New meaning to the word "Google"

The Banned Word List

Back by popular demand, and frankly necessity, is the banned word list. This is an evolving list of words that are used either too often or in the wrong context by the dope at work or the show-off in one of your classes. Here are the entries for today:
1." Perhaps" -- Example: "Perhaps Austen was trying to critique the upper-class by making her heroine a member of the working class." "Perhaps Nabokov was just showing off his liguistic skills."

2. "Thusly" I got this word second hand, but from a reliable source. I cannot imagine the context in which this clown used the word "thusly."

You are encouraged to add words to the list. You don't have to include examples; sometimes just the word is enough to make you roll your eyes.

Right now

Although some of you have some serious reservations about my lovely little french professor, Right now, I am listening him speak the most beautiful french (in his god-awful sweater) to his class while they laugh and enjoy his sense of humor. I understand your horror at the vest, I too admit it tempered my attraction to him, but like the guy who speaks with a British accent in Brandi's class, some men have attractions in other areas.

Update

Just a quick note to let you know what is going on with me this week, or at least today. It is official: I am officially in love with the French professor. Although he could possibly be gay, I am beginning to seriously doubt it.
However, if the thing with the French professor does not work out, then I have another target in my Contemporary lit. class.
On another note, someone hurt my sweet friend's feelings and it makes me mad. Just so she knows, she is perfect and it was not her fault.

New Beginnings

I have a movie recommendation for you. It is The Constant Gardener with Ralph Fiennes and a beautiful Rachel Weitz. It is a spy movie, but more than that, it is a love story on many different levels. There is the love of a man and his wife, but also, there is the love story of one human to another. People unknown, but still loved. I wanted to rush out to Africa after watching this film and help those that are so helpless, but I started to think about the many children that are in need here. I am so unsure of my future in teaching, but I think back to my first days of college when I was an early childhood education major. It is easy to lose sight of what you want to do in life, but you have to look back and ask yourself, "What have I been consistent in wanting to accomplish?" When I ask myself that question, it is always the same answer, I want to help the kid who has no hope. I want to mean something to someone with nothing. I have no desire to teach the prep school brat who has everything, but sees no responsibility to the world around them. Noblesse oblige exists for few today anyway. Maybe it is for my own selfish reasons. I fear leaving nothing behind that says I was here, or knowing I will not be missed. The other day I was listening to Dr. Laura, who I hate for her lack of compassion but admire for her common sense, and she told a man something that made me gasp in horror. She said "Right now, I bet there is not a single person in the world that would care if you were dead and gone because you have lived your life for anger." I cried in the parking lot of Target while I thought about how it must have felt to hear those words. Of course, it is probably not true, but imagine if it was. The sad reality is that there are people in this world that are seen as "disposable." After watching The Constant Gardener, I was renewed in my sense of wanting to actually do something valuable in this world. I want to put aside my qualms about teaching and just dive in and do it. Forgive me for rambling.

Things to do:

Many of you know that I have a morbid fear of death. I guess it is the unknown that frightens me so much, but I am also afraid that I will fail to do many of the things I want to accomplish in my life. Here is a list, in no particular order, of what I am afraid I will miss out on:

1. I want to go to Paris, England, Africa, Egypt and Ireland before I am too old to enjoy it.
2. I want to be a photojournalist and be dropped into a volcano to take pictures for National Geographic.
3. I want to be able to run a marathon.
4. I want to see Elton John in concert.
5. Read Moby Dick
6. Kiss my grandchildren (many, many years from now)
7. Vote for Malinda to be president
8. Read a novel written by Brandi Kincaid
9. Hold Kirsten's babies (and not kittens)
10. Watch my children graduate from college and marry the love of their life (preferably before #6)
11. Fly to Chile for the wedding of Christy and Gerado where I will meet some handsome Argentian man and we will be the godparents to Christy and Gerado's 8 children. ok, so maybe that is excessive, both the 8 kids and the man, but I hope Christy will be very happy either way.
What do you most want to do in life? Give me your wildest dream.

Oh well

Since my life has been pretty routine of late, I thought I would just update you on the small things that have happened.
1. My hair is now brown. Close really to its original color. No big whoop.
2. I bought a new blender.
3. Bought two new books: One is Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir by Lauren Slater and Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. Don't know when I will read them.
4. Watched all of the episodes of CSI that I missed the past two weeks.
5. Found out that a dear friend was not dead, merely busy.
6. Bought a new notebook to keep as a food journal so I will keep up with my food choices.
7. Talked several times to a boy toy from the past that I love to fantasize about running away with (I never can forget the ones that treat me bad).
8. Contemplated going to Loco's and participating in a game of trivia. Sean, you have provoked my interest.

