January 2012
11 posts
Trying to Rebound
On a run through the old neighborhood this morning, I passed our old house. One entire side has been torn down, including the garage and the laundry room we built. A massive backhoe straddled the side yard, surrounded by piles of bricks and slate. Our deck had been reduced to a heap of splintered wood.
In the center of this reconstruction carnage I saw our old basketball hoop. The massive metal...
Lost in Translation
If you teach classic literature, you’re bound to run into words so outdated that kids have absolutely no idea what they mean. For example, in Of Mice and Men, “two bits” is a quarter. In Inherit the Wind, the play we’re currently reading, “galluses” are suspenders. I spend what feels like a fair amount of time translating these arcane words so the kids can make passing sense of what they’re...
Before I Forget
I get cabin fever in the winter. It’s kind of a problem, actually, so I decided to go to yoga this morning in a last-ditch effort to shift my mood in a more positive direction.
Getting out of the house was helpful, and stretching was also helpful, but one of the meditations proved to be the most helpful thing of all. An interesting thing about yoga is to deepen poses without injury requires you to...
Judge Not
We belong to the New Haven Lawn Club, which sounds hoity toity but for us, more than anything, it’s just a convenient place to go to the gym. Most of the members are perfectly nice people, but there are some exceptions. One woman I have grown to loathe wears a floor-length mink coat to the gym, and has a frightening penchant for bright orange lipstick. She also has a habit of braying,...
Sip and Bear It
Over the years, I have tried to find some reason to not detest winter. Sports involving gravity and zero traction, like skiing, are a bad fit for a person who recently managed to break her ankle walking across the street. For indoor sports, there’s squash, an irrational pairing of a coffin-sized space and a long-handled racquet. Snow is aesthetically attractive for around four minutes, but sooner...
The Snark Stops Here
My posts can be snarky when it comes to my job. Teaching is often exhausting and frustrating, and for me, snark is the go-to hedge against despair. But as snide and nasty as I get about the stuff that happens in school, the snark stops when it comes to the kids themselves.
The truth is, I love my middle schoolers.
I realize it’s not even remotely normal to dote on these awkward specimens, with...
Okay, Bad Example.
The seventh graders are working on their term papers. The topic is altruism, and whether it is innate or acquired. I made them look up the word, then brainstorm examples of altruists from real life, past or present. I gave them a couple of people I thought served as good examples of altruism: Mother Theresa and Gandhi.
“No fair. You took the only two I could think of,” one student whined.
“There...
Spotlight on Obscurity
I was complaining to my son Jake about how many mediocre books are not merely published, but land at the top of The New York Times Bestseller list or get to wear a Pulitzer Prize sticker on their front covers. As a fellow writer and a person to whom I gave birth, I thought he’d sympathize with my whining, but instead he pointed out that artists of every persuasion cannot control fate’s fickle...
Last Thoughts on Last Tango
When I was a teenager, I went to see Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris. It starred a dissipated Marlon Brando and unknown 19 year old actress named Maria Schneider. Schneider was a runaway, sullen, enigmatic, baby-faced. Jeanne, the character she portrayed in the movie, seemed to be no different from the image Schneider herself projected: a hard-shelled street waif with no sexual...
Travel Guide
I don’t think the universe is intelligent, but I am absolutely convinced it is highly informative. However, just because it lacks focus and specific intent doesn’t give you permission to ignore it. Take, for example, the person sitting next to you on a plane.
She’s red-haired, probably around your age. She wears a skirt that is too long and too full by current fashion standards and maroon hat that...
December 2011
8 posts
Behind the Curtain
Growing up, my favorite game show was Let’s Make a Deal. There was no skill involved; contestants would dress up in idiotic outfits and risk a known prize for an unknown one. For instance, they could choose the His and Her Laz-Z-Boy recliner set or trade them in for the mystery item behind a closed curtain. I used to get annoyed at people who played it safe, thinking that recliners in the hand...
Slightly Sour Grapes of Wrath
When confronted with the occupation space on forms, I find myself vacillating between “teacher” and “writer,” the first being the wonderful yet challenging job I have taken on while simultaneously fighting to maintain my identity as the second. Occasionally, these universes intersect.
Take the day before yesterday. I was helping students with their winter break assignment: to choose a pleasure...
