I interviewed today, and the principal seemed genuinely impressed with my idea of gardening in the quad. He gave me both hope, and confusion, though, which is typical of my conversations (of everyone's conversations) with him, stating that he wanted to find a way to convince the superintendent to at least give me some kind of stipend, if they choose to keep the current advisor in place. Sounds both promising, and a sign that the interview was a formality, and he may plan to keep status quo, regardless of inadequate and lame that "quo" is. Here's hoping. I know for sure I could take the thing and make its vision bigger and more adequate to what was intended in making a Green Team in the first place. Hopefully, the supe likes the idea of gardening on the quad enough to be sold on investing in me.
We also got our current land lady to agree to work with us as our realtor. I'm hoping the conflict of interest isn't an issue: she had dropped the hints herself months back that we should look, and admitted that she was hoping we'd get that to mean that we'd work with her. I just don't want to see her motivation to keep us as tenants ending up being a factor. But, to be honest, with us out, and a max of 2000 in cosmetic upgrades, she could charge someone easily another 300/month over what we're paying, and she'd make her commission off us too once we did find our place. We have another address in mind and are just waiting to hear back from her about whether she was able to arrange a visit for us this Thursday. This time, we'd be looking at a property that at minimum, needs 20,000 in work, but the price is in a place where we might be fools not to take it, given how many of our dream features are there, if the structure and guts are sound... and we could borrow that extra to get going on the projects anyway. I'm hoping our search isn't as long and protracted as other people I know have described theirs to be.... and that may be an unreasonable thing to hope for, but given how much of my life has been harder to achieve than anyone else I know, maybe this will be my compensation, and a bit of cosmic balance?
Monday, October 3, 2011
Saturday, October 1, 2011
House Hunting Really is the Most Fun and the Most Miserable at the Same Time
First house was, in my opinion, about a 60% match. I loved its woodwork, and its kitchen... hated how close everything felt, and how there was no master bedroom door (the arch way was pretty and all, but holy no privacy, Batman!). Loved the attic bedroom, and the way they'd made one of the second floor bedrooms into a dressing room/walk-in suite.... hated the fact that there was one bath, and no way to cram in a 1/2 later. Hated, and this killed it, the almost complete lack of any land upon which to garden. Barely even enough room to store a bicycle and a grill in the super shady back yard, and less than ten feet between the house and the sidewalk in front. And, much of what I liked about the house, D. didn't even care about, so I'm seeing that we're on two totally different pages in terms of what we want, and while that should come as no surprise, it's just another obstacle that may make the whole thing more complicated than I want to allow myself to think about.
I prefer to remain hopeful. And, we already have a second house in mind, one which will need a ton of work but which could allow us a whole lot more house--and land--for a similar budget. A different town, with slightly less reputable schools, but I know that other town too well anyway to judge fairly, given that it was the town I was schooled in. A fresh start town might be best anyway.
We learned a bit about realtors from that first experience, and have made some phone calls in the direction of finding an agent to work with.... and I think I should inquire about this new house by Tuesday if I haven't heard directly from one of our leads yet. We may not yet have an agent, but that shouldn't stop us from looking, and seeing what connects, or doesn't, with this set of photos.
I prefer to remain hopeful. And, we already have a second house in mind, one which will need a ton of work but which could allow us a whole lot more house--and land--for a similar budget. A different town, with slightly less reputable schools, but I know that other town too well anyway to judge fairly, given that it was the town I was schooled in. A fresh start town might be best anyway.
We learned a bit about realtors from that first experience, and have made some phone calls in the direction of finding an agent to work with.... and I think I should inquire about this new house by Tuesday if I haven't heard directly from one of our leads yet. We may not yet have an agent, but that shouldn't stop us from looking, and seeing what connects, or doesn't, with this set of photos.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Being Green... At Things
I just realized why my entries about marriage, parenting, and even teaching fit. One can be "green" at things one cannot do well, but at which will one eventually get to a place of maturity.... like green, punky wood that you do not want for your woodstove, but which can be stacked and set aside for a winter in future.
The house we're looking at first has a woodstove, which is a cool feature. It also is old--built in 1870, so probably build with old growth wood, and there's no negative eco karma attached: by now, its surely neurtralized, at least, and old houses are much like vintage clothing. A thing which lets you have a thing that's decadent and beautiful without feeling guilty because it isn't using any new resources. That's a thing that makes me keep looking at 1850-1900 or max 1915 or so Colonial houses. Crazy-beautiful wood paneled walls, and in-built detailing. Always more risk of structural problems from hell with houses like that. And I may look at tons more than the one we see tomorrow.
