Monday, August 29, 2005
back in the old days
I'm teaching Romeo and Juliet right now. Along with the play, I show scenes from both the modern (Baz Luhrmann) and the classic (Franco Zeffirelli) films. Despite the fact that my students have been given Shakespeare's birth and death date, and have viewed a biography of his life, I overheard the following conversation:
Student 1: Was the classic version made when Shakespeare was alive?
Student 2: No, they only had black and white back then.
Student 1: Was the classic version made when Shakespeare was alive?
Student 2: No, they only had black and white back then.
Labels: save as draft
memoirs of a geisha
The trailer is online. (It's only online via. a Japanese site, but the trailer is in English)
Labels: save as draft
Saturday, August 27, 2005
grandfather
My classroom has a storage closet with a large window and bookshelves along one wall. I love this closet. I spent days in it, clearing out the years of accumulated files and coffee mugs. I found a single stalk of plastic silver flowers, dusty posters that students had turned in with projects, a box of half empty bottles of tempera paint, and one of those small black combs that school photographers give out on picture day.
Against one wall, there is a large, two-door, wooden cabinet. It is like a wardrobe, except that it is in a school storage closet, so it could not be. One door of the wardrobe is open, revealing a neat row of yellow shelves, and I put the tempera paints on the top shelf. The other door is padlocked shut.
I want it open.
Each classroom comes with one locking cabinet, a place to secure the things you don't want to disappear. I think to myself that I would really like to have two locking cabinets. I'd like to have my own lock on the door, my own key around my neck.
I found the teacher that had my room last year and asked her about it. "Is that your lock?" She shook her head and said it wasn't, that it was locked when she moved in. She said she thinks that the room once belonged to a social studies teacher, but that he retired years ago, leaving his locked cabinet behind. I was suprised. "Didn't you want to open it?", I asked. She shrugged. I pressed on. "Didn't you wonder what was inside?" She said it was probably old test keys, because the retired teacher used to do after school tutoring.
But why would he leave and not unlock his cabinet? I imagine all the things that might be inside. Books. Number 2 pencils. Staplers. Bones. Treasure. It's a secret, a mystery. A lock without a key.
I want.
I want it open.
Across the hall, there is a teacher that I adore. She is a veteran, but she is one of those veterans that I want to be. A thirty-five year marriage, a son in college, and she still loves to teach. Last year, I heard her during the school mandated "moment of silence". Her students had been rowdy and difficult to settle down. She spoke her prayer out loud. "Lord, help me not kill 'em today." She is smart, and kind, and I admire her.
I offered her space in the small dorm fridge I moved into my closet. While she was there, I showed her the curious locked cabinet, expecting to find a kindred spirit to puzzle over it with. I told her that I wanted to ask someone to cut the lock off.
"You can't do that", she said. "Don't you know what happens in stories when people open things they should not open?"
I laughed with her at the joke, because it's not like I'm Bluebeard's wife. This is not once upon a time. The cabinet is not a rabbit hole. It's just a normal piece of storage. It probably holds nothing more exciting than stacks of answers to forgotten tests.
A week later, she overheard me asking the janitor if he could come and cut the lock. "I thought I told you NOT to open that cabinet", she scolded. I smiled and laughed. She just shook her head in disgust.
"You know you are living up to the stereotype", she said. She saw that I had no idea what she was talking about and so she explained. "You ever notice how in scary movies, it is never the black people that get killed? A black person would know not to open that cabinet." She paused to let her words sink in. "You want that cabinet open, but we know that bad things happen when you unlock cabinets like that."
I realized she is not joking. She is dead serious. She is warning me.
I've been thinking about what she said, about my compulsion to find out what is inside, my sympathy for Bluebeard's wife. Me, with my little apron pocket holding ring of forbidden keys that jangles and tempts when I walk. I wonder. What if?
What if I opened the cabinet and bad things did start to happen? The blame of opening would be on me. The guilt of Pandora and Eve, the shame in the color of my skin, all the arrogant sin of the world. The cabinet may be nothing more than a cabinet - but what about the thing that is in me? This thing, this compulsion, this craving to open after others have spent years quietly leaving it locked and well enough alone?
My husband brought a box of books over to my room yesterday. He saw the cabinet and offered to cut the lock. But I've become convinced that if I open it, I'll let something loose. I've read the stories. I know what happens when people unlock cabinets like that: a whoosh of ghosts and dust and despair unleashing and hope stuck like cobwebs to the void.