Following Up
When the Pixar movie Up came out several years ago, it was on the heels of my mother’s death and my sister cautioned me not to watch it. “It’s too soon,” she said. “It will break your heart.” Up starts with adventurous Ellie and sweet, thoughtful Carl meeting, falling in love, marrying, and living a life of steadfast devotion. Then, Ellie dies. Widowed Carl sets off in his house, held aloft by a...
Wish
The second half of my life will be swift,
past leaning fenceposts, a gravel shoulder,
asphalt tickets, the beckon of open road.
The second half of my life will be wide-eyed,
fingers shifting through fine sands,
arms loose at my sides, wandering feet.
There will be new dreams every night,
and the drapes will never be closed.
I will toss my string of keys into a deep
well and old letters...
Birthday Strategy
My birthday is Thursday. The custom at our school is to post birthdays on bulletin boards around campus. In theory, this is a lovely practice, but I find it excruciating. I wouldn’t care if people just stopped at wishing me a happy birthday, but the inevitable follow-up from middle school students is to ask how old I am. My used to tell them the truth, which would cause them to widen their eyes...
Go Ahead, Make My Day
I am terrible at retorts. Just ask anyone who has ever dissed me, or been present when I’ve been dissed. What generally happens is at first, I’m incredulous. Next, I try to figure out if I’ve actually been insulted or whether I’m just imagining it, or maybe I’m being too sensitive? By the time I figure out the insult is legitimate, so much time has elapsed that the window of opportunity for a...
Considering the Source
Over the weekend, I cut my hair and dyed it from faded auburn to dark brown, bordering on black. I was nervous about how my students would react. Adults are generally careful about expressing opinions that could potentially send one into a vortex of despair and self-loathing, but not so middle schoolers. This is when a thick skin, unlike mine, which is so thin that my underlying desperate need for...
The Sting of a Spelling Bee
Spelling bees mix tedium with terror, and in my experience, feature surprisingly calamitous intersections of fate. As a fifth grader, my daughter Eliza was an impressive speller. She was confident she would win her school bee, and after that, she her eye on the town bee. On the day of the school bee, Eliza, who was very short for her age, was placed alphabetically next to a decidedly rotund...
For Real
This morning, our perky local weatherman was going on about yesterday’s sunset. “It was spectacular,” he raved, adding, “I hope you all got a chance to check it out on Facebook.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve always considered sunsets actual things that happen. Shouldn’t the first and best chance to appreciate them be as they are unfolding in reality, with checking out Facebook as the default...
November 2011
5 posts
Black Friday
The morning news was full of tales from Black Friday. There was the story of a California woman who pepper-sprayed her competition for Xboxes at Walmart, followed by one about a man who collapsed at a Target in South Carolina, only to have shoppers step over his body to get to the sales items. The man died a short while later, en route to the hospital.
It’s disheartening to learn that in the...
Thanksgiving Poem
Te Deum
Charles Reznikoff
Not because of victories
I sing,
having none,
but for the common sunshine,
the breeze,
the largess of the spring.
Not for victory
but for the day’s work done
as well as I was able;
not for a seat upon the dais
but at the common table.
This poem reminds me that I am most grateful not for what I have, but for what I share.
The Nature of Urban Life
One of the most ironic things about moving to the city is it has brought me closer to nature.
It had been years since I’d raked the yard, because almost two acres of land with tons of leafy trees was too much to take on. But here, having a microscopic yard with three deciduous trees, one of which thoughtfully leans over into our neighbor’s yard to shed its leafy burden, means raking and bagging...
A Moving Retrospective
It’s been a long, strange week, but we survived our move. We love the new house and new neighborhood. Watching people unabashedly rifle through the contents of our garbage cans the first night we moved in and later, being awakened at 1:30 a.m. by the smoke detector after the furnace overheated may have been unexpected events, but they were comically surreal rather than upsetting. But in all the...
October 2011
9 posts
Year Six
LC was my daughter Hannah’s close friend. Technically, her name was Louisa Caroline, but no one called her that. (In fact, for months I thought her full name was Elsie). LC was an open book, a skinny frame wrapped around a grin and a cigarette, and even though she could be trouble, she was the kind of trouble Hannah embraced. She was the bumpy ride, the whitewater rapids, the maybe I should...
Vote for Rachie!
