watch is pretty cool. I have a few favorite podcasts I listen to, often in the middle of the night if I wake up and want to try and lull myself back to sleep.

Other than that…walking the dog? Self-doubt? Anxiety? Do any of those count?

#3: Who are your friends?

This is kind of complicated, so I’ll explain a few things about my perspective. First off, as far as honest to goodness friends go, I only have a small circle of them — it’s an introvert thing. Beyond that, I think of friendship in three wider circles. The next closest would be those you have the most proximity with, like, in my case, people I work with and see every day and have connected with on some level. Outside of that would be the people that I still have some degree of relationship with, even if our paths have gone in different directions and I don’t see them very often (the Covid Year being an exception in the time length here). If we stay in touch at all in some real way instead of some pretend crap like social media "friendships," I would still think of you as a friend, and very likely I miss not having you as directly in my life as you once were. If you’re someone I know but haven’t even really spoken to in, say, the last three years? Well…Circle 3, aka Acquaintance Town. It should also go without saying that everyone, with a few exceptions in that tightest, smallest circle, will have to line up behind Freddie in terms of importance.

#4. What do you want to be when you grow up? 

I’m unconditionally grown up. But keeping in mind I wouldn’t open this time capsule letter until after I retire, the only ambition I’d have at that point would be to have achieved the level of working author.

#5. What technology do you think will exist?

Human augmentation, which will include direct mental connections to some new organic form of the internet once the Singularity is reached and surpassed.

#6. Who do you look up to? 

Outside of the obvious answers that practically everyone would list (parents, sister, John Petrucci), I’d rethink this one as people I admire: The musicians and writers who can bring magic moments into being and make it seem effortless when the truth is far from that; the colleagues I work with who have so much more patience than I do and display boundless compassion so easily because it’s a part of who they are, and/or keep showing up in their classroom even when it feels like the world around them has been temporarily engineered to kick their ass. People who get vaccinated.

#7. What are your hopes and dreams?

For the people in my family to have long, happy, and healthy lives. To be able to retire as a working writer, and have a happy and healthy life that stretches out long enough for me to enjoy that. To not be alone.

#8. What positive skill could you develop or behavior you could change that would help you reach those dreams?

Once the pandemic has faded into relative obscurity and my brain is no longer caving in, I really want to get back into a regular writing routine. I know I can do it. I have before, for long stretches of time. This past year though, and all the baggage that came with it between Covid and distance learning? It was too much. I allowed it to be enough that I was developing an idea instead of actively writing a story. 

#9. What are places you hope to visit? 

Top, top of the list is to get back out to the PNW. Other than that? Iceland would be interesting. So would New Zealand, I think. Really though, I’ve always felt that travel is less about the destination and more about who is with you on the journey.

#10. What advice would you give your future self?

If you haven’t yet learned to live with the idea that people don’t necessarily define you by your flaws and failings and might see worth in you that you don't always recognize yourself, you should probably start wrapping your head around that idea. You’re an old man, dude. It's seriously time to get over yourself.

Day 5: Ten Good Things, Spring of 2021 Version

 Years ago on the blog I made a list of ten things about my life at that moment that were good. I don't remember if it was intended to be a celebration of how things were going well at the time, or a reminder during a darker period of how things weren't completely bad. Either way, it became an occasional topic, and a good one to use during this May posting marathon because it's usually a pretty quick post to write. 

With that in mind here are my current Ten Good Things. These aren't necessarily the only good things I could think up, or even necessarily the ten best. They are just ten things about life that, for the time being, are making it good. And in this moment, overall, I feel like things are pretty good. 

1) My Pod: It's fantastic to be back in school and having actual humans to interact with again. Due to an intersection of assignments and schedules and proximity, I've been able to quickly identify the people in my Covid pod -- the small group of people I see most frequently and spend the most time with. Most of our distance learning teachers are housed in two practically adjacent classrooms, so there are the four of us for certain, but I also include the other two fourth grade teachers who are on the same team as the fourth grade teacher a share a room with. I truly enjoy my pod, and my roommate is exceptional. 

2) My happy little dog: Freddie has transitioned out of his pandemic and back to having me at school all day very well. He's happy when I get home, he's happy when we go for walks, he's happy when he gets to go out to the patio and sit on his chair. I'm happy and relieved about all of this.

3) Skyrim: I don't play a lot of video games, but I do have a short list of favorites I keep returning to. Skyrim is probably at the top of that list. I started playing a new game of it over President's Day weekend, just because at that point on the isolation curve, my head desperately, desperately needed an escape. I'm still working on that same game now. Running around Tamriel with a magic sword isn't exactly my happy place, but it sure feels close.

4) New pillows and sheets: In the past month I've ordered new layered pillows and new bamboo sheets. They were both good choices. 

5) A building optimism about summer: Being back in school makes life feel gradually normal again, or at least a version of normal. Being back at school also means that when the school year ends, I'll be able to end it with a more tangible feeling of closure than I would have had available if I was still at home.

6) My sister: I won't get into the specifics of it because it's a very big and very specific secret right now, but my sister just recently completed a major project that involved a lot of work as a favor to me. I did pay her (or I will when I see her) because it was something I absolutely couldn't have done myself, and because I know her doing it for me meant it would be done with a level of quality.

7) Alter Bridge: Even with a lot of good new music so far this year, I've recently been rotating through the albums in the Alter Bridge library. What an extremely great band.

8) MCA Testing: Yes, I'm listing MCAs as a good thing, and not even sarcastically. Why? Because for the past year, I've been here at home feeling pretty cut off from the world, and the students on the other side of my computer screens have been some of the most important people in my life, without condition. They have to come to school for MCA testing, and when they do, I get to spend time with them in person. 

9) Wet Teddy Bears: It's a stupid, but the way that guy selling wet teddy bears in that insurance commercial commits to his sales pitch cracks me up every time.

10) Korean BBQ Meatballs from Noodles & Company. I just had some for dinner. They were delicious.

Pandemic Narrative Part 16: The Beginning of the End

I started writing these narratives back on March 14th, intending to give myself a way to trace how the pandemic changed the world around us throughout its duration. I wrote up a list of ten thoughts on that first post. It seems appropriate on this one, the last post of the year, that I should do the same.

1. Since I’ve included statistics in each pandemic narrative, I feel I should keep that going. Worldwide: 81.5 million cases; 1.78 million deaths. America: 19.4 million cases; 347,000 deaths. This means approximately one out of every one thousand Americans has died from this. If that count been the result of a war, I’m pretty sure that both politically and socially we would be much more united around the idea of working against it than we currently are. However, I’m now able to add a new statistic to the tally: So far, there have been 2.1 million vaccines given. A start.