I told him that I've decided to leave it locked.
Against one wall, there is a large, two-door, wooden cabinet. It is like a wardrobe, except that it is in a school storage closet, so it could not be. One door of the wardrobe is open, revealing a neat row of yellow shelves, and I put the tempera paints on the top shelf. The other door is padlocked shut.
I want it open.
Each classroom comes with one locking cabinet, a place to secure the things you don't want to disappear. I think to myself that I would really like to have two locking cabinets. I'd like to have my own lock on the door, my own key around my neck.
I found the teacher that had my room last year and asked her about it. "Is that your lock?" She shook her head and said it wasn't, that it was locked when she moved in. She said she thinks that the room once belonged to a social studies teacher, but that he retired years ago, leaving his locked cabinet behind. I was suprised. "Didn't you want to open it?", I asked. She shrugged. I pressed on. "Didn't you wonder what was inside?" She said it was probably old test keys, because the retired teacher used to do after school tutoring.
But why would he leave and not unlock his cabinet? I imagine all the things that might be inside. Books. Number 2 pencils. Staplers. Bones. Treasure. It's a secret, a mystery. A lock without a key.
I want.
I want it open.
Across the hall, there is a teacher that I adore. She is a veteran, but she is one of those veterans that I want to be. A thirty-five year marriage, a son in college, and she still loves to teach. Last year, I heard her during the school mandated "moment of silence". Her students had been rowdy and difficult to settle down. She spoke her prayer out loud. "Lord, help me not kill 'em today." She is smart, and kind, and I admire her.
I offered her space in the small dorm fridge I moved into my closet. While she was there, I showed her the curious locked cabinet, expecting to find a kindred spirit to puzzle over it with. I told her that I wanted to ask someone to cut the lock off.
"You can't do that", she said. "Don't you know what happens in stories when people open things they should not open?"
I laughed with her at the joke, because it's not like I'm Bluebeard's wife. This is not once upon a time. The cabinet is not a rabbit hole. It's just a normal piece of storage. It probably holds nothing more exciting than stacks of answers to forgotten tests.
A week later, she overheard me asking the janitor if he could come and cut the lock. "I thought I told you NOT to open that cabinet", she scolded. I smiled and laughed. She just shook her head in disgust.
"You know you are living up to the stereotype", she said. She saw that I had no idea what she was talking about and so she explained. "You ever notice how in scary movies, it is never the black people that get killed? A black person would know not to open that cabinet." She paused to let her words sink in. "You want that cabinet open, but we know that bad things happen when you unlock cabinets like that."
I realized she is not joking. She is dead serious. She is warning me.
I've been thinking about what she said, about my compulsion to find out what is inside, my sympathy for Bluebeard's wife. Me, with my little apron pocket holding ring of forbidden keys that jangles and tempts when I walk. I wonder. What if?
What if I opened the cabinet and bad things did start to happen? The blame of opening would be on me. The guilt of Pandora and Eve, the shame in the color of my skin, all the arrogant sin of the world. The cabinet may be nothing more than a cabinet - but what about the thing that is in me? This thing, this compulsion, this craving to open after others have spent years quietly leaving it locked and well enough alone?
My husband brought a box of books over to my room yesterday. He saw the cabinet and offered to cut the lock. But I've become convinced that if I open it, I'll let something loose. I've read the stories. I know what happens when people unlock cabinets like that: a whoosh of ghosts and dust and despair unleashing and hope stuck like cobwebs to the void.
I told him that I've decided to leave it locked.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
deathcab for cutie
their new album is not out yet, but they put the whole thing online here.
Labels: save as draft
Thursday, August 18, 2005
to an eighth grade teacher
On the second day of school, I had my ninth grader use dictionaries. When the bell rang, they took their dictionaries and placed them back on the shelf by the door - without me asking them to.
I am still recovering from the shock and beauty of it all.
When other teachers ask how my classes are, I say simply: "They put away the dictionaries - and I did not even ask them to."
Whoever you are, I appreciate the work you did. You taught them well, they would make you proud.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I am still recovering from the shock and beauty of it all.
When other teachers ask how my classes are, I say simply: "They put away the dictionaries - and I did not even ask them to."