My daughter Rachael spent a significant portion of her toddlerdom reaching for the keys of our piano. In first grade, she begged us to let her take piano lessons, and she hasn’t stopped playing since. In fourth grade, Rachael composed her first piece, a heartfelt tribute to her gym teacher, Mr. Morton, who died suddenly of a heart attack in the middle of the school year. “Mr. Morton Is Watching...
Cell Phone Etiquette 101
I learned this weekend that it’s never a good idea to answer the phone “I’m on the toilet, I’ll have to call you back.” Never. Even if you are sure the number on the caller ID is your husband. The thing you might not know is someone, for example the headmaster of the school that employs you, might have a number that’s identical except for one digit, and if you’re attempting to squat in a dimly lit...
Intervention
I’m not sure why, but many of the same adults who take a perverse pleasure in shaking already insecure teenagers are the same adults who seek out- and get- high school coaching positions. They are whimsically unfair, knee-jerk belligerent, and unchallenged, wreak havoc on adolescent psyches while parents watch from the sidelines. Why doesn’t anyone stop them? My theory is as much as the superego...
Compliment? Insult? You Decide.
The other day, my daughter Eliza was in a store when a woman approached her.
“You know who you look like?” the woman asked. “That girl who has been all over the news. Amanda Knox. You know, the one who was in jail in Italy for murdering her roommate.”
Eliza and I agreed that is a textbook example of a situation in which the ambivalent “thank you…I think” works perfectly. At least, that’s how I...
Semantics
Yesterday morning, my daughter Eliza asked me about the origin of the word nostalgia. I told her I didn’t know the origin, but I’d always loved the reference to a wistful longing for the past.
Then came last night, which was the last time that we would all be together as a family in our house. Sitting around the dinner table, I told Eliza I was feeling nostalgic.
She told me that after...
If
This past Tuesday, my yoga teacher encouraged the class to try a challenging balancing posture by framing a simple question: What could you do if you weren’t afraid?
Her question stuck with me. I was still mulling it over the next day, when Steve Jobs died, and that’s when I knew.
What could you do if you weren’t afraid?
I would live a life that answers that question.
Along for the Ride
When Hannah was ten days old, Sam and I flew to Los Angeles so he could go on job interviews. We were staying in the Biltmore Hotel, which is a throwback to the days of gilt and marble. While Sam went on interviews, I went exploring with infant Hannah plastered to my chest in a front pack. I had never been happier.
The morning of the second day, I got onto the hotel elevator with two elderly...
Swift Aversion of Tragedy
Micah is taking the SATs this morning. He’s been studying hard for months with an SAT tutor and on his own, focused on getting the highest score possible. Before I went for my morning run, I came across him eating a pre-test stack of Hungry Jack pancakes in the kitchen. “I should be home before you go,” I said.
“Mmm,” he replied.
As I finished my run, I was surprised to see the car backing out of...
September 2011
10 posts
Watch Me Watch
I’ve been staying away from Micah’s soccer games because I’m a lousy spectator. I have to fight myself to suppress my annoyance when the team is down, and I have to fight even harder to not act smug when they’re winning. Having to work so hard to mask my obnoxiousness exacts a heavy emotional toll, but I decided I should suck it up and face my inner demons by going to a game. After all, it’s...
Onward
Back in 1994, the book group I call Book Group A (as opposed to Book Group B, started in 2003) met for the first time. There were ten original members, from a variety of towns, backgrounds, and points of view. One of us lasted one meeting, another, four months. The rest of us have been in it for the long haul, taking turns hosting monthly meetings to discuss books we’d read before the conversation...
Fun Thing, Apparently It Works
A friend of mine sent me an email the other day, with the subject line “fun thing, apparently it works, think what you want.” It sounded harmless, plus I hadn’t heard from this particular friend in a while, so I opened the email. It was of those Irish friendship blessings spouting sun on the windowpane and rainbows after the rain, blah, blah, etc. If I forwarded the email to one person, I could...
The Emmys
This week’s Emmys reminded me just how much I detest award shows. Everything about them is uncomfortable, from the tight garments that makes physical motion, including respiration and peristalsis, virtually impossible, to the acceptance speeches that almost invariably start with a breathless gush of faux incredulity culminating in a rapid-fire laundry list of producers, directors, agents,...