I really hope to have better things to say next week. I may stop taking the Slutcillin; it is working to well.

Happy Birthday MLK! It would be nice to have you around today.

Changes

Today I am going to go from a partial blonde to a warm brown. I have been frightened by the appearance of four grey hairs, counted to precision by Trey, standing up prominently in the middle of my part. Those grey hairs are witness to what I want to deny: I am getting old, and being old in America is not a good position to be in. I was sickened when I saw a club at Armstrong named "Help, I have an old person in my class!" I thought of beautiful Ms. Judy. How could anyone be angry at her for taking the later years of her life and finding something she enjoys and doing it? We should all be so courageous. Sean says our blogs are depressing, and I guess they can be, but as I thought about it, I don't feel sorry for Ms. Judy, I feel sorry for the people that dismiss her as irrelevant. Who could be more relevant?

Hatred Is . . .

Brandi does this really cute thing where she says "Happiness Is . . ." and then she lists a really nice moment where someone or something made her happy. I am going to go negative here and talk about things that make me sad and annoyed and, almost, violent.

First on my list is the girl at the gym that has a great body and wears skimpy outfits. You know the girl that walks to the middle of the cardio room and does her stretching and push-up's using the treadmill or stair stepper as a prop. She always picks the machine in front of a guy, who sits and watches, just as she wants him too. I just hate her.

Next is the student that does not know what class they are taking, who their instructor is, or where the room is located. They expect you to know their schedule and cannot follow directions to the LLP office. They just annoy me.

Where To Begin

I really don't know where to begin this post, but I knew I had to write something. Last night, when I went to sleep, it was with a light heart. Reese and I had been watching the news all night and praying for the 12 miners that were still trapped 260 feet under the ground. Like Brandi, we could not imagine how frightening it must be to feel the weight of the world, literally, on top of you. Reese was captivated by the story and I watched as he became genuinely vested in the fate of these men he did not, and would probably never, know. We were so happy to see the faces of the families as they cried and celebrated what seemed to be a miracle. Who wouldn't?

I was shocked when I woke up and saw the news. It was a case of "miscommunication." The families celebrated the miracle that would return their husbands, fathers, sons and uncles back to them. No doubt some made promises to treat them better, to love them more, and appreciate even the largest fault they possessed. I cannot imagine the pain they felt when they realized they would be denied their resolutions. I cried when one grieving wife said, "We may be dumb, but we love our family. We should not have been treated like this." As if she had internalized the view of working-class, country people as dumb. As if she thought that the world would view the loss of these men as somehow less-than the loss of others, either more affluent or educated, than these men who went deep into the earth to bring out coal. Another lady said, "We have been praising God for the miracle, and now we wonder if there is a God. We are Christian people, and that was a hard thing to say." I am sure it was. It is hard to hear.

Now the blame game will start. The first blamed will probably be the media. They pushed for information and got it wrong. The next will be the owners of the mine, who probably does bear a lot of the blame, and then some one will politicized this tragedy, much like Hurricane Katrina. The mine had over 200 violations. People will blame them and Fox News will turn around and defend business. I can hear Bill O'Reilly now, "No one forced these guys to do this work. They were paid well and they did it. It is a tragedy, but what can you do?" All of this will detract from the real tragedy: loved ones were lost. It is hard to make sense of this.

First Lines

I have been thinking a lot lately about how easily I fall for first lines. If an ugly guy has a good line (or not so good to be honest) he usually peaks my interest. I am not hit on very often, but here are some of the lines I remember the most and the ones that were most effective with me. Please do not judge me for my stupidity. "I can't believe you don't have a man a home who is watching the clock and counting down the minutes until you get home." That was the charming Seaborn that only got better as time went on. The other day, a nice painter from Peru said, "The minute I looked at you I was like, wow, I am in love with this women." No, I did not sleep with him, but he almost had me. Men are usually not that creative, at least the guys who hit on the girl behind the front desk are not. I guess that is why I love the first line of a book. There is really nothing better than to stand in the aisle of a bookstore, open the cover of an unknown novel, and be taken into the world the author will create in the pages that follow the first. It is my belief that no book with a great first line will disappoint. I wish I could find a man that would excite me as much as the first line of some of my favorite books.

"It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love."
Love in the Time of Cholera

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."
Mrs. Dalloway

"This is the saddest story I have ever heard."
The Good Soldier

"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day."
Jane Eyre

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
Pride and Prejudice

"The sun shone, having no alternative, on nothing new."
Murphy

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
One Hundred Years of Solitude

Although I am not a fan of westerns, this line is my new favorite. It sucked me in and made me read it. I have loved the book.

