The following outpouring brought on by watching Emily dance unreservedly to Clementine by Pink Martini. If I ever get my video rendering capabilities up to snuff I’ll post a link here. Just trust me-it is 7 year old interpretive dance at its best. You know-remember how YOU felt being seven and dancing, just dancing. No judgment, just dancing. Ahhh. It was gorgeous.

I’ve always been overly affected by music. I won’t tell you what my first listening of the eponymous Psychedelic Furs did to the next several years of my life way back when or why the Dead Kennedys caused me to shave my head when everyone knew that girls were supposed to be pretty not angry. But it didn’t stop way back when. I just can’t help being beaten or seduced by music. Have you ever had a song hit you unexpectedly? A song in a style you maybe you don’t normally listen to? Or from an unexpected source? One that grabs your guts, give you shivers and just stuns you? This has happened to me several times lately.

One was, of all things a song by Everlast from a TV show–the theme to saving grace. Yes I like the show and character (a lot actually, I fancy myself having a bit of her type of personality in me) but those of you who know me know this ain’t my usual kind of music–I’m more of a Dead Can Dance, Abney Park, gothy techno girl).

I also have a complicated relationship with the themes of that song…my spirituality is in flux and my understanding of the divine is now interspersed with moments of earth shattering congruence (When all of a person`s internal beliefs, strategies, and behaviours are fully in agreement and oriented toward securing a desired outcome–basically when everything is exactly as it should be ) which are leading me to places of thought and belief I’ve not been before).

But for some reason this song just tears me up. It makes me shiver, it nearly makes me cry, it certainly makes me feel fierce. Yes really. All that. What don’t you have those sorts of reactions to music?

Another bit of music that hit me hard came when I was student teaching in Sharla’s class. She played Explosions in the Sky to help the kids during writing time. I’d never heard them before. It think they are on a tv show someone said, but I’d never heard of them. (Confession: I go through spates of watching a lot of TV. I have it on authority (notice I didn’t say good) that I’m supposed to feel badly about that; however I read an obscene amount so I don’t. And I spent about 8 years without a TV so I’ve got the cred already). Anyway, I now have three of their CDs and I’m looking into the instrumental post rock genre now. Do what?

I’ll forever associate this music with this …do I say attempt? Do I say deviation? I don’t feel as if I failed when I left the M.A.T. program, though this is hard won. I feel …well all who wander are not lost, you know? I wanted that, it was a dream I’d had since I was a kid, but I found the dream and reality didn’t mesh. I found I really wanted something different and I’m lucky enough that I’ve got that now. But back to the music. Explosions in the Sky will always mean meeting a new and amazing friend, someone I feel touched my soul almost immediately, someone who replaced a darker, earlier incidence of a similar meeting. EitS also soars and crashes as I did during that 5 months. I learned so much, in some ways more than I wanted to. I wish I could have kept the idealism but …I can’t. I’ve seen too much in my life. Explosions in the sky is all of that.

I made a video (actually several) during my time in the teaching program. It is almost painful for me to watch now. I was angry by that point. ONE girl,worked with me on it,the other did almost nothing. I did all the video work and if you know about how much goes into something like this you KNOW…well I just can’t do less than my best. The time I let that happen in classroom management class…EW…that’s another story and another part of the reason I left the program. You know it actually IS important to do your best;. Yes I like doing stuff like this but it only works easily if you do WHAT I ASK YOU TO DO –Yo, respect your compatriots right?

I wish I hadn’t quit, but only because I hate to quit, hate to give up– not because it was the wrong decision, it’s just that I hate quitting. But– I guess when you spend a week in the fetal position, crying and sick, that’s telling you something. I will applaud in awe of those who finish and go on…it ain’t for me–you know how much I’ve always chafed against “the system.” And I can support people working creatively within the system I just can’t be the one…”kicking against the pricks.” (Nick Cave) Something I’ve learned often and again now–I do better liminally. Jyllian exists just to the side of most things. I am happiest that way. Anyway–this music will always be this highs and lows, the sorrows and triumphs of reaching for that dream, holding it and putting it(not so) gently away. At least I know that when I am on my deathbed, I will not have that as regret. I would have before.