Found
I grew up in Hamden, a city in the middle of mid-southern Connecticut, in a middle-class neighborhood known as Spring Glen. Spring Glen is known for its modestly charming homes and tree-lined sidewalks. My mother grew up here, too. It’s the neighborhood Sam and I moved to when we came back from California. It is a neighborhood that inspires loyalty.
I felt a surge of Spring...
The Hole in the Conspiracy Theory
I am writing this from Sam’s computer.
The day after my last post, my six-month old computer quit working.
Initially, I was really annoyed, but my annoyance quickly turned to suspicion. My most recent post was critical of the U.S. government’s response to 9/11, and hours after the post went up, my computer went down. I began to think that maybe this wasn’t a coincidence.
It occurred to me that I’d...
The Distance Between Two Towers
For weeks after 9/11, the videotaped footage of the second plane flying into the South Tower insinuated itself into my dreams. I pondered hypotheticals I would have never imagined- with thirty seconds and a dying cell phone, how would I say goodbye? Or, Would I stay and burn, or jump?
For a brief time, that horrible day brought out the best in us. There were acts of incredible...
Archived
The Dog-Eared Paperback, Newly Endangered in an E Book Age. That what I saw on the front page of yesterday’s New York Times. It got me thinking about a presentation we’d heard at school the day before about the inevitable obsolescence of the conventional library. “There simply isn’t the need to use all this space to store physical books,” the speaker said. “It makes economic, practical, and...
Lame
Finding myself suddenly lame makes me feel, well, lame. Rather than bum luck, my bum ankle symbolizes my inability to maintain both my balance and the structural integrity of my skeletal system.
In short, this is somehow my fault.
It’s not like others are making me feel this way. In fact, I have been treated with nothing but compassion. It’s my own paranoia that informs me that somehow, between...
August 2011
13 posts
From the Sideline, Perspective is Everything
Yesterday, I went for my morning run, just like I do every day. Then I got home and drove to the house we bought to meet with the electrician. I was crossing the street, not doing anything fancy, and I felt my foot just kind of twist and give out. The next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the street.
I knew something unfortunate had happened because my ankle was throbbing, but honestly, walking and...
Wusses? Hardly.
For me, along with many others in the Northeast, the sun rises today on an unfamiliar landscape. The towering maple tree in front of our house, once rising vertically toward the sky, is now draped horizontally across the lawn. Our backyard is mangled stew of leaves, branches, and tree limbs.
Apparently people down south, in states frequented by hurricanes, are calling us wusses. They can’t believe...
Dog Park Reject
So, we did it. We’ve sold our house. Actually, we’ve sold our house, contingent upon the inspection, which happened yesterday. I think it went well, and it certainly took them long enough- four and a half hours of dragging Nelly the dog around in the Suburban was challenging for us, and for her. We finally stopped at the local dog park to let her run around .
This was the first time I’ve ever seen...
Keeping the Moderate in Moderation
Last night Sam and I went out for pizza and beer with friends. I had a grand total of two beers and three pieces of vegetarian pizza. I know, big whoop, so how come I woke up this morning feeling bloated and hung over? Going out for pizza and a couple of beers describes the stereotypical tame and casual social gathering. Why can’t my body handle even this, the mildest of...
Sheternally
When we got back from vacation, there was a message on the answering machine from our vet that Matty the cat’s ashes had come back from the Trail’s End Pet Crematory, and I could pick them up at my earliest convenience.
I should mention here that people often mistook Matty for a female. Maybe it was the soft pouch of loose skin on his belly or his love of snuggling. Whatever the reason, people...
So, Maybe I Do Have a Problem
While on vacation, I saw no reason not to watch my two favorite Monday night television shows- Hoarders, followed by Intervention. My kids left the room in disgust. Jake, in particular, told me the shows were so voyeuristic and horrible that he couldn’t believe I watched them.
“You always yelled at us for watching The Real World,” he said.
“The Real World is so contrived,” I said.
“And exploiting...
To Vacation and Back Again
All good things must come to an end, and vacations are no exception. This year I thought I had things more or less under control. We left the house in Nantucket in good shape, and the drive home was fine, except for the fact that my technically adult children have preemie-sized bladders, requiring emergency bathroom stops at forty-five minute intervals. The situation wasn’t helped by their...