Bookish Judgment

Long ago on a forgotten blog I wrote about an experience with the aphorism "Don't judge a book by its cover." I was in high school. There was a student teacher. She wasn't the picture of perfection. She was gangly with limbs that poked blindly out of her shapeless clothing. Her hair needed the gift of shape and a good anti-frizz treatment. And her mannerisms were more masculine than mine which, as I have come to find out through personal experience and thesis-related research, really isn't saying much at all. At all.

I was content to go through my life with those judgments radiating outward but one day after school, my friend Emily had a question for this teacher. As I was attached at Emily's hip--as a part of my enjoyment of the enlightening freedom of a driver's license I was probably waiting to give her a ride home--I became a participant observer of the conversation. What I learned took my breath away.

This woman had been to war, this woman had been through poverty, this woman was pregnant, this woman was still pursuing her dream despite it having been delayed by some ten odd years. Color me shocked. In this light she became not a testament to God's cruelty but a testament to perseverance and human dignity. Perhaps because I naturally tend towards shallowness or perhaps because I blogged about the experience thereby making it more significant, this is my first remembered experience involving me judging someone else. This woman wasn't someone to be derided but rather someone to cherish as a cultural example. How could I have been so wrong?

I fled home in a fit of universal inspiration and wrote my little heart out about the experience. Then I uploaded the file to my web space (this was pre-Xanga, Wordpress, Blogger, MySpace, or facebook). Then I probably got an after-school snack and watched a Martha Steward rerun (because there were signs) in the golden haze of universal coherence and self satisfaction.

When I checked back I had a rather nasty comment. As was the trend, this blog was hosted on someone's private domain and as such no longer exists. If it did I could be more specific but the jist of the comment was as follows: "This blog entry is nothing more than teenage bullshit. That saying has been around for hundreds of years. It's cliche. Find something else to write about. You're a loser. Your whole blog sucks."

I stopped blogging for a while after that. But more importantly I think I internalized that message about my writing and about the larger sphere of life. In some sense it is true: people want to read about things that are new and interesting. Musing on an adage isn't necessarily profound. But it is also false and here's why.

I have this whole gratitude blog happening and, despite my lapses in the original plan of daily blogging, the mode of thinking where I question "What are you grateful for today? What today has changed your outlook on your tomorrow?" has lodged into my mind. And today I found myself grateful for a piece of writing that, albeit inadvertently, prompted the old judging books by their covers moment.

I'm currently enjoying The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English by Roy Peter Clark. It's incredibly thought-provoking if you A) like writing, B) teach writing, or C) have any shred of interest in the language in which you communicate. Clark starts out chapter eighteen with "In my senior year in high school, 1966, I played the keyboard in a garage band called T.S. and the Eliots. We played at school dances and sock hops and dominated the school party scene along with our rivals the Aardvarks, led by my friend Joe Edmundson. Joe and I wound up in college together and joined forces to form Tuesday's Children, playing songs form the Beatles, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, and our favorites, the Rascals" (89).*

Upon reading this, my brain immediately conjured images from a former student's presentation about the value of music in school. There he was. Shirtless, making the singing face, rooted in front of a microphone...in someone's garage. In the context of a student presentation it makes sense. Young, big dreams. But that image of a young didn't fit so congruently with Mr. Roy Peter Clark. I thought to myself Wait a minute. This guy is writing a book about grammar. About the glamour of grammar. No way did he ever play guitar shirtless in someone's garage.

Then I looked at the author's picture on the back flap. There, behind the receding hairline and the scholarly, professor glasses, is the hint of a smirk and twinkle of eye that would fit perfectly behind the frame of a guitar and mic. Despite my respect for his book, I had prejudged this man. Pigeonholed him behind his professor desk. Limited the value of his experience to the realm of "only" rather than "and."

And there it was. Again. That silly, stupid message about book judging and its consequences. So I guess the point is even if they adages are worn and make you think "well, duh" that doesn't mean they aren't true. Doesn't mean we don't need reminded of them every once in a while.

And the larger message for this blog is an affirming one for me and for my goals as a writer: writing is the perfect medium for exploring these "well, duh" moments. For translating lightning-quick flashes of realization into gratitude-worthy, applicable moments that really can be applied to tomorrow. And today. And yesterday.