Whoever you are, I appreciate the work you did. You taught them well, they would make you proud.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Labels: save as draft
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
someplace i have never been
I grew up in a home with very little money and a slightly agoraphobic mother. Other than a annual trips to my grandparents (St. Petersburg, Fl and Portsmouth, Ohio, respectively), we did not travel. Ever.
I have only been in the states of Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio. I have flown in an airplane a total of three times. One of those trips was a one-way ticket back from my grandfather's funeral. I don't think that one should even count.
When I was sixteen, a church flew our entire family to Chicago for a weekend so that my parents could lead a marriage enrichment retreat. As a result of that trip, I can claim to have seen the interior of a Helmsley hotel. I have seen snow outside of windows, but that is all I have seen of the windy city.
It makes me sad that I have never travelled. I feel like I have missed something along the way.
Now, I live just minutes from Hartsfield International Airport. At my favorite thrift store, I buy books that have not been read. It's easy to tell when a book has been discarded without being read. It feels different in your hands. To be honest, I prefer to read books like this - perhaps because the act of reading is inherently intimate. A book in the process of being read is carried into the restroom, taken to bed, packed in a purse or bag, and read over coffee. It sits in the front seat of the car, it goes along for the ride. In all these places that the book is taken out, there are moments when the reader slips silently inside of it. The mattress, and the pillow, the cat curled at their feet, the spouse sleeping beside them - all these things fade away. Although the reader may be physically present, they are elsewhere. And so, books that have been read carry an imprint of the reader that came before.
I become attached to the books I have read. For awhile, I checked out books to read. I found that, afterwards, I usually felt compelled to purchase a copy - not because I wanted to re-read the book later, but because it felt wrong to not keep it. I buy double copies of books I liked, so that I don't have to give the copy I read away.
Oftentimes, I purchase unread books at the thrift store, read halfway through, and then, find tucked between the pages an airline boarding pass. It shocks me back into the present as I realize that my book was an plane ride book. It has been in the sky. It has gone places. My book was purchased to pass the time in unfamiliar lobbies, or as insurance for the ride to come: an invisible barrier to prop between the reader and the unknown stranger that might end up in the seat next to them. Some books were probably purchased with the ulterior motive that the title would be literary, or trendy, or obscure enough to attract the conversation of just the right sort of person.
I attributed the last motive to Dana-whose-last-name-starts-with-a-"B", and whom I have never met. I only know that she used an electronic ticket to take Delta flight DL1287 from New York City to Atlanta and left the boarding pass in the unread, hardback copy of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel, Everything Is Illuminated, that I purchased at Value Village for a dollar and fifty cents. She sat in seat 29F, and flew coach. She had three bags.
I found Dana's pass two-thirds of the way through the novel, and I was jealous. Normally, when I find tickets in books, they are simply a novelty. They are most frequently in books with movie tie-in photographs on the cover. It makes perfect sense to me that someone would choose those sorts of books for a plane ride. I do not question their choices.
This time, I was slightly angry. I disliked Dana B immediately.
Why would she have purchased a hardcover copy of Everything is Illuminated and then, when she arrived in Atlanta, discarded it? I imagined her sitting in LaGuardia, and reading the first few pages of the book, and deciding that she did not like it -judging it too strange, or difficult to read. I decided that she lacked imagination and intelligence. I pulled out her ticket again and again, and wondered why she choose this book to take along for her flight. As I read, I kept wondering. At what moment did she quietly slip her ticket between the pages, and close the book, and decide to get rid of it? It had to have happened early, because even the dust jacket of the book felt new.
As I carried her book that is now mine around, my jealousy of Dana-who-was-in-New-York-City-long-enough-to-need-three-bags stayed with me. I've never been to New York, but I would guess that it would be a perfect backdrop for reading Foer's book. I'd love to have been the one with a chance read it as I was travelled through the sky, to pause after a passage and look out the window, seeing nothing but blue.
As I neared the end, I lost the book for a day. I looked to see if I had accidentaly concealed it when I made the bed, or if it had fallen by the headboard. I checked in the kitchen, and on top of the china cabinet. I finally found it wedged between the window and my favorite chair.
When I finished the book, I took Dana's ticket out from between the pages one last time. I was still a little jealous of the places she has been. The beautiful black and white book that had been hers, and now belonged to me, sat in my lap. With something like satisfaction, I thought to myself: "Well, she has never been here".