"See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullery fire. Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a few last wolves. His folks are known for hewers of wood and drawers of water but in truth his father has been a schoolmaster. He lies in drink, he quotes from poets whose names are now lost. The boy crouches by the fire and watches him."
Blood Meridian

I know this is more than the first line, but I could not find a good place to stop. I could have given you the first two pages. The book is very Faulkner and Melvillesque.
What are some of your favorite first lines? Don't worry if one of your favorites has already been taken; add it anyway.

Good New(s) Year

Dr. Winterhalter sent me some good news the other day and I thought you all might like to know it. She and I applied for a research grant for the summer of '06 to work on a book she, along with a professor at Georgia Southern, is compiling. The book is called Feminist Locations, and it is composed of essays from professors all over the south. Dr. W let me know that we won the grant and I will be able to work as an assistant editor on the project next summer. I am happy for the experience. I know there are many other people who are more qualified for this position, but I am thrilled to have the opportunity.

The Dreaded Resolution

Every year, about this time, I begin to start thinking of my new year's resolution. Every year, this resolution is the same: to lose weight. While I was married, we would always go to church on New Year's Eve and at midnight, we would come together as a church and pray for the year ahead of us. I always imagined that the people around me were praying for world peace and an end to world hunger, while I bowed my head and asked God to give me the strength to lose the 60 pounds I gained when I was pregnant with Reese. I was ashamed to be so shallow, but it meant so much to me.

This year is no different. I have enjoyed bread and desserts during the holiday season because I know on January 1st, I will be right back on my diet. This year I started to question my resolution because it has been so ineffective in the past. Hopefully, I will start teaching this fall and I do not want to have to turn my fat ass to a group of insecure, and potentially mean, teenagers, so I have a lot of motivation to finally succeed. Outside of the physical, I have other issues I need to work on. I have ignored other areas in my life that could use some improvement to focus on this one wish, as if this achievement will fix all the other problems in my life. Maybe it would, but maybe not. I am going to try a different approach this year: I am going to keep my resolution to lose weight, but I will not make this my single goal. How about you? What resolutions have you had in the past, and how successful have you been? What is this year's resolution?

Kid's Say The Darndest Things

I don't want this to be a blog about the joys of motherhood, so I try to decide what to put based upon the rule of would I repeat this story if it did not involve my child. This is one story that I would probably tell no matter who it involved. Me and Trey were watching television together last night, actually I was watching television and Trey was composing a Christmas letter to Kirsten, when a commercial for Ruby Tuesday came on. The announcer said "Enjoy our Hang off the Plate Ribs, slow cooked for hours." Trey said, "I would never order those things." I disagreed,"I would, they look delicious."
"But Mama, think about it. It would take forever. The man said they cook it for hours."
After I quit laughing, I explained that they started cooking it long before the person ordered it from the menu. I thought it was very cute.

On another note. I do not know if any of you have seen the beautiful Reese Witherspoon in Vanity Fair, but I watched it the other night and loved it. It got such horrible reviews that I had never had any interest in seeing it, but I could not sleep and it was on HBO so I watched it. I fell in love with Becky Sharp's card-shark husband(James Purefoy). Seriously, it was like a teenage girls crush on the New Kid's on the Block. He is adorable (see picture above). I am going to the book store today to read all 912 pages of the novel to see how much they changed it in the film version. I always heard Becky Sharp was a horrible girl, but Reese Witherspoon could never be anything but sweet as pie. Casting may have been off here a little. If you get a chance, watch it, or if you have already watched it, tell me what you thought.

Merry Christmas!

Only the strong survived. The plastic reindeer did not have a chance.

For all my petty complaints about my life, this christmas I am thankful for the goodness in simply being alive. I have wonderful friends, people that I truly, truly like, and a beautiful family. I hope each of you have a merry Christmas and a fabulous year. I look forward to sharing them with you.

It's The Most Wonderful Time

I started this post several times but I kept erasing it because I could not find the right thoughts to put down. I felt that I had depressed everyone with my musings on death, so I wanted to talk about something different. I could have talked about my relentless pursuit of the xbox 360, and how maddening it was to keep missing out on the hottest gift this Christmas. I woke up at 7am each morning, threw on a baseball cap and sneakers and went to Wal-Mart and Circuit City, and then before I went to bed at night, I got out and repeated my trip to the stores, hoping that the person at the desk would say, "Boy are you lucky. We just got a shipment in." I would gladly write out a check, stuff the xbox in my car and plan on ways to keep it hidden from my boys. It would be my Christmas gift to myself to have pulled off the impossible and made two kids very happy. It was not meant to be that way. Instead, I woke up one morning, sad and depressed and feeling like a failure, only to stumble along a premium xbox 360 package at WalMart.com. I could not click the "checkout" button fast enough. It was, as Kirsten would say, "a Christmas miracle." It was not until I had to confirm the order that I realized this "premium" package was over 1000 dollars. I did not care: I bought it anyway.