So today I'm thankful for grammar books, for Roy Peter Clark, for author photographs, old blogs, new blogs, and jerk-face commentators who, even nine years later, inspire us to speak out about our world.

*© Roy Peter Clark--no copyright infringement intended.

What Happened to Your Blog or In Search of Home

I took a break from blogging. I was gone for four days. It all started when I went to the Central States Communication Association convention in Milwaukee. I didn't blog there because I felt that blogging would keep me from actually experiencing what was going on around me.

Ever since my mom died I've struggled with a few things--the obvious ones are fear of death, fear of anything ending, also fear of missing out. A not-so-obvious struggle has stemmed from the last of these three: I struggle with the desire and ability to not document the world around me. I'm petrified that if I blink, I will miss out on something. Some person, some picture, a song, a moment with friends, a time and a place to explore the world on a different level. And worse than any of these fears is the fear that I won't remember the thing I haven't missed out on. Every once in a while I find myself in a "documentation craze" where I realize that I'm spending more time attempting to remember events than actually living them.

I think that's probably what happened while I was at the convention. I didn't want to miss out on something in a misguided attempt to document it.

Iowa State scholars presenting scholarly things.

You see, the conference was more than just a conference to me. I realized during the first presentation I attended--a technology panel of my Iowa State people--that the convention's theme of "Home" was apropos. In no small way, I was traveling to a foreign city so I could reunite with my first professional family; with my professional, academic "home makers".

And so we attended sessions and listened to presentations and networked, we fell off our diets and ordered room service and closed down the hotel bar, we reunited and supported and fertilized friendships in preparation for yet another drought. And it was wonderful.

...

But at the same time my sudden absence from the one writing project to save me from my depression / anger / fear has to be larger than wanting to fully live a weekend at an academic conference. It is also about a larger search for home.

I decided to undertake this blog project, to write daily about a search for a new perspective, to consciously put my work out "there" on a different level because I don't feel like I have a true home.

Academia, as much as I love it, isn't incredibly welcoming at the moment and, in some ways because of this, I don't feel truly rooted or grounded in Rockford. Adjuncting is the academic equivalent of itinerant labor. Its debatable, for example, how smart it is to put down roots when you are applying for jobs on both coasts and everywhere in-between.

And it must be said that this blog probably represents yet another project in a string of documentation crazes. An attempt to find an emotional footing in life by documenting, cataloging and storing every moment.

And so today I'm grateful for the friends who meet me at conferences and for the friends who remind me to get back to it when the conference is over. Life keeps plodding on.

Pointless Television

I don't know if I've been overloading myself but I felt relaxed today in a way that I haven't felt in a very long time. And it all happened because I was watching pointless television while dozing on the couch this morning.

When I was a kid I used to spend days watching the History Channel (back when it actually had shows about history) or Turner Classic Movies. I would grab my pencil, ruler, and latest drawing project and sprawl out across the living room floor. Once properly positioned, I would spend hours drifting between the fantasy world in the movies on the screen and the fantasy world on the page in front of me.

This morning my cold this still giving me trouble so I thought I should get extra rest. I turned on History Channel International (which, for some reason, still runs actual historical documentaries--like the Samurai program I watched this morning) and promptly took a nap. Even though I only had an hour and even though I had to quickly get up and scurry on to campus to tutor and teach, it was completely and utterly peaceful.

It was a tiny thing but it helped me reconnect, even if only for a brief second, with the person I used to be, absorbing the stories on the screen, unconcerned with grading and lesson plans and laundry and unwritten conference presentations and bills and summer jobs.

I hope to spend some more time like that very soon.

Creative People

Earlier today, thanks to the miracles of facebook news feed, I saw that a friend's song is now available for purchase on iTunes. I've been trying to shove this music down people's throats for months now, so I was excited to finally have a convenient way to add it to my iPod's mix (the easier to commute by).

Then I thought to myself, How perfect! I'm grateful for Erika Fatale (Rodger) and for all the creative people I know who have the guts to go out and really make it work Then I thought to myself, wait a minute--I already wrote that blog entry about Jack Roberts and The Study Band. And I could write it about Jared Bartman. And probably countless others.

In my head, it was set. I would write about creative people and link the blog back to my old blog. Simple.