2. I don’t like this about myself, but I’ll own it: I rarely start a new year with optimism. I think it’s fair to attribute this to losing my sister: When the new year rolls around I always carry at least a small suspicion that there’s going to be a day when I’ll be expecting everything to be normal, and life will put up a serve that resets it in a darker light, and everything will be about trying to survive and process the experiences that follow. Vaccine production aside, there’s still a pandemic going on, and there are still reasons for all of us to begin 2021 with active caution. On the plus side though, at least the most incompetent, self-centered, ignorant, and corrupt president in all of American history, whose foolishness is largely responsible for the predicament we’re in, will be out of office in a few weeks.

3. I honestly feel like I’m one of the few people left on Earth who still bothers to live with any precautions. Cars pass my house all day long like they always have. On the rare days I go to Target for a curbside pickup, all of the parking lots are full. I have filled my car's gas tank twice since March. Granted, I have no metric for what the outside world is like, other than the way the selfish, headstrong few will broadly paint social media with proclamations of their bold stands against anything they’ve been asked to do in the name of public health. Feeling like I’m one of the 0.0004% of the population still striving to adhere to anything but the bare minimum of staying safe is disheartening. It only compounds the isolation. Even if it’s mostly imagined, it feels just as real when you don’t have any evidence in front of you to prove it’s wrong.

4. What will it be like when the world begins to once again take the shape of something recognized as normal, whenever that might happen? How long until the world is safe again? How difficult will that transition be, to rejoin the world? Being an introvert has helped tremendously as far as the isolation goes, but introverts are not, by nature, antisocial. I don’t mind wearing masks, but my God, I can think of maybe five times in the past nine months I’ve even touched another person. 

5. There’s no way this isn’t taking a mental toll on me beyond what I immediately recognize. Many people who’ve known me have heard me say how I feel like I drop off the face of the Earth for someone else unless I’m directly in their line of sight. That’s never been more real now, feeling tucked away like stored human surplus that society has found a way to manage without.

6. I also feel a sense of wasted time, which is probably a reflexive response since I’m always so ready to be self-critical. I haven’t baked any bread or learned any new languages online. I haven’t read a fraction of the books I could have, or caught up on classic movies or developed a yoga routine or painted any rooms or learned the ukulele. But then I remember the time I put into revising a new book, and how difficult that was, and I’m quite proud of the accomplishment. I feel this one could be my best shot at publication, at least as far as middle grade goes. I still think it’s a weird story, but it’s thought-provoking, it’s original, it’s fairly well-written (if I’m allowed to think that about my own story), and I’m anxious for more people in the world to know about it, even if in the immediate that only amounts to a handful.

7. If I were to go back to school and earn another degree, just to pursue an interest, I think I’d study sociology. Because of that, I’ve often wondered exactly what the tipping point was for America, when we went from agreeing to shelter in place and behave in ways meant to preserve the greater good, then shifted over to so much more of a “Well, I’m not sick/This is a free country, don’t take away my rights” ethos. The idea of “we’re all in this together” that was so prevalent back in the spring has worn away to nothing but a faded platitude. I fear that perspective, as well as the reactions to it, will make it much harder for our society to recover and reunite. I’m afraid things will continue to get worse before we see any significant social healing.

8. How much longer is this going to go on? The vaccine is here. When will I be able to get it? When will the rest of my family be eligible? Which one will it be? What will be the circumstances of its availability? Everything about this is still new; there’s no way to see past the next turn in the road when no one has ever traveled the road before. 

9. Do I really want life to go back to what it was before once the world comes back together? Honestly, not in every way. I’m not sure if this is a reaction to the beginning of a new year, but I feel like the pandemic is still going to be around long enough to use this as a transformational time. How could I take steps, even tentative ones, that would develop over time to replace the things in my life I’m dissatisfied about? How much of that thinking is my own motivation, or coming from subtle pressures of what society has to say about what I should be, or what other people in my life expect of me? God knows how many years I have left. Ten? Twenty? Twenty-five? Six? There’s no telling. What do I want that time to be like? What would make it the best, the happiest, version of a life I could build around myself? Has there ever been a more appropriate time for that kind of self-examination? I keep falling back to the idea of where my priorities should be, and why (or if) the things I've held as important are necessarily things that should even be considered priorities. 

10. Like I said, I rarely start the year with optimism. However, there’s always that flicker of hope that refuses to die. We all have dreams and aspirations. We all have anxieties we’d like to banish from our lives. Could 2021 be the year when things drift to the positive, and things will go our way? Will we be gifted with small pieces of individual balance to reward us for what we’ve endured? 

I suppose we’ll start to discover that in a few more days. 

10 Good Things, Quarantine Version

Things aren’t good in the world these days, and they aren’t looking to improve much anytime soon. Yesterday there was a trend on Facebook for people to post 10 things they don’t like that other people generally do. I attempted my own lists — a darkly humorous version, an opposite version, a blatantly obvious version, etc. Looking for a creative approach to the things other people are posting online is something I’ll occasionally do to amuse myself. In the end, I decided not to finish a list, though. I found all the negativity that kept coming up to be fairly off-putting.

In the past, when life has been pulling me down, I’ve found it helpful to remind myself that there is still good to be enjoyed. Sometimes shifting that mindset a little bit makes it easier to appreciate the things in my life that are going well. I have to believe that’s true even during a quarantine so widespread that stories commonly heard on the news now sound too much like the first eight minutes of a movie set in a post-apocalypse dystopia. In that spirit, here is my latest list of 10 Good things: 

(1) It’s April 2nd and the snow is gone. It’s still very possible that huge snowstorms could come this month, but we all know that if they do, they don’t last long. 

(2) Since the weather is relatively nice and I’m home all the time, Freddie and I are able to take more walks. In fact, we’ve been walking so frequently that I will often let him set the walking pace (which is a bit faster than mine) and I can keep up. Unless it’s the morning walk and we’re almost done, and he knows that his breakfast is back at the house waiting for him. Because, that pace? Not casual.

(3) While we were out walking this morning, we saw our friends Dave and Wags. Freddie and Wags wanted some sniffing time, but Dave and I kept them separated and moving. We didn’t get to exchange more than a few words, but it was good to see them.

(4) One of my all-time favorite television shows, “Community,” just started up on Netflix yesterday. I know it’s been on Hulu or whatever for a long time, but since I only have cable and Netflix I’ve been left out. I do have the series on DVD, but — and believe me, I know what a pathetic first-word problem this is to complain about — it’s just so much more inconvenient to get up and change discs every three or four episodes than just clicking a remote to start the next one. On a side note, if you are looking for new shows to binge during the quarantine, seriously — check out “Community.” It’s brilliant.