I keep avoiding pools. Why the hell anyone looks at a yard that could take a least four ginormous raised beds with which they could feed their family and decides to put in a chemical money pit on their property is beyond me. The place we're looking at has a ton of mulch instead of lawn, something we are actually pleased by. Lawn chemicals are not the best thing to try to have to suck up in your organic garden anyway. See? I'm still starry-eyed and green at this house hunting thing too, and it's pretty sweet that I can still go to that high and hopeful place over something. I do know how long this may take, but so many things feel promising about this. And, in the end, it's going to be something I take for an adventure.
National Board candidacy feels similar: daunting, but do-able, if I make myself take it in steps. We'll see.
And I interview for Green Team advisory on Monday morning.
The house we're looking at first has a woodstove, which is a cool feature. It also is old--built in 1870, so probably build with old growth wood, and there's no negative eco karma attached: by now, its surely neurtralized, at least, and old houses are much like vintage clothing. A thing which lets you have a thing that's decadent and beautiful without feeling guilty because it isn't using any new resources. That's a thing that makes me keep looking at 1850-1900 or max 1915 or so Colonial houses. Crazy-beautiful wood paneled walls, and in-built detailing. Always more risk of structural problems from hell with houses like that. And I may look at tons more than the one we see tomorrow.
I keep avoiding pools. Why the hell anyone looks at a yard that could take a least four ginormous raised beds with which they could feed their family and decides to put in a chemical money pit on their property is beyond me. The place we're looking at has a ton of mulch instead of lawn, something we are actually pleased by. Lawn chemicals are not the best thing to try to have to suck up in your organic garden anyway. See? I'm still starry-eyed and green at this house hunting thing too, and it's pretty sweet that I can still go to that high and hopeful place over something. I do know how long this may take, but so many things feel promising about this. And, in the end, it's going to be something I take for an adventure.
National Board candidacy feels similar: daunting, but do-able, if I make myself take it in steps. We'll see.
And I interview for Green Team advisory on Monday morning.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
My Daughter at 9.5 Months: A Prose Poem
My daughter is shaping up to be a cool little person. She has a tough edge: bumps her head and keeps on going, bites like a piranha. And she yells for attention. Not cries, yells. She has an angry baby that kicks in when you are not fast enough, not clever enough with the anticipation of needs, or simply, not enough. In short, there is a lot of the stubborn people she comes from. A lot of me.
I think she's also clever. She's incredibly curious about everything, especially what's dangerous. She also loves anything with which we regularly engage: remote, phone, computer mouse. Batterie'd things are probably not good chew toys, nor wires, I'd imagine, but with ninja speed, she finds these before you remember they were there to hide.
I am often tired, but in damn good shape. I bounce, and bend and twist and climb. It's pretty freaking fun, and the fact that there's that mutual benfit is pretty awesome. I'd hardly ever find the energy to get this much exercise on my own.
Sometimes I wish I didn't believe in zero population growth. I clearly make wonderful humans. And, if I don't fuck this up, because the force is strong in this one, this could be a soldier on the side of the light. I should make more and more of those. It's only right.... if only.
I make myself laugh sometimes, and I often talk to myself. I sound like a raving person at times. I will surely say things I don't mean, particularly when that little piranha in you is anything with a teen in the end, probably even sooner. I hope you'll be able to deal with this. In exchange, I offer family meals that sometimes get to be ice cream... or whatever else we have that you decide you want for a meal (one vegetable must also be eaten, and it can be anything: even a crap ton of Halloween candy). To help you with your homework, and bring you to and attend whatever thing it is you need to do, and to be proud of you when you do well. You will love to learn-- whatever it is you love to learn-- and will know that your job is to grow. For that, I will ask the right to be disappointed when you do the opposite, and to do what it takes to make you see the difference. I only get to make so many soldiers.
I think she's also clever. She's incredibly curious about everything, especially what's dangerous. She also loves anything with which we regularly engage: remote, phone, computer mouse. Batterie'd things are probably not good chew toys, nor wires, I'd imagine, but with ninja speed, she finds these before you remember they were there to hide.
I am often tired, but in damn good shape. I bounce, and bend and twist and climb. It's pretty freaking fun, and the fact that there's that mutual benfit is pretty awesome. I'd hardly ever find the energy to get this much exercise on my own.