I have only been in the states of Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio. I have flown in an airplane a total of three times. One of those trips was a one-way ticket back from my grandfather's funeral. I don't think that one should even count.
When I was sixteen, a church flew our entire family to Chicago for a weekend so that my parents could lead a marriage enrichment retreat. As a result of that trip, I can claim to have seen the interior of a Helmsley hotel. I have seen snow outside of windows, but that is all I have seen of the windy city.
It makes me sad that I have never travelled. I feel like I have missed something along the way.
Now, I live just minutes from Hartsfield International Airport. At my favorite thrift store, I buy books that have not been read. It's easy to tell when a book has been discarded without being read. It feels different in your hands. To be honest, I prefer to read books like this - perhaps because the act of reading is inherently intimate. A book in the process of being read is carried into the restroom, taken to bed, packed in a purse or bag, and read over coffee. It sits in the front seat of the car, it goes along for the ride. In all these places that the book is taken out, there are moments when the reader slips silently inside of it. The mattress, and the pillow, the cat curled at their feet, the spouse sleeping beside them - all these things fade away. Although the reader may be physically present, they are elsewhere. And so, books that have been read carry an imprint of the reader that came before.
I become attached to the books I have read. For awhile, I checked out books to read. I found that, afterwards, I usually felt compelled to purchase a copy - not because I wanted to re-read the book later, but because it felt wrong to not keep it. I buy double copies of books I liked, so that I don't have to give the copy I read away.
Oftentimes, I purchase unread books at the thrift store, read halfway through, and then, find tucked between the pages an airline boarding pass. It shocks me back into the present as I realize that my book was an plane ride book. It has been in the sky. It has gone places. My book was purchased to pass the time in unfamiliar lobbies, or as insurance for the ride to come: an invisible barrier to prop between the reader and the unknown stranger that might end up in the seat next to them. Some books were probably purchased with the ulterior motive that the title would be literary, or trendy, or obscure enough to attract the conversation of just the right sort of person.
I attributed the last motive to Dana-whose-last-name-starts-with-a-"B", and whom I have never met. I only know that she used an electronic ticket to take Delta flight DL1287 from New York City to Atlanta and left the boarding pass in the unread, hardback copy of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel, Everything Is Illuminated, that I purchased at Value Village for a dollar and fifty cents. She sat in seat 29F, and flew coach. She had three bags.
I found Dana's pass two-thirds of the way through the novel, and I was jealous. Normally, when I find tickets in books, they are simply a novelty. They are most frequently in books with movie tie-in photographs on the cover. It makes perfect sense to me that someone would choose those sorts of books for a plane ride. I do not question their choices.
This time, I was slightly angry. I disliked Dana B immediately.
Why would she have purchased a hardcover copy of Everything is Illuminated and then, when she arrived in Atlanta, discarded it? I imagined her sitting in LaGuardia, and reading the first few pages of the book, and deciding that she did not like it -judging it too strange, or difficult to read. I decided that she lacked imagination and intelligence. I pulled out her ticket again and again, and wondered why she choose this book to take along for her flight. As I read, I kept wondering. At what moment did she quietly slip her ticket between the pages, and close the book, and decide to get rid of it? It had to have happened early, because even the dust jacket of the book felt new.
As I carried her book that is now mine around, my jealousy of Dana-who-was-in-New-York-City-long-enough-to-need-three-bags stayed with me. I've never been to New York, but I would guess that it would be a perfect backdrop for reading Foer's book. I'd love to have been the one with a chance read it as I was travelled through the sky, to pause after a passage and look out the window, seeing nothing but blue.
As I neared the end, I lost the book for a day. I looked to see if I had accidentaly concealed it when I made the bed, or if it had fallen by the headboard. I checked in the kitchen, and on top of the china cabinet. I finally found it wedged between the window and my favorite chair.
When I finished the book, I took Dana's ticket out from between the pages one last time. I was still a little jealous of the places she has been. The beautiful black and white book that had been hers, and now belonged to me, sat in my lap. With something like satisfaction, I thought to myself: "Well, she has never been here".
Thursday, August 11, 2005
conflict of interest
One of the realities of teaching in an at-risk school is that teacher turnover is extremely high. This is why, after only one year, I was given the role of team leader for ninth grade English. This new role is the reason I was able to request the beautiful window and storage closet room.