(5) My cousin Kelly is basically an expert on infectious diseases. She’s my go-to with COVID questions these days, which she’s able to answer on occasion — she’s fairly busy at work these days. She says that ordering take-out is probably safer than taking a trip to the grocery store. I have a good amount of food still left, but I think I’m going to start giving my new Door Dash app a try. I’m not exactly a foodie or anything, but it will be nice to get a little variety.

(6) As much as I would love to have a big greasy omelet and a stack of pancakes decorated with syrup and a butter scoop and whatever else could fit on the top, I’ve recently discovered that a banana and a scoop of peanut butter makes for a perfectly acceptable Distance Learning breakfast.

(7) Working from home means I can play music all day long. I’m getting in the habit of crafting playlists for each day before my office hours begin.

(8) Normally I’m a news junkie. During a presidential election year, that would be even more accentuated. Because the news right now is all about how bad things are with the virus or how 45 made up a new way to fail in handling it, I’ve cut way back on paying attention and have so much more time in my day to get other things done.

(9) Late night talk shows have reformatted themselves to a few comedy pieces followed by one-on-one remote interviews with the guests. This format reminds me a lot of different interview podcasts I’ve listened to, so I’m recording a lot of these shows to watch the following day. I’m enjoying this quite a bit.

(10) Today is Day 4 of the distance learning experiment, and I feel it’s going okay so far. My grade level team has worked hard to put together user-friendly (and parent-friendly self-guided assignments, so I think we’re on the right track. It’s great having team members who work so hard, because they push me to work hard as well, even if only to try and keep up with them. It’s also pretty nice to end a work day by just standing up from the desk in my home office and leaving the room. 

There. Ten good things. That took about twenty minutes to write; that may have resulted in some typos, but it shows that it isn’t hard when you stop to think about it. Good things don’t have to be huge to still be good. If you followed the link to read this from Facebook, I would invite you to keep the positivity going. When you go back to Facebook, please leave a comment about one good thing you’re experiencing right now. After that, if you feel so inspired, go ahead and post your own list of 10 Good Things. Maybe it will catch on and bring us some happier days. 

Pandemic Narrative, Part 1

I’m writing this in the minutes following the government declaring a national emergency in regards to the spread of COVID-19. So far this event has progressed at such a frightening rate, it occurred to me today that it might be a good idea to document the things that are happening to keep track of the pace. Of course, since this is my blog, much of what I write about here will be filtered through my own point of view. Not all of us will have the same experience as all of this rolls out. All I can offer is my own perspective.

Since I’ve done a lot of Lists of 10 here on the blog before, I think that might be a good format to follow for this as well — 10 points of what is either happening in the world in the moment or what I’m doing in my best efforts to cope and survive. 

So, here are 10 observations or comments, in no particular order: 

*To start off…I’ve been walking the face of this godforsaken planet for a wee bit longer than half a century now, and I’ve never seen anything like what is going on with this pandemic, and the worst part of it all is how it’s only getting started here. No wait, the worst thing might be that all the toilet paper and hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes are sold out across the land. (I’m starting to think toilet paper might become currency when the virus apocalypse really kicks in.) No, hold on: The worst part of it is how our government is being operated by an incompetent collection of clown-shoes-wearing bumbles when we need experts in charge more than ever.

*A few weeks ago, I had won a pair of VIP tickets to see the Lumineers at Xcel Energy Center. I was excited because I really like the band, and have yet to take in a VIP experience of any sort. I even worked on growing out my beard for a few weeks, so it would be scraggly enough to have proof I was the fan of a band who played the kind of music Mumford and Sons would have if they’d grown up on the western plains or the Rocky Mountains instead of the UK. I’d hoped the virus spread would be slower and it would make sense to take the chance at going, but it didn’t work out. I was ready to give up my tickets right when I found out the concert had been postponed until September. Yay! Now I just need to stay alive until September. And I can get rid of the beard, which frankly is probably a trap for virus-tainted droplets anyway.

*On the subject of getting rid of the beard: The whole idea of not touching my face, which is proving a challenge, makes the simple act of washing my face feel like a spa day. Not that I know much about what a spa day would feel like, because what am I, Ryan Gosling? But face washing has never felt as luxurious as it does when you’re trying so hard not to touch it during the rest of the day.

*I started spring break today, officially. I have a doctor’s appointment this week — which was set pre-pandemic — and other than that I have no legitimate reason to leave my home. I mean, I’ll go outside to walk the dog and get the mail, but to go to a movie or a store, or meet someone for lunch? I may not go anywhere until I have to return to school at the end of break. Unless….

*Yesterday, Gov. Tim Walz declared a statewide peacetime emergency. He did not, however, close the schools. About ten states have, but we aren’t one of them…yet. It’s my hope that by the time my spring break ends, he’ll wise up and rectify this. You see, I know what it’s like in a school. It isn’t, “Oh, it’s just a bunch of kids and they aren’t the ones getting sick.” It’s the parents who come through. It’s ALL OF THE ADULTS who work there, many of whom travel from building to building, sometimes during the same day. And as for those kids, even if they aren’t typically getting sick, they’re very effective carriers. Generally, I like to think my immune system is pretty robust; for example, I’ve only had about one week worth of colds in the past two and a half years. But this new virus is a big unknown, and I’d rather not try taking it on. As strong as my immune system might be, I spend my day with coughers and wipers and scratchers and pickers. I’ve been coughed on in such close proximity I’ve been able to taste them. I know how bad the disease vector of the public school is first hand, so I know how much potential difference it could make to get it off the game board for a few weeks. Because social distancing? In a classroom? No. It’s not possible. 

*There is more food in my house right now than there probably ever has been during my entire adult life. I usually shop a week at a time, which can leave my kitchen not unlike Tyler Durden’s by the end of the week. I am fully stocked now though, and I plan to ration. Not down to anything ridiculous like three Cheez-Its per hour, but a whole lot less snacking and a whole lot more of respecting serving sizes. I could even wind up dropping some weight because of this, which would give me a nice self-esteem boost to enjoy for the three weeks I’d have until the virus kills me off. Until then, I’m fully prepared to settle in and let my introverted superpowers carry me through as far as they can. 

*I’m filling time by watching TV, which is becoming a trigger. I often have news on as background noise, but there’s nothing about that right now that isn’t scary. Even normal TV is scary though, when you see people touch their faces, or shake hands, or hug, or high five, or fist bump, or sneeze, or cough, or wipe their nose, or not wash their hands long enough…I’m sure you get the picture. I also plan on reading a lot, which will be easy since I have a formidable To Be Read pile. This is a part of it (full-disclosure: I’ve already read about 25% of these, but just don’t have anywhere else to keep them).

*I’m also going to use the time to get some writing done. I’ve got one book I’m starting and another I’m preparing to revise. I have to say some state-mandated weeks off from school would help quite a bit with getting things done for the other job.