Sometimes I wish I didn't believe in zero population growth. I clearly make wonderful humans. And, if I don't fuck this up, because the force is strong in this one, this could be a soldier on the side of the light. I should make more and more of those. It's only right.... if only.
I make myself laugh sometimes, and I often talk to myself. I sound like a raving person at times. I will surely say things I don't mean, particularly when that little piranha in you is anything with a teen in the end, probably even sooner. I hope you'll be able to deal with this. In exchange, I offer family meals that sometimes get to be ice cream... or whatever else we have that you decide you want for a meal (one vegetable must also be eaten, and it can be anything: even a crap ton of Halloween candy). To help you with your homework, and bring you to and attend whatever thing it is you need to do, and to be proud of you when you do well. You will love to learn-- whatever it is you love to learn-- and will know that your job is to grow. For that, I will ask the right to be disappointed when you do the opposite, and to do what it takes to make you see the difference. I only get to make so many soldiers.
Monday, September 26, 2011
People Think I'm a Grown-Up When I Call Them
And are impressed by our mutual credit,
Our debt to income ratio
And we are looking at
Houses in the town I grew up in
But my kid like music....
Our debt to income ratio
And we are looking at
Houses in the town I grew up in
But my kid like music....
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Winter Squash Fungus and Invasive Club Advisory Take-Over
I'm really sad and disappointed. The rainy season this year has led to some fungus, whose name I can't remember how to spell, and surely can't pronounce, making it so that winter squash, despite that name, will not be something I can store. I've had seasons where the vernal equinox has been celebrated in my house by the making of a huge batch of pumpkin/winter squash lasagna-- one of the few dishes I can claim to have designed from my own little culinary brain alone, no recipes involved. The fungus will make it impossible to keep and store squash, killing that tradition that would have been in its third year. The only silver lining is in the fact that this year, we had the option to extend our CSA shares into December, and should continue getting fresh squash until then.
The rainy summer has made for exceptionally tall ragweed too, so as soon as I healed (the scabs are still visible, so by healed, I mean stopped itching) from the poison ivy I picked up on my birthday in August, I've been suffering bitterly from allergies. They've gone right into my lungs, too, so I hack and cough, and sound like patient zero in some deep contagion. I keep going to work like this, even though I've had days without a voice. And, teaching without a voice in classes approaching 30 students has been interesting, to put it mildly.
But, I'm excited to be in the midst of trying to steal away a club advisory. Every year, they have to take applications and conduct interviews for the few extracurricular clubs that still exist, probably because of the supremely awesome $2500/year pay -out (there's sarcasm there, if you can't sense it.... doing the math, if you advise a club properly, you get compensated at pennies an hour, no exaggeration, since post-tax that works out to something like $1900, something I learned from my one year advising a middle school yearbook). So, I'm trying to steal the advisory of the Green Team. The only "green" thing this team does is collect the classroom recycling bins weekly. The rest of their time is spent in fundraising-- for non-green school events, like prom, etc. I kid you not. They do nothing else. I intend to give them an actual curriculum, teaching them about how to meaningfully live in a green way, and in the letter I've written, and will reread one more time before submitting on Monday (deadline is actually Wednesday, so it's good and ready within the required timeline), I propose to use the underutilized (read, not used at all) quad area to teach the kids how to grow their own veggies, and I've suggested they should be involved in local environmental actions, such as the attempt to rescue a very polluted marsh right next to the high school grounds, and travel to elementary schools to teach appreciation of the natural world to kids at a young age, where it's likely to stick with them for good. Imagine proposing that a Green Team should to actual green stuff? I hope I get the position: I can't even tell you how much I dislike the team's current advisor, and not just because he takes the yearly stipend without knowing his ass from his elbow where environmentalism is concerned (for example, he's clearly oblivious to the fact that just about all of the school's recycling isn't getting recycled at all, because no one has taught the kids that plastic drink bottles need to be sent with caps removed. The caps are a different plastic, and because there's no time to remove these caps at the recycling center, all bottles with caps attached go right to the landfill.... In other words, the only "green" thing he has them doing isn't even happening! I also know he got permission to use the quad for what I propose-- he was just given it, without solitcitation-- but did nothing because it means showing up at school a couple of days a week in the summer, and perhaps spending about $200 on supplies and/or working to get then donated), but also because he royally sucks as an English teacher, and if the kids even read or write in his class, I'd be desperately surprised. He's also a douchey driver, something I learned on a day when we were together in pulling over for an ambulance, and he took it upon himself to cut me off getting back into the road (he was behind me when we pulled over: did he think I planned to just sit there pulled over and masturbate when it was clear to go?). In short, it may be only $2500, but that money should be given to someone who intends to take a club and make it legitimate, not just someone who advises a club solely to have (some of the) money to go snowboarding every other weekend. I will be pissed if they (the administration) can't see that I'm clearly the better candidate for the position, and I intend to mildly and diplomatically point out how poorly the club has achieved the goals it ought to have for the years it has existed when interviewed. Here's hoping reason and sensiblity prevail!