On Tuesday, one of my former team members stopped by to comment on my new room. "You are moving up!", he said. I told him about being team leader, and then I told him that they have given me the honors classes. He shook his head. "Oh Mrs. J, " he said. "You were so good with the low-performing kids."
I told him that I had asked for all repeater classes this year, but there had been such high turnover in English that they needed me to stay in the ninth grade. And I said that, in some ways, I was looking forward to the honors classes because I love to teach challenging literature, and I won't really miss the sort of discipline issues I had last year (getting arrested in class, peeing in bottles). Then, I told him that still, I would really miss the repeaters.
"I know they think they are doing you a favor and promoting you by giving you the honors classes", he said. "But......"
And that was all. I nodded into the silence and said, "I know."
But....
The honors kids always get good teachers.
For all of their challenges, the difficult kids were always my favorites.
Some of the brightest kids are in the lowest classes, because they were bored and mislabeled.
I could never get away with less giving less than 100% to the repeaters - and in that way, they made me a better teacher.
But.....
And so, I start the year conflicted. On one hand, I am practically giddy with the possibilities that teaching honors holds before me. I was jealous of my friends who taught honors last year, jealous of the discussions they had and the cool things their students did. I did enjoy teaching the handful of kids that should have been in honors but got placed in my classes. When I assigned papers or projects, they were always the ones who took things to a new level and turned in impressive work. They made me actually feel like a good teacher, because they gave such good answers.
On the other hand, I loved the challenging kids. I loved then in spite of the fact that they turned in the bare minimum, if they turned in anything at all. I loved them because every now and then, they might write a poem that blew me away, or give answers on a test that let me know that they had been paying attention. In those moments, I felt like what I did mattered.
There is a big part of me that is sad, and disappointed, that I won't be teaching low-level kids anymore. I asked for them. I asked that, even if I had some honors classes, that they would give me at least one repeater class. I know that it is considered an honor and a promotion to teach upper-level kids, and that the administration thinks they are doing me a favor. I know all of those things and look forward to my classes.
But.....
On Tuesday, one of my former team members stopped by to comment on my new room. "You are moving up!", he said. I told him about being team leader, and then I told him that they have given me the honors classes. He shook his head. "Oh Mrs. J, " he said. "You were so good with the low-performing kids."
I told him that I had asked for all repeater classes this year, but there had been such high turnover in English that they needed me to stay in the ninth grade. And I said that, in some ways, I was looking forward to the honors classes because I love to teach challenging literature, and I won't really miss the sort of discipline issues I had last year (getting arrested in class, peeing in bottles). Then, I told him that still, I would really miss the repeaters.
"I know they think they are doing you a favor and promoting you by giving you the honors classes", he said. "But......"
And that was all. I nodded into the silence and said, "I know."
But....
The honors kids always get good teachers.
For all of their challenges, the difficult kids were always my favorites.
Some of the brightest kids are in the lowest classes, because they were bored and mislabeled.
I could never get away with less giving less than 100% to the repeaters - and in that way, they made me a better teacher.
But.....
And so, I start the year conflicted. On one hand, I am practically giddy with the possibilities that teaching honors holds before me. I was jealous of my friends who taught honors last year, jealous of the discussions they had and the cool things their students did. I did enjoy teaching the handful of kids that should have been in honors but got placed in my classes. When I assigned papers or projects, they were always the ones who took things to a new level and turned in impressive work. They made me actually feel like a good teacher, because they gave such good answers.
On the other hand, I loved the challenging kids. I loved then in spite of the fact that they turned in the bare minimum, if they turned in anything at all. I loved them because every now and then, they might write a poem that blew me away, or give answers on a test that let me know that they had been paying attention. In those moments, I felt like what I did mattered.
There is a big part of me that is sad, and disappointed, that I won't be teaching low-level kids anymore. I asked for them. I asked that, even if I had some honors classes, that they would give me at least one repeater class. I know that it is considered an honor and a promotion to teach upper-level kids, and that the administration thinks they are doing me a favor. I know all of those things and look forward to my classes.
But.....
Labels: save as draft
sobering facts from pre-planning
If the government is using mandatory third grade testing in order to ensure that every child has a chance to get help and succeed, why is that data being used in part to plan the construction of new federal prisons?