Finally The Penguin Cafe Orchestra. J and I watched a movie that I despise–Napoleon Dynamite (I find it mean spirited, not funny) but there was a song in it that I had to find. It was Song for a Found Harmonium by PCO. To say it changed me is an understatement. I began finishing my mid life crisis because of this music. Some of ya’ll might know I started off as a kid with a classical music fixation–even years later when I worked for KUAF I did CLASSICS BY REQUEST, not because I got paid (that helped) but I love(d) classical music. Honestly I like most music…I think I’ve even found some country and some western. I like expressions of feeling with instruments—words or not. So when I started looking for the next thing… I ran across this song after hating this movie (late to seeing it). Because with a kid–we don’t’ see movies most times (until recently) until they’ve been out of the theatres for about a year or more.

ANYway…I spent my first year in Fayetteville going through (the trauma) of moving home. Moving back after 20 years is good, but not without challenges. There’s more of that in another entry. But after that first year I had 2 deaths, and three miscarriages in er..my first 3 years back in the land I grew up in. Oh yeah and major surgery (and I’ll never ever get over certain good folk who brought us food, mowed our lawn..god no adequate words for those kindnesses). And I got back one of my two best friends (the other died when she was 24 and me 26) and then she left a couple of years later. Wow I just saw that written down and um yeah…so no wonder I’ve been a bit looney. Ok…This music IS me coming to terms with past, present and future. There’s classical and punk in Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Just like me. Comic books AND Candide. Sex pistols and Stravinsky. Emily Dickinson and eXene Cervenka. yep.

So this turned into something much bigger than I intended. I just wanted to know what music grabbed you by the guttiwuts recently. So do please respond. I’m always taking in new music.

Saving Grace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxu21fYnKMw

Explosions in the sky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosions_in_the_Sky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jotDBl1vilg

Penguin Café Orchestra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJg1NNyke2E
another song that makes me feel like I”m a kid running down a hill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvbCV6E0Wro

http://www.penguincafe.com/

Ah where have I been? I have been enjoying the hell out of the swine flu. I’ve had fever and barfing and all sorts of horrible other things for the past almost week. I’m still so fatigued I can barely move.

We’re so behind on Xmess I don’t know how we’ll catch up.

The very good thing and if I had even an ounce more energy I’d go on and on about it, is I have a new job. Start in January. I’ll say more when I sign the papers, just superstitious that way. It’s exciting, what I want to be doing and exactly what I have the ability and passion to do. It took awhile to come back to this line of work–until I figured out it was working for salesman that was the problem.

Sigh. I want to write more but I’m exhausted and have to figure out how to catch up on Xmess.

deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renenwed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.” J.R.R. Tolkien

I can’t get out of the habit of reading YA fiction even though I’m not planning on getting that teaching cedrtificate any time soon. Heh, maybe private school.

I do enjoy YA fiction. I just finished Skinned by Robin Wasserman. I would like very much to pick up the next one (www.robinwasserman.com/ ) It carries the same type of theme as Generation Dead (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Dead) and Peeps by my favorite YA author Scot Westerfeld–thattheme of prejudice and judgement–of being separate through no fault of your own.

I’m finishing up City of Bones (http://www.mortalinstruments.com/ ) by Cassandra Clare. I’d like to read the next one of those as well.

There is just*so* much more for kids to read now. I don’t know if it is better (I still remember Anne McCaffrey with great happiness) but there is more.

Have some hopeful job leads. Have a lapful of cats. Have a couple of good girlfriends who have gently smacked me about remaining in the sad zone. I also have had lots of cuddle time with my bean and J and I have had more conversations in the last two weeks than we could have in the previous 5 months. Things are getting better. I’m speeding up my knowledge of office 2007 (I have 2003 cold) and adobe premiere elements and photoshop 8. I’m going to check into learning a few more apps while I have the time. I should look into another programming language too….

Ok universe, let’s have the next thing!

Sad, all the work I put into the M.A.T. program. It is good to have this though. I did this before all the yuck started.
You know what’s funny? I started doing nablopomo this year, and said offhandedly…”I just want to see how many times I want to quit.” Huh.

Bean and I had a wonderful nap together with small Babbage today. It’s been awhile since she’s taken any kind of nap during the day–we always did that together. It was lovely to snuggle up on the couch and smell her cookie smell and just love my little girl.

I was up all night keeping the kitty from licking his newly lost possibilities. Have you ever tried to keep a boycat from paying attention to his harbls? Not an easy thing.

I don’t know what I can say. I am not sure I’m ready to host Fangsgiving this year. I’m just wrung out from being so sure I would be doing one thing this time next year and now it will be something very different.

I am trying to tell myself that what happens will be the right thing. I need to trust the universe and be open to all the possibilities.

And on a completely silly note…I love Tim Gunn with a disturbing passion–think Irina is easily one of the most annoying designers they’ve had on Project Runway and wish Christopher would QUIT CRYING!