It wasn't until I just went back and looked that I realized that I wrote that other blog entry almost a year ago today. Maybe there's something about this time of year that makes me yearn for something more creative. I can tell you that I wrote the original "creative people" surrounded by ungraded speeches with the threat of a thesis hanging over my head. I'm writing this entry surrounded by ungraded papers and the threat of unfinished laundry and an unwritten conference presentation. The situations certainly sound similar but I think what is really happening is I'm yearning for a world of different possibilities. And I think it's a world where "the dream" isn't dead. Where having a crazy dream doesn't mean you are crazy but that you have integrity of thought, mind, and action.

People like Jack and Erika remind me (once a year, apparently) that dreams are still floating around out there. All you have to do is grab one and hold on (and then work your ass off).

But that's why I started this blog, so that I would write every day. Day ten and still kicking. So thanks for reading.

Home Remedies

I'm sick. Not death throws sick or terminal illness sick. (Not even mental illness sick, although I have a few friends and at least one former roommate who will argue otherwise.) I have a cold. An ordinary, chest-heaving, throat-throbbing, Niagara nose cold. But I feel awful.

It's karma really. When I was home visiting my sister, she started to feel sick. Then she actually became sick. And I made fun of her. "Jesus, Rose. Go blow your nose." "Hey, Snuffaluffagus." "You aren't a very good sick person, are you?"

So I'm feeling feverish but I can't find my thermometer, my throat feels like an unrefined Brillo pad, and earlier today at the end of my second class I felt all dizzy and fainty like Scarlet O'Hara in bloomers on one of her couches (minus the seventeen-inch waist, obviously).

Anyway, tonight I'm thankful for my sense of humor (even if I'm the only one laughing and I'm doing it through night sweats) and Martha Stewart's home remedies. Including, but not limited to, homemade ginger tea with Wisconsin honey. Because it makes a throat feel good.

My World, More Complexly

Thanks to the observer effect, the act of writing this blog has changed the way I go through my days. In the short time I've been writing, I've developed a litany of things I'm grateful for--the interesting ones I try to write about in interesting ways, the commonplace (oxygen, electricity, television, books, all things that sentimental Hallmark cards are made of) I quietly note, smile, and then move on. But I am always questioning in the back of my mind. What am I truly grateful for today? In reality, the way the question is processed from initial utterance to organized, pixelated response changes it into something more like this: What have I experienced today that has changed the way I will think about tomorrow?

After a visit to the car wash today, I was all prepped and ready to write about car washes and the funnily-colored foam that they use--giving thanks for tiny bright points in your day and all that jazz. I snapped a picture of blue, yellow and purple foam, made a mental note, and then went on with my day. It wasn't until later, when I found myself listening to NPR's This American Life, that I changed my evening's writing agenda. I've long been grateful for the program but, with this writing project stalking about in the back of my head, I found myself listening on a deeper level.

For those of you who have never tuned in to the program (or listened to it through iTunes podcasts or the iPhone / Android apps), each week Ira Glass guides us through one theme and several acts or stories that relate to that theme. The concept of tough love, for example, is examined through the lens of a Georgia drug court and a particularly harsh judge. The concept of lost and found is examined through a lengthy narrative of a gang of kids exploring an abandoned house. The financial collapse is looked at through the state of housing rentals in Chicago. I've been actively listening for years, first during my lunch breaks at the Jacksonville Public Library. Sometimes the stories converge, sometimes they diverge. But there's always a theme, and there are always stories of real people, real events.

Today, while driving from my childhood home to my new home, I listened to "Will They Know Me Back Home?" which examines deployment syndrome and the various ways it hits people serving in the Iraq war--both to American troops and Iraqi interpreters hired by the military. During the course of the show I met people who were afraid to come home, people who were afraid to welcome troops home, and people who found homes--and their true selves--while serving in unexpected ways. While I was listening to these very contextual stories I found the basic theme of the show blossoming and flowering into other areas. Is this what that guy was talking about when he mentioned returning from extended stays in Germany? Did I change during my time in Paris? Am I changing now? Changing from what? What is identity, anyway?

...

