Stuff and stuff and stuff...
Hello, Livejournal!
First off, MAN DO I MISS YOU. I miss the format, i miss the early mornings posting my 5am rambles, i miss the folks (all of you!), i miss looking at my "flist" every day, i miss typing the qualifier "to save LJ real estate," i miss it all. Mostly, though, i miss WRITING ON LJ. You know, to post on LJ means to measure one's thoughts, one's words, so that each one is important and fundamental to the overall message. FB means diluting the thought into a 150-character blurb that fails to capture the intensity and weight of the writer's intended communique'.
So here's what's up.
1. FAMILY
The girl is four-and-a-frickin-half-going-on-eighteen. Good gravy, she's a handful.
"Strong-willed," they call them. "Spirited," they call them. Curly is all of it and then some: daily arguments, bullheadedness, "no" being a favorite word... I've come to the conclusion that i'm (in the parlance of west GA) "payin' for my raisin'." Between me and the wife, i'm the one who can "talk her down from the ledge." But you know what? She's obsessed with art. She usually finds a theme or technique and sticks with it for a good bit, then switches to another, but the point is that she's passionate about it. I'm so happy to see it. Coloring, drawing, music, dancing, singing... she does it all. I'm most concerned with being the kind of man she'd want to marry in 20 years (or, if i had my druthers, 40 or 50 years).
The boy just turned two in January.
Not to use EB as a way to define him, but it is a primary concern. His EB is bad, then it's good, then it's bad, then it's good. So far we've been successful in refraining from personifying the disease by calling it "evil" or "mean" or "devastating." It is what it is. And we deal with it. There are some weeks when he has hardly any blisters at all, and it's just upkeep on scabs and dry skin, but then there are weeks when we have to stay on top of them, doing once- or twice-daily lancings. Some of them have gotten bigger than silver dollars, some wrap around fingers or toes, some are filled with clear fluid, some are pus-and-blood filled, and one this past week was full of oopy-goopy infection that didn't soak into the tissue but rather oozed. He hates the lancings... hates them. We vacillate between knowing that we're doing him a favor and feeling like we're torturing him. To make myself feel better, i try to think that he won't remember these times with too much bitterness, and that it's harder on us than it is for him. And Bubba?
Well, through all this he is a happy, smiling, goofy, growling, rambunctious boy who likes to wrassle and stack things and point at airplanes and dance.
My wife continues to tolerate me. I am grateful.
2. WORK
Teaching. Ugh. Whatever.
I'm continually troubled by the wave of stories i read about how various states (and the federal gubmint) try to bottle lightning. Teaching is an art, you see, and any attempt to quantify it by examining test scores will result only in a big stack of indecipherable numbers, bitter teachers, bitter good teachers, bitter good teachers who quit, and students who get fucked. Don't even get me started.
3. GRAD SCHOOL
I'm about a year away from my degree in professional writing (concentration in creative writing). I don't even really like writing... i'm pretty good at it, sometimes i have fun doing it, but sitting behind a keyboard every day for eight hours a day would require a healthy advance. I'm taking playwriting this semester, and it's pretty cool. It was the only creative writing class available, so i signed up for it, even though i have no experience writing plays. Still, i've come up with some interesting and funny stuff. The other class, Teaching Writing in High School and College, has proven to be more interesting, mostly because of the professor. I "got in trouble," i suppose, a few weeks ago when i posted something on our class blog and referred to our professor (woman, my age) as "Ms. Smith/Dr. Smith/Jane/High Grand Poobah Smith." Understand that every other prof i've ever had didn't care how they were addressed, and understand that while most of my students call me "Mr. Moriarty77," some call me "Dean," some call me "D-Mizzle77," some call me "Moriarty77," and i'm okay with it as long as they're not being disrespectful. Well, anyway, she called me into her office before class and informed me that she was made uncomfortable by what i said because it "crossed the boundary." (Insert hand movement.) You know, every article we've read for this class has talked about de-centralizing authority in the classroom, making the class more informal, making students feel more comfortable, etc., and she's made me feel uncomfortable. Ironic, that. I suppose her discomfort trumps my discomfort. And through it all, she calls me "Dean" instead of "Mr. Moriarty77." Fuck THAT.
4. HOBBIES
So i've started doing the "365 Photography Project," a project that requires a photographer to post a photo for every day of the year.
In my case, i just try to use my camera every day, then use Sunday afternoon to sift through the week's shots, pick out the best of each day, and finally pick the BEST of each day.
I have learned SO MUCH over the past 50-60 days.
I've learned that there are other things besides kids and satellites and the lizards to photograph, for one.
Another thing i've learned is patience. I've learned a little more about Lightroom, the software i use. And i've learned that it's HARD to be a real photographer. I carry my camera everywhere now. It's become an obsession.
5. MUSIC
Music gets its own category because it's in my fucking soul.
I was doing a two-man (guitar and drums) thing with Rod Hamdallah for several months, but now he's gone off to tour with Th' Legendary Shack Shakers. So that leaves me with four months of empty weekends. Had to do something about that. Got February all booked up, played eight gigs with five different bands, and here i sit EXHAUSTED and SLAP WORE OUT. There was a time at the beginning of the month that i wanted to play with as many folks as i could, to feed the desire in my soul to play music... then there's this time, the time after playing so many gigs, that i kinda just wanna hang out with my kids and give up on this childish, naive pipe-dream of mine. I'm not as good as a few drummers in The ATL, i'm certainly not able to tour, and not being able to play as much or get as good has left me feeling kind of bitter about the whole thing. It's like this: "I wanna get good. I wanna tour. I wanna play. Oh, wait, i have those papers to grade...oh, wait, i have this presentation to prepare for grad school...oh, wait, Curly and/or Bubba wants to play...oh, wait, i haven't spent more than an hour talking with my wife...oh, wait, i can't practice my rudiments because the wife and kids and papers to grade and books to read are in the house... You know what? I don't wanna get good. I don't wanna tour. I don't wanna play." Often i hate being an artist.