The rainy summer has made for exceptionally tall ragweed too, so as soon as I healed (the scabs are still visible, so by healed, I mean stopped itching) from the poison ivy I picked up on my birthday in August, I've been suffering bitterly from allergies. They've gone right into my lungs, too, so I hack and cough, and sound like patient zero in some deep contagion. I keep going to work like this, even though I've had days without a voice. And, teaching without a voice in classes approaching 30 students has been interesting, to put it mildly.
But, I'm excited to be in the midst of trying to steal away a club advisory. Every year, they have to take applications and conduct interviews for the few extracurricular clubs that still exist, probably because of the supremely awesome $2500/year pay -out (there's sarcasm there, if you can't sense it.... doing the math, if you advise a club properly, you get compensated at pennies an hour, no exaggeration, since post-tax that works out to something like $1900, something I learned from my one year advising a middle school yearbook). So, I'm trying to steal the advisory of the Green Team. The only "green" thing this team does is collect the classroom recycling bins weekly. The rest of their time is spent in fundraising-- for non-green school events, like prom, etc. I kid you not. They do nothing else. I intend to give them an actual curriculum, teaching them about how to meaningfully live in a green way, and in the letter I've written, and will reread one more time before submitting on Monday (deadline is actually Wednesday, so it's good and ready within the required timeline), I propose to use the underutilized (read, not used at all) quad area to teach the kids how to grow their own veggies, and I've suggested they should be involved in local environmental actions, such as the attempt to rescue a very polluted marsh right next to the high school grounds, and travel to elementary schools to teach appreciation of the natural world to kids at a young age, where it's likely to stick with them for good. Imagine proposing that a Green Team should to actual green stuff? I hope I get the position: I can't even tell you how much I dislike the team's current advisor, and not just because he takes the yearly stipend without knowing his ass from his elbow where environmentalism is concerned (for example, he's clearly oblivious to the fact that just about all of the school's recycling isn't getting recycled at all, because no one has taught the kids that plastic drink bottles need to be sent with caps removed. The caps are a different plastic, and because there's no time to remove these caps at the recycling center, all bottles with caps attached go right to the landfill.... In other words, the only "green" thing he has them doing isn't even happening! I also know he got permission to use the quad for what I propose-- he was just given it, without solitcitation-- but did nothing because it means showing up at school a couple of days a week in the summer, and perhaps spending about $200 on supplies and/or working to get then donated), but also because he royally sucks as an English teacher, and if the kids even read or write in his class, I'd be desperately surprised. He's also a douchey driver, something I learned on a day when we were together in pulling over for an ambulance, and he took it upon himself to cut me off getting back into the road (he was behind me when we pulled over: did he think I planned to just sit there pulled over and masturbate when it was clear to go?). In short, it may be only $2500, but that money should be given to someone who intends to take a club and make it legitimate, not just someone who advises a club solely to have (some of the) money to go snowboarding every other weekend. I will be pissed if they (the administration) can't see that I'm clearly the better candidate for the position, and I intend to mildly and diplomatically point out how poorly the club has achieved the goals it ought to have for the years it has existed when interviewed. Here's hoping reason and sensiblity prevail!
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Teaching Creative Writing--Finally
I'm starting to really, truly love aspects of my job this year--which is something new. I detest the politics behind education, both in terms of the euphmistically named "No Child Left Behind" Act, and just the politics of the city or town you live in, compiled with building politics. As a brief aside on that other, other, other steaming heap of turd George Bush the second left us with, NCLB is a big disaster. My supe posted a blog on his page that said it perfectly, though I can only paraphrase. Though the act is a disaster, and as big an equity as separate but equal, its name forced us-- those of us in education, with unions and huge voting power behind us--to roll over and take it like prison bitches. I assure the soap on a rope reference is purely my own contribution to the apt statement. I will say nothing further, because I don't intend to often blog about the nature of public education in this country, but I could... for quite a while. I love to elaborate on why I use that word "inequity," for instance, but I won't.