In class last semester, we were reading a series of three articles that all used data from a scientific study that attempted to determine if women really did talk more than men. The articles all came to different conclusions which prompted discussions not only about gender constructs but also about the construction and perpetuation of cultural myths. I thought it was fascinating and was taken aback when a student asked "Who are these people? Who researches this? Don't they have anything better to do with their time?"

This incident reminds me of This American Life because the show gets made fun of for looking too closely at ordinary people / events. And it does look closely. It zooms in to the gritty details of being human, of drawing breath, of interacting with people. And it does so by detailing events and perspectives on those events that we might not get otherwise. Those events and perspectives might seem small, but they are displayed as the heart of concepts and those concepts have far-reaching implications. How else would I, a civilian enjoying the creature comforts of capitalist America, move from stories of shit ditches in Iraq to broad theoretical concepts of identity in one hour-long radio show?

This American Life proves that there is value in looking closely at things because, as it turns out, some of the smallest details have a huge impact on how we go about living our lives. And that is far more valuable than many people acknowledge. It's also why I am grateful for This American Life.

Foamy Vomit

When this little girl came home from the pet store, she was nervous and threw up all over my Sunday church clothes. I'm pretty sure it was foamy vomit. White.  And I'm positive she gave me "I'm sorry" puppy-dog eyes as soon as she was finished. Now, fourteen years later, she's deaf and has a few inoperable tumors, but she still has the same amount of pep she did that morning after I forgave her for the vomit foamy vomit incident and played fetch with her.

It's a short blog today because, after spending hours bent over a stack of papers and then even more hours bent over job applications, I'm exhausted. I've popped in a movie, devoured most of a pizza, and just opened a beer. It's a personal night.

But on the way back to the car after picking up that movie, this cute little dog was sitting on the center console between the front seats with her ears perked up, watching my every move at the redbox. When I got in the car she gave me a quick nuzzle before she settled into her passenger-in-the-car position: perched at the edge of the seat, nose resting against and spasmodically sniffing the air vent.

She's my partner in crime, the foamy vomit dog.

Campground, Campground Burning Bright

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology and some misguided financial planning, I made alot of international calls while I was living in Paris. I remember one call very clearly. I had just come up from the La Fourche Metro stop and was making my way toward my house on rue Nollet. I hadn't eaten lunch and was trying to decide between French McDonalds and a street vendor's panini when my sister called my cell phone. She asked me how my day was going while I wondered why she was calling me from the other side of the Atlantic. There was also a strange hint of excitement in her voice.

Then it dropped. She was excited because she had decided, along with my dad, to buy a camper.

"To do what?" I asked.

"Why, to camp! We are going to become campers."

Campers, I thought. People who camp.

It took a minute to sink in, and as it did I pondered the chic wardrobes of the Parisians charging down the streets on their way, I was sure, to smoke French cigarettes and drink champagne at a dainty bar. I pondered the Metro, thanks to which I could glide from one cultural landmark of the western world to another. I pondered the elegant hierarchy of the Napoleonic, Haussmannesque architecture so typical inside the walls of the Péripherique highway. I also pondered my own identity, a shape that I had carefully crafted based on my new, modern, trendy, culturally-aware Parisian life. And here was my sister. Describing in excruciating detail my family's retreat into what I was sure would be the banjo-playing, camping countryside.

I was horrified.

A month or two later I was back in the United States and one of my first dear-God-please-save-me-from-jetlag activities was going with my sister and dad to officially pick up the camper. It was a tiny pop-up, the kind that is only three feet tall until you crank it to human-height. It didn't make me feel any better.

...

But now, two years later, my attitude has changed, the camper has been upgraded, and I planned my trip home based partly on the first weekend of camping season. Those of you who know me well are checking the URL of this blog, trying to figure out if it is some bizarre web-hacking trick, if it is really me writing. It is. Camping might not be my preferred way to pass the time but it certainly is a welcome weekend adventure three or four times a year when the world gets me down and I want a night of open skies, warm fires, and genuine people.

Right now it's just over fifty degrees. The clouds are gone, the stars are out, and the conversation is going. I'm typing this at the picnic table, fifteen feet from the fire, just beyond it's warming glow. But when I finish this sentence, grab my beer, and rejoin the fireside crowd, I'll be very, very thankful for that fire. And for the people surrounding it. (And that my family invested in a camper.)