*I’m honestly torn between wanting to keep myself as hyper-informed about what’s happening as I can so I know what we’re all up against, and wanting to just watch The Office and rock out to old Styx albums to pretend the world is still a normal place. It makes me wonder what it will be like afterward, however long it takes us to achieve afterward, when we’ll be able to put all of our previous concerns into a new perspective. 

*Today I plan on dusting off the Xbox and starting an open world game I’ve never played before but have had lying around for the longest time. An open world game is one where you just kind of wander around through the expansive setting of the game, interacting with different characters, completing missions and quests, and just living your game life. 

I’m pretty sure there won’t be any scary viruses in there.

Vinyl

There’s a thing going around my corner of Facebook right now when people are “giving the task” to each each other to list ten albums from the vinyl era that had influenced their taste in music. This comes with the added conditions of “no explanations, no reviews, just covers.” Well, screw that. I’ll list my ten albums here because I’m not doing another one of these Facebook tag games that will fill up my page with album covers if I don’t get to say anything about them. 

But what about this other condition, “the vinyl era?” There are no specific starting and stopping years to define when this was. It could be argued the vinyl era started when records existed, which went back into the 1800s. I think the easiest definition would be the years between the 1950s and 1980s when records were the primary way to buy commercial music. 

For me, the vinyl era stopped in the summer of 1986, as I was getting ready to move to college. I believe the last records I bought were “Please” by the Pet Shop Boys, and “Fahrenheit” by Toto, both of which I picked up during a trip to Musicland at the Northtown Mall just weeks before moving into my dorm. Because of that, no album on my list is more recent than that. Not to mention that my musical tastes were pretty much cemented by the time I finished high school, so anything coming after that wouldn’t be appropriate.

I began leaning more toward cassettes once I started driving, since they were readily portable and lent themselves to the creation of actual mix tapes, of which I made so many my parents should have invested in Memorex stock. I still own one mix tape called “Summer of 87” which is pretty great. It was about this time that brought in the different forms of Walkman personal cassette players we loved desperately since they let us bring our music everywhere. Because of my experience with Walkmans and the many cheap generic knock-offs I’ve owned in my day, I’ll occasionally feel half a beat of nostalgia when I hold a pair of AA batteries in my hand.

Anyway, here’s my list. As always, even though the blog has been on life support for a number of months, the rule of listing things in no particular order still stands: 

*REO Speedwagon: Hi Infidelity
The biggest album in the world when I entered junior high, which was about the time I first began discovering music on my own. A great pop-influenced rock album which I argue still holds up today.

*Styx: The Grand Illusion
My first exposure to Styx was when my mother bought Paradise Theater because of that pretty “The Best of Times” song. “The Grand Illusion” had more songs on classic rock radio than any other Styx album, so that was one of my earlier purchases. Close to forty years later, I will still turn up “Come Sail Away” when it comes on the radio.

*AC/DC: Back in Black
My first rebellious album, since my parents were convinced there was something at least mildly satanic about the band. (Granted, they did name an album “Highway to Hell.”) My introduction to hard rock. 

Asia: self-titled
This was where I learned what a supergroup was. The members were all formers from major prog bands of the 70s, which automatically gave the band a respectable pedigree. It was much more of a pop album than a prog album, but it was my first touchstone of progressive music.

Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run
The record that helped me figure out so much about life. The “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” of rock albums. 

Def Leppard: Pyromania
It’s impossible to explain to people who weren’t following music in the early 1980s what a cultural behemoth of an album this was, especially to the junior high/high school crowd, right down to the urban myths about what was really being said in the foreign-language four-count at the opening of “Rock of Ages.”

Rush: Moving Pictures
The first modern progressive album I owned. “Asia” was a bunch of prog dudes who didn’t get along that well trying to cash in on their names and reputations. Rush was pure. 

John Mellencamp: Scarecrow
I grew up in a rural bubble surrounding the outer ring of Minneapolis suburbs, which was just rootsy enough to relate to the sensibility and sound of this. I’m not saying it would hold when measured against something like “Born to Run,” but it fell into the same straightforward, storytelling rock sound. 

Journey: Escape
Another record initially bought by my mother, this time for that pretty “Open Arms” song. I loved “Don’t Stop Believin’” before it was a national treasure. I loved “Stone in Love” even more, because it rocked so much harder. I thought “Still They Ride” was the superior ballad on the album by far. And the title song was just the anthem someone fighting his way through junior high needed in his corner.

Queen: Live Killers
I actually didn’t own this on vinyl, but had the cassette. It was perfect: a double live album with what amounted to a separate LP on each side of the tape. This was my frequent Walkman companion, drowning out the surrounding idiocy of a thousand school bus rides, and providing me with the first epiphanic moment of my life, when I really, really heard Brian May’s layered “Brighton Rock” guitar solo during a high school football game.

So there you have it. If you’ve ever had questions about where and how my lifelong music obsessions began, those ten albums had no small role. 

The April 2018 Version of 10 Good Things

We had a record-setting and history-making blizzard in the Cities this past weekend. Getting snow like this so late in the season feels like adding insult to injury since the weather hasn’t been the greatest for the past four months or so, not to mention that things at school have felt slightly off-kilter as of late (and it hasn’t just been me feeling that way).

When things have kind of dragged in the past, I’ve found it helpful to remind myself about some of the good things currently going on in life. That slight shift in mindset can make a difference in how I see things overall. In the hope of returning to school tomorrow after our unexpected snow day with a brighter perspective, here are ten of the good things I’ve got going on right now I'd like to share: 

1 - One most spring mornings, I can go into my classroom and open the blinds to fill my room with the morning sunrise. This is so much more welcome than starting the day with the dark and gloom of winter.

2 - State testing will be done in just a few weeks, and the most stressful part of the school year will come to an end. We’ll be in the homestretch at that point, and even though that usually introduces different kinds of stress, it also has some nice highlights, and is usually my favorite part of the school year.

3 - I’ve recently discovered Bai Andes Coconut Lime flavored water, and it’s incredible.

4 - Even though I don’t see my nephews as frequently now that only the youngest is still in high school and the older two live in another state, they all seem to be happy in their lives. Which makes me happy.

5 - I’ll be making a long overdue visit to my Pacific Northwest family very soon. Few things are as relaxing as being around this group of people, who are as happy to see me as I am to see them.

6 - Over the course of the school year so far, I’ve quietly dropped just over thirty pounds.

7 - I recently went back to read an older manuscript, which I hadn’t looked at or thought about very much for a few years. It was the first time I was able to read it as a book instead of a collection of chapters or a work in progress. I was astonished and relieved and proud about what I had somehow managed to accomplish in writing it. I feel optimistic about its future.

