happenings
Hello, hello,
Em nudged me, and I'm waiting for Skate to come home, so here some update-ness for ya.
I'm either getting laid off on Friday...or we're going to work an extra 6 weeks or so. It's been like this for a year. It's good, in a way, because it has prompted me to start looking for a new career path. I'm still waiting to hear back from Bennington and BU about getting into an MFA program. In June the appl. is due for the Masters in Ed. program at Umass Boston. I've been loosely considering tech writing; it seems like good money, not likely to get outsourced, and involves actual skills I possess. Only problem? You need to have some basic computer skills I lack. And I've tried asking a few computer savvy friends to show me the ropes, who then prove why they are not teachers by saying stuff like "Just fuck around with some stuff, you'll get it." I don't even know what the stuff is! There are some online programs at Umass Lowell I might take. In the meantime, I'm scouring Idealist and Boston.com from any jobs that are reccession proof. The goings are not good.
Sarah's pregnantness has expanded to ever greater proportions. She's about 6 months along. She's all belly, but what a belly it is! It's been making life uncomfortable for her and increased my admiration for women in general. I'd go gay so damn quick if I had to go through this. Since she told me that my birth broke her tailbone, I feel like I have some past debts to settle up, so I might buy my mom dinner this weekend. Also, I've been freaking out because I feel like I've just been a passive observer this far, my part in the ordeal having been played out a long time ago, so I might use the solitude of a Sarah-less weekend to read up on what I need to do to make sure I don't kill the baby when it finally come home. Not that I think Mazzy would allow that, seeing as there have been several nights where I've woken up to find her head reasting on Sarah's belly. Me thinks a love affair is brewing between the retriever and the kicky kid in my wife stomach.
My reading has gone way down this year. I ripped through about 36 books last year, which is alot for me, but so far I've only completed "The Dead" by James Joyce. There are maybe 4 books that I have at some stage of completetion. The Adventures of Augie March, Loon Lake, and Middlesex are the closest to being done. After that I've started Executioner's Song, Legs, and The Brothers Karamazov. And after that there is Boston on Fire and The Corner and The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys. Right now I'm in the middle of Best American Political Writing 2008. I'm enthralled by the way good writing about politics can clear away the muck you get from TV and newspapers and blogs. I think my interest in essays, the writing and reading of, was sparked while writing my entrance essays for my grad school applications. I found a system to getting the most from my writing: splurging words on the page until what is I really want to say eventually leaks out and is ready to be honed and revised. Through this system, a two page essay turned into 6, and could have been more. The minor obsession is, I think, a small movement away from fiction and toward certain kinds of non-fiction. I've become pickier in what I like to read, as far as fiction goes, which sounds really snobby. Many writer's now, as opposed to the two post-war periods of the last century, seem to lack ambition, and connection, to the big questions that face us. I've lost patience for writers who dither along. At least with good non-fiction, you expand the context through which you understand the world.
Sorry, the aderol makes me chatty.
Some random notes:
I wish we could get another dog, specifially, an american bulldog puppy who I would name Gus.
I think the Red Sox could be great this year, or very, very average, although I don't think Tampa Bay or the Yankels will be any better.
I am very sick of any criticism of Israel being met with a charge of anti-semetism. It's like comparing Republican or Democratic policies to being "Nazi-like."
The Wrestler was an great movie.
I like that Obama is addressing education and the need to modernize it, but how do you pay more to some teachers and less to others? Is it attached to grades? What if a great teacher takes on under-performing students whose home lives are so terrible their grades don't improve some years? That teacher makes less? Hasn't smaller classrooms been proven to increase performance more than anything other gimmick, but people in this country hate paying for education? I'm not sure I'm thrilled about my tax dollars going to more Charter schools, either.
The latest Kings of Leon album, Only by the Night, is so good I have trouble believing it is actually as good as I think it is.
I just finished reading Watchmen. It was good, but I think I grew up reading too many comics that were directly influenced by it to be awed by the story. I'm interested to see what they do with the movie.
That's all for now. Maybe this will carry me through another fifteen weeks.