When compared to the female students, approximately one-third of the male minority students who enter my school in the ninth grade will still be there in the twelfth grade. In ninth grade the female:male ratio is about even. In contrast, the graduation rate is about 2:1.
A student's performance in Algebra I is the single most accurate predictor of earning at age 25. (Last year, out of 102 students on my team, I think only seven passed the Algebra I EOCT).
When compared to the female students, approximately one-third of the male minority students who enter my school in the ninth grade will still be there in the twelfth grade. In ninth grade the female:male ratio is about even. In contrast, the graduation rate is about 2:1.
A student's performance in Algebra I is the single most accurate predictor of earning at age 25. (Last year, out of 102 students on my team, I think only seven passed the Algebra I EOCT).
Labels: save as draft
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
the bad news that my mother will not be hearing
I suppose it is not a good sign when you find out that your teacher's lounge has been closed because the city has opened a special police precinct on campus. We always had a few officers assigned to the school, but this sort of takes it to a whole new level.
My school made it onto the state's "dangerous" list for the second consecutive year. This means that, without improvements, in one more year it will be identified as one of the state's persistently dangerous schools.
We also failed to meet the No Child Left Behind criteria last year.
But still, I am glad I am there. Truly.
My school made it onto the state's "dangerous" list for the second consecutive year. This means that, without improvements, in one more year it will be identified as one of the state's persistently dangerous schools.
We also failed to meet the No Child Left Behind criteria last year.
But still, I am glad I am there. Truly.
Labels: save as draft
a room with a view
feeling old
(A conversation overheard this morning. The song in question is a jazz cover of Nirvana that my husband put on my Arden's iTunes.)
Arden: That Teen Spirit song sounds so good. I really like classical music.
Husband: Actually, that song is jazz.
Arden: Oh, well - I really like jazz.
Me (yelling from the other room): Actually, that is a rock song.
sigh.
Arden: That Teen Spirit song sounds so good. I really like classical music.
Husband: Actually, that song is jazz.
Arden: Oh, well - I really like jazz.
Me (yelling from the other room): Actually, that is a rock song.
sigh.
Labels: save as draft
Monday, August 08, 2005
never judge a book by its movie
the trailer for Everything is Illuminated is now online.
Labels: save as draft
happy new year
I have arrived. I have a new classroom. It has a storage closet AND a window. Outside the window, there is a tree.
A back-to-school update and pictures of my new room will be posted tomorrow.
A back-to-school update and pictures of my new room will be posted tomorrow.
Labels: save as draft
making fiends
how i spent my summer vacation
1. slept until nine most days
2. stayed up until (at least) midnight
3. tried watching television and decided a) i have not been missing anything and b) perhaps the whole CSI concept can't support three different shows each week
4. saw the stars I miss at a planetarium
5. went fishing
6. saw rock city
7. read the classic books my education was lacking
8. swam like a dolphin with my daughter holding onto my back
9. rediscovered drive in movies
10. got a free kitten from a jail bonding place that had a spray painted sign propped against the door
11. threw a party with ice cream and sparklers
12. went into my basement for the first time
13. converted to IKEAism
14. picked a handfull of blackberries
15. caught a lizard at a rest stop in Florida
16. fed a chipmunk peanuts
17. cried during the fireworks at Disneyworld
18. ate a fudgecicle after dinner each night sitting on my front porch wing
19. made art at the museum with my children
20. enjoyed being with my kids every single day, even when I was threatening to turn the car around.
2. stayed up until (at least) midnight
3. tried watching television and decided a) i have not been missing anything and b) perhaps the whole CSI concept can't support three different shows each week
4. saw the stars I miss at a planetarium
5. went fishing
6. saw rock city
7. read the classic books my education was lacking
8. swam like a dolphin with my daughter holding onto my back
9. rediscovered drive in movies
10. got a free kitten from a jail bonding place that had a spray painted sign propped against the door
11. threw a party with ice cream and sparklers
12. went into my basement for the first time
13. converted to IKEAism
14. picked a handfull of blackberries
15. caught a lizard at a rest stop in Florida
16. fed a chipmunk peanuts
17. cried during the fireworks at Disneyworld
18. ate a fudgecicle after dinner each night sitting on my front porch wing
19. made art at the museum with my children
20. enjoyed being with my kids every single day, even when I was threatening to turn the car around.
Labels: save as draft