8 - "Avengers: Infinity War" opens in just under two weeks. I've been looking forward to seeing this movie for years. I'd love to make it a Friday night movie event, but I'll also be perfectly happy to see it on my own as a Saturday matinee.

9 - I have a package arriving in the mail today. It’s nothing huge or life-changing, but it’s given me something to look forward to for the past few days.

10 - The snowfall from the weekend may extend an already prolonged winter by another week or two, or possibly three, but eventually it’s all going to melt.

I’m assuming. 

The Ultimate in Top 10 Lists

Today’s post is not a small thing for me. I intentionally scheduled it to be written during the final days of the month so I could put it off as long as possible. With all the music nerdery in my life and here on the blog, it seemed like this May would be as good of a time as any to finally bite the bullet and come up with what I think of as the ultimate in Top 10 lists — my 10 favorite albums. 

I’ve instituted a few rules for this: (1) An album has to be at least five years old to even be eligible for inclusion. That seems like a good amount of time for me to make up my mind about how important it is to me. (2) Boxed sets aren’t eligible. I don’t have many, but I’m taking them out of the running all the same. (3) To save time and avoid redundancy, I’m limiting my descriptions of each album to 140 characters or less — the length of a Tweet. I thought about going with the 10-word description, but that was too limiting.

Here we go. Like I said — this is no small thing. A lot of thought and emotion and history went into the creation of the list you’re about to read. The albums here appear in order, starting with Number 10 and counting down to Number 1, just like Casey Kasem did back in the old days. 

10 - “Not Your Kind of People” by Garbage. The album that got me to love this band’s electronic rock sound. More about great songs than a great album, but some really great songs.

9 - “Secret World Live” by Peter Gabriel. Transcendent performances and arrangements of recognizable hits and lesser-known greats. The version of “In Your Eyes” on here is perfect.

8 - “The Shaming of the True” by Kevin Gilbert. A conceptual narrative reflecting on the glories and pitfalls of creativity and fame. Tragic that most people will never hear it.

7 - “All I Ever Wanted” by The Airborne Toxic Event. How many rock bands could reinvent beautifully written songs to feature string quartets, children’s choirs, and marching bands?

6 - “American Idiot” by Green Day. All energy and emotion, often communicated with pure frustration and rage. A landmark album of the century so far.

5 - “The Incident” by Porcupine Tree. Haunting and piercing in so many different ways at once. It almost demands to be played in its entirety on each listen.

4 - “A Thousand Suns” by Linkin Park. Percussive, aggressive electronic post-millennial rock. A masterpiece of the genre.

3 - “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen. No other album has been more formative in my life.

2 - “Scenes From a Memory” by Dream Theater. A defining concept album from probably the most talented collection of contemporary musicians to every collaborate.

And coming in at the top position after a hard-fought battle:

1 - “Snow” by Spock’s Beard. An album that’s torn me apart and put me back together again several times over. It’s a crime that it isn’t more widely known.

*Whew.* That was NOT easy....

The Reverse Q & A

Each of the years I’ve done daily May blog posts I’ve always had one day when I wrote a Q&A, when people asked questions about anything and I’d give my best, and sometimes even semi-serious, answers. This year a friend suggested I reverse that, and instead provide my own list of answers ahead of time for people to try finding questions that would match. I wasn’t sure which way to go with this at first, but decided to think of questions I suspect some people might have reasons to ask me. Whether these people ever read my blog or not I can’t say, and I’ll admit to being a little hyperbolic with some of my answers to make them less transparent than they feel. But each of these would be a legitimate answer to a question that someone might want to ask, or one that maybe hadn’t occurred to them to ask. I came up with ten. I’m curious to find out what questions people would match with these, if any responses come in. Let’s play!

*I absolutely would. In a heartbeat. And I probably will someday, maybe soon, if I screw up enough nerve. 

*Most of the time, yes. I admit it’s a luxury that most people would love to experience. But only most of the time. Not always.

*I’m not saying I did everything right, but we are the way we are now largely because of the choices you made. We always felt a little one-sided, until we weren’t even that.

*No. I promise. 

*Yes. And I can’t imagine that you’ve never at least suspected it.

*I probably would, at least sometimes, if I was asked. But being who I am, it’s not ever going to be anything I bring up on my own. I have a hard time inserting myself into situations like that without some reassurance.

*It’s an introvert thing that I can’t really explain in a way that would sound like anything but a cop-out. All I can say is that it would be physically and emotionally painful on a scale that most people couldn’t appreciate.

*I’ll admit it gives me some pause. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I understand why. You’ve got a lot going on. But seriously, how hard would it be? And isn't it the way things are supposed to be anyway?

*Because it feels as much like home as any home I’ve ever had, and more than some.

*I honestly don’t know if I ever will.




There they are. Who’s got the questions?

A Third Year of Ten Good Things

When I logged into Facebook this morning, my "On This Day" app showed I had written lists of Ten Good Things going on in my life on the two previous May 12ths during my May blog posts. Since I still have a few holes to fill in the schedule this year, I thought I might as well keep this probably accidental tradition going. 

It can be good to focus on the good things going on, even if they’re small. Doing this can change the way you perceive the day around you. With everything across the country going absolutely out of control these days, maybe a break to think about the good things is just what we all need. I think I’ll take my good things break right now.

(1) The movie version of “It” is coming out later this year. This has finally convinced me to reread that 1,000+ page monster of a book. I’m going to start in the summer, and I’ll be reading it on and off during the time I’ll be drafting most of the new horror story I wrote about in yesterday’s post. There aren't many books better to read while writing a scary story.

(2) I had a phone message yesterday that my new kitchen table is expected to be delivered in late May. I’m fortunate enough to have my retired parents living only three towns away, and they’re always willing to hang around at my house during the work day when I need to have something repaired or delivered.

(3) I’ve seen my cousins a lot this spring. Usually I think of life as time with friends during the school year and time with cousins in the summer, so that’s been an enjoyable flip for the spring.

(4) The weather these days has been very pleasant here in my corner of the midwest. It hasn’t been the kind of uncomfortably tepid spring that feels more like a prolonged late winter, and it hasn’t been a suddenly hot and sweaty early summer attack, either. An actual spring is an enjoyable time.

(5) A pair of some of my favorite people are going to become parents for the first time in just a few months.

(6) I basically have my lessons plans for the remainder of the school year outlined, which opens up a lot of time to get other things done at school. I might even achieve my annual goal of leaving for the summer with everything in my classroom packed away and dealt with the way I want it to be.

(7) Whether I’ll have everything exactly as I want it or not, I know that next year I’ll be teaching the same grades as I did this year and will be working in the same room. This is an appreciated bit of consistency I haven’t been able to enjoy in about five years.