Em nudged me, and I'm waiting for Skate to come home, so here some update-ness for ya.
I'm either getting laid off on Friday...or we're going to work an extra 6 weeks or so. It's been like this for a year. It's good, in a way, because it has prompted me to start looking for a new career path. I'm still waiting to hear back from Bennington and BU about getting into an MFA program. In June the appl. is due for the Masters in Ed. program at Umass Boston. I've been loosely considering tech writing; it seems like good money, not likely to get outsourced, and involves actual skills I possess. Only problem? You need to have some basic computer skills I lack. And I've tried asking a few computer savvy friends to show me the ropes, who then prove why they are not teachers by saying stuff like "Just fuck around with some stuff, you'll get it." I don't even know what the stuff is! There are some online programs at Umass Lowell I might take. In the meantime, I'm scouring Idealist and Boston.com from any jobs that are reccession proof. The goings are not good.
Sarah's pregnantness has expanded to ever greater proportions. She's about 6 months along. She's all belly, but what a belly it is! It's been making life uncomfortable for her and increased my admiration for women in general. I'd go gay so damn quick if I had to go through this. Since she told me that my birth broke her tailbone, I feel like I have some past debts to settle up, so I might buy my mom dinner this weekend. Also, I've been freaking out because I feel like I've just been a passive observer this far, my part in the ordeal having been played out a long time ago, so I might use the solitude of a Sarah-less weekend to read up on what I need to do to make sure I don't kill the baby when it finally come home. Not that I think Mazzy would allow that, seeing as there have been several nights where I've woken up to find her head reasting on Sarah's belly. Me thinks a love affair is brewing between the retriever and the kicky kid in my wife stomach.
My reading has gone way down this year. I ripped through about 36 books last year, which is alot for me, but so far I've only completed "The Dead" by James Joyce. There are maybe 4 books that I have at some stage of completetion. The Adventures of Augie March, Loon Lake, and Middlesex are the closest to being done. After that I've started Executioner's Song, Legs, and The Brothers Karamazov. And after that there is Boston on Fire and The Corner and The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys. Right now I'm in the middle of Best American Political Writing 2008. I'm enthralled by the way good writing about politics can clear away the muck you get from TV and newspapers and blogs. I think my interest in essays, the writing and reading of, was sparked while writing my entrance essays for my grad school applications. I found a system to getting the most from my writing: splurging words on the page until what is I really want to say eventually leaks out and is ready to be honed and revised. Through this system, a two page essay turned into 6, and could have been more. The minor obsession is, I think, a small movement away from fiction and toward certain kinds of non-fiction. I've become pickier in what I like to read, as far as fiction goes, which sounds really snobby. Many writer's now, as opposed to the two post-war periods of the last century, seem to lack ambition, and connection, to the big questions that face us. I've lost patience for writers who dither along. At least with good non-fiction, you expand the context through which you understand the world.
Sorry, the aderol makes me chatty.
Some random notes:
I wish we could get another dog, specifially, an american bulldog puppy who I would name Gus.
I think the Red Sox could be great this year, or very, very average, although I don't think Tampa Bay or the Yankels will be any better.
I am very sick of any criticism of Israel being met with a charge of anti-semetism. It's like comparing Republican or Democratic policies to being "Nazi-like."
The Wrestler was an great movie.
I like that Obama is addressing education and the need to modernize it, but how do you pay more to some teachers and less to others? Is it attached to grades? What if a great teacher takes on under-performing students whose home lives are so terrible their grades don't improve some years? That teacher makes less? Hasn't smaller classrooms been proven to increase performance more than anything other gimmick, but people in this country hate paying for education? I'm not sure I'm thrilled about my tax dollars going to more Charter schools, either.
The latest Kings of Leon album, Only by the Night, is so good I have trouble believing it is actually as good as I think it is.
I just finished reading Watchmen. It was good, but I think I grew up reading too many comics that were directly influenced by it to be awed by the story. I'm interested to see what they do with the movie.
That's all for now. Maybe this will carry me through another fifteen weeks.