I’m still tired.

I’m going to start with the happy first. I don’t want to start with the sad or I’ll write two lines and stop.

It’s been too long since I’ve been here! I’ve been writing in my private journal and writing papers. Lots of papers. I haven’t written papers, well since last semester, but honestly since 1994 when I finished my thesis! And I get to do that again. I think I must be mad, barking mad.

So yes, did I mention I’m back in graduate school? Apparently one master’s degree wasn’t enough. I’ve finished one semester, I have 2 more to go. It’s an accelerated program, you get your degree and lose your mind faster than you would normally. I am really enjoying it, it’s fantastic to be in school, as hard as it is to be graded again I love having my mind moving around a different track–one that is familiar enough but still novel. Grades so far are good too and my praxis score was excellent. I still have to take the essay portion and pedagogy. Strangely I’m more worried about the former than the latter. I have to start re-reading a lot of books.

I’ve got my first rotation assignment too and I couldn’t be more pleased. I really love writing (as a few of you know who have been around since I started the first incarnation of this blog in in 1998) and I get to be a part of a writing workshop classroom. My mentor is beyond cool. Yes I should probably upgrade my vocabulary and start sounding more like the adult I am, but I feel giddy, about like I’m 25 again. I’m just excited about what I’m going to learn and strangely about how difficult it is going to be. It’s grand to be challenged again. I don’t look forward to falling on my face, as I know I will, but do anticipate victories minor and major.

It is odd being back in my old junior high. I’ve been gone from Fayetteville for so long and back only a little while really and to find ghosts still around a corner here and there is surprising, a little sad and strangely soothing. The ghosts mean I did exist here and the fact that they are so dim, so very easy to see through, barely wisps means that the hurt of that time has faded. The fear and insecurity and yes even memories of the cruelty of those years is a memory now and one that doesn’t hurt to touch. I can take it out and examine it, not quite as a treasure from a long ago buried time capsule, but nearly so, nearly so.

Bean has gone to camp this summer and the difference is that she’s had to. Mommy is no longer around 24/7 but has other obligations now. This of all things, including facing those teenage ghosts, has been the hardest thing of all. Not starting back into school so many years after getting my masters, not trying on a new career path, not even making myself more extroverted. The hardest thing has been not being able to drop everything and run off on an adventure with Bean. When she was bullied by some horrid nine year olds (and the language! was! apalling!) for a time this summer (yes we dealt with that swift and sure–what happened to me WILL NOT happen to her) my guilt knew no bounds. When she jumped on me and said “mommy I need some quality and quanitity time right now,” I laughed and felt a bit sad. She’s adapted very very well. She’s a social biscuit, much moreso than her father or I am, but it is hard to let go of the days of being everything to her. I want to slow time so much but each day brings something remarkable from her so I don’t pull out my wand and make the world stop spinning.

There’s more coming I hope more frequently. I want to keep a better journal of this aventure so that when I really am a grown up and have my own classroom I can remember the road that got me there.

And here’s a picture from the middle of the last semester. My hair needs help, big help in this Arkansas humidity. Of course Haru’s fur is flawless.

~T.S. Eliot from The Wasteland

Again and still it is hard to find the desire to say the things I used to say here without much effort. I have always written easily and frequently, until about December of last year. A horrid thing happened and simultaneously my desire to write about anything going on mostly left. I keep coming back to it because it was such an apalling situation , unfathomable, vicious and bizarre–like a bomb going off in our family psyche. The situation has not resolved itself, it probably can’t. It sure did change a lot of things.

Other things are changing though. Big changes.

I’ve had a very intense health scare. Don’t know what we can do about it either.

I started back at the gym. Up to 1. 5 hours 4 or 5 times a week. It’s been about 2 months now. It’s helping my auto immune issues, some of them. It’s helping my energy issues. My body looks better and I’m stronger. J is going to start going with me, but meantime he keeps breaking boards and getting new belts. And becoming such a part of the community here. We’re both learning to not hang back so much, to join more.

Yes we have volunteered for the Obama campaign. Our choice from the beginning. I don’t talk about politics much on here, but it has a big part in my life, always has since I worked on my first mock campaign for Jimmy Carter and worked on John Anderson’s real campaign even though I was too young to vote. I may write more about the issues of this campaign her, depends on if I can not just implode at the insanity of some of the right’s attacks.