(8) I'm not watching a lot of TV shows these days because my evenings in May are usually devoted to blog posts and monitoring news channels for the slow-motion train wreck of national politics. Because of this, my DVR is going to have dozens of hours of great stuff queued up for me. I might not even get to my Netflix account until July.

(9) My weekend is free and clear of lesson plans and grading.

(10) There are only eighteen days of school left!

Summer Movies, 2017 Edition

One of my favorite things about summer is going to the movies. Sometimes two hours of escape from a hot afternoon is just about perfect. A lot of the movies that come out in the summer are little more than spectacle, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing when you’re taking two and a half months to try and decompress from a school year. I have a lot I’m looking forward to seeing this year, but I’ll narrow that list down to ten today, and give some reasons why I’m looking forward to them. Then I’ll let summer arrive so I can discover how wrong or right I was.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 -- It starts tomorrow! The best thing about the first one was how it took the world completely by surprise; unfortunately, that kind of feeling can’t be replicated. It’s only the second movie in the franchise though, so there has to be a lot they can still do with it before it all becomes an overblown mess. Plus there’s Baby Groot, which gives the writers a whole new playground to work with. I’m very optimistic here.

Baywatch -- I never watched more than maybe one or two episodes of the show, but the previews make this look like it could turn out to be the stupidest kind of hilarious. It makes me a little disappointed I have Memorial Day plans and won’t be able to see it right away.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword -- This looks like gritty and well-made adventure epic. The problem I know I’ll have with it is Charlie Hunnam. No matter how much older he is now or what he’s done since, I’m never going to be able to see him as anything except Lloyd from “Undeclared,” grown up and taking on another acting job.

The Mummy -- Say what you will about Tom Cruise, but he has a pretty solid track record with action movies. 

Wonder Woman -- I think the crop of DC movies are coming after the conclusion of Christian Bale’s trilogy as Batman have been just shy of bad. Having said that, Wonder Woman was, by far, the best thing about that dour Batman vs. Superman movie. That moment when the big ugly radioactive monster punched her clear across the industrial park and she looked up with a little “bring it on” grin said a lot about how they’re handling the character. I’m looking forward seeing more of that.

Spider-Man: Homecoming -- One of my favorite superhero movie moments is Toby Maguire in “Spider-Man 2” struggling to stop a runaway train. I really hope seeing Spider-Man existing in the same universe as the Avengers will bring a new and truer sensibility to the character. I think the kid they have playing him looks just about perfect for the job.

Dunkirk -- A big serious WWII epic could be just the thing to break up all the summertime action and silliness. The fact that this is coming from Christopher Nolan doesn’t hurt its chances.

The Big Sick -- Kumail Nanjiani is one of the best things about the show “Silicon Valley.” He’s been a reliable scene-stealer in a lot of other movies and television shows leading up to this one, which he co-wrote. Plus it has Zoe Kazan, one of my actress crushes, so yeah, I’m there. 

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets -- I’m curious about this. A humongous science fiction movie from the same guy who made The Fifth Element, which was very strange, but still something I’ve watched repeatedly. I just hope it’s not too far out there.

The Dark Tower -- I really want this is a good movie. If I’m being honest, I thought the Dark Tower books had too much weird for the sake of being weird going on, and not all of them were great. I’ve read that the movie is meant to cycle away from the novels some (if you know how the series ended, you might understand what that means). I’m hoping it will stick with the premise but not necessarily remain completely loyal to the story. The trailer for this gives me hope that’s the case.

Did I miss any?

Surviving 2016: Favorite Songs

It’s fair to say that in most respects 2016 will go down in history as a dumpster fire train wreck of a year. The reasons why have been well-documented, from the cultural dissonance following surreal turns of political events to far too many deaths leaving behind gaping holes in our culture, and, in many cases, our personal lives.

As I get wrapped up in my own reflections about this ridiculous year finally nearing an end, I want to try and look for the bright spots. There sure aren’t many, but maybe highlighting a few will help start the coming year with some degree of optimism. To start off, I’m listing my ten favorite new songs of 2016. These are all songs that, to the best of my knowledge, were first released this year, and for different reasons became important enough to me to leave existential marks.

Usually my top 10 lists include the preface “in no particular order,” but not this time. I think we’re going to have an actual countdown here. I’ll try to spare you from any long-winded descriptions of why these songs made it onto my list. Click on the titles below if you'd like to follow links to these songs, then judge for yourself. 

10) “Helicopters” by Sixx A.M.
This makes the list more for timing than anything else. It’s about losing someone. I came to know it in the days following the death of a longtime friend, while I was trying find my way through the emotional aftermath. Not that I've figured it all out yet, but I'm getting there.

9) “Hard Love” by Needtobreathe
A standout from a new album by one of my favorite discovered bands from the past five or so years. A good summer driving song.

8) “Empty” by Garbage
I’d been waiting for new music from this band for years, and their 2016 release did not disappoint. I’ve realized a lot of songs that I like tend to juxtapose bright pop-rock music with darker lyrics. This is an example of that.

7) “Chosen” by Dream Theater
A power ballad from one of my current favorite musical acts that would have made any band in the 80s or 90s into proud millionaires.

6) “Sleep on the Floor” by The Lumineers
Another type of favorite song I have is one with great storytelling in the lyrics, like this.

5) “Forever Now” by Green Day
Their new album, Revolution Radio, was one of the strongest of the year. This one, coming in at just under seven minutes and broken into shorter movements, was a solid way to close off both the album and this crap year.

4) “Our New World” by Dream Theater
The only unabashedly optimistic song on this list. The album it comes from was a rock opera, and this song comes in at the end of the story after the conflict has been resolved and the characters have reasons to look forward to the future. I certainly feel some of that same anticipation, but after this past year I wish I could feel more.

3) “So We Can Stay Alive” by Garbage
A hard rock song with a thick electronic pulse and easily the greatest bass guitar solo of the year.

2) “It’s Just Us Now” by Sleigh Bells
By far the most polarizing song on this list. I would expect when people hear it for the first time they’d be able to decide by the end of the first minute if they love or hate it. I think it’s one of the coolest things I’ve heard in years.

1) “Bored to Death” by Blink-182
It’s unusual for me to connect with a radio hit, but this one really did the trick. Again, bright pop-rock with darker lyrics, but engaging harmony, a heroic sing-along bridge, and great playing. This deserved to be the hit it was. It resonated with me so much that when I found the title being used as graffiti, I had to snap a photo.

If that doesn’t appropriately cap off 2016, I don’t know what can.