Anyway, I'm teaching a course in creative writing. In creative lyrical writing, no less. Yes, that's right: poetry. So, I've discovered that it was complete bullshit that I am another Verlain, destined to have poetically peaked somewhere between age seventeen and nineteen, with nothing but a handful of poems a year if I was lucky thereafter, fully half of them being a bag of suck. Most days when I give my students an assignment, I complete it as well. Here are the results I don't hate-- proof that forcing myself to write does exactly what it always did under the man I still admire more than I've ever been able to say to him with a keyboard: it makes good stuff happen sometimes, when I just write even when I feel like I can't.
This piece is a "found" poem: You get another text, often in prose, often something like expository non-fiction, and you force yourself to use lines from it verbatim.
Shadow Walkers
Only a person full of fears already,
Full of shadows,
is drawn towards
A life only in the night
But, immortality
Fear of death so common,
living forever seems like the ultimate fantasy
But, submitting to that awful bite
Holds the promise of a ghoulish paradise
Perpetual youth, perhaps, but such a cost
Draining others; living in obscura
Lurking, listening
Loving no one--
or loving, without fulfilment, without completion
Are we all vampires anyway?
Another found poem: this time I made them (us) turn to page 100 of an almost randomly pulled novel off the bookshelves of my classroom, and use sentence 5.
O.C.D.
"As always, she watched me complete this task as if I were the most mystifying creature she had ever seen--and quite possibly mad"--Dean Koontz, Relentless.
The piles must move dozens of times in a day
Dozens-- no need to exaggerate and
claim hundred, but certainly dozens.
Piles of pencils, of scrap paper, of neatly
arranged photocopy.
Moved as if a corner out of place
would topple the entire Jenga game
Moving what can be seen in an attempt
To arrange that which cannot--
the chaos of a life with so many variables,
So much to balance and keep aright
Fear sometimes soothed as the piles
Are made to march in order.
Inadequacies allayed as the
Uncontrollable dangers are contained
Within the ritual.
I am sorry, but that is it so far. I edited both of them-- only very slightly-- as I posted them. A third one is nearly ready.
Anyway, I'm teaching a course in creative writing. In creative lyrical writing, no less. Yes, that's right: poetry. So, I've discovered that it was complete bullshit that I am another Verlain, destined to have poetically peaked somewhere between age seventeen and nineteen, with nothing but a handful of poems a year if I was lucky thereafter, fully half of them being a bag of suck. Most days when I give my students an assignment, I complete it as well. Here are the results I don't hate-- proof that forcing myself to write does exactly what it always did under the man I still admire more than I've ever been able to say to him with a keyboard: it makes good stuff happen sometimes, when I just write even when I feel like I can't.
This piece is a "found" poem: You get another text, often in prose, often something like expository non-fiction, and you force yourself to use lines from it verbatim.
Shadow Walkers
Only a person full of fears already,
Full of shadows,
is drawn towards
A life only in the night
But, immortality
Fear of death so common,
living forever seems like the ultimate fantasy
But, submitting to that awful bite
Holds the promise of a ghoulish paradise
Perpetual youth, perhaps, but such a cost
Draining others; living in obscura
Lurking, listening
Loving no one--
or loving, without fulfilment, without completion
Are we all vampires anyway?
Another found poem: this time I made them (us) turn to page 100 of an almost randomly pulled novel off the bookshelves of my classroom, and use sentence 5.
O.C.D.
"As always, she watched me complete this task as if I were the most mystifying creature she had ever seen--and quite possibly mad"--Dean Koontz, Relentless.
The piles must move dozens of times in a day
Dozens-- no need to exaggerate and
claim hundred, but certainly dozens.
Piles of pencils, of scrap paper, of neatly
arranged photocopy.
Moved as if a corner out of place
would topple the entire Jenga game
Moving what can be seen in an attempt
To arrange that which cannot--
the chaos of a life with so many variables,
So much to balance and keep aright
Fear sometimes soothed as the piles
Are made to march in order.
Inadequacies allayed as the
Uncontrollable dangers are contained
Within the ritual.
I am sorry, but that is it so far. I edited both of them-- only very slightly-- as I posted them. A third one is nearly ready.
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