The Bean’s grandfather is in hospice care now. It’s been getting steadily worse since June. I’m very sorry for his prolonged pain. For my mother’s prolonged pain. For his children’s. It goes on and on. J has been so incredibly kind in his visits to Carl. We haven’t taken the Bean up to the various hospitals because it’s been scary. We’ll all be going up this weekend, and then once a week at least.

The Bean has started first grade. It’s very exciting. It’s also shocking we have a first grader. She’s growing and changing so fast. She had some great camps this summer –drama, soccer, swimming, musical theatre. She makes friends so easily and is so confident. I had a couple of counselors stop me, one in particular and tell me how polite but also how very kind she is. That he hadn’t met a kid so very sweet like her before. I am so proud of her. We are so proud of her and so lucky to have such an amazing bean. a

And I’ve started school. Orignially I enrolled in an intro level class in Education. After talking to an advisor I guess I’m fast tracked. I’ve got 2 pre requisited to get under my belt, a portfolio, a test and by this summer, hopefully, I’ll be in the Master of Arts in Teaching program. And by the next summer, well I’ll have my initial license. Then a bit after that…an ESL endorsement as well. It’s a lot harder to go back to school now, with a family, as an older student and so long out of school. I almost didn’t do it, but J kept pushing me to try for this dream I had back in high school. Yes I always wanted to be a high school English teacher. I wish I’[d done it then, but maybe just maybe I’ll be able to do it now. And if it turns out not to be the thing? At least I will have tried. I know from recent events–it isn’t what you do so much that you regret, it is what you leave undone. And finally that MA in English will get some use. I hope.

Hope things get better, hope things get more connected, hope for the future, hope for ease, hope that perches in your soul.

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(the quote’s from Deadwood, only one of the most beautifully written (and yes I mean that) works on television in recent memory. )

Well, let’s see..I’ve passed the first set of tests. I had to delay taking them since I was on jury duty and couldn’t get excused. Jury duty from January until March. I was called 8! EIGHT! times. Each time requires figuring out bean wrangling, scheduling with James and being unable to schedule the test. Or study for it as effectively. So I finally finished jury duty and schedule the tests for April 7th, 14 and moved the one from April 26th (that’s too much–it’s almost 5 hours long) also The Bean’s birthday to June 14th (still in deadline).

And I got my fingerprints (that was hilarious–go to the UofA police, get in line, they ask for a fingerprint card…of course they don’t HAVE THEM THERE! Go to school admin office, oops that’s the school admin office ANNEX, so go to main school system office. Walk in wrong door, get sent to yet another building then further back. Stand at a desk panting (because you must get your fingerprints between 1:30 and 3:30 only on Tuesdays and Thursdays) wait, wait…walk to back after awhile. Interupt important lady who looks unhappy about it, get card, be flustered, say something dumb, leave with card. Go back, meter is still open, get in long line and *just* make the window of opportunity in between a huge group of law students who are…wait for it…talking about making money). And I sent it off to the state police (I can’t have a record for all those war protests can I?) notarized first of course. And put together my packet, with all my trannscripts and mail it all off.

But then…cue ominous music. They changed the website. And now if you take the test in June you are too late to get in the Non Traditional Licensure program. And so learning high school and a bit of college math in two months and these tests and all that wild fingerprint cavorting was all in vain yes?

Maybe not. I applied to graduate school. A year program for the Master of Arts in Teaching. The costs are comparable. I know I have the grades and scores to get in and I’ve already got *one* master’s degree so that should show I’m a good risk perhaps? We’ll see. They might be out of room (it’s a popular program and I’m a bit late to the party this year). I’m also working with one or maybe two technical recruiters to see if I can find a technical /office manager position for a non profit or other white knight type of job. I really want something that contributes to the community and something I’ll feel passionate about. If this were San Francisco I’d throw myself at the SPCA with the full force and fervor of an um..cat in heat. I still wish the humane society here had needed someone, but that was another bump, it’s too bad that one didn’t work out. I’ve always wanted to teach. I enjoyed teaching so much during grad school. Even doing corporate training. I wonder if I could teach in a community college or if I’ve been out of the game too long. Or in continuing ed?

And I’m going to sign up to substitute next year. Hopefully both at the high school and elementary level.

So I’ve thrown several things at the wall (and there’s one more I’m not mentioning here) and we’ll see what sticks. Any of these things would be good for me and for the family. Was I disapointed to miss the cutoff time for the NTLP? Yes, yes I was. I have read and been told by several folks that around here they hire from the NTLP last. The M.A.T. is preferred,. so blessing in disguise? That remains to be seen, but I can’t help but feel that now that I’m trying all these things something interesting is about to happen.