Twelve Good Things

Occasionally I get to have discussions with my class that step outside of the curriculum. Yesterday we talked about how easy it is to fixate on life's frustrations, and how doing that can negatively affect your mood. I offered an example from my own life of something frustrating me these days, and talked about some of the other things going on that could help me "change my channel" into something more positive. 

We all have our share of frustrations and perplexities to deal with on any given day. Having the most contentious presidential election in modern history dominating the media doesn't help. But that doesn't mean we have to let these problems define every aspect of our lives. 

I've done a few posts before when I've listed ten good things I have going on in life, mostly as a reminder to myself how helpful it can be to acknowledge and appreciate the positives. After our talk in class yesterday, I think it's a good idea for another such list. I don't know if ten will get the job done though, so I'm going to push a little further and come up with twelve:

1. The weather of mid-October. It's sunny and windy with the temperatures staying fairly consistently in the range of the 50s and 60s, which makes this the time of year I can get away with wearing both shorts and sweatshirts, often at the same time. Welcome to my personal meteorological Goldilocks Zone. 

2. This week only has four teaching days. Next week only has two. I've got some time to TV binge coming up. 

3. On one of those days off next week, I'm taking Nephew #2 on a tour of where I went to college. I don't necessarily expect, or even hope, he'll choose that school -- I want him to find the school that will help him find his own best path -- but this will give me the chance to visit my old campus during the time of year I tend to romanticize the most when I think about my college days. 

4. The new albums from Green Day and Alter Bridge are amazing. I've been waiting for them to be released for a long time, and they were both worth the wait. 

5. I have two classes this year that I like very much. One of them is even the smallest class size I've worked with in my twenty-five years. 

6. I'm going to have the dogs visiting me for a couple of weeks coming up soon.

7. There's a big birthday party for my mother and my aunt this weekend. It will largely be a family event. I don't get to see my aunts and uncles and cousins very often during the school year, so I'm looking forward to it. 

8. I've read the first few pages of Bruce Springsteen's new autobiography and I'm looking forward to finishing my current book so I can start it. It reads with the voice I expected it would, and I can't wait to be immersed in that.

9. Seth Meyers is absolutely killing it with his political coverage these days. He is unquestionably the rightful heir to Jon Stewart's vacated late night political humor throne.

10. I had a doctor's appointment last month. It went well.

11. Parent-teacher conferences for the fall are over at our school. Mine went well, and offered some good insights into my students. The worst part of conferences are the long days and the extra work that goes into preparing for them, so I'm glad all of that is over with. 

12. As we get closer to winter and the days grow shorter, I'm not having the blazing sun in my eyes every morning on the drive to school. 

As I thought my way through this list, I realized I could probably come up with just as many negative points that are bothering me, in different degrees. I'm not going to think about that, though. Today I'm just moving forward and thinking about the positives.

Let's see how it works. 

Tending to the Existential Wounds

When I first started thinking about what direction to go with this post, it occurred to me that my sister Erin's death has now happened so long ago that none of my current students have ever shared time on Earth with her, by at least two years. Even though she's been gone that long now, there are still those two big bookend dates marking her birth and death when our family will put aside time to remember her. Of course those days aren't the only times we ever think of her or miss her; I don't think any of us ever get through a day without her crossing our minds at least a few times.

It shouldn't be a surprise that music is one of the emotional triggers that brings me back to her. I had a long collection of songs I relied on while she was sick and following her death, which I've come to associate so heavily with that time that I can't separate them from what I was feeling and going through back then. These weren't just prototypically inspirational songs that could be adopted by anyone (although there were a few like that). These were meaningful songs that served as my companions during that time, the ones I still can't hear without experiencing emotional surges. They're the songs that fill my head with visuals from life, helping me reconstruct memories with a degree of sensory detail I probably wouldn't be able to recall without their help. 

Here are ten notable ones from that list, and why they mattered so much.

In Loving Memory - Alter Bridge
"And now I come home and it's not the same / Feels empty and alone / I can't believe you're gone."
Mark Tremonti, the band's ridiculously talented guitarist, wrote this powerful song after the death of his mother. I think I can safely speak for my sister Jenny when I say that neither us can listen to more than a minute of this song without having the tears start burning into our eyes. 

The Rising - Bruce Springsteen
"Sky of blackness and sorrow / Sky of love, sky of tears / Sky of glory and sadness / Sky of mercy, sky of fear / Sky of memory and shadow / Your burning wind fills my arms tonight / Sky of longing and emptiness / Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life."
If I remember the timeline correctly, Bruce's "The Rising" album, marking his reunion with the legendary E Street Band, was released the summer just before we found out Erin was sick. I was going to see him in concert with some friends weeks after her surgery, silently pleading on the trip down to St. Paul that the show would provide me with some respite from the stress dominating my life, and also offer a generous share of the emotional guidance I had come to expect from his music. He didn't disappoint.

Bartender - Dave Matthews Band
"If I go before I'm old / Oh, brother of mine / please don't forget me if I go."
In a song that I've always interpreted as contemplating mortality, the strongest connection I have to it has always been in that opening line.

The Spirit Carries On - Dream Theater
"Move on, be brave / Don't weep at my grave / Because I am no longer here / But please never let your memory of me disappear."
Taken in context, this song is the emotional culmination of a journey traveled by a character in a landmark concept album. Taken as an independent song, it's practically a hymn. I made sure this came on in the car as I drove my parents home from Erin's funeral.

Jesus of Suburbia - Green Day
"To live, and not to breathe / Is to die in tragedy."
Green Day's "American Idiot" album was released only weeks before Erin's death. I was listening to it nearly nonstop, both because it's a great album and because the anger and frustration that permeates so much of it -- this song in particular -- amplified the fear and depression and hatred for the world I was feeling at that time. On the surface that probably doesn't seem like such a good thing, and in a lot of ways it wasn't. But it also was a great catharsis. 

A Long Day's Life - Kevin Gilbert
"Oh no, I'm lost and all alone / Battered and broken and scarred to the bone / Oh love, you've never been a friend / But if you're still listening I'm here at the end / of a long day's life."
It bothers me that the album this song comes from, "The Shaming of the True," is so obscure that most of the world will never get the chance to know what an incredible work of art it is. This was one of the songs fighting for space in my head throughout our family trip to San Diego, when we brought Erin to see the ocean one final time. (Little known fact: The real-life events that inspired the seemingly unreal climax of "Following Infinity" took place on that trip.)

Don't Give Up - Peter Gabriel
"Rest your head, you worry too much / It's gonna be all right / When times get tough, you can fall back on us / Don't give up."
This song has a great back and forth between a depressed and discouraged Peter Gabriel beating himself down, and another singer (Kate Bush on the studio version, Paula Cole on the live one) pointing out how much love and support there was around him, if he would only bother to acknowledge and accept it. I tried to use this song to encourage Erin when she first learned she was sick. I didn't see how much it applied to me just as much until years later.  