The next morning, I slept late. No early morning trek to Wal-Mart hell, so I sat at my computer and out of habit, I checked to see if Circuit City had any 360's in stock, and yes, they did, and at half the price. The only problem was that I had to call and order it over the phone and Reese just happened to overhear my order. I lost the element of surprise I love so much. There would be no "Oh my gosh" upon seeing the presents under the tree on Christmas morning. I thought I could work it out later. The next day, I told the kids that Circuit City called and said there had been a mistake and they could not send out the xbox 360, but would be happy to send us a regular xbox. They are so gullible! Sad faces abounded for the rest of the day. I had the advantage back.

I cancelled the order at walmart and waited for the order from circuit city. I convinced the kids that after Christmas we would get them an xbox 360. I went shopping and when I finished I stopped at my mom's to see my brother. Everyone kept mouthing something to me and pointing to the spare bedroom, but I had no clue of what they were talking about. I went into the kitchen with my mom and she said, "The UPS guy took the xbox to your house and the kids saw it. It is all in the guest room. Reese called me and said 'Please come get it Granny so mama will not know we saw it. She will be disappointed if she knows she can't surprise us.'" She had tears in her eyes when she told me, and at first I did not understand why, but then I thought about the fact that they had not said one word to me about their "surprise." There was no cheers of triumph or "can we play it now since we already saw it?" Three little people cared about dissapointing me more than they cared about their own fun times. I can't say that, as an adult, I always do that. I have no doubt that they would never have told me they already knew what they were getting. So, I got my own little surprise for Christmas. In a world that has commercialized the holiday season, and I am just as guilty of this, you can still find a moment of selflessness. I thought to myself, maybe, just maybe, I am doing an ok job. That I am not failing at the most important task I have been given: to not completely screw up the lives of three beautiful individuals. It was a gift that cannot be wrapped up in paper, or bought in a store, and it will be the best gift I receive this year.

Memories of My Melancholy Whores

I am reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's new short story Memories of My Melancholy Whores. I love Marquez (I know you do too Christy) so I thought I would keep a little journal while I read it. When I told Dr. Torres that I planned to read it over the break, she said, "In Spanish, the title is very shocking. When I saw it I gasped." Initially, I was attracted to the word "Whores," but I knew it would not be about lascivious sex, but a love story of some kind. Sex is usually secondary to love in Marquez's work. So far, I love it. Here is one of my favorite lines: "I don't have to say so because people can see it from leagues away: I'm ugly, shy and anachronistic. But by dint of not wanting to be those things I have pretended to be just the opposite. Until today, when I resolved to tell of my own free will just what I'm like, if only to ease my conscience."

I'm not very far into it, but my heart already aches for the narrator, who is a ninety year old man preparing for his death. That is how Marquez always makes me feel and why I keep on reading his beautiful prose.

The Art of Losing

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

I am not easily frightened. I am unfazed by spiders and bugs. Finances never keep me up at night. I don't fear that the random man walking towards me will rape or kidnap me. But I am terrified at the thought of death. Rape me or take me, but don't kill me. Bite me and gross me out, but just don't inject me with any poison that will cause my heart to stop.

Yesterday, I found out that a girl I used to work with died Sunday night. She was my age and had a six year old daughter, Jasmine, who was her inspiration for going back to school to get a degree. Because she was a single mother, she used to bring Jasmine to work with her and, while she cleaned rooms, I would keep the precocious six-year old at the front desk. Because I lost my father at a young age, I can imagine what this little girl will go through. Every Christmas will be a reminder of what she does not have, and what she is missing. She is learning what some people will be lucky enough to never learn: that life can be unfair to the poor and the young and the vulnerable, who are all too often one in the same. Many times she will ask herself "How would my life be different if my mother had lived?" The sad part is that she will never know.

My 85 year old neighbor died last week. He had struggled with cancer for years and his death was no surprise to his family. His youngest son is my age and his oldest is in her fifties. They lived a nice, full life with their family intact and whole. I admit, I am jealous. Not only for me, but for Jasmine and others that I know have lost someone important to them too early. My tears for Jasmine are tears for myself. I have not yet mastered the art of losing.

Insightful Insight

This morning on Imus, George Carlin said something that I think applies to this billboard on the side of a West Virginia highway: "When you are born, you get a ticket to the freak show. If you live in America, sometimes the seat is on the front row."

Dixie Lee Swogger Higginbotham Jacobs . . .