Solitary Soul - Spock's Beard
"Got a lot of breezes left to blow / Where I'm going I don't know / Got a lot of heartache I don't show / What it's like, you'll never know / To be the solitary soul." Listening to this song was like a tuning fork for my sadness. Again, it's part of a concept album and sung by characters telling a story, but I related to the themes far too well. All the time I spent putting up walls to keep people at a distance during this part of life, this song would show what it sounded like inside of that. It's also worth mentioning that during the second to the last night of Erin's life, Jenny and I sat up all night watching over her so our mother could get some sleep. We looked through a guidebook provided by the church to choose which readings should be used at her funeral. We chose the first one because it was about sheep and Erin liked sheep, and we chose the second because Charlie Young had read it at Mrs. Landingham's funeral on "The West Wing." The only other clear memory I have of that night, other than being the last time in my life I was alone with my two sisters, was listening to this song on my iPod and feeling it at the core of my being.

Stranger in Your Soul - Transatlantic
"There, walking into walls, piercing through the pain / Here we are, reaching through the rain / I almost caught a glimpse, brighter than the sky / A child grown, a stranger coming home." It's just too hard to quantify the importance of this song. Whenever I think about existential healing, I think of "Stranger in Your Soul" as where the idea originated, at least for me. It's a song with several parts to it (it's length shows up in iTunes as exactly thirty minutes) that goes through so many melodies and themes it's really more accurate to call it a composition instead of a song. While so many of the songs on this list were about dragging emotions like sadness or anger to the surface so they could be confronted, this one was purely about healing.

Running to Stand Still - U2
"You gotta cry without weeping / Talk without speaking / Scream without raising your voice."
This song has always been more about the overall tone than the specific meaning for me. If you've never heard it and you're curious what the musical expression of watching someone you love have to suffer would sound like, find it online and give it a listen. 

My memory of Erin is still so strong that my mind will often trick me into thinking about her as an active presence in my life, much in the way I have so many friends and family who live long distances away and I only get to see or talk to infrequently. But then I'll remember that in the cases of those people I still have the option and opportunity to catch up with them, and that isn't the case with her. That realization comes back with the same sinking feeling it always has, even this many years later. But not with the same gravity it once did. 

Even if she isn't here anymore though, she still is an active presence for me. As long as I hang on to my idea of her and have clarifying memory triggers like the songs I've listed above, she'll stay that way.

Day 29: Ten Things I'm Looking Forward to About Summer

Memorial Day weekend has become widely recognized as the unofficial start of summer. I only kind of agree with this. On one hand, I’m not going to consider it truly summer until I reach that first morning when I wake up knowing I don’t have to go to school to teach anyone or pack anything. On the other hand, any days at school that follow Memorial Day have a very different feel to them since summer break is tantalizingly close.

Each summer break is different from the ones before it, but there are always a few things about the season that are at least similar. I don’t yet know what moments or events will eventually come to define whatever this summer break will be, but I do know there are going to be some things about it that I’ll enjoy, because I do every year. Here’s a list of ten of those things that have me looking forward to finishing off the last two weeks of the school year. As always, in no particular order:

1. Catching up on television
My Netflix account has been all but dormant these past several months, and I know I’m going to more than make up for it when it comes to summer binge-watching. I also have a number of series saved on my DVR that I never found the time to watch during the school year, and I’m seriously thinking about doing a “West Wing” series re-watch this summer as well. And all of this is to say nothing of another summer of “Big Brother,” my summertime guilty pleasure (and I do feel guilty about enjoying it), starting up in a few weeks.

2. Family events
Just as I spend a lot of time with friends during the school year, I always seem to spend more time with my family during the summer. This year we’ve got a high school graduation, two weddings, and the annual trip to the Turtle Lake fair coming up. Plus there’s still the Cousin Movie Night I want to see happen (Paul, we need to get started on the logistics for that!).

3. Home improvements
There are always some jobs around the house that could stand being done, and summer is a perfect time to take care of them. I’m not talking about major construction or anything like that, but more things like organizing, cleaning, or small bits of decorating. I like having a home where I feel comfortable and relaxed, and I don’t mind setting aside some of my summer to put in the time and thought it takes to make it that way. 

4. Games
Yes, I play video games (as you probably do as well, even if you want to call them 'apps' on your phone), and yes, I own an Xbox One. I don’t have the stamina to spend marathon amounts of time playing anymore, but when I find a game (or two) that really captures my imagination, gaming can be a great way to fill a lazy afternoon or a sleepless night.

5. Writing time
In summer, I don’t have to schedule in the time to write. I can just do it. I can plan, prewrite, write, revise, edit, proofread, and work on different projects at the same time if I want. If I ever catch a wave of flow state, I can just ride it out as long as I want without having to worry about other commitments. It’s wonderful, and one of the reasons I would happily leaving teaching behind if the opportunity ever came together. Since I can think of at least three different projects I’ll have going, I’m planning on this year being a very productive summer. 

6. Afternoon movies
Maybe it’s an introvert thing, but I think the absolute best time to see a movie in the theater is to go on a hot summer afternoon. You don’t have to worry about crowds, or lines, or some knucklehead five rows ahead of you playing Candy Crush, or the people who sat in the seats right behind you even though the theater was only half full talking through the whole stinkin’ movie. If you time things right you can even get the whole place to yourself, and then pretend you’re a billionaire watching a private screening in the full-size movie theater you built in your basement. If anyone wants to tag along sometime and see how great it can be, let's talk!

7. Reading time
What’s a summer reading list without the time to enjoy it? Every year I have at least one day when I set aside everything else and just read. It’s beyond amazing. And even though I already have a fairly extensive reading list, you can bet there will be at least a trip or two to Barnes and Noble in my future. 

8. Working on the fridge
This will only be my second year of having a refrigerator door covered with colorful Post-It Notes making up a to-do list of summertime adventures. I love the feeling of accomplishment that comes with checking items off a list, and I learned last year that having the visual prompt of ideas and the motivation of being able to take them down are great ways to keep my days occupied. 

9. The procrastination checklist
I’ll admit I procrastinate. It’s not a chronic thing, but if I have a job in front of me that I really don’t want to do, it’s too easy to find different ways to spend my time. After awhile though, those boring-to-unpleasant tasks start to hang over your head. Summer is a great time to take care of at least some of them, which not only gets the stupid job out of the way but also provides a little dopamine charge for the reward of finally getting it over with. Achievement unlocked!!

10. Naps
Maybe not every day, but several times a week. Most are pretty short, but the beauty is they don’t have to be.

So that’s part of my list. How about you? What are your favorite things about summer, whether you get eleven weeks off from your job or not?